Cult of Tzeentch?

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Sneaky
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Cult of Tzeentch?

Post by Sneaky »

For everyone who will probably jump on my back because they don't want to see their dearly beloved Dark Elves fall into the trap of becoming "Chaos Elves" instead of a completely separate race in their own right, please shut up. That's not what I'm suggesting here, and I want to see the Dark Elves preserve their culture and heritage as much as you guys. I think that the Cult of Pleasure is simply a natural extension of the fact that anyone can fall prey to the caresses of the Dark Gods and that Chaos is a large part of the Warhammer world. The Magister and his Cultists haven't brought about the collapse of the Empire into a Tzeentch worshipping state, and it's not going to happen.

Which brings me to my actual point. (I had a point?)

Khaine is obviously a large part of Dark Elf culture, but there surely must be some who worship other gods. There is obviously the Cult of Pleasure, but surely some elves worship the other gods as well? Not just Chaos gods: they would likely worship other gods that may be out there (some no doubt false ones). The Chaos Gods are probably stronger, however. There is some contention among fluff freaks about whether Khaine is, in fact, Khorne (my view is that he isn't - he's a god in his own right). I'm pretty sure that elves are smart enough to notice the connection, and perhaps some are quite convinced of this. I would expect some community to exist in Naggaroth where elves all worship Khorne in the firm belief that Khaine is indeed Khorne in another guise. Tzeentch is, to me, a very important god for a race of people who thirst for knowledge and power. A sect worshipping Tzeentch is probably a good deal smaller than the Khaine worshippers and the Slaanesh worshippers, and even the misguided Khorne worshipper that are probably out there, but it surely must exist.

I'm interested to hear others' thoughts on this. I've wondered about it for some time, because I think my own army has a tint of Tzeentch about them and I sometimes wonder (when I'm drunk) whether they are indeed Tzeentch cultists. Perhaps my general is the Magister and he never bothered telling me.
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Post by Seraphyn »

lol, sounds about right to me I really like your well written thoughts on whats going on and not that other mindless spam of posts saying-

~skrew the COS

~Yay we get Slaanesh!!

and other such lists. I completely agree with your view and have also been wondering what about tzeentch, he seems almost more likely for us to succom to then slaanesh with a race such as ares....
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Post by Sneaky »

kool thx dude!!!11 :mrgreen:

You mean posts like that? Yeah I hate them too. I fight against them any way I can, but the only really effective one is leading by example.

Maybe I should nominate myself as the Magister of the Dark Elf Tzeentch Cult (what's it called in the Empire again?).
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Post by Seraphyn »

I believe thats what I remember but Im not great on my empire fluff....hmmm some other titles could be.....tempest, or.....wind changer or something but maybe this little cult could rival the lulakei (sp?)?
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Post by Orteo »

I would agree with you. As fiction, and fiction written to sell stuff, it is overly simplified. Societies have many diverse elements. Even in what is apparently the most monolithic society you can find people who branch out from the mainstream in almost every possible direction, in philosophy, politics, and religion. Just because it isn't written, doesn't mean it doesn't exist, even if only in the minds of a four Druchii sitting around an altar in the basement of a tower in Hag Graef.
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Post by Aekold helbrass »

we need some tzeentch cultists. they're a million times cooler and more druchii than slaanesh. also, if anyone goes to the US gamesworkshop site there is a link to some armies from the baltimore tournament, and some guy made an awesome tzeentch force out of druchii models. go see it.
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Post by Darth_drakebane »

hmmm the Cult of Slaanesh (typo?) is a cool idea with all that loverly magic and all, Tzeentch, I think it could give us some more really cool magic and monsters (ahhh yes more beasties for the Beast Masters to play with!). But like you said, in the original post, this may take us too close to falling to Chaos. WQhen I first started (Fantasy) way back in 98 (I never learnt the rules as I began 40K shortly afterwords), I did Chaos...and Chaos in 40K...and Gothic. I would be one of the screaming hordes begging to be given a Cult of Khorn...which admitedly we near enough have Anyway (yup, blame the witch elves). Generally it is a cool idea, a really cool one since DE get +1 to Cast, and since Tzeentch is a magic base army we could have LOTS of fun!
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Post by Morriston burns »

Very interesting idea. One thing that you do not get from many of the races in the Warhammer is an idea of their diversity in terms of their religion. Yes there are the four chaos gods, and the various Gods of the Empire, but when it comes to DEs there isn't the depth you would expect from such a seriously unhinged race. And lets be honest they are.

But then again if you look at the background we do have the DE society appears to be a Theocracy without compare. The King has been alive for 5000 years and he decrees that Khaine is the only god that should be worshipped. The devotion of the majority of Dark Elves, linked with their hatred of the High Elves, creates a race with a very singular purpose. But after 5000 years doing the same old thing, maybe now is the time for the Dark Elven society to start to splinter a bit. We have the Cult of Pleasure as a potentially divisive faction, why not something else?

