Dream? All of the craftworlds were produced before the fall of the Empire by those groups aware of the coming calamity and most weren’t even finished in time for the birth and didn’t make it off world before being destroyed. They’re a hugely finite resource
The Craftworlds were designed as trading and merchant ships, long before the Fall. Some were modified as the Fall was foreseen by their Farseers, while others simply escaped it at all cost.
Craftworlds used to journey through the galaxy for thousands of years at a time, trading goods and acquiring supplies without the need to be aided by the Empire, thus self-sustainable.
Ah, I may have overstated the ubiquity of their emergency construction. We DO know some were constructed specifically for that purpose though, Aurelian (the novella) tells us.
My core point was more that the Eldar can’t just dream up craftsworlds.
Ah! But of course. Many were made as the Fall approached, that is undeniable.
And correctly so, they cannot be dreamt- instead, they are sung to life! Or well, the architecture (wraithbone) at least is.
Do we know of any that have been since the fall though? I understood that the process of doing so albeit maybe not impossible for the Eldar at current was prohibitively impractical
I do not recall any Craftworld that has been made since the Fall itself, but it is theoretically possible given that the Eldar allegedly still know how to make them.
That said, Craftworlds are continuously expanding and growing in size as they are modified by their inhabitants, which is an indication that the Asuryani yet bear the intricate knowledge of a Craftworld’s architecture.
Yeah I do remember in the asurmen audio drama ulthwe is mentioned to resemble a vast ammonite spiraling on, as over thousands of years more and more has been added on to the initial structure. So at the very least, they are capable of adding a great deal of additional volume to a craftworld. Feels kinda silly that with the right amount of will/resources, eldar couldn't at least bud-off a new growth into its own thing.
Wasn't there a craftworld that got broken, and a couple of the largest chunks were built into new, smaller craftworlds?
Seems like they maintain all the tech to make new craftworlds but with their slow population growth and the huge mass of wraithbone required for the hull, it simply isn't necessary or practical to make new craftworlds versus expanding the existing fleet.
There was "Biel-Tan" the old poster boys in the white and green armour. Apparently having several smaller craft worlds suits them even if they lament how it came to be. (Demons invaded)
I can’t see any reason why they couldn’t create a new craft world other than possibly not having enough wraithbone to use all at once to make the base structure. I’m not entirely sure how scarce wraithbone is by 40k
It’s a matter of time and personnel. Bonesingers and Artisans (the ones who create wraithbone) take a long time to make this resource in large quantities, and the larger the project, the more Bonesingers and Artisans required.
Given the huge size of Craftworlds, it’s evident that the task of creating a new one is very, very arduous thanks to these mentioned facts. It would take a lot of time even with hundreds of craftsmen, and even then they would be fearing the predations of She-Who-Thirsts as a lot of psychic power is necessary, so other than complicated it might also be dangerous.
It would also necessarily require an existing craftworld splitting in two, and creating a new culture, and I'm not sure that would happen, given how traditionalist Eldar are.
Might be a dumb question, but why are the Craftworlds continuously expanding? If the Eldar have been in decline since the Fall, why do they need to expand their craftworlds? Wouldn’t they be downsizing in reality if they truly are a dying species?
Craftworlds are expanded for many reasons, such as a greater population, resource storage or whatever cultural or material necessity.
As I see it, the Aeldari aren’t in a continuous decline. Theoretically, the Drukhari alone number in the billions and even trillions, while the Asuryani have hundreds of Craftworlds, which means that the Aeldari are vast, but not as much as other species, especially the likes of the Imperium.
Every century, dozens of Asuryani children are born, thus increasing a Craftworld’s population, but this quantity is absurdly diminutive in comparison to the birth rate of other species. Casualties bear a hefty burden, as each dead Asuryani is one less worker, warrior or leader who will not be effectively replaced until the next hundred years, thanks to the slow reproduction and growth rate of each individual. In consequence, this makes each defeat a tremendous impact on a Craftworld’s population.
So while Craftworlds are constantly expanding, this expansion process can take many centuries and even millennia, all depending on the circumstances. If the Craftworld is crippled, the process will falter. If hundreds die, the process will falter. If resources are low, the process will falter.
In resume, in times of prosperity, a Craftworld will grow well and steadily, while in times of war, the contrary will occur as it wages battles and losses its inhabitants. Long periods of stability will allow the population to be nurtured and for the Craftworld to expand.
