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So, the fluff on the Chaos Gods can be pretty confusing and contradicting at times. For example, some sources say they're powered by emotion and others say they're powered by belief. According to some books, Nurgle is the God of Sadism, according to others he's the God of Life or the God of Stagnation and according to others he's just the God of Disease. Some sources portray Slaanesh as the God of Perfectionism and Ambition, while others say he's the God of Pleasure. Tzeentch is sometimes portrayed as the God as ambition and sometimes as the God of Chaos.

So, what's your take on the Chaos Gods?

My take is that the Chaos Gods are powered by a combination of their domain emotion, as well as worship. There are billions of Chaos Gods, but only four have remained consistently powerful.

Nurgle-So, Nurgle is the emotions frequently associated with disease. He's empowered by the will to live. He also takes power from caring about others and wanting them to live. Essentially, Nurgle is the God of Life. His minions go out and spread the plagues of Nurgle out of misplaced empathy. They genuinely believe they're making the world a better place by killing those who oppose the Pestilent Lord and converting civilians to his cause. Through undeath, Nurgle gives to them a painless eternal life. The cost is that is plague zombies are left almost completely brain dead and very much numb to the world.

Tzeentch-As Nurgle's rival, Tzeentch is his opposite. Whereas Nurgle is the God of living, Tzeentch is the God of wanting more. He represents reckless disregard for one's safety in the attempt to get more out of life, usually power or wealth. The minions of Tzeentch are extremely selfish and quite a few of them are sociopaths. Most Chaos Cultists are inbetween Tzeentch and Nurgle; though they care about themselves and others, they have their own ambitions and desires.

Slaanesh-She's the god of love, happiness and pleasure, which when taken to the extreme result in an unhealthy obsession. Her most favored minions are hardcore addicts to all sorts of substances and sensations. By far she recruits the most cultists, but her minions tend to be weak and self absorbed. As a result she's on equal standing with the other four Gods.

Khorne-He's the God of Rage, as he's almost 100% consistently portrayed. Angry people join up with Khorne, seeing the service of the Blood God as a healthy way to get their anger out. Afterall, nothing feels worse than being angry and being unable to to do anything about it. While Slaanesh is an introvert, obsessed with her own pleasure, Khorne is an extrovert, obsessed with wrecking havoc on the world around him. His minions are the most physically powerful of all the Chaos Gods, but they tend to be reckless and as a result most of them have very short lifespans.

Slaanesh is a he/she/it.

Khorne, also embodies martial pride and honour.

it's just the overwhelming amount of negative emotion in WH40K that causes the god's Bad embodiments to become more powerful and so we hear that khorne is angry, slaanesh is a perv, tzeentch wants to play chess with his endless pawns, and nurgle scares people to him by saying you can live forever if you accept me, deny and the plague will get you.

This is just my opinion.

I personally disagree with your take, but hey that is whats cool about being people, we all have our own interpretations.
My take is pretty "by-the-book."

Nurgle, I will agree with you on this one. My only addition being that people who follow Nurgle tend to be scared of death and hope that it will save them. It does...in the natural way.
Tzeentch, this is where my opinion differs. While Nurgle is the lord of eternity, Tzeentch is change. He believes that no one should stay the same (i.e eternal life). Also, while Nurgle is blunt, Tzeentch is the master of deception, a division between them.
Slannesh - The god of excess. Slannesh is about taking every feeling as far as it will go. Not just of love, happiness, and pleasure, of all emotions does Slannesh's influence come into play.
Khorne- Oddly enough, I find Khorne to be very similar to Slannesh as he takes war and violence to extreme excesses. I prefer the honorable and less insane version of Khorne fluff myself, but it seems that the demographic of people playing today prefer the crazed and unnecessary violent "blood for the blood god" approach.

He cares not from where it flows he asks only that it does.

But i like More honourable Khorne too, beats you in a fight then takes your skull as a trophy.

I think they all represent aspects of mankind but aspects that are not really accepted culturally.

Slaanesh seems to me to embody pleasure and extreme senses. He seems to encourage constant

Nurgle appears to embody pain inflicted on others but also the desire for immortality. He also seems to be into blackmail.

Tzeentch is the great manipulator. Everything in this world is his pawn.

Khorne represents the brutal side of humanity and as such represents death and murder.

Malice to me represents misanthropy at the highest level.