What would the third major group be? In this country we have Labour (used to!) the Tories and the Liberals as the three main political movements. We could think of Khaine as being the Tories - authoritarian and with a strong belief in the rule of law and hierarchy, The Cult of Pleasure as the Liberals - very liberal if you ask me. Now all we need is a socialist party and we've get a regular three ring circus! What would the Dark Elf equivalent of Marx be like?
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Post by Darth_drakebane »

Problem is...if Old Malekith suddenly decides to change gods...people are gonna ask questions....Kings are gonna get Usurped (i.e. Malekith is gonna be having a bad millenia, that would be twice now,..once by the trators of Ulthuan once by some disgruntled Witch Elves...maybe we could see Morathi on the Throne...*goes and hides incase Malekith heard that!*)

Dark Elves do need a bit more back ground, like Dark Eldar in 40 they are a race that not many people want to use...mainly because, lets face it, we are overshadowed by the High Elves and their Magic, we need some new blood to be pumped into the Race, a new unit maybe. Hopefully the Cult of Slaanesh will give us some new players drawn over from Chaos...(no one can resist having Witch Elves AND Deamonettes in one army, they are just to cool to leave behind)
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Post by Lewton »

Morriston Burns wrote: What would the Dark Elf equivalent of Marx be like?


I think he'd probably have a lot less facial hair! :lol:
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Post by Darkprincess »

Tzeentch is probably the only chaos god other than Slaanesh that makes any kind of fluff sense for Elves. There may be Tzeentch cultists within Druchii society, but probably not many - Tzeencth is all about change, and change is not as relevant for long-lived Elves as it is for us mortals. Having said that, there may be some who feel that having a bit of change in their lives would be an advantage (I'm happy the way I am :) ), so there might be some basis for a cult.

I'm not 100% sure about it myself, but fluffwise it makes sense, as long as it's made clear that the Cult of Change (for want of a better title) is very small and insignificant among the Druchii population - much smaller than the CoP. After all, it was the CoP that pretty much created the Druchii, or was at least the catalyst for our creation, and the worship of Slaanesh was extremely widespread throughout Ulthuan immediately before the Sundering. Only later were the Slaaneshis purged from lands of the Asur and, to a lesser extent, from Naggaroth. I'm sure that there are still a great many Slaaneshi Asur out there who practice their faith in private, so it is possible that there are Tzeentch worshippers in our midst too.

I'm not a big fan of Tzeentch myself, but I love some of their stuff (discs, screamers etc)
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Post by Hyperion quistekh »

What's next?

Cult of Nurgle, because the slaves smell bad?

Cult of Khorne, for the more bloodthirsty?

More seriously, although I can understand there will be small groups of Tcheench worshippers, I don't see them evolving into a significant force as the CoP or ToK. Just for the same reason as we don't see any Empire Tcheench or Bretonnian Nurgle....
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Post by Dr. jones »

I think Khorne is Khaine because if you look at realistic (?)societies like the Greeks and Romans they had the same gods just different names. They just changed the name after recognising them after encountering them from another race. Which IMO is whats happened with Khaine n khorne.

But i like the idea you posted.
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Post by Lord k »

www.warmongersclub.com/articles/2004gt to whoever mentioned that tzeentch army. its about the chaos cultists armies that jeff leong and co made for the gt and its pretty interesting
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Post by Gnosis »

i agree with what hyperion says, but still, it could be a nice idea. the easiest thing to do might be switching all daemons of slaanesh for daemons of tzeentch in the CoP list.
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Post by Tastyfish »

The Society for Change would have quite a strong following in Druchii society I would imagine, but rather than the Cult of Pleasure the chaos links would be a lot less obvious and probably is tied up in a purely non-chaos faction (one wishing to see an end to malekiths rule and somekind of council of Highborn replacing him- naturally this would be a very secretive sect at the moment). Possibly even with the actual tzeentch worshippers doing very little actual worship and conversion, focussing more on creating an environment where Tzeentch would flourish as opposed to the current strictly controlled society. The big issue is how a god gains power, will Tzeentch gain power from intrigue and betrayl, or does it actually have to be done in his name?

Hmm, well we're here, Khaine is Khorne in 40K but not in fantasy the links are pretty much all in 40K (other than he is a warrior god but then so is Mork and Gork, Ulric, Sigmar...etc), and I don't beleive in the crosssover.
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Post by Thekingsfinestmen- »

What would the third major group be? In this country we have Labour (used to!) the Tories and the Liberals as the three main political movements. We could think of Khaine as being the Tories - authoritarian and with a strong belief in the rule of law and hierarchy, The Cult of Pleasure as the Liberals - very liberal if you ask me. Now all we need is a socialist party and we've get a regular three ring circus! What would the Dark Elf equivalent of Marx be like?
Yes well that would be a nonbelieving group. Remember large red banners and don't forget a picture of Marx and of Engel.

