Irillyth

Irillyth, the "Shade of Twilight," is the Eldar Phoenix Lord of the long-extinct Shadow Spectres Aspect Warriors. Lost for millennia, the Shadow Spectres were long forgotten and his Aspect's shrines became abandoned places. During the Betalis III incursion, the Shadow Spectres of the Mymeara Craftworld returned from the mists of legend, giving the Eldar hope, because if something from their distant path could return as they have, then maybe there were others of their lost kin still out in the galaxy for them to discover.

History
Asurmen, the "Hand of Asur," was the first of the Phoenix Lords; it was Asurmen who founded the first of the Aspect Shrines, the Shrine of Asur, and trained the other Exarchs who would become the first of the other Aspects' Phoenix Lords. Prior to the Fall of the Eldar, Asurmen was the Eldar who led the Craftworlds away from the ancient Eldar homeworlds of their now lost interstellar empire and it was he who founded the first of the Aspect Warrior Shrines, the Shrine of Asur, upon a barren world of the same name his people initially settled. Asurmen found that he could not give up the Path of the Warrior to follow a different Eldar Path, for he desired to use his skills to protect what remained of his species after the birth of the Chaos God Slaanesh, "She Who Thirsts." From the Shrine of Asur sprang the first Aspect Warriors, and the Path of the Warrior was opened for the very first time to all Eldar. Those Eldar who wanted to follow this new path learned at the feet of their master, and in turn they assumed the mantle of Exarchs before spreading throughout the galaxy. The first Exarchs, the Asurya, the children of Asurmen, were the greatest of his students and went on to become the Phoenix Lords of the other Aspect Shrines, the first masters of the other specialised Eldar combat disciplines.

Irillyth was once a disciple of Asurmen, and became the founder of the Shrine of the Shadow Spectres Aspect on the Mymeara Craftworld. The Eldar Mythic Cycles speak of a time when, during his training under Asurmen, Irillyth was gifted with a terrible vision. In it he saw the destruction of the Mymearan Craftworld at the hands of a race that was, even then, still in its infancy. Still reeling from the near destruction of the Eldar race during the Fall, Irillyth vowed not to allow any more of his kind to be wiped out, and he set out to find the Craftworld and prepare it for the battles that lay ahead of them. Searching the pathways of the Webway for decades for his lost brethren, he imparted his skills upon other Craftworlds as he travelled, but the location of Mymeara continued to remain elusive. During this time the legends of the Phoenix Lords tell also of the many great battles Irillyth fought against the creatures of Slaanesh that had infiltrated the great Eldar maze.

Whilst exploring a particular region of the webway he had never come across in his travels, he was confronted by a Greater Daemon of Slaanesh who had broken through from the Warp and had set about opening up sealed portals for its brethren to flood in through. Irillyth battled the Greater Daemon even as its daemonic followers poured through the breach, searing away yet more of the protective Eldar runes from the bindings on the portals. It is unknown how long this battle lasted, but eventually Irillyth proved to be victorious and cast the terrible creature and its fell minions back from whence they came. The legends go on to tell that, exhausted by his titanic struggle, the Phoenix Lord fell into a long sleep, during which he was to be gifted with the knowledge of the Craftworld's location.

Once he awoke, Irillyth found the portal that led to the Myemearan Craftworld and set about training its warriors in his ways of war, namely stealth, swiftness and all-consuming firepower. Eventually the day came when the Phoenix Lord spoke to its Council of Seers to reveal his true purpose for being on the Craftworld. He spoke of his original vision and of the terrible fate that awaited them, but gave them hope of preventing it if he attacked their enemy now before it became unstoppable. The Council of Seers bowed to the Phoenix Lord's wisdom, allowing Irillyth to take with him a great war host composed of nearly half of the Craftworld's warriors. With a heavy heart Irillyth left that day using the very same portal he had arrived from, for since he arrived on the Craftworld his vision altered. He knew now that the Craftworld would survive with his help, but at the cost of his own life and all who came with him. What lay beyond is unknown, but he feared that to lose so many of their own would bring about its eventual demise regardless.

Those left behind waited for word of the Phoenix Lord's and their war host's victory, but none came. After many decades had passed the Mymearans had to accept that their brethren had undoubtedly been killed and that the Phoenix Lord had fallen. In truth Irillyth had succeeded in destroying the threat to the Craftworld, but had been struck down during the fierce fighting on the enemy race's homeworld, a place known in the Eldar legend as Bethalmae. There, the Phoenix Lord remained unrecovered, the cave where his body and war panoply lay was slowly covered beneath centuries of glacially-deposited rocks as the planet's ice age advanced. But the Phoenix Lord was not truly dead, for like all Phoenix Lords, Irillyth was immortal. He was no single warrior, but a collective of those that had become him, their souls held within the Spirit Stones that adorned his armour and wargear. And so, Irillyth remained trapped within the cave, his spirit awaiting the day he would be rediscovered and the Shade of Twilight could be reborn.

With the loss of the Phoenix Lord, Irillyth's disciples and shrines began to wane on other Craftworlds as one by one their shrine's Exarchs died in battle. Soon the shrines were deserted, becoming dark, haunted places shunned by most Eldar. To them it was just another part of their culture lost in the downfall of their race. Eventually, the Aspect became extinct or so it was thought. The discovery of the location of Bethalmae in the late 41st Millennium, known to the Imperium as Betalis III, meant that Irillyth could finally be recovered. Bel-Annath, the Farseer of Mymeara Craftworld, led a mission to re-animate the spirit host of the Phoenix Lord, and succeeded. The Eldars' reward at the Battle of Dawning Twilight, as the Betalis III incursion is known to them, was Irillyth, the Phoenix Lord of the Shadow Spectres reborn.