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OK, so I'm not that well versed in lore. I'm wondering - when an aspirant is raised to become a daemon prince, they become immortal. What exactly does that entail?

A.) They now will live forever and are immune to disease and such, unless slain. Upon dying they become nothingness, game over man

B.) They will now live forever, etc, but upon being slain, they return to the warp and reform. To go back to the material world, they must be summoned, or possibly travel through the eye of terror.

C.) They will now liver forever, and can move between the warp and realspace at will.

D.) Other, will post

Somewhere between B and C. They wouldn't be much of an immortal daemon if being killed in combat was the end; that's why there is such intense competition amongst aspirants to become daemons, its really the only way to justify everything you go through serving chaos (and admittedly, living forever as an incredibly powerful creature that's immune to mortal cares is pretty good incentive).

There are very few daemons that can move between the warp and realspace at will, except through tears like the Eye of Terror. But essentially, where the veil is thin or if they're properly summoned, the daemon prince can move between the two. If he's killed, his realspace body will dissipate and his essence will return to the warp, where it will probably have to recoup for a while, and possibly faces punishment from his patron. Once he's ready to go again, he'll have to move through a portal, get summoned, find a thin spot, etc. So, he can't constantly respawn, but essentially after a while the daemon prince could return without long term consequence.

Thats the big downfall of a daemon prince compared to a chaos lord. A chaos lord is still mortal so can go wherever he wants. A daemon prince needs to be summoned.
On the plus side once you are a daemon prince (and remember even the chaos primarchs are just daemon princes) you are effectively immortal. But you do become more involved with the warp side of things, so you spend more time in the warp, dealing with other daemons and fighting to expand the influence of your God versus the others.

It's B. For sure.
As mentioned above you become the pawn of X chaos god and in between excursions on the mortal realm you're battling it out with the other chaos gods at the whim of your superior

So, despite anything Abbadon does, the best he could be raised to is a Chaos Fury?

Nah. Abaddon has stayed mortal because he is still focused on the mortal realm. He could be a daemon prince, but then he wouldnt be able to put the time in to destroy the imperium.

Correct me if I'm wrong but in the book Storm of Iron the talk about the ascension of the warsmith leading the attack against Hydra Cordatus so in essence I'd say it's more of C, a Daemon Prince is the ultimate achievement, a mortal now become Immortal and thus able to pretty much do as he will, so long as he isn't dedicated to any one power in particular, i.e Word Bearers, Iron Warriors, Night Lords, Alpha Legion.

Some people here are saying that they are in effect slaves to a the chaos Gods, yes and no. Do they serev them? yes. Are they allowed to determine their course through time and space? yes. Demon Princes are not Greater Demons, Greater deomons are the bound servants of the greater powers of chaos and thus are slave to the will of their masters, A demon prince with no stated allegiance to one power or another has influence over it's own destiny in the grand scheme of the galaxy.

Ouze wrote:
B.) They will now live forever, etc, but upon being slain, they return to the warp and reform. To go back to the material world, they must be summoned, or possibly travel through the eye of terror.

It was my understanding that this was the fate of ALL CSM (thus Eliphas and many other examples)

The only difference is that CSM killed in the warp stay dead, and there are other ways to actually KILL CSM (for example, the thousand sons DIE when you destroy their armor) or if a CSM(or DP even) is willing to die, it will (such as Night Haunter, the Daemon primarch).

the major difference is that it is far harder to kill a DP (as it is a daemon, and as such, is a manifestation of either one of the gods themselves ((Angron, Magnus, Mortarion, Fulgrim)) or of the general form of chaos ((Perturabo etc)) so will continue to exist as long as the energies it draws power from flows) and that the DPs (as actual daemons) are far more "fluent" with Chaos (and as such, are also far easier to control).

I think the reason that Abbadon does not "ascend" is the same reason that Horus did not "ascend" which is, he wants to be more in control of his own destiny (Ha! As if he ever had any!) but moreso for Abbadon to prove his is just as good, if not better, then Horus! I also think this is the reason most of the other "Chosen of Chaos" (Lucy, Kharn the nice guy, Typhat) are also still not DPs, Ahriman is very difference (as described in the new Thousand Sons book)

but thats just my two cents...

~DAR

So is a deamon prince the most powerful? or a greater deamon?

Greater Demon is more powerful than a demon prince, but a demon primarch is more powerful than a greater demon.

xXSir MontyXx wrote:So is a deamon prince the most powerful? or a greater deamon?

