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.

DISCLAIMER: this is a fantasy/idea of mine, but I was wondering what the 40K community thinks about it. Part of this idea is based on characters made in the diablo lore from Blizzard Inc. so if you think you have seen this somewhere, there you go. I do not own any rights to the ideas, characters,... all rights are reserved by Blizzard Inc.

First of all, I'm relatively new to the game, however I did quite some research, reading and watching YouTube videos about the lore. With that said, I would like to introduce an idea that I had.

We all know the warp is heavily influenced by our emotions. The combined negative emotions of mortal races created the chaos gods in the first place. Therefore, shouldn't positive emotions also have an impact on the Immaterium? My idea was that the strongest positive traits the mortals have could also produce 'Angelic' forces as opposed to the daemonic forces in the chaos realm. These traits could be Valor, Hope, Justice, Wisdom, Fate, Love, Loyalty, Brotherhood, etc... traits generally possessed by the Space Marines (besides love)!

These Angelic forces would battle the daemons in the chaos realm itself, but also form a threat to the mortals living in the 40K universe. These angelic forces are our 'pure' positive emotions, whereas mortals have both negative and positive emotions. The purpose of these Angelic forces woud be to cleanse the entire universe of chaos and the ones that feed them. They would consider mortals a threat to their cause, for mortal negative emotions will feed the Chaos gods. As such their prime targets would be the chaos forces with whom they share the Immaterium, but should they succeed in their mission to defeat those forces, they would turn on us. The Angelic forces would be more organized than the daemonic ones. Where the Chaos gods have ongoing wars between one and other, the angels would have peace. But they would be much less numerous in forces as positive thoughts and emotions are not that plentiful in the 41st millennium.

A theory that I often see is that positive forces formed within the warp would be to weak and naive to survive there. I believe however that positive thoughts are stronger than the negative ones and that the personification of a trait such as Valor, would be incredibly strong (e.g: Imperius from the Diablo lore). I think they could form a strong force against the chaos gods. As mentioned previously these Angels, wouldn't exactly be too keen on mortals either and collaborating with these forces would be absolute heresy and plane dangerous. Just as working with the chaos forces is at this moment. However there would be mortals who refuse to see this and new cults would rise and perhaps even new religions. Just as the case was with the chaos forces.

I would love to hear some community feedback on this idea or explain to me why I would be so wrong to assume this could be a possibility.

thank you for reading,

Galahad1207

I'm not sure if it's canon or just a fan theory/interpretation, but I've read many times that positive emotions are also embodied by the chaos gods, in a twisted way:
- Hope and a love of life in general represents the jovial "grandfather" aspect of Nurgle, who "loves" his diseases as much as the ones carrying them.
- Honor, valor and all martial qualities go with Khorne, where they are drowned in the bloodlust.
- Ambition, curiosity, wisdom, etc. are all emotions tied to Tzeentch, but his endless schemes make it all rather pointless.
- Finally Slaanesh represents excess. Any positive emotion can be taken out of proportion and become something sinister.
I think this explains more or less why the warp seems to be as awful as it is, anything positive is corrupted by the gods and turned into something negative. That said, the most faithful in the Imperium seem to be able to get some kind of divine intervention from the Emperor himself, so it's not completely true maybe?

Anyways, I like the idea of "angels in the warp," as long as they are as inhuman as the demons are. They still are beings from another dimension made of emotion, after all.

What you're looking for are the various daemons of the Emperor basically.

I always liked the idea that the daemons of Tzeentch and Khorne were the angelic side of the equation, since they tend to sport wings, while Slaanesh and Nurgle were the earthier, more demonic of the daemons.

Galahad1207 wrote:
DISCLAIMER: this is a fantasy/idea of mine, but I was wondering what the 40K community thinks about it. Part of this idea is based on characters made in the diablo lore from Blizzard Inc. so if you think you have seen this somewhere, there you go. I do not own any rights to the ideas, characters,... all rights are reserved by Blizzard Inc.

First of all, I'm relatively new to the game, however I did quite some research, reading and watching YouTube videos about the lore. With that said, I would like to introduce an idea that I had.

We all know the warp is heavily influenced by our emotions. The combined negative emotions of mortal races created the chaos gods in the first place. Therefore, shouldn't positive emotions also have an impact on the Immaterium? My idea was that the strongest positive traits the mortals have could also produce 'Angelic' forces as opposed to the daemonic forces in the chaos realm. These traits could be Valor, Hope, Justice, Wisdom, Fate, Love, Loyalty, Brotherhood, etc... traits generally possessed by the Space Marines (besides love)!

