Chaos Undivided

[Warsmith Aznable]

 

I doubt Perturabo and Lorgar still are Daemons Primarchs of Chaos Undivided. They are probably very well aligned with a god, we simply don't know which one yet. I think we have clues about Perturabo being a little nurgly chap.

 

Perturabo worked with Nurgle that one time with machine plagues during a world invasion or something like that, and that's all I can remember about him being linked to Nurgle. Personally I'd rather Perturabo come out as being a daemon prince aligned with the Forge of Souls instead of any of the Big Four. It makes much more sense for him, I think, and would allow GW to by-pass him as being truly undivided like Belakor. The rumours of the Iron Warriors being tied to the emergence of the Obliterator Cult could be explained through relation to the Forge of Souls more readily than Nurgle, as well. It fits in with Perturabo's unwillingness to trust, since the Forge of Souls is more a legal agreement than slavery.

 

I guess what I like least about the idea that Perturabo might be a Nurgle daemon-primarch is that this is a niche filled by Mortarion, and having Perturabo also Nurgle would sort of put him behind in precedence. And that's without even considering how important someone like Typhus is to Nurgle lore. I dread the idea of finally getting a 40k Perturabo only to have him be a second-rate version of another option. Really, any daemon-primarch not one of the cult legions would have this problem.

 

I would also accept Malal/Malice as correct, but the Forge of Souls is the sexiest answer to the problem IMO.

Edited December 11, 2017 by Warsmith Aznable

[Marshal Rohr]

I've never particularly understood "undivided" Chaos as a concept that's present in the lore. Chaos can be worshipped as a pantheon, sure, and one doesn't need to "give" oneself to any particular Power - tho see below for more thoughts on that - but I don't think anyone realistically worships "Chaos Undivided."  Chaos isn't even something we understand, and arguably isn't something that humans could understand. It's a wild, writhing, unending sea of a universe. For all we know, the Gods and Daemons we're so familiar with might well just be the barest, tiniest fraction of its existence. We certainly have a lot of hints that they're not the whole thing, though I doubt we'd ever see much more behind that particular curtain. Which, hey, fine. The possibility and sense of scale that peek gives is more important than exhaustively cataloging it.

 

That aside, uh, aside, I think what A D-B is talking about is just the basic weirdness of lore development that 40K's gone through in the past twenty-odd years. 3rd Edition was a big deal for the game and its lore, the end could be called its formative phase, and just as many of the ideas from that era ended up getting chucked out as were kept and melded into the current background. A lot of those are the sort of thing that obviously didn't work and weren't spoken of again, but Chaos Undivided is one of those that was big and pervasive enough that it still causes some problems. In 3rd, you had Chaos Undivided as something that actually granted a mark, had Daemon Princes and even Daemons (hi, Furies!), and was generally assumed, from what I remember, to be some sort of Chaotic meta-consciousness. It's an idea that never fit right, I'd say. The Great Powers just doesn't work in concert very often, owing to reasons that range from natural hostilities to the fact that pan-dimensional beings who only occasionally dabble in linear time just don't do well with committee-based decisions. When it went away, I was pleased, but it left some holes.

 

It also didn't help that the Index Astartes articles and 3.5 Chaos Codex - landmarks that a lot of players still define their 40K experience from - were big on the idea of "non-Chaotic" Chaos Legions. The Iron Warrior, Night Lords and Alpha Legion were all portrayed as, at best, being incidentally involved in Chaos, so Undivided became a big deal for a lot of players. Maybe even more importantly, Perturabo and Lorgar - neither of whom had been addressed in m41 - were both risen to Daemon Prince status without a clear patron, something that's a seemingly unexplained phenomenon in today's background. I don't know if GW will ever get around to explaining it, or if they even much care, but it's a notable hole in the lore, and one a lot of people notice.

 

This is my 'problem' (though it's not really a problem). I cut my teeth on 3rd edition, when Undivided was all the rage. Undivided has always been the '5th Chaos God' to me. It makes sense that there are only the four, as I have the 2nd edition lore where Undivided mentions are absent or rare. 

