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.

I know khorne has no sorcerers but could a psyker completely stop using his powers to join khorne?

yeap. Actually happened in the game Dawn of war 2

 Blitza da warboy wrote:
yeap. Actually happened in the game Dawn of war 2

That isn't an example of it being a thing, but rather yet another failing of Relic.

And no, a psyker attempting to ally with Khorne will most likely end up with a ruptured head.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Blitza da warboy wrote:
yeap. Actually happened in the game Dawn of war 2

That isn't an example of it being a thing, but rather yet another failing of Relic.

And no, a psyker attempting to ally with Khorne will most likely end up with a ruptured head.

This.

Not exactly.

There are psykers who worship Khorne.

Khorne does not approve the use of psionics or sorcery in battle, because it is "cheating". Waging war in its purest form is the way Khorne is properly worshipped. And for some reason this "purest form" does not include psykers. It includes long ranged weapons and lots of artillery, though.

As a result, Khorne psykers do not use their powers in battle. But that´s all. There are examples in the background of Khorne Sorcerers invoking Daemons, acting as Navigators or Astropaths, doing rituals or using their powers before and after the battle. But never during the battle. And they are rare, it is more usual to find that the psyker has stopped using his powers.

In First Edition (Rogue Trader 1989), in the supplement "Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness" there is a reference to this. Page 259 -263 provides an army list for the World Eaters Legion (with "Legion Traits" and specific units) or a similar Khornate chaos warband that includes Librarians. But these Librarians had renounced their powers to please Khorne, thus becoming Tally-Keepers, recording the numbers slain in Khorne´s name by individuals or squads and providing communications in battle. They are HQ options, so psykers can be taken as leaders of a Khornate warband.

So psykers are invited to join Khorne as champions, as long as they stop using their powers in battle. In Dawn of War 2 we see a Librarian becoming a Khorne Champion. But from this point in the story, he never uses any kind of psy power. This is OK with the background.

I find it harder to believe that he switched from Nurgle to Khorne. This kind of changes happen, but they are supposed to be extremely rare.

You'd assume Khorne would have at least some psykers on hand. You need somebody to summon those Bloodletters and Bloodcrushers, right?

And not all Khornate warbands are like World Eaters (always angry all the time!). Some take time to plan their attacks, and using a psyker to help organize the most effective and bloody slaughters would be a useful ally. No trickery, just smart tactics and strategy. You'd think Khorne would be proud, screwing Tzeench over like that.

 Arcsquad12 wrote:
You'd assume Khorne would have at least some psykers on hand. You need somebody to summon those Bloodletters and Bloodcrushers, right?

Tome of Blood explains this well. Warbands have a slave caste called Bloodcallers. These are captured and controlled weak psykers that are brought out for rituals and sacrificed in order to supply the blood needed to summon daemons.

 Arcsquad12 wrote:
You'd assume Khorne would have at least some psykers on hand. You need somebody to summon those Bloodletters and Bloodcrushers, right?

And not all Khornate warbands are like World Eaters (always angry all the time!). Some take time to plan their attacks, and using a psyker to help organize the most effective and bloody slaughters would be a useful ally. No trickery, just smart tactics and strategy. You'd think Khorne would be proud, screwing Tzeench over like that.

WE aren't always angry either in between battles they're basically like normal CSM I think it was written somewhere that they even meditate.

Yeah, I would think a psyker would have it hard in a Khorne army, even without using his powers all the time he would be a marked man. Angron seemed to get very upset whenever they were around, I imagine there's a universal distrust for them.

 techsoldaten wrote:
Yeah, I would think a psyker would have it hard in a Khorne army, even without using his powers all the time he would be a marked man. Angron seemed to get very upset whenever they were around, I imagine there's a universal distrust for them.

This only happens in Betrayer, the Horus Heresy book by ADB.

The background is now extremely inconsistent and some authors are allowed to change the background as they please, specially in the Horus Heresy series. But there are still psykers in Khorne armies in other sources, starting with the only army list the World Eaters have ever had.

