Hey, you seem to know about warhammer 40k right? I have a simple question about it. What are the basic factions? I want to get into the lore, but I don't even know of anything other than the imperium of man. Could you please help me? (This is an invitation to infodump btw)

Oh my god someone ASKING me to infodump??? This website is amazing ok so

The Imperium of Man is the biggest one, and the one most people know. A whole lot of humans who worship an emperor who may or may not be alive as a god, most live in huge hive cities on planets loosely held together by nightmarish bureaucracy and fascist cruelty. Space marines, Sisters of Battle, The Inquisition, all them. They’re led by a council of lords from earth, and as a rule genocidally hostile to anything that isn’t an emperor worshipping human. Tied to the Imperium is the Adeptus Mechanicum, an allied faction obsessed with ancient technology based out of mars. They worship a machine god and try to replace their own body parts with implants as much as possible, in addition to maintaining colossal war robots called titans.

The Chaos Gods or Ruinous Powers are 4 warp beings so powerful they have become able to spread their influence into real space, and have become immensely influential by doing so. Their societies are generally made up of corrupted humans and demons (manifestations of tiny fragments of a particular god) and exist primarily to spread the power of the warp. The four are Khorne, god of war/violence (and the blood god of skull throne fame), Nurgle, god of life in the bacterial sense, Slaanesh, god of excess, and Tzeentch, god of ambition. They were the Imperiums main threat for a long time and caused the state of decay it is now in.

The Eldar or Aeldari are space elves. They live a long time, control warp magic better, and some of them can see the future. They were once the dominant power in the galaxy, but their society was corrupted by excess in post-scarcity and they gave birth to slaanesh, killing most and destroying their home worlds. The three surviving groups were those who avoided the disaster - the Craftworld Eldar who had flown away on huge ships, preserving their way of life through discipline, the Dark Eldar or Dhrukari who escaped into pocket dimensions and preserved their way of life through torture orgies, and the Exodites, who had already fled to custom planets populated with beautiful nature and dinosaurs.

There are the Tyranids, an impossibly vast galactic invader hive mind that just wants to consume everything it finds. Mostly just Zerg type space bugs, but they do have “gene stealers” that infiltrate human planets and create cults designed to destabilize before an invasion.

The Necron were once the most powerful beings in the galaxy, slept for 60 million years on tomb worlds, and are just now waking up to recreate their empire. They are soulless killing machine robots for the most part bc of some ancient mythological trickery, but the few nobles with personalities are typically pretty funny.

The T’au are a relatively minor faction that get a lot of attention because they are so unique - they are technologically advancing, which is rare, and tolerant of other species in their society, which is UNHEARD OF. They aren’t very big, but they get a lot of fanfare because (they’re cool) they figh alongside humans and other alien species as the only diplomats in the galaxy.

The Leagues of Votann are space dwarves - they’re also very new, and have not been well established. They are led by ancient AI that knew everything but is now going senile, and have a grudge book they hold forever.

There are also thousands of rogues, one of planets, strange ancient enemies, etc. these are just the big ones.

Feel free to ask if you have specific questions :)

I love talking about this shit

OOOH I will hold off on Horus's soulmate until you do the list then.

The Soulmates are more or less to prevent the Heresy, not to control the Primarchs (as seen with Angron's being a Dhrukari with the skill to remove the nails.) So Horus's lover is so scared and full of doubt that Horus is distracted from his own to focus on her.

So ye.

Soulmate Anon

Don't let me stop you from posting it! Go ahead and do it, anon!

I really like this concept.

darius?

send me a character and i’ll list:

favorite thing about them: Even though they stayed loyal to the Emperor, they’re not all ‘I-am-holier-than-thou’ and actually speak with Traitors with civility. 

least favorite thing about them: N/A

favorite line: “Is this Dhrukari foreplay?”

brOTP: Darius and Dr. Murderbat Khyron.

OTP: N/A

nOTP: N/A

random headcanon: Says he hates Traitors, most likely wants to bring them back to the light of the Emperor. Or just chill with them and drink.

unpopular opinion: N/A

song i associate with them: 

favorite picture of them: If there are multiple, feel free to show me, I’m not sure what art of him exists.