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It doesn't matter if a god cares or not. Entity in the warp is formed and fed by particular emotions and it attracts only particular people. Those people feed their emotions and energies to the warp and character and emotional state of those people define that god is.

It's same as with any newborn demon. In order to summon demon of Khrone you often need to have a bloodshed. To summon demon of Slannesh you often need to have excess. Demons feed on energies who gave them birth. As they mature they begin to stick with people who are by nature more like them and in those people they amplify already present traits. In this way, a demon increases his gains from a soul, but unfortunately for him, energies that a person emits to the warp has a taste of his own personality. You cannot simply feed on person's emotional energy without slowly becoming more like him.


That I'm writing here is taken from Liberia Chaotica. There was showed how demons are born and that connection they have with material realm.

Khorne, as a Ruinous Power, is far older than anything currently kicking around in the galaxy. Further, there's far more savage, barbarian fighters in the galaxy, throughout history, than their are trained soldiers with some sort of "honor code" to live by.

 EVIL INC wrote:
In the original fluff, he was. It was about martial pride and duels and so on and so forth. As editions came and went, he became a mindless slavering bloodthirsty monster who cares nothing about pride or honor so long as he gets his skulls. Innocent helpless children? Khorne demands they be slaughtered just for their skulls.
I prefer the older incarnation but then of course, I started chaos in the original Realm of Chaos books.

 EVIL INC wrote:
The issue with khorne is how the fluff has changed over the years. I started on the Realm of Chaos books while other started later.
For anyone interested in chaos at all, I would suggest getting your hands on those two books (Realm of chaos Slaves to Darkness and Realm of chaos the lost and the damned) in one form or another. You'll notice many differences but I think the changing face of khorne is the biggest. One of his changes is in his martial pride stance to outright slaughter and another is his current disdain of ranged weapons. In there, his followers were the most likely to be gifted with heavy weapons.

Mayhaps, GW just has him degenerating as part of the plot. Who knows? lol

 Ernestas wrote:
It's pity that Khorne was degraded to this point.

Well in Realms of Chaos Khorne was depicted thus:

Khorne is the Power of Chaos in its aspect of mindless and absolute violence, destroying everything and everyone within its reach, slaying both friend and foe alike...
The gore-maddened followers of Khorne...delighting in slaughter...
Every life taken by a follower of Khorne increases the Blood God's power. He looks with particular favour upon those who take the lives of their friends and allies...
Followers of Khorne have no friends and few long term acquaintances - all are soon to be sacrifices to Khorne...
The code of Khorne is simple: blood and more blood...
All dead are equal in the eyes of Khorne. The only way to incur his displeasure is by not killing.

I don't see much degeneration there, if anything modern Khorne is more mellow.

I remember a story in Ignorant Armies book about the ascension of a Khorne chaos warrior and one of the warband is a sophisticated elf warrior whose comments always infuriates the warband leader.
The Khorne followers in the older books where more coherent.

There are representations of honourable khornite followers, ones who can and do control the rage inside them, these mostly come from the writers who understand that all chaos isn't "eat a baby for breakfast, go do some killing, eat another baby".

The people that live in the eye and other chaos planets have a culture, economy, diplomacy (of a kind) and are just as much an empire as the imperials, elder etc. It's just chaotic and while some are utter anarchy others are well run and organised.

Take a look at any of adb's or abnets work on the subject and you can see there is a hell of alot more going on with chaos as a whole than what the limited blurbs in the codexs suggest.

I'D even go as far as saying that the codex writers these days haven't got a clue how chaos works as a concept, I'd bet pennies to pounds that most of us on here know more of the subject than most of them.

I agree with Formosa. Reading around in the old FFG RPG books I have around, I always imagined Khorne as an actually reasonable guy. Yes, he wants blood. Yes, he wants war and battles uncountable. But what will please him more; besting a foe in glorious battle, watching the light of life leave his eyes and you shout glories to Khorne...or walking to a orphanage's nursery with a chain axe and start killing kids? There are champions of Khorne whom he endorses with his favor. And those who claim to fight in his name, but never get acknowledged for the less than honourable ways they kill in his name. There is something said for killing someone who can fight back, but is weaker than yourself. There is also something said for killing those who have no way of fighting, and therefore no way to fuel Khorne.

