User Guide

The Imperium
The Imperium of man has existed for 10,000 years, but its
foundation can be attributed to a single invention: the warp drive.
A phenomenal breakthrough, the warp drive allowed spacecraft to
travel astronomical distances in short periods of time. The
importance of this invention in human imperialism cannot be
exaggerated. Whereas it once took centuries for human spacecraft
to travel to Sol’s closest neighboring star, the same distance could
suddenly be covered in just a few hours.
The ability to cover enormous distances in negligible amounts of
time led directly to a massive program of exploration that came to
be known as the great expansion. Free from the limitations of time
in interstellar travel, humanity began to explore the vast universe
with great determination. It wasn’t long before humans found rich
new worlds -worlds suitable for human habitation.
Large-scale colonization of planets was just one of the predictable
results of man’s drive towards the stars. The other was war. AS
quickly as humans discovered habitable planets, they also
encountered aliens - many of whom had imperialistic designs of
their own. With grim inevitability, the first of many Alien Wars
flared up between human and non-human empires. The pattern for
galactic strife was set.
The Dark Age of Technology
The Great Expansion brought new wealth, new ideas and new
arrogance. The machines of travel and conquest achieved incredible
levels of sophistication and were, to the masses of people who benefited
from them, nothing short of awe inspiring. Science, gravely
misunderstood by the ignorant, came to be revered as God.
The end of this Age of Technology was heralded by the sudden
appearance of psykers
- humans with psionic powers such as
telekinesis. What caused certain individuals to suddenly develop psionic
powers has never been precisely determined, but within a few centuries
psykers were recorded on almost every planet populated by man. At first,
public reaction to the psyker phenomenon was mixed. On many planets,
psykers were persecuted
as abominations or freaks of nature - those
unfortunate enough to be caught by fearful and ignorant masses were
burned at the stake in what were modern-day witch hunts.
On more civilized planets, psykers were protected. Some governments
even attempted to nurture the understanding and development of psyker
powers. In a series of bold attempts to harness the powers of the mind,
psykers on openly tolerant worlds were allowed to explore and
experiment with their new found skills.
The uncontrolled experimentation with psyker powers proved to man’s
greatest folly. Ignorant of the forces with which they meddled, novice
psykers opened the galaxy to invasion by extra-dimensional creatures.
Daemons
- fell creatures of the warp, born of Chaos - swept into the
galaxy through the unprotected minds of the psykers. Soon monsters of
every description were walking the surface of thousands of worlds,
senselessly destroying cities and civilization. Hostile alien empires took
advantage of man’s crisis and attacked savagely, attempting to regain
lost territories and resources. The Age of Strife was born.