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The Other Gods of Chaos


Commander Skaav

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Whilst I've visited a couple of places in relation to Warhammer 40,000, three names have cropped up in them in regards to the ruinous powers.

 

They are:

 

Malal - The Outcast God

Zuvassin - the Great Undoer

Necoho - the Doubter

 

Does anyone know anything about these three chaos deities? Are there any ways of using them in a Chaos Space Marine army, or were they simply created for supplements/novels set in either 40K or Fantasy settings?

 

The reason being is I would be interested in trying to create units for my Chaos Space Marine army using these deities as the chosen powers of the unit Champions, making my army a true Undivided army, with a unit for all the powers, the 4 well known ones plus the three lesser well known ones listed here (though I don't doubt they've been heard of)

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Malal I've heard of, and you can find pictures of his marines in the 3.5 chaos codex and might be in the new one, can't remember. They are called the sons of Malal or something and where half white and half black armor. For some reason I can't remember why GW got rid of him.

 

The other two I've never heard of. Of course the warp is big and has lots of demons and such floating around in it so there are probably tons of very big demons(almost chaos gods) that are not allied to any particular cult god(the 4).

They (well Malal at least, not heard of the other ones) are unofficial Chaos gods. Legend has it that Malal was a creation of a Games Designer that then left the company, and GW didn't have the rights to use Malal at the time so couldn't.

 

"Malal's Marines" are the Sons of Malice, but that is also speculation about whether they are followers of Malal or not.

 

Basically most about these gods derives from rumours and hearsay, and, more often than not, wishful thinking. Some people adopt Malal as an actual god and make armies about him, but nothing solid is known, and nothing is official.

I'm pretty confident that none of these gods have ever been specifically mentioned in Warhammer 40,000 lore, and that their only appearance in GW games has been in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (Malal in the original rulebook, and Neheco and Zuvassin in the supplement Something Rotten In Kislev. The Lexicanium links provided by CuRoi tell you pretty much everything WFRP did about the latter two.

 

Warhammer's Chaos Powers are, of course, Warhammer 40,000's as well, so there's little to stop anyone incorporating them into their own 40K background; the connection between Malal and the Sons of Malice (not "Sons of Malal" ;)) seems strong, but as far as the official background for them goes they're a Renegade Space Marine Chapter with black and white armour.

There was a thread on malal on this very forum a week or so ago, you shouldn't have to go back more then a page or two to find it.

I never heard of Nacho or Zolaoft, maybe Nacho is the god of melted cheese and Zolaoft is the god of depression.

don't forget the lesser gods Mo-rock, Phraz-Etar and An'sl the gods of spiky bits ;)

Keije, you are confusing several different things.

- The "Legion of the Damned" are space marines who appear outta no where when the emperium is in trouble, skulls and fire on their armor. They have nothing what ever to do w/ Malal.

- The "Lost and the Damned" are chaos IG w/ mutants, led by CSM champs or sorc's

- The "Sons of Malice" are Malal worshipping csm's. Their armor is black & white split down the middle. Their fluff is not officially "offical", but is generally accepted.

Many thanks for the thread links, the only reason I did not search for them, was that for some reason, the search section kept coming up with text stating that it was unable to find what I was looking for, So many many thanks for all the links given here, and I'll have a look at the others given.

 

^_^ :D :)

Here are some more that old-schoolers may recognize from the 2nd ed. Chaos Space Marine codex

 

**under the description of Spiky Bitz in the wargear section**

 

"....though some say it may be in praise of the minor chaos powers Mo'rcck, Phraz-Etar, and An'sl."

I use Necoho for my renegade army, and there really isn't much about him at all. That earlier Lexicanum article covers everything mentioned about him. It's really that little.

 

Not even the mention of a Chaos mark?

 

The Mark of Undecided (or no Mark at all) is useful for covering the worship of the more obscure renegade chaos gods in game terms. At least that's what I consider that mark to represent - it's a much less silly concept than folks who worship all gods of bloody infighting CHAOS equally. ;)

 

I've always assumed that Necoho and Suvassin were GW's "remakes" of Malal by the way - they both seem to hate Chaos, and either favour destruction/failure (Suvassin) or have only small groups of followers (Necoho), like Malal did.

It's assumed by many, from what I can gather, that Necoho and Zuvassin are considered the two halves of Malal's bisected skull symbol. At any rate, they don't have symbols of their own, and I used the symbol in my avatar just because it looks alright and has 8 points, without being blatantly Chaos.
Here are some more that old-schoolers may recognize from the 2nd ed. Chaos Space Marine codex

 

**under the description of Spiky Bitz in the wargear section**

 

"....though some say it may be in praise of the minor chaos powers Mo'rcck, Phraz-Etar, and An'sl."

 

Actually, they're from the 3rd ed codex.

 

I've noticed a fair amount of 'threadomancy' going on regarding other gods Malal/Necoho & Zuvassian. To be blunt it's getting a bit annoying; use the search function (here or anywhere else) and you'll find the scant amount of info there is on the Lost God and his 'offspring'.

  • 2 weeks later...

