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What is the "after life" in Warhammer 40k?

Is the warp(or at least the part that is in the realm of the Chaos gods) considered hell?

Can Chaos gods capture souls and screw over their after life?

What is heaven?

Afer Life = your soul is going into the Warp to feed the Chaos Gods.
Except Humans - they have Emperor to safeguard their souls.
And Warp IS hell. Don't know about haven, we didn't see that dimension, yet.

The concept of the afterlife and the Emperor safeguarding souls is not proven, afaik it is just a belief held by the regular imperials that the Emperor would safeguard thier souls after death. But it is plausible that it could happen given the Emperor's enormous amount of psychic powers. Chaos gods are able to take souls and screw them upside down.

The Warp is where souls go after death, no heaven or hell. The Chaos Gods consume souls that pass into their realm.

All souls enter the warp and are consumed by the Chaos Gods, but might there be any exceptions besides Eldar and the percieved afterlife in the imperial creed?

Eldar are preserved in their Spirit Stones.
Human souls are most likely eaten by the Chaos Gods, but some may be saved by the Emporer.
Necrons are remade as new Necrons.
Dark Eldar are probably eaten by Slaanesh, since they can't offer him/her any tasty new souls once they're dead.
Tyranids don't have souls, they're all part of the Hive Mind and most likely stay that way when they die. Apart from the Swarm Lord, who is remade as a new bug.
Tau have very little Warp presence, so the Gods may just ignore them and they simply die.
Orks...who knows? Maybe they become part of whichever Ork God they resemble most, e.g. the choppy ones join Gork while the kunnin' ones join Mork.

After death souls go to the warp and belong to the chaos gods. There is no reason to think that the emperor is able to save them- he a psyker not a warp being. In fact the only connection he has with souls is the astronomicon which burns souls as is as painful as going to the chaos gods. The only upside for humanity is that human souls are weak so very few make it through the process of death and remain conscious- those that do have the fun experience of being eaten by a daemon.

And what if there is some other dimension other than the Warp?

I always assumed the limited Warp presence of the Tau was because they weren't really sentient (except for the Ethereals) and are more or less just animals. Ergo, they have no souls.

There could be other dimensions beyond the warp but we have no reason to to think that there are or that they have any impact on the 40k setting.

TrollPie wrote:Human souls are most likely eaten by the Chaos Gods, but some may be saved by the Emporer.

Personally, I'd believe the latter to be wishful thinking (see modern day religions).

Unless the Emperor actually is a Chaos God himself and "claims" his followers after they die... Deliciously grimdark. But just one of many theories.

4M2A wrote:There could be other dimensions beyond the warp but we have no reason to to think that there are or that they have any impact on the 40k setting.

There are.

The Necrons regularly make use of them via the Monolith Phalanx.

I think the Emperor absorbs your soul.

When an human dies his soul immedialety transfers to warp. Once there the chaos gods either eat it or play with it. The human doesnt know about this beacause his mind is too weak to register whats happening to his soul. The eldar mind is much stronger and continues to register whats happening to him even after death and because that, going to the warp is an terrifying experience to an eldar.

Void_Dragon- As far as I know GW has never explained how Necron teleportation works. It's unlikely that it is linked to anothr dimension as the C'tan being purely realspace beings hate other dimensions - hence why the warp kills them.

4M2A wrote:Void_Dragon- As far as I know GW has never explained how Necron teleportation works. It's unlikely that it is linked to anothr dimension as the C'tan being purely realspace beings hate other dimensions - hence why the warp kills them.

"Though the Warp is anathema to the metallic legions of the Necrontyr and their undying masters, there are many other dimensions they can use, of which the other races are wholly ignorant. Using their mastery of space/time manipulation, the Necrons are able to create worlds within worlds, stable null fields and other exotic battlefield conditions. This is most evident in the use of Monoliths in a formation the Ordos Xenos has called the Phalanx. In this particular configuration, at certain pivotal places in the four-dimensional universe, the presence of a Phalanx emits a frequency waveform that distorts space/time and creates a powerful energy field known as a nodal grid." - Apocalypse rulebook, page 165.

I am not saying their phasing is linked to another dimension, to my recollection it has never been really explained, but they can use them.

The C'tan hate the Warp because it is Immaterial, them being purely Material beings means they cannot manipulate it or understand it in any way, but that does not mean all alternate dimensions are Immaterial.

The warp is immaterial because it doesn't obey the same laws of physics as realspace. Any dimension which is different to ours would be equally dangerous.

