Night Lords Don't Worship But Still Chaos?

[Scribe]

Chaos is not evil, its elemental. Dark Eldar if anything, are evil.

[Ultramarine vet]

Chaos is not evil. Lmao.

[Scribe]

Again, how is it any different than the Imperium in what it does? One is about liberty, the other tyranny. I know which side I'm on. 

[GreyCrow]

Again, how is it any different than the Imperium in what it does? One is about liberty, the other tyranny. I know which side I'm on. 

 

Well, with Chaos, you are free to try and please gods that can turn you into formless aberrations :p

 

Nobody's free in the 40th millenium, except perhaps the greenskins... They do whatever the fudge they want :p

[Scribe]

If you want to make the claim that all Chaos followers are 100% dedicated to pleasing the Gods (in the face of reams of fluff that state otherwise) thats totally fine I guess.

 

Chaos is about choice. Damnation cannot work well any other way. :p

[Carrack]

How is Nurgle for liberty? Liberating people from their health and lives? What about Khorne, liberating heads from necks I suppose. Tzentch is liberating humanity from its human form. Is Slannesh liberating people from the tyranny of morality? Just because the Imperium is tyrannical, does not make its enemies liberators.

 

The current favorite of the Chaos Gods, Abaddon, along with the largest force of Chaos, is committed to a strategy of the Red Path. This is a plan of committing such wholesale slaughter that it causes massive daemonic incursions. If that isn't evil, what is?

[bozo69pd]

They are all just different facets of evil. Night Lords included (different than other generic renegades).

 

I suppose the only guys you could truly argue as good might be THE GREATER GOOD commies

[Scribe]

How is Nurgle for liberty? Liberating people from their health and lives? What about Khorne, liberating heads from necks I suppose. Tzentch is liberating humanity from its human form. Is Slannesh liberating people from the tyranny of morality? Just because the Imperium is tyrannical, does not make its enemies liberators.

 

The current favorite of the Chaos Gods, Abaddon, along with the largest force of Chaos, is committed to a strategy of the Red Path. This is a plan of committing such wholesale slaughter that it causes massive daemonic incursions. If that isn't evil, what is?

 

Nurgle grants liberty in the form of freedom from the Fear of Death.

Khorne grants liberty in the form of the strength to fight against being controlled.

Tzeentch grants liberty in the form of the mental acuity to outwit ones enemies, against granting personal strength vs communal strength.

Slaanesh is so plainly about liberty I question if you actually looked up the word. :D

 

• freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control.
• freedom from external or foreign rule; independence.
• freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, etc.; power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice.

 

Chaos is liberty.

[Carrack]

 

 

How is Nurgle for liberty? Liberating people from their health and lives? What about Khorne, liberating heads from necks I suppose. Tzentch is liberating humanity from its human form. Is Slannesh liberating people from the tyranny of morality? Just because the Imperium is tyrannical, does not make its enemies liberators.

 

The current favorite of the Chaos Gods, Abaddon, along with the largest force of Chaos, is committed to a strategy of the Red Path. This is a plan of committing such wholesale slaughter that it causes massive daemonic incursions. If that isn't evil, what is?

Nurgle grants liberty in the form of freedom from the Fear of Death.

Khorne grants liberty in the form of the strength to fight against being controlled.

Tzeentch grants liberty in the form of the mental acuity to outwit ones enemies, against granting personal strength vs communal strength.

Slaanesh is so plainly about liberty I question if you actually looked up the word. :D

• freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control.
• freedom from external or foreign rule; independence.
• freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, etc.; power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice.

Chaos is liberty.

So the Chaos Gods do not exert control over their pawns? How much libererty does a possessed marine have? Isn't a Noise Marine a slave to sensation, with all the freedom of an addict? How much liberty is at the bottom of a Night Lords skinning pit?

[Scribe]

Hey, consequences happen, but liberty is the freedom to make the choices which lead to those consequences.

 

Its the paradox of the World Eaters. Angron gave them freedom from fear with the Butcher's Nails, gave them the peace of serenity while doing all they would do for eternity, waging war.

 

That it also enslaved them to that life is just the other side of the coin, and is why Chaos is the greatest Faction. ;)

[MaliGn]

Chaos is the freedom to choose, the consequences of that choice may be more restrictive than the lack of choice in the first place, but at least the individual can choose which set of restrictions they prefer.

 

The imperium is freedom to serve, only serve, in a variety of ways, but servitude nonetheless, even the Emperor only serves.

 

Chaos: libertarians of the far future. Imperium: statists (with all the agents of a tyrannical state)

 

This does not mean that the entities that are the chaos gods are not manipulative schemers plotting for their own ends, which may cause the choices made by an individual to lead them to damnation by giving them enough rope to hang themselves.

 

Wow, this is like arguing politics in the run up to the general election...

