Ten thousand years before the grimdark present, the Emperor of Mankind's favorite son turned a galaxy-spanning crusade into a civil war that has never truly ended. This is the tragedy at the heart of Warhammer 40,000 — and why its wound still bleeds.

From two dead god-races fighting over the galaxy 60 million years ago to a resurrected demigod waging holy war in the present — the full history of the grimdark future, in order, with the dates that lie to you on purpose.

In the 41st millennium there are no good guys, no rescue, and no peace treaty waiting at the end. Here is why the galaxy of Warhammer 40,000 is structurally incapable of stopping the war, and why that is the entire point.

A galaxy at total war needs combatants worth fearing. Here is the cast — a dying god-empire, four nightmare powers wearing reality like a glove, and a dozen alien races that all believe they are the protagonists.

A galaxy of a million worlds, ruled by a god-emperor who has been dying for ten thousand years. Welcome to the 41st millennium, where the most optimistic thing you can say is that humanity has survived — and that may be the worst part.

In 2015, Games Workshop did something almost no franchise dares to do: it ended its 30-year-old fantasy world for real — cracked the planet in half and let it die. Here is how the Old World fell, and what rose from its ashes.

The Old World was never going to win. From daemon-haunted poles to a rat empire under every floor, here is why Warhammer Fantasy is a story about civilizations fighting entropy with one hand tied behind their back.

Dwarfs who write their grudges in a book that never ends. Rats who deny their own existence. Elves split by a single denied throne. A tour of the powers fighting over a dying fantasy world — and the hatreds that keep them from ever uniting against the thing that will kill them all.

A dark-medieval Europe that never was, eight invisible winds of magic, and a hole in the sky at the top of the world. This is the Old World — the fantasy setting Games Workshop built over thirty years, then deliberately blew up in 2015.