Realm of Chaos

The Realm of Chaos is the name given to that portion of the Immaterium where the Chaos Gods and their daemonic followers make their homes, if such a concept even has meaning within the formless extradimensional space that is the Empyrean. Beyond the boundaries of physical space, unrestricted by time or causality, there is a dimension incomprehensible to mortal minds. It lies on the other side of dreams and nightmares, infinite in scope but without form or structure. This realm is composed of the psychic energy of love and hate, fear and hope, ambition and despair, and yet it is uncaring, emotionless void. The Realm of Chaos exists far outside imagination; an impossible abstraction made real only by metaphor and the roiling emotions of mortal minds. It is constantly reborn but has never changed, eternally shifting though endless in potential. No mundane sense can see, smell of hear it, and even the most powerful psykers cannot glean the Warp's true nature, lest they be driven insane. It is a place where gods thrive in constant war, fighting over the raw stuff of Creation that birthed them. In this unknowable realm, titanic hosts clash, locked together in a conflict that is as old as the universe and can never be truly won. Vast armies rage and scream, each warrior formed only of the psychic energy of emotion, and each driven onwards by the whims of their dark creators.

Sometimes, this dread realm shatters its boundaries and spills into the territory of mortals in so-called realspace. Nightmares and terror are unleashed upon the worlds of men and aliens alike, as armies of slavering fiends and cavorting warriors pour forth alongside regiments of blood-red soldiers and batteries of brazen Warp-forged war machines. While the skies burn with magical fire and rivers of blood drown ravaged cities, the hosts of the Dark Gods slaughter and maim all in their path, feeding upon the souls of their victims. The Realm of Chaos has been made manifest, and there is no escape...

The Dark Gods
In the Warp, the psychic reflection of similar thoughts and emotions gather together like rivulets of water running down a cliff face. They form streams and eddies of anguish and desire, pools of hatred and torrents of pride. Since the dawn of time, these tides and waves of psychic energy have flowed unceasingly through the mirror realm of the Warp, and such is their power that they forced creatures made of the very stuff of dreams and nightmares.

Eventually, these instinctual, formless entities gained a rudimentary consciousness of their own. The Chaos Gods were born -- vast psychic presences composed of the fantasies and horrors of mortals. These are the Ruinous Powers, and each one is a reflection of the mortal passions that formed them. First amongst them is Khorne, the Lord of Battle, possessed of towering and immortal fury. Tzeentch, the bizarre and ever-changing Architect of Fate, weaves powerful sorceries to bind the future to his will, whilst great Nurgle, the Lord of Decay, labours endlessly to spread infection and pestilence. The last of their number is Slaanesh, the Dark Prince of Chaos, indulgent of every pleasure and excess, no matter how immoral or perverse.

As the intelligent species of the Milky Way Galaxy prospered and grew, so too did their hopes and dreams, their rage and wars, their love and hatred. This burgeoning flood of raw emotion fed the Chaos Gods and nurtured their power. Eventually, the gods reached back, into and through the dreams of mortals, eternally working to influence the physical realm and its myriad sentient races.

A Chaos God can only grow in power through the actions and thoughts of mortals. Those who worship a Chaos God, and behave in a way that feeds it, are rewarded with strange "gifts," extraordinary powers and potentially, immortality as a Daemon Prince. As the Chaos Gods battle in the Warp, so their mortal followers wage war in the material universe. The victors of the battles earn more power for their unworldy master, though the twisted plans of the Chaos Gods are such that often victory is not necessary; merely the acts of sacrifice and battle themselves. When devotees of Chaos die, their souls do not fade in the Warp and disappear like the spirits of others to some unknown and unknowable fate. Instead, their immortal energy is swallowed into the greatness of their gods, their souls sustained forever, bound to the eternal power of Chaos.

Realm of the Gods
Through the dreams and nightmares of mortals, the changing tides of the Warp are moulded into a fantastical landscape and populated with legendary beings. Timeless and ever-shifting, this psychic expanse is known as the Realm of Chaos, the Warp, the Immaterium or Warpspace, depending upon which facet of its existence one is seeking to comprehend. It is a dimension parallel to our own, a universe devoid of consistency and unbound by the physical laws which govern space and time. It is a random, unstructured panorama of pure psychic energy and unfocused consciousness. It is Chaos in its truest sense, unfettered by the limits of physics and undirected by intelligent purpose and will. Warpspace is Chaos, Chaos is Warpspace; the two are indivisible.

