Ynnari

The Ynnari, or the Reborn, are a death-cult movement uniting Aeldari from every kindred in worship of the newly stirring god Ynnead. Their allegiance sits within the xenos sphere but outside the settled order of Aeldari society: they are regarded as a fringe and even heretical creed by the traditionalist Asuryani of the craftworlds and by the self-interested Drukhari of Commorragh alike, yet their actions have shaped events across the wider galaxy disproportionately to their numbers.

The Ynnari hold no home world, craftworld, or fixed domain of their own; the movement is instead a gathering drawn from Asuryani craftworlders, Aeldari Corsairs, Exodite worlds, the kabals and cults of Commorragh, and the Harlequins, bound together by shared devotion rather than territory. Leadership rests with the Triumvirate of Ynnead: Yvraine, the Emissary of Ynnead and a former Commorraghite Succubus; the Visarch, her Drukhari swordsman-protector; and the Yncarne, an avatar-like manifestation of Ynnead itself. Followers, known as the Reborn, mark their allegiance with deep red, purple, and black ornamentation recalling the memorial gardens of the ancient Aeldari empire, and wear the rune of Ynnead, sometimes called the Sign of the Phoenix, adapted from older Biel-Tan iconography.

The movement’s origin is traced to the Night of Revelations, when a psychic ritual by the Ulthwé farseer Eldrad Ulthran and Harlequins of the Midnight Sorrow at Port Demesnus first stirred Ynnead, imparting a portion of the god’s will to Yvraine. Her subsequent flight from Commorragh and confrontation with the daemon-tainted Infinity Circuit of Biel-Tan fractured that craftworld and summoned the Yncarne, an event felt by psykers across the galaxy. The Ynnari’s stated aim, the Seventh Path, seeks to fully awaken Ynnead and overthrow Slaanesh without requiring the extinction of the Aeldari race, chiefly through the recovery of the five Croneswords of Morai-Heg. Their venture into the Eye of Terror to the crone world of Belial IV, and the debate they provoked within the Ulthwé Seer Council, are recorded among their major undertakings.

Accounts differ on how far the Seventh Path remains achievable, since the fifth Cronesword is said to have fallen to the Keeper of Secrets Shalaxi Hellbane and been carried into the Palace of Slaanesh. Even so, the Ynnari are credited with a significant hand in the wider upheavals of the era, including events surrounding the return of Roboute Guilliman, and their growing influence has drawn the attention of the Chaos gods, most pointedly Slaanesh, and of Imperial forces such as the Grey Knights, who have moved against Ynnari cults detected through psychic divination.