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Self mutilation nudity and just plain weird, also fluff wise everything that starts out as worship of the Emperor turns into Chaos, probably why the Emperor was creeped out by lorgar.

Ehm, the Sisters Repentia are actually based on real-world religious practices (flagellants).

I'm... not so sure what's so weird about nudity. Unless you don't ever shower or bathe. Or change clothes. In which case... that's weird. Real weird.

But in either case, such things are not a sexual fetish for the Sisters.

The Illuminate wrote:

In the case of the Imperium, their atrocities are justified because they are, truly, the last hope for humanity. The Imperium also does not do what it does out of a sense of wicked pleasure or perverse enjoyment... all the gak conditions and people living gak lives in the gakkiest conditions imaginable are the results of the absolutely best choices that could have been made at the time, given the circumstances.

The Imperials like to say that but humanity might stand a better chance without the high lords of terra, the Emperor thought the stuff that the current Imperium is made of would be the death of humanity.

The Imperium also does not do what it does out of a sense of wicked pleasure or perverse enjoyment

Self mutilation nudity and just plain weird, also fluff wise everything that starts out as worship of the Emperor turns into Chaos, probably why the Emperor was creeped out by lorgar.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

So what is it about the Night Lords that the galaxy needs them to survive? Or humanity in general? Or even Chaos?

The Night Lords of horrible horrible beings but if I were to say what their dong that's redeemable is that their tearing down an empire based on a lie.

The moment you understand there is no better alternative to the Imperium is the moment you understand the true meaning of "Grimdark" in 40k's plot.
They tear down the Imperium to replace it with a much bleaker future for humanity, They are trash.

 Psienesis wrote:
This brings us back to my original question, then, "What are the ends of the Night Lords that justify the means by which they arrive at them?"

Is it survival? In that case, what is it about the Night Lords that their survival, as an organization, is so desirable to justify their atrocities?

You're looking at this from.. to high up? Does that make sense. The Night Lords don't have to be crucial to the survival of the galaxy to "justify their existence", they merely have to keep existing.

Let me put this a different way.

There are people who will kill other people in rage, out of faith, for vengeance, to defend something they believe in, or even for sport. Yet these people do not make up the majority of humanity as we know it. In fact, there's only one instance in which nearly EVERY person is willing to kill.. and that is to save their own life. To protect themselves and preserve their existence. This is basically why, in ye'average post apocalypse setting, trust is the hardest thing to come across and other people are the biggest threat. Once brass tacks are down and your own life is on the line, pretty much everyone becomes a killer.

To rope this back in: You're looking at the question wrong. No race in the 40k setting can justify its survival beyond "We'd just rather not die, kthx". The Imperium (and subsequently humanity) isn't helping the galaxy are large - quite the opposite. From a purely natural perspective, humans are a blight upon the 40k galaxy because of how many planets they effectively destroy (strip-harvesting entire planets, turning others into toxic and polluted wasted lands). The only way you can 'justify' the thing the Imperium, and indeed humanity does in this setting, is if the continued existence of those who commit the acts is justification.

The same goes for the Eldar. They're not helping the galaxy out at large - they freaking created Slaanesh.

The Orks have doubtlessly stamped numerous races into extinction, and like the Imperium have a bad habit of utterly ruining the worlds they end up on.

Dark Eldar are in the same boat as Eldar, and complete bastards to boot.

Chaos is the antithesis of reality.

The Necrons.. Yeah.

Do I even need to mention Tyranids?

The Tau are the 'best' race, but again cannot justify it. They have extremely underhanded practices, and alien races they encounter are either killed or subjugated in their empire; usually some combination there of.

Basically, the only justification for the Night Lords committing the actions they do in order to keep existing is that it allows them to keep existing. A pretty strong justification, considering no other faction in the 40k setting can say any different, and existence at large would be better off without most (all) of them.

Or quite simply Moral and Existential Nihilism, the default of the universe, means the universe doesn't care about anything, nobody has a divined purpose, and it doesn't matter if anybody lives or everybody dies.

 Wyzilla wrote:
Or quite simply Moral and Existential Nihilism, the default of the universe, means the universe doesn't care about anything, nobody has a divined purpose, and it doesn't matter if anybody lives or everybody dies.

I'd argue that, despite not being alive, being merged with the Warp and essentially destroyed is a net loss for the universe.

 morganfreeman wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
Or quite simply Moral and Existential Nihilism, the default of the universe, means the universe doesn't care about anything, nobody has a divined purpose, and it doesn't matter if anybody lives or everybody dies.

I'd argue that, despite not being alive, being merged with the Warp and essentially destroyed is a net loss for the universe.

Well it prevents the universe from being destroyed by Heat-Death.

 morganfreeman wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
This brings us back to my original question, then, "What are the ends of the Night Lords that justify the means by which they arrive at them?"

Is it survival? In that case, what is it about the Night Lords that their survival, as an organization, is so desirable to justify their atrocities?

