Fun fact: One of the oldest ever pieces of Warhammer lore stated that Chaos would ultimately win and consume everything

 And this is what it said:

The borders of the dominions of Chaos lie in many places throughout time and space. One such place is upon the eastern marches of the land of Irysia - at the gigantic bottomless fissure known as the Crack of Desolation. One one side lies the Kingdoms of Men - Irysia - on the other only Chaos. The realm of Chaos is one of eternal mists and movement, the shifting, changing ground devoid of plants or life of any natural kind, the air swirling with impenetrable mists. In this place of ultimate insanity roam the unnatual (sic.) creatures spawned by Chaos and their grotesque masters - the Chaos Gods: they hunger to expand the compass through all of time, and through all of space. One day they will succeed.

The Quest for Chaos (1983), p. 1. (Image available here: https://www.chaosium.com/product_images/uploaded_images/quest-for-chaos.jpeg)

To add some context here, when Warhammer Fantasy was first launched, it wasn't really a setting. It was ruleset created for use with Citadel miniatures - and other models players may have had to hand (you can see an interesting video about this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTBFjuYvgzM).

The lore and the setting slowly came into being over time, and it wasn't really until during 2nd edition and the release of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay that the Warhammer World started to cohere into a form that would become enduring and recognisable decades later.

There were some scenarios provided in the 1st and 2nd edition core rulebooks, which had the barest hints of worldbuilding. And, back then, scenarios would also be included with miniatures, and these leaned into the worldbuilding more. The first of these scenarios was 'The Great Arena of Tuth' and the second was 'The Quest for Chaos', where the quote above comes from (more info here: https://www.chaosium.com/blogout-of-the-suitcase-33-collecting-and-dealing-with-personal-demons/).

Now obviously, the locations mentioned in 'The Quest for Chaos' did not end up remaining part of the Warhammer World as the lore developed. Perhaps we can view this as just another reality, one of the myriad planes of existance touched by the Realm of Chaos.

But it is interesting that even at this incrediby early stage in the history of Warhammer that some elements of the Warp/Realm of Chaos were already evident, such as it being a realm of insanity inhabited by Gods of Chaos who want to consume reality.

And it is interesting that it clearly states that the Chaos Gods would ultimately succeed.

Which is of course happened to the Warhammer World at the culmination of the End Times.

And is implied to be ultimate endgame of the 40k galaxy (even if GW likely won't progess the timeline enough for us to actually see that happen, because the setting makes them lots of money...)

While the lore about Warhammer and 40k have changed drastically in lots of ways, there are also some elements which have been surprisingly enduring and consistent, and of course Warhammer Fantasy and 40k were explicitly linked upon the launch of the latter game, and remain linked by the Warp in the current lore: https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/1k94fv5/extracts_the_warhammer_fantasy_world_was_once/.

Worth bearing in mind when discussing whether Chaos is ultimately destined to consume the 40k galaxy, in my opinion at least. Even aside from that, and I'm sure some people strongly disagree, it is an interesting bit of trivia that is worth knowing!

This post was originally published here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer40k/comments/1kwxupa/fun_fact_one_of_the_oldest_ever_pieces_of/

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