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Most 'religions' try and grow by attracting new members, and then multiplying from that through the generations etc.

Of all of the Chaos pantheon, how the hell does Khorne a) manage to get anyone to follow him/it? b) have them not die immediately?

If I was reading through a recruiting magazine (kind of like the Watchtower?) for each of the gods, all of the others would have some kind of draw and pull that might make me look at and think hmm that looks like a good idea
Slaanesh - the easy one: Lots of hedonism, sexy hermaphrodites, stylish clothing
Tzeentch - The constant riddling and your house being turned into an impossible 3D puzzle would probably be annoying but the magic, ability to see the future (and give annoying riddles to others) would be a big draw.
Nurgle - Might be a harder sell and too many photos in the magazine would be a bad idea, but some of the concepts (immunity from disease? Sloth and sitting around eating everything for all time) I can see being popular
Khorne - What exactly? Skinned faces and piles of skulls? Then a quote inside the front cover - "Khorne does not care from whence the blood flows, only that it flows" ?? I would ask for a clarification of that statement, it sounds suspiciously ambiguous. The running around with an axe and murdering would literally only be appealing to the tiny 0.01% proportion of Jeffrey Dahmers. It would be a small recruitment pool.

Then following that unsuccessful recruitment campaign, what happens when they actually fight? As above, all of the other options would make me think that I have some possibility of being a successful cutlist or warrior. Either bewitching as a Slaanesh (enemy soldiers not wanting to shoot me in my sexy knee-high boots). Tzeentch has magic to save you, or you can see the future so that you know not to get out of bed that morning. Nurgle I'm probably sat at home eating and don't bother to turn up to the battlefield.
Now for Khorne - with no ranged weaponry (in a sci-fi universe with utterly deadly ranged weaponry) I'm going to run at you with my weapon from the medieval era and try and hit you with it. If that's not hard enough, I'll wear classical spiked armour that again would be zero protection against current let along futuristic weaponry. Finally, I'll fit massive appendages to my head that make me a much easier target and mean that you just need to stand slightly indoors to stop me getting to you and hitting you with my axe.

I can imagine the 40k universe literally having no Khorne followers at all, or them being so rare that everyone on the battlefield will stop what they are doing and watch when one appears. Screaming and swinging his axe around in the air (again drawing attention to his position) the Khorne warrior charges towards the trench line and machine-gun nest 100 yards away. He barely makes it 3 steps before tripping over some barbed wire, which he didn't notice because he was so enraged, before being shot by 18 lasguns simultaneously and which his red-painted leather armour does nothing to defend against. In the darkness, Khorne roars at the loss of his final follower.

Please tell me what I am missing here..

Slaanesh isn't just about sex. Slaanesh is about excess. No matter your excess, Slaanesh will have you. In that way Slaanesh is perhaps the most deadly of the four since each of the other three can have followers fall to Slaanesh as well.

Tzeentch isn't just about magic, Tzeentch is about knowledge. About learning mysteries and power through knowledge. You don't have to maser magic, but its often a boon since its ilnked to the mysteries of the universe.

Nurgle is about the love of creative life. It's about appreciating that rot isn't a curse, its a blessing. It's giving life to billions of small creatures all the way up to maggots and flies. That rot isn't an abhorrent monster, its a festering wound filled with life. What other chaos god basically has huge labradors who bound into battle eager to spread their joy to others. Granted hounds of nurgle do tend to end up killing most of their new friends....

Khorne also does have ranged weapons (Skull cannon) and is about more than skulls. It's about battle and war and losing yourself in the fight.



As for 40K there are loads of close combat units - every army uses close combat. In fact the setting is closer to pike and shot in terms of its era representation through mechanics. You've got your spears and swords and blades and bones and tooth and claw going up against power armours and machine guns and rocket machine guns (bolters) and more.