[Brother Lunkhead]

I think Lexington hit on it in the first sentence of his post. As I understand it from both the literature and codices, Chaos Undivided is simply the worship of chaos as a pantheon, showing favor to no individual chaos god, but worship of, sacrificing to, and seeking favor of all. Daemon princes undivided like Belakor are rare since, I suspect (and I have no clear reference, simply deduction) all of the chaos gods find a use for them (a rare situation indeed).

 

Perturabo is probably one of these rare daemon princes of chaos undivided. He certainly has a high enough body count to get an approving nod from Khorn. He does wage war in the extreme, and Slaanesh is all about extreme. Where there is Perturabo there is war, where there is war there is disease, and Nurgle surely likes that. And of coarse Perturabo is logical and methodical in his prosecution of war, all talents Tzeentch can use. Since he does not declare (Voluntarily or not) favor for any one god, they all use him to some extent.

 

It would be nice to see a codex acknowledge positive and even negative traits for declaring for chaos undivided. If GW can figure out how to use this to sell more models maybe they will do something with it. Or maybe we can come up with ideas for them 

[Lay]

Chaos Undivided is more than just the worship of the gods as a pantheon or the gods teaming up on rare occasions. It's (or was) a range of different beliefs and practices, such as alignment to independent powers, worshiping Chaos in its entirety with the gods representing mere aspects of a larger entity or even using Chaos as a tool through temporary pacts over lasting commitments.

It's a concept that has always been a bit more fleshed out in Warhammer Fantasy, especially the excellent Liber Chaotica books.

[Lord_Caerolion]

Basically, the background is has been brought back to the idea that even though you may worship Chaos Undivided, that doesn't necessarily mean the Gods respond in kind. That Word Bearer may pray to the whole Pantheon, but only Tzeentch is listening, so he gets Marked by Tzeentch.

[Urriak Urruk]

 

 

I doubt Perturabo and Lorgar still are Daemons Primarchs of Chaos Undivided. They are probably very well aligned with a god, we simply don't know which one yet. I think we have clues about Perturabo being a little nurgly chap.

 

Perturabo worked with Nurgle that one time with machine plagues during a world invasion or something like that, and that's all I can remember about him being linked to Nurgle. Personally I'd rather Perturabo come out as being a daemon prince aligned with the Forge of Souls instead of any of the Big Four. It makes much more sense for him, I think, and would allow GW to by-pass him as being truly undivided like Belakor. The rumours of the Iron Warriors being tied to the emergence of the Obliterator Cult could be explained through relation to the Forge of Souls more readily than Nurgle, as well. It fits in with Perturabo's unwillingness to trust, since the Forge of Souls is more a legal agreement than slavery.

 

I guess what I like least about the idea that Perturabo might be a Nurgle daemon-primarch is that this is a niche filled by Mortarion, and having Perturabo also Nurgle would sort of put him behind in precedence. And that's without even considering how important someone like Typhus is to Nurgle lore. I dread the idea of finally getting a 40k Perturabo only to have him be a second-rate version of another option. Really, any daemon-primarch not one of the cult legions would have this problem.

 

I would also accept Malal/Malice as correct, but the Forge of Souls is the sexiest answer to the problem IMO.

 

 

Considering I want Perturabo's Daemon model to drop with a combined Dark Mechanicum/Iron Warriors Codex, this idea is awesome to me.

[Sandlemad]

 

I would also accept Malal/Malice as correct, but the Forge of Souls is the sexiest answer to the problem IMO.

 

 

It's funny that the forge of souls as a concept only appeared in 4th edition, as part of the daemons codex which cemented the Four as the real deal. Not that a daemon codex could really go any other way, unlike a CSM codex, but it almost feels like it was an escape valve for some elements of chaos undivided that needed to be addressed.