A greater demon is going to be more powerful simply because he has the blessing of his patron god, howerver a demon prince has more power over its own free will.

@Heinrich: Not sure if DP are so independent from the Ruinous Powers--princedome is gift they bestow, after all. I think that Greater Daemons are further up in the hierarchy, too, as a general rule. That's how C:CD works, at least, in terms of stat line and army slot. There are Daemon Princes who serve Abaddon.

@D-AR: Night Haunter was never a daemon. He allowed himself to be assassinated by a Callidus chicky called M'Shen. CSM can be killed as easily as any SM--including Plague Marines--and they do not generally return from death. The notable example is Lucius the Eternal.

Daemon Princes, like all daemons, can only be finally killed if they are undone by their creators, the Four. Otherwise they will endlessly be reformed within the Warp and return to wreak havoc. A good example of such a Daemon Prince is M'kar.

The rules on daemonhood are not clear.

Daemons dedicated to one patron are really nothing more than extentions of that god, pieces of it broken off if you will. So there Free will as daemons is limited to how much the patron god wants to give them. Daemon princes dedicated to one of the big 4 are no different as there souls become one with there patron god Id imagine.

Daemons of chao undivided are made of just pure warpstuff and draw there power from all or none of the chaos gods. But seeing as they are entities made of the warp if a chaos god so willed it I have no doubt that a daemon prince of chaos undivided would be bound to obey, or turned into oblivion. They have more free will in general, but in the bigger picture of things, they are still pawns.

In the chaos daemon codex it states that if a chaos champion serves chaos undivided and cannot decide which of the gods his loyalties lie after death he will be turned into a fury as punishment for his indecision.

Manchu wrote:@Heinrich: Not sure if DP are so independent from the Ruinous Powers--princedome is gift they bestow, after all. I think that Greater Daemons are further up in the hierarchy, too, as a general rule. That's how C:CD works, at least, in terms of stat line and army slot. There are Daemon Princes who serve Abaddon.

True enough, I suppose my statement was rather sweeping, Demon Princes do however enjoy a greater sense of individuality than their bigger cousins. Though I would say specifically devoted Demon Princes are on a far tighter leash than those who attained demonhood under the undivided banner.

That seems a reasonable conclusion, although--as with so much--there is no clear canonical example.

Daemon Princes do not have to be alligned to any specific god. There are examples of Daemon Princes carving out their own realms within the Warp or gaining enough power to be considered minor gods themselves. If a DP had to be bound to the will of a God they woulden't be able to create their own realms as their patron would want to keep them under a tight leash.

Then there is the fact that some who have ascended to daemonhood do not worship the gods together or individually but worship Chaos itself as a vast entity with the "gods" merely being differant facets of the same thing. And should an Undivided Daemon Prince be created no one god would have more power in terms of command and the ability to destroy it as it has the patronage of all 4 gods. Khorne cannot simply will the destrucion of Nurgles daemons like he would his own and the same is true for the other gods. So even if he displeased one god the protection of the others would insure he coulden't simply be destroyed.

And there is even mentioning of Greater Daemons being granted enough power and independance from their god that they are able to seperate from the will of the god and serve themselves should they wish.

Manchu wrote:That seems a reasonable conclusion, although--as with so much--there is no clear canonical example.

Tzeentch's doing as always, cursed weaver of lies and fate.

Warboss Imbad Ironskull wrote:Daemon Princes do not have to be alligned to any specific god. There are examples of Daemon Princes carving out their own realms within the Warp or gaining enough power to be considered minor gods themselves. If a DP had to be bound to the will of a God they woulden't be able to create their own realms as their patron would want to keep them under a tight leash.

Then there is the fact that some who have ascended to daemonhood do not worship the gods together or individually but worship Chaos itself as a vast entity with the "gods" merely being differant facets of the same thing. And should an Undivided Daemon Prince be created no one god would have more power in terms of command and the ability to destroy it as it has the patronage of all 4 gods. Khorne cannot simply will the destrucion of Nurgles daemons like he would his own and the same is true for the other gods. So even if he displeased one god the protection of the others would insure he coulden't simply be destroyed.

And there is even mentioning of Greater Daemons being granted enough power and independance from their god that they are able to seperate from the will of the god and serve themselves should they wish.

Do you have a reference for all this or is it just here say?

If khone willed it... a nurgling would die, unless of course papa nurgle himself were watching his back at the time.