You're looking at this from.. to high up? Does that make sense. The Night Lords don't have to be crucial to the survival of the galaxy to "justify their existence", they merely have to keep existing.

Let me put this a different way.

There are people who will kill other people in rage, out of faith, for vengeance, to defend something they believe in, or even for sport. Yet these people do not make up the majority of humanity as we know it. In fact, there's only one instance in which nearly EVERY person is willing to kill.. and that is to save their own life. To protect themselves and preserve their existence. This is basically why, in ye'average post apocalypse setting, trust is the hardest thing to come across and other people are the biggest threat. Once brass tacks are down and your own life is on the line, pretty much everyone becomes a killer.

To rope this back in: You're looking at the question wrong. No race in the 40k setting can justify its survival beyond "We'd just rather not die, kthx". The Imperium (and subsequently humanity) isn't helping the galaxy are large - quite the opposite. From a purely natural perspective, humans are a blight upon the 40k galaxy because of how many planets they effectively destroy (strip-harvesting entire planets, turning others into toxic and polluted wasted lands). The only way you can 'justify' the thing the Imperium, and indeed humanity does in this setting, is if the continued existence of those who commit the acts is justification.

The same goes for the Eldar. They're not helping the galaxy out at large - they freaking created Slaanesh.

The Orks have doubtlessly stamped numerous races into extinction, and like the Imperium have a bad habit of utterly ruining the worlds they end up on.

Dark Eldar are in the same boat as Eldar, and complete bastards to boot.

Chaos is the antithesis of reality.

The Necrons.. Yeah.

Do I even need to mention Tyranids?

The Tau are the 'best' race, but again cannot justify it. They have extremely underhanded practices, and alien races they encounter are either killed or subjugated in their empire; usually some combination there of.

Basically, the only justification for the Night Lords committing the actions they do in order to keep existing is that it allows them to keep existing. A pretty strong justification, considering no other faction in the 40k setting can say any different, and existence at large would be better off without most (all) of them.

Even if that's the viewpoint you're going by (which on a side note, completely ignores the context of the original post, which clearly meant "in the context of general moral standards that most sentient beings have" at the very least), "justified" does not equal "redeemable", anyways. Therefore even by your own view of "what's good for the galaxy" or "everyone else isn't any good for the galaxy", there is nothing redeeming to the Nightlords. Just "justified" and "just as bad as everyone else", which is still not "redeemable" at all. (not that anything could be "redeemable" by that viewpont. If there is no morality, there's no such thing as "redeemable" per the context of the original post)

TiamatRoar wrote:


Even if that's the viewpoint you're going by (which on a side note, completely ignores the context of the original post, which clearly meant "in the context of general moral standards that most sentient beings have" at the very least), "justified" does not equal "redeemable", anyways. Therefore even by your own view of "what's good for the galaxy" or "everyone else isn't any good for the galaxy", there is nothing redeeming to the Nightlords. Just "justified" and "just as bad as everyone else", which is still not "redeemable" at all. (not that anything could be "redeemable" by that viewpont. If there is no morality, there's no such thing as "redeemable" per the context of the original post)

Okay, but that still doesn't undermine my point. If we're going off the "general moral standards that most sentient beings have", than every single race in 40k is made up 100% of monsters. No one is good, no one is justified, no one is nice. Grim Dark.

If we're looking at this from in-universe, so the moral standards of each race, than everyone thinks everyone else is immoral, while they're paragons of morality, virtue, and good ( or at least justifiable, with the exception of most of chaos..). So it's a flawed question. If we're looking at it via real-world morality.. Well, then everyone is horrible and deserves to be killed by fire.

 morganfreeman wrote:

TiamatRoar wrote:


Even if that's the viewpoint you're going by (which on a side note, completely ignores the context of the original post, which clearly meant "in the context of general moral standards that most sentient beings have" at the very least), "justified" does not equal "redeemable", anyways. Therefore even by your own view of "what's good for the galaxy" or "everyone else isn't any good for the galaxy", there is nothing redeeming to the Nightlords. Just "justified" and "just as bad as everyone else", which is still not "redeemable" at all. (not that anything could be "redeemable" by that viewpont. If there is no morality, there's no such thing as "redeemable" per the context of the original post)

Okay, but that still doesn't undermine my point. If we're going off the "general moral standards that most sentient beings have", than every single race in 40k is made up 100% of monsters. No one is good, no one is justified, no one is nice. Grim Dark.

If we're looking at this from in-universe, so the moral standards of each race, than everyone thinks everyone else is immoral, while they're paragons of morality, virtue, and good ( or at least justifiable, with the exception of most of chaos..). So it's a flawed question. If we're looking at it via real-world morality.. Well, then everyone is horrible and deserves to be killed by fire.

