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Hi, I'm looking for references and descriptions for Chaos Daemons that are not God specific.
I wouldn't even mind if it's a reference to the manifestation of daemonic power, such as possession, enchantment, sorcery etc.
just as long is it avoids the usual cliche descriptions of daemons dedicated to specific patrons.
Can you help me?

So far I have the following:

Know No Fear, Abnett
The Damnation of Pythos, Annandale
The First Heretic, Dembski-Bowden
Horus Rising, Abnett
Prospero Burns Abnett
A Thousand Sons, McNeill

I think Cherubael from Abnett's Eisenhorn books would qualify. I don't recall Eisenhorn's pet daemon prince/host having any descriptions of being in the service of any particular of the dark gods, just Chaos in general.

Pretty sure the daemons in prosperous burns were just different faces of Tzeentch

Blood Gorgons, I think does.

Ahriman: Exile has some non-specific Warp Talons at one point (Well, "flying daemons that used to be space marines" anyway), although they're being controlled by a Tzeentch sorcerer. It also has a Daemon Prince whose alignment isn't specified.

 Harriticus wrote:
Pretty sure the daemons in prosperous burns were just different faces of Tzeentch

You probably are correct there, Harriticus. But taking Abnetts treatment of the Chaos forces in the book on their own merit, theres nothing that definitively links them to a specific patron, imo. They simply come across as agents of Chaos

Belakor is the first daemon Prince and is not aligned to any 1 of the gods. His dataslate has some cool fluff, though it's not that long of a story.

totalfailure wrote:I think Cherubael from Abnett's Eisenhorn books would qualify. I don't recall Eisenhorn's pet daemon prince/host having any descriptions of being in the service of any particular of the dark gods, just Chaos in general.

beast_gts wrote:Blood Gorgons, I think does.

Furyou Miko wrote:Ahriman: Exile has some non-specific Warp Talons at one point (Well, "flying daemons that used to be space marines" anyway), although they're being controlled by a Tzeentch sorcerer. It also has a Daemon Prince whose alignment isn't specified.

Thanks for directing me to these, more books to add to the pile!

Grimspyre in Daemonifuge I believe is non alligned although the book does heavily involve Slaanesh, so I could be wrong.

 Pilau Rice wrote:
Grimspyre in Daemonifuge I believe is non alligned although the book does heavily involve Slaanesh, so I could be wrong.

Good call, I will try to track it down!

Furies are relatively weak Daemons that are not connected to or allied to any specific God. They're created when a motral who used Chaos for their own ends, rather than as a devoted servant, dies. Their soul remains unclaimed by any God, and ends up exiled in the turbulent Warp space outside the God's domains as punishment.

Imperial Living Saints could be considered Daemons not allied with a Chaos God. It's something not entirely agreed upon, but they're possibly being empowered by some manifestation of the Emperor's power via the warp. This could be considered to make them akin to Daemonhosts, but with a kind of Daemon of Order instead of Chaos working through them.

Even if considered Daemons, they obviously have a patron in the Emperor, however, it's not a Chaos patron, so I thought I'd mention it.

Hierophant wrote:
Furies are relatively weak Daemons that are not connected to or allied to any specific God. They're created when a motral who used Chaos for their own ends, rather than as a devoted servant, dies. Their soul remains unclaimed by any God, and ends up exiled in the turbulent Warp space outside the God's domains as punishment.

Imperial Living Saints could be considered Daemons not allied with a Chaos God. It's something not entirely agreed upon, but they're possibly being empowered by some manifestation of the Emperor's power via the warp. This could be considered to make them akin to Daemonhosts, but with a kind of Daemon of Order instead of Chaos working through them.

Even if considered Daemons, they obviously have a patron in the Emperor, however, it's not a Chaos patron, so I thought I'd mention it.

Good shout! Though I'm not very familiar with Living Saints beyond for the brief mentions of Euphrati Keeler in the Horus Heresy novels. Could you recommend any books that do justice describing Living Saints?

