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I've been wondering this now for quite some time. Slaneesh destroyed almost all of the Eldar when it came into being. It also caused the Eye of Terror. Now I'm curious if any of the other 3 chaos gods happened to have born in a similar way. Is there any knowledge at all as to how they came into being? Did they just slowly gain in power and not explode into existence like Slaneesh?

(Nurgle) Black Death,

(Khorne) Crusades,

(Tzeentch) Renaissance (this one might be wrong..)

All 3 were said to come into being during the Middle Ages of Earths history. My guess is Revenent pretty much indicated when.

It is a bit inconsistent though, how a rather sparsely populated planet created 3 powerful Gods whereas it took the entire Eldar Empire of trillions to create 1 of more or less the same power.

All of the other ones seem to have been born during some period of human history.

Rather lame, I think, that any of these aeons-extinct xeno empires the Imperium is always stumbling across did not have the capacity for violence, disease, or revolution that, apparently, only humans do.

That seems ridiculous that all of them were created during roughly the same time. So the Black Death can be seen in a way as the creation of Nurgle? All of those deaths from that disease led to nurgle's birth? Seems ridiculous that only humanity brought about these Chaos gods. I wonder why it took so many Eldar to create one god and only thousands to make the others..

Saying the gods formed during the middle ages doesn't necessarily point to their source. I always assumed the gods were formed over a long period of time by many races; the events of the middle ages in european history would be results of their formation, not the impetus.

The whole "the Black Plague created Nurgle" bit or whatever is silly Euro-centric fluff.

All three came into being at the same time, that time being when the Old Ones breached the Immaterium in search of a way to defeat the C'tan.

The events aforementioned are the first major influences that the 3 had on Earth.

It took the depravity and lust of more than trillion eldar souls to create 1/3 of result of the original breach.

I think that explanation, while sounding better, is a ret-con of previously-published material.

Basically... yeah, humans/humanity created 3 out of 4 Chaos Gods, so the lore goes. C'Tan involvement is... incidental, at best, and may have been in conflict with Ruinous Powers that are unknown in the modern era.

The other 3 basically came into existance slowely and less violently, as the formation of every race in the galaxy.


Slannesh was created so violently because the Eldar were both highly psychic and highly depraved. if you had had humans in the same position Slannesh wouldn't have been born like he/she/it was. it would have been a slow and steady birth like Khorne, Nurgle, and Tzeentch were. When you have a race that is entirely psychic, at least latently, and the massive backlash that creates from their actions you are asking for trouble.

If the Eldar had instead been extremely warlike and went throughout the universe spilling blood and collecting skulls you can bet that it would have been Khorne and not Slannesh who was born violently.


It is possable that Tzeentch was not created by mortals, but was created by the very nature of the universe itself. Change occurs in not only mortals but also the universe itself. the warp itself is pure flux.

So Tzeentch is the most likely candidate for oldest and most powerful of the 4.

I'm pretty sure its been stated in multiple places that Khorne is the eldest of the Chaos gods (3.5 codex is one place just off the top of my head). The capacity for violence is a universal constant as a primal/instinctive response for pretty much all species, not just humans.

I think they just kinda' turned up.

I'm guessing that they where born more gradually through, as there is only one Eye of Terror.

Harriticus wrote:All 3 were said to come into being during the Middle Ages of Earths history. My guess is Revenent pretty much indicated when.

It is a bit inconsistent though, how a rather sparsely populated planet created 3 powerful Gods whereas it took the entire Eldar Empire of trillions to create 1 of more or less the same power.

Nowhere was it said 3 powerful gods were created.

It just said 3 gods were created.

The original Realms of Chaos said Khorne came first. Then came Tzeentch with the rise of more complex politics and societies, and then finally Nurgle. It said BY the time of the Middle Ages, all 3 were self aware. Khorne could have been anything from the bronze to the iron age, Tzeentch could have been the rise of the first truly large political states, and Nurgle with the Black Death.

But nowhere did it say these were necessarily of the same potency as they are now in the 40K era.

These 3 gods of humanity, like the gods of the Orks and the Eldar, are a reflection of the race that gave birth to them, both in nature and in reflecting the fortunes of that race. That is why the Ork gods are so powerful and seemingly indestructible, because the Ork race is so numerous and virtually indestructible. As the gods of a backwater primitive species, Khorne, Tzeentch, and Nurgle would have likely been weak gods in the grand scheme of things, but then as humanity grew and spread across the galaxy, they would have grown in size and importance.

The difference compared to Slaanesh, is that these 3 grew in size slowly, whereas Slaanesh burst onto the scene suddenly going from zero to first tier Chaos god.

Small, Far Away wrote:I think they just kinda' turned up.

I'm guessing that they where born more gradually through, as there is only one Eye of Terror.

At least only one we know of.
The 40k setting "only" spans across our galaxy. The tyranids come from outside our galaxy, thats true, but the light of the emperor ends with our galaxy. That was also the reason why this one, big crusade ended on its brink (forgot the name of it, because i have the name of the machariel ship from eve in my head xD).
Who's to say that there aren't more outside (or just have not been found yet)?

iDevour wrote:

Small, Far Away wrote:I think they just kinda' turned up.

I'm guessing that they where born more gradually through, as there is only one Eye of Terror.

At least only one we know of.
The 40k setting "only" spans across our galaxy. The tyranids come from outside our galaxy, thats true, but the light of the emperor ends with our galaxy. That was also the reason why this one, big crusade ended on its brink (forgot the name of it, because i have the name of the machariel ship from eve in my head xD).
Who's to say that there aren't more outside (or just have not been found yet)?

Check out the Maelstrom (if you can find a map of the 40k Galaxy), it is another, albeit smaller, opening into the Warp.

The EoT was created due to Slaanesh's turbulent and violent birth, but as said before, the other birthed far more gradually.