ELDAR / SPACE ELVES

Planet of origin: Unknown, in the Milky Way galaxy

The Eldar are an ancient race of tall and slender extremely very long-lived human-looking humanoids, with much faster metabolic rates than humans, as well as better reflexes and a superior intellect. They were created by the Old Ones some 65 millions years ago to serve in their War against the C'Tan and their Necrons servants. Following the departure or disparation of their makers at the end of the war, they became a dominant species in the Milky Way galaxy. They possess strong psychic powers and have a fair amount of their population endowed with some level of prescience.

It is so believed that within the upcoming 28 000 years, they will come close to extinction, with survivors existing in a few wondering craftwords, planetoid sized spaceships, hiding among the stars. The reason of their fall will come from within, as consumed by arrogance and with no need for substantial work , the pursuit of their desires will lead them toward a path of instant fulfillment and unbridled violence. The psychic emanations of these activities will give the Eldar vices a life of its own, a consciousness known as Slaanesh, the Devourer of Souls, whose psychic scream of birth will tore the souls from all the Eldar within a thousand light years of it and plunge the Eldar homeworlds into a limbo of partial existence, a region which will become known as the Eye of Terror, a bridge between real space and the Warp, the psychic imprint of all the souls within the Milky Way. 

Much of Elda culture is based around their mythological cycles. The most famous of these cycles was the War in Heaven, an epic conflict between the Eldar deities, in two factions lead by Vaul, the god of the forge, and Kaela Mensha Khaine, the god of war, which is based on the war the Old ones led against the C'Tan and their Necrons servants some 65 millions years ago.

Eldar technology is notable for its use of Spirit stones, wraithbone and the Webway.

The Eldar use spirit stones to capture, contain and protect their souls at the moment of death. These stones are then collected and inserted into their Craftworld's "Infinity Circuit", where they may rest along with the spirits of their ancestors. In times of need, the spirit stones of the Craftworld's strongest warriors may be taken from the Infinity Circuit and placed inside Wraithbone automatons to once again fight for the Craftworld. 

Wraithbone is the main construction material of the Eldar, and the staple of their psycho-technic engineering. It is pyschic energy solidifed into mattter through psychic power. It is a psychic conductor and so not only provides the structure for the things built of it, but also power distribution and communications. Wraithbone is a highly resilient material, and capable of limited self-repair. It, and the other building materials of the Eldar, will grow and react more like tissue and plants than the building materials of other races.  Every Eldar Craftworld contains an Infinity Circuit, which is the Wraithbone skeleton of the Craftworld . Within this matrix the souls of all the Craftworld's dead reside in a form of group consciousness, providing both a well of psychic power for the ship and a massive ancestral mind to advise and guide the living. The Infinity Circuit is the closest thing that the Eldar have to an afterlife; if their souls are not caught and integrated into it, they will be lost into the Warp and subject to its perils. For this reason the Eldar will defend their Craftworlds with a fury and tenacity almost unrivaled; they risk losing not only their home but their souls and that of their ancestors.

The Eldar travel through the galaxy by use of the Webway,  a system of ancient "tunnels" through  the Warp but completely isolated from its inherent dangers. It is a vast and tangled network of doorways between fixed points in real space, by which the Eldar can travel far more rapidly than most races.

Source: Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000 universe.

TYRANIDS

The Tyranids are an extragalactic sentient ecosystem of innumerable different species based on the same genetic material dedicated, under a unique hive mind called the Synapse, to survival, propagation and evolutionary advancement originating from an extragalactic from outside the Local Group. They travel across the universe at supraluminal speed in their fleets of gigantic hive ships, systematically consuming all biomatter they meet. All Tyranid organisms in a fleet are synaptic and contribute to a communal Hive Mind.

The components of a Tyranid Hive Fleet travel almost exclusively in large groups known as swarms that possess specialized biomechanical creatures for destroying and consuming a wide variety of prey life forms. Through their invasions, Tyranids acquire new biological traits from other lifeforms, processing these new traits through their reporductive process managed bhy their Norn-Queens. The Tyranids do not build but  use gene-splicing and bioengineering to grow what they need from the organic biomatter harvested from the planets they consume.

It is believed that tyranid advanced parties will scout the Milky Way around the 35th millenium leading several hives behind them around the 41st millenium from different directions. 

Source: Warhammer 40,000 universe.

JOKAERO

The Jokaero are a bipedal species looking mush like an orangutan with retractable fingers and toes  who are capable of tremendous technological and logical feats, and who also specialize in miniaturisation technology. An engineered species, they were designed alongside the Krork by the Old Ones during their war against the Necrons some 60 millions years ago. It remains unclear if they are truly sentient despite the fact that they are capable of remarkable acts of engineering, construction and problem solving or if they were designed as tools with innate, genetically structured understanding of technology as their capabilities, although giving them a full understanding of machinery and interstellar level- technology, are seemingly instinctive .

