It was the 36th Millennium.

For more than fifty centuries The Emperor had sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. As he is now, so was he then. The Master of Mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. A rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. The Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he will never truly die.

While He lay in his deathless state, the Adeptus Terra struggled to serve Him during the Age of Apostasy. Mighty battlefleets still crossed the daemon-infested miasma of the Warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor's will. Vast armies of humans battled each other in his name at the decree of High Lord Goge Vandire, but the Emperor's Angels of Death, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors, did not answer the High Lord's calls. They avoided the festering civil war while securing from all foes- human, alien, and worse- the regions of space which made up their domains. The armies that did wage war at Vandire's decree were myriad: The Imperial Guard, planetary defense forces, and the countless fanatics of the Frateris Templar. All the while, the Ordos Malleus and Xenos of the ever-vigilant Inquisition kept watch for signs of Chaos and aliens, with the Grey Knights and DeathWatch chapters of the Adeptus Astartes awaiting their call.

The Thulean Expanse lies at what was once the official edge of the Imperium, and at its farthest reach lay a trio of systems known as the Three Brothers: Lech, Czech, and Rus. And beyond farthest Thule lies the Breath of the Chimaera, a Warp storm with no known navigable paths. But it was not always so. Once, Warp routes led from the Three Brothers, through the Abalatian Pass, and into the Abalus Reach beyond the Chimaera's Breath. A place of promise and growth after the Imperium was forged. A place sundered by the High Lord Vandire's Reign of Blood. This is a tale of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the Age of Apostasy, there was only war. There was no peace amongst the stars, only carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.

But, was that humanity's only option?