Talk:Chaos (Warhammer)

Slaanesh
If Slaanesh is neither male nor female, why does the page description alternate between referring to Slaanesh as "he" and "she?" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.182.101.239 (talk) 11:16, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
 * In modern proper English the only singular pronouns are "he" and "she". "It" is a neuter pronoun.  But "it" is not used to refer to intelligent entities (unless the speaker intends to demean the subject).The Goat (talk) 20:16, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, it depends. The eldar refer to Slaanesh as "she who thirsts," but the Imperium refers to Slaanesh and all chaos gods as male. It flip flops based on where the account comes from, I imagine. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.204.46.197 (talk) 13:42, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Chaos gods and Primary numbers
Is it worth noting that all of the 4 chaos gods are repersented by primary numbers? Also that khorne and slaanesh are both repersented by even numbers, when nurgle and tzzench are repersented by odd numbers?
 * Not really, especially considering only one of them (Nurgle) is represented by a prime number (I assume that's what you meant).... ;) --DarthBinky 14:54, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually, I believe what the poster meant was they all have their own "mystic" number. I can't remember what the numbers are atm, but I know Khornes was 8, and units/regiments that were made up of that number (or in later rules, multiples of that number) got a bonus (free Aspiring Champion in 40K for example). Darkson - BANG! 23:43, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

God page settup
I was wondering if we could establish a set plan for each of the gods pages. Also I was wondering if anyone would like to help me clear up Hashut's and Malal's descriptions which are just blocks of type. - Puppet Master


 * If you look, I recently did cleanups on the four major god articles (such as Khorne); I tried to standardize them so they all appear about the same, and follow the guidelines of WP:WAF. I would have done this for Hashut and Malal as well, but I don't have the books that give any info about them, so I wouldn't know what parts are canon and what parts are just fan speculation/theory. --DarthBinky 15:23, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Malal article cleaned up. (to the best of my abilities) Sixhundredandsixtysix 20:37, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Looks a lot better. I just did a little fixing to it too, mainly removing speculation, weaselisms and a section that really didn't have anything to do with Malal- not to mention that it's already discussed at Chaos (Warhammer). --DarthBinky 21:35, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
 * OK, looks very good indeed. However I'm wondering if the link to Zuvassin shouldn't be mentioned? After all the original manuscript to the supplement "Something rotten in Kislev" featured Malal, but because of the IP-question Graeme Davis came up with Zuvassin . So, to just put the subject in context perhaps... Sixhundredandsixtysix 09:20, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * We should probably be discussing this over at the talk for Malal, but yeah, that does seem appropriate. I'd probably add a brief mention of that and appropriate linkage to the first paragraph of the "continue existence" section- that seems to me to be the best place for it. --DarthBinky 13:53, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Chaos Gods and elements
Where do the relations between the Chaos Gods and elements come from? I've never seen these and they don't make much sense, as the Chaos Gods are representation of imbalanced and primal sentient emotions, rather than fundamental forces. They don't match exactly, either. For example Tzeentch favors magical fire in many spells (in both games) and is often portrayed ringed or surrounded by eldtritch flame.

If this only appears in a single source, I'd be inclined to chalk it up to inconsistency on the part of an author and remove these. --Morskittar 22:17, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

The only place I've ever seen resembling this concept is the Realm Of Chaos fluff book, where each of the deities of the Maurauder tribes takes up an element. This article seems to deal with the Chaos gods from a pretty exclusively Maurauder view, in fact. Also, the Chaos Gods are fundamental forces within the sentient psyche as a result of interaction between the Warhammer World and the warp. However, if one is following that Rogue Trader-esque line, the article should emphasise Tzeentch as the god of hope, which he was under archaic fluff. Of course, if one was to always to follow archaic fluff, one would also have to include stupid ideas from Rogue Trader, such as the Emperor being a combination of pre-historic shamans. - William "Fluffmaster" Peden

Thanks. I'm going to pull those as they're fairly limited (subjective point of view) and are somewhat confusing when compared to the meta-Chaos concept in both Warhammer and 40k. Also, current publications (WFRP: Realms of Sorcery and the Liber Chaotica) have reinforced the nature of the Chaos Gods as sentient aspects of unbalanced or primal mortal emotions; I think it's safe to use Rogue Trader/WFB 3rd-era sources to some extent, at least when it comes to the overal themes behind Chaos.--Morskittar 18:07, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Truth be told, much of the Rogue Trader era fluff has never been contradicted, and so is still very valid. - Sir_Godspeed —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.91.149.128 (talk) 15:43, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree, both Realm of Chaos and Rogue Trader have the Emperor as a conglomeration of souls of ancient powerful reincarnating mage/shamans... the novel Inquisitor [Ian Watson 1990] also has the Emperor as a conglomerate.- Lil

Human Chaos Armies
There's barely any mention of them in the sections (Northmen, Beastmen, Traitor Imperial Legions, Wildmen) All of the such normal average peasant/soldier human chaos worshipper (not including Chaos Marines and Chaos Knights.