The Chaos Gods and their dominions are one, for both are formed of the same basic psychic Warp energy. As a Chaos God gathers energy, it expands in power, its corresponding influence upon the Warp around it broadens and its territory within the Realm of Chaos grows larger. No two visions of these divine realms are ever the same, but all are founded upon the same fundamental themes and feelings. As extensions of the Dark Gods, the appearances of their domains are formed upon the same emotions that created their masters: Khorne's realm is founded on anger and bloodletting; Tzeentch's lands are scintillating constructs of pure and ever-shifting magic; Nurgle's territory is a haven of death and regeneration, and Slaanesh's dominion is a paradise of damning temptations and hedonistic pleasures. Though realm and god are as one, the Chaos Gods each have a form that embodies their personailties and dwells at the heart of their territories. Surrounded by their attendant daemons, the Chaos Gods watch over their realms, seeking any disturbances in the pattern of the Warp that signal intrusion or opportunity.

The Formless Wastes
The Warp has no physical dimensions and the Realm of Chaos is without limits or true geography. The areas of influence controlled by the Chaos Gods form their realms and the rest of this roiling landscape is often referred to simply as the Formless Wastes, the Land of Lost Souls or the Chaos Abyss. Much of the Formless Wastes is random, constantly churning and reforming: rivers of tar flow though petrified woodlands under crimson skies; great stairways lead into the heavens and join themselves from below in an ever-lasting loop, castles made of bones and fortresses of ichor stand amidst copses of limbs, and the departed spirits of titanic god-machines slump in graveyard heaps. Every dream and nightmare, every lunatic vision and deranged fancy, finds its home in the Formless Wastes. The Formless Wastes are home to the Furies -- daemons created by indecision and random chance. They are heralded by disembodied voices, lacking anything but the most rudimentary awareness and instinct. Greater Daemons and Daemon Princes grown powerful enough to instil a small measure of control over their surroundings also create their abodes in the Formless Wastes -- each of these small islands of structure is a petty domain in comparison to the vast realms of the Chaos Gods within the Realm of Chaos, but each embodies the whimsy of its creator, a small shrine or temple to a niche of belief.

Chaos Daemons
The Chaos Gods are not alone in Warpspace. They have created servants from their own essences -- the creatures that mortals have named daemons based on their ancient legends and religious mythologies -- who are not so closely bound to the Warp. Daemons are entities of a somewhat different nature to their masters, and are the most numerous of the creatures to be found in the Empyrean. A daemon is "born" when a Chaos God expends a portion of its own power to create a separate being. This psychic power binds a collection of senses, thoughts and purposes together, creating a personality and consciousness that can move within the Warp. The Chaos God can reclaim the independence it has given to its daemon children at any time, thus ensuring their loyalty. It is only though the loss of this power that a daemon can truly be destroyed, its mind dissolving into the whirls and currents of Warpspace.

Daemons have no physical presence within the Warp. The Realm of Chaos is anathema to the laws of physics and the starships that navigate its depths do so by taking a skin or bubble of "reality" with them when they enter using their Warp-Drive. Instead of possessing a true physical form, daemons project a form conjured from raw psychic energy that is essentially a lesser interpretation of their master's fundamental nature. Hence, the bizarre and inhuman appearances projected by daemons indicate their presence, status and allegiance to a Chaos God.

Though it may appear to be made of normal matter when it materialises in realspace, a daemon's form is no more physical than it is in the Realm of Chaos. In fact, they are beings of pure Warp energy given shape and depth. When manifested in the material universe, daemons have particular invulnerabilities and weaknesses, as well as many strange powers derived from their Warp-born nature as psychic beings. Slaying a daemon's physical projection does not kill it, but only severs its presence in reality; its true essence in the Warp remains unharmed.

When a daemon is "killed" in the material universe, it is banished back to the Warp. If not simply re-absorbed by its creator, it must remain there to regain its strength that it eventually might manifest itself again. Legend has it that a daemon banished in this way cannot return for a thousand Terran years and a day,, though it is of course impossible to prove such a belief through study, and the concept of time itself is meaningless within the Warp. The slight to a "slain" daemon's pride is considerable, however, and the daemon is forced to endure the mockery of its fellows until it can return to corporeal form and avenge itself. The most powerful daemons will call upon any servants and tributary Lesser Daemons to help them achieve their revenge. If it has many allies, it may also request their aid, though all daemons are cautious in doing so. Such favours must inevitably be returned, and no daemon welcomes the dominion of another creature, be it mortal or daemonic.