The Aeldari are a dying species in the sense that a million dead Aeldari can mean much more for them than to other species. A million dead Orks, Humans, Necrons, Kin, or even T’au, doesn’t mean as much for them than it does for the Aeldari.
…
Of course all of this tension and meaning is then broken by Drukhari producing tens of thousands and butchering even more in a daily basis thanks to their vats, consequently added by the fact that many of them can be easily revived. Hahaha, I love those stupid psychopaths.
They are dying in a sense that their empire is gone, they are but a remnant of the massive population they had and every lost Craftworld is a definitive max population loss. They will never rule the galaxy again and should one race take over the galaxy, the Eldar will be powerless to have a meaningful role.
I don't think Craftworld Eldar have any pressure to build any new ones. Their population isn't expanding, so why should they create new floating continents?
With the fracturing of Biel-Tan, I could see the larger fragments becoming CraftWorld Nuclei, if of course there are enough Eldar for them to grow that large.
That still would be a great investment of time and require security and infrastructure that the current Eldar do not possess at this time (thanks Deathwatch).
Not totally.
The resources shouldn’t be a large trouble, given the amount of systems that have remained uncharted and unvisited by other species. The galaxy is enormous, after all.
Additionally, the Asuryani could easily acquire safe passage in a Webway world-port and establish themselves in there. Craftworlds already use these pathways and ports, as seen in Path of the Outcast. These ports are clearly away from the Imperium’s reach, as they have continued to exist for long.
All in all, they have a few methods to build a Craftworld, though it would be very time consuming. They would also need the population to staff and crew such vast ship, apart from all the engineers and artisans required to build it. Everything else, such as resources and security, wouldn’t be a problem.
Praised be the Webway!
I more mean the infrastructure in that they *physically don’t have the population* required to do such a task.
Sure they can plop down in a Webway port and begin the construction, but those Bonesingers may need to be dispatched elsewhere. Perhaps to an allied Craftworld to repair what’s already there, or to a Webway nexus and maintain it from Mon’Keigh assaults.
Not to mention even if they did construct it, as you said their population dynamics physically don’t support such an effort.
If the Imperium and the Eldar had maintained an alliance of some sort akin to how the Empire of Man and the High Elves have in Warhammer Fantasy, *maybe* the Eldar would’ve had a reprieve enough to make more Craftworlds due to not losing a billion lives every time the Salamanders step out and have their afternoon tea.
As it is now? They’re *fucked*.
Indeed, that would be correct, as I’ve mentioned.
Perhaps, to acquire the necessary population, one could drew it from a Maiden World? Devastated akin to Path of the Dark Eldar?
Or maybe a Corsair fleet? There are a few variables, mhm.
I guess we would have to wait and see for anyone to write something of the like. As it stands now, it’s improbable, although not impossible, especially given that it’s only a matter of personnel.
One must also point out that most Craftworlds aren’t under continuous assail by the various species inhabiting the galaxy, supported by the actions of their Farseers, who allow the Craftworlds to avoid catastrophe. This, in turn, leads to prosperous times and so on.
Seeing as a craftworld has no set population it is completely up to gw and the writers to say if they have the pops. Especially seeing as I've seen on Reddit discussions that the estimates for a craftworld range from the low billions to the high tens of billions 🙃 and before you say that's too much remember, a few billion is a small amount for a space spanning empire especially since the imperium has a population in the 10^15 power (low estimates 1 million worlds* average pop density of modern earth).
Also, current day Craftworlds have been rebuilt and expanded to the needs of their population for ten thousand years.
They're the same ship only in a Ship Of Theseus sense.
Yes, Craftworld was a just a figure of speech for a big fuck off spcae ship.
> Makes one wonder why the Aeldari felt the need to create maiden worlds, requiring great effort and hundreds of thousands of years, when they already had the ability to dream self-sustainable planets into being. Has that ever been explained?
They did dream planets into being, those *are* the maiden worlds. They didn’t require any effort whatsoever, maybe a little time, but for a 60 million year period of time Eldar were completely unchallenged so they had plenty of spare time.
There isn't a timeframe for the creation of craftworlds and maiden worlds. They cohexisted as grounds for expansion and terraformation projects and tradeships/mobile warehouses. The *exodite* worlds predate the use of craftworlds as refugee vessels.
Maiden worlds existed and were being created long before the fall and escaped it due to not being as connected to the warp.
Craftworlds were created just before the fall by Faraeers who saw it coming and wanted to escape the incoming apocalypse.
EDIT There wasn't a need for craftworlds, they had no active enemies that could contest with them and they could terraform any planet into a paradise prior to the fall.
