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Except for a handful of methods, like using the Emperor's sword, when a daemon is 'killed,' it's not really killed but merely sent back into the warp. But couldn't the daemon just be re-summoned again, or its god just send it right back? If this was in an area saturated with warp energy, it might even be able to come back by its volition very soon. I know that at least Khorne has defeated daemons go through trials before being allowed to return to the materium, but given how time in the warp does not correspond with time in the real world, technically a 'killed' daemon could just reappear a second later. Honestly, the Realm of Chaos just strikes me as 40k's Arkham Asylum, a place which has very little ability to actually contain its most dangerous inhabitants.

I think a banished deamon has to wait for a thousand years and a day before coming back. But stories about M'Kar who has been fighting Calgar a for the last 200 years says otherwise so...

I think the banishment period varies per Daemon. So for example a Bloodthirster could be banished for 888 years but a normal Bloodletter is banished for a week.

Wibblywobblywickedywarptimeywimey.

As long as it's banished for it's own concept of 1,001 years? It can pop back tomorrow by our reckoning of time.

As stated, banishment is a big deal because the daemon in question can't immediately come back. It takes time (which seems to vary), but it's far longer then "you've beaten me for now, Saturday Morning heroes, but I'll be back next week to get my revenge!!!"

It's a long time, at least centuries by real-space time. And even if there was some timey-wimey warp shenanigans that allow a daemon to return sooner, it's rare and unreliable.

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pm713 wrote:
I think the banishment period varies per Daemon. So for example a Bloodthirster could be banished for 888 years but a normal Bloodletter is banished for a week.

And per method of banishment. An inquisitor Lord using the blessed relic Excoriatus has a whole weight more ritual significance than some guard colonel going "sergeant? Chap with the wings, eight rounds rapid"..

It's possible that daemons can't re-materialize for a certain period in realtime after being banished, but can choose to come back at a later time only a few seconds after by the standards of the warp.

I thought that Soul Grinders were Daemons that had been banished, but opted to be interred into a Soul Grinder to cheat the banishment, but thus instead be captive inside the Grinder for a predetermined amount of centuries...

Might be mixing up my own headcanon.

That's a really good point. And you're right about time being different in the warp, so these time regulations are problematic at best.

I do find it a little depressing. Especially given my primarch, Sanguinius, was a heroic daemon-slayer - but the daemons get to come back while the Great Angel is just dead :(

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
I thought that Soul Grinders were Daemons that had been banished, but opted to be interred into a Soul Grinder to cheat the banishment, but thus instead be captive inside the Grinder for a predetermined amount of centuries...

Might be mixing up my own headcanon.

You're quite correct.

I'm not sure the demons can cheat their banishment like that. I think their banishment time has to pass in reality to count.

Binding demons into demon engines, or old fashioned invited possession, probably gets around banishment by metaphysical technicality.

Banishing probably prevents the demon from coming into reality without being called; and possession (whether it's a vehicle or a person getting possessed) isn't the same sort of manifestation. I mean, the old demonic possession rules (3rd or 4th edition) basically had the demon burn out the host and get sent back to the warp after fully manifesting for short period of time.

But I'd imagine that the more important factor is that there are an awful lot of demons (even the greater ones) in the warp.

As far as I remember as the fiction goes, binding a deamon to a machine just stops it from running out of energy (and being pulled back out of realspace) as well as being able to exist further away from a good source of warp energy.

I thought that it used to be that daemons bleed energy while in realspace, unless they are close to a warp rift or something similar. It's why giant rituals have to take place for armies of daemons to be summoned to attack, as the rituals weaken the boundaries of realspace so the Warp can bleed through to give the Daemons an environment to exist in.

Read the fairly recent White Dwarf article about the dp herald of slaanesh if you want a glimpse into why daemons agree to pacts to be imprisoned in a soul grinder.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
As far as I remember as the fiction goes, binding a deamon to a machine just stops it from running out of energy (and being pulled back out of realspace) as well as being able to exist further away from a good source of warp energy.

