13th Black Crusade - Time of Ending: In the days just before the 13th Black Crusade erupted, it seemed that the end of days must surely be nigh. Traitors, mutants and Heretics rebelled in unprecedented numbers. The curse of the psyker ran rampant through Humanity's collective soul. The hellish energies of the Warp pressed close against the veil of reality, and every day brought inevitable doom a little closer...To dwell within the Imperium of Man is to inhabit a dystopian nightmare. The faceless masses of Humanity are little more than grist for the mill of survival, an ever-abundant fuel source that keeps the bloody wheels turning.Endless billions labour in the fire-lit confines of factory worlds, entire generations living and dying without ever seeing the sky. Hive cities groan with the weight of unimaginably vast Human populations, whose existences are naught but toil and sorrow.From the bellies of leviathan warships to the mindless drudgery of city-sized scriptorums, from the crowded warrens of lightless underhives to the frozen misery of perilous asteroid mines, every day is filled with hardship for the common folk of the Emperor's realm. It is well that it is so. Those with their heads bowed by exhaustion cannot look up to see the horrors pressing close from the darkness above.The same cannot be said for Humanity's leaders. To them falls the burden of knowledge, and the terrible weight of responsibility. Many times throughout its history, the Imperium has known great danger, yet rarely were matters been as bleak as in the Time of Ending in the late 41st Millennium.The barbarous Orks multiplied and spread in every corner of the galaxy, bringing mindless devastation to all in their path. The deathless legions of the Necrons rose from their Tomb Worlds and plied the stars, seeking to exterminate the Human vermin infesting their empire of old.On the Eastern Fringe, the Imperium faced the growing threat of the technologically superior T'au Empire, while from the outer darkness beyond the galaxy came the questing tendrils of the Tyranid hive fleets, devouring every world they overran.Yet all of these threats paled beside the most insidious of all, that of Chaos. From beyond the veil of reality, the Ruinous Powers exhort their mortal followers to ever greater acts of diabolic cruelty and destruction, while daemonic legions rip their way through the skin of realspace in terrifying numbers.The defenders of the Imperium stand firm against these nightmarish threats. The teeming ranks of the Astra Militarum and Adeptus Mechanicus fight alongside the elite warriors of the Space Marines, the Adepta Sororitas and Grey Knights.But for all their efforts, more worlds are lost every standard year, even supposedly impregnable strongholds such as Enceladus and Minisotira being swallowed by anarchy.Dark omens and dread portents ran rife. The Oracle of Ulandros spoke for the first time in ten generations, prophesying death on a scale never seen before. The famed Silver Saints of Callistos II wept tears of blood and ichor, and would not stop.Seers and mystics across the Imperium were beset by grandiose visions of mighty angels and monstrous devils doing battle in a firmament lit by ghostly fires. Even as much of the Segmentum Pacificus fell ominously silent, astropathic choirs throughout Segmentum Solar were overwhelmed by ﬂoods of psychic cries issuing from every other corner of the galaxy.Around the Eye of Terror, Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade prepared to hammer against the Cadian Gate. In the Fenris System, brother fought brother as Magnus the Red wreaked a terrible vengeance upon those who wronged him and his Traitor Legion during the Horus Heresy.War was everywhere, from one end of the Imperium to the other, and yet those with the curse of foresight whispered of worse to come.Darkness loomed upon the horizon, they warned. A stygian tidal wave rushed closer with every passing hour to drown all of Humanity beneath its icy waters.