Warhammer World

The Warhammer World is the planet that serves as the setting for the Warhammer universe. It was once considered a part of the same universe in which Warhammer 40,000 is set, and thus is a human-settled world in the Milky Way Galaxy set in the far future of Mankind. In recent years, the staff of Games Workshop has sought to make clear that Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 are entirely different settings with little overlap between them, but they have also never outright contradicted the earlier information that both settings lay within the same fictional universe. Assuming that the original information was true, the Warhammer World is likely what the Imperium of Man would classify as a Feudal World that lies partly within or in the nearby vicinity of a Warp Rift like the Eye of Terror or the Maelstrom. The Warhammer World was a planet terraformed and geographically shaped millions of Terran years ago by the extraordinarily powerful alien beings known as the Old Ones for them to experiment upon, which explains why its continents are so very similar to those of Old Earth, another world once touched by the Old Ones. The Elves and Dwarfs of the Warhammer World are intelligent races created by the Old Ones who are analagous to the more widespread species known as the Eldarthe Old Ones also created long ago while the Dwarfs are in essence very much like the heavy-gravity adapted Abhumans called the Squats. It is unknown from where the Men of the Warhammer World originated, but if the planet is located in the same universe that Warhammer 40,000 is set in, they are most likely the descendants of humans transplanted by the Old Ones millennia before from Old Earth during its Neolithic period or they are the posterity of human colonists who arrived from Terra during the Dark Age of Technology who settled on the Warhammer World but lost all of their advanced technology and reverted to a primitive, pre-industrial state over many centuries. The various Greenskin races of Orcs and Goblins that infest the Warhammer World are likely the descendants of Feral Orks and Gretchin whose reproductive fungal spores infested the Warhammer World like so many other planets in the galaxy.

Whatever the truth of its origins, the Warhammer World is a temperate planet whose surface is covered by several great continents, each with their own distinct civilizations and native creatures. In many ways the Warhammer World is very similar in its geography to Old Earth, although it is actually much larger in area and greater in scope; for instance, the World's Edge Mountains which form the eastern boundary of the geographical area known as the Old World are far taller than any mountain range of Earth. The Warhammer World is orbited by two moons -- the white moon Mannslieb and the dark moon Morrslieb, which is said to actually be a giant chunk of Warpstone ejected into the atmosphere long ago when the Old Ones' Warp Gates first collapsed and began spilling the power of raw Chaos into the material world. According to the earliest legends of the High Elf and Dwarf races, the world's geography and climate was shaped by a space-faring intelligent race called the Old Ones, who possessed god-like powers. They built so-called "Warp Gates" at the north and south poles of the planet which allowed them to travel quickly and nearly instantaneously through the vastness of space between their myriad colony and research worlds, but they were driven away from the world when the Warp Gates suddenly collapsed for unknown reasons, an event which initiated the coming of Chaos into the Warhammer World.

The Old World
The Old World is a large geographical area found in the Warhammer World's Eastern Hemisphere, consisting of several human states, such as The Empire (west of which lies the magically-shrouded isle of Albion), Bretonnia, Estalia, Tilea and Kislev, north of which is the Chaos-loyal land of Norsca. To the south are the petty kingdoms, city-states and towns known as the Border Princes. The natural borders of the Old World are the Sea of Claws or Great Ocean to the west, and the World's Edge Mountains which effectively form its eastern border. The Old World is equivalent in culture and technological sophistication to the continent of Europe on Earth at the end of the Late Middle Ages in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries AD, and is covered mostly in human nations, with a notable Dwarf population in the World's Edge Mountains and other mountainous regions.

The New World
The New World consists of the Western Hemisphere continents of Naggaroth, Lustria and the wild areas in between (notably the Isthmus of Lustria, a narrow strip of forested land between southern Naggaroth and northern Lustria). The New World is historically either full of dangerous creatures like the reptilian Cold Ones or barren and desolate. In fact only the Dark Elves, some primitive human tribes and the Lizardmen dwell here. This region is analogous to the Americas on Earth, with Naggaroth being the equivalent of North America and Lustria South America.

