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It's been made clear in the fluff that it is very difficult to become a prince, but judging by how many prince characters there are, the phenomena strikes me as more common than one might initially think. Not only do they lead Chaos forces, but they are often made the rulers of daemon worlds, of which there are many, especially in the Eye, Great Rift, and Maelstrom, and the Formless Wastes seem to be littered with prince castles. The gods want their greatest champions to stick around, so why not make them a prince? Between both the Marine princes and the others (the ones found in the daemon codex), I would not be surprised if there was one prince for every couple hundred CSM and/or cultists.

Given how large the human population in the 40k verse is, combined with the significant number that will fall/turn to Chaos, a miniscule demon prince conversion rate is still going to yield a staggering number of successes.

as sterling said with the population sizes even if you see only 1 new deamon prince every 100 years that's still a good 1000 deamon prices that have been created since the heresy alone.
I mean once they're made a deamon prince... IT'S NOT LIKE THEY'RE GOING ANYWHERE!

I wonder if Daemon Princes can kill each other permanently. In most cases they will reform and be able to be summoned again, like most Daemons, unless they are killed by Sisters of Silence or certain artifacts.

For every thousands of Chaos Spawns there is likely at least one Daemon Prince. Chaos Undivided Daemon Princes are definitely the rarest if that matters any. Since they need equal favor from all 4 gods, or otherwise become a Spawn.

DontEatRawHagis wrote:
I wonder if Daemon Princes can kill each other permanently. In most cases they will reform and be able to be summoned again, like most Daemons, unless they are killed by Sisters of Silence or certain artifacts.

For every thousands of Chaos Spawns there is likely at least one Daemon Prince. Chaos Undivided Daemon Princes are definitely the rarest if that matters any. Since they need equal favor from all 4 gods, or otherwise become a Spawn.

GW seems to be the last decade or so moving away from undivided princes being a thing, with Belakor being "special"

DontEatRawHagis wrote:
I wonder if Daemon Princes can kill each other permanently. In most cases they will reform and be able to be summoned again, like most Daemons, unless they are killed by Sisters of Silence or certain artifacts.

For every thousands of Chaos Spawns there is likely at least one Daemon Prince. Chaos Undivided Daemon Princes are definitely the rarest if that matters any. Since they need equal favor from all 4 gods, or otherwise become a Spawn.

I wasn't aware that Silent Sisters could perma kill demons.

I think demon princes can kill each other by devouring the others soul but it seems harder to do that than just kill them.

They seem to be a dime a dozen. If the amount we see on the table rank for anything then in a group of 100 beings there would be 10-15 easy.

How many Chaos worshipers are there in the galaxy? If even one tenth of one percent, if even ONE PERCENT of one percent, become (or became - they're immortal, after all) Daemon Princes, they'd be glutting the galaxy. Daemon Princes can and should seem plentiful. It makes Chaos seem more attractive if it feels like there's Daemon Princes from hell to breakfast.

The Warp being infinite and eternal, i imagine that there are just as many daemon princes as the combined desires.of the particular patron-God fancy having around at any point in non-time. I think that particular branch of mathematics is probably a) madness inducing, b) impossible to.quantify in normal.space and c)heretical

sidewinderscott wrote:
They seem to be a dime a dozen. If the amount we see on the table rank for anything then in a group of 100 beings there would be 10-15 easy.

Yep, three per 30 Cultists/15 CSM, at least.

what we see on the table is a terriable gauge of commonality given that if we judged via that Marines would be more common then the Imperial Guard

Is joke, comrade.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Is joke, comrade.

yes I know I was continuing the joke

Another point to consider is that Demon Princes make for big stories, which means that in the stories we get from the game setting there's a bias toward over-representation of rare, unique and limited types of monster/creature/event. Even Space Marines are supposed to be very limited in number and rare to ever see on the battlefield in great numbers. Yet a vast amount of the lore we have is weighted toward Marines, where as in reality the vast overwhelming bulk would be the Imperial Guard battling it out.

So even though princes are exceptionally rare, the vast scale of the setting (a whole Galaxy) and the general fact that stories are going to focus on those rare things more so; can make them appear more common than normal.

Models are the same, we fight with very rare things on the tabletop more because they are cool than because they are common. Heck we've got heroes and generals and chapter masters and huge walking space marine demigods in all but name on the table.

There used to be a time when there would be Daemon Prince spam like 4 in every chaos army. 2 in the hq slot of one detachment and another 2 in the other detachment.

Daemon prince lead both a daemon army and a csm army.

People would take Belakor, Fate Weaver, Lord of Change, and a csm Daemon Princes. And throw a bunch of flying psychic dice around.

This was before lord discordant was created.

Daemon princes? I'm still trying to figure out who keeps making all these fething primarchs.

