If all Gods are Chaos Gods...

[Lady's Champion]

If all Gods are Chaos Gods ultimately (see horders of chaos book) doesn't that mean that indirectly all the people are the Warhammer World are indirectly worshipping at least 1 of the great 4?

If this is so then why do the Chaos armies slaughter all through Kislev and the Empire? Surely all the inhabitants are worshipping Chaos Gods anyway, so basically the Gods would be killing their own followeres.

Any thoughts?

[RobC]

*sigh*
It doesn't work like that.

All gods owe their existance to human belief and emotion. The warp gives strong feelings form. The strongest emotions, those we all share and cannot control, have manifested as insane, capricious warp entities. But, because the warp is nothing like reality, there are no complete distinctions. Even Khorne and Slaanesh have the occasional overlap, despite their usually being sworn enemies.

The lesser gods embody lesser emotions and/or beliefs, and as such some of their energies are shared by the Chaos gods. If you're a worshipper of Ulric, you will think it fine to enter a rage in battle. But while your battlefield prowess might benefit Ulric, the underlying raw emotion will feed Khorne. If you're a davout Shallyan, the hope you feel in helping the poor and downtrodden will also feed Nurgle.

I've not explained this very well, but it is at the heart of the Warhammer mythos and I find it quite exasperating that so many gamers seem to completely miss the point.

[ryng_sting]

The answer is that they are, but also that they're not.

Each of the major 4 powers represents, at their core, one of the strongest mortal emotions. Khorne represents rage , Slaanesh pleasure, Tzeentch hope, and Nurgle despair (disease isn't an emotion). Each has since branched out to encompass other, related emotions. Rage leads to hate, which leads to violence, which leads to war. So Khorne has become not only the god of rage, but also the god of war, blood, hate, the urge to destroy and dominate, slaughter, and martial prowess. This is why the Chaos powers are so powerful - the core emotions that form them are so broad.

This is where other gods fit in. Other gods are based on more specific emotions or concepts, which is partly why they are less powerful. If each Chaos god is a space of land, the other gods would be buildings upon them. Ulric, like Khorne, stands for martial prowess, contempt for the weak and self-suffiency; so he stands somewhere in Khorne's 'zone'. Shallya, similarly, stands on Tzeentch's territory, standing as she does for hope and mercy in the face of despair and entropy, which are the domain of Tzeentch's great adversary, Nurgle. This means the lesser gods are connected to them, but not under their control in any way, shape or form. Each has drives and goals that oppose those of the Chaos gods. Sigmar, among other things, stands for self-suffiency and unity in the face of Chaos, and the righteous power to smite evil.

Sound simple, so far?

Now imagine the places where each of these zones overlap. There you find other gods: the Horned Rat lies somewhere between Nurgle and Tzeentch, while Myrmidia and Sigmar, as martial gods, stand on Khorne's territory. This gets even more complicated when you take into account the gods who were once mortal...

Only excessive levels of each god's core emotion give them any direct power over mortals. True, every minor squabble or brawl might empower Khorne in some minor way, but these are barely crumbs compared to the food he can find elsewhere. It is known that the gods ignore other mortals in order to can lean on those who best nourish them and go on nourishing them.

[Lord Lucifer]

If all Gods are Chaos Gods ultimately (see horders of chaos book) doesn't that mean that indirectly all the people are the Warhammer World are indirectly worshipping at least 1 of the great 4?

Nope.

You only worship Khorne if you worship in his name, and likewise with Tzeentch, Nurgle, Slaanesh, Verena, Shallya, Sigmar, Ulric, Taal, Morr, The Horned Rat, Hashut, Asuryan, Lileath, Kurnous, Khaine, Khaine, Khaine, Vaul, Grimnir, Valaya, Grungni, Sotek, Ranald, Haendryk etc.

Chaos, as in the army of spiky gits in the game, is not the totality of Chaos.
That faction, and the rest of Chaos, should have a clear distinction between them. To help one isn't necessarily to help the other.


The nature of the Gods is also quite complex in ways, but once you've got the basic concept it's actually quite simple.
They're sentient points in a melting pot of emotions, and the bits that form one God are also part of the bits that form another God.


Now, the Chaos Gods are the simplist and most basic form of this emotional soup.
Between them they encompass all the elements, and are at the very heart of them.
You see, not everyone knows about Ulric. Ulric is a complex God, with many aspects to his nature and a clearly defined geneology (is that the right word for it?) He is a war god, and many other things.
People that do not know of him will not worship him, or regard or observe him. However, all people know hate, rage, and anger. As soon as you give those base emotions a name, you are worshipping Khorne. It is far easier to indirectly worship the Greater Powers than it is to indirectly worship a God from the civilised pantheons.



