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Chaos Cult - Necrophagic Cults: Necrophagic cults are the most blatantly heretical and terrible of all Death Cults, with sects often springing up on worlds ravaged by incessant warfare or planet-wide famine, pandemic disease, or other terrible disasters.In desperation and often goaded by outside influence, the people's faith and devotion take on an increasingly malign turn, with Human sacrifice, cannibalism, and necrotic rituals becoming widespread.In such cases the members of these cults rapidly become irretrievably insane and physically corrupt, and are often the playthings of Warp entities, while the vile leaders of such cults walk a tightrope between burgeoning malefic power and utter madness. Necrophagic cults are never tolerated by the Imperial authorities and are hounded to destruction wherever uncovered.Within the Calixis Sector, necrophagic cults have been known to spring up in the wake of long-burning wars (as has happened on Tranch and Malice in recent years), on isolated and savage worlds such as Endrite, and in the dark space hulks and vessels in space where stricken survivors or desperate stowaways devolve into a form of mutant cannibal known to the Void Born as Ghillam or Hold-Gaunts.But of all these tales, none can compare to the ancient stories of the appalling Saynay Clan of Dusk, whose half-mythic ghoulish histories have given the children of the Calixis Sector nightmares for many Terran centuries. |
Chaos Cult - Resurrectionist or Revivicator Cults: Rarely encountered but insidious in nature, resurrectionist cults ultimately seek to conquer the secrets of life and death itself. Some resurrectionist cults preach a doctrine of the Emperor's triumph over death and the conquest of Human weakness, while others entreat darker masters, pursue utterly forbidden sciences, or hide baleful xenos or Warp-spawned influences at their hearts. Often they espouse the goal of attaining physical immortality for the faithful and will go to unspeakable lengths to obtain their ends.More so than even the sanguinary cults, these groups attract insane and desperate individuals to their ranks, those who have lost everything, become the most degenerate Heretics or follow the wildest of deviant creeds.Some resurrectionists even practice ritual revivification to indoctrinate their members. The most extreme examples of such sects believe that the Emperor's plan is for Mankind to follow Him into a blessed "immortality of the flesh."They even claim that it is possible through the use of utterly forbidden archeotech to free the Emperor from the Golden Throne to walk among His people, "dead-but-alive-everlasting" to quote the darkly renowned Credo Mortifex.Such cults are hated by both the Ministorum and the Adeptus Mechanicus and must throw up a murderous veil of secrecy and superstition in order to survive. |
Chaos Cult - Mystery Cults and Secret Societies: Mystery cults are centred, as their name implies, on secrets. These secrets may concern a hidden network of power, a cache of forbidden lore, access to ancient prophecies, or other esoteric truths and important information. These secrets are held by a select group, forming an inner circle or oligarchy (often with several sub-tiers of rank), and are the foundation of their power and authority.The cult's members must submit to this group's leadership and direction if they are also to gain access to the hidden secrets, and perhaps one day wield the cult's power for themselves.Many mystical cults, religious sects, and those focused on occult lore follow this pattern, as do a surprising number of institutions who hide their inner workings with elaborate ritual and labyrinthine secrecy. Within the Imperium, arguably the largest single mystery cult is the Adeptus Mechanicus itself. The Priesthood of Mars hides its secrets well, even from its own numbers. |
Chaos Cult - Plague Cults: Not all who seek to serve Nurgle have the means to attract the Plague God's attention through grand individual acts of devotion. Most mortals do not have the might of a Chaos Space Marine or the influence of a corrupt political leader.For these common worshipers, notice is often best gained when they band together as a Plague Cult. The power of such a group is far greater than that of any one of its members.Alone, these individuals can do very little, but if all are members of the same Plague Cult, it can be another matter entirely. The guard can look the other way when suspicious materials are smuggled in and stored safely away from prying eyes.Disease and despair are common throughout the galaxy. Death is ever-present as well, especially when plague grips a region. Some who would worship Nurgle see the death that follows disease, misinterpret the Plaguelord's will, and form death cults instead of Plague Cults. To these woeful souls, death is all. They believe that Nurgle's ultimate goal is final death.They are wrong. One common task that Plague Cults often take upon themselves is the eradication of these rival death cults who have so egregiously wronged Nurgle.The struggles between the two types of cults are usually limited to small skirmishes or individual assassinations. Only when it is too late, when the Plague Cult has vanquished the Heretics, and an unstoppable contagion spreads through their streets, do the authorities realise their error. |
Chaos Cult - Pleasure Cults: There are countless ways to come to know the glory of Slaanesh. Some mortals are simply tired of the suffering they experience daily in a merciless, unrelenting galaxy and want some sort of reward for enduring the ceaseless pain. Others enjoy a life of privilege already, but refuse to be satisfied with what they have.There are even those who simply cannot seem to resist certain actions or sensations, from listening to screams of tormented captives in torture chambers, filling their bodies with neurostims, or obsessively staring at walls of a particular shade of mauve for solar hours on end.From the most grand ambitions to the most seemingly innocent desires, anything that causes the slightest pleasure in a mortal is a psychic opening through which the Dark Prince can make its presence and influence felt.Regardless of where a cult springs up, how it grows, or what the particular fixations it has might be, all Pleasure Cults of Slaanesh have common themes -- excess, sensation, and personal perfection.One cult may be trying to find the perfect pitch at which to scream, another seeking the most efficient way to get wine into the bloodstream, and another pushing the limits of how much skin can be removed before the body fails.They are all looking for more than they have or more than they have been told is possible. A cult of Slaanesh is a study in obsession, just as their Dark Prince would have it. |
Chaos Cult - Thousand Sons Cultists: Of the heaving masses that make up the citizenry of the Imperium, most live in desperate squalor, packed into mountainous hive cities where they toil endlessly in vast manufactoria.Generations upon generations live and die in a state of constant fear -- fear of invasion, fear of starvation, and fear of the retribution they will face if they dare to cast off the shackles of Imperial order. These wretched conditions are the perfect breeding ground for dissent and rebellion.In the face of hopelessness, many are swayed by whispered stories that tell of the Chaos Gods and the rewards bestowed upon their followers. Such unimaginable power is tantalising to the powerless, and sets many on the path to damnation.Cults begin to grow deep within the fabric of Imperial worlds, driven by the profane preachings of Chaos-touched demagogues. Though many of these cults are found and eradicated by the Ordo Hereticus, the watchers within the Imperium are not able to have eyes everywhere, and many more of these cults flourish.The cultists hide in plain sight, their drab clothes covering heretical tattoos and symbols they have carved into their own flesh, dedicated to the Ruinous Powers. Their numbers continue to swell with time until the cult has infected large portions of the planet's society, and a collective feeling of destiny gives the members purpose.They begin to gather weapons into secret caches, pilfering from Planetary Defence Forces and crafting makeshift implements with which they can hack and bludgeon. Some are even given visions which reveal methods to piece together crude but effective guns.As their hour of reckoning approaches, the most faithful servants are marked with hideous mutations, and the wretches that behold these gifts offer up their souls willingly in worship to Tzeentch.At last, as the invading forces of the Thousand Sons Traitor Legion approach their world, the cultists' presence is unveiled. In a violent explosion of pent-up wrath they fall upon those with whom they have lived their whole lives.None are spared from their twisted fury, and they carve great bloody swathes through the hab-blocks and manufactorum districts, chanting blasphemies and paradoxical oaths as they rampage. Giant pyres are lit in the name of Tzeentch, and by their burning light the cultists continue to mangle and mutilate those still loyal to the Imperium.Many cities -- even whole worlds -- fall quickly to the sudden influx of cultists, their defences completely overrun by the seemingly unending flood of bodies. But those that somehow are able to stem the tide of violence face an even greater threat, as the thrallbands of the Thousand Sons begin their inexorable march.Inferno Bolter fire and crackling beams of eldritch energy fly over the teeming throngs of cultists, while tanks and Daemon Engines tear through ferrocrete walls to allow the stampede of tainted Humanity to continue.The sheer volume of cultists allows them to soak up a vast amount of returned fire without losing momentum, and the sight of Rubric Marines and sorcerers on the battlefield sends them into a religious fervour -- for these ornately armoured Chaos Space Marines are like walking saints, come to bless the cultists for their loyal devotion.Whatever hope a cultist may have derived from their profane worship is inevitably false. They are but pawns in the plans of the Thousand Sons, meat to clog the wheels of the Imperial war machine.Should they live through their initial uprising, no great reward awaits them. Those who survive may be taken by the thrallbands to other war zones where they will again be sent to die on the front lines.Others are transported to the Planet of the Sorcerers to serve as slaves or to be used as subjects in arcane experiments. Still more are simply overtaken by their own mutations, and become gibbering Chaos Spawn. |
Chaos Cult - Warp Cults of Calth: History has yet to relate the names of all of the cultic forces the Word Bearers committed at the Battle of Calth where Chaos Cultists were first used in large-scale military actions, and it is likely that as the Underworld War ground on, those factions brought to Calth as part of the Calth Conjunction that Horus ordered as a pretext to gather the Imperial forces at Calth altered greatly. Some were obliterated when the Ultramarines began their counterattack on the surface, while others merged, split or changed in other ways.On the day of the Calth Conjunction, however, there were four chief cultic groups represented amongst the ranks of the Traitors, and it is likely there were numerous smaller factions present in addition to these, the names of most of which history does not record and only substantive evidence for cult forces in the northern hemisphere remains.The four primary Warp cults present at the Battle of Calth were the Ushmetar Kaul -- "the Brotherhood of the Knife," the Tzenvar Kaul -- "the Recursive Kin," the Jeharwanate -- "the Ring," and the Mandari -- "the Gene-kin."The heavily mechanised forces of the Calaq War Hosts that took part in the Battle of Ithraca on Calth's southern continent were notable in themselves as their trappings of technology and record of Imperial military service masked the truth of their savage culture and devotion to the influence of the Warp, and therefore do not conform to the pattern illustrated here.As such they were not a cultic force in this accepted sense, but more like Traitor regiments of the Imperial Army. |
Chaos Cult - Davinite Lodge Priests: Such histories that exist describing the roots of the Horus Heresy reserve a special place for the warrior lodges of the Feral World of Davin.Such descriptions are beyond the scope of this account and much remains unknown, but any examination of the Warp cults of the ancient galactic civil war must also include some mention of the Davinite lodge priests who were often to be found serving alongside them.These twisted Abhuman magi and demagogues each followed one of the animist and totemic warrior and mystic cults of Davin. Of these, one of the most commonly encountered were initiates of the so-called Serpent Lodge, into whose clutches the Warmaster Horus fell when wounded on Davin's Plague Moon and who would go on to act as his emissaries, but numerous other lodges were also recorded to a lesser extent.The warrior lodge priests appeared to serve a higher interest than the individual cults and may have been acting in concert with certain conspirators at the highest levels of the Traitors' leadership, in particular the Dark Apostles of the Word Bearers, who it is apparent had a hand in countless atrocities across thousands of worlds. While some lodge priests served as advisors in matters of prophecy and the Warp, others acted as high priests under whom multiple cult bodies could be gathered together.All were schooled in the darkest arts of Warpcraft and were able to call upon and wield the most terrible of Warp-born powers and aberrant psyker abilities, making them one of the most dangerous classes of the Warmaster Horus' allies outside of the Heretic Astartes of the Traitor Legions themselves. |
Chaos Cult - Unclean Horde: Of the Recursive Kin and the Ring, very little is known save they were represented on the Calth muster-tally as Feral World levies dragged along in the wake of the Word Bearers Legion.While both factions fought in the opening phases of the war and inflicted heavy losses on the Loyalist defenders of Calth, both were largely wiped out by counterattacks when the Ultramarines regained control of Calth's planetary defence grid and initiated a heavy bombardment of Traitor units from orbit.According to after-action reports, both forces were observed engaging in the most outlandish of rituals and employed Warpcraft via rogue and aberrant psyker mutants concealed within their ranks.The Tzenvar Kaul, in particular, numbered many thousands of Abhumans and mutants in their ranks, ranking them as third-line troops suitable only for hazardous environment labour, forlorn hope operations and Zone Mortalis "clearance" duties.The conspiracy of the Traitors had concealed the full extent of their physiological deviance, however, which proved to be far in excess of that which would have warranted extermination on the grounds of biological contamination to the Imperium.These forces, when unveiled in battle, were revealed to be so debased in body and mind, they were little more than caricatured mockeries of Humanity whose limbs were twisted far beyond all Human norms, sporting chitin horns, thrashing tentacle limbs and far more eyes than any living thing should have.These aberrant creatures were simply driven at the Loyalists in massed wave assaults, seeking to overwhelm by sheer numbers, and died in their thousands either to Loyalist guns or the indiscriminate bombardments launched by their "allies." |
Chaos Cult - Crimson Brotherhoods: The Brotherhood of the Knife was the largest and most effective of the Warp cults deployed by the Word Bearers to Calth. As with others of its kind, it was brought to the muster under the guise of second-line Excertus Imperialis Levy Auxilia, with an entry given to the muster as classification "Light Infantry/Terrestrial Sub-type/Feral-Feudal Regressive."The cult force was, it appears, organised into between 10-20 sub-sects, each at least 10,000 strong. The members of the Ushmetar Kaul had already gained something of a reputation as a most bloodthirsty and brutal fighting force alongside the Word Bearers during their later Imperial Compliance actions of the Great Crusade, and they were recorded as engaging in the most violent rites before, after and even during battle.The excesses attributed to these forces during the Battle of Calth -- particularly by the harrowing accounts of civilian survivors -- speak of the Brotherhood of the Knife fighting clad in rags soaked with the freshly-spilled blood of sacrificial victims, which were as likely to be drawn from their own ranks as from captured enemy combatants.Others had daubed arcane symbols on their skin with blood or had hair matted with clotted viscera; the by-products of mutilations and acts of furious cannibalism beyond the countenance of any sane mind.Many bore ceremonial blades and other melee weapons, and the more senior wielded ritual weapons since classified under the general term Athame, fashioned of jagged stone or strangely alloyed iron.Such weapons were by unknown means specifically attuned to the realm of the Warp, so that every death they inflicted was an offering to feed the empyreal entities with which the cult was in communion, and by the act of killing, they sought to breach the barriers which separated the material realm from the Immaterium.It is believed that the Ushmetar Kaul proved itself a key component in the vast ritual of which the death of Calth was but the opening phase, its thousands-strong cohorts being deployed into the many cities and provinces across the surface of Calth, from Numinus to Talanko.The brotherhoods fought in close coordination with their Word Bearers masters, either serving as an expendable first wave or to clear entrenched foes by weight of numbers, butcher the wounded and round up prisoners for sacrifice.They were also fearsome and skilled fighters, and while individual cultists were no match for a Space Marine, they had the advantage of numbers and were driven by their twisted creed to perform deeds beyond the endurance of mortal soldiers.With each death inflicted by the Ushmetar Kaul, Lorgar's grand ritual to create the Ruinstorm was progressed an increment more, making the Brotherhood of the Knife as useful in an occult sense as it was in a military one. |
Chaos Cult - Gene-Bound: Perhaps the most unusual of the cultic sects engaged at the Battle of Calth were the Mandari, about which very little is known, for the manner of its members' devotions left little behind in the way of evidence that might be studied.What is known from examining captured fragments of their "sacred texts" from the bodies of the dead is that the rank and file of the Mandari -- the so-called "Gene-kin" -- were bound by some aberrant combination of technology and genetics to the service of the Warp in such a way that they believed utterly they would be re-born immediately after their deaths into a new and glorious form.The Word Bearers, it appears, promised the Mandari Gene-kin that they were in essence immortal. While a great many of the Warp cults committed to the Battle of Calth and elsewhere likely held similar beliefs, those of the Mandari were far more than dogma or esoteric metaphor.Accounts submitted by Ultramarines units following the Battle of Calth and the subsequent Underworld War describe incidents of spontaneous mutation of a singular character far beyond the most extreme cases of bio-aberration previously recorded by Imperial savants, up to and including the bodily re-vivification of the dead.Forensic examination of recovered corpses by the XIII Legion's Apothecaries obtained during the Underworld War also record numerous medical anomalies, such as unnecessary surgical interventions and seemingly non-functioning implantations of extraneous foreign matter.The process by which these individuals underwent change was far from certain, yet in time the defenders of Calth came to recognise the hideous effect. Within a period of a few solar minutes to several solar hours after death, the body of the slain might begin to convulse and then thrash, bones snapping and flesh distending to the extent of acquiring additional mass by unknown means.Ruined flesh would re-knit, the fallen Mandari becoming a bent, split and twisted thing which bore little resemblance to the Human form and that moved across the ground in an entirely unnatural rapid gait and was impervious to pain and trauma.Killing the returned Mandari took bravery, discipline and concentrated fire, and the defenders of Calth soon learned that only severe trauma inflicted to a Mandari cultist's central mass would ensure the horrific process did not occur.By their very nature and the fact that they could only be killed by the most destructive of means, the reanimated Kaul Mandari proved impossible to study. |
