Born in the depths of the eighties, Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000 (or simply 40k) has grown from a relatively obscure miniatures battle game into a multimedia juggernaut, with a library of novels, a slew of video games, four separate tabletop RPG lines and even a movie (that went directly to DVD). These days millions of fans around the world wage war for the Imperium of Man, the powers of Chaos, the enigmatic Eldar, or any one of a myriad of other factions within the sprawling universe. While a lot of people are familiar with the setting through a number of different products, 40K is often a daunting prospect to try come to grips with due to the sheer amount of available material. Thankfully, Aggrogate is on hand to remedy this! We want to help new fans, or maybe those that have only been exposed to a fraction of what this sprawling universe contains, gain a broader understanding of the setting as a whole. Read on for a glimpse into the war torn monolith that is Warhammer 40k!

The Warhammer 40,000 universe is set in the distant future, 38,000 years or so from now. Faster than light travel is largely accomplished via 40k’s version of hell, the Warp. The Warp is an alternate reality where time, space, and physical form have little meaning, home to countless malevolent beings that have existed since the dawn of time. These Warp entities, called daemons by humanity, hunger for mortal souls and try endlessly to enter material space in order to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting. Some of the greatest of these powers are worshipped as gods, putting even their Lovecraftian counterparts to shame with their grandiose, star devouring evil, and grant those foolish or insane enough to pledge themselves to their darkity darkness for great power. It is a nightmare place tied to the fundamental nature of creation that, when perceived directly, is enough to drive a mind helplessly mad.

Human ships travel through the Warp at great peril, in the grand fashion of “Event Horizon,” (considered by many fans to be a prequel to the Warhammer 40,000 universe) using only a psychic beacon and a notoriously temperamental energy shield called a Gellar field that keeps the maelefic entities from devouring the crews inside, both body and soul. Even with these advantages Warp travel is still extremely dangerous, and ships sometimes vanish into the warp only to disappear utterly or reappear as part of a spacehulk, or a giant amalgam of ships inexplicably bound together due to the fickle nature of the warp, centuries or millenia later.

For the God Emperor!

Individuals from certain species have the dangerous ability to tap directly into this giant bucket of crazy, risking their minds and their souls for power. Called pyskers by humanity, these beings can use the power of the Warp to manifest their will into the material world, from telekinesis to telepathy to prophesy and foretelling. While some are able to produce only minor tricks, the most potent pyskers can crush starships or enslave the populations of whole planets with their will. Great care must be taken when using these abilities, however, for drawing upon the Warp can allow its inhabitants access to the user’s mind and soul.

Mankind has grown in the intervening years between our own time and the 41st millenium, spreading throughout the galaxy and colonizing countless millions of worlds in their quest for dominion. In the 31st millenium, 10,000 years before 40k takes place, mankind was forged into a single empire by the will of the Emperor of Mankind, a being much like a god when compared to normal man with a vast intellect and psychic abilities. After uniting earth he turned his eyes to the stars, and to assist him with his crusade he created the primarchs, immortal demigods born with a portion of the Emperor’s vast might. From their miraculous genetic code he then created the space marines, immortal, (but slightly less) superhuman warriors tasked with uniting all of humanity under one rule and politely exterminating those that refused to submit, that had deviated too far from what was deemed the acceptable human norm, or simply had the audacity to be an alien.

Purge the Xenos!

The dream of this “golden age” was topedoed when the emperor’s first and favorite son Horus rebelled against him, seduced by the call of Cthulhu like creatures in from the Warp. Supported by other primarchs, their space marine legions, and parts of the imperial war machine, Horus thrust the Imperium into a civil war of such magnitude that trillions died and whole worlds burned as primarch battled primarch and space marine killed space marine. The Emperor was eventually victorious, but only at great cost. Horus was slain, but the emperor himself was mortally wounded. His body was enshrined in the golden throne, an impossibly complex life support system that keeps him trapped in a state of perpetual undeath, unable to interact with the world around him except by the production of the astronomican, a psychic beacon that allows mankind to navigate through the warp. He is kept this way only via the sacrifice of thousands of pyskers every day.

