Ynnari
| Ynnari | |
|---|---|
| |
| Capital |
No official capital, government centered around Void Stalker known as Ynnead's Dream |
| Official Languages |
Eldar Lexicon |
| Power |
Minor Power, Rapidly rising in influence |
| Size |
At least a Craftworld's worth of available elfpower, if not bigger. |
| Head of State | |
| Head of Government |
Yvraine, the Yncarne, the Visarch, Eldrad |
| Governmental Structure |
Theocratic Triumvirate, Magocratic Seer Council |
| State Religion/Ideology |
Eldar Mythology |
| Demographic | |
| Military Force |
Phoenix Lords, Craftworld refugee navy and ground forces, Aspect Warrior Hosts, Wraith Hosts, Dark Eldar raiders, Wych Cults, Clown boys. |
" Zeus gathered all the useful things together in a jar and put a lid on it. He then left the jar in human hands. But man had no self-control and he wanted to know what was in that jar, so he pushed the lid aside, letting those things go back to the abode of the gods. So all the good things flew away, soaring high above the earth, and Hope was the only thing left. When the lid was put back on the jar, Hope was kept inside. That is why Hope alone is still found among the people, promising that she will bestow on each of us the good things that have gone away. "
- – The myth of Pandora, Aesop's Fables, sounding suspiciously similar to the fall of the Eldar
"We're on a mission from God."
- – Elwood, The Blues Brothers
The Ynnari, also known as the Reborn, are the youngest splinter faction of the Aeldari race, born during the events of the Gathering Storm as a means of advancing the eldar's storyline. They gather all kinds of eldar in the belief that their species can be saved from oblivion and eternal torture at the hands of She Who Thirsts by giving birth to the Eldar god of death, Ynnead. They've had a massive impact on the lore recently, mainly by helping Our Spiritual Liege wake up from his millenia power nap and get shit done.
Crunch-wise, it allows players to use every single unit under the eldar faction into a single army, and I mean EVERY SINGLE FACTION. This has caused massive butt hurt due to the amount of tears such broken combinations caused on a regular basis. Currently, the Ynnari faction is all but forgotten between the back-to-back nerfs the faction has received since their inception and GW's resolute decision to neither produce more unique units for them or expand their lore in any meaningful direction that doesn't involve the Imperium.
Origin story
The beginning: Eldrad does a thing
The Ynnari first appeared during The Gathering Storm, although the seeds of their formation should be traced back to a certain dick. After having some sort of vision of the future, he decided to try and force the birth of Ynnead manually, rather than waiting for the whole species to die. To that end, he pillaged and stole the mortal remains of some of the most powerful eldar seers and organized a ritual on a derelict moon close to the Eye of Terror. Unfortunately for him, he was discovered by a Deathwatch team, who figured that a xeno taking some ultra powerful psykic relics to try and create a god was bad news, and assaulted them in the middle of the ritual. The resulting battle was so intense that it blew up the moon, or maybe it was the effect of the ritual failing. Nevertheless, Ynnead was born, although it was in an infantile state, with only a fraction of his power available to it. So it started searching for someone that could help it regain power...
Meanwhile at Commorragh
At this point in time, the eldar Yvraine was having the fight of her life in the grand colisseum. And I mean of her life, considering she lost a hand, got stabbed in the chest and was on the brink of death while having to fight tyranid bioforms, wyches and fucking Lelith Hesperax herself all at once. Just before she died, Ynnead detected her presence and judged her as adequate of being its emissary due to her having walked all paths of the eldar. The sudden rebirth of Yvraine caused the Gates of Khaine, aka the buttplug at the bottom of the city, to momentarily break, pouring the fiery warp taco-shit into it and the Dark City started getting swarmed by daemons. This resulted in all kinds of Scooby-Doo hijinks, mandrake fun and kabal war in the middle of it but let's just say that Yvraine was able to get away from Commorragh while Vect swore revenge against her and all those allied to her. She and her group were rescued by harlequins, who brought her to the craftworld Biel-Tan.
