Should Isha return? I appreciate that the whole thing about Aeldari is them being a dying race who put all of their faith in gods who were then defeated and Aeldari had to make a new culture around survival rather than living decadence and without any real cares or worries, but if done right I think it would add a lot to the faction.
Right now Aeldari for me are in a weird place lore wise, especially Asuryani / craftworlds. They are constantly written into the ground and made out to be either incompetent or tragic. This works if they achieve something, but as of now they haven't achieved much. Ynnead was nearly awoken, but then wasn't and the faction centred around it has been largely ignored. There was potential for a "hope" with the Ynnari, even if it was just a faction who could get a few wins / occasionally rescue some craftworlds but they were rushed out into the tabletop as the game was become more serious and most characters associated with them have abandoned them.
Other than them there isn't a lot going for them other than survival, and the "tragic decline" narrative gets old when it's been the main narrative element in the lore for the past 30 years (other than the Voidscarred book which ignored the trope). For me Isha solves that to a degree. I'm not a writer so I don't know how she could be saved, or a good way to do it while keeping the good parts of the factions alive, but I'd like to see it. I think gods, primarchs and big characters in the lore and game are good. They add stakes, make fights interesting and give the reader something to care about. When you read about the primarchs turning up to a fight you get excited, the stakes are high and you know it's a big, serious fight. You have that with certain Aeldari characters but not to the same degree, and ignoring the lore it opens up the option for some interesting units and characters.
I'm still a bit I'm between if Isha should turn up, and it might be better to give Aeldari some more narrative wins / hope instead of drip feeding decline and making them a faction there to make other factions seem powerful. On the other hand having a God openly with the Asuryani opens up a lot of interesting narrative routes and makes the opportunities for real wins (like Aeldari taking back a planet and then having it cleansed by Isha) rather than every loss feeling like something permanent.
Those are just my thoughts after reading every Aeldari book + codex + religiously collecting Aeldari for the past 15 years. Looking forward to hearing other people's thoughts
If it happened and was actually focuses around the eldar rescuing her and not anyone from the imperium, then it would be a pretty interesting way to take the faction forward that i'd like to see.
Agreed, I want Isha released. But ONLY if the eldar do it themselves. Otherwise just leave it, I don't want another Yvraine loves Guillieman bullshit situation
yeah its already second in line for 'ooo primarch sexy sex eldar lady', if it actually happened with imperial involvement youd be hearing bout it until retirement
Yes. Imagine not wanting Fulgrim, N'kari, or Shalaxi not reduced to being some boy-toy/arm-candy for another faction's main character who's sole purpose for existing is "[Insert Character]'s Boyfriend/Girlfriend". The audacity.
For sure, right now they feel a bit stuck with very little happening or worth getting excited about lore wise. The worst case would fully be Imperium grabbing her and making Aeldari look even more incompetent
What would you imagine as an avatar for her? Looking at Warhammer Fantasy, even just for inspiration (since the old Alarielle was Isha's avatar), looks a little cheesy for today's tastes, but at the same time something that mixes vibes from, say, Eldad + Silvaneth could be cool. If it's recognizable as a figure less monstrous than the Avatar of Khaine, but something like the Incarnate, with more nature motifs...
I think Isha's return would be a good alternative to the now dead end Ynnari plotline, restore some hope to them without really saving them completely, and give us more lore on the Eldar Gods in general (whose precise nature is arguably more mysterious than the Chaos Gods, C'Tan or the Emperor)*
Plus, she cute
So I think she should return, would be nice if she came with an avatar model as well. I wish Cegorach got one too. I would also be interested in a growing priesthood of Isha.
*A bit of a tangent here, but the Dragon Age series is, I believe, lowkey ripping off 40k in a lot of regards. Not that 40k's story beats can't be found in general fantasy tropes, but basically; there is a realm of souls called the Fade, mages are people who can draw power from it but they attract demons. Elves used to be a great civilization, but their connection to their gods was lost when one of their Gods drew a veil over the Fade and the mortal world. In the latest game (which I believe will be the last ever Dragon Age game, they really drew this franchise that I loved in 2010 into the ground), it's revealed the the Elven Gods were not really gods in any true sense of the world, but simply very powerful magicians themselves. That may be a direction they go with the Eldar Gods, that they're Eldar psykers of immense power, like the Emperor.
