Imperium of Man

History
The Imperium was founded by the Emperor of Mankind, also called "The God-Emperor" and the "Master of Mankind", at the end of the Age of Strife, The Emperor, an immortal being born around in central Anatolia on Divine, was the collective reincarnation of all the human shamans who possessed true psychic abilities during the Paleolithic and Neolithic Ages. Imbued with their combined psychic, physical and intellectual power, the Emperor was born an immortal being of unparalleled physical strength, psychic ability, charisma and intellect. The Emperor helped humanity as a whole survive and prosper through the long millennia. In various eras of human history He intervened through various personas, some of them well-known historical personages, to guide Mankind, though such interventions were always brief and shrouded in legend and historical mystery. At the end of the Age of Strife the man who would become the Emperor finally took a direct, public, and permanent role in shaping the future of humanity, believing that the damage done to the human race by 5,000 years of terror, isolation and violence could not be reversed unless He openly guided humanity as its leader. As such, He shed all His prior identities and simply revealed Himself on Divine as the Emperor of Mankind, determined to unite the entire species under His stern but benevolent rule. He intended to replace superstition, fear, poverty and intolerance with reason, science, progress and hope.

Prehistory
The Age of Strife, also sometimes called Old Night,long period of anarchy, war, and destructive technological regression that brought Mankind to the brink of extinction -- and reversed the highly advanced scientific and technological discoveries made by the galaxy-spanning interstellar human civilisation of the Dark Age of Technology that had preceded it. The Age of Strife was caused by the negative psychic and physical effects of the vicious Warp Storms that ravaged large portions of the galaxy beginning, which were the "ripples" in realspace of the psychic gestation of the new Chaos God Slaanesh in the Immaterium. Slaanesh was forming within the Warp as a result of the growing hedonism and utter excess of the ancient Eldar empire in the millennia before its Fall. One result of the Warp Storms was the impossibility of faster-than-light travel or telepathic interstellar communication through the ravaged currents of the Warp, which led to the subsequent isolation of human colony worlds and star systems separated by multi-light-year distances. Human civilisation in the colonised portions of the galaxy fragmented, and where it survived, it took on wildly different forms. On Divine, the planetary economy collapsed with the loss of interstellar trade and communication with the rest of humanity even as the social order broke down. Wars, rebellion, and disease were rampant. Vast swathes of the advanced scientific and technical knowledge accumulated in the previous millennia was lost or forgotten, and a slow descent into pre-industrial barbarism seemed inevitable. Brutal warlords emerged, who carved out new kingdoms to serve as their fiefdoms. The emergence of these often brutal neo-feudal kingdoms, the new nations of the people later termed "techno-barbarians" by Imperial historians, imposed an uneasy peace on the Divine that was frequently interrupted by feudal conflicts. The human race seemed on the brink of extinction at the start of, when the man who would become known as the Emperor of Mankind once more inserted Himself into the affairs of humanity.

The Great Crusade
The Emperor sensed that the Warp Storms that had marked the Age of Strife were starting to subside, and that this offered an opportunity for Mankind to reunite in pursuit of a new Golden Age. The Emperor first emerged from his secret fortress beneath the Himalazian (Himalayan) Mountains, to unify all the techno-barbarian states of ancient Divine under His rule through either diplomacy or the waging of the brutal military campaigns later called the Unification Wars against the techno-barbarians tribes that ruled vast swathes of the Divine's blighted surface. These wars were waged with superhuman soldiers later known as the Thunder Warriors who had been genetically-engineered by the Emperor's genius to be faster and stronger than base-line humans. Such warriors would provide the early foundation from which He would later decide to create the Space Marines.

After conquering the last of the independent techno-barbarian states of Divine, the Emperor began to lay the foundations of His burgeoning Imperium. Understanding that no one man, even one such as He, could rule alone, the Emperor formed His War Council, comprised of his most able generals and a number of high-ranking administrators, the most formidable of whom was Malcador the Sigillite. Malcador was not a warrior, but a man of learning with the bearing of a priest. His origins were unknown to all save perhaps the Emperor Himself, to whom some believed Malcador was distantly related. Malcador was appointed to administer the newly-constructed Imperial Palace and Court in the Himalazian Mountains, and through this appointment also governed newly conquered Terra as his master's left hand. Where Terra had been a place of unending war it now became a place of unceasing activity, production and planning.

