Mandrake

A Mandrake is a foul humanoid creature related to the Dark Eldar of Commorragh that lurks within the darkest corners of the Webway's labyrinthine confines. Its name is a translation into Imperial Low Gothic of a word in the Eldar Lexicon. This vile breed is secretly feared even by other Dark Eldar, for a Mandrake can pull itself into any region of space-time through another being's shadow, emerging with a sibilant hiss to sink its frigid claws and teeth into flesh. Their ebon skins writhe with blasphemous runes and their faces shift and flow, one moment a featureless mask, the next parting to reveal a maw filled with sharpened teeth. Mandrakes exist both in realspace and a cursed shadow world that may be a part of the Immaterium and to fight them is to combat a living shadow.

The true origins of the Mandrakes remain shrouded in time and secrecy. Some Eldar savants claim that the Mandrakes are descended from those of their race inhabiting the Webway who before the Fall of the Eldar engaged in heinous acts of lust with daemonic entities of the Warp when the lost Eldar empire was at its most decadent. Others hold that the living shadows are descended from a forbidden pleasure cult that found its own way to escape the devastation of the Fall, fleeing into a nightmare dimension of shadow within the Immaterium and reemerging as something no longer quite natural. Young Dark Eldar call the Mandrakes "creepers" and whisper that they crawl from one shadow to another and can emerge from one's reflection into the real universe. They believe that the Mandrakes are the absence of light given life, and in that they may very well be right. Such theories do not seem so far-fetched when one examines the Mandrakes' appearance. Their flesh is night-black and seems to absorb rather than reflect light, their featureless faces shift like rancid oil while their hair is the color of splintered bone. Surrounding them is an aura of darkness and cold that saps the strength from all those with the misfortune to be standing nearby. Often the first sign of an imminent Mandrake attack will be the sudden onset of freezing temperatures, flash freezing all the moisture out of the very air. The shapes set into their flesh are Eldar sigils of destruction that pulse with a venomous green brilliance when the Mandrake feeds upon the terror and pain of its victims. Mandrakes possess the ability to channel these stolen life energies, shaping blasts of blue-white cold fire known as Baleblasts that emerge from their taloned hands to freeze their foes in place. When they finally fall upon their terrified prey, they use not only the natural weapons of claw and fang, but also hideous, sickle-shaped blades similar to the surgical tools beloved of the Haemonculi.

Like all the inhabitants of the Dark City, the Mandrakes thrive on the infliction of pain and terror on other living things. As a result of their unsurpassed abilities at stealth, many Dark Eldar Archons have sought to hire the Mandrakes' services for a realspace raid by his or her Kabal. The Mandrakes normally ask for a share of any slaves taken as their payment, but sometimes for reasons unknown, they will ask for something far more arcane, such as a heartbeat, a true name or a voice. Such requests are rarely denied, for the Mandrakes' only clothing is a patchwork garment created from the flayed skins of those who have betrayed them. They are infamous for their ability to track down any quarry and they are able to manifest anywhere in the universe that shadows gather.

Nightfiend
Sometimes, a Mandrake of particular age and power will join a Dark Eldar raid and will lead others of its kind in the taking of slaves or in pursuit of one of its more esoteric desires. These hideous creatures are called Nightfiends among the Dark Eldar and they may possess many powers of shadow that remain unknown even to the denizens of Commorragh.