This is a thread about redeemable qualities, not about whether or not someone is a monster (in fact, the whole point of the thread is acknowledging that someone is a monster, but asking if they still have redeeming qualities). Logan Grimmar can be a monster for hating Xenos, but his redeeming quality is he sincerely cares about many other people, for example (note: That's just one example). If he, Calgar, Dante, and the Salamanders have no redeeming features, you're gonna have to tell that to the fluff writers because they're rather explicit about them being nice people (IE, a redeeming feature) in spite of their other negative traits (which, at most, is typically just xenos hatred)

(the same can apply to the Imperium in varying degrees, and it's not just a matter of perspective. Even the Chaos Space Marine codex, which is from Chaos' point of view for the most part, doesn't bother trying to paint the Nightlords in any redeeming light, IIRC)

 morganfreeman wrote:

TiamatRoar wrote:


Even if that's the viewpoint you're going by (which on a side note, completely ignores the context of the original post, which clearly meant "in the context of general moral standards that most sentient beings have" at the very least), "justified" does not equal "redeemable", anyways. Therefore even by your own view of "what's good for the galaxy" or "everyone else isn't any good for the galaxy", there is nothing redeeming to the Nightlords. Just "justified" and "just as bad as everyone else", which is still not "redeemable" at all. (not that anything could be "redeemable" by that viewpont. If there is no morality, there's no such thing as "redeemable" per the context of the original post)

Okay, but that still doesn't undermine my point. If we're going off the "general moral standards that most sentient beings have", than every single race in 40k is made up 100% of monsters. No one is good, no one is justified, no one is nice. Grim Dark.

If we're looking at this from in-universe, so the moral standards of each race, than everyone thinks everyone else is immoral, while they're paragons of morality, virtue, and good ( or at least justifiable, with the exception of most of chaos..). So it's a flawed question. If we're looking at it via real-world morality.. Well, then everyone is horrible and deserves to be killed by fire.

Again, as we've already pointed out several times in this thread, the evils that the Imperium commits has a noble goal in the end, which is the survival of an entire species (Mankind).

The Night Lords are not fighting for this goal. They are, at best, fighting for the goal of their own personal survival, which is selfish, and in such a fight are committing atrocities that make the most-sadistic of serial murderers look like Girl Scouts in comparison.

Again I ask: By what metrics are the Night Lords at all redeemable by their actions?

The Nightlords fight against an Imperium that uses ignorance and lies to control humankind for its own ends. They do so while simultaneously recognizing the existence of true gods in the warp, and rejecting them for their vileness. It doesn't matter that they don't stand a chance of actually defeating the Imperium, only that they fight against its tyrannical hypocrisy while not devoting themselves to the chaos gods. The only reason they aren't the irrefutable good guys of the setting (there are none 'cause grimdark) is because their tactics for doing these things are barbarous in the extreme. The Nightlords share some thematic aspects with the craftworld Eldar in this respect. They are doing what is morally right in the big picture, but their methods are horrible and selfish. The Nightlords are much more redeemable than any Imperial faction which are dooming the entire human race to a fate similar to the Eldar (By doing a 180 on the Imperial Truth without the protection of a living Emperor or devotion to a true god.) in exchange for a little short term stability while simultaneously committing just as heinous acts.

They are doing what is morally right in the big picture

This needs further explanation, because I don't believe that the Imperium is particularly hypocritical.

By doing a 180 on the Imperial Truth without the protection of a living Emperor or devotion to a true god.

Citation needed to prove the God-Emperor is not, in fact, a Warp Entity of immense power.

 Psienesis wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:

TiamatRoar wrote:


Even if that's the viewpoint you're going by (which on a side note, completely ignores the context of the original post, which clearly meant "in the context of general moral standards that most sentient beings have" at the very least), "justified" does not equal "redeemable", anyways. Therefore even by your own view of "what's good for the galaxy" or "everyone else isn't any good for the galaxy", there is nothing redeeming to the Nightlords. Just "justified" and "just as bad as everyone else", which is still not "redeemable" at all. (not that anything could be "redeemable" by that viewpont. If there is no morality, there's no such thing as "redeemable" per the context of the original post)

Okay, but that still doesn't undermine my point. If we're going off the "general moral standards that most sentient beings have", than every single race in 40k is made up 100% of monsters. No one is good, no one is justified, no one is nice. Grim Dark.

If we're looking at this from in-universe, so the moral standards of each race, than everyone thinks everyone else is immoral, while they're paragons of morality, virtue, and good ( or at least justifiable, with the exception of most of chaos..). So it's a flawed question. If we're looking at it via real-world morality.. Well, then everyone is horrible and deserves to be killed by fire.

Again, as we've already pointed out several times in this thread, the evils that the Imperium commits has a noble goal in the end, which is the survival of an entire species (Mankind).

The Night Lords are not fighting for this goal. They are, at best, fighting for the goal of their own personal survival, which is selfish, and in such a fight are committing atrocities that make the most-sadistic of serial murderers look like Girl Scouts in comparison.

Again I ask: By what metrics are the Night Lords at all redeemable by their actions?

