Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

'lo thar

I was just wondering about the chaos gods and how powerful they were in comparison to each other. I know that slaanesh is the weakest because it is the youngest, and the most powerful is probably khorne or tzeetnch, but could someone verify who is where?

thanks

My personal opinion based on power would be
1. Khorne
2. Nurgle
3. Tzeetnch
4. Slaanesh

I say this most because Khorne and Nurgle have a large follower base and also because Tzeetnch is more of a schemer plotting people against each other. Khorne gets blood for the blood god and skulls for the skull throne by everybody even those that don't intend it while Nurgle is the rancid god of plague and disease and sickness. Slaanesh, hell he just wants people to eat, drink, and have intercourse a lot

Each of the Gods is like a force of nature. What you're asking is pretty much, "In a fight, could a volcano beat a typhoon?"

 LoneLictor wrote:
Each of the Gods is like a force of nature. What you're asking is pretty much, "In a fight, could a volcano beat a typhoon?"

Not really, the gods gang up on each other (take away the crystal scepter) and hang out in physical forms in the warp.

The Daemon Codex fairly explicitly states the order to be Khorne-Tzeench-Nurgle-Slaanesh

Tzeentch is always more powerful. Anything else you hear is obviously a lie and completely wrong and should never be trusted. Those dastardly crooks had to steal his staff to make him weaker the fools! Tzeentch is simply playing us all secretly the mightiest he prefers to pretend to be second so nobody knows his true might.

Jesting aside in general it is currently fluff wise:
1. Khorne
2. Tzeentch
3. Nurgle
4. Slaanesh

Keep in mind "most powerful" is a very general time. At any one moment any god can be the "most powerful". Tzeentch and nurgle might be at a certain time of revolution or plague and slaanesh might at other times. The list I and others present is the general context. Finally most powerful also forgets to mention that each one is specialized at something ex tzeentch and psykers etc.

Certainly for brief periods of time, Nurgle is the most powerful of the gods during massive, star-spanning epidemics. Then everyone dies off and he's back to 3rd place.

God's power is ever changing. Sometimes a single god become so powerful that he could be defeated only but the combined power of the rest three. This powers largely depends on what happen in materium - like huge bloody wars empower Khorne, epidemies, despair and stagnation empower Neurgle, major changes crusades and political events of the large scale (think Age of Apostacy and Macharian Crusade) empower Tzeench, while prosperity and major feast empower Slaanesh.

Khorne is the mightiest. Even the official website says so. This is pretty logical, given that he's empowered by war, and in the grim darkness of the 40th millenium, there is only WAR, and the story is called WARhammer. However, the gods' power fluctuates, so other gods get stronger every once in a while. Especially Nurgle, who runs on cycles of death and life (though I'm sure the god of change has his power level change a lot too). Nurgle is stated "to be a match for Khorne" at his peak, so it can generally be assumed though that even as the other gods' power fluctuates, Khone is usually up there in power somewhere.

Slaanesh is definately the weakest, being the youngest of the gods. That much is stated. But far as I can tell, it's not stated (for some reason) that in the grim darkness of the 40th millenium, there isn't exactly much chance for happiness and joy and pleasure to empower Slaanesh. It'd make sense because in a world where Khorne and war, Slaanesh's and pleasure's opposite, is the strongest, of course Slaanesh would probably end up the weakest. But... I don't think that's been explicitly pointed out. Just that Slaanesh is the youngest.

Also, chaos gods are a mirror of the material realm and thus a lot about chaos is metaphorical, but these metaphors can steal materialize into something real-ish enough. For example, the Changeling once played a prank on Slaanesh by cutting her hair and a prank on Khorne via a nurgling whoopee cushion, and that'd be one bizarre metaphor if that incident was entirely metaphorical. And even if it is all just a metaphor (for... something.), it was real enough from the perspective of the changeling, Khorne, and Slaanesh.

Slaanesh isn't that weak. He took the psychic power and souls of an entire race after all, and he isn't empowered purely through pleasure, he is empowered by any extremes of sensation, pleasure or pain. There is plenty of that to go around in 40k.

Slaanesh isn't that weak. He took the psychic power and souls of an entire race after all, and he isn't empowered purely through pleasure, he is empowered by any extremes of sensation, pleasure or pain. There is plenty of that to go around in 40k.

