Night Lords Don't Worship But Still Chaos?

[Julgolax]

I've been wondering about this fact. The Night Lords geneseed is relatively pure for a supposed traitor legion and they don't worship the gods. So why are they still considered Chaos Space Marines? I mean talking visually, you can pretty much get away without using a single icon of chaos on any of your army. As for the Lore, when have we actually heard a single example of possessed Night Lords, heavy mutations, and even evidence of things like Daemon Engines and Daemon weapons?

 

I dunno. As much as I love the Night Lords, I see them more as a broken legion of renegades and killers rather than hard core Chaos Space Marines. Am I wrong?

[Bryan Blaire]

Vandred Anrathi specifically was possessed by a demon, becoming the Exalted, and lead the warband that Talos "Soul Hunter" as a part of. So we know of at least one. The Night Lord Raptors were mutated as well (pretty heavily from the sound of it).

[Ultramarine vet]

Chaos worship or not, they must be put down equally!

 

On a serious note, they are one of the most evil traitor legions. I believe they compete with Emperor's Children, AKA noisemarines, as far as evil and cruelty. I would assume they are chaos worshiping pyschos but then again, I haven't read much on them in particular. To me, they are just as chaotic if not worse than a lot of their counterparts.

[Carrack]

Cyrian was a psychic mutant that fed on fear, Ruven was a sorcerer, Urzas clearly worshiped Khorne, and that's just first claw from one warband, our best described warband, but not the only one out there. The record is far from complete on Night Lords and their relation with Chaos

[Kol Saresk]

And there is still Acerbaus, who is a daemon prince and control's the largest known warband of the Night Lords.

 

So yes, while they do not worship Chaos, as a norm, they still fight alongside, and sometimes for, Chaos.

 

They have daemon princes, they fight for daemons and they have very few qualms about making Faustian deals for power(Uzas demanding power from Khorne at the price of his sanity and blood).

 

So while they aren't the zealous fanatics the Word Bearers are, they are no less "Chaos" than the Iron Warriors or Black Legion.

[Forté]

Chaos worship or not, they must be put down equally!

 

On a serious note, they are one of the most evil traitor legions. I believe they compete with Emperor's Children, AKA noisemarines, as far as evil and cruelty. I would assume they are chaos worshiping pyschos but then again, I haven't read much on them in particular. To me, they are just as chaotic if not worse than a lot of their counterparts.

Emperor's Children are not just Noise Marines, and strictly speaking, not evil. They follow their own desires and cross moral boundaries that others couldn't imagine going near.

 

Night Lords vary from warband to warband. Some are more renegades, others have found Chaos. All of them use terror as a means to demoralize enemies but are not necessarily evil.

 

The Imperium will destroy whole species, invade worlds and force them to follow a corpse as a god because some desk jockies deem it to be the truth. Now who's evil ;)

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Yeah, their 'devotion' varies from Warband to Warband, and from Marine to Marine. Still, they largely seem to willingly work with/fight alongside the more Chaotic warbands - if you join a Black Crusade, people are going to say you're Chaos.

[MaliGn]

You can be aligned with something but not worship it. The night lords have seen the truth of the universe: the chaos gods are real. They don't build elaborate cathedrals, or hold dark rituals, they serve chaos the way only the scum of nostromo know: killing. This may result in mutation, marking and even possession or ascension, but no religion, or praying for these benefits.

 

Less dogma, more bloodshed!

 

Sort of the opposite of the word bearers really.

 

At least that's how I see it.

[Lay]

Night Lords are proper CSM. Just compare the definition of Chaos Undivided (from the 3.5 Codex) with the their use of Chaos from Index Astartes.

Codex: Chaos Space Marines, p.38

In its most literal sense, Chaos Undivided is a pantheon of gods; the four major powers occupying opposing points on a compass. [...]
 
Others worship Chaos Undivided as a single entity. [...]
 
Another form of worship of Chaos Undivided may be seen in those who look to use Chaos to their own ends, and seek only temporary pacts with the powers. These misguided individuals see their own ambitions as above those of the Chaos powers. This is the ultimate gamble, with but two possible outcomes: daemonhood or damnation.

Index Astartes: Bringers of Darkness:

They pledged no allegiance to any particular Chaos power, looking upon such devotion with scorn. Instead, their Primarch fed on fear, and eventually became what he most loathed. Soon enough, the ranks of his once-proud Legion were entirely composed of sadistic murderers and criminals granted the power to oppress anyone they chose by the Primarch's own potent gene-seed. Rather than serving Chaos, the Night Lords used it as a tool In their inhuman works.
 
[...]

