They reproduce sexually, with several occasions of mating for a single fetus (DNA is delivered periodically by the male).

They do not reproduce often because it is an extremely emotionally intense process for them, and Craftworld Eldar try to keep their emotions under control for the most part.

 

Well, when a Dire Avenger and a Howling Banshee love each other very much....

I like the sound of the several stages to produce a single foetus thing. Sounds so much more fun than the way humans do it.

 

Eldar operate pretty much like humans.

However, Eldar have a longer lifespan than humans. It could also be inferred that their gestation period (length of pregnancy) also lasts a long time.

Additionally, Eldar try to keep their emotions under control due to their highly psychic nature.

 

Eldar operate pretty much like humans.

However, Eldar have a longer lifespan than humans. It could also be inferred that their gestation period (length of pregnancy) also lasts a long time.

Additionally, Eldar try to keep their emotions under control due to their highly psychic nature.

Oh lord, does that mean dark eldar reporoduce like rabbits?

Glavas

 

Budding.

Seriously. Ever wonder why they have those coneheaded helmets?
Exactly.

 

Eldar (as in, craftworld) reproduction is done sexually and requires multiple infusions of DNA for the female to get pregnant.

DE would naturally do this as well, but there is nothing to say there are other factors involved e.g cloning/test tube growth, or the DE may simply reproduce more due to the distinct lack of restrictions their society places upon them.

Besides, though the eldar race is "dying" this is in relation to humanity who have almost fictional numbers (context!) there are billions upon billions of humans, so 100 billion eldar could be "dying" but is still a uninmaginely vast number.

 

I would suspect the Dark Eldar reproduce a lot easier than craftworld eldar. There are more of them around at any rate. Also their society is built in a way that constantly challenges the survival of the fittest, it's easy to assume that they would put an immense amount of effort into reproduction. Also, because their society isn't like Drow society where women dominate men, it's easier to believe that they're somewhat on an even keel - as such, it's also not a stretch to think they form couples.

I remember in the Malus Darkblade series (and granted those are Dark Elves and not Dark Eldar), there's mention of Malus' father, the powerful Drachau of Hag Graef and General of the Witch King's armies Lurhan had actually taken a wife. She was described as the most beautiful, absolutely drop-dead gorgeous woman in all the land and that many Druchii fought over a look, a whispered word, and a passing glance. It also said that she was extremely strong of will and could crush men like maggots, until she met Lurhan.

Both of them were such a match and their evil love and unchechable lust was so, that she bore him four sons - something previously thought impossible considering DE fertility rates. Now, again, Dark Elves differ from Dark Eldar since there is such a thing as half-elves in Warhammer Fantasy and no such thing in 40K, but as far as what was said above, it does sound like a lot of 'emotion' went into the mating process.

 

More Dark Eldar? I thought there were more Craftworld Eldar. Granted, Commoragh is apparently MASSIVE, but each Craftworld is almost planet-sized. And Dark Eldar are remnants of the core Empire that survived the Fall, so they were close to the Empire's core.

 

I always thought there were more Craftworld/pirate Eldar than Dark eldar. The 5th edition rulebook has maps for each race with icons for each instance of a sighting/event/battle/homeworld. The dark eldar has somewhere around 4 whereas the eldar have many many more (although still small compared to others).

That combined with the fact that dark eldar were an offshoot of the regular eldar leads me to think there are a lot less dark eldar than eldar, but if there is something official that says otherwise I'd like to see it.

Now the fact that dark eldar are not inhibited about reproduction could mean they have surpassed the eldar in numbers because of the larger amount of children but I think they have quite a large gap to make up.

 

Xenology's explanation was the Eldar have something wierd about their gametes which means they need a very, very long reproductive cycle (possibly requiring multiple impregnations by the same partner over a very long period of time to be successful, possibly just with a very, very long mating cycle with preset patterns which might require centuries to properly align.) Since they're a directly genetically designed organism, this never had to stand up in evolutionary terms so the fact that it's a big complex bitch to manage and is resulting in them dying out was never really accounted for.

There's also cultural factors.. Craftworld Eldar live almost monastic lifestyles with very little tollerance for any kind of personal fulfilment or emotional connection to anything (they realise that these things caused the fall, and avoid them.) Reproduction is therefore likely to be very carefully done and highly controlled to avoid miring an Eldar's focus in petty relationship dramas.

Dark Eldar, on the other hand, give in to their natural obsessive and sensual instincts, so it makes sense that they'd breed much more readily. In fact, I can see them having torrid, semi-violent and dangerously obsessive affairs which last for centuries or even millenia..

