Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

mrFickle wrote:
A general that executed a perfect engagement and won a battle would make khorne happy as much as if they just went head to head and chopped each other to pieces.

But my point is that that makes absolutely no sense, given what the Chaos Gods actually are. Khorne is literally made of anger and hate. He's only associated with war because war is an obvious manifestation of those emotions and itself perpetuates them (because seeing your friends and family get butchered tends to make you want to do the same thing to those that killed them). Same as Nurgle is associated with plagues because plagues are an obvious source of the widespread fear and despair that Nurgle is made of. But it's the hatred and rage that Khorne cares about, same as it's the fear and despair Nurgle wants to spread. The war and plague stuff are secondary: means to an end rather than ends in themselves. Mortal followers of the Chaos Gods might delude themselves into thinking that Khorne is also an Athena-type god of martial skill and tactics, or that Nurgle is also a god of healing and medicine, but they're wrong.

The Chaos Gods certainly should have positive aspects. Anger, ambition, fear and desire certainly can all be positive in the right circumstances. Khorne's anger can help you gain strength from the injustices done to you, the determination to strike back against the wicked rather than surrendering. Tzeentch's ambition can motivate you to make the world a better place, to tear down tyrants and work towards progress and enlightenment. Nurgle's fear can be a useful counterbalance to Tzeentch's ambition, preventing you from going too far too fast. And, of course, Slaanesh is the one who pushes you to constantly try new experiences, without which life would be very dull indeed.

The positive aspects of the Chaos Gods should flow from the emotions they are formed from, not their secondary characteristics like 'war', 'magic', 'disease' and so on, is what I'm saying.

 Duskweaver wrote:

mrFickle wrote:
A general that executed a perfect engagement and won a battle would make khorne happy as much as if they just went head to head and chopped each other to pieces.

But my point is that that makes absolutely no sense, given what the Chaos Gods actually are. Khorne is literally made of anger and hate. He's only associated with war because war is an obvious manifestation of those emotions and itself perpetuates them (because seeing your friends and family get butchered tends to make you want to do the same thing to those that killed them). Same as Nurgle is associated with plagues because plagues are an obvious source of the widespread fear and despair that Nurgle is made of. But it's the hatred and rage that Khorne cares about, same as it's the fear and despair Nurgle wants to spread. The war and plague stuff are secondary: means to an end rather than ends in themselves. Mortal followers of the Chaos Gods might delude themselves into thinking that Khorne is also an Athena-type god of martial skill and tactics, or that Nurgle is also a god of healing and medicine, but they're wrong.

The Chaos Gods certainly should have positive aspects. Anger, ambition, fear and desire certainly can all be positive in the right circumstances. Khorne's anger can help you gain strength from the injustices done to you, the determination to strike back against the wicked rather than surrendering. Tzeentch's ambition can motivate you to make the world a better place, to tear down tyrants and work towards progress and enlightenment. Nurgle's fear can be a useful counterbalance to Tzeentch's ambition, preventing you from going too far too fast. And, of course, Slaanesh is the one who pushes you to constantly try new experiences, without which life would be very dull indeed.

The positive aspects of the Chaos Gods should flow from the emotions they are formed from, not their secondary characteristics like 'war', 'magic', 'disease' and so on, is what I'm saying.

ok, i get where your coming form, but my point is that khorne just doesnt have that "positive" part, at least not explored or discussed. its all pure, blind rage, nothing more, not even as a "gateway drug" type element. None of the khornate characters i have seen have had anything other than a psychopathic, unthinking desire to KILLMAIMBURN and little more. no discussion about how they wish to tear down the corpse-gods corrupt empire, or to avenge their betrayal by a uncaring galaxy, or anything, really. they are just....robotic killing machines, with all the nuance and subtlety of a angry two year old.

As with pretty much everything 40k lore related nowadays, If the Emperor had a Text To Speech device sums up what Khorne and the other Chaos should be perfectly.

If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device - Episode 19: Warp Grumbling wrote:Well Khorne may be a force of merciless, mindless slaughter and hatred, but that's because he proscribes to another natural concept: Survival of the Fittest. Strength and skill are all that matters to him. He also represents justice, vengeance, and honour, so unlike the others, Khorne would never try to trick you and stab you in the back.
He will just stab you in the face, over and over again, until your face stops resembling a face.

Sadly in GW's incessant quest to flanderise and dumb down the lore, Khrone has pretty much turned into LOLSORANDOMKILLMAIMBURNBETRAYALKILLKILLKILL

Ideally, the concept of "Slaughter defenceless civilians" should both be acceptable and unacceptable to Khorne, a paradox that befits the fact he's a God of Chaos. It's acceptable because those civilians were clearly not strong enough to defend themselves, and thus worthy of being slaughtered by the strong, but also unacceptable because there is no challenge in it, no test of skill to bolster the ego of a proud warrior.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
As with pretty much everything 40k lore related nowadays, If the Emperor had a Text To Speech device sums up what Khorne and the other Chaos should be perfectly.

