Ten thousand years ago the world was in the grip of a persistent and numbing ice age. To the north, all territory north of modern Araby was barren, cold tundra. Those creatures that lived upon the globe were mostly confined to the equatorial areas- Among them the ancestors of Elves, Dwarwes and Humans. Little more than animals, they roamed over the forests and tundra, hunting wild beasts and grubbing for roots in the ground. But these were not the only ones inhabitating the globe. The world was also inhabitated by a race of cosmic intelligence, beings whose whims were making an impact upon the fate of the planet and it´s evolving inhabitants- these were the Old Slann.

The Old Slann were an ancient race. Countless millions of years ago, they originated upon an unknown world, many light-years across the galaxy. They were strange, unfathomable and powerful beyond imagining. In their world astrophysics, Mystic-philosophy and arcane magic were as one, and their lives were directed by thoughts and emotions unknown and unknowable to Man, Elf, or Dwarf. They learned to travel from world to world via a system of complex interdimensional gateways- and they also learned of the perils of the voids between space, of the lurking horrors that inhabited the regions of Chaos into which their gateways lead. During their domination of this universe the Old Slann traveled to many worlds, including the world of Warhammertm .

Over the millenia, the Old Slann were frequent visitors, bringing new plants and animals, and encouraging the development of the ones that had been brought there earlier. They tinkered with the genetic structures- presumably to meet some unfathomable need of their own- and they even moved the planet´s orbit so the climate became warmer. The ice-sheets retreated, and gradually great forests spread over the area known as the Old World. Encouraged by the improved climate creatures began to move north to inhabit the new lands, and foremost among them were the Elves. This young race grew to love the woodlands and were taught to enhance and cultivate the natural harvest of the trees and plants.

From their great city on the western continent, the Old Slann kept a careful eye on the progress of the Elves. Even before the Elves had gained any real measure of civilization, the Slann transported them away from the Old World, relocating them on a vast island between the continental masses. There the Elves were carefully nurtured, so that a flourishing and sophisticated society grew in the land that today is the Elven kingdoms.

By now, the Dwarwes had also begun to migrate northwards, following the route which the Elves had taken. They found the Old World to their liking and began to build crude rock shelters among the mountains, and to hold animals for meat, skins, and milk. The rise of Humanity as a civilised race was still distant, and the few inarticulate savages that lived amongst the trees posed no real threat to the early Dwarwes.

The plans of the Old Slann seem to have progressed well. The planet was warmer and more hospitable to the new creatures developing upon it. The emerging races were developing fast and their development was firmly in the hands of the Old Slann. What the purpose of the experimentation was remains a mystery. But whatever the truth was it will never be unveiled for the experiment was aborted due to a catastrophe of cataclysmic proportion.

The interdimensional gateways of the Old Slann enabled them to travel quickly over distances of many light-years. From outside, the gateways appeared as black holes; many of them quite small and situated upon planets, other huge and situated in space. The two largest gateways on the planet were situated above the poles, and formed the principal entry and and exit points for the Old Slann´s huge vessels. The gateways consistuted entrances into a reality of “in-between space”, “warpspace”  or “void”. However, the void was not empty, but composed of  a fluid, shifting, totally alien mass. It was possible to travel to the void, using powerful spells to keep the void-mass from attacking the traveller. Such protection was necessary because the void was inhabited by creatures and forces incomprehensible by anyone. The Old Slann knew of these dangers and learned how to pacify the creatures through powerful sorcery and sacrifices. It was the collapse of one or both polar gateways lead to the creation of the modern world. What exactly happened can only be guessed- most likely, however is that the Old Slann encountered some intelligence too great even for their magic, or an accident caused a systems malfunction in the machines that controlled the gateways. Whatever happened, the polar gateways erupted and spread void-mass over the world and thus freeing the beings in the void and creating bridgeways to countless places within the void. Many of these being were small and uncaring for living creatures. Others were larger and more powerful, the gods and demons of the void. The weaker creatures often entered the service of the larger ones and took the bodies of people and turned them over to their masters.


The entities that came to the world were of many kinds. Some of them manifested themselves as chaotics, creatures of whim and change. Others manifested themselves as lawful, furthering harmony and stasis. As the battle between Chaos and Law proceeded, the gates shrank with the success of Law and grew with the fortune of Chaos. During the war, the warpgates gave issue to a continuos stream of chaos and corruption. During the initial catastrophe void-mass was sucked into the world. Much of this pure Chaos energy came as a fine dust-like powder, but some came in bigger chunks. The substance was called Warpstone and the entities that accompanied it became the demons and deities of the world but the horrifying fact was that both the dust and the warpstones twisted creatures into new horrible shapes. The most notable of these are the demi-human beastmen and the foul rat-like Skaven.