Well, war and murder fuel Khorne so that’s the main reason why he’s as powerful as he is and why he exists. Orks and space marines are all asexual so slaanesh doesn’t have much sway over them and being born to kill more or less cements your place in Khorne’s greater plan.

Being born into a heavily repressed, super religious society will also probably have psychological effects on the population. Choosing violence over sex. We see this already in western culture where sex and nudity are considered dangerous and sinful, but guns, death and violence are rampant in our media. Then there’s the humanity’s natural tendency toward aggression and desire for an outlet.

There’s lots of reasons Khorne would exist, and probably be the dominant god in the pantheon

Problem goes back to how Chaos was in the past background of Warhammer games

Chaos was neither good or evil, it was just there and fuelled by any emotion

same as Nurgle was not about disease but all live (just of which the very small ones make up huge numbers and Nurgle helps it to grow), Khorne was not just about skulls and slaughter but all form of war and competition

Khorne was the noble Warrior who let the unarmed enemies untouched as well as the barbarian killing of children

yet things changed over time and specially for 40k as they needed a more evil opponent and more black/white background feeling

and while in Warhammer Fantasy, Khaine became the brutal and evil identity of Khorne, in 40k Khaine is now the noble Warriror and Khorne the brutal evil one

War and killing is a thing for some but you should not think to deep into Chaos in 40k, it is there, it is evil and the lost and damned follow those gods (and the gods can and cannot do whatever is needed to keep the plot working)

Khorne is more than 'skullz' and melee weapons. Berserkers have simply lost themselves entirely to the butcher's nails. You can claim.pretty skulls with your gun too.

Khorne is it's various guises encompasses martial pride, skill, honour, courage and the desire to succeed, win and conquer over your enemies and prey and see them flee before you.

A bullied kid angry at his tormentors or a feral hunter on a death world would have as much reason to worship khorne as any number of members of warrior cults on feudal world's as would any number of hive scum who live in perpetual.gang war and for whom living and dying by the blade is just how things are done.

All of these ultimately lead to skulls, and khorne will be pleased, regardless.

Ever been angry and wanted to vent but you couldn't?

Khorne says you can. Khorne says you should. Khorne says your anger is just and venting it on those who made you angry is the right path.

I think there is a basic appeal in that to a LOT of people.

N/M

Khorne is the god of martial prowess as well as skulls. It’s not just about gore, people who exercise war expertly can be enthralled by khorne without being covered in gore.

The line becomes grey with slaneesh and the ECs desire to be perfect in all things especially war but it depends what gets you going.

Is it the thrill of the excesses Of death and destruction, feeling the fear and Adrenaline of friend and foe and pushing your own limits of how much horror you can witness before it becomes too much? Your in with slaneesh.

Is it about becoming an expert warrior to achieved victory so you can continue to slay foe after foe then your in with big K

The gods don't exist because people want them to or like what they offer. They exist as human emotions made manifest. And although we've been pretty civil with each other for the last couple of hundred years, the vast majority of human existence has featured a lot of brutality and killing.

Also, you have the previous explanations of the dichotomous features of the various gods.

The gods are just emotions:

Khorne - anger
Tzeentch - hope
Nurgle - despair/acceptance (two sides of the same coin)
Slannesh - pleasure

People get attracted to the gods by giving in to one of those emotions, and they’re all pretty fundamental. Anger probably the most so (because it’s such a simple emotion).

Once you’ve started down the path you inevitably get drawn down into the full crazy, but that’s not where people think they’re going when they start.

People don’t start worshipping Khorne to become a berserker. They give in to and start indulging their anger, then start worshipping a god who condones that, then eventually start sliding down the slope that ends in berserkership.

It should also be noted that whilst the Chaos Gods embody emotional extremes, they are not slaved to them. Nurgle is more than capable of tempting the intelligent; Khorne the loving of life and more.

They might focus on specific traits, but they are flexible to the whims and complexities of mortals who rarely fit into one category neatly. Hence why the Gods will fight and compete with each other for the souls of the living .