There is no metric. The only goal of anyone or anything is their own survival. The Night Lords fight for themselves, just as the Dark Eldar do, the Imperium does, or Necrons.

I think people are getting hung up on the difference between redeeming qualities and justification for their actions.

Quality-wise, there isn't anything overtly visible to me that I would call redeeming. Their over-the-top brutality and goal of inducing terror for the sake of terrifying and slaughtering others is certainly abhorrent from our external viewpoint. Tell that to a Night Lord though and they would probably say thank you. These guys live in a universe where these actions are fairly run-of-the-mill for any of the baddie factions. We have: Necrons committing universal genocide; Eldar and Dark Eldar using the other, lesser races as tools to prolong their own existence by either torturing their victims or manipulating events so that the results are in their favor at the expense of other races; the Imperium behaving the moral monstrosities we know and love them for; and Chaos is well... Chaos. The "just because everyone else is doing it, doesn't make it right" argument that your mother used to tell you comes into play here, but the only reason that I feel the Night Lords get targeted for the big baddie role is because they are so open about their actions being committed purely for the sake of committing them, and not some grander scheme or purpose. To me, that is a quasi-redeeming point. At least they fully accept the role that they made for themselves.

All of this leads into the difference between qualities and justification that I made earlier. Again, they live in a world much different and scarier than ours. So many questions are a mystery to us. Questions about divine beings, or life off the Earth for example. These help shape our sense of what is right. The 40k universe has many of these questions answered for them. For a faction that denied their species by turning their back on the Imperium, then deined the rival faction of the Warp Gods, what else is there to justify your actions than by being whatever it is that you decide for yourself to be? This is exactly what the Night Lords did. They give themselves up to no God (for the majority of them), and have given up on their species. With no outside influence to suggest what the right and wrong actions are, they have been left with the freedom to plot their own course. What it appears they have decided to pursue is to enjoy themselves... which happens to be terrifying and slaughtering the weak.

 Psienesis wrote:

They are doing what is morally right in the big picture

This needs further explanation, because I don't believe that the Imperium is particularly hypocritical.

I see the Imperium as hypocritical to the extreme. There are the specific hypocrisies like shunning psykers yet utilizing them whenever necessary, abhorring mutants while at the same time venerating space marines (and others) who are in fact mutants themselves. More alarming is the hypocritical nature that's woven into their general purpose. They claim to be protecting mankind but in fact are damning them to an eventual fall to chaos. Everything the Emperor did was geared toward avoiding this fate. His general strategy was to abolish the worship of chaos via the elimination of belief in any/all gods. The only other way for mankind to avoid having the same fate of the eldar is to accept chaos (this is what Lorgar viewed as the only true option). In addition, by worshiping the Emperor as a god and spitting on the Imperial Truth, the Imperium goes against the core teachings of the being they claim to serve, thus making them the most harmful of heretics.

By doing a 180 on the Imperial Truth without the protection of a living Emperor or devotion to a true god.

Citation needed to prove the God-Emperor is not, in fact, a Warp Entity of immense power.

The Emperor created the Imperial Truth to expunge chaos worship and in turn prevent mankind from cataclysmic chaos event like the Eldar. The only other way to prevent this is to simply accept chaos like Lorgar. The Emperor is indeed a warp entity of immense power but the fact of the matter is that the Emperor could not protect mankind from the chaos gods through sheer force of will alone. This is why he choose the risky maneuver of trying to eliminate chaos worship and make warp travel obsolete via the webway. He sought to remove humanity from the danger of chaos solely because he knew to take on chaos with power vs power would be guaranteed to fail.

I see the Imperium as hypocritical to the extreme. There are the specific hypocrisies like shunning psykers yet utilizing them whenever necessary, abhorring mutants while at the same time venerating space marines (and others) who are in fact mutants themselves. More alarming is the hypocritical nature that's woven into their general purpose. They claim to be protecting mankind but in fact are damning them to an eventual fall to chaos. Everything the Emperor did was geared toward avoiding this fate. His general strategy was to abolish the worship of chaos via the elimination of belief in any/all gods. The only other way for mankind to avoid having the same fate of the eldar is to accept chaos (this is what Lorgar viewed as the only true option). In addition, by worshiping the Emperor as a god and spitting on the Imperial Truth, the Imperium goes against the core teachings of the being they claim to serve, thus making them the most harmful of heretics.

Excepting he didn't ban the worship of all gods. He specifically allowed the various cults worshipping him to flourish on Terra, and elswhere throughout his Empire. His core teachings were, basically, "Don't worship anything... except me."

The belief of him being some arch-atheist is... misguided, at best. Outright fabricated at worst. After all, even he used a deal with the Ruinous Powers to make the Primarchs, so it was not like he, himself, didn't believe in them.

The Emperor is indeed a warp entity of immense power but the fact of the matter is that the Emperor could not protect mankind from the chaos gods through sheer force of will alone. This is why he choose the risky maneuver of trying to eliminate chaos worship and make warp travel obsolete via the webway. He sought to remove humanity from the danger of chaos solely because he knew to take on chaos with power vs power would be guaranteed to fail.

