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Apparently, the Night Elves had been around a bit later than most who knew of the Aeldari Empire would have thought.
The Night Elves themselves had existed for more than 10,000 years. They were originally part of the mainstream Eldar—Elves of the Aeldari Empire.
At that time, the Aeldari Empire was descending into the decadent state for which it would later become infamous.
However, parts of the empire remained unaffected—especially those regions that still clung to the worship of their gods, even after the gods themselves had cut all contact following the 2nd War in Heaven.
(A/N: Yes, I know about the original War in Heaven with the Necrons, but to avoid confusion, I'm referring to the conflict that led to Khaine attempting to kill the Eldar as the 2nd War in Heaven.)
It was during this period that the largest and most prominent cults dedicated to Lileath gathered together and formed the Temple of the Moon.
This institution was created not only for the worship of Lileath but also to serve as a spiritual guide and safeguard for the Elves who joined it—helping them preserve the dignity and grace of their ancestors.
More importantly, it protected them from falling into the same degeneracy that the rest of their kin were succumbing to at an accelerating rate, driven largely by the rapidly growing pleasure cults.
And it worked.
Since the inception of the Temple of the Moon, not only did its numbers grow at a steady pace, but so did its influence—an influence they actively used against the spread of the pleasure cults.
The Elves of the Temple did not stop there. Instead, they enriched their faith by branching out into various disciplines.
Members engaged in the arts, meditation, prayer, martial training, psychic mastery, and similar practices that nurtured them spiritually.
In a time of increasing debauchery within an empire that had once stood as a shining example of wisdom and artistry, the Temple of the Moon shone so brightly that it caught the attention of their patron goddess.
Lileath was so impressed by this group of her devotees that she chose to bless them.
As a result, the members of the Temple of the Moon began to change, becoming distinctly different from the rest of Eldar kind—eventually forming an entirely new branch of Elves.
And so, the very first Night Elves were born into the galaxy.
Ordinarily, this should not have been possible, as Asuryan had decreed that the Eldar pantheon would no longer interact with the mortal world (realspace).
However, when the goddess in question was also the deity of prophecy, it was not difficult for her to conceal her actions—and to keep her favored people hidden as well.
This was made easier by the fact that most of the gods no longer paid attention to mortal affairs, while the few who still did were focused on other regions of the stars.
Though small in number, the Night Elves became significantly influential within the Aeldari Empire. Their growing power—and their staunch opposition to the pleasure cults—caused concern among the empire's elite, who feared disruption to their way of life.
As a result, the leaders of the Aeldari Empire unofficially banished them from all Eldar worlds within imperial jurisdiction.
This exile proved to be a blessing in disguise for the Night Elves. Not only did they adapt well to a nomadic existence, but it also made them one of the few Elven branches willing to interact and trade with other species without viewing them as inferior.
Among the species they encountered, the early Night Elves formed the closest ties with humanity—specifically the humans of the Human Federation during their Golden Age of Technology.
The Night Elves and these Golden Age humans traded, exchanged knowledge, and even shared aspects of culture, developing a cordial and mutually beneficial relationship.
In fact, it was during this era that a Man of Gold offered the nomadic Night Elves the chance to settle on his homeworld.
This world was a principal planet of the Federation, focused on research and development, where humans lived alongside other races—most notably a humanoid species of stocky, powerfully built individuals resembling humans, known as Dwarves.
The world was called Azeroth.
The Night Elves accepted the offer, bringing an end to their nomadic existence. They settled on one of the planet's smaller continents, which they named Kalimdor.
And thus, the Night Elves came to Azeroth, where they lived and thrived alongside humanity and the dwarven race, quickly forming a harmonious relationship.
Several millennia passed in relative peace and prosperity. During this time, the Night Elves sent groups of their people across the stars to spread their faith and way of life.
They sought not only to reclaim their wayward kin from the influence of the pleasure cults and their hedonistic excesses, but also to share their beliefs with other races willing to embrace them.
But then, it all came crashing down.
The Men of Iron rebelled, igniting the Cybernetic Revolt, and the Age of Strife soon followed.
The shining interstellar empire of humanity shattered from within.
Though humanity ultimately triumphed over the Men of Iron, the victory came at a devastating cost, leaving the Federation severely weakened.
And then, things grew even worse.
After untold millennia of debauchery and hedonism within the Aeldari Empire—further intensified by the rise of the pleasure cults—the Eldar, already an immensely psychically powerful race, had unintentionally poured more negative emotions, dreams, and thoughts into the Warp than all other sentient races combined.
These emotions—centered on excess, sensation, and perversion—eventually reached a critical mass, sufficient to begin the gestation of a new Chaos God.
And it's name would one day be Slaanesh, The God of Excess.
As this entity formed, the Milky Way itself was soon engulfed by massive Warp storms, which all but severed faster-than-light travel and galactic communication.
