Warhammer Meta-Setting

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Hinted towards in the original fluff, revealed during the End Times and expanded upon in the Age of Sigmar, the Warhammer Fantasy universe isn't, as previously thought, a single universe constantly assailed by Chaos, but rather one universe out of many. The Warhammer Fantasy universe is in fact locked into a perpetual cycle of birth, stagnation and destruction, with every cycle ending with Chaos consuming as much of the worlds as it can, sating themselves and giving time for the powers of Order to recollect themselves, recreate the universe and gather the souls of the last universe so new life can be created.

How this fits with 40k is not known, but at least it is known that the Warp has connections to both the Fantasy and 40k universe, and that the Chaos Gods from the two settings are the same.

The Cycle

Elven heroes with spears alongside high tech demigods in the same setting? It's more likely than you think.

When Chaos wins in a cycle and devours it, the universe is left as a half-empty void, with the surviving souls bobbing around, alongside leftovers from the old world and what not. The surviving characters are (usually) the ones who can be considered gods or half-gods (since they'll be bound up into powers about as strong as Chaos, such as the Magical Winds). From here on, it's essentially a free-for-all, with the vying Gods now having the ability to take the raw magic of the universe and form it into something, the way they like. The general world is created by a sort of godly being by the name of Dracothian, a dragon made of starlight whose only purpose in existence is to recreate a physical world for the beings of the new one to live in, using what's left behind after Chaos is done with the previous world as raw materials. As such, he's more of a cleanup crew for the Warhammer worlds than anything else, as he's not shown to have any inclination towards intervening in whatever universe ends up coming into existence until after its inevitable destruction, at which time he will again recreate it. Similarly, the Chaos Gods neither seem to know nor care about its existence.

The new gods are then essentially allowed to do whatever they want with the universe. Many of them will likely want to fight Chaos to avenge the world they once lived in, but nothing necessarily requires them to do so. It is normal for them to create new races or form new armies that are made to fight Chaos, but since no one has been able to stave the Chaos Gods forever, no one seeems to be able to make an army that can actually resist Chaos completely, or at least repel it from their universe. That said, Sigmar is suggested as being the first entity to be considered an equal to the Chaos Gods in power, and the Emperor has similarly held out longer than the Ruinous Powers anticipated (albeit with more grimdark than in Sigmar's case).

Just as the worlds, realms and universes are formed, Chaos gets it's shit up and running, and after having picked the last few mortal souls out of their corrupted, jagged teeth, begin taking on the physical world again and corrupts it as much as possible. Though they might lose many times before any actual damage has been done to the physical world, a little corruption at a time will let the thirsting Gods enjoy a little refreshing souls from time to time, while planning out new ways to kill the world off for good. The Chaos Gods often have mutually exclusive goals in every Cycle, as some of them enjoy wracking up shit better than others do, so they rarely have the entire force of Chaos behind them, just as the different Gods left from the last cycle might have their own agendas to pursue.

Then, when Chaos finally get tired of the current Cycle, or when a sufficiently powerful Chaos Champion rallies the forces of Chaos behind him, Chaos goes all out and begins taking over the Material worlds, until the worlds are so strained that they can't keep themselves running and the Gods of the Cycle can't keep it together anymore, the world simply rips itself apart. All creation is engulfed in the Warp, and everything goes back to the Void it started as. While the Chaos Gods go snack on souls and the old Gods are destroyed, new gods formed from the mightiest heroes and warriors of the past world will inevitably escape and witness the creation of a new world.

And then the Cycle begins anew, as it has ever since Chaos first came into existence.

Known Cycles and their Gods

As far as we know, the Fantasy and 40k Warhammers are separated in terms of their timelines - The End Times has hinted towards the current 40k timeline and the Fantasy timeline being parallel to each other, with the Warp providing a faint connection between the two. For example, after randomly pressing buttons on a Lizardman communications device, the Skaven managed to make contact with beings whose voices sounded like High Elves, but with an otherworldly accent. The cowards promptly destroyed their gadget of course, but you don't get better hints than that. It's possible that the Warp screws this up big time, since time doesn't really work there, but as far as we know, the cycles are separate in the two settings. Or perhaps the 40K setting hasn't gotten through its cycle yet, we don't know.

Fantasy

Knights knights vikings daemons hammers horses knights

• The Fantasy Cycle

Yo, whata ya want from me. What Cycle name could you come up with, huh?

This is essentially Warhammer Fantasy as we know it - It is comprised of one planet, has some different Gods from different pantheons and, of course, Chaos. The Fantasy world was destroyed in the The End Times, when Chaos upped its game, Archaon went berserk, Sigmar came back into the Emperor's body, the moon (no, the other one) was blown up and the Lord of Death ate three gods. Long story.

The gods of this world were leftovers from the last one, according to Lileath, who first revealed the existence of the cycle during the End Times. The first beings to have an influence on the created world seem to be the Old Ones, who supposedly created all the races, including, but not limited to, the humans, elves, ogres and dwarves, all in the pursuit of making the perfect anti-chaotic race. When that didn't end well (all races being suspectible to Chaos in one way or other), they created the Lizardmen, who worked, but were both misplaced (being placed far from anything of importance) and too few to do an actual difference. It's unclear how much of the old fluff is still holding about the creation of the other races, but since the elven gods are also leftovers from an old universe it's unlikely.

Speaking of elven gods, the elven pantheon is one of the most active ones in the Fantasy world, as all of them (Asuryan especially) are actively battling Chaos.

- - - Unfinished - - -

40K

Marines marines cultists daemons bolters bikes marines

So who the hell is the Architect of this shit?

• * * Work in Process * * *

Theories

As a surprise to no one, a lot of theories began popping up the instant we began knowing about the inner workings of the Warhams - In fact, they had been there all the time.