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
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.
The Dracothian is a C'tan
In the Age of Sigmar rulebook, it is explained that Sigmar held fast to the core of the old Warhammer World after Chaos consumed it, and flew through nothingness until it stumbled across the Dracothian, a "dragon made of starlight". This seemingly immortal being gave Sigs a manual with information on how to make new things out of nothing with cheat codes and console commands. Together, they began creating the new world, shaping the Winds into shape and creating Sigs' new clubhouse for his "We hate Chaos" club.
What is striking about the Dracothian is that it shares a lot of similarities with another "dragon", namely the Void Dragon. Both are described as being 'light' in their physical forms (the Dracothian being "made of starlight", and the Void Dragon looking like "dark light" (however that works) when consuming stars), are both described as "dragons" for reasons or other (the Dracothian physically resembling a dragon, and the Void Dragon being physically imprisoned within Mars. Also, Void Dragon was defeated on Earth by the Emperor, so it gotta have had some physical form from which the name stems from.
So, what does this imply? Are there more creatures around like the Dracothian in Age of Sigmar, representing the Deciever, the Nightbringer and so forth? If so, what are their role in the setting? The Dracothian is supposedly the clean-up god that keeps things together while Chaos fucks everything up, so what do the others do? Are something waiting for the infant Age of Sigmar?
The most interesting part of this theory is that, if the Void Dragon can do the same rebuilding shit as the Dracothian, what does it mean that the Emperor put it to sleep? It would imply that the Emperor didn't wanted it to recreate the world, and that there was the risk of it doing it... The Void Dragon also supposedly allows the Adeptus Mechanicus to control machinery, and it's canon that the Void Dragon can control machines. This doesn't sound much like what the Dracothian does (creating new worlds and stuff) but, think about this: The Dracothian can literally create things in the setting, and is outside the powers within the setting (being immortal and untouchable by Chaos), which could mean that it simply has control of the setting's "core programming". Programming. Which machines use.
So the Emperor has essentially made it so the future of the setting is in the hands of luny technophiles.