Judging by the fan art, memes, and some of the search terms that send people to our website, the Space Marine Primarch Roboute Guilliman and Aeldari prophetess Yvraine are the most popular romantic pairing in the whole Warhammer 40,000 universe. Is their love affair all in the fandom’s imagination, or is there a kernel of truth lurking behind the fan fiction and NSFW illustrations?
Guilliman and Yvraine do have a connection. After the great Horus Heresy civil war Roboute Guilliman was mortally wounded by his Chaos-corrupted brother Fulgrim. Before the tainted poison could claim his life his warriors transferred him to a stasis field, freezing him on the brink of death. There he remained for thousands of years – until Yvraine resurrected him, during one of the most pivotal moments in the history of Warhammer 40k.
Most of the lore about Yvraine can be found in the narrative supplement Fracture of Biel-Tan, while Guilliman’s resurrection comes in Rise of the Primarch; the two books are volumes two and three of the Gathering Storm trilogy, released at the end of seventh edition 40k. If you happen to have a Warhammer Plus subscription you can access the lore from all three books for yourself via the Warhammer Vault.
Ynnead and Yvraine
Eldrad Ulthran, the most prominent farseer of the Aeldari people and pre-eminent among the leaders of the Craftworld Ulthwé, had long harbored hopes that the doomed Aeldari race might be redeemed by the birth of a new god. This was always a controversial position, for the last god created from the psychic essence of the Aeldari was Slaanesh, She Who Thirsts, their most extreme and depraved emotions given predatory form and the root of their damnation.
When craftworld Aeldari die, their souls are transferred into the craftworld’s eternity circuit, a matrix of living, psychoactive crystal. Within this incredible gestalt of psychic energy, Ulthran sensed a nascent power, a god of the dead known as Ynnead. With the assistance of the enigmatic Harlequins, and the powerfully psychic crystalline remains of dead Farseers, Eldrad enacted a ritual upon the moon of Coheria that would rouse the nascent god.
He was not successful. The Imperium’s Deathwatch xenos hunters disturbed the rite before it could be completed. Ynnead was not woken – but it did stir in its sleep, with far reaching consequences, particularly for the Aeldari wanderer known as Yvraine.
A child of craftworld Biel-Tan, Yvraine had strayed among all the branches of Aeldari society through her long life, from craftworlder to corsair, before ultimately entering the Drukhari’s dark city of Commorragh to fight as a Succubus gladiator in the great fighting pits. Though a consummate warrior, she was doomed to meet her end on the bloody sands of the arena, slain by overwhelming odds and the talented hand of Lelith Hesperax.
Yet in the moment of her death, her soul met that of the stirring Ynnead, and she was reborn, now a living demigod and a channel for its power. Ynnead’s might flowed into the dark city with terrible consequences, a great unleashing of life and death energy that empowered Yvraine but burst the ancient wards that protected the realm of the Drukhari from the depredations of daemonkind.
Yvraine’s path would be long and winding from this point. Her aim was to bring forth the full awakening of Ynnead by retrieving the five crone swords, powerful blades said to be the fingers of the dead goddess Morai-Heg. Those who follow her creed are the Ynnari. This goal brought her path into alignment with that of Eldrad Ulthran – and through his prophetic visions, into contact with the Imperium of Man.
Yvraine and Belisarius Cawl
Although all the Warhammer 40k factions hate one another, in times of dire need rare individuals can make common cause across the gulf of loathing. For the Imperium, no time was more dire than that immediately following the fall of Cadia.
The Chaos warlord Abaddon the Despoiler had destroyed the fortress world Cadia which held the sole stable warp route out of the Eye of Terror. With Cadia’s fall, uncontrolled warp rifts erupted from the Eye and severed the galaxy in two, forming a galaxy-spanning warp storm known as the Cicatrix Maledictum. So great was the tumult that the light of the Astronomicon itself was briefly extinguished.
During the ‘Noctis Aeterna’ that followed, none knew if the Emperor lived or died. The survivors of the defence of Cadia were harried by the forces of the Despoiler. Among them was the Adeptus Mechanicus Archmagos Belisarius Cawl, who had been present in the Cadian system in the dying days of the war.
Cawl bore with him an ancient and mysterious artefact of his own design, but it seemed likely that it would fall into the hands of the arch enemy, as the Black Legion hounded the Imperial survivors. That was until the unlikely intervention of an alliance of many Aeldari forces, guided by Eldrad Ulthran’s prophetic visions and Yvraine’s radical creed.
Though initially distrustful, the Imperials and Aeldari joined forces, united by the common goal of making it to Macragge. After a long voyage, they finally made it to the Fortress of Hera, the greatest bastion of the Ultramarines Space Marines chapter, and the resting place of Roboute Guilliman.
There, between the techno sorcery of Cawl and the necromantic magic of Yvraine, they were able to return Guilliman from the brink of death, clad in a unique, life-sustaining panoply of war known as the Armor of Fate.
Yvraine and Guilliman
After Guilliman’s return from death, his dealings with Yvraine and the other Ynnari were few. The Aeldari remained in the Ultramar subsector and aided Guilliman in securing his realm from the forces of Chaos, but when he launched the Terran crusade to reach the throne world, they departed.
Guilliman’s final words with Yvraine are recorded in Rise of the Primarch. They are courteous, but not close: he says that he has “come to value the strength” of Yvraine and her warriors.
Guilliman asks her to confirm that the magic of Ynnead was necessary for his revival: she agrees that it was, and cautions him not to remove the Armor of Fate. Guilliman intimates that he could ask for more details about what, specifically, has brought him back from the dead, but allows that their “newfound understanding is of more value to my father’s realm than my own satisfaction”.
Guilliman ultimately wishes Yvraine victory in her ongoing battle against their mutual foes. She bids him to “walk with fortune”, promising that they “shall stand together in battle again, before whatever end befalls us”.
Guilliman does not exactly trust Yvraine: as he watches her go, he muses to himself that they will surely fight together again, “as long as it serves [her] needs”. The short story Armor of Fate, by Guy Haley, sees Guilliman dissatisfied with Yvraine’s pronouncement that he is trapped within the armor, and he makes up his mind to attempt removing it. In the novel Plague War, he states that he has succeeded.
Guilliman does deal with Aeldari ambassadors after this point, but they are representatives of Eldrad Ulthran, who has a very long history of (mostly) cooperating with humanity. Yvraine is occupied with her personal quest to retrieve the Crone Swords.
Summary
Alas, if you were hoping that there were some Warhammer 40k books with a romance subplot between Yvraine and Guilliman, we’re sorry to say you won’t find them. There’s simply nothing to back up the fan pairing. Guilliman and Yvraine are civil with one another, which is a monumental achievement in human / Xenos diplomacy in the 40k universe, but it isn’t the foundation of a strong relationship.
You’ll actually find a closer relationship between a human and an Aeldari in the Black Legion novels, which feature a very close (though still asexual and somewhat transactional) relationship between the Black Legion sorcerer Iskandar Khayon and his Drukhari bodyguard Nefertari. Or there’s the mysterious parents of Iliyan Nastase, a half-eldar Ultramarine astropath who featured in the first ever Warhammer 40k rulebook – though he’s been utterly retconned out of existence.
Still, we’re not trying to yuck anyone’s yum. Black Library may not publish Warhammer 40k romance novels, but that’s what fanfiction is for. If you’re on the hunt for more thin slivers of affection to turn into the kernel of a romance story, then you should check out Angron and Lotara… their new models were even previewed as a pair!
Source: Wargamer