I've come to think of Khorne as representing absolute single-minded dedication and focus on a goal; mainly because this is the antithesis to Slaaneshi excess and dilettantism, or rather more obviously than "party hard" Vs "rraaaargh". The catch comes when that monomania becomes the sole aspect of what used to be your personality.

Now my personal foibles aside, you have a point. There is a reason that the old WFRP 'modules' (for want of a better word) invariably focussed on Tzeentch or Slaanesh cults rotting civilisation from within, and even Nurgle had the odd appearance before Khorne, as they can be more interesting. Tracking down a murder cult/serial killers only goes so far.

To me, Khorne is a god who broadly encompasses all (extroverted) senses of competition. The “ultimate” competition is battle, in which a life is taken. A person can’t survive without their head, so the Skull becomes the “proof” of victory.

In contrast, Slaanesh broadly encompasses all (introverted) obsessions. In search of personal desires, the “other” is unimportant.

In battle, the warrior seeking to prove his worthiness to others by destroying others follows Khorne. The warrior seeking the thrill of the stimulation of battle, and feeling a sense of internal pride at accomplishing his goals follows Slaanesh.

As an Introvert, not really caring (much) what other people think of me, I am more likely to follow Slaanesh than Khorne.

Khrone is the god of martial passion and that's something that can easily over take someone, that soldier who goes home yet finds he can't adjust to civilian life, and he only felt alive on the battlefield? Khorne.

Theoretically, Khorne *can* be god of martial skills, honorable duelists seeking out only the worthiest of foes.
He can. But GW long since abandoned that and made him into a god of nutty berserkers who line up to be outwitted by even the dimmest of protagonists, with some very rare exceptions (like Reynold's Spear of Shadows book which had a khornate duelist/tracker)

There's an easy (and somewhat questionable) experiment you could do to see if anyone would follow Khorne.

1: Go to the shop and buy a chocolate bar. A big one.
2: Go to a school and talk to a large group of kids (kids are always more likely to speak or act their minds, as they haven't been conformed yet).
3: Offer the chocolate bar to whichever kid is willing to punch their enemies as hard as they can in the face.
4: Get kicked out of the school, sans chocolate.

Human nature is to enact revenge, act on anger and rage, and generally be violent against those we deem deserving of violence. In a war-torn galaxy, where most people have to fight weekly, if not daily, and have done for their whole lives in exchange for... ...nothing..., Khorne offers them power for doing what they've been doing anyway. And chances are, they've started enjoying doing it, because it's all they do. Plus those predisposed to make violence are more likely to survive in 40k, so make more babies. Evolution, and all that.

Khorne is war.
the whole aspect of war.

every war fought, small or large, it doesn't matter to him.
those that worship him also got flanderised and frankly a lot of the perception of his followers has to do with WE beeing the foremost which are literally braindamaged through spikes, they at most , represent 1 aspect of khorne.

Khorne also is not vehemently anti psyker, he tolerates sorcery, (yes there's a difference in 40k) and he prefers if combatants meet head on , including outmanouvering ambushing etc.

You see this well with the bloodpact, which uses regular tactics combined with a more aggresive behaviour of your average guard commander. But they are far from the mindless charge the lines WE have going. Sadly since especialy now that R&H got legended we got even less representation of that and instead got all the mortal followers beeing WE.

I think OP got it backwards in how the 40K gods "recruit" followers. You don't willingly choose a Chaos god to follow, they come to you because of what you felt.
Imperial Guardsman Hans Müller broke his Lasrifle, but continued to behead Grots with his bayonet for the following 3 days. Suddenly he hears a voice in his head.
Your planet suffers from a pandemic for a year now, you wonder how this is all going to end - a voice in your head says: Keep calm, everything passes.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
I think OP got it backwards in how the 40K gods "recruit" followers. You don't willingly choose a Chaos god to follow, they come to you because of what you felt.
Imperial Guardsman Hans Müller broke his Lasrifle, but continued to behead Grots with his bayonet for the following 3 days. Suddenly he hears a voice in his head.
Your planet suffers from a pandemic for a year now, you wonder how this is all going to end - a voice in your head says: Keep calm, everything passes.