I'm not sure about the souls of the eldar as I know that Slaanesh is eating their souls but I'm not sure how much power that gives him or any of those details.

the wiki says the following:

Although he cannot yet hold his own against any one other major Chaos God, his support in an alliance is often enough to swing the balance, allowing Slaanesh considerably more influence than his absolute level of power would otherwise allow.

It sounds like he is like tzeentch but less powerful and clever.

TiamatRoar wrote:
Especially Nurgle, who runs on cycles of death and life.

Nurgle runs on stagnation and despair. Low-level hive worker who lost all hope and expect no good from his life or the imperial guard soldier from the planet besieged by orks for genereations with no chance to win empower him as much as man dying from the plsgue who only want the pain to stop. While Khorn is powered by the War, Nurgle is powered by poory managed piece, which actually covers most of the Imperuim planets. Nurgle does not like his followers dying and prefer to keep them alive and unchanged.
Circle of the life and death is more of a Tzeench part.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Stormphoenix wrote:
Slaanesh isn't that weak. He took the psychic power and souls of an entire race after all, and he isn't empowered purely through pleasure, he is empowered by any extremes of sensation, pleasure or pain. There is plenty of that to go around in 40k.

40k being 40k and pleasure and sensation aren't common amongst men of the Imperium, usually reserved only for the high class.

I never said Slaanesh was weak. Just that she was the weakest of the four gods. That still makes him/her the 4th strongest being in the warp (ignoring the Gork and Mork debate for now)

 Mezmerro wrote:

TiamatRoar wrote:
Especially Nurgle, who runs on cycles of death and life.

Nurgle runs on stagnation and despair. Low-level hive worker who lost all hope and expect no good from his life or the imperial guard soldier from the planet besieged by orks for genereations with no chance to win empower him as much as man dying from the plsgue who only want the pain to stop. While Khorn is powered by the War, Nurgle is powered by poory managed piece, which actually covers most of the Imperuim planets. Nurgle does not like his followers dying and prefer to keep them alive and unchanged.
Circle of the life and death is more of a Tzeench part.

Nurgle's also the god of death and fertility. That's why Mortorion has a grim reaper motif, and also why Nurgle daemons are the only Chaos beings capable of reproducing (also, his champions can give birth to nurglings, too!). It is also reflected in Nurgle's fatherly nature (as well as his love of Isha, also a god of fertility) That his power waxes and wanes is reflective of this. Jus tlike the cycle of life and death, Nurgle's own power goes up and down as his followers are born and die.

Here's the quote from the wiki:

He is the oldest of the four Chaos Gods and is the most directly involved with the plights of mortals, particularly humans who suffer so acutely from a fear of death, perhaps the oldest fear of that species. While Nurgle is the God of death and decay, to be certain, he is also the God of rebirth. After all, decay is simply one part of the cycle of life, without which no new life could grow.

See? God of life and death.

If Helldrakes have a god, he's the most powerful.

Khorne is the strongest, but Tzeentch is the most powerful. Simply because all the other gods rely on his power.

Without change, no gifts could be given to their followers, nor could the other gods manifest their daemons.


In a sense, Tzeentch is Chaos itself. Everything is part of his grand scheme. He's not looking to win, he's just here for the lolz and everybody and everything is for his entertainment.

So really, its all a cosmic joke. Khorne is the strongest, but Tzeentch is the one in control.

Khorne may be the best in a straight up punch fest but in the end, Tzeentch in a sense, is the master of everything, for everything changes, and chaos itself needs change to happen. He's also either omniscient or so close to it it doesn't matter.

Everything goes as planned for Tzeentch, forever. Everything you do causes change, and thus empowers Tzeentch. Even killing yourself fuels him because you're changing into a corpse. As there is no action that one can take that does not result in change, there is no action one can take that does not empower Tzeentch.

It may empower him in small ways, but it empowers him nontheless. The fact that hope, ambition, and other emotions that essentially drive everyone to do everything are Tzeentch's domain stacks things more in his favor.

And also Tzeentch being more powerful fits with the 9>8>7>6 thing.

 Kain wrote:

And also Tzeentch being more powerful fits with the 9>8>7>6 thing.

In that case, Malal/Malice is a straight up boss. 11

Except the fact that he does not exist. And Malice is one of the minor gods (or major undivided greater daemons)

My personal opinion is 1.Tzeentch
2.Slaneesh
3.Nurgle
4.Khorn