The Cults of Chaos

[Conn Eremon]

You know, browsing through the Liber Astartes, I realized there is a faction I have really just never seen. Cults. The Cults of the Lost and the Damned. They really are an interesting faction, and I've been wanting to know more about them ever since I picked up the first book in the Siege of Vraks (should have known it was so cheap because they were phasing them out for an all-in-one ).

Eventually, I'm going to want to create my own. It's kind of my thing. If it's a faction, I'm going to make a DIY out of it. But I'm kind of at a loss on where to even begin, and so I wanted to hear from you guys and gals. What kind of lore have you begun crafting for your cults? Do they exist on their own, or are they tied/enslaved to an Astartes Warband/Daemonic Host? Are there only God-specific Cults, or can there be an Undivided Cult? Are they a civilization deep within the Eye of Terror, or are they found insidiously deep in the heart of the Imperium?

I would greatly love to hear about what kind of Cults you lot have created on your own, and the lore you have crafted for them. It really helps to see what others have done, and how, in determining what kind of direction I would like to go in with my own.

[Flint13]

I had a fun little Slaaneshi group called the Cult of the Fanged Blossom.

 

They were a pack of sycophantic human cultists who worshipped a warband of Shornaali chaos space marines and the corrupted Seraph that led them. They are pretty small but fanatic!

[Son of Carnelian]

I thought about cults when I still wrote and played Alpha Legion, and I have some advice that might help your creative process (drawn from my then-ongoing studies of the French Revolution).

 

Most people want security. They want it more than anything else in the world. They want to know that when they wake up in the morning, their world will still exist just as it did yesterday and the day before that. People might want a better situation, but never at the cost of a secure existence. That manifests itself in Warhammer 40,000 with cults as well. Citizens of the Imperium join cults because they think it might make them secure, or better their situation, or somehow make their lives more bearable. Nobody joins a cult thinking "I'm gonna meatshield those guys in power armor behind me, because that's been my dream since the third grade." They join because they perceive that their lives will dramatically improve from their current status as hiveworld gangers, or slaves in a factory, or miners in a hole where they die from poisonous gasses. 

 

For my money, I would always have cults tied to the warbands/legions of Chaos Astartes. It just seems right. People in the Imperium (for the most part) grow up revering the Space Marines as paragons and divine instruments of the Emperor's will, but generations can pass without any citizen seeing one on their backwater world. So when Chaos Space Marines show up and say "rise up against your overseer, he has exploited you for too long," you think "cool! The Emperor's chosen have come to save me from this servitude! I always new the overseers didn't really speak for the Emperor."

 

And sure, those skull belts the Astartes have on seem kinda weird, but who are you to tell them how to dress?

 

It's only after you've thrown your masters into the raging furnace at the heart of the factory that you realize "maybe these guys aren't super divine like I thought." But they say all the right things and freed you, so when they tell you to aid them in their Black Crusade/summoning ritual/Thursday afternoon cannibal party you still don't hesitate all that much. In fact, you kill the people who do disagree. 

 

So now your cult is down to the most extreme members, the most loyal. You've thrown the dice in with these guys. Of course, that's when they tell you or you realize that they're actually World Eaters/Word Bearers/The Damned Company of Lord Caustos. But what do you do then? They've destroyed your whole life! You can't leave. So you just throw in with them and consign yourself to a short life eating rats in the holds of an ancient starship that sometimes eats your buddies and/or talks to you. Oh, and the Astartes who own you can now call you up for a sacrifice or whatever else they need you for. 

 

Realize that the life of a cultist may possibly be the worst of all possible existences in Warhammer 40,000. But it's born from a desire for freedom, justice, betterment, etc. And whether or not you attach your cult to a warband of Astartes or not, their behavior will follow real life cults. People follow strength in hopes that strength will grant them security. Charismatic individuals, powerful warriors, great tacticians can all lead cults. But it just so happens that the best of those categories are usually Astartes. 

 

Sorry for the rambling answer. I just liked your question a lot. 

 

Oh, and cults can come from anywhere, but I obviously like them better when they come from the Imperium VS the Eye of Terror. Eye of Terror cults are bonkers insane tribesmen and women who only seek the glory of the gods and advancement down the path of daemonhood. The Imperium's cults have more human motivations. 

[Athrawes]

For a while, i had a chaos cult established around a radical inquisitor who had become enslaved to a small spirit/daemon which inhabited a found icon that the inquisitor mistook for a statuette of the Emperor. He began following it's advice which led him down a dark path, though he believed that it was the Emperor speaking to him. He began to recruit former guardsmen and hive gangers who thought they were serving the Imperium (because he would flash his inquisitor token around) but slowly and surely, they fell into ruin.