I wish they would use a Malal replacement,incidently notice the name of the Chaos god "Mo'rcck"

Isn't quite like the name Moorcock as in Michael Moorcock, The author of the Elric Saga!The author

was the guy that pretty much wrote the book on The Chaos Gods! Heck he even wrote the book on

chaos warriors!I'd suggest reading his stuff it's really graphic!Elric is the Antithisis of Conan!Everything

Conan hates and is, Elric is! Worth a read! :rolleyes:

that Necoho and Zuvassin are considered the two halves of Malal's bisected skull symbol

That's because Malal was split into those two entities. One representing Order, and one God representing pure Chaos (which meant he effectively didn't believe in himself, as recognising himself as a God would mean that he would have to acknowledge some order in the universe).

that Necoho and Zuvassin are considered the two halves of Malal's bisected skull symbol

That's because Malal was split into those two entities. One representing Order, and one God representing pure Chaos (which meant he effectively didn't believe in himself, as recognising himself as a God would mean that he would have to acknowledge some order in the universe).

 

Ah, did you have a reference for this?

This is what the Malal - Zuvassian - Necoho connection actually is...

 

When the fifth installment of the WFRP Enemy Within Campaign, Something Rotten in Kislev was being written the Authors included a section where a temple to Malal was included. Before it was released the authors (Ken Rolston & Graeme Davis) discovered the copyright issue with Malal and had to quickly rewrite the the Outcast God's appearance...and thus Necoho and Zuvassian were born.

 

In my years of Malalology I have found this on the archives of Warhammer dot net:

 

Graeme Davis wrote this in reply to questions regarding Malal, Zuvassian & Necoho

 

 

"It was me. Ken Rolston's original ms for SRiK used Malal, but I created Zuvassian instead because of the IP problems. GW has shown no inclination to expand Chaos beyond the original four powers in WFB (though they have come up with the concept of Chaos Undivided), and I doubt they ever will -because from their point of view it would mean creating an entire new army for each new Chaos god. I think the days when a new force can appear from nowhere - as it did with the Skaven almost 20 years ago - are long behind us, at least in the Old World. Admittedly the Necrons and the Tau did just that in 40K, and of course, who knows what new races will appear if and when areas like Lustria and Cathay get an official treatment, but from GW's perspective creating a new army is a huge deal.

 

That said, though, there may be more leeway for lesser Chaos gods in the novels and the new edition of WFRP, because GW would not necessarily be

required to provide miniatures support. But I'm guessing that the GW folks who oversee the approval process for WFRP material will be fairly strict. I

very much doubt if we will be seeing anything more on Fimir, for example.

 

All this is only conjecture, I hasten to add - it's not based on anything I have seen in drafts of WFRP2 or the discussions surrounding them..

 

Just to repeat the background, for anyone who doesn't already know, Malal was created by the comic duo Wagner and Grant for the Kaleb Daark comic that ran briefly in the Citadel Journal. GW failed to cover its rear legally speaking, and Wagner and Grant kept the IP of the comic and everything in it, including Malal. This was discovered (by me, at least) only after WFRP 1st edition came out, and from then on all mention of Malal

was studiously avoided."

 

Graeme

 

As for Necoho & Zuvassian being the two halves of Malal's symbol,this is fanmade junk. Malal's symbol is a black and white skull because that was what Kaleb Daark's shield looked like.

 

Practically everything you read about Malal is made up nonsense, even Malal's sacred number of 11 is an unofficial fabrication.

 

Anyone with questions regarding the Lost God should PM me for sensible and indepth answers. :D

I wish they would use a Malal replacement,incidently notice the name of the Chaos god "Mo'rcck"

Isn't quite like the name Moorcock as in Michael Moorcock, The author of the Elric Saga!The author

was the guy that pretty much wrote the book on The Chaos Gods! Heck he even wrote the book on

chaos warriors!I'd suggest reading his stuff it's really graphic!Elric is the Antithisis of Conan!Everything

Conan hates and is, Elric is! Worth a read! :angry:

 

Almost all of Warhammer and 40k are taken (ripped off) from the Elric and Hawkmoon books written by Moorcock. One of the first novels done by GW years ago even takes it artwork from something done for Hawkmoon. I recommend them too.

 

Also someone said why not stick to the four GW has. Well because it stifles creativity I think. Come to think of it having only four chaos gods seems too ordered! There should be a plethora of them! Of course again this is a bit too much like the chaos gods in the Moorcock books and they can't totally steal his ideas. You know he was the first one to make the eight pointed start symbol too? The symbol for the gods of order was a single arrow.

Also someone said why not stick to the four GW has. Well because it stifles creativity I think. Come to think of it having only four chaos gods seems too ordered!

 

That shows a lack of creativity on the part of the player, not the fluff, and the whole thing reeks of the same sad souls that only ever played Chaotic Evil in AD&D because they didn't want to have to be responsible role-players. The Imperium gets ONE "god" and Liber Astartes is filled with excellent DiY Chapters and scads of solid fluff that don't involve inventing Primarchs. If a Chaos player can't work with FOUR and achieve the same, they should probably stick to GURPS. Chaos gives five separate and distinct options for fluff and warband generation, with only the barest minimum of interference or restrictions in 4th Ed. Anyone needing more than that is looking for an easy advantage in something that they aren't finding in the Codex, and their egos are too fragile to accept it. It's not creativity that's being stifled, it's the rancid smell of cheese gone bad.

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