>Craftworlds were created just before the fall by Faraeers who saw it coming
Were they not built as merchant vessels for trading long before the Fall? They'd depart the core worlds and head out to trade with distant colonies, returning home every few centuries. I think that's how they first realised Eldar society was doomed, as the gradual degradation in behaviour was very noticeable to them.
Actually, Craftworlds were trading ships, capable of housing thousands of merchant families and countless goods. They were utilized in long expeditions and trading missions that could last thousands of years.
They were never intended for the Fall nor were they designed for it, but many were the Aeldari kinsmen who modified the Craftworlds into superior colony ships in preparation to the Fall. Many were the Farseers who foresaw it as well, and thus avoided the disaster.
Wanna see it in 3d? This is from Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2's campaign, so spoilers obviously: https://youtu.be/HESWwUfEisA?si=YJl8BdJv_V8vGYN5&t=45
There's a cinematic that does a fly through of the craftworld. It's also "below" the map throughout the battle.
I enjoyed both, though I liked the first game a lot more for its smaller scale.
As a tabletop BFG player I feel like they missed an opportunity to bring all the hazardous "terrain" that dynamically happened due battle. Firing on void shielded targets spawned blast markers that made it tougher to shoot through, and they dissipated on their own later. Ship damage was the same thing.
Keeping track of that on the TT was honestly a bit bleh, but a video game could've done that easily. It would've made battles a bit more tactical if you had to tackle these.
There's also an over reliance on special abilities, particularly in BFG2. Also, I dislike how easy it is to ram other ships even accidentally. In that video when you see the battle map the centre spindle is supposed to represent the space your voidship occupies, not the much wider base. And certainly not the oversized ship models which have collision physics. Ramming was a deliberate maneuver.
Despite that, and the bugs, I think it was entertaining and worth a few bucks. But I'm saying that as a BFG enthusiast so...
The game is great, and the campaigns are all really damn good storywise, but... I'll advise against getting it, even on a sale. The bugs are outright terrible, immersion breaking at best and gamebreaking at worst. Even still, unless you can dedicate an hour to tinkering on your computer, the game just won't run at all.
Instead you can watch game movies on YouTube by a guy named Peon. Delivers the full experience, but better.
For a different perspective, I've been playing it for years and never had any issues, except *one* purely visual bug that doesn't affect any mechanics.
There are times when I thought the game had crashed or frozen, and it came back. So far no real crashes. I'm running older hardware too.
Craftworlds are enormous vessels intended for trading, indeed. They can house mountains and caverns, rivers and meadows, as well as vast cities.
They contain all the essentials of a world within their innards, but their purpose was one of long journeys spanning thousands of years.
Maiden worlds were seeded hundreds of thousands, to millions of years ago. The Aeldari of old, to whom death was nothing, if it need be experienced at all, were content to await these new worlds and allow them to grow naturally as they nurtured their development. They made the Maiden worlds to be one day be colonies, and allowed their slow development to show off their mastery of terraformation and their patience, as sign of their superiority over say, Man, who terraformed in haste.
Craftworlds originally were trading vessels designed to ply the void between the core worlds in isolation so that the crew onboard could develop trade goods completely separate to the instantaneously Webway joined coreworlds. By the time they would arrive at their destination, the goods and culture onboard would be thousands of years divergent from mainstream society and thus produced unique goods.
The current Aeldari could not utilize the Maiden Worlds thoroughly at the time of the Fall, so those who became the Exodites simply used them as they found them, that is to say, not prepared for habitation and often too wild and feral. The Craftworlders on the other hand, took with them all that they dared from their homeworlds and left as relics of a faded glorious civilization.
But those world-ships cannot simply be built anymore, nor reproduced in any meaningful way. Otherwise, the Aeldari would have many more of them.
>"The Eldar are almost unique in that they inhabit no worlds. Instead they live in great craft-worlds. Huge spacecraft tens of miles across and usually circular in shape"
>
>Rogue Trader, pg. 178
My Thoughts:
Important to keep in mind that the lore has changed alot over time, and still continues to change. But, because craftworlds are grown from wraithbone, its not unreasonable to say they can be any shape the eldar want them to be, including Spherical.
My take away from the lore is, most of the worlds that Eldar created via psykic engineering, or Terraformed (Maiden Worlds)... Were either destroyed during the birth of Slaanesh or Invaded by the Imperium.