Chaos Cult - Warp Cult Organisation: Throughout the wars of the Horus Heresy, cultic factions organised themselves in many different ways which remain still largely incomprehensible to Imperial observers.It was only much later that the numerological and esoteric significance of certain patterns and formulae were apprehended and categorised in the broadest terms by the agents of the Imperium's own more esoteric agencies such as the Inquisition.Countless variation was observed and any concerted effort to quantify or categorise cult formations was invariably doomed to failure. Despite this, certain common factors were observed across a wide range of cults, and while there were always examples of bodies with unique structures or no structure at all, some degree of commonality was recognised.The task of studying these groups was entrusted to a small number of savants and logistae on the staff of Malcador the Sigillite -- the Regent of Terra.While most of the work was carried out in secure isolation deep within the labyrinthine bowels of the Imperial Palace on Terra by adepts sifting through countless thousands of reports and accounts, some came about through first-hand observation by field adepts operating at great danger to themselves. It is from a combination of these two sources that the information presented here was collated.The majority of Warp cultic groups were organised in a broadly pyramidal form, with a single individual at the apex and other members occupying subsidiary interstitial nodes with varying degrees of power and responsibility below them.Invariably, this person was either highly charismatic or otherwise able to exert an inordinate degree of control over the cult's members.In some cases the leaders were possessed of psychic ability, either recently developed or else repressed for many Terran years before being revealed. Others were possessed of such darkly portentous and forbidden knowledge, they were able to bend the multitudes to their will with words and phrases that struck horror into the souls of all who heard them.Prior to the revelation of the Warmaster Horus' betrayal of the Emperor, the cult leader or "magister" was the only member of the group who was aware of the existence of other cults and invariably this individual kept such knowledge to themselves, apportioning small amounts out to underlings as rewards for service.In most cases, and in particular during the early days of the Horus Heresy, the leader was the only member of the Warp cult with any contact with outside powers, namely the Traitor Legions or their agents, or indeed other cults.The magister was master of the cult's numerous ciphers and secret tongues, without which both internal and external communications were all but impossible. This perspective invested cult leaders with enormous power, and made it less likely they would be challenged or usurped, for in doing so any challenger would win only incomplete control of the group.Below the magister there often existed an inner circle, sometimes referred to as a "coven," of especially trusted lieutenants, co-conspirators, seers, enforcers, advisors, consorts, bodyguards and even family members, forming a malignant dynasty at the Warp cult's heart.Such acolytes shared some of the leaders' burden of command and assisted in the occult rituals and murderous pursuits around which the Warp cult's activities were focused.When the call to rise up and fight for the Warmaster came, the individual members of the coven might serve as sub-officers, leading the greater masses of the cult into battle against the hated Loyalists. The realities of war very quickly weeded out those not suited to battlefield service and those who survived were often potent warrior-leaders indeed.The greater mass of a Warp cult was made up of seemingly normal people, subjects of the Emperor and citizens of the Imperium who, despite appearances, nurtured a deep and twisted hatred for all the Great Crusade had achieved.When called upon to turn their hand against their masters, the masses did so with cruel relish. The majority of the cult's members had only the most rudimentary knowledge of tactics and weapons, but made up for this deficiency in wanton savagery, suicidal fervour and deluded courage.Under the fell influence of the magister and the cult's inner circle, the rank-and-file cultists would obey any order and perform any deed, utterly certain that even should they die, they would be resurrected into a new and supremely powerful sphere of existence as just reward for their sacrifice.As with other tiers, those cultists not suited to warfare were cut down in the opening salvoes, leaving behind a core of warriors that in sufficient numbers could overwhelm almost any foe. |
Chaos Cult - Strength in Darkness: Warp cults had two primary weapons to bring to bear against the Loyalists. The first was simple numerical advantage, for the tendrils of heresy had spread far and wide in the years preceding the betrayals in the Isstvan System and by the time of the Battle of Calth, the Traitors were able to call upon unnumbered hordes of devoted cultist foot soldiers.Numbering among the subservient foot soldiers loyal to the Word Bearers and Sons of Horus in particular, Traitor war fleets were often accompanied by carrier vessels whose dark, stifling cargo holds were crammed full of cultists devoted to their cause.While many Warp cults rose up as discreet bodies, each holding their own idiosyncratic beliefs and practises, once swept up in the massive sector-wide advances of the Horus Heresy, they were soon subsumed into a gestalt mass of frenzied Chaos devotees bearing all manner of equipment and clothing.The second is that numbers alone are unlikely to have granted these forces a decisive advantage, and it was in the sphere of the esoteric and the occult that their true strength was to be found. At Calth and in many other conflicts, the Warp cults served as part of a grand conspiracy, one in which stratagems beyond the grasp of the Loyalists were frequently employed.By way of Warpcraft and forbidden psionics, Warp-magi could cause the Empyrean to bleed into reality; they could assail the foe with the sanity-shattering wails of damned souls; they could make the stars go out and cause horrifying visions to burn across the night skies.Most terrible and potent of all were those magi who, by way of pacts with the unnameable denizens of the beyond, could call forth legions of fiends, things dubbed "Daemon" by those few who witnessed them and survived to recount the nightmare.Time after time, the Warp cults showed themselves willing to sacrifice their own lives in abominable mass sacrificial rituals to bring these creatures into being on the material plane, and the Loyalists learned at a high price indeed that in slaying the massed hordes of Warp cultists, they might simply be hastening the arrival of a second wave of Warp-born Daemons, a foe which few mortals and only the most stoic of the Legiones Astartes could hope to defeat.In the panoply of war however, the majority of Warp cults were almost entirely deficient. Unlike the Imperialis Auxilia regiments that declared for Horus, the countless Warp cults rarely had any access to military stockpiles before they rose up against the Imperium. Even once counted amongst the ranks of the Traitors, most cult bodies were afforded only the most limited access to Traitor supply chains.In reality, most cultists armed and equipped themselves by looting the bodies of the fallen, both Traitor and Loyalist, giving them a motley and ramshackle appearance made all the more outlandish by the occult formulae and Warp-based heretical runes scratched into weapons and daubed across flesh and armour.For all their undoubted value to the Traitor Legiones Astartes, the fate of the majority of allied Warp cults was the same on many battlefields. Their lot was to be expended as ammunition in the service of the Warmaster. They were frequently deployed but rarely re-deployed unless they could extract themselves from a war zone by their own efforts.Traitor Legiones Astartes commanders gave little or no heed to cultists' well-being and regarded them as entirely expendable.Until the Siege of Terra, this fact was never made more starkly clear than at Calth, where hundreds of thousands of deluded Warp cultists were committed, only to be abandoned, their deaths but one element in Lorgar's far-reaching and unfathomable ritual to bring about the Ruinstorm. |
Chaos Cult - Abrial's Claw: Warsmith Baldurn is an outcast of the Iron Warriors since his defeat at the Fortress of Ventemar on the Daemon World of Medregard. Balduran has been seeking the means to rebuild his standing.When the forces of Chaos overran the world of Makenna VII, he used his share of the spoils to build up the strength of his Grand Battery. With so many war machines under his command, he planned to return to Medrengard to crush those that mocked him.He fought alongside the infamous Chaos Renegade Abrial Shard, who swore an oath of brotherhood to the Warsmith long ago on a Daemon World at the heart of the Eye of Terror.Baldarun called upon his old ally to bolster his forces upon Makenna VII, and Arbial sent a detachment of his own personal elite Chaos Cult warriors, known as Abrial's Claw, on the condition that Balduraun relinquished the secrets of his beloved technovirus to Shard's cultists.Whether they survived to return the secret to their master is another matter. |
Chaos Cult - The Admonition: The Admonition, also known as the Cult of Admonition, is a Chaos Cult dedicated to Nurgle, the Chaos God of disease and despair, that exists within the lower and middle reaches of Hive Tertium, the primary hive city of Atoma Prime, the capital world of the Moebian Domain of the Imperium.The word "admonition" means a firm, authoritative, or harsh warning, reprimand, rebuke, or counsel. What could this warning or counsel be that the cult offers to the people of Atoma Prime? The majority of the Heretics of the cult encountered by Imperial forces spout some line mentioning "truth." This "truth" is likely what the cultists admonish the population to accept -- the insane ideology of Nurgle, which basically calls upon mortals to embrace the inevitability of rot, decay, disease and death in order to be freed by the Plague Lord of the fear and despair such outcomes produce.In the Era Indomitus, the Admonition unleashed a Zombie Plague and the Walking Pox upon the hive city and a swarm of Zombies and Poxwalkers soon began to assault the lower reaches of Hive Tertium. To deal with the Undead threat, the elite Moebian 6th Regiment was redirected from frontline deployment in the Fringe War to assist in combating the Nurglish corruption.Instead, the Chaos-corrupted Astra Militarum regiment turned on the people it had sworn to protect and began to support the uprising as a Traitoris Militarum force dedicated to overthrowing Imperial rule on Atoma Prime and spreading the dark "truth" of Nurgle and Chaos to all its people.To stop this growing corruption, the Inquisition under the command of the Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor Grendyl recently deployed its forces, including large groups of Acolytes, into Hive Tertium in a race against time to save the hive city before the cult's corruption can grow into a cancer that could consume the entire world, or even eventually threaten the entire Moebius Domain. |
Chaos Cult - Black Hand: The Black Hand were a cult fostered by Fexrath, the leader of the Third Claw of House Cull of the Night Lords. Since Amon Cull's forces were perpetually low on manpower, Fexrath had volunteered to take the most savage of the survivors of the Night Lords' brutal recruitment harvests and forge them into a ruthless warrior cult dedicated to the sadistic narcissism that permeates the VIIIth Legion to enhance House Cull's force levels.The Black Hand saw action during the attack on the prison world of Zartak and faced the unrelenting savagery of the Carcharodons' 3rd Company. |
Chaos Cult - Blood Pact: The Blood Pact is a Chaos warband devoted to Khorne, differing from other such war bands in that they follow an unusually disciplined way of life. They can be found on the so-called "Sanguinary Worlds" of the Sabbat Worlds Sector, primarily around the world of Ghourra.Unlike many Chaos Cultist warbands, the Blood Pact fights as a disciplined army against the onslaught of the Astra Militarum's Sabbat Worlds Crusade, and this is what makes them so effective compared to the usual disorganised Chaos masses.Consisting of highly trained, vicious soldiers and xenos mercenaries, the soldiers of the Blood Pact know no fear or hesitation. They have overrun entire worlds and caused the people of the Imperium no small amount of suffering and woe during the Sabbat Worlds Crusade.The Blood Pact's adherents, like their allies among the Sons of Sek, possess an unusual view of Chaos theology. They do not hate the Emperor as an enemy of Chaos, but venerate him as another embodiment of the Warp.They believe the Emperor to be simply another Warp entity like a Daemon or the Chaos Gods themselves. They see Him as a misguided prophet for Humanity who has seen the power of the Warp but who mislead His followers into believing that it should be opposed.The Blood Pact and their allies believe that it is the holy task of their cults to spread the truth about the God-Emperor and the Warp and to bring the people of the Imperium back into the fold of worship of the powers of Chaos, because in truth they are already venerating a creature of the Warp.For these cultists, the Emperor is already akin to the entities they worship, for He, too, is powered by the Warp and has been changed by his contact with the Immaterium. For these cultists, the Emperor is actually a symbol of what they aspire to, as they wish to become one with the Warp and be forever changed by this communion.Thus, in their belief system, the "schism" of mistaken faith embraced by the Imperium must be healed and Humanity brought back into the embrace of Chaos. They hold that the Imperium does not need to be destroyed, but only reformed so that it understands the true nature of the Warp and its inhabitants.In this view, the Imperial Creed has led the people of the Imperium down the wrong path for millennia, and the Blood Pact and their allies believe that they are engaged in a war to defeat its gatekeepers so they can teach Humanity the truth of the enlightenment that Chaos offers -- and that they have already been worshipping without realising it. |
Chaos Cult - Brotherhood of the Horned Darkness: The Brotherhood of the Horned Darkness is a dangerous and highly organised malefic cult whose origins and activities go back according to some sources to the founding of the Calixis Sector and quite possibly beyond. This cult has been repeatedly smashed time and again over the centuries only to appear again some years or solar decades later.Membership, size, form, and power may vary, but it is always recognisable in its core beliefs and the object of its worship -- the Daemon Balphomael, the Horned Darkness.The brotherhood, known to some as the "Pact of Balphomael" or the "Black Society," is recognised by the Ordo Malleus as a near-archetypical Daemon-worshipping cult, although often better resourced and more dangerous than most.Appealing to the nobility and the ruling elite who tend toward ambition and megalomania rather than jaded excess or forbidden pleasure, Balphomael's supplicants are often austere, driven, and dangerous individuals who obey their daemonic master's teachings and feed his hungry demand for sacrifice and suffering.In the past, multiple groups worshipping the daemon have been in existence at the same time, either kept in ignorance of each other or set up as rivals to prove their worth, depending on their daemonic master's whim. |
Chaos Cult - Carnibales: The Carnibales are a Chaos insurgency native to the Shrine World of Solo-Baston which began to trouble the planet when the Ecclesiarchy, the ruler of the world, started appropriating land from the indigenous population for the church's agricultural use.In reality the rebellion was instigated by the Dos Pares, members of the Blood Gorgons Chaos Space Marines. The Carnibales were able to very quickly massacre the Solo-Baston Planetary Defence Force (PDF) who had not expected the insurgency.Eventually the Astra MIlitarum was called in to put down the rebellion, however their efforts proved futile because the Carnibales had captured the super heavy Earthwrecker siege gun, which allowed them to thwart any attempt by the Imperial forces to land on the main Solo-Baston landmass.Though initially none of the Imperial authorities suspected the insurgency was aided by the forces of Chaos, the increasing number of mutants among the Carnibales fighters and the growing number of shrines to the Dark Gods made this fact blatantly obvious. |
Chaos Cult - Chem-Hunters of Messia: The inhabitants of Messia live in a world blighted with industrial pollution and utterly inhospitable to Human life; yet Human life persists and has taken root within the twin cities at the planet's poles.Life in these cities is hard and heavily dependent on expeditions that continuously scour Messia's blasted wastelands to secure precious promethium.Such expeditions are made up of the hardiest of Messia's inhabitants and it is from these that the Chem-Hunters arise. Chem-Hunters are veterans of the unforgiving wilderness of Messia and offer their invaluable services as raiders and escorts to the drill-barons.They are consummate riders and skirmishers, frequently seen operating attack bike escorts or clinging to the rigs watching for roaming mutant hordes.The majority of Messia's population view them as daredevils at best and suicidal at worst. However, there is no denying that they are accomplished survivalists and valued additions to any warband.The Chem-Hunters of Messia are skilled and deadly killers who are used to surviving in spite of desperate odds. They tend towards wild and reckless behaviour, seeming to care little about the potential pitfalls of their actions.These nomads operate as mercenaries and guides that sell their services to the highest bidder, which on Messia usually means working for the notorious promethium drill-barons. They are also proficient mechanics, most having to salvage and repair their vehicles under rather frantic circumstances.Despite the many extreme dangers, life on an expedition offers a great degree of freedom from the constant degradations of Messia's cities. Chem-Hunters are constantly exposed to all manner of pollutants and toxins in the scorched wastelands, and, should they survive, become naturally resistant to such chemicals.However, these individuals also suffer from a unique poisoning that makes them dependent on the very compounds that afflict their bodies. The exact nature of this toxin is unknown; some, however, speculate that it may be related to the phenomenon that spawns the planet's roving mutant hordes. |
Chaos Cult - Children of the Merciful Lord: The Children of the Merciful Lord were a Chaos Cult who paid homage to Nurgle. This cult was responsible for the war with the Imperium on the world of Cordassa. |
Chaos Cult - Children of Sanguinary Unholiness: The Children of Sanguinary Unholiness was a massive Chaos Cult of Khornate Berserkers dedicated to the service of the Blood God Khorne which joined the Daemon Primarch Angron and his World Eaters Traitor Legion aboard the Space Hulk Devourer of Stars to launch an invasion of the Hive World of Armageddon in the Segmentum Solar in 444.M41.These cultists were drawn from the population of the Daemon World controlled by Angron and the World Eaters within the Eye of Terror and they were used to supplement the forces of daemons and Chaos Space Marines that Angron used to launch what would become known as the First War for Armageddon.The Children of Sanguinary Unholiness numbered in the millions but were ultimately defeated through the actions of Armageddon's mortal defenders amongst the Imperial Guard and its Planetary Defence Forces and the assistance of the Space Wolves and Grey Knights Space Marine Chapters. |
