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Why is that ? For exemple Khârn probably killed billions by this point. In fact I bet he killed more people than some actual Deamon princes of Khorne and [img]same thing with the other 3so, is there an actual reason in the lore ? Or is it just that GW just want them to stay as "normal" chaos space marines.

The Gods need mortal agents as much as they need Daemonic servants. A Daemon can only do so much in Realspace as it needs a tether to keep it there.
A mortal agent has no such needs and can freely move between Realspace and the Warp doing the God's bidding all the while.

Also, spoiler the image if you can because that's going to be annoying for mobile users.

 Gert wrote:
The Gods need mortal agents as much as they need Daemonic servants. A Daemon can only do so much in Realspace as it needs a tether to keep it there.
A mortal agent has no such needs and can freely move between Realspace and the Warp doing the God's bidding all the while.

Also, spoiler the image if you can because that's going to be annoying for mobile users.

I see, so they just stay "human by choice ?

Well, ascending to Daemonhood takes work and the blessing of a God so it's 50/50.
They either don't care or don't want to become Daemons because they still value the relative freedom being mortal gives them and the Gods like them that way so it all works out in the end.
Plus considering the level of power each one commands, they're basically there anyway. Lucius gets reborn every time he dies, Typhus is host to one of the most destructive plagues ever conceived by Nurgle, Ahriman is the single most powerful mortal sorcerer alive, and Kharn is Kharn.

Short answer. Plot and writers choices. If all named champions became demon princes it'd be pretty boring. Kharn would just be mini angron rather than being this fun murder hobo who just wanders around etc etc.

Long answer? Chaos gods weird convoluted plans and goals, the individual champions will. Abbadon would never become a demon prince by choice due to his views on chaos as a whole. It would also let those champions be much less active. In events where a demon primach comes into the mortal realm it usually involves a lot of ritual to let them come into the real world and they get weaker the longer things go on.

Honestly, I think part of it is being so close to their respective primarchs and seeing the downsides of daeomonhood firsthand.

I know in some of the books about Ahriman it really highlights how Magnus is this remote, unknowable being now, and the Thousand Sons are left to their own devices. Similarly for the Emperor's Children, I think it was in Primogenitor one of them talks about how Fulgrim is busy with "the Great Game" of the gods and demons.

Being a daemon prince isn't just getting a bunch of stat bonuses, it has downsides in terms of being able to be banished, time taken up by things going on in the Warp/outside the material universe, etc.

For Ahriman at least becoming a daemon prince would be closer to giving up than succeeding. He is trying to undo the change wrought by Tzeentch's favor, and he would rather keep his growing mutations hidden under his armor...

Rules and background follow models I guess.
Kharn is the Berzerker hero, Typhus is from the legion known for many terminators so he's a terminator with cool hive, Ahriman is from the sorceror legion so he's just a sorceror.

Maybe Mortarion and Magnus just told Nurgle/Tzeentch to not upgrade Typhus and Ahriman because they hate them .

Dr Jabbinton wrote:Why is that ? For exemple Khârn probably killed billions by this point. In fact I bet he killed more people than some actual Deamon princes of Khorne and [img]same thing with the other 3so, is there an actual reason in the lore ? Or is it just that GW just want them to stay as "normal" chaos space marines.

Spoiler:

https://i.redd.it/lucius-el-eterno-kh%C3%A2rn-el-traidor-typhus-y-ahzek-ahriman-ya-v0-gghjl0z373na1.jpg?s=b73dc4928a3255ea89d4b3d9d5a24583e501b7e5

It's mostly a marketing thing, they started out as 'exemplary' characters for their god and legion, and largely stayed that way.

Arachnofiend wrote:For Ahriman at least becoming a daemon prince would be closer to giving up than succeeding. He is trying to undo the change wrought by Tzeentch's favor, and he would rather keep his growing mutations hidden under his armor...

Ahriman aims at becoming at least a half-god by getting to the good stuff in the Black Library, and his main motivation is independence from the Chaos Gods in general and Tzeentch specificially. Becoming an independent Demon Prince à la Be'lakor or Vashtorr would barely qualify as success for him, and becoming a Tzeentchian demon would be a failure state.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:


Maybe Mortarion and Magnus just told Nurgle/Tzeentch to not upgrade Typhus and Ahriman because they hate them .

Mort doesn't hate Typhus, it's the other way around. And if anything, he SHOULD since it was Typhus that led to their fall. But as edgy, emo and grimdark as Mortarion is, he does care about his legion sons, much like Grandfather Nurgle.

As for why they haven't Ascended, same reason as Abaddon. They have greater influence and power as Mortals. The Primarchs require rituals and whatnot to manifest, and Daemon Princes in the novels get weaker when their Warp link is severed.

