Chaos Enmities (maglag and MGuy stay out)

[Stahlseele]

And then we have the redheaded stepchild that nobody is sure about.
Malal.
And the big E.

[hyzmarca]

Okay, sure, that's a difference between the two, but how does that lead to enmity? Why does Khorne disdain Slaaneshi practices, and vice-versa, rather than being indifferent to them?

Because philosophical self-annihilation though infinite pleasure-pain is at odds with external physical annihilation.

Slaanesh hates Khorne because the truly dead never feel pleasure or suffering, they simply don't exist. It is Khorne's nature to destroy his enemies utterly. And that means less overall sensation in the world.

Khorne hates Slaanesh because her methods and her motives are antithetical to him. Even if she kills and destroys, she does so for the wrong reason and with the wrong tools. And, of course, she usually doesn't kill. She usually keeps her enemies around to use and abuse, for a very long time.

Or to put it another way: The Gun is Good, The Penis is Evil.

[Chamomile]

I don't care whether or not there's enmity between the chaos gods.

Then why the Hell are you posting in a thread explicitly dedicated to determining enmities between them? At what stage did you imagine that you walking in and declaring that a boring and extremely obvious option is available would be in any way enlightening or a contribution to the discussion? I don't need your help to figure out that the factitious nature of the Chaos Gods can be explained away by petty tribalism. That is a source of conflict so readily obvious that almost any set of factions can be set to odds to one another using it, and that very fact is what makes it a boring answer. If you're going to have the Chaos Gods allied or enemied to one another based purely on tribalist politics, four is way too small a number of them. Rather, you'd want every meaningfully distinct Chaos faction to have its own distinct Chaos God or pantheon, which five out of nine Chaos Legions don't have before we even get into more obscure factions. You'd want every reasonably unified theme of superpower to be represented by a new Chaos God who gives those superpowers out, and you'd want Chaos factions and Chaos Gods to proliferate like they were Space Marine chapters.

That's not the world we live in, though. The world we live in is that the number of Chaos Gods is fixed to four and that a large chunk of the fandom will be greatly displeased if you shove that in a dustbin. Most of those who won't be will only accept a few fairly standard deviations, like the addition of Malal or the Emperor as a fifth (and possibly sixth) Chaos God, or the birth of exactly one new Chaos God caused by the Imperium (which ends up being very similar to "the Emperor is a Chaos God"). To have Chaos Gods be distinct only by the ways in which they equip their men with bizarre weapons, magic superpowers, and freaky mutations means that each interesting theme for a Chaos warband should be represented by a Chaos God, and that is more additional Chaos Gods than the existing fandom would ever accept. Even people who are generally in on 40k's jokes aren't necessarily going to want to grapple with a retcon that big.

If the number of Chaos Gods is fixed to four (with options for a maximum of two more), then they need to represent distinct factions with interesting differences. A different paintjob and slightly different set of superpowers do not make a distinct faction, because the galaxy looks exactly the same if they take over and a conversation with a grunt or an officer goes the same way and their reaction to the behavior of other forces is identical to one another. Just being split into two camps doesn't make them distinct factions either, because while they are separate from one another, you can't readily tell what the difference is without checking their hat color or what color lasers they shoot. A palette swap is the very opposite of distinct.

[MGuy]

I don't know why you are getting so mad but then go and never actually challenge anything I fucking said. I believe I was pretty clear about what I was asking and gave a TLDR about what my actual point was in the very case you couldn't be fucked to read. I do not care about your decision to uselessly make every Chaos god in direct opposition to every other one. I'm not here to argue about your FUCKING STUPID decision. The only thing I asked about was why the fuck do you have to make these useless overarching grand schemes for them when something shorter and vague will do. If you don't have an answer other than "I just wanna because I want to set my time on fire" that's fine.