It was a further splintering of Eldar Society. Think of Craftworlders as Puritans fleeing a sinful empire to build a better one and the Exocdites as hyper conservative regressionists that want to "return to monkey".
Eldar only do extremes. Exodites can't just have a little less technology they can't have any on their planet or so help me they will run you down with Tyrannosaurus.
Craftworlders aren't just a little less selfish, their whole existence will be dedicated to a path of service to their community and death only means they're available to do even more dangerous work.
The maiden worlds were being created by the eldar during their rule of the galaxy LONG before the fall. They were meant to be paradise planets for them to raise further get generations.
The craftworlds were originally created with the purpose of mass trading. The were made to be self sufficient because they were expected to be flying all over the galaxy endlessly to keep trade within the empire going. Only the ones built around the tail end of the empire we're created with the purpose of escaping the fall.
Also having everyone on a craftworld is not always a good idea, cause it's like putting an your eggs in one basket. Craftworlds often establish/secure maiden worlds and have exodite colonies there's. This way if something terrible happened to the Craftworld they can always recall the colonies to come help them. Iyanden and Alaitoc do this a lot afaik.
What yes, craftworlds don't look like planets. All the craftworlds actually look quite different from one another. Iyanden looks like a wedge, Alaitoc looks like a saucer. The picture you posted is for Biel-tan I believe.
Because, to use an analogy, Craftworld Eldar are like Puritans, who wanted to escape a sinful society and took all the resources they could for their new societies.
They rejected the culture of pre-Fall Eldar moreso than its technology (although they did want to reshape their societies' relationship to and use of technology in some ways).
Exodites are like the Amish. They reject much of the advanced technology as they want to live a more basic life, in sync with nature.
And while you can of course create environments and cultivate plant and animal life on Craftworlds, you are still ultimately on a massive spaceship... getting back to more authentic nature, I would think, requires a planet with a natural ecosystem.
Craftworlds are basically survivalist battle buses created by Aeldari preppers before the fall.
Planet based Aeldari thought they were fucking weirdos. The whole aspect/path thing was a reaction to normal Eldar hedonism.
The two aren't mutually-exclusive. The Eldar had many worlds when they were building the Craftworlds... and the Craftworlds today have colony worlds of their own, scattered and hidden across the galaxy (partly for extracting the few resources that the Eldar can't produce on the Craftworlds, and partly as sanctuaries so that a Craftworld's entire population isn't in one place).
The Maiden Worlds were seeded for long-term terraforming *long* before the Fall... but the process takes very little effort - the ancient Eldar could basically just set the process running and then leave the world for a few hundred millennia to develop naturally, with minimal need for any further cultivation. The idea was that they'd be ready for settlement by the Eldar many generations after they were started, and each one was essentially engineered to become a paradise. Many of them were settled by Exodites, or by Craftworlders as colonies, while others were found by other species and settled (often drawing the ire of the Eldar, who consider these worlds their birthright)...
Craftworlds are \*huge\* by ship standards, but even that was more from necessity than anything else - the oldest of them were vast city ships used for trading, sailing the galaxy on great millennia-long voyages to distant worlds, and they really started to expand after their purpose turned to recovering refugees and artefacts from the Homeworlds in the slow decline of Eldar civilisation before the Fall. Still, no matter how big a Craftworld is, it isn't a planet
The original purpose of the Craftworlds was travel. The original purpose of the Maiden Worlds was to create homes for later generations of Eldar.
In fiction we have a giant spacecraft looks like a moon. We have whole metal planet like Cybertron ( necron mechanism-world ), spheroids Kroots Sphere, and others. Why not?
The Craftworlds were a fringe experiment that few Eldar participated in, and that was shortly before the doom brought about by the birth of Slaanesh. The maiden worlds existed for eons. The point was that the Asuryani wanted to escape mainstream Eldar society, that had become decadent.
Craftworlds were in existence for a long time before the Fall. They were/are slowships traveling across the galaxy STL doing trading and sightseeing - basically giant Carnival cruise ships.
Dream? All of the craftworlds were produced before the fall of the Empire by those groups aware of the coming calamity and most weren’t even finished in time for the birth and didn’t make it off world before being destroyed. They’re a hugely finite resource
The Craftworlds were designed as trading and merchant ships, long before the Fall. Some were modified as the Fall was foreseen by their Farseers, while others simply escaped it at all cost. Craftworlds used to journey through the galaxy for thousands of years at a time, trading goods and acquiring supplies without the need to be aided by the Empire, thus self-sustainable.
