Warhammer 40K Lore: Why the Dark Eldar Get It Right

So, you might be wondering where the Codex: Dark Eldar review is. I'll go into more details on why we're not covering that tomorrow, assuming there are no further interruptions, but for the time being this is going to focus on something we have needed to cover for a long time. Specifically why the Dark Eldar - or Drukhari now - have become a personal measuring stick to judge all others by in terms of lore. 

Some of you are likely scratching your heads at the above comment. As concepts go, the Dark Eldar can seem like the sort of creation which verges on camp. Aside from the BDSM imagery and aspiring for little more than piracy, they're vampires which feed on pain more than blood. Even if you account for their more unique qualities which give them some extra depth such as their history, the nature of the Webway and She Who Thirsts, on its own it doesn't seem to be enough. These issues are likely part of why they lay in something of a slump for twelve years, ignored by all but a few authors.

Even the main characters can often come across as archetypes, with Vect as the Chessmaster overlord and Duke Sliscus as the risk-taking adrenaline junkie. They're not overly cliched, mostly, but their bare essentials seem to be unremarkable. However, there's ultimately one thing which makes this faction infinitely greater than the sum of this parts: The fact that they are treated as a civilization with an army, and not an army with a nation attached.

Whenever you read, examine or even just skim over the lore within the codex, you will likely notice one thing. Far more time is spent building up a sense of a self-enclosed world and ecosystem than almost any other book. Take, just for starters, the descriptions of Commorragh's trans-dimensional state and how it is structured. Each codex goes into detail in terms of how the city is built upon ruins upon sub-dimensions upon forgotten territories. The realm itself isn't simply divided up into sections or districts so much as entirely new areas, and each has a history to it. Even when the codex does not deign to offer a wholly detailed or comprehensive version of this, you're still given a good impression of its nature. More importantly, it also details just why it is there and how it fits into the larger scope of the city itself. Some certainly link to units, but they are not utterly beholden to them and they do more than simply serve to promote or focus on a single miniature.

Many of the unit descriptions themselves did more than merely describe their capabilities. Instead, they often went into detail surrounding how they lived within the Webway and the role they served. This is easy to perform with certain cases, and most armies can pull this off with HQ choices. The likes of the Haemonculus, for one thing, is an easy unit to do more than outline its role on the battlefield. However, the Dark Eldar often take this to the next level. The likes of Scourges and Mandrakes have detailed descriptions which mention how they favour parts of the city, how they operate there and how they are regarded. The former in particular could have easily been a forgettable throw-away cannon fodder unit, but they instead have a much more detailed and distinct background to them than what most other units are granted.

Even before getting to the major factions within the city, the Kabals and various cults, you have a full ecosystem. You have a tiered hierarchy, a group of figures and various individual domains which stand apart from one another. Each is also told with an abject emphasis on atmosphere and detailing their impact among the population of Commorragh. To offer a video game comparison, most codices (especially those of the Imperium) are Age of Empires. They have a variety of sub-factions and distinctive visual looks, but ultimately every unit, every creation, is there to fight and die in battle or supply that army. The Dark Eldar, however, are more akin to Dungeon Keeper. Every unit has its distinct quirks, agendas, rivalries and issues to deal with. Your base of operations isn't simply a production line to deploy more units, it's a world unto itself and when not directly commanded your units will wander about fulfilling their own desires. While neither is bad mechanically - and again, this is purely a generalized examination of codices - the latter offers far more character in terms of its narrative depth. It also means that any unit, even the cannon fodder, are directly representing some part of the city thanks to their presence.

Even the stories themselves tend to often focus more on power plays, acts of triumph and political machinations over the usual conquests. When the kabals fly out in search of new prey, it is done in the name of furthering their power and status within the city, along with survival. Their mission, their battles and wars, are ones of industry and survival as much as service to some greater power. There's a bitterly spiteful pragmatism to each act, and when they do claim glory it is in the name of carving out their own personal legend. It's that odd contradiction which slots so perfectly well together, something which is less Space Knights Templars than it is the Godfather meets Hellblazer. 

So, you might be wondering if this is truly different from other xenos armies. While we briefly discussed the Imperium, others like the T'au Empire, Necron Dynasties and Craftworld Eldar each have cultures and histories in of themselves. That's true, but the focus is always in their nature as a military force. Take the T'au Empire for starters, what do we actually know of the Empire itself? We know there are five castes, that they are divided up into Sept worlds and that they induct species into their domain. Fine, but what else? Even when those species show up as auxiliary units, they lack that same distinct individual quality found within those of Commorragh's raiders. The Vespid, for one, are offered only a brief if well-told history, but little in the way of their role as a small cog within a much bigger machine. Equally, the book places a clear emphasis on the Fire Caste over all others, so we learn much of their military, but little of their inner workings. The same is true of the others in this regard as well, and the codices rarely break away from this. It's been a long-standing issue with the Craftworld Eldar in particular, and something that the writers have only just started to remedy.

You can obviously argue that the Dark Eldar have an inherent advantage in this regard, and you would be right. However, the entire army was reworked and retooled back in the Fifth Edition to take advantage of this benefit. Rather than the usual betrayal or horrible botch job that Edition was infamous for, that codex remained true to their core themes and instead only enhanced them. It took advantage of the same core concepts, and reshaped itself to better work with its most essential ideas while remaining loyal to its image. It would be easy for the aforementioned factions to do something along the same lines. Challenging to be sure, given the fact their units are less a part of a city's culture than a devoted military, but it is still possible. Even those of other games have begun following similar themes, with the likes of the Kharadron Overlords retaining a similar structure in how war is often business for them. It's for this reason that, every time someone asks what codex to look into for inspiration, I always end up pointing to a codex of this faction.

None of this is to say that the Dark Eldar (oh fine, the Drukhari) are the be all and end all of this. The Codex: Tau Empire of the Sixth Edition is a stellar example of a fine work with many strengths, while the likes of the Black Legion supplement offers a fine example of how to utilise and build a culture from Chaos. It's simply that the Dark Eldar, of late especially, have always done it most effectively.