Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.
Idk, I think it was Abnett trying to hard to do that atheist magic divide. I prefer the scene in which the DA are forced to use psykers to combat daemons, a chaplain complains, brings up the GEoM, and the Lion kills him!
This BL, they make good authors churn out some crappy stuff once in a while.
So to sum up: Eldar Gods are concious creations of the Eldar psyche which manifest as pure and wholesome representations of the Eldar mind. Chaos Gods are unconcious creations of man (and Eldar in Slaanesh's case) that took form due to uncontrolled and darkened reflections in the warp. Khaine and Khorne, Isha and Nurgle, Cegorach and Tzeentch, two sides of the same coin.
Yeah I like that as an interpretation. I would however dispute the fact that the Eldar gods are 'a pure and wholesome representation of the Eldar mind'. Some of them represent pure and wholesome aspects (primarily Isha), but a good number of the others are fairly horrible. For instance, Khaine spends a good proportion of his history trying to genocide the Eldar, and Asuryan the king of the gods simply stands by and lets it happen (until Isha makes a fuss). It's also stated that during the War in Heaven different Eldar Gods switched sides a number of times, suggesting that many Gods fought alongside Khaine trying to kill the Eldar at one point or another. Then, when Isha and Kurnous break Asuryan's draconian ban on contact with the Eldar he happily hands them to Khaine for imprisonment and torture. Vaul stands up for Isha and Kurnous, and eventually goes to war with Khaine and is beaten and crippled. Only then does Asuryan decide that enough's enough and tells everyone to stop killing each other. Then, later when Slaanesh has murdered most of the pantheon Khaine steps up to fight (note after she's eaten most of the gods, not before). At this point, Cegorach shouts 'I know I said I'd fight beside you, but jokes man I'm sodding off' and left Khaine to die. Oh, and the Avatar of Khaine requires an Eldar sacrifice to wake up, and
You're absolutely bang on with them being reflections of the Chaos gods, and they're certainly less truly evil and twisted. However, 'pure and wholesome' they most certainly are not
I think you misunderstand my use of "pure and wholesome." I use it not to mean "good" but rather, as an accurate, unspoiled representation. Khaine is the god of war and so went to war with those trying to kill him. Asuryan is justice and order, and so ruled according to the law (as he is based on Zeus, this is probably accurate). Isha is basically Aphrodite, and so represents compassion and love.
Anyway, they represent their aspects in a pure form, completely in the letter and spirit of their aspect. Chaos Gods are malicious and corrupted versions. For example, remember that GW moved away from the Chaos Gods having good sides, such as Khorne having martial honour. Khaine represents war and aggression, Khorne as butchery and rage.
The actual acts of the gods are based heavily in Greek mythology, with Asuryan being Zeus, Khaine as Ares/Hades, Isha as Hera/Aphrodite/Artemis, Kuoronus being Apollo, Vaul as Haphaestus, etc. Greek myth has many examples of gods fighting each other, fighting humanity, switching sides, incest and all the other gak. Slaanesh in that sense represents an abstract Cronos, who devoured his children.
Also remember that as reflections of the Eldar Psyche, the gods are subject to the Eldar mindset. If the Eldar were too busy being Dark Eldar all the time, of course the Pantheon would be in turmoil.
As for sacrifices, this is common. After all, Khaine is factually real, we have his shards to summon. These Eldar Gods are basically Daemons, and as with other Daemons, they require ritual and sacrifices. One such method is to scarifice a nominated member of the race. The second is to have 6 of his most powerful warriors, the Pheonix Lords, present and bring him to life. Also note, the number 6 is also Slaanesh's sacred number
My inner mythology nerd is cringing at a lot of those comparisons to Greek pantheon. I'm not familiar with any real similarities between Asuryan and Zeus other than that they're both patriarchal figures. If anything, Zeus has more in common with Slaanesh than with Asuryan. I don't recall Aphrodite ever being particularly "compassionate" unless you count turning a lady into a hideous monster after being assaulted as compassion. Isha strikes me as more of a Demeter. Less abstract "love," and more motherly/fertility goddess. This is also inkeeping with the mother/maiden/crone theme that Isha, Lileath, and the Mora-Heg are doing. I don't see any parallels between Apollo (associated with music, poetry, prophecy, and medicine) and Kurnous (compare to the pagan god Curnous popular in modern Wicca as a counterpart to mother/maiden/crone goddesses). I think the stronger comparison would be between Kurnous and Artemis. Isha/Lileath/theMora-Heg when taken as a whole might also be compared to Hecate. Vaul and Hephaestus are a reasonable comparison as are Khaine and Ares. I'm not sure where the Hades part comes in though. Wife abduction aside, Hades was more lonely and reclusive than anything. He's like... the wealthy introvert who doesn't have time for his drunk, abusive, incestuous family.
