Chaos God Twist

For discussion about all the lesser races of Warhammer. Talk about armies, tactics and lists to take on the Druchii here...

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Dearchon
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Chaos God Twist

Post by Dearchon »

I was sitting in the cinema watching constantine last nite (very good film :D ) and as religious/satanical based films like that usually do i started thinking about all of the "mythology" in the films, usually surrounding the devil, the devels son and sometimes daemons

But for the first time that lead me to thinking about the ruinous powers of chaos in this light . . . which brings me back to the wonderful warhammer world . . .

OK so there's 4 main chaos gods (Slaanesh, Nurgle, Khorne and Tzeentch) and some un-named minor gods (like slaanesh once was) who could potentially rise to power. But all of this we know . .

What i was thinking last night was what if:

The 4 Main Chaos Gods and who knows how many minor Chaos Gods were not actually Gods per-se but the sons of a greater god (i.e the devil) whose name could not be uttered because if it was death and destruction etc

But i thought it would make for interesting discussion, and as i said as far as i know this idea isn't real (i could be wrong)

Also i'd be interested to know about any of the other minor gods, names etc and how they'd influence people if u catch my drift, not sure how else to word it . . .
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Post by Ragnarok »

Well they are the sons and or daughters of the 'devil' Chaos Undivided. simple as that.
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Post by Arquinsiel »

They're named. It's all in the old fluff, it's just glossed over these days. Constantine was great though. If you're interested in such Hierarchies of hell then I suggest you might track down the Book of Vile Darkness for D&D, it's pretty good for that kind of thing.
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Post by Darkprincess »

Well there are other gods, of a psuedo-chaotic nature - The Horned Rat, Hashut etc - the four main chaos powers are interesting because GW has tried to split the enitre human psyche into four elements to be represented by the gods - First you have Hatred, symbolised by Khorne - brutal, warlike etc, signifying all that is agressive about us. Then you have apathy, in the form of stagnation, decay, represented by Nurgle. Ambition, in the form of change, or the desire for change, is Tzeentch, while Slaanesh embodies the hedonistic aspects of our emotions, the search for endless pleasure, good old-fashioned decadence.

All of our emotions can be made tro fit fairly well into these categories to some extent, making the basic chaos pantheon relevant to everybody.

Also, it can be a personality thing - many players who have a chaos army tend to build it to reflect their own personality - for example, someone into all kinds of wierdness may well have a Tzeentch army, while a wilful, liberal hedonist like myself, would go for Slaanesh.

Of course this is really to oversimplify things - the old fluff states that there are a great many chaos gods (possibly thousands)

Some deities may be lesser aspects of a greater one, or possibly a combination of more than one. This is why some people regard Khaine to be a lesser god, sharing aspects of Khorne and Slaanesh - Khorne because of the blood/war aspect, and Slaanesh because of the elven connection, witch elves and all that stuff.

The Horned Rat is interesting because he is in many ways like Nurgle, but also with a need for conquest and power, more like Khorne.

Hashut is almost a god of industry, representing the industrial revolution - the destruction of the natural world in favour of that which is manufactured. In this way, Hashut is rather like Saruman in Lord of the Rings, in as much as Saruman cut down the forests to fuel the machines of industry, and the Chaos Dwarfs do the same in the warhammer world. Hence the chaos dwarfs have lots of war machinery - an almost steampunk-style culture etc. Also, Saruman created the Uruk-Hai as a synthetic warrior race, and the chaos dwarfs did the same with the Black Orcs.

If we wanted to see Hashut as a combination of two other chaos gods then surely it would be Khorne and Tzeentch - Khorne with the militaristic aspect of the chaos dwarfs, and Tzeentch representing the change from the natural world to the industrialised one.

Following on from this, we can surmise that each chaos power should have a combination involving others, something like this;

Khorne + Slaanesh = Khaine
Khorne + Nurgle = The Horned Rat
Khorne + Tzeentch = Hashut

Presumably there are also gods for this lot;

Nurgle + Slaanesh =
Nurgle + Tzeentch =
Slaanesh + Tzeentch =

Possibly the reason that these three don't have obvious gods associated with them is that they are not sufficiently opposed, in the following sense - too much indulgence with Slaanesh might invite Nurgle anyway, while Tzeentch and Slaanesh are both concerned with perfection, whereas Khorne, being a war god, is opposed to everything else, and thus has a strong aspect which can be mixed with another, disparate power.

