Elohim (Species)

The Elohim were a mysterious xenos species that once inhabited, among other worlds, the planet Aghoru.^[1]

History

In the legends of the Aghoru people, the Elohim evolved their forms to such perfect physical beauty that they fell in love with their own appearances. They had the ability to change the forms of plants, thus allowing them to build enormous organic constructs, scattered around their vast empire of worlds.^[1d]

Having attained such power they devoted their lives to hedonism and the exploration of pleasure. Eventually, the powers they harnessed in pursuit of these pleasures turned on them, and led to the almost-instantaneous and nearly-complete extinction of their race.^[1d]

Most of those who survived this catastrophe became the Daiesthai, a perverted and dark foil of the Elohim. Eventually, the Daiesthai were forced into hiding and imprisoned in "the Mountain" on Aghoru, an artificial construct said to "eat men." The Aghoru interred the corpses of their dead in the Mountain, trying to placate the hunger of these sleeping monsters. They also placed a pair of immense Titans at the entrance to the Mountain's valley, supposedly to guard against the return of the monsters.^[1d]

During the Great Crusade, some of the Thousand Sons who arrived to effect Aghoru's compliance with the Imperium dismissed these legends as simplistic creation myths, used, like so many others, to teach and control the population.^[1a] However, it was indisputable that the corpses interred in the Mountain were gone by the following year, as if consumed by some unknown process.^[1b]

Connection with the Eldar

Spoiler!

The following paragraphs contain spoilers for:

A Thousand Sons

The Elohim are analogous to the Eldar:

• The Aghoru legend closely parallels what is known about the Fall of the Eldar, and the subsequent collapse of their empire and the division of their species into factions.^[1d]
• The psychic remembrancer Camille Shivani excavated an Elohim helmet on Aghoru that appeared to have been organically grown, rather than constructed (similar to Wraithbone); the relic conferred upon her the memories of a furious, yet sad, warrior dancer in the midst of her sisterhood (similar to the Howling Banshees).^[1c]
• The Titans found at the valley entrance appeared strikingly similar to known Eldar Titans.^[1a][1d]
  • Large, curved, structures for faces.^[1a]
  • Both were armed with lance weapons. One fired at several Land Raiders, vapourising them (similar to the Eldar's anti-vehicle Brightlance weapons).^[1e]
  • When the "bejeweled head" of the titan was cracked, it unleashed a psychic scream of some sort.^[1e]
  • The Titans were bone-coloured, and when one titan's armour was damaged the "bone-like material" of its construction was exposed.^[1e]
• The Thousand Sons 2nd Fellowship's Captain, Phosis T'Kar, and Ahzek Ahriman, then Chief Librarian, likened the aforementioned Titans to Eldar designs.^[1a]
• Inside the Mountain, Magnus discovered the entrance to a network that allowed travel through the warp, but was not actually part of the warp, a description that matches that of the Eldar Webway.^[1x]

Whether the Elohim were in fact Eldar remains unconfirmed.

See Also

• Daiesthai
• Aghoru

Sources

• 1: A Thousand Sons (Novel) by Graham McNeill
  • 1a Chapter 2, Drums of the Mountain / Temple of the Syrbotae / A Place of the Dead
  • 1b Chapter 3, Magnus / The Sanctum / You Must Teach Him
  • 1c Chapter 4, The Sound of Judgement / Shadow Dancers / Summoned
  • 1d Chapter 5, The Probationer / Creation Myths / Memories of Terra
  • 1e Chapter 8, Slayer of Giants