Chaotic Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 From a fluff perspective could a Warband follow both at the same time, turning into a kind of Bloodletting perfection? Thanks, Chaotic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother Nihm Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 Short answer, No, not the way they are typically typecast. Those two gods in particular hate each other. Long answer, It is possible, with recent fluff additions from C:Daemons, imagination, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chengar Qordath Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 Since Khorne and Slaanesh generally don't get along that would cause some tension, but with some decent supporting fluff there's no reason it couldn't work. Contrary to their standard Kill! Maim! Burn! and Sex! Drugs! Boobs! portrayals, Khorne and Slaanesh have a broad diversity of followers, and most of those followers have an agenda beyond blindly doing whatever their god tells them to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chaotic Posted March 4, 2012 Author Share Posted March 4, 2012 I thought it was more that Khorne hated tzeentch more than anyone else. I know that followers of slaanesh dislike Khornate followers because of the fact that they consider them blood thirsty raging monsters which goes against the whole perfection clean kills plus torturing that goes with Slaanesh. However these two legions do both concentrate on martial prowess with different styles. My thoughts were of making a Khorne/Slaanesh following warband that have a sort of blood fetish and take pleasure from gory kills, blood rituals, combat drugs, ec.... This warband would also focus on the martial prowess overlap between the to. It's just an idea that I thought up and wanted to know if there was any possiblity of it actually happening fluff-wise. Thanks, Chaotic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eetion Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 Well that sounds more undivided to be fair. To worship a god...you do that exclusively. But you can pay homage to the pantheon by doing what you suggest. Id say stick with Undivided icons, with a max of 1 squad of khorne of slaanesh for thoise that have fallen too down 1 path. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chaotic Posted March 4, 2012 Author Share Posted March 4, 2012 Well that sounds more undivided to be fair. To worship a god...you do that exclusively. But you can pay homage to the pantheon by doing what you suggest. Id say stick with Undivided icons, with a max of 1 squad of khorne of slaanesh for thoise that have fallen too down 1 path. That sounds like a good idea thank you good sir! Chaotic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dammeron Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 Slaanesh and Khorne are thematic opposites; they derive their power and influence from contradictory poles of the emotional spectrum. Whereas Khorne is a God of self mono-maniacal self sacrifice and discipline (all personal concerns of the Khorne worshipper are subordinated to the imperative to kill and reap blood and skulls), Slaanesh is the lord of excess and self indulgence; of allowing one's own whims and desires wash away any sense of loyalty, discipline or constraint. As such, the two are enemies, and their followers despise one another with passionate religious fervour. However, it is not unknown for them to allign, given the right circumstances. Chaos is, by its very nature, multifarious and contradictory. If the potential for reaping blood and skulls is made more likely by an alliance with Slaanesh, then Khorne will do so, much as it might gall him. According to the Liber Chaotica, Khorne tried to prevent Slaanesh from flourishing into full consciousness within the Warp, constricting and constraining the putative God whilst Tzeentch and Nurgle attempted to reason and wrestle him away. Slaanesh proved too inevitable, however, and Khorne was defeated in his fratricide. Interestingly, the story itself provides an example of when two opposing powers might reach an accord: both Tzeentch and Nurgle, who are also polar opposites and eternal enemies, both united in their attempts to help or allow Slaanesh's birth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A D-B Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 This is one of those deals where a spice of nuance is called for. There's, like, a difference between worshipping a god, and raising icons or rituals in his name to attract favour for a short while. Despite the occasional 3.5 nonsense inferences, squads aren't going to kill each other just because one raises an Icon of God One, and the other raises an Icon of God Two. It's no different from a Roman soldier whispering a prayer to Mars before a battle, but then tithing to Ceres to avoid a bad harvest on his farm, and beseeching Venus to help find a wife. There's a lot of flux and variance in this sort of thing, which hasn't always been shown too brilliantly. (Plus, there's the natural gamer tendency to see things as broken down and distinct, ordered Just So, with no room for anything else. It's especially bad when rules (not fluff, but rules) reinforce it to highlight distinctiveness between factions.) But there's nothing to say those guys carry the same icon with them forever and always, into the endless sunset. In fantasy settings like this (and polytheist human cultures), it's a genre trope that gods tend to be invoked depending on what the characters are doing at that particular moment (see Roman soldier example). Two Chaos Lords marked by opposite deities (and wholly sworn to them above all