Home › Units › Harlequins › Solitaires
1 / 4 · Click to enlargeLore & origins
Known as the arebennian in the Aeldari tongue, Solitaires are the strangest, most feared and most lethal of all the Harlequins. Unlike every other player of the Laughing God, a Solitaire stands outside the formal structure of the masques and roams the galaxy alone, sometimes living anonymously for years or decades among Craftworld kin, Commorrite courts or even alien species. Only when the fancy takes them, or when some hidden turn of fate demands it, do they step into a masque's reserved place for a single performance or battle before drifting back into the Webway.
Their dread reputation comes from the part they play in the Dance Without End: alone among all Aeldari, a Solitaire portrays She Who Thirsts, the Chaos God Slaanesh, and embodies the monstrous pride that brought about the Fall. Every other performer who has ever attempted that role has been driven mad. To play the Great Enemy, a Solitaire is chosen by Cegorach Himself to tread the Path of Damnation, forfeiting their soul to Slaanesh as a shield for the souls of their fellow Harlequins. When a Solitaire dies, the Laughing God must contend directly with the Prince of Excess for their spirit, a mismatched struggle He can win only through trickery.
Because of that doom, other Aeldari treat Solitaires as walking omens. Outside ritual performance they neither speak nor are spoken to, and superstition holds that any Aeldari who accidentally addresses or touches one is cursed and would do better to take their own life on the spot. Yet folk tales also whisper that a Solitaire is so deeply touched by Cegorach's insight into the Fall and the universe that heroes who thought they met a wandering Solitaire had in truth spoken with the Laughing God Himself. In secret, they even serve as sin-eaters for their kindred, consuming the Spirit Stones and doomed souls of Aeldari who would otherwise fall to Chaos.
Appearance & wargear
Where troupe players flaunt brilliant domino patterns in open view, a Solitaire often travels in an austere hooded coat that conceals their identity until the instant before the killing blow, when they reveal a grotesque, daemon-faced mask tilted at an eerie angle. Once they leap into motion, their Holo-Suit shatters their outline into a blinding storm of colour and fractal light, while a gem-set Flip Belt generates an anti-grav field that lets them bound effortlessly over rubble or run up sheer fortress walls. Upon their wrists they bear the signature weapons of their kind: the Harlequin's Kiss, a tubular brathu-angau punch-injector packed with a hundred metres of monofilament wire that uncoils inside a victim to liquefy bone and organ in an instant, and the Harlequin's Caress, a phase-field device that allows a Solitaire to reach through solid armour and pluck out a beating heart with a bare hand.
Weapons & Vehicles
The nerve-shredding neural whips and moisture-vaporising Huskblades of Drukhari Archons and Succubi, turning close combat into an arena…
The graceful wraithbone gravitic-accelerator firearm of the Craftworld Aeldari, slicing targets to ribbons with silent, monomolecular s…
A master-crafted blade sheathed in a crackling molecular disruption field that parts ceramite, bone and steel with effortless lethality…
Explore all 48 entries in the Weapons & Vehicles armoury.
Battlefield role & tactics
On the battlefield a Solitaire fights alone, bound to no squad and answering to no commander, equal in deadliness to a full host of lesser warriors. The first warning an enemy regiment receives is a shimmering streak of light; scything kicks, hammerblow punches and sweeps of Kiss and Caress sever heads and pierce hearts faster than the human eye can register, leaving blood falling like monsoon rain while bullets and laser beams pass through empty air. Fearless and resistant to psychological terror, they spill from shadows inside locked bunkers and butcher command cadres before the victims realise combat has begun, ensuring that if their soul is forfeit, the price paid by their foes is astronomical.
Munitorum & Ordo Xenos Technical Dossier
Classified under Ordo and Departmento Munitorum threat-index protocols as a primary On the battlefield a Solitaire fights alone, bound to no squad and answering to no commander, equal in deadliness to a full host of lesser warriors. The first warning an enemy regiment receives is a shimmering streak of light; scything kicks, hammerblow punches and sweeps of Kiss and Caress sever heads and pierce hearts faster than the human eye can register, leaving blood falling like monsoon rain while bullets and laser beams pass through empty air. Fearless and resistant to psychological terror, they spill from shadows inside locked bunkers and butcher command cadres before the victims realise combat has begun, ensuring that if their soul is forfeit, the price paid by their foes is astronomical. asset of Harlequins, Solitaires relies on a tightly coupled symbiosis between operator conditioning and primary armament. Field maintenance and biological recovery logs indicate that extended deployment without liturgical recalibration or bio-stasis rest degrades targeting and metabolic stability by less than 4% per solar week—far outperforming standard sector baselines—while post-engagement recovery teams prioritize the immediate extraction of their core wargear, neural/gene-seed components, or machine-spirit memory cores before enemy scavengers can exploit them.
Notable battles & users
- 666.M33 — The Masque of the Dance Without End staged the first performance of the Fall of the Aeldari, horrifying its audience as the galaxy's first Solitaire brazenly strode the stage.
- 113.M41 — A Solitaire duelled the Bloodletter herald Skulltaker and, through deliberate self-sacrifice, sent a psychic echo through the Warp that banished a Slaaneshi daemon horde about to breach the Gate of Souls on Craftworld Lugganath.
- The Spectre of Despair and Lathrangil — Renowned Solitaires recorded in Imperial and Aeldari lore.
Related
Characters (3)
Sylandri Veilwalker · Shadowseer of the Harlequins
Slaanesh · Chaos God of Excess, Pleasure and Perfection; the Dark Prince
Eldrad Ulthran · High Farseer of Ulthwé
