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It seems odd then that Khaine would have fought against Slannesh, lost, and then get broken into lots of pieces. Seems that Khorne would be strangely absent from the pantheon.

I think, of all the chaos Gods, only Tzeentch really has the potential to create a benign or pure daemon. Simply because humanity at this time is hanging on secretly to hope, which is Tzeentch's raw emotion. Change, ambition, secrecy are all really secondary elements. But hope in itself, if given enough force, could create a Living Saint, Sanguinor copy or just a Daemon of Hope fro another race.
How long it lasts, of course...
That's what I'm literally clinging on to. That this is possible. Plz let it be true...

Chaos Gods don't create "good daemons". They create daemons associated with the range of influences that the given god controls. Though such daemons may appear to be good, or pure, or innocent, or whatever, this is a ruse. One does not treat with the Ruinous Powers without suffering corruption, eventually being either destroyed utterly or counted amongst the lost and the damned, a slave to Darkness.

This is not, however, how all Warp Entities are created. Sometimes, enough warp-stuff coalesces around an emotion or concept and, through the vagaries of the Warp, gains sentience. These are daemons who are unaligned with any Chaos Power and may, in their own way, be quite powerful. Their goals and desires, though, can be quite mysterious, but are often predatory.

It is this latter example that will be the most likely cause of a "good daemon", though given the sheer chaos of the Warp, and the overwhelming amount of negative emotions it contains, such creatures are likely to be quite weak, comparatively, and probably preyed upon by other intelligences in the Warp.

The Living Saint, it should be noted, is thoroughly tested by both the Inquisition and the Ecclesiarchy, and is found to be not a daemon or, truly, of the Warp at all. The investiture of a Living Saint is truly a miraculous event.

So, not as much of a Benign Daemon, more a Benign Warp Entity? That makes sense. But it does say on the 40k wiki that they are usually malevolent. This does imply some genuinely want to help. Or the God wants to, anyway. Or the God may be benign in its own right, but has been overshadowed by the 4 ruinous powers? A daemon would be classed as malevolent even if they seemed innocent and disarming, but in fact wanted to tempt the individual it is preying on to chaos. That's malevolent. A being who just wants to help? No, that's benign. And the wiki doesn't say all daemons are evil, ranting horrors that want to kill all the gak within 500 light years from where they emerge into realspace. So that is a trailing off end GW has seemingly failed to fill. I see a gap opening for creative fluff writers here...

Benign is not "good."

Actually, benign *is* good, at least in comparison to the typical daemon.

There are plenty of tales of "benign" warp-entities, whether these are "ghosts" or "phantasms" of fallen warriors, lost void-farers, psykers, saints (not Living), and other such types, though they are an extremely rare occurrence (though how often will even the average Space Marine find himself on a haunted space-ship, haunted planet, haunted anything-at-all-really? Not very often.)

Now I looked, benign is, in the Oxford Dictionaries (I'm British) kind and gentle. but, yeah, in this case benign is good compared to most daemons.

Lynata wrote:Depends on what you'd see as "good", but in the context of 40k I'm guessing this means "Imperial daemons". So I've voted for "depends on the circumstances".

Emotions and thoughts can birth daemons. I kind of regard the Warp like that purple slime from Ghostbusters II, if anyone remembers. But since the setting is dominated by negative emotions such as hatred and bloodlust, the most common daemons are unsurprisingly evil ones, those leaning towards the side of Chaos. Yet there may be times when mass congregations of people end up in an emotional turmoil of feelings like hope and faith that this would result in the appearance of a different kind of daemon - a Living Saint. At least that's my theory.

In fact ...

English Assassin wrote:Long ago 'Daemons of Law' were indeed part of the Warhammer mythos; unsurprisingly they looked like angels.

So kinda like this?

Regrettably, they looked like this; a similar idea, but crummily executed.



But yes, that's how I'd be inclined to explain living saints and The Sanguinor.

I had that specific miniature...

... those wings made it a *complete* PITA to mount it to a base that was not the size of a silver half-dollar (and similarly weighted) to keep it from falling over backwards.

There was another in the series, with a downward-pointing sword, that I had to trim the tip off of, because the sword extended beyond the bottom of the base /headdesk

Id say no Daemon is ever "good" or "bad". They contain a good amount of both sides, however due to 40k being such a negative place on the whole, most of the emotions forming the daemon will be negative and therefore interpreted as bad. It is impossible to get an entirely "good" or "bad" daemon, eg a nurgle plaugebearer is spreading love and compassion to its knowledge but is unable to see that its "gifts" are causing great suffering. A living saint could embody just as much hatred and bloodlust as a bloodthirster.

Sort of. There could be warp entities dedicated to positive emotions, but their servants might not be considered Daemons.

Id like tio think that if there where deamons apart from the chaos ones we know of they would be like light daemons or such.