Then he is, indeed, a god. The Ruinous Powers themselves are nothing more than powerful sentiences that reside within the Warp... exactly what the Emperor is now, and quite possibly was during the GC, too, being both a mortal body and an immortal Presence in the Warp.

 Psienesis wrote:


Excepting he didn't ban the worship of all gods. He specifically allowed the various cults worshipping him to flourish on Terra, and elswhere throughout his Empire. His core teachings were, basically, "Don't worship anything... except me."

The belief of him being some arch-atheist is... misguided, at best. Outright fabricated at worst. After all, even he used a deal with the Ruinous Powers to make the Primarchs, so it was not like he, himself, didn't believe in them.

I believe it was in The First Heretic, the Emperor himself claims that he is no god, and that his purpose was to free people from superstitious worship, not to simply enslave them to him as diety. The Emperor knew for a fact gods existed so I wouldn't call him an atheist. However, it was his intention to abolish all knowledge and worship of the gods so that chaos couldn't get a foothold in humanity

Then he is, indeed, a god. The Ruinous Powers themselves are nothing more than powerful sentiences that reside within the Warp... exactly what the Emperor is now, and quite possibly was during the GC, too, being both a mortal body and an immortal Presence in the Warp.

There are many powerful warp entities but that doesn't mean they are all gods. The four chaos gods are truly immortal beings that are wholly of the warp. They are amalgamations of emotions from many different creatures. You can call the Emperor a god if you want but he is most assuredly mortal, otherwise he wouldn't need the life support of the golden throne, most assuredly not wholly of the warp as he is decidedly human albeit of singular psychic ability and resides in the material realm with ease which is impossible for warp creatures. He also has no connection to the emotions of the creatures of the galaxy. That is why the four are truly immortal. The four may be defeated I suppose, but there were always be those filled with the murderous intent, scheming, depravity and fear of death that empower the gods and make them immortal. The emperor has no such claim, if you unplug his archeotech chair, he'll be gone forever.

I believe it was in The First Heretic, the Emperor himself claims that he is no god, and that his purpose was to free people from superstitious worship, not to simply enslave them to him as diety. The Emperor knew for a fact gods existed so I wouldn't call him an atheist. However, it was his intention to abolish all knowledge and worship of the gods so that chaos couldn't get a foothold in humanity

And at the end of The First Heretic, the priest walks back into the burning church because he saw through the Emperor's BS and knew exactly what his game was.

There are many powerful warp entities but that doesn't mean they are all gods. The four chaos gods are truly immortal beings that are wholly of the warp. They are amalgamations of emotions from many different creatures. You can call the Emperor a god if you want but he is most assuredly mortal, otherwise he wouldn't need the life support of the golden throne, most assuredly not wholly of the warp as he is decidedly human albeit of singular psychic ability and resides in the material realm with ease which is impossible for warp creatures. He also has no connection to the emotions of the creatures of the galaxy. That is why the four are truly immortal. The four may be defeated I suppose, but there were always be those filled with the murderous intent, scheming, depravity and fear of death that empower the gods and make them immortal. The emperor has no such claim, if you unplug his archeotech chair, he'll be gone forever.

Mortal in body, not in mind. Hence the whole "Star Child" theory. Also, now, a Perpetual, which is a new spin on an old idea. Unplugging the chair might be the best thing the Imperium could do, but it is such a huge gamble they dare not do it.

Daemons are immortal, too. What, then, counts as a "God" in the Warp? After all, it cannot be the worship of mortals, because Necoho has none, and yet is a Chaos God (of Atheism, as a matter of fact). Then there is the Horned Rat and Zuvassin the Undoer, to name a few more.


... but, all of that aside, this is about the Night Lords and their "redeeming qualities", if any, as stated by the thread's title. And I still state that they don't have any. That they don't worship the Chaos Gods is not a redeeming quality, as it's not consistent throughout the remains of the Legion (such as it is), and the Night Lords are not maintaining that stance as a measure or nod of respect to the Imperial Truth in any form.

... but, all of that aside, this is about the Night Lords and their "redeeming qualities", if any, as stated by the thread's title. And I still state that they don't have any. That they don't worship the Chaos Gods is not a redeeming quality, as it's not consistent throughout the remains of the Legion (such as it is), and the Night Lords are not maintaining that stance as a measure or nod of respect to the Imperial Truth in any form.