I take that quote as saying that the Necrons bend realspace and teleport by stepping from point to point.

4M2A wrote:The warp is immaterial because it doesn't obey the same laws of physics as realspace. Any dimension which is different to ours would be equally dangerous.

I take that quote as saying that the Necrons bend realspace and teleport by stepping from point to point.

You can take it however you want.

It directly states there are many other dimensions they can use of which the races are wholly ignorant, and they can create worlds within worlds (Pocket dimensions).

The Warp is Immaterial because it is shaped by emotion and thought (Which is why it does not obey the same laws of physics as realspace), and since the C'tan have no Warp-presence at all, they cannot shape it, and it is harmful to them because of this. If the Immaterium merely did not obey the same laws of physics as realspace, that wouldn't be a problem to the C'tan, they are not bound by their laws, reshaping our outright ignoring them on a whim. They wield the primal power of creation. Even the Necrons, with their technology, are able to warp time and space according to their whims.

TrollPie wrote:Dark Eldar are probably eaten by Slaanesh, since they can't offer him/her any tasty new souls once they're dead.

I don't think the Dark Eldar really enter the Warp upon death, but rather linger around their physical remains. Otherwise, how could they be re-grown?

DE linger for a little while, but if they are left dead they will eventually get -censored by order of the nquisition- over by Slannesh.


The Imperial Creed holds that the Emperor will protect the souls of the faithful. He might actually catch the souls and hold them down untill his final victory over Chaos when he will reincarnate them. or he might absorbe their souls in that manner of the Chaos gods themselves(which would make more sense)

so whats the point if everybody is just going to hell to be eaten by the chaos gods?

Whats the point for the Eldar if they're just going to suffer in the warp?

Whats the point then?

Every sacrifice and death within the Imperium just feeds the chaos gods and thus chaos wins in life and death

game over man game over

That fact just killed the entire 40k backstory for me

what happens to a soul if it gets absorbed?

Game over man game over

That is the point.

That's the whole point.

It's possible that maybe the Emperor can somehow protect the souls of men, but the whole point is that the forces of "good" struggle in vain against the forces of evil.

The Dark Eldar will eventually be stuck in Comorragh, cannibalizing each other's souls until they are all dead and the last Dark Eldar's soul is eaten by Slaanesh.

The Eldar will eventually be wiped out, trapped forever in soul stones or eaten by Slaanesh.

The Imperium will eventually collapse into anarchy, splintered, feudal kingdoms at the mercy of Chaos, Orks, Tyranids, and Necrons.

The Tau, an insignificant blip in a corner of the galaxy will be snuffed out as nothing.

The Chaos gods, now without souls to consume, will wither into nothing.

The Tyranids and Necrons will, separately, scour all remaining life from the galaxy, down to the last plant, the last microbe, the last Ork spore.

The Tyranids will then leave the galaxy to find another to consume.

The Necrons will seal off the Warp as the Warp is dangerous to them, and, with all life in the galaxy eradicated, will sleep again for millions of years.

That's the whole point of 40K. There is no happy ending, there is no hope. It's probably the most nihilistic setting I've ever seen. Anything sentient, with thoughts, feelings, hope, aspirations is doomed to oblivion. The only things that will survive are the mindless horrors of the galaxy; the Necrons and the Tyranids. Perhaps the Chaos gods will find another galaxy full of mortals to toy with. But no Eldar, Tau, or human will exist. The only hope exists in the myths of men and Eldar; that the Emperor can protect their souls, which is by no means a given as they might get eaten by Chaos. This is merely a belief held by humanity with no evidence of truth.

The only hope for the Eldar is that, when they are all dead, their spirits will merge and a new god will be born who will destroy Slaanesh and restart the Eldar race.

Similarly, there are two possibilities that give hope to humanity:

1.)From Lexicanum: "After the defeat of Horus, most of the Emperor's soul is said to have dispersed from his body, merging into the warp in much the same way as that of the shamans, so many millenia before. It is believed that the Emperor - while apparently designed and empowered by the shamans to live forever - also possesses their ability to reincarnate, and that this would be his eventual goal. Avoiding discovery by the Chaos powers, it is believed that the Emperor was able to plant the seed of his reincarnation, a potential new soul awaiting birth: The Star Child. However, it is also believed that this new soul cannot be born while the Emperor is still tied to the Golden Throne, no matter how tenuously."