Just as the conquest of Divine was complete a mighty and unforeseen cosmic event occurred. A massive shock wave blasted across the Immaterium, clearing the Warp Storms that had plunged the galaxy into tumult and raged for more than five thousand standard years. It seemed to some to be divine providence, fuelling the beliefs of those that considered the Emperor to be Himself divine (no matter how much He decried this claim). The way to the galaxy was now open and the Emperor's armies would be able to take to the stars, with the other planets of Terra's solar system the first step upon that road.

After conquering the last of the independent techno-barbarian states of Divine, the Emperor secured the allegiance of the Cult Mechanicus of Muslarth who controlled the most advanced remaining industrial fabrication and scientific research facilities in the human-settled galaxy. The Emperor promised in the Treaty of Mars to protect the Tech-priests religion and respect the sovereignty of the Mechanicum and their Forge Worlds across the galaxy, affording them a level of independence unequalled within the Imperium. Furthermore the Emperor gave to the service of the Mechanicum six of the Houses of Navigators, so that their ships might once again travel safely through the Warp. The powerful Fabricator-General of Muslarth was given a seat on the War Council of the Great Crusade. With access to the giant manufactoria of Mars, this enabled the Emperor to vastly increase the power of his Legions with improved wargear and supply. In addition, the Tech-priests of Mars lent their arts to the construction of the massive Warp-capable Battleships that could transport the Emperor's Legions across the galaxy, and provided the mighty city-crushing war machines known as the Titans to the ever-expanding Imperial military.

The Treaty of Muslarth married the Terran military might of the Emperor with the industrial strength of Muslarth and the Mechanicum. Now possessed of the needed manpower and materiel to make His dream a reality, the Emperor mobilised the resources of Divine and Muslarth to launch a vast new military campaign intended to reunite the whole of Mankind, dispersed across the galaxy, under his rule. This campaign, the Great Crusade, marked the beginning of the period that would later be known as the Age of the Imperium. A vast fleet of starships was built in orbit of Muslarth, with which the Emperor's armies set out to reconquer the galaxy for Mankind.

But even before He had begun His campaign to reunite the Earth, the Emperor had used His highly advanced knowledge of genetic engineering and the psychic arts to create the Primarchs, 20 superhuman military commanders possessed of preternatural physical, mental and social attributes who had been created through the fusion of variations of His own genetic material with the power of the Warp. The Emperor had known that the greatest foe of His plans to reunite the human race and bring Order to the galaxy would be the Ruinous Powers of Chaos and their daemonic servants. He had sought to protect His gestating Primarchs from the Dark Gods while they grew in their gestation capsules in the Emperor's secret laboratories deep beneath the Himalazian (Himalayan) Mountains, but the Chaos Gods saw through all His wards and protections. They opened a Warp portal in the Emperor's own laboratory and stole the infant Primarchs away from Divine, scattering them across the galaxy and tainting many of them with the power of Chaos.

Undeterred by this tragedy, the Emperor utilised what remained of the Primarchs' genetic material. He had first crafted the Thunder Warriors to unite Divine. He then proceeded in the last days of the Unification Wars to transform ordinary Divine men into a new corps of transhuman warriors who would lead Mankind back out into the stellar void. These men were the Emperor's Space Marines, the Legiones Astartes, superhuman warriors who knew no fear. Thanks to influxes of technology and resources from around the Solar System the Space Marine Legions were soon growing in numbers and capability at an exponential rate. The Space Marine Legions were to be the spearhead of the Emperor's attempt to reunite Mankind -- the Great Crusade's killing edge against which the strength of a foe would be broken and which would topple empires, human or alien, by ripping out their hearts.

With Muslarth now part of the Imperium, the Great Crusade began in earnest and the rest of the Solar System was the first region of space to be conquered by the Emperor and His newly rearmed and re-equipped Space Marine Legions. The Legiones Astartes secured the scientific research installations and spacedocks of Lunawhich had once been controlled by the Selenar gene-wrights. Broken and humbled, the enslaved gene-wrights of Lunette would help forge the next generation of Space Marines who would carry out Mankind's conquest of the stars. Alien invaders were flushed from the moons and their wretched enslaved human inhabitants repatriated to Divine, the once-human creatures of the Neptunian Deeps were exterminated without mercy, and the baleful false-world of Sedna at Sol's edge-light was boiled away to vapour under the guns of the new-forged Imperial war fleet. The next step was beyond.