And those who claim to fight in his name, but never get acknowledged for the less than honourable ways they kill in his name. There is something said for killing someone who can fight back, but is weaker than yourself. There is also something said for killing those who have no way of fighting, and therefore no way to fuel Khorne.

And you can be the greatest warrior in the galaxy and roll Chaos Spawn! as your newest Gift of Chaos.

The Ruinous Powers are fickle and capricious. They obey no laws comprehensible to mortals.

There is also something said for killing those who have no way of fighting, and therefore no way to fuel Khorne.

They bleed. That's all Khorne cares about. "Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows, only that people are killing and dying in his name." The Khornate Marauder who breaks into the orphanage, screams "Blood for the Blood God!" and starts laying about with a chain-axe is killing in the name of the Blood God, and these orphans are dying in the name of the Blood God. That's all Khorne cares about.

 Psienesis wrote:
They bleed. That's all Khorne cares about. "Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows, only that people are killing and dying in his name." The Khornate Marauder who breaks into the orphanage, screams "Blood for the Blood God!" and starts laying about with a chain-axe is killing in the name of the Blood God, and these orphans are dying in the name of the Blood God. That's all Khorne cares about.

I always took the "dying in his name" part as two combatants fighting and praising Khorne, with the loser dying with Khorne's praise still on his lips. Still, I can see your point.

 Unyielding Hunger wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
They bleed. That's all Khorne cares about. "Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows, only that people are killing and dying in his name." The Khornate Marauder who breaks into the orphanage, screams "Blood for the Blood God!" and starts laying about with a chain-axe is killing in the name of the Blood God, and these orphans are dying in the name of the Blood God. That's all Khorne cares about.

I always took the "dying in his name" part as two combatants fighting and praising Khorne, with the loser dying with Khorne's praise still on his lips. Still, I can see your point.

If it worked the way you describe, then the only battles that Khorne would care about are Khornates vs Khornates. We know that this is not the case.

Slaanesh-Devotee wrote:Has anyone managed to come up with a good summation of their mutual hatred?

Yes.

The problem is that the fluff for slaanesh seriously contradicts itself alot, especially over time, so you have to sort of boil it down to its core essence to see the difference.

Khorne is about being good at things - about being the best at things, in fact. To totally immerse yourself in your craft, even (or, rather, especially) at the risk of total obsession, and having nothing else matter in life other than being the very best at one thing and then constantly competing with everybody else.

If you look at eldar, for example, in order to be anti-slaanesh, they have the aspect system. A system where instead of just doing everything at once, you instead get super-disciplined and do just one thing. Sometimes an eldar will go too far into being anti-slaanesh, and become obsessed with their chosen path, at which point they're known as exarchs. On rare occasions one of these super-anti-slaanesh warriors gets chosen to be a physical host for the bloody-handed god of battle and murder. Put another way, when eldar try to be the opposite of slaanesh, they show behavior patterns pleasing to khorne. You can tell what pleases khorne, then, by looking at eldar, among other things.

This being a wargame, then of course the most common way of showing this obsession over perfecting one's craft is with crazy, bloodthirsty warriors. Berzerkers have become obsessed with battle, and fighting better than anyone else, and when they run out of others to fight, they'll fight themselves and compete to see who's best. Those who go the furthest down the path literally only care about killing and winning. Or blood for blood god, and skulls for skull throne, respectively.

Slaanesh is on the complete opposite side of the spectrum. Slaanesh isn't about what you do, it's about what you experience. It's not about dedication to a single goal, it's about novelty.

Slaanesh's obsession comes into play when their drifting around eventually leaves them with nothing new. Nothing different. When that happens, they will do something, anything, no matter how crazy or destructive in order to get some sort of fulfillment out of it. Music gets played louder and louder until it's unintelligible. A painting gets more and more of brighter and brighter colors added to it. Anything that once resembles art eventually becomes nothing more than noise.

And that's why the two hate each other. Khorne followers want to be the best at something, while slaanesh followers don't even believe that "best" is possible. That or they tried "best" once and wanted something else. Wanted to mess with it. Khorne followers want to completely devote themselves to one thing, while slaanesh followers instantly get bored with any one thing and move on to something else. Khorne followers care about prestige and winning, while slaanesh followers could care less - after all, losing in some exciting new way would be an interesting new experience.

