Chaos Realm

The Realm of Chaos, also known as The Aethyr, is a dimension of pure magic, separate to the physical universe of the world. It is home to beings of magic such as Gods and Daemons.   It should not be confused with the Chaos Wastes which are part of the physical world. It is a place of dreams and nightmares made real, where effect need not follow cause; within its bounds anything is possible. It is the home dimension of Chaos that is comprised entirely of magical energy, given shape and form only by the desires, thoughts, feelings and passions of mortals.   Here there are no physical laws akin to those that dominate the mortal world. Within its confines hopes and fears become real, and reality is reborn as fevered hallucination.   Gravity, shape, space and reason -- all are in flux and utterly mutable to the will of the Chaos Gods. Few mortals are capable of perceiving the Realm of Chaos in its true splendour, for the living mind recoils from its otherworldly landscapes.   Thus, no two visions of the Realm of Chaos are exactly alike, and are often contradictory. If there is anything that can be called the truth, it is this; the Realm of Chaos is but a mirror reflection of the misery, pain and horrors of the material world, created in its current form by the destruction unleashed and the suffering endured by the mortal races of the physical world.  

The Ruinous Powers' influence

The Dark Gods of Chaos each have their own particular spheres of influence, their own daemonic servants, and their own territories. Yet the Realm of Chaos is not merely the home of the Dark Gods. It is also their battlefield, the arena for a Great Game of supremacy.   The brother gods are constantly at war with one another, vying for power amid the planes. Despite their myriad differences, the Chaos Gods share a common goal: total domination of all that exists. But such absolute power cannot be shared, even amongst gods. So it is that this peculiar world is burdened by constant wars of attrition.    Vast daemonic armies swarm across crystal plains, venomous forests, bone-choked swampland and rivers of churning gore, battling to the death to claim and counterclaim territory and the magical lifeblood that goes with it.   In the Realm of Chaos, where magic is the stuff of being, the breadth of a domain is not merely a symbol of power, it is indeed power itself. As the minions of one god seize advantage, captured territory is moulded to the whims of its new master. If Khorne overruns a portion of Nurgle's festering garden, the diseased foliage swiftly decays down to nothing, leaving only ruddy wasteland. Similarly, should Tzeentch manage to wrest that same territory from Khorne, crystalline structures burst forth from the parched firmament.   Alliances in this eternal war are complex, but far from unknown — in fact, the Dark Gods often seek advantage through common cause. Though Khorne is the greatest of the brothers, he is not all-powerful. Tzeentch is his closest rival, but if the circumstances are right then Nurgle -- and sometimes Slaanesh -- can rise to be his equal or eclipse him entirely.   As if this were not complicated enough, there are deep-seated rivalries amongst the gods that can further influence matters. Khorne most despises Slaanesh, whose dark designs are an affront to the Blood God's sense of honour and martial pride. Similarly, Tzeentch and Nurgle -- respectively the manifestations of mortals' hope and despair -- need little spurring to come to blows.   Each god strives for dominance over the others, and though one may gain ascendancy for a while, no god has yet succeeded in vanquishing another. As one god gains mastery the others combine against him, and as the allies grow in power they divide, forming new pacts of necessity until another conqueror emerges to be vanquished in his turn.  

Travelling to and From the Realm of Chaos

 

The Polar Gates 

  These large portals lie at the north and south poles of the world, beyond the Chaos Wastes. They were created by the Old Ones in the ancient past to allow instantaneous travel between the world and far-off locations among the stars.    When they collapsed and shattered, it allowed the Realm of Chaos - raw chaotic magical energy - to pour into the realm world, in an event known as the Great Catastrophe.    

The Paths of the Old Ones 

  Pathways using similar technology of the Polar Gates that allowed instantaneous travel across the world. Some of these have become contaminated after or during the Great Catastrophe and now lead into the Realm of Chaos.  

Mirror of Nightmares 

  An enchanted object which acts as a portal to the Realm of Chaos.  

Territories

 

The Blood God's Domain

  The largest of the kingdoms in the Realm of Chaos is that of Khorne, the God of Battle. No subtlety has Khorne. He has no yearning for beauty of form in his black heart, for he is the Blood God, the Skulltaker. His immortal frame has room only for rage and slaughter-lust. So it is that the land of the Blood God is one of constant battle and martial challenge. It serves no other function, for to Khorne all else is trivial.   The Blood God's dominion is little more than league upon league of blasted wasteland, made ruddy by the blood spilt upon it. Here and there jagged canyons and craters break the uneven ground: the aftermath of a titanic clash where Khorne's daemonic servants battled amongst themselves or against the minions of another deity. On rare occasions, Khorne will bring mortal champions to this place and test their fighting skills. Few such contests end in victory for the mortal, but those fleshlings who endure find their feet set upon the path to daemonhood, whether it is their wish or no.   The very fabric of Khorne's kingdom is tied to his mood which, while never good, ranges between simmering rage and apocalyptic fury. When the Blood God bellows his rage, the barren ground tremors, lakes of blood boil and the very sky screams. Clouds of black ash belch forth from hidden geysers, incinerating milling combatants or propelling great boulders skyward. Yet still the Daemons battle. They fight not for honour, not for wealth, not even for victory -- they fight for fighting's sake, and for the favour of their wrathful lord.    