Conan and the Chaos star
... using the same 8-pointed star worn by Conan the barbarian in the movie of the same name ...

To my knowledge, the 8-pointed star of Chaos was an invention of Michael Moorcock and thus predates the Conan film. This coincides with the Symbol of Chaos article. I thus removed the line given above. --Huon 12:59, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

cleanup
I just did a pretty hefty rewrite of this article. I am giving a summary here because the edit summary is probably too short to cover it.


 * I removed a lot of extraneous info that is found elsewhere. For example, the details of the various Gods was removed, since each god has its own article and the same info is found there (where it should be).  I also streamlined the info that was left to make it more encyclopedic.
 * I removed speculative comments about the origins of various things (such as links between GW's Chaos and the fiction of Moorcock and Lovecraft). While those origins are most likely true, they are ultimately unverifiable, and add little to the article.

Moorcock invented the eight pointed star as symbol of chaos. GW is using an eight pointed star as symbol of Chaos. At least this link should be left. Ossoduro 22:23, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
 * You missed the point. Like I said, it's probably true that they used that as an influence.  But can you point to something in print (an interview with one of the developers, etc) that says specifically that they used that as a source?  If not, it's called "unverifiable information", and does not belong here, despite the strong similarities.  Cheers. --DarthBinky 05:17, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

The Morocock influence can be vertified, they even named the god Mo'rcck after him. No one used the 8 pointed star prior to Morcock. It is stated many times that the symbol of chaos was his invention. Its use within warhammer vertifies that they have been more then influenced. The fact that they use his symbol, which is his invention, i my opinion makes it vertified information - NykylaiHellray


 * That's not the definition of verifiable information. If it says in a book or article in a magazine or something like that that they definitely used him as a source for that, then yes, it's VI.  Otherwise it's technically speculation- it's entirely possible that they came up with their own version of the star, or that they borrowed it from someone else (who may have borrowed it from Moorcock).  I've already said it twice- it's probably true that they got the idea from Moorcock, but you can't prove it, aside from the strong resemblance (which isn't enough).  Besides, as I also mentioned, mentioning the (likely) sources doesn't really add anything to the article- so Moorcock was their inspiration for the star- so what?  --DarthBinky 15:56, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
 * In an edition of the french white dwarf (dont remember the page nor the date sorry) answering a question about the "Tolkien Influence" (question was to sum it "Why don't you recognize the influence of the Tolkien influence in Warhammer, look at the loren forest, the name Eldar the ..." ) the staff answered that while there was for sure a tolkien influence in the edification of the Warhammer Fantasy and 40k Universe, there was also influence from other author. And if I correctly remember (translate : I can't find the issue so someone else will have to find it, normally "White dwarf" issues are translated so it should be the same newspaper in France and in England) they clearly named Moorcock as one of the major influence on the Warhammer Fantasy/40k Universe. The guy answering those question (he called himself the white dwarf, but should be a staff member from gw) probably won't be one of the people working on the Warhammer Universe background (like Andy Chambers). Esurnir 00:37, 31 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I redid the tone to make it more "out-of-universe", per WP:WAF.
 * I removed a big section about the Horus Heresy, which didn't really belong here. Yes, it was caused by Chaos, but a summary of it seems out of place here.  It should be mentioned in the Chaos Marines article (which it is- and that article is linked here), and then summarized in its own article (which it also is).
 * I added some more info that was missing, notably Be'lakor.
 * I removed unnecessary gamerspeak, such as an overly long discussion of how Chaos Undivided works, and how Traitor Legions relate to the gods (which should be discussed in the articles for those legions).
 * I fixed the references section, since most of the references that were there previously were simply links to other wikipedia articles, which should be avoided per WP:CITE. I had to remove the references to the old Rogue Trader books, since I didn't use those to do the rewrite, and didn't really see anything that actually referred to them.

