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Maybe the daemon prince doesn't want an underling recovering the latest maguffin that will allow them to culminate their nefarious schemes. Loads of examples of the big bad wanting to do a certain thing themselves, either for subterfuge, to make sure it gets done "right", or they don't share well.

Maybe they just get tired of banging their head when leading their mortal followers into Votann or halfling territory.

Maybe they get sick of being hit by all the lascannons as the guard bite hard into the "shoot the big ones" doctrine.

If Ant Man has taught me anything, its that in a combat situation, you want to be compressed rather than super-huge... unless you want to be super huge because the CG looks awesome...

mrFickle wrote:

 Overread wrote:

mrFickle wrote:
Why would a demon Prince want to hide their true form

So they can infiltrate.

A huge part of Chaos is infiltration and corruption from within. A Demon Prince who can assume a human form can rise politically on a world; corrupt whole armed forces and vast swathes of the population without them realising. Corrupt the information going out and coming in etc....

There's a huge amount you can do in a position of power before you unveil yourself.

This feels beneath a demon Prince, they are the organ grinder not the money.

Maybe a tzeentch demon Prince might get a kick out of it but it still seems a bit low key to me

Depends how high they rise - a Demon Prince infiltrating the nobility of a Hive World and thus able to rise to the very top of the Hive. Imagine the power that brings, esp if they start to twist things so that everyone has to pay homage to the High Lord of the Spire. Suddenly they are getting all that sweet belief power from the masses who don't realise it and meanwhile being able to twist things even more. To set the stage for a full takeover and revelation

Hmm... if A Daemon Prince can shrink, does that mean he can fit into a Rhino?

No one mentioned Emeli Duboir form Ciaphas Cain books? She is Daemon Princess, and most definitely retained her human form seeing Cain has no problems recognizing her.

Then there is Syll'Esske from AoS, even has human looking model. Come on, no one here plays it?

Granted, both are Slaaneshi, so maybe it's just a thing unique to big S seeing the other three just pile on mutations and bloat, not caring about their appearance anymore. Maybe you need vanity and like your human form as then your pursuit of perfection would seek to improve, not replace it?

 Overread wrote:

Depends how high they rise - a Demon Prince infiltrating the nobility of a Hive World and thus able to rise to the very top of the Hive. Imagine the power that brings, esp if they start to twist things so that everyone has to pay homage to the High Lord of the Spire. Suddenly they are getting all that sweet belief power from the masses who don't realise it and meanwhile being able to twist things even more. To set the stage for a full takeover and revelation

I guess this is when you get into haggling over the fluff.

I mean I don't see why amongst the many and varied powers of chaos a Daemon Prince couldn't assume human form - or within reason any form.
But to a degree, I think running a chaos cult on a hive world is kind of beneath a Daemon Prince. On the grounds that your ascension only happens at the end of a very long path. That would be taking over the planet (if not many planets) - not still being undercover.

Tyel wrote:

 Overread wrote:

Depends how high they rise - a Demon Prince infiltrating the nobility of a Hive World and thus able to rise to the very top of the Hive. Imagine the power that brings, esp if they start to twist things so that everyone has to pay homage to the High Lord of the Spire. Suddenly they are getting all that sweet belief power from the masses who don't realise it and meanwhile being able to twist things even more. To set the stage for a full takeover and revelation

I guess this is when you get into haggling over the fluff.

I mean I don't see why amongst the many and varied powers of chaos a Daemon Prince couldn't assume human form - or within reason any form.
But to a degree, I think running a chaos cult on a hive world is kind of beneath a Daemon Prince. On the grounds that your ascension only happens at the end of a very long path. That would be taking over the planet (if not many planets) - not still being undercover.

I'm inclined to agree. Making an appearance to encourage some chaos cultists seems like the sort of thing you send like, a daemonette or pink horror to do. Maybe a herald if you're ready to kick off something big. Being a daemon prince slumming it with some disgruntled gangers has New Game+ energy. By the time you're a full-on prince, you should have people to handle that sort of thing.

