Imperial Primer

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“It is the 41st Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.”

Credits Credits Created and written by: Golden Tullis Special Thanks The Dark Reign web-site and Donato Re-design Mauvia Artwork and Warhammer 40k Universe See disclaimer

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Disclaimer Disclaimer

his document is completely unofficial and in no way endorsed by Games Workshop Limited or Fantasy Flight Games. Games Workshop, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, Dark Heresy, the Dark Heresy logo, Black Industries, the Black Industries logo, BL Publishing, the BL Publishing logo and all associated races and race insignia, marks, names, characters, illustrations and images from the Warhammer 40,000 universe are either ©, ™ and/ or © Games Workshop Ltd 2000-2009, variably registered in the UK and other countries around the world.

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Introduction

Introduction ...............................

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Many Worlds, Many Cultures .............................. 7 Travel ....................................................................... 7 Communication....................................................... 8 Fascism and Freedom.............................................. 8 Technology .............................................................. 8 Psykers .................................................................... 9 Mutants . ................................................................. 10 Xenos ...................................................................... 12 The Inquisition . ..................................................... 12 Religion ................................................................... 13 Language . ............................................................... 14 History . .................................................................. 14

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Many Many Worlds, Worlds, Many Cultures Cultures Many

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ith the abstraction of time, distance, and travel, it is easy for an outside observer to forget that every star-system in the Imperium is divided by a vast, unpredictable, and ultimately dangerous void. Culture, language, history, philosophy, government, and sometimes even biology develop organically and independently on every Imp erial planet over the course of centuries or millennia, free from significant influence beyond the gravity-well of their sun. The resulting differences in humanity are thus greater than anything that was known during the age of Terra. It could be said, when comparing the peoples of some worlds, that fellow Imperial citizens are sometimes just as alien as the more approachable Xenos.

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and a peaceful shrine world filled with the faithful, making works to further glorify the Emperor’s image and name. (A look at the accompanying galactic and sector maps should begin to give one a sense for the full scale of the Imperium.) Author’s Addendum: Note that this is assembled with the year set to 950.M41, rather than the DH default timeline in the 700’s. In addition, where there are contradictions, ambiguity, or blank spots in the lore, I have filled in with what I believe to be the most rational conclusions where needed. Finally, as the lore and “fluff ” that has been published is both massive and a constantly changing and evolving thing, there may be points where what is contained herein is no longer accurate.

Travel Travel

It is important then to remember just how different everything is likely to be when visiting even the more well-traveled foreign planets. The laws and customs may vary such that behavior that’s taken for granted on one’s homeworld may be offensive, disturbing, or even criminal in another star-system. People of different worlds, especially different classes of worlds, look, speak, and think differently from each other. A common mistake is to think in generalizations that hold across the Imperium. Any statement that begins with“In the Imperium…” or anything like it, is probably 30-40% true, at the absolute most. The sheer scale and scope of the Imperium ensures that worlds that are not part of a busy trade or military route can fall to enemy action, heresy, rebellion, or any number of other fates and not be discovered for decades (or more, in the case of some backwater colonies). Generally, for more outof-the-way systems, it isn’t until investigators come to find out why tithes have stopped being received that these fates are discovered. So, in short, the Imperium is generally unified in cause, in faith, and in the need to survive. Beyond these basic connections, the variation from world to world is tremendous. In the same sector there can be junglecovered death-worlds with a few thousand citizens, all fighting for survival as they reap the world’s resources, along with a dystopic corporate/urban-wasteland of wage-slave drones and cyberpunks, a half-feral frontier planet populated by opportunists and prospectors,

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ravel through the warp is done via two methods. The most common and affordable is via the slow but relatively reliable chartist vessels. Chartist vessels do not have a member of the Navis Nobilae to guide and calculate jumps for them, and rely on heavily traveled and “smoothed” routes through the warp that are pre-calculated for them. To get a sense for the speed of these vessels, it takes 800 sidereal (standard) days to travel from Scintilla to Malfi, or back. The much more expensive and considerably faster method is to make the warp jumps with a Navigator of the Navis Nobilae. These mutant psykers can calculate jumps on the fly to and from nearly any location in the galaxy (and perhaps beyond, but most don’t like to think about that). Consequently, the jumps are less staggered and trips that would take a chartist vessel years only take months or even weeks or days for a Navigator guided vessel. Using these “on the fly” calculations is much less consistent than using the known routes of travel, and while the trips are almost always shorter, there is a staggering level of variance in sidereal and relative travel time when making these jumps. On rare occasion a trip that felt like a few days leaves the warp decades or centuries later, or will sometimes simply arrive before they actually left. Such is the way of the warp. Due to these factors, the handful of people that travel through the warp frequently find a difference begins to form in their sidereal age (measured from the physical world) and their relative age (time they experience from their own perspective). Despite this, age is conventionally measured in sidereal time. This is especially true in Calixis, given the rumors (which are a plain, though mysterious, fact in this case) about the world that strikes dead any human over 40 sidereal years of age. It should be noted that most people never leave the planet of their birth, and would find the very idea terrifying. Even those who might dream of traversing the stars and exploring (or exploiting) new worlds will

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Fascism and Freedom Fascism and Freedom

likely never do so, as the cost of even a single one-way trip is prohibitive, and more than a common worker could ever practically afford. The only exception would be the rare pilgrim ship, which packs in poor mendicants from every world on their route for a fraction of the usual cost (and usually giving a fraction of the space and comfort), as they travel to a shrine world or similar holy site. For many of the devout this is the culmination, and end of, their lives.

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he Imperium is, without question, a fascist state when taken as a whole. The only redress that a citizen has against an imperial agent’s misbehavior is to file a complaint that the agent breached the protocol of their own agency, or in extreme cases notifying the Inquisition of potential heresy or treason (though these forms of redress do exist, so it’s not quite a fully totalitarian regime). On the other hand, unless the Imperial Guard is on world for some reason, or someone is under investigation by the Adeptus Arbites or worse the Inquisition, most citizens will never interact with an agent of the Imperium proper without actively seeking one out.

Communication

Communication

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imilarly, while the methods of communication within any given world may be as varied as the worlds themselves, the only medium for systems to communicate across the vast expanse of the void is the warp. This is accomplished via the Imperial soul-bound psykers known as astropaths. Astropathic transmissions are the only means of relaying a message or information between systems without carrying it there in person (which is obviously both far more expensive and dangerous). Only the most stable and powerful of astropaths (and an even smaller fraction of telepathic psykers) can open and maintain a direct connection to another mind across the vast distances of the void, and these will only be found operating at the behest of individuals on par with the Lords of Terra, the head of the Astropathic Choir, or the Great Inquisitorial Lords. More often, an astropath takes the message or information and encodes it into a series of potent psychological symbols. Taking this emotionally charged symbolic message, they cast it out into the warp towards their target (in a symbolic rather than literal direction, it is far better to know who you are sending to, rather than just where). If things go well, the recipient will feel the incoming message and open their mind to it, untangling the complex symbolic code of the message to make it comprehensible for the actual recipients of the message. While this is usually incredibly fast, conditions such as warp storms, damaged or non-existing transmission equipment, or extreme stress or injury to the astropaths involved can cause messages to be delayed, misdirected, lost, or mistranslated. Still, it is far faster and safer than travelling in person.

Each world has a handful of Imperial laws to obey and responsibilities they are expected to fulfill, beyond which they are largely allowed to rule themselves in whatever manner they are accustomed to. This means that each world is highly varied in the form of local government and degrees of freedom individual citizens enjoy (or don’t enjoy, such as on Sepheris Secundus). As long as one does not violate the fundamental laws of the Imperium, mainly prohibiting heresy, true and overt apostasy, treason, any actions against lawful imperial agents, and any theft of imperial resources, the Imperium at large does not really care what you’re up to. In fact, if one were to have the resources to travel on their own terms, an individual could rather easily seek out and move onto a world that is run in a manner closer to their own ideals and principals. Sadly, very few imperial citizens have such resources, and those that do are generally far too comfortable to bother with the dangers and stresses of travel, let alone relocation.

Technology Technology

As an interesting side note, the talents of the Astropathic Choir make them the equals, and in many cases superiors, of the Navis Nobilae in the realm of divination. It is not uncommon for powerful or wealthy individuals to hire on a personal astropath for both communication and to act as their personal seer.