And that's why the two hate each other. Khorne is the author carefully editing his novel before the fiction contest while slaanesh is the teenager with his boom car blasting rap music outside his window. Khorne opens the window and yells at him to shut off that noise, get a job, and find some kind of purpose in life while slaanesh turns up the volume and tells khorne to lighten up and live a little.

Khorne is about being good at things - about being the best at things, in fact. To totally immerse yourself in your craft, even (or, rather, especially) at the risk of total obsession, and having nothing else matter in life other than being the very best at one thing and then constantly competing with everybody else.

Again, that's Slaanesh. That obsessive attitude, that quest for perfection, that excessive focusing on one aspect of life... that's all Slaanesh.

Khorne doesn't care that you're a really good pastry chef, unless you can bludgeon someone to death with one.

If you look at eldar, for example, in order to be anti-slaanesh, they have the aspect system. A system where instead of just doing everything at once, you instead get super-disciplined and do just one thing. Sometimes an eldar will go too far into being anti-slaanesh, and become obsessed with their chosen path, at which point they're known as exarchs. On rare occasions one of these super-anti-slaanesh warriors gets chosen to be a physical host for the bloody-handed god of battle and murder. Put another way, when eldar try to be the opposite of slaanesh, they show behavior patterns pleasing to khorne. You can tell what pleases khorne, then, by looking at eldar, among other things.

Kaela Mensha Khaine is not, in fact, an avatar of Khorne. This is a human belief in Warhammer Fantasy, but is categorically untrue in 40K.

Not for least of which reasons being that, in the concepts of linear time, the Eldar are older than the sentience known as Khorne.

All chaos is obsessive.

Khorne worshippers are in a literally ceaseless competition. Slaanesh has nothing even close to that. And, despite lots of evidence to the contrary, I don't see where it says slaanesh is the one devoted to discipline in a single subject. Khorne is the kind of person who marries for life, slaanesh is the bachelor that screws everyone and everything always looking for the next thrill. You don't get that if you're monogamous with whatever activity you're engaging in.

I didn't say that Khaine = Khorne. They just have names that are very similar, and are both made of molten metal, and both constantly pour blood out of themselves and both possess only those who are most devoted to battle.

They are not literally equal, they are just extremely similar.

Yes, but this quest for perfection that you've described, at being the best that you can be, that is, specifically, within Slaanesh's portfolio. Whether that's music, art, sexual prowess, seduction, wit, charm, combat... the eternal quest for perfection is the realm of Slaanesh.

Khorne's followers have one focus: killing. Preferably killing by means of conventional warfare.... most preferably by means of melee combat. They don't do the virus bombs, the exterminatii, the total nuclear bombardment... too impersonal. They seek to spill blood in the Blood God's name, and to add the skulls of their victims (or their own) to those that surround the Brass Throne.

Khorne is also not made out of molten metal. He is described as a massive, red-furred humanoid with canine features, dressed in baroque armor of black metal edged in brass, who's bellowing rage echoes across the Realms of Chaos.

Sort of like a giant Bloodthirster... which is not uncommon for the Greater Daemons to resemble their patron powers. That's just a theme Chaos has.

He is sometimes alternately described in this manner, seated upon a throne of brass that sits atop a mountainous pile of skulls, surrounded by a veritable ocean of blood.

Psienesis wrote: the eternal quest for perfection is the realm of Slaanesh.

So you keep asserting... nothing more.

You might as well say that the eternal quest for perfection is the realm of Nurgle, or Tzeentch.

Psienesis wrote:Khorne's followers have one focus: killing. Preferably killing by means of conventional warfare.... most preferably by means of melee combat. They don't do the virus bombs, the exterminatii, the total nuclear bombardment... too impersonal.

And there you have it. Khrone isn't just about killing, or else they would do exactly that. The best way to kill as much as possible is to just exterminatus everything, but that goes fundamentally against the way khorne does things.

Because khorne isn't just about killing. Killing is one facet that is subservient to other controlling ideas. The fact that they have to kill in person, in one on one combat means that one-on-one competition is more important than the killing. It's the competition that's important, so much so that it effects how blood is spilled.