The God's already have the Primarchs. The Mortal Champions are the foil to that.

You've got to remember as well that Kharn and Ahriman came into being in the second ed codex, when the HH was still just a few lines in a few books. There were 3 (Abaddon included) named characters who had been around since the heresy still fighting the long war, and that was it-made sense then. Since then, more characters have been added to this, the HH series happened, and we are left with several characters from 30k that are also in 40k and it feels daft that they should be so many who have survived and not been offered daemonhood by that point.

I mean it's only daft if you don't understand both the motivations of the champions in question and the Gods themselves.
Hell, in Ahriman's case, Tzeentch keeps him around entirely for funsies because the God finds it endlessly enjoyable to torture Ahriman with cures or reversals for the Rubric, a spell that Tzeentch recommended, only to have those cures just out of Ahriman's reach. Every failure drives Ahriman further into Tzeentch's clutches all the while convincing himself he's an "independent agent".
Daemonhood is great because you get immense power and get to command other Daemons that obey your every whim. The downside is there is a small chance you can get pokeballed by a powerful sorcerer if they find your true name.

 Gert wrote:
I mean it's only daft if you don't understand both the motivations of the champions in question and the Gods themselves.

I've been reading warhammer books for about 35 years now, so it isn't a lack of knowledge or understanding on my behalf. The motives justify them not having ascended, because they haven't ascended and a logical reason for that has to be offered, which before it didn't.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
To add to what I have already said, when these characters were introduced in 2nd ed, daemon princes were only a part of the daemon worlds list, and you could take 1 of 4 named DP's, none of whom had been space marines. The idea of space marines themselves becoming daemon princes came later on, which is another reason why there are no special character DP's who were around and fought in the heresy, when there would have been many getting ascended.

Others have made a lot of the points I was going to hit above. I'd also toss out there that, despite how cut-and-dry the game makes it seem, the line between being a daemon prince or not seems like it might be a little fuzzy. Like, Lucius isn't 20 feet tall with wings, but he seems to be pretty thoroughly suffused with chaos and prone to supernatural phenomenon (his whip, the rebirth trick, etc.) Typhus has a baked in bee hive of daemons.

I know that there's sometimes a very clear transformation/apotheosis into daemonhood, but I feel like some of the chaos characters demonstrate more of a low key but equally thorough sort of transformation.

Basically, maybe some people just don't get prince-ified. There are plenty of CSM with long histories of impressive victories in the name of their gods that don't get princed and plenty of CSM CSM that very clearly want to be princed but don't get to be. Maybe Kharn and Lucius just don't have the "it factor."

They also serve to demonstrate that Daemonhood is rare.

Each in their own way is just as damned as any other Chaos follower, despite their many rewards and boons. And other than Ahirman, and perhaps Typhus, have their own version of immortality. Neither Kharn nor Lucius it seems can truly be killed. Though admittedly, Lucius is kind of dancing on the same surprisingly thin ice The Witch King was, with his immortality sounding great, until you consider there’s quite a lot out there incapable of the pride/satisfaction required for him to manifest in their body.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Others have made a lot of the points I was going to hit above. I'd also toss out there that, despite how cut-and-dry the game makes it seem, the line between being a daemon prince or not seems like it might be a little fuzzy. Like, Lucius isn't 20 feet tall with wings, but he seems to be pretty thoroughly suffused with chaos and prone to supernatural phenomenon (his whip, the rebirth trick, etc.) Typhus has a baked in bee hive of daemons.

I know that there's sometimes a very clear transformation/apotheosis into daemonhood, but I feel like some of the chaos characters demonstrate more of a low key but equally thorough sort of transformation.

Basically, maybe some people just don't get prince-ified. There are plenty of CSM with long histories of impressive victories in the name of their gods that don't get princed and plenty of CSM CSM that very clearly want to be princed but don't get to be. Maybe Kharn and Lucius just don't have the "it factor."

The beloved/infamous 3.5 Codex CSM really played into this.

Each Chaos Lord had 150pts to spend on chaos gifts.

Daemon Princes didn’t exist as a separate unit, but you could make a Chaos Lord into one in 2 ways:

1) by taking the ‘Daemonic Stature’ gift that gave them +1S/T and made them a monstrous creature (and you had to model them suitably sized).

2) by taking >100pts of gifts in which case they became a daemon prince but marine sized, just through sheer suffusion of gifts,

Lord Zarkov wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Others have made a lot of the points I was going to hit above. I'd also toss out there that, despite how cut-and-dry the game makes it seem, the line between being a daemon prince or not seems like it might be a little fuzzy. Like, Lucius isn't 20 feet tall with wings, but he seems to be pretty thoroughly suffused with chaos and prone to supernatural phenomenon (his whip, the rebirth trick, etc.) Typhus has a baked in bee hive of daemons.