Realm of the Sorcerer

  Almost as great in scale as Khorne's domain is the Crystal Labyrinth of Tzeentch, an iridescent plateau whose brilliance sits in stark contrast to the Blood God's wastelands. Whilst the crystal labyrinth is not so massive as Khorne's kingdom, it dominates the Realm of Chaos no less.   Countless glittering pathways spring from the very heart of the labyrinth, fractal filaments that inveigle their way into the dominions of other gods and so bind the Realm of Chaos together.   No Daemons guard the crystal labyrinth, yet a journey through it remains perilous nonetheless. Only the strong-willed can negotiate its countless corridors, for the maze's walls reflect not only light, but also hope, despair, dreams, madness and terror. As if this were not challenge enough, there is no fixed path through, merely a constantly changing series of obstacles and traps created by Tzeentch's unconscious mind. Those trammelled by the labyrinth come to no physical harm, yet no one can escape these halls of infinite possibility with sanity intact. At every step the air is thick with broken dreams, and everywhere the light sparkles with fragments of shattered personality.  

Land of the Plaguelord

  On the border of Tzeentch's realm is the domain of Nurgle, the Great Lord of Decay who presides over physical corruption and morbidity. Nurgle can truly be called the father of all pestilence, for his immense frame is home to every disease known to mortals.    His gigantic body is bloated with corruption and exudes an overpowering stench. His skin is greenish, leathery and necrotic, its surface pock-marked with running sores, sweliing boils and numerous signs of infestation. Nurgle's inner organs, rank with excremental decay, spill through the ruptured skin to hang like obscene fruit around his girth. From these organs burst tiny Daemons which chew on the rotting bowels and suck upon the nauseous juices within. Such is the appearance of the Chaos god Nurgle - though mere words can barely do justice to his truly impressive foulness.   Although Nurgle is ranked behind Khorne and Tzeentch the truth is that his power is not necessarily weaker, just less stable than that of the other Gods. When Nurgle unleashes his ghastly pestilences his power rises to a peak. Like a plague his power grows and may reach pandemic proportions, temporarily overshadowing that of all the other Gods put together. It is for this reason that Nurgle commands vary respect from all of his brother Gods.    Though Nurgle's daemonic legions may not be as ferocious as those of Khorne, nor as numerous as those of Tzeentch, when Nurgle's power waxes even Daemons can fall prey to his repertoire of grisly afflictions. Nurgle's great delight is in the cycle of existence, in life and death. At the heart of his mouldering mansion, he indulges his passion. Beneath mildewed and sagging beams, the great God labours for untold hours at an iron cauldron, a receptacle vast enough to contain all the oceans of the world. Nurgle works to create contagion and pestilence - the simplest, yet most fecund, forms of life.    Such is the ghastly irony of Nurgle's existence: everything he does is with the goal of bringing more life into the world, yet so many of his creations are inimical to other beings that Nurgle is widely thought of as a destroyer, not a creator. With every stir of Nurgle's maggot-ridden ladle, a dozen fresh disease flourish. From time to time, Nurgle ceases his stirring, and reaches down with a leathery hand to scoop a portion of the ghastly mixture into his cavernous mouth and taste the fruits of his labour.   Should the putrid soup meet with approval, the God waddles to the corner of his workshop, where he holds Poxfulcrum, a Daemon blessed with the ability to heal infections, but afflicted with a vulnerability to them all. Opening the corroded cage, Nurgle forces him to imbibe the putrid mixture, watching with ill-concealed excitement for the signs and symptoms of his latest creation. Though Poxfulcrum inevitably purges the disease from his body, the efficacy with which he does so allows the Plaguelord to evaluate his creation - as he empties it into the grate below, the teeming liquid falls as rain upon the mortal world.    If the concoction does not meet with Nurgle's approval, he begins to prepare his soup anew. As for Poxfulcrum, she whispers to mortals while the Plaguefather is busy at his cauldron, apprising them of cures for the ailments Nurgle unleashes upon the world. So has she entered the beliefs of a thousand cultures under a thousand names. Some mortals believe her to be Nurgle's daughter, who cures only so that new diseases can take hold, while others see her as Nurgle's bitter foe, a deity of healing and patron to the afflicted.

Dark Prince's Realm

  The final domain in the Realm of Chaos belongs to Slaanesh, the decadent Dark Prince of Chaos. Slaanesh's realm is the smallest corner of the infernal regions, for he is the youngest of the Chaos Gods, and as yet his power is much overshadowed by his brothers.

The Court of Covenant

  Court of Covenant is set apart from the rest of the Realm of Chaos. Each of the Dark Gods has an equal seat at this table, for the natural balance between the Gods is a complex and convoluted weave. No single deity is ever powerful enough to prevail over another without aid and, for the sake of all existence, it is well that this is so.   All natural order would cease if one of the Gods were to triumph over his brethren, undoing the fabric of creation and destroying all that exists in the merest blink of an eye. No matter how territory shifts in the Realm of Chaos, the Court of Covenant is always accessible from the domains of all four of the Dark Gods. It is here that truces are composed and hostilities between the Gods are annulled. Such arrangements are inevitable, for the longer a conflict continues between two or more of the Gods, the stronger any uncommitted parties become. Ultimately, the Chaos Gods are creatures of enlightened self-interest - they will cease upon any course of action that serves to make another stronger in their stead.   Negotiations between the Chaos Gods proceed according to the character of the deity in question. Khorne always wrathfully bellows his demands - even when his position is not a strong one. Father Nurgle is garrulous in the extreme, ebulliently engaging his siblings in conversation even as he plots against them and disdains their wants and desires. Golden-tongued Slaanesh speaks rarely, offering golden promises laden with beshadowed treachery, etched in well chosen words and phrases.    But it is devious Tzeentch who is truly the master of this game of bluff and bargain. To the Changer of Ways the designs of his brothers are as transparent as crystal and as manipulable as clay. It is a rare day indeed when the Great God Tzeentch is bested in the Court of Covenant, and he has more than once reversed the course of the Great Game from within its confines.