Seer

An Eldar Warlock, the most commonly encountered kind of Eldar Seers.

A Seer is a member of the Craftworld Eldar race, who is currently following the Path of the Eldar focussing on developing and using the Eldar's psychic powers beyond their innate affinity. Those that choose to augment their craft through the active usage of Warp energies are said to walk down the Witch Path or the Path of the Seer, where they will gain proper training and experience in the usage and enhancement of their natural psychic abilities. Due to the danger of attracting the attention of the Chaos God Slaanesh, most Eldar avoid calling on their psychic powers, and highly ritualize their usage. Hence, the Path of the Seer is, along with the Path of the Warrior, considered the most dangerous of all the Paths, and the least-trodden of all, and Seers are few in numbers within a Craftworld.

History

Even before the Fall, The Eldar already were highly psychic race, the depth of their emotions and perceptions being much, much keener than those of any other intelligent species in the galaxy. Each experience is for an Eldar a true feast for the senses, to the extent that a reckless Eldar can actually die from sensory overload. The extreme gratification the Eldar received from any accomplishment inexorably led their ancient interstellar empire into a downward spiral of hedonism and overindulgence marked by the quest for ever more intense sensations. This long period of hedonistic debauchery eventually culminated in the cataclysmic Fall and the birth of the Chaos God Slaanesh, the Prince of Pleasure, known to the Eldar as "She-Who-Thirsts." In a last-ditch effort to save his people if not himself, Asuryan, foremost of the Eldar Gods, imbued most of his powers into the surviving Eldars, heightening their psychic potential even more, before being definitively devoured by the new-born Slaanesh. After the horrors of the Fall, the few surviving Eldar realised that Slaanesh would not rest until it had devoured every last Eldar soul, and that they needed some form of protection to ensure their continued survival. The Craftworld Eldar found such solace in the rigidly codified ways of life that are the Paths of the Eldar. All Paths, from the most common to the most esoteric, have a core function in common, namely to allow an Eldar to harness his or her innate psychic and emotional potential, use it safely when performing his chosen role or craft, and keep it in check when not required; all this in order to avoid attracting the most unwanted attention of "She-Who-Thirsts". Most Paths limit themselves with using an Eldar's already considerable innate psychic potential, and avoid the extremely dangerous business of drawing extra power from the Empyrean like a human psyker would.

The terms "Seer" and "Path of the Seer" are portemanteau terms designing those Eldars individuals which actually do actively rely on drawing upon and harnessing Warp energy to fulfill their craft or role. Each Seer explores his psychic potential in his own way, the range of his abilities being vast and largely depending on the former roles and crafts the Seer has already explored whilst walking other Eldar Paths before starting his journey on the Path of the Seer. For instance, a Seer having walked the Path of the Artisan might learn to move objects through kinetic forces and use this technique to create living symphonies of shape as well as movement, while another might instead develop his talents towards empathic powers for healing purposes or to council others. The Path of the Seer is by necessity undertaken only after having already mastered at least one other Path, and often more than that. No Eldar would ever be insane enough to teach a raw youth who can't even master himself how to open his mind to the Warp, and the visceral fear and cultural taboos of actually doing anything that could draw the attention of Slaanesh is enough to frighten off all but the most self-possessed and steadfast of Eldars away from the Path of the Seer.

Runes

Unlike psykers from other races who crudely open their minds to the Warp directly in order to draw the necessary power into themselves to manifest powers, Eldar Seers rely on psycho-receptive runes to draw and store power from the Warp.The runes are neither decorative baubles nor mere toys, but can be likened to keys, locking and unlocking patterns in the Seer's mind. They also work as a fail-safe against many perils of the Warp, formost amongst them possession by Daemons. By meditating upon the a rune, the Seer both charge power into the psychically receptive material, while mentally reaching the correct mindset to unleash it. Once this is done, the Seer can manifest the power without risk. While individual runes are already potent, truely powerful effects are only realized when combining different runes, creating powerful rituals often much more potent than the sum of their individual parts. The power and breadth of experience of a Seer can be ascertained just by looking at the amount of runes he carefully manipulatess while performing a ritual.