[Warpmiss]

Warsmith Aznable, that's so very perfect for Perturabo. For Lorgar I'd definitely would like a to see a daemon primarch blessed by the four gods of the Pantheon, precisely because he does worship Chaos. Perturabo on the other hand always seemed opposed to the idea of worshipping any gods so something like the Forge is so much more like him.

 

Getting Lorgar as a Tzeench DP and Perturabo as a Nurgle DP would be disappointing. Like you said, lore-wise, we alreasy have Ahriman and Typhus filling a Champion role and Magnus and Mortarion as the daemon Primarchs. Not to mention that, in that case, 2 gods would be getting two Daemon Primarchs while Slaanesh and Khorne would have just one which also seems unbalanced.

 

Rule-wise, the only thing that would seem logical IMO would be that, if a Daemon Primarch Lorgar/Perturabo would have to be aligned to a particular god in the TT, the player fielding them would have to choose their alignment for a given game. Similar to Marks of Chaos, one game they could employ Tzeench, in another one Khorne, etc.

[Kinstryfe]

If anyone would be deserving of being marked by chaos as a whole, Lorgar would be. Iirc Abaddon is marked by all the gods, rather than by chaos undivided. Belakor is really the only true no unaligned daemon prince, and I don't have a problem with it being a possible but extremely unlikely occurrence. Perturabo is another special case. Given the Primarchs are beings partially made of "warp stuff", I could see him having even just willed himself stronger on raw chaos power. Though, I do like the idea of him getting an agent of the forge of souls.

 

Where I do think there's a case to be made for plentiful chaos undivided is that it was also always a stand-in for favor gained from any of the myriads of minor gods and warp spawn. The big thing I've not seen in the lore for awhile is describing the warp as being full of minor powers, plus many facets of the big 4. That was a hugely interesting opportunity that often went unexplored: the fact that you could have two warbands nominally worshipping the same god but at complete odds with each other because one worships The Dark Prince who is the god of excessive luxury and sensation and the other worships Loesh the Serpent, god of gluttony, and both facets of Slaanesh are internally at war with each other to try and establish dominance. This kind of stuff gives a ton of scope for undivided armies, whether they're blessed by a minor warp deity, an odd facet of one of the main gods, or something else altogether.

[Zuvassin]

"Undivided" really seems to be a loose and vague term covering a number of different situations:

 

1. Undivided armies: armies like the Black Legion, where individual squads and champions may dedicate themselves to Khorne or Nurgle, but the army as a whole is relatively "undivided" amongst the gods (as opposed to World Eaters or Death Guard).

 

2. Pantheon worship: the individual does not single out one god above the rest, but tries to equally worship all four major gods, plus maybe any lesser deities (the lore has in the past implied the existence of lesser deities and/or the (confused) mortal worship of daemons as if they were deities). This results in an individual/force that either has no marks at all, or all the marks simultaneously. Word Bearers, for example, are traditionally depicted as not having any marks, while in the 2nd edition Chaosdex, Abaddon literally had all four marks of Chaos, and regular characters could be given multiple marks (although IIRC not all four, as you couldn't take Khorne and Tzeentch together, and maybe it was specifically limited to a max of two).

 

3. Atheism/Apathy: the individual/army simply doesn't care, and are "atheists" in the sense that ignore and do not worship the gods (although atheism is relative in a universe where the gods are proven to exist and be real, so maybe "apathetic" is a better term). The Night Lords are typically depicted as being on the more "atheistic" extreme of rejecting the gods, while a more rebelious type of CSM army might be seen as being apathetic (their rebellion is more about politics or personal beefs than religious beliefs).

 

4. Literally Undivided: I don't think this has ever appeared in any canon, but back during the creation of the Index Astartes, I argued for the concept of "Chaos Undivided" being the worship of Chaos itself, as a relatively singular entity rather than divided into the individual powers. The analogy would be to how some ancients came to see the classical pantheons as multiple personifications of a single god (i.e. Athena as the god's wisdom and Aries as his warrior attributes) - the monotheism of Chaos, if you will. I thought it would be particiularly suited to the Word Bearers, but it didn't stick, lol.

