It is THE 41st millennium. For more
than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his
inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing
invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of
the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may
never truly die.
YET EVEN IN his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance.
Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp,
the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor's will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds.
Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered
super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and
countless planetary defence forces, the ever vigilant Inquisition and the
tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus
to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough
to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants - and worse.
TO BE A man is such times, is to be
one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody
regime imaginable. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has
been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and
understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace
amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and laughter of thirsting dark gods.