I'm assuming you're doing this for a game and for a game you don't need every fucking chaos God being directly opposed to whoever to get distinct looks, tactics, super powers or whatever the fuckity fuck fuck you want to give them and their followers. In fact I'd argue that for a fucking game you expect people to play that all you need to make things reasonably distinct is to have certain things that are what that god likes and that's all. You have so far just gotten pissed at me pointing that out and demanding that they all be opposed when simply "not" sticking to that stupid idea would save you time. Time which you could use actually just making up distinct stuff the Legions happen to do because what the fuck ever.

[maglag]

I don't need your help to figure out that the factitious nature of the Chaos Gods can be explained away by petty tribalism. That is a source of conflict so readily obvious that almost any set of factions can be set to odds to one another using it, and that very fact is what makes it a boring answer.

Most 40K fans don't seem to mind that. At all. Ork tribes fight against each other all the time. So do different Dark Eldar Kabals. Or necron dynasties. Even loyalist scum has plenty of civil wars with everybody calling each other heretics and traitors. When the Horus Heresty started, there were World Eater subfactions that decided to follow the emprah and fight Angron head on while at the same thing some supposed loyalists decided to follow Chaos anyway like the Dark Angels home-planet guard.

If you're going to have the Chaos Gods allied or enemied to one another based purely on tribalist politics, four is way too small a number of them. Rather, you'd want every meaningfully distinct Chaos faction to have its own distinct Chaos God or pantheon, which five out of nine Chaos Legions don't have before we even get into more obscure factions. You'd want every reasonably unified theme of superpower to be represented by a new Chaos God who gives those superpowers out, and you'd want Chaos factions and Chaos Gods to proliferate like they were Space Marine chapters.

In case you missed it, the name of the faction is C.H.A.O.S. Having little organization and constantly switching sides and allying on whims only to end in backstabbing is part of the package.

Besides, the loyalist scum all worship a single order god, the corpse-emprah. You don't see anybody complaining that the BA or SW or GK or DA should worship other order gods, do you?

If the number of Chaos Gods is fixed to four (with options for a maximum of two more), then they need to represent distinct factions with interesting differences. A different paintjob and slightly different set of superpowers do not make a distinct faction, because the galaxy looks exactly the same if they take over and a conversation with a grunt or an officer goes the same way and their reaction to the behavior of other forces is identical to one another. Just being split into two camps doesn't make them distinct factions either, because while they are separate from one another, you can't readily tell what the difference is without checking their hat color or what color lasers they shoot. A palette swap is the very opposite of distinct.

So you're really saying that the SW/GK/DA/BA/UM are all the same thing and boring, instead of super popular? Do you even fandom?

[hyzmarca]

Besides, the loyalist scum all worship a single order god, the corpse-emprah. You don't see anybody complaining that the BA or SW or GK or DA should worship other order gods, do you?

I should point out that the Adeptus Mechanus actually worshipps the Void Dragon.

Well, the Omnissiah, who is probably the Void Dragon.

[Koumei]

They came to an agreement on that one: the Imperium will assume the Omnissiah is an aspect of the Emperor that the Mechanicus specifically worship as part of their weird way of doing things, and the AdMech won't straight up tell them that's not what they're doing. In return, the Imperium will not bombard Mars with Vortex Warheads, and the AdMech will, in return for this, continue actually providing the Imperium with Vortex Warheads with which to bombard planets other than Mars.

Also, various chapters of Space Marine venerate their spiritual liege Rowboat Gullman individual primarchs and in some cases view the Emperor not as a god but as "a great leader we once had" (which is more in line with what Big E wanted when he was alive). More like the patron saint thing with Catholicism. Except then explicitly saying actually they only pray to their saints and not Yahweh.

[Chamomile]

Okay, so people whose only contribution to the thread is to be deeply offended that I want a thing they don't want have been officially banned from it.

[Maxus]

Okay. I guess what you need here is a bit of headcanon and expand a bit on what they represent and why.

