The world of Warhammer is constantly threatened, whether by cosmic beings, its brutal inhabitants, or magical catastrophes. The “Old World”, that is Warhammer Fantasy, has almost perished multiple times – and once it truly did.
Of all Warhammer worlds, Warhammer Fantasy is the first, from which Warhammer 40,000 as a spin-off and Age of Sigmar as a continuation later emerged. But even before the two new worlds, Warhammer was huge.
Warhammer was a classic fantasy world at the time, with elves and dwarves, magic and swords, knights and mythical creatures – but significantly dirtier than, say, Warcraft or Middle-earth.
Unlike in most worlds, Warhammer makes no secret that everything is somehow bad and everyone can be evil. Constantly engaged in war, absolute destruction is always nearby.
We will look at a few historical events that have almost destroyed the world of Warhammer directly or indirectly and explain in the end how the world actually came to an end.
Note: The dates here are all written according to the Imperial Calendar (“IC”). The calendar recognizes the year 0 as the year in which Sigmar was crowned as the first Emperor of mankind. The year -100 would therefore be 100 years before Sigmar’s coronation.
1. The Elven Civil War with dire consequences for the entire world
Elves are one of the oldest races in Warhammer but were not always divided into High and Dark Elves (and Wood Elves, who are unimportant here). Originally, they were a single people, united under the Phoenix King.
Unlike kings among humans, this title was not inherited. A council gathers to crown the new king. This was supposed to happen with Malekith, a son of the old Phoenix King Aenarion.
When the council chose someone else, Malekith initially seemed agreeable but has since been scheming to reclaim the crown. At the same time, his mother Morathi was working on a similar plan, establishing cults that partially worship demons among the High Elves over millennia.
These intrigues eventually led to a war among the elves, dividing them into High Elves (Asur) and Dark Elves (Druuchi). In this war, not only thousands of elves died, but a magical vortex was almost destroyed: the Maelstrom of Magic.
What appears to be just a large whirlpool is actually a tunnel that sucks magic out of the world and redirects it back into the Warp. This keeps the Warp, the Realm of Chaos, at bay. Malekith attempted to destroy the Great Maelstrom in the year -2723 IC, which would have led to Chaos devouring the Old World. The Dark Elf was unsuccessful, but a large part of the Elven kingdom of Ulthuan was still destroyed in the process.
