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The Gods of Chaos are capricious beings who reward the strong and determined, or at least, if they're in a good mood that day. One of such rewards is elevation into daemonhood, turning the devout follower of Chaos into a Daemon Prince, giving them the immortality they so desire.

Now I was wondering; is there a hierarchy or system that determines how powerful the new Daemon Prince will be? Would an Astartes make for a stronger Daemon Prince than a normal human? Or are all followers of Chaos judged the same?

To me it seems logical that a Daemon Prince who was a regular, unenhanced human before ascension would be rewarded with far more power than an Astartes who was built and bred for war, simply because the normal human would have to do a lot more work (and face a lot more challenges) to gain the attention of the Ruinous powers.

What do you guys think?

TBH I think it's on a case by case basis.

The Primarchs brought whole Systems and legions of warriors, starting a never ending war to feed the gods, so they would of course become cream of the crop Daemon Princes.

If a normal human could really impress a Chaos God( and that god was in a good mood and decided not to turn him inside out ) I think that Daemon Prince would be just as powerful as your run of the mill Daemon Princes.

But considering HOW much you have to go through to get the gods to ascend you to Daemon Princedom, I highly doubt that any normal human would live long enough for it to actually happen.

It took the Warsmith from Storm of Iron what? around 10,000 years to become a Daemon Prince?

In the way back when, there was a daemon prince of Slaanesh that had been a fruit fly, it had flown from plate to plate at a noble's banquet, poisoning the rich and powerful, as they gorged and indulged, whilst their subjects were starving in the streets. What had been meant as poison for the lord of the manor ended up killing everyone there, Slaanesh was so amused that sHe immediately elevated the creature to a very powerful daemon prince.

In other cases, the mightiest conquerors, great and powerful mage-champions and leaders of millions, have all failed at the last hurdle, been cast down into spawndom, for what reason is anyone's guess.

The nature of apotheosis, the favor of the Gods, is somewhat 'chaotic'...

Basically, it's entirely up to the whim of the god in question at the time. Nothing else you do really matters to them.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
In the way back when, there was a daemon prince of Slaanesh that had been a fruit fly, it had flown from plate to plate at a noble's banquet, poisoning the rich and powerful, as they gorged and indulged, whilst their subjects were starving in the streets. What had been meant as poison for the lord of the manor ended up killing everyone there, Slaanesh was so amused that sHe immediately elevated the creature to a very powerful daemon prince.

^This is one of the best stories I've ever read.

I would've thought that the strength of a daemon prince would depend on his actions both in his mortal existence and as a DP. It also depends a fair bit on the capricious whim of the Gods. Tzeentch would never let his princes become too powerful, lest they challenged him, and if a deamon prince of Khorne failed in battle then it would probably decrease in power.

The issue, Drakeslayer, is that the Chaos gods are always highly capricious. It's not like you catch Slaanesh in a consistent mood or anything.

And a demon prince, or a demon of any kind, will ever be strong enough to overthrow a chaos god. They are all made from that god as demons, so anything that DP can do, the god can do as well, and a billion other things on top of that. Just remember that Skarbrand was one of the best Bloodthirsters at the time of his betrayal, he hit Khorne full on and Khorne wasn't even prepared for the attack. For the ultimate, full-powered sucker punch, all Skarbrand got was a tiny chink in Khorne's armor. A DP ain't ever going to be batting in that league.

Except perhaps be'lakor in the early times of chaos. The gods were concerned about his power, I think.

I have the feeling that princedom is given to those that are behaving naturally, just doing their day to day, than those that are actively trying to achieve it.

As with anything with Chaos, Daemonhood can vary wildly depending on what gifts the host gets, the god, their original form and so on. There is no baseline measuring stick. The only Daemon Princes that are clearly in a different class are the remaining Daemon Primarchs, who were already Demigods before their ascension and are as powerful as titans in some cases.

