Chaos Enmities (maglag and MGuy stay out)

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Mon Sep 12, 2016 7:14 am

Some time ago, the Den helped me figure out why Nurgle and Slaanesh would hate each other on a fundamental philosophical level. During the discussion it came up that having the Chaos gods all be opposed to one another with constantly changing alliances would be better than two pairs of static nemeses. I agreed, but I didn't think it was worth the trouble to try and come up with four additional philosophical points of opposition to cover Nurgle/Tzeentch, Nurgle/Khorne, Khorne/Slaanesh, and Tzeentch/Slaanesh. Today I decided hey, why not give it a go.

So I'm trying to figure out fundamental philosophical incompatibilities that drive each of these four pairs to fight one another, and while they don't have to be the kinds of philosophical differences that would drive non-crazy people to violence, "there's not enough hours in the day" is insufficient. It's not enough that every hour you spend hacking people up is an hour not spent snorting cocaine, Slaanesh needs to somehow resent you for hacking up people (or doing something else Khorne deeply approves of and requires of his followers) altogether.

Let's take Khorne/Tzeentch as an example, since that enmity I've already worked out. Khorne is the god of honor, courage, and violence. He likes it when you solve your problems in a straightforward and honest way (but he doesn't particularly care about justice, so if your problem is "I don't rule the world" and your solution is "personally murder people until they make me king of the world," Khorne is totally okay with that). Tzeentch is the god of brilliance, ambition, and deception. He likes it when you solve your problems in a cunning and roundabout way. When you solve a problem by murdering it in the face, Tzeentch doesn't just like you less because you could've been manipulative, he likes you less because what you did is the antithesis of how he does things. It's not just that he'd rather you were doing something else, he specifically resents the approach you took.

You can do something like pull off a long and convoluted Xanatos Roulette that ends with you beating half an army to death with your bare hands and Tzeentch would normally despise you for that climax but he has to respect that everything went according to keikaku for seven years in order to reach that point, and Khorne would be pissed at you for saying something different out of either end of your mouth for nearly a decade but you beat a hive tyrant to death with another hive tyrant and he needs to give you props for that.

As a refresher, the conclusion I reached from the last thread as to the Nurgle/Slaanesh enmity was that Nurgle represents apathy, zen contentment, and acceptance. He loves every life form down to the most virulent of bacteria and he wants everyone else to share that love, but is not especially bothered if they reject him. Slaanesh represents passion, a will to feel more extreme highs and reach greater heights of excellence. They don't want to spend their life learning to be content with literally toxic communities, they want to be surrounded by only the best and to be constantly pushing the boundaries of what the best is.

So, Khorne/Tzeentch: Straightforward, brutal, and violent honesty vs. cunning, labyrinthine deception

Nurgle/Slaanesh: Acceptance of and contentment with anything no matter how awful it seems at first glance vs. acceptance of nothing except the very best and constantly pushing the boundary of what the best is.

Nurgle/Tzeentch: ???

Nurgle/Khorne: ???

Khorne/Slaanesh: ???

Tzeentch/Slaanesh: ???

I'm wondering if there might be a solution where Nurgle and Slaanesh both have something in common that they have opposed to both Tzeentch and Khorne. Nurgle and Slaanesh's philosophies are both about how you live your life day-to-day and who you surround yourself with, whereas Tzeentch and Khorne's are primarily concerned with how you solve your problems. I don't really see a conflict there. In fact, I see rather unfortunately something of the opposite. A Slaaneshi cultist can pair off with either Khorne or Tzeentch and both are pretty compatible with how Slaanesh does things because Slaanesh is about the end goal - more - whereas Khorne and Tzeentch are about reaching it. So how can Slaanesh hate Khorne and Tzeentch when they have little overlap?

