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I know we don’t know much about big V but he’s a new character that GW have put in a fairly important position narrative wise as he seeks to become the 5th big chaos god. And I was wondering what his back story might have been, did he start as a little chaos entity slowly scheming and working his way up, do he gain favour with the other god doing jobs for them to slowly build up power and how long has that taken. How unique is it for a chaos entity to survive and build up power without being killed by one of the big 4 for being too ambitious.

And I also thought about how GW like to retconn new characters into the background

Vashtorr is the embodiment of

• The danger of unchecked innovation
• The merging of machine and daemon
• The idea that progress itself can become corrupting

Therefore I wondered if Vashtorr was the warp entity that gave the emperor the knowledge to make the primarchs and maybe there was some secret demon bonding or power involved in that.

Was Vashtorr involved in iron men rebelling against humanity. Did the emperor know that there was a chaos influence involved and that’s why he allowed the mechanicum to stifle and stagnate humanities technology after the reunification to avoid feeding the beast




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I know we don’t know just having fun speculating

I wonder if perhaps the Tau kicked him into gear?

The Crusade era definitely saw innovation, however comparatively limited in the grand human scheme of things. But since then it’s largely dropped off.

But the Tau? They learn things, learn them quick and learn them well. They’re constantly innovating, creating new counters to the most fearsome weapons of their foes.

And the Tau do show up in the warp, just very dimly. And no, they don’t worship chaos. But we also know that whilst direct worship is most empowering? General turmoil and emotions and that still reflect in the warp, and all it takes is a single Warp Entity to start feeding on those.

It’s also possible that Vashtorr started off Right Place, Right Time to barter power and knowledge with the nascent Dark Mechanicum. Perhaps it was the one that began tricking other Daemons into servitude, bound into Dameon Engines. Or simply devoured “pack mates” that were part of those early dealings, absorbing them into itself together grow its own power.

Cawl’s Primaris and associated toys are also said to have given Vashtorr a power kick, being a major innovation from a most unexpected angle.

It’s kind of like Slaanesh, and what makes that god such a threat to its brothers. All sensation and excess provides even the merest crumb to Slaanesh. And when there are so many smelly Hoomans abroad? That’s a lot of crumbs. So it must surely be with Vashtorr? Every unsanctioned field repair. Every Ganger salvaging a weapon. It’s all grist to its mill. The tiniest of flecks, yes. But an inexorable and ultimately infinite supply.

Will it ever experience true apotheosis? Who knows. It is the only Demi-God warp entity knocking on the doors of full godhood? Who knows.

Maybe it wasn’t the invention of the Primaris marines but the fact that enhancing astartes, the emperors divine creation, was so heretical that in the eyes of the imperial creed which has vashtorr power.

I hadn’t thought of the TAU. Maybe he had. Shane in their sudden technical advancements

I'm dubious of tau kicking it off. We know that Tau'va (the goddess) is a thing, and she's presumably fed/formed by a lot of the general Tau-ness floating around in the warp (mainly via the non-tau species in the empire.) It's frankly kind of bonkers that a relatively small empire with a relatively small human population was able to accomplish something comparable to the birth of Slaanesh. (Albeit with a seemingly much less noisy birth.) The idea that they also additionally had enough extra juice floating around *just* from their willingness to innovate with tech to power Vashtorr seems like even more of a stretch.

I will note that some of the things ascribed to Vashtor (like progress = corruption or a willingness to mess about with new tech) were previously ascribed to Tzeentch. So if he isn't just a fully self-sufficient up-and-comer in the warp, I wonder if he maybe spent some time as Tzeentch's vassal. Striking bargains and innovation (read: change) both definitely seem Tzeentch-adjacent.

It could also just be that once a warp entity reaches a certain critical mass or prerequisite set of capabilities, their progress towards becoming full chaos gods accelerates. Like, Earth is absolutely ancient, but it didn't take much time at all for abiogenesis to occur (we think) once things cooled off enough to allow for it. Similarly, maybe once a chaos entity has enough self-awareness and long-term planning capabilities it becomes relatively good at taking steps to propel itself towards full godhood. As a god of machines (read: constructs with a purpose), Vash might be a little speedier than most in this regard.

It’s not so much the Tau empowering him alone, just that their industrious inventiveness echoes in the warp, providing scraps for Vashtorr. So, along with other sources, perhaps that was enough to give it a boost.

The Kin re-emerging onto the galactic stage likewise will have likely fed into Vashtorr.

Think of it this way.

Acts dedicated to a given god are akin to buying it a McDonald’s Meal.

General acts which align with a god or independent daemon’s thing? Nicking the odd fry here and there. Not enough to completely empower, but better than nothing, and done often enough from enough plates? Still a meal of sorts.

Where Vashtorr might be on the road to godhood is it’s now able to directly influence events in realspace, in its name. Like a critical mass of potential has been hit, and it’s just a matter of time.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
I'm dubious of tau kicking it off. We know that Tau'va (the goddess) is a thing, and she's presumably fed/formed by a lot of the general Tau-ness floating around in the warp (mainly via the non-tau species in the empire.) It's frankly kind of bonkers that a relatively small empire with a relatively small human population was able to accomplish something comparable to the birth of Slaanesh. (Albeit with a seemingly much less noisy birth.) The idea that they also additionally had enough extra juice floating around *just* from their willingness to innovate with tech to power Vashtorr seems like even more of a stretch.

I will note that some of the things ascribed to Vashtor (like progress = corruption or a willingness to mess about with new tech) were previously ascribed to Tzeentch. So if he isn't just a fully self-sufficient up-and-comer in the warp, I wonder if he maybe spent some time as Tzeentch's vassal. Striking bargains and innovation (read: change) both definitely seem Tzeentch-adjacent.

It could also just be that once a warp entity reaches a certain critical mass or prerequisite set of capabilities, their progress towards becoming full chaos gods accelerates. Like, Earth is absolutely ancient, but it didn't take much time at all for abiogenesis to occur (we think) once things cooled off enough to allow for it. Similarly, maybe once a chaos entity has enough self-awareness and long-term planning capabilities it becomes relatively good at taking steps to propel itself towards full godhood. As a god of machines (read: constructs with a purpose), Vash might be a little speedier than most in this regard.

Tau'va is a racial god (ok you can say Tau empire god rather than purely racial) but its reach is localized and revolves around the interests of the Tau empire. The original Realms of Chaos has the Big 3 as being the gods of humanity that were birthed by humanity originally on Terra but that grew over time as humanity grew numerous and spread across the galaxy. Slaanesh is an Eldar god that after consuming all the Eldar souls within easy reach had to find new sources of power and effectively marketed himself/herself to humanity though with still a sweet tooth fondness for Eldar souls. Gork and Mork are the Ork gods. The relative power of the gods depends on the power base from which they draw power. As the traditional Eldar values waned pre-Fall, the old Eldar pantheon grew weaker. As souls pooled together in Infinity Circuits, Ynnead took form.

My personal theory is Vashtorr is effectively the Machine God of the Dark Mechanicum that they feed unknowingly. A god of dark technology and innovation that transgresses societal norms and rules.