Dark Heresy Adeptus Astartes Pdf File
• The God-Emperor of Mankind ( ) • High Lords of Terra ( ) Established M30 (30th ) Governing body Council of the High Lords of Terra High Gothic (Hieratic language) Low Gothic (Common language) Capital Holy Terra () Territory All space within 50,000 radius from Terra Population (groups) Humans, species of human descent Population (size) Unknown The Imperium of Man or Imperium of Mankind is a in the of. It is a, industrial,, and regime that rules over almost all of humanity and spans more than a million inhabited worlds. Contents • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Real World [ ] Origin [ ] The 'Imperium' is one of the original factions in the of the tabletop; the game was initially published in 1987 by, and continues to be actively developed. The game system's is a that is extensively described in numerous rulebooks,, and other official sources.
THE ADEPTUS ASTARTES ARMY. SPECIAL RULES. SAMPLE ARMY: ULTRAMARINES. SPACE MARINE CHAPTERS. BLACK TEMPLARS. BLOOD ANGELS. CRIMSON FISTS. CRIMSON SUNS. MENTOR LEGION.
Development [ ] Notwithstanding development by Games Workshop and affiliates (such as the publishing imprint ) that spans several decades, the core depiction of the Imperium – as a totalitarian, strife-torn on the brink of catastrophe – changed little; a major reason is the publisher's decision to 'freeze' the to the universe's late– (or late– M41 ). As of 2013, this setting had been utilised by the majority of related material; however, for several years prior and continuing, the publisher has also been promoting a parallel narrative thread for the fictional universe, which is taking place during the founding and early times of the Imperium. The fictional empire is variously called 'Imperium', 'Imperium of Man', or 'Imperium of Mankind' in official publisher sources. Fictional setting [ ] History [ ] 27,000 years in the future, the Imperium rises from the ruins of a more prosperous, advanced, and enlightened human civilization.
That civilization, shortly after being exhausted by a massive failed rebellion from man-made, collapsed when warp storms cut off interstellar travel and left its worlds vulnerable to attacks by daemons and aliens during a millennia long era known as the Age of Strife. When the storms abate, the Emperor embarks on a 'Great Crusade' to unite all human-settled worlds in the galaxy under his banner. Over the course of two centuries, his armies conquer more than a million worlds stretching across 50,000 light years from Earth, giving humanity a dominant position among the galaxy's species. According to Imperial, it is humanity's ' to rule the galaxy. Early in the 31st millennium, the Great Crusade comes to a sudden halt when half of the Emperor's Space Marine Legions (along with a substantial fraction of the Imperium) convert to the worship of the four Chaos Gods.
The resulting civil war became known as the and nearly destroyed the Imperium. Though these rebels are ultimately defeated and driven out, the Emperor is critically wounded in the final battle and survives on life support in a persistent immobile and unresponsive state on the Golden Throne. In the absence of his guidance, the Imperium becomes a very brutal. The Imperium endures for 10,000 years.
It still claims lone dominion over the and all humanity. It does not recognize other governments, whether human or, and maintains that all aliens must be exterminated and that all humans must be brought into the Imperium and made to worship the Emperor.
It remains united chiefly through religious fanaticism and threats of brutal disciplinary force, while teetering on the verge of collapse due to a combination of, technological stagnation, and bureaucratic inefficiency. Government [ ] Emperor of Mankind [ ] The founder and nominal ruler of the Imperium is an enigmatic and mysterious persona known only as 'the Emperor of Mankind'. He is a Perpetual: human of immeasurable power, an immortal who has secretly guided humanity since the dawn of civilization on Earth. He was born in 8000 B.C. In, now modern day.
He allegedly guided the Human race in various guises such as,,,,,,,, and Abraham Lincoln. For some unknown reasons the Emperor left the Earth and was uninvolved for 30,000 years and returned to reunite the shattered tribes of Earth during the Unification Wars. Shortly after founding the Imperium and the recovery of the lost, the Emperor set out to conquer the stars on a great crusade. With the help of his sons, the 20 Primarchs, the Emperor battled hostile alien races and reunited lost human planets across the galaxy. However, during the, Holy Terra was besieged by forces of Chaos and the Emperor was critically injured in a battle with Horus and never recovered. Since then he survives on a stasis-equipped life support system while in an unresponsive and immobile state bound to the Golden Throne.
What little presence the Emperor does retain is devoted to projecting a psychic beacon, the Astronomican, so that human starships may navigate the Warp for their faster than light travel. His worshipers believe he is fighting a constant spiritual battle in the Warp against the Chaos Gods. Because of his condition, the Emperor cannot participate in affairs of state. It is believed that he communicates through vague visions of the future that trained may augur through special cards from time to time, but otherwise he cannot communicate his will. The High Lords of Terra govern his empire according to a distorted memory of his words and deeds from ten millennia before. Bound to the Golden Throne, the body of the Emperor is being guarded by his loyal Adeptus Custodes.
The Emperor wanted to build a secular and enlightened society, but the Imperium instead became mired in brutality, superstition, and ignorance. Recent gamebooks hint that his life support system is starting to fail near the end of the millennium, and thus he may soon die. Hierarchy and organization [ ] The Emperor's seat, and the heart of Imperial Administration, is the Imperial Palace, a massive construct that covers most of what used to be the continent of on Terra; the 'Sanctum Imperialis', commonly referred to as the 'Inner Palace', is built on top of, within, and under. Though the Emperor is the nominal head of state, in practice the highest tier of government is the Council of the High Lords of Terra or the Senatorum Imperialis, which has ruled for over ten millennia in the Emperor's name. Under this top echelon is a multi-tiered hierarchy consisting of countless departments, agencies, and organisations, both military and civilian, charged with implementing the decisions of the High Lords and with the day-to-day administration of the Imperium as a whole. The Imperium of Man divides the galaxy into five distinct sections called Segmentae ( Segmentum in singular), assigned by their relative galactic position from Holy Terra (Earth) on a. They are as follows: Segmentum Solar (the, Holy ), Segmentum Obscurus (galactic north), Segmentum Pacificus (galactic west), Segmentum Ultima (galactic east), and Segmentum Tempestus (galactic south).
Each Segmentum stretches across vast regions of space, containing hundreds of thousands of inhabited planets. Most worlds in the Imperium are ruled by a planetary governor. The cultures and governments of the Imperial worlds are very diverse. A few are even democratic and prosperous, though these are rare islands of happiness in a generally grim empire. Generally speaking, each governor is allowed to rule his world as he sees fit provided he keeps the faith and provides the requisite tithes of conscripts, exports, and captured psykers. Outside and above the Imperial hierarchy is the, the all-powerful and much feared and main, which answers only to the High Lords and has the power to investigate and persecute anyone it pleases.
Regime [ ] Five fundamental, set by the Emperor at the Imperium's founding, underlie its governance by the High Lords; their flouting results in summary capital sanction, regardless of office or rank. • Collaborating or in any way consorting with xenos (aliens) • Developing or using • Engaging in • Exhibiting excessive • Committing unsanctioned, especially of humans In late–41st millennium, the Imperium is still broadly governed by these principles. However, it is also ruled by expediency in the face of constant threats. It is not uncommon for Imperial servants to assume discretion in their enforcement when they deem it necessary, and some among their number do this as a matter of course; this is considered or traitorous by more conservative Imperial officials. The Imperium's methods for enforcing its rule are often exceedingly brutal. Source material calls it 'the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable';, Imperial servants commonly state, 'ruthlessness is the mercy of the wise.'
The Imperium's galactic law enforcement agency (the Adeptus Arbites), readily uses deadly force when faced with any possibility of resistance. The Inquisition makes liberal use of torture and cares more about punishing the guilty than protecting the innocent, routinely causing excessive suffering and death of the latter.