Their understanding of astrophysics is equally baffling as they seem to be capable of tapping into unseen power-currents that run through the galaxy. Jokaero spaceships are an example of this: open structured framed lattices resembling a unique polyhedron shape. The structure is vital to the design as it draws upon those same galactic power-currents that the Jokaero are aware of and channel through their spiral shape. Thus, Jokaero vessels are able to move, manoevure and transcend warp-space through making physical alterations to the ships' design. 

Jokaero tend to live in large family groupings of a dozen individuals led by either a matriarch or a patriarch, roaming the galaxy in a random fashion with their sole objective being survival. This leads to them frequently arriving on inhabited worlds in order to scavenge for oddments or any specific components that they need. At times and if necessary, they are known to band together to attack targets in order to acquire the object that they desire. They are quite capable of using complex and well-coordinated attacks against their targets. Their mindset means that they are unable to be reasoned with and communication is seemingly impossible as it is believed that their species have no known form of language, culture or any motivation beyond survival.

Source: Warhammer universe

SLANN / SLANNI

The Slann evolved from amphibians. Their hands are long as well as webbed with cool, moist skins, along with large heads and protruding eyes. They are able to draw oxygen from water or other poorly oxygenated atmospheres directly through their skin and are also quite comfortable in watery surroundings. Skin colour tends to vary a great deal, with blue and green being the most common, yellow being well-represented, and other tones being rarer such as albino as well as melanistic forms. Slann that are brightly pigmented tend to be extroverts, talented or noteworthy in some manner. On some occasions, their skins tend to be mottled, striped or otherwise marked (though among certain Slann worlds, such as primitive ones, these tend to represent tribal divisions). In terms of height, Slann tend to be fairly consistent, with adults reaching two meters high whilst females tend to be slightly bulkier and larger.
Although Slann worlds can be found throughout the galaxy, their society remains closed to other races. Some worlds are highly advanced while others have fallen back to a primitive state. Wahtever their their technological advacement, they rarely ever trade with outsiders and even prove to be unpredictable due to the fact that there is little that the Slann need or want. As such, any traders encountering a tribe of Slann feel as if they were being watched or studied, with no interest in any exchange of goods.
They hold no equals in the realm of psychic-philosophy or mystic-technology as they fulfill themselves by the study of spiritual lifeforces along with the secret powers of other realities, believing that the object of life is to perfect the mind in order to become an immortal spirit.
They are bleived to be either degenerate sbjects or descendants of the Old Ones.
Source: Warhgammer universe

OLD ONES

The Old ones are a peaceful reptilian spacefaring speceis which developed an interstellar civilisation which was at its peaks some 60 millions years ago, becoming practically immortal and able to undertake great works of psychic engineering.  With a slow, cold blooded wisdom,  they built a network of Warp Gates connecting the worlds of the galaxy, seeded on them new intelligent species and reshaped thousands of worlds according to their environmental and geographic criteria.

Upon meeting the Necrontyr upon their space journey, a war erupted between the two species, which was quickly over due to the Old Ones superiority. But later on, the Necrontyr allied themsleves with the C'Tan, a powerful non-corporeal species and managed to push the Old Ones to their limit and caused them to unleash powers they were unale to control, forcing them to retreat, their empire in ruin.

The Old Ones left behind species they had helped mature and others they had created but from that point on remained absent from the Milky Way.

Among their children races were the Eldars, the Jokearo, the Rashan and K'nib, the Korks and possibly the Slann who might also be a descendant or subject species.
Source: Warhammer universe.

NECRONTYR / NECRONS

Planet of Origin: Necrontyr, in the Halo stars regions of the Milky Way

The Necrontyr were a humanoid species which developed an advanced civilisation in the Halo stars regions, on the far reaches of the Milky Way galaxy. Short lived, their bodies blighted and consumed at an early age due the terrible cancers and other illnesses linked to the high levels of ionising radiation given off by their sun. They built in anticipation of their inhabitants' early demise, as the living were only brief residents living in the shadow of the vast sepulchres and tombs of their ancestors. They soon wandered off into space, hopeful to realise their species' potential free from the lethal energies of their birth star. Using stasis crypts and slow-moving antimatter-powered torch-ships clad in the living metal known as necrodermis to resist their millennia-long journeys. They made contact with the Old Ones, a more advanced spacefaring species nearly immortal species, and were astonished to learn that another species enjoyed such long lives while their own were so brutally short. 

