Editing Nobledark Imperium Notes (section)

== The Phoenix Lords ==

The general view among the human population of the Imperium is that the Phoenix Lords are the eldar's primarchs: great warriors and generals who helped them rise from the muck during their peoples' darkest hour. By the same token, the Eldar see the primarchs as the human's Phoenix Lords. Of course, most Eldar would also point out that ''their'' great warriors happen to be still alive, in a manner of speaking. (If you're wondering, the Tau consider/considered Farsight and Shadowsun their primarch/Phoenix Lord equivalents).

It's not entirely clear what is going on with the Phoenix Lords' resurrection yet. One suggestion is it may be something like the Doctor in ''Doctor Who'': the Phoenix Lords reincarnate with each new wearer added on, but the persona is slightly different and not quite the same. However this is not agreed on. The Phoenix Lords are agreed to be getting stronger from absorbing new exarchs, though.

Most of the Phoenix Lords, with a few notable exceptions, were students of Asurmen at the time of the Fall. Many of them came with Asurmen as part of the Raid. Many of those that came back were so shaken by their experiences they stepped off the Path. Leithon the Wraithguard was one of them (he joined the Harlequins, and later the Disciples of Kurnous). The few that remained, along with Asurmen, became the Phoenix Lords of legend.

=== Asurmen ===

As in canon, the Shrine of Asur was besieged by the hordes of Chaos during the birth of Slaanesh. In order to protect his students, Asurmen took up his weapons and fought innumerable daemons, and eventually, four greater daemons, one from each of the Ruinous Powers. The point of Asurmen's battle was not to fight four greater daemons and win. No mortal, no matter how powerful, could do that. Instead his goal was to stall the daemons for long enough that his students and the population of the Shrine of Asur could retreat to the safehouses beneath the planet, warded with runes so heavily it would take one of the dark gods themselves to break in, where they could wait out the fallout from the birth of Slaanesh.

"I win."<br>
- Last words of the original incarnation of Asurmen, before being decapitated by a greater daemon of Khorne

Asurmen fully expected to die facing the greater daemons, his armor dragged into the warp and his soul seized by the Chaos Gods. But Asurmen underestimated the resolve of his students. When Asurmen fell his students, who had secretly avoided going into the safehouses, flew into a rage and fought back the daemons long enough for them to recover their dead teacher's body and armor and retreat back to the safety of the safehouses.

=== Jain Zar ===

Although Asurmen was by far the grandmaster of the Shrine of Asur and the one in charge of the place, few who would argue that Jain Zar was second in command. Jain Zar was the first student of Asurmen, and acted as Asurmen’s right hand, constant companion, and closest confidant. It is even rumored that their relationship was more than simply platonic, but nothing has ever emerged to confirm this, and frankly after the both of them have been reborn so many times any such feelings are likely to have been muddled by the repeated reincarnation.

As in the new canon, long before the Fall, Asurmen was kind of a ditherer when it came to the Pleasure Cults. He wasn’t exactly a huge fan of them but at the same time he wasn’t an anti-pleasure cult zealot like his brother Tethesis, because hey, it’s a cult devoted to making people happy? What could be wrong with that? It might have helped that he was living on the far edges of the Empire and didn’t see how the Crone Worlds had devolved into “what cruel and unusual shit can we do for kicks today?” He did leave the Empire for the Exodite Worlds, but that was mostly because his brother was doing so and he wanted to support him. As the Exodite colony grew and the first generation of Eldar outside of the empire started being born, Asurmen was happy for his brother, but still thought going to live in the middle of nowhere was a bit of an overreaction.

That all changed when the Exodite world was ransacked for slaves by raiders from Commorragh. It should be noted that this was back in the days before Commorragh was seen as synonymous with treachery. Back then it was merely seen as an extralegal domain where Eldar aristocrats went to satisfy their perverse lusts that even the mainstream empire found distasteful. And here they were hunting down their own people like they were game animals. They even siphoned away the souls of the planet’s World Spirit for use back in Commorragh. Asurmen just barely managed to save his brother’s soul, but the rest were stolen.

This was the breaking point for Asurmen. It didn’t matter what one thought of the pleasure cults, this was simply wrong. He had caught a glimpse of the abyss into which the Empire was headed, and he didn’t like it. No longer would he stand by and watch his people slip away into madness. If there were Eldar who wanted to stand against the darkness, he would teach them how to fight it tooth and nail. It was this event that would put Asurmen on the path to being an eldar nobody to the kind of person who, by the time of the actual Fall, was respected enough that he could speak and get all of the Craftworlds to shut up and listen (if he hadn’t died in the immediate aftermath of the Fall, anyway).

As in canon, Asurmen may not be the guy’s original name in the first place, as it basically means “left hand of god”. This isn’t exactly uncommon for the Phoenix Lords, Jain Zar was originally named Faraethil even in the old fluff, and I’m damn sure Maugan Ra isn’t the guy’s original name (seeing as it means “harvester of souls”).

The only other Eldar to survive the Commorroghites’ raid on the Exodite World was Jain Zar. Jain Zar was the young daughter of a widowed Eldar woman who had been born on the planet. The two of them lived next to Tethesis and Asurmen and Tethesis had been in a relationship with the older of the two. Asurmen fought his way to his home to try to rescue his brother and his neighbors, but only found Jain Zar alive.

