Awakening Avatar of Khaine through a ritual by the Dark Kin

I am in charge of leading a minicampaign for my store and I was thinking of setting the players up with the task of recovering an STC from a death world. The eventual twist being, there is no STC, it is all a ploy by the Dark Kin to lure in the lesser races in a mutual slaughter in the hopes of awakening an iron statue of Khaine that has been borrowed from a crashed Craftworld and earning Khaine's favor, and, of course, participating in a carnage to write home about.

Now, the usual way of awakening the Avatar as per Eldar codex is a ritual by a group of Exarchs of every Aspect and a Farseer, with the Young King being the sacrifice that is given to Khaine either as a sacrifice or the soul that will guide the Avatar in the physical world. However, when paging through the Daemons of Chaos codex, I found the story of a Craftworld being under attack and the Avatar awakening on its own due to all the slaughter in the Craftworld. So I was thinking, could the Dark Kin be able to do the same? There can certainly be a ritual performed by a Wych Cult, and possibly some (if not all of them) could be the sacrificial lambs for Avatar's guiding, but the preparation would go through various arcane Haemonculi devices transmitting all the anguish from the fields of battle into the cavern complex where the Avatar is being held, thus kindling its internal fire. I am planning for the final mission of the campaign happening right in said cavern, so that the stalwart few that have survived the carnage can have the honor to witness Khaine walking among the mortals and serve as sacrifices to the Bloody Handed God of Murder.

Does this sound too far fetched or just about right? I figure I'd first get some input from you guys.

Makes sense fluffwise to me - it is pretty clear the Avatar doesn't need the official ritual to awaken. At that stage the question is ripe for you to answer with any of a dozen possibilities.

If I remember some fluff from the 40k Daemons codex, there was one notion of the Avatar awakening without the court of the young king. It wasn't fully powerful and was sluggish, but still deadly.

No. Nonono. No. Just no. Forget that piece of background from the Daemons book, it never existed. It's complete and utter rubbish, and makes the Eldar look like the biggest fools in the galaxy.
"Yes, these guys who hate and fear Slaanesh, have some of the most powerful psykers in the galaxy, and their home is saturated with beings whose whole purpose is to hunt down invading daemons (the warp spiders) manage to completely miss the fact that a disguised Keeper of Secrets is wandering into their Craftworld"? Seriously? Did they not do any checks whatsoever, or did this Craftworld operate on the "it's got pointy ears, so it's perfectly fine" logic? Were their Farseers all asleep at the time? Did the warp spiders have the day off? It's one of the most illogical destructions of a Craftworld, second only to the Doom of Malan'tai.

To actually answer the question though, I'm a fan of the idea. Personally though I'd have it fully awoken by a ritual sacrifice by a Klaivex. Dress the victim up as the Young King, and then slowly flay them, bleeding them onto the statue.

I would that it would be possible. Thanks for the idea for a themed army with eldar as allies using the avatar.

Aroshamash wrote:

To actually answer the question though, I'm a fan of the idea. Personally though I'd have it fully awoken by a ritual sacrifice by a Klaivex. Dress the victim up as the Young King, and then slowly flay them, bleeding them onto the statue.

You don't want that victim to become the soul of the avatar, he might not take kindly to the flaying when he wakes up in his molten body.

Incubi seem to worship Khaine so I could see it as possible for them to perform the ritual to awaken the Avatar. The only problem is the sacrifice.The only viable sacrifice would be a Klaivex (since the Young King is an Exarch, and the Klaivex is for all intents and purposes an Incubi Exarch) and it wuld seem unlikely for a senior member of the Incubi to willingly sacrifice himself (they hadn't gotten in their position by being altruistic, after all).

Of course, nowhere does it say the sacrifice has to be willing....They could just capture a Craftworld Exarch and offer him as a ritual sacrifice for Khaine.

@Aroshamash: Oh, I only chose to acknowledge that horrible piece of fluff because it's a precedent for Avatar awakening without the ritual in official GW codex.

As for other suggestions, I am thinking about sticking with the original idea of a Wych Cult performing the ceremony, but lacking the knowledge of what really happens at the culmination. Thus, the first sacrifices for the Avatar would be the wyches and their unfortunate Hekatrix that just a while ago were happily painting runes of Khaine in their victim's blood, thinking they'll be participating in a slaughter worthy of their worshipped god. At the same time, this would be quite a spectacle for the Archon and Haemonculus as well as their bodyguards, who would be wise enough to watch the proceedings from a safe distance.

Aroshamash wrote:

No. Nonono. No. Just no. Forget that piece of background from the Daemons book, it never existed. It's complete and utter rubbish, and makes the Eldar look like the biggest fools in the galaxy.
"Yes, these guys who hate and fear Slaanesh, have some of the most powerful psykers in the galaxy, and their home is saturated with beings whose whole purpose is to hunt down invading daemons (the warp spiders) manage to completely miss the fact that a disguised Keeper of Secrets is wandering into their Craftworld"? Seriously? Did they not do any checks whatsoever, or did this Craftworld operate on the "it's got pointy ears, so it's perfectly fine" logic? Were their Farseers all asleep at the time? Did the warp spiders have the day off? It's one of the most illogical destructions of a Craftworld, second only to the Doom of Malan'tai.

To actually answer the question though, I'm a fan of the idea. Personally though I'd have it fully awoken by a ritual sacrifice by a Klaivex. Dress the victim up as the Young King, and then slowly flay them, bleeding them onto the statue.

This. That piece of fluff was complete rubbish and whoever wrote it was a moron.


On the subject of who would do it, I really don't think a Dark Eldar would give their life to awaken an Avatar. A Craftworlder does it out of selfless devotion to the survival of his fellow Eldar, but a Dark Eldar has no such devotion, and certainly no such selflessness.

The Incubi worship Khaine, but the Wych cults worship some of the Dark Muses rather than Khaine. Overall I like the idea of them creating some kind of mass slaughter to awaken an Avatar, but don't make the mistake of thinking that any of them would make any personal sacrifices to do so. They can butcher a planet anyway, using an Avatar would just be that much more amusing to them.

Oh, and the Avatar always begins to pulse with energy and awaken as the Craftworlders get riled up and bloodthirsty, that doesn't mean it's properly released yet.