There may have been other things, but that's the gist of it. Cheers --DarthBinky 23:50, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Images for the Chaos gods
Is it possible to put up images of the symbols associated with the Chaos gods on their respective articles? As of now, the only image on any of these pages is of Nurgle overlooking his armies, and I personally have not heard of any official images of the gods themselves, therefore it seems as though the closest one could get would be the symbols of the Chaos gods. Secondly, would it be a good idea to have an image of Michael Moordock's chaos star on the page for Chaos itself, as I can recall it, or at least a variation of it, being used in Warhammer as a symbol of Chaos. 66.24.229.233 01:22, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
 * At the very least, here is an image of what I am referring to. (http://us.games-workshop.com/games/warhammer/hordesofchaos/painting/4colors/images/mainNAV.jpg)
 * I doubt we can use those images due to copyrights. I'll work on vector-versions of it for Wikipedia. Syrion 19:29, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Nurgle - God of Hope?
I seem to remember reading in an old White Dwarf article that Nurgle is, bizarrely, the God of Hope. Can anyone else remember this, as it seems to contradict with the description given to Nurgle here? I'll try to find out my old WD, but most of them are packed away. Darkson - BANG! 15:18, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Incorrect, it is tzeentch who is the god of hope, it could be said that Nurgle is the god of acceptance however —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.183.87.141 (talk) 01:52, 23 July 2008 (UTC) All of the Chaos gods at some point has had a positive idea associated with it. Tzeentch was hope in positive change, Nurgle was perseverance in the face of any obstacle. Slaanesh was the love of beauty and experience, Khorne was martial honor and prowess. Taken to extremes, all of these ideals could be disassociated with the positive and become only negative, which is what the current incarnations seem to embody. Tzeentch becomes change for change's sake and the tearing down of all structure, Nurgle decay and stagnation, Slaanesh excess and Khorne, slaughter. (this all comes from the old Realm of Chaos books, by the way, and also older editions of Warmaster) -Tom K —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.84.197.128 (talk) 19:47, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Kweethul
Corrected information regarding Kweethul and Nurgle. Kweethul was mainly used as an example for creating DIY chaos gods and has no (obvious) link to Nurgle or the Horned Rat. Sixhundredandsixtysix 14:26, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Reverted the latest edit regarding Kweethul and the Horned rat. The Horned Rat was introduced (along with the Skaven race) in the 1986 Citadel Journal. The Realm of Chaos: Lost and the Damned sourcebook was printed in 1990. Thus the concept of the Horned Rat predates Kweethul by 4 years. In my copy of Lost and the Damned there is no mention of Nurgle as a patron deity of Kweethul Gristlegut. He is used purely as an example for a DIY daemon patron, without any reference to any of the other Chaos Gods. If anyone has a copy which says differently, please state which edition and page reference and I'll gladly look it up. Sixhundredandsixtysix 08:24, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Nurgle and Kweethul are anathema, especially when one looks at the picture of Kweethul with his Chaos Undivided symbol on the throne. As for the Horned Rat, who knows? The current symbols of the Horned Rat don't look very skaven-like, more of a goat like Kweethul. On the other hand the Dark Tongue gives Kweethul's symbol as very different from other gods. -Lil [all sources for Kweethul are in Realm of Chaos] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.0.67.76 (talk) 22:42, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Malal
Please cite which edition of WFRP and on which page Malal is named as "the fifth chaos god". I can not find this in my copy. Sixhundredandsixtysix 21:32, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
 * It was in the first edition WFRP (first printing?), only a paragraph alongside khorne and Nurgle (iirc). Unfortunately, I can't give a proper reference, as my original copygot destroyed in a water leak. :( Darkson - BANG! 15:48, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Too bad about your copy. In my surviving copy (the first edition hardback one) from 1986 Malal is mentioned, but not that he's number 5. In fact, when I checked all my references there's no mention of "fifth" at all. I would think this is because the idea of the "four great powers of chaos" was not really introduced until 1988 with the first of the Realm of Chaos books. And Malal was (sorta) out of the game by then. In fact the only ranking I've found so far is a small passage that could place him as the first of the chaos gods. IIRC it was something like "He who came first now came last.." or similar... Sixhundredandsixtysix 07:15, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Where can the infromation linking Malal's removal due to copyright issues be found?Spacedwarv 21:04, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Good point. From what I know the copyright issue is uncertain rather than contested. This question was raised by Graeme Davis (then at GW) and was the reason he came up with Zuvassin. I'll change the wording in the article. Sixhundredandsixtysix 09:31, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I had personal correspondence with GW regarding Malal, whome I wrote a scenario for Advanced Heroquest and sent to them for considerstion (circa 1990) - they clearly stated that they didn't own the copyright. Perhaps the original Kaleb Daark comics in Citadel Journal show the copyright. --Davémon (talk) 07:44, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok, removed the notes on Malal being in 40K and the universes at that time being connected. Malal was never mentioned in any WH40K canon, as he had already been dropped from the background by the time that game was released. Later, tongue-in-cheek references to him has been made, like the Daemon weapon Dread Axe, along with it being especially thirsty for the essence of the other gods daemons, being an option for chaos space marines, and the 'Sons of Malice' renegade marines having a split black and white uniform. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.254.142.54 (talk) 11:15, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Souls sworn to Chaos god go to godly realm for torment?
Although I know characters can swear allegiance to a ruinous power and gain power this way, I have never found any reference where it states that upon death, the soul goes to the Chaos God's realm in question for eternal torment (ie, hell). Please add a reference to where this can be found. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.85.127.152 (talk) 11:06, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