The Great Game
The Realm of Chaos is not merely the home of the Dark Gods; it is also their battlefield, the arena for the Great Game of supremacy over Creation. The Chaos Gods are constantly at war with one another, vying for power amid the immaterial planes. Despite their myriad differences, the great Gods of Chaos have the same goal: total domination of the universe. Such absolute power cannot be shared -- especially amongst the divine.

With the ebb and flow of psychic energy within the Warp, the power of a Chaos God expands and contracts, and his realm will shift accordingly. For long peridos, one god may dominate the others, fed by its own success, leeching its foes' energy for its own growth. Ultimately, the other gods will ally against the dominant force and through combined efforts reduce him in power, until another of their number rises to prominence. This pattern is played out again and again through eternity. No Chaos God can ever truly be victorious, for without the Great Game, the Warp would become a still, unmoving emptiness, as it was before the birth of sentient life in the universe.

When the gods war, the Immaterium trembles and Warp Storms rage across the galaxy. Within the Realm of Chaos, hordes of daemons are sent forth to do their masters' biddings, and the lands of the gods strain and heave at each other in physical assault. Possessed of personality and intelligence, the daemons of a Chaos God aspire to draw favour from their master, and often launch their own attacks into the domains of rival daemons. The armies of the Chaos Gods pour from one territory to another, and each reflects their master's nature.

Khorne's daemons advanced as a great legion accompanied by blaring horns; beneath brazen banners, the whips of roaring monstrosities urge on rank upon rank of bloodthirsty footsoldiers. With raw anger and violence, the legions of Khorne cut a swathe though enemy territory, the blood spilt by their attacks polluting the realm of the enemy, turning it into Khorne's wasteland.

Tzeentch is perhaps the most devious of all the gods, for he will always create a weakness to exploit before attacking. Through plotting, innuendo and magic, Tzeentch frequently sets the other gods to war with each other. he waits patiently to see how these conflicts progress and when the time is right, his cackling minions and manipulative magisters sweep forwards upon a carpet of magic, striking at the weakest of the contenders. With magical blasts and warping power, the armies of Tzeentch quickly overcome all opposition and the newly claimed territory swiftly becomes part of Tzeentch's crystalline domain.

When Nurgle's minions are set free, they march forth to spread disease and decay. Sonorous chanting and the rusted clangs of a thousand bells herald their attacks, while the army advances under an impenetrable swarm of bloated carrion flies. Capering daemon-mites carpet the ground before the host, and the noxious poxes of the fleshy hulks that command them kill everything in their path, rendering all life down to mulch from which evil fungi and poisonous plants erupt.

Slaanesh attacks in a more insidious manner, as might be expected of the Prince of Pleasure. The first assaults are subtle, unnoticeable to the other gods. Inside the fabric of another god's realm, the tendrils of Slaanesh's power inveigle their way into root, bone and crystal, corrupting them from within. As the land itself becomes perverted to Slaanesh's power, it dulls the senses of the enemy's daemons, allowing the fast-moving armies of Slaanesh to strike swiftly and decisively.

From time to time there arises a being, place, object or event in the material universe that attracts the attention of all the Chaos Gods. So important is this new element, so desired or so dangerous, that all rivalry is temporarily put aside in order for Chaos to take advantage of this particular opportunity, or thwart the threat it presents. Then the four work as one for a while under the banner of Chaos Undivided, and the galaxy trembles before their combined might.

For Mankind, the most significant occasion of this type was the rise of the Emperor of Mankind in the late 30th Millennium. During this period, the Chaos Gods tried with all their might to bring about the Master of Mankind's downfall, culminating in their corruption of the Space Marine Primarchs and the terrible civil wars of the Horus Heresy in the early 31st Millennium. Other events have led to briefer cessations of the conflict in the Realm of Chaos: particularly promising Black Crusades, for example, or the extermination or birth of a new intelligent starfaring race.

Such interest in mortal affairs is fleeting, and treaties between the Chaos Gods do not last for long. As soon as their common objective is achieved, the gods begin to resume their Great Game. One god or another, or all four, oversteps the bounds of the previous alliance agreement and attempts to usurp his fellow gods. Once again the Realm of Chaos thunders to the march of daemonic legions, and their age-old feuds spill over into the domains of humanity.