Fluff states that Khorne ans Slaanesh are enemies, or at least in direct opposition, as are Nurgle and Tzeentch. Nurgle, for example, represents stagnation - the resistance to change, quite the opposite of Tzeentch.

Old fluff had the main chaos powers as the four classical elements - Khorne being Fire, Tzeentch being air, Slaanesh being water and Nurgle being earth. This is interesting, although perhaps slightly flawed, since Tzeentch has a lot of fire-like magic.

But if you like to make this connection, then you can do so - don't follow the GW path of dumbing down the more recent fluff - there's a wonderful cornucopia of fluff in previous editions, just waiting to be rediscovered by players disenchanted with the no-fluff 6th edition. A search on the internet will turn up all manner of old stuff. www.criticalhit.co.uk is the first port of call, as they have a HUGE archive of information - much of it 40K, but plenty of fantasy too - some of the stuff, like chaos, crosses over the two systems anyway.

Also, as Arquinsiel has said, don't be afraid to research other stuff like D&D books - much of that stuff can be incorporated in warhammer with a bit of imagination...

After all, with a thousand or more gods to choose from, you're not likely to run out of dark corners to explore.

Don't forget real-world mythology too - much of GW's fluff is drawn from real mythology (the rest is nicked from Tolkein), so spend a few hours surfing around the WWW - you'll be amazed at what ideas you'll find out there...

I can't see Slaanesh and the others being the sons of the devil though (or whatever you want to call the overlord deity) - for one thing, Slaanesh embodies a very large amount of those aspects normally associated with the devil in most people's minds, particularly those of us in the western world. Also, ancient worlds tended to be polytheistic, and the idea of one god above all others doesn't sit well with this basic concept.

Remember that the chaos gods are formed from the various emotions of humans and elves. To look at this is a modern, scientific way, we might say that the energy that feeds chaos is that which is present in the universe, drawn from the spatial rift caused when the polar warp gates colapsed, first allowing chaos into the world - in that way, the chaos gods are not necessarily real entities, but merely aspects of our own psyches, given form by the dark energies seeping into the world. A thin distinction perhaps, but I think you know what I mean :)

So rather than saying that the chaos gods (or any other gods for that matter) are a divine race with a socio-political structure, you could just as easily say that they exist only in the minds of their worshippers, in which case they would be as widely-varying as the worshippers themselves. For example, Slaanesh might mean something different to an elf as s/he does to a human in the empire.

Anyway, I digress (as usual) - the bottom line is that there are many many deities in the warhammer world, and the handful that are mentioned in the fluff are most likely the tip of a very large iceberg. By all means explore the heirarchy of chaos - undoubtedly some deities will be more powerful than others, but in reality this would almost certainly be based on the number of worshippers they have - the more worshippers, the more minds you have to generate the emotions that feed them, hence the more powerful they become. The big four all represent things that most people can identify with - War is ever-present, as is lust, so Khorne and Slaanesh are unlikely to be usurped by a lesser power such as Hashut, who is worshipped almost exclusively by a small number of evil stunties...

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Post by Tacklbry »

Remember that the chaos gods are formed from the various emotions of humans and elves.


Much the reason that Daemonettes look so much like Witch elves. not because they once were, but because witch elves embody beauty and deadlyness in a way that is universally recognized by mortals throughout the warhammer world. this is reflected in the psyche of all races, and therby the form that the Daemons take when in the material " reality". All daemonic appearances are reflections of our own beliefs.
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Post by Arquinsiel »

Don't forget real-world mythology too - much of GW's fluff is drawn from real mythology (the rest is nicked from Tolkein), so spend a few hours surfing around the WWW - you'll be amazed at what ideas you'll find out there...

Or michael moorcock. Who they actually nicked chaos from (I can't believe I forgot to plug him earlier.....). Although Nurgal is a version of the babylonian plague daemon Nergal.

If we wanted to see Hashut as a combination of two other chaos gods then surely it would be Khorne and Tzeentch - Khorne with the militaristic aspect of the chaos dwarfs, and Tzeentch representing the change from the natural world to the industrialised one.