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uman history, and the effects of various technologies on history, has left humanity with a strange attitude regarding anything more complicated than a lever or pulley system. Compounding this is the religion of the Machine God and its priests. While the bulk of the Imperium consider the Tech-Priests of Mars to be inscrutable and inaccessible, the underlying views of the Mechanicum have fully impressed themselves on all aspects of Imperial life, primarily due to the singular control the Mechanicum holds over the high technology required for travel, war, and the sustenance of life in any hostile environment. So it is therefore an obvious and fundamental truth, to most Imperial citizens, that every technological device carries a sentient, self-aware, and at times willful, soul. Even the most faithless and empirically minded Imperial will find themselves muttering a plea to the Machine God or the Omnissiah when trying to get a

Where the lines between the domains of the common man, the Enginseers (the lay “clergy” indoctrinated and trained by the Mechanicum, but not formally bound to the cult, used to manage all the necessary but common or menial tasks throughout the Imperium, they are basically your standard mechanics), and the Priesthood lie is largely a matter of the technological base of the world in question. On a primitive mining colony, a fully ranked Magos may oversee the distribution and management of the mining equipment throughout the planet, despite that the next closest systems would never consider having even a mech-wright lower themselves to overseeing such basic mechanical equipment. The reasons for these variations are cultural, and the sensitivity to their roles as the guardians of humanity’s technology is why the Mechanicum adapts to the local needs and customs in such a manner. After all, even the most basic of mechanical sensors are holy beings possessing a soul that reflect the mind and will of the Omnissiah, and exist as an expression of the Machine God’s glory.

Psykers Psykers

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ith the Imperium’s reliance on psykers for communication, travel, defense against all things warp spawned, along with the fact that the Emperor is/was the most powerful psyker ever to live, one might expect such people to be held in high regard and be well respected. Unfortunately, an untrained and unsanctioned psyker, even one normally of modest psychic strength, can become a living maelstrom and gateway of warp energy, damning entire planets or star systems. Without having endured the sanctioning process to cull, modify, and strengthen the psykers of humanity, any given psyker is as likely to be a living apocalypse as to become an asset to humanity (most commonly however, they simply fall to some horrible personal tragedy before either of these can happen). Accordingly, the ignorant masses regard the sanctioned psykers of the Imperium with terror and suspicion, while the cry of “witch” and purging flame is brought to bear on any rogue psykers discovered hiding from the Black Ships of the Inquisition (and sometimes when anything weird happens and the rabble gets spooked and confused). Even with the uniform and rank of a Navis Nobilae or an Inquisitorial Rosette the suspicion simply turns to bowel-liquefying terror and dread. Astropaths are generally looked at as the least “witch-like” and the more superstitious citizens tend to simply be deeply uncomfortable or disturbed in their presence, rather than outright terrified or hostile.

Every world is responsible for gathering up the psykers of their population (on many worlds this can be more than 1 per 100,000 people, though a majority of those will be sensitives and latents that have not and cannot actually manifest any ability without training, extreme stress, and/or soul-binding). The gathered psykers are then turned over to the black ships of the Inquisition, which test and try the psykers as they return to Holy Terra, where they are put to the role or fate that their nature determines. It is one of the greatest acts of Imperial treason to hide a psyker from the eyes of the Imperium. Both because of the Imperium’s voracious need for more loyal and properly prepared, and the threat an independent and active psyker can become.

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particularly critical device to cooperate. Your average gunslinger knows the litany of loading by heart, and it is likely to pass their lips faithfully and by rote as each new clip, pack, or round is chambered.

The weakest (of mind or will, not power), most faithless, corrupted, or otherwise unsalvageable psykers are sacrificed to the purifying light of the Astronomican, where their energies further empower the beacon that guides and protects humanity. Their souls are saved from the warp, and become subsumed by the presence of the Emperor, but their lives and minds are obliterated. Those with the requisite faith and devotion, but whose power cannot be trusted to remain controlled are inducted into the Adeptus Astronomica. It is the duty of these Adepts to focus and contribute more directly to the strength and health of the Astronomican through bonding, meditation, and prayer. After years of dedication and training, those who show the proper devotion and skill are chosen to attempt an apotheosis of sorts, their souls ascending to become a conscious and personal part of the Astronomican at the Emperor’s side. Those that fail return to their duties as teachers for the next generation of Adeptus Astronomica devotees. Between these two groups of psykers, thousands of psychic souls are spent fueling the fires of the Astronomican every single day. For many, these psykers go willingly, for this fate ensures they will be protected from the hungers of the beasts of the warp. More importantly, without the guiding light of the Astronomican, humanity would be plunged back into the darkness of the Age of Strife, and would be consumed by their numerous enemies in short order. For those with the right talents or resonance, but who lack the self mastery or strength of will required to be trusted to operate independently, a process known as soul-binding grants the psyker the protection they cannot provide for themselves, while further optimizing their talents to serve in the Adeptus Astra Telepathica. These people lose their sight, their health, and/or a portion of their sanity as their souls are infused with a portion of the Emperor via the Astronomican, but become very difficult to corrupt or otherwise taint as a consequence. Interestingly, it is those whose eyes are burned away that tend to be the most self-possessed and powerful, perhaps because they endured their immersion in the Astronomican’s light longer than those whose minds or bodies were scourged by the process. Additionally, the Astropaths gain tremendous

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telepathic, sensory, and divinatory abilities, and this is what allows them to be the backbone of the entire communication infrastructure of the Imperium. Of course, this also makes them privy to secrets that no other organization, short of the Inquisition, can see. Finally, those that show the most strength, discipline, control, devotion, and raw power are turned into the Sanctioned Psykers of the Imperium. These psykers are conditioned and trained to rely entirely on their own ability, training, will, and faith to control and wield their powers freely, and are the most powerful weapons in the Imperium. These psykers lack the additional protections of their lesser brethren, and tend to endure a high fatality rate early in their careers of service due to this lack of protection. With the lack of external protections, comes immense freedom and power in the development of their talents. The most combat oriented, violent, or least trustworthy sanctioned psykers tend to find themselves in the tightly controlled Imperial Guard, where a single slip will result in their commissar executing them before initiating a disaster. On exceedingly rare occasion, if the psyker is both young and of unparalleled strength, stamina, and skill, they might even be inducted as a librarian of one of the illustrious chapters of the Adeptus Astartes. Those with the right personal touches and perceptive talents might find themselves assigned to some form of political or social support role in the service of a major noble house (officially only for those roles the house carries out on the behalf of the Imperium, but personal relationships and understandings are assumed to develop) or a planetary governor. Those seen as the most trustworthy, unconventional, or incisive of mind may even be recruited as investigators or soldiers for the Holy Ordos of the Inquisition. There is, however, one group of psykers that never see the inside of the black ships, and are held to a wholly different set of rules. The Navis Nobilae are noble bloodlines that carry the navigator gene. The members of these houses are so critical to the function of the Imperium, so limited in number, and nearly impossible to recreate, that they literally exist above the law. Only the Lords of Terra and the Inquisition hold any direct authority over the Navis Nobilae, and that authority extends only far enough to ensure that the Navigator’s do not and can not act to significantly destabilize the Imperium, commit acts of treason, or fall to the corruption of Chaos. Beyond these fundamental constraints, the Navigators are free to do as they please. Were one to walk into a hive and slaughter fifty thousand citizens for no reason, no external authority would have the ability to censure the culprit (though the houses themselves would do so with extreme prejudice, due to the political costs and dangers such an act would incite. The culprit would be mysteriously struck dead before they could even get the slaughter meaningfully underway). Even the Inquisitorial Rosette does not give ultimate authority

in the face of the Navis Nobiliae, without being able to show a good and justifiable cause for interference, suspicious agents of the Inquisition must act with exceptional care and stealth when looking in on the secrets of the Navigator Houses.

Mutants

Mutants

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o not suffer the mutant to live” are the words known as law to most Imperial citizens. Of course, were such a simplistic and general rule followed literally, humanity would be culled to a fraction of its current size and all intersystem travel and communication would grind to an immediate halt. Technically, more mutants are allowed to live, even as full citizens, than are killed under this ancient guideline (though many interpret this phrase as divine and sacred law, it was a general guideline for Imperial policy when the Emperor was alive, due to the high occurrence of Chaos activity and corruption among highly expressive or warped mutants). It is notable that one of the greatest heroes of the Imperium, Sanguinus the Blood Angel, Martyr of the Emperor, first and best of all the loyal Primarchs, was an extremely overt mutant himself, so it is clear the Emperor did not have a universal hatred for mutation, as he was second only to Horus in the Emperor’s favor, before the Horus Heresy. The Navigator gene that is so highly valued is an extreme and carefully cultivated mutation, and to so much as attack a navigator without proper (extreme) cause is a crime punishable by death. Every world sees some unique genetic drift over their millennia of development, and thus most would not match whatever “pure” genetic standard was chosen. So the question then is: what is, and more importantly is not, a mutant? While psykers, navigators, and various developmental and ethnic variations are all technically brought about by genetic mutation, these are classified as evolutionary developments, and thus people possessing only these sorts of genetic alterations are considered to be completely, purely human. Somewhere beyond this normal distribution of evolutionary changes are developments that move so far from what is recognizable that the Imperium cannot stomach granting the title of “human”, even though the changes are consistent and evolutionary (or devolutionary) in nature. These sub-species are known as abhumans (abnormal humans), and retain the basic fundamental rights of Imperial citizens, but are held as second class citizens at best on most worlds (so you can’t kill them or commit outright atrocities against them, but the authorities are usually not expected to protect them from any but the most abhorrent of crimes). Normally abhumans find themselves in specialist roles, and are used almost exclusively for such purposes. In general, while the death of an innocent human

