Malan'tai

Malan'Tai was a minor Craftworld of the Eldar. Malan'Tai was destroyed in 812.M41 by a splinter of the Tyranid Hive Fleet Naga and was the location of the first known encounter of the potent Tyranid Zoanthrope later called the Doom of Malan'Tai by the Eldar. The derelict Craftworld is now a drifting, lifeless husk that floats through the void.

The Fall of the Eldar
Ten millennia ago the once proud empire of the Eldar reached the pinnacle of its achievement and began its slow slide into decadence, corruption, and ultimate destruction. The proud and haughty Eldar saw themselves as the perfect race, above the squalor and petty squabbling of the lesser races of the galaxy. They had mastered technology and tamed the Webway, transcended the need for toil and suffering, and their worlds were peaceful and rich with art and music. Unfortunately, as pride goes before a fall, the arrogance and hubris of the Eldar slowly ate away at the heart of their glorious empire. Eldar society turned decadent and depraved, the people filling their ample leisure with dark excesses. Not all Eldar in these dark times became gibbering sybarites devoted only to pleasure and excess however. There were those who foresaw disastrous end that was coming. These Eldar, derided as self-punishing puritanical fanatics by their brethren, built massive, planet-sized ships with which to flee the depravity of their people. These ships, called Craftworlds by their masters, fled to the furthest reaches of space with numerous like minded Exodites. It was in these out of the way places that the Exodites believed they would be safe from both the excesses of their brethren and the coming doom that they had foreseen.

Eventually, the sheer depravity and excess of Eldar society brought about the birth of the Chaos God Slaanesh. With a mighty scream and a burst of pure psychic power, Slaanesh came forth from the warp and destroyed the Eldar empire in an instant. Billions died in agony, their souls devoured by Slaanesh. This event created the Eye of Terror, a massive tear in reality where the warp and realspace co-exist, and it swallowed the seat of Eldar society whole. Even the far-flung Exodites who had fl ed their peoples' slide into madness, and the people and crew of the numerous Craftworlds heard the cries of Slaanesh's coming. Sadness filled their hearts at the loss of their kinsmen and their once great civilization. The Eldar felt resignation as well, for they knew that there was nothing that they could do, and that this fate was their final punishment. The Craftworlds with their refugees scattered to the solar winds, hounded across the galaxy by the forces of Chaos. Few survived the initial decades as they were caught and killed in the psychic fallout of the birth of Slaanesh. The rest dispersed, traversing the stars and carrying their precious cargo, those lucky few who survived The Fall, to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. As they travelled and the centuries passed, the Craftworlds slowly took on their final shape. They grew in size to meet the needs of their populations, the Bonesingers reshaping the vessels into something more akin to wandering planetoids than mere starships. Each Craftworld became a world unto itself. Even before The Fall each Craftworld had developed unique cultures among their populations, foreshadowing the manifold Paths and Aspects that the Eldar would soon come to follow. Some were dedicated to martial prowess while others were more content to contemplate the mysteries of the vast unknown.

Early Years
In the early years, following the catastrophic event of the Fall, Malan'tai grievously suffered the predations of Orks raiders. This forced the Eldar of Malan'tai to fortify their world, which became nothing less than a mobile fortress bristling with formidable defences to counter the threat. Eventually, Malan'tai formed an alliance with its sister Craftworlds, Iyanden and Idharae.

The Naga Strikes
In 808.M41, a large splintered tendril of Hive Fleet Behemoth, later designated as Hive Fleet Naga (known to the Eldar as Shai'naid -- the Endless Winding Serpent) encroached upon a concentration of Eldar worlds in the Ybaric Cluster, which lay beyond the eastern fringe of the Vidar Sector. To their credit, Malan'tai, and its sister Craftworlds of Iyanden and Idharae, responded almost immediately, but even so, they were too slow. By the time the first Eldar fleets had engaged Hive Fleet Naga, Halathel, largest and most prosperous of the Exodite worlds, was all but overrun by Tyranids. Even with aid of forces from Malan'tai and Idharae, the Exodites could not repel the invaders. Iyanden's forces, under the command of Admiral Draech, arrived at Halathel to discover its World Spirit destroyed and its defenders consumed. Determined to exact vengeance for Halathel, the Iyanden fleet engaged the orbiting Hive Ships, but underestimated the menace of their foes. Draech's flagship, the Auspicious Illumination of Eternity, was destroyed early in the battle, and for a time, it seemed that the whole Eldar fleet would be lost alongside it. Only when a young Prince named Yriel took command did the tide of battle turn.

Realising that the smaller Tyranid vessels could not function if the greater bio-ships were destroyed, Yriel converged his forces on these targets, but it was only when the Prince unleashed boarding parties to destroy the ships from within that he meet with success. Though many Eldar lives were lost and hundred of Ghost Warriors destroyed, the ships were finally slain. With their passing, the smaller Tyranid vessels flew into an uncoordinated frenzy and were easy prey. Though the strength of Hive Fleet Naga had been greatly diminished, its threat was not yet ended. Over the following years, Yriel's forces joined with those of Malan'tai and Idharae to fight hundreds of engagements against the Tyranids, both in the cold dark of space and amidst the horror of partially-digested worlds. Little by little, the Tyranids were scoured from the Ybaric Cluster, and victory was at last won -- though not without great cost. Idharae, which was never the most populous of Craftworlds to begin with, lost many of its warriors defending the Maiden World of Eth-aelas, and its halls were ever after empty and joyless places. Malan'tai would suffer a far worse fate.

The Doom of Malan'tai
The Eldar legend of the Doom of Malan'tai refers not only to the tale of an entire craftworld’s death, but also to the abominable Tyranid creature that caused it -- to the Eldar, the two are indistinguishable. The lament speaks of a Tyranid creature unlike any other, a beast that gorged not upon flesh and blood, but upon the life-force of its victims, leaving only soulless oblivion in its wake. The Doom of Malan’tai was an adaptation of the Zoanthrope, and its weak physical appearance belied its true horror. So it was that, when a lone, wounded bio-ship invaded Craftworld Malan'tai, the Eldar did not at first realise that the true threat lay not with the towering Tyranid monsters rampaging through their home, but with the unassuming creature left relatively unhindered to feed on Eldar souls. As it fed, the Doom of Malan'tai's power grew, the absorbed life-energy enhancing its fearsome psychic might. Once it had gorged on the spirits of the Craftworld's Infinity Circuit, it was nigh invulnerable, possessing the power to pulp Eldar warriors, snap wraithbone war-constructs and shatter towering spires with cataclysmic bolts of psychic energy. It was all that the few Eldar survivors could do to escape Malan'tai, a craftworld found adrift in space years later, reduced to nought but a cold, lifeless shell. Of the loathsome creature that had brought about its destruction, there was no sign.