Aeldari - Aeldari Religion and Mythology: The Aeldari cling tenaciously to their folklore and traditions. The characters and events of ancient legend are commonly discussed and comparisons drawn between mythic events and those of the present day.Every Aeldari is familiar with the epic songs and dances that form their mythic cycles, and references to these tales are immediately understood by others of their race.The principal characters of the Aeldari mythic cycles are the gods, their mortal descendants the Aeldari, and the monstrous adversaries they fought. The chief and oldest of all the gods is Asuryan, the Phoenix King and leader of the pantheon. His first brother is Kaela Mensha Khaine, the Bloody-Handed God. Khaine is the master of both war and murder, and he symbolises wanton destruction and martial prowess.Third of the greatest gods is Vaul, the crippled smith god who is often depicted chained to his own anvil. Isha is the goddess of the harvest, from whom the Aeldari race is descended.The youngest goddess is Lileath the Maiden, mistress of dreams and fortune, whilst the third of the trinity of Aeldari goddesses is Morai-Heg the Crone, an ancient and withered creature who holds the fates of mortals inside a rune pouch made of skin.As well as the many gods there are countless mortal heroes descended from the gods, who founded the great houses still echoed today upon the craftworlds. These include the great hero Eldanesh, who was slain by Khaine and whose blood is said to drip eternally from the war god's hands. Eldanesh had many descendants, the Eldanar, of whom Inriam the Young was the last.Rivals to Eldanesh were the descendants of his brother Ulthanash, whose bloodline exists upon craftworld Iyanden to this day.At the moment of its birth, Slaanesh decimated the Aeldari Pantheon and stole the gods' power, with only two of their number surviving the Fall of the Aeldari. The Laughing God Cegorach escaped through guile, while Kaela Mensha Khaine, the strongest and most warlike of the Aeldari deities, endured through might.Slaanesh and the Bloody-Handed God fought a titanic battle in the Warp, and despite Khaine's mastery of war, Slaanesh, glutted with stolen power from the souls of the Aeldari and the other gods, eventually proved the stronger. But exhausted from the struggle, Slaanesh could not destroy and consume the Aeldari god outright. Instead, Khaine was rent into fragments.Each shard of the war god came to rest within the wraithbone core of a craftworld, where it took root and grew into an Avatar of the Bloody-Handed God. To this day, these murderous Avatars of Khaine are still awoken by the craftworlds to lead the Asuryani to war.While the Aeldari still revere all the gods of the ancient pantheon and preserve their stories within the mythic cycles, they do not call on them for aid or hope for their intervention any longer.However, a new god, Ynnead, the Aeldari god of death, who is not a part of the old myth cycles, was long said to be forming from the souls of the Aeldari dead within the Infinity Circuits of the Asuryani craftworlds. Ynnead's awakening was dramatically accelerated during the Battle of Port Demesnus in 999.M41 by a ritual undertaken by the Farseer Eldrad Ulthran.Partially awakened within the Immaterium, Ynnead reached out across the galaxy and chose the former Aeldari corsair and Commorrite arena gladiator Yvraine, the Daughter of Shades, to serve as his prophet and high priestess.She founded a new Aeldari religious group, the Ynnari, who in the Era Indomitus seek to unite all the Aeldari factions across the galaxy to destroy Slaanesh and restore the Aeldari's lost glory.