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It has been said on occasion that Chaos has the potential to undermine its own cause - mostly due to infighting between the 4 Chaos Gods.

The prime example of this is the usual scenario of Khorne and Slaanesh's followers/demons/what have you engaging in a bit of a private war with one another.

Tzeentch is a special case - the master schemer's complex plans have no overall purpose, no endpoint, no final goal or destination. Its scheming and planning..for the sake of scheming and planning.

While it has been mentioned that his own plots may at times undermine his own position and that of his fellow Chaos powers, i've always wondered if this was a bit of "Fluff Rhetoric."

"Fluff Rhetoric" = A piece of lore inserted for aesthetic purposes (ie: it looks cool), but one that never has to be actually acted upon. (ie: All talk, No action).

So do we have any examples out there where Tzeentch's planning has actually hurt/crippled the forces of Chaos?

On "undermine their own cause," I think it is important to differentiate between the goals of the servants of chaos and the chaos gods themselves.

Khorne and his daemons, for example, want fighting and bloodshed. He doesn't particularly care about his champions desires for conquest. So when Khorne's daemons turn on Slaanesh's, his goals aren't getting undermined. He is achieving bloodshed. His champions goals might be getting derailed, but he doesn't really care.

Similarly for Tzeentch, the goal is the plan, and the change, not the outcome.

Sadly, I don't have the fluff example you requested.

riplikash wrote:Sadly, I don't have the fluff example you requested.

Thanks for the comments!

Ah but you see - i was afraid of that. I can think of a few points in time where a Tzeentch plan has hurt the Imperium/Benefited Chaos Undivided - that bit with the Soul Drinkers comes to mind.

But i can't remember any incident where a Tzeentch plan has created even collateral damage against his fellows, or his supposed opposite Nurgle.

While there may or may not be examples in the fluff (I don't really read the novels and such) a lot of the reason fluff like that exists is to help the players write stories. 40k is a setting, not a novel.

So even if there aren't any cases (which I wouldn't if there were), I wouldn't call it "fluff rhetoric." It is a description to help players understand how plots and stories including Tzeentch may play out, and to provide story ideas.

40k is a setting, not a novel.

That's the best answer right there. We don't need examples from other parts of the fluff (almost all of which are novels, or parts thereof) to support the idea that "Tzeentch is a scheming bastard, so schemey even his plots have plots, and sometimes he even plots against himself". The statement is enough for people to create content out of it as they will.

If it didn't work like that, then the material universe would have long ago been devoured.

Psienesis wrote:

40k is a setting, not a novel.

That's the best answer right there. We don't need examples from other parts of the fluff (almost all of which are novels, or parts thereof) to support the idea that "Tzeentch is a scheming bastard, so schemey even his plots have plots, and sometimes he even plots against himself". The statement is enough for people to create content out of it as they will.

Hmm.. Duly noted.

But i'm also guessing from the general silence on the matter - that there is in fact no example of it.

Interesting.

In the Fantasy setting Tzeentch convinced his brother Slannesh it would be good fun to give his other brother Khorne a chalice empowered by his unearthly beauty. Transfixed and disgusted by its unholy perfection, Khorne smashed the artifact to bits in his tremendous rage, but was compelled to reforge it on his bronze anvil. Once he was done he smashed it again, and was again compelled to rebuild the entrancing object.

If i remember correctly, Khorne's managed to cast it aside to pursue more violent and bloody outlets of destruction, but it led to many wars in the realm of chaos. There have been wars for supremacy in the past, and Khorne usually wins by brute force, but recently I think Tzeentch has become the greatest god by pitting his brother's against Khorne. Everyone has a rival, and Nurgle and Tzeentch are no exception having sent demonic armies to each other's palaces just because they don't get along. Nurgle loves messing with his brother's plans, and Tzeentch loves ruining Nurgle's vast garden of disease.

That's all fantasy stuff, but I'm sure that these stories and ideologies go very closely with what's happening in the Warp and possibly even someplace in the Eye of Terror.

I guess a part of me has to be cynical and see it as a sort-of 'get out clause' to explain why this genius master, this manaical schemer of scheme's, who play's the longest game possible, manages to fail.

In a way, all of the Chaos Gods have them; Khorne's rage has more tendency to destroy his own men than his enemies; Slaanesh's hunt for beauty and sensual satisfaction can be a major distraction, taking his troops from the battle; Nurgle's diseases, while providing significant power, eventually just lead to rot and 'falling apart'.

Some are easier to display both in the fluff and in the rules (Kharne comes immediately to mind), but Tzeentch's? Who would take a model who actively screws you over?

Tzeentch protected models are fluff-wise invulnerable until Tzeentch betrays them with a false vision of the future (I.E. failing their invulnerable save), that's kind of the undermining his own forces thing.

Tzeentch isn't necessarily plotting and scheming against himself or Chaos, at least not in a direct way. The 'endpoint' of his schemes is the creation of yet more change and the fostering of ambition (and its underlying primal emotion hope, which feeds Tzeentch) in the universe, the older Chaos codexes go into much more detail on this, along with the Liber Chaotica. Usually the way Tzeentch 'hurts' his cause is when his champions suffer a sudden fall from the heights of power (usually while another formerly insignificant follower is raised suddenly to new heights). There's also the idea that Tzeentch operates on a much grander timeline than mortals, like how the Planet of the Sorcerors was prepared for the Thousand Sons tens of thousands of years before the heresy. So Tzeentch might seem to hurt his cause in the present (for example by betraying his own champions) but that perhaps three thousand years down the line that might lead to a future where more change and ambition is present in the universe.