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Mon Sep 12, 2016 7:34 am

Per canon, it's something like Khorne hates Slaanesh and vice versa because the Blood God thinks that chasing the whims and wishes of the Prince of Excess is an unacceptable frivolous distraction from killing all the things (and the Prince of Excess thinks the reverse), while Nurgle hates Tzeentch and vice versa because Nurgle represents passive zen acceptance and contentment while Tzeentch represents constantly scrabbling and scheming to make your lot better or even just for the sake of doing so.

The above was written from memory, anyone who has more recent detailed interaction with the mythos is welcome to correct.

shlominus · Post by **shlominus** » Mon Sep 12, 2016 8:10 am

omegonthesane is right. at least that used to be the fluff, it's probably changed now. when i read that khorne is a god of honor i can only chuckle. kids these days...

while nurgle/tzeentch always made sense on a fundamental level, khorne/slaanesh appears to be just a difference of focus, as slaanesh followers can (and do) find pleasure in mindless killing (the keeper of secrets was originally presented as a straightforward killing machine) and i would be surprised if most khorne followers aren't getting off while slaugtering now and then.

slaanesh "come on, khorny, don't you see there's more to existence than just killing? i mean it's fun, sure, but eating so much that you explode seems fun too, don't you think?"
khorne *chops shem's head off, both come hard*

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Mon Sep 12, 2016 8:11 am

Nurgle/Tzeentch: Some editions of WHF have emphasized the power of change as the power of creating new life, one of my favorite Chaos heroes is a Tzeentch champion that makes wounds close and flowers sprout just by walking near stuff. This contrasts with Nurgle's portfolio of stagnation, rot, and breaking things down into sludge without anything new springing from it.

Nurgle/Khorne: Khorne loves direct confrontations and 'fair fights', death by disease though is the ultimate 'unfairness' and totally unsporting.

Khorne/Slaanesh: In this case their similarities create a strong rivalry, a glory seeking warrior could serve either of them so they're in direct competition for followers.

Tzeentch/Slaanesh: Tzeentch needs to use the computer for his research paper but Slaanesh left the keyboard sticky and now there's a virus on the computer that makes every website Tzeentch tries to open go to porn sites.

I'm wondering if there might be a solution where Nurgle and Slaanesh both have something in common that they have opposed to both Tzeentch and Khorne.

Lazy fucks can pray to Nurgle and Slaanesh alike, Nurgle makes them content with their lifestyle and maybe make harder working/more talented people's faces rot off for the luls. Slaanesh can make them wish fulfillment leads who attract sexy companions despite having no redeeming qualities.

In comparison Khorne and Tzeench only grant powers to people that work really hard at things. That's why the Khorne elves that do pushups every day and follow a strict sleep cycle for maximum gains have a huge dislike of those Slaanesh elves that just get high and have orgies and can't tell when day or night ends/begins.

shlominus · Post by **shlominus** » Mon Sep 12, 2016 9:14 am

it's incredibly entertaining how everyone interprets the chaos gods in their own personal way. makes me think gw did a good job twith them (at least originally) cause obviously a definite, objective breakdown of "chaos gods" would be dumb. the original fluff was great.

i laugh about some of ogrebattles views (fair fights? khorne seeks death and killing, even of allies and it's own followers, a warband slaughtering a village is hardly "fair", yet most pleasing to khorne), but they are still valid, cause very little definite can and should be said about gods.

the more you define them, the more boring they become.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Sep 12, 2016 9:14 am

Khorne hates Slaanesh and Nurgle hates Tzeentch because the two pairs were written in different books a few years apart. All four gods didn't get on the same stage for a few years after that with a new edition.

The chaos gods don't make any sense and lack any consistent philosophy. Khorne could just as well hate Nurgle because Khorne is red and Nurgle is Green, which are opposite colors. Tzeentch could hate Slaanesh because they are both claiming the heraldic color of Pink.

-Username17

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Sep 12, 2016 9:18 am

The chaos gods don't make any sense and lack any consistent philosophy.

makes perfect sense for gods of chaos to not make any sense whatsoever.