The fracture of Biel-Tan and their visit to Cadia
After finally reaching "friendly" territory, Yvraine and her gang, now called the Ynnari, tried to decide their course of action, though not before having to deal with a teensy-tiny problem of a full daemonic invasion led by Skarbrand and The Masque. After that was out of the way, they decided that to follow Ynnari's plans, they would need to increase its power, and to do that they were going to need the Crone Swords, many of them were on Biel-Tan already, so that's a lucky stroke. Though, all of this talk of resurrecting a god of the dead and taking some of the most valuable relics of eldarkind kinda pissed off half of the inhabitants of Biel-Tan, while the other half thought Yvraine was hot really the last hope of the eldar race. Thus, the fracture, with half of the already reduced population going with the Ynnari. And when I say fracture, I mean FRACTURE. Because Biel-tan turned out to be a meld of a shitton of ancient ships, and it went full Kaliban, breaking up into pieces.
This was also happening at the same time as Abaddon was having his latest rage fit at Cadia, only this time fucking successfully. Figuring that the Imperium was the only faction that would help to fight Chaos, they decided to aid them, trying to stem the black hordes and helping imperial forces evacuate, once it's clear that Cadia is lost. Thus, they decided to go with another plan...
Yvraine helps resurrect Guilliman
With Cadia lost and the Cicatrix Maledictum unleashed, Yvraine had to reunite with the terrific trio to see what was the next plan: none other than trying to resurrect a primarch millenia preserved in stasis, poisoned by chaos stuff and on a planet currently under siege. Against all odds, the combination of Cawl's bullshit technologies alongside Yvraine's eldar magics managed to wake up Roboute Guilliman, who immediately started kicking ass and taking names of the Black Legion. This caused every chaos god to freak out, and try to keep Bobby G from reaching Terra. luckily, with the help of the Ynnari forces, certain Dark Angel and the Custodes & Sisters of Silence combo, they managed to reach Terra. It is here that Yvraine and Guilliman say farewell to each other, leaving in terms friendly enough to make people consider the chance of love blooming in the battlefield.
After the Gathering Storm
The Ynnari have been busy enough. From trying to recruit as many eldar as possible, to exterminating a whole craftworld infected by genestealers and stealing their Avatar of Khaine, to continue the search for the last Crone Sword (Farsight has it though) to help Yvraine's friend with benefits clean Ultramar from Nurgle and Mortarion, they have caused a massive impact in a very short amount of time. Half of the eldar now think they are the last hope for the race, while the other half thinks they are heretics and they bring curses and death wherever they go.
Following a battle with the Keeper of Secrets Shalaxi Helbane, Yvraine discovered that Slaanesh had already stolen the final Cronesword and hid it within its own palace. In light of this, Yvraine is preparing for the worst-case scenario that the Eldar will indeed have to sacrifice themselves to fully empower Ynnead.
Which basically means the entire plotline and purpose of the Ynnari was essentially for nothing due to the fear of Moving The Plot Forward and/or GW being unable to figure out how to make a marine the main character and saviour of the Ynnari and now the Ynnari's sole appearances are as Imperials' sidekicks.
Some suspect that the Ynnari's plotline are a result of corporate GW getting in the way as at the time, in Age Of Sigmar, Slaanesh was getting imprisoned, and thus the Ynnari would have probably succeeded in that effort, ridding 40k of Slaanesh (viewed as being detrimental to the IP's image by the old guard) and unifying the three kinds of Eldars into a single faction for a relaunch of "Age of the Emperor" or somesuch...
... and then the new CEO said "fuck that", so Slaanesh stays in, and with Guilliman revived, the Ynnari don't really have a reason to continue existing, hence their current fate.
During Warzone Charadon Lilth Hesperax and her Wyches carried out a massive orgy of mass murder and mayhem against Imperial Forces protecting Charadon, which totally undermined their defense against the Death Guard and Black Legion Rape train which made its polite way into the system. Given how free roaming Hesperax has been it is fair to say that she and her Wyches have deserted the service of the Ynnari and engage in war with the Imperium again.
Notable Characters and components
The Ynnari is a faction full of characters. Seriously, look at the list.
The Big Three:
- The Visarch
Ex-Craftworld:
- Autarch Meliniel
- Phoenix Lords, led by Jain Zar
- Yriel and his pirates
Ex-Dark Eldar:
- Lelith Hesperax and her Wyches
Harlequins (All of them, Cegorach is ok with double loyalties, apparently (he's just leasing them to his younger bro) and possibly by extension, Black Library):
Craftworld Alaitoc Eldar
Craftworld Iyanden Eldar
Craftworld Altansar Eldar
And let us not forget about half of Biel Tan, a third of Ulthwe, and a bunch more shall we?
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||