First off, it's more-or-less canon the Chaos gods derive some power from certain emotions and acts, as well as direct worship. Spilling blood makes Khorne stronger, getting angry makes him stronger, but not as much as harvesting a bunch of skulls in his honor.

So let's take him as an example for a writeup of his attitudes and values.


Khorne

Khorne is direct violence, swords and axes for preference, ranged weapons and explosions a barely-acceptable second. He wants beings to meet each other head on in battle-mania, and kill each other cleanly, someone dying quickly on a blood-soaked field. If you don't look at it too closely, it looks like honorable combat. And it's not too far off, in as much as a mob of people trying to slaughter everyone else is a fair fight.

Slaanesh gains passive power from the sensations of pleasure and pain, and more directly touches addicts of all stripes. Hardcore hyperorgy BDSM clubs, workaholics, drug addicts, they all fuel Slaanesh. Slaaneshi cultists disdain direct combat and don't really go for fair fights. They might jump on a grenade because being torn in half sounds like a good time to them, but they hit you with charm magic and traps and drugs and poisons to try to stop a straight fight from happening. Then they rapetorture the prisoners for a few weeks.

On an intellectual level, Khorne hates Slaanesh because Slaanesh's ways stop Khorne from getting power. If someone's tortured to death with no chance of escape, or someone doesn't struggle against death and the end, Khorne gains nothing.

On a personal level, Khorne hates Slaanesh because the ideas of what Slaanesh encourages people to get up disgusts him and is anathema to his values of a face-to-face fight. Khorne is an embodiment of war and anger and combat, so cheapening those things PISSES HIM OFF.

Tzeench is all about ambition and hope and change and magic and fate and basically all these ethereal things. Tzeench could happily spend his time arranging the galaxy and never send troops in and just troll people for centuries.

Khorne hates him because, of the chaos gods, Tzeench is the most opposite him. The white to Khorne's black. Psykers instead of swords, and winning a battle by, a hundred years ago, having someone move a rock four meters north so a transport hits it, flips, and blows up a tank by bending the barrel over so the shells can't leave....Instead of just massing everyone up and having them charge. Tzeench may be behind ranged weapons, and those still piss Khorne off. Tzeench's ways of fighting are opposite Khorne's ways, and most of what Tzeench does doesn't even immediately lead to fighting and bloodshed.

Nurgle is all about disease and decay and despair and endurance, and those offend Khorne because they're ways of killing without using weapons, and a lot of times the fluids that hit the dirt aren't blood. Such depravity! Plus, if you wait around until something falls apart, that's not really killing it. Nurgle wants things to live and Khorne on the whole views life as a state of pre-bloodshed,

Khorne wants power, and he gets the most from the constant wars and struggles through the galaxy. But the other gods value things he doesn't, and draw their power from other sources. He hates them all because of it, with Tzeench being foremost and Slaanesh a decent second for their embodiments of things that are the antithesis of direct combat, and if they won there wouldn't really be combat or wars so for those reasons alone Khorne wishes them destroyed. Nurgle is held is contempt rather than outright loathed, but he, too, is on Khorne's agenda, such at it is.

Victory

If Khorne won, all species, everywhere, would become eternally warring. Trillions of beings on the move, children being born solely to be soldiers to kill other soldiers. Any civilization and agriculture would exist solely to support beings so they could keep fighting. No art that is not a pile of skulls. No construction that is not a barracks. But it's doubtful that would work--most civilization would die out and so the galaxy would be claimed by such things as the orks or the Necrons, beings who are incredibly tough to kill for keeps, and even they would keep fighting, forever.

[DSMatticus]

I'm pretty sure I'm a little late to this party, what with the two idiots already having been kicked out, but holy shit this is not complicated why are people not understanding this?