 Psienesis wrote:

 Unyielding Hunger wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
They bleed. That's all Khorne cares about. "Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows, only that people are killing and dying in his name." The Khornate Marauder who breaks into the orphanage, screams "Blood for the Blood God!" and starts laying about with a chain-axe is killing in the name of the Blood God, and these orphans are dying in the name of the Blood God. That's all Khorne cares about.

I always took the "dying in his name" part as two combatants fighting and praising Khorne, with the loser dying with Khorne's praise still on his lips. Still, I can see your point.

If it worked the way you describe, then the only battles that Khorne would care about are Khornates vs Khornates. We know that this is not the case.

Hmm, I phrased that poorly. I lean towards the poetic a lot. Would it make more sense if I said that I consider every battle cry/ war shout, etc to be praise to Khorne?

 Ailaros wrote:

Psienesis wrote: the eternal quest for perfection is the realm of Slaanesh.

So you keep asserting... nothing more.

You might as well say that the eternal quest for perfection is the realm of Nurgle, or Tzeentch.

I provided you with links and quotes to back up the claim with Slaanesh back on page 1, and you even quoted them and commented that you needed to rethink your interpretation of the Chaos Gods. Did you somehow forget that?

 Ailaros wrote:

Psienesis wrote:Khorne's followers have one focus: killing. Preferably killing by means of conventional warfare.... most preferably by means of melee combat. They don't do the virus bombs, the exterminatii, the total nuclear bombardment... too impersonal.

And there you have it. Khrone isn't just about killing, or else they would do exactly that. The best way to kill as much as possible is to just exterminatus everything, but that goes fundamentally against the way khorne does things.

Because khorne isn't just about killing. Killing is one facet that is subservient to other controlling ideas. The fact that they have to kill in person, in one on one combat means that one-on-one competition is more important than the killing. It's the competition that's important, so much so that it effects how blood is spilled.

"Blood for the Blood God, skulls for the Skull Throne"

Lexicanum wrote:Khorne is the Chaos god of anger, violence, and hate. Khorne is the mightiest and the second to emerge of the four Gods of Chaos, fully coming into existence during Terra's Middle Ages. Every act of violence gives Khorne power, whether committed by his followers or by their enemies.

Unfortunately, whoever wrote the Lexi article on Khorne did an absolutely terrible job with the sourcing.
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Khorne

It is not "Sports for the Sports God, Goals for the Goal Throne". It's warfare, bloodshed and violence. Competition is not really an aspect, except tangentially.

Well at least women and children are still "unworthy of his wrath"

Slaanesh-Devotee wrote:Has anyone managed to come up with a good summation of their mutual hatred?

"Anger vs Pleasure" at it's most succinct, just as Tzeentch and Nurgle embody Hope and Despair respectively. I believe these base emotional resonances are more to the core of any God than higher concept pursuits such as being a warrior or seeking perfection, such things simply help to draw forth the emotion at the core.
Khorne rages against everything while Slaanesh indulges in it. Where Khorne would end something, Slaanesh would simply pervert it and revel in it.

Munga wrote:
Khorne is about pride. Not honor. The thirst for physical prowess is his game. It's still said that his followers would much rather murder things with their bare hands than shoot them to death, but sometimes it's the only way to close range. There was an honorable side of Khorne, and it still exists to some degree, but he is ancient and reflects what is currently going on in the universe. Remember that all the chaos powers are reflections of psyches, both human and not. I think that as the universe of 40k goes even more brutal, you'll see him characterized as being even more about slaughter than prowess. This keeps in line with the fluff. Do note that Khorne still prizes the skulls of those who put up an admirable fight. It's rather amazing that he lets Skulltaker keep his prized trophies, really, but then Skulltaker is one of his most prized manifestations.

Well i remember reading somewhere that pride is slaanesh domain and that the other gods secretly fears his growing strenght because all the other gods give in to pride wich feeds the dark prince.

 Alpharius wrote:
This won't be terribly helpful, but I definitely remember reading a story where a World Eater champ salutes someone (A Blood Angel? Maybe a Space Wolf) after he ends up defeating a lot of CSMs in some battle somewhere...

Hopefully someone with a better memory than me will remember where that story came from!

