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What's changed over the years concerning the lore over the Dark Gods? From 1st edition to present day? Do a lot of people still mix up old lore with new? Do the Gods still represent aspects of good or has it been retconed so that they're evil and malevolent because of how unstable the Warp is?

Oh they’ve always been insane. Going right back to Realm of Chaos.

They do have some positive aspects. Khorne for instance can reward Honourable Warriors. And can despise individual worshippers who slaughter the weak. But it’s not universal. Where one may be punished for slaughtering a class of school children, another may very well be rewarded with Daemonhood.

Nurgle is probably the closest to an objectively Good God. He cares for and loves all life. Completely equally. From the smallest microbe to the largest Space Whale, all life is adored by Nurgle. Equally. And it’s the Equally bit that’s a problem for us complex lifeforms.

See. When we snuff it? Our bodies decompose and provide a rich environment for untold billions of organisms of varying complexity. So by making a billion of us dead? Nurgle is tipping the scales in favour of wild fecundity. Sentience means nothing Grandfather.

Slaanesh likes his perfection. And striving for perfection isn’t, in itself, an inherently bad thing. Indeed pushing ourselves to constantly improve and better our craft is a positive. But when passion turns to obsession or addiction? Very bad things can happen. When risky or risqué becomes taboo breaking? Very bad things happen.

The main trouble with the Gods? To keep their attention, you got to go Bigger Better More. Each and every time.

I'd need to re-read my battered old Slaves To Darkness book, but I'd swear Slaanesh very much started out as the god/dess of perversion and depravity, and has been rather toned down to the more kiddy-friendly and not very chaotic 'excess' and 'perfection' since.

The 2nd edition of 40k states:
"Slaanesh the Lord of Pleasure, the purveyor of secret vices..."

"Slaanesh is the Lord of Pleasure whose mere image evokes ecstasy in an unguarded mind... sensual temptations... shame of their desires... lust for blood which overcomes their rational senses."

I think the others have kept reasonably true throughout, but Slaanesh in particular has had a slight direction change over the years.

IIRC khorne used to be about proving strength more than wholesale slaughter. So you had to keep fighting more / better warriors and winning to climb his ranks. And while he wasn’t opposed to some wholesale slaughter here and there, if a worshipper spent too much simply killing those who proved no challenge would swiftly find themselves on the business end of his personal hounds.

Yeah, Khorne fluff from, I'd say, 3rd edition onwards repeatedly states he's about mindless slaughter. There's no ambiguity about him anymore. Sometimes GW throughs in a little throwback to old fluff with the honorable aspect when describing some relics or stratagems or warlord traits, but Khorne's overall description is pretty one-dimensional.
The other gods less so.

I thought back in old WHFB lore that Bloodthirsters couldn't kill unarmed/ non assailants. So, that would be part of Khorne's "good" aspect of honor.
Okays, got out my 1997 Realm of Chaos WHFB book (showing my age.. shut up, I was born in a millennia with a 1 in front of it!) nd I quote:
"The nature of Chaos is neither good nor evil, it simply mirrors the survivalist emotions of intelligent beings in the real universe. Thus, the predatory entities of Chaos, be they gods or daemons, exist because living things generate these emoptions. So when the human mind turns to petty and evil thoughts, the powers of the Chaos Gods grow and coalesce into hideous forms shaped by human lust, greed, anger and fear."

... That one paragraph contradicts itself! First it says Chaos is neither good or evil, then states the Chaos gods grow fat on bad emotions! >Huh<
Okay, there were some other examples in the same edition when the named characters came out and we had Aekold Hellbrass- whose special "gift" from Tzeentch was that wherever he walks, new life appears. This is due to change and magic- even though Nurgle's spiel is growth.

So, to answer the question- sort of?

I don’t think that description contradicts itself because it specifically mentions the PREDATORY aspects of chaos.

Due to the age of the text in question, and the context of the paragraph, I think you glean a better understanding of the intended message by substituting “the warp” for “chaos”

So while the gods are unambiguously evil even with their faint “good” sides, chaos in and of itself is entirely neutral. There’s just a lot of bad emotions which have allowed massive predatory entities to coalesce.

