Chaos and the garden of good and evil

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**SpikeyBits**

I read a book many years ago that told the whole story from the perspective of a stranded Night Lord, I think. Good book with interesting POV and insight. As I recall, he wasn’t “evil” at all, just walking a different path

**TinyLegions**

Iracundus wrote:
The Avatar and the Yncarne are basically Greater Daemons of Khaine and Ynnead respectively. The Laughing God in the background at least seems to lurk in the Webway and maybe even does cameo appearances in Commorragh disguised as a Great Harlequin, and is basically now confirmed to have encountered Lady Malys.

The Sisters of Battles' Acts of Faith was basically thought to be the Emperor nudging events and now the Living Saints are basically daemons of the Emperor.

Basically all these other gods have chosen or been forced to apply their mystical aid in more subtle or limited manner, in a guerilla warfare approach rather than out and out open warfare. However in the novel Plague War the Emperor seems to be taking a less subtle and more blatant approach, channelling power through a young pysker girl and saving Guilliman by basically wiping out a host of Nurgle daemons (not just banishing but totally destroying them).

Fair enough, but that is also part of my point. All of the other deities in the Panoply of the Warhammer 40K world are limited in what they do on the plane of existence that the game and the fluff are in. Guerilla Warfare is a good way of looking at it, and I see these particular direct influences as something that would be embodied in a special character or a special one-off unit. In other words it is a rare occurrence that you only see rarely. You may be correct to compare an Avatar with a Greater Daemon, but there is a lot more than just Greater Daemons in the Daemons faction. A whole faction of billions if not trillions of under daemons that are directly adherents to their god that other gods simply cant produce, and are more importantly affected by the god in some way that is unique to the god directly in game play. On top of that you have the augmentations that CSM have, whether it is for gameplay good or bad really changes from edition to edition, but there is the changes that you can burn points on. I just don't see that same equivalent with other factions. But let me be specific on this once again, I would not want to have Khaine affecting Eldar directly like I see on the Chaos side. Personally, I would prefer a whole re-write, but I would settle for a hands off approach from all deities.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Nerak wrote:
TinyLegions wrote:

How exactly does the Ork gods augment the Orks from the standard Orks that we all know about? Same thing with the Tau, how does that happen? You say that the Emperor has "daemons," which ones are they? Space Marines don't count as CSM are the equivalent.

Gonna try to clear some of theese things up. Let's start with the emperors deamons. There's really only two imperial deamon groups floating around. One is the legion of the damned and the other is the the sangunior. I think the Sangunior is the only one to be confirmed to be an imperial deamon. As in litteraly made of warp stuff. Basicly he's an incarnation of the legend of sangunius after 10k years of faith. I know there's more to it then that but it serves as a basic explanation. The legion of the damned are either the fire lords chapter (which is an amazing theory) or demonic incarnations of the space marines. Then we have the Emperors deamon princes. These are the super powered saints. Those that seem immortal and have all manner of unexplained powers. As far as orks are concerned it's not clear where Gork and Mork end and the orks begin. Orks are pretty much incoruptible. Yeah there are cases of orks worshipping khorne but very rarely does this happen where the orks don't believe Khorne to be an aspect of Gork or Mork. Orks are natuarally resistant to chaos somehow. They even draw from their horde mentality when channeling psychic powers. This could be the direct influence of Gork and Mork or be a part of their psychology. Either the whole race is protected by the two biggest boys in the warp or the two biggest boys in the warp are protected by the orks. It's not clear either if they bestow gifts or powers, but the orks does display some traits that may or may not be supernatural powers protecting them. Actually it could be argued that the weirdboys psychic powers are more of a channeling of Gork and Mork then it is warping reality using chaos. As for the eldar the avatar used to be far more similar to a greater deamon. Recquiring a live sacrifice (the young king vs possesion), having the demonic rule and so on. Special rules interacting with deamons used to work on the avatar (like grey knights nemesis force weapons). Also weird things happen to all eldar in proximity to their deitys avatars, like all eldars blood lust increasing near an avatar. Nor sure about the current rules though. The Tau are notorius for having a very smal warp presence and no psykers in their empire. The etherials rule using pheremones, which appear to be strictly biological. Not to mention media manipulation. They also havn't been enough really to be players in the realm of chaos. They will undoubtedly get there though.

TinyLegions wrote:

I don't see any of the other gods out there either listed above or not listed supporting their followers in that way. That is my problem with GW's view of mythology. If the Chaos Gods can augment their followers, or send them daemons, then why can't the above gods do the same? If the other gods can't augment or allow help from another plane of existence, then why are the chaos gods allowed to do so? I realize that this is ultimately a marketing campaign to entice us to buy more models, and combined it with style that was apparently commandeered from a few fantasy books over 30 years ago, but it does not cease to bother me that two factions out of how many get preferential treatment from their respective gods in the fluff and the others are out of luck. That is a sign of laziness to me to even have this in order to sell a different batch of models to someone.

Guess I mostly covered this above. The chaos gods are absolutely the most hands on chaos gods. That said the other gods are active and doing things for their followers. It seems though that the connections are not as clear. Often it can be argued it's just biology or luck at play and not chaos interference. I'm going to link an old thread I made listing the 40k gods and their whereabouts.

Edit: Ye olde "updated" gods thread: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/745574.page

My reply to Iracundus sort of covers this post as well. Fair enough, and I think that your comment about the chaos gods being the most hands on is spot on.

On another note, apologies to the OP if I derailed this thread from the original topic of the conversation.

