The Aethyr Before we concern ourselves with the gods and entities, let's try to describe the Aethyr

itself. Quote: Originally Posted by Liber Chaotica We magisters are taught that the Empyrean is a non-place that both exists as its own reality and has no physical dimensions or scales. It is pure energy without boundaries, and yet it is linked to life and the physical universe in ways that cannot be severed. But the Empyrean is not simply cold and senseless energy; it is influenced by, and is perhaps a product of, the emotions and thoughts of all living creatures. Though not truly a place, it is yet inhabited by beings of power and consciousness of near infinite proportions. I am sure Kless has expressed ad nauseam in his investigations humanity, and all other intelligent races, have embraced these beings as their pantheons of gods and daemons. As you can see, we briefly touch on other gods than the four ruinous powers (Khorne, Nugle, Slaanesh and Tzeentch) existing in the Aethyr, but more on that later. Quote: Originally Posted by Liber Chaotica Forget what you have been told. Chaos is neither good nor evil. Chaos (being the very same place, state and thing as the Aethyr) is simply a mirror for the survivalist emotions of living beings within the Mortal Universe. Thus the entities of Chaos - be they gods or daemons - exist solely because living things generate emotions and thoughts. Quote: Originally Posted by Liber Chaotica So what is the Empyrian? The Empyrian is the void - the fifth element of existence - the intangible element that has no visible form in its own right. The Empyrean has no dimension, mass or volume, and yet it is still everywhere. It has no substance, but all substance and energy process in existence are linked to it. All spell-casting and divination, regardless of its form or source depends on the manipulation of the Empyrean's raw energy, and through the manipulation of this energy - or magic - every other element, state and process within the Mortal Universe can also be manipulated and changed. Quote: Originally Posted by Liber Chaotica It is important that you all fully comprehend the significance of our perception of the Empyrean. It is not only the fifth element and the source of the Eight Winds of Magic, but it is also one and the same place as all the various heavens and afterlives of every religious and cultural tradition in our world, and at the same time, and perhaps most profoundly, that dread hell dimension that we know as the Realm of Chaos. The above quote really is rather important. Its effect on the body Quote: Originally Posted by Liber Chaotica For whatever reason, the Empyrean-gateway built by our world's first great masters [Old Slann] collapsed in on itself, and tides of pure Chaos, pure Magic, were sucked into our world. The formless energy was suddenly subject to the physical laws of the mortal plane. Under the intense pressure of reality, much of this energy solidified into the mutating dust we know as warpstone. It was this dust that I believe caused the birth of the first mutants and monsters of Chaos. Quote: Originally Posted by Liber Chaotica Chaos has no one definable and measurable effect upon mortal creatures. It will always mutate and warp any physical matter it comes into contact with, that much is certain, but there are few ways to predict just what form that warping effect will take. Chaos does indeed affect both the body, mind and soul, but more on the mind and soul part later. Quote: Originally Posted by Liber Chaotica ...just as Chaos is likely to manifest itself in the material universe as a random and warping energy, it is also theorised that Chaos actually uses physical matter to express and manifest the various beliefs of mortal creatures. After all, the Empyrean can in one sense be seen to be the infinite subconscious mind of all sentient creatures, but with independent motion and energy. As such, I do not think it is beyond the grasp of reason to suggest that the physical manifestations of the Empyrean reflect the ideas of intelligent mortals. That makes sense to me at least. Its effect on the mind and soul To get on with how Chaos affects the mind and soul, here are more quotes: Quote:

Originally Posted by Liber Chaotica One thing that every magister and spell-caster comes to know implicitly, is that all living things exist in the Empyrean as much as they do in the Mortal Universe, although by far the vast majority of all living beings are unaware of - or at best have a very cloudy understanding of - this fact. The simplest analogy for this is to say that just as a mortal's body inhabits the the Mortal Universe, so his soul inhabits the Empyrean. But this is a deceptively simple explanation, for just what is this thing we call the soul, and why do gods like Tzeentch value them so? Quote: Originally Posted by Liber Chaotica To explore such a question in any depth is beyond the scope of this lecture, but to give a general perspective upon the nature of the soul, one could say that just as the body is part of the Mortal Universe and made of physical matter, so the souls is part of the Empyrean and is made from the stuff of raw Chaos, (which is also known as magic or Aethyr). In fact, souls could be seen as a coherent pocket of Aethyric energy, maintained as a separate whole by its anchor to the physical body of a mortal within the Mortal Universe. Quote: Originally Posted by Liber Chaotica ...all emotions (and their related concepts) converge together within the Chaos Realm. It is a case of like attracting like, with every scrap of anger or every scrap of ecstacy, slowly being drawn to one another until they create what could be described as a kind of of vortex of psychical energy within the Chaos Realm - a vortex of emotion and thought. That vortex creates such a disturbance across the Chaos Realm (and therefore our own psyche) that whatever emotions or concept the Chaos-vortex is made from, is then reflected back into the Mortal Realms once more. This has the effect of further promoting within our mortal psyches the emotions that the vortex itself is made from. Let's take anger as an example. If a man or woman feels a lot of anger, so over time, mortals will not only have their own naturally inspired and mundane anger, but will also experience a slightly more unnatural anger that has been reflected onto them by the Chaos Realm's anger vortex. This process is cyclic and never-ending, and in time the Chaos Realm's vortices become so powerful that they cease to accidentally promote in mortal minds the emotions they embody, but actually begin to do so deliberately although perhaps subconsciously before they do so consciously. This is why the Warhammer world is a world of extremes, IMO. There's a lot more on the subject of souls and the Aethyr, but that's too much to quote here. Very interesting reading though. Entities in the Aethyr As was already described, in the Aethyr exist many gods and other entities, but here are some more quotes on the subject: Quote: Originally Posted by Liber Chaotica Although I am fully aware of the existence of the many gods and daemons of mankind, and although I do not (and cannot) underestimate the enormous powers and influence that these entities can have over the Mortal Universe, I choose not to worship any of these gods - individually or as a pantheon.

Minor entities Here's an example of some of the smaller entities Quote: Originally Posted by Liber Chaotica The collapse of the gateways of the Old Slann led to the creation of the world as it is today. The vast area of dimensional instability creayed by its collapse, enabled many of the entities that lived within the Chaos Realm to manifest themselves to some degree or other upon the physical plane. The most ancient annals from Ulthuan described how the majority of these small, wild things - creatures we might now recognise as the various elementals, sprites, faeries, imps, dryads and sylphs (to name a few), of the "natural" world.

A benign chaos god And here's an example of one of the benign gods in the Realm of Chaos: Quote: Originally Posted by Liber Chaotica Yet, there were also other larger and more powerful beings that began to manifest themselves with the collapse of the gateways. These larger entities, being creatures of thought and magic, had no physical shap of their own, and often took on forms that were dictated by the conscious and subconscious fears, beliefs and expectations of the mortals they had come to prey on. In this way, the simple deities that the elder races had developed for themselves across millenia of evolution, suddenly stopped being mere concepts or items of faith, and became actual beings with immense power and independent identity - they truly were the first daemons, gods and angels of the Empyrean. But the Asur [high elves] have never made good servants. Long before the collapse of the Slann's Gateway, the Asur already had a strong understanding of the of the magic and the basic laws governing how Chaos interacted with matter and intelligence. This knowledge allowed them to control many of the lesser Chaos entities, and form a more symbiotic relationship of the more ordered greater entities. Without even realising what they were doing, the Asur began to impose their will and expectations onto some of these greater entities, forging them into benign entities that personified various aspects of the Asur's ideals, hopes and aspirations.

It was Aenarion, called the Defender, who first took this a step further by allowing the most powerful of the Asur's newly manifested gods, Asuryan, to use him as a vessel for His power. In a sense, Aenarion became a Chaos Champion, although, because his god was (amongst other things) a manifestation of Asur dignity, culture and self-belief, he fought against the forces of Chaos Unbounded rather than with them. Yet despite his success, Aenarion went too far and was eventually consumed by the drives that made up the deity that possessed him. It did not matter that Asuryan personified all that was good and beautiful about the Asur as a race, He was still a god, and, just as with the Gods of Chaos [Khorne, Nurgle, Slaanesh, Tzeentch] and their Champions, eventually his purpose subsumed the will of His vessel.

Magic Finally a few more quotes on the subject of magic: Quote: Originally Posted by Liber Chaotica Magic is a force unto itself and is entirely its own thing. It is not an amalgam of other, predictable and understandable forces that appear within the Mortal Realm, but is instead an entirely unnatural thing that comes from the immortal realm of the Aethyr. Although in one sense magic is the very stuff from which the Aethyr is made, it must be borne in mind that magic is Aethyric energy as it manifests itself within the Mortal Universe. Quote: Originally Posted by Liber Chaotica Spell-casting is the interaction between the metaphysical energy of magic and the physical things of the Mortal Realm, controlled and directed by an intelligent being. Quote: Originally Posted by Liber Chaotica Within the Aethyr there are supposedly no fixed rules or laws, and so the rigid divisions between the colours of magic and what those colours represent cannot be as distinct as they are when the stuff of the Aethyr refracts into magic as it enters into the Mortal Realms. A lot of quotes I know.