Warp And Belief: Ideas Made Manifest

[Panzer]

I don't believe we'll see the ascension of the Emperor for real. According to Sanguinus prophecy Dante has access to it's described as basically the absolute finale of the end times that is 40k. Basically the breaking point between whfb and aos.

[Kastor Krieg]

 

If it ever actually comes to that, now it makes me wonder. Was the 180-degree retcon in Black Templars fluff (switching them from last exemplars of Imperial Truth with only the surface pretense of religiousness, at around 4e, to actual Emperor-bothering pre-Heresy Word Bearers) intentional and a foretelling of this event, with them planned as avangarde of the Emperor-As-God and Ministorum reinforced vs Guilliman's constant push for the secularity he remembers?

Was this a retcon? It's been a while, and I don't have the old BT Codexes on me to confirm, but I'm pretty sure the Black Templars had a very religious outlook from their first "fleshing out" back in the 3rd Ed Armageddon Codex. One heavily influenced by the crusading warrior archetype, but revere-and-worship was a big part of that, IIRC. Certainly the concept of the Imperial Truth didn't come along until sometime in mid/late 4th Edition, in the Heresy artbooks.

 

Either way, I'm fairly certain that nothing done during the 6th Ed books was done with the current setting in mind. The big changes to the Templars seem to have been done because they were folded back into the Marine Codex, and there was some (fairly misguided, IIRC) effort to bring them in line with traditional Astartes practices.

 

Between the 4e dex, the surrounding fluff snippets and the Helsreach book, Templars were using a lot of religious props but were explicit in that the Emperor was but a man. Their Crusading had nothing to do with religious Crusades and everything to do with the secular Great Crusade of the Emperor and Imperium's past. They prided themselves on the fact that they were the only Marines still Crusading, still remembering the Emperor's original vision for mankind - freedom from the alien, the witch and the heretic; which absolutely had no place for Emperor-bothering worship. There was supposed to be Sigismund's redress for having trusted Euphrati Keeler, the first Saint of the newly formed creed, over his primarch's command (and switching places with Alexis Polux). There were tons and tons of such nuance, dig into old threads on our Templar forum, it's all been discussed throughout.

 

Later on, along with the excessive softening of their originally extremely intolerant stance on psykers (as in imperial psykers / Librarians / Astropaths being way better than "witches"), it got turned more and more towards actual prayer to the Emperor and utter oversimplification, even bulldozing down of all that Heresy and post-Heresy nuance, towards making BT "actual Templars" who proclaimed actual faith in the Emperor as God of Mankind.

 

Every time I read a "praise be" from a Templar I throw up a little in my mouth and my crozius activates, I'm telling you. 

[Panzer]

It was probably just GW doubling down on theme. Black Templars are Templars and have religious stuff all over their armour. People know Templars as religious nutjob knights because nobody bothers with actual history anymore. So GW probably tried to cash in on that public view of Templars which luckily fits with Black Templars appearance if you aren't well versed in their fluff.

It's kinda sad but also offtopic I guess. ^^

[Bryan Blaire]

So back to the Chaos Gods and only being metaphysical, etc., how does that jive with GW's own writings about the Chaos Gods within the latest Daemons Codex, where it indicates that "Though realm and god are as one, the Chaos Gods each have a form that embodies their personalities and dwells at the very heart of their territories" and then goes on to describe the forms of those same territories? Seems to me that there is very much a form within the Warp, and the term "embody" is generally defined similarly to "be an expression of or give a tangible or visible form to (an idea, quality, or feeling)" - and if they have embodied forms, then that would very much imply that other gods would likely have such as well, meaning they'd be distinct from the Chaos gods, and not "parts" of them.

 

Would folks interpret the claiming of Khaine by both Slaanesh and Khorne with the then conflict breaking Khaine apart being both the Chaos gods trying to bind the Eldar god to their Warp domains (which are described very much as places in the Warp in the Daemon 'Dex), and somehow opening a hole and sending Warp shards out into "real space" to be permanently bound as the Avatars?

 

It very much seems to me that the embodied form of Isha actually dwells as a (meta)physically distinct entity within Nurgle's realm and not as an incorporated part of the god himself.