Finally you have the various forms of true mutant. Minor mutations are sometimes tolerated, especially if they can be removed, replaced, or corrected in some way (“Born with serpent’s eyes? Eh, we’ll slap some cybers on him before anyone notices!”), or are unobtrusive (such as the occasional night-walker with the ability to see in absolute darkness). Such individuals will still be watched closely for signs of corruption, as corruption inevitably breeds mutation, and mutation is frequently the only early indicator the Imperium has to detect traitors in the service of Chaos. Severe mutations are from one of two sources, genetic damage caused by environmental or similar forces, and warp corruption. Mutations coming from genetic damage are largely similar to what was seen during the Age of Terra, before the depredations of Chaos were observed among humanity. However, mutations coming from warp corruption tend to be more fantastic, bizarre, functional, or impossible in nature, depending on the source and the subject involved. How society actually handles mutants varies from world to world as much as anything else, but some patterns tend to hold to hold up in a general sense. Hive worlds always have the largest mutant population, both numerically and per-capita. The abandoned, damaged, and toxic environments make naturally occurring mutations much more common amongst the unfortunates driven to such depths, which then becomes a natural haven for mutants from other sections of the hive, as they are likely resistant to the environmental dangers, allowing them to both be safe (well, safer) from any purges or pogroms, and gives them a potential source of income by salvaging materials and resources inaccessible to non-mutants. Thus mutant shanty-towns become rather common in the depths of the underhives. On feral worlds, mutants tend to be short lived, but those that do survive simply leave human society behind, becoming hermits or falling in with a cult or coven of Chaos in the wild. Archaic Imperial and Shrine worlds tend to have the fewest mutants amongst them, as they tend to be burned on sight,

regardless of who they are or what is wrong with them. Death worlds tend to be the most blasé regarding mutants, so long as they keep to themselves and don’t cause trouble, in some cases a mutant may even find an “outsider” role within the local culture. As most death worlds are hotbeds of superstition combined with a nonstop fight just to stay alive, few want to take the spiritual or karmic risk of tangling with an otherwise unaggressive and unobtrusive mutant unless they have to. The void-born are host to some of the more disturbing and unusual mutant colonies, in particular some space hulks are home to nests of creatures so warped and twisted that their human heritage is all but unrecognizable. Hive worlds, and feudal worlds relying on dangerous manual labor, tend to have the least overtly hostile policies towards mutants. However, these policies tend to simply exploit the mutants to death rather than execute them outright. For example, on the hellish mining world of Sepheris Secundus, the mutants are generally allowed to live, so long as they stick to the uninhabitable and unstable toxic undermines. Trading with these mutants is a crime, but this is only so more bribe money can be sent up to the top by those people trading medical supplies, food, and other goods to the mutant population in exchange for the valuable ores and chemicals that the mutants can reclaim from the otherwise unreachable sections of the planet. Thus, thanks to the ability to profit greatly by way of the mutant’s work and suffering, the continued existence of the mutants (as a whole, not individually) is quietly protected by the nobles running the planet.

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is considered a tragedy, the death of an abhuman is considered to be an unfortunate or distasteful turn of events, and this is only in the more egalitarian worlds where the labor pool has need for the specific traits of the abhumans residing there. The two most common forms of abhuman are ogrun, which is a catch-all term for large, physically powerful human strains that primarily developed on feral high-g worlds, and the ratlings, small (and frequently nimble) humans from feral or fallen worlds that required specialized traits to safely maneuver through the environment and survive the native dangers. Ogrun tend to find work in heavy physical labor, while ratlings tend to end up in niche industrial roles, or as scouts for the various military factions of the Imperium.

Most hive worlds actually have a somewhat more civilized mutant subculture in the lower and underhives. These mutant colonies are frequently officially zoned and the borders policed (to prevent mutants from leaving or pure humans from entering), and the mutants put to work in exchange for the most basic of civil services (power, water, the ability to develop the most basic of foodstuffs). Such colonies tend to develop their own art, music, cants, and social standards, in a few cases even having their own unofficial police-force and/or lay-clergy. Life in such colonies tends to be brief and brutal, but for mutants in need of a sense of place, home, or society without turning to chaos, some hives become a sort of promised-land in mutant social mythology. Legally, it is almost always considered a good thing to kill a true mutant (rather than abhuman or offworld variant). In some cases bounties are offered for mutant heads, and particularly hardened killers make their living hunting the dregs of society in the underhives. Usually the personal risks, low rewards, and potential enemies made by killing a group of mutants that are providing income to a more powerful individual or organization, mean that such ventures are infrequent and carried out exclusively by zealots such as the Red Redemptionists. Some worlds do

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offer a measure of legal protection to mutants that obey the rules imposed on them and stay within the labor colonies. Even then, the crime for grievously injuring or killing such a mutant is usually at best a on the level of a “lesser count of industrial sabotage”, and more often simply a misdemeanor on par with “destruction of property”.

Xenos

Xenos

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uch as with mutants, the population holds a stronger sentiment that the reality truly supports regarding aliens. The Imperium’s goal is not to exterminate all non-human sentient life. The Imperium’s goal is to ensure that no xeno species is able to taint or influence humanity or its culture, and that Xenos of the galaxy know to remain out of Imperial space. The only Imperial agents allowed to engage xeno species in any manner but violence are specially bonded emissaries and diplomats, Rogue Traders, and the Inquisition. Aside from direct warfare or other incursions on Imperial territory by xeno species, xeno technology is considered to be the primary threat posed by alien societies. To understand why this is considered such a grave threat, one must recall the Imperial beliefs regarding technology. All technology is possessed of a soul, but only technology of the Imperium carries a soul that is part of the Machine God/Omnissiah/Emperor. To take up technology of xeno origin is to commune with an alien soul and, extraordinary situations aside, implies a rejection of or contempt for the spirits of the Machine God and thus the Emperor himself. Quite clearly this could be taken as one of the more direct and contemptible acts of heresy, hence the term “tech heresy” (which also includes the construction of profane technology, such as a sentient machine). Technology and the machine spirit aside, there is a deeper reason that the Emperor counseled his people to distrust and reject the alien: he knew that with the inclusion and acceptance of multiple alien cultures, it would become next to impossible to see the influence of chaos and the dark gods alongside them. Too cosmopolitan a culture, and the influence of ideas born of minds too distant from humanity, would allow Chaos to become nearly invisible in society, and thus bring about humanity’s downfall. Given that the Emperor also understood the contributions other species have made to the health and power of the Chaos Gods (the Eldar in particular), he certainly had evidence to support his suspicions.

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Finally, there is the simple factor of various xeno species’ own belligerence and aggression to consider. The Orks are simply violence personified, they live to fight and kill and die, with no option for negotiation, sweeping though the galaxy like a plague. The Eldar, despite having made more catastrophic mistakes (in

impact if not number) than possibly the rest of the starfaring races combined, remain aloof, contemptuous, and self-important in their dealings with other races. Their dark kin of Commorragh further complicate matters; as they are not immediately distinguishable from the rest of the Eldar, and their sadistic, souldrinking culture is not designed to make friends. Finally the Tau Empire’s constant attempts to convert human worlds to their philosophy of the “greater good”, and eventually annex them, rather strongly support the Imperiums views that, in general, any alien is more likely murder and rob your worlds than coexist peacefully.

The Inquisition The Inquisition

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o one expects the Imperial Inquisition! (Not even other Inquisitors.) The Inquisition’s name, symbol, and authority (i.e. total) are well known to every single citizen of the Imperium that understands what “Imperium” really means. A number of hivers have probably even seen their world’s Inquisitorial headquarters (probably from a considerable distance). Except for these ideas and a generally mythical sense of dread at the very thought of drawing Inquisitorial attention, little is known or understood about what the Inquisition is or what it does beyond “uncovering and destroying heresy, aliens, and daemons”. Most citizens that have seen or met an Inquisitorial agent have no idea who the person was, and will never know that the Inquisition has touched their lives. Even most of those heretics and traitors who know that the Inquisition would flay them alive for their crimes do not expect to be confronted or noticed by the Inquisition, regarding them as something of a boogeyman. While the Inquisition has considerable overt military and logistical resources, and the authority to take control over anything else it needs in the course of its duty, Inquisitors generally prefer to operate in a subtle and clandestine manner. The problem generally being that once the heretics know the Inquisition is around, they vanish as thoroughly as possible. Of course, this approach also supports the public mystique surrounding their existence. One of the great ironies of the Inquisition is that a significant minority of their Inquisitors and agents are borderline(or outright) heretics themselves. Some of the most staggering achievements in daemonology, sorcery, and tech-heresy have come not from the enemy, but Inquisitors so driven to overcome their enemies that they risk becoming the very thing they hunt. It is generally the case that an upstanding citizen devoid of doubt, suspicion, or a spark of rebellion will never be approached for a position within the Inquisition, except perhaps as a front line soldier among the Inquisitorial storm troopers. So while dangerous radicals are a

When a citizen, even a high ranking official of the Imperium, is presented with the Rosette of Inquisitorial authority, the general reaction is shock and panic followed by immediate and blind obedience. This state may wear off, especially if the individual in question sees things that raise questions or suspicions, but the myth of the =][= is as powerful as the actual authority they wield. A common misconception is that there are only three divisions of the Inquisition. The Ordo Xenos, Ordo Hereticus, and Ordo Malleus are the primary, most powerful, and most numerous of the Holy Ordos, but there are countless minor orders with specific and critical responsibilities. Some examples are the Ordo Dialogus, responsible for dealing with language, codes, and ciphers, and the Ordo Navis, an exceptionally secretive group responsible for monitoring the Navis Nobilae for Chaos, Xeno, or seditious influences. It is important to remember that there are very few full Inquisitors available to handle the massive scale of responsibilities the Inquisition is required to handle. Even a heavily populated hive world may have no more than a half-dozen Inquisitors that pay any real personal attention to the goings on there. Inquisitors are first and foremost leaders and spymasters, relying on a massive network of Interrogators (a sort of a deputy Inquisitor, one can think of it as a mentoring and training program), Acolytes, informants and allies to keep them aware of any unusual changes or threats. Thus, unless the situation is particularly crucial, an Inquisitor is unlikely to be directly involved in any investigation until the threat is both certain and significant.