As you mentioned Furies initially, I did find a nice reference to them as 'Kathartes' in the Word Bearers Omnibus a few years ago. Graham McNeill did a tidy enough job of talking up what would usually be one of the least regarded daemons of the fluff and crunch.

The Gaunt's Ghost series for the Sabbat Crusade deals with a Living Saint to a degree, though she's not a main character.

I'd recommend checking out the Dark Heresy books. Although you would have to search for the descriptions at times as they are rulebooks.

Unfortunately, I'm a lot more familar with the fluff than I am the books, so while I can give a few examples, I'm not much use at pinpointing if and where they've been featured in the novels. Hopefully other posters can help there.

With that in mind, other unaligned Daemons that haven't been mentioned are;

Lorgar and Perturabo: As Daemon Princes of Chaos Undivided, they have the patronage of all four Gods equally.

Certain Traitor Legion Daemon Princes: Any Chaos Space Marine from the Alpha Legion, Night Lords, Word Bearers, Black Legion, or Iron Warriors could in theory become a Daemon of Chaos Undivided, as neither Legion gave their loyalty to a specific God (though they could I suppose choose to at a later date). Possible examples of this are M'Kar, Kernax Voldorius and Kor Megron.

Soul Grinders: Daemons who have given their loyalty to the Forge of Souls. While they still keep their individual loyalties to their Gods, their unbreakable oaths mean their loyalty and obligations to the Forge ranks higher, and can even be in opposition to their patron.

Daemon Engines: While some engines are exclusive to certain Gods, many, such as Heldrakes and Maulerfiends can switch between Gods, or serve none in particular.

Check out Fantasy Flight Games' 40K RPG lines, especially the "bestiary" books. Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader in particular tend to deal with things beyond the tabletop miniature line.

Hierophant wrote:

Lorgar and Perturabo: As Daemon Princes of Chaos Undivided, they have the patronage of all four Gods equally.

If I'm not mistaken, Belakor's dataslate states that he is the first and only daemon prince of Chaos Undivided, as the four gods soon grew wary the prima donna and figured that it's better not to share their powers on a single individual.
What that makes of Lorgar, Perturabo and the daemon princes from the non-aligned legions is unknown, But it's possible they just ended up chosing a patron closet to their personalities.

Chaos Undivided is not quite the same thing as having the patronage of the Great Four in equal measure... there is, after all, more than four gods of Chaos at any given moment.

If you took the various portfolios of all the Ruinous Powers, and combined them into one, over-arching philosophy, as maddening and self-contradictory as that would be, and stripped it of the individual consciousnesses attributed to the Dark Gods and, instead, applied to it a sort of proto-sentience... something like an "Overmind in the Warp", then you're closer to what Chaos Undivided is.

 lcmiracle wrote:
[If I'm not mistaken, Belakor's dataslate states that he is the first and only daemon prince of Chaos Undivided, as the four gods soon grew wary the prima donna and figured that it's better not to share their powers on a single individual.
What that makes of Lorgar, Perturabo and the daemon princes from the non-aligned legions is unknown, But it's possible they just ended up chosing a patron closet to their personalities.

It does seem like a contradiction, but it could equally just mean the fluff of Be'lakor is wrong, not the Primarchs, as there are many instances of Chaos Undivided Princes to his one.

If you want to get deeply fluffy, you can possibly explain this. All four created Be'lakor, yet none were even sentient at the time, and one didn't even exist. As they exist out of time, this is possible, but it also means Be'lakor could be both the first created (in temporal terms) and the last (in continuity terms).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Psienesis wrote:
Chaos Undivided is not quite the same thing as having the patronage of the Great Four in equal measure... there is, after all, more than four gods of Chaos at any given moment.

If you took the various portfolios of all the Ruinous Powers, and combined them into one, over-arching philosophy, as maddening and self-contradictory as that would be, and stripped it of the individual consciousnesses attributed to the Dark Gods and, instead, applied to it a sort of proto-sentience... something like an "Overmind in the Warp", then you're closer to what Chaos Undivided is.