[Kinstryfe]

It's been variously described as the gods both having form and being enormous warp section thingies. There's also been fluff where people face the gods (and their temptations) directly. I think there's no one "true" answer to it. Khorne is both a sentient warp storm and a giant armoured figure on a throne of skulls, and also part of that warpstorm is Khaine, who is also his own sentience, which overlaps with Slaanesh to a degree, who has her own form deep in the warp, but also all the gods are said to have the form of different animals, and can take almost any shape they want to tempt mortals. Basically, it's the warp and likely all the interpretations are true to one extent or another. It's a power whose runes can drive you insane and whose language can make your head explode if you speak it. There's a bit of inconsistency to be expected.

[Azekai]

It very much seems to me that the embodied form of Isha actually dwells as a (meta)physically distinct entity within Nurgle's realm and not as a incorporated part of the god himself.

There isn't much about Isha, period. However, the fact that she is referred to as a captive (rather than something else) indicates she is being held against her will; this strongly implies she has a distinct will in the first place. Nothing in the scant text refers to her being amalgamated into Nurgle. If individual mortals have ventured into the realms of the gods without being wholly subsumed by them, isn't much of a stretch to imagine a psychically constructed Eldar god could exist there.

[Panzer]

Don't forget that GW likes their "everything written is canon but not everything is necessarily true" and their "warpstuff is always described through the lense of mortals" aproaches.

[Schlitzaf]

Bryan my argument is that while originally in this example Aeldari gods were the Chaos Gods. In that when Aeldari first saw Khorne, they ‘created’ Khaine. As ‘Khaine’ was how they rationalized or otherwise Khorne.

 

Over time/Millenia due to Aeldari belief. Khaine came into being in his own right as his own truly separate individual. Thus the being that is Khaine was ‘Khorne’ but became its own actualized individual due to how Aeldari society precieved ‘Khorne’.

 

Hopefully less complicated explanation Joe the Chaos God of War appeared to Aeldari Ian. Aeldari Ian precieved Joe the God of War, as John the God of Battle. Overtime Aeldari Ian spread the beliefs of his John the God of Battle. Eventually causing Aeldari to manifest/create the Aeldari God John the God of Battle.

 

Thus Aeldari God John of Battle, whom is his at the end of end of the day his own ‘individual’, is essentially Joe Chaos God of War with the trapping (or the clothing) of the Aeldari Society And Belief.

 

Basically the shorter bullet point version

Aeldari Society noticed/learn about Khorne

Aeldari Society then molded/change Khorne to fit their societal beliefs and otherwise creating Khaine

The Aeldari Society belief/faith in Khaine, fuels the creation of their God Khaine.

 

Whom originally at stage 1 was ‘Khorne’. But over time the trapping of Aeldari Society resulted in the Aeldari believing in a being distinctly different from Khorne I.e Khaine. That distinction in the end resulted in enough of a difference that Khaine was created despite Khorne existence.

 

Khaine closest followers being similar to Khorne’s followers (becoming ‘lost’ in battle/path. Were they are glorified weapons of war whom only desire to fight). Is that getting close to Khaine requires a similar level of primal worship that Khorne asks for. The difference between these two areas and why Khaine is not Khorne. Is that even Khaine most lost followers and implicitly Khaine himself. Do care where the blood flows. Compare the Phoenix Lords/Drazhar to Khârn. Khârn kills whomever and wherever. While the lords and lesser extent Drazhar are similar to the LoTD.

[Bryan Blaire]

I disagree in the totality that it would be “Eldar perceive the god, create new facet” - that makes little sense and takes the view of someone outside the “religion”. It’s attacking the problem from the end result and trying to justify an idea using our world’s notions, rather than as Jes Goodwin said in his podcast, taking the real world ideas and placing them into the universe of 40K and letting them meld into that universe, accreting layers, until you have a formed 40K idea.

 

The way something like this would have come about in 40K is instead something more like “Eldar perceives some element of nature, life, etc. and realizes that something controls that element, when enough belief/feelings in this ideal is around, god is born” and this new god may overlap or share some amount of the covered feelings/ideals with another god from another culture, or in 40K’s case, share with the larger Chaos god.