There are four chaos gods. They do not really interact directly or openly with anyone in existence, so who fucking knows what they want. They may not want anything at all, and just be the equivalent of psychic hurricanes that roam across the universe spitting out rage, disease, cocaine, and illuminati. But there is an actual playable faction (you know, the chaos space marines and the various chaos cults and what not) dedicated to worshipping and furthering these chaos gods. Even if the chaos gods themselves turn out to be impersonal psychic hurricanes which give no shits about anything, their worshippers cannot worship or further their deities unless THEY MAKE SOME SHIT UP ABOUT WHAT THOSE DEITIES WANT. YOU KNOW, LIKE EVERY OTHER FUCKING RELIGION EVER. If Khorne didn't whisper "blood for the blood god" into someone's ear while they were dreaming, then that asshole just made it up on his own, and the end result is exactly the same - people now spill blood to honor Khorne.

Now, the actual writeup for chaos tends to divide people into camps based on their god - enough so that simply not doing that is a distinct philosophical movement with its own name (Chaos Undivided). But hey, guess what, dipshits? There have been a bajillion-and-one polytheistic religions throughout history. That was in fact the norm until some assholes came along with the ultimatum of monotheism or murder. Polytheism isn't some radical, difficult to grasp concept - particularly not in a world where all four gods objectively exist (even if only as some impersonal natural phenomenon). Why in the sweet fuck is Chaos Undivided its own distinct thing? Why isn't that just how the entire fucking religion works? Why oh fucking why are people who worship Hurricane Nurgle at all reluctant to worship Volcano Khorne? Why don't they turn to Nurgle when they need help coping with illness, and turn to Khorne when they need help kicking someone's ass? Nothing about being really chill with the space cancer that has consumed my face stops me from going out and doing the whole "blood for the blood god" thing. In fact, it's the exact opposite - not giving a fuck about my horrific ailments will make me a better killing machine. Why isn't Chaos Undivided the way everyone does chaos?

If the game is going to have chaos cults dedicated to specific chaos gods - and it already fucking does - the cults not only need distinct motivations, but they need motivations which are in some way opposed. Khorne (or at least his followers) wants to settle disputes by blade; Tzeentch (or at least his followers) wants to settle disputes by bureaucracy. The two don't get along because they have a fundamentally different approach to conflict resolution. One is rule of might, the other is rule of law. That sort of bullshit.

[OgreBattle]

There's some guys who get ALL The Chaos Marks like Abaddon and Archaeon, but are there any guys who just get favored by two or three c-gods at the same time?

[Chamomile]

There's some guys who get ALL The Chaos Marks like Abaddon and Archaeon, but are there any guys who just get favored by two or three c-gods at the same time?

It doesn't seem like it, but it's also not something anyone has ever made a big deal of in any of the books or games or anything, so any given group of 3-7 non-idiot 40k fans are unlikely to take issue if I tell them that there's a Chaos guy who's picking up Chaos Marks like merit badges and is only partway through the process, nor even that there's some guys who just don't think Nurgle's super powers are worth looking that fugly and thus end up going with just the other three. These guys will be way less famous than legit Chaos Undivided people, but I doubt very many people will be angry at the concept that they exist.

Anyways, I'm gonna back up a bit to a conversation between Frank and Grek that was interesting. It was interesting enough that I was gonna just let it play out and see where it went, but it seems it only ended up lasting like three posts.

Khorne demands that you to fight and train and kill your for whole life in exchange for a happy afterlife as an immortal killing machine who does more of the same. He demands discipline, commitment, zeal and toil. No pain, no gain, and if you give up, you get nothing. Khornites think that living a life full of suffering and violence makes you hardcore and proves you worthy of your eventual and eternal reward. They think that the Slaaneshites are quitters and slackers who need to be shown that life isn't all cake and blowjobs. Preferably via beheading.

