Eightpointed star/eightfold path of Chaos

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**Darian Aarush**

Does anyone know what the eightpointed star/eightfold path of Chaos actually represents?

Last time I checked there were only 4 Chaos gods...

It might just be because I don't know enough about Chaos, but I have read lots of BL novels and background fluff. The symbol is oft-mentioned, but I've never come across an explanation for it.

Just find it strange as the Imperial Aquila (with one head looking into the past and one into the future) is explained repeatedly, and I even know the entire story behind the Tears of Isha symbol of Craftworld Ulthwe. But the symbol of Chaos, such a huge part of the 40k universe, remains a mystery to me.

**Not Online!!!**

Eightpointeed star presents supposedly the infinite possibilities of chaos.
Because 8 is also the symbol of infinite and the spikes in various directions porbably the posibilities.

Supposedly.

Also you forgot Malice.

**beast_gts**

It was 'borrowed' from Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion (Wikipedia).

**Nurglitch**

It's also a feature in Buddhist stuff:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Eightfold_Path

**Darian Aarush**

Nurglitch wrote:
It's also a feature in Buddhist stuff:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Eightfold_Path

I know about the Buddhist eightfold path, but it's not very Chaos...is it?! It just seems a bit of a random symbol. Given the strength of most iconography in the universe (from the Craftworld sigils to the blood drop iconography of the BA to the Gorka/Morka skull/jaw to the Tau greater good emblem) it just seems strange that Chaos' primary symbol is so vague and irrelevant.

I mean the actual emblems of the Chaos gods are a lot more specific and have better explanations behind them, but the eightpointed star just seems a bit random.

**CthuluIsSpy**

Darian Aarush wrote:
Nurglitch wrote:
It's also a feature in Buddhist stuff:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Eightfold_Path

I know about the Buddhist eightfold path, but it's not very Chaos...is it?! It just seems a bit of a random symbol. Given the strength of most iconography in the universe (from the Craftworld sigils to the blood drop iconography of the BA to the Gorka/Morka skull/jaw to the Tau greater good emblem) it just seems strange that Chaos' primary symbol is so vague and irrelevant.

I mean the actual emblems of the Chaos gods are a lot more specific and have better explanations behind them, but the eightpointed star just seems a bit random.

Not that random, actually. GW lifted it directly from Moorcock's Eternal Champion series.

The Symbol of Chaos originates from Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion stories and its dichotomy of Law and Chaos. In them, the Symbol of Chaos comprises eight arrows in a radial pattern. In contrast, the symbol of Law is a single upright arrow. It is also called the Arms of Chaos, the Arrows of Chaos, the Chaos Star, the Chaos Cross, the Chaosphere (when depicted as a three-dimensional sphere), or the Symbol of Eight.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol_of_Chaos

The origin of the Chaos Symbol was me doodling sitting at the kitchen table and wondering what to tell Jim Cawthorn the arms of Chaos looked like. I drew a straightforward geographical quadrant (which often has arrows, too!) – N, S, E, W – and then added another four directions and that was that – eight arrows representing all possibilities, one arrow representing the single, certain road of Law. I have since been told that it is an "ancient symbol of Chaos" and if it is then it confirms a lot of theories about the race mind. ... As far as I know the symbol, drawn by Jim Cawthorn, first appeared on an Elric cover of Science Fantasy in 1962, then later appeared in his first comic version of Stormbringer

- Michael Moorcock on the Synbol of Chaos

Aleister Crowley also used a symbol like it in his Thoth Tarot deck, and that predates Eternal Champion.

Spoiler:

Its also used in Chaos Magic, which is some magical practice originating from the 70s that's about obtaining results.

So yeah, the symbol has a history of occultism and being used in fantasy books.

**Darian Aarush**

Cool. Thanks for the info.

**agurus1**

In war hammer fantasy each point of the chaos star represented one of the eight winds of magic as well.