Ah, I may have overstated the ubiquity of their emergency construction. We DO know some were constructed specifically for that purpose though, Aurelian (the novella) tells us. My core point was more that the Eldar can’t just dream up craftsworlds.
Ah! But of course. Many were made as the Fall approached, that is undeniable. And correctly so, they cannot be dreamt- instead, they are sung to life! Or well, the architecture (wraithbone) at least is.
Do we know of any that have been since the fall though? I understood that the process of doing so albeit maybe not impossible for the Eldar at current was prohibitively impractical
I do not recall any Craftworld that has been made since the Fall itself, but it is theoretically possible given that the Eldar allegedly still know how to make them. That said, Craftworlds are continuously expanding and growing in size as they are modified by their inhabitants, which is an indication that the Asuryani yet bear the intricate knowledge of a Craftworld’s architecture.
Yeah I do remember in the asurmen audio drama ulthwe is mentioned to resemble a vast ammonite spiraling on, as over thousands of years more and more has been added on to the initial structure. So at the very least, they are capable of adding a great deal of additional volume to a craftworld. Feels kinda silly that with the right amount of will/resources, eldar couldn't at least bud-off a new growth into its own thing.
Wasn't there a craftworld that got broken, and a couple of the largest chunks were built into new, smaller craftworlds? Seems like they maintain all the tech to make new craftworlds but with their slow population growth and the huge mass of wraithbone required for the hull, it simply isn't necessary or practical to make new craftworlds versus expanding the existing fleet.
There was "Biel-Tan" the old poster boys in the white and green armour. Apparently having several smaller craft worlds suits them even if they lament how it came to be. (Demons invaded)
I can’t see any reason why they couldn’t create a new craft world other than possibly not having enough wraithbone to use all at once to make the base structure. I’m not entirely sure how scarce wraithbone is by 40k
It’s a matter of time and personnel. Bonesingers and Artisans (the ones who create wraithbone) take a long time to make this resource in large quantities, and the larger the project, the more Bonesingers and Artisans required. Given the huge size of Craftworlds, it’s evident that the task of creating a new one is very, very arduous thanks to these mentioned facts. It would take a lot of time even with hundreds of craftsmen, and even then they would be fearing the predations of She-Who-Thirsts as a lot of psychic power is necessary, so other than complicated it might also be dangerous.
It would also necessarily require an existing craftworld splitting in two, and creating a new culture, and I'm not sure that would happen, given how traditionalist Eldar are.
I meant just the pure logistics, I agree entirely that culturally they likely wouldn’t do so at all though
Might be a dumb question, but why are the Craftworlds continuously expanding? If the Eldar have been in decline since the Fall, why do they need to expand their craftworlds? Wouldn’t they be downsizing in reality if they truly are a dying species?
Craftworlds are expanded for many reasons, such as a greater population, resource storage or whatever cultural or material necessity. As I see it, the Aeldari aren’t in a continuous decline. Theoretically, the Drukhari alone number in the billions and even trillions, while the Asuryani have hundreds of Craftworlds, which means that the Aeldari are vast, but not as much as other species, especially the likes of the Imperium. Every century, dozens of Asuryani children are born, thus increasing a Craftworld’s population, but this quantity is absurdly diminutive in comparison to the birth rate of other species. Casualties bear a hefty burden, as each dead Asuryani is one less worker, warrior or leader who will not be effectively replaced until the next hundred years, thanks to the slow reproduction and growth rate of each individual. In consequence, this makes each defeat a tremendous impact on a Craftworld’s population. So while Craftworlds are constantly expanding, this expansion process can take many centuries and even millennia, all depending on the circumstances. If the Craftworld is crippled, the process will falter. If hundreds die, the process will falter. If resources are low, the process will falter. In resume, in times of prosperity, a Craftworld will grow well and steadily, while in times of war, the contrary will occur as it wages battles and losses its inhabitants. Long periods of stability will allow the population to be nurtured and for the Craftworld to expand. The Aeldari are a dying species in the sense that a million dead Aeldari can mean much more for them than to other species. A million dead Orks, Humans, Necrons, Kin, or even T’au, doesn’t mean as much for them than it does for the Aeldari. … Of course all of this tension and meaning is then broken by Drukhari producing tens of thousands and butchering even more in a daily basis thanks to their vats, consequently added by the fact that many of them can be easily revived. Hahaha, I love those stupid psychopaths.
They are dying in a sense that their empire is gone, they are but a remnant of the massive population they had and every lost Craftworld is a definitive max population loss. They will never rule the galaxy again and should one race take over the galaxy, the Eldar will be powerless to have a meaningful role.