With the collapse of their gateways 7 000 years ago the Old Slann civilization collapsed as well. Their descendants lost the knowledge in forgetfulness or ritual but they remained a strong-willed race and did not suffer from Chaos mutations and only a few took up worship of Chaos gods. The greatest threat to the Slann was the new Chaos races who were emerging and multiplying. They buried beneath the Slann cities  and emerged to plunder and burn every so often. And with the support from lizardmen they are posed to totally wipe out the Slann civilization.

Yet the greatest servant of Chaos is Humanity, but they don’t know it. That is because Humanity is tainted by their lust for power, riches and conquest. Today the Slann are invaded by Humans and Norse. This has speeded the downfall of the Slann and many have taken to the worship of the Chaos gods.

With the collapse of the Old Slann civilization Elves, Dwarves and Humans were left to cope on their own. The Elves were tainted least by the warpstone(a few were tainted and became the forefathers of the Dark Elves) since good was deep in their genetic make-up. The dwarves were less fortunate. Being less developed, they were more susceptible to the perverting effects of the warpstone: their minds were twisted in ways the Old Slann never could have predicted.  Humans were affected most by the warpstone, for they had hardly evolved past the stage of unthinking animals. So in the bloodline of all the creatures of the world was the taint of Chaos which would cause physical mutations and mental corruption up to this day. In Humanity the thrill of Chaos brought much good but in the human breast there was a lurking danger, a pull to evil more certain to doom the world than
the physical dangers lurking in the forests  and mountains.

Largely untouched by the collapse of the gateways, the Elves continued to prosper on their island world. Their considerable knowledge of Old Slann magic gave them means of controlling many of the entities coming through the portals. From among these beings the Elves took their gods and developed their religion, including the hedonistic creature they called Meneloth. Within 1 000 years of the fall of the Old Slann the Elves had developed their own high-minded and sophisticated civilization. 6 000 years ago the first Elven ships sailed across  the sea to marvel at the ruins of the Old Slann. A few years later the first colonies were founded on the coast of the Old World and trade started with the early dwarves for, at least in the beginning, the Elves had much to teach the early dwarves, and much to gain in the form of gems, skins, and metal.

For a thousand years all was well until Chaos touched the Elves. Even though the Elves were great magicians they were as children compared to the Old Slann, and many were seduced to the worship of the Dark Gods. But most of the Elves stayed pure and a civil war started. It ended with the Dark Elves (as the Chaos worshippers were referred to) were driven across the sea to the land in the West.

For a while, the world entered a semblance of peace, but nothing lasts forever. The arrogance of the Elves and the growing ambitions of the Dwarves caused a decline in relations between the two people and eventually, 5 000 years ago, a war. Many died on both sides and more than a few of the famous dwarwen strongholds fell.  Eventually the Elves withdrew from the Old World and the Dwarves thought of themselves as victors even though their great fortresses were taken and their population greatly diminished.

From that time and onward, the Elves were only involved in the affairs of the Old World occasionally.  Their own civilisation remains largely static and they have become introspective, hedonistic and culturally isolated.  Their ships however still ply the seas, trading with the Old World and the remnant of the Slann civilisation. In the last 1 000 years the Elves have divided into four tribes: wood elves, high elves, sea elves and dark elves.
The Dwarves were the second race to travel north. By the time they arrived the Elves had already left for Ulthuan. The Dwarves spread across the mountains later known as the Worlds Edge Mountains. They didn’t move north en masse, but gradually spread northward. The southern settlements weren’t abandoned so the Dwarwen kingdom grew until it covered the entire mountain range.

The Dwarwen kingdom started at the time of the fall of the Old Slann and therefore some of the dwarwes show Chaotic tendencies. Similarly, their social structure only developed after the gods manifested themselves so they didn’t get the same form of control over their gods as the Elves did. Nevertheless, they were a race of skilled builders, metalworkers and warriors. They had already met and defeated countless Chaos creatures during their march north and their never-ending battle against the Goblinoids had begun.

The Dwarves benefited enormously from their trading connections with the Elves, and a healthy exchange of goods and ideas enabled both civilisations to prosper in spite of the Elven war against Chaos and the ever-lasting Dwarwen battle against the Goblinoids. Before the two races started waging war against each other the Dwarves enjoyed massive prosperity and their population grew considerably. Huge cities were erected within the World’s Edge Mountains and fantastic caverns lined with gems were constructed, but all was lost in the Elven-Dwarwen wars. With the end of the wars and the Elvish abandonment of the Old World, the Dwarves found themselves unable to maintain their great cities and, one by one, their great strongholds fell to the goblins and their allies. The final blow came 4 000 years ago in the form  of a period of extreme volcanic activity destroying many Dwarwen strongholds and covering the lands to the east with ash. It is unlikely that the catastrophe was natural because it suits the Chaos creatures too well. Following the ruin of the Dwarves the World’s Edge Mountains became the nest of many Goblinoids. The Dwarves were not quite destroyed but severely reduced in power. Those that remained lived in scattered communities fighting a never-ending battle against the Goblinoids. Some of the dwarves moved to the Black Mountains or the Grey Mountains and built new communities.