These Angelic forces would battle the daemons in the chaos realm itself, but also form a threat to the mortals living in the 40K universe. These angelic forces are our 'pure' positive emotions, whereas mortals have both negative and positive emotions. The purpose of these Angelic forces woud be to cleanse the entire universe of chaos and the ones that feed them. They would consider mortals a threat to their cause, for mortal negative emotions will feed the Chaos gods. As such their prime targets would be the chaos forces with whom they share the Immaterium, but should they succeed in their mission to defeat those forces, they would turn on us. The Angelic forces would be more organized than the daemonic ones. Where the Chaos gods have ongoing wars between one and other, the angels would have peace. But they would be much less numerous in forces as positive thoughts and emotions are not that plentiful in the 41st millennium.

A theory that I often see is that positive forces formed within the warp would be to weak and naive to survive there. I believe however that positive thoughts are stronger than the negative ones and that the personification of a trait such as Valor, would be incredibly strong (e.g: Imperius from the Diablo lore). I think they could form a strong force against the chaos gods. As mentioned previously these Angels, wouldn't exactly be too keen on mortals either and collaborating with these forces would be absolute heresy and plane dangerous. Just as working with the chaos forces is at this moment. However there would be mortals who refuse to see this and new cults would rise and perhaps even new religions. Just as the case was with the chaos forces.

I would love to hear some community feedback on this idea or explain to me why I would be so wrong to assume this could be a possibility.

thank you for reading,

Galahad1207

The Emperor intended to ultimately do what you say, that is take the war to the Warp and fight it out in the Immaterium.

At one point in the Webway, The Emperor summoned a bunch of ghostly space marines/apparitions/daemons/whatever you want to call them.

There is a canonical manifestation of the Astronomicon called Imperius who speaks in I believe the book Talon of Horus?

In that book it also specifies that where the light of the astronomicon hits the eye of terror, it is like an all-destroying fire, which they call the Firetide. On the worlds within this area there are canonically Angels Of Fire, whatever that mean, fighting against all sorts of chaos habitation on those planets.

From what I understand, lizardmen (or whatever they new copyrightable name is) from AoS are essentially 'good' daemons.

Though Tiennos had it right, the gods of chaos embody ALL emotions, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Despite being from a parody show, this segment from TTS is the best description of the chaos gods I've ever seen:

https://youtu.be/SG7VvMGw6w0?t=721

Though, in truth, 'good' daemons would be a pretty neat 40k army idea, even if it would require some retconning.

So, Legion of the Damned, then?

Sterling191 wrote:
What you're looking for are the various daemons of the Emperor basically.

 Platuan4th wrote:
So, Legion of the Damned, then?

Beat me to it. I firmly believe LotD aare "daemons" of the Emperor. "Angels" of Death, if you will

-

Back when all factions could Summon daemons, I remember a player that used all the bird face Horrors painted Gold as Imperial Daemons.

There were Gods of Law with angels in the long ago (3rd edition fantasy/1st edition Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay was basically the last gasp of that). Mostly because they were still tossing around the Moorcock version of Chaos vs. Law, and eventually ditched it. But also because... its kind of boring. Law in this context, as the opposite of chaos tends to lean toward stasis and a lack of change or even action, which isn't exactly a fun or interesting goal for a faction. Solkan is the only named God of Law I remember, though there was a female one stuck in crystal, IRRC.
Though amusingly, the bestiary section for WFB 3rd had a stat block for Angels... under Lesser Demons. (yes, no ae back then, the old GW team was less pretentious)


It never really gained a foothold in the 40k lore, as it wasn't grimderp enough. Although, that said, the Gods of Law and their followers (mostly witchhunters and fanatics), were not nice people by any stretch. Rigid and unbending and a marked tendency to burn people alive for minor things.

Ironically, especially with some of the short stories from the Malign Portents thing, Sigmar and his Sigmarines are veering pretty hard toward the same concept. There have been way too many stories where they wipe out villages for the mere hint of chaos, or that the survivors were 'infected' by chaos attacking them, justified or not.

----
For modern 40k, this idea is pretty unworkable. There pretty much isn't any narrative space for 'gods of positive emotions,' as its pretty much begs questions of 'Where have you been?', 'Why didn't you help?,' 'If you can't you're powerless!' and <blam> 'The inquisitor has shot the god and/or angel in the head on general principles.'

Plus as people have mentioned, the chaos gods already have a lock of most of the positive emotions. Tzeentch IS the hope for change. Nurgle IS stoic endurance of hardship. Just turned to their natural entropic ends.

Were it “real world” I imagine there would be, but the Grimdark would be lessened for equally powerful “nice” God’s.

During the anyone can summon daemons, I’d considered painting other minis in ghostly form to represent daemons of order, or the summoning of ghostly ancestors sort of thing. I never got round to it, being pretty sure that was going to be a one-and-done edition thing.

As was also noted, LoD and the Sanguinor are believed to be ghosts / angels / order daemons, if I recall.

Malal/Malice filled the niche of "the god fighting the chaos gods." Too bad that IP was lost in the warp...
It fit the grimdark to have him being a chaos god in his own right, too. It gave his followers a "he who fights monsters becomes one himself" vibe that would have been fine in 40k.