Slaanesh lets you to have a wild party and snort cocaine. This doesn't lead to any kind of reward from Slaanesh and isn't part of a greater plan: It's the end result and the ultimate goal. Slaaneshites think that praying to the generous god of fast cars and unlimited chocolate frosting is both awesome and the obvious thing to do, and that accepting Khorne's offer of pain now for gains later is obviously stupid. To the Slaaneshite, Khornites are party-poopers who don't know how to have a good time and are morally outraged by the idea of anyone else having fun.

I think this works. It turns Khorne into a god of bodybuilding, since "no pain, no gain" is now a big enough part of his philosophy that Slaanesh's "gains for free" philosophy is deeply offensive, but that's not really outside Khorne's portfolio especially if, at climax insanity (where 40k takes place), that translates to unending violence because constant battle is the best kind of training. Khorne isn't angry because people are doing Slaanesh stuff instead of Khorne stuff, Khorne is angry because people are getting something for nothing. Khorne is actually totally on board with space marines who spend all their time doing Emperor stuff like meditating and reciting holy scripture and stuff in between their murder sprees. If you're a Khornate, the only thing stopping you from being best buds with a space marine is that the space marine hates you. Also, if you are a World Eater, you probably have a personal vendetta with the Imperium. Khorne doesn't care, though, because the space marines work for their rewards. Slaanesh and especially Nurgle are openly hostile to the idea of working for your rewards.

I'll point out here that yes, I'm aware that the idea that the actual Chaos Gods don't necessarily reciprocate the Emperor's hatred of them the way Chaos space marines and Chaos cults usually do is potentially quite controversial. It doesn't actually matter, because the actual ground troops of Chaos usually have a vendetta with the Imperium anyway, and they're the ones who actually interact with the setting. I'm just using Emperor stuff as a stand-in for things that do not relate to any particular Chaos God's portfolio.

And coming back around to this:

Slaanesh is more like the world sucks, and you can't make it better, but you can at least snort cocaine and fuck hookers until you forget how much you hate yourself. Don't try to change things, cover your problems up with pointless pleasure-seeking.

Making Slaanesh the god of nihilism both makes sense, as nihilism is the kind of philosophy that lends itself to hedonism without empathy, and it gives him a point of contention with Tzeentch, the god of ambition, whose entire pitch is that you can and should change the world to suit you better.

Which gives me:

Khorne hates Tzeentch for being deceptive, because he is the god of honor, Slaanesh for handing out rewards without cost, because he is the god of gains, and Nurgle for teaching people to be content with whatever, also because he is the god of gains.

Tzeentch hates Khorne for being a stupid brute, because he is the god of cunning and deception, Slaanesh for being a nihilist who thinks that no one can ever be significant, because he is the god of ambition, and Nurgle for teaching people to be content with whatever, also because he is the god of ambition.

Slaanesh hates Tzeentch for thinking that the world can be controlled, because he is the god of nihilism, Nurgle for teaching people to be content with whatever, because he is the god of decadence. I know why Khorne hates Slaanesh, but I don't know why Slaanesh hates him back. Unlike Nurgle, Slaanesh does not care if more or fewer people are part of the party. He's not about inclusion. He's about the personal, selfish desire to be at the party yourself. It's no skin off his nose if Khorne doesn't show up.

Nurgle hates Khorne, Tzeentch, and Slaanesh all for the same reason. Each of them teaches people to try and change their circumstances somehow. Khorne by self-improvement, Tzeentch by cleverly manipulating your environment and the people around you, and Slaanesh by withdrawing into an enclave filled with stuff you like and ignoring the rest. Nurgle is evil demon Buddha and thinks that any effort to change will inevitably lead to disappointment and suffering, and instead people must learn to be zen and content with whatever happens and accepting of all.

[Grek]

Slaanesh hates temperance, loves excess and rejects all pretensions to purpose. Khorne's ethos of personal greatness and eventual transcendence through abnegation and violence is the exact opposite of that. Fucking with the Khornites is clearly a satire on the absurdity of effort and precisely the sort of thing Slaaneshites would find hilarious.