Daemon World

A Daemon World is a planet twisted and corrupted by the power of Chaos and the Warp after being trapped in a prolonged Warp rift. Entwining the impossibilities of the Warp and the reality of the material universe, Daemon Worlds are not bound by the laws of physics, but by the whim of their daemonic rulers and the emotions of their mortals' collective unconsciousness. Daemon Worlds are usually ruled by a Daemon Prince, who can shape the world's environment to his liking due to the pure psychic mutability of the Warp. Each of these worlds is a bizarre sub-reality ruled by their terrible Daemon Princes. The majority of the known Daemon Worlds are to be found within the great Warp rift known as the Eye of Terror. Those few that are known to exist within realspace within the boundaries of the Imperium of Man are rigorously quarantined by the forces of the Imperial Inquisition. These worlds are rarely subject to an Exterminatus, as the reality-shifting effects which predominate in the local space around a Daemon World usually precludes any attempt by the Imperium to eliminate it. This is one reason why the Inquisition will move so swiftly and mercilessly to unleash a purge upon any world where the Forces of Chaos gain a hold, to preclude them from transforming it into another Daemon World that will be impossible to eradicate from Imperial space.

The four major Chaos Gods continuously compete to possess the Daemon Worlds. Armies of daemons and their living allies fight huge and bloody battles to determine which of the Chaos Powers will dominate them, adding the world to their realms within the Warp. These battles often last for hundreds of years, so that the entire world becomes little more than a gigantic arena where the opposing forces are pitched against each other. The Chaos Powers do not, of course, appear in person to lead their armies -- they are spectators to events, not participants. Their generals are Greater Daemons and favoured Daemon Princes who, because they were once alive as mortals, understand the nature of both the material universe and the Immaterium.

The most powerful of human psykers have reportedly had visions of worlds located in the Eye of Terror. On one world a black sun stands in a white sky and smoky threads pour from it onto a tangled black city. This is Medrengard, the world of the Daemon Primarch Perturabo of the Iron Warriors Traitor Legion. Another planet within the Eye is marked by lakes of blood from which spheres of fire float into the air and spread their light across the sky. This is Bubonicus, the world of the Daemon Prince of the same name, a servant of Nurgle. Visions of such places routinely disturb potent psykers across the galaxy, and can presage an attempt at daemonic possession.

Once a Daemon Prince has conquered a Daemon World or brought a world from the physical universe into the Warp, his grateful Patron gives it to him as a gift to rule over as he wishes. When a Daemon Prince takes control of his hard-won world he uses his mighty sorcerous powers to reshape it into a form which pleases him. Because of this, every Daemon World is different and all are equally horrific in their own way.

Notable Daemon Worlds

 * Anathrax - Anathrax is a Daemon World in the Eye of Terror devoted to the Lord of Plagues, Nurgle. A lush but pestilant planet, it is covered by giant bulbous fungus made up of puffy-eyed heads that cough and sneeze a grey mucous which corrupts those who touch it. During the Abyssal Crusade, the Iron Drakes Chapter of Space Marines was ambushed on the planet by its vile vegetation and Plague Marines, resulting in their eventual corruption into the warband of Chaos Space Marines known as the Grey Death. Another of The Judged Chapters on the Abyssal Crusade was also corrupted on Anathrax and renamed themselves the Talons of Anathrax.
 * Bubonicus - Lothar was a mortal Champion of Nurgle, born on a backwards planet which remains cut off from the rest of the Imperium to this day by Warp Storms. Raised to daemonhood by the Plague Lord, he now rules a Daemon World within the Eye of Terror named Bubonicus. Now also called Bubonicus, he has shaped his world into one of pestilence and death, covered in boiling lakes of blood from which spheres of fire float into the sky and spread their light across the firmament. This corrupt world is famous for its vast prayer gangs. The planet's equator is surrounded by a dancing human chain, that sings and dances the praises of Nurgle as they circle the planet. As they dance, the revelers slowly develop Nurgle's Rot, causing them to eventually mutate into Plaguebearer daemons. When this happens, the Plaguebearers leave to join their master and new mortals take their place so that the circle is always complete. This theatrical conceit pleases Nurgle tremendously, so much so that Bubonicus has commanded that the dance should never cease.
