Malal, thoughts on that cheeky chappy?

[Kol Saresk]

Yeah, I really don't think of them as the type to team up with anybody. However, they are active with the invading force of the 13th black crusade but I am sure once they meet their own objectives they'll start stabbing back.

Yeah, but their primary objective is taking back their homeworld from the Imperium. Which would end up seeing its own form of retaliation.

[hushrong]

 

Yeah, I really don't think of them as the type to team up with anybody. However, they are active with the invading force of the 13th black crusade but I am sure once they meet their own objectives they'll start stabbing back.

Yeah, but their primary objective is taking back their homeworld from the Imperium. Which would end up seeing its own form of retaliation.

 

I like to think there may be more to it. Yes, they want their homeworld back. That is generally a big deal for a multitude of Legions/Chapters/Warbands etc. Not all of them, but many of them.

 

However, there does not seem to be much there on Scelus. So it makes we wonder what are they really planning or what are they hiding that they have sided with other chaos forces. Are they using the reclamation of their homeworld as a ruse to join with the forces of chaos to sabotage from within? Did they hide something on that world and wish to retrieve it? Is Malice with those forces just waiting to put the hurt on all those involved in the immediate conflict and make a big debut in the ongoing Long War? I really don't know but it is killing me not knowing haha.

[incinerator950]

I'm fairly certain their primary goal is to take back Scelus. What happens next is either on terms with whatever forces they joined and Malal's next intention.

[Sception]

I got the distinct impression from the Be'lakor dataslate that the the first prince had more or less absorbed Malal's fluff.  I mean, he's an undivided daemonic power in the warp, lesser and apart from the chaos gods, yet still more ancient, cunning, and powerful than most other daemonic entities.  He is a being of pure chaos, and yet hates and despises the gods and their servants, seeking to undermine their power by turning their champions against one another, fostering strife and distrust within the warp.  And he often presents himself to mortals as a god, and encourages them to worship him.

 

It is easy to see a retcon where the cults of Malal are actually worshipping Be'lakor, whether they know it or not.

[Kol Saresk]

Hasn't that always been Be'lakor though?

[Conn Eremon]

I read his dataslate, and he doesn't hate the Gods, just the peons. Not in that he hates Chaos, he hates equals. He was the first, for a long time the only, but is now one of many. It's jealousy.

 

He also isn't the only lesser daemon to present itself as a god.

[Volt]

Malal isn't canon, and by that I mean really not canon. It wasn't just a retcon, GW lacks the legal rights to produce anything related to him by name.

 

Of course, then GW just produced Malice, although Malice is just a random unaligned daemon and certainly not a Chaos God.

 

Also, there is no room for a 5th Chaos God. GW has completely blanketed the normal four Chaos Gods over the warp and even killed Chaos Undividied. Now instead of worshiping Chaos itself, the Word Bearers worship all four gods at once, and now are even allowed to pick favorites. Raptor Cults, the Sons of Malice, the Obliterator Cults, etc, almost certainly are under the patronage of a single unaligned daemon (probably equal to a Greater Daemon or so), as while Chaos Undivided is long dead, the Warp still has a literal infinite amount of Daemons in it.

[Kol Saresk]

Chaos Undivided was always the concept of Chaos Undivided. That means all the various aligned into a neutral state. And the Word Bearers still worship Chaos itself. Through the four powers.

 

And Malice is a minor warp power, not a random unaligned daemon. What minor warp power means is that they exist separate and apart from the Four Gods. They are gods in their own right, they just aren't that powerful anymore.

 

And a retcon is when one thing was canon and no longer isn't. Malal is a retcon. He just happens to be a retcon caused by the loss of the copyrights that belonged to the original creators.

[Volt]

Chaos Undivided was always the concept of Chaos Undivided. That means all the various aligned into a neutral state. And the Word Bearers still worship Chaos itself. Through the four powers.

 

And Malice is a minor warp power, not a random unaligned daemon. What minor warp power means is that they exist separate and apart from the Four Gods. They are gods in their own right, they just aren't that powerful anymore.

 

And a retcon is when one thing was canon and no longer isn't. Malal is a retcon. He just happens to be a retcon caused by the loss of the copyrights that belonged to the original creators.

There's a difference between the IP owner saying "this guy doesn't exist anymore" (Squats) and then "we lack the legal ability to even mention this guy without royalties" (Malal). Like with many retcons, Squats can and have come back, but Malal is dead as the Dodo Bird.

 

Also, Malice is almost certainly not a minor warp deity- he hasn't exhibited anything to give us the remotest idea of him being that powerful. And unaligned daemons still exist- Furies are still listed in the 6th Edition Daemon Codex, and they still have models.

[hushrong]

This latest topic kind of has me thinking of these knock-off toys I used to see as a kid. Especially ones of transformers and superheroes. They were plastic toys that looked like a fighter jet but could change into a robot or batman with totally whacked out colors and a different symbol. Although they were of cheaper quality, the knock offs were complete copies with different names. 

 

Malice and Malal are like that. I honestly don't mean to low ball my favorite renegade but Malice is the knock-off of Malal because GW cannot legally use him. I also don't mind it at this time. Malice and the Sons of Malice are GW's way of bringing a classic/cult favorite into the existing universe. So long as what they produce isn't terrible I will follow it with interest. On the other hand, since Malice is a completely new/recently introduced entity to 40k he may receive some tweaks that sets him apart from the Malal we know. We'll just have to wait and see.

 

Regardless of the Labyrinth story, the Sons of Malice have existed for the last several years (or has it been a decade or two now?) and fans and followers have had them hand in hand with Malal. It hasn't stopped them from making SoM armies using the number eleven and venerating Malal. Sucks GW can't use him but it isn't going to stop a a fan who likes to use their imagination. 