I don´t like the idea of an army losing a unit just because a single author writes a single book changing the background.

And this brand new concept does not make sense. Psykers are needed for lots of things if an army uses Chaos. How do their ships work? How do Khornate warbands communicate? How do they open the Warp and invoke Daemons?

Well then you're in luck because ADB answered this exact question.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/284307-khorne-army-with-sorcerers-taboo/?p=3551327

jareddm wrote:
Well then you're in luck because ADB answered this exact question.

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/284307-khorne-army-with-sorcerers-taboo/?p=3551327

Thank you very much for this. Quite interesting. I really like all he said, except this little bit: "Do the World Eaters have sorcerers? Well, no." I am missing: "since I retconned them out of existence in my book".

ADB has always defended the "there is no true 'official' canon in 40K" approach to the setting, which is fine. I think this is the best way to look at it. Respect to him for that. And I don´t think he treats the background worse than any other author.

But I don´t share, at all, his interpretation of the World Eaters. He depicts them as idiots, he took away their Librarians and artillery and devastators (the Teeth of Khorne) and... well, he went with the "World Eaters are just dumb LOL" internet meme. The way he depicts them, they will not last ten years as a Legion. His book is full of World Eaters charging blindly against their enemies and surviving because... just because. Plot armor and nothing more.

Personal preferences, I guess. There are lots of references about the World Eaters, since 1989. They even were a faction on their own. So I ignore this single book of his.

I really like The First Heretic though. Perhaps my favorite 30k book.

 thepowerfulwill wrote:
I know khorne has no sorcerers but could a psyker completely stop using his powers to join khorne?

Yes, Black Crusade (The game) makes this explicit.

And Khorne does use sorcerers.

Angron used a big elaborate ritual to maintain his grip on the Materium in the First War for Armageddon.

That's sorcery.

I believe he also had a series of pillars or towers dedicated to Khorne/Angron built. I'd imagine there would be sorcerous activities around those. Even if it would be some kind of psychic chanting.

A-D-B wrote:Some Khorne warbands will be aware enough to see that ultimately it's all just Warp energy (gods, daemons, psychic power, all the same stuff)

This is my take on it. Honestly it doesn't really make an awful lot of sense; is a Bloodthirster or Daemon Prince of Khorne "cheating" by having strength that comes purely from their exalted nature? Is a Chaos Lord wielding a formidable Daemon Weapon (magic) "cheating" because his opponents don't have Daemon Weapons? No! Is it "fair" and "honourable" when a squad of Berserkers or troupe of Bloodletters charge into an Imperial Guard line, quickly dispatching the lesser soldiers with very little effort or danger to themselves? No!

War is never "fair". It's not "fair" when a normal man faces a Space Marine. It's not "fair" when a normal man faces a normal man with a great deal more experience than himself. It's not "fair" when you're in a tank. It's only ever "fair" if you happened to be fighting an exact duplicate of yourself, and then it's just down to random chance.

I prefer to think that Khorne "hates" magic because it is Tzeentch's thing, not because of some misconception about honour or playing fair (He has no problem with giving his followers more attacks than other people, or turning them into Daemon Princes). As a further note, the idea of Khorne hating magic could stem from Angron or another source - since the Chaos Gods aren't exactly spouting facts about themselves to their followers and their actions are as open to interpretation as any ambiguous false deity. Perhaps Angron developed a hatred for psykers on Nuceria?

Personally, I'd love to have some proper Khorne psykers. If they differed significantly (say, focusing entirely on melee buffs and other Khorne-related things like breathing fire) from other psykers, it would be perfectly thematic as well. I'd love to see a sorcerer wielding an enormous staff that is both an implement through which to focus his or her power and a huge axe with the Mark of Khorne on it.