 

As for Daemon Princes, I think the issue is that, intentionally or not, both GW and gamers have sometimes had the impression that becoming a DP isn't just being raised by a god (which in turn implies "undivided" DPs would be extremely rare as by default a DP would be expected to be aligned with the God that ascended it), but that somehow a mortal could essentially ascend himself into DP-hood by becoming powerful enough - sorta like leveling up from trooper to Aspiring Champ to Exalted Champ to Lord to DP.

 

I think this seems especially true for Primarchs like Lorgar and Perturabo, who I suspect were turned into Daemon Princes to match what was happening to the marked Primarchs in the old Epic editions without stopping to think about the lore ramifications of such.

 

It'd probably help the lore if there was more of a distinction made between being "undivided" and "unaligned". A Night Lord or Red Corsair might be unaligned in that they're not terribly concerned with the gods of Chaos, while your average Word Bearer or otherwise unmarked Dark Apostle would be more inclined to be Undivided as they do worship the gods/pantheon.

[Sete]

Mark of Chaos undivided will give the model +1 wound. And they will be bigger faster and stronger than their unmarked bretheren. Also they will be called Primaris chaos space marines.

Worked in secret for 10k years by Cawl evil twin brother, Carl.

[Mileposter]

Mark of Chaos undivided will give the model +1 wound. And they will be bigger faster and stronger than their unmarked bretheren. Also they will be called Primaris chaos space marines.

Worked in secret for 10k years by Cawl evil twin brother, Carl.

"I'm not a mad scientist, I'm an ANGRY scientist!"

[Brother Lunkhead]

Chaos Undivided is more than just the worship of the gods as a pantheon or the gods teaming up on rare occasions. It's (or was) a range of different beliefs and practices, such as alignment to independent powers, worshiping Chaos in its entirety with the gods representing mere aspects of a larger entity or even using Chaos as a tool through temporary pacts over lasting commitments.

It's a concept that has always been a bit more fleshed out in Warhammer Fantasy, especially the excellent Liber Chaotica books.

 

Could you give a reference within the 40k lit? I'm not doubting you, just interested.

[Urriak Urruk]

 

Chaos Undivided is more than just the worship of the gods as a pantheon or the gods teaming up on rare occasions. It's (or was) a range of different beliefs and practices, such as alignment to independent powers, worshiping Chaos in its entirety with the gods representing mere aspects of a larger entity or even using Chaos as a tool through temporary pacts over lasting commitments.

It's a concept that has always been a bit more fleshed out in Warhammer Fantasy, especially the excellent Liber Chaotica books.

 

Could you give a reference within the 40k lit? I'm not doubting you, just interested.

 

 

A good example is probably the recent Lorgar Primarch book (which I am enjoying, not as good as Perturabo but better than Guilliman and Magnus).

 

In that book the Colchisian religion worships the four gods (by different names, but it's clearly the four). The preachers like Kor Phaeron treat it like a pantheon, but you're not really worshipping each god separately, individually and equal. You're worshipping them all together, like a 4-sided coin.

 

Phaeron almost never mentions each god individually, instead saying "the powers" in almost every reference to them. It's almost like 4 separate personalities or concepts of one larger power-base.

[Res Ipsa Loquitur]

Given that we know that 'the Four' are not the only Warp entities, just the most powerful ones, it's entirely possible that Belakor is not 'undivided' but rather 'not favoured by any of the Four'.

 

EDIT - Nope, doesn't make sense. Disregard.

Edited December 12, 2017 by Res Ipsa Loquitur

[Zuvassin]

Not the person you asked, and I need to get my books back and check, but I recall that in the current 8th ed Chaos codex that the entry for Daemon Princes alludes to them sometimes being worshipped as minor deities. If not that, it might be the 2nd or 3.5 edition books.

 

I believe the Realm of Chaos books also were less fixed on the Big Four being the only deities. They were by far the most known and most powerful, but I believe it stated or implied that there were other, lesser deities, which may have been individual Daemon Princes or Greater Daemons mistaken as gods by the mortals, or lesser "whirlpools" in the Sea of Chaos that were similarly sentient personifications of certain emotions but had not grown to the power possessed by the major four.