[Kol Saresk]

 

 

Chaos Undivided was always the concept of Chaos Undivided. That means all the various aligned into a neutral state. And the Word Bearers still worship Chaos itself. Through the four powers.

 

And Malice is a minor warp power, not a random unaligned daemon. What minor warp power means is that they exist separate and apart from the Four Gods. They are gods in their own right, they just aren't that powerful anymore.

 

And a retcon is when one thing was canon and no longer isn't. Malal is a retcon. He just happens to be a retcon caused by the loss of the copyrights that belonged to the original creators.

There's a difference between the IP owner saying "this guy doesn't exist anymore" (Squats) and then "we lack the legal ability to even mention this guy without royalties" (Malal). Like with many retcons, Squats can and have come back, but Malal is dead as the Dodo Bird.

 

Also, Malice is almost certainly not a minor warp deity- he hasn't exhibited anything to give us the remotest idea of him being that powerful. And unaligned daemons still exist- Furies are still listed in the 6th Edition Daemon Codex, and they still have models.

Furies are the souls of the damned that were claimed by no god.

 

Malice is a being that required eleven very specific sacrifices in order to be summoned. And it was a sacrifice in the making since the Sons of Malice had been kicked off of their homeworld. Minor daemons have never required sacrifices that complex. Slice a throat, say the magic words, bam. Shake 'N' Bake summoning. Only Greater Daemons and Daemon Princes require something that complex.

 

There is also the fact that he can act as a patron for an entire renegade Chapter. All other equivalents to that are daemon princes and minor warp powers such as M'Kar and Yetsuigei respectively. So he is an unaligned daemon prince/greater daemon, which makes him a minor warp power since he is not associated with any of the gods.

 

And yes, he was retconned. Once they could no longer produce newer material, they removed the older material as well. In terms of Warhammer background, Malal does not exist.

 

That's why we have Malice. As long as they keep him subtle and with vague references and as long as the creators don't care enough to sue for copyright. Which considering their enthusiasm for the project, I'm more than willing to bet they don't.

 

The reason Sons of Malice stayed on was because they were not yet apart of the Malal background. And it because of the very obvious connections to what they were supposed to reach out to that they've been collecting dust.

 

As it stands, "Malal" does not exist. Only Malice.

[Strazhakov]

I want to agree with you but new fluff does not match your description. According to the Be'lakor dataslate and the fact that you have to mark your Daemon Prince we can assume that unaligned/undivided Daemons were retconned.

Chaos Undivided simply doesn't exist anymore. Everyone is a servant of the Gods one way or another..

 

Be`lakor is the only Daemon Prince who doesn't bear a mark and that's only because he was the first. Abbadon bears all the marks but he is special.

 

TL,DR: Chaos undivided = just a mad dream of a Tzeentchian Cultist.

[Conn Eremon]

I honestly don't care if it has been retconned away or not. It existed in the past, and I am fully in my rights to consider the current version to be nothing more than a faulty misunderstanding of the Warp by a tired old scribe who is pretty sure this is all made up anyways. Faulty, as evidenced by the fact that this scribe thinks that the Gods could only have been born from themselves. Apparently Slaanesh was a figment of either Tzeentch's, Nurgle's or Khorne's imagination before birth-exploding as a god, forcing the thirds-divided-Warp to be sliced anew four ways.

 

Far as I'm concerned, there remains Chaos Undivided as something that is separate to, and made up of, of the Big Four.

[Kol Saresk]

Chaos Undivided never meant unaligned. It meant undivided. That one moment where all of the myriad powers and forces of Chaos come into harmony before separating and fighting each other again.

 

Also, Yetsuigei(Blood Gorgons) and the Teacher? I think that was his name. He is the daemon from the Rewards of Tolerance in the Victories of the Space Marines anthology.

 

Oh, and if rules and fluff evenly translated each other, we'd either have drop pods on the table or we wouldn't have them in the background. The fact we have a middle ground goes to show the muddling. A mortal cannot become a daemon prince without gaining warp energy. The quickest way to do that, is with the patronage of the gods. So that is how the fluff translates into the games.

 

EDIT: I still believe there is an unaligned, but that when it comes to the daemons , it is the most difficult road to power. You have no support. Everything you have, you have to take for yourself by yourself. But it can very well be the most rewarding as that power is yours and yours alone.

[Slips]

Could a Mortal / Unaligned Daemon who tapped into an emotion/concept/whatever-feeds-chaos that wasn't covered by the Big Four ( \m/ -_- \m/ ) could they potentially turn into a Chaos God or can they only be created through a coalescing of that particular energy?

 

That said, I think Malal is/would have been an interesting element to have in 40k especially if they gave him a greater following. It would have permitted for truly Chaotic scenarios (in more ways than one) and perhaps make for scenarios where Radical Inquisitors teamed up with him/his followers to thwart the other gods.

[Kol Saresk]

I think how the minor powers rise in stature is through specific worship and the consumption of souls and other daemons. In many ways, it seems the daemons of 40K are analogous to the Hollows of Bleach. The minor warp powers would be parallel to the arrancar while the greater daemons are meños and the lesser daemons are straight up hollows.

[WarriorFish]

I always liked the Malal stuff, seemed like a more interesting take on the nature of chaos. That and providing a more dynamic relationship between chaos powers as he generally mucked about and did his own thing. Good to read some more about him, I'd like for him (or rather Malice) to make more appearances even if it's just alluded to or mentioned in background pieces.