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At one point, the chaos gods didn't exist, they were born in the warp ( a result of culminating emotions or actions in excess)
This is my guess as to what order the gods came in

1. Tzneetch ( I forget how to spell the name )
2. Nurgle
3. Khorne
4. and finally Slaanesh (of course)

Lets have some debates

I'm sure it's already been clarified that it goes
Khorne (he was definitely first)
Then I think:
Tzeetch
Nurgle
Slaanesh

It's spelt "Tzeentch", by the way.

I know, typo. I'm using an iPad so it's a job not to have it auto corrected to "the etch" or something unhelpful like that.

Well according to some older fluff Tzeentch, Khorne and Nurgle were born at about the same time, our middle ages. I would say something like this:

1. Nurgle/Khorne
2. Tzeentch
3. Slaanesh

War and disease go hand in hand very often, so its got to be a close one for those two. But of course we have the Warp version of events. They were never born, the four have always existed amongst each other. There were never just 3 Gods untill Slaanesh was born, rather they have always existed and known each other in the Warp (this is from the deamon codex). The bit about Slaanesh goes: ''As his rival gods reckon it, Slaanesh has always existed in the Warp, and yet has never existed at all.'' Page 16 if you're interested.

Its impossible to tell if Tzeentch Khorn or Nurgle came first. I like to think they all came at exactly the same time, the war between the Necrons and th Old Ones caused things to stir in the warp, and gradually these three super being came into existence. Who's to say theyre even seperate being? They are probably just different aspects of one super deity of evil. The princess of excess was definitely last though. Slaanesh can never compete with the big three in my opinion.

In-canon, some interpretations of Chaos Undivided are that the chaos gods are all just various aspects of the same entity. Other interpretations don't. Like the Imperial cult, there are multiple versions of Chaos worship, though it's not touched upon in the fluff as much since most fluff is from the Imperial point of view.

In terms of the material realm where time actually matters, I've read in the wikis conflicting statements whether Nurgle or Khorne was the first. Traditional Games says Nurgle was technically first but Khorne woke into actual sentience first (then Nurgle awoke during the Black Plague). Not sure where they got that, though, but if it's from a canon source, that might explain the conflict I saw on the wikis (that has since been editted out? I haven't gone back to check).

It's hard to say. Actually we only know how they "awakened". Which means they existed beforehand. Khorne, Tzeentch and Nurgle are probably as old as the War in Heaven. Though they probably existed in another form back then, because the whole galaxy was different.
Then, they were put into slumber, for some reason (probably thanks to the Enslaver plague).

Well, time isn't linear in the warp, so from our human perspective, the 3 older ones awakened some time between the years BC 500 and 1000AD, then Slaanesh around the end of 29th or beginning of 30th millennium. But from the gods perspective, they've always existed. Soo once born in the "present" they existed before their births too, as in even though Slaanesh is the youngest, he'd have memories of the Big Bang and all.

If you've read the Eisenhorn trilogy, Cherubael, who is hinted in other works to be a daemon prince of Tzeentch, states that he remembers when the material universe was vomited forth from the warp. So he existed before existence, much like his patron deity.

God I love non-Euclidean math/philosophy


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Serevor wrote:
It's hard to say. Actually we only know how they "awakened". Which means they existed beforehand. Khorne, Tzeentch and Nurgle are probably as old as the War in Heaven. Though they probably existed in another form back then, because the whole galaxy was different.
Then, they were put into slumber, for some reason (probably thanks to the Enslaver plague).

It's also possible that the Gods awaken at different times for different races. So like Serevor said, they may have existed and had plans during the war in heaven (about 70 million years ago), but they were not yet full 'attuned' to the psyches of many of the races around today.

I read somewhere in the fluff (I can't remember where) that things came in this definite order:



Khorne - (Not the first Chaos god but the first one to come into full sentience around 1100s when Genghis Khan conquered half the world)

Nurgle - (Was technically the first of the Chaos gods because death and decay has been part of life ever since its creation. However came into full sentience around 1300s after Khorne when Black Death ran its course on earth.)

Tzeentch - (I'm not sure about Tzeentch. Might have come between Nurgle and Khorne but seems unlikely.)

Slaanesh - (As we all know, Fall of Eldar)

i seem to recall a quote somewhere stating that due to the nature of the warp, all the gods have always existed, and at the same time have never existed... or something like that. i will dig out my old daemons book, i think its in there.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
here we go, old daemon codex, page 7, in the box, last paragraph:
"The realm of Chaos has no true time, and events do not occur in a strict sequence of cause and effect. In essence, Slaanesh has always existed in the warp, and yet has never existed."

so the answer to your question, yes, yes the gods exist. maybe.

Eh, yea, they may have existed and not existed at the same time in the warp, but in the real material realm where time and space DOES matter, they clearly didn't exist all the time. Slaanesh being a primary example (though fluff sources also state that other stuff about the other three stated in this thread, too)

Not including time travel shenanigans of course. (not that I'm aware of a case where Slaanesh travelled back in time to influence something in the material realm before s/he was born)

Tzeentch came to being during the renisance.

They are all different elements of one being. Each chaos good represents a cycle an emotion that was torn from this being. This is how it stays in the warp, each one being fed by the emotion or energy it is close to. Once given enough power they take form. This is how they were but where not alive. Once they awakened they spawn minions which are just overflowing energy from the main demigod. If and when they come together the true being will awake and swallow the universe in its rage and uncontrollable hunger for emotion and death! LOL JK I have no idea.

Time simply doesn't exist in the Warp in the way that we understand it. The way it is broadly understood, both in 40K and in real life, is that time exists in a linear fashion, each moment of time leading into the next, and so on, forever.

That's not how it works in the Warp. All times, every time, exists at the same moment. Past, present, future... all of these things, and all of the infinite possibilities that arise out of every single moment of every point in the galaxy, exist as a contemporary whole in the Immaterium.

That the individual sentience that is Slaanesh did not come about until M30 is irrelevant. In the Warp M30 is the same point as M50 as M3 as M0, as M-10, as MWhatever. Lust, excess, perversion, depravity, pleasure... these are all things that exist for all mortal races capable of physical stimuli. Slaanesh is present in all these things, and thus has been present for all time.