Everqueen

The day the Warp shuddered.

If there's a point where Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40k's plots diverge between nobledark and grimdark respectively, it's most likely with the Everqueen.

Warhammer Fantasy

There are two God Emperor entities in Warhammer Fantasy. The first, Sigmar Heldenhammer. Sigmar was a Germanic human dude in gold armor (minus a chest piece and pauldrons which would hide his natural manliness) who unified (some of) humanity, kicked a lot of ass, became a god, and the humans with an Inquisition and skulls on everything worship him. But that does not truly an EMPRAH make. There's a being in Warhammer Fantasy who's soul is made up of an amalgamation of past badass powerful psykers wizards, who makes the Chaos Gods and their minions flee before them, and who has an unfortunate habit of dying.

That being is the queen of the High Elves.

That's no heresy either, quite the opposite. It's due to the Everqueen entity, which is composed of the souls of every queen of Ulthuan in a direct line going straight back to Isha herself, who empowered her second daughter (the Eve of the elves) as her own mortal avatar. The queen was the sole ruler of the High Elf race through the golden age of the elves which goes from the birth of mortal children of Isha and Kurnous (themselves the children of Asuryan, who was created by the Old Ones in their attempts to create a race capable of facerolling Chaos) through the collapse of the Warp Gates at the poles of the world which opened miniature Eyes of Terror and allowed Daemons to first invade the world. A badass named Aenarion became Asuryan's mortal avatar, and more or less made the Daemons of Chaos look like unarmed Imperial Guard. The nobles of the elves (who were still alive) swore allegiance to Aenarion, and the Everqueen of the time hit dat (because nothing says "noblebright" like a grandfather's avatar and a mother's avatar contained within the mortal bodies of their descendants fucking on top of a smoking pile of Daemonette corpses). Then shit kinda started going downhill. Daemons of Khorne and Slaanesh (because Nurgle was mostly picking on the southwestern elves and the cavemen humans in the Old World, and Tzeentch never really does jack shit in Fantasy) blitzed into the ancestral forest home of the elves, and burned/raped a fair amount of it down. The Everqueen made a pact with the spirit of Life Magic, the details of which are unknown except that apparently Life Magic eats Chaos magic and it was having a good ol' time unbeknownst to the Chaos Gods and that somehow the pact supercharged the Everqueen entity into demigod status). She then summoned Dryads (not the happy kind that hide in trees, these ones are spirits that posess plant bodies and turn them into vaguely humanoid living Chainswords) and told them to take her daughter Yvraine and her son Morelion away to safety. She then stood in the middle of the forest and waited for the Daemons to come. Whatever happened isn't in the fluff, except that whatever happened cannot be described by mortal words (even that of elves) and that none of the Daemons survived it.

Aenarion got pissed, drew a really cursed sword in an act of WAAAGH!, and became the most badass being ever to live in the world (this is literally canon). He also made shit decisions like marrying a chick who liked hanging out with Daemonettes, telling his son by her he'd be badass forever and be king like his old man, building a new kingdom out of the ruins of the most tainted land in Ulthuan, and similar full retard moves. Eventually his old buddy Caledor the Dragontamer, who had come up with an awesome plan to actually BEAT Chaos decades ago, got sick of waiting for Aenarion to get off his ass and decided to start shit himself. High Elves went all over the world and set up magical rocks covered in runes and gems, which vary in size from a large mountain to the size of a paperweight. Those rocks drain magic (which Daemons use to make themselves real) into the center of Ulthuan. Aenarion finally showed up, personally fought and killed 4 avatars of the Chaos Gods themselves, suffered a mortal wound and managed to cross a HUGE continent to put that cursed sword back before dying (to be fair; he was carried by his also-mortally wounded-dragon, who actually made the journey. But still awesome!)

So now the elves decide there'll be two rulers of the race from now on: the Everqueen, who is the firstborn daughter of the last queen, and upon the death of the last queen and the passing of the Everqueen entity (now one soul stronger) into the princess she's crowned the new Everqueen. The second, the Phoenix King, is a male elf democratically elected from amongst the princes (AKA governors, not literally part of a royal family) of Ulthuan. After election, he's required to walk through a pyre in the Shrine of Asuryan. If he survives, he's buffed to badass levels and becomes king. So far nobody has died, although one asshole has managed to burn himself to a crisp when he tried to declare himself king. The king's first job is to produce a new queen with the Everqueen, who will be her future heir. He's got a year to knock her up (which seems to always be how long it takes), after which the two return to their spouses or lovers as they will. It's not clear who has more political power between the Phoenix King and the Everqueen, although generally the Everqueens are fairly hands-off of leading armies and the High Elf provinces (called 'kingdoms') are fairly autonomous. Instead the Everqueens tend to administer to certain rites and responsibilities from domestic tasks like visiting the shrines of Isha to conduct fertility rituals needed to keep High Elves outbreeding their lost population, to once a year leading huge forces of elves to dangerous peaks in Ulthuan's highly dangerous Annulii Mountains to fight a battle against the forces of the Warp to keep Daemons from being able to enter the dreams of mortals and wreak havoc in their minds at will. Her armies are mostly volunteers from all kingdoms plus sometimes requested aid that is given eagerly, since serving the Everqueen is the highest honor in Ulthuan. High Elves believe in a duality to all things (even their language for example is full of things like the words for honor and victory also meaning slaughter and loss of innocence) so power struggles are probably more philosophical argument and trying to have your cake and eat it too than any intrigue and greed (the only time any meaningful interaction between the two powers has been described in the fluff is actually recent, with Alarielle (more on her below) stepping in with support to prevent the Princes of Ulthuan from rebelling against the current Phoenix King Finubar the Seafarer).

