Dark Eldar Male Succubus?

Hello Commorragh,

So I have a thought, what if a beast master started his own Cult? So then I figured that would make  an awesome army theme. The question I have is could this be lore friendly?

Anyhow I present to you my beast master (Lord/Succubus/?)

Dark Eldar don't care for the gender. They Are no sexists. They hate everyone equally

Is that a leg swap or just the base model with a different paint scheme? Either way it looks phenomenal.

It's a converted Tenebrael Shard

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-AU/tenebrael-shard

First, I really like the model! its suitably impressive to lead your army,
I think on a fluff PoV. you could definitely see an upstart male Wych forming his own cult, you would assume it would be looked at with immense disfavour by the established Cults but Dark Eldar seem to respect power above all else.

What I'm interested in:
Did you take the picture at work? What the hell do you work as?

It mentions in the fluff that male Wyches are used primarily as breeding stock and almost never rise to any position of authority at all. Even a male Hekatrix is really really rare. A beast master rising to the position of succubus in an established cult? Almost no chance at all. A beastmaster getting pissed and starting his own? I could see it. But Wyches are gladiators first and foremost and Dark Eldar seem to like their gladiators female, I guess it scratches a certain itch for them. Your cult probably wouldn't be popular among the masses. But that could be a fun thingto play off of in your fluff.

Maybe they aren't gladiators but earn their wealth hunting monsters and animals and selling them.

@CptMetal wrote:

Maybe they aren't gladiators but earn their wealth hunting monsters and animals and selling them.

This is also true.

@Bibitybopitybacon wrote:

It mentions in the fluff that male Wyches are used primarily as breeding stock and almost never rise to any position of authority at all.

All the more reason for one to go off on his own.

@ CptMetal - can't keep my toys at home, the wife doesn't want the Son eating them.

@ The Shredder - Mgtow / MRA male Wyches, that's too grim dark for even for K40

@Bedlam55
Eating he miniatures you say?
My girl rather plays with them.

https://i11.servimg.com/u/f11/19/29/51/28/20170610.jpg

Awesome - My boys only 6 months old

Nice conversion !

I got the shard too to add it as a hekatrix someday (it still needs painting =))

Regarding the lore, I could see at some point a beastmaster going on with his own crew as they share mutal interests in fighting and drugs (and rock n' roll) ^^

@CptMetal wrote:

@Bedlam55
Eating he miniatures you say?
My girl rather plays with them.

https://i11.servimg.com/u/f11/19/29/51/28/20170610.jpg

get 'em going early and they're hooked.

One of the first things that is important to learn about 40k lore is the galaxy is a huge place. Anything can happen. They specificly made it that way. You want Chaos Dark Eldar? you got it. Tyranids corrupted by Nurgle? probably happened. Orks who Worship the Emporer and think Humies are ok in their book? Its here. You think of it, it can happen in the 41st (or 42 now?) millennium

As for likelihood of this happening, I would say its low, but I could see it. Eldar are an interesting race for 40k in that race doesnt play a roll. The only one I can think of is in Wyches and the whole "males are breading stock". I could foresee a male wych though overthrowing the system of a Cult and being looked down upon by the other Cults. But as long as he has a powerful Kabal backer, most wouldnt dare to touch his Cult.

The Dark Eldar don't really care much about gender, and the original range of Wych models were mostly male. (At that time the Wych HQ was an Archite, not a Succubus.) So I'd say it's probably the sort of thing that varies from Cult to Cult. I don't think he even needs to be a Beastmaster (though Beastmasters are cool), he can just be a particularly talented male Wych.

One of the things I preferred about the old range was that there were options for HQs, and they weren't gender locked. We had a male and female Archon, and a male and female Haemonculus. I wish they still did that, it gave your characters more character.

If you convert your Archon from a Kabalite Warrior, you still can have a female or a male one.

IIRC, on the sprues the Kabalite torsos are 60/40 male and the Wych torsos are 60/40 female. So male Wyches are reasonably common and it's not out of the realms of possibility that one of them would rise to the rank of Succubus (although he might want a different title).

The 5th ed codex says male Wyches "are valued, but rarely attain high rank."

The Dark Eldar are a (particularly ruthless) meritocracy. They have no dynasties or castes, thanks in no small part to Supreme Overlord Vect, the former slave.

I think that characters like Archons, Succubi, etc are by definition individuals of rare talent. So a male Succubus (it's too bad "Incubus" is already taken) is unusual, but perfectly reasonable in the lore.

Duke Sliscus is very popular among Wych Cults as a drug supplier and being a sexy sexy man. There's no particular fluff reason as to why Succubus models are all female, but there are male Wych models as others have mentioned.

Just going to slide through and mention the old metal third edition Wyches:



Some of them look male to me.

So I see no reason both for the gender of your Succubus (although I do have an etymological issues with it) or for your "Beastmaster becoming Succubus" idea. I actually quite like that part.

Even then, fluff-wise, it shouldn't matter. Its up to you want you want for your army. Forge your own narrative!

Let me start off by declaring that the conversion work and paintjob on that model are simply glorious!

And then allow me to continue by saying that the term for male Succubus is, if you're following certain mythologies, "Incubus" which means that you could indeed bring a male Succubus, but not as you're clearly intending to without breaking a few naming conventions.

But there's no real reason, fluff or otherwise, that I'd argue a male model disallowing the use of the Succubus rules on what is clearly the result of many an hours fine labour.

Heck, with the proposed fluff for him, I might even insist he gain the Beastmaster Aura if we were playing a casual game.

I guess "Archite" would be the name of the male succubus? The Archite glaive entry in the 7th edition codex mentions that's another title for them I believe. Sounds more gender neutral.
The fact that the feminine instead of the neutral title is ubiquitous should be an indicator of the relative number of males to females in the profession. The existence of a neutral title at all indicates that there are or were males doing it at some point.

@Ikol wrote:

And then allow me to continue by saying that the term for male Succubus is, if you're following certain mythologies, "Incubus".

Thus the crux of my etymological issue.