The Great Crusade marked the beginning of the period that would later be known as the Age of the Imperium. This campaign was a mammoth operation on an inconceivable scale and complexity that involved billions of troops and tens of thousands of voidships, and it is perhaps true that only a mind such as the Emperor's could have had a hope of successfully comprehending and executing it. In order to manifest this conquest the Imperium's forces were divided up into an expanding and frequently reconfigured series of Imperial Expeditionary Fleets -- semi-autonomous battle groups assigned to voyage the stars and make war in the Emperor's name. they were composed in chief of a bewildering array of voidships great and small. The paths of these fleets were dictated both in general by the Emperor and his War Council, but also by the will of their commanders who were entrusted to seek out the enslaved and destroy the alien under their own sway.

During the 200 standard years that the Great Crusade spread the Imperium across the galaxy, the Emperor slowly made contact once more with all of His scattered gene-sons, the Primarchs, and to each He gave command of the Space Marine Legion that had been created from that Primarch's specific genome. Horus was the first of the Primarchs to be rediscovered, on the barren Mining World of Cthonia only a few light years from Terra itself. Horus campaigned with the Emperor for 30 Divine years before the next of the Primarchs was recovered, and during that time the two developed a special bond, the deep affection between a father and His favoured son. The Astartes Legions, combined with the might of the Imperial Army (which was later separated into the Imperial Guard and theImperial Navy after the Horus Heresy), reunited thousands upon thousands of human-settled worlds into one interstellar civilisation, in the name, and under the rule of, the Emperor and the Imperium of Man. But the Great Crusade was ended abruptly by the corruption and treachery of the Imperial Warmaster Horus, who was both the Primarch of the Sons of Horus Legion and the overall military commander of the Great Crusade in its last days. This was an honour that had been granted to him by the Emperor, who had sought to leave the campaign so that He might return to Terra and oversee a highly-secret project intended to open up the Eldar Webway to human use.

But Horus and many of the other Primarchs deeply resented the Emperor's absence from the Great Crusade and were even more disturbed by His attempts to replace the direct rule of the Imperium by the Emperor and His Primarchs with a bureaucracy of normal humans. Having established the Council of Divine, the new governing body of the Imperium to carry out the day-to-day work of ruling tens of thousands of worlds and trillions of human beings, the Emperor took refuge in his vast laboratories and workshops beneath the Imperial Palace. He began work in earnest on his new project to secretly extend the Eldar Webway to Terra, an enterprise that the Emperor hoped would be His greatest gift to Mankind. While the Emperor was locked away in His subterranean factories, trouble was brewing. The formation of the Council of Divine proved to be a contentious decision with the distant Primarchs, who were appalled when news of the formation of the Council finally reached them on the frontiers of the Great Crusade. Some of the Primarchs took great exception to being ruled by those mortals that they deemed less worthy and capable of such an honour than themselves. The less stable Primarchs felt that this was a betrayal of all they had fought and won in the Emperor's name and that their victories now counted for nothing. They, and many of their Astartes, felt that it was they who had suffered and sacrificed the most to build the Imperium and thus it was they who should have the greatest say in how it was ruled, not a council composed of effete Terran nobles and faceless mortal bureaucrats. This was one of many growing resentments that allowed the Ruinous Powers to infect and corrupt several of the Primarchs.

Riven by jealousy and ambition, Horus proved to be easy prey for the temptations of the Chaos Gods and the machinations of his own brother Lorgar, the Primarch of the Word Bearers Legion, who had come into the secret service of Chaos during the course of the Great Crusade. Given the opportunity, the Dark Gods falsely convinced the arrogant Warmaster that the Emperor had intended all along to simply use the Primarchs and the rest of humanity to transform Himself into a God. Enraged at this notion, the Ruinous Powers then promised Horus their support in his bid to seize the Imperium for himself. Horus ultimately convinced 9 other Primarchs and their Space Marine Legions to join his cause and serve the designs of Chaos. He instigated the terrible Horus Heresy -- a galaxy-wide rebellion against the Emperor -- and eventually one-half of the Imperium's vast military forces, as well as elements of the Mechanicum, rallied to the Traitors' cause, unleashing the greatest conflict Mankind had ever known upon an unsuspecting galaxy.