In the intervening ten thousand years the Imperium stagnated, turning from the emperor’s secular promised land into a bloated theocratic nightmare trapped in a continual dark age that wages never ending war against forces both within and without. The emperor is worshipped as a god and his church ensures the faith of the masses with fire and pointy, pointy torment. The lives of the Imperium’s inhabitants are almost entirely devoted to the war effort, filling the ranks of the imperial guard or the navy, or working as one among billions in a hive city to produce ammunition, guns, and even the mighty ships of the Imperium. Much knowledge has been lost, never to be regained, and what remains is guarded jealously by the Tech priests of Mars that have transformed it into a blend of science and superstition. The Imperium is guarded from threats without by the Guard and the Space Marines, and from threats within by the Inquisition, individuals with nearly limitless authority to ruthlessly exterminate any hint of heresy or mutation. In both wars the death toll is staggering, with the Imperial guard often paving the way to victory with the bodies of their own dead and thousands of innocent citizens killed for every heretic caught by the Inquisition.

4,322,682 of our friends just died trying to take that bunker, but for some reason, I think we just might be okay...

The Inquisition’s often hilariously super villainous pogroms aren’t without cause, however. In the time between the Horus Heresy and the 41st millennium chaos has flourished. Those that devote themselves to these powers, the followers of chaos, festered in darkness since the Horus Heresy, seeking to spread the influence of their malefic masters whenever possible and work constantly to undermine the Imperium. Secret cults collude with blasphemous sorcerers and the space marines of the traitor legions to launch wars of annihilation in the name of their demonic masters. Whole worlds are sometimes swallowed up by rebellion as chaos cults spread their Warp madness from within. While worshipers of chaos exist in secret throughout the Imperium, their true home is the Eye of Chaos, a place of madness where the warp and the material universe overlap, allowing reality to flow like hot wax. From time to time a great host of Chaos will pour forth from the Eye in a Black Crusade and inflict untold devastation before being driven back by humanity at the cost of inestimable human life and precious resources.

Chaos is but one threat, however, and while humanity is the most numerous species in the galaxy it is by no means alone. The enigmatic Eldar, a long lived and inhumanly graceful people that resemble the elves in numerous fantasy settings, had built a galactic civilization before mankind had dragged himself out caves. Their empire was destroyed when they delved so deeply into debauchery that their massed psychic energy gave birth to a naughty hermaphroditic, pleasure god named Slaanesh, creating the Eye of Chaos as a byproduct. Now they wander the galaxy in craftworlds, gigantic artificial habitats that house the remnants of their race seeking to ensure their survival and thwart the forces of destruction when possible. Lead by their Farseers, Eldar gifted with a talent for prophesy so great that they subtly alter the tapestry of fate for their own inscrutable ends, changing the outcome of events decades or even centuries in the future. Their technology is a marvel and is vastly superior, in complexity if not always raw effectiveness, to that of mankind.

Orks are another threat, more savage and numerous than the Eldar. Huge, hulking beasts driven instinctually to war, orks fight as other species breath. Though less intelligent than mankind, they possess an intuitive understanding of technology, a monstrous resilience, and a pugnacious disposition that often allows them to win the day when their tactics failed them, which is often. While not psychic in the way of mankind or the Eldar, orks have a collective psychic connection that allows them to accomplish terrifying feats when gathered in large numbers and whipped into a frenzy. Like super powered green soccer hooligans on the universe’s longest bender, orks smash anything and anyone that needs a good kicking, which is everything and everyone.

Manchester United Football Club Rules!

More terrifying than the Orks or the Elder, the Tyranids travel from galaxy to galaxy devouring all life, down to the very microbes in the soil, from every world left in their wake, driven onward by the hive mind. They don’t know fear, or loss, or doubt, and are compelled only by their endless, voracious hunger. In many ways, the Zerg in Starcraft resemble the Tyranids both conceptually and aesthetically, but the Tyranids predate the Zerg by more than a decade, and are often considered to be a seminal influence on them. The Tyranids and the species above are just the beginning. Others, like the lifeless and implacable techno zombie Necrons, the expansionistic Tau, and the Eldar’s dark, more hair metal kin the Dark Eldar, are also part of the never-ending struggle from which there can be no peace. The 41st millenium is way, way too metal for peace. FOR IN THE GRIM DARK FUTURE THERE IS ONLY WAR!