Now all that aside... I think I agree with the larger point you're making. The eldar pantheon can largely be seen as more... cleanly-sculpted counterparts to some of the chaos gods. Where Khorne is sort of a catch-all for any sort of violence and bloodshed including random acts of violence, rage-induced assault, etc., Khaine is of war and murder with a point. Khaine doesn't want to slaughter the eldar just to see their blood and collect their skulls. He wanted to slaughter them because they posed a threat to the gods. He didn't torture Isha and Kurnous just to be a dick (though he was a dick); he did it as an act of vengeance. I think of it this way: Khaine is like a piece of Khorne. If Khorne was the clay of anger and bloodshed, Khaine is a specific statuette crafted with the skill and perspective of a single artist (the eldar psyche). Khaine is basically formed from a much more niche chunk of warp energy. While they both draw strength from violence and murder, Khaine is a little more specific about what energy he gets pumped up by. Khorne likes when you slaughter babies or challenge hordes of babies to glorious combat. Khaine is more about killing that one baby to stop X from happening and challenging all the babies of your rival house to punish their family for opposing your own.
Although I might be talking out of my rump on this one. The Path of the Eldar trilogy references Alaitoc-y myths about pre-path eldar who basically became murderous monsters when they became obsessed with Khainate things.
Isha hangs out with Nurgle because they're both tied to nature and life and because Isha's emphasis on healing balances out Nurgle's emphasis on sickness.
I want to compare Tzeentch to Cegorach because tricky, but I'm not sure there's all that much to compare, really. I see Cegorach as one part Loki (causing trouble for trouble's sake half the time) and a trickster spirit of self-reflection. Sort of like fox spirits that highlight the flaws and follies of their victims by playing pranks on them, thus encouraging them to improve. When a craftworlder is being too gloom and doom or when a commorright is being too arrogant, harlequins are there to make fun of them and force them to take a look at themselves. Tzeentch on the other hand seems to mostly be made of the unknown, mysterious, occult power angle. More Odin than Loki, really. Despite the fire and trickery connections. He's caveman marveling at fire and wondering what mysteries it represents. He's the priestess of Hecate who wields power by virtue of being spooky and mysterious. When a Fenrisian mutters, "That magic stuff is just wrong and not for men to dabble in," Tzeentch is the guy who whispers, "But what if I did dabble?"
Automatically Appended Next Post: Good catch on the "six phoenix lords" thing, but I'm not sure if that still holds up in an era where Drastanta existed at some point and Irrilth may or may not canonically exist.
P.S. The type of "love" Aphrodite is generally associated with (Eros) is not generally the selfless, motherly love expressed by Isha.
I love this analysis of the Eldar Gods in terms of what real-world myths may have influenced them. Wildly off topic, but about as much as metaphorical weapons so I think I'm good
Agreed that Hephaestus/Vaul and Khaine/Ares is pretty clear cut.
I'd say that Asuryan has more in common with Osiris than any of the Greco-roman pantheon. Both are fairly passive, enacting rulings from on high (while they were alive). Zeus tends to get his hands (and other body parts) dirty with alarming frequency. Similarly, Isha seems to have much more in common with Hathor than any of the Greek goddesses (who seem to have some pretty serious vicious streaks), although Demeter is probably quite a good fit too but without the motherhood angle. Isha's also got some parallels with Persephone, abducted by Nurgle and forced to live in his garden (except this being the 40k universe, she never gets to escape).
Morai-Heg has inklings of both Hecate and Odin (the later with sacrificing body parts to gain wisdom).
As an aside to the aside, I would absolutely love it if they broadened their mythological base slightly for some aspects of 40k. I'd be thrilled if Ynnead started taking on some more 'Hel' vibes. Or even creepier with some of the mesoamerican gods. I've actually got a little project coming together for a small warband of Khorne-worshipping aztec descendants that tries to do that slightly
The old ones were a highly psychic race that's dead and gone. They are not the gods of the Eldar. They created the Eldar. The Eldar were just on of their many projects. The orks were also one of their projects. One of their last projects were the monkeigh. The gods are what their psychic infused progeny believe in.
Munga wrote: The old ones were a highly psychic race that's dead and gone. They are not the gods of the Eldar. They created the Eldar. The Eldar were just on of their many projects. The orks were also one of their projects. One of their last projects were the monkeigh. The gods are what their psychic infused progeny believe in.
So did the Old Ones and the Eldar Gods interact with each other? Where does it say that the old ones created the mon keigh. By mon keigh, do you mean humans? Cos mon keigh can mean other things.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/04/23 03:03:51
The grey area with eldar gods/old ones comes in the suggestion that some old ones might not have died, but might have ascended to beings of pure warp energy. If they did, they may well have ended up becoming the eldar pantheon.
It's not something i think is the most likely (i like the 'eldar gods are racial memories of the big players in the war in heaven' theory) but it's definitely possible. The necrons think they killed them all, but considering they flat-out do not understand the warp they could well see 'ascension' as no different from 'dying'.
As for which races are created or meddled with by the old ones, one of my pet theories is that the old ones seem to have a favoured body plan for all of their known creations: bipedal, two arms, bilateral symmetry and separate head housing brain and sensory organs.
So, given that the likelihood of so many sentient races evolving with the same body plan is slim, you can assume with reasonable accuracy that most races that share that body plan are Old One experiments in some way.
This gets extra juicy when you consider that the Necrontyr share that body plan as well, so you get a sort of 'favoured child/neglected child' relationship between the necrontyr and the eldar which helps fuel their hatred for each other, and an air of 'paradise lost' servant/lab rat revelling against their all powerful creators
