Aeldari Empire - Descent into Decadence: To understand the reasons for what savants name the Fall of the Aeldari, it is necessary to know something of the Aeldari mind and soul. An Aeldari's mind is incredibly complex. Their senses are extremely sharp, able to perceive incredible levels of detail. Their emotions can be so strong that a human's are merely pale shadows by comparison. They are extremely intelligent; their thought processes are much faster than a human's. All of this means that an Aeldari experiences the universe and all its sensations to a greatly heightened degree compared to a human.Similarly, an Aeldari's soul is much brighter in the Warp than those of "lesser" sentients like humans who do not possess such potent psychic abilities. Aeldari are able to affect the nether-realm of the Warp much more than most other intelligent races. Every Aeldari is a latent psychic and has the ability to become a very powerful psyker with training. It is the psychic strength of the Aeldari's souls that was one of the primary causes of their downfall.The catalyst that brought about the Aeldari race's fall came from the very depths of the Aeldari's collective psyche, the innate need to fuel their passions and indulge in every extreme. The Aeldari had long outgrown the need for labour or manual agriculture. Society provided all that was required without individual effort, leaving long Terran centuries for the Aeldari to spend sating their every desire. Life on the Aeldari homeworlds was idyllic, with fantastically sophisticated machines that took care of all the labour and manufacturing required to keep an advanced society functioning, leaving the Aeldari free to indulge in other, more aesthetic pursuits.With all menial work taken care of for them, the Aeldari became indolent and decadent. Fuelled by an inexhaustible curiosity, many gave way to their most hedonistic impulses. Exotic cults sprang up across the Aeldari domains that eclipsed the noble pursuits of old, each dedicated to esoteric knowledge or sensual excess. The core of the Aeldari race began to look inwards, inexorably seeking new ways to explore the full range of emotion and sensation. With no need to perform substantial work or labour, the Aeldari began to pursue their curiosities and desires with all the dedication that only their species could muster. This descent into decadence spanned many Terran millennia.Tradition and order disintegrated as the Aeldari pursued the limits of the pursuit of pleasure. In the later days of Aeldari civilisation, Pleasure Cults devoted to exotic knowledge, physical pleasures, and ever-more outrageous forms of entertainment sprang up. It did not take long for many of the Aeldari to pursue a darker path to achieve instant fulfillment as they came to revel in unbridled hedonism and violence. Such behaviour was perilously decadent and, in the end, corrosive to the soul of the race. The pursuit of excess gradually became a blight upon the whole society.Many of the Aeldari grew uneasy with the actions of their comrades, and the wisest of the Seers warned that this path could lead only to evil and suffering for the entire species. As the cults gained a tighter hold over their society, the Aeldari became increasingly divided. Those who saw the foulness that corrupted their people for what it was became known as Exodites, fleeing to found colony worlds -- the Maiden Worlds -- on the fringes of the Aeldari Empire. As the civilisation slid further into anarchy, others repented of their ways and left the central worlds of their empire to settle in the outlying regions of the galaxy, where they built great worldships called Craftworlds. Other Aeldari stayed on the homeworlds to try and alter the path their race had taken. Most continued to glut themselves on the pursuits of the depraved.Among the pleasure-seekers and the interminably curious of the Aeldari were those whose pursuit of excess became ever more extreme. These included a great proportion of the aristocracy of ancient Aeldari society, who possessed the wealth and time to truly explore the meanings of decadence -- and would one day become the monstrous fleshshapers called the Haemonculi. One by one, the leaders of the Pleasure Cults that were becoming the centrepiece of Aeldari society became obsessed with their own power. They relocated their headquarters to the Labyrinth Dimension of the Webway, for so great was their political influence that they could command the construction of entire extradimensional sub-realms just for themselves.Unseen, these Pleasure Cult lords continued to grow in power and influence, initiating more and more of the ancient Aeldari population into their strange and shadowy creeds of decadence. The Aeldari are the most psychically gifted of all sentient beings in the galaxy and as the corruption gradually seduced them, the echoes of their ecstasy and agony began to ripple through time and space.In the parallel dimension of the Immaterium, the Warp, the reflections of these intense experiences began to coalesce, as the shifting tides of the chaotic Empyrean can take form around the raw emotions emitted by the sentient beings of the material universe and attract even more of such similar psychic energies to themselves. The constant stream of individual selfishness and indulgence pouring into the Warp from the Aeldari Empire slowly and silently nourished and empowered that which lay within -- a nascent god of pleasure and pain, content to wait and to grow.The heartfelt sorrow of those left who mourned the loss of innocence eventually turned to bitterness and spite. In time, brother fought brother, and sadistic killers stalked the shadows in search of victims for their vile lusts. No life was spared in the pursuit of pleasures both murderous and perverse. A sickness of vice overtook the Aeldari race, and blood flowed through the streets amidst the bestial roar of the crowd. Their hidden realms within the Webway such as Commorragh became sprawling palaces of avarice and sadism, and entire worlds were bent to the pursuit of the darkest of sensations.As their society collapsed into civilisation-wide insanity, these Aeldari recoiled in horror from what they were becoming. Realising that they stood upon the brink of destruction, they bent their considerable resources to the construction of the massive Craftworlds, the graceful spaceborne cities that were the size of small moons. The Aeldari of the Craftworlds retreated into asceticism and spiritual introspection, preserving what they could of their ancient ways and culture before the time of the Pleasure Cults. They left the core worlds of the Aeldari Empire behind for the dubious safety of deep space, to the laughter and contempt of those who remained behind. Some even managed to flee far enough to escape the terrible destruction of the coming Fall.