 

I was under the impression that the DE weren't a 'splinter' group of the CE as such, but the corrupted survivors of the fall - thus you can't really estimate their original numbers effectively.

It's true that the map-icons show more CE than DE, but that's not exactly representative of the whole picture. Some craftworlds are almost dead, whereas the DE capital that I have no hope of spelling is supposedly crammed full of DE.

I think you're right about the DE giving in to their impulses more often but on the other hand, the attrition rate (survival of the fittest and all that) would heavily offset their increased birth rate.

Although if you then take into account that DE would happily resort to forced pregnancy or using the weaker females as breeders whereas the CE wouldn't, you'll have such a jumbled mix of estimated numbers that even the most educated guess would be no more accurate than picking a number at random.

So with all that in mind my educated random number is a 2/1 ratio of DE to CE, however because the DE fight amongst themselves more often and enslave their weaker members they apply a similar amount of influence on the galaxy.

 

All I know is, and I read this in Lexicanum, is that Craftworld eldar were only a small portion of the entire Eldar Empire. Apparently, though, 'a small portion' means billions upon billions. The so called 'dark eldar' were about 90% of the population, most of which who died when Slaanesh was born. The remaining billions upon billions upon billions became the Dark Eldar. Hence why there are more. - I'm not pulling this out of my bum, blame GW for it's draconian numbers.

 

I'd say the opposite. The Craftworld Eldar were only a small percentage of the Eldar population, but they escaped the blast radius. The Dark Eldar are the ones who were at ground zero. They copped a Chaos God right in the face.

The fact that they regularly kill each other off in clan feuds and gladiatorial arenas and all manage to fit in one city isn't a good sign either. I mean, they live incredibly self-destructive lifestyles. There can't be many left after ten thousand years.

Edit: I've got nothing to say about Eldar nooky other than what Mantis just said. It's pretty much correct. Eldar are an evolutionary dead end.

 

I can also imagine Eldar assigning partners, yet i could also see them passionatly in love, That may be up to the individual craftworlds.

 

Also, the image I got of the Craftworlds is that, despite their huge size, they're very sparsely populated.. you won't have bustling marketplaces or anything like that, the Eldar are very spread out.

 

Precisely (though they still have very large populations, for the most part). And Commorragh, being extremely densely populated, would have a vast population indeed.

 

First off Wow, i didn't believe that this was something people would be concerned about till I read it all.

But now i need to comment.

Just because the Eldar are "Dying" does not mean that they reproduce more or less then human. I was pointed out earlier that they are "Dying" Com paired to other races like Humans, Tau or Orks. You also need to remember that the long life span of a race would make for a disproportionat amount of Children compaired to other races. In the life span of a Millinium whats a few dozen years spent a a child, assuming that they don't leave childhood at the same rate as say humans.

Look to High Elves along with Dark Elves to help your question. In Defenders of Ulthwe by Graham McNeill it has two character sharing in casual intercorce for the sake of casual intercorce. Whoes to say that the Eldar don't do the samething.

 

Just because the Eldar are "Dying" does not mean that they reproduce more or less then human. I was pointed out earlier that they are "Dying" Com paired to other races like Humans, Tau or Orks. You also need to remember that the long life span of a race would make for a disproportionat amount of Children compaired to other races. In the life span of a Millinium whats a few dozen years spent a a child, assuming that they don't leave childhood at the same rate as say humans.

It's precisely the opposite. The Eldar really are dying out. Their reproductive process is long, complicated, and prone to failure or interruption. The fact that many Craftworlds exist on a knife's edge and are forced to devote most of their population to warfare doesn't help things. With humans it's obscenely easy. Do it once on the right day (a one in thirty chance! the Eldar wish they had odds as good as that) and you have a little screaming soldier in nine months. Eldar reproduce over decades.

Their status as an endangered species is a large part of their theme, and it's repeated everywhere. They were once rulers of the galaxy, they were once the monarchs of infinity, but now their empire is gone and their time has passed. They were created for a war that is long over, and their creators are long dead. Their children follow them.

If they had peace, worlds, and time, they could rebuild and grow again. But the galaxy is big and bad and they find it hard to achieve any of those three things. So they're dying. It's sad, but that's what Eldar players love about them.

 

...just as we, Biel-Tanite players love our Craftworld for it's inhabitants frenzied struggle not for survival, but rather for domination.