They don't. In 40K the CS are ressurected, ready to do battle again. Thus CSMs cannot be defeated, and are, in fact, the exact same people, fighting a war that effectively ended ten thousand years ago. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.89.210.130 (talk) 06:21, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Removed the "WH-in-universe" tag
I have removed the "WH-in-universe" tag, since I feel this article now quite clearly describes the subject matter from an out-of-universe POV.SpectrumDT (talk) 21:44, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

The Immaterium
The article of that name redirects here, which seems inappropriate, as this article contains little information on the Warp itself. DaGeekyNerd (talk) 05:01, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

List of novels pertaining to chaos?
I think that each article having to do with a faction from W40k should have a list of novels written from an adherent's pov, or aimed at them. Such a list for this page might include Dark Apostle, Dark Disciple, the Horus Heresy books, and any other book that specifically writes from a Chaos view or biased in their favor. I believe that it would help anyone who comes to Wikipedia with the intent on learning more about Chaos, or the Imperium, Eldar, or whoever, to find a list of books that are licensed by GW as having official material in it.

"Negative emotions"
This article states that the four Chaos gods are created from the negative emotions of mortal beings. While this doubtlessly sounds very nice and dandy, I believe the correct term is "extreme" emotions, or emotional extremes. The concept of "negative" emotions is very New-Age mumbo jumbo, and doesn't actually fit in with the fluff. (Tzeentch for example is noted as being a god of hope, and Khorne a god of activity) When these emotions become extreme however, the end result is what we would call "negative".

Am I righyt in this or is this fan conjecture? - Sir_Godspeed


 * You are very technically correct, and such an edit I shall make. However, I would like to say that most sources cite Khorne as almost universally the god of bloodshed, violence, and quick and bloody death. What is usually said is that Tzeentch is the god of change, which is related to the emotion of hope, Slaanesh the god of lust, Nurgle the god of decay, general pessimism, and Khorne the god of blood. One can then debate on whether or not they are 'negative' in the sense of overall effect on humanity, or just extreme, as you said.
 * Directly following this post I will edit such things.
 * Also, sign your posts with four tildes, located above the tab key, which is accessed by SHIFT + `. Like this: The Arguer  11:08, 7 July 2009 (UTC), would have ended your post with your username, time, and etc. instead, here. The Arguer  11:08, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Edit: I'm stupid for not looking over the article first. I read the beginning section and did not see anything that claimed they were manifested out of negative emotions, simply that they had worshipers that gave them power until they came into existence. The theory of good/bad daemons states that negative should have a positive counterpart, but unless someone has edited it before I, that is the only part of the article that says 'negative'. Sorry. The Arguer  11:13, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Well acoording to Warhammer 40,000 Slannesh was created when the some Eldar went too far & became Dark Eldar,the emotions & senses of pleasure, excess & pain manifesting in the centre of the Eldar empire. I don't know about the others. Jastcaan (talk) 10:33, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Melkirth
Can we have a source on Melkirth? "Old material" and "Dark Eldar" in the same description make it sound fishy 74.96.245.7 (talk) 14:17, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't have any proof, I'll freely admit this but please trust me> I went to Games Workshop about a week ago and asked the Staff about this and yes Melkirth is real and is technically still canon. + —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.107.129.69 (talk) 00:48, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Imperial Saints
Art the Imperial Saints warp entities perse? It was my thinking that many of them were persons filled with either immense warp energy, or the pychic energy of the Emperor, not creatures from the warp. That some saints are known to have existed after death-ie the way Saint Sabbat manifests through visions and in the bodies of at least two others long after her death-could mean that they are warp entities and cannot be trully destroyed, but it could also just be a reflection on the great pychic powers that they held-in the novel "Eye of Terror" it is implied that people could become warp entities after death, though those may just have been daemons manifesting as the dead. So is it that the Saints are people that hold immense warp power- at least a portion of which is from the Emperor- a power which can lead to them being able to return from death in another's form after they presumbaly become something akin to warp daemons in substance, or that they are indeed creatures of the warp in human form which can remain in the material universe due to the faith of the Imperial people-like the way daemons keep their hold on reality through bloody rituals-, or perhaps they are merely portions of the Emperor's will given form; the Emperor himself being made up on numerous consiounesses and being able to split parts of his pychic energy away from the whole? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.153.196.41 (talk) 01:56, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Merge
Realm of Chaos (Warhammer) is a pretty clear fork of this, and Chaos Space Marines have major problems with Notability (fiction). They should all be merged here, IMHO. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 21:14, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Given no objections over more than a year, merged in for Realm of Chaos (Warhammer). Klbrain (talk) 21:31, 18 August 2018 (UTC)