Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

A simple question with complex ramifications.

Chaos gods can already lay claim to and siphon away some nourishment from one another, i.e., Slaanesh taking some energy from a Khorne warrior's proud kill.

But since the gods are shaped by the immaterium and the beliefs of sentient races, if those beliefs shifted, would it be possible for one of the Four to increasingly be credited / defined by the defining attributes of one of its brethren? In which case the "victim" warp entity would conceivably weaken and diminish, while the devouring one would grow and change in character as it expanded its domain, until ultimately the losing entity would effectively be completely absorbed by the victor?

Is there already some existing esoteric lore suggesting this can / has happened?

We generally think of the Four as maybe possibly expanding to Five someday, but theoretically, why couldn't they also shrink in number, leaving a smaller but proportionately stronger Pantheon?

There’s already more than 5, malal dates back to the days of 1st second edition and was a sort of Loki character that sabotaged the other chaos gods for fun.

Gork and mork are the ork equivalent

I think any race that has a soul type presence in the extra dimensions of the warp creates gods

Well, the whole Great Game is a never-ending contest so probably not. The Gods all want to win but also all hate the idea of any member of the Pantheon coming close to winning, if one starts to break away from the pack the other three band together to knock them down a few pegs.

I don't think it has ever actually happened but the gods are storms of warp energy, they can grow and dissipate in power and all kinds of things that interact with the Warp can create them.

So in the same way that the fujiwhara effect merges two storms that get too close with each other I imagine it's perfectly possible for a more powerful god to "eat" a lesser one, destroying the weaker one and leaving only the survivor.

anyway the Four has only ever referred to the most powerful Chaos Gods, they've never been the only chaos gods.

The Eldar had many gods and most of them were killed at various points. Khaine was shattered into fragments.


Slaanesh was also birthed as a new god within the Warp.


So yes they can die and be created. They are just not simple entities nor are they easily defined nor contained. Heck the Warp doesn't even have simple linear time as we understand it.

There was a time in the Warp where Slaanesh never was; but there's also never been a time when Slannesh hasn't been for Slaanesh exists.


And Slaanesh being a god of excess is indeed a huge threat to the others, for excess can be in anything - excess slaughter; excess life; excess knowledge

 Overread wrote:
The Eldar had many gods and most of them were killed at various points. Khaine was shattered into fragments.


Slaanesh was also birthed as a new god within the Warp.


So yes they can die and be created. They are just not simple entities nor are they easily defined nor contained. Heck the Warp doesn't even have simple linear time as we understand it.

There was a time in the Warp where Slaanesh never was; but there's also never been a time when Slannesh hasn't been for Slaanesh exists.


And Slaanesh being a god of excess is indeed a huge threat to the others, for excess can be in anything - excess slaughter; excess life; excess knowledge

Excessive examples of excess ;-)

Slaanesh also feeds off pride and satisfaction, so there are always crumbs from the other tables for She Who Thirsts.

To answer OP, Realm of Chaos explains that within the Warp, there’s significant cross over between a Powerful Daemon, and a Lesser God. They’re created and destroyed all the time sometimes absorbed into larger, more powerful entities.

We also see this in AoS, where Nagash has made a point of devouring other Death Gods, and absorbing their underworlds.

The difference between Nagash destroying all other Gods of Death and the Aeldari Pantheon going bye-bye is that those that were destroyed weren't as powerful as their destroyer.
Nagash took out each God one by one during the End Times, amassing power as he went. He did the same thing in the Mortal Realms.
The Aeldari Pantheon had long been abandoned in favour of mortal excesses and was left to wither while Slaanesh amassed power.

The Chaos Gods are "equals". One may ascend but the others will drag them back down eventually because it ruins the Game if one of them starts to win, and the Game is everything.

Accepting that "the game" isn't perfect.

Gork and Mork don't play the game, the only reason they don't kill is because they are orks and orks don't want to kill everything. They just want a really good fight. So they come for a scrap and a fight, but will go home at the end of the day so that there's potential for another big fight tomorrow.