Alarielle the Radiant is the current Everqueen the High Elves. Her role in society is to be the head elf hippy and just be a pinup who conducts fertility rituals and the like (which is really important since it keeps elf birth rates up), however due to her insistence at being present in battles where the fate of the world hangs in the balance the courts of Ulthuan are beginning to gossip that she might be masculine lesbian (despite this, everyone around her gets a hard on for good and figures GOD IS WITH US in her presence, so an already fearless race becomes literally fearless if they're around her). Since her year with Finubar is up and she had a daughter, Aliathra, by him she's now toting around Tyrion like a puppy on a leash. The Everqueen's court in the kingdom of Avelorn is much different from the rest of Ulthuan, being a much more Wood Elf themed vibe combined with a drop of Tolkien elf mixed in (Games Workshop can't into subtlety, Everqueen's court is an 'R' rated Lothlórien that changes location in the forest periodically). At first it's hard to see the difference between this and the Cult of Pleasure of the Dark Elves which worship Slaanesh, but the main difference is that the casualty rate from lovemaking is 0% in Avelorn, people bathe in exotic oils and magical water instead of virgin blood and Daemonette semen, teasing is defined by making catty remarks at group poetry readings instead of cutting away the skin over a lover/cousin's ribs at a public execution (one on every corner!), and everybody involved in the activities is pretty okay with it and respects everybody else involved as an individual. For a summary on the Everqueen's personality, picture Snow White who has a bonus Avatar State like from that one cartoon about a monk kid saving the world that /co/ faps over and rages over between fap sessions (what was it called again? Oh yeah, Batman: The Animated Series). She is so pure and Noblebright (honest to god noblebrightness in a Warhammer setting? It's more likely than you think!) she kills Greater Daemon's by just asking them to go away please (and thank you!). In the twin novels (Haha! Subtext) Defenders of Ulthuan/Sons of Ellyrion, Slaanesh's champion (before Sigvald the Magnificent) devastates western Ulthuan and because Morathi has been cockteasing him for years (literally, his whole reason for wiping out the High Elves is Morathi promised him he can fuck her) he spends most of his time looking for a female elf that's still alive to annihilate with his cock ("desecrate" is the exact word used in the novel for what he needs to do) but because the only way to know an elf's gender is to see their junk, most bleed out before he can get their armor off. As soon as he saw Alarielle he made a mad dash for her only for her to take his hand and forgive him. The bombshell that in Fantasy, life magic (not the kind that comes from Winds of Magic that your Archmage uses, pure life magic that comes from nature) is stronger than Chaos and consumes it is dropped. She forgives him so hard, all Slaanesh's gifts are dispelled. Slaanesh began pouring all his energy straight into the champion, and the moment the Everqueen let go of him he mutated into a Chaos Spawn that was then hacked apart by generic heroes as she entered into a Disney musical number and strolled away. She had a model in the previous editions, but her stats were horrible and she was unusable. She was later removed, but now in 8th she's back and overpowered although not to the point that players of other armies can hold it against High Elf players.

Warhammer 40k

If there was ever an Everqueen entity in Warhammer 40k, she most likely became as corrupt and depraved as the other Eldar and was consumed by Slaanesh in his birth alongside the Eldar gods. This would imply she's much weaker than her Fantasy counterpart, but would explain how we have no information about her. Most likely she never existed in that setting, and instead Sigmar's equivalent had her power instead and became the EMPRAH.

Gallery

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  Old GW artwork depicting Alarielle.

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  Not bad, but GW definitely had issues with female faces. If you have one, it makes a decent Aliathra.

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  New GW artwork depicting Alarielle.

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  It's official, GW can now make decent females (if only they can paint them).

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  According to 40k's logic, Dark Elves and High Elves make perfect partners!

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  Alarielle from the dead Warhammer Trading Card Game.