2.)From Lexicanum: "There is a another possibility given for the Emperor's resurrection/rebirth. A hidden group that call themselves the Illuminati have learned from the Eldar's Black Library many truths of Chaos, as well as about the Sensei and the Fall of the Eldar. They realise the Emperor cannot survive in his current state forever, and eventually he will fail, and without the Emperor, Mankind will fall to Chaos like the Eldar. Such an event would create a fifth God of Chaos and create another Eye of Terror, one which would span the entire Imperium. They seek to prevent this by bringing about the rebirth of the Emperor.

This involves gathering together the Sensei, protecting them from the Inquisition, preparing them for what they claim is "the final war with Chaos." In truth they ultimately plan to sacrifice the Sensei (direct children of the Emperor) to the Emperor, in the same way so many psykers have been consumed by the Emperor. The Emperor will be renewed, reborn as the Sensei-Emperor to again lead his race in person."

But will these things happen? No one is sure. And if the Eldar prophecy proves to be true, well... that's not going to help mankind a whole lot. It's also not going to do a shred of good for every human who has died and had their souls eaten by the Ruinous Powers. I don't know if the Sensei/Star Child/Illuminati thing is still canon. If not, well, then I reiterate my previous statement: Humanity is completely fethed.

Never realized how outstandingly grim the end of 40k might be.

But i never knew Chaos gods survived off of the souls of humanity; i always thought they were just the snack that was not necessary. Didn't know they would wane in power with humanity gone. Even then multiple galaxies as you said i doubt they are limited just to this one.

Might go dig into those two Emperor theories see if any fluff backs it past the guys that thought of it. Maybe they got it from someone that knew what they were talking about.

The souls themselves may be snacks, but they definitely do subsist on the emotions of sentient beings, in as much as they get stronger under certain conditions (IE Khorne power increases in times of war (so he's perpetually the strongest Chaos God), Nurgle thrives on despair, Tzeentch on hope, and Slaanesh on desire.)

That might actually have been the Emperor's plan.


remove Humanity from needing the warp for anything by wiping out religion and removing the need for warp travel(via the Webway)

He would also wipe out all Alien lifeforms so that only Humans remained as intelligent life.


then the Chaos Gods would wither without a source of power and the Emperor could become the one and only god.

RatBot wrote:That is the point.

That's the whole point.

It's possible that maybe the Emperor can somehow protect the souls of men, but the whole point is that the forces of "good" struggle in vain against the forces of evil.

The Dark Eldar will eventually be stuck in Comorragh, cannibalizing each other's souls until they are all dead and the last Dark Eldar's soul is eaten by Slaanesh.

The Eldar will eventually be wiped out, trapped forever in soul stones or eaten by Slaanesh.

The Imperium will eventually collapse into anarchy, splintered, feudal kingdoms at the mercy of Chaos, Orks, Tyranids, and Necrons.

The Tau, an insignificant blip in a corner of the galaxy will be snuffed out as nothing.

The Chaos gods, now without souls to consume, will wither into nothing.

The Tyranids and Necrons will, separately, scour all remaining life from the galaxy, down to the last plant, the last microbe, the last Ork spore.

The Tyranids will then leave the galaxy to find another to consume.

The Necrons will seal off the Warp as the Warp is dangerous to them, and, with all life in the galaxy eradicated, will sleep again for millions of years.

That's the whole point of 40K. There is no happy ending, there is no hope. It's probably the most nihilistic setting I've ever seen. Anything sentient, with thoughts, feelings, hope, aspirations is doomed to oblivion. The only things that will survive are the mindless horrors of the galaxy; the Necrons and the Tyranids. Perhaps the Chaos gods will find another galaxy full of mortals to toy with. But no Eldar, Tau, or human will exist. The only hope exists in the myths of men and Eldar; that the Emperor can protect their souls, which is by no means a given as they might get eaten by Chaos. This is merely a belief held by humanity with no evidence of truth.

The only hope for the Eldar is that, when they are all dead, their spirits will merge and a new god will be born who will destroy Slaanesh and restart the Eldar race.

Similarly, there are two possibilities that give hope to humanity:

1.)From Lexicanum: "After the defeat of Horus, most of the Emperor's soul is said to have dispersed from his body, merging into the warp in much the same way as that of the shamans, so many millenia before. It is believed that the Emperor - while apparently designed and empowered by the shamans to live forever - also possesses their ability to reincarnate, and that this would be his eventual goal. Avoiding discovery by the Chaos powers, it is believed that the Emperor was able to plant the seed of his reincarnation, a potential new soul awaiting birth: The Star Child. However, it is also believed that this new soul cannot be born while the Emperor is still tied to the Golden Throne, no matter how tenuously."