Eldar Gods would likely love to kill the Great 4, as would one or two of the demons beneath them.

So its really only the major 4 who play the Great Game. Plus its more of a case that if one starts to ever get the upper hand, the other 3 will ally together against that 1. The Great Game is basically an endless "Crab Bucket" situation where no one of the four will let the other rise higher, so they all keep dragging each other down in endless Chaos.

Doubt.

Only Tzeentch technically won over the rest of the Chaos Gods, but didn't want to win because he thought it would be boring to be alone and he let the other Gods shatter him into tiny fragments.

Mala was the Chaos God of Anarchy and the only Chaos God who was against Chaos. But Malal isn't canon for more than 20 years so.

Any of the Gods can consume the rest and become the single most powerful entity in the Warp, except for Gork and Mork. But don't want to because they enjoy the Great Game. Constantly wining and losing.

Slaanesh for an example has the most potential to become the most powerful of the Pantheon and probably consume the rest. Because contrary to popular belief, Slaanesh is the God of Desire, the desire for everything in excess. So the desire for war, knowledge and plague fuels Slaanesh, but Slaanesh is too busy doing orgies in her palace.

Then again we come back to every God having the potential to become the most powerful, since each God fuels the other. It's a never ending circle.

Though my subjective opinion is still on Tit Snitch as the only one who CAN pull off to consume the rest of the Gods and be the most powerful.

 Talking Banana wrote:
A simple question with complex ramifications.

Chaos gods can already lay claim to and siphon away some nourishment from one another, i.e., Slaanesh taking some energy from a Khorne warrior's proud kill.

But since the gods are shaped by the immaterium and the beliefs of sentient races, if those beliefs shifted, would it be possible for one of the Four to increasingly be credited / defined by the defining attributes of one of its brethren? In which case the "victim" warp entity would conceivably weaken and diminish, while the devouring one would grow and change in character as it expanded its domain, until ultimately the losing entity would effectively be completely absorbed by the victor?

Is there already some existing esoteric lore suggesting this can / has happened?

This is essentially what happened during the Fall. Keeping in mind that warp entities are at least partially living metaphors... The eldar spent a lot of time being hedonistic. Slaanesh was born. Eldar hedonism meant they moved away from their old practices, values, etc. (like crafting) while their hedonism grew. As a reflection, Slaanesh got stronger and ate the god of crafting (Vaul). This kept going with the eldar giving up more and more of themselves in pursuit of hedonism until Slaanesh had eaten pretty much everyone except the war god and the laughing god (reflective of war and trickery being two things still alive and well in eldar culture in the 41st millennium). So gods eating other gods does seem to be a thing.

Also, it's canon that other minor warp gods exist. My headcanon/understanding is that such godlings basically end up as vassals to whichever member of the big four is most similar to their own purview. So if you have a sector get swept up in a massive revolutionary uprising, the resulting psychic "stuff" of revolution might form a spirit of the revolution whom we'll call Bob. Then Bob would be claimed by (or even born of) either Khorne or Tzeentch depending on how strongly he resonates with violence/change and how well Khorne and Tzeentch maneuver to claim Bob. So if Tzeentch wins, he ends up wearing a lot of blue, and if Khorne wins he ends up wearing a lot of red. That sort of thing.

I could also see there being some emotions/concepts that just don't fit well enough into a the purviews of the established gods to be "claimed" by them. So like, what's-his-face is angling to become the chaos god of machines; which could work because none of the big 4 have an especially strong claim on machinery as a concept. I feel like there could reasonably be chaos gods of fear out there given that it seems to be a tasty, potent emotion, but it doesn't seem to be "claimed" by any of the big 4. So maybe there are little patches of warp turf where entities manage to congeal and become strong enough to simply not be worth wiping out/absorbing right away.

Yes they can since Daemons can devour other Daemons. Its how Ka'Bandha built himself back up after being kicked out by Khorne for his loss on Signus Prime vs Sanguinius. Its also show case quite often in the Black Legion books and well anything that touches upon intra Daemon interactions.