On the other hand, they rationalize that it is better for a few million innocent lives and a single system to be harmed than allow Chaos to infiltrate the Imperium to cause billions of more deaths and destruction to dozens of systems. That and given the sheer population of the Imperium in excess of tens of trillions is spread over more than a million worlds, it is not uncommon for entire systems and sub-sectors to be purged to prevent any possible taint of Chaos influence from spreading if such action is deemed necessary. Witches (rogue psykers) and heretics are publicly flogged or burned at the stake. The Imperium's mainstream military forces, such as the Regiments, often have ( Imperial Commissars) attached. They have authority to execute out-of-hand any soldier, regardless of rank, who displays cowardice or disobedience. Occasionally, the Imperium resorts to with in order to suppress heresy, rebellion, or encroachment.
An Exterminatus, the obliteration of an entire world, is only resorted to when the level of corruption a world bears is so monumental that it cannot be wiped out by any other means and leaving it intact could lead to an anchor for or mankind's other enemies to attack the Imperium. Language [ ] The Imperium has three official languages, High Gothic, Low Gothic, and Lingua-Technis. High Gothic was the only official language of the Imperium in its early days, then known as Imperial Terran. The language is now considered sacred because it is the language the Emperor spoke during the Great Crusade and is now only a hieratic language spoken by members of the Imperial Inquisition, Priests of the Ecclesiarchy and the Tech-Priests of Adeptus Mechanicus and even for them, its only a second language. Low Gothic is the common language of the Imperium and is spoken by every Imperial citizen, though there exists millions of dialects of it. High Gothic is represented as pseudo- while Low Gothic is represented as. Lingua-Technis is the official language of the Adeptus Mechanicus, characterized as when written and possessing unique tones similar to digitally modified sounds when spoken.
Religion [ ] The Imperium promotes the Imperial Cult, the worship of the Emperor as humankind's only true god and rightful master. He is the savior, the only one who can protect humanity from the dangers of the cosmos. The irony of this is that the Emperor had wanted to build an enlightened and society, but cults devoted to him started everywhere, and after he was incapacitated and interred in the Golden Throne this worship spread unimpeded until it became the. Ironically, his promotion of a secular and logical Imperial Truth was superseded by the nascant Imperial Cult. In addition, it was his suppression of the cult with, one of the cult's foremost figures, humiliatingly rebuffed that led to his son turning to Chaos and planting seeds to bring the Horus Heresy into existence.
Just as all human-inhabited worlds must be brought under the Imperium's control, all humans must be made to worship the Emperor and all other religions must be expunged. The, which is the responsibility of the Ecclesiarchy (the State Church), preaches that unquestioning obedience and self-sacrifice are the best ways to honor the Emperor. It teaches that mutants (with few exceptions) are vile perversions of the 'holy' human form, and thus they are subject to the worst oppression. Rogue psykers ('witches') are harbingers of doom. Heresy is the worst crime of all despite the deliberate vagueness of the official definition, and those judged as heretics are stripped of all rights and punished in the most horrific fashion.
To be excommunicated by the church or the Inquisition is to be stripped of your very rights as a human being; you are no longer considered part of humanity. Is a central theme in all Warhammer 40,000 fiction; predominantly a more violent parody of the dogmas of. Most human protagonists, from warrior-monk to Witch Hunters of the Inquisition, are fanatical worshippers of the Emperor. A very common motif in Imperial iconography is a human skull, often surrounded by a halo. This is the face of the Emperor, whose broken, half-dead body resembles a corpse. While the ordinary citizen of the Imperium believes that the Emperor has always been venerated as the and of humanity throughout the history of Mankind, Imperial historians and the Battle-Brothers of the Space Marine Chapters know that this was not always the case: At the beginning of the Emperor's Great Crusade in the 31st Millennium, there was no Ecclesiarchy and the veneration of the Emperor, in the form of the Imperial Cult's precursor, known as the Lectitio Divinitatus, was frowned upon and outright condemned by the Emperor himself. The Emperor secretly believed that religion was what fueled the Chaos Gods existence, and sought to starve them into oblivion.
Ironically, it would be the Emperor's severe rebuff of the cult's founder, the Primarch Lorgar Aurelion, that would lead to the latter's secret defection to Chaos and sowing the seeds leading to the Horus Heresy. The official Imperial doctrine was that the Emperor was an extremely powerful being, the rightful ruler of all Mankind, and the perfect physical, mental and spiritual embodiment of humanity, but no matter how supreme, he was still only a human being.
This changed after the Emperor ascended on his Golden Throne and was visible in the Warp for all Mankind. In the 41st millennium, the tenets of the Imperial Cult, known as the Imperial Creed, are actually highly flexible and are tailored by the Adeptus Ministorum's Missionaries to fit the native culture, existing religion, and cultural practices of whatever world it exists upon.
Polytheism is even permitted, provided that the locals in question regard the Emperor as their supreme deity. The Cult of the God-Emperor is the dominant faith, but the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus follow a parallel religion around their 'Machine God', of whom they see the Emperor as an avatar, the 'Omnissiah'. While this does not fully please the Ecclesiarchy, this compromise is grudgingly accepted by both sides because Adeptus Mechanicus has a monopoly on all technological expertise in the Imperium but must also rely on regular importation of resources to function. Society [ ] Imperial citizens are almost exclusively human; a relatively small fraction of the population consists of members of stable species of human descent, called in Imperial classification and are recognized as citizens (if ). Common citizens of the Imperium have very little say in how, and by whom, they are governed.
They have no influence in the selection process of the High Lords or any other Imperial official, and are not allowed to question Imperial decisions or participate in the decision-making. Even worlds with Planetary Governors are under the absolute of Imperial Authority. Imperial society galaxy-wide is characterized by,,,, and. Is considered a waste of time, and may even be dangerous. Ignorance of anything beyond one's place in society is common and, for many, desirable. Some even know next to nothing about worlds or societies beyond their homeworld unless recruited by members of the Imperium's various military branches and bureaus. Though no discrimination on basis of color or gender exists in the Imperium, any divergence in political or religious beliefs, even slight, is often deemed nigh-heretical, and disagreement with such beliefs is a capital offense.
Unquestioning obedience to authority is the greatest virtue. There are at least five varieties of human worlds: Agri-worlds are highly rich in fertile land with farming and animal husbandry being the main ways of life. These worlds are usually in nature and are havens of idyllic lifestyles for retiring members of the military; they supply food and basic fabrics to whole sectors. Death worlds feature wild, often extremely hazardous, landscapes with numerous dangerous flora and fauna species.
The few human inhabitants of these worlds are usually rugged with unflinching natures, ideal recruitment centers for the military. Shrine worlds are the final resting places of extensively decorated or martyred holy individuals, also serving as vast memorial sites and grand monuments for epic events in the imperial history. Though the local populations are minimal, millions of people engage in pilgrimages to shrine worlds from every corner of the Imperium each year. Hive worlds, also known as Imperial Worlds, are extensively developed planets with towering city structures that stretch for many hundreds of kilometers in every direction; tens of billions of citizens live in basic hab-blocks with often substandard living conditions while the local aristocracy and ranking officials wallow in extreme luxury and decadence. These worlds form the fortified capital planets of the Imperium where millions of citizens are recruited as hard laborers or soldiers in the Imperial Guard and other military organizations. Finally, Forge worlds are the exclusive planets of the Adeptus Mechanicus; highly industrialized worlds with colossal factory structures blanketing over most of their landmasses.
Thick toxic smog and corrosive chemical fumes permeate the atmosphere where only cybernetically altered individuals can survive without protective clothing. These Mechanicus worlds supply the Imperium with vast building materials and of course its innumerable war machines and weapons.
