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Bharring wrote:
"It has no date of creation and Slaaneshi daemons participated in the War In Heaven"

There are two very different takes on this:
1. That Slaaneshi energies/concepts existed in the Warp since practically forever (technically, not until the first sentient beings considered debauchery). Slanesh wasn't a specific being yet, though.

2. Time is a physical law, and isn't consistent in the Immaterium. If Slanesh is born at some point in time, then Slanesh always exists in the Warp. Same with basically every other Chaos god.

WIth #1, there's certainly a question of if "Slanesh Demons" were really *Slanesh* or just manifestations of excess.

With #2, there's the problem of why Asuryan, Morag-Hai, and the others no longer show up in the Warp - as they did exist at one point in time, if Time really were that inconsistent, they would always exist in the Warp. Or why Ynead hasn't been active in the Warp despite not being fully born yet.

I like solution #1 more, myself. But it's not conclusive.

Both ideas offer interesting possibilities. I’ve always liked the idea that there existed minor warp powers embodying lust, hedonism, etc that were subsumed into Slaanesh when the fall of the Eldar brought the fourth god into being.

For #2 the timey-wimey explanation could be that when a being ceases to exist in the warp, it ceases ever to have existed. I also lean toward the explanation that, if they existed at all and weren’t just folklore, the Eldar gods we’re not literally devoured, but rather, as embodiments of the Eldar psyche, simply withered when the vast majority of the Eldar died.

All totally speculative, of course. Similarly I think it would be a cool allegorical explanation for the story of Isha’s imprisonment by Nurgle that in the latter days of their civilisation some Eldar turned to worship Nurgle (embodiment of despair and the antithesis of change) to save themselves from the nascent Slaanesh.

Slaanesh has always exited in the Warp, and yet has never existed.

Chaos Daemon Codex - 4th E, Pg 7: "The Birth of Slaanesh"

"Slaanesh, the Dark Prince, was given life by the hubris and decadence of the ancient Eldar race....."

The entry begins with that Eldar falling into decadence, the slow grow of Slaanesh, followed by its birth, the fall and the destruction of the Eldar Parthenon as the Eldar and Mankind understand it. But it concludes with this.

"That is how events are viewed from the chronology of the real universe; in the Warp, things are different. The Realm of Chaos has no true time, and events do not occur in a strict sequence of cause and effect. In essence, Slaanesh has always exited in the Warp, and yet has never existed."

Is that the most recent daemon codex or an old one?

Even if it is the most recent one, it could simply be a continuity error in that the lore writers forgot Slaanesh didn't exist until M30. That kind of thing happens all of the time in the GW lore where the story is a particular way in every publication and then completely different in one other publication where an author slipped up or was unaware of the lore.

 Sersi wrote:
"That is how events are viewed from the chronology of the real universe; in the Warp, things are different. The Realm of Chaos has no true time, and events do not occur in a strict sequence of cause and effect. In essence, Slaanesh has always exited in the Warp, and yet has never existed."

4th edition codex is over a decade old... That may not be accurate anymore if that is indeed an actual quote. It doesn't even make sense anyway, it seems like one of those throwaway "ooga booga booga" quotes meant to add background flavor but doesn't even really mean anything.

That's from the 8th edition Codex, yes.

That's not how Games workshop Continuity works. Unless directly contradicted the established Lore still stands. It's written from the perspective of an omnipotent narrator. You can try to Fan-splain all you want but Liber Chaotica and Slave to Darkness say the same thing. Slaanesh always was, never will be, and yet somehow still is. It's like arguing the Emperor hasn't been on the Golden Throne for 10,000 years. In the end we're left with the Warp did it.

In any case GW copy-pasted the same in the next codex.

Chaos Daemons 6th Ed - Pg 16.

"That is how events are viewed from the chronology of the material universe. In the Warp, things are different, for the Immaterium is not bound by linear time, and events do not occur in a strict sequence of cause then effect. As his rival gods reckon it, Slaanesh has always existed in the Warp, and yet has never existed at all."

Then repeated it a third time.

Chaos Daemons 8th Ed - Pg 22.

"That is how events are viewed from the chronology of the material universe. In the Warp, things are different, for the Immaterium is not bound by linear time, and events do not occur in a strict sequence of cause then effect. As his rival gods reckon it, Slaanesh has always existed in the Warp, and yet has never existed at all."

" an omnipotent narrator"
Omniscient.

Omnipotent narrator can smack you for getting it wrong (despite being just a narrator). Omniscient narrator just knows that you got it wrong.

This seems to be one of the most difficult to pin down questions in the fluff (setting aside the wibbly wobly timey wimey warp stuff), that being the exact origin of all the gods except for slaanesh who's providence is quite well estabished.

I've never liked the idea that Tzeench, Khorne and Nurgle were created just from the emotions of humans, after all there were plenty of other psychicly active races spreading their emotions long before humans came onto the galactic stage. They may however have only become 'strong enough' to be noticed have an effect on humanity by the middle ages and only more directly started interfering with human afairs after the Emperor didn't make good on whatever deal he made with them.

The theory I like to hold onto is that the first 3 chaos gods first came into being as a result of the gigantic amount of psychic emenations caused during the war in heavan from the Old ones and their servant races. This period is also likely the best time period for both Gork and Mork and the Eldar pantheon to be created as well, though in these cases It is likely the old ones might have taken a more direct hand in their creation in order to aid their servant races fighting against the C'tan.

I remember it being described that before the war in heavan that the warp was a reletavely calm place and only the emotions stired up in the conflict led to it becoming twisted and chaotic. In fact the warp got so screwed up that it led to the great enslaver plague who preyed on all sentient life in the galaxy, forcing the necrons to go into stasis and why there was such a long gap (many millions of years) in the galactic timeline between the war in heavan and the acendancy of the Eldar to galactic primacy.

Point conceded. Looks canon then. I still think it is a lazy, contrived piece of writing aimed at getting slaanesh into the background lore before M30 without completely wrecking the lore surrounding the fall of the eldar.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Isn't it accepted that Khaine is, in fact, Khorne?

That was ... sort of the case in Fantasy. In fact, I think Khaine was written into the setting first as the elf god of murder, and then retconned into an aspect of Khorne. That may have been an in-universe thing, though, the flawed understanding of human scholars. I don't know if that's the case in 40k, and the Eldar pantheon got retconned into later editions of WFB as elven gods (one of Bill King's stories in the 4th edition Warhammer Armies: High Elves even mentions warrior aspects of Khaine, all but naming Swooping Hawks, Striking Scorpions, etc ).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vodo40k wrote:
This seems to be one of the most difficult to pin down questions in the fluff (setting aside the wibbly wobly timey wimey warp stuff), that being the exact origin of all the gods except for slaanesh who's providence is quite well estabished.

I've never liked the idea that Tzeench, Khorne and Nurgle were created just from the emotions of humans, after all there were plenty of other psychicly active races spreading their emotions long before humans came onto the galactic stage. They may however have only become 'strong enough' to be noticed have an effect on humanity by the middle ages and only more directly started interfering with human afairs after the Emperor didn't make good on whatever deal he made with them.

To be fair, all this waffle about the "war in heaven" was added over a decade after the material from Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned. It made sense back then that the first three Chaos gods could have started out as small localised entities focussed on Earth, only growing with the expansion of humanity into the galaxy.

The chaos gods are emotion made manifest in the warp. Always have been. Loads of life has emotions, look how happy dogs get when their owner gets home. It all goes into the pot.