Eldar & Humans Being Bros

What in the grim darkness of the far future there is mostly war, sometimes there’s alliances and more too!

Back in the early days of 40K, in the Rogue Trader era there was much about the setting that was still being worked out. One of those was how the ‘Space Elves’ or Eldar would fit into the setting. So 40K Rogue Trader came out of an earlier project, ‘Rogue Trader’ which was a kind of spaceship RPG. Here’s how an advert for that product looked from the Citadel Compendium:

That persecutor title had the idea of ‘fantasy into space’ which, looking back 21 years later, in WD 343, Rick confirmed that the only trope that remained from the original ‘Rogue Trader RPG’ was the ‘fantasy into space’ idea. This fantasy trope, born in European myths and legend, then developed through titles like Lord of the Rings had the elves as a magical, ethereal and somewhat aloof peoples. They were thus many things, but they were not human! What we saw in the original Rogue Trader were Eldar as, still aloof, yet as unpredictable mercenaries or dangerous pirates. The mercenaries version was a fun idea for gameplay - where players might vie for their support as they hovered over the battlefield weight bids for their support, “Larger groups of Eldar sometimes form themselves into mercenary bands, which are both feared and respected. Mercenaries are unwelcome on peaceful, well-ordered planets, but are often sought and employed by malcontent factions, warring Imperial Commanders, or even as protection against alien raiders.” (40K Rogue Trader, pg. 178)

But it also meant that they would readily fight alongside humans, and humans would be happy with their support. So this great bit of art from Warhammer Siege (p.108) which came out a year later in 1988 could depict Eldar mercenaries fighting alongside humans, as the dreadnought to the right is clearly of Imperial design?

Lest we also forget the conjoining of Human/Eldar in the form of Illiyan Nastase? First reported in White Dwarf 97 (January 1988, page 46) where in a new feature, Index Astartes, there is an in-deal look at the 1000 chapters of Space Marines. The first covering the Ultramarines. There we meet Illiya, the half-human, half-eldar Chief Librarian of the chapter, strongly suggesting that perhaps the Imperium is more than vaguely tolerant of Eldar?

(To me this earlier view has echoes of the fantasy trope of Fey/Human society relations.) I also like how this theme comes back around again and again, for example in the most recent narrative as the Eldar priestess of Ynnead, the Aeldari god of the dead, Yvraine works with Belisarius Cawl to return Roboute Guilliman.

Thanks for reading!

Note! There is more about this project here. You can comment here or find me on BlueSky.

Also note! This book project is a personal one and not affiliated with any company that, in my day job, I work with or partner with.