The Warp in later HH novels

[Ania Redfang]

I recently read Ruinstorm and I'm currently reading The Crimson King. What are people's thoughts on the ways the warp is described in the later novels. In earlier stories I recall the warp being very much chaos and hell and everything we know about the warp, but it was formless, a raging swirling maelstrom. 

 

In Ruinstorm and The Crimson King, (SPOILERS) the Descriptions seem much more direct, much more dwelling on things like structures of impossible size such as the citadel being rooted on a planet, the sphere of bones millions of miles wide, or the Hall of Extinction in TCK.

 

These descriptions evoke something different, something very Age of Sigmar (remember the body of the star dragon falling into the infinite molten metal waterfall?), reminiscent of the Mortal realms, or the structures in something like the videogame Darksiders, and I'm not sure I really like it as much. The warp seems to have become just another place where writers can say anything with the justification "it's the warp" and I find that it's just a step in the wrong direction from the early heresy novels which were very much rooted in a different theme. The warp in Horus Rising was terrifying (Samus etc), the warp in Ruinstorm was, IMO, comical (in both sense of the word, funny and also kind of comic book style)

 

What are people's thoughts on this, is it a real shift, is it a welcome one?

[Plasmablasts]

I’m not familiar with the earliest depictions of the Warp (only got into the hobby in 3rd edition), I can at least refer to the 5th edition Codex Grey Knights, in which Draigo is described wandering through the Realm of Chaos: “Atop the Blood Falls”, “amongst the writhing jungles of Nurgle’s domain”, “through the Whispering Meadows” and “At the gates of the Inevitable City”.

 

My take on it is that the Warp is a dimension of infinite possibility, but shaped particularly by mortal (especially human) imagination and emotion. The Chaos gods, feeding on the psyche of humanity, dwell in realms necessarily shaped by human imagination.

 

From memory, I think Path of Heaven describes most Warp travel being undertaken in the relative shallows of the Warp, which seems to be the parts perceived by Navigators in terms of the roiling, chaotic ocean usually depicted in the novels. The stranger landscapes are probably those encountered “deeper” in the Warp.

 

One thing I’m uncertain about is whether the Warp and the Realm of Chaos are identical or whether the RoC is only a part of the greater Warp.

[Memento Of Prospero]

I think it's important to note that the warp seems to appear differently in the eye of the beholder. To Magnus, the warp is a great ocean filled with beings and places, both malignant and benevolant. To most mortals who gaze out of the a ship, it is incomprehensible madness. Those who fall under the auspices of the denizens of the warp are always granted a different view of it. Visions of impossible grandeur, power and concepts are just some of the possibilities that can be used to lure one to the clutches of the Chaos ''Gods''.