 * Drakaasi - Drakaasi is a Daemon World within the Eye of Terror, dedicated to the worship of Khorne, the Blood God. Like most Daemon Worlds, Drakaasi is mind-warpingly strange. Befitting of a world dedicated to Khorne, the world's greatest feature is a sea of blood which connects all the Chaotically strange cities of the planet. Each city has its own arena where gladiatorial games are held in honour of the Blood God. Some are no more than shanty towns sitting atop the ocean of blood, while another is a great crystal which resonates with music dedicated to the Lord of Battles, and another is nothing but a battlefield where men are constantly sent to their deaths only to add to the Skull Throne. Yet another is a massive graveyard, where the titanic remains of gigantic warriors and their weapons litter the ground and have been turned into dwellings by the new inhabitants. Each Drakaasi city honours the Blood God in its own way. Underneath the great cities of Drakaasi are many caverns where dwell the xenos called the Scaephylyds who form the slave class of this Daemon World. The most prominent facet of Drakaasi worship of the Blood God are the gladiatorial games held on the world where tens of thousands meet their deaths every day. There are many members of the ruling class on the world ranging from daemons, barbarian chieftains, amazon huntresses, Chaos Space Marines and poor men trying to act like nobility. They often get into petty squabbles which always result in open warfare. The main occupation of these leaders is to raid other worlds in the Eye of Terror and in the physical universe for slaves to fight in the great arenas of Khorne. They all, however, ultimately submit to the rule of Lord Ebondrake, a reptillian Daemon Prince who runs the games and commands the greatest Khornate army on Drakaasi. There are many separate military forces on Drakaasi all dedicated to the Blood God. The most notable of these is the Ophidian Guard of Lord Ebondrake. These vicious warriors are armoured all in black and armed with Power Swords. They are both disciplined and brutal in combat, fitting servants of the Blood God.
 * Eidolon - Eidolon is a former Eldar Maiden World hidden deep in the heart of the Eye of Terror. The land mass of the planet is in a constant state of flux and is divided into four empires, each one claimed by one of the four Ruinous Powers who wage eternal wars to encroach into their rivals' territories on the world. The planet is supposedly home to many valuable ancient artefacts dating back to the Fall of the Eldar.
 * Fool's Paradise - Fool's Paradise is a Daemon World ruled over by the Daemon Prince Mk'lrathirix. In 999.M41 Colonel Schaeffer and his 13th Penal Legion led a raid on the planet. Though they succeeded in their mission to slay Mk'lrathirix, only two of the Imperial soldiers survived the battle.
 * Kathalon - Kathalon is a Daemon World that is dedicated to Khorne, the Blood God. Eternally at war, Kathalon finds itself the battleground for the armies of Khorne under the Bloodthirster Vangash'hagash and the daemonic legions of Tzeentch. The battle between the forces of the Blood God and the Lord of Change is seemingly destined to last for eternity.
 * Medrengard - Medrengard is the Daemon World of the Daemon Prince and former Primarch Perturabo, and the current homeworld of the Iron Warriors Traitor Legion. It is seen in nightmarish visions as a world turned into a vast fortress with mountains of inconceivably high towers and dungeons penetrating into its molten core. Information gained from reconnaissance within the Eye of Terror by Imperial agents describe the world as a bleak prison planet where slaves are worked to death, great Chaotic warships are tethered to its tallest towers,and within which reside the Iron Warriors themselves. Other descriptions of Medrengard depict it as a huge fortress world with slave pits and towering pillars. In the white sky a black sun pours smoky threads down onto the surface of the corrupted world. While there appear to be no "native" inhabitants of Medrengard, the cannibalistic mutants called "the Unfleshed" are known to roam the hills and gullies.
 * Oliensis - Oliensis is a Daemon World located in the Eye of Terror that is devoted to Slaanesh, the Prince of Pleasure. The entire planet is actually a colossal morbidly obese man curled into a fetal position. The surface is home to hordes of Slaaneshi daemons and also serves as a base for Noise Marines of various Slaanesh-dedicated Chaos Space Marine warbands.
