Chaos Gods and Different Forms of Worship.

[Neverchosen]

I recently posted a lengthy post on the topic of Chaos Followers and their open ended beliefs in the Chaos Gods. I deleted the majoirty of my thoughts and ideas as I was once again clogging the rumour thread but it did spark some interest in the subject. So I was wondering how you interpreted the nature of belief within your own army's lore?  Are your God Marked army's monotheistic? Do your Beasts believe in animistic natural forms of the Gods? How do your Clan Pestilens rats balance between Nurgle and the The Great Horned Rat? Do your Hedonite pretenders truly believe that they can ascend to Godhood over their missing God?
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For my own army their faith is primarily based around lies, deceit, and betrayal. The leader of my Slaves to Darkness force was a devoted follower of Sigmar who opposed chaos worshipers in his homelands, these Chaos worshipers had a very limited understanding of the Chaos Gods. Eventually he converted the leader of the Chaos Tribes to worship Sigmar and together they lead a crusade to the Eightpoints and then upon seeing the might of Chaos fell to worshiping the Dark Powers. The former leader of the Chaos Tribes opposed his betrayal and he slew her and the other faithful of Sigmar who were all reforged into Stormcast Eternals. Now his fall was pre-empted by lies told in his court and he mapped out an understanding of the Chaotic faith based around the Eightpoint Star. This in turn was formulated from hidden chaos worshipers in his own midst who pushed these ideas upon him having gotten visions from the Tzeentchian forces to the South and heard whispers from Be'Lakor who wished to have mortal worshipers of his own within the forces of Archaon. In this pantheon Archaon is seen as a prophet and embodiment of chaos rather than a proper God as that is limited more directly to demonhood. I want to incorporate the Beasts faith into this and I am thinking that my Chaos Worshipers will view Morghur as an incomplete and corrupt Chaos god akin to a devil maybe even calling it the 'Devil Spawn'... but depending on how my narrative progresses they may sadly include Morghur in place of Malal if I ever use Beasts as allies or they get souped into Slaves to Darkness.

I have a more full narrative of the betrayal written but this is mostly focusing on how it was informed by an understanding of chaos and to help emphasize the notion that crusades are often motivated though ignoble reasons. 

Edited November 9, 2021 by Neverchosen

[EccentricCircle]

This sounds awesome. I really like this narrative, and it sounds like it will give a great focus to your force.

My own work in progress chaos army has some similar ideas at the heart of it. Firstly I am a big fan of Chaos Dwarves, and have an army of them. So I wanted my Slaves to Darkness army to be able to align with them philosophically.  I've always liked the idea of the ragged barbarian tribes on the edges of civilisation, and the old lore that the warriors of chaos trade with the Chaos Dwarves, to get their equipment, hellcanons etc.

Thus it was clear that Hashut is going to be far more prominent than the other "major" chaos gods. It also drew me away from collecting a heavily armoured chaos warrior focused warband, as my dwarves already fill a bit of that niche, and I wanted something contrasting, more based around the warcry bands. I will post more about my background when I have more time, but essentially they are a coalition of tribes who believe that it is time for the everchosen to fall, and that it is their destiny to overthrow Archaeon, and set the next champion of chaos undivided on the throne... And to unseat the champion of the four great powers, they are going to need the favour of all the others...

[Neverchosen]

1 hour ago, EccentricCircle said:

This sounds awesome. I really like this narrative, and it sounds like it will give a great focus to your force.

My own work in progress chaos army has some similar ideas at the heart of it. Firstly I am a big fan of Chaos Dwarves, and have an army of them. So I wanted my Slaves to Darkness army to be able to align with them philosophically.  I've always liked the idea of the ragged barbarian tribes on the edges of civilisation, and the old lore that the warriors of chaos trade with the Chaos Dwarves, to get their equipment, hellcanons etc.

Thus it was clear that Hashut is going to be far more prominent than the other "major" chaos gods. It also drew me away from collecting a heavily armoured chaos warrior focused warband, as my dwarves already fill a bit of that niche, and I wanted something contrasting, more based around the warcry bands. I will post more about my background when I have more time, but essentially they are a coalition of tribes who believe that it is time for the everchosen to fall, and that it is their destiny to overthrow Archaeon, and set the next champion of chaos undivided on the throne... And to unseat the champion of the four great powers, they are going to need the favour of all the others...

Wow this is a terrific idea, are you using Warcry Warbands? I feel like the Iron Golems seem like they are likely worshipers of Hashut. Are you using the Chaos Dwarves as proxies for Chaos Warriors? I feel like this force is something Be'Lakor would likely want to dip his shadowy talons into particularly if they can upend the status quo in the eight points. 

