Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Every so often we get a snippet from the main rule book or some other piece of fluff or fiction about a Xenos Empire that is currently active somewhere in the known galaxy.

We get to see some artifacts at times, greedily coveted by Inquisitors, AdMech, or Rogue Traders.

On the rare occasion we actually get to see a ship or two.... or see them participate in a major conflict the way the Fra'al did in Battlefleet Gothic.

Technically the Tau once inhabited this category until they essentially Ascended to the Big Leagues.....

Thus far we've heard of:

1.) The Draxian Hegemony - They fought the Space Wolves Chapter at the Battle of Medes 841 (anyone got any details on this?)


2.) The Worldweave of the Noisome Reek - Fought the Arcadius dynasty of Merchant Traders. Apparently covered in the novel "Star of Damocles" (anyone bother to read the novel?)


3.) The Uluméathic League - Starting in 5th Edition, mentioned as rising power. Then 5th Edition Tyranids came out and apparently Hive Fleet Naga shows up. Between 801-812, 41st Millenium, the central parts of the Empire including the throne world seem to have been obliterated. Are they even a concern as of 6th edition, or did they just end up being Tyranid chow?

4.) The Xenarch Empire - First mentioned in Xenology as being somewhere in the Galactic North, we've mostly only seen artifacts and tidbits of the race show up in the RPG games...
Officially it seems, the Black Templars went to war with some sort of Xenarch colony, although i couldn't track the reference for this.

5.) The Fra'al - In terms of "real world" age, probably the Granddaddy of all Xenos Empires. The Fra'al were first introduced in Battlefleet Gothic as a tertiary competitor in all the wars being waged in the sector. Their artifacts have shown up both in the RPG and the main rule books.


Have I missed any active empires? Which means you can rule out all the Horus Heresy ones (since let's face it, most of them are basically antagonists to be slaughtered by XXX Primarch of the day - I can't think of a single human or non-human society that successfully resisted the Imperium in the whole series), as well as species that are essentially "one-off" races. In other words - they may have a homeworld but they didn't build an Empire.

I can think of the Dracolith, a fledging empire and perhaps the slaugth count as an "empire" although one that is more in the shadows

 King Pariah wrote:
I can think of the Dracolith, a fledging empire and perhaps the slaugth count as an "empire" although one that is more in the shadows

Forgot about them - the Dracolith have been around since 4th edition, although i'm kind of confused since their empire is apparently a Church of some sort.

The Slaugth are.......iffy.... for me at least, its very hard to tell with them.

Wasn't there a Xeno Empire in the Ghoul Stars at one point?

GrapeApe wrote:

 King Pariah wrote:
I can think of the Dracolith, a fledging empire and perhaps the slaugth count as an "empire" although one that is more in the shadows

Forgot about them - the Dracolith have been around since 4th edition, although i'm kind of confused since their empire is apparently a Church of some sort.

The Slaugth are.......iffy.... for me at least, its very hard to tell with them.

Well the Slaugth run their own puppet trading empire, the Amaranthine Syndicate, in the Calixis Sector, so they must have some level of organization. They live outside of Imperial space, so whether they have a proper empire of Slaugth planets or are nomadic, or what exactly is a mystery.

The demuirg? Although not sure you could term them an "empire" they are certainly a large civilisation.

TO be honest there are loads of xenos out there in large enough numbers that they clearly run a few solar systems at elast

 Nova_Impero wrote:
Wasn't there a Xeno Empire in the Ghoul Stars at one point?

I don't believe that one is active anymore. That or my memory is off and were both thinking of the Bone Kingdom of Drazak = NewCrons.

Again, in search of [b]active Xenos empires[b]. You know, the ones that have already been identified as threats to the Imperium.

 Nova_Impero wrote:
Wasn't there a Xeno Empire in the Ghoul Stars at one point?

The Cythor Fiends yes. But they are no longer there. The Black Templers wiped most of them out, and the remaining ones have mysteriously disappeared without a trace.

They were not the only species in the Ghoul Stars though, but they are the only species on which we have some information (even if it is next to nothing). Other things mentioned to come from the Ghoul Stars are the Togoran Bloodreeks (unspecified xenos species), the Bone Kingdom of Drazak (an independent Necron realm of Flayed Ones) and the Pale Wastings (a "star-spawned plague" that wiped out entire sectors with "nightmare engines". 11 Space Marine Chapters were destroyed in the fight to contain them and all information was redacted by the Inquisition.). There is likely to be much more there though, as there is constant mention of how there is all kinds of uninmaginable terrors hidden in the Ghoul Stars. Notably even the Tyranids that passed through the region were twisted and disoriented.