 

That doesn’t mean that the god is or was part of that Chaos god though - however, I could definitely see the Chaos god attempting to subvert and absorb the other god, take its power and place in the society.

[Scribe]

See, I think the original was not Khorne, but Khaine.

 

We know Eldar came before Humans, and if you go back to pre-history (Realm of Chaos lore) it was Humans that created Khorne/Nurgle, etc.

 

As the pool that was Khaine grew (War in Heaven?) as War came to be more destructive and indescrimiate (Khaine the Bloody Handed...) and Humans came into the picture in force, it was the moment when Slaanesh was born and tried to take out the pantheon that Khorne said 'nah this part is mine' for Khaine, and Nurgle (god of despair and life!) said 'nah Isha comes with me'.

 

This is a reflection that those portfolio's are linked, and while Slaanesh laid claim to them as Eldar, as a purely Eldar god itself (at the time) Khorne and Nurgle also laid claim to them by association of their portfolio's.

 

I mean its a chicken/egg thing, but we know Eldar came before Human.

[Schlitzaf]

I disagree in the totality that it would be “Eldar perceive the god, create new facet” - that makes little sense and takes the view of someone outside the “religion”. It’s attacking the problem from the end result and trying to justify an idea using our world’s notions, rather than as Jes Goodwin said in his podcast, taking the real world ideas and placing them into the universe of 40K and letting them meld into that universe, accreting layers, until you have a formed 40K idea.

The way something like this would have come about in 40K is instead something more like “Eldar perceives some element of nature, life, etc. and realizes that something controls that element when enough belief/feelings in this ideal is around, god is born” and this new god may overlap or share some amount of the covered feelings/ideals with another god from another culture, or in 40K’s case, share with the larger Chaos god.

That doesn’t mean that the god is or was part of that Chaos god though - however, I could definitely see the Chaos god attempting to subvert and absorb the other god, take its power and place in the society.

When the Aeldari first realized “something” controlled that element it couldn’t be Khaine. Because Khaine wouldn’t have existed at that stage. My argument is that the “something” was Khorne. Whose perception of Khorne resulted in what would become Khaine. Khaine was never Khorne but inspired by Khorne.

[Bryan Blaire]

When I say “something” I mean in an unrealized state, such as when humans first saw lighting and thought to themselves “There must be something greater than me that does that” - not that there was a realization of the actual entity being present.

 

If Khorne was already taking their beliefs/feelings about warfare and bloodshed, there would have been no way for Khaine to exist...

[Scribe]

There would be, if Khaine is a more culturally accepted version of Khorne. Now, I dont believe that angle makes the most sense, but if Khaine is Khorne seen through the Eldar psyche...sure?

 

To me, its Khaine was there first, but was eventually overwhelmed by the pool that became Khorne, he is not completely gone however, because the Eldar are not gone, and the physical representation of Khaine (Avatar) plus racial memory, is enough to keep that small part of Khorne's Pool, from being absorbed completely.

 

Much like Isha continues to weep (despair) and is retained within the pool of Nurgle.

[Bryan Blaire]

I’m not sure the “culturally accepted view” changes the emotions that eminate and power the Warp/Chaos gods, but I also don’t have any real positive view of psychology as a “science”, so that’s probably got something to do with my view on this.

 

In my view, the emotions are there, powered by a species, and they go to a collective power whether or not it’s culturally appropriate.

 

Look at the possible creation of a “Greater Good” Warp presence (maybe a god, maybe something else) - although I’m not sure there really has been enough time/belief for that to occur, and it’s multi-species-armed form. You would think that the culturally accepted view of that being (whatever it is) would be solely T’au, even for humans, since that’s who really represents the ideal.

 

Now, if you were to say that the “appearance of the god in the Warp” is determined by the depiction of the god in the physical universe, even just in the minds of the believers, and that different depictions can segment out portions of a larger pool, maybe that would work, but gets into all kinds of weirdness itself...

[Scribe]

That would have an impact, since Freud (Khorne/Slaanesh) and Jung (Nurgle/Tzeentch) are pretty huge influences on how the Gods are set up.