R eligion Religion

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here are two faiths in the Imperium, and while regarded by most as being separate from one another, they are largely complementary despite these perceptions to the contrary. The first, most numerous, and most directly powerful, is the Imperial Cult of the God Emperor of Mankind, directed and managed by the Adeptus Ministorum, or Ecclesiarchy, of the Imperium. The second, being a smaller but vital part of Imperial society, is the Cult of the Machine God, led by the Adeptus Mechanicus (also referred to as the Cult Mechanicum, the Cult of the Omnissiah, the Priesthood of Mars and, if the speaker is not terribly respectful, cogboys/coggirls). The Imperial Cult worships the Emperor directly as a God, in a manner that is accessible to even the simplest of abhumans, and is tolerant of a surprising degree of heterodoxy, given its burning hatred of

all things heretical. While the Imperium is not technically a theocracy (in fact, the Ecclesiarchy is fairly limited in its direct power over Imperial Policy, and has almost no military power), the symbol of the church and the Imperium is identical: the Aquila (or the double-headed eagle of the Imperium). The faith of the Ecclesiarchy is a deeply layered and varied entity. Nearly every world in the vast Empire of Man follows a different doctrine and dogma from the others, unified only by a subset of writings and core principals to direct them along the fine line between heterodoxy and heresy. On the surface, the differences are generally minor, as the common citizen knows little of the finer points of their faith, and understands even less. For most people, you know your place, you obey, you pray, you serve, and you reject and report anything that smacks of heresy. Little thought is required from most citizens; the Emperor provides, the Emperor protects, and the Emperor’s righteous wrath will certainly consume his enemies.

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minority, independent thinkers that failed to properly fit into Imperial society are the norm, rather than an exceptional case.

For those with a more academic or theological leaning, things are considerably more complex. The doctrine of the Imperial Cult is, from a historical perspective, a mercurial thing. Every few centuries shifts in the accepted range of heterodoxy occur, and accepted sects find themselves having to adapt or risk becoming heretics themselves. Purges are almost never instigated by simple doctrinal alterations, these shifts are usually triggered when a sect is discovered to have become vulnerable to chaos or other heretical influences. After being purged, the factors that are believed to have led to that vulnerability are excised from acceptable heterodoxy. A recent example of such an event would be the corruption, purgation, and denouncement of the Astral Knives death cult. After their corruption was discovered, it was concluded that their methods of worship were too easily touched by chaos, and their praxis was thus proscribed (though not declared to be inherently heretical). The consequence is that the doctrine of the Imperial Cult becomes more and more labyrinthine the more closely it is analyzed. Worse still for any truth-seeker, directly conflicting but accepted points of doctrine are not simply extant, but common. Only when a student of Imperial theology brings everything together does the reason for this become clear; what is acceptable has nothing to do with what is true, so long as what is true is held faithfully and what is accepted is not dangerous. In this, one comes full circle; the details of the Emperor’s divinity and will are a matter of open debate, but his divinity, his protection of humanity, and his battle against the ruinous powers of Chaos are not. The Cult of the Machine God, on the other hand, is largely the opposite. Aside from rare changes in the determination of what technology is and is not heretical, their doctrine has barely changed since the upheavals that began when the Emperor stepped foot

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on Mars over ten thousand years ago to be declared the Omnissiah of the Machine God, and which ended a few centuries following his near/partial-death at the hands of his favored son Horus. Like the Imperial Cult, the Cult of the Machine God worships the Emperor. However, they believe that the Emperor is “merely” the physical manifestation of the Machine God/Embodiment of all Knowledge and Wisdom, referring to him as the Omnissiah. While this may seem bizarre and incomprehensible to most Imperial citizens, an understanding of the early history of the Imperium makes this much more understandable. The Priesthood of Mars has an animistic view of machines, believing that all machines of Imperial origin hold a spirit that is a reflection of the Machine God, and thus the Emperor (though the exact structure of this trinity is one of the few seriously debated points of doctrine among the tech-priests). While they hold control over nearly all of the technological secrets of Imperial technology, including any serious maintenance or production, it is all steeped in complex religious ritual and prayer. Aside from a handful of free-thinkers and the higher ranking Magos of the Mechanicum, the Tech-Priest’s knowledge of technology is largely rote, and lacks an underlying understanding of why the technology they care for and create works the way it does. The priesthood, especially in the many millennia following the Emperor’s internment in the Golden Throne of Terra, generally seeks to become as much like the machines they worship as they can be. With a few exceptions (such as those in the Genetor sect), one can usually tell how advanced a given techpriest is within the order by how little of their organic body remains.

Language Language

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here are two official languages of the Imperium. The first and most common language is Low Gothic. Low Gothic is the tongue spoken by nearly every single member of the Imperium, excepting only the farthest backwater worlds, and most uncivilized of feral planets. It is borne of an ancient pidgin of English, European and Pacific languages which developed over many centuries in the American/Pacific region, with a large influence from various Slavic, Chinese, and Hindi language families. It has moved so far beyond its roots however, that only an unparalleled master of linguistics would be able to see the connections. It is represented in English (or the language spoken by the author/player).

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The second, far less common language is High Gothic. High Gothic is the hieratic tongue of the Ecclesiarchy and the Imperium, and supposedly forms the root structure of the secret Binaric language of the Mechanicum, though they refuse to confirm or deny this theory. It is rarely used for conversation (though

frequently used in conversation), and makes a poor cipher, but it is considered holy. It is used for official titles (such as Adeptus Administratum) and many of the official prayers of the Ecclesiarchy, in addition to the lay prayers taught to non-members by the Cult Mechanicum (such as the Litany of the Lasgun or the Litany of Loading). High Gothic was the language that Low Gothic split off of to become, before the influence of additional dialects was introduced. High Gothic was retained due to the written materials that survived from the Dark Age of Technology, and during the Imperium’s formative years was also simply referred to as “Tech”. High Gothic is represented in (a very bastardized form of ) Latin, but has no actual connection to the language within the setting. In addition, every world has its own dialect of Low Gothic, some more deviant from the “official” version than others. Hive worlds and the more functional Imperial worlds tend to be mostly identical to the core language, but loaded with (generally optional) replacement words and slang that developed over centuries of independent growth and development. Consequently, most Hivers can switch to the “true” version of Low Gothic so long as they are being careful not to slip into old habits, while civilized imperials worlders will only fall back to their native dialect when amongst their own. Feral worlders tend to have the most trouble losing their “native touch” and accent, as they tend to come from worlds that have fallen the farthest from proper Imperial society. The void born, however, usually have a cant used exclusively amongst the people of their ship or fleet, but would never consider speaking it to an outsider, and thus tend to speak “true” Low Gothic with fluency and without (much) accent. Finally there is the secret tongue of the Tech-Priests, Binaric. It is not simply a string of binary, despite its name, and is regarded as the most complicated true language in the Imperium (there are innumerable other secret tongues in use, but they are rarely anything but an impenetrable cant or cipher of Low Gothic). In fact, the Inquisition has been trying to crack Binaric for centuries (longer really, ever since the inception of the Ordo Dialogus, but they don’t like to admit that), to no measurable success. The techpriests do not seem to find this pursuit to be a threat, in fact it seems to be a source of amusement to the younger (less dispassionate) members of the Martian priesthood, who have been known to have long, drawn out conversations in Binaric in front of such an investigator, just to watch their frustration build.