 

The first phase was the inquisitor introducing bizare rituals into their daily worship of the emperor, eventually this led to blood sacrifcices to the Emperor, which turned into oragies, ect. It became a matter of degrees before the cult was full on enacting chaotic rites. 

 

Before any of them realized they weren't worshiping the emperor, it was too late ands their souls were no longer their to call their own...

[Castellan Cato]

The Rotten, the cult that I have been working on, is devoted to Nurgle and in the service of the Shepherds of Rot warband. Their primary muscle is pulled from the world that they have recently captured, but have obtained substantial military presence over time. Ideologically, the cult takes the traditional Nurgle focus of striving for immortality and freedom from physical pain. They worship through bio-tech heresy and necromancy. The cemetery world they are fighting over is a good source of raw materials (biological and non-biological) to further their experimentation.

They operate alongside the warband, acting to subvert Imperial rule and replace it with cult philosophy rather than straight warfare. Preserving the living population is important in order to have live test subjects. The conflict they are cureently involved in follows this pattern. A coupe was staged on the cemetery world of Constantin's Rest and the Imperium-loyal command structure replaced with cult leaders. The PDF was given "join us or die" directives and pilgrim/mourner/civilian population was coerced to turn in order to avoid being tainted by Nurgle's touch. Of course, it wasn't long before the population was zombie slaves and the guard was warp "enhanced" soldiers.

Their combat forces are generally comprised of hordes of zombies, mutants and cultists, supported by long-range artillery. They have a rag tag visual aesthetic due to their traipsing across the galaxy making small incursions on very specific worlds. Artillery from this world over there, another world's representatives over there, a tank squadron from several different forgeworlds... etc.

The Shepherd of Rot have come to Constantin's Rest under the guidance of their patron GUO. They too are looking to replenish their stock of plague zombies and also gain a stronghold world inside the Imperium. The most important objective though, is that they are looking to animate the long dead hero of the Imperium for which the world was named. Yes, they're after the final resting place of Constantin Valdor. Few people in the Imperium even know of his legacy or final resting place, not far from Terra. Lord Skeletus hopes that his sorcerers can animate the body of the dead Custodes. Even at a mere 60% of his original combat efficiency he would be a force to be reckoned with. Not to mention the prestige from such a blasphemous act...

As for your questions: I can answer in terms of rules. I'm not sure how you design armies, but mine are usually general army lists that then get made backstories for. Your army always abides by its own fluff this way . The R&H army lists work fantastically on their own, and don't really need support from CSM or Daemons. Undivided forces are possible, but the goodies you get from a covenant with a god are too good. Tzeentch (IA13) and Nurgle (SoV 2) are the strongest in my opinion. Also, they did a really good job on the devotions, they just ooze character. They're a great place to start looking for inspiration.

[Aqui]

Back when my Bahltimyr Reavers were undivided, they had human followers (mainly as the Warband itself was dangerously getting understrength), five of whom were sisters. Each followed an aspect of Chaos (Undivided, Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch and Slaanesh), collectively, they were known as the Learned.

I'll have to dig out the part of the story I was writing that focuses on them and expand it further as an article

[Honda]

I didn't have a cult per se, but cultists who were in servitude to an Alpha Legion cell.

The gist of the cell (and my first army, btw):

The AL cell was experimenting with mixing reptilian DNA with human DNA.

The goal was to develop superior infiltrators (if you remember in the old codexes, just about everything in an AL army could infiltrate).

The human cultists received gene therapy, which manifested in reptilian physical characteristics.

This also occurred in the AL space marines.

I think what got me started on this path was the line from Conan, "I thought they were just another snake cult!"

Other side projects resulted in a monstrous warrior caste, with terminator upper bodies and python lower bodies.

One of these days, I may have to revisit that army.

I had a fun little Slaaneshi group called the Cult of the Fanged Blossom

That one sentence gave me a mental image I would just as soon never wish to see again. ;)

[Flint13]

^^ I don't do anything half-assed. If I'm going Slaaneshi, everyone is getting the entire business :D

[Conn Eremon]

I . . . was just picturing a literally fanged flower. Like something out of Mario, but less cartoonish.