Night Lords are exceptionally versatile in their use of the forces of Chaos, employing the hell-spawned powers of each of the major Chaos deities with equal favour. It is just as likely that the Night Lords will be seen fighting alongside a group of foul Plague Marines as it is the warriors of the Thousand Sons. However, it has been ascertained that the Night Lords have nothing but scorn for faith in ail its forms, whether it be the fanatical bloodlust of the Khornate Berzerker or the devotion of the Imperial creed. The only authority they recognise is that of temporal power and material wealth.

[Sception]

Most Night Lords may not 'worship' chaos, but outside of the Word Bearers and Cult Legions, the heresy veterans generally don't. That said, they certainly do use the power of chaos and they certainly are corrupted by it. Mutations, psychic powers, and marked by particular gods, these corruptions and more are shown just by 'first claw', a unit led by possibly the most staunchly anti-chaos individual left in the splintered remains of that legion. Yet he willingly served in the warband of a possessed warlord, the largest force of night lords is ruled by a daemon prince, and the most distinctive warriors that fight for the legion, the raptors (old raptors, when they were a proper cult - more equivalent to warp talons today) are heavily and willingly mutated, and possibly possessed themselves.

 

People get the wrong idea about Night Lords because the most well known night lords stories focus on individuals who try to resist the powers of chaos, but if you look at basically anyone else in the legion that those stories describe, you see chaos marines every bit as evil and corrupted by the powers of chaos as those of any other chaos marine denomination. More so than many, even.

[Xenith]

 

 

I dunno. As much as I love the Night Lords, I see them more as a broken legion of renegades and killers rather than hard core Chaos Space Marines. Am I wrong?

 

And what are chaos space marines, if not a broken legion of renegades and killers?

[Julgolax]

To put it bluntly, the way I see it is such; you either embrace the corruption of chaos or you don't, and if you don't you're either a forsaken renegade just trying to survive or you're a loyalist. Basically, you're either a Word Bearer/Black Legionnaire or you're an Ultramarine. I remember the words I've hard in the past, "there is no middle ground with Chaos taint, you're either tainted or you're not."

 

Night Lords are interesting to me because I believed that they are smart about allowing the taint near their geneseed. Night Lords can, with relative ease, recruit new members and build their legion up like any SM chapter, unlike Word Bearers, Black Legionnaires and the 4 god-specific legions who either simply do not recruit and are whittled away or have to steal geneseed and haze their new members because of it... But I still thought that they bore the 8 pointed star and killed in the name of Undivided. If they aren't Chaos Space Marines, then they're just pirates, and I don't like pirates.

[Iron Skull Mask]

The current codex states that most night lords look down with contempt on worshippers of the ruinous powers. So in my mind there clearly is a middle ground between worshippers of Chaos and loyalists. Sure thing, there are those who are posessed and worship among the Night Lords, but still those do not seem to be enough to make it a legion characteristic.

 

It absolutely makes sense that Chaos has an effect even on non-worshippers, when they are exposed to it for thousands of years. But I don't believe that this has to take the form of mutations or marks necessarily. There is also the corruption of the mind, the willingness to accept new allies etc.

 

The undivided legions are not dedicated to one god, nor to a concept of worshipping a pantheon. Instead there are worshippers of all sorts among their legionaries and also those who are simply bitter and full of hate and don't worship anything. Those can still further the cause of Chaos willingly or unwillingly as they try to use Chaos or are used by it (willingly or unwillingly).

[Xenith]

 

 

Night Lords are interesting to me because I believed that they are smart about allowing the taint near their geneseed. Night Lords can, with relative ease, recruit new members and build their legion up like any SM chapter, unlike Word Bearers, Black Legionnaires and the 4 god-specific legions who either simply do not recruit and are whittled away or have to steal geneseed

 

Those Legions can, and do recruit.

 

Chaos Space Marines (on the whole) are just not as picky upon where the gene seed comes from. They still recruit, enslave and grow.

[Iron_Within]

For the less devout Legions, particularly Night Lords and Iron Warriors, but to a lesser extent the Alpha Legion (on account of no one has any idea what's going on there), I've always view falling to Chaos in biblical sense. Namely, Angels falling to hell and being dammed for all eternity whether they like it or not.

They can deny it all they like, look down upon those who have embraced damnation (even wanted it), but it doesn't change a thing, your backside is marked by chaos. I would view it as insidious as well subtly influencing them over and over. The guy from first claw who gets his hand marked red is a good example, he is claimed and damned by Khorne, he doesn't want it or like it, but because his soul is damned there is nothing he can truly do to stop it, he's marked by Khorne.

 

As previously mentioned they can fool themselves into thinking Chaos is a tool nothing more, the gods to be tricked and used to their own temporal ends, but the truth is they started on a path that leads to chaos and there is no way off it. They are Lost and Damned.

[Xenith]

In the eye, you don't really have a choice. Do enough to attract the attention of the gods, and they mark you, like it or not.

[bozo69pd]

Chaos worship or not, they must be put down equally!