His tory History

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or an outsider looking in, the Imperium can seem nearly incomprehensible and ridiculous in a broad number of ways. If one were looking

We will start with the current era (current for the players, not the characters), or “The Age of Terra” by Imperial standards. From the modern day of M3, until M15, we progressed through a series of rises and falls that are no longer well documented anywhere in the Imperial records. Wars were fought, the system was colonized to some degree (only Mars was fully terraformed, though it remained a cold desert world through most of its history), stations and colonies were built and lost... then rebuilt again. Technology was developed, manufactured, stolen, and forgotten only to be rediscovered or developed again decades, centuries, or millennia later. Through this time humanity had no direct contact with other species, and the only extra-solar colonies were developed through the use of generation ships (referred to as Ohnyl Cylinders). Given the limits of communication and travel during this period of human history, once these vessels had travelled a sufficient distance, their fates would remain unknown for untold millennia, and in some cases forever. The Dark Age of Technology is considered to have begun in M15, when the focus turned from the solar system to the galaxy as a whole, though a safe means of FTL travel (effective, not literal) was not developed until M18. Nearby colonies were developed more aggressively, as colony ships were sent to systems within 10 generations travel of Terra, until the development of the Warp Drive and the Geller Field (it should be noted that warp travel was likely developed a few times previous to this age, but limited human understanding of the warp, and the lack of a Geller field, may have been the cause of more than one human fall from progress). It was also during this time that artificial (or abominable, depending on your reference) intelligence was brought into widespread and common use, later resulting in yet another disastrous conflict for humanity when the “Iron Men” rose up against their masters (resulting in a severe ban on such technology that persists more than 10,000 years later). This age is referred to as a “Dark Age” due to what is believed to be humanity’s lack of ethics, morality, or wisdom in favor of the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake.

For all humanity has accomplished since this time, they have never regained the heights of technological acumen achieved during this era. Perhaps not coincidentally, it was around the time of the Warp Drive and Geller Field’s development that Psykers began to appear in much larger numbers than (is suspected to have) existed previously, and became a scientifically acknowledged fact. It was shortly after these discoveries that the first Xeno species were encountered (most likely the Orks, and to a very limited extent some Eldar) and war erupted sporadically throughout the age. It was not until M22 that peace would be brokered with more than a dozen Xeno species (though not the Orks, the closest word to “peace” they have roughly translates to “timeout” or “break”, and the only Eldar that would have considered peace at that time would have been Exodites) , coinciding with the development or discovery of the Navigator Gene that gave rise to the Navis Nobilae. With these navigators the ships of humanity could travel significantly farther and faster than ever before. Thus began the Golden Age of Man. For three thousand years humans spread throughout the galaxy in relative peace, security, and power. There was little reason to believe that the ignorance and darkness of their past would ever touch humanity again.

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for comedy, rather than understanding, they could fairly say the Imperium is ruled by a comatose hybrid of Zombie Jesus and the Battle Pope... though this would, of course, entirely miss the point. One must understand the history of humanity in the 41st millennium for the story of where they are now to make sense. While much of what is below remains unknown even to most scholars of Imperial and Terran history, it is required for most people looking from the outside-in to understand the people and motivations of the Imperium. While some portions may seem bulky, the most attention and time was devoted to the periods of the Horus Heresy, and the Age of Apostasy, because of their lasting impact on the perspective and culture of humanity.

Of course that meant everything was to change, and it did so practically overnight. In M25 the warp suddenly erupted in the most horrific storm ever known before or since; the Eye of Terror opened in the “North by Northwest” region of the galaxy, consuming every star system in its expanse, and plunging the populations there into the warp unprotected, en mass. The storm persisted for nearly five millennia, with barely a break for even a single ship to slip through. Every Terran colony was cut off, left to fend for itself without the hope of trade, supply, or support. Many worlds died due to incomplete infrastructures, collapsed environments, and the least fortunate to Ork raiders (who have never been terribly troubled by the vagaries of the warp). Many fell to savagery and barbarism, with stories of Terra falling into legends, or forgotten completely. (Unknown to all but the most advanced students of the Warp and the lore of Chaos, this storm was the birthing cry of the Chaos God Slaanesh, and the consequent death-knell of the Eldar homeworld and core systems). Back in the Sol system, Mars and Terra had severe problems of their own. With the collapse of the human intersystem infrastructure, crucial supply lines for their native system were lost. Mars’ carefully maintained terraforming began to collapse, while the people of Terra balkanized into a number of small factions, quickly turning on one another due to conflicts over severely limited resources. It took little time for the Terrans to bomb each other back a few ages worth of development, though as a side “benefit” they whittled their own numbers down to a manageable level equally fast. Meanwhile, a new religion was born on the dying

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world of Mars. As people took shelter in the few facilities capable of supporting life, those individuals that could keep the machines providing food, water, and air running became the only people that mattered, and all else were either their followers keeping them supplied and supported, or their enemies trying to steal or usurp what they could not create or maintain themselves. Over the centuries these engineers became holy figures, they were the life givers and preservers of their world, and the technology under their care became holy as well. In time, a prophesy of a herald of the Machine God descending from the heavens, an Omnissiah that would bear a mastery of technology that could only be divine, was born amongst this new Priesthood of Mars. Late in the age of strife, before the rise of the Emperor, the newly founded Mechanicum began sending colony ships with complete complements of troops, titans, equipment, and priests to distant worlds whenever the storms calmed enough to provide a chance of travel, and while many were lost the survivors gave birth to the original forge worlds, though they would not be reunited with Mars until the time of the Great Crusade (and some not until well after). At the time, the destruction and barbarism of Terra was regarded as repulsive to the priesthood, and aside from occasional covert raids to reclaim lost technology, Terra was effectively ignored. After some three thousand years of techno-barbarian tribal warfare and internecine conflict, a powerful psyker and scientist emerged on Terra. This man quickly became a powerful warlord and began a campaign to unite Terra under his rule, a campaign now known as the Unification Wars. The campaign was bloody, long, and brutal, but the planet was brought to heel and the Imperium of Man was born. It took some time for the newly crowned Emperor of Terra to consolidate his power, and the handful of resources that were still intact, after three millennia of constant war. Once Terra was properly united and productive under his banner, the Emperor’s first stop was Mars. To this day, some (borderline heretical) members of the Adeptus Mechanicus still question the unusually well orchestrated arrival of the Emperor, and the precise manner in which his descent to Mars matched the prophesy of the Omnissiah. However, most adherents simply take the prophesy’s precise accuracy as a matter of course for the coldly logical spirituality of the Mechanicum. Regardless, with the spiritual capital acquired by fulfilling the Mechanicum’s prophesy, and thus claiming the mantle of Omnissiah, it was a comparably small matter to bring the Mechanicum into the Imperium. There was a brief civil uprising (too minor to be called a war) amongst the Mechanicum, as a few refused to accept the Emperor as their messianic figure, but they were small in number and quickly put down.

Of note in this partnership however, was the Mechanicum’s relative independence and autonomy under their alliance with the Imperium. The reason for this was twofold; first there was the simple need that Terra had for the technology of the Mechanicum, the Great Crusade could never have happened without the steadfast support of the Martian production facilities. Second, the religious nature of the Mechanicum, no matter how empirical and rational in practice, was not compatible with the militant-fundamentalist atheism of the Imperial Truth. By allowing the Mechanicum to operate as an autonomous vassal state, the natural philosophical and cultural conflicts were kept to a relative minimum. While it is not exactly a matter of forbidden knowledge, very few citizens of the Imperium in the 41st millennium are aware of just how severely the Emperor renounced his own divinity. During his active rule, some cases of religious observance were considered a criminal act when performed by an official of the Imperium. After peacefully reuniting with the Saturnine Fleet, a militaristic and nomadic band of void-born inhabiting the stations and ships beyond the Belt, the Sol system was fully united and the warp storms had abated. With the ability to reach out to the lost colonies of humanity, the Imperium began to grow once again. In preparation for his Great Crusade to unite humanity across the Galaxy under a single banner, the Emperor “birthed” 20 sons using technology he had, at least as theory goes, improved on from the Dark Age of Technology. These sons were modified and enhanced clones of the Emperor, though his psychic abilities were not retained (with the exception of Magnus the Red), at least not directly, they were nothing less than demigods in the more conventional power they gained from their sublimated psychic potential. Having already noticed the Emperor’s actions, the ruinous powers of Chaos kidnapped and scattered his progeny across the galaxy. Though it may seem odd that these Primarchs always landed with one of the lost human colonies, it would later be seen just why this had played out in such a seemingly convenient manner. Each of these immortal men rose to positions of power on their adopted homeworlds, simply by virtue of the tremendous power and native intellect they each wielded. Knowing most of his sons were alive and somewhere amongst the lost colonies, the Emperor cast his awareness out across the galaxy to track them down. In a matter of just a few centuries the Emperor and his eighteen surviving immortal progeny were reunited, during which the Adeptus Astartes were developed. The Astartes, commonly referred to simply as Space Marines, were to the Primarchs what the Primarchs were to the Emperor. While not true clones themselves, the very best warriors amongst humanity were raised up and implanted with the “gene seed”, a genetic derivative of one of the Primarchs. This seeding, along with a number of implants grown