As for why this is, the reason is that a Daemon Prince and a Spawn have only one key difference; a Daemon Prince has the willpower to command and control his mutations while a Spawn lets his mutations consume him. So basically, a Daemon Prince that won the dice roll can be supremely powerful compared to his peers, even if he was weaker than them as a mortal.

I'd say that it's all about the DP's strength of will. If you have some amaze-balls Librarian who just beat a Greater Daemon in a will-power dick measuring contest, but then gets permanent Daemons infesting his skull for eternity, then he's likely going to end up being more powerful than the DP who was a Warlord spending 10k years trying to become a DP without comprehending that the Gods don't reward you for actually trying to be a DP, they reward you for what you do for them purely to worship them.

 Ezra Tyrius wrote:
The Gods of Chaos are capricious beings who reward the strong and determined, or at least, if they're in a good mood that day. One of such rewards is elevation into daemonhood, turning the devout follower of Chaos into a Daemon Prince, giving them the immortality they so desire.

Now I was wondering; is there a hierarchy or system that determines how powerful the new Daemon Prince will be? Would an Astartes make for a stronger Daemon Prince than a normal human? Or are all followers of Chaos judged the same?

To me it seems logical that a Daemon Prince who was a regular, unenhanced human before ascension would be rewarded with far more power than an Astartes who was built and bred for war, simply because the normal human would have to do a lot more work (and face a lot more challenges) to gain the attention of the Ruinous powers.

What do you guys think?

It just depends on the will of the Gods.
Regular mortals have no advantage over Space Marines in that regard.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
The only Daemon Princes that are clearly in a different class are the remaining Daemon Primarchs, who were already Demigods before their ascension and are as powerful as titans in some cases.

That's not true though. The Primarchs are not powerful beyond other Princes, Be'lakor is the most powerful and there are others mentioned as stronger. We even see Draigo best Mortarion fairly easily while he struggles against M'kar.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
a Daemon Prince and a Spawn have only one key difference; a Daemon Prince has the willpower to command and control his mutations while a Spawn lets his mutations consume him.

Daemon Princes are fundamentally different than spawn, they are daemons while spawn are typically still mortal creatures.

 Drakeslayer wrote:
I would've thought that the strength of a daemon prince would depend on his actions both in his mortal existence and as a DP. It also depends a fair bit on the capricious whim of the Gods. Tzeentch would never let his princes become too powerful, lest they challenged him, and if a deamon prince of Khorne failed in battle then it would probably decrease in power.

You say that, but when Tzeentch realised that with Slaanesh's help, Khorne and Nurgle had gained the ability to overthrow him, Tzeentch did not smite Slaanesh to stop the problem developing further - instead, he sacrificed a good third to a half of his own power to bring himself down to the level of the other three chaos gods and create a cold war power balance where none of them were strong enough to take on the others alone.

I think one of the things that people seem to be missing here is that the Chaos Gods are the conglomerations of all the daemons under their influence. Khorne isn't just some dude sitting on a flaming throne listening to Motorhead, although he does that in his spare time, the daemons that serve under each God are manifestations of their power. Little like a tyranid hive mind, only they have their own personalities. So when we talk about "daemons" as being distinct from the Gods, that's not quite true...

 Drakeslayer wrote:
I think one of the things that people seem to be missing here is that the Chaos Gods are the conglomerations of all the daemons under their influence. Khorne isn't just some dude sitting on a flaming throne listening to Motorhead, although he does that in his spare time, the daemons that serve under each God are manifestations of their power. Little like a tyranid hive mind, only they have their own personalities. So when we talk about "daemons" as being distinct from the Gods, that's not quite true...

It depends on the writer. Some writers portray the Chaos Gods as simply vastly more powerful versions of their own Daemon servants (so Khorne is really just the biggest, angriest Bloodthirster by a wide margin), while others portray them like you described, as sort of the gestalt might of all daemons of that alignment.

Given the nature of chaos, this is sort of expected.

Also Animus, on the subject of Draigo and Mortarion, I rarely disregard something coming from official materials but that one...yeah no. I'm pretending it didn't happen