Chaos Cult - Cognitae: The Cognitae was a Chaos Cult which took the form of an academy, run by its founder, Lilean Chase. The Cognitae's aim was to develop "by means psychic, eugenic and noetic," a generation of individuals who would work to further the aims of Chaos in the Scarus Sector.Every graduate of the Cognitae was both highly intelligent and extremely dangerous. According to Criol Fowst, a senior member of the Ushmetar Kaul in the 31st Millennium, known also as "the Brotherhood of the Knife," the Cognitae, or some similar version of it, has existed within the Imperium for millennia, as far back as before the Great Crusade. The Cognitae also spawned several offshoots and imitators.Their most notable "graduate" was Zygmunt Molotch, a cunning and vicious anarchist and enemy of the Imperium. The arch-foe of Inquisitor Gideon Ravenor, one of his ultimate goals was the mastery of the forbidden language of Enuncia. He battled Ravenor across the Scarus Sector for many Terran years, faked his death several times and was immensely difficult for Ravenor to kill.In recent days, the Cognitae Heretics have converged under the figure known as "The King in Yellow," using horrifically powerful technology and a hitherto unknown mastery of Enuncia to an end that could annihilate the entire Imperium. Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn, one of Chaos' greatest foes, has sworn to shatter the Cognitae's design by any means necessary. |
Chaos Cult - Covenant of the Blessed: The Covenant of the Blessed was a Chaos Cult based on the planet Periremunda. Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor Killian managed to take control of the cult sometime before the 930s.M41, and used it as a source of experimental subjects for his research into the Shadowlight.This ancient artefact was able to grant psychic abilities to a fraction of the Humans who contacted it; the Radical Inquisitor Killian hoped to use created psykers to battle Chaos with its own weapons.Most of the cult was killed when the planet was attacked by Tyranids, either directly by assorted bioforms or purged by the Imperial forces defending the world. Killian himself was declared Excommunicate Traitoris and was killed by the Shadowlight as he attempted to flee with it. |
Chaos Cult - Cult of Amber: The Cult of Amber had existed on the small world of Unctious for millennia, believing that even the snail's pace at which the Imperium changed was too fast, and that only by embracing stasis and stagnancy could their great civilisation be preserved for eternity.The cult's members included high-ranking politicians, bureaucrats and officers within Unctious' planetary government, and all devoted themselves to preparing their world for the time when the skies would darken and the great Lord of Amber would stretch out his hand to claim his prize, preserving the planet for evermore and elevating his most beloved worshippers to the pantheon above.The Amber God was, perhaps unbeknownst to its cultists, a face of Nurgle, whose provenance was antipathy to change. Over the millennia, this parochial cult had been infiltrated and turned by agents of the god of decay, so that the cultists opposed change in all its forms and begun to work far more openly -- and widely -- to not only maintain the status quo but to encourage regression and stagnancy.Towards the end of the 40th Millennium, the cult performed a dreadful rite, summoning the Lord of Amber -- Nurgle itself -- who indeed manifested upon the world of Unctious, bringing decay in all its forms.As Nurgle moved to seize the worlds within the Corvus Sub-sector, it was thwarted by the Lord of Change himself. Tzeentch plucked at the Warp and drew it about the shoulders of the sub-sector, snatching it from Nurgle's sickly grasp, and scattering the planets and breaking the conjunction, denying the Plague Lord its prize.Nurgle snatched the world of Unctious and Magister Thrax as its consolation and returned to the depths of the Warp. |
Chaos Cult - Cult of the Angel of Fire: The Cult of the Angel of Fire was a Chaos Cult that flourished on the worlds of the Krask System in the early 41st Millennium. Forsaking the teachings of the Imperial Cult, the sect leaders of the cult believed they were in contact with a being known as the Angel of Fire, the messenger of the Emperor, but who in fact, was actually a Greater Daemon of Tzeentch.Gaining a popular following within the Krask System, the Planetary Governors were overthrown and theocratic regimes were installed. Those who spoke out against the cult were placed in cages and burned alive. During the Macharian Crusade, the Imperial forces of Lord Solar Macharius encountered fierce resistance from the Cult of the Angel of Fire.As their inevitable defeat loomed ever closer, the cult priests succeeded in opening a Warp rift, which allowed the Lord of Change masquerading as the Angel of Fire, to emerge into the Materium. Macharius's forces managed to defeat the daemon and its summoned minions, as well as closing the rift. Afterwards, the Cult of the Angel of Fire quickly fell apart. It was not clear whether the cultists were ever aware that their entire faith had been an immaculate deception created by the Ruinous Powers. |
Chaos Cult - Cult of Frantic Flensing: In 928.M41, High Praetor Osh'preen's disastrously lax reign over Dulma'lin opened the way for an heretical uprising by the Slaaneshi Cult of Frantic Flensing. The Astra Militarum Catachan II Regiment were the only regiment close enough to offer assistance but, thanks to a mysterious series of communication failures that bedeviled the Catachans, Osh'preen and his corrupt government were left to their remarkably horrible fate. |
Chaos Cult - Cult of the Red Talon: In 855.M41, after the Cult of the Red Talon arose on Antraxes at the command of their daemonic master, the Lord of Change, M'Kachen, it was Brother-Captain Arvann Stern who led the counterattack. Striking at the heart of the cult's temple, Stern and his Battle-Brothers held true to their quest.Though outnumbered, the Grey Knights slaughtered the Cultists to the final damned soul. At the last, the mighty M'Kachen was defeated, banished screaming back into the Warp by Stern himself -- a formidable feat normally thought beyond the psychic abilities of a lone Brother-Captain. M'Kachen vowed to devour Stern's mortal soul in revenge, and they have battled many times since. |
Chaos Cult - Cult of the Scarlet Vein: The Cult of the Scarlet Vein was a Chaos Cult that was confronted by the Relictors Space Marine Chapter when they were still a part of the Imperium. It was a bloody battle, which only Artekus Bardane survived. Bardane was finally elevated to the rank of Chapter Master at the recommendation of his predecessor, who was mortally wounded in the final battle against the Cult. |
Chaos Cult - Cult of the Severed Tongue: In 713.M36, Tzeentchian Daemons robbed the populace of Sundel of speech, every citizen rendered mute by Warp sorceries. In the silence that follows the Cult of the Severed Tongue is born, its debased members torturing and killing men and women with no voices to scream. For a year the cult reigned without opposition, turning the planet into a silent hell where corpses rotted in the streets and men and women lived like vermin in the shadows, fearful of making the slightest sound that will give them away.The Grey Knights confronted the cult as Sundel stood on the verge of utter destruction, its cities completely given over to worshipping the very daemons that orchestrated their ruin. In the empty silence, the only sounds to be heard were the bark of Storm Bolters and the crackle of Force Weapons as the Grey Knights purified the planet and annihilated any in their path. |
Chaos Cult - Cults of the Crimson Slaughter: It did not take long for rumour of the bloody deeds of the Renegade Chapter known as the Crimson Slaughter to spread across the vastness of the Imperium like wildfire. The desperate and the dispossessed clung to the tales -- gravitating towards any beings that could stand up to the harshest regime Mankind had ever known. Others -- the more debased and depraved of their lot -- chose the Crimson Slaughter for they saw that the Renegades were strong.In the 41st Millennium, where total war is a way of life, it pays to ally oneself to the most formidable faction available. So did cults rise up and dedicate themselves to the red-handed Renegades. To them, the Crimson Slaughter are manifestations of the Dark Gods themselves. Mutants, exiles, and hive gangers in their millions have set off in quest to prostrate themselves before the most fearsome of the Renegade Chapters -- the Crimson Slaughter.Most never make it. The galaxy is a dangerous place, and as merciless as the Imperium is to such Traitors, the Chaos Space Marines are far worse. Most cultists are slain on sight, destroyed for pleasure, ritual, or the whims of the Renegades. Some few, however, have found and joined the Crimson Slaughter -- at least until the mortals' overly ingratiating presence no longer serves any useful purpose. The Cult of the Red Disciples, the Cult of the Red Haze, the Bloodbathers and Dirtdogs make up but a few of the thousands of different cultists that serve the Crimson Slaughter. |
Chaos Cult - Death Priests of Mire: Of the various worlds within the Screaming Vortex that exhibit signs of Nurgle's pestilent touch, few are as prominent as the barren and blighted planet of Mire. Here the squalid denizens forage aimlessly amidst endless foetid pools of festering muck and decaying vegetation, their diseased bodies enduring solely due to Nurgle's unnatural ministrations. Perhaps the most dangerous of these are the so-called Death Priests who prey upon their fellow Mirens in order to perpetuate their disgusting adulation of the Plague God's bountiful corruptions.Death Priests feed on the bodies of their victims in order to nourish the parasites, diseases, and other foul poxes that writhe in their bloated guts. They believe these afflictions to be a blessing from the Plague Father. On Mire, they see it as their unholy duty to hunt down the so-called "Pyrions" -- clean ones -- and devour them.After slaying any foe, though, they usually gorge themselves on every scrap of putrescent sustenance to feed the ravenous diseases that wrack their ghoulish forms. These feculent warriors are highly prized within the debased warbands of the Screaming Vortex, and many opportunistic slavers exploit their infamous enthusiasm for slaughter by luring these voracious killers off-world with promises of fresh carcasses to consume. |
Chaos Cult - Divine Fratery: The Chaos Cult known as the Divine Fratery that comprised several thousand members had spread throughout the Angelus, Antimar, Helican and Ophidian Sub-sectors by the 400s.M41. As worshipers of the Ruinous Powers their primary goals were to spread, by any means necessary, anarchy and chaos in order to facilitate the disintegration of the Imperium.They were obsessed with the art of divination in order to discern possible futures, and, whenever one promised disaster, the Cult did everything in its power to ensure that the tragic event came to pass and to maximize consequences. As part of their initiation, members of the cult had to remove one of their eyes, and then craft a patch to cover their remaining one, made of special material and to exact specifications, before they could receive medical treatment.If they survived this stage of their initiation, the missing eye was replaced with an augmetic version for everyday use, while the remaining eye was left covered, to be used only during divination rituals. The Divine Fratery anticipated the coming of the Daemon Prince Slyte, who clashed several times with Inquisitors Gregor Eisenhorn and his pupil, Gideon Ravenor. |
Chaos Cult - Exilarchy: The Exilarchy is a great army of Human Chaos Cultists, Traitoris Militarum and mutants that also counts several warbands of Heretic Astartes among its number. It was active in the backwater Elara's Veil sector of the Ultima Segmentum in the Era Indomitus.The leaders of the Exilarchy are the warband of Chaos Space Marines known as The Pure, who were the survivors of a Loyalist Space Marine Chapter called the Star Scorpions that had been native to the world of Khamun-Sen in the Veil. The Star Scorpions' entire Chapter fleet had been lost in the Warp, and the survivors later returned to realspace as the Chaos Space Marines of The Pure.The Pure use the mortals of the Exilarchy as foot soldiers and cannon fodder to further their cause, which is to claim the entirety of the Elara's Veil region as a new Chaos realm under their direct control. In the aftermath of the Great Rift's creation at the dawn of the Era Indomitus, the Pure and the Exilarchy were expelled by the Warp into the region of Elara's Veil.The twenty Human-settled worlds of that sector were controlled by the Imperium, but The Pure sought to colonise them with the troops of the Exilarchy to create a new stellar empire dedicated to Chaos in a warped version of their former dedication to protecting the region. This brought them into direct conflict with their former brethren among the Adeptus Vaelarii, the "Sentinels of the Veil," which now included the Emperor's Spears and Celestial Lions Chapters, charged, as the Star Scorpions had been, with protecting the worlds of Elara's Veil.However, after over a standard century of warfare between the Chaos and Imperial forces experienced due to the temporal instability caused by the Great Rift in the region, and primarily due to the sheer size of the Exilarchy forces, roughly half of Elara's Veil is now under The Pure's control. The Adeptus Vaelarii continue to valiantly hold the line against these servants of the Archenemy, but only time will tell if they will be able to maintain their vigil successfully, for both Chapters are depleted forces trapped on the Imperium's benighted frontier in the Imperium Nihilus. |
Chaos Cult - Ghol Voluptara: On the world of Baraspine, located in the Calixis Sector, a Pale Throng-style revolt by the mutant castes used to tend the wind-blasted Impellor Towers that dotted that world's barrens threatened to plunge the hives into darkness.The Baraspine rising was later revealed to have been backed and instigated by a secret malefic sorcerer cult, the Ghol Voluptara. The cult used the anarchy and distraction caused by the insurrection as a cover for a series of dark rituals which were only prevented by the combined forces of the Adepta Sororitas and the ruling executive's household troops. |
Chaos Cult - Hidden Hand: The Hidden Hand is a Chaos Cult dedicated to the Plague Lord. They believe Mankind is a disease, spreading across the galaxy like a stain. The gods have turned from the filth of their presence. They believe it must be cleansed so that the gods will pour their bounties upon Humanity once more, and pestilence and plague shall be the tools for a thief to catch a thief, a plague to kill a plague -- poisoning the wells, defiling the air, passing contagion by touch to all those who pass by. When the corpses finally outnumber the living, the Cult will light the fires of purification and pass their souls unto the netherworld to take their pleas and prayers to the gods. |
Chaos Cult - Hollow Cult: In 290.M34, during their long war against the Slaaneshi Hollow Cult and its many-limbed pleasure god, the Grey Knights lost almost the entire 7th Brotherhood. The cult laid a series of cunning ambushes for the Grey Knights, bending reality to isolate each of the Battle-Brothers and overwhelm them in a tide of daemonic flesh.The Grey Knights' retribution is absolute, and Supreme Grand Master Calastan gathers the full might of the Chapter against the cult. In the end, the only memory of the Hollow Cult that remains is recorded in faded ink within the Sanctum Sanctorum in the Citadel of Titan. |
Chaos Cult - House Glaw: House Glaw was a former noble family of the planet Gudrun located in the Helican Sub-sector in the Segmentum Obscurus. Pontius Glaw was the seventh son of house patriarch Oberon Glaw, who was corrupted by Chaos and led a cabal of Slaanesh cultists that eventually turned the attention of the Inquisition towards his activities. Inquisitor Absolom Angevin and his retinue tracked down Pontius and his cabal with the aid of House Glaw, who sought to distance themselves from their heretic kinsman.The hunt for Pontius eventually ended with his death. Over the next two centuries, House Glaw was investigated multiple times, as they had never fully escaped suspicion. Even though they cooperated with Inquisitorial investigators, Chaos activity in the sub-sector eventually led back to Gudrun and House Glaw. Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn eventually discovered that the entirety of House Glaw was corrupted by Chaos and that the new Lord Oberon and his brother Urisel were involved with powerful Chaos benefactors, including Chaos Space Marines from the Emperor's Children Traitor Legion. When word reached Inquisitor Commodus Voke, the puritanical Inquisitor called upon the Imperial Guard and Imperial Navy to conduct a purge of Gudrun, and House Glaw was all but wiped out. |
Chaos Cult - Infardi: The Infardi were Chaos Cultists native to the planet Hagia in the Sabbat Worlds Sector. They took their name from a local word for pilgrim and wore robes of emerald green which mocked that Shrine World's Imperial faith. They were tattooed with images of Saint Sabbat in congress with daemons and Chaos runes. They were led on Hagia by their general Pater Sin.It is presumed that the Infardi were destroyed upon activation of the psychic amplification device beneath the Shrinehold of Saint Sabbat, save for Pater Sin, who had fled Hagia some days before. Infardi is also the Hagian name for pilgrims of Saint Sabbat. |
Chaos Cult - The Ironclad: The Ironclad are a large movement of Chaos pirate raiders active in the Medina Corridor who are also dedicated to the service of the Ruinous Powers and the spread of their faith. |
Chaos Cult - Kith: Led by Magister Sholen Skara, the Kith was a genocidal Chaos Cult which committed countless atrocities during the Sabbat Worlds Crusade. On the world of Balhaut, in the aftermath of the fighting, as the Imperial forces secured their occupation, the legacy of the Kith's murderous Magisters was revealed. Skara's murder-camps on the Balopolis Peninsula contained hideous evidence of the genocide the Kith had wrought on the population of Balhaut, perhaps for no other reason than the pursuit of their own twisted entertainment.Imperial personnel who witnessed these discoveries were plagued by terrible mental distress and even insanity. Still others, most notably Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt were driven on in a relentless obsession to destroy the perpetrators of these atrocities forever. Following his flight from Balhaut, Skara took refuge on Sapiencia, an Ocean World. Supported by his Kith followers the architect of the Balopolis murder-camps established a new stronghold from which to mount counterstrike operations at the Imperial bases on Voltemand and Caligula.After a single mass Astra Militarum assault in early 768.M41 reconquered Sapiencia, Skara's plans were swiftly brought to an end. The masterful orbital drop onto the beaches of the primary island groups would prove to be one of the Sabbat Worlds Crusade's swiftest victories, mostly due to the capture of the genocidal Magister early in the assault.The vile Kith destroyed themselves in a mass suicide ritual in accordance with their dark cult beliefs. Skara craved death himself, but was denied, as his murderous career finally ended when he was given over to the tender mercies of the Holy Ordos of the Inquisition. His fate remains unrevealed. |
Chaos Cult - Krandor Cults: During the Krandor Rebellion in 795.M41 a massive uprising in the Krandor System is harshly put down by the Cadian 23rd Regiment. Several of the cults, notably the followers of the Shining Deity, the Cult of Many Tentacles, and the red-robed Brotherhood, had not been seen since the Fourth Quadrant Rebellion.Although both military and civilian losses are high, their quick subjugation is vital. The Imperium can ill-afford to lose the resource-rich Krandor system, which holds planets key to the whole of the Segmentum Obscurus. |
Chaos Cult - The Lost and the Damned: The Lost and the Damned include the hordes of Chaos Cultists that follow Abaddon the Despoiler during the Black Crusades of Chaos Undivided. It is also in use as a more generic term for all of the human or mutant forces of Chaos that are not Chaos Space Marines. |