I figure if Slannesh can devour Eldar gods, then theoretically if a Warp Entity starts forming around a particular form of violence/slaughter if it isn't Khorne aligned, the big guy shows up and stamps it into the mold or just devours it outright and then uses that warp energy to spin off a Blood Thirster encompassing that emotional response.

This does raise a question though with some of the new Daemons that have been cropping up. Vashtorr for one is a Daemon that isn't aligned with the other powers. Rulewise the guy is about the level of a strong Greater Daemon of one of the big 4. If he becomes a lesser 5th god of Chaos, would he start spinning of his own lesser daemons and the like?

Which draws to me a realization that only the big 4 seem to spin off Daemon. We see huge Warp Titans (to borrow from BF:GA 2) and in one instance during Talon of Horus one attacks Khayon's ship and starts cracking it open in its death throes when it gets caught in the Emperor's Astronomicon. Clearly there are plenty of entities which exist outside of the Big 4, and some that are closer to fauna than anything else. But are there Daemons of Cegorath? Are there Daemons of Gork and Mork or are those manifestations exclusive to the Chaos gods.

My understanding is that the various demons of the big 4 are simply parts of them. Kind of like looking at a person but interacting at the level of micro organisms.

So Bloodthirsters can fight each other for power and influence, but in the end it doesn't matter which wins because in the end they are all one and part of Khorne.

There does seem to be a central entity that is "Khorne". So a greater accumulation of power/influence that is the god itself, but the myriad of demons are still just part of it.



Gork and Mork don't seem to use that same method and instead are simply singular beings without legions beneath them.

I figure that fragmenting in to millions of smaller demons might be how the Great 4 play their game in the Warp, but also how they can seep those demons through to reality whereas their greater whole can't come across the divide.

Gork and Mork have their Ladz, and are far too powerful for any other God to be a threat. So they don’t really need Daemons to have an influence on Realspace.

Now it is deliciously vague as to who excites who when it comes to a Waaagh!

The old story about a Mek getting inspiration from a Warlord Titan (figuring it was Da Emprah come to give the Orks a kicking, and wanting to build bodies for Gork and Mork so they could gang up on Da Emprah) does suggest it starts with the Orks themselves, which excites Gork and Mork, creating a feedback loop.

But at other times (Ghaz) we may see Divine Inspiration that gets the ball rolling.

Ork religion is child logic. The theology of their Gods doesn't matter because why would it? Their Gods are the best Gods because Gork is Brutal but Kunnin and Mork is Kunnin but Brutal. The other Gods aren't the best because they aren't Gork and/or Mork.
That same logic would be applied to a Waaaaagh! where the Orks would have gone and krumped something eventually but Gork/Mork just gave them a kick up the trousers to do it quicker.

Surely nurgle wins the great game, entropy takes care of that for big pappa nurgle.

I feel like if you imagine the Big Four as multinational media conglomerates a la Disney, Sony et. al., vying for market share while buying out or suing out of existence smaller competitors as and when they get big enough to be worth the effort, Gork and Mork are running an incredibly successful monster truck rally circuit, and they're just not really on each other's radars in any meaningful way. Maybe chaos sometimes makes a movie about a cartoon truck that learns the meaning of friendship, and a few of Gork and Mork's followers get a Tzeentch Plus subscription to see it, or conversely Gork (or Mork) launches a Waaagh on the same weekend as Pirates of the Calixis XXIII premieres and a few people who'd normally go see the film are busy watching truckasaurus or whatever, but ultimately it's an incredibly devoted but specific fanbase that (rightly or wrongly) chaos figures they can just ignore, since unless Orks wipe out every other living thing (and every living thing's trying to wipe out every other living thing, there's no indication Orks are gonna be the ones to pull it off first) there's no point devoting all their attention to learning how to do monster trucks when they can just keep on catering to the other 99% of the galaxy's population who've got them this far.

panzerfront14 wrote:
Which draws to me a realization that only the big 4 seem to spin off Daemon. We see huge Warp Titans (to borrow from BF:GA 2) and in one instance during Talon of Horus one attacks Khayon's ship and starts cracking it open in its death throes when it gets caught in the Emperor's Astronomicon. Clearly there are plenty of entities which exist outside of the Big 4, and some that are closer to fauna than anything else. But are there Daemons of Cegorath? Are there Daemons of Gork and Mork or are those manifestations exclusive to the Chaos gods.