Or as an aspect of furnex. It's all mad with chaos.
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Post by Dearchon »

all very interesting, especially seeing as i'm only new to fantasy, but i've been playing 40k for years and know lots of the fluff for that,

but i think one of the things i'd like to expand is the ideas of the lesser chaos gods trying to come into power, kind of like how slaanesh did to the eldar, and after enough worship and spiritual energy being passed onto him if u will became a fully fledged major god, so i'd like to tinkle with the idea of making a dark elf army being "seduced" by this god, kinda like the CoS army list, but more random in some aspects, like rolling to see if what spell list the sorceress uses at the begining of the game, 1-4 dark 5 or 6 lesser god x,

but i dont think i'd really be able to manage it properly as i'm so new to the game, but if anybody has any ideas i'd love to hear them
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Post by Cornixt »

IIRC Haitian Voodoo is a strange mix where many of the Christian saints and African gods are considered to be the same thing, the slaves worshipped their old gods under the guise of worshipping the Christian saints and they came to be the same thing.

As far as the Chaos Gods are concerned, it is certainly possible but I don't think there is anything to back it up at all.
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Post by Tacklbry »

All gods are a reflection of there worshipers. There is much truth to the saying that God created man in his own image, and man returned the favor (Clarence Darrow? Badly paraphrased) the gods and demons of all cultures reflect the psyche of the believers. It would be the same in the warhammer world.

The Greeks had two gods of war, Area representing the savagry and brutality, and Athena representing the skill and honor. This reflected their views on the duality of the warrior.

Makes you wonder what it says about elves when their god of war is also the god of murder.
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Post by Arquinsiel »

Athena was the goddess of defensive warfare. IE: Having lots of easily accessed water and loads of food stockpiled in your city and sit tight because it's the smartest thing to do should you be besieged. It's just a minor extension of here wisdom portfolio.
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Post by Tzares »

they actually have many more..
They have Ares - the pritty boy that dosent really fight,
and they have athena, and actually poseidon and hades is also considerd a wargods.

There has been many discussions like this and there is always someone that has to say that the chaosgods are Khaine in some form. This is actually not the case, since Khaine is a god of GOOD (dont kill me plz). And its heresy to say that he is chaos :P

And for the chaos gods, they are all the sons of the warp, as it states in the fluffbible. The warp made Slaaneshi...
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Post by Dark_melancholy »

Speaking of gods in the WH world... Anybody know what happened to the Gods of Law (or something)? I think they were in the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying game...? Though in Wargaming fluff I haven't seen them...
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Post by Bloodtemplar »

dark_melancholy wrote:Speaking of gods in the WH world... Anybody know what happened to the Gods of Law (or something)? I think they were in the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying game...? Though in Wargaming fluff I haven't seen them...


Yes, they were part of the fluff of WHRPG back in the days. I don't have the new 2nd edition WHRPG book yet but I would be really amazed if they were still in it. I think they got dropped because there is not a race to represent them currently.
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Post by Pmpn8ez »

There were a bunch of gods, including a god of law IIRC, in a semi-recent WD issue discussing the various religions of the races in the Warhammer world. A bunch of gods that I didn't even know existed were made mention of, though I'd have to look through my WD collection to see which one it was.
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Post by Arquinsiel »

Speaking of gods in the WH world... Anybody know what happened to the Gods of Law (or something)? I think they were in the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying game...? Though in Wargaming fluff I haven't seen them...
They're not as interesting apparently. I don't know why. They have plenty of worshippers amongst the various human nations and even a few paladin types.
And its heresy to say that he is chaos

IF you want to go on that line then it's heresy to mention his name since heresy is a specifically catholic word.
There were a bunch of gods, including a god of law IIRC, in a semi-recent WD issue discussing the various religions of the races in the Warhammer world. A bunch of gods that I didn't even know existed were made mention of, though I'd have to look through my WD collection to see which one it was.

I remember that, it was the same one shadowblade and eltharion were in. It wasn't so complete as the list in WHFRP.
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Post by Evilfurby »

yup and then there's me old buddy Malal.... Although im not sure which emotion he represents

Struggle against oppression?
Slavery?
Treachery? - i like this one because it means that every hidden cultist is in his own way strengthening Malal heh heh but then as it states in hellboy
Even if you kill all the other demons you know there's still one left
by my actions ,I condemn thee.
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