**BlaxicanX**

Depends on the marines. There is enough variety in the motivations and pathos of traitor Marines to make any blanket statements incorrect. The closest approximation you can come to is that cult Marines are uniformly evil while non-cult Marines and Marines that are renegade chapters are 50/50 in regards to their morality. If your shipyard planet is invaded by the alpha legion for example, depending on the specific Marines in question there is a decent chance that as long as long as your government gives them everything they want in labor and resources they may grant you a relative amount of autonomy. The Alpha Legion considers you a strategic target and torturing you or culling your population is not their goal.

In comparison, when the World Eaters invade you have no hope. They may leave just enough of you alive to operate the shipyards and serve as slaves but the rest will be culled. The world eaters don't want to kill you because you are a strategic resource, they want to kill you because you exist in front of them and the blood must flow. Plague Marines want to infect you and everyone you know with Nurgle's blessing. Tzeentch marines want to sacrifice you to daemons. Slaaneshi marines want to grind you up into space coke etc.

In a galaxy as messed up as 40k, the distinction between inflicting violence as a means to a end versus inflicting violence for its own sake is the only thing that matters in regards to morally good or morally evil.

**Solid_jr**

TinyLegions wrote:

IMHO the bigger problem is with GW being so enamored with the concepts of chaos,(I think that they get it from Michael Moorcock) that they are the overpowering boogeyman in both 40K and WFB/AOS. They are so powerful that they can corrupt and augment Space Marines, AND allow for their own daemon hordes to appear in the plane of existence with everyone else. Take that in contrast to the Eldar(and for that matter old High Elf) Gods where outside of an avatar of the Gods of Eldar, they do absolutely nothing for them and even can't save them in the afterlife from Slaanesh. Doing what they do to the fluff really pigeon holes people assuming that they want to run a faction like they read it in the fluff.

Ahhh... now Moorcock references I know more about (I suspect I may be a bit of an older gamer nerd type). I agree that he was obsessed with Law and Chaos but he didn't come down on the side of one being better or worse than the other. He went out of his way to ensure that we understood that both were necessary. The entire idea of the "Eternal Champion" was sort of a referee to ensure the balance.

In advance, I should say, I agree with most of what's been said here today about the whole "shades of grey" thing and that we can play these games however we choose. But, unlike Moorcock, GW seems to lean toward the side of the Imperium as "the good guys". Or, at least, "the necessary guys". Chaos, in my limited readings at least, is rarely depicted as anything but something to be wiped out. I guess I can respect the idea that law and chaos are both opposing but necessary sides to the natural order a lot more than I can that Chaos (in 40k) are just demonic (or daemonic) forces.

Oddly enough, Mortarion gave a speech to Guilliman once that was the most compelling argument I've heard in a GW book that Chaos wasn't "evil" per se. The ghist of it was that Nurgle offered new life and rebirth etc. It wasn't enough to change my mind but it did make me think about the natural order of things.

I guess that's what it comes down to for me. The emperor and his astartes are fighting for something that, to me, is their idea of good but so unnaturally so. Chaos, while corrupting and vile eventually, at least on the surface seems like a more natural order (before they get all murderous and rapey, anyway).

Anyway, as suggested, these are my toy soldiers and I'll play them how I like ... essentially.

thanks for the awesome responses. This went waaayy deeper than I thought it would but, honestly, it made me think more about the world of 40K and even a bit about our own.
Much appreciated.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
If the Legion of the Damned and the Sanguinor are considered daemonic because they're comprised of warp stuff, does that make the Emperor himself a daemon of sorts? He was made by psykers, no?

Maybe and oversimplication... what do I know of psykers and the warp...

**Nerak**

Solid_jr wrote:

If the Legion of the Damned and the Sanguinor are considered daemonic because they're comprised of warp stuff, does that make the Emperor himself a daemon of sorts? He was made by psykers, no?

Maybe and oversimplication... what do I know of psykers and the warp...

More like a god. The Emperor was borne from A bunch of psyker committing suicide around the dawn of humanity (60k years ago ish). He then hung around as humanity developed. It’s unknown what he was up to when humanity settled the galaxy. After the dark age of technology and the age of strife the Emperor stepped up as the sole leader of humanity. That lead to the great crusade and the Horus heresy. After which the Emperor was mortally wounded and encased in the golden throne. In order to keep the golden throne running a thousand psyker souls are sacrificed every day. The golden throne is basically a huge lighthouse shining in the warp. The golden throne is what makes human space travel (warp travel) possible. It’s controlled by the Emperors soul and given gas by the psykers. Over the 10k years he’s been sitting there the Emperor has become an absurdly powerful warp entity. As a side note it’s actually kind of common for big races to have their own patron warp entities. Even the Hrud has one.

TLDR: the Emperor started out as the immortal patron demon prince of humanity. Then evolved to be its patron god. It’s a bit of an incorrect statement since he’s an perpetual but is descriptive enough.

Edit: As a side not the Emperor has a bunch of biological offspring running around called sensei. They're kind of anti warp psykers. It's not clear what the relationship between the sensei and the perpetuals are. Generally the sensei are opposed to the Imperium. Most of the sensei fluff is not considered canon anymore though.

**Iracundus**

Nerak wrote:

Edit: As a side not the Emperor has a bunch of biological offspring running around called sensei. They're kind of anti warp psykers. It's not clear what the relationship between the sensei and the perpetuals are. Generally the sensei are opposed to the Imperium. Most of the sensei fluff is not considered canon anymore though.

They're not anti warp. They are anti turbulent warp, i.e. anti Chaos. They have not been mentioned in awhile but lack of mention does not mean they have been retconned. Lots of things in 40k have not been mentioned in a long time but not directly contradicted.