A sixth type is unofficially classified as worlds, for worlds that have not even reached development. Whether by simple clerical negligence or by intentional imperial direction, the inhabitants of these planets are usually societies with primitive cultures and beliefs (though missionaries from the Imperial Church will often erect rudimentary places of worship to promote beliefs centered around the Emperor). In these cases, the planetary governor often only resides in orbit and only interacts with locals to obtain tithes in resources or manpower for the Imperium's armies.
In many cases, these worlds are protected by a Space Marine chapter, for they are ideal places of recruitment. Their reasons behind this are that their ways of life produce hardy peoples with excellent physical prowess; whose bodies are more able to survive the unforgiving biological augmentations of a space marine and whose minds are more easily indoctrinated into a warrior-monk existence. Some Chapters even use these worlds, alongside Hive Worlds (some known for their violent, gang-infested undercities) and Death Worlds as recruitment worlds or even Chapter home worlds. Virtually all types of human worlds are at or somehow participating in the Imperium's wars. Even those worlds that are not battle-zones feel the weight of war on them through heavy taxation and conscription. Mutants are humans that display physical deviations from the norm, the result of exposure to mutagenic chemicals, alien experimentation or Chaos corruption.
In general, mutants are hated and feared by the common citizens, seen as a sign of mankind's slow degeneration away from the holy human form. On worlds where they are not summarily exterminated, they are used as slaves for dangerous and menial tasks or banished to fringes of society., psychic mutants who draw their powers from the dimensional realm known as the Immaterium or the Warp, are too dangerous to remain at liberty on the Imperium's myriad worlds; their minds are susceptible to daemonic possession as their strong presences in the Warp can serve as gateways into the material universe for all kinds of Warp entities if they are weak or undisciplined with their powers. Uncontrolled, they can intentionally or unintentionally cause the destruction of entire worlds and have done so in the pre-Imperium past, such as during the terrible days of the Age of Strife. Humans found to be bearing the psychic mutation, if they are not simply killed, are sent to Terra aboard the infamous Black Ships which endlessly traverse the Imperium. There, they are usually sacrificed to sustain the Emperor's Golden Throne, but those who are strong enough and can control their powers are trained to aid various branches of the Imperium's military-albeit under constant guard.
Technology and science [ ] Although humans have access to sophisticated technology, they do not understand the scientific principles behind it, for scientific knowledge among the majority of Mankind was replaced by superstition, and those who do possess some scientific understanding the technology's inner workings are likely to have fragmented knowledge almost universally diluted with mysticism. Advanced machinery is built and maintained by the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus, who believe that all machines possess an animistic spirit. They believe that, long ago, a being they call 'the Machine God' gifted humanity with all the technical knowledge there is to know, including the designs of every device that has been created, exists right now or would be created in the future. According to this dogma, tech-priests often see it that all technology was already invented and have it have to be just re-assembled at Adeptus Mechanicus forge-worlds. This dogma also leads to general reluctance among the tech-priests to invent or improve technology via original research and experimentation. However, when new inventions are made by the members of the Adeptus Mechanicus (this happens, albeit at very slow rate) they go through lengthy and laborious (sometimes taking hundreds of years) process of testing and verifying the creation's compliance with Cult Mechanicus' dogma and strictures (for example, some areas of research are considered forbidden and heretical, like the development of artificial intelligence). Majority of the tech-priests also see alien technology as corrupt and refuse to copy it, even when such technology surpasses the Imperium's (as is sometimes the case).
Such conditions ensure that most common way for Imperial technology to actually progress is when somebody discovers a lost blueprint that dates back to pre-Imperium civilization, which the tech-priests trust are the pure, unadulterated revelation of the Machine God. When building or repairing machinery, tech-priests are somewhat inflexibly follow the 'rites' described in their manuals, and these rites are as likely to include prayers and libations as much as welders and screwdrivers. Aside from their reluctance to innovate the tech-priests are also very inefficient at distributing their technology, as they will not allow anyone outside their faith to share and profane their secrets. Some worlds in the less developed portions of the Imperium even live at pre-industrial levels of development. Infrastructure [ ] Human traverse interstellar distances by shifting into the, a parallel dimension of psychic energy where the conventional do not apply. The Warp is a chaotic and maddening place where conventional navigation instruments are useless, so humans make use of a special breed of called 'Navigators'.
With the third eye in their foreheads, they can gaze upon the Warp and perceive the Astronomican. The Astronomican is a psychic beacon that is projected from Earth by the God-Emperor's spirit. Like a lighthouse, it provides a fixed reference point for ships to navigate.
Beyond the range of the Astronomican, Warp travel is slower and more dangerous, and this sets the Imperium's effective borders. What the Imperium unfortunately does not know is that it is the Astronomican that's bringing the extra-galactic Tyranids into The Milky Way. The Imperial Space Fleet is divided into three distinct branches - the Battlefleets of the Imperial Navy, the Merchant Fleets and the Civil fleets, and whilst the inquisition are able to requisition the ships of other Imperial organisations, they also maintain vessels of their own. The Space Marines Chapters possess their own fleets of warships that stand apart from the Imperial Navy, purpose-built for both the transport of their warriors and providing aid in their style of warfare.
Merchant fleets usually refers to Chartist captains, who are given a charter allowing them to ply a given warp route or sector, usually in slow going ships that usually lack a navigator. Instead, these trading vessels make use of short 'hops' through the warp based upon and some degree of risky guess work in every given hop. These trips between systems can take anywhere from months to years, even centuries.
As such, these chartist vessels tend to be gargantuan in scale, compensating with sheer capacity and often decent armaments for their lack of speed and attendant escort vessels by being too large and requiring the application of overwhelming amounts of firepower to raid effectively. Rogue Traders may also be considered part of the merchant fleets, though they are often more akin to. Their charters are usually more expensive to acquire as they afford them greater range and freedoms in conducting their trades. Although classified as civilians, more wealthy rogue trader captains will sometimes own small and possess one or more merchant vessels that mount considerable armor and weaponry. The nature of rogue trader charters are often mistakenly interpreted by these captains as licenses to explore and trade in any part of space they deem fit and are not beyond negotiating with alien races in areas outside of Imperial territory. The Imperium will sometimes overlook these transgressions as long as the captains adhere to the tenets of the Imperial Creed, they must also report all their acquisitions to the Administratum for tax purposes and pay heavy tithes or risk losing their charter as well as inviting imperial censure, which is often lethal.
For planetary communications, the Imperium makes use of a device known as a Vox, a form of advanced radio communication. For interstellar communications, the Imperium uses Astropaths, who are powerful telepaths extensively trained to send and receive messages across interplanetary distances.
This latter method of interstellar communication is not especially reliable or efficient, but it is faster than sending a messenger ship. To send messages across especially great distances (i.e. From one Segmentum to another), astropaths relay messages, forming astropathic choirs to boost their range. As part of their training, every astropath is brought before the Emperor for him to soul-bind, by which he boosts the astropath's power and guards his mind against daemonic influence. However, they are usually rendered blind in the process due to the sheer magnitude of the Emperor's power. Both these factors make the Emperor's spirit the linchpin of the Imperium's infrastructure.
Should the Emperor finally die, the Imperium could immediately collapse. The Emperor's tenuous grip on life is sustained by the daily sacrifice of a thousand psykers so that his psychic light may continue to shine. Military [ ] The Imperium commands the largest military in the galaxy, honed in millennia of almost unending war (the prevalent theme of the Warhammer 40,000 universe): at any time, there are numerous conflicts engaging the Imperium, across the Imperial space and beyond. Because of the scale of the distances involved, and the number and severity of threats, Imperial military commanders have great autonomy into how and when they prosecute campaigns within their areas of responsibility. The core military force of the Imperium is the, also known as the Astra Militarum.