I know that there's sometimes a very clear transformation/apotheosis into daemonhood, but I feel like some of the chaos characters demonstrate more of a low key but equally thorough sort of transformation.

Basically, maybe some people just don't get prince-ified. There are plenty of CSM with long histories of impressive victories in the name of their gods that don't get princed and plenty of CSM CSM that very clearly want to be princed but don't get to be. Maybe Kharn and Lucius just don't have the "it factor."

The beloved/infamous 3.5 Codex CSM really played into this.

Each Chaos Lord had 150pts to spend on chaos gifts.

Daemon Princes didn’t exist as a separate unit, but you could make a Chaos Lord into one in 2 ways:

1) by taking the ‘Daemonic Stature’ gift that gave them +1S/T and made them a monstrous creature (and you had to model them suitably sized).

2) by taking >100pts of gifts in which case they became a daemon prince but marine sized, just through sheer suffusion of gifts,

Oh cool. I didn't know that. That sounds like it would have been a really fun motivator for doing cool conversions/custom models.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Lord Zarkov wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Others have made a lot of the points I was going to hit above. I'd also toss out there that, despite how cut-and-dry the game makes it seem, the line between being a daemon prince or not seems like it might be a little fuzzy. Like, Lucius isn't 20 feet tall with wings, but he seems to be pretty thoroughly suffused with chaos and prone to supernatural phenomenon (his whip, the rebirth trick, etc.) Typhus has a baked in bee hive of daemons.

I know that there's sometimes a very clear transformation/apotheosis into daemonhood, but I feel like some of the chaos characters demonstrate more of a low key but equally thorough sort of transformation.

Basically, maybe some people just don't get prince-ified. There are plenty of CSM with long histories of impressive victories in the name of their gods that don't get princed and plenty of CSM CSM that very clearly want to be princed but don't get to be. Maybe Kharn and Lucius just don't have the "it factor."

The beloved/infamous 3.5 Codex CSM really played into this.

Each Chaos Lord had 150pts to spend on chaos gifts.

Daemon Princes didn’t exist as a separate unit, but you could make a Chaos Lord into one in 2 ways:

1) by taking the ‘Daemonic Stature’ gift that gave them +1S/T and made them a monstrous creature (and you had to model them suitably sized).

2) by taking >100pts of gifts in which case they became a daemon prince but marine sized, just through sheer suffusion of gifts,

Oh cool. I didn't know that. That sounds like it would have been a really fun motivator for doing cool conversions/custom models.

It was.... just as WD once was ...

Back when converting and creativity were heavily encouraged parts of 40k, when GW had something approximating a soul.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
They also serve to demonstrate that Daemonhood is rare.

Each in their own way is just as damned as any other Chaos follower, despite their many rewards and boons. And other than Ahirman, and perhaps Typhus, have their own version of immortality. Neither Kharn nor Lucius it seems can truly be killed. Though admittedly, Lucius is kind of dancing on the same surprisingly thin ice The Witch King was, with his immortality sounding great, until you consider there’s quite a lot out there incapable of the pride/satisfaction required for him to manifest in their body.

God forbid Lucius ever ends up against a trio of Carnifexes, for example.

just guessing here but every time a DP is manifested the person has to be on some level willing with the notable exception of Angron that we know of, in his case as the DP manifested consuming his soul he may have agreed but we never got to see an in head narrative from him at the time.

every other case I know of was a willing participant, so in the case of the champions of chaos, Kharn, Lucius, Typhus and Ahriman they may simply just not want it.

Kor Phaeron and Erebus do but Magnus stated the warp curdles around them, so in their cases it may just be the gods and chaos in general just is not interested in them.

I also have a pet headcanon theory that in Kharns case on some deep level it was the death of Argal Tal that is preventing him from becoming a DP, his rage is derived from the loss of his friend and his rampages in the name of Khorne and hatred is derived from this act of betrayal, so the universe must suffer his hatred in return.

 Dr Jabbinton wrote:

 Gert wrote:
The Gods need mortal agents as much as they need Daemonic servants. A Daemon can only do so much in Realspace as it needs a tether to keep it there.
A mortal agent has no such needs and can freely move between Realspace and the Warp doing the God's bidding all the while.

Also, spoiler the image if you can because that's going to be annoying for mobile users.

I see, so they just stay "human by choice ?

More or less.

There are many disadvantages to daemonhood in addition to the advantages. Daemonhood can actually be argued to be a bit of a trap. An easy avenue to power but shackled with extra rules and restrictions that make you lose your independence.

