Aelindrach

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Aelindrach[2]

Aelindrach is a subrealm of Commorragh, city of the Dark Eldar which has literally fallen into shadow, now existing in several dimensions simultaneously[2] – physical laws are different, only through willpower can one retain their senses.[3] The realm is home to the deaded Mandrakes[1] and other supernatural horrors.[2] The realm abuts the Bone Middens of the Wych Cults,[1] and it is rumoured that deep within other realms or realities impinge upon the realm[2] and that somewhere deep within lies a portal to a world of Shade-Daemons that can freeze souls with a touch.[1]

History

Aelindrach was once a proud and prosperous satellite realm of the Eldar Empire, replete with vaults of ancient and esoteric treasure. At some point it was overcome by a great calamity, the nature of which goes either unspoken or unknown. Since the calamity it has existed in several dimensions simultaneously, to horrifying result: the Shadow-Ghouls of Aelindrach thicken and writhe as living things which whisper about the realm's intruders and slither about their legs with intent to drown them. It is in Aelindrach that Mandrakes, Shaderavens,[4] and Gloomwings[3] make their lairs and rumour has it that even worse creatures exist in this blighted realm.[2]

On the borders of Aelindrach Mandrakes may be contacted and their pacts made through reflective surfaces such as mirrors or the surface of pools, as many Drukhari dare not enter the realm itself.[2]

Recent History

Despite the dangers and horrors, there are those who still desperate or arrogant Drukhari who choose to cross into the penumbra into Aelindrach in search of wealth and power, either of their own accord or hired by the Abstrusik Arcanist School of Haemonculi. Half-heard insinuations still tell of supernatural gifts to those who plunge into the shadow.[2]

Few return from such ventures, those that do are insane and scarred by the experience or altered beyond recognition to prey upon mortal souls. Their tales are myriad: some tell of cloying veils of shadow which numb the flesh and steal their sight, ice-cold lakes where dark tendrils writhe, hissing horrors with eyes of burning silver, trees of mist and domes of woven hair and teeth, of the Mandrake kings on their thrones of scrimshawed bone – the greatest one sitting atop his mountain of severed heads. The truly haunted recount a gangly-limbed half-glimpsed entity which stalked them and in its pursuit marked them so entirely that a part of their being is forever trapped as unwilling quarry to the endless hunt within Aelindrach.[2]

Dysjunction

During each Dysjunction Aeldinrach has flooded forth to new parts of Commorragh,[3] and its cold shadows and Mandrakes worked to drown the Daemonic invaders in shadow and balefire.[2] During the Dysjunction caused by the apotheosis of Yvraine, however, the Mandrake King Kheradruakh collected the final skull of the thousand perfect skulls he needed for his pyramid. The gaze of the skulls bored open the portal to the Midnight Dimension of the mandrakes and other tenebrous monsters.[5] From where these shadows now ebb, Kheradruakh's name is whispered.[2]

Shortly after the closure of the Dysjunction, Drazhar forged a pact with some number of Mandrakes that, should he be able to lure Jain Zar to her death within Shaa-Dom, they would drag her body into Aelindrach, where it would be hidden to all but the shadows. This fate was only averted by the intervention of Ynnead, which resurrected a Saim-Hanni Howling Banshee Exarch (who had accompanied her Phoenix Lord to Shaa Dom, and was dragged to Aelindrach as food for the shadows) who donned the mask of Jain Zar and melded with her gestalt animus. The Phoenix Lord is said to have left behind innumerable bodies and a great ocean of black blood and ichor which sputtered from the very architecture of the realm, its arches and walls. Deep within the realm, she opened a long-forgotten Webway portal, finding it led directly to the lost Craftworld of Zandros.[6]

Sources

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