 * Plague Planet - The Plague Planet is the Daemon World of the Daemon Prince and former Primarch Mortarion, and homeworld of the Death Guard Traitor Legion. It is a world where disease is the norm and miasmic clouds bring contagion and death. Its diseased inhabitants pray to Nurgle for relief from their constant agony. Some of them are favoured and become the Plague Lord's Chaos Champions, and then fight among themselves for mastery and the chance to become Daemon Princes themselves. Beastmen make up a large part of the population; they are bloated with disease and flies swarm around them and breed upon their rotting flesh. The Beastmen are very proud of these signs of their God's favour, and openly boast of the number and severity of their diseases. The Plague Marines involve themselves in carrying out Mortarion's wishes and travelling to other worlds to spread Nurgle's plagues. All spacecraft which succumb to plague are eventually drawn, through the Warp, to the Plague Planet, where they become part of the planet's fleets. These Plague Fleets carry followers of Nurgle through the Warp to inhabited worlds where their destructive raids are inevitably followed by outbreaks of deathly contagion. Mortarion has shaped the planet to resemble his ancient homeworld, Barbarus. Its citizens cower in tiny villages, serving their supreme masters who reside in mighty fortress citadels far above all of them. These poor creatures should be dead and are diseased far beyond the capacity for mortal reckoning. All is ruled by the skeletal Mortarion, enthroned upon the highest part of the planet, much like his false father once was on Barbarus so long ago. Because the Plague Planet is located close to the border between the Eye of Terror and realspace, it is an excellent place to launch Chaos invasions from, especially against the nearby Imperial worlds of the Cadian Sector.
 * Planet of the Sorcerers - The Planet of the Sorcerers is the current homeworld to the Thousand Sons Chaos Space Marine Traitor Legion. It is a Daemon World located deep in the Eye of Terror. With the fall of his original homeworld of Prospero during the Horus Heresy, the Daemon Prince and former Primarch Magnus the Red used his sorcerous powers to transfer Tizca, the City of Light, through the Warp to a new planet within the Eye of Terror. This planet is now the Daemon World of Magnus the Red; dark, rocky, volcanic and in constant turmoil. Its skies are filled with blazing storms of Warp energy. Towers thrust up from rocks jutting from the lava plains, and serve as twisted mockeries of what the City of Light once was. Dwarfing all other edifices on the world is Magnus' own tower, an obsidian monolith called the Tower of the Cyclops. The great, glowing eye of the Tower watches over the planet, its gaze penetrating the Warp into the material universe. This allows Magnus to sense the arcane artefacts and gifted psykers which fascinate him, so that he can despatch his Thousand Sons to raid the Imperium and seize them. When the Thousand Sons first arrived on the planet, they found it unpopulated. Over thousands of years, however, they have acquired many servants and slaves through their raids. This has created a servant underclass, some of whom have escaped their masters into the hostile lands of the Daemon World. These escaped slaves then join the nomadic warbands led by both Chaos Champions from the Thousand Sons as well as from the ranks of the escaped slaves. Often the Chaos Champions arising among the world's nomadic warbands are then recruited back to serve the Thousand Sons. Over thousands of years, a large population of Beastmen has also developed on the planet, born as the mutant children of captured humans, and forming a subordinate warrior caste for the Thousand Sons Traitor Marines.
 * Sicarus - Beneath a roiling sky of fire and blood, Sicarus is a world completely covered by vast sprawling cathedrals, temples and monuments dedicated to the worship of the Ruinous Powers of Chaos in the guise of Chaos Undivided and it is the homeworld of the Word Bearers Traitor Legion and its Daemon Prince Lorgar. Spider-legged cranes and slaves numbering in the millions constantly toil in a never-ending task to raise more structures of devotion and worship, level upon level atop the existing crumbling edifices and cathedrals, producing obelisks and spires many kilometres high. As a result, the majority of buildings on Sicarus are subterranean; a labyrinthine warren of interconnected structures devoted to the worship of Chaos. The seat of the Dark Council of Dark Apostles that rules Sicarus in Lorgar's name is the Templum Inficio -- an immense cathedral fortress crowned with hundreds of five-kilometre-high barbed spires, each studded with jagged spikes, upon which are impaled countless living sacrifices. Within the Templum, unseen by even his own Chaos Space Marines since the Word Bearers arrived on the world, is the Daemon Prince Lorgar who maintains a constant meditation on the will of the Chaos Powers that has remained undisturbed since the Word Bearers fled into the Eye of Terror 10,000 Terran years ago. The bodies of the Word Bearers' fallen Dark Apostles are buried in Sicarus' unholy soil.