I also wish them luck in taking down Archaon even though it means they'd technically come into conflict with my own army... that is if my army can ever find the time to leave the fictional region I developed for my lore and the neighbouring regions of my friends armies.

Edited November 13, 2021 by Neverchosen

[EccentricCircle]

3 hours ago, Neverchosen said:

Wow this is a terrific idea, are you using Warcry Warbands? I feel like the Iron Golems seem like they are likely worshipers of Hashut. Are you using the Chaos Dwarves as proxies for Chaos Warriors? I feel like this force is something Be'Lakor would likely want to dip his shadowy talons into particularly if they can upend the status quo in the eight points. 

I also wish them luck in taking down Archaon even though it means they'd technically come into conflict with my own army... that is if my army can ever find the time to leave the fictional region I developed for my lore and the neighbouring regions of my friends armies.

Thanks!

Yes, I figure that the Iron Golems are the most Hashut aligned of the warcry factions (though I don't actually have any of them yet. Some day...)

I'm conceptualising my army as being based around the "other" four chaos gods. So there are Chaos Dwarves representing Hashut, Beastmen representing Zuvassin the god of destruction, and then my Cypher Lords, are the "Apostates of Necoho" representing his role as god of atheism. Most of the rest of the army is made up of unaligned barbarians and the other warcry bands, who I will align with Malal, unless something in the warband's lore really points it at another faction!

I have a small contingent of skaven, though I've yet to decide whether they (and by extension the horned rat) are actually wholehearted supporters of the plot, or are just mercenary and opportunists. I think the latter, partly because it fits the Skaven character, and partly because it keeps the symbolism of four gods vs four gods.

I figure that Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch and Slaanesh weren't always the dominant chaos gods in the warp, but over the aeons different entities wax and wane as the warp reflects the whims of the different realities it touches.

The only "major" god who is represented  in my army is of course Tzeentch, since naturally He is the god you can count on to be lending his support to every plot, even one to depose his own chosen one!

The basic philosophy is that Archaon, by his very nature is a heretic. He is supposed to be the greatest warrior of Chaos, but that is a lie. If you claim to be the Everchosen for thousands of years, presiding over a tyranical empire in the name of "Chaos", then all you are really doing is leading to stagnation and in a strange sense order. My warriors have decided that for Chaos to truly reign, Archaon must die, and the cycle must be allowed to begin again. In short if Chaos is not allowed to destroy itself then it is not truly Chaos. Thus must a new Everchosen rise to replace the old, and Chaos be renewed.

It even kind of goes back to the conspiracy theory about what Archaon actually read in the prophecy in the Inqusition's vaults all those millennia ago when he was still a sigmarite templar. There is at least one theory I've seen which states that what he learned wasn't that he couldn't defeat chaos and should turn to darkness in despair, but rather that the way to kill the Chaos Gods was to destroy the world, and rob them of their worship. Clearly that failed. Even when the old world burned the Chaos Gods were sustained by the worship given to them in every other dimension (most notably 40K). But maybe Archaon is still secretly working against them, and has found a new way to stymie chaos and lock it into an eternal decline. Certainly that's what my warriors believe, and why they seek to depose him.

To this end my Darkoath Warqueen Elsar Ragnarsdottir has declared herself Everchosen and has embarked upon a great quest across the realms to assemble the missing fragments to the Crown of Chaos, which I'm planning to run as a narrative play warcry campaign in our gaming group. All the factions will compete to gain the fragments of the crown.

Long ago, just before the breaking of the old world, Archaon used fell necromancy to hide his soul in a phylactery, so that he could never truly die. Thus he would rob the Chaos Gods of their prize in a final act of spite. But Be'lakor stole the phylactery, and sealed it in the Anarchives, an ancient repository of dark lore hidden within the winding pathways of the Realm of Chaos. He sealed the library, using his own crown as key, before shattering it and scattering the fragments across the Realms (and maybe beyond, I like the idea that the campaign will actually take us back in time to the old world at one point, and maybe even into the 40K dimension, perhaps a shard is kept in the black library of the Eldar!)

So now warbands seek the crown of the First Daemon Prince, either to steal Archaon's soul, return it to him, or destroy it. My queen wants to set herself in his place as I've said. My friend's stormcast want to destroy it, and my other friend's nighthaunt want to offer the soul of the Everchosen to Nagash as the ultimate prize. I'm not sure who else will be playing, but hopefully there will be some more "loyalist" chaos factions. We'll see how the campaign goes, and what happens. Hopefully it will run through out next year.