While i agree with your assessment that the Night Lords don't have any obvious redeeming qualities, your argument here posits that the only way they could have a redeeming quality is if the entire chapter fully devoted themselves to the Chaos Gods or to the Imperial Truth. I feel that is a little restrictive. First, there must be some redeeming qualities that can exist without adhering to one of those two religious ideas. Second, if an entire chapter must devote themselves to an ideal, then there must be no redeemable chapters, bar maybe the Gray Knights. There are schisms and differing of beliefs within most chapters, often resulting in members who believe differently going renegade or becoming a chaos worshipper, particularly during the Great Crusade. If we cannot exclude minorities within chapters or legions, then i believe your standard for adhering to religious ideals as being unreachable.

graywater wrote:
I tFor a faction that denied their species by turning their back on the Imperium, then deined the rival faction of the Warp Gods, what else is there to justify your actions than by being whatever it is that you decide for yourself to be? This is exactly what the Night Lords did. They give themselves up to no God (for the majority of them), and have given up on their species. With no outside influence to suggest what the right and wrong actions are, they have been left with the freedom to plot their own course. What it appears they have decided to pursue is to enjoy themselves... which happens to be terrifying and slaughtering the weak.

This, I believe is first genuinely redeeming quality that the Night Lords have been given in this thread, if we define a redeeming quality as "a quality that could hypothetically lead to one's redemption". The freedom to plot their own course includes the freedom to realise the wickedness of their ways and return to a course that is for the betterment of mankind or at least to a course that is not bent on destruction and bloodshed. What could cause a Night Lord to realise the futility of his slaughtering and mamiming and regain hope that humanity is saveable and start working to that end I have no idea.

This is also assuming that, regardless of their initial rejection of both Chaos and the Imperium, they have not in the 10,000 years since the Heresy slowly, will-they or nil-they been dragged into becoming true creatures Chaos in all but name anyway.

Taking all of this out of the context of ultimate goals, Night Haunter was based on the idea of a Batman-type character who was violently opposed to corruption in all it's forms. Another redeeming quality is that they have traditionally preyed upon the powerful and corrupt.

In a political system that is based on universal repression, there has to be some kind of counterbalance to the excesses that take place. I have always thought of the Night Lords as the logical expression of that counter, given all the other excesses of 40k. You have to be really, really awful to strike fear into the hearts of planetary governors and whatnot.

 Psienesis wrote:

... but, all of that aside, this is about the Night Lords and their "redeeming qualities", if any, as stated by the thread's title. And I still state that they don't have any. That they don't worship the Chaos Gods is not a redeeming quality, as it's not consistent throughout the remains of the Legion (such as it is), and the Night Lords are not maintaining that stance as a measure or nod of respect to the Imperial Truth in any form.

Agree to disagree then. I think standing against an Imperium built on lies and hypocrisy while simultaneously denouncing the vile chaos gods (that others who stood against the empire fell enslaved to) is more than just a redeeming quality, its basically the moral high ground.

I think standing against an Imperium built on lies and hypocrisy while simultaneously denouncing the vile chaos gods (that others who stood against the empire fell enslaved to) is more than just a redeeming quality, its basically the moral high ground.

Morality may be understood as subjective, particularly in such a confusing setting existentially-speaking as 40k. What is right or wrong depends wholly on where you stand on any given situation. 40k has such polar positions, it is often the case that what is the right thing to do for one faction is the absolute wrong thing to do for another. Despite who is on the moral high ground, perhaps the fact that the Night Lords have drawn their own path and have stuck to it in such a subjective and unclear universe is commendable.

JubbJubbz wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

... but, all of that aside, this is about the Night Lords and their "redeeming qualities", if any, as stated by the thread's title. And I still state that they don't have any. That they don't worship the Chaos Gods is not a redeeming quality, as it's not consistent throughout the remains of the Legion (such as it is), and the Night Lords are not maintaining that stance as a measure or nod of respect to the Imperial Truth in any form.

Agree to disagree then. I think standing against an Imperium built on lies and hypocrisy while simultaneously denouncing the vile chaos gods (that others who stood against the empire fell enslaved to) is more than just a redeeming quality, its basically the moral high ground.

Raptor Cults are believed to worship one or more of the Minor Chaos Gods, rather than one of the Great Four, and there are *lots* of Night Lord Raptor Cults. The Bleeding Eye (a NL warband operating throughout the galaxy) is one such band. Krieg Acerbus was a Captain of the Night Lords during the GC/HH who became a Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided, and is now in command of the largest collection of post-Heresy Night Lords in the galaxy.

Members of the First Claw are known to follow specific Chaos Gods. Uzas, of the First Claw, is a Khornate Berzerker, for example. Ruven, also formerly of the First Claw, had left the Legion and joined Abaddon's Black Legion as a Sorcerer. And this besides the fact that the leader of the First Claw is daemonically-possessed. I do not think the Night Lords give Chaos the middle finger as much as people believe that they do, considering that their most-mentioned warband in BL materials is chock-full of members both current and former, who have given themselves over to daemonic possession, sorcery,

You have to be really, really awful to strike fear into the hearts of planetary governors and whatnot.

The Inquisition does that, too. As do most Space Marines. The Night Lords do this by the butchering of a civilian population.