The ways Chaos Corrupts are varied and many. For many Imperials its important to realise that Space Marines are like angles, they are something you've heard stories about but never actually seen. At the same time the Imperium keeps a huge lid on the general concept of chaos. Whilst upper government and military ranks are aware of Chaos and all are aware of the great betrayers of humanity; the general idea of demons and such is quite heavily restricted. So for many they won't go looking to join Chaos because they don't really know its there to join. However those who seek power and have some more worldly awareness might freely decide to join them since Chaos most often offers not only easy power but freedom from the very restrictive life that Imperial rule generally results in on many worlds (especially if you're not in the middle to upper classes).

However Chaos will also specifically target people to corrupt as well. Focusing on them because of talents or innate powers or their position in society/the greater world or for some future portent or such. Basically Chaos - be it a greater demon, demons, worshippers etc... - will act to corrupt people; sometimes very specific individuals.

I think the Eisenhorn books are a great show of how Chaos can corrupt and the Ravenor even goes to show how those who use chaos and worship it also have limits on how far they might want to go.



Many have turned to chaos from a desire for personal gain; or from a desire to do good; or without even realising.

It's worth mentioning that the most recent Daemons codex suggests that Slaanesh is present in the "core" of each of the the Chaos gods in some small amount.

All the chaos gods represent the extremes of something. Slaanesh, as the God of Excess, is the most pervasive because a bit of him is inherent to every Chaos god.

This understanding helps us refine our understanding of Slaanesh, for starters, and then that can also be used to refine our understanding of other gods.

For example, Orks were mentioned upthread as being asexual and therefore unslaaneshi. That's... very wrong. Slaanesh is not the god of sex (though that is a huge part) but instead is the god of excess. And part of the reason orks are funny is they're so excessively violent... which feeds Khorne as well.

And there's the core problem when describing the Chaos Gods in modern 40k. The old system was much better, where chaos wasn't evil. Khorne wasn't just ANGERY MURDER VIOLENCE. Khorne instead represented violence both in virtue and in vice. He was a martial war god but not necessarily a wrathful vicious god (though he certainly had an aspect of this).

Slaanesh, being excess, means that modern 40k's iteration of the gods tends to imply that Slaanesh has a hold of all of them, since they now must be EXCESSIVE in the thing they hold in their sphere. This is outright stated in the recent daemon codex iirc.

Anyone who violently fights for anything, even the most noble of causes, can be gradually drawn into khorne's embrace. Falling to a chaos god can be a slow process (Well, unless you're fulgrim and the emperor's children then it can happen in a snap apparently from that novel i read.)

The defender, the man who fights to protect home, family, tribe, nation from aggressors, would be conquerors and slavers, longs to be strong enough to protect that which he loves and cherishes,and wishes to be a good enough fighter, a strong enough fighter, to defend what he sees as good. As such he can be lured slowly into khorne's web. If something tells him to not just defeat but slaughter those who attack and threaten his home and family, to run down those in retreat and kill them, even if for a logical reason like it keeps them from returning in strength later, slowly falls to khorne's influence.

That's why space marines have chaplains to watch for signs of corruption and pull their brothers back away from it. The IG has commissars trained to look for those slowly succumbing to the urge to kill for its own sake instead of protecting humanity, and of course there's the big I watching everyone.

Just a note, Orks don't empower the four chaos gods. They have in the past had limited numbers and they were Khorne worshippers.