[Aspiringchaoschampion]

Arguably chaos is a benevolent force as others have pointed out its about freedom. Cant remember which HH book i read it in but it was stated that the gods dont understand reality

[Wade Garrett]

In the main, Chaos brings you "freedom" in much the same sense that a nuclear war which transformed your country into a wasteland ruled by tribal warlords and their leather clad dune buggy riding minions would.

[Scribe]

Hey, you feel that wind running through your hair as you bound across the post-nuclear waste land?

 

 

Thats freedom you are feeling.

[bozo69pd]

In the main, Chaos brings you "freedom" in much the same sense that a nuclear war which transformed your country into a wasteland ruled by tribal warlords and their leather clad dune buggy riding minions would.

 

It sounds so beautiful. If I survived, instead of going to work tomorrow I would scrounge for food instead. Oh wait I already do that because of expensive ass GW miniatures... I would be able to have all the GW miniatures in the world because who would focus on that versus supplies....

 

BRING ON THE NUKKKKESSSS

[Trevak Dal]

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.

 

Yeah, Slaanesh 'worshiping' Night Lords would be just about the worst thing in 40k excepting Tyranids/Genestealer Cults and Daemons in General.

 

To quote Zoe, "If they take us, they'll beat us to death, eat our flesh, and sew our skin into their clothing-and if we are very, very lucky, they will do it in that order,"

 

Khornates at least have the decency to more often than not just kill you straight up.

[Kol Saresk]

 

 

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.

Yeah, Slaanesh 'worshiping' Night Lords would be just about the worst thing in 40k excepting Tyranids/Genestealer Cults and Daemons in General.

 

To quote Zoe, "If they take us, they'll beat us to death, eat our flesh, and sew our skin into their clothing-and if we are very, very lucky, they will do it in that order,"

 

Khornates at least have the decency to more often than not just kill you straight up.

“The Wrath bring butchery on an unimaginable scale. Even in such murderous haunts as Commorragh and the Eye of Terror, these Daemonkin are whispered of with awe. Ferocious beyond the bounds of sanity, the Wrath are little more than power-armoured beasts.

 

Slaughter is not enough for these feral warriors. At battle’s end, the warriors of the Wrath fall upon the corpses of the slain, cannibalising friend and foe alike in a hideous victory feast. Skin is peeled, then hacked into ragged cloaks and face masks that are draped across the Wrath’s armour. Bones are ripped free and pushed through the warriors’ skin as crude totems. Blood is guzzled and organs crushed to a foul paste that is used to anoint weapons and wargear. Finally, all that remains are the fleshless skulls of the fallen, piled in tottering heaps as an offering to Khorne.

 

The source of this monstrous savagery is the Daemonkin’s object of worship. They seek to imitate a Bloodthirster of Insensate Rage named Arbra’Gax and his horrific honour guard, the Charnel Reapers. So complete is the Wrath’s devotion that Arbra’Gax’s fury has seeped into their souls, setting them aflame with hate. They seek always to destroy[…]”

 

Excerpt From: Games Workshop Ltd. “Codex - Khorne Daemonkin.” Games Workshop Ltd, 2015-03-16. iBooks.

This material may be protected by copyright.

Well I guess two out of three is better.

 

So serious question, is this topic ever going to swivel back to Night Lords and their relationship with Chaos?

[Scribe]

Eh, whats to discuss. "Its a big universe, anything is possible." :p

[Carrack]

Both the Night Lords Omnibus and Lord of the Night feature thousands of years, indeed the majority of the time since the Scouring, lost to the warp. The main characters in these books, but not all the Night Lords in them, abhor the worship of the gods. I wonder if this attitude is as prevalent in Warbands that have experienced more time passing in the Eye of Terror. Warbands that may now be made up of a majority of marines who never fought in a unified VIII Legion, and may not have absorbed all of the traditions of the parent legion.

[Rain]

The thing about Chaos is that it's essentially a meritocracy, but the playing field is far from equal to begin with. In other words, since Space Marines have a huge number of advantages over unaugmented humans, they can basically use humans as slave labor, minesweepers, and bullet sponges, and as they conquer, the gods grant them more power to enslave more people, to conquer more, etc until they are killed, become daemon princes, or the gods get bored and turn them to spawn. Meanwhile the best humans can hope for is to be an especially useful slave like Septimus et al in the Night Lords books.

 

For a Space Marine however, following Chaos is a much better deal than staying with the Imperium since Chaos gives a chance at self-determination. An Imperial Space Marine's life is defined by duty, and practically every waking moment of their lives is devoted to preparing for and carrying out that duty. A Chaos Space Marine on the other hand gets to indulge himself, sure they fight wars, but they fight in large part because they enjoy it, and in between, they feast, or have slaves build them ornate palaces, or--do whatever it is that Plague Marines do for fun.