After a few centuries of relentless expansion, worlds that had been hastily brought to heel under imperial rule began to rebel, and the legions found themselves returning to old battlegrounds just to reclaim worlds they had recently won. It was in the midst of this conflict that the final seeds of Chaos’ plans were sown. While the Emperor was all too aware of the ruinous powers of Chaos and their intentions for humanity, and all sentient life for that matter, even his own sons had only the vaguest inkling of the threat posed by the daemons of the warp and their foul gods. All his sons save two: Magnus the Red, and Lorgar of the Word Bearers. Magnus had come to this awareness on his own, and until forced by the Emperor to turn away, he used this knowledge to try and protect the Imperium. Lorgar, on the other hand, had received this knowledge in a more direct manner. Lorgar was a man of great faith, and had foretold the arrival of the Emperor in religious prophesy. When the Emperor finally arrived, a religious following awaited him, the Primarch and his followers worshiped him as a god made flesh. While Lorgar and his followers purged all religious icons and texts they found in the course of their part of the Great Crusade, they simply replaced them with works to worship the Emperor. Incensed at both Lorgar’s lack of progress and religious zeal in the face of the Imperial Truth, the Emperor admonished Lorgar personally, reprimanding him harshly for turning to the “false light of religion”. Lorgar took this admonishment poorly, and spent a month deep in mourning. It was during this period that his second in command and closest friend, Kor Phaeron, told him of gods that were both real and welcoming of such zeal. As the weeks passed, Kor Phaeron turned Lorgar to the following of the Chaos gods, giving birth to the worship of Chaos Undivided. This purpose, it would eventually be discovered, was the true reason for the Primarchs’ survival and eventual reunification...

all planned by the gods of the warp (well, Tzeentch mostly) for thousands of years leading up to that moment. Worse still, the ruinous powers of Chaos were far from done. Initially it appeared that the Word Bearers had taken the Emperor’s directives to heart, tearing down all religious trappings of the Emperor and aggressively conquering world after world in the name of the Imperium. All while Kor Phaeron, now master of the faith, had been entrusted by Lorgar to convert the entire Word Bearer legion to the worship of Chaos Undivided, which he did with remarkable swiftness. Once the legion was united under Chaos Undivided, they set their sights on the rest of the Primarchs and their legions. First and foremost, they knew they had to corrupt the newly anointed Warmaster of the Great Crusade, Horus, the first and favored son of the Emperor. When the Emperor turned command of the crusade over to Horus, he withdrew to Terra to continue contemplating his eternal battle against the Chaos Gods, and begin work on his masterstroke against them, the Golden Throne project. Deprived of any deeper knowledge of their father’s motivations, his newly reunited sons felt lessened and slighted by their father’s departure, and existing rivalries intensified without his guiding hand holding his sons together. Feeling that the time was finally right, the Word Bearers made their move. In a series of traps and manipulations the agents of the Word Bearers arranged for Horus to become mortally wounded, and provided the care required to return him from the brink of death, so as to turn him from his father while he was weak of body, mind, and spirit. Once the seed of corruption and rebellion was planted in Horus’ heart, it was just a matter of time before he was able, with the help of Chaos’ manipulations and Word Bearer support, to turn six of his brothers to his side against their father (the final two, Magnus and Alpharius, joined later due to events beyond Horus’ influence). Horus revealed his treachery in the virus bombing of the rebel world of Istvaan III. While Istvaan III was certainly not a friend of the Imperium, Horus used the attack on the rebel planet as an opportunity to purge the loyalists from the ranks of his traitor legions. Waiting until the attack was well underway, and all suspected loyalists were on site, the virus bombing to purge Istvaan III of all life began and 12 billion souls were consigned to the warp. Thankfully for the Imperium, a small band of loyalists escaped the purge, and fled to warn Terra of the Warmaster’s betrayal. The first battle of the Heresy would also reveal the full extent of the corruption; the Emperor ordered a coordinated assault between seven legions against his traitorous son on the planet of Istvaan V, but four of those legions had already turned to Horus’ side. The resulting bloodbath ended with the death of Ferrus Manus, the loyalist Primarch of the Iron Hands legion, and the consequent ascension of the traitor Fulgrim,

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from the initiate’s own tissues, made the once mortal warriors into superhuman soldiers by rewriting their genetic makeup to echo their parent Primarch. Once the Emperor had united his sons, and had the Astartes legions that each commanded by his side, the Great Crusade was fully underway. System after system was reabsorbed into the Imperium, some welcoming their Terran ancestors with open arms as their rightful rulers, others negotiating a vassal relationship (though over generations their autonomy was skillfully and subtly eroded away to nothing), and a remarkable handful choosing to fight for their independence. Few of these resistant cultures were able to mount a defense worth noting, the power of the Astartes with the technology of the Mechanicum making any such gestures generally futile. Some however, due to holding an STC template of particular power, or simply due to having become too distant from the human ideal for reabsorbtion to be possible, were events worthy of marking in the Imperium’s history by the remembrancers (artists, writers, and the like, employed by the Imperium for both domestic propaganda and historical recording).

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of the Emperor’s Children legion, to Daemonprince. Corax, Primarch of the Raven Guard, was nearly killed and barely escaped the trap with a handful of his legion’s survivors, while Vulcan of the Salamander legion was missing in action. Only six Primarchs and their legions remained to resist Horus. The Emperor had nearly done Horus’ work for him with Magnus, turning the Sorcerer Primarch of Prospero to Horus’ banner by denouncing his methods and claiming Magnus had already fallen to Chaos (which given that Magnus’ haste, along with the interference of Tzeentch, had caused him to inadvertently unleash a host of daemons into the Imperial Palace, was an understandable belief ). Alpharius, on the other hand, simply appeared without explanation and immediately swore to end the Imperium’s rule at Horus’ side. So with the nine traitor legions strong and united, they descended on Terra to end the conflict with the death of their father. Less than 30 days passed before the system defenses had fallen, and the surviving loyalists held only the Imperial Palace by the 55th day of Horus’ assault on the system. It was at this stage that the battle that would define the next ten thousand years of human history began to unfold. Horus learned of incoming reinforcements from the loyalist legions that had been kept bogged down and away from Terra during the assault, and made a desperate bid to end the conflict before his advantage was stripped from him. Lowering the shields protecting his barge, Horus lured the Emperor into a personal confrontation. The Emperor teleported himself, Sanguinius, and Rogal Dorn, along with a contingent of Astartes and Custodes to the barge, but they were scattered in the transfer (a common problem in the ever unreliable case of teleportation). Sanguinius was the first to fall to Horus, though it is said that through the sacrifice of the martyred Blood Angel, the Emperor was able to overcome his first son, despite the powers of the ruinous powers backing him. Unfortunately, the Emperor’s body was crippled by the injuries he sustained, and though rescued from the Warmaster’s barge by Rogal Dorn, it was clear that the damage was irreparable. With little time left to preserve his species from the depredations of Chaos, the Emperor instructed Dorn to reconfigure the Golden Throne, and had himself interred within it, consigning himself to an endless state of agonizing undeath.

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The impact of this event was both immediate and far-reaching, as the Emperor was vastly reduced in function once placed within the Golden Throne. Though the device was redesigned to keep every remaining salvageable cell of the Emperor’s body alive indefinitely, his ability to communicate and participate actively in the management of his Imperium was all but gone. His spirit and his will were unbroken, however, and his tie to the Astronomican made even stronger through his bond to the throne (they are effectively in a symbiotic relationship, so deeply

intertwined over the years that the Emperor and the Astronomican are now effectively one and the same). His will is the bulwark protecting humanity from the warp and the ruinous powers, and should he ever relent the Astronomican will be snuffed out, leaving humanity unprotected and without guidance. It is said that the Emperor still guides the Lords of Terra when matters of the materium are dire enough to draw his attention, and that he guides all humanity through the readings of the Emperor’s Tarot. As the centuries and millennia passed, the Emperor’s awareness become more removed and abstract, eventually having no clear connection to the world his body inhabited. Marked by the death of the Warmaster and the breaking of Chaos’ forces against Terra, the era of the Great Crusade gave way to the Great Scouring. With the Emperor confined to the Golden Throne and the Imperium effectively leaderless, the forces of Chaos and other enemies of humanity laid waste to the worlds left sparsely defended in the wake of the Horus Heresy. In time the forces of the Imperium rallied and were able to push back against their enemies, though the cost in lives and equipment was staggering. The eventual emergence and survival of the Imperium through the Great Scouring and into the Age of Rebirth can be largely attributed to the leadership of the Primarch Roboute Guilliman, and the strength of his legion. Horus had successfully kept Guilliman’s legion tied up in conflicts far from Terra, which left them strong and numerous enough to defend the Imperium afterwards. It took centuries of costly warfare, but in time the tactics of Guilliman were successfully used to reclaim the territories that still existed and drive the forces of Chaos into the Eye of Terror. By the end of the Age of Rebirth, the belief that the Emperor was a divine entity had become accepted as fact throughout the Imperium, and even many of the Lords of Terra were openly affiliated with the Imperial Cult. In M32, the Golden Age of the Imperium began with the acceptance of the Imperial faith as the official doctrine of the Imperium. It was also at this time, perhaps due to their inability to accept life within an Imperium so vastly different from the empire they had fought for, that the remaining Primarchs left known space in search for their own answers. The Golden Age of the Imperium lasted for nearly four thousand years as Astropathic Choirs were established throughout the known regions of the galaxy and previously lost STCs from Dark Age of Technology were discovered as the Imperium began to return to its former size and power. This period is remembered as a Golden Age primarily due to the steady growth and lack of internal upheavals accompanying the growth and development of the Imperial Faith. Despite the repeated efforts of Warmaster Abaddon and his first four “Black Crusades”, the end of the Golden Age would come from within rather than from any external threat. As the Ecclesiarchy grew in power and influence following the official acceptance of the