 

Also, one of the old Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay sourcebooks mentions three lesser gods of Chaos, including Malal, Zuvassin, and Necoho. As far as I know, only Malal was mentioned in-depth elsewhere, and there's continued debate if he's been updated in the current lore to be the Malice of the Sons of Malice.

 

• Malal was set up as the Chaos God of Anti-Chaos, seeking to undo the works of his "brothers".
• With Zuvassin, I'm not sure what the initial role/details were, but at some point he seems to have become Malal by another name, or otherwise somehow connected to him and his anti-Chaos role.
• Necoho was the Chaos God of atheism, basically the Chaos God of not believing in Gods, IIRC. As far as I know, Necoho was mentioned just the once and never seen again.

 

I think the Realm of Chaos books may have had a few others. IIRC, they had some "unaligned" daemons in the rules, but I can't recall if they belonged to Malal or another named god of some sort, or if they were just "as is".

Edited December 12, 2017 by Zuvassin

[Lay]

@Brother Lunkhead

 

The four major powers of Chaos form a pantheon of gods, with many followers seduced by the attentions of one specific deity. Many others however, worship Chaos in its undiluted glory, paying tribute to, and drawing their powers through, the primal essence of the warp itself. As each Chaos power reflects a specific facet of human nature, some propose Chaos Undivided represents the infinite depths of evil that gnaw at the very roots of the mortal soul.

 

Men are not given to understand such matters, and the diverse followings of Chaos Undivided worship it in many different forms.

In its most literal sense, Chaos Undivided is a pantheon of gods; the four major powers occupying opposing points on a compass. When a follower worships he may direct his tributes to the god most able to answer his pleas. Such a follower may receive the blessings of each of the gods at different times, but is unlikely to gain the favour granted to an individual dedicated wholly to one power. The cultist may also honour the minor spirits of the Warp if he feels they may be able to aid him.

Others worship Chaos Undivided as a single entity. They perceive the various powers as merely aspects of one vast, malevolent intelligence which mortals cannot hope to engage on any but the most basic level. These followers may ally themselves with the other powers, but will never give themselves fully to one god, seeking instead to follow a purer form of devotion to Chaos in its unadulterated whole.

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.

 

 

- Codex: Chaos Space Marines 3.5, pg.38

 

Some claim that Chaos has spawned an infinite number of gods, who constantly struggle amongst themselves for mastery over all. Others say that all the apparently diverse gods of Chaos are no more than different aspects and manifestations of one being: The Great Unnameable One, He Who Must Not be Named, The Great Abomination, The Lord of Chaos, The Unspeakable Shapeless Beast and numberless other titles.

 

- Realms of Chaos: Slaves of Darkness, pg.14

 

They never really went into detail about Chaos Undivided as an entity, but I saw the names for it pop up in some of the Fantasy armybooks of later editions. You could also make your "independent" demons back then, which would be aligned to Chaos Undivided.

[Rik Lightstar]

There seem to be two distinct definitions of Daemon Prince that rattle around and crossover at a lot of points:

 

1) Daemon Prince as a "Title", this involves an actual ascension and recognition from one of the major powers exclusively. These beings become a part of that major power and lose an element of their free will, but gain a fitting form and new abilities typically.

 

2) Daemon Prince as a "Classification" by this I mean beings that have received so many "gifts of chaos" that they no longer resemble in any meaningful fashion what they began life as, yet through luck, resilience or willpower they've not become spawn. These beings often appear similar to the other type, however they aren't always tied to a single god.

 

That seems the most reasonable explanation, an undivided Daemon Prince (Belakor excluded) is a Prince by dint of their size/power/influence but not with the backing of any god.

 

Rik

[Leif Bearclaw]

 

You get this a lot in the IP, honestly. I've had several conversations that go like this:

"I want to do X."

"You can't, that's wrong, the lore doesn't go like that."