[Neverchosen]

Wow I genuinely love your approach and the amount of research you put into your lore and narrative. It is particularly great as you kind of took a different path of storytelling, where for me the concept of these gods are simply archetypes to be understood through the haze of stories and legends long lost to time yours is one in which they function as the metaphysical foundation for your army. 

Brilliant, brilliant work my friend!

I would love to hear about Darkoath Warqueen Elsar Ragnarsdottir encountering some Slaaneshi Pretenders. Ostensibly they share a goal of ascension but hers is one that is based around strict dogmatic belief in an elder chaos pantheon... whereas the Pretenders are looking to fill a vacuum in the absence of their God. I feel like this could lead to a lot of alliances but also a deep mistrust. I also love that your friends all have a shared objective within your lore. For my friends, we have developed a shared continent in which each of our armies have distinctive national borders and there are internal and external conflicts. Essentially I wanted to develop a massive sprawling setting in which we could develop narratives but also keep our own internal logic to have narratives for our own collections of minis.

Edited November 14, 2021 by Neverchosen

[EccentricCircle]

Thank you!

I'd not thought about Slaaneshi pretenders, that could be another interesting angle to explore. I might need to finally read the Slaanesh battletome.

At the moment I only have vague ideas of how my friend's armies will fit into the campaign if I'm honest. We've not started playing yet, so hopefully once everyone is developing lore, it will all intertwine nicely.

I like your shared continent for sure. I think these sorts of games work well when there is a real sense of place and history to a campaign. I've never gotten to play a game where the roll of the dice determined whether a city would stand or fall yet, or been able to explore the larger scale ramifications of games as the narrative unfolds. Hopefully if my warcry campaign goes down well I can get my folks into doing something like that.

I like the idea that some of your folks turned to chaos, and those who stayed loyal to sigmar were reforged. That's a great narrative hook, and I'd think it would make for some really dramatic battles when the two forces clash!

I also really like your take on Morghur, that definitely fits with my idea that things rise and fall within the Warp. Morghur might exist as a sort of twisted and misshapen manifestation, but if the beastmen become ascendant and their faith shapes the realm of chaos more than that of the humans who follow Khorne then maybe he could become a genuine threat to the other, more established gods. Something which the big four definitely would want to avoid by stamping out the worship of "lesser" chaos gods whenever they can.

Your diagram of how the gods fit together is also really cool. I'm sure I've seen a similar write up of a wheel of chaos before, maybe on Chaos Dwarfs online. I don't know whether that was you, I feel like it had them in a different order and had malal at the center of the wheel?

 

[TerminusRex]

Great Horned Rat is closer to Tzeentch than Khorne.

In general, Skaven are likely a Tzeentchian creation, later on corrupted to some degree by Nurgle on Lustria, before spreading to the rest of Skaven society.

Edited January 13, 2022 by TerminusRex

[Azlak the Damned]

On 11/13/2021 at 10:08 PM, Neverchosen said:

For my friends, we have developed a shared continent in which each of our armies have distinctive national borders and there are internal and external conflicts. Essentially I wanted to develop a massive sprawling setting in which we could develop narratives but also keep our own internal logic to have narratives for our own collections of minis.

Love this! Been trying to get my gaming group in to something like this rather than just matched play games.

[Neverchosen]

16 hours ago, TerminusRex said:

Great Horned Rat is closer to Tzeentch than Khorne.

In general, Skaven are likely a Tzeentchian creation, later on corrupted to some degree by Nurgle on Lustria, before spreading to the rest of Skaven society.

I do agree with this sentiment but due to that Nurgle corruption I placed the God of Rats towards Nurgle. Remember this is not a true cosmology but the Chaos worship of an isolated region. I assume that their limited exposure to Skaven have resulted in violence (Khorne) and disease (nurgle). But I do think that you are fundamentally correct because other than clan pestilens all other skaven clans emphasize different forms of trickery, deceit or intelligence. 

 

6 hours ago, Azlak the Damned said:

Love this! Been trying to get my gaming group in to something like this rather than just matched play games.

Thank you so much, we haven't really done a true campaign in my setting yet (curse you omicron and all the variants) but it has already made my friends more involved in their projects. My friend who plays Disciples of Tzeentch and Thousand Sons in particular loves the fact that I invented some lore about his general being an insane Chronomancer implying that his 40k and AOS armies are potentially a time/dimensionally displaced variant of one another.