Finally, in M36 the Age of Apostasy was marked by the rise of Goge Vandire, 361st High Lord of the Administratum, and the eruption of the most powerful warp storms seen since the Age of Strife. The Ecclesiarchy moved to consolidate their power on what worlds they could still reach, while the other planets fell to the depredations of Ork Waaaaghs! (Or is that Waaagh!s? Regardless, the exclamation point is considered to be part of the proper spelling, at least as far as something as precise as spelling can be applied to the Orkish kulture.), chaos raiders from the Eye of Terror, and Genestealer cults (though it would thankfully be five thousand more years before an actual hive fleet entered the galaxy). In the midst of such upheaval the Imperial faith balkanized into numerous small sub-cults on the worlds not directly controlled by the Ecclesiarchy, each having their own varied interpretations of the Emperor’s divinity and will. These cults denounced the excesses of the

Ecclesiarchy, and some worlds erupted into civilreligious wars over such resentments. Vandire’s rise to power in the Adeptus Terra and the Administratum coincided with this weakening of the Ecclesiarchy. So, once he reached the position of High Lord, he moved to take over the Ecclesiarchy as well, successfully deposing the Ecclesiarch Paulis III (which he had been subtly ensuring would rise to Ecclesiarch, as he was incompetent and easily manipulated into “forcing” Vandire’s hand) in a military coup, and executed every Terran who stood against him as heretics. A handful escaped on a vessel headed back to the planet Ophelia VII, though it was consumed in a warp storm, further validating Vandire’s power grab. Vandire’s insane and violent rule is remembered as the Reign of Blood, where hive worlds were bombarded into oblivion, entire populations were enslaved, and civilizations were wiped out in progressively more “artistic” ways, not for showing resistance or any related failing, but simply as a means for Vandire to mark his own history and express his absolute power. Vandire took up public displays of torture as a hobby, and eventually descended into a deep schizophrenia that he insisted was driven by the divine guidance of the Emperor (which was of course false… he was just brilliant, charismatic, and completely insane).

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Imperial Faith, the Administratum became incensed at their loss of control to the Ministorum (the feud between them would last through to the current day, and almost certainly beyond). From M34 through M35 the Ecclesiarchy became fat and complacent on the tithes paid to them, consequently electing a succession of weak, ineffectual, and mildly corrupt Ecclesiarchs. Seizing the opportunity, the Administratum was able to clamp down on the excesses of the Ministorum and regain a significant portion of their former power. In a bid to escape the growing influence of the Administratum, the Ecclesiarchy relocated their base of power to Ophelia VII in the Segmentum Tempestus. The Ecclesiarchy leveraged this distance, and the Administratum’s inability to adapt quickly, to raise huge tithes and begin assembling a military on par with the Imperial Guard, to be known as the Templar Frateris. Only three centuries later the newly elected Ecclesiarch, Gregor XI, decreed that the cult would return to Terra. This drained their financial reserves yet again, resulting in yet higher tithes. “Coincidentally”, when he began to push for radical changes within the Imperial Faith, he died of food poisoning before any could be enacted. Once back on Terra with their own military power, the Ecclesiarchy felt comfortable raising tithes further still, to pay for more and more elaborate and larger palaces, statues, and the like. Finally, many worlds could take no more and revolted. Quietly backed by the Administratum, worlds refused to pay the exorbitant tithes and poured the funds into their PDFs (Planetary Defense Forces), rather than be bankrupted by the Ecclesiarchy’s greed. The church’s response was swift and violent, as their military might was used to bring these rebellious worlds back into submission. Every governor and planetary official who resisted the demands of the church were executed as heretics, while any that were out of immediate reach were visited by the church’s agents from the Collegium Assassinorum. Despite the revolts, or perhaps as a reaction to them, the Ecclesiarchy only became more ostentatious.

Perhaps his deepest violation of the faith, and most historically relevant, was his laying claim to an order calling themselves the “Daughters of the Emperor”, a small, all-female, monastic, warrior-cult that devoted themselves to inner purity, and existed outside the guidance of any other religious authority. Using a Rosarius field generator (a semi-secret Ecclesiarchal device that looks like a normal holy symbol of the Emperor, but contains a powerful protective field generator), he was able to trick the Daughters into believing that he was divinely protected and held a sacred mandate. The Daughters lacked the technological brilliance required to recognize the “divine intervention” for what it was, and immediately converted to the slavish devotion of Vandire. He renamed the Daughters the Brides of the Emperor, and used them as bodyguards, assassins, personal servants, and concubines. After 70 years of hellish rule, Vandire’s madness finally began to cripple him. For all the wonders Vandire ordered constructed and maintained on worlds throughout the Imperium, his own Terran Palaces fell into filthy disrepair. Vermin, filth, and structural collapse became the norm in his home palace, while his body was wracked with drugs, disease, and wasting due to his increasing inability to function (think of a particularly evil Howard Hughes in his later years). He was still able to direct his agents to enact his insane plans, however, regardless of the failings he faced in his personal life. It was at this time that, in the year 266.M36, it is believed that the Emperor finally moved to correct the direction of His Imperium. A rebellious religious leader named Sebastian Thor denounced the Ecclesiarch

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and High Lord as a traitor to humanity, then formed and led The Confederation of Light to liberate eighty planets from the Ecclesiarchy’s control within a mere three months (an achievement that is particularly unprecedented due to the unprecedented cooperation of warp currents Thor enjoyed throughout his campaign). When Vandire ordered a strike team to burn Thor’s homeworld of Dimmamar to cinders, the fleet was ripped apart by a freak warp storm immediately after jumping from their staging point in the Clax system. What the few accounts received from the fleet reported, before contact was lost, sealed the rebellion’s faith in Thor; the fleet’s ships, and the soldiers aboard them, were shredded by arcs of white light that somehow bypassed the Geller fields entirely. Clax remains cut off from the galaxy to this day, the Storm of the Emperor’s Wrath a permanent reminder to those who would dare to profane His Imperium. Following the Advent of the Storm, the entire Segmentum Obscurus rallied to Thor’s banner, rebelling against the corrupt Ecclesiarchy. Thor’s fleet progressed towards Terra, and every world he visited fell to his force of personality and the conviction of his faith, in many cases without so much as a warning shot fired. Despite the warp storms still raging across the galaxy, Thor’s fleet was able to pass quickly and without incident. The Navis Nobilae still call him Abstracta Preomnis, Master of the Warp. Worse still for Vandire was the return of the Astartes chapters and the Mechanicum forge worlds that had been keeping out of the conflict because they were not yet united and were unwilling to commit to military action against Terra unilaterally. They held to a central faith in the Emperor, but thought little of Vandire’s corrupt empire or the pathetic Ecclesiarchy that had preceded him. With the arrival of the Confederation of Light, all of that changed. As one they declared their support for Thor’s forces against Vandire, calling for the High Lords of Terra to execute Vandire as a traitor or be judged as traitors themselves. Though already megalomaniacal, Vandire’s madness had robbed him of any rational self-awareness, he now believed he truly was invincible and held a divine mandate from the Emperor. So after he dissolved the Council of High Lords he foolishly attempted to set what remained of the Templar Frateris against the Space Marines and Adeptus Mechanicus, an order his officers quite reasonably refused to obey. Even after a series of executions for treason and heresy, most of the replacement officers only went so far as to lead their forces to the targets they were given, but would not engage (mainly due to the fact that they would have torn to shreds without so much as bloodying their target’s nose, rather than out of any higher principals). Ignoring the few, admittedly pathetic, actual attacks suffered from the Templars, the Astartes chapters and the Mechanicum besieged Terra. The similarity to the events of the Horus Heresy was not lost on anyone, but now it was the Brides of the Emperor defending