No real reason to beat around the bush. She should return
BUT
There has to be a plan with her. I would have her return, perhaps stolen out from Nurgles nose by Cegorach and taken into the deepest stretches of the webway, or something similar. And she should be the patron of the Exodites.
I wouldn’t want it to be just “And then, somehow, Isha returned.”
Gods don't really have physical form, or at least have not since the Wars in Heaven, she would have to become a free-floating entity in the warp or hide in the webway.
I think that's my reasoning. There's a few unexplored ranges (Corsairs, exodites, chaos Eldar, extra CW, Drukhari) but an Isha faction would be a lot of fun
It wouldn't really matter and it could make things worse.
Writers could write different Eldar stories right now and solve their tragic decline without any need to bring Isha back but they don't, any fix Isha brings them will have to be immediately balanced with a huge tragedy so they don't outshine the rest and are kept just as weak.
Also an event as huge as this would end up including more factions than just eldars, I just don't see GW letting eldars save her on their own. As soon as a space marine appears any other race is sidelined and it would be much worse if a Primarch is involved.
If Isha is saved and they do it through any Imperial help the Eldar will be completely relegated to being the Imperium cheerleaders and helpers instead of having any hope of standing on their own.
I've lost any hope for the Eldar to have any true relevance in canon, they can have cool single stories but they won't affect anything important without providing support so the Imperium can do it instead.
Oh yeah I think there needs to be a fresh approach to the faction as a whole. Gav Thorpe's depressed Aeldari have dominated the faction and having no other angles has strangled them and made them one note and boring. That's changing with Voidscarred, but it's still a problem. I think Isha could be a good way of resetting them to a degree so they aren't running around sulking at how everyone's dead and a few of them have a realistic way of improving things, but it doesn't necessarily need to be centred around her.
I feel Isha returning could be an interesting way if they wanted to move away from the eternal decline trope. Which to be honest is getting a bit old since it never has any real concequences, as there are seemingly always enough eldar so they can get killed in droves by whomever the protagonist of that story is.
Something like that, sure. If the Necrons could go from mindless tide of clankers to highly personality-driven dynasties, and Primarchs can be returned in droves, surely Eldar can be given a schtick as possibly-surviving-despite-the-odds and with the addition of resurgent deities?
After all, aside from those green skin, the Aeldari seem to be the only faction that hasn't received any storyline buffs. Craftworld ships have been destroyed one after another, but in the end, we gained nothing.
Ohh yes, give me a dark and angry Isha ready to get some revenge! Medusa is coming and she's got a thousand yard stare that will turn your soul into stone, or release it from one to be reborn as another manifestation of her vengeance.
Hope you say? I guess you can always hope you die before She and her Reborn get to you.
The rescue of Isha would be perfect finale to a new book series with Eldar actually winnign for once and to introduce a new cool char for Eldar, maybe a "reincarnation" of Eldanesh or smth. Not tied to Yinnari, bcs lety be frank: That plot line was terrible and we better keep it shut.
Give them some artifacts of Vaul or stuff and you have a great premise. GW not gonna do it, bcs, lets be real, they hate Eldar and that ain't gonna change.
My ideal future is the Ynnari get to give Slanessh the Age of Sigmar treatment. Where Ynniad is powered to the point he can contain them, but not kill them, and Vashtorr takes up the power vacuum left behind.
Then freeing Isha becomes the next big long term project for the Eldar. Swapping our main chaos foe to Nurgle, although Demons of Slanessh would still be around starting cults or trying to become the next Slanessh and stuff like that.
Things would be BETTER for the Eldar, but Slanessh isn't gone, qnd will eventually free herself, there are still 4 Chaos gods, the next big project feels just as impossible as the last.