This is also assuming that, regardless of their initial rejection of both Chaos and the Imperium, they have not in the 10,000 years since the Heresy slowly, will-they or nil-they been dragged into becoming true creatures Chaos in all but name anyway.

They're based in the EoT, mutation is a foregone conclusion.

Denouncing the chaos gods means jack squat if you're knowingly serving them anyways (which the Night Lords basically are. Some of them are friggin' led by daemon princes, for crying out loud).

If anything, it also brings into question the whole "at least the Night Lords are free" quality brought up here as well as the whole "at least the Night Lords aren't hypocrites" quality (not that I personally would view either of those as falling under the definition of a "redeeming quality" because neither redeem by themselves)

Just as a reminder, the "ends justifies the means" quality only applied to them during the Great Crusade (as did the "They only prey on the rich/strong" quality). Post-heresy, they HAVE no ends to justify the means beyond simple survival (and even that's not always the reason they do what they do. They might not be Emperors' Children but they will still engage in lots of wanton destruction and brutality just because they enjoy it)

Khonsu wrote:
Their main redeeming quality is that they die.

This

The stuff I read in this thread... smh.

 Psienesis wrote:

Raptor Cults are believed to worship one or more of the Minor Chaos Gods, rather than one of the Great Four, and there are *lots* of Night Lord Raptor Cults. The Bleeding Eye (a NL warband operating throughout the galaxy) is one such band. Krieg Acerbus was a Captain of the Night Lords during the GC/HH who became a Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided, and is now in command of the largest collection of post-Heresy Night Lords in the galaxy.

You cite specific examples of individuals or small groups that may or may not knowing/unknowingly serve the chaos gods but these are by no means representative of the legion on the whole. Maybe its just because their rules (when they have any different from generic csm) often involve jump packs people assume Night Lords = raptors, but the Night Lords are not comprised mostly of raptors. The Bleeding Eyes are primarily from the ADB NL trilogy are not a warband but merely a squad within a warband. From my memory out of the several squads mentioned throughout the trilogy they are the only squad of raptors mentioned. Raptors are not the norm for Night Lords. It is a defining characteristic that the nightlords generally shun those who have dealings with the warp or warp creatures.

Members of the First Claw are known to follow specific Chaos Gods. Uzas, of the First Claw, is a Khornate Berzerker, for example . Ruven, also formerly of the First Claw, had left the Legion and joined Abaddon's Black Legion as a Sorcerer. And this besides the fact that the leader of the First Claw is daemonically-possessed. I do not think the Night Lords give Chaos the middle finger as much as people believe that they do, considering that their most-mentioned warband in BL materials is chock-full of members both current and former, who have given themselves over to daemonic possession, sorcery,

A single member not memberS of first claw follow a specific god as you say. Uzas follows Khorne unwittingly and if you read the trilogy his squad mates distrust and shun him for his exceedingly chaotic behavior. Spoiler: they contemplate killing him for this behavior and although decide not to he ends up dying at the hands of Talos anwyay because of it. Similarly with Ruven who is deeply mistrusted and even fled the NL legion in order to practice his sorcery. The leader of First Claw is Talos who is most assuredly not possessed as you claim. You may be thinking of Vandred from the trilogy who is leader of the 10th Company/Exalted who is definitely possessed by some sort of Tzeentchian daemon, and whom the entire company has nothing but disdain and disgust for but have to follow anyway because he rules with an iron fist and is incredibly adept at the type of void warfare they need to keep their piratical life going. Are the NL totally free from any chaos taint? obviously not, but the same can be said for the Imperium. Pointing to this fact does nothing to tarnish the fact that in general terms, the NL do not dedicate themselves to chaos. They are not the chaos devotees you paint them to be, especially not worse than the imperium who births heretics and traitors every second.

JubbJubbz wrote: You cite specific examples of individuals or small groups that may or may not knowing/unknowingly serve the chaos gods but these are by no means representative of the legion on the whole

The largest collection of post-Heresy Night Lords follows a Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided. So unless we want to get down into judging individual warbands, the bulk of their representatives follow a Daemon Prince. They seem to be pretty down with the Chaos.

The fact that the Legion is so fragmented, so contradictory, so prone to stabbing one another in the back indicates that, no, they aren't redeemable and, no, they're not even particularly justified in their actions, as most of their actions are based on either backstabbing a rival, stealing something from someone else, or avenging a slight that happened 10,000 years ago.

JubbJubbz wrote: From my memory out of the several squads mentioned throughout the trilogy they are the only squad of raptors mentioned. Raptors are not the norm for Night Lords. It is a defining characteristic that the nightlords generally shun those who have dealings with the warp or warp creatures.

Except...

Codex: Chaos Space Marines 6th Ed wrote:The Night Lords, due to their specialty on terror tactics and shock assaults, are known to employ large numbers of Raptors

There's a lot of Raptor Cults in the NL.

The Bleeding Eyes are a Night Lords affiliated Chaos Raptor cult. A populous brotherhood, the Bleeding Eye operates in cells across several Sectors of the Galaxy and ally themselves with other Chaos Space Marine warbands, often acting as mercenaries.