Slaanesh may be a god of excess and pleasure, but Slaanesh is a god of extremes, just like all the Chaos gods. See the following quote from the original Realms of Chaos book:

Legions of Slaanesh

Slaanesh and his servants indulge in war: it is yet another pleasure to be sampled, not a serious business or test of strength. War is simply a game, part of the greater ritual, and Slaanesh is always the first to insist upon elaborate conditions and rituals before the Legions give battle.

The followers of Slaanesh seek gratification of the senses in all things. Battle is merely another method of finding a new warped pleasure. For Slaanesh's servants the thrills of battle are there to be joyfully experienced and repeated. Slaaneshi Daemons and mortal warriors delight in causing pain and killing; their wanton slaughter is spurred to greater heights by the pleasure they find in bloodshed.

The Slaaneshi attitude to battle and death is reflected in the Legion's appearance. Its troops parade in frivolous colours and clashing patterns, fantastic jewels and flamboyant costumes. The whole impression is that of a costume ball or masque rather than one of battle. The demeanour of a Slaaneshi Legion is equally perverse. Its Daemons and warriors shriek obscene jokes to each other, disport themselves with the dead and laugh with pleasure even as their own lives are taken. Any sensation, is after all, to be experienced and enjoyed. To express horror is a dreadful failing, one that is sure to be punished by the Lord of Pleasure.

-p. 185, Realms of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness

Those truly dedicated to Slaanesh must enjoy everything, no matter how warped, perverse, or lethal. It is a common misconception that Slaanesh is just a god of having a good time. However, think of the most disgusting perverse thing imaginable...and then consider that a Slaanesh worshipper must not only enjoy inflicting that on others but also enjoy having that inflicted on them, even if it should prove to be lethal. That is the natural end consequence of dedicated Slaanesh worship and goes far beyond what most people would consider enjoyable or pleasurable.

My mother once told me, "Without change and progression, we stagnate and die." This is how I've always seen Tzeentch and Nurgle.

Tzeentch represents the ambition to evolve and better oneself; to change and improve. Though, being the extreme of this mentality, Tzeentch and his followers seem to think that any change (regardless of how dangerous, redundant, or superfluous it is) is good.

Nurgle on the other hand represents contentment of station. One that would rather have everything stay the same and (literally) decay around them. Of course, being the extreme of this, Nurgle and his followers extend this to themselves. Never dying, never living, just remaining stagnant in their state of decay.

I've always figured the chaos gods are powered by the emotion of mortals, therefore the chaos gods are an unescapable part of life. Although not all the portfolios of the chaos gods naturally lend themselves to evil, the nature of what chaos daemons are means they universally disregard mortals.

Tzeench is the god of change and cares about nothing else. Just change, change, change. So he'll plot and scheme to make stuff happen for the sake of plotting and scheming. I personally think Tzeench would rather constantly have to plot to stay ahead than vanquish all his enemies and rule uncontested. He's unknowable like that.

Slaanesh's portfolio is being railroaded too much towards sexual stuff, even though pleasure can be almost anything. I guess it's thematic because an army of daemons made out of things people enjoy would have no central theme. Thanks miniatures game. That wouldn't be the case if warhammer was confined to the black library.

Khorne is like a teenager who loves playing violent video games. I disregard those who say he embodies martial pride and honour. Oh yeah? Where? Maybe in some of the books (as for which ones, I do not know) but on the tabletop everything Khorne-related is just frothing, melee-oriented lunacy. Does a god of martial honour choose a man named "the Betrayer" as his favoured mortal champion?

I like to think of Nurgle as the god of death and ending, the whole idea of "everything must die" personified. That whole disease stuff is a means to an end. I think Nurgle has the strongest philosophical point out of all the chaos gods. But I don't like their appearance. All nurgle daemons looks the same. If it were up to me, they'd look more like daemonic undead, all gaunt and bony, rather than fat blobs of stuff.

 The Obsidian King wrote:

Khorne, also embodies martial pride and honour.

Only in the sense that a sacrifice in the form of a worthy opponent where you struggle and fight and bleed to defeat them is a better sacrifice than just slaughtering some random cannon-fodder, but he'll take either one regardless.

Personally I disregard all the Chaos gods except fro Khorne, since none of the other three would intrest me if I where to serve these dark powers. For me Khorne embodies martial pride, skill of arms and bloodshed, in a somewhat twisted way he is similar to the code of chivalry.