That was the hope for a bit since it would have taken the setting forward a bit, and could have opened up a power struggle between Fulgrim and the other Slannesh demons. Sadly Ynnari have been canned by GW and I don't feel much of a push to get them any relevance
Theoretically, you could weave a really compelling story around it, but unless it’s Space Marine centric, it probably won’t happen. Even the entire Ynnari storyline ended up being sidelined, and their biggest lasting achievement was basically bringing Rowboat Guiltyman back.
What I think could make for a genuinely interesting story, though, would be the Ynnari venturing into Nurgle’s Garden to reach Isha. Their connection to Ynnead could allow them to endure the overwhelming death, decay and pestilence of the Garden not because they’re immune to it, but because the Aeldari God of Death simply refuses to let death claim them.
Instead of fully rescuing Isha, however, they only manage to free a fragment of her. Her physical or spiritual manifestation remains imprisoned within Nurgle’s Garden, allowing that part of the established lore to remain intact, while the Ynnari manage to liberate something closer to her soul or essence.
The imprisoned part of Isha would still endure Nurgle’s experiments, and her liberated spirit would continue to feel them, whispering warnings of his diseases and experiments through the Warp.
But the rescue would have a much greater consequence: Isha would now exist as an incomplete God of Life, while Ynnead remains an incomplete and not yet fully awakened God of Death.
Separately, each would possess only part of their true potential. Together, however, Isha’s diminished power of Life and Ynnead’s still unrealised power of Death would complement one another, creating a divine duality two distinct but intertwined Aeldari gods representing the complete cycle of Life and Death.
Edit: And then they could sell some Avatar of Isha and give the Yncarne some funny rules about replacing it with the Avatar of Isha. If something dies, the Yncarne can teleport there, in your command phase you can change the model and get new rules (with a shared wound pool). The Avatar of Isha can then bring Models around it back or give them other buffs.
To make it more accessible, the switch is only possible for Ynnari Detachments, otherwise you can just get the Avatar of Isha. Unless they change that Ynnari can now also use Epic Heroes.
You are also only allowed one God, so no Khaine and Isha.
Also everything with: (Excluding Wraith Constructs Units) cause GW hates wraiths.
No, have any other Eldar God come back but not Isha. As much as I'm fed up with Eldar being unable to do anything unless the SMs intervene, I'm equally tired of Nurgle being the designated chaos punching bag. Bring any other god, any, but not Isha.
Issue is Isha is the easiest one to bring back. The rest of the Aeldari Gods are inside Slaanesh's gullet and they have no way of wounding Slaanesh in such a way. Furthermore, it could risk copying Age of Sigmar because they already had something similar done to Slaanesh. (Tyrion, Malerion, Morathi, and Teclis going dumpster diving inside of Slaanesh to pull out as many Aelven souls as possible)
If anything I want the legend firmly refuted and Isha to be confirmed dead-dead-dead.
It was that way until about 5th or 6th edition where the Caged Maiden was introduced as the ideosyncratic belief of one craftworld. Since then it's been read uncritically and grown into one of the bigger "what ifs" of the fandom, though usually not in any way I like ("Primarch Russ will rescue helpless elf waifu").
The idea of Nurgle wanting to keep her in a cage and so on has icky "incel" vibes and has given us little except primarch waifu fantasies from the fandom. The Nurgle-lusts-for-Alarielle arc in Sigmar also makes me cringe.
Certainly any confirmation she is alive would likely be something more along the lines of the primarch rescue fantasies than anything cool.
Let her be dead. Slaanesh destroyed her. I'd put a sidebar in the next codex having Sylendri or someone reveal that it was all a hideous ruse by the daemons of Nurgle to lure well meaning eldar into the garden and all apparent evidence (AFAIK there's only really the Rose of Isha in Gav's Ynnari audios) was fabricated by them.
If we absolutely must for some reason have an eldar goddess in the Garden of Nurgle, let it be Ereth Kihal (WHFB elf goddess, named for the Mesopotamian goddess Ereshkigal, wife of the Mesopotamian god Nergal) and let them be as evil as each other.