Also, Khorne followers simply hiring out whenever they need psykers seems kind of pointless. If Khorne truly hated psykers so absolutely that - no matter their achievements or potential benefits to him - he simply killed them, what's the point in leaving the loophole "oh but it's okay to work with psykers"? It's like if the Imperium's xenophobia didn't matter if you got some Tau contract workers to do a job for you, as long as you personally weren't a Tau. Also, Daemons.

Khorne has always hated magic-users (which is what a psyker is in 40K, basically). This was true in Fantasy as well. What has "changed" with 40K is allowing certain Chaos Army builds to exist, like combining Khornate forces with Slaaneshi forces (historically, the followers of these two gods are subject to hatred and could not feasibly be played together).

Also, CSM do not use Navigators to travel from planet to planet. They simply throw their ships into the Warp and trust to their patron powers, or to Chaos itself, to see them to their destination. This or they use Warp-gates and just walk from one place to another, like the Eldar with their Webway gates.

Khorne hates magic not because it "isn't fair", but because it is an effete, mental pursuit, rather than the physical pursuit of strength of arm and combat drill. Khorne has no time or place for Poindexters, you can be smart, but you also have to be a powerful combatant to be valued in the eyes of the Blood God.

Martial skill is a highly mental pursuit. Skill at arms is mostly mental; as much as Khorne relishes brutal melee, it prizes warfare and combat in any form (except, apparently, when psykers are involved). Performing a headshot on an Eldar Jetbiker moving at blistering speeds while equipped with a holofield two miles away is an impressive feat that requires no physical strength, but is still significant to Khorne. Swinging a powerfist at an enemy whose weapons are ineffectual against your power armour requires neither skill nor strength beyond the ability to essentially press "on", and yet it is a significant act to Khorne.

I'm not saying that Khorne is not allowed to "like" psykers, just that the given reasons don't make sense. However, despite the way "he" is portrayed, Khorne is an abstract entity - it could have its own, unknowable reasons, attributed by mortal minds to a sense of hatred towards psykers for whatever reason.

Not according to GW and Khorne it isn't. I'm not here to debate the real-world "science" behind these things, I'm simply repeating what the Codices and things say, and Khorne says magic = intellect and pansy, brutal combat = physical and manly.

I thought the World Eaters killed most of their librarians on their own either during or shortly after the heresy?

 Psienesis wrote:
Not according to GW and Khorne it isn't. I'm not here to debate the real-world "science" behind these things, I'm simply repeating what the Codices and things say, and Khorne says magic = intellect and pansy, brutal combat = physical and manly.

Oh, I know. I'm just saying that it's silly and self-contradictory!

 Frozen Ocean wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Not according to GW and Khorne it isn't. I'm not here to debate the real-world "science" behind these things, I'm simply repeating what the Codices and things say, and Khorne says magic = intellect and pansy, brutal combat = physical and manly.

Oh, I know. I'm just saying that it's silly and self-contradictory!

And it is not what all sources claim.

Depending on the writer, you can see World Eaters being dumb maniacs or a powerful, disciplined Legion dedicated to the god of War.
1- Extremely proficient and numerous Apothecaries following the berserkers and collecting gene-seed no matter the source.
2- Quite proficient Devastators called the Teeth of Khorne, excelling at blasting the enemy from afar.
3- Librarians called Tally-Keepers. They can´t use their powers in battle, for that would enrage Khorne, who sees it as cheating, but they offer counsel, invoke Daemons, and many more. I don´t think Chaos warbands "simply throw their ships into the Warp and trust to their patron powers" as Psienesis said. At least we know from some sources that not-khornate warbands use Navigators or Sorcerers to do that. Alternatively, invoked Daemons have been used, but you need Sorcerers to invoke and bind Daemons. Chaos do not like servants who need its help all the time to even get to the enemy. That´s a weakness
4- Lots of artillery and long-ranged weapons. They excel at that. Some long-ranged units used by the WE include: Towers of Skulls, Doomblasters, Bloodreapers, Deathdealers, Brass Scorpions and Skull Cannons, among many others.
5- They were also known to use Jump Infantry units and Land Speeders to outflank the enemy during the Heresy.

