Gathering Storm

"An icon will fall. A god will awaken. A primarch will rise. The galaxy will burn."

– Teaser trailer of Battlefleet Gothic Armada II, basically summarizing the whole Gathering Storm.

The Gathering Storm is a set of campaigns for Warhammer 40k, designed to advance the storyline after decades of stagnation. They are the last major campaigns fot the 7th Edition, and the first introduction to the 8th edition.

The story around it

A series of events cause the status quo of the galaxy to be threatened, after millenia of stagnation. On one hand, Abaddon the Despoiler, after many centuries of planning, launches its 13th Black Crusade to try and destroy the Imperium once and for all. Unlike the other many times he had tried that, however, this time he actually gets something done, destroying the fortress world of Cadia, one of the few things that could stop the growth of the Eye of Terror. The unlikely alliances made by the Imperium, Eldar and the Necron lord Trazyn are unable to protect the planet. The pylons are destroyed, Cadia is exterminated after Abaddon just said Fuck it and crashed one of his Blackstone Fortresses into the planet's surface, Creed is apparently dead (but not really, though), and all of this starts a chain reaction that causes the Eye of Terror to expand, creating the biggest warpstorm there's ever been, the Cicatrix Maledictum.

While all of this is going on, the Eldar Farseer Eldrad decides that the situation of the Eldar is too worrying, and decides to start a ritual to bring Ynnead, the Eldar god of death, into being. This ends up pissing off everyone, most eldars considering this as blasphemy (even HERESY), while the Inquisitiondon't trust the Eldar already. The summoning ritual gets interrupted by forces of the Deathwatch and only a small fragment of Ynnead comes to the material realm. This being reveals itself to a Yvrainer, a gladiator fighting in the arena of Commorragh. She heard the voice of Ynnead, and was transformed into its herald. unfortunately, this not only pissed everyone in Commorragh, but it also caused the Gates of Khaine to weaken, allowing daemons to enter into the realm. They manage to fight their way out of the Dark City, and with the help of the harlquins, end up in Biel Tan. Once there, Yvraine starts to preicate about Ynnead, telling the eldar there that they don't have to all die to defeat She Who Thirsts. This causes more confusion and fights between the factions, and in the heat of it all, a Slaaneshi force attacks the craftworld, shattering it and fracturing it. They are saved by the formation of a physical avatar for Ynnead, the Ycarne, but now the craftworld is damaged and losing population fast. Yvraine's faction, now called the Ynnari, escape from there.

While running away, the Ynnari and the cadian forces meet up and decide that Chaos is a bigger enemy than each other, so they form a temporal alliance. Their goal? To wake up Roboute Guilliman, primarch of the Ultramarines, so that he could help the Imperium fighting Chaos, that is expanding rapidly thanks to the Great Rift. They go to Ultramar, they are attacked by the Black legion, the Ynnari manage to find some sort of cure to wake up the Primarch aided by the trinity of the Cadian leaders (Saint Celestine, Inquisitor Greyfax and Archmagos Cawl) and they manage to succeed. Once alive again, Guilliman goes back to Terra, but gets captured and he has to fight against daemons of Tzeench (an magnus the Red) to reach the throneworld. They manage to beat the forces of Chaos, reach Terra and the human and Eldar forces go their separate ways, not before some romance teasing between Guilliman and Yvraine . Finally, Guilliman goes to launch his Indomitus Crusade, trying to fight back the black tide of Chaos and other monsters threatening Humanity, with a new breed of Space Marines called the Primaris Space marines.

What this means to the 40k universe

The Gathering Storm events are the biggest shakeup of the status quo of the setting in a long time. Considering than in three books we've seen Cadia blown up, the Eye of Terror growing into massive proportions, an Eldar god being born, Commorragh being assaulted by daemons, a craftworld being almost destroyed, a loyalist Primarch being resurrected, a fight on the Moon between Guilliman and Magnus, the launch of a new crusade and the unveiling of a new breed of Space marine, we could safely safe we're going somewhere now. This obviously brings forth the 8th edition, which creates its own changes in the crunch.

Works around The Gathering Storm

-Fall of Cadia.

-Fracture of Biel-Tan.

-Death Masque. Eldrad tries to wake up Ynnead, and gets interrupted by the Inquisition.

-Rise of the Primarch.

-Warhammer 40k. Battlefleet Gothic Armada II. The first vidya set up in the 8th edition version of 40k.