Game Concept: Warhammer 25 000

It is the 26th Millennium. For more than two thousand years, Mankind's fate

in the galaxy seemed to have been in a state of decay and uncertainty.

Once it seemed as if mankind was poised to conquer the stars,

even in the shadow of the Eldar's galaxy-spanning Empire.

From their humble beginning on Earth, the human race has expanded

into the great void of space and mastered nearly all areas of science

that they could ever hope to discover with their mortal minds.

In their folly, the greatest minds of the past unleashed what could have been our doom.

The birth of Artificial Intelligence, now deemed Abominable, was both a blessing

and a curse. With their aid mankind expanded ever further. And, for a time, it was good.

This age of artificial evolution has come to an end in the devastating conflicts.

Mankind emerged victorious but diminished. For a brief moment it seemed as if

the horrors of the past would have been put behind us. We were wrong.

Earth has grown silent. The invisible, immaterial realm of the Warp is stirring.

Mankind is on the cusp of either a true rebirth as a Psychic species or, perhaps

at the very edge of a damnation we cannot even fathom the depths.

To be a Man in those times is to live in uncertain times. It is a life focused on rebuilding

what has been lost while fearfully looking to the future without a clue on what it may bring.

To stand in the sunset of Mankind's greatest era and to fight to keep Old Night at bay.

These are the tales of those times. Preserve the power of Technology and Science,

for so much more risk being lost every day. Cling to the promise of progress and

understanding, less savages we become. For in the dying light of the future, there is

only uncertainty and the stirring of thirsting Gods.

Art by Adrian Mihai

Call it a silly pipe dream if you will, but one idea which has long haunted the wildest dreams was to run a tabletop campaign set in the Warhammer 40 000 universe, albeit away from the two major eras of the timeline, namely the Great Crusade/Horus Heresy, set in M31, and the 'modern' 40k set in M41 to M42. Its been a long established fact that giant chunks of the lore remained (thankfully) unexplored. Being a big fan of Kevin Crawford's work, I've realized that a lot of the material present in Stars Without Numbers seems rather similar to what we could extrapolate to have existed near the end of the Golden/Dark Age of Technology and the beginning of the Age of Strife. While any mention of crunch here mention Stars Without Numbers, this could easily be ran with a very heavily modded Dark Heresy or even GURPS.

There's going to be quite a bit of 'headcanon' going on here. I don't claim to be an expert who know all the minutiae of 40k lore down to the very last bit. In addition, since this is an era which will likely forever remain shrouded in myth, it means a lot of assumptions have to be made. As a final note, the tone of such an era is different from 40k. Because that's the point. To showcase the galaxy-that-was.

Can 'Stars Without Numbers' support such an era?

Most worlds which have not
degenerated would be TL4, with
some TL5 (but not all)

In my humble opinion, yes absolutely. In fact, it was looking at the Tech levels as outlined in the game that I realized that TL4 and TL5 would be fairly close to the level of technological prowess of post-Men of Iron humans. Most, if not all of the things outlined in there do in fact already exist in Warhammer 40 000 and have existed for most of the game's history. They simply represent forms of technology which aren't mass produced for consumer and civilian use but exist in extremely limited forms across Imperial technology:

• Cybernetics: These are extremely commonplace in Warhammer 40k, just in a somewhat more clunky form than they would be in the past. The Imperium and the Mechanicus make use of robotic limbs and cybernetic implants all the time. However they are rather ugly, bulky and baroque things full of wires and tubes. If I was to theorize, I personally believe a lot of the Mechanicus tech isn't so much the most advanced as it is the most rugged and versatile, able to sustain itself with minimal maintenance for centuries. Late Golden Age technology in this area is likely somewhat sleeker. However the most advanced designs are now lost tech and the implants are changing, increasingly devolving toward the clunky, techno-gothic style we all know and love.
• Genetic Manipulation: We know for a fact that, by around M22 the Navigators were deliberately genetically engineered. With that in mind we can assume that, prior to the initial phase of technological decay, humanity was reaching well into TL5 (if not TL6 of 'techno magic'!) areas of biological engineering. If anything, with the increase in Psyker population, the stirring of the Warp likely increasing mutation chances and the need to further engineer populations to better thrive on alien worlds (now that Earth has been 'lost'), this is one area which is likely currently thriving. It is likely most Humans by M26 descend from genetically augmented stock, healthier and engineered to reduce the odds or to eliminate genetic defects and diseases. It is my theory that this engineering, still existing within the genome of the Imperial population, can and does go 'haywire' due to pollution and other degradation, explaining why so many mutations in older 40k books seem so random. Not every mutation is Chaos (although many are). Some could be long dormant, spliced genes going crazy and suddenly expressing themselves.
• Near Immortality: This one would be 'lost technology' right from the get go, but there is some lore evidence to suggest that aging could have been, at the peak of the Golden Age, a thing of the past for the elite. Considering that 'Juvenat' treatments exist in 40k and that the Space Marines and Custodes are near-immortal, the posthuman elites of the Golden Age could have been able to indefinitely suspend aging.
• Localized Temporal Manipulation: These exist in 40k too, going far back into the lore as the Stasis Grenades. This type of technology is called Stasis Fields and they are still in use in the modern Imperium.
• Artificial Intelligence: This one is a no-brainer, as we know that the creation of the Men of Iron is what led to the development of the STC and the true dawn of the Golden Age.