Chaos Cult - The Magi: The Magi, the original philosophical descendants of one of the Inquisition's founders, Moriana, is a Chaos Cult that continuously seeks out possible Divine Avatars and either kill them, control them or study them according to their personal philosophy, only rather than wishing to suppress the God-Incarnate they want to bring it about. The God-Incarnate is the belief that a god could become a physical incarnation -- the physical vessel for a god in the material world.The idea of the God-Incarnate is that there will be a certain individual (or individuals) who will allow this to happen -- a god could invest their power into the mortal body and literally become a living god (commonly known amongst the Thorian faction of the Inquisition as Divine Avatars). Some of the Magi may be trying to create a God-Incarnate of the Chaos Gods, out of selfish hope to either be the Divine Avatar themselves, or by earning the eternal favour of their god for being the most loyal of servants. Others may be trying to reincarnate the Emperor, seeing this as the true way forward for Humanity. |
Chaos Cult - Malice Brotherhood: The Malice Brotherhood was a Chaos Cult on the Mining World of Sepheris Secundus located in the Calixis Sector within the Golgenna Reach Sub-sector. The cult was formed when members of the serf class located a tome in the ruins of a mine tunnel, that had been used by a previous Chaos Cult that had been destroyed by the Inquisition. The massive tome described many of the rites and rituals associated with the extinct cult. The words in the book disturbed them greatly and they considered ridding themselves of it, but they were a desperate people; having long endured the brutal environment and hopeless existence that entails being a miner.The tome gave a few deluded souls the idea that the best way to escape their fate was to bring down the wrath of the Imperium, to purge the world of all life, and to put an end to their miserable fates and that of their families and friends. Having formed the Malice Brotherhood, they set out to cause enough trouble that the powers in the Imperium would come and purge the planet.Instead of a planetary-wide purge from orbit, a platoon of Astra Militarum troopers was sent to the planet in order to deal with the problem. The Commissar in charge considered the cult to be nothing but saboteurs and rabble-rousers and soon located the cult's base in the tunnels of the Gorgonid Mine. Making short work of the cultists on the surface the Imperial Guard forces pursued the fleeing cultists into the tunnels.It was there though that the tide of battle turned against the Guard and the cult as well. Deep inside the tunnels were the mutant servants of the Antithesis Stone -- a large lavender stone that gave off a pulsing pink glow and was able to change anyone near it into a mutant who then fell under its control. Sensing a chance to increase its power the Stone unleashed its mutant followers on the Guard and cult alike.What followed was a massacre as the mutants killed everything in their path. The Commissar had the tunnel sealed, leaving anyone inside to the mercy of the mutants. Those members of the cult that still lived were captured, along with the Guard, and changed into mutants that soon worshiped the Stone. Those members of the cult captured on the surface were executed by the Astra Militarum. |
Chaos Cult - The Menagerie: Of all the threats facing the Ordo Malleus in the Calixis Sector, few are more dangerous, stranger, or as little understood as that posed by the cult known as the Menagerie. There are even those within the Inquisition that insist the cult is a phantom -- a paper threat, a thing without substance, a conjecture woven from half truths and overactive fear.This, in turn, has led to fears by some that even the Holy Ordos has not been beyond the cult's corrupting reach, and a few Daemonhunters have engaged in unsanctioned operations in order to destroy it. The horrific truth is far worse.The Menagerie is very real, and its threat goes far beyond that of a few hundred lost lives, or a thousand or a billion. It seeks to undermine the very nature of reality itself with its revelations and to pitch the Calixis Sector into an abyss of Chaos from which none shall escape. The Menagerie has such sights to show, and all are invited to come and see. |
Chaos Cult - Mystic Path: The Mystic Path was a Chaos Cult comprised of a cartel of traders and noblemen who hailed from the planet Maginor, capital world of the Niaides Sub-sector in the Ultima Segmentum. Members of the Cult were known to utilise Warp artefacts to increase demand for their goods, a practice that gradually corrupted them over a long period of time.Almost two Terran centuries before his demise, Inquisitor Quixos encountered the Mystic Path. Rather than destroy them, as any other Inquisitor would have done, Quixos instead built up a relationship with them, so much so that they eventually became the personal cult of the Chaos-corrupted Inquisitor. The Path spread throughout the Ultima Segmentum and beyond, with Quixos as their patron.Two Inquisitors -- Helgrund first, and then Hetris Lugenbrau in 239.M41 -- arrived on Maginor and battled the Mystic Path, eventually coming into conflict with Quixos himself. Both times, however, the loyal Inquisitors were killed when the daemonblade wielded by Quixos caused them to immolate. The Mystic Path's last known activities with Quixos took place around the time of Quixos' eventual death on Farness Beta, in 343.M41.Aided by cultists of the Path, Quixos was attempting to duplicate the pylons of Cadia in an effort to collapse the Eye of Terror in on itself. Before he could complete this plan, however, Quixos was killed in single combat with Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn. The fate of the Mystic Path after this is unknown, but it is speculated that they were purged from Maginor by the Ordos Niaides shortly after Quixos' death. |
Chaos Cult - The Pale Throng: Rightly regarded as the cause of one of the most dangerous threats to the stability of the Calixis Sector in recent years, the Pale Throng is a mutant cult whose origins lay on the bleak and oppressive world of Tranch. There it led the wave of bloody uprisings that ignited the infamous Tranch War, whose aftermath still lingers to plague many worlds in the Malfian and Adrantian sub-sectors to the present day.No subtle cult or hidden conspiracy, the Pale Throng is a crazed and degenerate congregation of shambling horrors and decayed and sickening witch–breeds guided by sinister mutant overlords. Its only goal is to throw off the shackles of its oppression and visit bloody vengeance in an apocalyptic rebellion to destroy the Imperium and ultimately seize control of the future of Mankind.Born on a world now made infamous for war and suffering, the Pale Throng has since created and inspired revolts on dozens of worlds across the Calixis Sector and beyond. But perhaps greater than the danger that this amorphous army of monstrosities possesses -- in terms of the threat to civil order -- is the fact that the Pale Throng and what it represents has become a blasphemous rallying cry for the twisted and disaffected. It has grown to become something of a heretical ideology that offers easy answers to the weak and feeds on the resentment and anger of the oppressed -- a rebellious whisper far harder to stamp out that any mere physical foe. |
Chaos Cult - Penumbral Cult: The Penumbral Cult was a Chaos Cult that flourished on the verdant Agri-World of Sharlor. During a campaign carried out by the zealous Black Templars Chapter the Penumbral Cult was vanquished and its arch-heretic was executed in a public display and his profane works were burned. No sooner had the Heretic's head been hewn from his body than a Lord of Change tore its way out of his bleeding neck stump, shaking gore from its incandescent feathers.Taking to the sky, the daemon unleashed a maelstrom of psychic fire upon the Space Marines. Then, from out of the coiling smoke of the witchfire, a skyspear missile launched by the Hunter, Javelin of Faith, impaled the Greater Daemon, tearing it apart in an explosion that left only a shimmer of blue flame upon the wind. |
Chaos Cult - Pilgrims of Hayte: An apocalyptic murder cult as insidious as it is cruel, the Pilgrims of Hayte have plagued the Calixis Sector for nearly three Terran centuries. During that time, they have risen to levels of infamy unrivalled by any other. Such is their well-founded reputation for horror and atrocity with the sector's powers that be that mere rumour of the cult's presence in a particular area is enough to generate near-panic among the nobility and prompt immediate, and brutal crackdowns by local authorities.The cult's ultimate goal is a simple one -- the destruction of the Imperium. More specifically, it is the tearing down of the Imperial faith and the slaying of all those who serve the God-Emperor -- one soul damned and one murder done at a time if need be. To this end, the cult seeks to twist and corrupt the minds of the unsuspecting, the downtrodden, and the weak of faith and to carry out acts of mass-murder and sow despair and terror on as a wide a scale as possible.The cult's masters, known as the False Prophets, wield the powers of the daemon and the baleful energies of the Warp with fearful abandon, driving on their coteries of madmen, lost souls, and hell-spawned monsters as living weapons in their unholy crusade to destroy the rule of the Golden Throne. |
Chaos Cult - Pleasureseekers: The Pleasureseekers was a Slaaneshi Chaos Cult that took part in the conflict that engulfed the Pyrus Reach Sector sometime in the 41st Millennium. |
Chaos Cult - Serpent Lodge: The Serpent Lodge was the name given to both a group of suspected Chaos Cultists and their Temple on the planet of Davin. The Lodge members treated the Warmaster Horus at the direction of the Word Bearers' Chaplain Erebus for the crippling injury he received campaigning on Davin's moon, and the Lodge itself is the location where Horus is believed to have begun his service to the Chaos Gods. |
Chaos Cult - Shriven: The Shriven were once workers on the Forge World of Fortis Binary, however they were corrupted by the temptations of Chaos. They were described as elephantine, with long, nozzled gas masks sewn into their faces. They wore rubberised green body armour and the protective garb of their former workplace. Their armour was decorated with eye-aching runic symbols of Chaos. |
Chaos Cult - Sons of Sek: The Sons of Sek are an unusually regimented and disciplined Chaos warband located in the "Sanguinary Worlds" under the command of the Magister Anakwanar Sek, one of the Archon Urlock Gaur's closest subordinates in the defence of the Sabbat Worlds Sector from the assault of the Imperial Sabbat Worlds Crusade.While still relatively new to the war for the Sabbat Worlds, initial reports indicate that the Sons of Sek may, in fact, be superior in combat to their cousins in Urlock Gaur's own Blood Pact. In addition to being of larger, stockier build, the Sons are also equipped with higher-quality gear and weapons. The Sons are also better motivated and led, and even include an officer similar to an Imperial Commissar, known as a "Scourger," to maintain discipline and morale.This is something that even the unusually-disciplined Blood Pact lacks. The Sons of Sek were created not only to fight against the Imperium, but also to serve as Magister Sek's vanguard for when he eventually attempts to overthrow the Gaur and assume the position of Archon over all the forces of Chaos in the Sabbat Worlds Sector.The Sons of Sek's adherents, like their allies among the Blood Pact, possess an unusual view of Chaos theology. They do not hate the Emperor as an enemy of Chaos, but venerate him as another embodiment of the Warp.They believe the Emperor to be simply another Warp entity like a Daemon or the Chaos Gods themselves. They see Him as a misguided prophet for Humanity who has seen the power of the Warp but who mislead His followers into believing that it should be opposed.The Blood Pact and their allies believe that it is the holy task of their cults to spread the truth about the God-Emperor and the Warp and to bring the people of the Imperium back into the fold of worship of the powers of Chaos, because in truth they are already venerating a creature of the Warp.For these cultists, the Emperor is already akin to the entities they worship, for He, too, is powered by the Warp and has been changed by his contact with the Immaterium. For these cultists, the Emperor is actually a symbol of what they aspire to, as they wish to become one with the Warp and be forever changed by this communion.Thus, in their belief system, the "schism" of mistaken faith embraced by the Imperium must be healed and Humanity brought back into the embrace of Chaos. They hold that the Imperium does not need to be destroyed, but only reformed so that it understands the true nature of the Warp and its inhabitants.In this view, the Imperial Creed has led the people of the Imperium down the wrong path for millennia, and the Blood Pact and their allies believe that they are engaged in a war to defeat its gatekeepers so they can teach Humanity the truth of the enlightenment that Chaos offers -- and that they have already been worshipping without realising it. |
Chaos Cult - Sons of Slaughter: The Sons of Slaughter are are a Khornate Chaos Cult that served their Khorne Daemonkin masters with fanatical fervour. They fell in battle while fighting against the vile Death Guard Traitor Legion.Their lives were not wasted however, as enough of their blood and the blood of their enemies had been spilled, to allow the Daemons of Khorne to materialize on the battlefield and fall upon the surviving Death Guard. |
Chaos Cult - Stigmartus: The Stigmartus are a Chaos Cult and warband operating in the Jericho Reach. They were key components of those forces of Chaos who stood against the Imperium's assault upon the region in the Achilus Crusade.Consisting of Renegades, madmen, Imperial criminals, cultists, mutants, and rogue psykers, the Stigmartus was named for the ritual branding of its members' flesh with the sigil of their Chaos masters.Although they are brutal and frenzied to the extreme, like the Blood Pact of the Sabbat Worlds they maintain harsh discipline and military-style professionalism, and are organised along the lines of an Astra Militarum regiment.The commanders of the cult are believed to be the remainder of the previous Heretic rulers of the world of Khazant, which fell to the Imperium during the early years of the Achilus Crusade.Now the Stigmartus are bound to the charismatic leadership of a cult-general known as Elak Sarda, who is said to be sworn to the service of a daemonic entity within the Charon Stars. |
Chaos Cult - The Unbound: The Unbound was a Chaos Cult devoted to Nurgle that inhabits the hellish realm known as the Eye of Terror. Originally, they were troopers of the Cadian 969th Regiment. Deployed to Certus Tertia during the Gothic War, they contracted a plague borne in the planet's water.Quarantined and refused permission to return to their homeworld of Cadia, the troopers of the 969th turned their allegiance to the Lord of Decay. The cult is led by the regiment's former Colonel Abner Varicuss, who styles himself, "the False Castellan," as he was once a favoured candidate for the esteemed post of Lord Castellan of Cadia.One of the worlds inside the Unbound are known to garrison is the corrupted Hive World of Ablutraphur, whose vital manufactorum makes wargear for several armies of Chaos, including the armour plating worn by members of the Unbound. The cult's symbol mimics the symbol of Nurgle -- three skulls, inside an inverted pyramid. |
Chaos Cult - Vashaan: The Vshaan was a Chaos Cult that took part in the conflict that engulfed the Pyrus Reach Sector sometime in the 41st Millennium. |
Chaos Cult - Vraksian Traitor Militia: The Vraksian Traitor Militia were a motley assortment of Planetary Defence Force troopers, garrisoned Imperial Guard auxilia from the planet Vraks, indentured Departmento Munitorum Labour Corpsmen, the Ecclesiarchy's Frateris Militia, and local volunteer soldiers, who rebelled against the Imperium whilst under the sway of the heretic Apostate Cardinal Xaphan.After the previous Cardinal of the Scarus Sector in Segmentum Obscurus died, his successor, Cardinal Xaphan, took his place as the Cardinal of the Scarus Sector. Over the course of many years, Xaphan undertook a pilgrimage across the Scarus Sector, his new domain. He wished to see the places he would preside over, and he wished to bring a spiritual revival to the people. Where he and his entourage passed, he amassed ever more followers in a series of religious uprisings. Criminal governments and oppressive tyrannies were shattered with each world he traveled to.Whispering into his ear was the Cardinal's favored advisor, Deacon Mamon, a secret devotee of Chaos. After years of pilgrimage, Xaphan went into seclusion on the Imperial Armoury World of Vraks Prime, also the site of a popular Imperial Cult shrine. Here, Xaphan chose his battlefield. Believing that corruption was eating away at the Imperium, he thought himself a messianic figure destined to ignite a holy war and give the faithful a chance to purge the galaxy of darkness.Believing the Cardinal to be amassing far too much popularity and power, an agent of the Officio Assassinorum was sent by the Ordo Hereticus of the Inquisition to assassinate Xaphan during one of his sermons. After the failed attempt on his life by this operative, the Armoury World of Vraks erupted in full-scale rebellion against the Imperium.It wasn't long until the Citadel and the industry of the Armoury World were under Xaphan's control. By seceding Vraks from the Imperium, Imperial forces in the sector and, in some cases, the entire Segmentum, would be left without adequate resupply of arms and armour. By breaking the Imperial supply chain of which Vraks was a part, forces as far removed and important as the Cadian Imperial Guard regiments guarding the Eye of Terror would be sparsely armed, allowing a potentially major Chaos incursion to occur in or around the Cadian Gate.The Administratum deemed that Vraks must be returned to the Imperium's fold. By the time word reached the Imperium of the rebellion on Vraks, it was already too late. Millions of Traitors and Heretics were now dug into meticulously-planned, constructed, and reinforced defences, with massive orbital lasers protecting the world's Citadel from orbital bombardment and assault. It fell on the Imperial Guardsmen of the Death Korps of Krieg, united under the umbrella of the Imperium's 88th Siege Army, to dislodge the traitorous forces of Cardinal Xaphan in what would become a grinding war of attrition that would consume millions of lives across 17 standard years of battle and would enter Imperial records as the Siege of Vraks. |
Chaos Cult - Villiad Collective: The Villiad Collective is a daemon worshipping Chaos Cult that were embroiled in a long-standing war against the Eldar Craftworld of Il'sariadh in the 38th Millennium. |
Chaos Cult - Witch-Brothers of Night: The Witch-Brothers of Night was one of the many Chaos Cults destroyed during the Redemption of Hazeroth -- an Inquisition-led operation that put ten thousand heretics to the torch. |
Chaos Cult - Writhing World Sorcerer Kings: The Writhing World Sorcerer-Kings are biomancer psykers of the plague planet known as the Writhing World located in the Warp rift of the Screaming Vortex. This world's primitive Human inhabitants wander amidst continent-sized tendrils of undulating flesh beneath the merciless rule of the great Biomancer Lords.The most powerful such denizens are the Sorcerer-Kings, potent psykers whose massive organic citadels scurry endlessly across the planet's surface at their master's bidding. Occasionally one of these powerful individuals will depart this decaying world, bartering passage among the various vessels that traverse the endless void.Though their reasons for these journeys are their own, their considerable power and arcane lore make them powerful allies despite the apparent danger of harboring such vile wretches. |