If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device - Episode 19: Warp Grumbling wrote:Well Khorne may be a force of merciless, mindless slaughter and hatred, but that's because he proscribes to another natural concept: Survival of the Fittest. Strength and skill are all that matters to him. He also represents justice, vengeance, and honour, so unlike the others, Khorne would never try to trick you and stab you in the back.
He will just stab you in the face, over and over again, until your face stops resembling a face.

Sadly in GW's incessant quest to flanderise and dumb down the lore, Khrone has pretty much turned into LOLSORANDOMKILLMAIMBURNBETRAYALKILLKILLKILL

Ideally, the concept of "Slaughter defenceless civilians" should both be acceptable and unacceptable to Khorne, a paradox that befits the fact he's a God of Chaos. It's acceptable because those civilians were clearly not strong enough to defend themselves, and thus worthy of being slaughtered by the strong, but also unacceptable because there is no challenge in it, no test of skill to bolster the ego of a proud warrior.

I see it as Khorne wouldn't be displeased by the slaughter of civilians but a Champion wouldn't get much if any credit/favor from doing it, and if that's all they did, then they would earn disfavor for only picking easy defenseless targets.

Khorne favors "in your face" confrontation, which is why even things like his Daemon Engines (barring the old Cannon of Khorne) generally have short to medium range at most weaponry. The general that is a master strategist executing a perfect engagement "just as planned", is more of a Tzeentch thing.

That is not to say that Khorne leaders have to be necessarily mindless butchers, which is certainly the dumbed down stereotype that GW resorts to, though certainly some might devolve to that state. It's just that at the end of the day, a Khorne leader's plans will still have an element of directness and sharp brutal engagement at close range, preferably close combat range, and the leader might engage in direct fighting themselves. That is if they plan to earn any favor with Khorne.

It just seems strange because for Nurgle, Tzeentch, and to some degree Slaanesh the good grains among the bad do show up in the fluff. Only Khorne has been really flanderized into one thing all the time.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
It just seems strange because for Nurgle, Tzeentch, and to some degree Slaanesh the good grains among the bad do show up in the fluff. Only Khorne has been really flanderized into one thing all the time.

I think that is because it is easy to do in a short amount of time.

We see a lot of that kind of flanderizing with Slaanesh too. Easy to make decadent nobles indulging in the usual vices of avarice, gluttony, pride, sloth, etc.., and every artist is a secret Slaanesh worshipper. I wish they would show a more subtle take on the Slaanesh Champion. Like for example, the ruler of a world that has seemingly turned their world into a paradise, without overt signs of Slaanesh influence or rampant decadence, where even the lower classes seem to have some leisure, basic comforts, and be content. Only for further investigation to find that this paradise while true, is sustained on them sucking dry other worlds around them for labor and resources. Like a cancer, the realm spreads, and the larger the gleaming core, the greater its rapacious hunger. No mere individual gluttony this, but the kind that drains worlds to dry husks.

Nurgle's extreme would be body horror types that endure in spite of everything. Perhaps audiences are a bit desensitized now with lots of Nurgle stuff being similar to your typical zombies.

Tzeentch is weird eldritch horror which is hard to bring off without looking weird. As for the mental extremes, that would be more like paranoia and compulsive backstabbing/betrayal (even when it serves no purpose or is against the betrayer's own interests). That takes a bit more effort to explain and set up in terms of story and writing.

Khorne even from the RoC has always been a bit more mono-dimensional. That was even stated as part of why Khorne hated Slaanesh. It was because for Khorne, killing was a serious business, the whole point of existence, and Slaanesh treating it as just another thing out of many to be dabbled in and enjoyed was infuriating.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I assume they are just regular SM's that are given the bad shot and become Chaos Marines, but is it possible to make new ones out of standard humans? Has it been done/tried/achieved?

What goes into making "new" chaos Marines?

There are multiple ways that the Legions replenish their numbers. A lot of "new" CSM are actually renegade loyalists, one of the reasons that the Black Legion is so large is that Abaddon will let anybody join. Some Legions use stolen loyalist geneseed, sometimes in combination with their own, Honsou of the Iron Warriors was known as the "Half Breed" because he was created from a combination of Iron Warriors and Imperial Fists geneseed. If the Legion has pure enough geneseed they don't even need that, Night Lords are known to have especially pure and un-mutated geneseed mostly because they don't spend a lot of time hanging around daemons and worshipping Chaos.

If you have the geneseed all you need is a good Apothecary and the right medical equipment. Then you just need clean un-mutated "recruits", which is why a lot of warbands conduct raids in realspace. But with the opening of the Great Rift many Legions now have control of more territory in realspace, so it's possible they could ramp up production of new CSM.

Not Online!!! wrote:Further you don't NEED to be an CSM to become ascended.

The path to glory stands open for anyone, hence why champions of R&H could be marked just aswell as CSM could.

Is it easier to walk that path as a CSM, hell yeah, certainly a lower chance of getting chaos spawned through the inevitable gifts you collect.


Further there are multiple ways to create CSM:
Bile got mentioned, he more or less runs a whole planet of nutjob crazies at this point.
then there's stuff like this:
https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Daemonculaba
Which goes to show that chaos is anything if not bonkers.

NinthMusketeer wrote:Do elaborate!

There's literally allready the answer link posted...