Art by Tim Razumovsky

As one can see, much of this technology has long existed in 40k lore. The key differences, however, are in two things: how common is it and how is it treated? A game set at the start of the Age of Strife would see everything listed under T4 as commonplace on any sufficiently large and industrialized world which isn't too damaged by past centuries of war. The overall standards of life would be massively improved over the basic Imperial menial and these worlds would be, in many aspects, closer to our time. Personal computers used for both work and entertainment, a decent access to medical care (which, even in a highly diminished state, would surpass our current medical technology) and more would be the norm whereas in the Imperium these things are at best used only by Nobles. Even on a planet which spent centuries rebuilding from the conflict with the Men of Iron, technology would still be beyond that of the average Imperial world.

Secondly and, most importantly, much of this technology would still be understood. Maybe not completely, as the massive databases and the complete STC have been lost but much would still remain. These people would not regard technology with superstition. Now obviously these people would know and understand that things used to be better, that in the days of their great grandparents there used to be inter planetary transit on a much larger scale before these warp routes were lost, that people used to live several centuries more and that machines automated even more to the point it was a near utopia. However there would be none of that superstition which is built into the 'cargo cult' of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

The Gene-Wars and Psychic Abominations

Art by Vlad Bolotov.

One of the greatest dangers of this dwindling age, beyond the isolation of entire systems or planets by the Warp, is the threat posed by rampant genetic engineering and the growth of the 'Psyker' phenomena. Psykers were recorded among humans as early as M22 but they would presumably only explode in numbers around the start of the Age of Strife. But why are these two factors so important to the downfall of mankind? Codex: Custodes states the following:

"Thinking machines and the development of ever more esoteric weapons and transportation technologies played their part, but the single greatest factor to drive this expansion was the ability – and the reckless will – to manipulate human genetics. Utterly certain of their own primacy, scientist-kings and techno-demagogues followed every strand of curiosity and exercised powers of creation that made them seem like gods. Ultimately, their hubris led them to catastrophe, and onwards to the very brink of extinction. Worlds were overrun by bloody uprisings within their own populations, much of which were mutated beyond sanity and recognition. Gene-wars consumed entire star systems, while a psychic apocalypse drowned the stars in fire. The vast empire of Humanity was shattered amidst horror and anarchy, and the oppressive shroud of Old Night settled over all."

My personal theory on the matter is that, since Mankind could not rely on thinking machines as much they sought alternate ways to expand their power. With true artificial sentience outlawed/destroyed on any surviving world, power hungry individuals had to find something else. The human body and mind provided the right 'canvas'. The increased rate of mutation attracted scientific curiosity and, as with all things, someone somewhere will see it as a mean to gain more power. At first there would not really be anything seen as truly malicious in this, as humanity would already be used to posthuman modifications. However, humanity in that era was also quite naive and the powers of the Warp were misunderstood and the full ramifications of tapping into the Immaterium would not be immediately clear.