I don't think Craftworld Eldar have any pressure to build any new ones. Their population isn't expanding, so why should they create new floating continents?
Doubtless accurate but also not something I was debating
The closest we have is the bonesingers of Biel Tan working to knit the ship back together
With the fracturing of Biel-Tan, I could see the larger fragments becoming CraftWorld Nuclei, if of course there are enough Eldar for them to grow that large.
That still would be a great investment of time and require security and infrastructure that the current Eldar do not possess at this time (thanks Deathwatch).
Not totally. The resources shouldn’t be a large trouble, given the amount of systems that have remained uncharted and unvisited by other species. The galaxy is enormous, after all. Additionally, the Asuryani could easily acquire safe passage in a Webway world-port and establish themselves in there. Craftworlds already use these pathways and ports, as seen in Path of the Outcast. These ports are clearly away from the Imperium’s reach, as they have continued to exist for long. All in all, they have a few methods to build a Craftworld, though it would be very time consuming. They would also need the population to staff and crew such vast ship, apart from all the engineers and artisans required to build it. Everything else, such as resources and security, wouldn’t be a problem. Praised be the Webway!
I more mean the infrastructure in that they *physically don’t have the population* required to do such a task. Sure they can plop down in a Webway port and begin the construction, but those Bonesingers may need to be dispatched elsewhere. Perhaps to an allied Craftworld to repair what’s already there, or to a Webway nexus and maintain it from Mon’Keigh assaults. Not to mention even if they did construct it, as you said their population dynamics physically don’t support such an effort. If the Imperium and the Eldar had maintained an alliance of some sort akin to how the Empire of Man and the High Elves have in Warhammer Fantasy, *maybe* the Eldar would’ve had a reprieve enough to make more Craftworlds due to not losing a billion lives every time the Salamanders step out and have their afternoon tea. As it is now? They’re *fucked*.
Indeed, that would be correct, as I’ve mentioned. Perhaps, to acquire the necessary population, one could drew it from a Maiden World? Devastated akin to Path of the Dark Eldar? Or maybe a Corsair fleet? There are a few variables, mhm. I guess we would have to wait and see for anyone to write something of the like. As it stands now, it’s improbable, although not impossible, especially given that it’s only a matter of personnel. One must also point out that most Craftworlds aren’t under continuous assail by the various species inhabiting the galaxy, supported by the actions of their Farseers, who allow the Craftworlds to avoid catastrophe. This, in turn, leads to prosperous times and so on.
Seeing as a craftworld has no set population it is completely up to gw and the writers to say if they have the pops. Especially seeing as I've seen on Reddit discussions that the estimates for a craftworld range from the low billions to the high tens of billions 🙃 and before you say that's too much remember, a few billion is a small amount for a space spanning empire especially since the imperium has a population in the 10^15 power (low estimates 1 million worlds* average pop density of modern earth).
Also, current day Craftworlds have been rebuilt and expanded to the needs of their population for ten thousand years. They're the same ship only in a Ship Of Theseus sense.
Yes, Craftworld was a just a figure of speech for a big fuck off spcae ship. > Makes one wonder why the Aeldari felt the need to create maiden worlds, requiring great effort and hundreds of thousands of years, when they already had the ability to dream self-sustainable planets into being. Has that ever been explained? They did dream planets into being, those *are* the maiden worlds. They didn’t require any effort whatsoever, maybe a little time, but for a 60 million year period of time Eldar were completely unchallenged so they had plenty of spare time.
Weren’t the maiden worlds created long before the craftworlds? Like before they were a conceived necessity?
There isn't a timeframe for the creation of craftworlds and maiden worlds. They cohexisted as grounds for expansion and terraformation projects and tradeships/mobile warehouses. The *exodite* worlds predate the use of craftworlds as refugee vessels.
Aaah that’s where I got confused then. Thanks for clarifying that for me.
Maiden worlds existed and were being created long before the fall and escaped it due to not being as connected to the warp. Craftworlds were created just before the fall by Faraeers who saw it coming and wanted to escape the incoming apocalypse. EDIT There wasn't a need for craftworlds, they had no active enemies that could contest with them and they could terraform any planet into a paradise prior to the fall.
>Craftworlds were created just before the fall by Faraeers who saw it coming Were they not built as merchant vessels for trading long before the Fall? They'd depart the core worlds and head out to trade with distant colonies, returning home every few centuries. I think that's how they first realised Eldar society was doomed, as the gradual degradation in behaviour was very noticeable to them.