From that angle the lore is utterly unchanged, and we have damn near that exact paragraph even in current lore.

The Chaos Gods has always been the accumulation of certain sentient species' psyches in the warp; it had been liked to flows of streams in water where "likes" gather.

Anyways, I always feel logical to me that the Chaos Gods expressing themselves as "bad" is most logical -- it's their nature to create more of their "like" emotions from mortal races; I don't necessarily think there's any pleasure/satifaction they derive from it, it's just what they do. And since each Chaos God is the pure accumulation of certain aspects of thought/emotions, their actions in the real space is necessarily done in excess -- because that's the only things they do.

Slaanesh has been pivoting slightly to be more excessive than lusty, but lust is still apart of shim's aspect; Slaanesh's get is to seek the excess of everything pleasurable -- I find this aspect nebulous and too broad, but at least it's human to understand this desire -- and while a single hiveworld clerk might simply desire a full day of leisure, a warm bowl of oatmilk (or whatever processed equivelant thereof), Slaanesh can want only as many days of leisure and as grand as meals can get -- shi can do nothing else as that's all it is made of.

Anger against oppression is good, wrath is excessive anger, and Khorne excessive wrath to the extreme; Tzeentch is the desire to change, change the status quo, change your house to a mansion, change your boss to yourself, change the government because you don't like it -- again, in small doses, none of these is "bad", but Chaos Gods are only this concept, and thus Tzeentch wants change for the sake of change; have a nice government? Change! Have a medicore government? Change! Have a nice day? Change! Have a bad day? Change, change change, and change again! Such manifestations is indeed detrimental to humans, and as such all of Chaos, when unleashed uncontrolled into real-space, is devastating.

Again, the Warhammer concept of Chaos is pretty much taken from Moorcock's works, in which neither Chaos nor Order is inheritently good or evil -- the universe needs to exist within an equilibrium between Chaos and Order to survive, going too far to either end means the destruction of the universe.

Worth noting the Order was represented in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st edition as the Gods of Law, as "order being but one of the mirad of forms Chaos can take", the Law Gods were no more liked nor considered good than the Chaos Gods, only that they had been so crippled when Chaos entered the world that they can no longer play a significant part in the fantasy universe. The most powerful of the Law Gods was worshipped by a large number of Witch Hunters, and you know how Witch Hunters are.

In a way, I almost see the Emprah as a failed manifestation of the Eternal Champion, taking upon the mantel of Order to restore balance. His imperium, as dank and oppressive as it is, is exactly what Moorcock's Order will be like in extremum -- authoritarian, lack of social mobility, individuality is largely irrelevant (because the Order is as a machine, it must run orderly, forever; no single cog means more than another cog, and all must be in perfect form or removed)

Flanderising Khorne to only mean endless bloodlust steps too much on the toes of Slaanesh for my liking. I still prefer to hold on to the old lore for that. Khorne is about fighting at least fairly, or better yet, fighting against all odds, now we're getting somewhere!

What would bring fresh nuance to the Chaos setting would be if there were more examples of followers transitioning from a follower of one pantheon into another.. what sounds more chaotic than that?

I think Slaanesh has always been about excess in all forms since in the 40K setting Slaanesh was very much birthed from the pure excess of the Eldar.

That said because Nurgle, Tzeentch and Khorne already covered several big excesses in their own right; we saw Slaanesh take a very different design path and latch onto pleasure more so; especially visually (in its twisted form of course).
In a way I think its showing simply that Slaanesh was exploiting a "gap in the emotional market" that the others weren't exploiting.

But even for the longest time we've had beautiful and "perfect" warriors who were not just hornballs, but perfection in combat. An excess of combat prowess

That said GW has been shifting, esp in AoS, to show Slaanesh in more aspects such as gluttony. I think its simply GW getting a bit more creative and showing sides of the lore that have been there for a long while, just not heavily focused on because they didn't have relatable models.

Interesting thoughts being brought up here.

I have always thought Chaos to be the harsh reality that humanity (read: the sentient life of the 40k universe) does not want to face. Chaos is the objective reality underneath the subjective view of reality.