Apart from that, if we are speaking about emotions it's important to include the cultural differences between Craftworld - even in books may you read, Kaelor of ,,Eldar Prophecy" being filled with all of it, individuals that seemed to be just more consumed by strong emotions than humans. At the other hand there are Ulthiwans such as Auric of "Farseer", who had (or maybe expressed?) little emotions while happy, sad, succeding, afraid or seeing his own death. He remained indifferent during whole book, despite number of various things that happenned (one thing to note: his Warlock was rather impulsive...).

 

If their reproductive cycle is so long and complicated how did they ever prosper. Their Birth death cycle has to be fast enough for them to have conquered the galaxy like they did in the past. I find it imposable to believe that a race can ever exist and not die out in a thousand years if it has fewer then two children in its life span that grow to the age of reproduction and are successful. If that can't happen natural then the race is doomed before it leaves the Gene pool.

The "Dying" concept is cool in the eldar I'll agree but with out hard references to GW fluff i can't believe that its as difficult as the major opinion says it is.

Their are plenty of other explanations for the "Dying" idea that GW has said that are far more likly then an imposable reproductive cycle. Here are just a few i can think of off the top of my head.

Warp Explosion creating a God.
Having Space Marines invade and wipe out a craftworld (Craftworld Idharae in 852.M41, Codex Space Marines).
Having Tyranids invade and almost wipe out a craftworld. (Iyanden, Codex Eldar)
Being so spread out that it is unlikle that you'll find a mate.
Having Chaos Demons find your sould particularly tastie.
Being such an independant person that you don't settle down and go off to travel the webway for eternity.

 

All of those examples contribute to their racial death, yes. But as for prospering, remember that the Eldar rose in a galaxy that had been almost wiped clean of sentient life, first by the Necrons and then by the Enslaver Plague. They had virtually no-one left to compete against (except for the Orks), and whoever was left were not as technologically or psychically advanced as the Eldar.

Also, the Eldar never spread across the galaxy like the Imperium. They were content to sit in their little region of space (where the Eye of Terror now is), and use the webway to get around, rather than have a bunch of colonies and outposts.

 

Dont the Dark Eldar get "recruits" from the craftworld Eldar?

There are regular Eldar who go out and turn to the dark side, like the pirates. Whats to say some dont go further and become Dark Eldar?


As for reproduction, the idea that it is highly emotional which is not good for the Eldar (as it can cause them to stray to the dark side..) seems appropriate. The Dark Eldar could and probably do reproduce more then regular Eldar, but considering the violent life they live perhaps many of them die before they reproduce?

 

I agree with Willance - I think the whole 'it's too hard for them to reproduce' is an easy and convenient excuse. It's just conjecture on people's part to say that it's too dangerous and that they don't even bother. I'm certain that they don't have intercourse as much as humans, but if they're even a smidgen close to what a human being is emotionally speaking, I doubt an eldar can go his entire lifetime without ever experiencing a single twinge of emotion toward another Eldar. Not only is that unlikely, but fluff wise it's dull as hell.

I'm not at all opposed to the fact that they're dying, as was said, many people (not me) consider it a highly appealing part of the Eldar race as players - but there are other things that have contributed in a much more significant way than just their complicated reproductive cycle. Anyone who wants to have a baby, I mean really wants to have a baby tries - and I mean tries real hard can make it happen. With all their technology I'm sure they have much better fertility physicians than we do today.

 

With all their technology I'm sure they have much better fertility physicians than we do today.

Just as a side note, Xenology's reasoning for the Eldar inability to speed up their reproduction through medical methods is that the technology which produced the Eldar themselves was far, far more advanced than anything the Eldar themselves have. Eldar cellular structure and DNA-analogue is incredibly complex..

Oddly, Dark Eldar actually seem to have more understanding here, as evidenced by Mandrakes (although that might be attributed to warp exposure or a side-effect of living in the webway.)

I really don't think Craftworld eldar would ever be allowed to 'marry' in the sense we understand it. Kinship ties are important, yes, but overfixation in this area is really destructive for Eldar. Eldar who get too close to each other blend psychically to the point where they can't function apart (Eldar twins, who have an exceptionally strong connection actually tend to die sympathetically when their twin is slain.)

 

I'm sure Eldar aren't Vulcans by any measure. In the Chaos Daemons codex it speaks of a Craftworld that fell because a Slaaneshi daemon tricked an Eldar maiden into loving it, and the love was so strong that it blinded anti-daemon wards.