At the time, the great Necrontyr houses were engaged in civil conflicts known as the Wars of Secession. The Triarch, head of the Necrontyr, realised that the only hope of unity laid in turning toward an external enemy. So  they declared war on the Old Ones. The Necrontyr were pushed back to their homeworld where they developed an utter hatred towards all other forms of intelligent life and an implacable determination to avenge themselves upon their seemingly invincible enemies. Then one of their probes investigating a dying star discovered the C'tan entities of pure energy feeding upon the solar flares and magnetic storms of bloated red giants that had little conception of what the rest of the universe was. Diffused across areas larger than whole planets, their minds could not perceive the material universe so the Necrontyr sought their favour and oversaw the forging of physical shells for them to occupy. Incomprehensible forces were compressed into the living metal of the necrodermis bodies which the Necrontyr forged as the full power of the C'tan at last found form. As the C'tan focused their consciousnesses and became ever more aware of their new mode of existence, they came to appreciate the pleasures available to beings of matter and the other realities of corporeal life. The deliciously focused trickles of electromagnetic energy given off by the physical bodies of the Necrontyr all about them awakened a new hunger very unlike the one they had once sated using the nourishing but essentially tasteless energies of the stars. The powers of the C'tan manifested in the physical world were almost god-like and it was not long before the C'tan were being worshiped as the Star Gods the Necrontyr had named them. Perhaps they had been tainted by the material universe they had become a part of, or perhaps this had always been their nature even when they were bound to the suns they fed upon, but they proved to be as cruel and capricious.  

With the help of the C'tan, the Necrontyr stood ready to begin their war against the Old Ones anew. The C'tan offered the Necrontyr a path to immortality and the physical stability their race had always craved. Their diseased flesh would be replaced with the living metal of necrodermis that made up their Star Gods' own physical forms. The C'tan swarmed about the biotransference sites, drinking in the torrent of cast-off life energy and growing ever stronger as they glutted themselves on the spiritual detritus of an entire species. It was only when the Silent King, head of the Triarch. emerged from the bio-transference process and looked upon what had become of his people that he saw the awful truth of the pact he had made. In that moment, he knew that the price of physical immortality had been the loss of his soul. The Necrons now enjoyed a unity that the Necrontyr had never known, though it was achieved through tyranny and the complete loss of individuality and emotion rather than by consent. The biotransference process had embedded command protocols in every Necron mind, granting the Silent King the unswerving loyalty of his subjects. He grew weary of this burden but dared not sever the command protocols, lest his subjects turn on him seeking vengeance for the terrible curse he had visited upon them.  

The Necron legions set out into the galaxy in their Tomb Ships. Planets were razed, suns extinguished and star systems devoured by black holes called into being by the reality-warping powers of the C'tan. The Old ones colonies were besieged and the species they had nurtured became cattle for the obscene their hunger. As their individual appetites for mortal life energies knew no bounds, the C'tan ultimately began to fight amongst themselves. C'tan eventually devoured C'tan, until only a few were left in the universe. The Old Ones used their great scientific skills to genetically engineer servants with the capability of channeling psychic power to defend themselves and nurtured many potential warrior races, among which Eldars, Rashan and K'nib.  

The Old Ones' psychically-empowered servant races spread across the galaxy. The C'tan empire was shattered. For all the destruction they could unleash, they were unable to stop the Old Ones advance but the growing pains and collective psychic flaws of the younger races threw their untapped psychically reactive energies into disorder. War, pain and destruction were mirrored in the bottomless depth of the Sea of Souls. The maelstroms of souls unleashed into the Immaterium by the carnage coalesced in the previously formless energies of the Warp. The Warp gate network of the Old Ones was breached from the Immaterium.Ultimately, beset by the implacable onset of the C'tan and the calamitous Warp-spawned perils they had themselves mistakenly unleashed, the Old Ones were defeated, scattered and finally destroyed. The survivors fled in deep space.

The  Silent King then led the Necrons in revolt against the masters. As the C'tan were impossible to destroy, each C'tan was sundered into thousands of smaller and less powerful fragments, then each Shard was bound within a multidimensional Tesseract Labyrinth, Though millions of Necrons had been destroyed, they were once more in command of their own destiny.

The Eldar had survived where the Old Ones had not and the Necrons, weakened by their expenditure of lives and resources in overthrowing the rule of the C'tan, could not stand against them. It would take millions of Terran years for the Eldar's power to fade, but what mattered is that the Necrons would be there to take advantage of it. The Silent King ordered the remaining Necron cities to be transformed into great tomb complexes threaded with stasis-crypts. His final command to his people was to sleep for 60 million years to awake ready to restore the Necron dynasties to their former glory. Then he destroyed the command protocols by which he had controlled his people for so long and took ship into the starless void of intergalactic space, to find whatever measure of solace or penance he could.

Source: Warhammer Universe