Makes me think of Raymond E Fiests books where there are different planes above and below the normal universe, the very bottom of the planes belong to dark daemons and the very high planes belong to light daemons, if one of each of these daemons fight they essentially cancel each other out.

Being dark or light doesnt neccessarily mean they are good or evil however.


I think for thr 40k universe the closest thing you would get to good daemons would be saints.

Grey Templar wrote:It seems odd then that Khaine would have fought against Slannesh, lost, and then get broken into lots of pieces. Seems that Khorne would be strangely absent from the pantheon.

Or maybe Khorne is one such piece. Or maybe the "breaking" should not be taken literal but rather in a figurative meaning.

There's a lot of ways to make it work. Of course there's nothing I can provide as "proof", I'm just pointing out some very suspicious similarities concerning these gods' name as well as their domains. Apparently, Khaine used to be revered as the god of "murder, violence, destruction and war", whereas Khorne is revered as the god of "hate, violence, rage and bloodshed". So ... duh.

Psienesis wrote:Chaos Gods don't create "good daemons". They create daemons associated with the range of influences that the given god controls.

Do Chaos Gods really create daemons of their own? I was under the impression that daemons basically just "pop" into existence (thanks to people's thoughts summoning them from the raw energy of the warp) and are then claimed by (or forced into servitude of) some greater daemon, basically creating a hierarchy built upon the principle of "might makes right". Perhaps I just got this from some other setting, though... I honestly cannot remember where I may have read this now.

Also, those are some pretty cool "Daemons of Law" there, even though the minis obviously suffer a little in terms of quality. Still, you could totally use those for Living Saints other than Celestine.

The Chaos Gods are not truly evil, but are neutral in a way, representing both evil and good, and so no daemon is truly evil.

Daemons are beyond good and evil.

Do Chaos Gods really create daemons of their own? I was under the impression that daemons basically just "pop" into existence (thanks to people's thoughts summoning them from the raw energy of the warp) and are then claimed by (or forced into servitude of) some greater daemon, basically creating a hierarchy built upon the principle of "might makes right". Perhaps I just got this from some other setting, though... I honestly cannot remember where I may have read this now.

Going all the way back to SoD and tL&tD, Greater Daemons are a microscopic piece of their patron god's essence broken off and shaped into whatever form the god finds pleasing, and given self-sentience. The god can, at its whim, re-absorb this bit of itself and that Greater Daemon will simply cease to be. This is why Greater Daemons don't "go rogue" from the Ruinous Powers. Others, those who are bound to Chaos Undivided or otherwise "unaligned" usually start out as lesser daemons, or simply Warp Entities, and then gain power either through machinations within the Warp or attracting/gaining the worship of mortal creatures somehow.

Lesser Daemons are formed from the raw stuff of Chaos, colored, if you will, by the energies of the Chaos God doing the shaping, in accordance with the plan for that "model" of daemon, as well as the god's usual portfolio.

As much a deal that people like to make about Nurgle's "niceness", I don't really buy it. I think it's simply a literary dichotomy, that he is the Father of Plagues and Disease, and truly hideous to behold, and yet maintains a cheery disposition. Nurgle, himself, doesn't really care, nor do the Great Unclean Ones, as evidenced by their casual destruction of scores of Nurglings as the whim strikes them, and the death of millions with plague and disease. After all, one of Nurgle's base emotional resonances is despair, and the determination (one might even say nihilism) that comes from abject despair.

All of the daemons associated with a particualar god are small portions of their gods will.

The exception being mortals granted Daemonhood of course.

Psienesis wrote:Going all the way back to SoD and tL&tD, Greater Daemons are a microscopic piece of their patron god's essence broken off and shaped into whatever form the god finds pleasing, and given self-sentience. The god can, at its whim, re-absorb this bit of itself and that Greater Daemon will simply cease to be. This is why Greater Daemons don't "go rogue" from the Ruinous Powers. Others, those who are bound to Chaos Undivided or otherwise "unaligned" usually start out as lesser daemons, or simply Warp Entities, and then gain power either through machinations within the Warp or attracting/gaining the worship of mortal creatures somehow.

Hm, so basically it's "both"?

Also, what sources are "SoD" and "tL&tD"?

http://games.cnews.ru/articles/img/w40kaaf1small.jpg

This is really the only image I could find of it. I honestly lack the knowledge to tell you what that is but I know it could fight a bloodthirster in the dawn of war games...if it's a "daemon" it's gotta be a positive one...came from the sisters of battle btw

Its a Living Saint. They are humans that have been empowered by the Emperor(or their belief in the Emperor)

Grey Templar wrote:Its a Living Saint. They are humans that have been empowered by the Emperor(or their belief in the Emperor)

Would that not kind of equate into a "good" daemon prince? I dunno lol it's the only thing I could think of...

Maybe, it depends. Living Saints do die, they just have a habit of coming back to life. Eventually they do die permanantly.