It is made up of professional soldiers, who may be volunteers from all walks of life or drawn from each imperial world's planetary defense force. The basic Guard unit is a self-contained formation called a, a fighting force that range from being tens of thousands strong to just a few thousand; there are millions of active Imperial Guard Regiments. Due to their diverse backgrounds, regimental specializations and types cover every conceivable kind of warfare in the galaxy, regardless of theater or fighting conditions. A special subsection of the Imperial Guard are the elite storm troopers or Tempestus Scions. Though not as physically powerful as Space Marines, they are more extensively trained and better armed than their guardsmen counterparts. The Tempestus Scions function in much the same capacity as modern day, deploying in smaller numbers and are invariably tasked to accomplish important strategic goals during a military campaign, conducting their operations with surgical precision often far from friendly lines. Due to their elite training and specialist skills, some regiments are permanently seconded by the Imperial Inquisition as Inquisitorial Storm Troopers.
The Imperial Navy, the military arm of the, commands millions of spacecraft, aircraft, deep-space weapons platforms, and military. It is organised into five major Battlefleets: Battlefleet Solar, Battlefleet Obscurus, Battlefleet Tempestus, Battlefleet Ultima, and Battlefleet Pacificus; each of which is further divided into a multitude of Battlegroups and specialized armadas. The Navy also operates a vast and constantly busy transport network of gigantic spaceships used to ferry troops, supplies, and equipment to and from the Imperiums's numerous warzones across the galactic. The Space Marines, also known as the Adeptus Astartes, are genetically modified supersoldiers and serve as the Imperium's elite.
Standing approximately seven feet in height (eight feet when wearing their iconic ) and possessing superior musculature, their augmentations are derived from the genome of one of the twenty, the genetically engineered sons of the Emperor who were made to be his generals, and are organised into nearly 1,000 Chapters that act as autonomous units. As dictated by their own battle tenets, Chapters are usually about 1,000 Marines-strong, though a handful of Chapters deliberately maintain slightly larger numbers. All Chapters have considerable resources at their disposal, including their own space and vehicle fleets, auxiliary personnel, and other support elements. Most Chapters operate in specific areas, near the Imperium's most troublesome spots, or at its borders.
Originally the Space Marines were organized in a of Legions that served as the Imperium's primary fighting force (while the Imperial Guard's predecessor served as a reserve, auxiliary, and garrison force). Composed of tens to hundreds of thousands of Astartes, each was led by a Primarch, and were virtually unstoppable. However, after half of them turned to Chaos and nearly destroyed the Imperium in the resultant civil war (the Horus Heresy), it was decided that the remaining Legions would be divided to ensure that no single leader can command such power and be such a potential threat to the Imperium.
All Space Marine Chapters are expected to pay a tithe of 5% of their gene-seed every year to the Adeptus Mechanicus so that the Mechanicus' Tech-priests (and in many cases, the Inquisition) can monitor the health of each Chapter and facilitate the Founding of new Chapters from existing gene-seed lines whenever the High Lords of Terra decree that the Imperium has a need for new Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes. The Adeptus Mechanicus, apart from being responsible for the production and maintenance of most Imperial weapons and military equipment, does field specialised military forces of its own. These include formations of colossal, heavily weaponised, bipedal war machines called Titans, smaller but more common walkers known as Imperial Knights sourced from feudal worlds, elite cybernetic breeds of warriors called Skitarii, and more advanced iterations of the spacecraft they provide the Imperial Navy.
Mechanicus forces may often be under the strategic command of Imperial officers, or be tactically seconded to Imperial Guard Regiments and Space Marine Chapters. In rare cases, such as in Mechanicus Explorator Fleets, their expeditionary forces would be under the direction of an Arch Magos, a high-ranking member of the Tech-Priesthood. Each planet may also be defended by local or a more structured. In most cases, the latter fills its ranks with short-term and part-time soldiers, who do not have the professional training and equipment of the Imperial Guard. Planetary defense forces of the more important systems may be complemented by a 'System Fleet' of sub-light speed spacecraft. The Ecclesiarchy, though banned from keeping men under arms, also maintains its own military force.
As a loophole to the ban, these are made up of Adepta Sororitas, more commonly known as the Sisters of Battle. They are a group of all-female, militant religious orders headed by an Abbess at the highest echelons and commanded on the field by Canonesses. They utilize weapons and power armor similar to that of space marines, though they are not genetically modified as their strict tenets forbid biological enhancements. Outside of the normal military are other paramilitary organisations, several of which are or operate covertly; they usually deploy in much smaller units, and undertake highly specialized missions.
The Inquisition also possess their own private military organizations such as the Inquisitorial Storm Troopers, as well as more specialized units called Chambers Militant which can often take the form of seconded space marines and sisters of battle, receiving extensive re-training and advanced specialized equipment. These are tasked with carrying out clandestine missions that are far too dangerous (physically and often spiritually) even for the vast numbers of the imperial guard or the brutal firepower of the space marine chapters. Such is the unconditional authority of the Inquisition that they may even take direct command of an entire planet's defense forces as well as any Astra Militarum regiments that happen to be on it in order to root out a potential catastrophic threat to the Imperium. Meanwhile, the Officio Assassinorum dispatches elite assassins against enemy targets such as Chaos leaders and renegades while answering directly to the High Lords of Terra. Meanwhile, the Sisters of Silence, a militant female order of anti-psykers, acted as a form of secret police for the Emperor in regards to psychic activities and secretly remain active in the present era.
Additionally, the Inquisition will sometimes utilize rogue traders; their freer charters allowing them to traverse in and out of imperial space and engage in clandestine operations more easily. Rogue Traders by themselves will also, in rare instances, be called to war by the Highlords of Terra to act in defense of Imperial interests. Last but not the least, the Adeptus Custodes, also known as the Custodian Guard, are an elite group of superhuman warriors who once marched as the bodyguards of the Emperor when he led the Great Crusade.
They now serve as guardians of the Imperial Palace as a whole. With superior biological enhancements and martial training even to that of Space Marines, these golden armored warriors are second only to the Primarchs in single combat. Unfortunately, the process required to create them is even more demanding and difficult than the Astartes, meaning their numbers have never exceeded their peak of ten thousand during the Great Crusade. Three hundred of their number, sworn to silence, are directly assigned to protect the Golden Throne while the rest guard the palace grounds. In total, the Imperium of Man can call upon incalculable military resources to battle against any individual foe.
However, such is the nature of conflict in the 41st Millennium that humanity faces opposition from all sides, even from within, and the forces of the Imperium are nearly always stretched thin enough that there are times when whole solar systems must be sacrificed just to slow enemy movement. Influences [ ]. The double-headed Byzantine Eagle The Imperium of Man as portrayed in the Games Workshop universe resembles various totalitarian institutions from throughout fiction, history, and literature. Some of the inspirations including commonplace works such as and., a novel by Frank Herbert, had some influence on the overall design of the Imperium, and the 'Galactic Empire' from the book series, by Isaac Asimov, also bears strong resemblance to the Imperium, portraying a loosely governed empire where extreme persecution is carried out on those who do not align to the governmental beliefs. Since it originally was created as a sci-fi spin-off of the Warhammer Fantasy battle game, the 40K game world contains many elements of the fantasy genre, for example, the concept of magic and adapted versions of classic fantasy races. The inspirational sources for the 40K universe include classic and contemporary sci-fi, horror, and fantasy movies and television series and the works of renowned genre authors such as Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, H.
Lovecraft, Michael Moorcock, J. Tolkien, and Robert Heinlein (Heinlein's novel inspired many elements such as elite marines in powered armor, and drop pods in which encased Space Marines and equipment are fired from orbiting ships down to the battlefield); medieval, baroque, and surrealist art (especially H. Giger), popular depictions of historical settings, such as the World Wars,,,,, and the: The Imperium bears several strong resemblances to the totalitarian regime of the Soviet Union, which was exceptionally brutal and intolerant of differing ideologies, with its citizens frequently imprisoned, tortured, or even executed if believed to be dissenters.