This is mainly how I see it. Chaos Undivided is described as not seeing any real distinctions between the Gods, and treating them as one singular overarching concept. Be'lakor's nature is like a religious person follwing Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha and Vishnu at the same time, which is what caused his instability due to their contradictory nature. While Chaos Undivided is like believing they are all real, but simply aspects of a greater spirituality, and following their general, shared elements.

However it does beg the question of who and what personally elevated them? If elevation is a choice, who made that choice?

 Psienesis wrote:
Chaos Undivided is not quite the same thing as having the patronage of the Great Four in equal measure... there is, after all, more than four gods of Chaos at any given moment.

If you took the various portfolios of all the Ruinous Powers, and combined them into one, over-arching philosophy, as maddening and self-contradictory as that would be, and stripped it of the individual consciousnesses attributed to the Dark Gods and, instead, applied to it a sort of proto-sentience... something like an "Overmind in the Warp", then you're closer to what Chaos Undivided is.

That's fine except that it is only your interpretation -- in GW's (or their writers' collective consensus), all Daemon Princes (barring Be'lakor) are loyal to only one God:

For a time, the gods fought over Be’lakor as children might squabble over a favoured toy. However they soon realised the folly of combining their might into a single vessel, as Be’lakor was nearly uncontrollable. They soon began to raise up new Daemon Princes, each god choosing only champions that would be loyal to them, and them alone. -- Warhammer 40,000 Dataslate: Be'lakor The Dark Master

Unless, Logar, Perturabo and the lots accended without a god's aid, they are all bound to one, and only one, god of chaos.

Hierophant wrote:

 lcmiracle wrote:
[If I'm not mistaken, Belakor's dataslate states that he is the first and only daemon prince of Chaos Undivided, as the four gods soon grew wary the prima donna and figured that it's better not to share their powers on a single individual.
What that makes of Lorgar, Perturabo and the daemon princes from the non-aligned legions is unknown, But it's possible they just ended up chosing a patron closet to their personalities.

It does seem like a contradiction, but it could equally just mean the fluff of Be'lakor is wrong, not the Primarchs, as there are many instances of Chaos Undivided Princes to his one.

If you want to get deeply fluffy, you can possibly explain this. All four created Be'lakor, yet none were even sentient at the time, and one didn't even exist. As they exist out of time, this is possible, but it also means Be'lakor could be both the first created (in temporal terms) and the last (in continuity terms).

Yet the problem with that idea is that Perturabo and Lorgar was never Daemon Princes of Chaos Undivided -- note that no actual source is given to Perturabo or Logar's status of a Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided. Be'lakor being the only Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided is no contradiction.

They did. Lorgar, at the very least, is beholden to no Ruinous Power, but serves Chaos Undivided, so the question remains "Who elevated Lorgar?"

Perturabo, it is noted, is awarded Princedom by the Great Four, after his sacrifice of the geneseed of 400 Imperial Fists, so Be'lakor is, indeed, not the last of his kind.

 Psienesis wrote:
They did. Lorgar, at the very least, is beholden to no Ruinous Power, but serves Chaos Undivided, so the question remains "Who elevated Lorgar?"

Perturabo, it is noted, is awarded Princedom by the Great Four, after his sacrifice of the geneseed of 400 Imperial Fists, so Be'lakor is, indeed, not the last of his kind.

And where are those information noted? From what I read the collected visions and the visions of heresy mentions none of these. And the FW Horus Heresy heresy hasn't gone pass the siege of Terra. How and even if Perturabo will end up getting elevated is still up in the air as of this moment. I can't take your words for it unless there's a source of either of the two primarch's accession.

Know No Fear has a lot of unaligned daemons btw reading through bits. Some crazy blood thing attacks Guilliman then spawns crazy looking stuff all over his ship.

 lcmiracle wrote:
And where are those information noted? From what I read the collected visions and the visions of heresy mentions none of these. And the FW Horus Heresy heresy hasn't gone pass the siege of Terra. How and even if Perturabo will end up getting elevated is still up in the air as of this moment. I can't take your words for it unless there's a source of either of the two primarch's accession.

