It is the forty first millennium and mankind has spread throughout space. The initial human colonisation of the galaxy lies in the distant past, separated from the present by millennia of regression and rebuilding. Human worlds are scattered throughout the galaxy but their distribution is not even. The greatest density of human worlds is in the galactic west, close to Earth. In the galactic east, in the area known as the Eastern Fringe, human worlds are few and often far apart.

New human worlds are being discovered all the time, and there remains an unknown number which have been isolated and forgotten for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. All of this only represents a tiny proportion of the stellar systems in the galaxy. Many worlds benefit from mutual contact and a comparable level of technology. Others have become primitive and barbarous, often as a result of long periods of isolation.

A major factor in the social, economic and technical development of human and alien worlds is the relative isolation of each solar system. Interstellar travel is not rare, but the vastness of the galaxy means that most worlds are distant and sometimes difficult to reach. The continual outbreaks of warp storms sometimes result in worlds being cut off for indeterminate periods of time and sometimes for good.

GALACTIC STATISTICS

The Spiral Arms
These comprise recent stars and gas clouds where new stars are born. It is within these arms that the majority of the galaxy's inhabited worlds can be found.

The Galactic Core
This consists of older and cooler stars and a large nucleus of hydrogen and other gases. There are few inhabitable worlds in the Galactic Core.

Halo Stars
Surrounding the galactic disc is a halo of very old stars, some of which are grouped together in stellar clusters. The stellar density in the halo is very low and the halo itself extends over a diameter of approximately two hundred thousand light years. It is almost entirely unexplored and probably contains few habitable star systems.

Galactic Diameter
The galactic disc measures approximately 90 thousand light years across.

Thickness of Disc
At its centre the disc measures approximately 15 thousand light years thick.

THE EYE OF TERROR

This is a swirling eye-shaped cluster of stars and is the largest intrusion of warp space in the galaxy. It is here that the fabric of the material universe has broken down and been consumed by the warp. It can be plainly seen as a swirl of stars in the form of a vast unblinking eye spanning over ten thousand light years of space. The Eye of Terror is the largest known zone of warp/real space overlap. There are many other such zones scattered throughout the galaxy, but they are much smaller and much less significant. At the centre of the Eye of Terror is a hole in the fabric of space like a puncture in the skin of a balloon. The raw energy of Chaos pours through this hole and mixes with the material universe. As a result of this intermixture, the Eye of Terror is not wholly subject to the laws of time or space. Its boundaries effectively mark an end to normal habitable space.

There are stars and worlds within the Eye of Terror, but they are unlike the familiar stars, solar systems, and planets that populate the rest of the galaxy. Each world is a self-contained manifestation of a unique nightmarish sub-reality, a vision of hell formed without regard for the logic of either astrophysics or nature. The energy of the warp saturates these places and sustains a cosmology based on the inhuman perceptions of the Powers of Chaos. Thus there are worlds which are flat like dinner plates, worlds surrounded by circling fireballs which provide light and warmth, and tiered worlds like gigantic wedding cakes rising step-by-step on supporting pillars. No-one can say exactly how many of these realities exist inside the Eye of Terror. There must be many thousands if not tens of thousands. Indeed, their number and even their very form are probably inconstant and unpredictable.

DAEMON WORLDS

The Eye of Terror contains the Daemon Worlds of Chaos; bizarre sub-realities ruled by terrible Daemon Princes. On these worlds Chaos reigns triumphant. The four Great Powers continuously compete to posses the Daemon Worlds. Armies of daemons and their living allies fight huge and bloody battles to determine which of the Chaos Powers will posses them. These battles often last for hundreds of years, so that the entire world becomes little more than a gigantic arena where the opposing forces are pitched against each other. The Chaos Powers do not, of course, appear in person to lead their armies - they are spectators to events not participants. Their generals are Greater Daemons and favoured Daemon Princes who, because they were once alive, understand the nature of both the material universe and the immaterial Realm of Chaos. Once a Daemon Prince has conquered a world, his grateful Patron gives it to him as a gift to rule over as he wishes.

When a Daemon Prince takes control of his hard-won world he uses his mighty powers to reshape it to a form which pleases him. Because of this, every world is different and all are equally spectacular in their own way. The most powerful psykers in the Imperium have reported dreams or visions in which worlds of the Eye of Terror have been revealed to them. On one world a black sun stands in a white sky and smoky threads pour from it onto a tangled black city - this is said to be the homeworld of the Daemon Prince Perturbo, formerly the Space Marine Primarch of the Iron Warriors. Another world has boiling lakes of blood from which spheres of fire float into the sky and spread their light across the firmament - the ruler of this world is the Daemon Prince Bubonicus, formerly a mortal Champion of Nurgle on one of the myriad lost worlds in the galaxy. Visions of such places disturb the psychically sensitive throughout the entire galaxy.