The Commissariat of the Imperium is similar to the ranking structure and purposes of the Commissariat during. Commissars of the would frequently execute Soviet soldiers to punish cowardice or to simply to fight as Imperial Commissars do within the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Early-War Red Army soldiers were utilized with high expendability via human wave attacks supported by overwhelming artillery bombardment, identical to several Imperial combat doctrines and their reliance on heavy artillery. The cult of personality and complete state control of media that is shown within the Imperium also bears similarities to those in nations such as contemporary, where much of society is taught to believe their is an eternal, omnipotent god, while in the Warhammer 40K Universe, the Emperor is indeed a supreme being, his mind continuing to be a beacon for humanity, his soul a in the Warp waiting to be born. The primary inspiration, however for the Imperium is most likely the, as the inspriation for the comes from the of the.
Other influences include the classical, with the Imperium's various 'lesser gods' viewed as subservient to the Emperor of Mankind, much like the. The language of High Gothic appears to be badly mangled, and many organizational, military, and even personal names bear strong Latin influence.
Much Imperial architecture is designed after the Romanesque architecture of, and Space Marine chapters are most likely based on historical military orders such as the or the. Citations [ ]. Eisenhorn omnibus () format= requires url= () (print) (1st UK ed.).:.. •; Haines, Pete & Hoare, Andy (2003). Imperial guard (paperback) format= requires url= () (print). Warhammer 40,000 Codex (4th ed.). Nottingham, UK:..
• Counter, Ben (2006). Dark adeptus (paperback) format= requires url= () (print). Grey Knights. 2 (1st UK ed.). Nottingham, UK: Black Library.. • Troke, Adam; Vetock, Jeremy & (2012).
Warhammer 40,000 () format= requires url= () (print). Warhammer 40,000 Rulebooks. By Alex Boyd; & reproductions by Games Workshop staff artists & designers; storytext by Alan Merret (6th ed.). Nottingham, UK: Games Workshop..
Fear the unknown! As the origin of the term, it's no surprise that is a setting positively drowning in horror.. • In brief, the whole game. On this page, we have named every fighting force, every faction, some of the most significant aspects of the setting, the resident death worlds, and even a food production plant. It's a brutal, horrific place, with more atrocities in a year than we see in a millennium, but remember that in Warhammer 40000, Or at least, there have been enough instances where that the 'ask questions' part of 'shoot first and ask questions later' was forgotten. That should tell you something about what you're about to find. • Nurgle loves his followers, he really does.
And he'd probably be jolly good grampy to you, if you'd just join up. It just so happens he shares his love by you end up a bloated rotting zombie-like thing which is in so much pain that it can't feel any other pain. But Papa Nurgle loves you, so it's all fine. • And they love it. Other servants of Chaos are intensely suffering or blindingly insane or 'merely' a mindless spawn, but Nurgle followers genuinely enjoy being followed by clouds of plague flies and having their organs dragging on the ground, and nothing would please them more than giving you a biiiiig hug so you can enjoy it too. Come to Papa Nurgle~ • It is similar in some ways to, where all citizens get to be brainwashed by the oppressive Party and end up worshiping the very organization that has made their lives miserable.
Sure, the specifics of the methods to that result may be different, but still, Nurgle and transforms you into a mindless zombie drone worshipping diseases. •, perhaps the most gruesome of the nightmarish Chaos powers, infects almost all of his followers and can be transferred with a single touch, inflicting the poor victim with a concoction perfected by Nurgle himself to cause the most agony while still keeping them from death, many pledging themselves to Nurgle just to end their suffering. It also, each person killed by the Rot in Nurgle's 'garden', the more they resist death merely resulting in a more powerful Plaguebearer.
Oh, and said garden may include one very special favored guest, who Nurgle force-feeds all his creations to just to see how powerful and harmful they are. • Who is the above special guest? The only being able to cure Nurgle's creations, Isha, the Eldar goddess of life. And she's still better off than with her previous 'suitor,' Slaanesh, about whom see below.
Download Timeline Template Omni Graffle Stencil. But since she can cure any of Nurgle's creations, that means she cannot die, so the experiments will never stop. • Plague Marines. Dark, bubbling, deep, filthy, scary. [rasp] and Decay. [wet gagging]. • The Death Guard.
Take the best qualities of the Space Marines, combine them with 28 Days Later style zombies, and you'll have something akin to a Death Guard trooper. Scariest of all (both in tabletop and in fiction), they are - they'll never stop coming at you until you're either a festering mass of plague or dead. And the Plague Marines? The Death Guard is basically an entire Legion of them. • Beasts of Nurgle are abhorrent, sluglike creatures dripping with toxic ooze, spurting dangerous gases from chimneys on their back and dribbling acidic spittle.
But these things are not insane, dribbling wrecks - they have the minds of cute, playful puppies, who only wish to give the enemy bone-crushing hugs and slobber all over them. As if this wasn't bad enough, they have no concept of death - once they kill, they are momentarily disappointed by the fact, then ooze over to another foe to make a new friend. • The Rot Flies of Nurgle. Sometimes, a Beast of Nurgle starts resenting that all its human playmates either won't play or actually chase it back to the Warp. And that resentment just builds and festers until the Beast spins a cocoon and pupates. What hatches is a monstrous, plague-ridden, slime-dripping fly-daemon that is now actively malicious and cruel.
They favor going for the heads of their enemies; either snipping them off with giant mandibles or using a disgusting proboscis to suck their victim's head so hard they slurp out the entire spine in one gulp. They digest these skulls inside their foetid bellies and then spit them as projectiles. But some people, they hold a special grudge against. These people? The Rot Fly swallows them whole, trapping them inside its worm-riddled, stinking, pustulent guts forever. He'll give you,, which translates into. All he asks for is blood.
Lots of blood., yours - he isn't picky. Khorne cares not from whom the blood flows, only that it does. • His Greater Daemons, Bloodthirsters, are the most feared beings in an entire galaxy of,,; even the Grey Knights are wary to speak the names of the most powerful ones. Invigorated by the might of Khorne himself, their exceeds all but the Primarchs, and they are, more often than not leading their own army of ravenous daemons that share their desire for blood and carnage. • Ever heard of?
A Daemon Prince from the Dark Age of Technology, recruited by Khorne in his younger days. Assumes him to be any one of a number of warlords, unless he has • Tzeentch, god of,, and the. He'll grant you beyond your wildest dreams,, and. Unfortunately, he's called the Changer of Ways for a reason, so you might Since Tzeentch is above all else a god of, despite his patronage, especially if your mutations go so out of control you regress into a mewling, mindless Chaos Spawn. But don't worry..
• The Thousand Sons Legion learned this. Soon after being banished to the, all of them began accumulating so many mutations that some weren't so much 'unrecognisable' as 'oh god oh god what the hell is that'. Their most powerful Ahriman cast a massive spell in an effort to prevent certain destruction, and he succeeded in halting the mutations by converting most of the Legion to dust and sealing them inside their armour forever, transforming them into. However the spell also turned the of the minority with even a little psychic power, so it's all good.
• The best part is that the Thousand Sons primarch turned to Chaos (and Tzeentch) to save his legion from extermination. At the end he learns that Ahriman's fiasco was all part of Tzeentch's plan. • Every time the Thousand Sons commit some sort of atrocity, remember this: Primarch Magnus the Red tried to warn the Emperor of Horus' treachery via sorcery, which the Emperor didn't like so much, and thought that his favorite Primarch betraying him was preposterous. Instead, he believed Magnus was trying to betray him and sent Leman Russ to 'arrest' him and bring him to Terra. Sure, Horus convinced Russ to try and kill Magnus, but considering how the Space Wolves regard sorcery, this was about as good an idea as sending a lynch mob to arrest a child rapist. • Also think about the Tzeentchian Greater Daemons, the Lords of Change. They have the power to rip souls from the strongest of men with but a glance, tear tanks in half with their immense magical knowledge, and many mortals mistake them for being omniscient from all that they know about virtually anything.