No one else (besides maybe Emperor, and even that is debatable) spins demons off because that means loss of power to whatever bit you spun off which then can be made permanent if someone destroys that bit. This is pretty much unacceptable to anyone but Big 4, who have excess power but can only focus their attention in a few places at once, so their daemons act as semi-independent agents capable of doing stuff their patron deems to trifling to bother with.

On AoS side, we have Belakor creating his own semi-daemon champions out of mortals (but no demon princes, as he doesn't have that much power and/or trust to spare) and the Horned Rat, a minor power that managed to claw its way to big fish by eating power scraps the Big 4 didn't get to in time. HR also doesn't create demons but like Belakor empowers mortals, this time to daemon prince level offsetting partial power loss with absorption of powerful soul into itself.

Though apparently in AoS HR recently grown to a level of creation of verminlords out of nothing like Big 4 so it's probably universal for all warp deities - first half-daemonic mortal champions to save on agent creation cost, then greater daemon level agents that aren't easily lost on errands, then after they grow big enough legions of lesser daemons that are probably just elevated mortals again (explicitly so in Nurgle's case). It would explain the living saints too - the Emperor is halfway on the power curve here (still on daemon prince stage) but we will soon see living saints created out of nothing then saintly legions after that (of which the Legion of the Damned might be a prototype).

Amusing thought here, imagine the Emperor making living saint of reason or Imperial Truth and the church trying to explain away their existence while ignoring their shouted slogans

Minor gods have always been capable of creating daemons, but as Irbis says, it uses a portion of the God's power to do so, so the smaller gods may not wish to expend the energy to do so, or a God's whole existence may be tailored towards the creation of a single daemon.

Personally I'm pretty sure that if any of the big 4 devoured the others that new individual would subsequently be at war with different parts of their psyche within themselves, and split back into the big 4 again.

That said, it's the Warp. In terms of our conception of time the big 4 have always existed, and always will exist.

mrFickle wrote:
Surely nurgle wins the great game, entropy takes care of that for big pappa nurgle.

Sort of but not really. Entropy is a really long and slow process with which to accumulate power and the other Gods won't sit around waiting while Nurgle accumulates power. Tzeentch will inspire people to find cures for diseases and ways to lengthen their life or cheat death entirely. Khorne will cause massive conflicts between disparate groups to prevent a slow descent into decay. Slaanesh will encourage people to live their lives to excess so even when they do die it is in the throes of ecstasy rather than misery. That's why Nurgle has to spread diseases or bless people with the power to ignore their pain in return for dedication because otherwise its siblings will steal the morsels for themselves.

Which draws to me a realization that only the big 4 seem to spin off Daemon.

As others have suggested, I always imagined this was probably a matter of having the energy to spare to warrant their creation. If you're actively trying to keep Khorne and Nurgle off your lawn, then having some daemonic hordes hanging out in the contested areas of the warp makes sense.

It could also be a matter of vagueness. The big 4 are relatively broad and abstract entities compared to like, Khaine and Cegorach.

That said, we *might* have some hints that the eldar gods used to do daemons. Howling Banshees are a reference to the daughters of Khaine and the Morai-Heg. In the 2nd edition eldar codex, it's implied that banshees have since been corrupted by Slaanesh to lure souls into the warp while spirit seers try to transfer souls from spirit stones to the infinity circuit. To me, that suggests that banshees are and were daemons. I guess they could be non-daemonic warp fauna, but given that their alleged origin is as the offspring of two gods, I'm inclined to think daemon over warp fauna.