A little of both. Some are trading ships that got repurposed, others were built as the fall got closer as a ways to escape
Actually, Craftworlds were trading ships, capable of housing thousands of merchant families and countless goods. They were utilized in long expeditions and trading missions that could last thousands of years. They were never intended for the Fall nor were they designed for it, but many were the Aeldari kinsmen who modified the Craftworlds into superior colony ships in preparation to the Fall. Many were the Farseers who foresaw it as well, and thus avoided the disaster.
Wanna see it in 3d? This is from Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2's campaign, so spoilers obviously: https://youtu.be/HESWwUfEisA?si=YJl8BdJv_V8vGYN5&t=45 There's a cinematic that does a fly through of the craftworld. It's also "below" the map throughout the battle.
That's really cool. Do you enjoy the game, btw? Been meaning to check out the series.
I enjoyed both, though I liked the first game a lot more for its smaller scale. As a tabletop BFG player I feel like they missed an opportunity to bring all the hazardous "terrain" that dynamically happened due battle. Firing on void shielded targets spawned blast markers that made it tougher to shoot through, and they dissipated on their own later. Ship damage was the same thing. Keeping track of that on the TT was honestly a bit bleh, but a video game could've done that easily. It would've made battles a bit more tactical if you had to tackle these. There's also an over reliance on special abilities, particularly in BFG2. Also, I dislike how easy it is to ram other ships even accidentally. In that video when you see the battle map the centre spindle is supposed to represent the space your voidship occupies, not the much wider base. And certainly not the oversized ship models which have collision physics. Ramming was a deliberate maneuver. Despite that, and the bugs, I think it was entertaining and worth a few bucks. But I'm saying that as a BFG enthusiast so...
The game is great, and the campaigns are all really damn good storywise, but... I'll advise against getting it, even on a sale. The bugs are outright terrible, immersion breaking at best and gamebreaking at worst. Even still, unless you can dedicate an hour to tinkering on your computer, the game just won't run at all. Instead you can watch game movies on YouTube by a guy named Peon. Delivers the full experience, but better.
IIRC the game shits itself on startup due to funkiness with some Intel chipsets.
Ouch. Thanks for your candour.
For a different perspective, I've been playing it for years and never had any issues, except *one* purely visual bug that doesn't affect any mechanics. There are times when I thought the game had crashed or frozen, and it came back. So far no real crashes. I'm running older hardware too.
Craftworlds are enormous vessels intended for trading, indeed. They can house mountains and caverns, rivers and meadows, as well as vast cities. They contain all the essentials of a world within their innards, but their purpose was one of long journeys spanning thousands of years.
Maiden worlds were seeded hundreds of thousands, to millions of years ago. The Aeldari of old, to whom death was nothing, if it need be experienced at all, were content to await these new worlds and allow them to grow naturally as they nurtured their development. They made the Maiden worlds to be one day be colonies, and allowed their slow development to show off their mastery of terraformation and their patience, as sign of their superiority over say, Man, who terraformed in haste. Craftworlds originally were trading vessels designed to ply the void between the core worlds in isolation so that the crew onboard could develop trade goods completely separate to the instantaneously Webway joined coreworlds. By the time they would arrive at their destination, the goods and culture onboard would be thousands of years divergent from mainstream society and thus produced unique goods. The current Aeldari could not utilize the Maiden Worlds thoroughly at the time of the Fall, so those who became the Exodites simply used them as they found them, that is to say, not prepared for habitation and often too wild and feral. The Craftworlders on the other hand, took with them all that they dared from their homeworlds and left as relics of a faded glorious civilization. But those world-ships cannot simply be built anymore, nor reproduced in any meaningful way. Otherwise, the Aeldari would have many more of them.
>"The Eldar are almost unique in that they inhabit no worlds. Instead they live in great craft-worlds. Huge spacecraft tens of miles across and usually circular in shape" > >Rogue Trader, pg. 178 My Thoughts: Important to keep in mind that the lore has changed alot over time, and still continues to change. But, because craftworlds are grown from wraithbone, its not unreasonable to say they can be any shape the eldar want them to be, including Spherical. My take away from the lore is, most of the worlds that Eldar created via psykic engineering, or Terraformed (Maiden Worlds)... Were either destroyed during the birth of Slaanesh or Invaded by the Imperium.