Codexes are canon unless subsequently contradicted, and the nature or Lorgar and Perturabo has been in the background information forever.

If we're only taking things mentioned in the HH books to date as canon, then you may was well throw out 90% of the fluff, because they only cover a small slice of the backstory. You may as well say the fate of the Emperor on Horus is up in the air, because the books haven't reached it yet.

Their status may eventually be retconned by the novels, but until then, they are Princes of Chaos Undivided, and that creates a contradiction with Be'lakor, who it must be stated, is an incredibly minor and inconsequential character in relation.

It wouldn't be the first or last continuity error GW made, but if one thing had to go, they'd likely prioritise the Primarchs' existing backstories than that of a random Daemon that's had no real impact on any events in the story.

One way of reconciling it is the nature of Be'lakor. The fluff talks of them investing their power in him, which has the side effect of weakening them (the same as creating a Greater Daemon). They regard him as a failure, but cannot recover their power from him. It may be that they still elevate Undivided Princes, but just the method has changed, and their powers are now loaned and not given to mortals elevated in that manner, so if they also fail them, they can withdraw the investment.

I know Horus and Luther were not Daemon Princes, but they were vessels for Chaos Undivided, and both had their powers withdrawn before they died. It may be that this is the same for Daemon Princes of Chaos Undivided since Be'lakor, and that they recieve loaned power, not gifts.

 Harriticus wrote:
Know No Fear has a lot of unaligned daemons btw reading through bits. Some crazy blood thing attacks Guilliman then spawns crazy looking stuff all over his ship.

Are they unaligned or are their alignment just never mentioned? For all we knew Samus the Prince of Ruinstorm could have been of any alignment. Yet its final appearance and description bears strong resemblance to a Khornate daemon.

Hierophant wrote:

Codexes are canon unless subsequently contradicted, and the nature or Lorgar and Perturabo has been in the background information forever.

If we're only taking things mentioned in the HH books to date as canon, then you may was well throw out 90% of the fluff, because they only cover a small slice of the backstory. You may as well say the fate of the Emperor on Horus is up in the air, because the books haven't reached it yet.

Their status may eventually be retconned by the novels, but until then, they are Princes of Chaos Undivided, and that creates a contradiction with Be'lakor, who it must be stated, is an incredibly minor and inconsequential character in relation.

It wouldn't be the first or last continuity error GW made, but if one thing had to go, they'd likely prioritise the Primarchs' existing backstories than that of a random Daemon that's had no real impact on any events in the story.

Yes and when that happens that's called a ret'con.
This is not one of those.

And as of now, no source has surface to clarify the final fates of Lorgar and Perutrabo. So it is indeed all up in the air. If there was never a confirmation, there is no contradiction regarding the alignments of Perturabo and Lorgar; as of this moment they remains, as it had always, aligned to an undetermined God of Chaos.

As for the emperor -- his fate is destined, for it remains unretconned in the 40K rulebook and every codex mentioning the horus heresy ever. What remains undetermined is how that will occur. So is the final results of the Horus Heresy. It is just how the story gets to that destination is no yet revealed completely. It's that simple.

 lcmiracle wrote:
Yes and when that happens that's called a ret'con.
This is not one of those.
As for the emperor -- his fate is destined, for it remains unretconned in the 40K rulebook and every codex mentioning the horus heresy ever. What remains undetermined is how that will occur.
And as of now, no source has surface to clarify the final fates of Lorgar and Perutrabo. So it is indeed all up in the it. Therefore there is never a contradiction regarding the alignments of Perturabo and Lorgar; as of this moment they remains, as it had always, aligned to an undetermined God of Chaos.
It's that simple.

No it isn't.

Where does the information about the Primarchs come from then? Lorgar locking himself away in his tower in meditation, and Perturabo sacrificing geneseed and ruling a fortified Daemon world? Are you saying these are inventions of the fanbase?