And worst of all is that they can see into the immediate future because Tzeentch sends it to them, so they're nearly impossible to kill. And if you do kill one? That's only because Tzeentch sent it false images of the future and let you kill it. Congratulations: you just furthered the plans of Tzeentch. • Another Greater Daemon of Tzeentch is Fateweaver, once the most powerful of Tzeentch's Lords of Change - until Tzeentch hurled him into the Well of Eternity, where the events of all time both begin and end, in an effort to gain perfect knowledge of all things. This had killed every Lord of Change prior to Fateweaver, and reduced him to a hunched and weakened shadow of his former self. It even forced the growth of a second head, and both heads answer any question asked of Fateweaver..
Tzeentch has a few dozen Lords of Change on hand to record every word he says just to make sure they don't miss anything. • And the Changeling, who has such absolute control over his ability to shapeshift that he's lost his original form. Only Tzeentch knows what it is, and he doesn't tell him to keep his control over him. That doesn't stop him from being an exquisite in the name of Tzeentch. Once, a rogue Imperial governor summoned the Changeling and asked for an artifact to break the siege that the Dark Angels were laying upon him. The Changeling handed him a device, then vanished - and was replaced by a squad of Terminators. He'd handed the governor a teleport homer.
Broke the siege, though not the way the governor wanted. • And do you know what Tzeentch's ultimate plan is? He doesn't have one! Tzeentch is the very embodiment of scheming and change and transformation; he doesn't need a goal to achieve.
He exists, literally, just to meddle with things and see what happens; he can never lose because he's not trying to win. No matter what the outcome is, so long as something keeps happening, Tzeentch is winning — he's just got to set the wheels in motion so that the universe keeps changing. • In a way, that's a bit (however tiny) of good news for everyone else, because if he did have some ultimate diabolical goal (such as enslaving the souls of ALL humanity at once), he could easily do so since he obviously has the power and especially foresight for it. Thank the Emperor that he's too 'random' for that. • And then we have Slaanesh, the Dark Prince of Pleasure. Give you sensations beyond your imagination, and beyond mortal understanding, which your warped body will eventually become acclimated to,, even as your senses become dull.
Eventually you'll be undertaking ever-more disgusting atrocities in an attempt to stir your jaded emotions, while you hardly feel anything at all. • The Emperor's Children Legion serves Slaanesh exclusively, and are essentially versions of Dark Eldar as a result.
During the siege of Terra, when the other Legions were assaulting the Imperial Palace, they decided their time was best spent killing millions of the planet's inhabitants to convert them into, thousands more slaughtered to. In the ten thousand years since then they have performed more successful raids than any other Legion, devoted not to revenge or conquest or conversion but to. And unlike the Dark Eldar, they don't do it to prevent their soul being eaten; they just love it. • And then there's. See, sometimes the deamon won't just jump into one's head and take over.
If it's Slaaneshi there's a good chance it will first have some fun with you. In Fulgrim's case, first it dug out all of his insecurities and convinced him his best friend was jealous of him. Then it convinced him to kill his best friend, and then. And then it didn't destroy Fulgrim's mind, because it wanted him to watch what it would do, 'cause his suffering would be fun. • It gets even worse. All of the atrocities 'Fulgrim' committed over the centuries afterwards just kept getting more and more horrific and flamboyant as time passed. Killing his best friend just knocked down the last barrier between any semblance of sanity and embracing full-on corruption.
Even though he got bodyjacked for a time, Fulgrim, in the end, turned out to be stronger-willed and more debased than a daemon that was depravity incarnate! He turned the tables and did all of his horrors himself! • Oh, and that 'previous suitor' of Isha under Nurgle's section? That's Slaanesh. One wonders which is worse for a goddess of healing: being the captive of the god of sadomasochistic hedonism, or of the god of pestilence and decay. • At least Nurgle was rescuing her, which is saying something.
He was able to do so while Slaanesh was busy slaughtering the rest of the Eldar pantheon. And she uses her position to whisper cures to Nurgle's diseases to mankind. • All of the Chaos Gods have Chaos Marines devoted specifically to them. Slaanesh's are the Noise Marines; so jaded and burnt out that they can't 'feel' anything any more. So they take to the battlefield wielding, because the resultant cacophony is the only thing that can provoke any reaction in them any more. These have absolutely horrific effects on anyone they hit with them — imagine a sound so that your flesh literally melts off your body from the vibrations.
These even managed to be creepy when the official models for them sported. • Quoth a Slaaneshi Lord. • The outcast chaos god, Malal,. Mentioned in early Warhammer fluff (including a series of comic books) and then stricken from the setting for copyright reasons, Malal favors single, powerful worshipers rather than armies, and has a special place in the Pantheon — Yes, Malal is the chaos god of all destruction, including self destruction — his modus operandi is to pick one particularly powerful chaos champion,, and then empower him with as much of his own energy as he can get away with — something that he steals back,, from the worshiper.
The resulting carnage is one of the only things keeping the other four chaos gods at bay. • While Malal has been stricken from the fluff, the most recent Chaos army books have added The Sons of Malice note Malal is an Eastern Indian word for Malice, a special Chaos Space Marine army with Malal's color scheme. The story behind the SOM is horrifying in and of itself — they were particularly loyal Space Marines from a somewhat feral world, except that they had a specific knack for, and their home planet had a thing for victory celebrations. A particularly puritanical Inquisitor happened to watch one of these celebrations, and while completely ignoring the similar rituals of other, more established (and thus, protected against a single inquisitor going against them) chapters, had them personally declared traitors and their homeworld — something that is heavily insinuated could happen to any other loyalist chapter who happens to get the wrong Inquisitor visiting them — in fact, it's implied that the only thing that caused the Sons of Malice to fall was the fact that they didn't kill the Inquisitor fast enough. In other words, the Sons of Malice and the millions of people living on their homeworld were screwed over by the Warhammer 40000 version of an. • It's more violent than most cannibalistic chapter rituals.
In the short story The Labyrinth from Heroes of the Space Marines, they are depicted eating slaves alive. The rest of The Labyrinth is quite scary, what with the of the transformed marines and it ends with the protagonist, having run the titular Space Hulk's gauntlet, being sacrificed with the ten other victors to summon Malice (renamed due to copyright) himself. • Another thing about Sons of Malice. They have continued a war against both the Imperium and the armies of Chaos at the same time, for centuries and winning most of their engagements, while being insanely outnumbered and outgunned and without any daemons or heavy support.
How the hell they can accomplish this nobody knows, mostly because there are usually no survivors. • There are also some implications, that Sons of Malice are seemingly acting like a beacon for all worshippers of Malal as they are often supported by solid numbers of cultists and fallen guardsmen, not to mention mutants. • The worse part about all 5 Chaos gods? All Chaos gods can be taken as corrupted versions of otherwise positive emotions: • Slaanesh as a corruption of Love or Happiness. As long as someone loved another, they're contributing directly to Slaanesh.
And if they loved even a bit too much, they may be approached, and the corruption shall begin. • Khorne as a corruption of Bravery or Glory in the universe where there is only war. • Tzeentch as a corruption of Hope or Wisdom. Any who hope for deliverance, any who wish to learn more to make a better tomorrow, will fall into Tzeentch's clutches. • Nurgle as a corruption of Acceptance or Friendship.