Although that does have interesting implications about gods being able to create daemons jointly and possibly steal each others' daemons.

You could also argue that the Yncarne is essentially a greater daemon of Ynnead.

Another aspect is the mortal world. It might be that the Great 4 split themselves because its the only way they can manifest part of themselves as a functional entity within the physical world.

They can't bring their entire self across, so they create almost entirely self-living creatures from themselves which can act within the material world.

Given time and such this manifestation becomes how they operate at large. Perhaps its even a defensive thing; if you are a billion individuals and not one single then one your foes come to fight you they might take out your greatest concentration, but you've a myriad of demons that would rise up in your place if the core were taken down. So it becomes a way to protect themselves.

The example 'minor chaos power' in The Lost and the Damned (Kweethul, I think? God of big-booty skaven) had the whole standard pantheon of servant daemons - Greater, Lesser, Steed, that sort of thing. I don't have the book in front of me (at work currently, being very productive) but I believe the daemons were described as only existing while the god itself was 'awake' (which for a minor deity was only intermittent), but just dwelling in a kind of limbo at other times. I don't really see an issue with this sort of thing happening all the time, but just being too small-scale for the Big Four to give a damn about, unless they start making waves and need to be either slapped down or absorbed.

Is vashtorr a demon looking to become a god? Or a minor god looking to become a biggun’?

mrFickle wrote:
Is vashtorr a demon looking to become a god? Or a minor god looking to become a biggun’?

Honestly.

Yes.

To both.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

mrFickle wrote:
Surely nurgle wins the great game, entropy takes care of that for big pappa nurgle.

Nurgle isn’t the god of entropy though - he’s a god of life and fecundity. Any life. All life. Decay is useful, because from the rotting corpse of a single victim, untold trillions of bacteria will flourish. Granting disease, plague and viruses to his followers enables that one body to become host to other life.

Nurgle’s “insanity” stems entirely from seeing all life as exactly equal. One human is the same value as one bacteria - and you can have waaaaay more bacteria.

A lot of interesting lore and interpretation presented here, guys. Thank you.

I have one further question. "The Great Game" has come up a lot. When (in real historical time, i.e., approximately what year) did the Chaos God's "let's-string-this-out-for-as-long-as-possible-because-it's-fun Great Game" enter the canon of Warhammer lore? Where did that term first appear? Was it there right from the beginning, or is this a more recent idea?

mrFickle wrote:
Is vashtorr a demon looking to become a god? Or a minor god looking to become a biggun’?

The difference between independent greater daemon and minor god is tiny. Though, some sources IIRC said minor gods are stronger than even baddest greater daemons, but must latch to some sort of 'power source' like emotion or worship or aspect of something or they risk running out of energy and disappearing. They burn brighter but require constant supply of 'fuel' so to speak while greater daemons are more self contained and efficient.

Of course…. I mean look at Malal. ??

 Talking Banana wrote:
A lot of interesting lore and interpretation presented here, guys. Thank you.

I have one further question. "The Great Game" has come up a lot. When (in real historical time, i.e., approximately what year) did the Chaos God's "let's-string-this-out-for-as-long-as-possible-because-it's-fun Great Game" enter the canon of Warhammer lore? Where did that term first appear? Was it there right from the beginning, or is this a more recent idea?

Been there since at least Realms of Chaos. It essentially reflects that their nature is chaos and insanity. They can work together for a time, but even when all four are United they still jockey for position and interfere with each other’s actions. And thanks to their followers often being beyond rationality, such unity even in real space is little beyond nominal, with Champions eager to take each other out should the opportunity present itself.

We see this write large in AoS. There, Chaos effectively won, thanks to Archaon’s skill. But even once they’d broken the back of organised resistance in the Realms? It all went wrong. Again. Infighting, undermining etc etc. And that is what allowed the remnants of Sigmar and his allied God’s forces to regroup and reorganise - and why when Sigmar sent forth his Stormcast, there was still enough left to be worth saving.