the palace from the loyal Astartes and Mechanicum forces. Though for all the forces against him it would turn out that Vandire’s fall would come from within, before the siege could even be said to have truly begun. The Adeptus Custodes (the Emperor’s personal guard, created before the Astartes with similar technology, few details of their creation are known except that none are psykers, and that they are each more powerful than any single Astartes) had withdrawn from the events surrounding Vandire, 70 years being a brief hiccup to these immortal guardians. However, when the siege of Terra began, they were forced to act. Seeing Vandire for the despot that he was, the Custodes secretly coordinated with the chapter masters of the Astartes and worked to end the conflict from within the Imperial palace. Instead of simply going to war with the Brides in an assassination attempt, the Centurion and commander of the Custodes engaged Alicia Dominica, the leader of the Brides, diplomatically. Their discussion would ultimately prove fruitless, until he offered to leave his men as hostages and take Dominica before the Emperor himself. What happened in that meeting is unknown, but immediately after the Brides returned their order’s name to the Daughters of the Emperor, and turned against Vandire as one. Alicia Dominica personally pronounced Vandire to be a heretic and traitor against the Emperor, executing him with the power blade he had bestowed on her when she became his personal guard. The aftermath of Thor’s victory would begin the Age of Reformation, though the Plague of Unbelief spawned by the numerous false prophets and separatist rebels, created by Vandire’s corrupt policies before the rise of Thor, would need to be quelled before the reformation would be considered to be truly underway. A rebel empire had formed beyond the reach of Vandire in the Galactic south of Fenris, and reaching all the way to Bakka, united by a heretical and violent will-to-power philosophy. Had it not been for their catastrophic error in challenging the Space Wolves of Fenris as they approached the chapter, and former legion, capitol system, they might have become another significant threat to Imperial rule. Instead the defeat began the rogue empire’s internal collapse, completely ceasing to exist as a political entity just a few years after their defeat at the hands of the Space Wolves Astartes chapter. As this rebellion never touched Terra or Thor’s new Ecclesiarchy directly, the rest of the problem elements were largely brought back into the fold without exceptional trouble. The first order of business Thor had to face was his own trial. He had actually ensured his trial would fairly analyze and judge his assault on the Emperor’s palace, feeling that to do otherwise would jeopardize all his coalition stood for. Not surprisingly, he was quickly found innocent and installed as Ecclesiarch. A number of policies were put in place by the Lords of Terra, and by Thor

While the Ordo Xenos had the Deathwatch, and Malleus had the Grey Knights, the Ordo Hereticus found themselves naturally affiliated with the Sororitas, due to both their identical goals and their similar foundings. Meanwhile, Thor had made a number of internal changes on his own, first by reducing the size of each Cardinal’s dioceses and increasing the number of Cardinals, thus reducing their individual power. Second, he created the Holy Synod of Terra to further empower the Cardinals as a group, allowing them to overrule or even effectively sideline the Ecclesiarch if sufficiently united. Finally a series of lesser reforms were put in place throughout Thor’s time as Ecclesiarch, all intended to move it towards spiritual rather than political concerns when possible. When he finally felt he had done all he could, Thor left Terra to travel the Imperium, returning to the Coalition’s spiritual ideals of poverty and humble living, while also putting down heresy and educating the Imperial populace in the light of the Emperor. He finally, and briefly, returned to Terra before dying peacefully and contented at the age of 112 (he opted to refuse juvenat treatment in the belief that he’d done all that was required of him, looking forward to a brief retirement in his old age before joining the Emperor’s side). Since the Reformation of the Ecclesiarchy, no other serious changes to the structure of the Imperium have occurred, and the years that followed have unfortunately begun to be referenced, due to the rapidly dwindling resources of the Imperium, as The Waning. Eight more of Abaddon’s Black Crusades were launched against the Imperium, and while a few were as characteristically inept as the 2nd Black Crusade of M32 (they literally never made it out of their home territory in the Eye), it was clear that Abaddon was only growing stronger and more capable

as a leader of Chaos as the centuries passed in the materium. When not battling back Abaddon’s forces, the Imperium was dealing with rogue Tech-Priests blowing up entire star-systems, having to exterminate xeno psyker incursions, constantly fighting off Dark Eldar raiders, and all while enduring repeated and unpredictable Orkish Waaaghs!. In the past few centuries things have gotten progressively worse. To those who have seen the signs and listened to the prophesies of Taggarath, Seer of Corrinto, the Waning has recently given way to the Time of Ending. In the year 742.M41, the independent establishment of trade relations with the Tau on a number of frontier worlds triggered a horrified Imperium to launch the Damocles Crusade into Tau space (apparently unsatisfied with the number of war fronts they already had to contend with). The Crusade was largely an abject failure, smashing the fringe outposts of the Tau but unable to do any real damage to their empire. Had it not been for the impending arrival of Hive Fleet Behemoth, the crusade would likely have become a protracted, bloody siege with no end or victory for either side. Sadly, this still would have been preferable to both forces compared to the arrival of the Tyranid, which motivated both the Tau and the Imperium to quickly negotiate a peace and withdraw to their own regions of space to prepare. A short time later The Tyrannic War revealed the full and complete horrors for which the Genestealers had been a mere precursor. The Tyranid invasion forced the Imperium to develop entirely new principals and tactics in war, as the strategic doctrine of Roboute Guilliman favored the Tyranids so heavily as to make any conflict putting them into action a complete slaughter. Eventually the Ultramarines (Guilliman was far less adept with names than he was with tactics) did adapt, and with these Astartes at the fore of the attack on Behemoth, the Hive Fleet was broken and scattered in the year 745.M41, though it would take a full century for the Astartes chapter to replenish their numbers. Clearly, Imperial forces did not have time to rest with Behemoth’s destruction. Even with the fleet destroyed, the Tyranids never stopped cropping up in fragments after that, and can still be found heeding the summons of the Genestealer cults, even on the other side of the galaxy. More importantly, the rest of the Imperium’s enemies didn’t simply back off to let Imperial forces focus on the Tyranids (the Tau excepted, as they had to contend with the Hive Fleet as well); Orks, Eldar, and Chaos raiders relentlessly hammered any target they could reach. To further complicate matters, in 897. M41 yet another new and terrible enemy appeared on the scene. One of the Sororitas fortress-convents on the eastern galactic fringe, Sanctuary 101, suddenly ceased response to all communications. When an investigatory force was sent to find out what had happened, it was immediately obvious that the fortress had been attacked and completely wiped out

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himself, to ensure the Ecclesiarchy could never gain enough temporal power to threaten the stability of the Imperium again. The most significant of these policies was the Decree Passive, which prohibited the Ecclesiarchy from maintaining any “men at arms”, an intentional wording negotiated by Thor to allow the reformation of the Daughters of the Emperor into the Adepta Sororitas, so as to serve as the Ecclesiarchy’s chamber militant. It should be noted, however, that other clauses of the decree ensured that even this exception could not grow to a size large enough to function as an independent army (generally the Sisters of Battle are used in small-scale strike forces for tactical purposes, such as the purging of Chaos cults, or other overt support activity for the Ordo Hereticus and Imperial Guard). The Inquisition had also taken Thor’s message and the lesson of the Reign of Blood to heart as well, creating the Ordo Hereticus to watch over the Ecclesiarchy to ensure they never crossed the line into such heresy again (as may be obvious, their charter quickly expanded to cover all heresies and internal threats, eventually even including mutants and unsanctioned psykers).

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before anyone could signal for help. All that remained of the slaughter were the flayed corpses of the Sisters, and a single brief recording of silent blurred shadows, silhouetted by a sickly green light. No other sign or record of the assailants could be found, aside from the structural damage wrought by some form of incredibly powerful and unknown class of energy weapon the assailants had used. No corpses or genetic trace of the enemy were left behind, and no psychic signature could be sifted from the site beyond the pain and terror wrought on the Sisters by the enemy, itself highly unusual given the generally fearless nature of the Sororitas. Over 50 years have passed since the Sanctuary 101 incident, and it was not the only event of its kind. While the Ordo Xenos has managed to gain a measure of useful intelligence on this new threat, they have kept it under an unusually tight seal. While the mysterious video feed recovered from Sanctuary 101 was leaked through a number of channels, thanks to the panicked naval investigators that first responded to the incident, anything more is circulated only to the Inquisitors of the Ordo Xenos (and others on a strict need-to-know basis). So now we are in the year of 950.M41, the resources of the Imperium are running out and enemies are on every border, with new threats arriving faster than ever before. The Imperial Guard is draining the PDF forces of every world they can tap to replenish their numbers, only to leave the worlds so poorly defended that they must either take heavy losses to reclaim them or sacrifice the worlds entirely. Despite this, hope is far from lost. Simple mortal men, men like the legendary hero Commisar Ciaphas Cain, have liberated entire worlds with their personality and tenacity alone. The Astartes chapters have claimed new worlds as their domain to ease Terra’s burden, and humanity’s faith in their Emperor is, in many ways, stronger than ever. A turning point is approaching, that much is certain, but what comes next is far from simple predestination. “As the dark days close in, Mankind stands before the precipice. Now is the time of judgment, where faith shall be tested in fire, and courage put to its very limits. Secession and rebellion are rife in all corners of the Imperium. Sensing weakness, alien empires close in from all sides. The Space Marines and Imperial Guard are at war as never before, defending humanity from threats within, without, and beyond. This is humanity’s darkest hour…” – Taggarath, Seer of Corrinto, before being executed for heresy. 744.M41

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