The Stellar Imperium

The **Stellar Imperium** is a galaxy-spanning interstellar Human empire, the ultimate authority for the majority of the Human races in the Milky Way Galaxy in the 91st Millennium A.D. It is ruled by the living god who is known as the Emperor of Mankind.

However, there are other humanoid species classified as Imperial citizens, mainly mutant offshoots of genetic base-line Humans who are known as Abhumans and include such Human sub-races as the Ogryns, Ratlings and Squats.

The founder and ruler of the Imperium is the God-like Emperor of Mankind, the most powerful Human conduit ever born. The Emperor founded the Imperium in the late 90th Millennium during his Terran Unification Wars on Old Earth following the terrible period in Human history known as the Long Dark.

The Emperor continues, at least nominally, to rule the Imperium as both its political master and its primary religious figure.

The Imperium of Man is a growing but war-torn stellar empire, always teetering on the brink of war. For centuries it has been ruled by the eternal Emperor of Man, a being of almost limitless psychic strength, to whom billions of souls devout their fealty too.

The peoples of the Imperium live in a galaxy where Daemons are real, mutation is frequent and death is a constant companion. To be alive in the 91st Millennium is to know that the universe is a terrifying and hostile place. It is a place where you are but one amongst billions.

A truly vast domain, the Stellar Imperium is spread amongst the many stars of the galaxy. Its territories encompass untold millions of stars and countless more Human lives.

In its name, terrible wars are fought and desperate sacrifices made, yet even this river of carnage and blood is a small price to pay, for the Imperium is the guardian of Humanity. Were it to pass into nothingness, so too would the Human species, destroyed by enemies uncountable, to the braying laughter of the Dark Gods.

The Imperium is the largest and currently most powerful political entity in the galaxy, consisting of a growing number of Human-settled worlds dispersed across most of the Milky Way Galaxy. Consequently, an Imperial planet might be separated from its closest neighbor by hundreds if not even thousands of light years.

As a stellar empire, the size of the Stellar Imperium cannot be measured in terms of contiguous territory, but only in the growing number of planetary systems under its control. However, most Humans in the galaxy have little day-to-day contact with the government of the Imperium unless they serve in one of its Imperial Ordo Regimae or run afoul of its various protectors, such as the Enigmatic Order Inquisitorious or the Imperial Ordo Arbitatum.

The Imperium is primarily an interstellar tribute empire, allowing its member worlds to largely govern themselves as long as they recognise the authority of the Emperor and His servants and support his state religion, which holds the Emperor to be the one, true God of Mankind.

Every world of the Stellar Imperium must also pay the Imperial taxes levied on them in the form of troops and materiel that is known as the Imperial Tithe. These resources go to the service of the Imperial Ordo Militant and the Imperial Navy, the armed forces which keep the Stellar Imperium united and safe.

The Imperial Tithe supports the overall economy of the Imperium by redistributing resources where and when needed, usually to shore up one region of the Imperium where conflict is raging by drawing resources from more peaceful sectors.

In general, the Stellar Imperium promotes the development of a neo-feudal political system.

This intense need for political stability and the growing military demands upon the Imperial system presented by the myriad and growing threats of the 91st Millennium have created a somewhat stagnant but growing galactic government.