The major difficulty of working with runes comes when a Seer either must learn from another Seer how to use a rune he does not master yet, or worse, when no rune exist allowing to realize what he wants. The shaping of a rune (this can refer to either learning an existing rune or creating a new one) is a dangerous undertaking fraught with peril, as the Eldar struggles to find the correct mindset allowing him to manifest his powers without risk. Often, this process is undertaken within the Dome of Crystal Seers, where the Infinity Circuit and the individual souls of past Farseers can offer a measure of guidance and protection to the shaping Seer. Once the perilous process is completed, the Seer can add the new rune to his collection and start using it in his rituals.

Variations of the Path of the Seer

As mentioned above, there is no set role within the Path of the Seer, as each Seer ultimately comes with his own past bagage of experience, and his own expression of power through the application of runes. However, some 'categories' regrouping Seers with similar powers or approach do exist. These include:

• Artisans - Some Seers follow up on their previous careers walking the Path of the Artisan, and enhance their creations through the use of psychic powers.
• Bonesingers - Bonesingers are the craftmen of the Eldar, learning how to manipulate Wraithbone in order to construct whatever the Craftworld requires. Wraithbone being in essence crystallized Warp energy, all Bonesingers can be considered Seers to an extent, but some amongst them, mostly those serving on the large Eldar war machines and Titans, branch into the Path of the Seer in order learn to harness and channel more psychic power into the Wraithbone, and quickly perform battlefield repairs.
• Farseers - A Farseer is an Eldar who has become lost on the Path of the Seer. Farseers are amongst the most potent psykers in the Galaxy, but like all Eldar lost on their Path, this power comes at the cost of being utterly consumed by their role, and no longer be able to ever do or become anything else.
• Healers - Some Seers turn their powers to the task of healing, psychically calming the wounded, and easing away trauma, stress and shock, tremendously augmenting the chances of success of the more mundane surgical procedures. Such Healers are sometimes referred to as "Servants of Isha".
• Shadowseers - A Shadowseer is a Harlequin, whose role as the incarnation of Fate in his troupe makes him the equivalent of a Farseer amongs the Craftworld Eldar, but for the fact that he serves Cegorach and not a specific Craftworld.
• Spiritseers - Spiritseers are Seers who chose to specialize into forming a bridge between the still living Eldar on board of the Craftworld, and the souls of their deceased kin into the Infinity Circuit.
• Tought-talkers - Tought-talkers are Eldar interprets and ambassadors. They are higly specialized Seers, in the sense that they learn to detect, interpret and emulate the minute variations the mind of a living being imprints on the surrounding Empyrean, in order to be able to communicate with them.
• Warlocks - Warlocks are Seers who have in their past trodden the Path of the Warrior at least once, and choose to empower their martial prowesses further. Closely linked with their former career learning to  harness hatred and agression, Warlocks can use these volatile emotions to manifest extremely destructive powers.
• Wayseers - Wayseers are a specialist group of Seers caring for the maintenance and activation of the Webway and its numerous portals. Their expertise allows them to set up temporary Webway tunnels, allowing for quick movement when required.
• White Seers - This secretive group of Seers assist the Harlequins in protecting the Black Library of Chaos
• Wraithseers - A Wraithseer is actually a Warlock who has died and whose soul has been entreated by a Spiritseer to temporarily inhabit a Wraithbone body in order to assist his still living kin against their foes.

Sources

• Warhammer 40,000: Compilation, pg. 52-53
• Codex: Eldar (2nd Edition), pg. 13
• Codex: Craftworld Eldar (3rd Edition)
• Codex: Eldar (4th edition), pg. 13, 42-50
• Path of the Warrior (Novel) by Gavin Thorpe
• Path of the Seer (Novel) by Gavin Thorpe