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So this is something I'm not exactly sure on. Do the Chaos Gods ever communicate with mortals? Like, do you ever talk to powerful champions or whoever personally, or would that just be done through Daemons?

I'd imagine they mostly speak through their Demon underlings (who themselves are, if memory serves, effectively infinitesimal portions of their patron Chaos God's power & will).

I'd also imagine (and this is my headcanon) that almost any mortal (and most immortal) beings that recieved a direct communication from one of the Chaos Gods themselves would probably end up like humans who hear the Word of God in the movie Dogma - heads explodin' all around.

In Dark Disciple, actual Slaanesh communicates with Whatshisname the Dark Apostle in order to get some Dark Eldar killed.


EDIT: Marduk! That's his name!

I'd hope ordinary mortals would have a Lovecraftian brain-burnout from an instant of contact and it takes a specially prepared transhuman mind (i.e. a Dark Apostle) to receive such contact without oozing out of its ears to try and escape...

Imagine how dull the Chaos Gods would be if they could just come in and sit down for a chat over tea. GW can describe them as grandiosely and gigantically as they want, but they'd have become less intimidating than (for instance) the Taken from the Black Company novels that look like people in weird outfits, can be killed with swords, and have to give you a seizure to say 'hello' telepathically. The more accessible and explainable a thing is to us (or characters with our level of understanding of the universe) the less impressive it is.

Of course there is no way of knowing whether someone is really getting visions or hearing messages from the Chaos gods, or whether they are just insane and hallucinating. Just because they believe their experiences come from the gods does not make it so.

I'd also think if the Chaos Gods really did need a message delivered to one of their mortal followers they'd just get one of their daemons to do it for them.

But if they did communicate directly I'd definitely agree with Anomander.

Yeah I'm in favour of Lovecraftian brain blowout.

If you follow it through from the fluff of what the chaos gods actually are, you're trying to psychically connect with the amalgamated hopes, desires and feelings of a billion, billion, billion sentient species, the sheer weight of which has reached apotheosis and formed a malevolent intelligence.

Brain blowout. 100%.

The Dark Gods are summoned in Soul Hunter by Ruven, a NL turncoat, to try and make Talos be a champion of a god. Talos rejects their offers, and when he asks them why they're communicate him, they say that as a god, they turn their eye on a trillion souls at once. Haven't read Soul Hunter in a while, so some of the details may be wrong.

I'd imagine it's probably done through things like rune-casting, entrail-reading, tarot cards, ouija boards and similar occult practices, rather than speaking directly to such vast sentiences.

Kharn received a vision from Khorne in Furnaces of Haeleon. Altought it was ambigious as to whether it was genuinely given by Khorne or just a hallucination caused by the extreme heat...

Personally, I think the gods are way above directly communicating with mortals. They are way too busy with important god stuff in the Warp.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Kharn received a vision from Khorne in Furnaces of Haeleon. Altought it was ambigious as to whether it was genuinely given by Khorne or just a hallucination caused by the extreme heat...

Wasn't he driven mad by the taunting of the WS librarian he was fighting?