Ok, so ive been thinking, time is diffrent in the warp right, and there ARE cases of a ship showing up a century or so after it was meant to. Is it within the realm of possibility (in 40k at least) that a ship could be catapulted back in time, say 10 millenium.....

thats right im considering sending my players into the center of the bloody war that is the Horus Heresy. am i being too ambitous? and what do you all think?

If it's cool, it's possible.

Small jumps backwards in time are almost anecdotal in 40k so i can't see why large jumps can't be done. Again, the rule of cool is the main guiding light, fallow it where ever it may lead.

Just make sure the PCs have enough forbidden lores to know what they're getting in to. Otherwise they may just assume the marines and chaos are having a bit of a tiff again.

Still, no astronomicon would be interesting. His Shininess isn't in the magic chair yet, after all.

In the Horus Heresy novel mechanum it is stated that the astronomican is there and can be seen shining out as a becon of light from Terra. Prob just fueled by psykers.

And if you have any religious pc remeber there is no real churc at this time and they would prob be deemed heretic

Malkavianmadman said:

Yes, you're being much too ambitious, but go for it anyway!

In answer to your question, the books mention several times that ships occasionally arrive at destinations before the left. So, time hops are certainly possible. None are mentioned that are as significant as you're talking about, but if they did happen it's likely that no one would remember it after ten thousand years anyway!

Literally everything is possible if you are up to the challenge. In a pretty early W40k-Novel ("Children of Chaos" or something like that) an inquisitor kind of stumbled upon (and right into) the webnet of the Eldar. Inside the web there are nodes and nexuspoints with different timeflows and he eventually found one, where time actually flew backwards sending him back in time and so forth. So if you really want to, you can send your players back in time, too.

Have fun

The Warp is a pretty twisted place - go for it

Draggah said:

There is an example in Codex: Orks of an Ork Warlord ending up in the past after travelling through the Warp. He then proceeded to fight and kill his past self so that he could have a copy of his favourite shoota.

I've also seen examples of reinforcements being sent to a respond to a distress call, arriving before the distress call was sent to find that nothing is wrong, then getting caught in the resultant crisis and ending up being the ones who sent the distress call in the first place.

My group encountered a time anomoly while testing an experimental exterminatus weapon. During the testing phase they destroyed the ship of an ork antagonist. Once the weapon was detonated it threw everything around the planet back in time momentarily, though it was brief the ork boss, remembering the last moments of his life during the previous timeline, changed his actions and the PCs returned to the future to find the orks alive and well elsewhere in the system.

If you have them sent back 10 millenia un past, they probably are going to try to stop some stuff from happening... So make it so that in the long, their action was the thing that caused what they tried to prevent. Having a little chat with Horus before he go crazy, but at the end of the meeting, he just think you (the PC) are emissary sent by the Dark God to finally convince him to start his little rampage.

It's your game, you are the Allmighty GM, do whatever you think is cool and fun, and don't forget to have lot of bad things happen to your PCs so they start trying to find some way back to their own time at some point in your game.

Hmm hadnt thought of that, I was mainly thinking that all they do will have already been done by them (thus causing no temporal headaches)

St. Jimmy said:

Not true exactly. The Emperor simply controls the Astronomicon by his will. If he is alive he can direct the beacon from anywhere at any time.

the main thing is "have fun" and the second is "try and create the maximum temporal headache possible"!

then post how you did it, 'cause it's gonna be a real fun and we don't want to lose a word of the story..!

hi Horus, all right today? no, i haven't said "cool idea to assault the earth"! stop it! O My Emperor!!

can't resist!

Okay, so we've answered the "Question of Time" now for the "Question of Lust" aye?

whats going to be really fun is that my gaming group have no real knowledge of the 40k universe, i think they all know who the emporer and horus are but maybe not who the lion or the gorgon are.....should be fun

Also trying to figure out what sort of plot hook to use to get them back there.