Warp Rift
Warp Rifts, also known as Warp Portals, are tears in reality that link the Materium to the Immaterium.
Overview
A Warp rift is a weakening of the barrier between real space and the Warp, allowing its creatures to enter the material universe. Sometimes, Warp rifts occur randomly, while other times, the Chaos Gods or mortals manufacture them. Some last mere moments, others for days, years, or even centuries. They can take many forms, often a seething whirlpool of raw magic, other times they may show a glimpse into the realm of Chaos; they have also appeared as gates of green fire, clouds of impenetrable shadow, boiling lakes of pus, and other terrifying visions driving mortals mad. Examples that can induce a Warp rift include unpredictable movements of the Warp causing a break into real space, daemon possession of a mortal, deliberate rituals of daemon summoning, a focus of suffering and death from a great war, chance circumstances such as a Warp drive implosion, or most insidiously through the mind of an unprotected psychic creature.[1]
Notable Warp Rifts
- The Eye of Terror - Formed from the birth of Slaanesh in the heart of the old Eldar Empire
- The Maelstrom
- The Great Rift - The largest Warp Rift ever observed, formed after the 13th Black Crusade at the end of the 41st Millennium.[2]
- The Scourge Stars
- The Somnium Stars
- Malefactus
- The Hadex Anomaly
- Van Grothe's Rapidity
- The Daemon's Maw[3]
- The Bleak Coil[3]
- The Siren's Storm
- The Sore
- Annihilus[3]
- The Green Maw[4]
- The Inferni Gates[5]
- The Hadean Trinary[5]
- The Startide Nexus - Artificially created Warp Rift created by the T'au upon mass activation of the AL-38 Slipstream Modules
Warp Portal
Warp Portals are small stable rifts which connect a fixed point in Real Space to a fixed point in the Warp,[6] mostly useful to the Imperium as a means for a ship without a working Warp Drive to exit the warp. The Xenos known as the Enslavers are known to make heavy use of Warp Portals,[6] and were capable of compelling enslaved Psykers into creating new Warp Portals to points in the warp from which Enslavers could flow.[7]
See Also
Sources
- 1: Codex: Chaos Daemons (4th Edition), pgs. 13-16
- 2: The Great Rift
- 3: Warhammer 40,000 9th Edition Rulebook pgs. 25-26
- 4: Warhammer 40,000 6th Edition Rulebook pg. 221
- 5: Codex: Chaos Space Marines (10th Edition), pgs. 18-19
- 6: Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, pg. 131
- 7: Codex: Necrons (3rd Edition), pg. 25
