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Or does their physical form just melt back into the Warp?

From my understanding of it, they go back to the Warp if in the Materium, but in the Warp they leave bodies. But I may be wrong.

It is my understanding that they can leave trophies. Their essence can also be captured, though I realize that’s not the same thing. I would think it’s like anything warp-related. If you believe strongly, or have a particular emotional attachment to a part of that Daemon, your own belief and emotion might preserve the corpse / trophy.

Pride in taking the head of a Bloodletter, for example, might preserve the skull. Just spitballing, but feels about right for 40k. How else would there be enough skulls to cover everything in them ?

They never used to leave behind corporeal remains, but then someone at GW said "dude, we should totally have, like, Grey Knights, like, holding Daemon heads" so now they do.

I could see bodies lasting for the extent of the Warp incursion that allowed the daemons into the material realm in the first place. In that case a Daemon head that was popped off mid battle could still be held aloft as a trophy of sorts. If you had the right tech, I could see people potentially preserving daemonic remains in stasis-type chambers. Otherwise I would assume that after the incursion occurs and the Warp energy that was sustaining their material bodies dissipated any bodies would dissolve into nothingness

It's always had a bit of a hazy representation in both Old World and the 40K setting.

In theory when they die everything of them vanishes, bodies, blood, guts and all. This is why Tyranids "dislike" fighting them because the Tyranid force cannot feed on the biomass after battle as there is nothing left.

However it also appears that there are elements of preservation possible with part or whole of a demon corpse. During battle limbs and body parts and guts and such might linger around; esp whilst the core body is still alive. In addition its been noted that trophies can be preserved of them under rarer conditions.


It's likely that sometimes enough magical/psychic energy is preserved within a "part" of the demon to allow that part to remain even if the rest of its body is lost. There might also be some technologies that allow the preservation of parts.



So you "can" preserve bits at times, but most times it all just vanishes back to the Warp.


Note - some models carrying heads might be carrying them in the heat of battle rather than just walking around with them all day.

My head canon to rationalize the fact sometimes they leave bodies and others don't is that if they are 100% summoned they don't leave a body but if they appear using a mortal vessel like a Psyker or something, they leave one when killed.

But the real correct response is:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
They never used to leave behind corporeal remains, but then someone at GW said "dude, we should totally have, like, Grey Knights, like, holding Daemon heads" so now they do.

But to be honest those bits are ultra cool to customize both Grey Knights and other space marine units so I have no problem with that.

As I said in a previous thread, my headcanon is that it depends on the tier of daemon as well as the significance given to the kill.

In other words, Greater Daemons, if killed rather than banished, typically persist the longest. Things like Heralds typically persist longer than Lesser Daemons, and Nurglings and Brimstone Horrors evaporate almost immediately.

But if a Bloodletter is slain in single combat by the champion of a farming village, the glory from that kill will be comparatively huge. The psychic undercurrent from the honour ascribed to the champion will be enough to make the corpse persist much longer than it would have if it was killed by a random Marine lieutenant or something.

 Galas wrote:
My head canon to rationalize the fact sometimes they leave bodies and others don't is that if they are 100% summoned they don't leave a body but if they appear using a mortal vessel like a Psyker or something, they leave one when killed.

That seems right to me. If they used true material world parts, such as an human body, even with... modification, it should stay

If it was killed in a 'normal' area, then I would imagine that it disintegrates pretty quickly. But in regions such as planets in the Great Rift or Eye of Terror, they'll stick around as the warp feeds their physical essence even after death. I've actually read that daemons became a good bit more solid in the materium overall after the fall of Cadia. As to the trophies, the glory idea seems to make sense. Also, since Space Marines, especially Grey Knights, tend to go into areas saturated with warp energy, I think that it makes sense that trophies can be collected. Another theory is that once a trophy is harvested after a kill and separated from the main body, it might lose its connection to the warp and thus not disintegrate.

It would also depend on how they're killed. If slain by a mortal blade whatever, probably dissipate instantly. If slain by a relic/holy/etc weapon their link to the warp is severed and whatever physics made it possible are "frozen" within its structure, hence leaving a corpse.

then those corpses would be cleansed with holy promethium or consecrated and used against Chaos in the future(or be corrupted by it...).

I remember in Warhammer Fantasy and old 40k books it said they just dissipated back into the warp, and left behind a bit of dust or sludge for a few moments.

I always thought holding daemon heads or skulls was kinda weird.

It is. It's entirely stupid and utterly puerile, even by the loose, loose, loose standards applicable to toy soldiers.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
It is. It's entirely stupid and utterly puerile, even by the loose, loose, loose standards applicable to toy soldiers.

I mean, why would you -touch that- after you killed it, anyway? It's not like an Ork's head or something.

Because reasons that I suspect are Mat Ward related.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Because reasons that I suspect are Mat Ward related.

If you say that name three times in the dark, in front of a mirror- you'll feel greasy hands caress you and hear the words "spiritual liege" and all your space marines will turn blue.

Aelyn wrote:
As I said in a previous thread, my headcanon is that it depends on the tier of daemon as well as the significance given to the kill.

In other words, Greater Daemons, if killed rather than banished, typically persist the longest. Things like Heralds typically persist longer than Lesser Daemons, and Nurglings and Brimstone Horrors evaporate almost immediately.

But if a Bloodletter is slain in single combat by the champion of a farming village, the glory from that kill will be comparatively huge. The psychic undercurrent from the honour ascribed to the champion will be enough to make the corpse persist much longer than it would have if it was killed by a random Marine lieutenant or something.

Aye. I think it is dependent on the manner of the death and how much importance is ascribed to it.

The person who killed it probably has a direct effect on it. If they intend on taking a trophy, then the body will stick around because of that intention. Daemons are the physical manifestations of the metaphysical universe. Thought and emotion given form. So an emotion or thought regarding their corpse will sustain it. Whatever is convenient for the plot, a convenient in-universe explanation.

Miniatures represent a snapshot of a single moment of the battle. A GK holding a severed daemon head doesn't have the thing permanently attached to his hand. He's not carting it around for the rest of his life. He's holding it for a moment just after removing it from its previous owner. It doesn't matter if it disintegrates into smoke and slime a few seconds later.

It's the same as so-called 'tactical rocks' on bases. People snark about how the miniature must be carrying that rock/corpse/ammo crate everywhere with them so they can pose dramatically with it. I assume they think they're being clever. But they really just need to get over their sad selves. A miniature is a small diorama representing a single moment. It is not intended to represent how that individual marine/guardsman/ork/whatever appears during its entire existence.

That was a beautiful strawman, before you went and knocked it down.