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Mon Sep 12, 2016 9:40 am

Stahlseele wrote:
The chaos gods don't make any sense and lack any consistent philosophy.
makes perfect sense for gods of chaos to not make any sense whatsoever.

That.

Tzenceth in particular has no end plan whatsoever. He schemes for the sake of scheming.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Sep 12, 2016 11:52 am

LOL Randumb isn't good writing, it's bad writing. Remember, these assholes aren't just randoms on the Internet trolling people for lulz, these are supposed to be factions with giant armies of people willing to kill and die in their name.

If you retreat to the position that Tzeentch's schemes are ultimately without direction or goal, you render the entire concept that there are nations pledging themselves to this crap and others brought to their knees by those who have as ludicrous farce. If you Khorne does not in fact care whether anyone wins or loses, there is no reason for anyone to fight for him.

It would be one thing if the gods didn't really give a shit and people ust sort of incidentally acknowledged or worshipped them in the hope that power popped out. But Warhammer does not have Bretonian knights wearing the mark of Khorne. Instead it has armies of people fighting for Khorne. Which in the absence of any specific reason for anyone to want Khorne to win wars is fucking retarded.

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Mon Sep 12, 2016 12:40 pm

Frank, in case you forgot, the chaos gods may decide to "reward" your victories in their name by turning your hands into sponges and your eyes into nails until you only want to scream but no longer have a mouth. For each ascended Daemon Prince there's countless forsaken and spawn that got unlucky along the way.

However becoming a daemon prince is pretty much the best endgame a mortal can look for in warhammer. Many people simply consider it worth the risk. Or are just plain crazy. Sanity is for the weak and stuff.

Also people need to get their head out of "mono-god army or GTFO". Chaos always had multi-god armies. Chaos undivided is a thing, with any combination of the lonrandom gods willing to fight against a common enemy when they're in the right mood. And a lot of chaos followers indeed just worship all the chaos gods simultaneously hoping they get a reward from any of them. They're called troops without marks.

The reason why there's no Khorne Brettonians is because Brettonians already worship the Lady of the Lake and she, unlike the chaos gods, will be pretty pissed if you worship anybody else.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Sep 12, 2016 12:40 pm

Khorne does not care whose blood is spilled. Or at least, his followers believe that. See Kharne the Betrayer for example.

Why would Tzeench ever want you to succeed in anything?
Success is static, so as soon as you have reached success, Tzeench changes it because it annoys him.

shlominus · Post by **shlominus** » Mon Sep 12, 2016 1:25 pm

stahlseele is right.

khorne get's more powerful by people killing stuff. that's all khorne cares about.

slaanesh gets more powerful by people enjoying senusal experiences to excess. that's all slaanesh cares about.

tzeentch gets more powerful by stuff changing and by changing stuff. that's all tzeentch care about.

nurgle gets more powerful by people accepting that suffering and decay are part of their lives and subconsciously embracing that. nurgle is the most psychological complex of the big 4.

they are metaphysical manifestations of extremes. what their followers do in their name is much more "rational".

FrankTrollman wrote:It would be one thing if the gods didn't really give a shit and people ust sort of incidentally acknowledged or worshipped them in the hope that power popped out.

most people following the chaos gods want power, the gods want to be fed according to their personal desires. that's the deal, it's that simple.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Sep 12, 2016 1:57 pm

Oi, no badmouthing Unca Nurgle in here!
His followers don't suffer, that is his whole selling point!
You are getting old. You are sick. Everything hurts. Life is suffering.
Come, let me make it better for you. May not look nice, but it will feel good.
Like your old shoes, that fugly stained tshirt that just hangs right of your frame. We are family. We accept you despite it all. You will have fun or simply not care anymore at all, depending on what you want it to be.

