The Silver Wheel is a Chaos Cult dedicated to Tzeentch active in the Empire. It is somewhat more low-key than other such cults. Its members are the hedge wizards, cunning-men, and village witches familiar to every peasant throughout the Empire and beyond. Most of them have no idea who and what they are truly working for.[1a]
These hedge wizards do not have anything so formal as a guild or a College of Magic, but still find it useful to communicate with one another. Each will be aware of his or her neighbouring village wizards, perhaps sending carrier pigeons to keep in touch, sometimes meeting up to swap spells and potion recipes. Most of the Electoral Provinces of the Empire have annual meetings of their hedge wizards to do the same thing on a larger scale. The organisers of those meetings, and many of the attending hedge wizards, are part of one of the largest but most nebulous Chaos Cults in all the Empire.[1a]
All magic is inherently tainted with Chaos, and the purpose of the Silver Wheel is to increase that Chaos, slowly but surely. Adding the tiniest quantities of warpstone to boost the power of a potion, incorporating a word or two of the Dark Tongue into a spoken charm, or hiding a Chaos sigil within the complex designs inscribed onto a talisman, are all ways in which these cultists can achieve their ends. Other hedge wizards, being by nature somewhat empirical in any case, are apt to welcome new techniques without enquiring too deeply about their origin.[1a]