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There seems to be confusion amongst forum goers as to the fluff of the warp.
Especially in regard to what it 'looks like'. In the end.. It's GW.. Accept the fact they have the loosest canon of any sci-fi (hey some people like that though) and move on.

Warp- used when writers want to portray individuals entering it, throughout all the fluff there are physical boundaries IE- walls ground.
Description of Nurgles garden with a pot the size of baneblade.. Or accurate descriptions of Khornes version of Dantes vision of hell are everywhere.

Immaterium- used when writer are expression the "warp jump" of imperial ships.. This seems to be the metaphorical space that defies visual understanding and denies the concept of boundaries due to be entirely made of emotions and meaphorical monsters..

Now yes this is mostly just lazy writing and a bit of black library being confused in its own fluff,
Yes writers use the two names intermittently when describing the two
Yes some very rare and talented writers can successfully merge the two, recently some of the HH writers.

But in the end there seems to be ways to describe the warp/ immaterium and that's from just the BRB and Codex never the less black library

Now this could indeed get to be a heated discussion (it's dakka)
So remember boys be polite to each other..

They're synonyms.

Warp, Immaterium, Hell, Sea of Souls, all the same thing.

Yes I'm aware of that, but my point is due to sloppy writing or incohesive canon, they seem to write warp/imam/hell/sea of souls in two different ways..
one- Beatles music video while tripping on acid
two- dantes hell

They just USUALLY at least in black library books seem to use immaterium more while refering to #1 more often than not... not that that's how its supposed to be I'm just stating that there are many instances where ephemeral seems cohesive in much of the fluff.

The Warp is a psychic dimension parallel to real space. It is known by many names: Warpspace, the Immaterium, the Empyrean, the Ether, the Sea of Souls, and also as the Realm of Chaos.
- Lexicanum

That being said, I remember reading somewhere that before the war in heaven the old ones created the webway as a tunnel system through the (at that time) relatively peaceful immaterium. It was only during the war in heaven that the combined psychic being of the new races created by the old ones to combat the necrons/C'tan created the chaos gods and formed the warp about as we know it now (apart from the eye of terror/slaanesh, which came into being with the fall of the eldar) iirc.

The Immaterum lacks sufficient rules for boundaries, or limits on the ability of powerful beings to manipulate it.

The lack of limits is in itself a lack of boundaries, but the metaphorically metaphorical monsters (seriously, when else could I accurately use that description?!? ) impose boundaries, as the lack of boundaries means adding boundaries is not out of bounds.

The Immaterium is what it is. The Warp is how most mortals perceive it, and how the more powerful beings want it perceived.

Bharring, you've just the best explanation I could have hoped for ... Have an exalt!!

Warp is whatever you want it to be if you are a powerful being, mere mortals will go insane seeing a dimension that makes emotional feelings into a nightmarish reality.

i call it home. muwhahahaah!

PS that is why navigators need a third eye to see into the warp

Here's a question, is the warp an endless plane or is it different planets? If it is an endless plane then how do demon worlds come into it? If it is different planets then how do demons battle within the warp?

Demon Worlds are worlds in the Eye of Terror, which is a bit special.

The Eye of Terror is a rend in the very boundary between the Materium and the Immaterium.

Pre-tear, they were planets in the Materium.

Bharring wrote:
Demon Worlds are worlds in the Eye of Terror, which is a bit special.

The Eye of Terror is a rend in the very boundary between the Materium and the Immaterium.

Pre-tear, they were planets in the Materium.

But the Eye is a gateway to the Warp, what's the difference? It's just a boundary.

Wow, perfect, BrotherOfBone.

But the Eye isn't a gateway - it is both Warp and Materium at the same time and place. Which can't happen. But clearly does. Even shrodinger's cat would explode trying to contemplate it.

Bharring wrote:
Wow, perfect, BrotherOfBone.

But the Eye isn't a gateway - it is both Warp and Materium at the same time and place. Which can't happen. But clearly does. Even shrodinger's cat would explode trying to contemplate it.

Ah, thanks for the clarification, I always it was similar to the portal out of Stargate or something where you just step through.

Also if Schrodinger's Cat exploded wouldn't that defeat the point of Schrodinger's Cat?

I suppose another way to rationalise the the discrepancy in descriptions of the Warp/Immaterium is this:

The bits that people 'go into' (and we're talking Draigo, Chaos Lords who go into the warp ect) tend to be the realms of the various Gods. Draigo going through the garden of Nurgle and that sort of stuff are the parts of the warp that are and have been moulded by the Chaos Gods to represent their nature and powers. Hence, you get the physical boundaries ect as it is under the control and deliberatly shaped like that.

On the other hand, the bits that Imperial ships travel through are the 'neutral' bits of the warp. Still Chaotic, but not in the domain of any given god. Hence, you get the completely unimaginable and indescribable stuff. These are the relatively 'safe' areas, which is why ships use them and IoM Psykers may look to those bits, but they're safe because no god has taken them and moulded them, so they're the completely formless bits of the warp.

I have no evidence for any of this, but it makes sense to me.

I always felt like the Gods and their Domains were just manifestations, i.e. the domains and the gods themselves even are just as formless and void as the rest of the Warp, but the inscrutable willpower of these formless beings compels lesser organisms to 'perceive' the formlessness as 'something.'

What we perceive is often not real, and that goes for formless intelligences so vast that they cannot even comprehend themselves.