Chaos Cult - Xurunt Frost Fathers: Xurunt Frost Fathers are experienced fighters who have mastered the warlike way of life on the Feral World of Xurunt.The nomads of Xurunt, known as the Xur, continually migrate across the vast prairies of the planet's surface, seeking only to enslave and conquer any other tribes they encounter.It is a brutal existence, beginning when each is taught to ride a Xurunsh from the earliest possible age. This planetwide struggle for dominance continues until winter, when the Xur focus instead on surviving the harsh conditions or ritually honouring their bloody god Baphtar at one of his towering idols (who is reality is actually the Blood God Khorne).Through skill, determination, and daring a Frost Father has risen to a position of leadership among his tribe, and earned the right to lead his warriors into battle during the winter season.They are stubborn, wilful, and belligerent warriors, difficult to command but fearless in battle. A Frost Father may also be a woman for, though the title is masculine, the Xur respect ability regardless of gender. |
Chaos Cult - Sources: Apocalypse, pg. 171Anarch (Novel) by Dan Abnett, Ch. 7Black Crusade: The Tome of Blood (RPG), pp. 17, 32-35Black Crusade: The Tome of Decay (RPG), pp. 17, 36-39Black Crusade: The Tome of Excess (RPG), pp. 17-18Black Crusade: The Tome of Fate (RPG), pp. 22-23Chapter Approved 2001Codex: Astra Militarum (6th Edition) (Digital Edition), pg. 56Codex Heretic Astartes (8th Edition), pp. 44, 73Codex: Chaos Daemons (6th Edition), pg. 21Codex: Chaos Space Marines (6th Edition), pg. 38Codex: Chaos Space Marines (4th Edition), pp. 8-11Codex: Eye of Terror (3rd Edition), pp. 42-46Codex: Grey Knights (7th Edition) (Digital Edition), pp. 54-55, 91, 93, 98, 131Codex Heretic Astartes - Chaos Space Marines (8th Edition), pp. 72, 128Codex: Khorne Daemonkin - A Codex: Chaos Space Marines Supplement (Digital Edition) (7th Edition), pg. 62Crimson Slaughter - A Codex: Chaos Space Marines Supplement (Digital Edition) (6th Edition), pg. 45Crusade of Fire (Campaign Book), pp. 18-19Dark Heresy: Disciples of the Dark Gods (RPG), pp. 21-25, 31-60 123-131, 137-144, 152-158Dark Heresy: Shattered Hope (RPG Supplement), pp. 5-6, 11, 18, 21, 25Deathwatch: Core Rulebook (RPG), pg. 348Deathwatch: Achilus Assault (RPG), pg. 69Imperial Armour Volume Five - The Siege of Vraks - Part OneIndex Astartes III, "Know Thine Enemy - The Relictors Space Marine Chapter," by Graham McNeill & Andy HoareIndex Astartes: Stalkers and Hunters, "Renowned Hunters - Javelin of Faith"Index Astartes - Emperor's Spears (Limited Edition) by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, pp. 6-7Inquisitor - The Thorians (Campaign Supplement) by Gav Thorpe, pg. 5Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned (2nd Edition), pp. 168–172Sabbat Worlds Crusade (Background Book)Spear of the Emperor (Novel) by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Chs. V, VIII, XIV, XVIIThe Horus Heresy Book Five: Tempest (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pp. 138-145, 178-183, 209Warhammer 40,000: Rulebook (6th Edition), pg. 173White Dwarf 151 (UK), "The Chaos Wars: The First Battle for Armageddon", by Jervis JohnsonWhite Dwarf 238 (UK), "Chapter Approved: Roads, Craters and Chaos Cultists" by Andy Chambers and Jervis Johnson, pg. 102White Dwarf 261 (UK), "Chosen of the Gods - Cults of the Imperium", by Gav Thorpe, pg. 57White Dwarf 278 (US), "Codicium Imperialis: The First War for Armageddon", by Graham McNeill and Andy HoareWhite Dwarf 293 (UK), "Index Malleus - The Blood Pact", by Dan Abnett, pp. 96-99White Dwarf 392 (UK), "The Hellfire Stone - The Crimson Slaughter", pg. 33White Dwarf 460 (January 2021), pg. 44Know No Fear (Novel) by Dan AbnettHorus Heresy Novel SeriesAtlas Infernal (Novel) by Rob SandersGaunt's Ghosts Novel SeriesTraitor General (Novel) by Dan AbnettThe Guns of Tanith (Novel) by Dan AbnettAngel of Fire (Novel) by William KingBlood Pact (Novel) by Dan AbnettFlesh and Iron (Novel) by Henry ZouEmperor's Mercy (Novel) by Henry ZouDuty Calls (Novel) by Sandy MitchellMalleus (Novel) by Dan AbnettRavenor Rogue (Novel) by Dan AbnettTales from the Dark Millennium (Anthology), "The Falls of Marakross" by Steve ParkerCarcharodons: Red Tithe (Novel) by Robbie MacNiven, Ch. 5The Magos (Novel) by Dan Abnett, Ch. 16Warhammer 40,000: Darktide (Video Game)Chaos Space Marine ForcesCommandChaos Lord • Exalted Champion • Chaos Champion • Aspiring Champion • Sorcerer Lord • Daemon Prince • Daemon Prince of Nurgle • Daemon Prince of Tzeentch • Death Guard LordSpecialistsExalted Sorcerer • Sorcerer • Warpsmith • Dark Apostle • Master of Possession • Master of Executions • Lord Discordant • Warsmith • Death Guard Sorcerer • Lord of Contagion • Malignant Plaguecaster • Plague Surgeon • Tallyman • Scarab Occult Sorcerer • Scarab Occult TerminatorsTroopsChaos Space Marines • Havocs • Chosen • Chaos Terminators • Possessed • Greater Possessed • Khorne Berzerkers • Plague Marines • Noise Marines • Rubric Marines • Obliterators • Mutilators • Chaos Spawn • Fallen Angels • Noxious Blightbringer • Foul Blightspawn • Biologus Putrifier • Blightlord Terminators • DeathshroudFast AttackChaos Space Marine Bikers • Chaos Space Marine Raptors • Warp TalonsChaos DreadnoughtsHelbrute • Ferrum Infernus Dreadnought • Chaos Contemptor Pattern Dreadnought • Sonic Dreadnought • Berserker Dreadnought • Leviathan DreadnoughtVehicles and Daemon EnginesChaos Rhino • Chaos Predator • Infernal Relic Predator • Chaos Vindicator • Chaos Land Raider • Chaos Land Raider Proteus • Infernal Relic Land Raider Achilles • Land Raider Hades Diabolus • Relic Sicaran Battle Tank • Maulerfiend • Forgefiend • Defiler • Brass Scorpion • Blood Slaughterer • Blight Drone • Foetid Bloat-drone • Kytan • Plague Hulk • Venomcrawler • Myphitic Blight-haulerHeavy Vehicles and Daemon EnginesSpartan Assault Tank • Fellblade • Decimator • Typhon Heavy Siege Tank • Lord of Skulls • Death Wheel • Plaguereaper • Plagueburst Crawler • Silver Tower of TzeentchAircraftHeldrake • Stormbird • Thunderhawk • Chaos Storm Eagle • Chaos Fire Raptor • Hell Blade • Hell Talon • Harbinger • Chaos Dreadclaw • Kharybdis Assault Claw • Fire Lord • Doom WingSummoned DaemonsBloodletters • Plaguebearers • Horror of Tzeentch • Daemonette • Nurglings • Beast of Nurgle • Plague Drone • Flamer • ScreamerLost and the DamnedChaos Cultists • Poxwalkers • Pestigor • Plague Zombies • Plague Ogryn • Thrall Wizard • Tzaangor • Tzaangor Enlightened • Tzaangor Shaman • Dark DiscipleChampionsMagnus the Red • Mortarion • Abaddon the Despoiler • Kharn the Betrayer • Typhus • Ahriman • Huron Blackheart • Fabius Bile • Cypher • Haarken Worldclaimer • InvocatusRaven Rock VideosWarhammer 40,000 OverviewGrim Dark Lore Teaser Trailer • Part 1: Exodus • Part 2: The Golden Age • Part 3: Old Night • Part 4: Rise of the Emperor • Part 5: Unity • Part 6: Lords of Mars • Part 7: The Machine God • Part 8: Imperium • Part 9: The Fall of the Aeldari • Part 10: Gods and Daemons • Part 11: Great Crusade Begins • Part 12: The Son of Strife • Part 13: Lost and Found • Part 14: A Thousand Sons • Part 15: Bearer of the Word • Part 16: The Perfect City • Part 17: Triumph at Ullanor • Part 18: Return to Terra • Part 19: Council of Nikaea • Part 20: Serpent in the Garden • Part 21: Horus Falling • Part 22: Traitors • Part 23: Folly of Magnus • Part 24: Dark Gambits • Part 25: Heresy • Part 26: Flight of the Eisenstein • Part 27: Massacre • Part 28: Requiem for a Dream • Part 29: The Siege • Part 30: Imperium Invictus • Part 31: The Age of Rebirth • Part 32: The Rise of Abaddon • Part 33: Saints and Beasts • Part 34: Interregnum • Part 35: Age of Apostasy • Part 36: The Great Devourer • Part 37: The Time of Ending • Part 38: The 13th Black Crusade • Part 39: Resurrection • Part 40: Indomitus |
Chaos Daemons - Chaos Daemons: Chaos Daemons, or simply Daemons (pronounced DEE-mahns), also known as a "Neverborn" amongst the forces of Chaos, are intelligent and usually malevolent entities of the Warp comprised of purely psychic energy. Daemons are both sentient and self-aware embodiments of Chaos and collectively the greatest servants of the Chaos Gods and of Chaos itself as a universal force.Daemons are created at the whim of one of the four major Chaos Gods from a fraction of the god's own power within the Immaterium and act as an extension of its will. A Daemon's appearance and intrinsic character reflect the god's own nature. These Daemons may be reabsorbed into the god's psychic signature in the Warp at their whim.The Chaos Gods are not alone in Warpspace. They have created servants from their own essences -- the creatures that mortals have named "Daemons" based on their ancient legends and religious mythologies -- who are not so closely bound to the Warp. Daemons are entities of a somewhat different nature to their masters, and are the most numerous of the creatures to be found in the Empyrean.A Daemon is "born" when a Chaos God expends a portion of its own power to create a separate being. This psychic power binds a collection of senses, thoughts and purposes together, creating a separate but closely related personality and consciousness that can move within the Warp.The Chaos God can reclaim the independence it has given to its Daemon children at any time, thus ensuring their loyalty. It is only though the loss of this power that a Daemon can truly be destroyed, its mind dissolving into the whirls and currents of Warpspace.Some worshippers of Chaos believe that the souls of mortals who most fervently worshipped the Ruinous Powers in life are transformed into Lesser Daemons upon their death and the entry of their soul into their patron god's domain in the Realm of Chaos. For instance, this belief is held especially for the Bloodletters of Khorne, who Khornates believe were once the Blood God's greatest mortal warriors, and the Plaguebearers of Nurgle, who some hold are the souls of those mortals who have been afflicted with Nurgle's Rot.As minions of the Chaos Gods, most Daemons lack self-will, at least as Humanity understands it. Instead, they serve only to spread the aims of their masters. For example, a Daemon of Khorne seeks only battle, and wages war upon other Daemons with the same fervour as it does upon mortals.Daemons seemingly spend much of their existence in conflict with other Daemons, as each of the Chaos Gods seeks to expand its power and influence as part of the Great Game. It is only when the mortal world is involved that Daemons tend to band together and cooperate, and even then, such alliances are short-lived, as each of the four Chaos powers seeks to prevent the others from gaining any sort of advantage.Daemons have no physical presence within the Warp. The Realm of Chaos is anathema to the laws of physics and the starships that navigate its depths do so by taking a skin or bubble of "reality" with them when they enter using their Warp-Drive.Instead of possessing a true physical form, Daemons project a form conjured from raw psychic energy that is essentially a lesser interpretation of their master's fundamental nature. Hence, the bizarre and inhuman appearances projected by Daemons indicate their presence, status and allegiance to a Chaos God.Though it may appear to be made of normal matter when it materialises in realspace, a Daemon's form is no more physical than it is in the Realm of Chaos. In fact, they are beings of pure Warp energy given shape and depth.When manifested in the material universe, Daemons have particular invulnerabilities and weaknesses, as well as many strange powers derived from their Warp-born nature as psychic beings. Slaying a Daemon's physical projection does not kill it, but only severs its presence in reality; its true essence in the Warp remains unharmed.As creatures of pure emotion and psychic energy that are native to the twisted mirror dimension of the Empyrean, Daemons cannot survive for long in the cold reality of the material universe. They need some manner of focal point, some channel through which they can transfer their uncanny power from the Immaterium and make themselves manifest in the worlds of flesh and blood.Over the span of the Imperium's history, the Warp rifts that have led to a Daemonic assault have usually been the result of untrained psykers opening their minds to the baleful whispers of the Warp.Such an intrusion starts with the Daemonic possession of the host, but can end with the psyker being turned body and soul into a hideous, shrieking gateway, a wound in reality that can allow hosts of Daemons to come pouring through.Such small-scale invasions usually peter out as the flow of Chaos energy dries up, the Daemons fading away to nothing. The exceptions are when the Chaos Space Marines or other servants of the Ruinous Powers, having much the same goals as the Daemons of their patron gods, summon the legions of the Warp into realspace.Through acts of voluntary possession, ritual sacrifice, psychic machination and sustained blasphemy, they weaken and shred the veil that holds the horrors of the Warp hidden from the worlds of mortals. All too often, when the Chaos Space Marines attack, hosts of Bloodletters, Horrors, Daemonettes and Plaguebearers burst from the ether to revel in the carnage.When a Daemon is "killed" in the material universe, it is banished back to the Warp. If not simply re-absorbed by its creator, it must remain there to regain its strength that it eventually might manifest itself again. Legend has it that a Daemon banished in this way cannot return for a thousand Terran years and a day, though it is of course impossible to prove such a belief through study, and the concept of time itself is meaningless within the Warp.The slight to a "slain" Daemon's pride is considerable, however, and the Daemon is forced to endure the mockery of its fellows until it can return to corporeal form and avenge itself. The most powerful Daemons will call upon any servants and tributary Lesser Daemons to help them achieve their revenge.If it has many allies, it may also request their aid, though all Daemons are cautious in doing so. Such favours must inevitably be returned, and no Daemon welcomes the dominion of another creature, be it mortal or Daemonic.Across the stars, Warp storms rage and the galaxy stands on the precipice of a new age as the 41st Millennium comes to a close. Prophets and augurs proclaim the End Times for Mankind, and the number of instances of Daemonic possession across the Imperium of Man is rising.Each psyker so accursed is granted an epiphany; in their last grasping death, the victims glimpse the horrific doom that awaits them -- an abyss of Chaos, absolute in its finality, unending in its despair. Now, across the galaxy, that same vision of ultimate torment -- of an eternity beneath the lash of Daemons -- has spread. Across untold star systems, countless life forms read the portents and prepare for the dark days ahead.Premonitions of disaster are now rife amongst the Imperium of Man, by far the largest of the galaxy's interstellar empires, but few understand the true nature of the Warp and the threat its denizens represent to all life. Yet even distant, technologically-backwards Imperial planets have marked the telltale signs of impending apocalypse -- the proliferation of mutants, the rise of Chaos Cults who worship the Dark Gods and the ever-increasing number of psykers in the Human population.The Inquisition sees the warning signs, but there are simply too many Imperial planets in peril for them to halt many of the deadly chain reactions caused by Daemonic possession. As psykers implode, small tears in the fabric of reality usher in bloody reigns of terror across thousands of planets, and in their attempts to suppress the truth and forestall mass panic, the Inquisitors adopt ever-more ruthless methods.Yet for every Warp rift sealed, more holes are opened, and the barrier between reality and the Realm of Chaos is left shattered and gaping in a dozen new locations.Should the weakness of Mankind prove too great, one only needs to look at the Fall of the Aeldari to see the consequences of failure. On their glittering craftworlds, the remnants of the Aeldari species do not need the rune-casting of their Farseers to tell them of the imminent threat.More psychically attuned than Humans, each Aeldari feels every new rent torn in realspace and cringes. Although utterly self-serving and cruel beyond Human measure, even the Drukhari shudder at the thought of realspace engulfed by raw Chaos, for if that happened, their hidden city of Commorragh within the Webway would not stay so for long.Even the horrifying alien Tyranids recognize the threat from the Warp -- several hive fleets have altered their invasion courses in order to avoid Warp Storms gaping before them. There are scattered records of splinter fleets drifting into Warp rifts, most notably after the near-destruction of Hive Fleet Kraken at the Fall of Iyanden, though the results of such a galactic accident are mercifully hard to catalogue.The Dark Gods care not, for their unknowable plans move apace, and their final victory over the defenders of Creation seems assured. |
Chaos Daemons - Chaos Rising: Over the aeons, the galaxy has witnessed Warp-based catastrophes and Daemonic incursions beyond counting. Since the inception of the Imperial Inquisition, even the fact that such a thing is possible is deemed too dangerous for the common citizens of the Imperium of Man to know, for knowledge breeds heresy as surely as a flyblown corpse breeds maggots.Because of this, the vast majority of knowledge concerning Daemonic incursion has been eradicated from extant Imperial records.The events that follow are recorded only in proscribed Imperial texts and heretical xenos scripts that the Inquisition has yet to destroy. They represent a mere fraction of the ever-increasing instances of Warp anomalies that have infested the Imperium. |
Chaos Daemons - The Great Lull, M15-M25: The creation of Warp-Drive and Standard Template Construct (STC) technology, along with the emergence of the first Navigators, heralds the start of a golden age of discovery in which Humanity spreads outward from Terra and colonises the stars. Warpspace, although little understood, is seen as entirely essential to Mankind's ascendancy, and is a force associated with hope and salvation.Throughout this period Mankind sees an exponential increase in the number of psykers among its population. Aided by artificial intelligence, continued advancements regularly expand the boundaries of what is achievable, and so this period comes to be known as the Age of Technology. |
Chaos Daemons - The Great Awakening, M25-M30: Mankind's galactic collapse comes with terrifying swiftness, and the Age of Strife begins. Warp Storms break, cutting off swathes of the galaxy and isolating Human colonies from one another. As holes emerge in realspace, Khorne's Bloodthirster generals lead the Blood Legions in Daemonic incursions that slaughter the populations of countless worlds. The inhabitants of entire star systems are enslaved, yoked to the whims of the Dark Gods. Across the galaxy, weaponised wonders of Mankind's technological peak are unleashed, turning many worlds into irradiated Desert Worlds. The populations of those planets that are not utterly annihilated, including Terra itself, are reduced to barbarism.Rise of the Emperor (ca. M30) - The mysterious figure known as the Emperor of Mankind rises upon Terra, and unites the techno-barbarian tribes. As the Unification Wars come to a close around 712.M30, He turns His mind to grander ambitions, and genetically engineers the primarchs of the Space Marine Legions. As the Emperor's creations near fruition, Tzeentch senses a chain of events that would one day cause the downfall of the Chaos Gods. Influenced by the master schemer, the Ruinous Powers seize the nascent primarchs from the Emperor's sanctum beneath the Himalazian (Himalayan) Mountains, casting them across the galaxy.Birth of Slaanesh (ca. M30) - The advanced civilisation of the Aeldari falls into decadence and depravity. Such is the scale of their hedonism that a new god is born from the depths of their excess -- Slaanesh, the Dark Prince. Upon manifestation, Slaanesh's primal psychic scream obliterates the majority of the Aeldari race in a single moment, and their species is pushed to the brink of extinction. The psychic violence of his apotheosis consumes the worlds at the heart of the Aeldari Empire. A vast section of realspace is plunged into the Warp, forming the rift that is most commonly known as the Eye of Terror.The Storms Abate (ca. M30) - Upon the birth of Slaanesh, the vast Warp Storms that swept across the galaxy for five thousand Terran years are becalmed, reduced in frequency, size, and ferocity. |