On a serious note, they are one of the most evil traitor legions. I believe they compete with Emperor's Children, AKA noisemarines, as far as evil and cruelty. I would assume they are chaos worshiping pyschos but then again, I haven't read much on them in particular. To me, they are just as chaotic if not worse than a lot of their counterparts.

Emperor's Children are not just Noise Marines, and strictly speaking, not evil. They follow their own desires and cross moral boundaries that others couldn't imagine going near.

Night Lords vary from warband to warband. Some are more renegades, others have found Chaos. All of them use terror as a means to demoralize enemies but are not necessarily evil.

The Imperium will destroy whole species, invade worlds and force them to follow a corpse as a god because some desk jockies deem it to be the truth. Now who's evil

I don't like most of the imperium because of this and that humans have no freedom, but they are mostly just xenophobic fascists. CSM I enjoy the freedom and ability of being a Lord over lesser mortals (Which the astartes rightfully deserve!). However being a battle brother, team, worshiper to a faction that will flay and torture women and children all while laughing, then eat them or feed them to their other slaves is pretty evil. Even the Astartes that scowl at such behavior are still guilty by rule of association. From what I have been reading the only CSM who don't really take enthusiasm in this are Thousand Sons (who knows about alpha legion).

Although between SM and CSM; both have slaves. One calls them servitors, and they are lobotimized. The other has starving cowering slaves.

PS Also anyone who spills a drop of blood in anger is worshipping khorne like it or not!

[Ultramarine vet]

 

 

Chaos worship or not, they must be put down equally!

On a serious note, they are one of the most evil traitor legions. I believe they compete with Emperor's Children, AKA noisemarines, as far as evil and cruelty. I would assume they are chaos worshiping pyschos but then again, I haven't read much on them in particular. To me, they are just as chaotic if not worse than a lot of their counterparts.

 

Emperor's Children are not just Noise Marines, and strictly speaking, not evil. They follow their own desires and cross moral boundaries that others couldn't imagine going near.

Night Lords vary from warband to warband. Some are more renegades, others have found Chaos. All of them use terror as a means to demoralize enemies but are not necessarily evil.

The Imperium will destroy whole species, invade worlds and force them to follow a corpse as a god because some desk jockies deem it to be the truth. Now who's evil ;)

 

I don't like most of the imperium because of this and that humans have no freedom, but they are mostly just xenophobic fascists. CSM I enjoy the freedom and ability of being a Lord over lesser mortals (Which the astartes rightfully deserve!). However being a battle brother, team, worshiper to a faction that will flay and torture women and children all while laughing, then eat them or feed them to their other slaves is pretty evil. Even the Astartes that scowl at such behavior are still guilty by rule of association. From what I have been reading the only CSM who don't really take enthusiasm in this are Thousand Sons (who knows about alpha legion).

 

Although between SM and CSM; both have slaves. One calls them servitors, and they are lobotimized. The other has starving cowering slaves.

 

PS Also anyone who spills a drop of blood in anger is worshipping khorne like it or not!

Humans have no freedom? They are living under the very freedom that the space marines provide. As for the xenophobia, kinda can't blame them. Xenos aren't known for their friendliness ya know? Tau are tyranical, Eldar are deceitful, and Orks are raging psychopaths.

 

As for the slaves thing, traitor marines abuse and torture their slaves just for enjoyment. Space marine servitors are either humans that couldn't become an astartes due to geneseed complications or sometimes a scout that disobeyed like Kennon of the Crimson Fists, etc. Gotta make some use of them. Besides, space marines treat their servitors well! Long live the Imperium!

[Paradigm]

What the..? The Imperium are the bad guys!

 

Chaos represents freedom, the Imperium is just arbitrary repressive inhibition.

The only freedom the Imperium provides is the freedom to die for the Emperor. The space marines kill entire planets to ensure dissident minorities are extinguished. Sometimes for the sake of killing one man or woman. They support euthanasia to keep populations "pure". They shore up the most repressive regime in the history of mankind. They are for all intents and purposes Nazi stormtroopers. The only difference is the name of the regime they serve, and the fact that they are even less human than the Nazis were.

Chaos are the good guys.

[Ultramarine vet]

What the..? The Imperium are the bad guys!

 

Chaos represents freedom, the Imperium is just arbitrary repressive inhibition.

The only freedom the Imperium provides is the freedom to die for the Emperor. The space marines kill entire planets to ensure dissident minorities are extinguished. Sometimes for the sake of killing one man or woman. They support euthanasia to keep populations "pure". They shore up the most repressive regime in the history of mankind. They are for all intents and purposes Nazi stormtroopers. The only difference is the name of the regime they serve, and the fact that they are even less human than the Nazis were.

Chaos are the good guys.

Sorry? Was that a serious post?

[Skallagoose]

 

What the..? The Imperium are the bad guys!