In fact, the only Daemon Prince who is truly free and unrestricted is probably Belekor. The first daemon prince is equally beholden to all 4 gods, so he is actually free from their meddling and beat the system because of that. Every daemon prince after him has gotten the short end of the stick.

Okay, weird analogy here that may or may not get picked apart, but bare with me here:

Imagine you work at a company. You start out grinding away 9 to 5, but make General manager and have access to the Employee lounge, and free snacks from the vending machine after 12pm.
Then another company tries to headhunt you and is like: "You'll get all the benefits you have now!.. and a bit more!... Buuuut, there's always the chance when you walk in the door you become a hideously deformed Chaos Beast. But hey- you're choice, no pressure!"

The main champions don't really want to risk becoming a Daemon Prince because they may fail. The benefits to becoming a DP are immortality and wings. Since the champions don't really have a set age limit for being a space marine AND Eye of Terror time/ space displacement, they got the first one covered- for the second one, they could always put on a Jumppack.

Individually, though:
Kharn lost most of his brain when he drank the Chaos Kool-Aid, and now lives to fight and wield a chanaxe and plasma pistol with minimal armor.
Lucius wants to find the perfect duel- being a DP would be an unfair advantage. He takes and learn fighting styles from his foes, so it'd be obvious he's stalling when a 12 foot Daemon Bewbwurmsnake can't take you out in one hit.
Typhus wouldn't wanna be a DP because he loves himself rotting too much- becoming a DP would mean an adding to himself or a type of rebirth, and he's stuck on entropy and decay.
And last but not least, I thought Ahriman was dust- so while his soul does exist and T!tsnitch could infuse power into him to make a DP, Ahriana Grande is also obsessed with finding the Black library and getting a card. Not even sure a Daemon could get near the BL, let alone walk in and pull up a copy of Danielle Steele.

Plus, in 40k you have to look at what had to happen for the DP's to Ascend- Heck, Fulgrim had to basically eat Slannesh's psychic "Afterbirth"!

And, yeah- short answer being GW need recognizable faces and minis. It'd be too much if lore-wise, the Champs all ascended and GW was like "Aha! But now there are NEW Champions of the Dark gods! Behold- Khurn, the Dastardly! Typhoidus the Smelly! Lukas the Duellist! And Ahremann, the Sorcerous! Don't ask why they look like the old models we used to have and why they cost so much more now!"

 TheChrispyOne wrote:
Okay, weird analogy here that may or may not get picked apart, but bare with me here:

Imagine you work at a company. You start out grinding away 9 to 5, but make General manager and have access to the Employee lounge, and free snacks from the vending machine after 12pm.
Then another company tries to headhunt you and is like: "You'll get all the benefits you have now!.. and a bit more!... Buuuut, there's always the chance when you walk in the door you become a hideously deformed Chaos Beast. But hey- you're choice, no pressure!"

The main champions don't really want to risk becoming a Daemon Prince because they may fail. The benefits to becoming a DP are immortality and wings. Since the champions don't really have a set age limit for being a space marine AND Eye of Terror time/ space displacement, they got the first one covered- for the second one, they could always put on a Jumppack.

Individually, though:
Kharn lost most of his brain when he drank the Chaos Kool-Aid, and now lives to fight and wield a chanaxe and plasma pistol with minimal armor.
Lucius wants to find the perfect duel- being a DP would be an unfair advantage. He takes and learn fighting styles from his foes, so it'd be obvious he's stalling when a 12 foot Daemon Bewbwurmsnake can't take you out in one hit.
Typhus wouldn't wanna be a DP because he loves himself rotting too much- becoming a DP would mean an adding to himself or a type of rebirth, and he's stuck on entropy and decay.
And last but not least, I thought Ahriman was dust- so while his soul does exist and T!tsnitch could infuse power into him to make a DP, Ahriana Grande is also obsessed with finding the Black library and getting a card. Not even sure a Daemon could get near the BL, let alone walk in and pull up a copy of Danielle Steele.

Plus, in 40k you have to look at what had to happen for the DP's to Ascend- Heck, Fulgrim had to basically eat Slannesh's psychic "Afterbirth"!

And, yeah- short answer being GW need recognizable faces and minis. It'd be too much if lore-wise, the Champs all ascended and GW was like "Aha! But now there are NEW Champions of the Dark gods! Behold- Khurn, the Dastardly! Typhoidus the Smelly! Lukas the Duellist! And Ahremann, the Sorcerous! Don't ask why they look like the old models we used to have and why they cost so much more now!"

I would absolutely love to have a model that is just a gakky version of Khârn whose named : "Khurn the Dastardly"