Undivided princes only manage to carve out their own space in the warp with the blessing of one of the higher powers (in which case he is under that gods control again) or if the 4 don’t notice or care. The chaos god’s power in the warp is absolute, the warp shifts and changes are there whim, the only thing that can oppose a chaos god in the warp is another chaos god. Everything else is beneath them.

Brother Heinrich wrote:

Manchu wrote:That seems a reasonable conclusion, although--as with so much--there is no clear canonical example.

Tzeentch's doing as always, cursed weaver of lies and fate.

May he be praised in eternal cacophony.

@Ironskull: And yet Princedom is not something that can be earned in the way that bodybuilding leads to strong muscles. Daemonhood is the gift of the Four. Even an ascended worshiper of Chaos Undivided was gifted her/his daemonhood. How? We know not. But I doubt it ultimately entails any more freedom than any other aspect of daemonhood. Consider the Furies: whom do they serve? And yet: are they free?

Manchu wrote:

Brother Heinrich wrote:

Manchu wrote:That seems a reasonable conclusion, although--as with so much--there is no clear canonical example.

Tzeentch's doing as always, cursed weaver of lies and fate.

May he be praised in eternal cacophony.

@Ironskull: And yet Princedom is not something that can be earned in the way that bodybuilding leads to strong muscles. Daemonhood is the gift of the Four. Even an ascended worshiper of Chaos Undivided was gifted her/his daemonhood. How? We know not. But I doubt it ultimately entails any more freedom than any other aspect of daemonhood. Consider the Furies: whom do they serve? And yet: are they free?

^ Manchu explained it better than I did.

Laughing God wrote:^ Manchu explained it better than I did.

yes he did Doug, 10 points from Griffindor!

The warp existed before the gods and considering that their are regions of the warp where the gods have absolutly no power (the Wastelands where the DP and GD carve out their own realms and the Forge of Souls) and that there are daemons and creatures within the warp that are not and cannot be controlled by the gods they are not as obsolute as you seem to think.

And a Nurgling is not a Daemon Prince so that's a poor compareson, Khorne has absolutly no command over the daemons of Nurgle and I say again Khorne could not simply will the destruction of Nurgles daemons like he would his own. I did not say Khorne coulden't destroy them or have them destroyed in turn but as they are not apart of him he cannot simply think it and they're gone, he would have to exert some amount of power to have them be destroyed by like breathing or something . The gods have influence over their own realm and influence on the material universe, that dosen't mean they have influence over everything or that they are the supreme power within the warp.

A Daemon Prince is a more significant investment then a Nurgling and if all 4 gods put their support into one DP then no one god will have more power then the others including the power to destroy the DP. If Khorne where angered he would not simply be able to destroy the DP because Slaanesh, Nurgle and Tzeentch would have their investment protected and would not abide having another god having total power over the DP and so woulden't let another god simply destroy one of their (partial) servants. That's if he was ascended by the gods and not the power of chaos itself

In the final analysis of Chaos, there is no order that is not also disorder. The safest assumption is that everything in the Warp is answerable to something else--if only by coincidence. One wonders, however, whether an ascended champion of Chaos Undivided signals the cooperation of the Four or a unity among them to which they are themselves subordinate. This is, after all, the sense in which even they are answerable to one another. But it is the will of the Ruinous Powers individually that sustains the existence of their minions. No such principle applies to the Furies or to whatever things toil in the Forge of Souls that Ironskull mentioned. But the Soul Grinders are still answerable to the Forge. And the Furies are as free as birds--but that also means that they are totally at the mercy of anything more powerful than themselves. Either model could represent the plight of Daemon Princes of Chaos Undivided.

Liber Chaotica talked about serving the chaos gods. The very act of striving for daemonhood makes you more and more like your patron, you take up and even embody their principals. It not freedom, but rather slavery that you gain. And the sick joke of it all is that you can't even see that you a slave to chaos. The god's don't command you to do their bidding, you just want to anyway.

Sersi, although honored by your presence, I must respectfully disagree. To serve willingly, even if only for one's own ends, is not slavery. To be an unwitting slave to Chaos is unfortunate, however, as one would never fathom its glory.

Manchu wrote:To serve willingly, even if only for one's own ends, is not slavery.

But what if ones will was to be manipulated by the master? Would that not be slavery?

Slavery has a pejorative connotation. But I think that connotation is undone when the slave obeys out of more than compulsion, and instead obeys out of willing and eager cooperation.

So noted!

We all of course have our own interpretations of chaos. However, I question how much freedom you actually have when the quitting the Gods service always results in either death or spawndom.

. . . quit?

Why ever would you want to quit?

B!