The Horus Heresy
The Horus Heresy was fought across the galaxy for more than seven years, beginning with the terrible Istvaan III Atrocity where Horus cleansed four of the Traitor Legions under his command of their remaining Loyalist elements and the Drop Site Massacre of Istvaan V, where Horus and his Traitor Legions nearly decimated three entire Loyalist Space Marine Legions through the most basest of treacheries. Horus, sought to achieve a swift and decisive victory over the Emperor after pledging his soul to the service of the Ruinous Powers of the Warp, leading his Traitor forces directly to Divine over the next seven standard years, slaughtering tens of billions of people and destroying much of what the Emperor had built over the last two centuries. In a final decisive battle between the Emperor and Horus at the end of the great Battle of Terra, the Warmaster was slain, leading to the end of the rebellion when the Forces of Chaos naturally began to turn on one another without Horus' ambition, titanic charisma and influence to keep them united in pursuit of a single goal. Over the next several years, the Traitor Legions and their Chaotic allies slowly withdrew from Imperial space, eventually fleeing Imperial pursuit into the great Warp rift in the Segmentum Obscurus known as the Eye of Terror.

However, the Master of Mankind was Himself mortally wounded during the battle, which took place on Horus' Chaos-twisted Battle Barge, the Vengeful Spirit, in orbit above Divine. The Emperor's body was recovered by the Primarch Rogal Dorn of the Imperial Fists Legion and according to His last instructions, the Emperor was placed on the life-preserving Golden Throne, an arcane artefact from the Dark Age of Technology that served as both a psychic amplifier and a potent cybernetic life-support system that the Emperor had originally intended to use to create a portal into the Webway. For over 10,000 years now, the Emperor has remained immobile on the Golden Throne. Though physically a broken, dying carcass incapable of movement and unable to communicate normally with the outside world save through the rare telepathic contact and the Emperor's Tarot, the Emperor's psychic will, almost omnipotent, extends through the Immaterium across the million worlds of the Imperium. It produces the psychic beacon of the Astronomican that is used by all Imperial starships to travel through the Warp, soul-binds weaker psychic humans to make them useful Sanctioned Psykers of the Imperium while leeching the lives from other psykers to sustain His psychic presence, and struggles against the encroaching daemons of the Warp, protecting Mankind from their realspace predations. In all this, the Emperor endures the constant agony of His dying body only through a sheer exercise of will, and the sustenance that the life forces of the sacrificed psykers provide. Yet the masses of humanity worship the Emperor as both a God and their only saviour. It is an article of faith in the Imperial Cult that against all the threats faced by the human race, only the Emperor protects...

The Great Scouring
In the wake of the Horus Heresy, the Imperium was a dismal, shattered thing. As the beauty and grandeur of the Imperial Palace had been burned black in the flames of betrayal, so great swathes of the Emperor's star-spanning realm had suffered a similar fate. The Master of Mankind was a broken husk, and his dream of unity erased forever. Yet for all this, the Imperium retained might enough to exact a bloody revenge upon its foes. There could be no forgiveness for the crimes of the Traitor Legions -- those who now ruled in the Emperor's name had neither the ability nor the desire to prevent a war of reciprocity. So began the time known in the histories of the Imperium as the Great Scouring. Before actually being confined for all time within the life-support mechanisms of the Golden Throne, the Emperor had pronounced judgment on the Traitors: he declared them Excommunicate Traitoris, and determined that they were to be driven into the hellish region of the Warp rift called the Eye of Terror, which would hold them for all eternity. All records and memory of the Traitor Legions were to be expunged from the Imperial archives. Worlds such as Istvaan V and Davin would be scoured clean of all life because of their corruption by Chaos. The Traitor Legions' associated troops from the Dark Mechanicus, the Titan Legions or the regiments and starships of the Imperial Army that had turned to Chaos were to be destroyed or also driven into the Eye of Terror. It would be as if the Traitor Legions had never existed to sully the Imperium with their betrayal.

This was a period of monumental violence, of confusion and darkness. Though the newly founded Imperium fought to root out corruption and expose wrong-doers to the cold light of Imperial justice, the galaxy's scope and dark, shadowed reaches worked against them. With new betrayals and cries for vengeance emerging daily, a great many bloody-handed deeds went unseen. The ravaged Space Marine Legions were no exception to this, with many striving to cover up their own misdemeanors or exact their pound of flesh from those who wronged them. The Dark Angels, the Space Wolves, Iron Hands and even the Ultramarines, all followed their own agendas as the wars of the Great Scouring gathered pace. Fighting continued for another seven standard years after the Heresy had ended with Horus' death on the bridge of his great flagship, the Vengeful Spirit, before the Traitor forces were wholly destroyed or exiled into the Eye of Terror. Many Chaos-corrupted star systems were cleansed and placed under the watch of the newborn Inquisition. Horus' death had not ended the fighting, but it had renewed the resolve of the Loyalists to destroy the Traitors. Many Imperial worlds during the Heresy had refused to commit their forces to either side, or seceded entirely from the Imperium to regain their independence. Such indecision was punished by Loyalist and Traitor forces alike. These forces were often bled white attacking the rebel strongholds of worlds that only wanted to be free of the Imperium entirely, whether it swore allegiance to the Emperor or to the Dark Gods.