 * Temporia - Temporia is a Daemon World located within the Eye of Terror, that seems to be dedicated to Tzeentch, the Changer of Ways. It is a mind-boggling contradiction of geography and artifice, home to cog-plateaus, helical factories, rain storms of magma, and spiraling stairways that span around newcomers. Infested by Daemon Engines and the Lesser Daemons known as Flamers, it is also home to the Warpsmith Valadrak.
 * Torvendis - Torvendis is a Daemon World located at the very centre of the Warp Storm called the Maelstrom. Due to its location, it has symbolic value to the Ruinous Powers. Torvendis' geography is in a constant state of flux and changes significantly every generation. There are two prominent features on Torvendis, the Canis Mountains, a huge mountain chain where many different peoples live, and the City of Lady Charybdia, where millions live only to worship Slaanesh. The bedrock of Torvendis itself is made up of strata comprised of the compressed bodies of those fallen in battle on the world. The history of Torvendis is dominated by the legend of Arguleon Veq, a Chaos Champion who came to the planet in ages past and did battle with a creature known as "The Last". From that time on, Torvendis would be ruled by a succession of rulers including the Khornate daemon Ss'll Sh'Karr, the Crimson Knights, Mutander and his diseased monks and finally Lady Charybdia, the Princess of Slaanesh, though there were many others as well. It was said that any who tried to record the history of Torvendis would end up going mad. The dominant power on Torvendis was Lady Charybdia, a devout devotee and Chaos Champion of Slaanesh. Her power was based on her Legions, disciplined warriors dedicated to the Pleasure God. They were equipped with bows and spears but also had access to some primitive firearms and artillery. They would use stimulants in battle to enhance the experience and many of their weapons were coated in poisons. Charybdia could also call upon untold numbers of Slaaneshi cultists in times of war and put huge numbers of slaves onto the battlefield. In dire situations her Chaos Sorcerers could call upon the daemons of Slaanesh to aid Charybdia's armies in battle. A large number of Chaos Space Marines from the Renegade Violators Chapter also fought under the banner of Lady Charybdia. The tribes of the Canis Mountains could also muster considerable strength, but nothing to compare to the Legions of Charybdia. These barbarians were primarily armed with melee weapons like swords and axes but also boasted several types of specialist troops. Both Charybdia and the tribes of the Canis Mountains used mutants in their armies as officers and shock-troops.
 * World of Immortal Sorrows - The World of Immortal Sorrows is a Daemon World located in the Eye of Terror. It is also a Crone World] of the Eldar, as it was once one of that race's centres of power before the Fall of the Eldar empire following the birth of Slaanesh. It is currently ruled by a Daemon Prince of Slaanesh named Elyssar'sirath, who spends eternity torturing the souls of fallen Eldar in the name of his Dark God.
 * Xana II - Xana II is a Dark Forge World controlled by Hereteks of the Dark Mechanicus within the Eye of Terror. Xana is infamous for its production of advanced wargear and Daemon Engines for the Forces of Chaos. Xana II is wholly given over to daemon-possessed machines and infernal industries, where mills grind flesh and countless millions are enslaved to work in its world-spanning factories. The masters of Xana II, often half-daemon machines themselves, have long since given up their humanity and answer to none. They sell their daemonic creations to the highest bidder, whether they are Chaos Space Marines, Daemon Princes, Chaos Sorcerers, or other Heretics. They accept human currency in payment for their creations to feed their world's endless hunger for slaves and souls. Xana II is known by the Imperium to be the primary source for the aircraft such as the Hell Blade and the Hell Talon, that have recently become mainstays of the Forces of Chaos. Other than these aircraft the Imperium at present remains largely ignorant of which vehicles and weapons employed by the Forces of Chaos are patterns derived from the hell-forges of Xana II.