Ulrik the Slayer killed World Eater Berserkers pretty much barehanded when they killed his captain/wolf lord. Several of the biggest Berserkers present at the fight raised their axes in salute to UIrik's prowess in battle.

There are plenty of honorable combatants who follow Khornate creeds. Those individuals have a code of martial honor. That does not mean that Khorne does.

Only honor in a sense is you have to get up close, and blood on your sword, axe or bludgeon or even fists. if your spilling blood then your doing it right.

NO sorcery, that's about the only rule.

Animus wrote:

Slaanesh-Devotee wrote:Has anyone managed to come up with a good summation of their mutual hatred?

"Anger vs Pleasure" at it's most succinct, just as Tzeentch and Nurgle embody Hope and Despair respectively. I believe these base emotional resonances are more to the core of any God than higher concept pursuits such as being a warrior or seeking perfection, such things simply help to draw forth the emotion at the core.
Khorne rages against everything while Slaanesh indulges in it. Where Khorne would end something, Slaanesh would simply pervert it and revel in it.

This is a really good summary.

Animus wrote:

"Anger vs Pleasure" at it's most succinct, just as Tzeentch and Nurgle embody Hope and Despair respectively. I believe these base emotional resonances are more to the core of any God than higher concept pursuits such as being a warrior or seeking perfection, such things simply help to draw forth the emotion at the core.
Khorne rages against everything while Slaanesh indulges in it. Where Khorne would end something, Slaanesh would simply pervert it and revel in it.

I guess I just fail to see how Anger and Pleasure are opposite philosophies in the way Hope and Despair are.

I suppose Anger and Joy might be opposites? One is the world makes you feel bad, while the other is the world makes you feel good?

Slaanesh-Devotee wrote:I guess I just fail to see how Anger and Pleasure are opposite philosophies in the way Hope and Despair are.

They're not, as anyone who's ever had angry sex or schaedenfreude can attest.

Plus, khorne berzerkers are both explicitly and implicitly said to receive joy from battle. The thrill of mortal combat is a form of pleasure, and not at all at odds with khorne.

I mean, no one joins up with Chaos because it makes them sadder or bored...

For Khorne followers, the pleasure from killing is a secondary benefit. The killing is the goal (Blood for its own sake).

For Slaanesh followers, the killing is done so they can get pleasure. The pleasure is the goal.


For Slaanesh, you are supposed to care only about yourself. For Khorne, you are supposed to care about the greater duty (to spill blood!) and not give a crap about what happens to yourself (Khorne cares not where the blood flows)

According to the wiki's Slaanesh and Khorne articles (dunno if they're actual quotes from actual sources or not):

Slaanesh: "However, the followers of Khorne with their boorish beliefs in bloodshed for its own sake are particular enemies."

Khorne: "The sense of duty, honour, and self-sacrifice that fuels part of Khorne's existence is an anathema to the followers of Slaanesh, and the very antithesis of their own philosophy of self-indulgent pleasure seeking. "


(I can only assume the "duty" is the "duty to spill blood" and the "self-sacrifice" is the "don't care if you die in the process of your duty of killing others")

Not necessarily "honor" per say but Only War mentions that Khorne Daemons march up the field in perfectly assembled orderly regiments.

Until the killing starts that is. The idea of all Chaos Gods is that they started out good enough (honor, Happiness, change, and will to survive but then proceeded to go crazy (carnage, excess, turning into a BIRD, and plagues galore.) So presumably Khorne was honorable at some point.

Chaos was never "Good" or "Good Enough". Concepts of Good and Evil don't really exist in Chaos, for it is all things and all possible things. There is Order, and there is Chaos, nothing more, nothing less.

So maybe once upon a time, long before the dawn of Man, Khorne was an honorable God of War... but that time is long since passed.

I think honour was dumb to start with anyways.

The chaos gods where suppose to be made up of this realms thoughts and emotions. WTF though is honour none.

We are

Blood thirsty, vicious and violent species = Khorne
Deceitful, scheming to get ahead = Tzeench
Lust, green, pride and constantly obsessed with gluttony = Slaanesh
Fear death, virus, infection and the envitable decay of time = Nurgle

We do not really feel any other emotions lol just different forms of the above

in 40k: not very
in fantasy: a lot more