Of old ones and dragon ogres

[strv]

I am currently reading "At the montains of madness" by H P Lovencraft. A slow read for me, the English being heavier then my swedish mind wish to comprehend.

Anyway in the book thus far is the old ones, a star dwelling people that has brought with them a slave race called shoggots. Quite similar (in name at least) to the dragon ogre shaggot.

I know that in the warhammer world that dragon ogres are not creatures of chaos.
But how do they relate to the old ones. Is this explained? I have never owned any chaos book.

Are there any other lovencraft links to the warhammer world beyond the old ones?

[Craze_b0i]

Dragon Ogres are native to planet warhammer, they existed before the Old Ones. Hence the two species are unconnected.

[Naanomi]

The Shaggoth/Shartarks *may* have sold out to Chaos because of the Old Ones and how it ruined the native ecology to the point that they couldn't survive... or they may have done so before the Old Ones came. Fluff is inconsistent about it.

[Craze_b0i]

The Shaggoth/Shartarks *may* have sold out to Chaos because of the Old Ones and how it ruined the native ecology to the point that they couldn't survive... or they may have done so before the Old Ones came. Fluff is inconsistent about it.

Except the fluff says the chaos gods were only born when the warp gate collapsed.* So the pact must have come afterwards.

*Warhammer Armies: Daemons p.14.

[Scalebug]

Yeah, I never liked the term "Shaggoth" (IIRC it wasn't invented for the 6th ed Hordes of Chaos book, but appeared already in the Realms of Chaos books in 1990), just because of this; It conjures up a conceptual connection to Lovecraft's Shogoths, without being anything like them...

Except the fluff says the chaos gods were only born when the warp gate collapsed.* So the pact must have come afterwards.

*Warhammer Armies: Daemons p.14.

Well, we have the whole non-linearity of time on "the other side", so while the collapse might have caused tehm to be birthed, their existence stretches out backwards in time. Or the Dragon Ogres made their pact with other chaos powers fully concious before the fall of the old ones, and the collapse gave birth to the "big four" who became prevalent after that. The Fimir and other races that are described as older than the Old ones creations also had dealings with chaos, and were marked for extermination by the Old ones possibly because of that.

[Athelassan]

The novel Malekith indicates the Dragon Ogres made their pact with Chaos prior to the arrival of the Old Ones.

I believe somewhere else suggested (or even stated outright) that the Dragon Ogres made their pact with Chaos as a result of a war with the true dragons which almost destroyed them.

As to how they did this before the Chaos Gods were "born", I suspect there's being born and being born, where multi-dimensional nonsentient aethyric entities are concerned.

[Craze_b0i]

As to how they did this before the Chaos Gods were "born", I suspect there's being born and being born, where multi-dimensional nonsentient aethyric entities are concerned.

Maybe so. But I doubt that was the intent. I think its simply a matter of different writers contradicting each other.

Of course each individual fan is free to invent a compromise-version if they so wish. Alternately they can choose to accept one text at the expense of the other. Jervis Johnson said he personally goes with whatever text is most recent. But I guess there is no right or wrong answer here (just poor editing).

[Spedgal]

So... firmir and Shaggoth served Chaos before the Old Ones came... no wonder the gates collapsed, there were sabatours on planet to begin with!

[TheDungen]

The sundering says the dragons fought the shaggoths before the comming of the old ones and i think it mentions them sellign themselves to chaos before that too. Which is because of the paradox that is chaos ofcourse. the chaos gods have existed as long as there have been thinking creatures but they were also created byt he fall of the old ones.


Also when in doubt: go with whatever fluff isnt written by Matt Ward. (Or in the case of Beastmen, go with the fluff that isnt written by Phil Kelly)

[GavT]

The sundering says the dragons fought the shaggoths before the comming of the old ones and i think it mentions them sellign themselves to chaos before that too. Which is because of the paradox that is chaos ofcourse. the chaos gods have existed as long as there have been thinking creatures but they were also created byt he fall of the old ones.

I think there is a confusion between the Chaos Gods' existence and their 'arrival' in the Warhammer World. The Realm of Chaos is eternal, as are the gods that are made up of its energy. It is possible for beings to be aware of these entities and worship them before the collapse of the polar gate brought 'physical' Chaos to the Warhammer world. The Warhammer World was saturated with Chaos energy following the departure of the Old Ones, but the RoC must have existed previously (and hence the Chaos Gods existed previously) in order for the Old Ones to use it as a means of star travel.

Cheers,

Gav

[Craze_b0i]

Hi Gav, I agree there is some confusion but in this case I think it is the source material not just the fans. Daemons specifically refers to the birth of the chaos gods at a specific moment "the destruction of the warp gates marked not only the birth of the chaos gods...". Daemons, p.14. Though we also have the seemingly contradictory fluff on p12 saying Slannesh is the youngest of the 4 (though maybe he was born several minutes/hours later than the other three?).