Dark Eldar are "true" Eldar?

As it states in the 5th edition codex, the Dark Eldar see themselves as the true inheritors of the old Empire. Then, upon reading Path of the Renegade, an insight into this matter appeared. According to Haemonculus Bellathonis tells Yllithian that during the Fall, the Eldar became divided; not just in culture but in spirit. The Exodites represented the rustic farsightedness of the Eldar, the Craftworlders represent the monastic austerity of their racial spirit. Then it comes to our beloved Commorites, who epitomise the wild, free and darker side of the Eldar spirit. Ultimately I arrived at the conclusion at the conclusion that there is no such thing as a "true" Eldar, their racial spirit having been divided by the collapse of their Empire and the birth of She Who Thirsts.

Did anyone else ever reach this conclusion when they read Path of the Renegade

Yeah, that's pretty much it. Dark Eldar certainly like to think of themselves as the true Eldar, unlike the backwards Exodites and the cowardly Craftworlders who deny their true nature out of fear of the consequences. However, in truth there are no "true Eldar", the Fall shattered their race and what was left are all shards of the same broken mirror.

Nar, the Craftworld are the "true" Eldar.

The exodites are a weird "back to the land" cult, the Dark Eldar are the dark eldar, the Eldar are the Pre Fall Eldar who survived

Like the harlequins say, all eldar are one!

But, if there is a "True Eldar", I have to say that we are the closest thing to that, and by far the most numerous.
Yet still exodites have planets

Dark Eldar are one facet of the Eldar race, albeit, one of the oldest facets. They claim to be true Eldar and in many ways are, dating many of the cabals back to the noble houses before the fall. However, they have been changed along the way into darker more sinister shadows of their former selves.

Exodites and craftworlders turned away from what their race was becoming at the time of the fall. They are far from true eldar IMHO.

Remember, the fall happened quite quickly.
The Twilight Cults started in 18,000 AD

The Eldar cast down the Necrons and C'tan 65 million years BC

For 65,018,000 years, the Eldar were the Eldar.
For 22,000 years, there have been DEldar of a sort.

Yes, I reached this conclusion too. The reason they see themselves as the True Kin is because Exodites are filthy creatures that belong on the end of a blade and Craftworlders have such tasty souls! Have you never heard of Kentucy Fried Craftworlder?

Lol, I wondered why my Kabalites were flipping waystones on a barbecue.

To be fair, the Deldar are effectively descended from the kings of the Eldar, so have a sold claim to be the true descendants.
But the reality is, if you went back a million years, you would find eldrads, not Vects.

DominicJ wrote:

To be fair, the Deldar are effectively descended from the kings of the Eldar, so have a sold claim to be the true descendants.
But the reality is, if you went back a million years, you would find eldrads, not Vects.

I disagree. I think that you would find something completely different. Without the Fall to learn from they would not have been so cautious as Craftworlders. If upon the fall their spirit split in three then I'd say that True, pre-fall, Eldar were closer to an amalgamatio of the three than any single faction. The reason DE like to think of themselves as True Eldar is because they did not repent. They were so set in their ways thinking that everything was theirs that they saw the others as weak and foolish when they left. They continued doing what their arrogance and superiority over all others let them: destroy themselves.

Probably a little less stoic, but the blood thirsty pleasure hunting streak was a VERY new thing.

They were a race created for war. They could have got as obsessed with murder just as easily as any other faction of Eldar, but instead they developed technology which meant that they never had to leave their homes to fight their foe. The stagnation of this streak, and the fact that they couldn't indulge in it, could be why the Pleasure Cults became so violent.

They could, but didnt.
Which is exactly my point, DEldar are Eldar who went mad. Eldar arent Deldar who went sane.

Given the mindset of Eldar Aspect Warriors donning the war mask, which is probably a more disciplined comparison to average Commorites; you are actually on to something there. Given the extremes an Eldar mind ascends and plummets to and that they were created for war ... It would actually make sense. Certainly explainswhwhy the Eldar empire became an enormous coliseum/S&M club.

I wouldn't say that other Eldar were DE gone sane. The Exodites left long before the fall and those that became the CWE hadn't been around long enough to witness the height of the depravity, other than Ulthwé. Nobody likes them anyway.

the way i always thought of it was this - some saw the fall and tried to warn the race, commorragh was already built by this point. some true eldar fled to the outer edges of their space and set up new frontier worlds, birthing the exodites. next, some left in leviathan craft, honing their spiritual selves over the years, becoming the CWE. as the last of the true eldar fell and She Who Thirsts was born, those in commorragh were protected and able to continue their old ways. so essentially, each of them retains a part of the true eldar, its just dark eldar retain all the juicy bits