 Trondheim wrote:
Personally I disregard all the Chaos gods except fro Khorne, since none of the other three would intrest me if I where to serve these dark powers. For me Khorne embodies martial pride, skill of arms and bloodshed, in a somewhat twisted way he is similar to the code of chivalry.

Khorne is pretty much happy with only the last one( exterminatus charges his batteries also you know )...don't mistake killing innocents,your own brothers and bloodthirst for war as chivalry......


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Haunter! wrote:
My mother once told me, "Without change and progression, we stagnate and die." This is how I've always seen Tzeentch and Nurgle.

Tzeentch represents the ambition to evolve and better oneself; to change and improve. Though, being the extreme of this mentality, Tzeentch and his followers seem to think that any change (regardless of how dangerous, redundant, or superfluous it is) is good.

Nurgle on the other hand represents contentment of station. One that would rather have everything stay the same and (literally) decay around them. Of course, being the extreme of this, Nurgle and his followers extend this to themselves. Never dying, never living, just remaining stagnant in their state of decay.

So Tzeench is good ,Granpa Nurgle is bad !?:-)

 Trondheim wrote:
Personally I disregard all the Chaos gods except fro Khorne, since none of the other three would intrest me if I where to serve these dark powers. For me Khorne embodies martial pride, skill of arms and bloodshed, in a somewhat twisted way he is similar to the code of chivalry.

I disagree, Khorne cares not for martial pride, or skill of arms, only blood and skulls, he cares not whether it is yours or your enemy's.


Now, in regards to Slaanesh, as stated, Slaanesh is the god of excess, in all things. Not just sex, or pleasure, but in anything and everything. Look at Lucius, He takes pleasure in sadistic combat, in inflicting the maximum amount of pain before death whether it is his enemy's death or his own. In that way, Slaanesh rewards him by bringing him back to life through the individual that killed him, IF they took any amount of pleasure in killing him. The crux of this is how does one NOT take pleasure in killing Lucius? Given the fact that you won! (so to speak). Which in turn means that he gets to corrupt and take your body turning you into just another screaming face upon his armor.

Look at Fabius Bile, he strove to make the "perfect" warhost, the perfect killing machine embodied by the Chaos Marines that followed him regardless of how this mutated or changed them. They in turn strove to BE the best killing machines regardless of what pain and suffering they would endure, because they could then take that same pain and suffering and inflict it upon others in the name of Slaanesh.

People fail to realize that excess does not pertain explicitly to sex. A person who loves playing the violin could easily fall to Slaanesh if their love of playing lead them to practice to the point of their fingers bleeding, foregoing sleep, constantly seeking to transcend their peers in ability. In the end (after Slaanesh's corrupting influence) this individual could appear as someone who's arm has become a violin and their sinew the strings and their other arm the bow with their own guts stretched to be the bowstring. Their sustenance being the music they themselves create, in turn feeding Slaanesh with their devotion to excess.


Of all the Chaos gods, the only one that truly seems to care about their followers in Nurgle. He takes their pain away, he grants them the release of their ailments. In turn they become carriers and spreaders of his rot, but they do not have to feel or suffer ever again.

The most callous I would have to say is Tzeetch in that Tzeetch is constantly playing with the winds of magic and changing reality to suit its whims.

 Rivet wrote:

 Trondheim wrote:
Personally I disregard all the Chaos gods except fro Khorne, since none of the other three would intrest me if I where to serve these dark powers. For me Khorne embodies martial pride, skill of arms and bloodshed, in a somewhat twisted way he is similar to the code of chivalry.

I disagree, Khorne cares not for martial pride, or skill of arms, only blood and skulls, he cares not whether it is yours or your enemy's.


Now, in regards to Slaanesh, as stated, Slaanesh is the god of excess, in all things. Not just sex, or pleasure, but in anything and everything. Look at Lucius, He takes pleasure in sadistic combat, in inflicting the maximum amount of pain before death whether it is his enemy's death or his own. In that way, Slaanesh rewards him by bringing him back to life through the individual that killed him, IF they took any amount of pleasure in killing him. The crux of this is how does one NOT take pleasure in killing Lucius? Given the fact that you won! (so to speak). Which in turn means that he gets to corrupt and take your body turning you into just another screaming face upon his armor.

Look at Fabius Bile, he strove to make the "perfect" warhost, the perfect killing machine embodied by the Chaos Marines that followed him regardless of how this mutated or changed them. They in turn strove to BE the best killing machines regardless of what pain and suffering they would endure, because they could then take that same pain and suffering and inflict it upon others in the name of Slaanesh.