Unlike Asurmen, Jain Zar never grew up surrounded by the glories of the Eldar Empire. She never set foot on Shaa-Dome or seen the impossible geometries of Commorragh. All she thinks of when anyone mentions the Eldar Empire is how slavers from the Empire killed her entire family. Comparing her to the Crone or the Dark Eldar is kind of a sore spot for her. Vulkan called her a credit to her species in respect to the Crones and Dark Eldar and got an earful for it.

=== Fuegan ===

Fuegan’s a [[Kharn|pretty fun guy]]. He’s loud, boisterous, and if you just went by his personality alone one would be surprised to find out he’s an Eldar. He’s also pretty simple. He likes to blow stuff up. That said, don’t confuse “simple” with “stupid” or “incompetent”. Fuegan is a genius with explosives and is more than capable of long term planning, and he is more than willing to make use of his demeanor and reputation to make an enemy commander drop their guard and trick them into stepping on a landmine. His willpower is also legendary, but then again all of the Phoenix Lords are known for their willpower.

He also swears to a degree that would make a Cadian-Ulthwéan’s jaw drop.

=== Arhra ===

Like the other Phoenix Lords, Arhra participated in the Raid. However, he ended up a PTSD-ridden wreck from the whole thing, and unlike the other Phoenix Lords he snapped, went full on H.P. Lovecraft existential despair, and burned down the Shrine of Asur. <s>His current whereabouts are currently unknown</s> Who are we kidding, he's probably Drazhar.

=== Baharroth ===

When the old guard talk about Eldar heroes, it’s usually Baharroth and to a lesser degree Asurmen who they tend to think of, as opposed to people like Eldrad. Baharroth is the ace of the Phoenix Lords: He’s not a master of all like Asurmen, but is by far one of the most skilled non-Asurmen Phoenix Lords, in addition to his style of combat being one of the flashiest as well.

Baharroth’s Craftworld, Anaen, was one of those nearly destroyed by the War of the Beast, invaded by a Khornate Warlord named Trarkh (unclear if it was one of the Fallen, a Crone, or a Chaos Ork). Anaen was not completely depopulated, but nearly the entire population including Baharroth’s entire family (barring his brother, Maugan Ra) was killed in the battle despite the two brothers fighting on the world and the survivors and what was left of the Infinity Circuit immigrated to Biel-Tan.

The downside to Baharroth is he is also the most racist of the Phoenix Lords. Not in a Dorhai or Dark Eldar way, but in an “Eldar’s burden” kind of way. He is very vocal about how he sees the Eldar as the pinnacle of creation and it’s up to the uncorrupted children of Isha and Kurnous to save the rest of the galaxy from themselves. As a result, while he is an ace in combat, he is a pain to deal with personally. This is one of the two reasons the old guard like him so much. Asurmen was/is a pragmatist who was willing to bend rules and change the status quo if it was the right thing to do (he did agree to Eldrad’s proposal after all). Baharroth is more of an idealist who conforms to the older generations’ ideas of how things “should be”. The other reason is he lasted longer in his original incarnation than almost any other Phoenix Lord barring Maugan Ra, and so many of his deeds pre-reincarnation are much more recent.

=== Maugan Ra ===

Maugan Ra, as we all know, is the surly, aloof loner of the Phoenix Lords. Though in this case he has good reason to be, his entire Craftworld is dead, it’s memory perverted, and he’s one of the only survivors. In contrast to his brother, Maugan Ra is one of the least snobby Phoenix Lords, but this kind of manifests as a cynical fatalism towards everyone and everything. Everything dies eventually and everyone fucks up no matter who you are, no use sugarcoating it or pretending it didn’t happen.

Depending on the timeline, it’s not clear how old he was when Altansar got destroyed. Ra was said to be young at the time and was one of the few to make it off the Craftworld, but Altansar fell during the Fall of the Eldar, which was the same time that Asurmen pulled off his Caledor the Dragontamer impression. So he either did not learn under Asurmen directly (which further drives a wedge between him and the other Phoenix Lords) or he was maybe a young adult and hadn’t trained under Asurmen as long when the Fall happened. He could have even pulled a Luke-and-Yoda thing where he went off to try and save Altansar as an incompletely trained young hothead and failed.

Despite being all grim and dark, he does have standards. He would never kill an Exarch, much less an Avatar of Khaine, just to temper his weapon. He does have a heart of gold even though you’d never get him to admit it, he wouldn’t keep fighting the good fight if he didn’t. He was loyal to Asurmen and kind of insulted when the other Phoenix Lords suspected him of being the traitor that destroyed the Shrine of Asur, but it manifested as more of “You seriously thought I did it on the basis that I’m creepy and a loner. Wow. Way to make assumptions.”

Maugan Ra spends most of his time bumming out in the Webway. It means he can show up wherever and whenever he needs to and make a huge difference, and at the same time he doesn’t have people bothering him all the time. He's also the only Phoenix Lord to have never reincarnated.

=== Karandas ===

Surprisingly enough, it’s Karandas, rather than Maugan Ra, who has the biggest chip on his shoulder. Maugan Ra has angst over Altansar, but he lets it all hang out rather than keep it in. Karandas, on the other hand, is the only Phoenix Lord who was not the original master of their aspect. Arhra was. Karandas was just Arhra’s best student. So he thinks he should have seen Arhra’s PTSD-induced betrayal coming and stopped him (depending on how we interpret canon Eldar culture, on starships at least it’s seen as the job of the second-in-command to relieve their superior of duty if they think they’re going off the deep end).

He’s smart enough about it to not completely bottle it up inside and let it fester, because that’s exactly what happened to Arhra and he knows where that path leads.