I thought that it used to be that daemons bleed energy while in realspace, unless they are close to a warp rift or something similar. It's why giant rituals have to take place for armies of daemons to be summoned to attack, as the rituals weaken the boundaries of realspace so the Warp can bleed through to give the Daemons an environment to exist in.

That is what it seams like in Dark Imperium: Plague War they need the warp bleed to hold onto their manifestation.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I thought that it used to be that daemons bleed energy while in realspace, unless they are close to a warp rift or something similar.

That is still the case. It's just that, since the Cicatrix Maledictum opened, a substantial portion of the galaxy is now "close to a warp rift".

I wonder if the daemon primarchs can get around these restrictions? They seem to come and go as they please a lot more than other daemons, even other princes.

It depends on what kills them. A lasgun potting a plaguebearer through the eye probably sends it back for less time than a Grey Knight chanting rites of banishment.

Then there are a few things that can kill them for good - Calgar ended a Daemon Prince when he struck one with an Athame (I think it was an Athame) while reciting it's True Name, while Guilliman permanently killed a Great Unclean One when he slew it with the Emperor's Sword.

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
I wonder if the daemon primarchs can get around these restrictions? They seem to come and go as they please a lot more than other daemons, even other princes.

Yes and no. They're still subject to the same rules (arguably one of the things which stymied angron's invasion of armageddon), but a get-out clause for all daemons is that they can be sustained in the abscence of a major warp rift by suffering and death on a sufficient scale - and wherever they go, daemon primarchs tend to be accompanied by a lot of suffering and death.

Actually it's the only effective way to neutralise a deamon for a decent period of time, but then it varies according to how you banished it (weaponery or words of power? True name?), it's status, whether it has or not quite angried it's boss...

It don't think it is stated however that bieng banished denies them possession or incarceration into a machine of torments, as stated above, instead it just bereaves them of the ability to manisfest in corporeal forms.

Note that beside banishing a deamon you can also trap it into a tesserac vault or layers on layers on layers of badass sorcery but then you need to keep your eyes sharp for it not to break free. When a deamon is banished, it'll at least leave you alone for a while.

I thought that Soul Grinders were punishment for daemons who had been killed and who now had to kill a number of targets before they could retake their original form.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Note that beside banishing a deamon you can also trap it into a tesserac vault or layers on layers on layers of badass sorcery but then you need to keep your eyes sharp for it not to break free. When a deamon is banished, it'll at least leave you alone for a while.

I wonder if a tesseract vault was the thing that the loyalist Marines in the HH novel Shattered Legions saw when they were infiltrating the Alpha Legion base towards the end. It was described as being a translucent pyramid with some form of ephemeral creature floating inside of it.

 ArcaneHorror wrote:
I thought that Soul Grinders were punishment for daemons who had been killed and who now had to kill a number of targets before they could retake their original form.

The current demon codex does talk about what sounds an awful lot like either a payday lone scheme or loan sharking scheme. "Hey, buddy. Want a new body? It'll only cost a few souls, and you can pay us back later."

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Note that beside banishing a deamon you can also trap it into a tesserac vault or layers on layers on layers of badass sorcery but then you need to keep your eyes sharp for it not to break free. When a deamon is banished, it'll at least leave you alone for a while.

I wonder if a tesseract vault was the thing that the loyalist Marines in the HH novel Shattered Legions saw when they were infiltrating the Alpha Legion base towards the end. It was described as being a translucent pyramid with some form of ephemeral creature floating inside of it.

Well that could, the exemples of tesseract vaults we see (like the one in the necron codex, although that one is oversized!) aren't translucide but after all, why not? But would that mean though that the Alha legion would've laid their hand on necron technology and been able to keep it running on their own, whereas the grey knights are able to do it because big E's favoured showed them in the first place?

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Note that beside banishing a deamon you can also trap it into a tesserac vault or layers on layers on layers of badass sorcery but then you need to keep your eyes sharp for it not to break free. When a deamon is banished, it'll at least leave you alone for a while.

I wonder if a tesseract vault was the thing that the loyalist Marines in the HH novel Shattered Legions saw when they were infiltrating the Alpha Legion base towards the end. It was described as being a translucent pyramid with some form of ephemeral creature floating inside of it.