That said, I *could* see a prince using its shapeshifting to pull off something a bit bigger. Think Changeling type schemes. Or the example of the Keeper trying to pull one over on the eldar in The Darker Path.

Shapeshifting feels like it definitely could be available to princes. The biggest argument against, I think, would be that convincingly taking the form of a mundane human (or whatever) requires they get their supernatural body to structure itself into a very stable and mundane form, and everything we've seen involving shape changing/mutations in the past suggest that the warp strongly prefers to make things weird and sometimes to keep things constantly changing. So I could see confining themselves in that way being rather uncomfortable for them.

We also have to consider that the powers a demon prince can have are gifts from the Chaos Gods who are notorious for being fickle and random.

So it might be that its an ability any Demon Prince "could" have but that many times they aren't permitted the ability. Even if they are it might come with many strings attached - eg time limits; perfection limits (eg its perfect on the outside not the inside; it includes the clothes so trying to strip would reveal demonic body underneath)

Heck you could even easily see a Demon Prince changing; getting all the way to almost achieving its goal via its infiltration only to lose it moments before and suddenly BOOM there's a Demon Prince arising to full stature in the middle of the election for the new Governor of a sector party

Many Shuvs and Zuuls would know what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!

 Irbis wrote:
No one mentioned Emeli Duboir form Ciaphas Cain books? She is Daemon Princess, and most definitely retained her human form seeing Cain has no problems recognizing her.

Then there is Syll'Esske from AoS, even has human looking model. Come on, no one here plays it?

Granted, both are Slaaneshi, so maybe it's just a thing unique to big S seeing the other three just pile on mutations and bloat, not caring about their appearance anymore. Maybe you need vanity and like your human form as then your pursuit of perfection would seek to improve, not replace it?

Syll may look like a man, but he's still a giant. He towers over basically any other infantry he's around. Not to mention Esske is perpetually bouncing about his shoulders. He's not infiltrating anything.

You say that but lets not forget that in 40K abnormal human body shape isn't as abnormal in some worlds. Goliath in Necromunda don't stand out as "abnormally inhuman" in the setting. They stand out, but no one would think they are demons/abhumans/monsters/xenos

I mentioned Emeli earlier. I think there is a question as to when did she get promoted. My reading of it is that she was human when encountered and pulled in the short story, and is returning in her daemon princess form in Traitor’s Hand. The latter is described as pretty typical massive greater daemon stature.

Similarly, is Varan a daemon prince by the time he gets smooshed on Perlia, or is he still “just” a champion with gifts?

 Flinty wrote:
I mentioned Emeli earlier. I think there is a question as to when did she get promoted. My reading of it is that she was human when encountered and pulled in the short story, and is returning in her daemon princess form in Traitor’s Hand. The latter is described as pretty typical massive greater daemon stature.

Similarly, is Varan a daemon prince by the time he gets smooshed on Perlia, or is he still “just” a champion with gifts?

Given Varna gets killed by being thrown off a building, he’s just a champion with gifts.

 Overread wrote:
You say that but lets not forget that in 40K abnormal human body shape isn't as abnormal in some worlds. Goliath in Necromunda don't stand out as "abnormally inhuman" in the setting. They stand out, but no one would think they are demons/abhumans/monsters/xenos

AcTuAlLy? House Goliath are said to be right on the border of Abhumanity. As in, it depends who you ask - but as long as they don’t cause too much trouble (for those higher up, natch) nobody of great import seems concerned with the answer.

What is apparent is that on the comparatively rare occasions you get a Goliath the natural way? It Is A Goliath. Not just by house, but by physicality. So the line, despite careful steps to avoid it breeding at all, breeds True.

Whether they can knock boots with whatever passes for a regular human with success I think is currently a mystery. Which means we can’t, for sure, say if they’re close to speciation. Come to think of it, we don’t know if confirmed Abhumans can reproduce with baseline humans, so the overall question of whether they’re separate species now remains.