Khorne's nature: noblity of war -vs- brutality of war
Nurgle's nature: resilience of life -vs- cycle of life
Tzeentch's nature: belief/hope for the future -vs- despair/anxiety in future
Slaanesh's nature: mastery of desire -vs- addiction to desire

On both sides of the -vs- there is an aspect that might be deemed "good" or "bad" but looking at the unpredictability of Chaos both are equally present.

The way it's pitched in the metaphysics is that chaos gods are the inevitable, natural result of sentience in the universe.


They're basically sentient warp pollution created when sapient souls appear and perturb it.

The warp exhaust of souls.

The toxic soul waste of the empyrean.


Hence why they can never be defeated, they are the consequence of your own existence.

My interpretation is that the Warp having Gods isn't inevitable, but that it is a very likely result when a limited number of warp demons are able to feast upon souls of a particular kind and gain more and more power through that. Once the Warp was broken into by reality this accelerated the process because those more powerful demons could influence the living world and twist more to worship them in life; resulting in easier and easier food for them to secure and letting them grow in power very rapidly.

There's certainly feedback loops and such made all more complex by time in the Warp being a very fudgy thing.


I do feel like there was a lull in the lore where it was just the Big 4 and nothing else for a good time and now GW are getting back to some of the core older lore and highlighting that its not just the Big 4; that there are other powerful demons and entities in the warp.


Also you can defeat Warp demons all the way up to Gods. It's just insanely difficult and chances are that you might well destroy one only to see others grow more powerful off the glut of souls. Keeping in mind that killing a "God" might well mean that they were always dead and never existed so that's going to do crazy things - eg the other gods becoming more powerful in an instant as they don't even have to feed on the glut of souls; those souls were and always have been theirs etc...


But certainly the Warp is a thing that can't be ignored, even Tyranids influence the Warp in their own way.

Well, base on my understanding, if the gods are reflections of sentient psyche as they are reflected in the warp, the Gods cannot be destroyed unless certain emotions etc. are forever destroyed.

I guess if you kill every sentience speices in the universe, you can kill all Chaos Gods, as nothing within the Warp can coalesce into a holistic whole, and those that already are singular entities such the Big Four, are going to lose their form, gradually perhaps, but eventually if nothing in the material universe comes up that can "re-feed" similar, call it "frequencies" or "streams" or whatever, to sustain it.

Is it possible if there is a sudden decimation in excessiveness in sentient thought, that Slaanesh as a singular whole would cease to be? Perhaps -- that it will break into smaller pieces because the mass of "thought" is suddenly severed? Is it perhaps more like millions of millions of Venn diagram circles overlapping each other, and when you remove enough of them, eventually there will be enough space between clusters such that the circles can not be seem as a connected whole anymore?

What I've never really understood is the psche that feeds Nurgle -- is it fear? Is it the desire for life?
Is it stoicism and acceptance as some 40K codice say? And how can stoicism -- such a novel and specific concept, give rise to one of the Big Four, when the others seem to embody universal concepts that, at least, humans can see.
Whereas the desire to persist is universal, it's also really, really broad and nebulous, going a bit too far to the other end for me...

The demons in the warp feed on human emotions. Powerful ones can even influence the real world to generate more of those specific emotions they want.

Khorne isn't all rage/bloodshed. Khorne is the demon that feeds off those elements and encourages others to worship him through those actions to feed him more. However you can also worship Khorne without killing; just like you can be a dumb brute and your belief and soul goes to Tzeentch etc...

This is why the gods war with each other over the souls of the living.


It's also why they criss cross over each other; eg when Slaanesh appeared many of those who were driven to excess in bloodshed would have gone over to Slaanesh instead of remaining with Khorne - boom he lost souls and now fights to regain them.




Nurgle is basically a life god. Only he loves all life, specifically with a big focus on rot and decay. He's the mirror opposite of many of the concepts of a Gia nature god. Often depicted as female with a love of woodlands, animals and birds; with a focus on healing and preserving those lives.
Nurgle is rot, decay, fungus and mould. All those things that are alive but overlooked, underloved. He blesses not through healing you, but through plague, disease and maggots. Instead of killing that microbial life within you to preserve you; he enhances and uses you as a tool to breed more and more. To bathe and spread the bounty of the creation of vast amounts of life.

 tauist wrote:
Flanderising Khorne to only mean endless bloodlust steps too much on the toes of Slaanesh for my liking. I still prefer to hold on to the old lore for that. Khorne is about fighting at least fairly, or better yet, fighting against all odds, now we're getting somewhere!