Chaos Daemons - Dawn of the Imperium, M30-M33: A new order begins to unfold, a force that wishes to forge a galactic empire able to rule the stars. Such goals run counter to the desires of the Chaos Gods, for the power each of them seeks is absolute.Creation of the Astronomican (ca. M30) - The formless murk of the Warp is penetrated by a psychic energy beacon that stabs outwards from Terra and across the galaxy. Invisible in realspace, the beacon of the Astronomican directed by the mind of the Emperor serves as a psychic landmark -- a constant navigation point that enables safer Warp travel for the starships and Navigators of the Imperium. For the Dark Gods it is hateful to gaze upon, its constant beam bringing unwelcome Order to the infernal seas of Chaos.The Great Game Begins Anew (ca. M30) - Glutted upon the souls of the Aeldari, the Dark Prince expands his domain. Such a bold move is met with great opposition, and the Chaos Gods turn their attention fully to the Great Game. So it is that as the Warp Storms of the Age of Strife die down, the Emperor of Mankind is able to lead the united forces of Terra and Mars outwards into the galaxy on the Great Crusade. Many scattered human worlds are reclaimed by the Emperor and His Legions of Space Marines, and enslaved planets freed from the shackles of domination. The Imperium is officially born, and the Emperor is reunited with his lost Primarchs one by one. Meanwhile, Tzeentch allies with Nurgle and Slaanesh to gain ascendency over Khorne, yet it is short lived; the Blood God's immense rage at being usurped leads him to reclaim his lost territory within the Realm of Chaos, and more besides.The Horus Heresy (ca. 005-014.M31) - The Emperor returns to Terra, leaving the continuation of the Great Crusade to his Primarchs. Each leading a mighty Legion of Space Marines created in their own image, they continue to bring glory and new human worlds to the Imperium in His absence. Amidst the triumphs, the Chaos Gods plant seeds of corruption throughout the Space Marine Legions. Horus Lupercal of the Luna Wolves Legion, the Warmaster of the Imperium, is the greatest of the Primarchs to fall to the temptations of Chaos. A masterful strategist, Horus sways many of his brother Primarchs to join his nascent rebellion against his father's Imperium. A full half of the Legiones Astartes -- 9 Legions -- follow Horus into damnation, and the Daemonic legions are deployed to aid them by the Dark Gods. The galaxy is plunged into a civil war that will blacken the Imperium forever.Scouring of Omegath (998.M31-899.M32) - Tzeentch grants the Lord of Change Ix'thar'ganix, known as the "Slayer of Destinies," a glimpse of a child born upon the world of Omegath who would mature to become a powerful oracle. Ix'thar'ganix craves the power of this child, and uses his magic to open a Warp Rift upon Omegath. For twenty solar days, the Daemonic legions he has gathered sweep across the planet seeking the oracle-to-be. After spreading madness and destruction through Omegath's population, Ix'thar'ganix finds the prize he sought and steals the boy's Warp-born abilities of foresight.The Ravening Storm (161.M32) - The mining colonies of Ichtar IX are cut off from the Imperium for nine centuries. When the Warp Storm recedes in the early 33rd Millennium, nothing remains of the billions of miners who had lived there, and naught attests to the unimaginable agonies the populace endured at the hands of Chaos' Daemonic legions.The Cursus of Alganar (Unknown Date.M32) - Upon the Desert World of Tallarn, a dark stone is unearthed covered in strange carvings. Shortly after, the Aeldari of Craftworld Biel-Tan attack the Desert Raiders of the planet in force. As the battle rages, a full-scale Daemonic invasion erupts from the location of the stone, known as the "Cursus" to its discoverers. The Astra Militarum of Tallarn and the Aeldari of Biel-Tan combine forces against the Daemon legions, banishing them from the planet in a last-ditch assault. The Cursus is subsequently buried deep beneath a rockcrete barrier.Greed Inherent (454.M33) - The Rogue Trader Apollyon Maestrich-Nova founds a mining operation that produces fantastic wealth. Glaciers of glowing fire-diamonds are carved from the rocks and precious elements are sold to the nearby Reubic System. Apollyon becomes insanely wealthy, but is corrupted and turns to Slaanesh's embrace. Only when his tainted coin has circulated throughout every planet of the Reubic System does his grand design become clear. As Apollyon's moon eclipses Reubia's sun, all those who have shared in his greed are suddenly filled with an insatiable, cannibalistic hunger, leaving those who succumb to it open to Daemonic possession. An astropathic cry for aid reaches the Imperium, and Grey Knights arrive in strength to save Reubia itself from armies of once-human invaders. The rest of the star system falls to anarchy, however, as Slaanesh claims his due.The First True War of Veonid (882.M33) - A legion of Khorne is attracted to the thunder of guns on the weapons-testing planet of Veonid. Their invasion soon ensures that the prototype guns are used in earnest. |
Chaos Daemons - The Quickening, M34-M37: Once more the Imperium is beset by civil war in the Age of Apostasy. It is a time of false prophets and intrigue, of anarchy and war, and in the end, plague. As the stages of the Age of Apostasy unfold, Tzeentch, then Nurgle, become the dominant powers within the Realm of Chaos, overtaking the dominance of Khorne.The Cultists' Uprising (Unknown Date.M34) - As the Ecclesiarchy consolidates its hold on the Imperium as its state church, it is beset by a number of zealot cults nurtured amongst its own ranks. Through whispers, lies, and, at times, absolute and unbearable truths, over a hundred thousand rebellions take root in the Ecclesiarchy.Lure of the Warp Stars (666.M34) - After a titanic Warp Storm roils out of the Eye of Terror, the first Warp Stars are sighted -- stellar anomalies whose unnaturally exact gravitational pull lures spacecraft and even small planets into their Daemon-haunted embrace.Serpents of Menimshemash (867.M35) - On the Eldar Exodite World of Menimshemash, the Daemons of Chaos enter through the World Spirit. This crystalline psychic network criss-crosses the world, joining all of the Exodite settlements and housing the souls of the dead from the last five thousand Terran years. Tzeentch's realm permeates the World Spirit and erupts from its deep pathways; monstrous crystalline serpents spew forth waves of horrific Daemons. The world is aflame with the fires of change before the next moon rises.A Fortress Breached (977.M35) - The Ultramarines Battle Barge Excelsior is embroiled in battle when its Geller Field fails during translation from the Warp into realspace. The blessed metal of the titanic fortress-ship become permeable, and before long, a numberless tide of Daemons pushes its way from the walls, floor and ceiling to fall upon the Ultramarines inside. Excelsior never rematerialises in realspace.Deluge of Sickness (565.M36) - The droughts of Gaero Alphus worsen and eventually, all animal life is sacrificed to feed the tribes' gnawing hunger. The heat drives the tribesmen to pray for divine aid. They turn to the rain dances of old, even sacrificing their own people in the hope of ending the drought. Grandfather Nurgle and his minions hear, take pity, and grant their wish. Glorious rain comes, but as each day passes, the clouds thicken and grow more menacing. Deserts turn to lakes, arid croplands to rotting soup. Disease grows rampant. On the eighth solar day, the Tallyman of Nurgle, Epidemius, pushes his way out of the sludge to catalogue the disaster. As constant rain lashes down, the Pathogenus Legions arrive to overcome all. A solar week later, Gaero Alphus disappears altogether from all Imperial records. Eight entire star systems follow, with Rotigus Rainfather leading the Epidemic Legions to spread Nurgle's generosity to surrounding worlds.The Soul-Hunger (989.M36) - Roiling currents in the Warp continue to leak into realspace, building in power to partially obscure the Emperor's Light, the Astronomican. The keepers of the Golden Throne demand that the number of Imperial psykers sacrificed to sustain the Astronomican is increased fourfold, and the Black Ships that collect the wretched offerings as part of the Imperial Tithe ramp up in number accordingly. With the increase in sacrifices, the Emperor's Light once more shines forth across the length and breadth of the Imperium, but the cost in lives is high.Wrath of the Chaos Sun (010.M37) - In the Maxil Beta System, a red giant star explodes in a Warp-tainted supernova. All those touched by its dark Chaos energies are mutated, possessed or destroyed outright. The Imperium mobilises every military asset within fifty light-years of the event, sending them straight to war. The resultant disaster is eventually contained at the cost of uncounted billions of lives.Ruin of Phalan 10 (772.M37) - The Industrial World of Phalan 10 is subjected to a crippling, Terran month-long orbital bombardment under the orders of the Daemon-possessed Admiral Koth. In the wake of the bombardment, the Scintillating Legions of Tzeentch scour the planet. |
Chaos Daemons - A Red Age Dawning, M38-M40: The incessant warring of this period sees the rise of Khorne in the Immaterium, and the Blood God is once more first amongst the Great Game's players. The chief victim of Khorne's rise is Nurgle, who falls below all his brothers in power.The Changeling and the Maiden (116.M38) - Harlequins visit the Aeldari of Craftworld Il'sariadh, pledging to assist the Craftworlders in their war against the Daemon-worshipping Humans of the Viliad Collective. Disaster strikes during the Harlequins' traditional pre-battle performance. The Solitaire -- who alone can play the role of Slaanesh -- begins to depart from the usual patterns. To the horror of the Aeldari present, the Solitaire catches the warrior playing the Great Harlequin just as he is supposed to escape from Slaanesh's clutches and breaks his neck. Cackling, the Solitaire reveals himself to be the Changeling, yet before the Aeldari can react, the Masque of Slaanesh is summoned, and the glamour-bedazzled Aeldari are easy prey. The Daemon Heralds vent their spite upon Harlequin and Craftworlder alike, opening a portal into a haunted spar of the Webway and allowing the Lesser Daemons of the cavalcades to pour through. Though the arrival of an Aspect Warrior warhost saves the Craftworld, Il'sariadh effectively has its heart torn out by the terrible losses it suffers.The Living Plagues of Thruscas Sine (330.M39) - The heretically progressive world of Thruscas Sine eradicates all natural illness from its populace. Nurgle is offended, and infests the world from pole to pole. The Plague Legions run amok, and there are no survivors save a new pestilence that will continue to grow in virulence.Guillotine of Khorne (407.M39) - The thousand-year War of Midian finally ends upon the Agri-world of Pax Veritas. That night, under a red moon, every celebrating soldier is suddenly decapitated by an invisible blade. |
Chaos Daemons - Time of Ending, M40-M42: An age marked by war, Warp Storms and unprecedented rifts between the Immaterium and realspace begins.Corewar of Cocholos (052.M40) - The Necrons of Cocholos awaken to find their planet's inner fires dead. They eventually find the truth in a colossal hollow sphere at the planet's core, where the Daemon Prince Beublghor now makes his lair. The titanic entity, having grown mighty after slaughtering the humans of Cocholos, takes exception to the metal ants stalking through his burrow. He summons his Daemonic followers and plunges headlong into the Necrons. Battle rages in the darkness until the Necrons are obliterated, and their metal skulls heaped deep within the planet's cold womb.The Coup-Daemons (248.M41) - The Drukhari Archon Ysclyth learns the folly of harnessing Daemons to his cause when his rival, Asdrubael Vect, seals off Ysclyth's territory from the rest of Commorragh. Trapped with only the Daemon legion for company, Ysclyth and his Kabal are slowly torn apart.The Horrors of Lissandro (383.M41) - Warp Storm Iagon visits its fury upon the planet of Lissandro. Reports of psychic activity multiply tenfold overnight. The ruling body of the planet, the Quorum Immaculate, orders the planet's libraries scoured for any information on Warp Storms. They find records of an ancient hexagrammic symbol that wards off Daemonic intervention -- a symbol that is systematically implanted as a sub-dermal electoo on all registered citizens. It does not halt a wave of Daemonic possessions; every citizen with an electoo falls writhing to the ground, a Pink Horror clambering from their convulsing husk. By sunset, Lissandro is overrun. By the time the Grey Knights arrive, every city on the planet has been irrevocably changed. The Grey Knights take the battle to those Daemons still cavorting in the ruins, but find not a single soul alive. When the purgation teams breach the libraries, they encounter the architects of the catastrophe -- the legendary Blue Scribes -- who vanish into the aether. In their wake, it becomes clear that the symbol left in the grimoires was not one of banishment, but of invitation.A Game of Blood (820.M41) - The Flesh Tearers Chapter respond to an unfolding conflict in the Adeonis Sector and battle against several of Tzeentch's Conflagration Legions, ultimately sealing the Warp Rift through which the Daemons arrived. But victory is not as simple as it first seems, for the scheming Changeling lies at the heart of this strife. Ever manipulating the cosmic strands of fate, the Changeling has plans afoot to not only strike a blow against Khorne, but also to tempt the Flesh Tearers towards damnation...The Bloodtide Returns (876.M41) - The Blood Legions of Khorne rampage across the galaxy. Although one such Daemonic legion is repelled at great cost by the Daemon-slaying Grey Knights on the world of Van Horne, dozens more spread slaughter across the stars.The Perillian Catastrophes (877-987.M41) - The Perillian gas belt, described in Gungsten the Heretic's Approximations as "the blasted remains of some vast star predator," swirls across several systems, infesting each with Daemonic incursions. As the pattern of destruction continues, a Radical sect of the Inquisition resorts to sorcery to disperse the malignant gas belt.Gheistos Cataclysm (ca. 955.M41) - On the Agri-world of Gheistos, a young meat-worker's migraines lead to an escalating Daemonic incursion that culminates with the planet's sky being cut open by Khorne's own blade. Despite the efforts of the Silver Skulls and Grey Knights Chapters, Exterminatus is enacted.Fall of the Seers of Lugganath (975.M41) - The Craftworld of Lugganath falls prey to the Brittle Coma. Its Seer Council project their spirits into the Garden of Nurgle, hoping to find the cure, but instead they meet a tragic and unsettling end.The Knight of Vhospis (984.M41) - A Warp Rift opens above the Feudal World of Vhospis. The beleaguered defenders, their tech-level so low that they still rely on polearms and metal armour, are easy prey for the Daemonic invaders. An astropathic distress call reaches the Silver Sabres Space Marines, whose Chapter planet, Mercuria, is less than a light year distant. Unfortunately for Vhospis, Daemons haunting the skies above the planet's besieged castles destroy almost all of the Drop Pods launched toward the surface. A single Space Marine survives and rallies the people of Vhospis, reigniting their potent faith in the Emperor. Slowly, day by gore-soaked day, he begins to turn the tide.Scarlet Hunt (990.M41) - The decadent Drukhari noble, Zorothriel of the Flaying Blade, outdoes his rivals by staging a daring hunt upon the Daemon World of Khornax. Amongst the captured beasts is a three-headed Flesh Hound that Zorothriel senses would make for a kingly gift in Commorragh's gladiatorial arenas, but the creature breaks its shackles, frees its packmates and prowls the Drukhari warship's corridors, killing all on board and feasting upon the corpses of its captors.Ghosts of Rhea's World (992.M41) - After an eruption in the heart of the cursed burial plateau of Rhea's World, a host of Plaguebearers fall upon the terrified defences of the planetary hive cities.The Warpsmith's Will (993.M41) - Vhostok Pistonhand of the Iron Warriors Traitor Legion stages a coup over Diesos, a soul forge occupied by the Daemon-binding forces of the Dark Mechanicum. After a single night of bloodshed, the entire world is given over to the production of Daemon Engines for the Warpsmith's army. Each new horror is slaved to Pistonhand's will by the forbidden rite known as the Concatechism. The Warpsmith's Chaos Sorcerers summon Daemon after Daemon to the soul forges, binding them into the flames with iron-worded spells. The planet blackens with the poison smog of industry. Eventually, the Chaos Gods' gaze falls upon the wholesale abduction of their servants, and they are most displeased. Four Daemonic legions materialise upon Diesos, one sent by each of the Ruinous Powers. United in their outrage, they prove unstoppable. Though Pistonhand's armies boast thousands of mechanical terrors, the invaders seem without number. Diesos is conquered within a solar month. As the Daemon legions break apart and start to fight each other over the spoils of victory, the war for Diesos starts anew.Thridian Protocol (995.M41) - When a Warp-time dilation twists the firmament over Thridia, the planet's dark past come back to haunt it. In the skies above, clouds solidify into tentacled beasts, stars turn into unblinking eyes and Daemon climb out of the tortured clouds to fall claws-first onto the mortals below. Thridia's Imperial Guard regiments fix bayonets and fight back, but their officers are at a loss as to how to defeat an enemy that literally materialise out of thin air. The retreat is signalled. En masse, the regiments head to Hive Vertes, only to find their withdrawal is blocked by a thickening wall of Necrons that silently rises out of the ash dunes. Trapped and bewildered, the Imperial Guard resolve to die fighting. But the Necrons have their own plan for Thridia; plans that Chaos cannot be allowed to disrupt. They fire volley after volley into the Daemons with clockwork precision, systematically destroying the invaders wherever they manifest. The Imperial Guard have to conduct a running battle to escape, eventually fighting their way back to the Hive. From the safety of Vertes' noble spires, the high-ranking officers of the Guard have their men mind-wiped before coordinating a solar week-long blanket bombardment centred upon the battle in the wastes.The Laughing Death (997.M41) - A hundred thousand Daemonettes invade the rust planet of Ferrite Mons when the planet's over-privileged ruler jokingly invites the handmaidens of Slaanesh to his feast. Even the elite Astra Militarum regiments of the Vostroyan Firstborn cannot slay the Daemons, whose laughter blends with the screams of the Ferrite aristocracy.Triptych of Grief (871.998.M41) - On Galdemor, the violence committed by the Daemon legion of Braskh'har the Devious, a Herald of Slaanesh, causes such grief that a new Warp rift opens. The armies of Khal'thar'rak, the Bloodied Fang, and a host of necrotic, Nurgle Daemons pill forth, led by Ku'Gath Plaguefather and Prince Gurglish the Ever-rotting. The three Daemonic armies fight over the spoils of the world, leaving no creature alive by the time they eventually depart back to the Realm of Chaos.The Great Awakening (992.999.M41) - A ripple of psychic activity passes through the stars, awakening the supernatural abilities of countless latent psykers. The resultant backlash create innumerable Warp Rifts and the spate of Daemonic invasions that follow tests the Imperium to its limit. A thousand worlds are lost, hopelessly embroiled in Daemonic incursions.The Fracture of Biel-Tan (ca. 999.M41) - The Daemonic Herald of Slaanesh known as The Masque masterminds an invasion of the Maiden World of Ursulia, where she had discovered a secret route of ingress to the Craftworld of Biel-Tan. Having beguiled the exiled Daemon Skarbrand and his followers to aid her, The Masque uses the Bloodthirster's rage-fuelled strength to shatter the runic locks of a Webway portal to the Aeldari world-ship. Once aboard, The Masque leads her sistren to corrupt Biel-Tan's Wraithbone core, fracturing the Craftworld and releasing a veritable feast of Aeldari souls for Slaanesh to consume.The 13th Black Crusade (ca. 995.999.M41) - Abaddon the Despoiler leads a Black Crusade of unprecedented size against the Fortress World of Cadia, intending to overrun its