They're EVERYWHERE!

Gadzilla666 wrote:
Daemon princes? I'm still trying to figure out who keeps making all these fething primarchs.

They're EVERYWHERE!

I imagine some Alpha Legion chaos lord working deep under cover in the Inquisition commissioned Fabius to make a bunch.

nareik wrote:

Gadzilla666 wrote:
Daemon princes? I'm still trying to figure out who keeps making all these fething primarchs.

They're EVERYWHERE!

I imagine some Alpha Legion chaos lord working deep under cover in the Inquisition commissioned Fabius to make a bunch.

I am alpharius, we are alpharius, he / she / it is alpharius.
You are alpharius, and if you aren't i will whack you and ask again, maybee politely this time.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Is joke, comrade.

You see, this is what GW's questionable design choice for detachment has led to.

I appreciate the fact that we are supposed to bring bigger formations for these ever so ellusive askable tickets for ressources for AA rockets for your local havoc with missile launcher, as if your local chaos lord is less off an lord and more of an bored festival ride manager.

Not Online!!! wrote:


I am alpharius, we are alpharius, he / she / it is alpharius.

COO COO KACHOO!

I guess the awnser is 'as common as you like'. The game has elements of fan fiction when ever you make your army.

How ever, if you want 'go to town' you can try to make some form of Drake Equation.

According to my model shelf, there are a lot!

In actuality they are quite rare. From my reading of the fluff (from a corpse worshiper lense generally), I only recall 2.

The first was the Iron Warrior lord who captured a vault of gene seed, then ascended to prince hood (seems to have taken about 10,000 years of work to achieve)

The second one was a Night Lord ship captain who slowly succumbed to the deamon and nearly became a price.

Both cases involved a (very very rare) high ranking Marine turning over the course of thousands of years. There are probably tens of thousands of these guys running around at any one time, but in a setting with millions of planets, you would not expect to ever hear of them

Fisheyes wrote:
In actuality they are quite rare. From my reading of the fluff (from a corpse worshiper lense generally), I only recall 2.

The first was the Iron Warrior lord who captured a vault of gene seed, then ascended to prince hood (seems to have taken about 10,000 years of work to achieve)

The second one was a Night Lord ship captain who slowly succumbed to the deamon and nearly became a price.

Both cases involved a (very very rare) high ranking Marine turning over the course of thousands of years. There are probably tens of thousands of these guys running around at any one time, but in a setting with millions of planets, you would not expect to ever hear of them

There's one in Asurmen who ascends after sacrificing hundreds of her followers and Eldar. Sadly for her she dies after about five minutes.

Fisheyes wrote:
In actuality they are quite rare. From my reading of the fluff (from a corpse worshiper lense generally), I only recall 2.

The first was the Iron Warrior lord who captured a vault of gene seed, then ascended to prince hood (seems to have taken about 10,000 years of work to achieve)

The second one was a Night Lord ship captain who slowly succumbed to the deamon and nearly became a price.

Both cases involved a (very very rare) high ranking Marine turning over the course of thousands of years. There are probably tens of thousands of these guys running around at any one time, but in a setting with millions of planets, you would not expect to ever hear of them

I'm pretty sure you're talking about Vandread from the Night Lords trilogy. He wasn't becoming a daemon prince he was possessed. Daemon princes don't become possessed by daemons they BECOME daemons (basically).

And we really need to understand what "rare" means in 40k. We're talking about the whole galaxy here. With trillions of inhabitants of various species. So just because something's rare doesn't mean there aren't lots of them. Most Imperial citizens will never lay eyes on a space marine. Or even leave their home planet. Knights are rare. Custodes are even rarer. Many guard regiments don't have super heavys due to their rarity.

So are daemon princes a rarity in the galaxy? Yes, but that doesn't mean their aren't LOTS of them in it.

I’ve seen numbers ran that suggested there are more imperial knights than imperial space marines...

Next up: are there more chaos daemon princes than imperial space marines?

nareik wrote:
I’ve seen numbers ran that suggested there are more imperial knights than imperial space marines...

Next up: are there more chaos daemon princes than imperial space marines?

Quite possible, due to the fact that you don't need to be a marine in order to become a daemoonprince.
Considering that one of the oldes Daemonprinces out of human species is literally Dschingis khan.

Not Online!!! wrote:

nareik wrote:
I’ve seen numbers ran that suggested there are more imperial knights than imperial space marines...

Next up: are there more chaos daemon princes than imperial space marines?

Quite possible, due to the fact that you don't need to be a marine in order to become a daemoonprince.
Considering that one of the oldes Daemonprinces out of human species is literally Dschingis khan.

That last bit is speculative. The exact identity of that person is never explicitly stated and there is not enough definitive evidence to conclude who they were.