Fear and loathing of the 'mutant' would not be universal, especially on still well developed worlds. There would be a certain naivety to it all, as players could be allowed to take Psychic or even Arcane Foci. It would be treated no differently than any other technology. At least, until someone somewhere had a particularly bad roll. Human variations would also be commonplace and no one would really blink an eye, unless they were particularly repulsive or hostile. However, in the slums and former war zones the first true mutants, as modern Imperials would recognize, are being born. Without the full knowledge of ancient sciences, many anomalies are growing inside the human genome. These, in time, could create divergent strains of humanity which would unfortunately be exterminated by the Legiones Astartes five thousand years later. Other, more stable breeds would become the Ogryn, Ratling or the infamous Squats.

Another area of divergence to take into account is that of pre-Warp travel human civilizations. In the Warhammer universe, humanity was already spreading across the stars far before they ever invented primitive Warp Travel (around M18) or the Navigators (estimated M22). Even before the true dawn of the Golden Age they had already been colonizing their own solar system and nearby (or even distant) worlds for a very long time, using generational ships filled with enough raw material to enable self sufficiency for the colony. These worlds, assuming the colony did not die, would develop radically different ways of life or even biology. According to the old lore of a 1991 issue of White Dwarf, Mars' terraforming began (and seemingly, somehow, ended) in M3! In other words, it began in our own millennium. This means that by the start of the Golden Age, where Warp travel began connecting all these worlds, that humanity already had existed in isolated pockets outside of Earth for about 15 000 years.

Posthuman Augmentations

Art by Josiah Duncan.

For players, genetic engineering and biomechanical augmentation are a viable option when it come to increasing the capabilities of their characters. While the most advanced of genetic augmentations are now considered lost following the destruction of the Men of Iron and the most technologically advanced STC patterns (which logically would include medical data) and while the Emperor hasn't yet obtained the greatest troves of knowledge left on Terra to combine with His genetic material (to make Custodes, Primarchs and Astartes) this hardly prevent now stranded human colonies from creating super soldiers. True, they will never rival the future Astartes but we know from established 40k lore that genetic enhancement to make bigger, stronger, faster soldiers do exist. These type of people still existed early into the Great Crusade, before either falling in battle or being assimilated into the greater Imperial populace. In addition, with Psykers on the rise and the abilities of Biomancy, warp-fueled genetic modification is an area where the maddest of genius would dare to go.

• The Diehard and Iron Hide Foci from the Core Book, as well as Arcane Mind and Arcane Physique can all represent different expression of the Transhumanism used at the start of the Age of Strife. This can range from being born from a genetically engineered sub-species/ethnic group within the sector the game is set (whose descendants would one day be classified as Abhumans by the Imperium) to simply being an elite soldier or special agent whose rich and powerful masters have allowed access to permanent augmentations. Others might be Warp-tained and not even aware of why their bodies and minds are enhanced and the full extent of their degeneration has not manifested yet.
• Alternatively, these augmentations could be mechanical in nature. While the Mechanicum currently doesn't really exist in anything resembling its future form, it isn't as implausible as it sound for select individuals on these far off worlds to be implanted with mechanical augmentations which are similar in function or even directly based off the design templates which form the full range of Mechanicus implants, if not for them to carry augmentations which are lost in the modern Adeptus Mechanicus. Possibly, the Hacker Foci could be restricted to those whose bodies are implanted with these augmentations as they are able to more easily plug into the Noosphere, which would presumably also exist on these worlds through all the wireless technology which still exist.
• Playing a member of the Navigators is also an option. Presumably they are not quite as inbred and monstrously deformed in those days. With the Warp storms growing in potency, the Navigators cut off from Terra have settled on worlds which remain relatively stable and have become a local nobility of sort, sometimes attempting to mount reckless travels to reach nearby worlds and obtain rare resources. Navigators would use the Starfarer or some similar Focis to represent their Warp eye. However they would only ever be able to reach the nearest of star systems and only under considerable strain.

In the 26th Millennium, overall the nature of 'humanity' would be a lot more open ended. Being set in an era where genetic engineering is still commonplace means that the fear of mutants is not quite ingrained into humanity yet. While there are monsters and abominations lurking, the full scope of the isolation of Old Night hasn't fully taken hold yet and Abhumans don't exist so far. The worst is also yet to come on the subject of Psykers and Warp taint.

Familiar Foes

Were you expecting something else?

One of the reasons to set something within the Warhammer 40 000 universe is to, after all, make use of pre-existing material. While many of the game's factions would not exist in M26, there's still a pretty good amount of critters and aliens which are indeed recognizable from the lore, especially Rogue Trader-era lore.