defences and plunge on towards Terra. With him come the Daemon legions of the Warp, reality buckling before their advance. The Imperium shudders as a tidal wave of Chaos pours into realspace, and the galaxy stands on the brink of ultimate destruction. Cadia falls, although many Imperial forces escape its destruction as infighting -- and the intervention of the newborn Aeldari faction known as the Ynnari -- hampers Chaos' pursuit.Return of a Primarch (ca. 999.M41) - The blind spot in Tzeentch's precognitive sight clears, but too late for the Ruinous Powers to halt the revival of the Loyalist Primarch Roboute Guilliman during the Ultramar Campaign of the 13th Black Crusade.The Opening of the Great Rift (ca. 999.M41) - Reality itself cracks under the pressure of millennia of Chaos machinations come to fruition. With the release of a tidal wave of apocalyptic energies, a seam tears between realspace and the Warp. The Noctis Aeterna -- the Blackness -- blankets the galaxy, snuffing out the light of the Astronomican and throwing the mortal races into disarray. For a time, the Ruinous Powers glut themselves on the raw emotion that runs rampant. When the darkness eventually passes, the galaxy remains afflicted by Warp Storms of a severity not seen since the Age of Strife. The Imperium reels as thousands of populated planets are destroyed or corrupted, and many more cut off and isolated. They name the pulsing tear in the galaxy the Cicatrix Maledictum in High Gothic, or more commonly, the Great Rift.Note: All dates from this point forward are provisional due to errors in the Imperial Calendar, meaning these events could actually have occurred at any time from the early 41st Millennium to the early 42nd Millennium.The Scourge Stars (Unknown Date.M42) - Nurgle sends forth from his garden dozens of Plague Legions to overrun the three sprawling star systems to the galactic north of Ultramar. Once conquered, these worlds become a stronghold for the Plague God's mortal and immortal followers alike.The Blood Crusade (Unknown Date.M42) - Revelling in the knowledge of the slaughter to come, Khorne roars, its power creating further cracks in reality. Riding upon the crests of these Warp Storms come the Blood Legions, forming eight different spearheads that sweep across the galaxy. Their only aim is to maim, ravage and slaughter in the name of the Lord of Battle, and the Daemon legions go wherever the erratic storms take them. Sometimes the armies materialise for mere moments, appearing to those mortals that behold them as nightmarish visions of death. More often they manifest long enough to decimate entire worlds. Mortal followers of Khorne, from Chaos Cults to Heretic Astartes Renegades, follow the trail of blood they leave.Invasion of the Stygius Sector (Unknown Date.M42) - Tzeentch looks upon Nurgle's newborn realm in the Scourge Stars with jealousy, and desires new territory of his own in realspace. Far to the galactic north, behind the darkest shroud of Warp Storms, Tzeentch sends forth his Scintillating Legions to create a new realm of madness in the Stygius Sector. Many wars follow as prismatic Daemon Worlds take shape.Plague Wars (ca. 999.M41-111.M42) - Issuing forth from the Scourge Stars, Nurgle's Plague Legions begin a lengthy campaign to corrupt Ultramar. Although they achieve many triumphs, final victory is thwarted by Roboute Guilliman's masterful counterattacks. The ensuing stalemate is only broken when Nurgle recalls much of his strength, ordering his most powerful Greater Daemons and their legions to help defend the Scourge Stars from an attack by the forces of his brother Chaos Gods.The Crowns of Excess (Unknown Date.M42) - The explosion of entropic energies released into the galaxy by the formation of the Great Rift signals the start of a hedonistic rampage for Slaanesh's Daemons. Aimlessly following the strongest of the Warp Storms, the Legions of Excess cavort wildly across a multitude of star systems, drinking in the emotions of the terrified populaces before feeding upon their souls. The humans of Hive World Gholdroth are enticed into a gluttonous, cannibalistic feast that only ends with their own self consumption. The Legions of Excess throw themselves into such performances with abandon, and the pleasure-seeking Daemons scatter across the galaxy in search of increasingly shocking methods with which to catch their master's wandering gaze. Slaanesh's mortal followers flock to such epicentres of decadence to enact their foul rituals, and amused by their antics, the Dark Prince offers Crowns of Excess to those worshippers that commit the greatest acts of sheer sensory delight.War in the Rift (Unknown Date.M42) - Tzeentch tricks Khorne into averting his gaze from his Blood Crusade to look instead upon the Scourge Stars. There, the Blood God espies Nurgle's diseased bloomfields blossoming within realspace. Bellowing with rage, Khorne redirects his legions to attack his brother's growing domain in the mortal realm. Dozens of Tzeentch's legions follow in their red wake. So begins the War in the Rift -- the largest conflict of the Great Game to ever spill over into reality. In response to the invasions, Nurgle launches seven counterattacks, the largest of which strikes into the Stygius Sector, for the Plague God rightly suspects Tzeentch is behind the assaults upon his realspace stronghold. Even as Kairos Fateweaver leads an assault upon Nurgle's garden, Rotigus heads the invasion of the Stygius Sector. Slaanesh allies with all three of his brothers at different times, his fickle nature drawing the ire of all, but Khorne especially. The titanic engagements between the Chaos Gods' Daemonic legions take place across a hundred fronts, but one single battle stands above all others, for none can match the sheer scale of slaughter that occurs upon the planet of Vigrid. Armies clash and powers of such magnitude are released that the planet, now reshaped into a Daemon World, is shattered, the debris shifting into the Warp where the surviving combatants continue their battle as they float upon the formless seas of the Immaterium. It is a maelstrom of conflict unending, with each side sending in a constant stream of new Daemon legions. Seeking an end to the battle, Tzeentch suggests a contest of champions to settle the matter. Each of the Chaos Gods, sure of their own victory, agrees.Clash of Champions (Unknown Date.M42) - For a brief moment, the galaxy is freed of the baleful gaze of the Chaos Gods, for their attention is drawn elsewhere. Each of the brothers selects their mightiest champions alongside a few favoured Daemonic legions. A portion of each of the gods' realms is reformed into the Amalgrimm -- a swirling hell-field upon which the gladiatorial battles will take place. Slaanesh's champions use their speed to quickly establish dominance, but stagger before the resilience of Nurgle's chosen. Tzeentch's champions unleash sorcerous bolts of such magnitude that time itself collapses around them, but none can match the martial prowess and endless fury of Khorne's warriors. The advantage continues to change hands, until Tzeentch's foremost champion, Kairos Fateweaver, emerges victorious through trickery. So loud is Khorne's bellow of fury, however, that all of Kairos' illusions are broken and the battlefield itself blasted apart in fire, and even realspace shakes at its foundations. With that, the Great Game resumes in a million different forms across a million different fronts. The galaxy's respite from Chaos passes, and the Daemonic legions of the Chaos Gods once again turn realspace into a constant battlefield at the behest of their dark masters. |
Chaos Daemons - Daemons in Realspace: The Chaos Gods are not alone in Warpspace. They have created servants from their own essences -- the creatures mortals call "Daemons." Daemons are beings of a somewhat different nature to their masters, and are the most numerous of the Warp's inhabitants.A Daemon is "born" when a Chaos God expends a portion of its power to create a separate being. This power binds a collection of senses, thoughts and purposes together, creating a personality and consciousness that can move within the Warp. The Chaos God can reclaim the independence it has given to its minions at any time; this ensures their continuing loyalty, and means although some wayward Daemons may not act entirely in accordance with their master's commands, even the greatest of them would not dare outright defiance.As beings of pure entropic psychic energy and emotion, it is only through the loss of this animating essence that a Daemon can be truly destroyed, its mind dissolving into the whorls and currents of the Warp.Though it may appear to be made of normal matter when it materialises in realspace, a Daemon's form is no more physical than it is in the Realm of Chaos. Outside of the Immaterium, Daemons have particular invulnerabilities and weaknesses, as well as many destructive and terrifying powers derived from their Warp-born nature. Slaying a Daemon's physical projection only severs its presence in reality, banishing it back into the Warp.While its true essence remains unharmed, the blow to the Daemon's pride is considerable, and those that are forcibly returned to their own realm must endure the mockery and torment of their fellows until they can return to corporeal form and avenge themselves -- assuming they are not simply re-absorbed by their creator as the price of their failure.In order to regain its form, a Daemon must remain in a sort of purgatorial state within its master's realm. Legend has it that a Daemon banished in this way cannot return to realspace for a thousand Terran years and a day, though it is of course impossible to prove such a belief through study, and the concept of time itself is meaningless within the Warp. Ultimately, how long the process takes depends upon the power of the individual Daemon, the favour of its deity, and the current balance of power available to the god in question.Daemons are a great threat to the peoples of the galaxy, for unlike their masters, they are not wholly confined to the Warp. At the behest of their divine patrons, they work to bring about the day when the barrier between Warpspace and the material dimension is collapsed altogether, allowing Chaos to spill through and the Dark Gods to rule all of Creation.Daemons are the agents of their Chaos God within and beyond this realm, for they are fractions of its will given physical form. Untold billions of Daemonic entities make up the host of each of the Chaos Gods.These legions consist of Greater Daemons, Daemon Princes, Lesser Daemons, Daemonic Beasts and other creatures that defy easy classification by mortal savants. Spawned and destroyed by the needs and whims of their divine patron, the size of a Chaos God's forces swells and ebbs with the power he claims over the material dimension at any given time.When the Daemonic legions go to war, whether in the domain of their god's rival within the Realm of Chaos or against the galaxy's sentient species, they bring the power of their patron and all the madness of the Warp with them. The Immaterium trembles beneath their endless ranks, and in realspace, Warp Storms and unnatural phenomenon herald their coming.In performing the hellish machinations of their masters, the Daemon legions are as relentless as they are utterly horrifying; they are the greatest and oldest fears of mortals made manifest, the antithesis of order and reason, and the death of reality itself. Against them, victory is seemingly impossible, and they are only growing stronger.Though preoccupied by the machinations of their creators, all Daemons lust after the worlds of mortals. It is only there that the Daemons can truly dominate and destroy, conquer and corrupt, for unlike the Realm of Chaos, the material universe can be permanently changed by their actions.For this reason, Daemons constantly seek egress into the realm of mortals. When a Warp breach gives the Daemon legions a chance to enter the mortal realm, all rivalries and vendettas are put aside. The numberless armies of the Immaterium burst forth, united by a shared goal -- the total conquest and subjugation of realspace.The Daemon-hunting Ordo Malleus of the Inquisition fears that with the exponential increase in the number of Humans in the galaxy who now manifest psychic abilities, the material dimension will soon be overwhelmed by these Daemonic incursions.Once the Ruinous Powers have glutted themselves on the souls of all the mortals in the galaxy, their armies will fall upon each other like hyenas over a fresh corpse, but by then it will be too late. All that could exist in such a nightmare are the Daemons themselves and those few mortals who survive by the sufferance of their new masters.Being an intelligent entity of the Warp, a Daemon cannot exist for long periods of time in realspace, any more than a mortal can survive unprotected in Warpspace. There are a few ways a Daemon can breach the walls separating the Warp from realspace and gain entry into the material universe. |
Chaos Daemons - Daemonic Possession: Daemons can possess mortals on the other side of the barrier between dimensions by transferring some of their psychic power into the mind of a psychically "gifted" mortal victim. The mind of a psyker is the most susceptible to this influence, which is why the Imperium so greatly fears and controls psychic individuals.The Daemons appear in dreams and visions, infusing their mortal host with a portion of Daemonic power. This eventually leads to the destruction of the possessed mortal, who is known as a Daemonhost, as their physical frame is warped by the Daemon to suit its own inhuman aesthetic.A few mortals willingly allow themselves to be possessed, glorying in the superhuman abilities they gain, even though the energies they crave will soon destroy them. Though the physical and psychic power of a Daemon is severely limited by the physical body it possesses, the scope for mayhem and carnage is still great.Possessed mortals, particularly those who already have power and influence, can start rebellions and wage wars, plunging whole worlds into centuries of bloodshed and anarchy. The history of the galaxy is littered with devastating conflicts caused by Imperial military commanders, belligerent army generals and political leaders who have been touched by a Daemon's fell influence.Some Heretics who serve Chaos Cults or the Ruinous Powers directly willingly offer themselves as Daemonhosts through Daemonic pacts such as those pursued by the foul Possessed Chaos Space Marines. Another way to allow a Daemon to manifest itself in the Materium is by preparing a suitable mechanical vessel for it to inhabit.Individual personal weapons and vehicles from Dreadnoughts to cruisers can be ritually anointed through painstaking rituals and large sacrifices of mortal lives to serve as a host "body" for a Daemon, essentially creating a Daemon Weapon or even a Daemon Engine. This process is far from easy, as Daemons dislike mechanical bodies for they are far more difficult to bend to their will and reshape than a biological one.The difference between a simple Daemonically-possessed vehicle and a Daemon Engine lies in the crafting -- a possessed vehicle was built prior to its possession for a different purpose; a Daemon Engine imprisons a Daemon within its physical structure as a deliberate part of the mechanism's original, custom creation. |
Chaos Daemons - Daemonic Incursions: In order for a Daemon to break through into the mortal universe, there must be a breach of the barriers between Warpspace and the material realm -- a Warp rift. These are breaches in the fabric of reality that can vary in nature and size, such as the massive Eye of Terror or the Maelstrom.Sometimes these occur randomly; at other times, either mortals or the Chaos Gods themselves bring about their creation by some supernatural act. The size of the breach can vary tremendously, from a slight thinning of the dimensional walls to immense wounds in reality that allow the Daemonic legions to invade en masse.At times when certain conditions like the appearance of a Warp Storm or a sorcerous ritual have weakened the barrier between the Warp and realspace, a daemon can possess a mortal and turn him or her into a living portal through which whole Daemonic hosts can pass for a time into the material universe.These Daemonic incursions can taint realspace severely, often twisting and reshaping whole planets until they are lost into the Warp, becoming a part of the Immaterium and thus transformed into Daemon Worlds. It is not surprising that the Inquisition's Daemonhunters, the Ordo Malleus, are granted unlimited resources and political power by the High Lords of Terra to deal with such terrible threats to the continued existence of Mankind.Often, it is the tumultuous movements of the Warp itself that create a break into the material realm, allowing Daemons to spill through the resulting breach. This might happen by chance; events such as the onset of Warp Storms, Warp-Drive implosions or a rogue psyker's mind suddenly exploding with raw power can cause a rift to appear into the Immaterium.At other times, the deliberate rituals and blood sacrifices of Chaos-worshipping mortals can allow the teeming hordes of the Chaos Gods to smash through into the material realm. Sometimes, simple mortal suffering, death and misery on a massive enough scale can form a Warp rift that a Daemonic legion might use as a portal.Some Warp rifts last mere solar hours, or even moments, for the nature of Chaos is ever impermanent. A Daemonic army that has passed through such a rift can become trapped in realspace and will swiftly succumb to the constant leeching of the Chaos energy required to maintain its presence.Of these, the greatest and most dangerous Warp rift is the Eye of Terror, which has lasted for more than ten thousand standard years. The Eye can be seen as a purple-red bruise upon the firmament from fully half the worlds claimed by the Imperium. It was created by the birth of the Chaos God Slaanesh in the early 30th Millennium and is home to unnumbered Daemon Worlds fought over by Daemons and mortals alike, the infamous Traitor Legions of the Chaos Space Marines amongst them.Another Warp rift of excessive magnitude is the Maelstrom, found near the galactic core and a haven for thousands of pirates and Renegade Space Marine Chapters.Other, less widely known Warp rifts exist, such as the Heart of Darkness near to the world of Atilla, the Storm of Judgement that engulfs almost all of the Caradryad Sector, Hell's Gullet, which threatens to swallow the Berillian System whole, and the infamous Screaming Vortex that marks the border between the Calixis Sector and the frontier of the Koronus Expanse in the Halo Stars.Random Warp rifts are often caused by Warp Storms -- roiling expanses of turbulence within the Realm of Chaos that are echoed in realspace, restricting Warp-dependent travel and communication. If they become focussed or powerful enough, they can pull the fabric of reality taut or even tear it open. Completely unpredictable, Warp Storms can be isolated to single planets or expand to encompass whole sectors.One of the worst Warp Storms ever recorded in Human history cut Terra itself off from the rest of the galaxy for the entire 5,000-year-long epoch known as the Age of Strife. The unfortunate worlds in the vicinity of such a cataclysmic event can become the playgrounds of Daemons until the storm finally expends itself.A few Warp Storms have endured for so long that they can be considered permanent, their self-sustaining energies trapping nearby planets and star systems in a quagmire of roiling Chaos.Without the Warp, there would be no psykers, no interstellar travel and no interplanetary communication. In fact, the Warp is essential to the survival of Humanity. Spacecraft travel through its shifting tides, capable of travelling thousands of light years in a fraction of the time a journey using conventional reaction drives at sub-light speeds would take. By such means, Humanity is bound in a single interstellar Imperium, led by the divine Emperor of Mankind.Through astrotelepathy and the guidance of the psychic mutants known as Navigators, the worlds of the Imperium are able to maintain their fragile bonds. The Emperor's will may be mighty, but His reach is long only because His fleets can travel through Warpspace, the fragile bubbles of reality that protect each warship held up by complex Geller Fields and raw faith.While Mankind would have a fraction of its current numbers and strength without the