They are established elements of lore. They may get retconned in future, but as it stands they have not. And it's unlikely that a contradiciton with an completely inconsequential character that barely anyone has heard about will cause that.

I think you're confusing your own headcanon with reality.

Hierophant wrote:

 lcmiracle wrote:
Yes and when that happens that's called a ret'con.
This is not one of those.
As for the emperor -- his fate is destined, for it remains unretconned in the 40K rulebook and every codex mentioning the horus heresy ever. What remains undetermined is how that will occur.
And as of now, no source has surface to clarify the final fates of Lorgar and Perutrabo. So it is indeed all up in the it. Therefore there is never a contradiction regarding the alignments of Perturabo and Lorgar; as of this moment they remains, as it had always, aligned to an undetermined God of Chaos.
It's that simple.

No it isn't.

Where does the information about the Primarchs come from then? Lorgar locking himself away in his tower in meditation, and Perturabo sacrificing geneseed and ruling a fortified Daemon world? Are you saying these are inventions of the fanbase?

They are established elements of lore. They may get retconned in future, but as it stands they have not. And it's unlikely that a contradiciton with an completely inconsequential character that barely anyone has heard about will cause that.

I think you're confusing your own headcanon with reality.

It's entirely possible. The only sourced link to Lorgar's ascension is accredited to Dark Creed; all Lexicanum cared to say is that he is a Daemon Prince. That is it. Whether or not he is on a temple meditating is irrelevant of his alignment.
It's impressive you'd want to maintain that headcanon of yours base on unaccredited sources, but what never was remains, never was.

As far as I know the respective Index Astartes articles are the only fluff detailing the ascension of a Primarch other than the Black Library Heresy series. Everything else has mentioned them as an already established Daemonprince and in the cases of Lorgar and Perturabo, no alignment is confirmed.

From IA Word Bearers

As time passed and the atrocities carried out in the name of Lorgar rose to new heights, he was rewarded by his patrons with the gift of daemonhood. Now he truly was the equal of a god, and the birth scream of this newest daemon of Chaos was said by Astropaths to have echoed through the warp with triumphant vindication.

From IA Iron Warriors

The gene-seed captured was sacrificed to the Dark Gods in return for Perturabo`s elevation to Daemon Prince. One insult had been avenged, and since then the Iron Warriors have lived only to settle accounts with the corpse on the Golden Throne.

 Pilau Rice wrote:
As far as I know the respective Index Astartes articles are the only fluff detailing the ascension of a Primarch other than the Black Library Heresy series. Everything else has mentioned them as an already established Daemonprince and in the cases of Lorgar and Perturabo, no alignment is confirmed.

From IA Word Bearers

As time passed and the atrocities carried out in the name of Lorgar rose to new heights, he was rewarded by his patrons with the gift of daemonhood. Now he truly was the equal of a god, and the birth scream of this newest daemon of Chaos was said by Astropaths to have echoed through the warp with triumphant vindication.

From IA Iron Warriors

The gene-seed captured was sacrificed to the Dark Gods in return for Perturabo`s elevation to Daemon Prince. One insult had been avenged, and since then the Iron Warriors have lived only to settle accounts with the corpse on the Golden Throne.

Well shoot. So at the very least they did once been a kind of Daemon Prince of Undivided It will be interesting to see how BL developes the story line then. Given how Angron was, as I understands it, elevated first as some sort of unspecified daemon-thing before becoming a daemon prince of Khorne, it'd be fun to see how the unmentioned two gained their daemonhood.

 lcmiracle wrote:

Well shoot. So at the very least they did once been a kind of Daemon Prince of Undivided It will be interesting to see how BL developes the story line then. Given how Angron was, as I understands it, elevated first as some sort of unspecified daemon-thing before becoming a daemon prince of Khorne, it'd be fun to see how the unmentioned two gained their daemonhood.

Angron didn't know what was going on but Lorgar certainly did. Blood for the Blood God.

Angron and Magnus seem to have been unwitting pawns in the great game. Fulgrim wanted it and in the end Mortarion begged for it.