The Eastern Lands
The Eastern Lands consist of the barren Dark Lands east of the Old World and the World's Edge Mountains, the Grand Empire of Cathay (the equivalent of Ming China), the isle of Nippon (the equivalent of Imperial Japan, from which it gets its name), the Ogre Kingdoms which are in the Mountains of Mourn, the Kingdoms of Ind (India), the Hinterlands of Khuresh (Southeast Asia) and the icy Eastern Steppes (equivalent to Mongolia and the Eurasian steppe). These regions are roughly the equivalent of various parts of Asia on Earth.

The Southlands
The Southlands consist of the tropical Southlands themselves which lie far to the south of the Border Princes, the ancient, tomb-filled ruins of the Kingdom of Nehekhara (also known to the people of the Old World as the Land of the Dead) and the dry, desert land of Araby, north of which is the Badlands and the Marshes of Madness. The World's Edge Mountains continue down the eastern Badlands and run south straight through the centre of the Southlands. These areas and their populations reflect Africa and the Middle East on Earth, geographically, culturally and technologically.

Ulthuan
Ulthuan is an enchanted circular-shaped island-continent in the northern Great Ocean which is the homeland of the High Elves, with similarities to the legendary Atlantis of ancient Greek legend, although some say (based on its geographical location) that it is more analogous to Greenland. Many other islands surround Ulthuan and it is politically divided into the sheltered and highly cultured Inner Kingdoms found on the continent's inner coastline and the wild and rugged Outer Kingdoms which comprise its outer coastline.

The Chaos Wastes
The Chaos Wastes are located at the north and south polar regions of the Warhammer World. At the very center of the planet's north and south poles are the giant portals to the Realm of Chaos, another dimension underlying the physical world that is entirely separate from the material universe. This dimension is also sometimes called the Immaterium, the Aethyr or the Warp. These portals were once the Old Ones' Warp Gates, but they are now the source of the Winds of Magic that blow across the world from the Ream of Chaos. The Chaos Wastes are, at their very edges, a tundra-like, arctic landscape. As one ventures inwards towards the Chaos Portals, the land and its inhabitants become ever more twisted by the mutating and warping effects of raw magical energy - the pure power of Chaos. Daemons, Northmen and savage mutants such as Beastmen inhabit the Wastes. The deep Chaos Wastes near the poles are places unfathomable to most mortal minds, and no sane man has ventured deep into the Wastes and survived...aside from Felix Jaeger, of course.

The Great Ocean
The Great Ocean has also been called the "World Pond" by the Old Ones and their Slann servants and is a large ocean between the Old World, the Southlands, and the New World and is also the geographic equivalent of the Atlantic Ocean on Earth. The Great Ocean joins the Far Sea at the southern tip of Lustria, and the Sea of Dread at the southern tip of the Southlands.

The Far Sea
The Far Sea is a large ocean geographically analogous to the Pacific Ocean on Earth between Cathay, Khuresh and the west coast of the continent of Naggaroth in the New World. Nippon and the Isles of Ethlis are in this ocean, as are the Sulpheret Islands, Turtle Isles and Broken Lands. The Far Sea joins the Sea of Dread at the Gates of Caliph (the southern tip of Khuresh and the northern tip of the southern Chaos Wastes).

The Sea of Dread
The Sea of Dread is a medium-sized ocean that is the geographic equivalent of the Indian Ocean on Earth, south of the Dark Lands and east of the Southlands, west of the Kingdoms of Ind. The Dragon Isles are in the Sea of Dread, directly south of the Dark Lands, as well as many smaller tributaries and some isolated High Elf island colonies.

The Inner Sea of Ulthuan
The Inner Sea is the central sea inside the crescent-shaped island-continent of Ulthuan. It is divided into two major regions; an eastern region called the Sea of Dreams, and a western part called the Sea of Dusk. The High Elf fortress city of Lothern guards the Straits of Lothern which lead into the Inner Sea, protecting Ulthuan's Inner Kingdoms from attack.