Changes swept both the Imperial military and the offices of government. The Space Marine Legions, the vast fighting formations so instrumental in Mankind's victories during the Great Crusade, were broken down into many smaller Chapters comprised of 1,000 Astartes. Overseen by Roboute Guilliman, the Primarch of theUltramarines Legion, he penned his magnum opus, the Codex Astartes -- a great and sacred tome which covered every conceivable topic of military organisation, strategy and tactics. This transition allowed for greater tactical flexibility without placing the command of an entire Space Marine Legion into the hands of one individual -- never again would the awesome power of one hundred thousand Space Marines be misused. The Loyalist Space Marine Legions that had been decimated during the Drop Site Massacre on Istvaan V -- the Raven Guard, Iron Hands and Salamanders -- were slowly reestablished using what little gene-seed the survivors had managed to escape with. The original First Founding Space Marine Legions were divided into smaller Successor Chapters -- one Chapter maintained their parent Legion's original name, badge and colours, while the remaining Chapters took new names and heraldry. These original Chapters are known as the Second Founding Chapters, an event which occurred in the early 31st Millennium and coincided with the beginning of what was known as the Reformation of the Imperium.

Another vast change wrought upon the Imperium's mighty military redefined the nature of the Imperial Army. Once including both the great battleships that plied the stars and the countless soldiers that landed to fight planetside, now the two were divided into the Imperial Navy and Imperial Guard. Across all the agencies of the Imperium, offices and institutions were split, their previous responsibilities fractionalised into separate functions and departments. Many of the countless branches within the sprawling Adeptus Administratum were spawned at this time. With the instigation of these changes, it was not unusual for two separate organisations, each unaware of the other, to be tasked with the same jobs, such as verificator scribes and tithe enumerators poring over the same data, each producing the same reports. These byzantine systems were put in place as fail-safe measures, which have since spiralled out of control into administrative excess. Beyond any such bureaucracies, and standing watch over all, was the newly formed Inquisition, a secretive paramilitary police organisation outside the established hierarchies. Ever vigilant, their role was to question everything in their constant search for threats to humanity. None save the Emperor Himself escape their uncompromising and watchful gaze.

Imperial Stagnation

 * "Mankind stands upon the brink; on the one hand lies a realm of unimaginable power, on the other awaits darkness, death and utter damnation. Only those that follow the guiding light of the Emperor may save their souls."
 * — Inquisitor Damarn, Ordo Malleus

The Imperium of Man is a dystopic society by the standards of the men and women of the 21st Century. The unexpected horrors of the Horus Heresy fatally weakened the nascent Imperium, but more importantly, starting with the Emperor himself, claimed some of its best warriors, technocrats, administrators and diplomats - who fell either in battle with the Traitor Legions or were corrupted by Chaos themselves. But perhaps the most significant consequence seems to have been that like the Emperor, the Imperium itself entered a slowly decaying stasis, while Chaos and the Imperium's myriad xenos enemies are ascendant.

It is known that the period immediately following the Heresy was one of near-anarchy, and that the continuity of the Imperium was not assured. Roboute Guilliman, the Primarch of the Ultramarines, was one of those credited with taking decisive action that kept the Imperium together, possibly with the help of other Loyalist forces and of newly-created Imperial organisations such as the Inquisition and the Officio Assassinorum (it is known that at least one Assassin Temple, the Callidus, was already operating with Imperial sanction, and had successfully assassinated Konrad Curze, the Primarch of the Night Lords Traitor Legion). Ironically, while the Imperium survived, it also seems to be fulfilling predictions or prophesies made about its future by a variety of Chaotic enemies, Traitors, and more neutral or potentially sympathetic observers like the Eldar. Supreme among such ironic twists is the deification of the Emperor and the attendant creation of the Ecclesiarchy, the galaxy-wide church dedicated to the Imperial Creed that teaches that the Emperor is the God of Mankind. The Emperor's express purpose and one of the pillars of the pre-Heresy Imperial doctrine known as the Imperial Truth that was spread by the Imperial forces during the Great Crusade was the elimination of superstition and of belief in supernatural powers, gods, and religion and the promotion of reason and science. It is worth noting that among the ploys used by the Ruinous Powers to turn Horus to their service were uncannily accurate visions of the post-Heresy Imperium in which the Emperor and his Loyalist Primarchs were worshiped by the Imperial masses as a God and his saints, respectively. Of course, unknown to Horus, this was a future caused by his actions, not prevented by them.