People fail to realize that excess does not pertain explicitly to sex. A person who loves playing the violin could easily fall to Slaanesh if their love of playing lead them to practice to the point of their fingers bleeding, foregoing sleep, constantly seeking to transcend their peers in ability. In the end (after Slaanesh's corrupting influence) this individual could appear as someone who's arm has become a violin and their sinew the strings and their other arm the bow with their own guts stretched to be the bowstring. Their sustenance being the music they themselves create, in turn feeding Slaanesh with their devotion to excess.


Of all the Chaos gods, the only one that truly seems to care about their followers in Nurgle. He takes their pain away, he grants them the release of their ailments. In turn they become carriers and spreaders of his rot, but they do not have to feel or suffer ever again.

The most callous I would have to say is Tzeetch in that Tzeetch is constantly playing with the winds of magic and changing reality to suit its whims.

You sir obviously do not know much about Khorne's background fluff. If you actually read you will find that he is the Lord of Blood etc, but his lesser parts are Martial Pride, and Skill at Arms.

I have the pretty standard view if I'm honest. If we reword their descriptions to more real world comparable terms, I'd describe them as

Khorne - war god (Mars)
Nurgle - death god (Hades)
Slaanesh - love god (Aphrodite)
Tzeentch - wisdom god (Athena)

If I were to create a hierarchy of the Chaos gods, it'd be as follows, from top to bottom

Tzeentch
Khorne
Slaanesh
Nurgle

Reasoning, in reverse order to this list above;

Nurgle - the god of death. Who wants to die? However, I would then argue that Nurgle has the greatest followers, as they in limitless supply.

Slaanesh - the god of pleasure. Everyone loves pleasure, but not as much as people love....

Khorne - the god of war. I put him over Slaanesh as if you compare the number of times that you've hoped and prayed for pleasure, to the number of times you'd just wished someone would die, Khorne would win out more based only on the number of 'prayers' of beliefs that are sent his way. I'm tempted to say that hatred sees more action than love, though I'm arguing myself out of this.

Tzeentch - god of change. If you want a dead person back, you pray for change. If you want to be someone that's more attractive to the opposite sex, you pray for change (arguably a crossover with Slaanesh), if you want war or an end to war, you pray for change. He's the one diety that has crossover with all other chaos gods; the power to change that which has already been done.

If I had to say where do they get their powers from, I'd say belief, basing this view on real world comparison.

All of the medieval gods (that I know of anyway) have lost their power, as no one believes in them anymore. In the real world, we associate a gods power with the strength and number of their followers. The thing about the Chaos gods is that their existence in the Warhammer universe is factual, so it's not as though you can simply stop making people believe in them.

I think I could expand on some if this, though cider is making my head a little fuzzy...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oo yeah, something else.

If I were to ally the gods in pairs, I'd put them as follows:

Khorne with Nurgle
Tzeentch with Slaanesh

Khorne makes corpses. Nurgle follows. Self explanatory.
Slaanesh needs excesses, needing an endless supply of things to "excess on", needing change for when they run out

 JohnnoM wrote:

 Rivet wrote:

 Trondheim wrote:
Personally I disregard all the Chaos gods except fro Khorne, since none of the other three would intrest me if I where to serve these dark powers. For me Khorne embodies martial pride, skill of arms and bloodshed, in a somewhat twisted way he is similar to the code of chivalry.

I disagree, Khorne cares not for martial pride, or skill of arms, only blood and skulls, he cares not whether it is yours or your enemy's.


Now, in regards to Slaanesh, as stated, Slaanesh is the god of excess, in all things. Not just sex, or pleasure, but in anything and everything. Look at Lucius, He takes pleasure in sadistic combat, in inflicting the maximum amount of pain before death whether it is his enemy's death or his own. In that way, Slaanesh rewards him by bringing him back to life through the individual that killed him, IF they took any amount of pleasure in killing him. The crux of this is how does one NOT take pleasure in killing Lucius? Given the fact that you won! (so to speak). Which in turn means that he gets to corrupt and take your body turning you into just another screaming face upon his armor.

Look at Fabius Bile, he strove to make the "perfect" warhost, the perfect killing machine embodied by the Chaos Marines that followed him regardless of how this mutated or changed them. They in turn strove to BE the best killing machines regardless of what pain and suffering they would endure, because they could then take that same pain and suffering and inflict it upon others in the name of Slaanesh.

