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But she's an Eldar god. And I'm not too sure where the real aspects of the Eldar gods start and where the purely Mythic apsects begin.

Agree with EF. I sometimes wonder if the Eldar gods weren't simply Old Ones.

But then you'd have to argue that the phsyical manifestation of Khaine is very real indeed. And there is definitely the Luaghing God at play.

In fact.

The Luaghing God and Tzeench have the same, relative, reputation. Both are cunning, trickery, and have lots of secrets. But they are not the same. (I think. The might be all of his master plan.)

So this is where it gets confusing. Khaine and Khorne are like mirror images? Both embody martial prowess and (to some extent) rage as well as honour....

And then you have the whole thing with Gork and Mork...

I'm not saying the Eldar gods aren't real, just suggesting that they are not necessarily warp entities much less Chaos gods. They certainly don't seem to have the same power. Newborn Slaanesh murdered all of them but Khaine, who s/he defeated and shattered, and the Laughing God, who ran away.

But Slaanesh was only able to defeat him while she was still strong in her birth and glutted on all the souls of the Eldar and weaker gods. It certainly does not seem that the other Chaos Gods could defeat the Eldar Gods out of hand.
They appeared to be on the same level as C'tan, having a cosmic war and all.

I'm just saying that they do not appear to be old ones.

And what do you think of the similarites between the gods?

I have a feeling, not really supported by anything except that the Laughing God still hides from the Chaos gods, that Slaanesh being well-fed had little to do with her/his victory over the Eldar pantheon. The Eldar "gods" seem to me to have been inherently weaker than the Chaos gods. Also, the C'tan did not wage a cosmic war against the Eldar gods . . . unless of course the Eldar "gods" are really Old Ones.

As to the similarities, I don't think it points to anything very significant. I don't think the Laughing God is Tzeentch by another name, for example.

How 'canon' are the Old ones? I've certainly never heard GW make mention of them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm assuming that 'Race Gods' are a reflection of that races feelings, culture etc. While the Chaos Gods are more of an overall relfection of all sentient beings. (With humans being the most prominent they reflect the most) Nids don't register and Orks don't have that great an impact in the warp.

So one might argue that singularily, a Chaos God may be able to take on a Race god, but united the Race Gods will ussually be able to hold thier own. The Fall was an exception becuase of the extreme turn of decadence, which gave birth to an extremely powerful Slaanesh. (I assume most of the Eldar Gods only partially reflected this becuase they were still used to the old ways.) However, even glutted on this power, Slaanesh was exhuasted by the fight with Khaine, and could only manage to rend him apart, not destroy him.

Now a question that most definitely does not belong on this thread. (So don't answer it, 'cos it's impossible to be sure anyway) Is the Emperor a 'Race God' or is there a greater force behind it?

Note, this is just me hypothesising.

The birth of Slaanesh involved the death of most of the eldar. If the warp is the reflection of the emotions and desires of those in the materium, and the power of a chaos god can be affected by outside events (referenced in the Liber Chaotica) then the sudden near annihilation of the eldar would have crippled their gods at the worst possible time. Newly born and very powerful god vs god that's just been badly kicked in the gut isn't exactly a fair fight.


I've always gotten the impression that the 4 chaos gods were the overarching gods, the spirits of pure emotions that are inherent in the warp; as long as there are sentient beings with a warp presence, they shall exist. The less psyckicly powerful races and the lower the number of these beings, the weaker they'll be, but they will still hang around. Didn't some fluff refer to the strengthening and possible 'darkening' of the chaos gods at about the same time the human population exploded off Terra and into thousands of worlds? Humans are one of the most widespread beings and have a rather potent warp essence, second only to the eldar (who were, at that time, giving almost all of theirs to proto-Slaanesh).

The 'minor' gods seem to be formed by the belief of the races that formed them. It is certainly innate in human nature to worship deities, so possibly it is in others, and the nature of the warp being what it is belief creates power which can than affect the physical world which generates more belief... etc. The eldar have the Laughing God, Khaine, Isha and possibly others that they no longer have. The orks have a simplified pantheon of Gork and Mork. (I've seen some interesting theories that Gork and Mork are actually the same as Cegoragh and Khaine as seen through an orkified filter, which could be the case since those races were both creations of the Old Ones and deliberate or accidental impressions in the subconscious of those races could be the root of said gods.) Humans may have had some minor minor gods in the past, but in the current day they would have the Emperor; his remains might be tethered to the materium, but he still has a significant warp presence that is, if anything, stronger than before. And this would tie in nicely with the ability to soulbond, which I'm not sure he could during the HH era.

Emperors Faithful wrote:How 'canon' are the Old ones? I've certainly never heard GW make mention of them.

My question still stands.

You get a bit of info abou them in the necron codex, but I think that's pretty much it. Will have to wait for their new codex to see how much deeper they go.

Manchu wrote:When things are at their worst, one's only hope is the EMPRAH.

Fixed...

Is not necessarily true, theres a god being created in the warp called Ynnead, who is technically i good god. Ynnead's "good" coz it's being created to kill Slaanesh.

But Ynnead is not a Chaos god. I do not think he is located in the Warp either. Also, he is solely and Eldar god.

Off topic: when you first saw it, did anyone else immediately start trying to spell Ynnead backwards to see if it some meaning? I know it doesn't, but something about the arrangement of letters made me think it may.