What would bring fresh nuance to the Chaos setting would be if there were more examples of followers transitioning from a follower of one pantheon into another.. what sounds more chaotic than that?

Exactly, Khorne was more like the god of war. Yes Khorne wants skulls and the blood to flow but he was also the god of martial excellence. So a samurai that seeks fights to the death in an attempt to improve his technique could be a worshiper of Khorne, knowing that every fight would be worthy of Khornes approval and that death would always come. That’s why orks wouldn’t have been khorn worships cos they just want to scrap without skill.

Although there was that story about a waaaagh led by a warboss that hated demons and made it all the way to the walls of Khornes palace. Khorne easily wiped them out but was so impressed by them that he keeps raising them from the dead so he can watch the battle over and over again.

But that was old Khorne, now it’s more like the god of Gore

 Overread wrote:
The demons in the warp feed on human emotions. Powerful ones can even influence the real world to generate more of those specific emotions they want.

Khorne isn't all rage/bloodshed. Khorne is the demon that feeds off those elements and encourages others to worship him through those actions to feed him more. However you can also worship Khorne without killing; just like you can be a dumb brute and your belief and soul goes to Tzeentch etc...

This is why the gods war with each other over the souls of the living.


It's also why they criss cross over each other; eg when Slaanesh appeared many of those who were driven to excess in bloodshed would have gone over to Slaanesh instead of remaining with Khorne - boom he lost souls and now fights to regain them.




Nurgle is basically a life god. Only he loves all life, specifically with a big focus on rot and decay. He's the mirror opposite of many of the concepts of a Gia nature god. Often depicted as female with a love of woodlands, animals and birds; with a focus on healing and preserving those lives.
Nurgle is rot, decay, fungus and mould. All those things that are alive but overlooked, underloved. He blesses not through healing you, but through plague, disease and maggots. Instead of killing that microbial life within you to preserve you; he enhances and uses you as a tool to breed more and more. To bathe and spread the bounty of the creation of vast amounts of life.

I do not see the Chaos Gods as "feeding off" emotions like some parasite; they are those emotions, amalgamated in the warp. Yes, each Chaos God has different aspects, just like each daemon is a piece of their Patron, representing perhaps a small aspect of the emotions that God embodies. They only "feed off" the same way a river tributary feeds into the main stream, and the main body of river feeds into the sea. Cut off the tributaries, the rivers dries.

As for Khorne, that hornorable Khorne thing only happened in that one Epic 40K Chaos Marine army list. Khorne is always rage, rage, rage and murder murder murder, even in the first Realm of Chaos supplement that got released back 1988, a year after Rogue Trader was released. In the first edition Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Khorne was "the angry and murderous god of Chaos" and "obssessed with blood and death". In the 1988 Realm of Chaos background book, which was published for both fantasy and 40K (and included rules and characters for both systems), he was also "the Power of Chaos in its aspect of mindless and absolute violence, destroying everything and everyone in its path, slaying both friend and foe alike"

Is it possible that Khorne can embody "honorable martial aspects of war"? Sure, but Khorne is not a god of War -- he is a God of Wrath. Murder is his existence and gore is his baptism. Any aspect of "martial honor" can only exist in the umbrella of anger and slaughter. If anyone is rewarded by Khorne for sparing the weak and slaying the mighty, it is only because they embodies an aspect of anger that strives to slay greater foes.