Their favorite tactic includes the use of heavy artillery followed by nearly suicidal attacks by newly recruited berserkers, while the artillery keep on shooting. Power Armor helps the new guys survive. Strong points are detected and destroyed by a second wave. This tactic is described not only before the Heresy, but in M41, as seen in the short story on page 49 (or near, it is right after the entry for Kharn) of Codex: Chaos Space Marines, 4th edition.

This is a quote from Betrayal, the Forgeworld book: "The regime of discipline and training the XIIth Legion abided by in the past had always been noted among the harshest of any of the Legions, but this proved to be but a shadow of what came to pass under Angron´s direction." This hasn´t changed: the life of a World Eater is a constant training under severe discipline, only paused when the time for war comes.

Even more important: the high attrition rate made Angron to streamline and accelerate the recruitment process, with recruits drawn from everywhere and tested on the go. Their Apothecaries were also adepts in the use of the Grabiya´s Theorem, a procedure involving the use of the Primarch´s own material to stabilise and speed up the implantation procedures, similar to the procedure later tried by Corax. It is considered an extremely dangerous procedure not because it kills the marine, but because it can drive him mentally unstable. And they experimented in many other ways to help the Legion to keep their numbers.

One last thing: the Dominion of Fire saw Angron leading 50000 marines to battle during the 38th millennium. That gives you an idea of the size of the Legion... if it can be still considered a Legion, since it no longer operates together. But they will join again under the command of his Primarch.


So there are two different World Eater Legions in the setting. And there is a lot of stuff about both of them, from the army list they got in Rogue Trader, in 1989, to the new Horus Heresy books. Pick one: the dumb maniacs or the servants of the God of War. Or try to merge both of them using logic.

Don't psykers also worship Khorne when they worship Chaos Undivided?

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Don't psykers also worship Khorne when they worship Chaos Undivided?

Depends on what do you mean by Chaos Undivided.

Word Bearer´s worship Chaos as a Pantheon, like the Ancient Greeks or the Roman Republic did. They look down to those that worship a single god. It seems they have few Psykers, with their Sorcery based on rituals.

The Black Legion and their Sorcerers have the support of all gods, including Khorne. But I would expect the Sorcerers to be somehow specialized in a single form of Sorcery. After all, the BL is full of people with different marks, acting together.

Iron Warriors´ Sorcerers honor the Chaos Gods as a Pantheon, but they are also somehow associated with the Forge of Souls, which is an independent reign inside Chaos. Or perhaps they don´t, information is quite confusing here. In 2013 we got that the Dark Mechanicum, aka Soul Forgers, uses the Ritual of Brotherhood which may be or may be not the same thing that the Oaths of the Iron Pact used by the Forge of Souls.

Night Lords´ Sorcerers see Chaos as a weapon, and they mock any form of faith. For them, Sorcery is more about forcing Chaos to do things through rituals, more or less like the Word Bearers. The difference is that the WB worship the gods and through their rituals they ask the gods for favors, while the NL do not worship
Chaos, and through their rituals they force Chaos to do things. This is, of course, a gross simplification.

Alpha Legion´s Sorcerers [Redacted by Order of the Inquisition], which is quite amazing if you think about it.

Worshippers of Lesser Gods and independent Daemons worship whoever they worship in different ways. If they actually worship something. Psykers and Sorcerers can do a lot of stuff without actively worshipping anything.

Chaos Undivided got some serious retcons recently, so this stuff may no longer apply. From an official point of view, Chaos Undivided no longer exists, yet we have lots of characters and warbands (even Legions) that follow Chaos Undivided, so... what? Are these characters retconned too? Does not compete, we have even two Undivided Primarchs. This part of the setting is like the Schrödinger Cat, we will find out what happened to each Undivided Legion / Daemon / Daemon Prince / Primarch / Champion when and if a Codex writer decides to use it.