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I got to thinking the other day when I was explaining the various 40k factions to my wife (she's finally considering dipping her toes into the hobby): There's the common trope of the 40k universe where "Everyone's a bad guy" and while that is more less correct, one of the reasons that 40k is so compelling is that within that structure, you have a wide variety of alignments split amongst all the various races and factions. So I figured that I'd post my take on them and see what everyone else thought.

(Reminder: The subfactions are within their greater faction, so you can have good within an evil society as the good/evil scale is more a determination of selflessness to selfishness than what we would necessarily consider good or evil actions within our own society.)

The Imperium of Man: Lawful Evil
Not really much surprise here to anyone even remotely familiar with the setting. They are one of the quintessential Lawful Evil factions in fiction.

Astra Militarum: Lawful Good
Custodes: Lawful Neutral
Space Marines: Lawful Good-Evil (very much chapter dependent)
Sororities: Lawful Good
Mechanicum: Lawful Neutral
Inquisition: Lawful Evil

Chaos: Chaotic Evil
Again, no surprise there, however, the breakdown of the various gods was a lot more interesting the more I thought about it.

Khorne: Neutral Evil (Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows.)
Tzeentch: Chaotic Neutral (Tzeentch doesn't care about helping or hindering anyone as long as change continues.)
Slaneesh: Chaotic Evil
Nurgle: Chaotic... Good (Okay, here me out here: Nurgle whole thing is it's belief that the plagues it provides give joy and bliss to others. You see all those smiling daemons and pox walkers and such. If it's true or not isn't the point as alignment is based on intent. The minions of Nurgle never hesitate to sacrifice themselves to spread their plagues, in fact, they often enjoy that too.)

Craftworlds: Neutral Good
Drukhari: Neutral Evil
Harlequins: True Neutral

Necrons: Lawful Evil

Orks: Neutral Evil

Tau: Lawful Good
Kroot: Lawful Neutral

Votaan: Lawful Neutral

Tyranids: Neutral Evil

There were a few things that surprised me when I broke it all down. First, that there was a faction for each of the 9 alignments which I very much did not expect. Also that The Imperium, the Aeldari, and Chaos make up the trifecta of Lawful-Neutral-Chaotic regardless of sub faction (with the exception of Khorne which an argument could easily be made for Chaotic Evil as well).

So what are your thoughts, anywhere I missed the mark?

I think I'd query Evil on Necrons, Orks and Tyranids... Tyranids in particular, they're not bad they're just hungry. And Orks aren't trying to be bad, they're just enjoying themselves.

Crispy78 wrote:
I think I'd query Evil on Necrons, Orks and Tyranids... Tyranids in particular, they're not bad they're just hungry. And Orks aren't trying to be bad, they're just enjoying themselves.

That is exactly why though. The Good/Evil scale for alignment is a lot clearer when thought of as a selfless/selfish scale.

Necrons care only for their own personal objectives be it Trazyn's museum or plans for conquest, so evil, but live and operate within their strict hierarchical rules based society, so lawful.

Orks care only for their own personal desire to fight, so evil; they don't seek to follow or topple any societal structure so long as they can fight, so Neutral. Same with Tyranids, though exchange fight for eat.

If we're treating "good/evil" as "selfless/selfish"...

Astra Militarum: Lawful Neutral. Too varied in their motivations to be "selfless." Plenty of guardsmen are in the guard because the alternative was starvation or execution.

Custodes: Lawful Neutral. They don't care about themselves individually, but the stuff they actually care about is limited to a very small sphere. (The Emperor.)

Space Marines: Lawful Good-Evil (very much chapter dependent) (Agreed.)
Sororities: Lawful Neutral. Similar to Custodes. They "care" about the imperium's citizens, but only through the filter of the church. So they'll happily leave the unwashed masses to deal with the tyranids on their own if it means keeping some relics and priests safer. Not selfish, but the things they care about have a limited scope.

Mechanicum: Lawful Evil. A given priest is likely to be very ambitious and/or focused on his own projects and/or determined to avoid personal consequence at all costs. Lawful Selfish.

Inquisition: Varies wildly. We have "nice guy" inquisitors like Amberly, and we have renegades of both generally likable and unlikable varieties.

Chaos: Chaotic Selfish.
Khorne: LawfulSelfish. Khorne's guys are relatively structured in their organization, and he has strict rules about certain behaviors.
Tzeentch: Chaotic Selfish. Ambition and cowardly self-interest are major parts of Tzeentch's domain.
Slaneesh: Chaotic Selfish.
Nurgle: Chaotic Selfless. All about spreading that love.

Craftworlds: Lawful Neutral. Being disciplined and tight-assed is a defining part of what makes craftworlders craftworlders. The ones who aren't become corsairs. I want to call them Selfless, and they are, but in peacetime, the path system is extreme focused on personal interests/pursuits. So hesitant to go Selfeless rather than Neutral.

Drukhari: Neutral Selfish. (Agree with you on this one. Their society is a weird combo of lawful/chaotic that sorta balances out. Absolutely selfish evil bastards though.)

Harlequins: Chaotic* Selfless. Asterisk on chaotic because while they're mercurial, they also have certain rules/values/taboos that they're extremely strict about, and arguably their whole lifestyle is an exercise in a disciplined adherance to their roles. Selfless because their whole shtick is that they go out of their way to help their species as a whole, with individuals even being willing to damn their own souls for the sake of helping their masque and species.

Necrons: Lawful Selfish. For sure.

Orks: Chaotic Selfish. Neutral instead of chaotic probably works because of various orky taboos, but also ork society is kind of the most decentralized kratokracy you can have.

Tau: Lawful Selfless. It's their whole thing.

Kroot: Lawful Neutral. Agreed.

Votaan: Lawful Neutral(?) - I listened to the votann novel, but I still don't have a great read on how selfish/selfless they are to other members of their own society. So neutral is probably fine here.

Tyranids: Neutral Selfish- Agreed. It's functionally just one big hungry guy feeding himself without regard to other sapient life.