Is There Room for a Dark Eldar Psyker HQ? - A Sorcerer(es)?

So, obviously, Eldar and Dark Eldar are based off of High Elves and Dark Elves of Warhammer, with elements of Wood Elves snuck in here and there.  But all of the elves seem to have a substantial presence in the Magic phase, and although this is much more true for High Elves than for Dark Elves, Dark Elves do have Magic users in the form of Sorceresses.  So why don't Dark Eldar have no Psykers?  The fluff says that they don't like using Psychic powers because it draws the attention of Slaanesh.  But they're in the Webway.  They shouldn't care.  They weren't destroyed during the Fall, why should they be bothered now?  I would think that having psychic power would be a natural advantage in the dark of Commorragh, and that individuals with psychic power would remain prevalent.

When I wrote my Dark Eldar fan codex a few weeks ago, I turned Medusae into super-aggressive throwaway psykers, but now I'm wondering.  Why not something like a Deathseer: a Dark Eldar version of a Farseer whose only purpose is to bring a metric ton of psychic hurt to the foe, preferably in ways that can't be duplicated by the shooty things we already have?

Please share your thoughts.

edit - Sorry for the misspelling(s) and the double negative that I missed.

Merged double post - Baron T

1) Psychic powers are dangerous even in the webway.  Perhaps especially in the webway (where you can see the immaterium writhe just beyond the walls if you look hard enough; the veil between you and it is thin).  This becomes especially true when you deal with powerful emotions.  There is a reason that Farseers practice so many control techniques.

2) Dark Eldar do not practice constraint.  It is anathema to them and against their philosophy.  One of the True-kin utilizing warp powers would take it too far.  Likely horribly so.

Yeah, someone would go nuts with it and kill everyone/Vect would have them silenced fast as.

Don't forget Deldar don't stay in the webway forever. Most of the battles you play aren't actually in the City, and they can't get psychic out in the big wide world because the Loch Nesh Monster will gobble their souls immediately.

Got it.

I feel like the "Vect will destroy you" answer needs a little more emphasis.

I'd like to see them update our means of attacking or closing down enemy psykers in the next codex, rather than letting us join the psychic party. Some of the stuff we have now is ok in principle, terrible in practice. Maybe make the crucible a flat 24" range, with torment grenade launchers stacking. That'd be nasty. And enemy psykers suffer perils on any roll of a double. Perhaps even Hatred Psykers/Brotherhood of Psykers would help, as well as being fluffy.

We're already the spoiler army. Let us spoil the psychic fun for everyone too   

I know that psychics are one of the few things that are forbidden by vect but what about shadowseers?

Are they not psychers? Do they not hang in commorragh sometimes? So IMO there is room in the fluff for a psycher or 2 in the DE codex. A lord level shadowseer special character would be a good fit.

One of the things I were really expecting with the last codex was the introduction of some "dark far seers". Dark eldars are not only eldars (a race well known for its psychic powers and skills) they are the most similar to the original eldars, by far much more powerful and skillful in psychic arts.

The excuse "Vect says that" is for me a mere excuse. In fact I am modeling my eldars as members of a craftworld very close with dark eldar philosophy. The farseers and warlocks will be masters of necromancy so it will has a lot of wraith engines. Using Iyanden codex.

Let's hope in the new codex include some psychic users in the dark kin.

Doesn't it say somewhere that the dark eldar have shunned psychic powers for so long that their psychic ability has atrophied, and they couldn't be psykers if they wanted to, which they don't?

I don't think I would want psychic powers. It would take away a bit from the uniqueness of the dark eldar by making us more like everyone else. I would prefer more anti-psyker stuff, like Mr. Believer said above.

That being said, the dark eldar hang around with all kinds of other races and warp creatures, such as lhameans and medusae, and there's no reason why those creatures couldn't be as psychic as they want to.