 

 

 

Some really interesting tales people, this is really helping me try to figure out what I'm going to do. I'm the type of guy who likes to figure out how many variations there are within the 40k factions, and come up with a DIY for each of them. Easy to do with Space Marines of either side, as you have the progenitor legions. I wasn't sure about Cults, beyond the obvious God-worship.

 

I've got some rough ideas now. I've always known that I want my Word Bearers warband, the Nam Uggae (Chapter of the Malign Star, WIP name), to have a full on Cultist army. In my head, they'd be like the Imperial Armour Tyrant's Army, though most here probably know by now that I don't do the models scene. Like the Blood Pact/Sons of Sek, but maintained and led by the Word Bearers, and not that Guard-like. But that's the only Warband I have where anything about their cultists/slaves are really expanded upon.

 

What I'm thinking is that the over-all army, much like the Warband itself, will be an "Undivided" army. They worship Chaos, and bear its star with pride. However, there is a major shift within the army to a particular Chaos God. Ultimately each of the Gods is represented in this army, however these particular cults bear no resemblance to an actual organization or separation between them. What hatred or unrest would foment between differing belief systems are already present simply by their nature as cultists, and all are equal(ly worthless) in the eyes of their masters anyways.

 

I usually like to keep my DIYs more or less separate, with interaction taking place but making it clear they are separate entities. But I might make my DIY Cults as part of this one army, as each variation can easily be represented here, whether a Cult for one of the Gods, a truly Undivided Cult, or if it's Imperial or Terrorist (I'm a hoot).

[Carrack]

Great topic. I don't have much background created for my Black Legion cultist yet (probably because I am not fond of the models or their performance for me). But this did get me thinking about this so I hope my musings are helpful.

 

 

 

I think the Imperium is fertile ground for cults to flourish. The crushing rigidity of Imperial society is a common theme authors use to express the grim tone of the setting. Manufactorum workers, slave miners, underhive scum, all were born to their lot in life, thoughts of upward mobility completely foreign too them.

 

So how does the Imperium keep them in their place? Well with crushing brutality for one, riots are answered with shotguns, cyber mastiffs, and power mauls, if not by outright artillery fires and military sweeps. Dissidents are publicly burnt at the stake by deranged authorities that answer to no one. However they also have a carrot in addition to their stick, and their carrot is their own Cult Imperialis. The unwashed masses of the Imperium know that though their lives are devoid of hope, through faith and righteous work they can spend eternity at the Emperor's side. "Work earns salvation". But this requires faith in an unseen Emperor.

 

Enter the Cult Magos, be he a Dark Apostle of the Legions, or a mortal servant of the true gods. He can demonstrate the power of his faith with fell rituals and summoned emissaries of the Four. He can show them the gifts that his gods bestow. He can give them glimpses of the afterlife. He can expose the lies of the False Emperor. The overall quality of life may not change for the cultist, he trades a slow death of miner's lung, for a quick death clogging enemy guns, but then he never expected a better lot in life. What he does get is a better place in the hereafter, and proof that it exists.

[Conn Eremon]

Is it really though a better place in the hereafter? Or is it that he/she has a better chance at earning a better place in the hereafter?

 

I mean, does a cultist have a better post-death existence than a simple civilian? Or is it just that, through belief and successful ambition, they can achieve apotheosis, and through that success in escaping the fate of a Chaos-ridden afterlife? But a failure to achieve apotheosis? What does that achieve for the cultist, in the end? I mean, not everyone becomes a Daemon Prince, right? And by that, I mean become a daemon. All others suffer a mortal death, and so a mortal fate, right?

 

Seriously, what does that achieve? Is there anything on this? The post-death fate of a Cultist? What happens to them?

[Carrack]

 

Is it really though a better place in the hereafter? Or is it that he/she has a better chance at earning a better place in the hereafter?

 

I mean, does a cultist have a better post-death existence than a simple civilian? Or is it just that, through belief and successful ambition, they can achieve apotheosis, and through that success in escaping the fate of a Chaos-ridden afterlife? But a failure to achieve apotheosis? What does that achieve for the cultist, in the end? I mean, not everyone becomes a Daemon Prince, right? And by that, I mean become a daemon. All others suffer a mortal death, and so a mortal fate, right?

 

Seriously, what does that achieve? Is there anything on this? The post-death fate of a Cultist? What happens to them?

 

Disclaimer: I have been drinking like it's the college days due to a party or something, so I do apologize if I say anything untoward or something.