[Schlitzaf]

That would have an impact, since Freud (Khorne/Slaanesh) and Jung (Nurgle/Tzeentch) are pretty huge influences on how the Gods are set up.

I.e SuperEgo concept from Freud is basically the core of my argument here.

[Lexington]

So do the gods have good traits?

 

Wellllll...kinda? As I said in the other thread, the Chaos Gods are like mountains, storms, supernovas or other purely natural phenomena. They just are. Putting "good" or "evil" on it is a human thing, and it's how we justify a slow descent into dedication to their sphere. That process is as much a part of Khorne or Slaanesh or whoever, as any of the core concept/emotions that they encompass. They're the thing, and they're the becoming of the thing, a whole that contains the process. In some ways, they're quasi-physicalized metaphors, and should be thought about as such IMO.

 

When the Aeldari first realized “something” controlled that element it couldn’t be Khaine. Because Khaine wouldn’t have existed at that stage. My argument is that the “something” was Khorne. Whose perception of Khorne resulted in what would become Khaine. Khaine was never Khorne but inspired by Khorne.

 

See, I don't think we've ever gotten much evidence that the Eldar Gods work like the Chaos Gods do. I don't know if the Eldar would even know - their whole history is so mythologized, it's hard to tell how it intersects with the metaphysics of the "current" 40K universe. Given the history of the Necrons and Old Ones, it's hard to imagine the Eldar Pantheon actually created the Immaterium, but that's the heavy suggestion of how the Eldar tell it. Which brings up that mystery of the Eldar Gods' existence in realspace - did they really walk the mortal plane? It's all kind of difficult, and gets mixed around every few years when the Studio or a BL author decides to muck with the setting's prehistory for the sake of a good yarn.

 

So back to the Chaos Gods and only being metaphysical, etc., how does that jive with GW's own writings about the Chaos Gods within the latest Daemons Codex, where it indicates that "Though realm and god are as one, the Chaos Gods each have a form that embodies their personalities and dwells at the very heart of their territories" and then goes on to describe the forms of those same territories?

This is always a difficult question, and one that I don't think can be separated from 40K's real-world business history. Before the Daemon Codex was published in 5th, Daemons and the Warp were kept pretty formless and metaphysical. There were occasional mentions of the gods' appearance and such, but the Immaterium was just a sea of undifferentiated warpstuff, and the gods themselves somehow existed in there - maybe as big storms, maybe as consciousness, whatever. They were Beyond the Veil. When Daemons were split off from CSM and turned into their own faction, tho, there needed to be distinct personalities and domains to detail, else that's going to be a thin Codex. So, we get a lot of talk about godrealms and physical locations and distinct physical forms of the gods.

 

Does this make sense? Nah. It's how things are, tho. 40K's a conglomeration of 30+ years work by hundreds of authors, across several distinct eras of writing and development in both the internal and external sense, all owned by a corporation that wouldn't think twice about upending the setting's foundations for a profit bump. The Warp's got a lot of faces, and I think we should just accept that it's whatever you want it to be.

[Lord_Caerolion]

Not sure how true that is, right back to the Realms of Chaos books there had been descriptions of the physical bodies of the gods, and the Garden of Nurgle, along with the constant descriptions of Khorne on his Skull Throne. They gave outright physical descriptions of exactly what Khorne looks like, etc.

[Lexington]

You're very much right, there, and I believe the writers of the Daemon Codex specifically cited the old RoC books as the material they built on for the Daemon Codex. There's a lot of time between the Realms books and 5th Edition, however. During 2nd, 3rd, 4th and even a lot of 5th Edition, you just didn't see much about what went on in the Warp, and what was described basically took the form of...well, formlessness. It was the thing you didn't really look at, or else you'd never look back. I'd wager a lot of this had to do with the very specific focus of this time (which could be probably described at the Chambers Era) on the material universe, and the humans/marines/eldar/whatever that inhabited it, with the metaphysical kept very much at the edges of the setting, always threatening to break out. It's a time that saw 40K develop into what we'd now consider the foundations of the setting, and it's also where a lot of us came into the game and setting, so that mode of thinking about the Warp remains prevalent.