Technically, a Nurgle Win is inevitable in the WH40K Universe.
There will always be decay. Entropy itself is decay on a universal scale.
Even if it all ends in a galaxy wide war between the dimensions, the aftermath will have rotting corpes, burning worlds, dieing stars.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Mon Sep 12, 2016 6:48 pm

I really don't care about canon, and I've already said that the not enough hours argument isn't good enough. It's a universal argument that can be applied to any two sets of philosophies, which makes it hollow, and which also means I really don't need anyone else to tell me it's an option. If I found an answer as simple as "Slaanesh doesn't like you stabbing people because that's time you could've spent snorting coke" satisfying, it would not have been even a little bit hard to come up with that on my own.

I also don't care that the gods of Chaos were not originally intended to be satisfying philosophical opposition. If that were the case, I could just read the books in which they were released (which I already have) and that would provide a clear explanation of what they stand for and why they hate each other and then I would be done with it. I can (and have) design a new pantheon of gods who are evil only because they represent extremist perversions of reasonable philosophies or human motivations, but that pantheon just won't get the same traction as taking the Chaos Gods and trying to build some interesting philosophical subtext into them, no matter how shaky that foundation is.

OgreBattle wrote: Lazy fucks can pray to Nurgle and Slaanesh alike, Nurgle makes them content with their lifestyle and maybe make harder working/more talented people's faces rot off for the luls. Slaanesh can make them wish fulfillment leads who attract sexy companions despite having no redeeming qualities.

In comparison Khorne and Tzeench only grant powers to people that work really hard at things. That's why the Khorne elves that do pushups every day and follow a strict sleep cycle for maximum gains have a huge dislike of those Slaanesh elves that just get high and have orgies and can't tell when day or night ends/begins.

I like this depiction of Craftworld Eldar vs. Dark Eldar, but it's still ultimately an hours in the day argument. If you're a bodybuilder who also has cocaine orgies, that does mean you are spending less time bodybuilding or having cocaine orgies than if you only did one or the other, but Khorne doesn't specifically dislike cocaine orgies nor does Slaanesh specifically dislike bodybuilding. In fact, if bodybuilding (and then maiming people) is your passion, Slaanesh is all in favor of you being obsessively dedicated to it.

Now, Khorne/Nurgle works, I think. Nurgle doesn't just lack a work ethic, he actively discourages work ethic, and his lazy apathy is pretty hostile to Tzeentch's "be the change you want to see in the world" attitude as well. Nurgle actually dislikes it when you try to go out and change things or improve yourself. He thinks it's misguided and an indication of a lack of enlightenment. Khorne is a god of honor, and a part of honor culture is that you don't take shit from anybody, whereas Nurgle encourages you to wallow in whatever shit gets dropped on you, so that one clearly goes both ways, and likewise the lack of ambition that Nurgle represents is not just orthogonal to Tzeentch's philosophy by despicable to Tzeentch's philosophy. Tzeentch is a god of change and ambition, to stagnate and become content with anything is depraved in his view.

I'm also having trouble seeing Tzeentch/Slaanesh fit into this framework, though. Slaanesh might not have the exact same work ethic that Tzeentch does, but Slaanesh's pursuit of passions isn't offensive to Tzeentch for any reason other than that running a cocaine orgy and rigging an election are two different things and Tzeentch likes the latter more. You can still do both one after the other and it won't be particularly hard to keep Tzeentch and Slaanesh happy simultaneously because Tzeentch is indifferent to cocaine orgies. He doesn't inherently like you less for having ever had one.

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Mon Sep 12, 2016 7:01 pm

As I believe I expressed with respect to The Hungry in the thread about factions in Finality, I think it's philosophically interesting to have one out of the factions not really have a philosophical instead of "they're rivals" basis for opposing the others. So, so long as Khorne/Nurgle and Nurgle/Tzeentch and Tzeentch/Khorne all have philosophical issues, Slaanesh can just be the druggie who gets on or doesn't according to realpolitik.

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Mon Sep 12, 2016 7:28 pm

Khorne perhaps wants all of his followers to be putting themselves in harms way all of the time - get to the next fight - blood for the blood god. Tzeentch takes a long view. His followers must develop themselves through study and intrigue. But as a result, they must withhold themselves from certain fights.