Friendship is pretty much guaranteed between people. Does 'Acceptance' sounds familiar? It's the central dogma of most of the uncountable masses of the Imperium. • Malal is a corruption of Justice. It's specifically stated that anyone who hunts Chaos too effectively, anyone who lets the hunt consume them, has a chance of being approached by Malal.
• This also resulted in one of the biggest horrors in the form of Castellan Crowe: to keep his Daemon-blade inert and safe, Crowe basically eschewed every part of his life. He feels no joy from victory, no sense of camaraderie, no fulfillment or desires. He is not even allowed to feel sadness at all of this, and is locked away in a solitary room whenever not on duty. One of the few servants of the Imperium who can possess a Daemon Weapon without corruption, but he can no longer be anything. And even then, it's implied that Crowe is helped out by the Emperor himself, as well as an inborn self-discipline that no other Grey Knight can ever aspire to. • In the novella Aurelian, Ingethel the Ascended tells Lorgar, whose Legion masterminded the Horus Heresy, that those who worship the Chaos Gods will be accepted into their power, and those who reject the Chaos Gods will be devoured by daemons. This concept of the afterlife is a major part of Chaos Undivided, and is why the Word Bearers pride themselves on knowing the truth.
Unfortunately, it's also. In Deliverance Lost, during the aftermath of the Drop Site Massacre, a Word Bearers vessel trailing the Raven Guard's last battle-barge gets pulled into the Warp. Do those within, who have dedicated their lives and souls to the Chaos Gods, get taken to a pleasant afterlife? They're devoured and tormented by daemons just as much as someone who rejects Chaos. There's a reason Chaos is dubbed 'The Bad Guys' of the series. It's because the Chaos Gods literally don't give a damn about their followers.
• The Chaos Gods themselves represent corrupted Chaos, not just chaos itself. As mentioned elsewhere, Chaos is affected entirely by the emotions of sentient beings in real space. Ever wonder why Chaos is and not? It's because that the galaxy and every living thing in it are just. The fact that all factions are,,,, is why Chaos is the absolute worst of all of them. No one will ever 'win' Warhammer 40000, because evil itself exists and it has already won.
It won a long time ago. • Although canonicity can be there is a general timeline that shows three of the current Chaos Gods coming into full being somewhere between the eighth and fifteenth millennium. This is also the time-frame when Mankind first began to prolifically expand into the stars, and saw an unprecedented boom in population numbers. Before this point, the Warp was of course Chaotic, but good gods (such as the Eldar pantheon) existed as often as evil ones.
After this point it became infinitely more hellish. Although not explicitly stated, it's implied that the current state of the Warp, and indeed the very EXISTENCE of three of the four gods, is due to our high Warp presence and tumultuous minds. • It should be noted that all sources of canon only refer to the Milky Way. While Mankind has become top predator of the Milky Way, following in the wake of countless races before them, it is implied that few if any races managed to get to other galaxies (the only known being to try is the Silent King of the Necrons during his attempted exodus). While this implies that the warp may be less tumultuous in other parts of the galaxy, it also make the Tyranids more scary (see below).
That Necron King stopped his self-exile out of fear for the entire galaxy when the Tyranids came to the Milky Way, becoming the first known species of intergalactic travelers. Note that these purely biological creatures succeeded where other species failed. Species that were so technologically advanced that they were considered virtual gods. • Among all that, there is still one more lingering fact; those 5 named chaos gods are simply the most powerful of the chaos gods. Some of the more pessimistic delvers of hidden knowledge have concluded that when the Emperor of Mankind dies (and he will) the resultant Fall of Mankind to Chaos will not only open a rift into the Warp the size of the entire Galaxy but will create the final and mightiest Chaos God, who will corrupt, torture and enslave all remaining sentient life as they descend en masse into a screaming, eternal hell. Sweet dreams. • Also note that provided more information about this subject (if they are considered canon and the information brokers weren't lying) in both the and series.
In the Eisenhorn's series, a demon speaks of a Demon King who at one time was a rival to Tzeentch who, while independent, sought to topple the Lord of Tricks. Implying that the gods could be killed and replaced. Furthermore, the in Ravornor claims to worship the Eight. He seems to imply that there a total of 8 chaos gods (of mankind, so not counting Gork and Mork [dual gods of the Orks] or the C'tan [who are really just ]). The four major gods are the most powerful while Malice would be the strongest or most influential of the 'weak gods'. It is unknown how these hypothetical weak gods would compare to the Daemon Prince Champions of the major gods.
Note 'Ans'l, Mo'rcck and Phraz-Etar are minor Chaos deities. Chaos Space Marines were rumored to praise them by putting spikes on their Power Armour. Their names are puns on the last names of Bryan Ansell, Michael Moorcock, and Frank Frazetta, writers and artists whose work all contributed to the look and feel of the Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000 universes.' The canon of these 'gods' are dubious obviously. Ik Multimedia Miroslav Philharmonik Rapidshare Premium there.
• Another of the renegade Chaos gods is Necoho, the Doubter. What does he represent? The struggle against the very concept of gods or religion. Yes, Necoho is the god of unbelief.
While this paradoxical nature means he has a small following and he's not very powerful, his existence alone shows that any attempts to destroy chaos are futile. Even if the entire galaxy were somehow magically convinced that Tzeentch, Nurgle, Khorne, and Slaanesh weren't real, something would take their place. • ANY named Chaos character is going to be scary.
• (pictured top). It's not the fact that he's, or that he has a lab coat. It's the fact that he spent thousands of years floating in the Warp, has pure Warp energy constantly pumped into him, and he still doesn't worship any of the Chaos Gods.
In fact, he's stated that they have no more to. People aren't supposed to make bargains with the. That is not how it works. • There's one story about how he was captured by the Dark Elder and taken to Commoraugh, but he so impressed them with his knowledge of inflicting pain that they let him go, and allowed him to study under the. In sum, he's so depraved that even a species of immortal, sadomasochistic xenophobes have to respect his cruelty. As has been noted, this is the only time this has ever to anyone. • There's his ultimate goal, as illustrated in the novels.
He's trying to clone the Emperor. The Blood Angels may have set his work back considerably, but as far as he's concerned, it's only a matter of time. • Though he hasn't yet succeeded in his ultimate goal, he has succeeded in growing a perfect, uncorrupted clone of Fulgrim, as illustrated in Fabius Bile: Clonelord. He gave it to Trazyn. In exchange for the small price of seventeen thousand, four hundred and fifty-six perfectly preserved progenoids of the Third Legion.
Now imagine Bile's plans for that. • Technically, his coat is made of Astartes skin. As mentioned below, whether Astartes can be considered human is highly unclear.
• Typhus, the Herald of Nurgle and Host to the Destroyer Hive - Warp Flies that can enter your body through any orifice and feast on your innards, multiplying as they do so, until your body actually explodes from the pressure of all the plague-carrying insects inside you. These things swarm around him and obey his every whim. The Death Guard turned to Nurgle (they were already Chaos) when Typhus becalmed them in the Warp and unleashed the Destroyers after PARALYZING them all, letting them watch their comrades' fate and knowing they were next. • 'As the Destroyer spread throughout the Death Guard fleet, bursting the guts of the hardy space marines, Typhus came uncertainly to his feet and spoke a single gurgling, phlegm-laced word: 'More.' With that word, the flies left their hosts broken and bloated, and entered Typhus’ body like a wave. He remained on his feet, but his body was a hive of pestilence ever after.'
• Ever notice how there's never a depiction of Typhus with his helmet off (there is one of him as Typhon, but none after his transformation)? It's because the transformation of his body into the Destroyer Hive smeared his body into his armor. Under his Terminator Armor he's essentially a living, fleshy honeycomb; his skin long since fused to the inside of his armor.