 

The paradox of course is that Chaos is a positive feedback loop, so as a Chaos worshiper engages in some type of act (senseless violence, overindulgence, sloth, etc.) he attracts the eye of that god, who in turn affects the worshiper such that the worshiper gets "better" at that particular type of act, but also becomes addicted to it. So in that sense, Chaos is taking away the individual's free will by rewarding them for doing what they chose to do in the first place. But hey, at least our backpacks look cooler.

 

Edit: As for the Night Lords specifically, I personally interpreted the whole "puritan" Night Lords thing as a type of self-delusion on the part of some Night Lords, though I admit this is rather subjective and may be due to my personal incredulity at "pure" Heart of Darkness sadist Marines. The Night Lords are, at their core, cowards and opportunists, and would use any advantage they can get their hands on to avoid a "fair" fight and put themselves in a position of power. This includes the use of Chaos, which ultimately leads them down the same path of "addiction" I've already touched on, they just refuse to acknowledge that in their quest for power over others, they lose power over themselves, so they "reject" Chaos outwardly, and perhaps even convince themselves of the "purity" of their actions, but are really just as Chaos as all but the most loony Book of Lorgar-thumpers.

[bozo69pd]

I think the night lords are there to really be the only legion of lost and the damned to represent anti chaos fluff if YOU the player/painter want that for your legion. The main reason night lords fell is because they don't like being told what to do, and despised the bureaucracy terra and the imperium was becoming (and I don't blame them). If one or two heed the whispers in the warp and give up their soul for some cool ass mutant powers oh well. I got the feeling that they weren't going to go and murder their battle brother because of it but they were going to make fun of him and bitch slap him from time to time (poor uzas).

[Trevak Dal]

Well I guess two out of three is better.

So serious question, is this topic ever going to swivel back to Night Lords and their relationship with Chaos?

 

Point is-they were dead before the mutilation and eating-which is decent by comparison.

 

 

 

I think the night lords are there to really be the only legion of lost and the damned to represent anti chaos fluff if YOU the player/painter want that for your legion. The main reason night lords fell is because they don't like being told what to do, and despised the bureaucracy terra and the imperium was becoming (and I don't blame them). If one or two heed the whispers in the warp and give up their soul for some cool ass mutant powers oh well. I got the feeling that they weren't going to go and murder their battle brother because of it but they were going to make fun of him and bitch slap him from time to time (poor uzas).

 

 

All the Traitor legions 'fell' because they followed their Primarchs' blood and bone (Most-those who had closer ties to the Emperor stayed true).  The only Legion that I know of that got a say in the matter were the Alpha Legion, and it was probably was a sham anyways.  One of the benefits of the current Imperium is that there aren't any pesky Sons of the Emperor around being too human to sully the Killing Machines they spawned.

 

Astartes are monsters-because the Emperor knew what was out in the Darkness, and knew he was going to need a lot of boots on the ground, and that regular humans weren't going to be enough-he had to have monsters of his own.  The very make up of Space Marines indicate that they are chimeras that simply use the aspirant as a host for the Astartes glands that along with the training and power armor make him into a weapon that was designed to combat Xenos and hostile Human elements (citing the space marine statline, the bolter profile and established armor proclivities of most STC using Human societies, Eldar and Ork societies too)  Space Marines were designed to be a final answer against holdout Human Seperatists and Alien threats.

 

I think all of the original Traitor astartes especially are for lack of a better term "Marked" by Chaos.  Their Primarchs-the most Human element among them were turned, and they willingly followed their Fathers and it led to the degradation and collapse of the Imperium.

 

Not every world is in a Terri-bad shape, but much like our world in reality, not every country is a First world country.  Quality of life for humanity in general was probably better during the Great Crusade, Humanity was on the Upswing, crawling out of the darkness that had plagued us for so many thousands of years.

 

I'm meandering, but the point is-Night Lords are Chaos Marines, whether they worship or not, because their souls have been claimed by the Warp gods.

 

Then again-every sapient beings' souls have probably been claimed by the Warp Gods...but not everybody turned against the guy seeking to shut them off for good 10,000 years ago, and worked/have worked in their name.

 

Khorne doesn't care who gets killed or how-he's probably A-Okay with abortions, and putting down puppies at animal shelters and stuff, but the soldier who just loves killing, to the point that it's all he thinks about in his bunk when he's not killing, probably isn't on the same level of power feed as the guy who is doing his duty to protect his World and the Imperium-or the ideal of the Imperium, who maybe doesn't like having to fight, but does it so that others don't have to.

 

Neither of those probably compare to the tingles Slaanesh gets when Nightlords are torturing people, before killing them (which is where Khorne gets his jollies, although with probably less of a jolt than all the people that got killed leading up to the taking of captives)

 

This is all personal speculation about the metaphysical nature of a fantasy world's self-created nightmare state.

 

Bottom Line:

 

Night Lords are Chaos Marines by dint of association-they are more than anything Renegade Astartes, with varying levels of corruption and active pursuit of favor/boons from the Dark  Pantheon.