else) might have some serious injury-based tension and frequent scraps, but even they might be able to get on for a few days, months, years or whatever, to manage a warband, until (gasp!) one of them says "I curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal" as he's headbutted to death by the other guy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the jeske Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 It's no different from a Roman soldier whispering a prayer to Mars before a battle, but then tithing to Ceres to avoid a bad harvest on his farm, and beseeching Venus to help find a wife. but those gods werent exclusive and personal worship was not the same thing as state one . in the w40k universe one can not be a slanesh worshiper on the outside and a khorn one on the inside . And chaos gods are [unless your abadon or horus] just that . doing khorn things [to make it more simple . dull always the same things] one makes slanesh weaker . the same the other way around not slaughtering stuff makes khorn weaker . It is even more visible with tzeench and nurgle . change vs stagnetion . Cant get any more opposite then that. Two Chaos Lords marked by opposite deities (and wholly sworn to them above all else) might have some serious injury-based tension and frequent scraps, but even they might be able to get on for a few days, months, years or whatever, to manage a warband, until (gasp!) one of them says "I curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal" as he's headbutted to death by the other guy. only there is no later for chaos gods . you fail you get punished and making your own god weaker is failing them . + lobotomised berzerkers of the kill kill kill god are not know for their abilty to wait . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A D-B Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 It's no different from a Roman soldier whispering a prayer to Mars before a battle, but then tithing to Ceres to avoid a bad harvest on his farm, and beseeching Venus to help find a wife. but those gods werent exclusive and personal worship was not the same thing as state one . in the w40k universe one can not be a slanesh worshiper on the outside and a khorn one on the inside . And chaos gods are [unless your abadon or horus] just that . doing khorn things [to make it more simple . dull always the same things] one makes slanesh weaker . the same the other way around not slaughtering stuff makes khorn weaker . It is even more visible with tzeench and nurgle . change vs stagnetion . Cant get any more opposite then that. Two Chaos Lords marked by opposite deities (and wholly sworn to them above all else) might have some serious injury-based tension and frequent scraps, but even they might be able to get on for a few days, months, years or whatever, to manage a warband, until (gasp!) one of them says "I curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal" as he's headbutted to death by the other guy. only there is no later for chaos gods . you fail you get punished and making your own god weaker is failing them . + lobotomised berzerkers of the kill kill kill god are not know for their abilty to wait . That's a very narrow (and incorrect) view of Chaos and how it works. It can work like that, without a doubt. It doesn't only work like that, though. There's also a key difference between how you define worship and interaction with the gods, and the many ways they can actually be interacted with. You describe a very extreme black and white contrast with nothing of nuance or middle ground. That's cool, but ultimately it's just one aspect to how the Chaos Gods function, and the mortals that deal with them. Raising an icon is like I described before. It can be a momentary plea for attention before a battle. It can be an eternal prayer raised every night for 10,000 years. It can also be anything in-between. That's how this whole dealio works. When you argue against that, you're arguing against the fundamental principle of how Chaos works. It's all about the variances and nuances. There's no set way it functions. There never has been. It's not black and white. It's a billion shades of grey. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord_Caerolion Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 It's no different from a Roman soldier whispering a prayer to Mars before a battle, but then tithing to Ceres to avoid a bad harvest on his farm, and beseeching Venus to help find a wife. but those gods werent exclusive and personal worship was not the same thing as state one . in the w40k universe one can not be a slanesh worshiper on the outside and a khorn one on the inside . And chaos gods are [unless your abadon or horus] just that . doing khorn things [to make it more simple . dull always the same things] one makes slanesh weaker . the same the other way around not slaughtering stuff makes khorn weaker . It is even more visible with tzeench and nurgle . change vs stagnetion . Cant get any more opposite then that. Except that's exactly how the Black Legion and the other non-Word Bearer Undivided Legions operate, and how they've been described in the fluff. Chaos worship absolutely includes being "casual" worshippers, where you worship the Pantheon, but offer a prayer to Khorne as you head into close combat, or a prayer to Nurgle when the plague hits, or Tzeentch when that Sorceror is looking at you funny. You're forgetting that offering a prayer to a Chaos God doesn't instantly give your soul to that god and only that god. You've got to get some serious favour before you get Marked, and before that, you're anybodies man. Sure, Slaanesh might like you a little more, but he