No really.

I'd rather see a society trying, as the Lakuleis, to take the thrown from the sovereign Malekith and the traitor Morathi.
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Post by Morriston burns »

Who were the Lakuleis?
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Post by Heh »

hmm.....IMHO, there also could be a huge bunch of druchii that aren't really faithful. perhaps they juz do the bare minimum or maybe not at all when it comes to worshipping???? maybe to them the various cults are only tools to be used so as to gain more power????
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Post by Alkanoon »

i acturely think that dark elves is just as likly to workship Tzeentch as Slaanesh... as said by Sneaky
... we thirst for knowledge and power... Change is also a good word for dark elves... from good to evil
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Post by Arquinsiel »

That is a really interesting idea Sneaky. Gives me something to think about.
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Post by Monkeylord »

Well, that's what Chaos armies are: Cults of the God they represent really.

The Dark Elves are closely associated with Slaanesh because of the Cult of Pleasure & Morathi, which has been apart of their storyline since Dark Elves were introduced to warhammer.

Tzeentch, not so much. There's not really a "historical" precident for it. Tzeenchi Cults would most likely be limited to small wizardly circles who hang out on Fridays and talk about how cool Tzeentch is. (which is diffcult to do, because the Witch King and Morathi control who will and will not be taught the wizardly arts in Dark Elf society)

Which isn't to say that there aren't Dark Elves who worship Tzeentch whole heartedly. You're just not likely to ever find enough of them in one spot to field a practical army of them. A Mordheim Warband? Maybe. But not an army.

You might have some Dark Elves who become chaos warriors , becoming part of a chaos horde or what not... but they are already represented by the Chaos Warrior stats. Remember, there are all kinds of folk underneath all that armor.
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Post by Mtucache »

Yeah, I'm with monkeylord on this one... I don't think the following would be there to make an entirely new armylist out of it. But, that doesn't mean that you couldn't make a Chaos Tzeentch army and use Dark Elves to represent the things in it. Obviously the Horrors and Screamers aren't going to be elves, but your characters could be modeled as renegade Druchii wizards, your Chaos troops could be modeled with converted elves inside the huge armor...

I don't know, maybe it would look funny, but at least they wouldn't have to come up with an entirely new list. :shrug:
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Post by Monkeylord »

^^ Exactly.

Not only that, but the ethos of Tzeentch is all wrong for Dark elves, in my humble opinion. Many people, when they think of Tzeentch, conjure images of powerful magic users, and a deep devotion to the arcane arts.

But Tzeentch more than that. Tzeentch is all about change... Dynamicism... Bringing flux to that which is static.

Dark Elves themselves are very ritualistic, and devoted to their heritage. Cold One Knights & Nobles have their armor donned by entirely squires... They do NOT dress themselves... And the procedure is performed like a ritualistic ceremony. Knights also wear ceremonially wear two swords to signify their status... traditions that have been carried for thousands of years since the Sundering.

From CriticalHit.Net:
"Flesh hooks, shaped in Druchii runes, are hung from a Dark Elf to proclaim his allegiances, battle honours and family. Along with flesh hooks are also hung keikalla (spirit bells), which serve to ward off, it is claimed, the malevolent spirits that haunt the barren areas of Naggaroth, and to proudly announce their presence."

The martial traditions of the Blackguard, too, date all the way back to Aenerion's court in Naggorythe. Most Blackguardsmen inducted are the sons of previous Blackguardsmen...

To me, it seems that the Druchii are far to ritualistic and steeped in tradition for their to be a tremendous following of Tzeentch. Yes, the magical prowess might be appealing. But what Tzeentch stands for seems to go against the very grain of Dark Elf Heritage and Culture.
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Post by Sneaky »

In my original post I did say specifically that the cult would be much smaller than the Cult of Pleasure and, probably, even smaller than any Khorne worshippers out there (because I figure a certain amount of Dark Elves would believe that Khaine = Khorne).

As for the change thing, I'll agree that the Dark Elves have a strong society infrastructure that would come first. But at the same time there is a lot of political intrigue, betrayal, and so on. These are certainly symptoms of change, and of all the Chaos gods I think Tzeentch represents this the best. He's the one with the totally convoluted plans, remember? He has everything planned out. I would expect a small number of Elves, at least, to be drawn to Tzeentch. Not a large number, but certainly a small one. Probably young scholars: young ones because they're more accepting of change and because they're more ambitious. Scholars, of course, because they thirst for knowledge. Dark Elf fluff doesn't discuss the scholars that much, but I think they exist in reasonably large numbers. They're an intelligent, if cruel, society.
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