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I'm not sure what the books have seemed to stat what "really" happens to souls, or perhaps varied souls of varied races... but what really happens to those, such as humans, when the die? Not just what they religiously believe in fluff, but what actually happens (because we all know how wrong the Imperium's theology can be). I know the Eldar, if left to it's own without a soulstone, goes to the warp, where slaneesh quickly finds and devours them. But what of the others? Does mankind's souls join the warp-bound conciousness of the emporer?

As far as I know they are either eaten by warp predators or the chaos gods or (the more lucky ones) become part of the fabric of the warp itself.

Right, so souls are really just warp entities that have a temporary connection to a physical body in the material world. When you die, it floats back into the warp and, for all intents and purposes, is just like a demon floating around in the warp.

I suppose it's plenty possible for a soul to eventually dissolve back into warp stuff or for it to increase in size or get eaten or whatever. What I seem to recall, though, is that human souls are drawn to the astronomicon and float around the emperor's holy light for all eternity, protected from the evils of the warp by his holy powers.

Ailaros wrote:What I seem to recall, though, is that human souls are drawn to the astronomicon and float around the emperor's holy light for all eternity, protected from the evils of the warp by his holy powers.

That's the Imperial Dogma.

Whether you believe what the corpse on a golden chair wants you to believe is up to you.

Considering how strongly emotions affect the warp I think if you really did believe the emprah was humanity's saviour then your soul might actually be drawn to him.

I think the same goes for chaos gods if you worship them, though of course they wont be so protecting of your eternal soul.

I think everyone else gets OM NOM NOM'd by daemons.

Generally an ordinary human soul will simply dissolve back into the stuff of the warp, and a soul won't usually be consumed by a daemon unless that person was killed by a daemon. Generally speaking of course.

so souls are really just warp entities that have a temporary connection to a physical body in the material world.

Unless that's some newer background that isn't correct. A soul doesn't exist until the person is born and the soul is their warp reflection, once that person dies there isn't anything left to reflect so the soul or Shadow Self if you want to get technical fades into the warp.

It was possible for psykers to reincarnate, but the emergence of the Chaos Powers put paid to that, which is why the shamen of ancient earth created the New Man. If you look at ork beliefs there is a similar theme of reincarnation. However, the shamen were able to recall all of their past lives and that ability has never been used in terms of an ork's soul.

*cough, cough* infinity circuit *cough cough*

Yeah, the Eldar's codex actually explained theirs fairly well.