2.)From Lexicanum: "There is a another possibility given for the Emperor's resurrection/rebirth. A hidden group that call themselves the Illuminati have learned from the Eldar's Black Library many truths of Chaos, as well as about the Sensei and the Fall of the Eldar. They realise the Emperor cannot survive in his current state forever, and eventually he will fail, and without the Emperor, Mankind will fall to Chaos like the Eldar. Such an event would create a fifth God of Chaos and create another Eye of Terror, one which would span the entire Imperium. They seek to prevent this by bringing about the rebirth of the Emperor.

This involves gathering together the Sensei, protecting them from the Inquisition, preparing them for what they claim is "the final war with Chaos." In truth they ultimately plan to sacrifice the Sensei (direct children of the Emperor) to the Emperor, in the same way so many psykers have been consumed by the Emperor. The Emperor will be renewed, reborn as the Sensei-Emperor to again lead his race in person."

But will these things happen? No one is sure. And if the Eldar prophecy proves to be true, well... that's not going to help mankind a whole lot. It's also not going to do a shred of good for every human who has died and had their souls eaten by the Ruinous Powers. I don't know if the Sensei/Star Child/Illuminati thing is still canon. If not, well, then I reiterate my previous statement: Humanity is completely fethed.

No, the point is that Good will triumph in the end. No matter how Grim - Dark situation is. And don't believe Chaos propaganda, there is no indication that EVERY soul in the galaxy goes to them, almost every emotion is but soul is something entirely different. And it is my assumption that Chaos Gods must first claim souls ( like getting the people on their side and then using them to get even more souls trough bloodshed ). Just like the SoB and the people of the Imperium feed the Emperor with their prayers, so those Chaos followers feed Chaos gods. And the universal rule there is that your soul is going to the good you have been praying for or to the other god if one of his champions claim your soul ( exceptions are Grey Knight to this rule ).
It was a tide battle until M41, when Tau, Tyranids and Necrons appear, and when some Orks decide to unite and rampage galaxy and when Dark Eldar got some balls and raid Segmentum main Navy port. They are all trolling the Imperium

There is no proof the chaos gods need to claim a soul. All souls go to the warp, where daemons are free to snack on them. The eldar certainly don't give themselves to slaanesh yet they are terrified of death because chaos will just take them.

Chaos is the domminant force in the warp and we have no proof (imperial propaganda is not proof) that the emperor is able to shield them. He is usuing all his concentration holding back daemons and creating the astronomicon. Surely if he had all the souls of humanity he wouldn't need to eat psykers - he would have plenty of othe souls to burn in the astronomicon. The emperor is not a warp being he is just a psyker. Worship doesn't create gods emotion does. Chaos is so powerful because they have the whole spectrum of emotion covered.

RatBot is correct, there is pretty much no hope for anyone. The best the imperium can do is hold on for as long as possible. The imperium is getting weaker each battle and chaos can't be defeated as long as humans exist. We have no reason to think the imperium is going to make a comeback, all of the GW fluff makes a point of telling us how badly the imperium is doing. The only reason the IoM isn't falling back on every side is that GW don't want to change the setting.

Irony.
Coa saying not to believe Chaos 'propaganda' whilst at the same time believing all the Imperial propaganda.

Grey Templar wrote:That might actually have been the Emperor's plan.


remove Humanity from needing the warp for anything by wiping out religion and removing the need for warp travel(via the Webway)

He would also wipe out all Alien lifeforms so that only Humans remained as intelligent life.


then the Chaos Gods would wither without a source of power and the Emperor could become the one and only god.

All of this except the last part was his plan, no gods at all means no gods or he wouldn't of knocked Lorgar around

Brother Coa wrote:No, the point is that Good will triumph in the end. No matter how Grim - Dark situation is. And don't believe Chaos propaganda, there is no indication that EVERY soul in the galaxy goes to them, almost every emotion is but soul is something entirely different. And it is my assumption that Chaos Gods must first claim souls ( like getting the people on their side and then using them to get even more souls trough bloodshed ). Just like the SoB and the people of the Imperium feed the Emperor with their prayers, so those Chaos followers feed Chaos gods. And the universal rule there is that your soul is going to the good you have been praying for or to the other god if one of his champions claim your soul ( exceptions are Grey Knight to this rule ).
It was a tide battle until M41, when Tau, Tyranids and Necrons appear, and when some Orks decide to unite and rampage galaxy and when Dark Eldar got some balls and raid Segmentum main Navy port. They are all trolling the Imperium

Quit spoilin' mah grimdark.