Well that could, the exemples of tesseract vaults we see (like the one in the necron codex, although that one is oversized!) aren't translucide but after all, why not? But would that mean though that the Alha legion would've laid their hand on necron technology and been able to keep it running on their own, whereas the grey knights are able to do it because big E's favoured showed them in the first place?

Good point, though the way the technology works could be quite similar, though not necessarily based on Necron stuff.

Maybe there’s only like 50 deamons all in all that keep comming back instantly.

Joking aside souls and deamons are probably my favorite topic in 40k lore. This thread seems to mostly having answered the OP:s question. I have just a few things to add to the topic though. I hope the OP will find helpfull.

There’s only one known way (that doesn’t involve special equipment) to permanently kill deamons and that’s the holocaust psychic power. Unless this has been retconned from 3.5ed and the Dark Heresy RPG then it’s still a thing. It’s risky business though. What it does is set your soul aflame and burns everything through dimensions. It hurts the user as much as the target. It used to be a str 5 hit for everyone in a 2.5inch radius for the user, basically making your soul explode in the hope of permanently killing your target. If it kills you though that means your soul is gone so who knows. Was from the pyro psychic powers. Was quite common around the grey knights for obvious reasons.

The deamons name has some sort of impact on its banishment and it’s summoning. Knowing it loosens it grip on the materium, though I don’t know if it affects when it can manifest again. However, if you know the name you can bind it to a person or an object. It’s been known for Inquisitors to banish a deamon only bind it in the material realm in servitude to deny it freedom. Most commonly this is used through deamonhosts.

There’s a part in novel, I think it was one of the Shira Calpurnia nobels, where a deamon manifests and wrecks havoc on a spacecraft. The deamon has never before experienced having a physical body and finds it both limiting and fun. However it doesn’t enjoy being harmed. In fact once it’s banished the deamon decides that the material realm is not worth the bother giving how painful and limiting it could be. So it just kind of decides not to ever go back and then continues to mind it’s own business in the warp. This implies that deamons can chose that the material realm is not worth the effort to visit after they’ve been banished.

ArcaneHorror wrote:

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Note that beside banishing a deamon you can also trap it into a tesserac vault or layers on layers on layers of badass sorcery but then you need to keep your eyes sharp for it not to break free. When a deamon is banished, it'll at least leave you alone for a while.

I wonder if a tesseract vault was the thing that the loyalist Marines in the HH novel Shattered Legions saw when they were infiltrating the Alpha Legion base towards the end. It was described as being a translucent pyramid with some form of ephemeral creature floating inside of it.

Well that could, the exemples of tesseract vaults we see (like the one in the necron codex, although that one is oversized!) aren't translucide but after all, why not? But would that mean though that the Alha legion would've laid their hand on necron technology and been able to keep it running on their own, whereas the grey knights are able to do it because big E's favoured showed them in the first place?

Good point, though the way the technology works could be quite similar, though not necessarily based on Necron stuff.

As far as the Imperium is concerned, only scavenged Necron technology can be of any use since they don't know of to mimic them, but as far as traitors go, the Warp is a pretty good argument for almost anything to exist, so it wuld be possible (and it's read better in my book) that the crafted some warp based copy of it.

Nerak wrote:

There’s a part in novel, I think it was one of the Shira Calpurnia nobels, where a deamon manifests and wrecks havoc on a spacecraft. The deamon has never before experienced having a physical body and finds it both limiting and fun. However it doesn’t enjoy being harmed. In fact once it’s banished the deamon decides that the material realm is not worth the bother giving how painful and limiting it could be. So it just kind of decides not to ever go back and then continues to mind it’s own business in the warp. This implies that deamons can chose that the material realm is not worth the effort to visit after they’ve been banished.

This grumpy deamon must be quite an exception, most deamons find unrivaled delight in spreading despair and death amongst mortals, and most of the time, their powers are still incredibly vast as long as they are fed warp energy, which is always the case if they are to smash through material sapace for a meaningful period of time.

What could be absolutly understandable on the other hand would be that a deamon dislikes possessing a being, in that case it does have to take a heavy amount of hinderings and limits to its powers.