Saying Dark eldar have lost the ability to become psykers because they haven't used it is like saying the fat people in the floaty chairs in WALL-E shouldn't have legs because they haven't used them in generations.   Evolution doesn't work like that.
10,000 years is nowhere near enough time to breed out a universal trait in a race that lives a thousand years just because they don't use that trait anymore!
I think it is a possibility that they could have dark eldar psykers, just none that live in the dark city. I think it means that the knowledge of how to train psykers and all of the eldar psyker lore required to train psykers has been lost not the genetic potential to become one.

Well, in my fan codex, which I invite you all to check out, Power from Pain is like Psychic power - but it isn't. Dark Eldar changed during the fall, and although they don't realize it, pain to them is far more empowering than just an adrenaline rush. They're not psykers, but there is something lurking in the void they have in place of souls that gives rise to a whole spread of powers, depending on how the Dark Eldar conducts war. I am seriously considering creating the rules for a "Painseer," who wouldn't be a Psyker, but who could generate and redistribute pain tokens (he actually would be redistributing Pain Charges) to units nearby. This would make more sense if you read my codex of course but you get the idea.

It isn't as simple as Vect will kill you.  Your Archon will kill you.  Your trusted Hekatrix will kill you.  Your Dracon will take a blast pistol to the back of your head.  They will claim that you had been overcome with madness and -nobody- will bat an eyelash.  Even more so when you give them a -good- excuse.  

The Dark Eldar are murderers, torturers, and madmen, but even they know that to play with the warp is to invite the most terrible doom of all.  Playing with fire doesn't even begin to describe it.  Psyker souls burn bright, Eldar souls that have nurtured their psyker gifts burn brighter, and slaneesh is drawn like a moth to flames.  Their is no ghost helm to protect them.  No runes to keep them from going too far.

Daemons will come to you, they will promise you power, they will tempt you with ways to destroy your enemies, and then they will use you as a portal into Commoragh. An all you can eat Eldar buffet for Slaanesh.

Barking Agatha wrote:

I don't think I would want psychic powers. It would take away a bit from the uniqueness of the dark eldar by making us more like everyone else. I would prefer more anti-psyker stuff, like Mr. Believer said above.

I don't judge our uniqueness by things we don't have, I judge it by things we have that others don't.

I'm good either way, add psykers or don't, but if they could implement it without changing the fluff too drastically, I'd prefer that. As I mentioned once before, kind of like games workshop did with the doomfire warlocks in fantasy. I.E. Malekith banned the use of magic by male dark elves so they wouldn't try to rebel against him, and so he cursed those trying it and used them as a weapon. Suddenly you have male sorcerers that fit into the fluff.

In theory, more anti-psyker stuff is nice. It really is. Until you play tau, or necrons, or any army capable of using a psyker that chooses not to. Then it's wasted points. If there was a thing like a sideboard sure, but the reason I never take a Crucible isn't because it's bad, it's because in probably 70% of the games I play it's worthless. Whereas psychic powers are always useful. Invisible Incubi or Bloodbrides sounds like something that should happen.

I think its too engrained in the background that Dark Eldar shun psykers and activiely kill them amongst their own people (and kill any Archon stupid enough to sue them), usually because if they don;t do it Vect will kill them for not killing the other people....and so on.

That said, I think there might be better options than proper Psykers.
I could see a Dark Eldar maybe totting around a bag of stolen soul-stones, using them as one-shot psychic powers. That I think would make sense, but not an actual Psyker within the army.

I would like to see them add something like the Silent Sisterhood from the HH novels. It would fit the anti-psycher vibe well and is suitably creepy. If the the fancy good-boy CWE's are powerful psychers, why can't we have evil null-psychers?

Evil Space Elves wrote:

I would like to see them add something like the Silent Sisterhood from the HH novels. It would fit the anti-psycher vibe well and is suitably creepy. If the the fancy good-boy CWE's are powerful psychers, why can't we have evil null-psychers?

Maybe some sort of enslaved Pariahs. Could be a cool model in that idea.

Ultimately, if GW want to add psykers, they can. We can sprinkle them in anyway with Craftworld allies as it is, so it's not like we have no option for them. But I'd like to see us able to stand on our own in the psychic phase, preferably by causing some sort of psychic backlash in the opposing psychic phase. Also, I keep forgetting there is a psychic phase, so not having to remember one would be just peachy   

As far as the Dark Eldar lore goes, Psychic/Sorcery is a big no-go.