Meanwhile, Nurgle was initially the "God of pestilence and decay" -- not a mental nor emotional state at all. In Realms: The Lost and the Damned, published in 1990, explained the nature of Nurgle as thus:

"...Faced with the inevitability of death what answer can there be but to run through life at a great and unstoppable pace, cramming each day with hope, laughter, noise and bustle. Thus, happiness and human endeavour are sired by a coming to terms with decay and futility...
... One the one hand he is the Lord of Decay... on the other he is full of unexpected energy and a desire to organise and delight.
The living know that they will die, and many know that they will live with disease or other torment, yet they drive this knowledge into a cornor of their minds and keep it pinioned there with all manner of dreams and activity. Nurgle is the embodiment of that knowledge and of the unconcious response to it, of the hidden fear of disease and decay, and of the power of life which that fear generates" (page 12)

I was never fully satisfied with this explanation, as it means Nurgle is the embodiment of fear, stoicism, contention, and happiness. Yet these are not all similar things; nevertheless, this remains the basis for Nurgle's character, as he is the eternal opposition to Tzeentch, and still is, due to his representation of stagnation and acceptance of the status quo, over Tzeentch's dissatifaction of it, and the need of constant change.

I must admit, my conceptualization of the nature of Chaos is much based on the Realm of Chaos books as well as Libre Chaotica. Nevertheless, I've found this line from the "Lost and the Damned" most enlightening for myself:

"The Realm of Chaos is like an endless sea, and like a sea it is neither empty nor still. It is populated by the shadow-shelves of both and living and the dead for the death of the material body does not destroy the shadow-self. Severed from its psychic link to the material body, the shadow-self drifts in the Realm of Chaos. As it does so, some of its energies are dispersed into the general flow, but the strongest and most distinctive mental traits remain. The countless shadow-selves of the dead flow together because they are mutually attracted by their common traits.
Thus the shadow-selves of deceased wariors retain their most warlike traits, and flow together into a huge co-joined entity. This movement causes eddies and tides within the warp, and leads to the creations of vortices or whirlpools formed almost entirely of common traits. In the Realm of Chaos these Whirlpools are called the Chaos Powers"

Therefore, it is my understanding, and always, that Chaos Gods are mental and psychic traits of the sentient species. And Khorne is the common traits of all those murderous intents and rage, and Tzeentch is all those traits of discontent for stillness, etc.

In a way, when they say "Furies" devour fallen souls into the Realm of Chaos, it is but a description of these "shadow-selfs" dissipate and the most central traits to their psyche eventually flowing and joining one of the greater Chaos Gods in the Warp.

The only way to kill Chaos, is to kill the "shadow-selfs" i.e. any living, sentient life.

On the topic of Slannesh and excess, there was one short story Gotrek & Felix book where there was a secret cult of Slanneshi worshippers, and one was really big and fat- because he liked eating. And also, loved the schadenfreude of taking food/ money from the peasents and eating away it all while they starved. But again WHFB and William King was a great author of those novels. I Stopped after the first one I read that wasn't by him.

Everyone should read the Old World Gotrek and Felix books!

mrFickle wrote:

 tauist wrote:
Flanderising Khorne to only mean endless bloodlust steps too much on the toes of Slaanesh for my liking. I still prefer to hold on to the old lore for that. Khorne is about fighting at least fairly, or better yet, fighting against all odds, now we're getting somewhere!

What would bring fresh nuance to the Chaos setting would be if there were more examples of followers transitioning from a follower of one pantheon into another.. what sounds more chaotic than that?

Exactly, Khorne was more like the god of war. Yes Khorne wants skulls and the blood to flow but he was also the god of martial excellence. So a samurai that seeks fights to the death in an attempt to improve his technique could be a worshiper of Khorne, knowing that every fight would be worthy of Khornes approval and that death would always come. That’s why orks wouldn’t have been khorn worships cos they just want to scrap without skill.

Although there was that story about a waaaagh led by a warboss that hated demons and made it all the way to the walls of Khornes palace. Khorne easily wiped them out but was so impressed by them that he keeps raising them from the dead so he can watch the battle over and over again.

But that was old Khorne, now it’s more like the god of Gore

Actually that ork didn't hate Daemons, or khorne, he loved them because they proved to be the "best foight!" Basically the whole reviving part turned into "heaven" for them.

The waaaghboss is Tuska Daemonkilla.

Khorne has gotten much narrower over time.