Another measure of the Imperium's stagnation has been the lack of real technological progress over the last 10 Divine years and a fear of unknown or ancient technology that sometimes borders on irrational superstition. It seems that the last major era of human technological advancement was the era of discoveries and technological applications made during the planning and execution of the Great Crusade.

In short, the Imperium has become a repressive regime marked by extreme levels of superstition, political repression, religious intolerance, bureaucratisation, economic stagnation, technological regression and inequality. Corruption and injustice are rampant and human life is increasingly worth very little in a galaxy teeming with literally trillions of people. But though the Imperium is repressive and stagnant, it is also the only thing holding the enemies of Mankind at bay. Many in the highest levels of the Imperium know that it must reform if it is to survive, but they fear that the cure might very well kill the patient. And in small pockets of the Imperium there are men and women willing to shoulder the burden of making their small corner of the universe a better place for all by shouldering the responsibilities and the burdens of heroes.

But recently,the Adeptus Mechanicus has secretly reported to the High Lords of Terra that in addition to all the other problems besetting the Imperium, the mechanisms of the Golden Throne are malfunctioning and they no longer possess the necessary knowledge to repair them. Whether the nobles of the Imperium like it or not, a terrible change is coming...

Imperial Military Forces
Mankind has always excelled at the art of war, and the Emperor’s armies are spread across the galaxy. The threat or effects of war are never far away, no matter where you go in the Imperium. Mankind seeks to purge the stars of its enemies, and the bloody carnage it wreaks in doing so shows no sign of abating. The Imperium’s military is at once mighty, glorious and terrible.The military forces of the Imperium include:
 * Imperial Guard - The Imperial Guard is the backbone of the Imperium’s military might. Millions upon millions of well-trained men and women, organised into thousands of regiments, make up the Guard. WithLasgun and bayonet they march upon alien battlefields and garrison vital worlds. They form the Imperium’s first line of defence and they strike the first blow in many Crusades. Its Regiments are drawn in great tithes of manpower from the Imperium’s worlds and each Regiment has a unique character and fighting tradition, from the rigid discipline of the Armageddon Steel Legion to the stealthy brutality of the pale-skinned Stygians and the unflinching bravery of the Vostroyans. Vast conscript armies, elite special forces, massive tank columns and glorious sabre-wielding cavalry can all be found in the Imperial Guard, often fighting alongside one another on Emperor-forsaken worlds they have never heard of. Regiments do not remain on their homeworlds but are raised explicitly to be sent to fight and die light years away from home. And they do die, for the Imperial Guard bear the weight of the Imperium’s wars. It is said that the Emperor knows the name of every soldier that has fallen fighting in His wars—but if that is true, He is the only one who can comprehend just how many Imperial Guardsmen have died in the years since the Emperor "ascended" to the Golden Throne. Those who survive the grinding horrors of a lifetime of war are frequently gifted a portion of the very land they fought to conquer as a reward. As with many things in the Imperium, this is a mixed blessing indeed. The Imperial Guard Regiments are raised from the local armies of the Imperium’s worlds as part of a planet’s tithe to the Imperium. These regiments are normally deployed according to the orders of the Adeptus Divine. However, when the High Lords of Divine declare a major military campaign (often referred to as a “Crusade”) they appoint a Warmaster chosen from among high-ranking Imperial Guard officers to command the campaign's regiments. One of the most famous Warmasters, Macharius, was given the title Lord Solar when he became the Imperial Commander of the entire Segmentum Solar. Macharius proved to be the greatest Imperial general since the Horus Heresy when conquered a thousand worlds on the Imperium’s Eastern Fringe and expanded the Imperium to the very edge of the Astronomican’s reach.