• The Orks: An ever-present menace, the Orks have been a blight on the galaxy since times immemorial. At the height of the Golden Age, the superior technology of mankind kept the monsters at bay, destroying entire Waaaaagh!!! and leaving behind, at worst, scattered pockets of Feral Orks growing from the spores. However, in this period of isolation, instability and technological decay the Orks are growing bolder again. Space Hulks emerge from beyond the veiled Warp routes. Rumours are spreading that the green tides seen in past centuries were but minor incursions. The Orks encountered in the sector where my game would be set would be, as a nod to 1st edition lore, mostly of the Blood Axes clan and an overall more intelligent, sneakier lot. There is also a nod to the Beast Arise series, which depicted Orks as more intelligent and organized when under the influence of so-called Prime Orks, who will still be alive in those days. Overall these would be full of nods to 1st and 2nd edition Ork lore.
• The Eldars: As of M26, the empire of the Eldars has not fallen yet. The race has not yet splintered into Craftworld Eldars, Dark Eldars, Exodites or other groups. Their race is very powerful but also incredibly corrupt, as they are on the downward spiral that will eventually lead to the Fall of the Eldar. The best one can hope of the Eldar is that they simply leave humanity alone.  It seems most likely that Eldar machines were more often seen and interacted with than an in-the-flesh Eldar so overall the race remain mysterious.
• The Necrons: Initially it may seem silly. However, there indeed was Necron activity before M41 as there are mentions of Tomb Worlds slowly waking up during the era of the Great Crusade. There is so much we don't know about Necrons that they can still fit within such a 'prequel'.
• The Slanni: The reptilian Slann date back to Warhammer 40 000: Rogue Trader and were essentially the Lizardmen analogues before 40k reduced the amount of races it had that were copy pasted from Fantasy. The Slann encountered in M26 would be greatly diminished tribes of reptilian/amphibian creatures with ties to the Old Ones.
• The Hrud: The nomadic buggers have been around far before the time the Imperium ever found out they existed. Indeed, they most likely predate the rise of humanity as an interstellar species. It is likely they existed beneath mankind's notice, much like how mankind was beneath the notice of the Eldars.
• Warp Predators: There are creatures from the Rogue Trader book which still exist within the lore and would be around in this era, such as Enslavers, Vampires and Psychneuein. With the unregulated and misunderstood psychic powers going wild, these creatures could pop in anywhere.

Overall, not a bad list despite the lack of any Imperial factions, Chaos (beyond daemons) and Tyranids. Obviously Tau also be completely out the picture as they are still busy banging rocks together trying to figure out fire. Same with, presumably, the Kroots.

Madness & Damnation

Art by Johan Grenier.

One addition built into such a campaign would be the Sanity found in Silent Legions. Now, unless the characters are civilians generally speaking there shouldn't be too much that put a strain on their sanity. As the past centuries have had plenty of wars and societal decay at some point or another, soldier, assassins and mercenaries know what to expect. After an encounter or two with some Xenos, things get pretty easy to process, as these people aren't as brainwashed as modern Imperial citizen.

However there is one aspect of the universe the mind is not ready for yet and that is the Warp and Psychic powers. At this point, humanity knows that the Warp exist (having used it to travel since M22) and Psykers are becoming more common. The problem which is arising is that of Daemons and Warp Predators increasingly being attracted to the growing psychic potential in humanity. When the fabric of reality gets torn asunder and some Daemon of Tzeentch or some other ruinous entity emerge and start murdering people and eating their souls, this is where madness come in.

And yet, Hope?

Art by Sergi Sokolov.

However in the end things are not Grimdark. Not yet. Within the life span of the player characters, things may not look so bad. The best analogue for this era would be a game set during the fall of the Roman Empire. No one could predict how long the fall would last and how much time it would take to climb back to the heights of such an era. Five thousand years is a long time. Ultimately, this is an era which, while connected to 40k lore, in many way still draws more upon classic space opera and pulp scifi. Humanity isn't yet this degraded, crazy, superstitious and hateful thing whose sense of idealism has been utterly crushed. Yes, things will one day be truly terrible. The Grim Darkness of the Far Future will come but not today. Not tomorrow. It isn't here yet.

Time to hold back the darkness. One day at a time.