That said there are enough Orks being Orky that they have their own God(s) in Gork and Mork who sometimes are separate and sometimes together as Gorkamorka. From stories I believe that Gork and Mork are much like Orks - when united they are the most powerful. They can pop in and beat up Khorne if they wish. However, like orks, their joy is in the competition and the fight itself rather than the win. Plus they are as liable to fight like crazy and then turn on each other.

So they do much as they do in the Warp as reality - they turn up and have a good old fight and then clear off having a fight with themselves.

Khorne is about giving over to the thrill of battle and violence. Humans living as Orks.

If you live in the Warhammer universe and you think the best thing in life is to crush your enemies and see them driven before you, Khorne is the god for you.

Maybe read about how the World Eaters were turned traitor for some insight ?

Goes outside and looks around. Khorne and his fellow Chaos gods are doing just fine for followers these days. Goes back inside and locks door.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
IFor example, Orks were mentioned upthread as being asexual and therefore unslaaneshi. That's... very wrong. Slaanesh is not the god of sex (though that is a huge part) but instead is the god of excess.

Just to further reinforce this (whilst acknowledging that the fluff has changed the ork relationship to Chaos), orks (almost) had canonical Slaanesh worship, it was just never explicitly called that. It was called the Kult of Speed instead. Goffik Rokkaz as well maybe, if you wanted to stretch things a bit, but the point is really that the typically teenage-minded view of "Slaanesh = boobies lol" is ... limited.

I actually thought DoW2 got another route to Khorne quite nicely. Nihilism and depression. The universe is mindless, everything is mindless, so why not just ape the savagery, give in to your darker impulses and wallow in the blood and mud with all the other pigs (he said, channelling Soundgarden), but also realising that someone could be Chief Piggy.

In fact... speaking of that Soundgarden track, just check out the lyrics. With Warhammer googles on, it could almost be some Champion's origin story...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbckIuT_YDc

Another angle to Khorne is that of grim duty. Plenty of Imperial soldiers are at risk of ending up in a headspace where they don't fight for anything, they just fight for the sake of fighting becaue it's what they've always done. Space Marines are supposed to be able to kill without hesitation or passion, it's just what they do. So Khorne certainly isn't far from that.

All it takes is soldiers fighting long enough to lose their cause and camaraderie and have only eternal war. Imperial command structures don't necessarily discourage this because, what, are they gonna preach love and peace to their perfectly useful killing machines?

Power.

That's all, power.

Look at the living hell that is life in the imperium. Most people are basically slave labor taught to love to suffer in misery and toil away their lives with no reward but a lash across the back. (The loyal servant learns to love the lash.)

So, someone comes along and whispers "Hey, you! Yeah, you. You tired of being whipped even when you're working as hard as you can? Tired of breaking your back all day every day for nothing but a cup of slop a day if you're lucky? Wouldn't you just love to kill some of the fat pompous overseers who tell you to work till you die while strutting around in their fancy clothes all well fed and comfy due to your labor? You are? Goood, I know a way you can get the power to break those chains and make those arrogant overlords suffer for what they've done to you. Of course it's something they told you was bad, but what else would they say about a power that could free you from their slavery?"

For example, Orks were mentioned upthread as being asexual and therefore unslaaneshi. That's... very wrong. Slaanesh is not the god of sex (though that is a huge part) but instead is the god of excess. And part of the reason orks are funny is they're so excessively violent... which feeds Khorne as well.

I didn't say they were unslaaneshi. What I was trying, and probably failed to say was that Slaanesh holds less sway over an average Ork than Khorne would. Apart from excessive violence which I would argue would feed Khorne more than Slaanesh, they don't lead particularly lavish or hedonistic lives. No more than any normal human. If Orks were to be represented by any Chaos God specifically, it would likely be Khorne even though aspects from other gods exist.

Overread wrote:For many Imperials its important to realise that Space Marines are like angles

Some of them are definitely obtuse, this is true.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:Goes outside and looks around. Khorne and his fellow Chaos gods are doing just fine for followers these days. Goes back inside and locks door.

What, even in Canadia?