... that's from Lexicanum, but is sourced from Blood Reaver.

JubbJubbz wrote: They are not the chaos devotees you paint them to be, especially not worse than the imperium who births heretics and traitors every second.

If the defense of the Night Lords is "they're just as bad as the Imperium!" then they're not redeemable, since the Night Lords are one of the reasons the Imperium is so bad. If their defense is "they are only as bad as Space-Hitler!" then... yeah, not redeemable.

Also, don't forget how Night Lords also have Warp Talons and Furies. Although, that demands people to remember that Furies even exist.

 Psienesis wrote:

The largest collection of post-Heresy Night Lords follows a Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided. So unless we want to get down into judging individual warbands, the bulk of their representatives follow a Daemon Prince. They seem to be pretty down with the Chaos.

There isn't a whole lot of fluff that even mentions Krieg Acerbus. To my knowledge he's only brought up in Lord of the Night. So there's not really much to go off of. If you want to cherry pick that fact however, it still doesn't lessen the legion in anyway. Daemon Princes aren't democratically elected officials, they tend to be tyrants if they care about an army at all. Just because Hitler was the leader of Germany, does that mean those he lead were irredeemable? The answer is no, they can be redeemable because a tyrannical leader has power to force people to do things they don't want to do. There's a difference between 'redeemable' and 'infallible'.

The fact that the Legion is so fragmented, so contradictory, so prone to stabbing one another in the back indicates that, no, they aren't redeemable and, no, they're not even particularly justified in their actions, as most of their actions are based on either backstabbing a rival, stealing something from someone else, or avenging a slight that happened 10,000 years ago.

Again, a flaw does not make them irredeemable. No one is going to arguing that any faction in 40k has all kinds of horrible practices/tendencies. In fact, there's very few factions that aren't fractured as you speak. The Imperium also is fragmented, contradictory, and prone to stabbing one another in the back. Their actions are very justified for the same arguments I've stated above. The Emperor's creation of the space-Nazi Imperium is much more than a "slight" as you put it to the ones he stepped on to do so.

Codex: Chaos Space Marines 6th Ed wrote:The Night Lords, due to their specialty on terror tactics and shock assaults, are known to employ large numbers of Raptors

There's a lot of Raptor Cults in the NL.

As far as I can tell this statement never occurs in the Chaos Codex 6th edition. It only appears on Lexi. In a whole page of fluff for Raptors, the Night Lords are mentioned a single time. What it actually says is, "... the Night Lords ... attract a great many Raptors to its banner." This does not imply in anyway that Raptors are somehow a core of the Night Lords. In fact, if you actually read the fluff on the raptors in the codex it only supports whats in the night lords trilogy that raptors are sort of wandering squads that nobody likes but are too useful to send away. They don't represent the character of the Night Lords legion any more than an Inquisitor represents the character of a chapter he tags along with.

The Bleeding Eyes are a Night Lords affiliated Chaos Raptor cult. A populous brotherhood, the Bleeding Eye operates in cells across several Sectors of the Galaxy and ally themselves with other Chaos Space Marine warbands, often acting as mercenaries.

... that's from Lexicanum, but is sourced from Blood Reaver.

Read the trilogy, the squad in it is affiliated with the Night Lords, as a Raptor cult they change allegiances and are not owned, nor a part of any particular legion, different squads being allied to different legions at any given time.

If the defense of the Night Lords is "they're just as bad as the Imperium!" then they're not redeemable, since the Night Lords are one of the reasons the Imperium is so bad. If their defense is "they are only as bad as Space-Hitler!" then... yeah, not redeemable.

You've said this more than once, but no one is claiming that they are redeemable because "they're just as bad as the Imperium." In fact, one of the things that does make them redeemable is that they are staunch enemies of Space-Hitler.

Since the fluff written concerning the Night Lords seems to mean less to you than poorly cited little blurbs from wikis. Here's some of the same supporting my stance that the Night Lords are not, and never have been 'down with chaos.'

Lexicanum and Warhammer40k wikia wrote:
the Night Lords maintain a certain contempt for all of the Ruinous Powers, as well as for what they perceive as weakness of any sort, a mistrust they inherited from the Night Haunter, who was no more fond of the major Chaos Gods than he was of his father the Emperor
...
However, as of the late 41st Millennium, some Night Lords may be tainted by the touch of Chaos and have developed mutations, a fact that those so affected try to hide from their brethren, as the Night Lords are traditionally as disgusted by mutation as their Loyalist counterparts
...
The Legion holds no true allegiance to any one of the four Ruinous Powers and views all religious devotion as a form of weakness
...
It is just as likely that the Night Lords will be seen fighting alongside a group of foul Plague Marines as it is the undead warriors of the Thousand Sons. However, it has been ascertained that the Night Lords have nothing but scorn for faith in all its forms