This was the final death blow to the Human Federation.
For all intents and purposes, it fractured into countless isolated fragments—each world and system left to fend for itself.
As if that were not bad enough, the situation worsened further when former alien allies began attacking humanity—either out of desperation or ambition, seizing what they saw as a rare opportunity to permanently eliminate one of the galaxy's former overlords.
Then came the worlds ravaged by waves of Warp energy brought on by the storms. These led to mass, horrific mutations—or worse, the emergence of psykers who lost control and became literal gateways for daemons and other fel entities to spill into reality.
Azeroth was not spared from the consequences of the Age of Strife, even if some people could say it had come out of it much better than most words.
Aside from the loss of FTL travel and interstellar communication, Azeroth's planetary World Ring for unknown reasons activated, trapping all inhabitants on the planet with no hope of escape.
No to mention all but one entrance to the ring had their power and operations cut and anyone that tried to ascend to the ring never came back.
While the Ring's powerful shielding protected Azeroth against external threats it also trapped it's inhabitants.
However, before the Ring's activation, an asteroid carrying Ork spores crash-landed on Azeroth, introducing Orks to the world.
The rampant Warp surges at the onset of the Age of Strife also affected much of the population. Humans who had modified their genes with foreign genetic material began mutating into violent, bloodthirsty, beast-like creatures.
Thus, the Beastkin were "born" on Azeroth.
This quickly became a catastrophic problem. In the early years, the Beastkin population grew at an alarming rate, soon numbering over a 100 million.
It was eventually discovered that humans who had altered themselves with foreign genetic data were far more susceptible to mutation, while those who had instead refined their natural human genetic framework were largely unaffected.
The massive Beastkin hordes rampaged across the once-pristine world alongside the Orks, forcing humans, dwarves, Night Elves, and other still-sane races into a desperate fight for survival.
Order collapsed. Cities were abandoned or destroyed. Blood flowed in rivers as Azeroth's social, political, and governmental structures completely disintegrated.
New settlements were formed purely for defense and survival—not only against the Orks and Beastkin, but also against one another, as many turned on their own kind in their desperation to endure.
For the first thousand years of the Age of Strife, Azeroth was a world defined by constant conflict, war, and bloodshed.
Many of the original races that once inhabited it were either wiped out or mutated, leaving only humans, dwarves, Night Elves, and gnomes as the last "sane" species still standing.
In time, powerful individuals rose to prominence, carving out petty kingdoms and crowning themselves as kings, queens, or warlords—titles that changed hands countless times over the centuries.
It was at this point that Lileath finally intervened.
She had long been distressed by the state of the galaxy, the grim fate that seemed to await her chosen/favoured people, and the indifference of the Aeldari Empire toward the suffering of younger races.
After all, why would they care?
Unlike other species, they still possessed the Webway for travel and communication, as well as defenses against daemons and the raging Warp storms.
Yet this was not Lileath's only concern. Ever since the Warp storms had begun, she had felt an unshakable sense of dread—one that lingered persistently, tied to her domain of prophecy.
But she did not share this fear with the other gods.
She had learned her lesson during the 2nd War in Heaven: attempting to forcibly change fate often only ensured its fulfillment.
It was only after the birth of Slaanesh that she realized her intuition had been correct.
Returning to the matter at hand—
Lileath separated her core essence from her divine body—what could be described, in simple terms, as a god's "soul." She left behind only a small fraction of it, enough to prevent her divine body from dissipating into the currents of the Warp.
After ensuring her divine body would continue as normal she then sent her core essence into realspace, where it reached Azeroth and secretly merged with the body of a Night Elf woman.
That woman would soon give birth to a daughter, who she and her husband named Tyrande Whisperwind.
One unexpected blessing for Tyrande—Lileath incarnate—was the chance to experience parental love and care, even amidst the chaos of the era into which she had chosen to be born.
Isha did not count. While Lileath shared a generally positive relationship with her fellow goddess, she was most certainly not her mother.
They had been created by the same race, in the same era—how could they be mother and child!?
(A/N: This is a change I've made in my universe, mainly due to inconsistencies in GW lore across 40K and Fantasy, as well as the unresolved question of how such a relationship would be possible when the Old Ones created them as weapons against the Necrons and C'tan—And they then ascended to godhood through Eldar worship after the war's end.)
Tyrande's mortal parents were unaware of their daughter's true nature, but that did not stop them from loving her with all their hearts. As Elves, their fertility rate was far lower than that of most other races.
Coupled with the uncertainty of the times—where no one could be sure they would live to see the next day—this made everyone cherish life and time more especially moments with loved ones.
Tyrande herself would later admit that she had come to love her mortal parents deeply, cherishing that century of memories with them before their deaths at the hands of Orks.
Suffice it to say, this gave rise to a particularly intense hatred for the greenskins within the incarnated goddess—even if they had once been on the same side.
