Aeldari - Children of the Stars: The ancient history of the Aeldari stretches back over the millennia to a time when they dominated the stars completely. Yet, for all their splendour and might, the Aeldari brought a terrible curse upon themselves that sundered their empire forever, leaving the ravaged fragments of their race teetering on the brink of annihilation.The starfaring history of the Aeldari is long, and encompasses glories and sorrows alike. When the Aeldari Empire was at its height, their homeworlds were paradises, their powers godlike and their armies unsurpassed. As the Terran centuries slid past, their status as lords of the galaxy bred an arrogance that led to a cataclysm.A proportion of their race survived that dark time by fleeing from disaster upon the great vessels known as craftworlds. Others settled verdant planets far from the heart of their empire, and still more hid in private realms of their own making. Yet there was no real escape from what was to come.Apparent perfection like that of the ancient Aeldari is all too often blighted by pride. Over a million Terran years ago, the Aeldari alone ruled the stars as the undisputed masters of their own destiny. Such a position was their right, they thought, and their preeminence was beyond doubt.In many ways, the Aeldari had good reason for such hubris, for no other race had posed a serious threat to their wealth and stability for time immemorial. They were convinced that they no longer had anything to fear from the galaxy at large, and they may have been right, but the true threat came from within. The doom of the Aeldari, when it came, took a form far more subtle and dangerous than that of alien invasion.At their peak, nothing was beyond the Aeldari's reach and nothing was forbidden. The ancient race continued their glorious existence unaware or unwilling to acknowledge the dark fate that awaited them. They plied the stars at will, experiencing the wonders of the galaxy and immersing themselves completely in the endless sensations that it offered them. Such was the technological mastery of the Aeldari that worlds were created specifically for their pleasure, and stars lived or died at their whim.On hundreds of idyllic planets seeded across the stars, the Aeldari pursued their inclinations as they willed, indulging every dream and investigating every curiosity. They mastered the labyrinth dimension of the Webway, expanded their realms into the furthest corners of reality and learned much about the universe that has since been forgotten.When their spirits eventually left their mortal bodies at death, they dissolved peacefully back into the Empyrean to be reborn again, for the Warp did not yet hold the danger for Aeldari souls that it has since their Fall.There were, of course, many wars. Even when the galaxy was young there were upstart species seeking to gouge out petty empires of their own, and the Aeldari waged wars against the sprawling Necron dynasties that ravaged dozens of star systems and cost trillions of lives. Most of these conflicts, though, were so short-lived that the ease of their victory left the Aeldari ever more sure of their ascendancy.Even the greatest of all their wars, the conflict over sixty million Terran years ago that first forged their species in alliance with the legendary beings called the Old Ones, dimly remembered in the mythic cycles of the craftworlds as the War in Heaven, did not humble them. In their hearts the Aeldari reigned supreme, and no other power could end their dominance.