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Just go and buy Chaos Gate - it's one of the best games in this universe
Burn the heretic. Kill the mutant. Purge the unclean.

Walk softly, and carry a big gun

There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt

But seriously...War 40k is one of the darkest, brutal and bleak universes out there, but at the same time one of the most fascinating

For educational purposes i recommend this
Good explanations, but you forgot something to explain 40K. WAAAAGH!
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vtroncoso: Good explanations, but you forgot something to explain 40K. WAAAAGH!
KILL THE ORK!
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wolfsrain: But seriously...War 40k is one of the darkest, brutal and bleak universes out there
That may be true but it's also the setting I've had the most laughs on when playing tabletop RPG campaigns with friends. We would act so naturally ridiculous, that we had to name our group of agents of the inquisition... the Ordo Ridiculus. Oh the fun!
Post edited February 01, 2016 by sunshinecorp
Cleanse... Purge... KILL!
You know Starcraft? It's the same thing, except humans are more badass and there are orcs too.
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Breja: I think we covered it here, more or less. I don't really know much about 40.000, never cared much for it, but as far as I can tell it's pretty much like the fantasy stuff, just with all the medieval and magic stuff replaced with sci-fi.

I guess the appeal is sort of "what if we could have EVERYTHING": sci-fi, orcs, elder gods, jetpacks, starships, swords, space marines, elves, and every sci-fi and fantasy book that blew your mind when you were 14 in one setting.
Thanks for the link. Been looking for that sort of thing myself.
Grimdark.

As I said. Everything goes to shit.

Ok I'll elaborate. :)

There's the real material world and then there's another dimension consisting of pure energy that is affected by emotions from the material world. Also it's where souls go after death.
A thousand something before BC a group of shamans noticed souls wasn't being reborn from the warp (The immaterium. The energy dimension.). They gathered it was because the warp was in turmoil because of the constant violence everywhere. So they committed mass suicide, did a soul group hug in the warp and out from that plorped The Emperor into the material world. Dunno if he was born or what. He plorped into being and that have to do as an explanation.
Now he is vastly wise and powerful because all the shaman souls powers etc. Also he's a psyker which means he can manipulate warp energies into the material dimension.
His overall mission is to calm the warp again and make both dimensions safe for mankind.

So he didn't find much to do for millenniums as humankind trudged on. Got a golden age, explored and conquered the stars, invented a lot of nice stuff and had a grand time.
Until the warp started to go haywire. The way humanity travels between the stars is that they take brief shortcuts through the warp and when there are warp storms they cant do that. There were storms all over the place so humankinds empire crumbled. As a bonus suddenly there plopped up psykers everywhere that exploded all sorts of things and also acted as portals for the warps demons to get to the material world. Yeah the living races (Humanity ain't alone by a longshot in the galaxy.) had by now messed up the warp with all their twisted emotions that it got to be literally hell.

So everything went belly up and earth got back to some sort of Mad Max state.
"I gotta do something!" said The Emperor. So he became the meanest bastard on devastated Terra and created genetically modified supersoldiers to do that.
"What now?" he thought. Suddenly it dawned on him. "Let's go on the mother of all crusades! Whip the rest of the galaxy into shape with Humans as dictators!" :D
Humming by himself he created 20 Primarchs, superdupersoldiers to lead his supersoldiers. The genetically altered ones.
That was around 30,000 BC.

Chaos (That's what the warp powers/gods are called. There are a couple of them and they're ridiculously powerful and all want to do their own thing. The Emperor wants order and they want chaos.) teleported away the primarchs to random places in the galaxy.
The Emperor said "Fine I'll just play hide and seek then!", started the crusade and ran across a primarch here and there that he picked up.

Everything was going fine with the genocides, oppression, feudalism, planet destroying, vassal creation etc etc. Just your normal crusade in a whole lot of bigger scale.
Until Chaos corrupted a powerful primarch which backstabbed The Emperor by starting a civil war. Half the Empire fought the other half.
The Emperor won but was mortally wounded so they stuck him in a golden food dispenser and shit remover throne. There he sits unable to do anything at all and humankind and its empire are ruled by some lords that mostly get along. The Empire is made as inefficient as possible so no person can again get as much power as that backstabbing betrayer asshole. Which means that everything is tightly controlled, science is nonexistant because new inventions can be dangerous and so on. It's like Mad Max mixed with terminator (No AI. That's forbidden.) technology in all sorts of hellish environments like massive cities that are just apartments tucked onto factories or the like.

It's now 40,000 BC, everything is going backward with the society and various aliens and chaos thingies are attacking The Empire from everywhere. Grimdark.

Phew!
Post edited February 01, 2016 by Tarm
I'll give it a shot. One paragraph, huh? Would you mind giving me one for the real-world side?

The Warhammer 40,000 setting is the science-fiction spinoff of the original Warhammer setting. Both were heavily supported in the early days by roleplaying magazine White Dwarf, which is now a 100% Warhammer magazine, but gave the games a lot of its early fanbase. Suffice to say, the fandoms are very large. Both settings are primarily home to tabletop strategy games where two armies battle one another, but have also been host to roleplaying games, skirmish games, and even esoteric silliness like Blood Bowl.