They may get along for a time when they're both ready to go to war, but every step on the way to that point they would be in conflict. Khorne would demand that Tzeentch commit his forces and Tzeentch would refuse. Meanwhile, Tzeentch would want Khorne to 'hold back' so he can bring his plan to fruition - conquering the city from within through subtlety.

Your factions may benefit from being very different. Khorne followers will be primarily low-level fodder that die thousands at a time, while Tzeentch followers would whisper in the ears of power. LotR orcs to Wormtongue.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Mon Sep 12, 2016 8:58 pm

Omegonthesane wrote:As I believe I expressed with respect to The Hungry in the thread about factions in Finality, I think it's philosophically interesting to have one out of the factions not really have a philosophical instead of "they're rivals" basis for opposing the others.

Sure, but I think this is best represented in Chaos by specific Chaos factions who pledge allegiance to neither a specific Chaos god nor to Chaos Undivided. The Iron Warriors and Night Lords, for example (maybe also the Word Bearers, but you can make a pretty good case for their being loyal to the specific cause of Chaos Undivided).

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Sep 12, 2016 9:33 pm

Is . . is the alpha Legion even still a thing that exists?
I think they are pretty much undecided as well.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Mon Sep 12, 2016 10:26 pm

The Alpha Legion exists, but their allegiance isn't undecided, it's secret, which is an important difference.

Rawbeard · Post by **Rawbeard** » Mon Sep 12, 2016 10:53 pm

shlominus wrote:when i read that khorne is a god of honor i can only chuckle. kids these days...

Wait... what?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Sep 12, 2016 11:17 pm

Khorne started out as a god of warfare and fighting and martial prowress . .
Somehow. Nobody really knows how. Just that his eldest Greater Daemon was once Ghengis Khan.

Hell, the khornate space elves regularly summon a greater daemon of khorne to help in their very honourable battles against their foes . .
Which itself is but a shard of the Elvish Khornate Aspect of War, left over after one of their other chaos gods broke him into thousands of little pieces. So maybe Khorne stopped caring about Honour then and ther, having his more honourable part destroyed like that.

Nurgle appearantly appeared first when the black death was lose in europe by the way.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Tue Sep 13, 2016 1:43 am

Nurgle is actually the embodiment of hope, if I remember correctly. I have a copy of the Liber Chaotica around here somewhere.

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Tue Sep 13, 2016 5:05 am

Hope to simply live another day is one of Nurgle's aspects yes.

Stahlseele wrote:Khorne started out as a god of warfare and fighting and martial prowress . .
Somehow. Nobody really knows how. Just that his eldest Greater Daemon was once Ghengis Khan.

That would be a bit hard, since Genghis Khan ascended to daemonhood after defeating one of Khorne's strongest bloodthirsters at the time in close combat.

Khorne started with the first time a sapient being cracked another sapient being's head with a rock just because.

Pixels · Post by **Pixels** » Tue Sep 13, 2016 4:57 pm

Stahlseele wrote:Hell, the khornate space elves regularly summon a greater daemon of khorne to help in their very honourable battles against their foes . .
Which itself is but a shard of the Elvish Khornate Aspect of War, left over after one of their other chaos gods broke him into thousands of little pieces. So maybe Khorne stopped caring about Honour then and ther, having his more honourable part destroyed like that.

I think you're confusing Khaine and Khorne. Khaine got shattered when Slaanesh was working on its Eldar god kill streak, but Khorne existed before that and continued after with no change. I don't think they were the same entity.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Tue Sep 13, 2016 5:07 pm

Have you seen the Avatar as of late? O.o
https://1d4chan.org/images/b/bb/LatestKhaine.jpg
Tell me that is not Khornes Sigil on / as his Head.

If this is a splinter of Khaine, then Khaine was an aspect of Khorne.