Maybe they get a better afterlife maybe they don't, what matters is that they believe they will be rewarded. It would definately be easier to sell a potential cultist on a chaos afterlife after showing them the power of the gods. The Cult Magos may be a silver tongued liar, or maybe he truly believes what he preaches, either way he can more readily give a concrete example of the power of his faith.

 

 

 

Ps You are a much more eloquent drinker than I.

[Honda]

What he does get is a better place in the hereafter, and proof that it exists.

 

 

I think I would say that those that end up becoming followers of chaos, if they are unlucky, live long enough to recognize that they were misled.

 

Even Fulgrim expressed regret upon seeing the truth of the lie he had believed.

 

I do agree that the Imperium does an excellent job of nurturing the dissent that leads to heresy.

[sitnam]

I hope that the liber challenges includes one for Chaos Cults, as (just like the Sisters challenge) it gives me the inapiration tobput ideas long floating in my head to paper. My cult idea is a core of Tzneetchian (former) Iron Warriors backes up by a huge force of heretek militia. I love the idea of militaristic Tzneetch that focuses on psykers for combat support and uses extensive intelligence gathering alongside deceptive tactics...combined with armored might and daemon engines. One custom engine would be the Spawn Sentinel, a cheap swarm daemon engine. The process to make one is simple: strap an enemy prisoner into a modified sentinel chassis and sorcerors mutate him into a spawn. Arm with a heavy flamer because...Tzneetch

[Conn Eremon]

Oh yes, the Chaos Cults will get their day in the sun.

[Goreshed]

For myself I had toyed with various ideas for cults for a long, long time. Granted I've been involved with the hobby for something ranging 15 years so I've got quite a bit to call upon. When 3.5 hit and they gave us legions rules everyone lost their minds with the options. And for a time I toyed around with an Armoured Company that I of course painted up all Chaos like. It was count as and ran the rules out of a Chappter Approved and later a White Dwarf and man were they crazy good, at least against anything but monstrous creature Tyranid lists and anyone geared up for it but I had fun.

 

Then they finally started producing the Horus Heresy series and showing us up until what at that time had been a myth of creation. Again, everyone loosing their minds. There was a certain...feeling to it that those who are just coming into the hobby never get to experience. The mystique of the Horus Heresy is being erased and only unanswered questions remain. But I digress...

 

It wasn't until Angel Exterminatus came out that I really got a feel for what I wanted my cult to be. As a die hard IW fan this book opened up so many windows and doors that I cannot count them all. Which got me thinking about the tons of IG parts I had bought many a year before but never worked on. While I have yet to name my cult its premise is very simple. The IW during the Great Crusade and into the Heresy used mortals all the time. Building fortifications, meat shields, gun slaves, the works. You simply need the manpower to do all of that and while Astartes can be great at this sometimes you just need the raw numbers.

 

-The cult is comprised of those that have served the IW before they went traitor and beyond. The warp is a fickle thing and the aging can happen differently between what happens in the Eye and warp flight and what reality has. These members are rare and revered because they know the truth of the Emperor and what the IW had gone through.

-These mortals preach to the gathered cultists about what all of this means.

-The Emperor is not a god and while the Chaos gods exist they are a tool. Very reason driven. Though there are units of the 'crazies' or those who are enthralled to the dark gods these are frowned upon. Similar in aspect to how the IW themselves think of the situation.

-Given the constant turn around there is a large amount of slave labor and from this pool of survivors those who prove themselves are 'raised' higher. Take a whole world and have a lot of PDF troopers? Find the good ones, turn them to the cults use and the rest are slaves for the meat grinder.

-Professionalism. Similar to the blood pact but these guys are well equipped given who are their masters in the end and well motivated. They believe in the destruction of the Imperium to save the human race.

 

Those are the main points that I'm sculpting them around. Yes I agree that god specific cults are awesome and should I finally build a number of armies of chaos I want to I plan on giving them the same cultist treatment I'm doing to my IW. Why would an IW army tolerate mass worship of a single chaos god? Sure the cultists might get some sort of benefit but it doesn't fit the war plan of the warsmith so why allow it?

[sitnam]

To revive thos thread a bit, how big do you guys imagine your human cults beong in comparison to your marine warbands. Given that your average warship takes thousands of men to operate, it seems reasonable a warband could raise thousands of auxiliaries for more direct actions

[Castellan Cato]

Human life is cheap in the 41st millenium.  A warband could easily pick up a couple thousand slaves from a successful raid on a single populace world which normally have populations in the millions, if not billions.  Level of training doesn't really matter when youre going to just hand them a knife and march them in front of the guns anyway. 