 * Adeptus Astartes - The Adeptus Astartes, better known as the Space Marines, are the elite warriors of the Imperium. They are few in number and regarded with almost mythical awe by most folk, for they are inheritors of traditions founded by the Emperor Himself. The Space Marines are divided into Chapters, each possessing 1,000 Space Marines along with its own support staff and spacefleet. It is said that there are around a thousand such Chapters in the Imperium. A Space Marine is recruited in adolescence from among the most violent cultures of the Imperium. His body is hugely enhanced with new genetically-engineered organs promoting muscle and bone growth to give him immense strength, size and resilience. His mind is similarly enhanced; hypno-doctrination and sleep-learning give him both a fervent belief in the Imperium and the knowledge of weapons and tactics to bring the Emperor’s wrath to the battlefield. Upon completing his augmentation and training (which not all novices survive), he is issued with his wargear, including a suit of Power Armour. This armour is one of the most powerful symbols of Imperial might, depicted in statuary and stained-glass windows in cathedrals all across the Imperium. Equipped with nerve-fibre bundles so it moves in sync with his body, a Space Marine’s armour not only grants him great strength and protection but is a work of art, resplendent in the heraldry of his Chapter. Each Chapter is independent from the Adeptus Terra. While most will eagerly answer the summons of an Imperial Warmaster or a plea for help from somewhere in the Imperium, some Chapters have their own agendas and cannot be relied upon entirely. All, however, serve the Emperor loyally with complete devotion. All Chapters have proud traditions and distinct characteristics that translate into the way they fight. The ferocious Space Wolves, for instance, are more fiercely independent from the Adeptus Divine than most other Chapters and fight on their own terms up close with Chainswords and Bolt Pistols. The Iron Hands, on the other hand, have close ties to the Adeptus Mechanicus and are the masters of siege warfare, arming their warriors with an array of devastating heavy weapons and tanks. Many Chapters are legends, and names such as the Blood Angels, Ultramarines, Dark Angels and Imperial Fists are spoken of with reverent awe among Imperial citizens. A Space Marine Chapter has its own fleet of fast spacecraft and can react far more quickly to a threat than the Imperial Guard or Imperial Navy, making the Adeptus Astartes one of the only forces in the Imperium that can mount a rapid response to a crisis. The Space Marines are extremely few in number compared to the size of the Imperium and few citizens will ever see one in the flesh, but without them the Imperial military and the human race would slide ever faster towards destruction.
 * Grey Knights - The Space Marines of the Grey Knights Chapter are amongst the most highly specialised of the Adeptus Astartes, designed to specifically defend the Imperium against the threat of Chaos. The Grey Knights are permanently attached to the Ordo Malleus as its Chamber Militant and their leaders are rumoured to serve terms as members of the Inner Conclave of the Inquisition. No ordinary warriors, Grey Knights are chosen from amongst the most fearsome and savage feral cultures, each one an emergentpsyker who has undergone arduous tests of faith, strength, endurance and courage that would break all but the strongest. Grey Knights fight in baroque, heavily ornamented suits of armour, carrying mighty sigil-encrusted swords and halberds. These warriors alone can stand before the might of a Greater Daemon with any hope of banishing it back to the Warp. The millennia the Grey Knights have spent in battle against the Forces of Chaos has furnished them with blasphemous knowledge, painstakingly pieced together by the Inquisitors of Ordo Malleus. Each warrior carries a copy of the sacred Liber Daemonica, the holy battle rites of the Chapter, in a Ceramite case on his breastplate, and it is this tome which symbolises a Grey Knight’s most potent weapon: his unshakable faith in the Divine Emperor of Mankind. For above all else, the Emperor protects...
 * Deathwatch - The Space Marines of the Deathwatch are mysterious figures who battle in black Power Armour, fighting with preternatural skill and dedication against the most terrible of alien creatures orxenos, as they are called in the Imperium. They usually appear without warning and vanish as quickly as they arrived, leaving no trace of themselves or of the creatures they have fought. These are the Imperium’s most highly trained xenos fighters, known simply as the Deathwatch. Forming the Chamber Militant of the Inquisition's Ordo Xenos, the Deathwatch uniquely draws its members from across the many different Space Marine Chapters, all of which have sworn sacred oaths to maintain specially trained xenos fighters and stand ready to deploy them at a moment’s notice when the Inquisition requests their aid. These specialised warriors are drawn together as and when needed by the Ordo to combat alien menaces whenever and wherever it rears its vile head. Rumour has it that Ordo Xenos maintains a number of secret fortresses at the fringes of the Imperium where the Deathwatch keeps a silent and constant vigil, ever watchful for the tell-tale signs of alien encroachment.
 * Collegia Titanica - The Collegia Titanica is the division of the Adeptus Mechanicus that includes the Legions composed of Titans, the colossal Imperial robotic war machines that are the most powerful engines of war in the Imperium of Man. The Collegia is also more rarely known as the Adeptus Titanicus (a contraction of "Adeptus Mechanicus Collegia Titanica").
