The world's first academic conference dedicated to all things Warhammer
The Warhammer: 40,000 universe evokes imagery of human remains nearly everywhere one looks. Skulls alone can figuratively adorn ceramite armor as emblems, or literally find themselves impaled atop spikes as trophies, amassed as part of Khorne’s Skull Throne, or used as robotic skull-servos. Human remains are so ubiquitous that it inverts the question of “what …
Warhammer 40,000 plays with miniatures as much as it does with contradiction. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the dreadnought: This animate, gun-laden sarcophagus of the Astartes marks a mainstay on tabletops and a powerful symbol of the Imperium’s refusal to grant peace, even to its own dead. However, despite such glaring grimdarkness, a …
This talk explores death, undeath, and afterlife across the Imperium of Man, the galaxy’s civilizations, and the Warp. The Imperium’s citizens lack political enfranchisement; power is predicated on death and sacrifice, which serve as the civilization’s organizing principles. Undeath is a recurring theme in Warhammer, and special attention will be paid to the Necrons, the …
The concept of death, as expressed in games and other fictions, is not necessarily negative. It does not play the same role, or pose the same threat, as death for us, in the physical world. But few intellectual properties revel in the exploration of death in the way that the Warhammer 40k setting does. Whether …