No daemons are pure evil

No, because the concept of Daemons are based on the Western-Christian centric idea of demons from hell. The type that were formulated to make sure peasants behaved themselves and paid their taxes on time in days of yore.

Had the 40k universe followed a more Eastern-influenced idea of a non-corporeal realm, then while that afterlife does indeed have its fair share or fire-breathing, animal-headed nasty demons, they also have their fair share of more benign entities as well. In fact, their characters are variously described as being as varied as those of humans themselves.

I've always thought it was kind of a shame that GW went for the more Western-Centric route when describing daemons, not least because it is contradictory and paradoxical, but also because it is rather boring. It's also compounded by the fact that originally 'chaos' didn't even mean 'evil' per-se, but rather an infinite array of possibility. The straight line of the Imperium, representing control, oppression and certainty, and the 8-pointed star (originally concocted by Michael Moorcock, Alistair Crowley and possibly ancient Egyptian mysticists) was meant to show the potential for complete freedom and uncertainty.

So.. the answer is 'no', considering the strict limitations the 40k background writers have loaded onto the concept.

Pacific wrote:No, because the concept of Daemons are based on the Western-Christian centric idea of demons from hell. The type that were formulated to make sure peasants behaved themselves and paid their taxes on time in days of yore.

40k's daemons are very, VERY far removed from any form of traditional Judeo-Christian mythological demons. They aren't evil, so much as they simply ARE.

Papa Nurgle's daemons, for ecxample are actually rather pleasant and happy-- if it weren't for the hideous diseases they spread, they could even be good company to keep. They could even be classified as inherently good creatures, but misguided and mentally deranged. They only want to help you, and they think that spreading disease is a gift, not hurting their victims.

Plaguebearers aren't particularly good, or pleasant, they just stand there, counting in a low, dull monotone, which tallies up the number of people killed by Nurgle's diseases.

Though, correct, the daemons of 40K are not really based on anything Judaeo-Christian, which is why the word "daemon" is used. By using this term, it remains open to interpretation, as a "Daemon" is any kind of extra-planar being (demons are daemons. Angels are daemons, too, but not demons).

Also, what sources are "SoD" and "tL&tD"?

Slaves of Darkness and The Lost and the Damned.

Psienesis wrote:Slaves of Darkness and The Lost and the Damned.

Ohhh... WFRP, but could still be worth taking a look at, considering the obvious links between both franchises. Thanks.

Mynameisalie wrote:
I just had another thought. If a daemon appeared to a populace in an hour of great need, wishing to help them selflessly and without reward, but then became worshipped, wouldn't it then become a God in it's own right.

No this implies their is actually some kind of goody greater daemon running around helping people because it makes him feel "happy" or whatever. Also specific daemons have been known to rule worlds or receive individual praise, though it doesn't make them gods just maybe more powerful.

EVEN if a good daemon was created in the warp Chaos daemons would just kill it straight out. Chaos daemons are battling each other all the time. If their really were good deamons they would be so under powered they wouldn't be able to survive in the warp, thus leading to the argument that their really is not enough positive emotion in the beginning to even manifest an actual daemon.

There's plenty of fluff sources that indicate that beneficial Warp Entities do exist, and continue to exist for long periods of time, without being eaten by Daemons. The Warp is a violent place, to be sure, but daemons don't cover every non-Euclidean inch of it.

Daemons do gain power from the worship of mortals. Given enough mortals, it would be possible for a Daemon to become a (very minor) Chaos God in this way. However, these people are likely to attract the attention of the Ecclesiarchy and the Inquisition, and be tortured and interrogated before being burned alive at the stake for being Heretics and Daemon-worshipers. The Daemon, if it is lucky, will be destroyed outright by the Grey Knights or other Ordo Malleus forces. If it is not so lucky, it may find itself bound by Inquisitors or members of the Ecclesiarchy, and then sealed away in a void-safe for all time.

I'm just going to quote from the 40k wiki, and see if this helps:
A Daemon is an intelligent and usually malevolent entity of the Warp that is a living embodiment of Chaos. Daemons are collectively the greatest servants of the Chaos Gods and of Chaos itself as a universal force. They are created at the whim of one of the four major Chaos Gods from a fraction of the God's own power within the Immaterium and act as an extension of its will. A daemon's appearance and intrinsic character reflect the God's own nature. These daemons may be reabsorbed into the God's own psychic signature in the Warp at its whim.
Chaos... That's not necessarily evil. It's more like "it can pull one way or the other". Daemons don't have to always be evil, but they will most likely contain undesirable traits. This can lead back to the possibility of a benign daemon forming, but having traits such as jealousy, or bloodlust. So yes, benign daemons are capable of forming, but they aren't always made of 100% positive emotion. The ones that are benign will be made of a higher percentage of positive emotions/traits, which causes the daemon to become more of a "good" one.
That's how I see it anyway.