We've got Power from Pain, which should be changed to resemble old psychic powers to some extent. Furthermore, it's implied that Dark Eldar got a fine array of eldritch tricks and arcane technology to shut down psykers, it'd be great to see anti-magic options in codex instead of more d6 rolled before the game deciding the outcome.

I know I'm just hawking my fan 'Dex at this point, but check out what I've done for the Power from Pain special rule. It's basically non-psyker Pain Powers, with Paths instead of Disciplines (pain affects Wracks differently than Kabalites for example). Just go straight to the bottom of the Google doc. Criticism and Critique are always welcome! But hey, if you're going to check out the doc, might as well ctrl "f" for the Medusae entry in the Court of the Archon and check out the entire Psychic discipline I wrote for Medusae - which I turned into throwaway mind-enslaved psykers!

What if the new giant walker we are rumored to be getting was anti psyker/ran on psykers?

Anyways I agree with Barking Agatha that on PAGE 5 of the codex:

"While countless generations of physical conflict have ensured the Dark Eldar have better reaction speed and greater physical strength than other elements of the elder race, the innate psychic abilities of their forebears have atrophied. To channel the energies of Chaos within Commorragh would be to invite disaster, for such psychic pyrotechnics could draw the gaze of She Who Thirsts, the nemesis of the Eldar race. As such the use of psychic powers is one of the few things forbidden within the Dark City."

To draw a parallel to this situation and how the Dark Eldar feel, lets compare us humans to monkeys. I at least feel that I am smarter and stronger than a monkey, however it would appear that they have something that we don't. A Tail. We have evolved to no longer be burdened by a tail and instead we walk on two legs with more "dignity" than the lowly monkey. Much the same way that the Dark Eldar feel that they are superior in every way to their craft world brethren and that they are better off without psychic powers. So fluff says that they no longer have psychic powers. Realistically maybe the Dark Eldar "circumcise" the psychic part of their children as a "covenant" with Slaneesh. Just my 2 cents

That is a pretty good analogy, I have to admit. Yeah, upon further consideration we really don't need psykers. Just like Tau and Necrons we're already so good we don't even care if our opponents get all their Psychic powers off - we're still going to enslave them!!! Muahahahahahaaa!!!!!!!!  

Barrywise wrote:

What if the new giant walker we are rumored to be getting was anti psyker/ran on psykers?

Anyways I agree with Barking Agatha that on PAGE 5 of the codex:

"While countless generations of physical conflict have ensured the Dark Eldar have better reaction speed and greater physical strength than other elements of the elder race, the innate psychic abilities of their forebears have atrophied. To channel the energies of Chaos within Commorragh would be to invite disaster, for such psychic pyrotechnics could draw the gaze of She Who Thirsts, the nemesis of the Eldar race. As such the use of psychic powers is one of the few things forbidden within the Dark City."

To draw a parallel to this situation and how the Dark Eldar feel, lets compare us humans to monkeys. I at least feel that I am smarter and stronger than a monkey, however it would appear that they have something that we don't. A Tail. We have evolved to no longer be burdened by a tail and instead we walk on two legs with more "dignity" than the lowly monkey. Much the same way that the Dark Eldar feel that they are superior in every way to their craft world brethren and that they are better off without psychic powers. So fluff says that they no longer have psychic powers. Realistically maybe the Dark Eldar "circumcise" the psychic part of their children as a "covenant" with Slaneesh. Just my 2 cents

It is fun to tie a monkey to a leash and have him solicit quarters from children. Maybe I will start running Eldar allies. And convert all my Haemonculi to organ grinders.

Giant Walker? Tormentor Titan.... lol

Anyways, I dislike the idea of DE getting a Psyker. Seems like a dumb idea to use it outside the webway. In the webway as well actually.

Tormentor Titan on a leash that you use to solicit money from your opponent not to use