To answer the OP, there is not any Xenos empires that I know of that we get more than a few lines of info about. A pity really.

Best thread ever!

What about the Hrud? I keep dreaming one day SPACE SKAVEN will get the Tau treatment and made into an tabletop army.

I know you said 40k, but there are quite a few xenos empires mentioned in the 30k books. Most of them don't last long, but there's some cool stuff in there.

The book Xenology had weird jelly-fish things called Thyruss (I think) which may have ruled more than one planet. There were also these insecty cyborg things whose name escapes me but the plot point was that the Tau ethereals might have got mind-control tech from them, I think they ruled several planets. Also, I think the things from the Ghoul Stars were the "Hyper-violent Barghesi", who did occupy several worlds.

Edit: Qu'orl was the name of the cyborg insect mind-control guys.

This may help in the search for Xenos Empires-
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/List_of_Sentient_Species

It's odd that there aren't more; there really ought to be given the number of worlds in the galaxy not accounted for…

I like to imagine most of the others have such radically different biochemistries and/or outlooks on life (including what 'life' even is) that the "great powers" have simply missed or ignored them, either because their planets are wholly uninviting or because we simply can't perceive them.
Kinda like how no-one knew about the C'tan before the Necrontyr learned to speak star, despite them being older than the "old ones"….

 Mr_Rose wrote:
It's odd that there aren't more; there really ought to be given the number of worlds in the galaxy not accounted for…

I like to imagine most of the others have such radically different biochemistries and/or outlooks on life (including what 'life' even is) that the "great powers" have simply missed or ignored them, either because their planets are wholly uninviting or because we simply can't perceive them.
Kinda like how no-one knew about the C'tan before the Necrontyr learned to speak star, despite them being older than the "old ones"….

Or maybe the Imperium has just exterminated most of them in the ~10,000 years it has controlled most of the Milky Way. Would explain the discrepancy between the amount of xenos races encountered in the Great Crusade vs the rarity of xenos races in 40k.

The Imperium has probably run out of easily-accessible Xenos to destroy, apart from the relatively small number with their own Codices.

If a given area of space doesn't have stable Warp routes to and from, or any at all, then the Imperium isn't going to go there, except by accident and, even then, it's not possible to send a military excursion. These "cut off" regions might house dozens, maybe even hundreds, of star-systems populated by Xenos, even advanced Xenos... but with no way to get there via Warp travel, the Imperium will never know about it.

 Psienesis wrote:
The Imperium has probably run out of easily-accessible Xenos to destroy, apart from the relatively small number with their own Codices.

If a given area of space doesn't have stable Warp routes to and from, or any at all, then the Imperium isn't going to go there, except by accident and, even then, it's not possible to send a military excursion. These "cut off" regions might house dozens, maybe even hundreds, of star-systems populated by Xenos, even advanced Xenos... but with no way to get there via Warp travel, the Imperium will never know about it.

Hmm.. that might explain why Imperium could never find where the Xenarch or Fra'al Civilizations lay.....

Rak'Gol and the Yu'Vath

 oldzoggy wrote:
Rak'Gol and the Yu'Vath

I'll give you the Yu'Vath.... but aren't they all dead?

As for the Rak'Gol.... i'm not sure they have anything that would constitute what we might consider to be an "Empire". They seem more like the Hrud.

GrapeApe wrote:

 oldzoggy wrote:
Rak'Gol and the Yu'Vath

I'll give you the Yu'Vath.... but aren't they all dead?

Yep

They might have died in the drusian crusades but who knows..


Automatically Appended Next Post:

GrapeApe wrote:


As for the Rak'Gol.... i'm not sure they have anything that would constitute what we might consider to be an "Empire". They seem more like the Hrud.

Yeah they seem to be like that on first glance until you take a good look at their space ships. Those things aren't made from chained together space debris mixed with acquired alien space ships like the Hrud ships are.
Their ships are huge cruiser like ships that have their own design. How would any civilisation be able to produce a lot of them without having an hidden empire ?

 oldzoggy wrote:
They might be have died in the drusian crusades but who knows..


Automatically Appended Next Post:

GrapeApe wrote:


As for the Rak'Gol.... i'm not sure they have anything that would constitute what we might consider to be an "Empire". They seem more like the Hrud.

Yeah they seem to be like that on first glance until you take a good look at their space ships. Those things aren't made from chained together space debris mixed with acquired alien space ships like the Hrud ships are.
Their ships are huge cruiser like ships that have their own design. How would any civilisation be able to produce a lot of them without having an hidden empire ?

Well, they live basicly in tesseracts(time/space-bubbles), so who knows....