If he thinks you're a, he'll duel you. If he wins, you're dead. If he loses, you win, but if you feel even an instant of triumph or even mild satisfaction, you end up, being while his. • He's a member of the Emperor's Children, which means he's a on equine growth hormone. Even before the Horus Heresy he'd carved up his own face, linking up the scars of a lifetime of battle to make a jagged irregular pattern, and the first time he lost a duel the codex specifically says, 'Lucius' agonizing death was an experience of transcendent pleasure.' So he's basically as a Space Marine with a thing for dueling. • Angron, Daemon Primarch of the World Eaters Legion.
For one of the handful of times one of the Primarchs returned to the material realm, he descended upon the planet of following an endless stream of daemons and proceeded to destroy everything. An entire 100-man company of Grey Knight Terminators, the very elite of the Grey Knights themselves, who are arguably the greatest Space Marine Chapter in the Imperium specifically trained to, were deployed in response, and almost all of them died, succeeding only in banishing him back to the Warp for 100 years (and a day), at which point he might decide to try slaughtering millions again 'for the Blood God'. And the fact that Grey Knights were able to banish him at all is mostly attributed to the weakening warp storm, which was the only thing supporting Angron and his daemonic hordes' existence. As if the First War of Armageddon wasn't quite enough, it caused Months of Shame, a civil war between the Space Wolves and the Inquisition that cost the Imperium another Grey Knight company, numerous warships, and billions of human lives. • A few thousand years before Armageddon, Angron united tens of thousands of World Eaters to assault the Imperium.
Close combat shock troops with almost no support ravaged Imperial space for two centuries before the Imperium withered their force and pushed them back. Angron and his force took over seventy sectors in what was known as the 'Dominion of Fire' and it took a force of four Space Marine Chapters, thirty Imperial Guard regiments, and two Titan Legions to recover what was lost. Said chapters/regiments/legions spent about three millennia to retake 90% of the conquered territories • And Kharn, nicknamed the Betrayer, is probably the most batshit of of them all. Here is the man who, in a fit of anger, singlehandedly shattered his own Legion's capacity as a fighting force with nothing but a flamethrower.
The game reflects this - he's just as likely to go bonkers and start hacking apart his own men if he feels like it. You have been warned. • It gets 'better'—he also shattered another legion at the same time. The two legions—the World Eaters and the Emperor's Children—were fighting over a daemon world called Skalathrax, and both sides called a temporary cease-fire in light of deathly cold nights on the planet. Kharn, of course, was having none of that, and decided to burn the shelters that had been taken to force both sides fight both enemies and their brethren alike to get place in remaining shelters simply to survive. Ultimately, the legions were fragmented into warbands, and Kharn has since become the embodiment of Khorne's indiscriminate rage.
• Recent lore implies that, at one point, Kharn had the chance to walk away from all of it. A Loyalist Thousand Sons sorceror saw his pain and offered to remove the device that was driving him to rage. Kharn briefly realized what this meant and had considered it, but in a violent psychotic rage butchered the Sorceror.
The Sorceror knew he would not survive Kharn's attack, so instead mentally related to Kharn exactly what his actions meant; Kharn can no longer blame anyone else for his pain and rage, he had the chance to cure it and chose otherwise. It's implied that this revelation broke what was left of Kharn's mind, resulting in the ruthless berserker the galaxy now knows. • Moving away from individuals, the Iron Warriors spent the entire Great Crusade being brutalised by sieges and trench warfare. Now, after the Heresy, they've gone completely nuts and turn every single planet they live on into a super-reinforced stronghold ringed with all sorts of tanks, Dreadnoughts (which are batshit crazy, by the way) and Havocs. Relentless, merciless, and willing to infect themselves with the Obliterator virus (see below).
• One such example of what they're capable of is known as the Iron Cage Incident. They set up base on Sebastus IV containing a keep within 20 square miles of minefields, towers, tank traps, trenches, bunkers and redoubts in order to trap their opposite numbers, the Imperial Fists. The plan starts by isolating the enemy from their orbital support, all the while dividing them up to destroy them one by one. Finally, when the remaining Imperial Fists penetrate the fortress, there's no keep—just.
By day six, the Imperial Fists are reduced to fighting individually and using the corpses of their brethren as cover. The siege continues for three weeks after that. The end result is that the Fists' primarch is left a broken man, the Fists themselves are left unable to fight for nineteen years, and Perturabo (the Iron Warriors' primarch) sacrifices the geneseeds of the fallen enemy to ascend to the status of Daemon Prince. • The Iron Warriors are arguably the most unpleasant of all the legions for the fact that while the others are amoral and often insane bastards,, or at the absolute least value what they have in a material sense.
The Iron Warriors only value their hatred and their opportunities to express it. In the Iron Warriors, astartes and humans alike are just things to be fed to the legion's war apparatus.
Nothing is sacred, everyone is expendable, and victory is all that matters, no matter how dirty it has to be won or how many have to die to get it. Is common practice. Even Chaos itself is just seen as a weapon to be used. • get their giggles from psychologically torturing entire planets. One piece of fiction has them crucifying and eviscerating loyal Assault Marines, then nailing the iron crosses to the front of their tanks. And the Assault Marines were still alive. • In another piece of fiction the Night Lords invaded a hive city (a planet covered in mile high cities) and hacked into the telecommunications networks and broadcast the murder, death and torture as it happened.
The Imperium reports after the attack stated that fully one-third of the population died from fear itself. • Also, in the same book, they came up with a plan to shut off all psychic communication and Warp navigation in an enormous area of Imperial space.
How they achieved this? Flaying every astropath on the hive planet, keeping them alive for hours afterwards with medical treatments to prolong their agony, and finally killing them by exposing them to Navigator Octavia's third eye, which released the build-up of psychic energy that their suffering had created. And the strain of that almost killed her as well. • The Night Lords were nuts even before the Heresy. Failing to get enough recruits, the Primarch resorted to. True, he regrets it at the end and hated what the legion became, but one must remember: the Primarch himself was considered before becoming Primarch, and he hated what the legion has become. It's even suggested that he allowed himself to be killed by an Imperial assassin because he was so deeply and utterly horrified by what he himself had become.
The entire legion basically runs on this trope. • He let himself be killed as vindication; he had been ever since he was a child, with one of the dreams being the exact circumstances of his death. He allowed the assassin into his chambers, watched her walk up, and flat out told her in only slightly more grandiose speech that 'everything I have ever done is proven to be in the right by your presence here.'
This includes betrayal of the Imperium, and the. And he's RIGHT. • Said Primach, Konrad Curze, was a combination of,,, and, as a demigod.
His Chapter learned well. • was, in fact, the admitted inspiration not only for his name, but several aspects of his character, including • Kurze's modus operandi was to be the worst person on his planet, so that no one else tried to claim the place. How did he do this? By killing EVERY single criminal in a brutal manner, until the planet's sewers were jammed by their body parts. • The Night Lords were originally depicted as extra-awful psychopaths back when Space Marines in general were often recruited from maximum security prisons. It was later changed that Space Marine indoctrination had to begin at an age of between 10-12, coinciding with the onset of puberty.
The Night Lords are still, canonically, depicted as being gathered up from amongst groups of depraved murderers and maniacs, despite not being old enough to attend high school. • Word Bearers are the Imperial zealots with. And they're the ones who kicked off the - in other words, the entire fucked up state of the 40K universe? Lorgar's fault. The entire hell-universe that would give Stephen King night terrors is Lorgar's fault. Even the Imperium's current state is Lorgar's fault, because he wrote the original Lectitio Divinitatus tract slash holy book.
• Backstory from the campaign included a pious individual named, some Vlad the Impaler-style human sacrifice, and seven 'volunteers'. One of the sacrifices chickened out at the last minute, but luckily two of his companions were able to catch him and hoist him onto his pike anyway (in his screams he “issued the fifteenth curse,” which the temple presbyter took as a good omen).