Morgrim wrote:Off topic: when you first saw it, did anyone else immediately start trying to spell Ynnead backwards to see if it some meaning? I know it doesn't, but something about the arrangement of letters made me think it may.

Because it starts with "Y"?

I get it.

So where did the eldar Gods come from? The thoughts and emotions of the eldar themselves or were they created by the old ones?

@ Emprah' Faithful - You are right, as Ynnead isn't a warp god. He is beng created in the Infinity Circuit from the gestalt concious of all dead eldar (from the Spirit Stones) - the legend being that once all the eldar are dead, he will be born and kill slaanesh, allowing Eldar to be reborn again.
- before Slaanesh, when the Eldar died they simply walked the warp for a bit, then were reincarnated. Slaanesh now eats them (or whatever he does -shudder- ) before reincarnation, so they simply stay dead in their spirit stones.
Ever wondered why Eldar children are never mentioned? It's because there aren't any - Eldar Souls are not created, except originally by the Old Ones.

Speaking of which, I'm Pretty sure the OO are canon. They're mentioned in the Necron Codex, as said, and AFAIK, they haven't been ret-conned; they provide too neat an explaination to all the humanoid aliens (what are the chances of that happening randomly?), and don't conflict with any other storylines (due to being so long (long long) ago so there isn't any real reason.

@ Morgrim; pretty much all you said is right. Its pretty much our emotions that create the Four Gods, while our faith creates other Gods (and presumably boosts the Four Gods too). The Emprah is now certainly a God-Emprah; while alive he was merely proto-human, but now he has humanity believing in him, which is quite the power boost.

Eldar Gods (other than Ynnead) are often thought to have been the Old Ones. It would certainly make sense for them to worship their creators. Maybe over time the belief has changed them (I'm pretty sure Khaine couldn't have survived being torn apart otherwise). Cegorach in particular doesn't act much like a typical god; he will actually action in order to defend his Harlequins (especially the Solitaire, who he fights Slaanesh for, IIRC). Also, I don't know if regular warp gods could survive in the Webway.

Eesh, I do write alot. Sorry bout that
And all written with a malfunctioning keyboard that won't read letters sometimes.

P.S. Ynnead is/will be the God of the Dead

Tzeentch is the god of hope, and hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.

I always thought of the OO's as just a very, techinal advanced race, in the Necron dex, it says they were jealouse of there "long lives" and the OO "ships".

@fireball: Good post, that explains a lot. But I have to stress that there ARE in fact Eldar children. But they are quite rare.

Also, it says that Ynnead will defeat Slaanesh when all Eldar are dead, but I don't think it mentions bringing them back.

I'll admit I'm failing to see the point of a god that only arrives and kills your enemy because you're extinct.

And they're not even sure if it'll actually work.

I think it's more of a 'Last Revenge' type thing.

Slaanesh: HA HA! I winz!
Ynnead: Think again, douchebag!
Slaanesh: Oh noez!

The 'bring them back' part is conjecture on my part - I've always thought that it was slaanesh who prevented the ELdar from ressurecting, so if he's dead there is nothing to stop Ynnead from re-sepeperating or something, splitting up into new Eldar. I dunno, maybe I',m just optimistic (wrong universe I guess, lol)

@Faithful - oh, sorry - where are they mentioned, because I've never seen any mentioned?

The OO's were very very VERY psychically powerful. They didn't have good tech, just very strong minds. They formed the webway, which allowed them extreme manouverability & speed (very useful against the necrontyr). So know ships for them, just teleportation.
Its partly why the C'tan hate the warp so much - not only do they not control it, but their arch-enemies have MASTERY over it (or they did, hehehe)
They were long lived though (VERY, if Cegorach, etc are OOs.

Well, I have yet to come across solid fluff regarding Eldar toddlers and the like, but there are plenty of references ot Eldar growing up, being youthful and rash, and others growing old. (Like Eldrad).

If the Eldar race had no children, and were all growing old then there would be no references to young, energetic eldar. And the entirety of the Eldar race would have died out long ago.
(Eldrad, at over 10,000 years is one of the oldest. So that means that some Eldar must have been born AFTER the fall)

Also, Slaanesh 'eats/devours' the Eldar souls. I don't know if there's any coming back from that. It's why they were so scared, before they feared no death becuase they would just be reborn, but now when they died that stayed dead.

Even before the Empyrean was thrown into Chaos. It is noted that those proto-entities clung to the sentient mind. The Celestial War threw in into Chaos and those Proto-entities became twisted into what became the Chaos Gods. If the Eldar Pantheon where empyrean entities then they died in the War. But it could also just be how the Eldar regonized the Old Ones, which makes sense when Chaos invaded the last of the bastions of the Old Ones.

I am surprised that there is not a manifestation of the Emperor in warp space. Billions of people worship him...surely that is enough to get the maelstrom busy building a psychic manifestation of him.

Can you Imagine, the Emperor...chaos god?

Could be interesting and the big question? Would he be good or bad?

Good. Very Good.

Only for as long as he could resist the corrupting influence of the warp itself. Ever since the old ones weaponized it, it's been a little on the... sketchy side...

The Emprah would counter the corruption ....

Having the warp entities cured from their negative sides,
the immaterium may be safe again.

Imagine the possibilities.