Kaela Mensha Khaine's History
Kaela Mensha Khaine, which means Khaine the Bloody-Handed in the Aeldari Lexicon but who is usually referred to just as Khaine, is the Aeldari god of war, wrath, destruction and murder.
Khaine is one of only three surviving gods of the Aeldari in the wake of their Fall. In the old Aeldari Pantheon, he was second only to his brother, the Phoenix King Asuryan, in power, and was usually depicted as the enemy of Vaul, the god of smiths and crafting.
Khaine is also the most violent and reckless of the Aeldari gods. Asuryan was so appalled by Khaine's murder of Eldanesh, the first and greatest of the mortal Aeldari, that in the wake of the War in Heaven the Phoenix King cursed Khaine and made his hands drip eternally with the blood of Eldanesh so that all Aeldari would remember his crime. It was for this reason that Khaine ever after earned the honourific of the "Bloody-Handed" from his people.
Khaine is the god of the Aeldari associated with battle, war and conflict. Many Imperial scholars believe him to be a manifestation of the Aeldari's racial passion as manifested in battle and warfare. "Kaela Mensha" is not technically part of Khaine's name, but is actually a title he bears. It roughly translates from the Aeldari Lexicon as "Bloody-Handed," a reference to the blood which eternally drips from his hands as a reminder of his murder of the ancient Aeldari hero Eldanesh.
During the War in Heaven between the Old Ones and the Necrons millions of Terran years ago, Khaine fought and defeated the C'tan known as the Nightbringer, shattering his Necrodermis, although the resulting metal shards pierced his flesh, tainting his form with "the aspect of the Reaper." It is also said that this event precipitated the eventual fall of the Aeldari: The Nightbringer planted the fear of death within all mortal creatures except the Orks, which enhanced the Aeldari's deep desire for self-preservation as a species.
In the depths of the Warp, the beings of pure psychic energy created within the Immaterium during the turmoil of the War in Heaven would feast on these feelings and grow to sentience, setting into motion a chain of events that would close the Path of Rebirth for Aeldari souls forever.
Khaine is one of the three surviving gods of the Aeldari. Sometime after Slaanesh's awakening in the 30th Millennium of the Imperial Calendar following the Fall of the Aeldari, the newly-formed Chaos God assaulted Khaine as he had all of the other Aeldari gods. Though their battle was vicious, Slaanesh had already absorbed the power of many billions of fallen Aeldari souls, and ultimately struck Khaine down. But before the Prince of Chaos could absorb the Aeldari god, Khorne, the Chaos God of War and Murder, battled Slaanesh for the power of Khaine, claiming the Aeldari deity as his property by right since they represented the same metaphysical forces.
During the struggle between the Chaos Gods, Khaine was driven into the material world, where his psychic core shattered into a thousand pieces. Each piece came to rest at the heart of an Aeldari Craftworld, where it hibernated within the Craftworld's Infinity Circuit, but could be animated again to possess a metallic construct body and go to war when needed by the Craftworld.
By sacrificing an Exarch to Khaine on the eve of battle, this newborn Avatar of Khaine becomes a fiery, animated manifestation of the God, including the blood dripping from his hands, and the Avatar leads the Aeldari army of that Craftworld into battle.
Khaine's precise nature in the Aeldari cosmology is not defined, although due to his interaction with the Chaos Gods, he appears to be an entity of the Warp, although as a servant of Order rather than Chaos. Recent information acquired by the Imperium implies that Khaine and the rest of the Aeldari gods may have been members of the first sentient species in the galaxy known to the Aeldari as "the Ancients" and to the Imperium as the Old Ones, who were the creators of the Aeldari and many of the other intelligent species of the galaxy.
Some Imperial savants believe that the Aeldari gods' mythological roles were then assigned to them in later eras by the Aeldari as an expression of that species' culture and psychological needs. But the Aeldari themselves insist that their gods were real and are not simply mythological expressions of the role played by their ancient creators.
War in Heaven
In Aeldari Mythology, it was Isha, the goddess of the harvest, fertility and healing, who had inspired the creation of Asuryan's barrier between mortals and their gods, as she had wept over the destruction that Khaine, as the god of war and murder, was causing amongst her children, after he was told by Lileath, the goddess of dreams and fortune, that the mortal Aeldari would one day be responsible for seeing him cut into pieces. It is also said that the first Spirit Stones were crafted from her tears by Vaul so that the gods and mortals would be able to communicate with each other once more through the barrier erected between the Immaterium and the Materium by the Phoenix King.
One of these stones was given to Isha and the rest were handed over to the Aeldari so that their prayers might be heard. When Asuryan learned that his directive that the gods were to have no further contact with mortals had been violated, he gave Isha and her husband, Kurnous, to Khaine to do with as he wished. Khaine tortured the two of them in a burning pit until Vaul, the Aeldari God of Crafting who was Isha and Kurnous' uncle and was moved by their plight, struck a bargain with the War God to craft 100 enchanted swords, the Blades of Vaul, for him in one year's time. In exchange, Khaine promised to release his fellow gods from their prison in his realm.
The Smith God worked long and hard at this task, and managed to forge all of the blades by the deadline except for the last one, which lay unfinished on his anvil. In order to trick Khaine, Vaul substituted the last blade with a mortal one which he delivered to the War God, who released his two captives. The three gods quickly departed.
But Khaine was quick to discover the subterfuge and cried out in rage. He called the Smith God a cheat and vowed revenge. He immediately set off to track Vaul down and make him pay. The conflict that followed, known as the War in Heaven, polarised the gods, as Khaine's faction and Vaul's faction engaged in bloody warfare for an eternity.
Gods changed sides, great deeds of heroism and of terrible evil were performed by both factions, and the war was mirrored in an internecine struggle between the Aeldari in the mortal realm. Asuryan himself never took a side, watching the carnage impassively, slowly coming to regret his impetuosity in sentencing Isha and Kurnous to Khaine's tender mercies.
Vaul reforged the final sword, the one that he had failed to finish for Khaine, the greatest of all, and called it Anaris. Armed with this weapon, Vaul strode forth to do battle with Khaine. It was a long, hard-fought struggle, but even with Anaris, Vaul was no match for the War God. Khaine cast down Vaul, maiming the smith, and bound Vaul to his own anvil.
However, the falcon, Faolchú, consort of the Great Hawk, who had fought for Vaul, took the sword Anaris and delivered it to Eldanesh, the greatest warrior and leader of the mortal Aeldari. With Anaris in hand, Eldanesh of the Red Moon took up the fight and faced Khaine in single combat. Eldanesh fought well, but in the end he too was defeated by Khaine, his body crushed by the God of War.
As Khaine slew Eldanesh, his hands began to drip with red blood. Forever after he was to become known as Khaela Mensha Khaine, which means "Khaine the Bloody-Handed" in the Aeldari Lexicon. By this time, Asuryan, the greatest of the Aeldari Gods, had seen enough of the slaughter and proclaimed the War in Heaven over. Khaine had gained his vengeance and left the field satisfied.