[Conn Eremon]

Slave-cults might be needed for Chaos Marine warbands in more ways than cannon fodder. In fact, I would say it is what they use them for the least. More often than not, they require skilled labor, and that might be hard to come by.

 

In a timeline I did for one of my warbands, the Highborn, I walked through the life of their flagship. One of the things I mentioned and felt was appropriate for the average warband was that it was difficult to maintain an optimal crew, with only a few rare occurrences of that ever happening since the days of the IIIrd Legion. But these are true slaves, and not cultists in the traditional sense of the word. Though I refer to them as slave-cults, because they are inevitably corrupted and will form their own societies at this bottom tier. In fact, I was rather proud of the bit where I discussed two slave-cults waging a genocidal war against each othet that ended up leaving a particular gun deck quiet when it needed to be loud.

 

The only Cults I have so far thought of was to have my Chapter of the Malign Star, a Word Bearers warband, field an army large enough to warrant a crusade to fight against. In other words, an Undivided Cultist army on par with the Blood Pact. Just not as organized and Imperial Guard-y.

 

But that is still in the beginning stages of thought.

[sitnam]

i perhaps wasnt quite realizing the size a rabble warband could reach; those truly desperate to join the cause of chaos only to become the embodiment of cannon fodder. I'm still stuck on the idea of highly trained R&H forces, which are perhaps poorly represented in the rulea by the whole random leadership aspect. Those warbands such as the Blood Pact or the Sons of Sek or even the elite of the Vraksian remegades, how numerous are they compared to their betters and I suppose their lessers among the LATD

[Conn Eremon]

I would probably call them rather rare if you consider simple ratios/percentages, but the sheer scope of the setting allowing plenty of room for such a tiny percentage to be a common, terrible threat.

[sitnam]

Yeah I view the availablity of elite level chaos troops on the same level as elite imperial troops (Scions and realistically Sororitas) as being higher then astartes but still relatively low. especially as the 40k era seems less dominated by astartes then the 30k era

[Lord Asvaldir]

i perhaps wasnt quite realizing the size a rabble warband could reach; those truly desperate to join the cause of chaos only to become the embodiment of cannon fodder. I'm still stuck on the idea of highly trained R&H forces, which are perhaps poorly represented in the rulea by the whole random leadership aspect. Those warbands such as the Blood Pact or the Sons of Sek or even the elite of the Vraksian remegades, how numerous are they compared to their betters and I suppose their lessers among the LATD

 

Thing is renegades&heretics are not mentioned a whole lot in official fluff sources. I mean they don't even have a codex-any army like that just isn't going to get the black library coverage needed to expand their background. However, rational wise there just has to be billions of renegades in existence-their lives are spent so cheaply there would soon be no more followers of chaos without a lot of them. Plus the chaos space marines codex mentions marines are just the "tip of the spear" of chaos forces, and that there are many more of them even if the renegade hordes are not mentioned. 

 

I'd suspect a highly trained R&H force to be very rare. Chaos warbands simply don't have the organization to supply a large body of well trained men, since they lack the discipline to keep a steady flow of trainees to replace losses. However I'm sure such warbands exist, and you can of course represent them on the battlefield well using the bloody handed reaver devotion to give you grenadiers. 

[sitnam]

Bloody Handed Reaver only really represents well equipped troops, not so much dedicated troops given the random ld rule effecting the whole army. Other then that however, the rules are pretty good for representing a variety of Chaos elements.

 

 

 

I'd suspect a highly trained R&H force to be very rare. Chaos warbands simply don't have the organization to supply a large body of well trained men, since they lack the discipline to keep a steady flow of trainees to replace losses. However I'm sure such warbands exist, and you can of course represent them on the battlefield well using the bloody handed reaver devotion to give you grenadiers. 

 

I think recruiting is a good point concerning well-trained chaos forces. Many seem to lack the power base or logistical support to really support a trained force. I would say even the CSM suffer from this to an extant. Often CSM warbands will take in astartes from outside their ranks as standard recruiting practices of the Astartes are impossible for them. Perhaps elite R&H warbands are like this, with a hodge-podge of battle-worn veterans who have survived some of the galaxies nastiest battlefields.

[Lord Asvaldir]

Bloody handed reaver requires all units to have militia training, and grenadiers gain an extra bs..sounds like a well trained force to me as well as well equipped. 

 

One idea, to recruit more well trained troops a R&H force would infiltrate a storm trooper training facility-get there cults into the school, and they slowly start turning new trainees over to chaos.