I'll cover Warhammer itself first, if that's all right. The Warhammer setting is a world geographically like our own, but with fantasy races and set in an age bordering the late medieval and early renaissance. The primary moving factor in Warhammer are the forces of Chaos. Chaos is a demonic force that frequently strikes from the north and impacts virtually everyone's lives. Every race has their own internal politics and feuds, but Chaos presses down on all of them. The Empire is the game's central, human setting, but there are also elves fighting civil wars, dwarves fighting infinite orcs and goblins on their border, mutated rat-men tunnelling under all the cities of the world, various kinds of undead, and worse. In short, it's an established, if someone generic, fantasy setting that largely distinguishes itself by its fatalistic tone: everyone in the Warhammer World is going to be wiped out by its evils one day, they can only fight to delay it.

Warhammer 40 000 is the sci-fi equivalent. It is also about the fight against Chaos and the inevitability that everyone will lose, but where the fantasy story has some hope of delay, the Warhammer 40k setting is already corrupt and dying. The primary "heroes" are the totalitarian Empire, with its nearly soulless procedures, strange apocalyptic religion, and its implacable metal storm troopers. A few other races exist mirroring other Warhammer species, including the Eldar (elves), but it's mostly terrible human beings versus an even worse outside forces. The Orks are still around (you can't stop them forever), Chaos exists in space as well (in a nice crossover bit, the demons of Chaos are identical in both settings), and there are worse things out there as well, like the robotic Necrons and the Alien-like Tyranids. In short: everyone is going to die eventually - so die fighting.

Personally I'm more a fan of fantasy but everyone's going to like their own thing.
Post edited February 01, 2016 by Blackdrazon
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Tarm: So he didn't find much to do for millenniums as humankind trudged on. Got a golden age, explored and conquered the stars, invented a lot of nice stuff and had a grand time.
You make him sound so cool! You know, considering he now requires a thousand human sacrifices per day to keep going. :D
Whoops, looks like I was ninja'd by Tarm!
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Blackdrazon: Whoops, looks like I was ninja'd by Tarm!
Only just. :)
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Tarm: So he didn't find much to do for millenniums as humankind trudged on. Got a golden age, explored and conquered the stars, invented a lot of nice stuff and had a grand time.
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sunshinecorp: You make him sound so cool! You know, considering he now requires a thousand human sacrifices per day to keep going. :D
Nothing stains his golden toil...armour!
Post edited February 01, 2016 by Tarm
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misteryo: I have never played a single game or read a thing or watched a thing. The ads I have seen here or there have never interested me.

But lately it seems there are Warhammer games all over the freaking place.

Can you explain to me in a paragraph what the setting is? Can you explain in maybe a second paragraph what is the big deal?

Thank you,

Old Geezer
it is well that you you should pay attention to the emperor's curiosity and let it guide you to a quest for answers.

a quest that will most likely see you disappeared by the inquisition but that's beside the point.

I am not an expert on the universe but I will extend what knowledge I can.

the universe is locked in a struggle against the evil hordes of creatures that lurk just beyond our existence.

it is only through the all encompassing will of the emperor that we are able to turn them back.

oh, and very large, terrible space marines. space warriors in space power armour wield space power chain swords that were designed to fight the hordes of chaos.

they are grown in petri dish from the emperor's gene seed. they are then rapidly grown and implanted with all manner of additional and improved organs to enable various superhuman abilities. they rarely need to sleep. they have inhuman strength, stamina, intellect, and martial skill and combat prowess.

there are many chapters, some are descended from the original legions. originally there were legions. the dark angels were the first and one of the most secretive. the ultramarines are perhaps the greatest of all chapters and are pretty much the emperor's preferred. the blood ravens weren't originally a legion like the other two but have become a very prominent chapter known for their heavy pysker influence.

psykers are those who benefit from the emperor's mind power. they have to be careful lest too much corruption and heresy enter their minds and turn them to chaos.

the horus heresy was when just such a thing happened. nine of the original twenty legions turned on man and joined the realms of chaos. these chaos space marines are among the most dangerous of enemies.

orcs. there are orcs. lots of them. they use teef as their currency. teef are teeth from other orcs. you can tell how formidable an orc is by their bits. bits are pieces of metal or rags or devices or guns that orcs take from things they have partially destroyed and strap to themselves as ornamental trinkets and armour. the more bits, the more dangerous and seasoned an orc.

that's pretty much the extent I have of the emperor's knowledge of warhammer: 40000.


I would recommend playing the emperor's warhammer space marine to better acquaint yourself with the universe.
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johnnygoging: oh, and very large, terrible space marines. space warriors in space power armour wield space power chain swords that were designed to fight the hordes of chaos.
IN SPAAAAAAAAAAAACE!
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Cyraxpt: Cleanse... Purge... KILL!
Sooo, it's about removing the months-old biology experiments from my refrigerator?