Snipers, heavy weapons (the first mention of khorne in 40k is a heavy bolter squad providing suppressing fire), serial killlers, it ran a whole gamut. Even Khorne wizards (though they got stomped for casting spells, having magic items and especially dispelling/countering magic had no censure).

Now its just axe, axe, axe.

Crispy78 wrote:
I'd need to re-read my battered old Slaves To Darkness book, but I'd swear Slaanesh very much started out as the god/dess of perversion and depravity, and has been rather toned down to the more kiddy-friendly and not very chaotic 'excess' and 'perfection' since.

Pleasure was always a part of it. IIRC, the difference between the approach to mass slaughter by a Khorne worshipper and a Slaanesh worshipper in Slaves to Darkness was described as -

The Khorne worshipper kills because it's a duty, while the Slaanesh worshipper kills because he gets enjoyment out of it. Part of the reason why Khorne hates Slaanesh is because of this attitude of taking enjoyment from something that ought to be a duty.


Speaking of which, the Khorne-Slaanesh and Nurgle-Tzeentch hatreds seem to be something else that's not given much attention these days.


And of course, this was also back when Slaanesh and its worshippers used bright pastel colors, and not drab-looking grey.

Why Khorne hates Slaanesh is given from the original Realms of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness:

Legions of Khorne

Excellence in battle is the highest form of worship for all of Khorne's followers. To fight in one of his Daemonic Legions is an honour to which all his servants aspire. Those rewarded by this privilege treat the occasion with the utmost gravity. Death is a serious business, and death in a Legion doubly so, for are not the eyes of Khorne always upon his most trusted servants? That Slaaneshi followers should treat warfare, the most sincere form of Khorne-worship, as just another pleasurable experience is infuriating. Battle in all its forms is a sacred ritual to Khorne's servants. Before each battle a ritual dedicates the blood of the slain, enemies and friends alike, to the Blood God

A Daemon Legion of Khorne is a fearsome and terrible sight. Its troops are dressed quite literally, to kill, adorned in Khorne's hues of red and black, the colours of blood and death. Their appearance is strictly that of soldiers, for only if they are unencumbered by frippery can they kill properly in Khorne's name. His Legionnaires carry this to extremes, with almost identical armour of red, black, and brass. Their expressions of deadly and murderous intent are broken only when they kill, as they smile grimly at sending another gift of blood to their dark lord.

-p. 182, Realms of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness

Legions of Slaanesh

Slaanesh and his servants indulge in war: it is yet another pleasure to be sampled, not a serious business or test of strength. War is simply a game, part of the greater ritual, and Slaanesh is always the first to insist upon elaborate conditions and rituals before the Legions give battle.

The followers of Slaanesh seek gratification of the senses in all things. Battle is merely another method of finding a new warped pleasure. For Slaanesh's servants the thrills of battle are there to be joyfully experienced and repeated. Slaaneshi Daemons and mortal warriors delight in causing pain and killing; their wanton slaughter is spurred to greater heights by the pleasure they find in bloodshed.

The Slaaneshi attitude to battle and death is reflected in the Legion's appearance. Its troops parade in frivolous colours and clashing patterns, fantastic jewels and flamboyant costumes. The whole impression is that of a costume ball or masque rather than one of battle. The demeanour of a Slaaneshi Legion is equally perverse. Its Daemons and warriors shriek obscene jokes to each other, disport themselves with the dead and laugh with pleasure even as their own lives are taken. Any sensation, is after all, to be experienced and enjoyed. To express horror is a dreadful failing, one that is sure to be punished by the Lord of Pleasure.

-p. 185, Realms of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness

Slaanesh's "Why so serious?" attitude to battle infuriates Khorne. Although Khorne hates Tzeentch too, and views magic as a coward's weapon, that is less personal than the contempt towards Slaanesh.

Pretty sure Nurgle-Tzeentch rivalry is still presented as
Tzeentch does change, Nurlge wants stagnation, thus, conflict.

The Khorne - Slaneesh rivalry was played out in the World Eaters/Emperor’s Children slave war.

But I agree it’s not as much of thing as it was. It was sort of a choas replication of the ork tribe animosity rules from 2nd ed. the idea was to add a penalty for too much souping