People fail to realize that excess does not pertain explicitly to sex. A person who loves playing the violin could easily fall to Slaanesh if their love of playing lead them to practice to the point of their fingers bleeding, foregoing sleep, constantly seeking to transcend their peers in ability. In the end (after Slaanesh's corrupting influence) this individual could appear as someone who's arm has become a violin and their sinew the strings and their other arm the bow with their own guts stretched to be the bowstring. Their sustenance being the music they themselves create, in turn feeding Slaanesh with their devotion to excess.


Of all the Chaos gods, the only one that truly seems to care about their followers in Nurgle. He takes their pain away, he grants them the release of their ailments. In turn they become carriers and spreaders of his rot, but they do not have to feel or suffer ever again.

The most callous I would have to say is Tzeetch in that Tzeetch is constantly playing with the winds of magic and changing reality to suit its whims.

You sir obviously do not know much about Khorne's background fluff. If you actually read you will find that he is the Lord of Blood etc, but his lesser parts are Martial Pride, and Skill at Arms.

No I have not read much of Khorne's background for I care not for him as a God, feels too one dimensional. While those might be his lesser parts, he truly cares not for how good at combat you are, he cheers your success as equally as he cheers your death. The only reason he feigns interest in martial pride or skill is that it means you will be able to provide more blood and skulls for him before your blood and skull are brought before him.

I always thought Tzeentche was also fuelled by emotions like deceit. Such as heresy, betrayal, fraudulence and scheming.


though Tzeentche seems to be the most vague to categorize.

 Mr Nobody wrote:

though Tzeentche seems to be the most vague to categorize.

everything's falling into place...

To me, Slaanesh has always seemed to be the closest thing to Satan in 40k. He/she/it seemed like the one god that would be the most appealing as humans have a tendency to desire more and more and more in one form or another and Slaanesh plays such a sweet and tempting tune of promise of the more one seeks.

 The Obsidian King wrote:
He cares not from where it flows he asks only that it does.

But i like More honourable Khorne too, beats you in a fight then takes your skull as a trophy.

This is how I envision the Blood Good. Yes he is still crazed with rage but the whole honor aspect makes it definitely interesting. I try to view the Berzerkers as raged "Blood Knights" rather than just crazed maniacs just killing the first thing they see that moves. Anymore I think this view is hard to see because it's sliding towards being insane and killing for the sake of killing. If you look at Khorne from that perspective I think he becomes incredibly bland. He becomes a bland fictional deity whose followers kill out of blind rage with no thought other-wise making it pretty stale and predictable. The whole "Blood Knight" idea at least still leads me to believe that "honorable" warrior characteristics still exists in Khorne and amongst his followers which I would prefer to read about.

 DarthMarko wrote:

 Haunter! wrote:
My mother once told me, "Without change and progression, we stagnate and die." This is how I've always seen Tzeentch and Nurgle.

Tzeentch represents the ambition to evolve and better oneself; to change and improve. Though, being the extreme of this mentality, Tzeentch and his followers seem to think that any change (regardless of how dangerous, redundant, or superfluous it is) is good.

Nurgle on the other hand represents contentment of station. One that would rather have everything stay the same and (literally) decay around them. Of course, being the extreme of this, Nurgle and his followers extend this to themselves. Never dying, never living, just remaining stagnant in their state of decay.

So Tzeench is good ,Granpa Nurgle is bad !?:-)

That depends. Do you see reckless change just for the sake of change good or do you see stubborn fixation on what you already have good. Either can be harmful.

My take on The Chaos gods is..............BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!!!!

I believe Nurgle is the Chaos God of Death as after all without death their would be no decay and the plagues of Nurgle kill those infected unless you are plague marines but basically they are undead right. After all Death is inevitable why try escape it when you can embrace it , a good quote that shows this is as well as being linked with nurgle the god of death is in chaos rising if you beat the great unclean one Ulkair (god he was fun versing) how he says all things die and stuff (can't remember all of it or find a video with it)

My take on Slaanesh has always been like some kind of mad scientist. To start with, its followers try to achieve perfection, but once they have gotten to what they consider perfect, or just because they think it might be a shortcut to perfection, they start to experiment with it. From there, they just ride the slippery slope to damnation, screaming for drugs the whole way down. To me, it's always been about embodying what created it; the Eldar had an essentially perfect galactic empire, being the dominant species apart from maybe the Orks, who were never organised enough to be a major threat, but they destroyed it through their own pursuit of their idea of perfection.