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Which Chaos god would be the least sucky one to follow? The least brutal/painful/etc to the cultist? Khorne brutality? Nurgles diseases? Slaanesh's "art"? Or tzeentch's madness?

Let me know and would you mind putting your reason why below?

Tzeentch as you probably wouldn't know you were in one until it's far too late one way or another (purged by Imperials or sacrificed/mutated beyond lucidity)

Tzeentch. You know those law or medicine students that disappear in the library during the first semester and don't come out before getting their exam 6 years later? Those students who never go to any party, don't know anyone in the city where they study and get summa cum laude? Those are Tzeentch cultists.
Also Ugur Sahin. He even despises Nurgle as a true follower of Tzeentch should.

Slaanesh is not that hard as well. Just read the names of all the leading politicians and managers in the world - those are the Slaanesh cultists.

Slaanesh, by a long shot. The God of sex, drugs and rock n roll. And in the grimdark, puritanical, Inquisition-controller 40K future, how extreme would a cult of Slaanesh really be? Especially at first. Hell, at least two of my old Uni housemates would probably make the average fledgling cultist turn pale and steady themselves against the furniture...

Crispy78 wrote:
Slaanesh, by a long shot. The God of sex, drugs and rock n roll. And in the grimdark, puritanical, Inquisition-controller 40K future, how extreme would a cult of Slaanesh really be? Especially at first. Hell, at least two of my old Uni housemates would probably make the average fledgling cultist turn pale and steady themselves against the furniture...

I think you underestimate the depravity that Slaanesh feeds upon.

Or your old uni housemates need to arrested for terrible crimes.

Papa loves you, and doesn't demand any particular effort in return.

As a chronically ill person Nurgle appeals to me at a personal level.

Only Papa Nurgle truly loves his children. All he ask of you is to be sick and happy with it.

 harlokin wrote:
Papa loves you, and doesn't demand any particular effort in return.

The suffering kind of sucks, though.

Let's compare the options for a minute.

Khorne: constant demands to hunt down people and murder them brutally for their skulls. You are a Cultist, not an Astartes - which limits your victim pool severely. Eventually, you are beheaded by someone you recruited into the Cult and your skull manifests at the bottom of Khorne's throne for all eternity. Worshipping a perfectionist father who cannot be satisfied has limited appeal - like daughters who didn't get enough attention growing up, orphans, neat freaks, etc.

Slannesh: the God of EXCESS. Everyone keeps talking about sex, drugs, rock and roll - but they forget the 2nd Ed Noise Marine sculpts. You engage in some debauchery, sure, but eventually you start bashing in your own face for the sensation alone. After enough amateur surgeries, you die in a vat being boiled down to make drugs for your betters. As a Cultist devoted to Slannesh, you are the drug.

Tzeentch: the Changer of Ways. You spend most of your time on missions without knowing why you're doing it or what success means. You're not a Sorcerer, you're a Cultist living in a constant state of confusion, destined to die in pursuit of an unfathomable goal that is probably misdirection. The anxiety alone makes it not worth pursuing, that's why they have Tzaangor.

Nurgle: you get to march around with a bunch of creatures completely lacking in hygiene who sing and grin all day. Eventually, you get a disease which makes you just like the rest, then you go hang out in a garden for eternity. Cultists are followers by nature and would jump at the chance to pursue that hippie lifestyle.

Nurgle. Yeah you'd be a walking ball of pus, but generally you are changed to enjoy being a walking ball of pus. Nurgle is generous with his gifts and all you gotta do is spread disease, which is mighty easy since they're magical diseases. Otherwise, you just enjoy being fat and happy.

Tzeentch might seem like the least of all evils (as according to plan) until a Magi plucks out your eyeball for a ritual, or slits your throat along with 8 other acolytes for a sacred rite just to stare into a puddle of blood, or immolates your whole cult world for a little extra juju.

Best cult? Probably Alpha Legion.

Khorne. He cares not from who the blood flows, so you don't even have to be particularly good at your job.

Papa Nurgle?

Personally I'd choose Tzeench. F Griffindor

I feel like the answer to this is less about the god and more about the specific cult you're in. Rites of Passage gives us a glimpse into a chaos cult, and it sort of gives the impression that it has book club-meets-evangelical-church vibes. Sure, they have that one big, scary mutant guy and that edgy lady who's probably a psyker. But aside form that, being in the cult mostly just means showing up and responding to the preacher's words.

I struggle to picture a relatively chill Khorne cult, but worshipping Nurgle might just mean tending a fungus garden in the swamp outside of town. Worshipping Tzeentch might literally be a book club or mostly just involve a lot of standing around a circle and chanting. A slaaneshi cult, at least in its early stages, might just be a monthly orgy on a planet populated by especially repressed folks.

I picture chaos cults generally starting off relatively tame and staying that way for years or even centuries before escalating towards something more extreme. The frothing, insane zealots that we see marines chopping up in novels are what you get after the cult has caught their god's attention and been infected with that hard-to-wash-off brand of chaos corruption.

Khorn, because you die rather fast.

Wyldhunt wrote:
I feel like the answer to this is less about the god and more about the specific cult you're in...

While I put a vote down for Slaanesh, this is a really good point. The Cult of the Disinhibited Rabbit might be a better Slaanesh cult to be in than the Order of Blessed Agonies, which would likely be worse than the Tzeentch Tome of the Month Club. Some rather apples-to-anal-pears comparisons if you know nothing more than the god in question.

And an embryonic Khorne cult might be, like, a hunting lodge, a martial arts group that meets in a basement, or a Fight Club which involves punching and violence but little actual death amongst its particiants; I had also at some point thought of a charitable Red Cross group that gradually went insane from the logistical strain and started making blood donation aggressively mandatory.

Khorne, because it's the easiest to hide as just being a particularly zealous Imperial cult. Hatred, violence and militarism are fully embraced by mainstream Imperial culture, whereas things like seeking knowledge, deliberate spreading of disease, and hedonism (for anyone other than the elites) are anathematized.

The Red Redemption was originally a Khornate cult, until it was retconned in the first Necromunda game into just being extremist Emperor-worshippers. But literally nothing in their beliefs or practices actually changed, just the name of their object of worship. Turns out fascist death-cults are pretty interchangeable.

Likewise, most 'death cult assassins' are Khorne-worshippers masquerading as Emperor-loyalists. It takes very thorough and lengthy Inquisitorial investigations to determine that a particular cult is genuinely 'untainted' so that their members can be sanctioned for use in Inquisitorial retinues or as part of an Ecclesiarchal / SoB army.

Even though I'm a Tzeentch fan, I must admit that being a cultist of Nurgle might be the 'easiest' one. All you have to do is accept his patronage and spread diseases - while being immune to them.

It's the most 'passive' cult

Khorne is a war god.
Quite frankly being member of a warrior class (soldier etc.) already makes you a worshiper in many ways.

Also nurgle indeed for easiest since most passive.

Also remember not all the cult are usually the extreme cultists. Regular people join the cult too for whatever reason and don't become so extreme with it.

I think it depends on the type of society the converted is in. as chaos is the reflection of concentrated base emotions I imagine that a death world or feral world Thorne would be the go to option as violence is the most simple route to power and safety. thus could also be a good place for sorcerers to easily create a following of superstitious tribes

on the more wealthy planets/communities lust, greed, intrigue, adulation, politicking are all breeding grounds for slaneesh and tzeench.but as khorne is also the god of martial prowess someone with a martial force and a knack fir leading them could go that way. maybe that's how the blood pact came into being

I struggle to imagine how anyone willingly walks int the garden of gurgle