From an early age, Tyrande proved herself to be a prodigious genius among her kind. She joined the Temple of the Moon and rapidly rose through its ranks, eventually taking leadership after demonstrating a near-demigod-level aptitude for wielding the power of the moon.
This led many to believe that she was the chosen champion of Elune—Lileath—which initially left her somewhat befuddled.
Technically, they were the same.
However, since revealing the truth would complicate matters, she chose to remain silent on that particular detail.
After assuming leadership of the Temple of the Moon, Tyrande reorganized the Night Elves' main military force into what would eventually become the modern Sentinels, while also restructuring the various branches of the Temple itself.
Following this, she led her forces in numerous counterattacks and offensive campaigns against the Beastkin and Orks.
She also brokered the first agreements between many of the petty kingdoms. After another millennium of relentless warfare and campaigning, she succeeded in restoring the first semblance of order to Azeroth.
Then came the rise of a young, strong, and charismatic warlord—Thoradin of the Arathi tribe—who united the scattered human petty kingdoms and tribes into the legendary unified Empire of Man, which would later be known as the Arathor Empire.
The newly crowned emperor then waged war against the enemies of Azeroth's civilized races, driving them out of the mainland territories with the aid of the other races.
Though these enemies were not completely eradicated, after 2,200 years since the beginning of the Age of Strife—also known as the Stygian Era—order had finally returned to Azeroth.
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Alastor had already heard fragments of what Tyrande had told him—particularly regarding the ancient era—from his old history tutor, Henry.
But there was a vast difference between learning from books and hearing it from someone who had actually lived through it. Once again, Alastor found himself confronted with the true weight of the past.
It had been an age of unrelenting chaos—conflict, war, and destruction—that had not only claimed countless lives but had also stripped Azeroth of much of the knowledge and culture for which it had once been renowned.
Azeroth had once been a world devoted to research and development, rich in culture due to the coexistence of multiple races.
Yet, over more than two millennia of conflict during the Stygian Era, many of those races had been wiped out, and vast amounts of knowledge and culture had been lost.
In the end, the surviving Gnomes, Dwarves, Humans, and Elves had been forced to harden themselves, adopting a predominantly martial culture to survive against their many enemies.
While this transformation had made the people of Azeroth exceptional fighters with a wide range of talents, a part of Alastor could not help but feel that the cost had been far too great.
"You'd be surprised—I haven't even told you everything yet. We simply don't have the time."
Tyrande spoke as she and Alastor walked along a path toward their army's encampment, where they had set up base before reaching Hammerfall the next day.
"For example, did you know that my people only discovered nature magic after we came to Azeroth?"
"Nature magic? Does that have something to do with what you call druids? I've heard of them in passing, but I don't really know what they are."
"Correct. It's a power we only discovered after living on Azeroth. In fact, the one who taught the Night Elves to understand and master nature magic was a demigod native to this world—Cenarius."
"There's a demigod native to Azeroth!?"
Alastor looked at her in surprise as Tyrande continued.
"Indeed. When we first arrived, we never expected to uncover the things we did—nor did we anticipate Azeroth's unique nature compared to other worlds."
"Even the Men of Gold who invited the Night Elves to settle here implied that they did not fully understand Azeroth's secrets, even after discovering and colonizing it."
Alastor nodded, both understanding and astonished.
Just when he thought he'd grasped an appropriate understanding of his homeworld—or at least enough to no longer be surprised—he was confronted with yet another revelation that made him question what kind of world Azeroth truly was.
However, any further questions would have to wait. They were nearing their encampment, and he made a mental note to seek out Tyrande—and perhaps Aegwynn as well—later to learn more about Azeroth's hidden mysteries.
"One last question before we part ways… Are you really not Isha's daughter?"
"By the Old Ones, No! That was something the Eldar made up a few generations after contact with the pantheon and realspace was cut off. A few million years later, they started treating it as fact!"
Tyrande paused mid-step, her eyebrow twitching as she noticed the amused glint in Alastor's eyes.
Realization struck her as she understood that he asked that on purpose!.
"Alastor—!!!"
"Well! I won't keep you any longer—we both have much work to do, sooooo… toodles!"
With that, Alastor vanished in a blur of speed, leaving behind a thoroughly irritated incarnated goddess—now demigod—who turned and made her way toward her people's side of the encampment.
Her pitiful lieutenants would soon find themselves wondering what they had done to earn their leader's ire, as she promptly assigned them an abundance of extra work.
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Back on the hill where Tyrande and Alastor had first stood, White Glint remained standing where it was, conveniently forgotten by its creator.
Thankfully, Alastor would remember about it about an hour later and rush back to retrieve his custom AC…...only to realize AFTER he arrived, that he could have simply used remote access to call it to him instead.
Definitely not one of his brightest moments.
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