Are Sylvaneth Aelves?

[Maleficarqm]

I feel like this is question that has been answered in both ways at least 6 different times. I recall a white dwarf including them as an Aelf faction and in brightest memory Josh Reynolds saying they're not Aelves. 

Which is it? Is there a definitive answer?

[SaJeel]

So here's my understanding, Allariel awoke in gyhran. In her past life she was an elven goddess, now she is the goddess of all life. With her she had seeds from the world that was, and she turned those seeds into the sylvaneth. So as far as I know the aelves need aelves souls, and Allariel didn't use those for the sylvaneth other than the faintest memory of the "protectors" which reside in the tree revanents to this day, but tho they might have the ancestry of aelves they aren't anymore  . Now wether or not she herself is an aelf is tricky, but I feel the best answer is she was in a past life

[SaJeel]

To expand on tree revs a bit more they have the "race memory" of their people and this includes echoes of the 'protectors' from world that was, wether this is because Allariel made them with the memory of woodevles or it's because they are in fact the tiniest part elf, isn't clarified

[GammaMage]

The April White Dwarf says the Sylvaneth are one of the three aelf armies, along with Idoneth and Daughters of Khaine. So it seems they are?

[Aezeal]

5 minutes ago, GammaMage said:

The April White Dwarf says the Sylvaneth are one of the three aelf armies, along with Idoneth and Daughters of Khaine. So it seems they are?

The current keywords disagree with you... could be changed though.

[DantePQ]

I think they could always fold Wanderes into Sylvaneth - pretty easy to done, as Alarielle can make peace with them (just write good lore - not that difficult for example Wanderers are desparate and must flee and only place they could go is Alarielle kingdom and she takes them back). It's easy fix to expand Sylvaneth - just use Sisters of Thron/Wanderers and Eternal Guard/Rangers boxes as other boxes are too old add one more box of Aelf-Sylvaneth hybrids and refresh is done.  Maybe GW wants to do this as Wanderers Battletome is less likely. 

[DarkWingDuck]

Using 8th edition terminology, Sylvaneth are Tree Spirits. These are spirits/deamons who were bound to the primordial forest of the ancient times in the World that Was. They had some of the characteristics/special rules in common with daemons (namely a 5+ ward save). Over time, the other races cut down the trees until the last of the primordial forest was Athel Loren, which contained the Tree of Life. Needless to say, these spirits didn't much like the other mortal races.

It gets complicated though, during the Elven Civil War, those elves that remained neutral (mostly in the Old World) fled into the primordial forest of Athel Loren. There they cut a deal with the three big Treelords: Durthu, Coeddil, and Adanhu. Coeddil was opposed to allowing the elves to remain. Adanhu (arguably the "leader"), was for allowing them to stay for a time, and Durthu was for a tighter alliance. The elves were allowed to stay (2 against 1) and became the Wood Elves. BUT the forest wasn't really accepting them, and it looked like they would have to leave anyways. But then the leader of the Elven magi entered the Tree of Life and came out changed. She became the goddess Ariel (complete with Fairy Wings!). From that point on the Wood Elves were more linked spiritually to the forest, and when they died they became one with the forest (i.e. their spirits didn't depart, but became Spites or other Woodland creatures etc.)

During the end times, Ariel was dying so Allariel merged with her (they both went into the Tree of Life, and only Allariel came out ... changed). Allariel become the new goddess of the Athel Loren. Then the world blew up.

At some point the Tree of Life lands in the Realm of Ghyran and Allariel takes over the Realm, she brings with her the seed pods required to restart the Sylvaneth race (before that, they never explained how Dryads/Treemen/etc. propogated ... maybe seed pods .... maybe something else). 

I think a pretty compelling argument could be made that the Tree Revenants are those Wood Elves that became spirits within the forest of Athel Loren. If that's true, then at least some of the Sylvaneth are from elf souls, but probably not all of them.

[someone2040]

So in Age of Sigmar, I would argue, no they're not.

None of them have the Aelf racial keyword (Alarielle included), but instead have the Sylvaneth keyword which doubles as both a faction and racial keyword.

Which I think cements the idea that basically the entire faction are tree spirits.

You could argue that Alarielle should actually have the Aelf keyword as well, as she is IMO an Aelf goddess.

 

Overall though, I don't know if I would really consider the Sylvaneth an Aelf army. Certainly there are Aelven aspects to them, and the Tree-Revenants probably are imbued with the souls of long dead Aelven warriors. But the majority of the army certainly doesn't have a relation to Aelves.

[MacDuff]

While I think there's some Aelf DNA in there somewhere, along with the bark, they have now mutated into their own thing. Wanderers are just an abandoned stepchild .

[zedatkinszed]

No Sylvaneth are not Aelves. Alarielle was an elf but is a full on Goddess now. Compare with Morathi and her Melusai and Khinarai. Morathi is still an aelf & not a goddess. Her snake and harpy sisters however don't have the aelf keyword and seem to be a new subspecies. When the deepkin warscrolls are leased we'll have more info.

Also yesterday GW posted this on FB:

 

What's kind of interesting though is that from the Elves of the old world we have new subspeciies being born - the mer-people Idoneth, the Harpies and Medusae of the DoK, the Dryads that are Alarielles' "children" (not Aelves), and we'll  probably angelic light -kin from Hysh in Tyrion's army and Shadowkin from Malerion's.

Apart from that we have the city aelves like the Order Draconis, Swifthawks, Order Serpentis and Darkling Covens etc.

[GammaMage]

The aelves created by Morathi are collectively called scáthborn.