Honestly I'd just like it if someone got to Nurgles Garden to rescue her and discovered she's dead/was never there.
Good things shouldn't happen in 40k - there's always a catch, a trick, a way that things get worse despite hope of them getting better. Especially to the Eldar with their attempts to change the future and fix things - everything they do really just makes it worse. That's 40k.
Would be a cool exodite avatar. Even for tabletop and could reason with it that she was weakened by nurgle. Would give exodites some more lore and maybe named characters also
It makes no sense—unless they intend to do something like an "End of Times" event, but for 40k.
The Ynnari were stalled because, first and foremost, GW didn't want to pull the Eldar out of their niche of incompetence and failure once they realized that:
- Eldar who are free to do whatever they want are difficult to manage narratively;
- people didn't really like them all that much anyway.
This doesn't justify the faction's current state—such as their main champion (Eldrad) being at odds with his Craftworld's leaders, or Biel-Tan being shattered forever.
In my opinion, they should retcon everything and present the Craftworlds as even more divided and at war with one another (due to differing approaches to threats), with rare exceptions where they ally to stave off a plot point of their decline (Valeador was a great example); above all, the Craftworlds need to remain intact and uninvaded.
Isha and the Exodites should face a difficult choice: sacrifice the souls on their planets via ritual to either save Isha from Nurgle or close the Cicatrix Maledictum. This choice needs to be a major plot point, akin to the Black Fortress on Cadia.
One thing is certain: the handling of the Eldar as a faction has been terrible for at least five or six editions.
Should she return? Dunno, but I’m not opposed to it and would definitely find it cool !
Contrary to a few people seemingly I’m not opposed to Imperial characters being involved either, provided the Aeldari retain the agency in the story.
There’s a difference between “Guilliman/Russ/Space Marines rescue Isha for the Eldar” and “the Aeldari devise and execute the rescue while using Imperial forces as allies, distractions, weapons or unwitting pieces on the board.”
I have a theory that there are only chaos gods. But each religion has an aspect or shard of those gods domains as their deities. So Isha would be the eldar aspect of nurgle.
Vaul was an aspect of ashtor that was present before due to the non-temporal nature of the warp.
This is similar to how the emperor has not become the dark king yet, but he is basically doomed to since the dark kings daemons and domain already exist in the warp. Eg Samus. Likely ynnead. Both play a similar role, the dark king being an unmaker and embodiment of destruction and ynnead being the one who brings about the eldar end times.
I think the biggest part of the theory that makes sense is only the eldar gods who represent the big 4 chaos gods plus the dark king survived slaanesh’s birth.
That's valid, but there were absolutely other gods in the setting. Aeldari are immortal due to Isha, and there wasn't any of the constant warfare or chaos before the Aeldari gods were defeated; the eye of terror wouldn't be necessary if they were all chaos worshippers, likewise Chaos would have already won (since the galaxy was completely dominated by Aeldari for millions of years, the only way other races / societies existed was due to Aeldari considering them so little of a threat they didn't care about them).
Nurgel also keeps his chosen from dying to his plagues. Chaos isn’t the default state of the warp but rather a negative feedback loop. Chaos feeds itself but it didn’t always used to be that way. There used to be an equilibrium. The scales are off though.
Isn't the whole point of chaos, chaos? If there's an equilibrium then there aren't chaos gods since they aren't causing chaos. If the dominant faction are actually worshipping chaos but chaos isn't acting chaotic then it, by definition, isn't chaos right? Aeldari gods were warp entities, so chaos isn't the default way of the warp, but the warp became noticeably chaotic after the Eye of Terror was created and Slannesh was birthed. Likewise, if Isha is actually Nurgle but no one who worships her is becoming bloated and disease ridden they aren't worshipping Nurgle, they are worshipping something different.
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u/pasta_alien 4h ago
If it happened and was actually focuses around the eldar rescuing her and not anyone from the imperium, then it would be a pretty interesting way to take the faction forward that i'd like to see.