I think by controlled, they don't mean they aren't emotional, more likely they are just Amish-like in their restrictions on behaviour; which would make the Path of the Ranger like rumspringga, haha.

 

I'm sure Eldar aren't Vulcans by any measure.

True. Vulcans go by logic, Eldar by emotion.

In the Chaos Daemons codex it speaks of a Craftworld that fell because a Slaaneshi daemon tricked an Eldar maiden into loving it, and the love was so strong that it blinded anti-daemon wards.

I'm inclined to say that that was simply Chaos Daemons wanking off its own force, since it pretty much ignored the existence of Warp Spiders that are meant to be patrolling the Craftworld. Same with the idea of an Eldar randomly deciding to go against their entire rigid culture built around self-discipline.

 

Hmm I wouldn't say Amish. I'd rather say that Eldar are like Shao-Lin. They life a life of discipline and contemplation and but they're allowed to get married. - The Dark Eldar on the other hand, are their not-so-restrained BDSM snuff-loving cousins.

 

A few points firstly while the old ones were still around the complex breading wouldn't have been a problem. If anything it might have been an imposed control to keep a check on populations.

Secondly for the eldar to have had an empire they would have needed a base birth to death ratio that would let them expand but that dose not making them now "dying out" wrong or even stupid. While they had the empire and peace and whole planets full of people who where not scared to death of losing there souls if they enjoyed them self to much then reproducing was clearly not very problematic, it may take a while but they had time and the security and the freedom to make babies with out a problem. Now think of how the craftworld eldar spend there life, given that one of the basic elder units are in essence civilians then you get a good idea that breeding can be problematic. If takes a long time to breed while both partners are putting them selfs at risk, well, if one of them happens to die you've wasted a hell of a lot of time and effort. This is even before we talk about the fact that the act and those ties them selfs can now be problematic... there is also the paths to consider, eldar lost on a path are, i would say, less likely to breed since they are purely obsessed with there path.

All in all the point is that the eldar birth to death ratio is likely only just high enough at the best of times to sustain a growing population and they had that for a long long time. Now is far from the best of times with every part of it being problematic. It's why i think i like beil tan so much. The idea behind my armies fluff is my farseer can see the death of there race coming and the only way he can see to stop that is to re-establish some form of empire. The eldar need a number of true and secure homeworlds.

 

Eldar are inherently psychic in a world where being inherently psychic draws attention from the warp and is thus dangerous. Perhaps many of their children die at an early age because of chaos/warp manifestations, and with the Eldar being very emotional it could be devestating and possibly cause those parents to go wild/evil/dark/portals to Chaos. Not something nice so most Eldar dont want to go through that experiance, and thus they dont have many children.




also..

If the Eldar live hundreds/thousands of years, then if the average Eldar mother (?) had one child a century it would still lead to a huge reproduction rate, though a slow one. Of course, if the atmosphere changed such that hooking up became rare and difficult, and thus reproduction became one child every 2-3 centuries and the mortality rate went up, then it could impose a huge damper on reproduction.

Perhaps it is only the young Eldar who are reproductive? out of willingness rather then physiology? If the Eldar are also uptight like we humans are, then the young are the most expendable in times of war (guardians = civilian militia, aspect warriors = decades/centuries of training), and with the Eldar now living in a violent war strewn universe the inexperianced soldier (militia) gets slaughtered.

 

The Giant Mantis, where are you getting your information of Xenobiology in warhammer fluff?

 

Xenology, which is a wonderful little book from the Black Library produced specifically in preparation for this kind of argument. I don't own a copy myself, but I've browsed one and caught the gist of it.

Interesting fact: Eldar have almost no body fat.

I guess it also explains why Dark Eldar are such sick puppies (all that obsessive intensity with no direction for it to go).

Don't quote me on this, but from the way I read the Eldar origin, he Dark Eldar seem to behave pretty closely to what pre-Fall Eldar society was like. They'd basically progressed so far past ordinary works of art that they started delving into murder, rape and torture as art forms. The psychic effluence from this kind of extreme cultural stagnation was what created Slaanesh in the first place.

By contrast, the "real" Eldar are descended from - or still are - the ones who rejected this kind of hedonistic lifestyle and fled it aboard the craftworlds. It's no wonder that they're so monkish. They were the Eldar equivalent of nutter evangelists on TV talking about Noah's Ark and the coming Apocalypse.

Given how long it's been since I actually read this stuff, there are doubtless bits which are educated guesses inflected from these sources.. But then, that's why I use words like 'the way I always saw it'..

I get that a lot too :S