The Birth of the Gods

Womb of the Gods by Robin Low (WS29)
Realm of Chaos The Spread of Chaos

At first there was nothing but chaos.
Many strange and dangerous creatures born from the imaginings of the barbaric tribes and creatures that populated the Warhammer World stalked the land especially around the poles, close to the collapsed gates.
Gods, demons and monsters were suddenly given material form by the warp energy surrounding the planet, whilst even more dangerous still were those warp entities who had already achieved sentient form in the void and now found they could use the portals created by the collapsed gates to stimulate the mortal population on the planets beyond them directly. Thus beginning their eternal quest to produce more of whichever specific emotional psychic output they craved.
This was a logical extension of the same stimulation technique that the entities had already practiced against the early starships tranversing the void. A technique in which they had become proficient. But now with thousands of warp gates across the universe destroyed they had almost unrestricted access to the emotions of hundreds of millions of mortal minds rather than the few hundred thousand that had been travelling through Warpspace in their ships.
Unfortunately, they also discovered that the material universe that existed beyond the gates could not be occupied in the same way as their own. The warp energy in which they lived and survived rapidly became solid matter on passing into the material universe, and so on passing through a portal they found themselves unable to sense much beyond the close proximity of the gate itself where fresh warp energy provided a small window within which they could exist.
It was a bit like being trapped in a broom cupboard when compared to the vast expanse of their domain in the warp, and if they stayed too long or wandered too far into the material universe then the laws of physics forced them to accept a material form and there was a real risk of becoming trapped in the broom cupboard and unable to return to their own domains.
Instead the warp entities found it better to remain within the vast expanse of Warpspace, and began to treat each of the exposed planets in the galaxy in a similar fashion to the way they had already learnt to deal with starships. Thus they would monitor those planets and locations which showed the greatest promise and would invest a part of their own energy to try and promote or stimulate an increase in the psychic emanations they could detect on the planets surface.
However, unlike the strategy for dealing with starships the energy invested in the stimulation of emotions of the surface of a planet would eventually be lost, as it became solidified and absorbed into the material universe. But the warp entities quickly learned to be selective about the locations they chose to invest in and were usually successful in generating a considerable return in fresh energy from their investment.

Priests of the Old World

The mortals in their turn began to worship the manifestations produced by these psychically charged investments of warp energy as gods encouraging the warp entities still further by adopting attitudes and behaviours that those gods seemed to favour and gradually rationalising them into deities that were worshipped and either respected or feared depending upon the behaviours they seemed to favour.

“Never have I encountered a supposedly civilised nation where religion and superstition directly control almost every level of thinking. The Empire is as much ruled by the representatives of its Gods as it is by its nobles, and that can make truth a dangerous commodity to own.”


— Attributed to High Loremaster Teclis of Ulthuan

And it began:
Rhya, the beautiful, rose up;
Taal, the powerful, rose up;
Blossom-broad, hot with life.
Spread of Horn, firm of will.
Then, they did create all natural things.”

—The Book of Green

Are The Old Ones Gods

“I have spent all my adult life studying the great works of the Elder Races, and, without compare, the most mysterious aspects of their writings concern the “Old Ones.” For example: High Elf accounts of the Old Ones appear to directly compete with the creation myths concerning two of their Gods: Asuryan and Isha.

In Loremaster Finreir’s Book of Days, the Old Ones—who “came from beyond the heavens” —are attributed with forming the world as we know it, and creating the Elven race. However, contradicting this, Loremaster Beldryal’s seminal work on Elven theology, The Flame Eternal, has the Elven “Emperor of the Heavens”, Asuryan—whose plan all Elves are said to follow—being the prime creator, and Isha, a Goddess of Nature, as the mother—i.e. creator—of the Elven race. Further, the High Elves apparently do not believe that the two texts contradict each other.

The only sensible conclusion is that the Gods of the Elves must actually be Old Ones, and that the two books are simply telling two variations of the same tale. However, when I proposed this hypothesis to Felanthian, an Elven scholar from Marienburg that I have communicated with for many years, his enigmatic reply simply confused me further: ‘My friend, you are incorrect, the Old Ones are not the “Gods” of my people. However, to ease your mind, I can confirm the two Asur texts you cite in your illuminating missive do not contradict each other.’ Perhaps my translations are wrong?”

—Extract ed from the journals of Father Igyori Rhyurvic of Brunmarl, Priest of Verena

The Ruinous Powers

“It is well known that the greatest danger the Empire faces is that posed by the Ruinous Powers. These Daemon Gods threaten to break the natural order of all things by mixing the Realm of Chaos—their ever-changing domain—with the mortal realm, allowing the Daemon Gods to rule both as one. Thus, they take any opportunity they can to directly influence the mortal realm, and mutations, as well as other unsavoury circumstances, are the result. By comparison, it seems obvious that the Gods of the Empire only rarely touch the mortal realm. This may cause some to believe that the Gods of the Empire must then be weaker than the Daemon Gods, for they only rarely influence mortal affairs, but I propose such beliefs are unwise. Instead, I suggest that the Gods of the Empire can touch the mortal realm whenever they wish, and are just as puissant as the Chaos Gods, but they simply choose not to. Why this would be, I can only guess, but I have read one myth that may have the answer. Wilhelm Brehnsson’s Myths the Cities Forgot contains an oral tale that suggests the only reason the Dark Gods cannot destroy the mortal realm is because they are somehow trapped. Further, so the tale goes, every time any other God influences the mortal realm, the prison about the Ruinous Powers grows weaker.”

—A Speculative Enquiry Concerning the Nature of the Gods, Dagmar Hümmel