"But it says in these published sources that I'm right. I just want to carry on X and Y and Z."

"Yeah, but they were wrong. They were wrong at the time, too. We never directly say they were wrong, we just never mention them again, and eventually counter them in later publications."

"But the readers think these things are true."

"Sure. But eventually, they won't."

 

Gah, this is something that drives me mad. And while it can be cool, thanks to proactive creators like ADB his ilk, sometimes I kinda wish we didn't get these insights into how the sausage is made.

 

I can accept aspects of the lore changing over time, that's somewhat inevitable. But why in the world do they publish things that they know are wrong at the time? Sometimes I wonder if the IP big wigs are playing some kind of shell game with the fans, getting their jollies because only they know the 'real truth'. 'Eventually they won't'? Doesn't this thread kinda undermine that concept? The sidelining/removal/retcon/ignoring of Chaos Undivided began when? The 4th edition Codex that came out in 2007? And yet here we are still raking it over the coals a decade later. When does this 'eventually' kick in? (Ignoring for a moment that fans will inevitably cherry pick the lore they like/can make coherent sense of their headcannon, regardless of later countering of 'wrong' ideas).

 

[Lexington]

But why in the world do they publish things that they know are wrong at the time?

 

I doubt there's a lot of things that GW publishes that are intended to be wrong at the time of publication. I do get the feeling that higher-up people in GW's IP have gotten a...somewhat deranged point of view about these games' background, tho, that motivates these sort of conversations. There's a quote reputed to be from Laurie Goulding floating around that really sums it up for me:

 

Don't for one minute think that William King's HH text will not be completely retconned at the first opportunity. I can give you a peek behind the curtain - I wanted to have Alan Merrett completely overwrite that really outdated passage for 'Visions of Heresy', and Alan wanted to do it... but we simply didn't have time before the deadline. We'll get to that task at some future point.

 

But William King's original HH text is no more canon than 'Space Marine' by Ian Watson. It's painful to see people clinging to it like it's the word of god, when everything else has been correctly, authentically and appropriately re-told since then.

 

That's...incredibly silly. 40K isn't real. It's a mash-up of pop-culture detritus and design ideas, and that's obvious to anyone who reads it. There's no great plan, no source of truth, or at least there wasn't during GW's better creative eras. Who knows now, I guess, but the idea that there's being a "correct" or "authentic" telling of a fictional universe - one whose defining event is literally the result of bad project budgeting - is total lunacy. It's all make believe.

[Marshal Rohr]

If there is a big, overarching narrative that they know, it’s time to do a sourcebook. Not a rulebook. Not a narrative like the black books.

 

A real, start to finish source book. Everything from what the Iron and Stone men were to the purpose of the Primarch project to the emperor’s grand plan to what the :cuss date is in Neu40k.

[Urriak Urruk]

What's the Black Library's line?

 

"Everything is canon, but not everything is true."

[Leif Bearclaw]

 

But why in the world do they publish things that they know are wrong at the time?

 

I doubt there's a lot of things that GW publishes that are intended to be wrong at the time of publication. I do get the feeling that higher-up people in GW's IP have gotten a...somewhat deranged point of view about these games' background, tho, that motivates these sort of conversations. There's a quote reputed to be from Laurie Goulding floating around that really sums it up for me:

 

Oh, I'd like to agree with you, and ordinarily I would. But that ADB quote directly contradicts that viewpoint. It specifically states that they publish things that aren't retconned 'wrong' later, they were 'wrong' when they were published. Which is just kinda disingenuous and awful imo.

 

 

That's...incredibly silly. 40K isn't real. It's a mash-up of pop-culture detritus and design ideas, and that's obvious to anyone who reads it. There's no great plan, no source of truth, or at least there wasn't during GW's better creative eras. Who knows now, I guess, but the idea that there's being a "correct" or "authentic" telling of a fictional universe - one whose defining event is literally the result of bad project budgeting - is total lunacy. It's all make believe.

