Institute for Fictional Civilizations · Est. MMXXVI
The study of civilizations that never existed.
Games, novels, films and myths are our field sites. Their societies, faiths, ecologies and collapses are our subject.
07Departments
37Excavations
published
published
33Worlds
under study
under study
MMXXVIFounded
Featured ExcavationNº 0037
Excavation Nº 0037 · Religions
The Empire That Prays to a Corpse
The Imperium of Man worships an Emperor who forbade all religion and has sat dead on a throne for ten thousand years. An excavation of the Imperial Cult.
- World
- The Imperium of Man, Warhammer 40,000
- Period
- 41st and 42nd millennia (in-world)
- Status
- Active
The Departments
Seven ways of reading an imagined world.
Every Excavation is filed in one of the Institute's departments. Open a drawer to see what it holds.
The Register
Recent excavations
0037The Empire That Prays to a CorpseReligions000● Active0036The Bureau That Turned the Impossible Into ProcedureAnthropologyControl● Active0035The Island That Tried to Sail Into HeavenMythosphereMiddle-earth○ Extinct0034The Fortress That Remembered EverythingHuman ArchiveDwarf Fortress● Active0033The Tree at the Center of Every WorldMythosphereMany Worlds● Active0032The Machines That Reinvented HumanityObservatoryNieR: Automata● Active
The Institute's thesis
Fiction is not escapism.
Humanity keeps imagining other civilizations. The Institute studies what they reveal about power, belief, survival and ourselves.
About the Institute →