Realm of Chaos

> "*Beyond the reality you know, beneath everything you believe, there is another existence. A plane of eternal madness and hungry monsters. Only the evil, the corrupt, and the insane seek to contemplate the Realm of Chaos, only the foolish dare to trespass upon its horrors.*"
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> —High Magos Antonius Caracalla, executed for heresy

The **Realm of Chaos** is a plane of existence of the Cosmos Arcane, and the ultimate source of all magical energies in creation. It is a hellish place comprised of realms of roiling, continuous change. Any mortal who enters this plane bodily without some form of arcane protection is devoured by its daemonic denizens, transformed by its uncontrolled energies or mutated for all eternity. The Realm of Chaos is a dimension of nightmares comprised of pure magic that has been shaped by the darkest collective desires and beliefs of self-aware mortals. In this warped plane of existence, the deepest horrors and mortal fears are given form, and time and space twist insanely in upon themselves.

Beyond the eight Mortal Realms exists the Realm of Chaos -- an infernal plane of daemons and the Chaos Gods who are their divine masters. It is from this vast hellscape that the mortal and daemonic hordes of Chaos draw their strength and lay siege to the other realms. The fell magic that empowers Chaos sorcerers and witches has its beginnings here. The abhorrent mutations that afflict those corrupted by Chaos are manifestations of the malign power that saturates this realm. It is a place where all that is mortal is transformed, reshaped in body, mind, and soul by the Ruinous Powers. A domain where daemons can take form and persist without the limitations of mortal host-bodies, the need for blood sacrifices, and arcane rituals to maintain their presence on the mortal planes. Here is an existence where the most terrible mortal nightmares are given shape and form.

Within the Realm of Chaos, each of the five major Dark Gods has their own dominion. By far the largest is that claimed by the Blood God Khorne, god of war, wrath and murder, the Blood God's Domain. His lands are a vast blood-soaked battlefield of brass and bone. Bands of mortals and packs of daemons wage ceaseless battle across this infernal land, their bloodlust celebrating Khorne's martial might. Here, in this land of war and slaughter the Brass Citadel rises. Standing at the centre of the Blood God's domain, this towering fortress is vast beyond measure, its highest towers reaching beyond the sky. The Skull Throne of Khorne stands at the core of the Brass Citadel, a colossal seat of brass that rests upon an ever-growing mountain of skulls.

The Garden of Nurgle, also called the Land of the Plaguelord, is the domain of Nurgle, god of disease, decay and despair. It is a diseased land filled with stagnant swamps, foetid jungles, and lakes of pus. Each part of the Garden is carefully tended by the Plague God's daemonic Plaguebearers, cultivating the raw materials from which Nurgle will brew new diseases. There are many corrupted realmgates within the Garden, dotting the pestilential landscape, each portal allowing Nurgle's infections to spread into the Mortal Realms. Many of these link the Realm of Chaos to Ghyran, the Realm of Life, the mortal realm Nurgle covets the most. The Garden of Nurgle is frequently beset by incursions from the Crystal Labyrinth of Tzeentch. Spikes from the labyrinth penetrate the Garden and crystallise its surroundings. Nurgle's daemonic Plague Legions fend off these invasions, driving back the Tzeentchian daemons. But such victories are only temporary, and another intrusion soon manifests.

Tzeentch, the Changer of Ways, god of change, sorcery and intrigue, has turned his domain, the Realm of the Sorcerer, into an ever-changing land of mutation and madness. Mountains rise and collapse, rivers become plumes of feathered rock, sound becomes liquid and light shifts into odour. Nothing exists with permanence in Tzeentch’s domain, even time unfolds with capricious randomness. One feature is endowed with more longevity than anything
else: the Crystal Labyrinth. It is here, in this endless maze that Tzeentch plots his conspiracies, and manipulates both mortals and gods. The Crystal Labyrinth is always changing, sometimes appearing as a megalopolis of glass towers, crystal monoliths, and diamond bastions. At others it is a great jungle of ruby trees and gilded lakes. Only the essence of the place remains constant, for it is one with the Great Mutator.

The realm of Slaanesh, the god of pleasure and pain, known as the Dark Prince's Realm, is divided into six domains or circles, each of which was crafted to tempt mortals to their doom with ways as varied as there are sins. At the heart of the realm lies Slaanesh's pleasure palace, at the centre of which rises a sumptuously gilded, and empty, throne. Slaanesh's daemonic followers broke into many factions in his absence. Some sought to take his place, some sought their missing master out, and some merely awaited his return -- but all remained impossibly seductive and equally deadly.

The Great Horned Rat too has its stronghold in the Realm of Chaos. Blight City is an enormous metropolis infested by the verminous skaven. Some say it was wrenched whole from the destruction of the World-That-Was and placed within the Realm of Chaos, not that the skaven care from whence it came. Straddling realities, Blight City makes it possible for the Skaven to create gnawholes into the Mortal Realms to spread their pestiferous species. A second great civil war amidst the ratmen is said to be imminent -- for the Clans Skryre and Pestilens each seek to lead the Skaven into a new era of magical possibilities made possible by the Necroquake.

Between the greater domains exist blighted wastelands of darkness and horror, in an infinite variety of forms. In these forgotten places lurk the lowest of the daemons, self-aware manifestations of pure Chaos itself, unaligned to any of the Dark Gods, and terrible to behold.

## Divine Domains

* **Land of the Plaguelord** - The Plague God Nurgle's domain in the Realm of Chaos.

* **Realm of the Sorcerer** - The domain of Tzeentch, god of change, sorcery and intrigue.

* **Blood God's Domain** - The homeland of Khorne, god of war, wrath and murder.

* **Dark Prince's Realm** - The realm of the Prince of Excess, Slaanesh, god of pleasure and pain.

* **Blight City** - Blight City is a city of the skaven that some legends hold was lifted intact from the World-That-Was by the Great Horned Rat and brought into the Realm of Chaos to serves as a new home for its ratmen children. Blight City is an interdimensional nexus which exists both in the Realm of Chaos and the other realms of the Cosmos Arcane, allowing the skaven to gnaw their way into all of the Eight Realms.

## Sources

* *Warhammer Age of Sigmar Roleplay - Soulbound - Rulebook* (RPG), pp. 184-185