 

 

I'm not so sure. The idea of their being a 'correct' version of 40k isn't intrinsically awful. If something like the infamous female Space Marines turned up, or Chaos Grey Knights, repentant Imperial Daemon Princes or even something 'simple', like Guardsmen engaging ships in orbit with their lasguns, people would justifiably say 'that's , not 40k'. However 'we couldn't retcon this because we didn't have time/budget' is a particularly bad excuse, especially while claiming the published material isn't considered accurate canon by the studio, yet was published (and charged for) anyway. There either shouldn't be a 'grand plan', or if there is, they should stick to it, and not deliberately contradict themselves (not counting the handful of times unreliable narrators have been used effectively, but that's a different conversation). That said, Laurie Goulding always seemed to be one of the worst 'ivory tower IP' types, from the bits of online correspondence I observed. He often made it seem like he thought his job was to 'get one over' on the fans, because we would believe the officially published fluff sources. (Note, I've never met the man personally, he may be a swell guy, and this impression may be the result of unfortunate wordings/the limitations of text, but that's the vibe I've gotten from what I've seen of his interactions with the community).

[Brother Lunkhead]

Brother Lief, I feel your pain on this. But I think Brother Urriah nailed it with his 16 Dec post... 'Everything is canon, but not everything is true.' Also, 40K lore is not simply 'a mash-up of pop-culture detritus and design ideas'. The lore of 40K is fairly well thought out and the folks who created (and are still creating it) know a lot more than we the fans do. Some bits they let seep out years after establishing and idea. An example is the fact that Alpharius and Omegon are twin primarchs of the Alpha Legion. In an interview with Dan Abnett, he mentioned that when he was developing the story for his novel Legion​, he was told that this idea was established when AL was first created. Who knew?..... the GW fluff factory knew, that's who. The point is, we the fan base have absolutely no control over this aspect of 40k and there NEVER will be an over-all  source book. The lore will stay the same or it will change as the Chaos gods of GW will it as needs be. This can be more than a bit maddening as some cherished bit of lore is modified, retconned, or abandoned (certainly true for me). But that doesn't mean that we as fans can't hold onto that cherished bit of lore in our heads and heart, or in our story telling. That's our right... and who knows, that favorite bit of lore may even come back some day. Stranger things have happened.

 

​Sooo...... what does this have to do with  chaos undivided? Everything and nothing. From what I've read in this post, everyone has a legitimate point based on what they know of the lore. But that could be turned on it's head any moment by the lore masters. In some ways that keeps things interesting and us on our toes. We should not be pigeonholed by the ebb and flow of lore coming out of GW. Nor should GW be pigeonholed by our desire for continuity.

 

​Thanks to Brothers Urriah and Lay for your references. They were very helpful.

 

​

 

Chaos Undivided is more than just the worship of the gods as a pantheon or the gods teaming up on rare occasions. It's (or was) a range of different beliefs and practices, such as alignment to independent powers, worshiping Chaos in its entirety with the gods representing mere aspects of a larger entity or even using Chaos as a tool through temporary pacts over lasting commitments.

It's a concept that has always been a bit more fleshed out in Warhammer Fantasy, especially the excellent Liber Chaotica books.

 

I don't think we are in disagreement on this point. Worshipping chaos as a pantheon includes a range of different beliefs and practices, it does not preclude them. For example, within the Word Bearers Legion there are warbands  that dedicate themselves to a particular chaos deity. The worship of chaos undivided acknowledges the power of chaos as a whole. Each aspect (and not all aspects are represented by the chaos gods) has power and influence.

[Scribe]

If there is a big, overarching narrative that they know, it’s time to do a sourcebook. Not a rulebook. Not a narrative like the black books.

 

A real, start to finish source book. Everything from what the Iron and Stone men were to the purpose of the Primarch project to the emperor’s grand plan to what the date is in Neu40k.

 

I'd pay a king's ransom for that, (and to have it written by ADB and MvS and French and Wraight) but we all know thats not just a pipe dream, but is something they actively would refuse to do.