hasn't got exclusive rights yet. What you're describing, Jeske, is how Chaos-worship works for the fanatical, Marked (as in actually claimed by the God) Champions. That isn't the entirety of Chaos-worship though. The Gods might give enough of a damn about their Champions to spawn every one who does something they don't like, but they literally don't give a damn about the average Joe CSM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kristoff Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 It's no different from a Roman soldier whispering a prayer to Mars before a battle, but then tithing to Ceres to avoid a bad harvest on his farm, and beseeching Venus to help find a wife. but those gods werent exclusive and personal worship was not the same thing as state one . in the w40k universe one can not be a slanesh worshiper on the outside and a khorn one on the inside . And chaos gods are [unless your abadon or horus] just that . doing khorn things [to make it more simple . dull always the same things] one makes slanesh weaker . the same the other way around not slaughtering stuff makes khorn weaker . It is even more visible with tzeench and nurgle . change vs stagnetion . Cant get any more opposite then that. If all there was is the Eye Of Terror or Chaos Rampant, I could see it being like this. But Chaos Marines, and Chaos in general, work with a wider arena than just each other. I liken it to a Waaagh!!! of Orks. They are nasty and will easily work together so long as they have another race to fight in range (for Orks, that's mostly visual), but given enough time alone together with nothing else to do and they WILL break off into factions and fight each other to the death. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warsmith Aznable Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 I think that a lot of the interpretation issues come from the outside perspective of gamers/certain authors. Things would look very different if our perspective was limited to the experience of "Bob the Chaos Cultist" on "Planet X". They might not know they're worshiping Chaos let alone any specific Chaos god. We as readers see Bob's vaguely avian totem in relation to his recruitment by a 1k Sons sorcerer as cannon fodder and firmly assert he's a Tzeentchian cultist, but Bob may never conceive of it that way. "Gary the Cultist" on "Planet Y" draws symbols of Slaneesh and Khorne that he found in a book, with no clear idea what it means. His culture has a "boogey man" archetype, so Gary conflates the growing Warp influence in his life into this purely fictional creature. A purely fictional creature that is subsequently given form in the Warp through his culture's belief put into practice by Gary the Cultists new hobby of sacrificing unsuspecting people in the park after dark. Maybe some minor aspect of both Khorne and Slaneesh manifests simultaneously, maybe some minor Warp entity masquerades as this archetype out of convenience, or maybe Tzeentch thinks it's funny to impersonate Khorne or Slaneesh for reasons of his own. But to Gary it is nothing other than his myth come to life, and he never gains the proper perspective because he's turned into a Fury or his soul is eaten at some point. So maybe a warband really gets off on cutting off heads. I mean really gets off on it. Such a warband, for purely selfish reasons of their own, could invoke the names of gods who hate each other, and find ways to call upon or please them that works for everyone involved. Or maybe this warband was formed when Chapter Z made the mistake of recruiting new Space Marines from Planet Y, and Gary the Chaos Cultist had a much more profound influence than anyone ever imagined. It's a big Galaxy, and we've got 10,000 years to play with. And the Eye of Terror? There's all kinds of crazy stuff going on in there. Infinite possibilities. Khorne is probably just tsundere for Slaneesh anyway. Feel free to run with that as an original concept as my gift to the internet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kol Saresk Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 Like -Max- said, you could have a warband made up of basically serial killers( no not Night Lords, they kill to scare. Most of the time.) That kind of lifestyle could easily appease both Khorne for killing he people and Slaanesh for fulfilling one's desires. Like when I first heard about the Night Lords, I first thought that their sadistic tendencies would have made them Slaaneshi. But low and behold, the original original fluff had them as Khornates. They migh be opposites but the line between Khorne and Slaanesh is a very thin line. Like A-D-B pointed out, Chaos is nothing but five hundred billion shades of grey and then some. It is Chaos. Yes I realize the redundancy of that statement. But there is no real way to explain it. Like almost all of the Imperial fluff characters say, "Who understands the way of the Heretic?" And actually I know someone who is one of the revitalists of the Roman Pantheon. He is a Son of Mars. What that means is that Mars is his chosen god, that is the one he worships. But he still does sacrifices to Jupiter and some of the others. So A-D-B's example of the Roman pantheon is perfect for this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eetion Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 Personally I think that trying to argue that the Gods of Chaos operate in one way and their practices are predicatable with any degree of certainty is just one step down the road to madness. Its like arguing which weighs more, a pound of steel or a pound of feathers. Both are right, both are wrong, and both will be completely baffled when the