Much, much, MUCH more to say on the subject, but I'll cut myself short here

[barbarella]

Also I don't think khorne is particularly fussy who gets killed, even his own followers, as long as there's plenty of bloodshed.

[Lady's Champion]

I thought Slaanesh was excess, not pleasure?

[ryng_sting]

Excess is not an emotion but a state deriving from pleasure, which is an emotion. Pleasure comes from many sources. It can come from taking pleasure in fine wine or food, or torturing animals. Slaanesh doesn't care. Excess (and selfishness) is the inevitable destination for his followers: each sensation they take makes them more jaded and desperate, so they plumb ever further depths of depravity, which numb them even more, and so on. Slaaneshi worship - to borrow MvS's metaphor - is like a drug habit.

[MorningStar]

Well the way I take it why the chaos gods are more powerful then the rest is because they let you give in too your baser instincts. So that is why khorne, tzeentch, nurgle and slannesh get so many followers and of course the more followers the more powerful a god because they are feeding off of those emotions.

[librerian_samae]

if you go by that theory though, just how POWERFULL would the horned rat be?!?!?!

[MorningStar]

Don't know much about fantasy battles so I don't know but from that experision i would think pretty powerful

[metro_gnome]

a little off topic... but there was a thread like this over here... in which someone quoted a interview with Gav on the matter... for the life of me i can't find it today... anyone know where it is... to post over here?

[brother_fandango]

NURRGGLEEEE! *slight chuckle*

[metro_gnome]

found it:

I'm just going by what Gav said a while ago.

Do you want the 'real' answer, on the answer as perceived by an educated inhabitant of the Warhammer world.

In real terms, as described in Hordes of Chaos, all gods are but aspects of the four Great Powers. Think of four overlapping circles within a larger circle. The large circle is Chaos, or what we refer to in the rules as Chaos Undivided. Within that are the four Great Powers. Where they overlap, there are concurrent and conflicting entities which bear portions of the vague consciousness of the Great Powers. Any lesser god will be a dot or smaller circle overlapping the diagram across the relevant Greater Powers. The example of the Horned Rat is a good one, as it is obviously dominated by Nurgle, but does have elements of Tzeentch in there as well.

If you are talking about perceptions of the inhabitants, then they are unaware of the above (or driven mad by it if they find out!). They are aware that there is a large pantheon of gods, includig the four Great Powers. To them, each is distinct, although some may have different names for the same gods Ð for example, the marauder peoples have many different names for the Great Powers, and some may even have several names for the same Great Power.

GAV

i don't find it a better explantion than the others... but i do find it more official...

[Outcast995]

answer: the over lapping emotional theory applies to most gods but their are a few exceptions

Lizardmen: techinically most of their gods are old ones who have gone or died

Tomb kings: Dont know what their god are but they where invented before cause came thuse cant be imbodment of cause(pressumed to be old ones to)

their might be a few others but i only know alot about half of warhammers major religons.

[metro_gnome]

well i wouldnt be so sure...

wouldn't belief in these gods... lizard and tomb king... create a place for them amongst the panthenon of other gods in the warhammer world...

as sigmar became a god by belief in him... so too did sotek become a god long after he died or left or whatever...

[ryng_sting]

Sotek is the only Lizardman god to have existed post-polar catastrophe. The suggestion is that he's the manifestation of Lizardmen vengeance and anger, and desire to defend their homeland. Sigmar generated his own godhood; belief merely fuelled its rise. Once a god enters the aethyr, the abode of gods, they're setting up shop in the gaps occupied by the big four, regardless of how they got there. This includes Sigmar.

[RobC]

There are no gaps between the big four, technically speaking. It's just that the lesser gods offer a more focused aspect on an emotion or belief. And thus they are much less powerful.

[Konrad_Curze II]

I don't think any of the Chaos Gods have hang-ups about killing their own followers, or cursing them, or inflicting dubious 'gifts' on them. They're the Chaos Gods, the Dark Powers, a bunch of capricious gits if there ever was any.

just ask belakor what he got from them?

tzeentch for a laugh cursed him for all eternity...and he was the first everchosen of chaos!!!

[Eldacar]

just ask belakor what he got from them?

tzeentch for a laugh cursed him for all eternity...and he was the first everchosen of chaos!!!

Erm, no, he wasn't. He was the first Daemon Prince of Chaos, AFAIK, not the first Everchosen.

Actually, I thought Archaon was the Everchosen, and all the others were just precursors to him for a while.

[shadowprince]

So does this mean the elf gods like Isha Kuronous and Khain are minor aspects of chaos, becuase they where here long before the first incursian of chaos, and all the embodiments of isha are orderly