It was after the fall of the great Dwarwen kingdom, about 3 000 years ago, that the first signs of humans as a civilisation began to make themselves heard. Humans therefore evolved totally within a Chaos-warped world. Few were so heavily influenced by Chaos that they worshipped the Chaos gods, but qualities such as vigour, aggression and cultural change are from the chaotic side of the human nature. Elves lack these qualities totally and Dwarves only possess them partially.

The Dwarves watched the tribes move north and occasionally traded with them, trading metal items, jewellery, and occasional services for skins and furs. Humans learned much from these encounters, but they were also fiercely independent and within a couple of years the humans had developed a separate culture. Within five hundred years Humanity had gone from naked savages to farmers and herders. The Dwarves, in danger of being turned extinct by the Goblinoids, had found a new ally and together the two races pushed the Goblinoids out of the Old World.

The Dwarves continued to live in their ancestral homes, under the constant threat of a goblinoid invasion, but still safer than they had ever been before. Whilst Humanity grew and prospered the Dwarves kept a close relationship with the mines and mountains. Over the next 2 000 years humans developed an urban civilisation, and the innate Dwarwen skills of engineering, mining and metalworking made them able to make a handsome living in the large cities in the Old World. However, it is undeniable that the Dwarves are a dying race. Their constant battle against the Goblinoids along with their naturally slow reproduction rate. Worse yet, When the Northern Gateway exploded, a good many of the northern dwarves became corrupted into the foul Chaos Dwarves.

The origin of the Halflings is unclear, but seems connected to humans, since the Halflings have been a distinct race since before Humanity followed the Dwarves north. They aren’t a very prolific people, even now there aren’t more than a few thousand of them. Some people think that the Halflings are the Old Slann’s last attempt to engineer a race totally immune to Chaos mutations, which Halflings largely are. Their similarity to humans may point towards a human origin, but that must have been before the fall of the Old Slann. If they were an attempt to make a race that could survive a predicted gateway breakdown, the experiment must have been aborted long before completion, since Halflings lack the physical strength and the mental maturity that would allow them to stand on their own. Instead, the Halflings have lived alongside humans, enjoying protection from their greater size and more prosperous industry. Even though the halflings are physically weak, they will stand and fight where most larger creatures would flee. They will defend their homes, families and lunchboxes with their lives if necessary, but their small size and unwarlike nature counts against them.
Humans are a recent addition to the face of the world. Only 3 000 years ago, primitive hunting bands moved north with the dwarves and began to settle in the forests, living from hunting, fishing and gathering berries and mushrooms. Within a very short time, however, they constructed primitive settlements (probably crude imitations of the Dwarwen ones) and began to herd cattle. As the tribes began to carve out territories for themselves, their feuds and rivalries along with the constant war against the Goblinoids hindered any further development.  Both problems were however solved with the emergence of a strong leader named Sigmar (more on Sigmar later).  He united the tribes and led them to war against the Goblinoids alongside the dwarves and later became the first emperor. Over the next 500 years Humanity expanded vigorously. This rapid change had it's origin in the large influence Chaos had on Humanity. There were a large amount of people that were mutated into various abhuman species, the Beastmen. (the Skaven are, unlike what many believe, rats who have been mutated to gain various human qualities.) But the majority stayed identifiably human and the beastmen were driven into the forests.

1 500 years ago the once so solid Empire collapsed into a myriad of petty warring kingdoms, largely based on the new cities the humans began to build. These were crude by Elven and Dwarwen standards, and life was very hard for the majority. No one expected to live very long, and famine and disease were common. Most people spent their entire life scratching a living from the soil. Building was mainly wood, stone was reserved for tombs and temples. At this time the first coherent written human language was created although it wouldn’t be commonly used for another 500 years.

In the south, a new threat arose, in the shape of  religious invaders from Araby bent on a crusade. With further invasions by nomadic tribes and their settling in the area now known as Kislev 750 years ago, the political situation in the Old World began to look like it does today. Realising that their constant internal squabbling left them open to invasions from other humans, yet alone Incursions of Chaos, the Empire was reunited under Magnus the Pious. With the development of a working water system and a road net, the various countries became rather stable and flourishing communities developed. A typical city today has several thousand inhabitants and many fine buildings of stone or even the newly invented brick. Art, science, literature,  and all kinds of study thrive under the patronage of enlightened individuals, whilst everyone welcomes a new era of human enlightenment. Humanity is no longer bound to the soil, but many earn a living as artisans of some kind, while industry is ever growing more advanced. Glass making, metallurgy, printing, woodcraft and textiles even surpass that of the Dwarves. The Dwarves are involved in many new inventions, among those gunpowder, which is a recent and unexploited one.