answer turns out to be a pound of bananas. Utterly pointless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chaotic Posted March 5, 2012 Author Share Posted March 5, 2012 Thank you all for the replies and insight. One more question though do you all think that a Champion could have Marks from both Khorne and Slaanesh? Feel free to voice your opinions! Thanks, Chaotic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Excessus Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 Thank you all for the replies and insight. One more question though do you all think that a Champion could have Marks from both Khorne and Slaanesh? Feel free to voice your opinions! Thanks, Chaotic Even in the 2nd edition codex era of fluff the only person that could take several marks was a lord. It's one of the fundamental things about chaos, the gods fight each other with their mortal and immortal pawns. They are not going to sponsor another god's champion by giving him favor! Abaddon is a special snowflake... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RolandTHTG Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 No, the marks are a sign of a special favor, so you would only have one. You can only do the changing prayers if you are an undivided/pantheon worshiper, once you get dedicated enough to get the mark you won't be praying to the others. Besides the aformentioned special snowflake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kol Saresk Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 Here is where I feel the need to mention Yabbadabbadabbadon(Abaddon the Despoiler) who obtained a mark from each of the Gods and then melded them together to become the Mark of Chaos Ascendant. So, fluffwise, there could be a way to do it. But you cannot do it in the game unless you make a count-as Abaddon or fan-rules which require the other player's approval. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chengar Qordath Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 Have to agree that a double-Mark is generally a no-go, since the mark is a very specific sort of "you're mine now" thing. The character is marked as one of Khorne/Slaanesh's chosen. Now, you could do a character that has received other blessings from both Khorne and Slaanesh. Maybe Khorne gave him a nice axe to go shed more blood with after a particularly bloody massacre, and Slaanesh tossed in a mutation or two after a captured Inquisitor was tortured to death in an exquisitely inventive way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord_Caerolion Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 Yeah, you can have him favoured, but not Marked, by two Gods, as a God Marking you is essentially them claiming "this soul is mine", and literally "marking" it as their own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chaotic Posted March 6, 2012 Author Share Posted March 6, 2012 Thanks for your input. I agree with what you guys said. Being favored by both is more plausible than marked by both with the except of abbadon no other chaos champions have more than one mark. Now with the fluff questions out of the way I plan to start an IT article for my warband of blood hungry, drug using maniacs. Glory to the Dark Gods! Chaotic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dammeron Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 Personally, I think second ed got the implementation of this factor right: Chaos Lords could dedicate themselves to any number or combination of Gods, gaining successive marks and the benefits of each one, and could take whatever combinations of troops, gifts etc they liked. However, the enmities between the Gods were manifested in their daemons: Daemons of Khorne automatically HATED daemons of Slaanesh, and vice versa, meaning that, were they to come within a certain distance of said daemons, they would have to roll on a daemonic animosity table. The results of this were various: sometimes, they'd refuse to move, sitting and hurling insults at their tribal enemies or grumbling about their lot in life, other times they'd get on with whatever they were ordered to do, others they'd actively charge their ostensible allies and engage them in combat. The same was also true of daemons of Tzeentch and Nurgle. I really like this sort of thing; it adds an organic and characterful means by which the hostilities between the different gods can be represented, which can have hilarious results within game play, but doesn't place synthetic limits on what people choose to do with their armies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warsmith Aznable Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 I really like this sort of thing; it adds an organic and characterful means by which the hostilities between the different gods can be represented, It's certainly more interesting than a Chaos Lord banging himself in the face with his own sword if he rolls a one... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malthe Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 When asking 'can I do this?', especially with regards to Chaos, the answer is nearly always 'yes'! A more inqusitive question (and easier to answer) would be 'is it stated anywhere that I can't do this? The answer to that question is most frequently (though not as often as with question one) 'no'! A more useful question - as the do's and don'ts of internet geeks are often somewhat debatable - is 'how would you go about doing this'? You might actually get some inspiration out of that one ^_^ It's Chaos man, the rule is the exception! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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