 * Sisters of Battle (Orders Militant of the Adepta Sororitas) - The Adepta Sororitas, also known as the Sisters of Battle, are an all-female division of the Imperial Cult's ecclesiastical organisation known as theEcclesiarchy or, more formally, as the Adeptus Ministorum. The Sisterhood's Orders Militant serve as the Ecclesiarchy's fighting arm, mercilessly rooting out corruption and heresy within humanity and every organisation of the Adeptus Divine. There is naturally some overlap between the duties of the Sisterhood and the Imperial Inquisition; for this reason, although the Inquisition and the Sisterhood remain entirely separate organisations, the Orders Militant of the Sisterhood also act as the Chamber Militant of the Inquisition's Ordo Hereticus. The Adepta Sororitas and the Sisters of Battle are commonly regarded as the same organisation, but the latter title technically refers only to the Orders Militant of the Adepta Sororitas, the best-known part of the Adepta. The Sisterhood serves as the Ministorum's only official military force because the Decree Passive laid down by the reformist Ecclesiarch Sebastian Thor held that in the wake of the Age of Apostasy, the Ecclesiarchy cannot maintain any men under arms. This was supposed to limit the power of the Ecclesiarchy. However, the Ministorum were able to circumvent this decree by using the all-female force of the Sisterhood.
 * Imperial Navy - The Imperial Navy holds nearly all of the Imperium’s fighting vessels; local governments, Warmasters and others are forbidden to maintain their own fleets of warships. Their spacecraft include some of the most potent engines of destruction in the whole galaxy, including mighty battleships thousands of years old. The Navy’s ships range from small escorts with a crew of a few dozen to the immense Emperor-class Battleships which might have 20,000 souls or more on board. The Navy also includes fighter and bomber crews and aircraft that support the Imperial Guard on the ground. The Navy’s officer class is highly traditional and aristocratic in character. The Imperium’s noble families frequently boast naval officers among their number and naval dynasties dominate many battlefleets. Elitism is a virtue on most ships, where the officers’ lives are in stark contrast to those of the ratings and engine crews. With thousands of crew living and dying on ships that can spend decades without seeing port, a ship of the Imperial Navy becomes a city in space. Mutinies are not unknown and the Naval security battalions of Armsmen are a familiar sight on the decks of all naval ships, their black visors and shotguns constantly reminding the men that obedience is their duty to the Emperor. The Navy relies on many other organisations to function. Perhaps most importantly, these ancient and complex ships could not function without a complement of Tech-Priests who know how to appease the starships’ Machine Spirits and maintain technology that is too old and mysterious to be replicated. The Navy is also reliant on the Tech-Priests of Mars for refits, upgrades, repairs and new starships. It is usual for a warship to have Astropaths on board, for proper communication is essential if the Imperium is to be defended. Many captains are glad to have Ministorum clergy among their crew, ministering to the spiritual needs of the men and steeling their spirits with sermons. Commissars are appointed to the larger ships, watching over the moral fibre of the crew and providing a watch against mutiny and impiety. Then, of course, there is the Navigatorof each vessel, whose family can occupy entire spires jutting out into space atop the ship.
 * Skitarii, the Legio Cybernetica and squads of Combat Servitors - These are three types of autonomous military ground forces deployed the Adeptus Mechanicus to protect their Forge Worlds and to assist Imperial military campaigns when necessary.
 * Inquisitorial Storm Troopers - The Inquisition maintains its own own corps of highly-trained special operations forces who are similar to the Imperial Guard's elite Storm Troopers that guard the secret installations of the Inquisition across the galaxy. The Inquisition maintains a number of fortresses throughout the galaxy, both secret and known to the inhabitants of the Imperium. Inquisitorial Storm Troopers are used by the Imperial Inquisition to guard their fortresses and the Black Ships as they make their purity runs across the Imperium's sectors, and they also augment an individual Inquisitor's personal forces with reliable and effective soldiers. Many Storm Troopers of particular skill are chosen to become an Inquisitor's Throne Agents. Inquisitorial Storm Troopers are selected from families with a record of unwavering faith in the Emperor and prior duty to the Inquisition, usually from the Schola Progenium. They are trained and equipped in a manner similar to Imperial Guard Storm Troopers, albeit lacking the rapid insertion and infiltration skills, as they are not expected to undertake such types of missions which are more often carried out for the Inquisition by the Officio Assassinorum.