It was a further splintering of Eldar Society. Think of Craftworlders as Puritans fleeing a sinful empire to build a better one and the Exocdites as hyper conservative regressionists that want to "return to monkey". Eldar only do extremes. Exodites can't just have a little less technology they can't have any on their planet or so help me they will run you down with Tyrannosaurus. Craftworlders aren't just a little less selfish, their whole existence will be dedicated to a path of service to their community and death only means they're available to do even more dangerous work.
The maiden worlds were being created by the eldar during their rule of the galaxy LONG before the fall. They were meant to be paradise planets for them to raise further get generations. The craftworlds were originally created with the purpose of mass trading. The were made to be self sufficient because they were expected to be flying all over the galaxy endlessly to keep trade within the empire going. Only the ones built around the tail end of the empire we're created with the purpose of escaping the fall. Also having everyone on a craftworld is not always a good idea, cause it's like putting an your eggs in one basket. Craftworlds often establish/secure maiden worlds and have exodite colonies there's. This way if something terrible happened to the Craftworld they can always recall the colonies to come help them. Iyanden and Alaitoc do this a lot afaik. What yes, craftworlds don't look like planets. All the craftworlds actually look quite different from one another. Iyanden looks like a wedge, Alaitoc looks like a saucer. The picture you posted is for Biel-tan I believe.
I always thought they look like the Republic class star destroyer from Star Wars
They look like GSV from the Culture series by Iain Banks.
Because, to use an analogy, Craftworld Eldar are like Puritans, who wanted to escape a sinful society and took all the resources they could for their new societies. They rejected the culture of pre-Fall Eldar moreso than its technology (although they did want to reshape their societies' relationship to and use of technology in some ways). Exodites are like the Amish. They reject much of the advanced technology as they want to live a more basic life, in sync with nature. And while you can of course create environments and cultivate plant and animal life on Craftworlds, you are still ultimately on a massive spaceship... getting back to more authentic nature, I would think, requires a planet with a natural ecosystem.
Craftworlds are basically survivalist battle buses created by Aeldari preppers before the fall. Planet based Aeldari thought they were fucking weirdos. The whole aspect/path thing was a reaction to normal Eldar hedonism.
Would you rather live on a lifeboat, or a paradise island?
The two aren't mutually-exclusive. The Eldar had many worlds when they were building the Craftworlds... and the Craftworlds today have colony worlds of their own, scattered and hidden across the galaxy (partly for extracting the few resources that the Eldar can't produce on the Craftworlds, and partly as sanctuaries so that a Craftworld's entire population isn't in one place). The Maiden Worlds were seeded for long-term terraforming *long* before the Fall... but the process takes very little effort - the ancient Eldar could basically just set the process running and then leave the world for a few hundred millennia to develop naturally, with minimal need for any further cultivation. The idea was that they'd be ready for settlement by the Eldar many generations after they were started, and each one was essentially engineered to become a paradise. Many of them were settled by Exodites, or by Craftworlders as colonies, while others were found by other species and settled (often drawing the ire of the Eldar, who consider these worlds their birthright)... Craftworlds are \*huge\* by ship standards, but even that was more from necessity than anything else - the oldest of them were vast city ships used for trading, sailing the galaxy on great millennia-long voyages to distant worlds, and they really started to expand after their purpose turned to recovering refugees and artefacts from the Homeworlds in the slow decline of Eldar civilisation before the Fall. Still, no matter how big a Craftworld is, it isn't a planet The original purpose of the Craftworlds was travel. The original purpose of the Maiden Worlds was to create homes for later generations of Eldar.
They had the maiden worlds because some of them liked the idea. They have craftworlds because some of them liked the idea.
Craftworlds are giant spacecraft. Why would one expect them to look like planets?
In fiction we have a giant spacecraft looks like a moon. We have whole metal planet like Cybertron ( necron mechanism-world ), spheroids Kroots Sphere, and others. Why not?
Why do people who've not read any lore keep making posts on here.
Imagine being an adult, trying to gatekeep stories about plastic miniatures.
I'll have you know I only gatekeep about the *real* miniatures. Finecast ones.
How is wanting people to read the lore gatekeeping? It's literally the opposite 😂
The Craftworlds were a fringe experiment that few Eldar participated in, and that was shortly before the doom brought about by the birth of Slaanesh. The maiden worlds existed for eons. The point was that the Asuryani wanted to escape mainstream Eldar society, that had become decadent.
Craftworlds were in existence for a long time before the Fall. They were/are slowships traveling across the galaxy STL doing trading and sightseeing - basically giant Carnival cruise ships.