 

Chaos represents freedom, the Imperium is just arbitrary repressive inhibition.

The only freedom the Imperium provides is the freedom to die for the Emperor. The space marines kill entire planets to ensure dissident minorities are extinguished. Sometimes for the sake of killing one man or woman. They support euthanasia to keep populations "pure". They shore up the most repressive regime in the history of mankind. They are for all intents and purposes Nazi stormtroopers. The only difference is the name of the regime they serve, and the fact that they are even less human than the Nazis were.

Chaos are the good guys.

Sorry? Was that a serious post?

 

Its ironic, but its grim-dark. Nobody is "good". Chaos is Chaos. Entropy, devastation, freedom. Space Marines/Imperium are indeed fascists, hence Nazis. No race in the game is "good guys". If you have to ask who is more evil- Chaos or Imperium, just consider them different sides of the same coin. 

[RapatoR]

Chaos is a cancer. These words are true at fundamental level: The cells in the body work together to keep organism alive - always doing as they are told, even dying when commanded to. However there is always one temptation: immortality. If cells decides to stop serving the body and start following its selfish desires, it can live forever. However the price for it is uncontrollable mutation that can get really out of the hand.

 

Does this make the body "good" and the cancerous cell "evil"? Both are following their own desire which: self-preservation. To the body, the cell is a danger that has to be destroyed, to the cell, the body is horrible oppressor. In the edn it all depends from perspective.

[MaliGn]

This is toughing on a largely unexplored area of fluff, although since "in the grim darkness of the far future there is *only* war" that may provide insight. The Imperium is a vast war engine spanning most of the galaxy, beset on every side they are forced to be so. There is precious little time for the average inhabitant, they will all be employed in some role fuelling the might of the Imperium. Any dissent is met with swift(often fatal) rebuke. There's not a right lot of room left for "freedom" even if the war were to ever end.

 

Back in the day some seriously Orwellian themes were applied to the imperium, for many of the same reasons Orwell would have had.

[Ultramarine vet]

 

 

What the..? The Imperium are the bad guys!

 

Chaos represents freedom, the Imperium is just arbitrary repressive inhibition.

The only freedom the Imperium provides is the freedom to die for the Emperor. The space marines kill entire planets to ensure dissident minorities are extinguished. Sometimes for the sake of killing one man or woman. They support euthanasia to keep populations "pure". They shore up the most repressive regime in the history of mankind. They are for all intents and purposes Nazi stormtroopers. The only difference is the name of the regime they serve, and the fact that they are even less human than the Nazis were.

Chaos are the good guys.

 

Sorry? Was that a serious post?

Its ironic, but its grim-dark. Nobody is "good". Chaos is Chaos. Entropy, devastation, freedom. Space Marines/Imperium are indeed fascists, hence Nazis. No race in the game is "good guys". If you have to ask who is more evil- Chaos or Imperium, just consider them different sides of the same coin.

For you guys that are calling the Imperium Nazi's, you mean the Inquisition and the Grey Knights right? They fit your description. Space marines, Imperial Guard, etc, don't fit what you're saying. I can even reference because Ultramarine Captain Ventris almost killed Inquisitor Kryptman for destroying a planet. How is that Nazi like? I have no love for the Inquisition and I would prefer chaos killed them all. To the warp with them.

[Xenith]

 

 

 

What the..? The Imperium are the bad guys!

 

Chaos represents freedom, the Imperium is just arbitrary repressive inhibition.

The only freedom the Imperium provides is the freedom to die for the Emperor. The space marines kill entire planets to ensure dissident minorities are extinguished. Sometimes for the sake of killing one man or woman. They support euthanasia to keep populations "pure". They shore up the most repressive regime in the history of mankind. They are for all intents and purposes Nazi stormtroopers. The only difference is the name of the regime they serve, and the fact that they are even less human than the Nazis were.

Chaos are the good guys.

Sorry? Was that a serious post?

Its ironic, but its grim-dark. Nobody is "good". Chaos is Chaos. Entropy, devastation, freedom. Space Marines/Imperium are indeed fascists, hence Nazis. No race in the game is "good guys". If you have to ask who is more evil- Chaos or Imperium, just consider them different sides of the same coin.

For you guys that are calling the Imperium Nazi's, you mean the Inquisition and the Grey Knights right? They fit your description. Space marines, Imperial Guard, etc, don't fit what you're saying. I can even reference because Ultramarine Captain Ventris almost killed Inquisitor Kryptman for destroying a planet. How is that Nazi like? I have no love for the Inquisition and I would prefer chaos killed them all. To the warp with them.

 

 

Uriel Ventris being the model space marine? Right. Ventris is said over and over again to have a disregard for the codex and standard procedures. He is hardly an example of normal Imperial attitudes

 

The Imperium is racist, xenophobic, obsessed with the purity of the human race, genocidal etc etc.