Death Masque spoilers

"Eldrad Ulthran screamed as the ritual reached its crescendo. All around, the crystal sands of Coheria glowed bright. A bow wave of spiritual power rippled across the moon as every dead craftworlder since the Fall lent a measure of its sentience. But a vital voice in the choir of his psychic melange had been silenced, and the blessings of the Laughing God were fading away.

Wraithbone runes whirled around Eldred burning to smoking ash one by one as the High Farseer struggled to hold the ritual of awakening rogether. His mid was aflame, the skies above bursting in to bright orange fire in sympathy. Psychic energies heated the planetoid to volcanic temperatures. The moon became a psychic sun, a signifier of a new dawn. Somewhere, in the bottomless soulscape of the void, Ynnead stirred to wakefulness.

Another sum blossomed on the cusp of fate, far smaller, and filled with malevolence. Eldrad opened one eye to see a plasma sphere burning towards him. He directed a portion of his psychic focus into his rune armour to dissipate the blast. In that act, he failed. The emerged consciousness of the god splintered, its full apotheosis denied.

The crystal seers shattered with terrific force even as Space Marines sprinted for their assault craft. Eldrad reeled, stumbling blindly through the webway gate behind him as the planet ignited with white fire. The last thing he saw was a vast and solemn constellation losing cohesion, a single bright point from within it shooting away into the far reaches of the cosmos."

So I finally got Death Masque on release. If anyone was as curious about what takes place in the boxed set as I was, this is the conclusion of the story.

TL;DR Eldrad learned of a moon covered in psychoactive sands with similar properties to spirit stones. He tries to use the moon as a vessel for Eldar souls from the infinity matrix, in order to bring about the awakening of Ynnead. The Deathwatch team finds him in the midst of his ritual, the harlequins defending him are killed, the ritual is interrupted and the moon explodes.

Does a kernel of Ynnead emerge from the incomplete ritual?

Why is GW so bad at writing eldar? He's the greatest farseer ever, how did he not foresee a blatant, unsubtle attack by the Deathwatch?

Actually, there was a general and specific reason for his error. The more general reason is that this is Eldrad's desperate attempt to defy fate--the prophecy of Ynnead is that it will awaken when the last Eldar have died. Eldrad is attempting to bring about its awakening before that happens. He is painted as bordering pure hubris in his plot, and he conducts it without the knowledge of any beyond the sect of harlequins that do his bidding. He would, more or less, be condemned by others if his plans come to light. Even if he were to succeed, the resulting actions would leave the fleets and craftworlds of the Eldar scattered and powerless at best. At worst, it would cause another rift in realspace and cause a catastrophe rivaling that of the Fall. Eldrad considered these risks worth the chance to from the Eldar from Slaanesh's thrall before the last of them perished.

The more specific reasoning is that Watch Captain Artemis pierces the Harlequins' defense with the use his stasis bomb. Eldrad had foreseen a hiccup in the skein but couldn't fathom that the humans would be able to manipulate space and time in such a fashion.

Hmm. That is pretty interesting. 'Full apotheosis denied' is what catches my attention here. If it was just 'apotheosis denied' I would assume that is was an utter failure, but something like an Avatar of Ynnead would be interesting. A living, walking demigod-chunk of the Eldar god of the Dead.

Thanks for sharing.

I had not heard of this before, what are the chances of a new Avatar thing for the Eldar?