Warp, Chaos in its turn would be much diminished without the presence of Humanity in the galaxy. The Chaos Gods drink emotions and thoughts, growing bloated with psychic power in the process. Over the millennia, each has fed on an aspect of Human nature: rage, desire, despair and inconstancy.Strengthened and moulded by the collective thoughts and emotions of the inhabitants of reality, the Dark Gods nurture in Mankind those same passions that sustain their very existence. As Humanity has spread across the stars, its numbers have grown immeasurably, fuelling the Chaos Gods. So the circle is established, with mortal follies and weaknesses feeding the Dark Gods and those same gods then encouraging Mankind in turn to further follies and weakness.Humanity has long been able to use the power of the Warp -- magicians, seers, witches, mediums, shamans and exorcists have all trapped into its power across the breadth of Human history, albeit often unwittingly. Psykers such as these manifest their powers by drawing upon the Warp, siphoning its unnatural energy to hurl blasts of energy, teleport objects, send their thoughts across space and time and perform countless other "miracles."Once, the gift of true psychic power was confined to only a few helpless individuals who usually fell victim to superstitious prejudice in Mankind's distant past. However, the number of psykers is rising in the galactic population of Humanity with every passing century.This constitutes a profound evolutionary change for Mankind. Every time a psyker draws upon the Warp, he disturbs its natural flow, creating an eddy that may simply die away or be fed by other movements until it becomes a raging tempest that feeds a Chaos God. Each psyker causes a pinprick of disturbance within the Warp; each can be the seed of a Warp Storm; each can rouse a Chaos Power to unthinkable conquest.The invasion of a Daemonic army is analogous to hell being unleashed upon reality. Free from the physical limitations of a mortal force, a Daemonic legion can appear and disappear at will. On occasion, it will mass for a great attack; at other times, individual packs of Daemons will hunt across the affected globe, terrorising the populace, randomly enslaving and killing.Those mortals with even the least psychic potential suffer first as the influx of Warp energy releases the latent power of their mind, immolating them with magical fire, turning them into rocky statues, or causing their brains to simply explode. Poltergeist activity and random bursts of pyrokinesis can ruin buildings in an instant. People hear deranged screams and lurid whispering whilst unnatural stenches taint the air.A Daemonic invasion is all but impossible to stop by conventional means, for the very act of warring against Daemons feeds the psychic power keeping them in realspace with fear and hatred. Only the closing of the Warp rift can deprive the Daemons of their power. Often, there is nothing that can be done but battle against the incursion until the Warp rift runs its course.Battles fought against a Daemonic incursion are utterly different than those against mortal foes, for defensive structures and garrisons have little to no effect. To wage war against invading Daemonic hosts, an army must be ready to respond to the most sudden appearances of its adversaries.To compound matters, the motivations behind Daemonic incursions are unfathomable. Even the Tyranids, who are so alien as to be beyond the ken of Humanity, war for sustenance and survival. Instead of these base drives, the objectives of a Daemon commander will often be completely obscure -- they might be to slay a million mortals, to retrieve a single artefact, or to kill the grandchildren of those that once banished them back to the Warp.Other times, the daemons have no goal or plan at all, and the gibbering creatures of the Immaterium make decisions according to opportunity and their intrinsic nature.To fight a Daemon army is to fight a twisting tornado of unreason and despair. Even then, the Imperium cannot allow the knowledge that such foes actually exist to spread. The Human survivors of such conflicts are invariably confronted by the Inquisition and mind-wiped, quarantined in forced labour camps or even -- in extreme cases -- become the subjects of a worldwide Exterminatus event.Over the aeons, the galaxy has witnessed Warp-based catastrophes and Daemonic incursions beyond counting. Since the inception of the Imperial Inquisition in the early days of the Horus Heresy, even the fact that such a thing is possible is deemed too dangerous for the citizens of the Imperium to know, as knowledge of the existence of Daemons would only tempt too many to seek them and their promises out.Because of this, the vast majority of knowledge concerning Daemonic incursion has been eradicated from extant Imperial public records. What is known is recorded only in proscribed Imperial texts and heretical manuscripts of Human or xenos origin that the Inquisition has yet to destroy. |
Chaos Daemons - Bound Daemons: Although Daemons are driven to act in certain ways according to their nature and the will of their patron power, it is possible for sorcerous rituals to bind them into acting at the behest of a mortal summoner. Some cults serving the Ruinous Powers bind Daemons to gain greater power, while Radicals among the Ordo Malleus sometimes hope to turn the power of Chaos against itself.However, Daemons do not accept the bonds of servitude easily, regardless of the identity of their would-be master. A bound Daemon is even crueller and more vicious than others of its type, and does what it can within the limits of the binding to ensure that its summoner suffers for their temerity.The exact reaction of a Daemon to binding can vary somewhat, primarily depending on the type of Daemon in question. Daemonic beasts such as Furies or Flesh Hounds are accustomed to servitude, and rarely turn on their masters unless they are denied prey or shown signs of weakness.Daemons of Khorne constantly test the extent of their binding, pitting themselves against any constraints in a fierce contest. Their masters can appease them somewhat by providing a steady supply of targets for their wrath, but only a truly indiscriminate slaughter can distract the Daemon from its ire.Binding tests even the good humour of Daemons of Nurgle, but they often seem to endure it more readily than others. In truth, these Daemons are typically playing the long game, waiting for the strength of the bindings to erode and fall apart. Until what they see as their inevitable freedom arrives, they might make light of their situation and serve with seeming cheer, even as they await the collapse of their prison.Submission to the will of a mortal is nearly intolerable for the egotistical Daemons of Slaanesh. They are less accepting of binding than any, save perhaps Khorne's Daemons, although they are often more capable of putting on a front of acceptance.While bound, a Daemon of Slaanesh invariably seeks to tempt its summoner into releasing any constraints, offering extravagant promises and lies in exchange for its freedom. Anyone weak-willed enough to succumb soon finds themselves exposed to depths of pain that only a master of sensation could even imagine existing.As in so much else, the reactions of Tzeentch Daemons to binding are varied and often inscrutable. They may invoke their sorcerous powers to undo any restraints on their behaviour, or play along with a failed ritual as if they were bound in order to deceive their summoner with false counsel.They do not like servitude any better than other Daemons do, but they often view it as a circumstance like any other they weave into their plots, and attempt to turn the tables on their master in some cunning ploy.The binding rituals used by the Ordo Malleus, even among the most Radical of Inquisitors, are typically more restrictive than those used by Chaos Cults. Containment of the Daemon's threat is viewed as a first priority, and while the blessed chains and sorcerous wards that hold the Daemons infuriate them above even normal mortal insolence, they are often less able to act on this frustration than a Daemon bound more loosely.Such a Daemon struggles constantly -- and usually futilely -- at its bonds, feeling a hate for its condition that a mortal could barely comprehend. Such a Daemon may affect servility or submission, but only as a ruse to lower the guard of its master or deceive him in some way. |
Chaos Daemons - Daemonic Names: Daemons are chaos incarnate, unfathomable beings of a shifting nature, but there is one constant about each of them, from the lowliest imp to the most towering Greater Daemon: they each conceal a true name.Most such names are a rolling tide of nigh unpronounceable syllables beyond the wit and sanity of most to speak aloud, but to do so is the greatest defence against the unnatural creatures of the Warp; to know a Daemon's True Name is to hold ultimate power over it, and so their bearers keep them secret, even from each other.To this end, use-names and titles are utilised instead. These follow certain patterns, although they are recurring themes as opposed to rules. Khorne Daemon use-names are guttural and violent sounding, and those of the Bloodthirsters are often composed of eight syllables or letters, like Khazdrak. Their titles are bold and typically descriptive: the "High-handed Slayer," "Skullrender," the "Unstoppable Fury," and so on.Tzeentch Daemons are most likely to change names and titles, for it often suits their needs to do so; a single Lord of Change might go by many different names and titles at any given time.Nurgle's creations favour names with seven letters, and their epithets are either grandiose or descriptive, such as "Feculux the Master Mucanoid."Slaaneshi Daemon use-names utilise sibilant sounds, such as "Sslythri" or "Dryzla," while they have a preference for long, grandiloquent titles such as the "Exquisite Matriarch of Agonising Delights." |
Chaos Daemons - True Names: A Daemon might be known by hundreds of names and titles on thousands of worlds, but it can have only one True Name. These originate within the madness of the Warp, not from any Human language. As such, they are extraordinarily difficult to speak, both for the odd sound and structure of the syllables, and for the otherworldly power contained therein.Daemons jealously guard them, for to know a Daemon's True Name is to have power over it. The discovery of even a minor Daemon's True Name is a monumental feat for a practitioner of the dark arts, one that they may work many lifetimes to achieve. In the creation and control of a Daemonhost, knowing the Daemon's True Name is a great advantage, and the knowledge of its True Name is often what marks a Daemon out for binding.Certain dark tomes, heavy with the evil they contain, record rituals and rites specific to a single Daemon, including its True Name. As these tainted manuals pass through the hands of different occultists through the centuries, the same Daemon might be bound into a new Daemonhost again and again.Though it inhabits a different host body each time, it contains the same malefic intellect, and the same dark changes mark its appearance. |
Chaos Daemons - Melee Weapon Efficacy: Combat reports of early encounters between the original Space Marine Legions of the Great Crusade era and the entities of the Warp revealed a peculiar facet of the nature of Daemons. It has been noted that for some ill-known reason, Daemons appear to be all but immune to advanced projectile and directed energy-based weaponry in their freshly manifested state.Attacks of a more primitive and visceral nature on the other hand, such as the hacking of a blade or the setting of flame to such a creature, have been reported to have an exaggerated effect.It has been posited by Radical scholars of the Inquisition that those weapons wielded by ancient men are held most in dread by the Daemon itself, for as beings of scavenged sentience and emotion, they are not wounded on the physical plane but only a metaphysical level, by the primordial expectation or even psychic representation of pain.Furthermore, the Daemons' vulnerability in this regard might have informed the very weapons with which the armed forces of the Imperium continue to make war, for there is little other reason to imagine why the Emperor commanded His Legions so long ago to wield swords and other melee weapons as readily as their bolters and other firearms, a practice that has continued into the 41st Millennium. |
Chaos Daemons - True Death: All Daemons are essentially immortal beings, who exist so long as their patron Chaos God continues to will it. When they are "slain" after manifesting in realspace, their psychic essence is simply banished back to the Warp for a time until they are able to manifest once more on the mortal plane after a suitable amount of time has passed or certain other ritual conditions are met.Yet a Daemon can suffer from ultimate destruction, a so-called "True Death," which is the act of eradicating a Daemon's psychic essence entirely rather than simply banishing it back to the Immaterium. The achievement of a True Death that has not been willed by the Daemon's patron god is an extremely difficult feat for mortals to achieve and almost always requires the use of a special, unusually potent psychic relic, ritual or a psyker who possesses extreme ability.Relics which have been invested with or become the focus of intense psychological belief or faith by many billions of thinking beings, such as the relics of the saints of the Imperial Cult, relics of the primarchs of the Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes, or even a unique item like the Sword of the Emperor wielded by Roboute Guilliman, are particularly potent weapons against the Daemonic. |
Chaos Daemons - The Great Rift: With the opening of the Great Rift at the end of the 41st Millennium in the Era Indomitus, the Daemonic incursions that had plagued the galaxy since time immemorial escalated in both scale and frequency.A new era of terror and bloodshed was ushered in by that galaxy-spanning tear in the fabric of reality, and the armies of the Chaos Gods, mortal and Daemonic alike, began to conquer and consume the worlds of Humanity and the alien races with unprecedented impunity.Had the Chaos Gods worked in unison in the wake of that terrible event, it is doubtless that realspace would have been utterly consumed by the sprawling madness of the Warp. Yet true to their nature, the dark brothers saw the anarchy as an opportunity to fulfil their own agendas: to kill, to change, to pollute, to bathe in excess. So divided, they are unable to fully overcome the fierce resistance of the galaxy's inhabitants.The Imperium of Man, the largest single empire in the galaxy, has been galvanised by the return of the legendary Primarch Roboute Guilliman, and with him fights a new breed of warrior in Humanity's defence, the Primaris Space Marines.The older peoples of the galaxy, such as the Aeldari and the Necrons, continue to exhibit a stubborn refusal to bow before the Chaos Gods and accept their extinction, while upstart new species like the T'au gain a greater understanding by the day of the Realm of Chaos and the ancient and malevolent beings within it.The barbaric Orks are only incited by the surging conflicts around them, and greet the prospect of battle against the Daemonic legions with the same reckless enthusiasm they always have.The intergalactic devourers known as the Tyranids regard the immaterial Daemons with a special distaste, seeing them only as undigestible threats to the biomass they wish to consume.So the ultimate battle for the galaxy continues, the Chaos Gods and their Daemonic legions threatening to annihilate everything, including each other, in their eternal quest for dominance. |
Chaos Daemons - Greater Daemons: At the top of the Daemonic hierarchy are the Greater Daemons whose power can be variable, depending on the whims of their patron Chaos God upon their creation. Some, like Nurgle's Great Unclean Ones, are only slightly less powerful than their patron god and in some cases they serve as temporary avatars of that god.Others, though immensely powerful by mortal standards, are allowed to embody only a fragment of the true collective power of their patron. Greater Daemons act as the wardens of their patron's realm in the Immaterium and the Realm of Chaos and have authority over the Lesser Daemons of their respective god.It is often they who lead Daemonic incursions into the material universe. Such is their might that they cannot simply be summoned by mortal Chaos Cultists performing a sorcerous ritual like Lesser Daemons.A Greater Daemon needs to possess a mortal's living body in order to fully manifest itself in realspace unless a Warp rift or Warp Storm has come into being, essentially eliminating the barrier between the Immaterium and the mortal world.Great Unclean One, Greater Daemon of NurgleKeeper of Secrets, Greater Daemon of SlaaneshLord of Change, Greater Daemon of TzeentchBloodthirster, Greater Daemon of Khorne |
Chaos Daemons - Daemon Princes: The most powerful mortal devotees of Chaos try to gain the attention of their Dark Gods in order to gain the terrible power and great rewards that the Ruinous Powers can bestow upon their most favoured servants. Those striving in the pursuit of their god's designs are known as Champions of Chaos, whose ultimate, driving goal is to transcend mortality itself by becoming a Daemon Prince.Those mortals who become Daemon Princes are counted among the most powerful of the servants of Chaos, second only to the Chaos Gods and their Greater Daemons themselves. However, this path can as easily lead to another extreme. Throughout the path to power the Champion undergoes constant change, until either his patron Chaos God judges him worthy of Daemonic ascension or his form finally is overcome by the accumulated mutations given through loyalty to Chaos and he devolves into a mindless Chaos Spawn.The goal for most mortal Chaos Champions is to be elevated to the rank of a Daemon Prince in the service of one of the Ruinous Powers or of Chaos Undivided. This was the reward granted to the surviving primarchs of the Traitor Space Marine Legions who fell to Chaos during the Horus Heresy. |
Chaos Daemons - Daemonic Heralds: Certain Lesser Daemons of the Chaos Gods have proven to be so successful or emblematic of their divine patron's larger goals in the Great Game and realspace that they are accorded a special status as a "Daemonic Herald" of their Dark God.The Daemonic Heralds of the Dark Gods include the following beings:Herald of KhorneSkulltakerHerald of NurgleEpidemiusHerald of TzeentchThe ChangelingHerald of SlaaneshThe Masque of Slaanesh |
Chaos Daemons - Lesser Daemons: Lesser Daemons are the foot soldiers of Chaos, providing the core of the Daemonic legions. They are usually anthropomorphic in appearance and possess a calculating, malevolent intellect.Among the Daemons of Chaos they are the ones most likely to answer the summoning calls of mortal Heretics who engage in blasphemous, sorcerous rituals to call forth these entities into realspace.BloodlettersPlaguebearersDaemonetteFlamers of TzeentchHorrorsNurglingsHerald of KhorneHerald of TzeentchHerald of NurgleHerald of Slaanesh |
Chaos Daemons - Daemonic Creatures: These more primal Warp entities are the lowest type and least intelligent of the Daemons. They are often granted as servants to other Daemons and occasionally, one of the Chaos Gods' more powerful mortal followers or Champions.Daemonic creatures can be further divided in type between Daemonic Beasts and Daemonic Steeds. |
Chaos Daemons - Daemonic Beasts: Daemonic Beasts are Daemons that possess less self-awareness than others of their kind, more akin to the animals and other beasts of realspace. Daemonic Beasts, like their mortal counterparts, are driven by a feral intellect and commonly used as hunting beasts by other Daemons and the forces of Chaos.Beast of Khorne: Flesh HoundBeast of NurgleBeast of Slaanesh: Fiend of SlaaneshBeast of Tzeentch: Screamer |
Chaos Daemons - Daemonic Steeds: Daemonic Steeds are Daemonic Beasts that are used as prized mounts used by Lesser Daemons and the more experienced Champions of Chaos. Earning one of these creatures from the Ruinous Powers can be as dangerous as facing them in battle.Steed of Khorne: JuggernautSteed of SlaaneshSteed of Tzeentch: Disc of TzeentchSteed of Nurgle: Rot Fly |
Chaos Daemons - Unaligned Daemons: Apart from the four major Ruinous Powers that form the pantheon of Chaos, there are numerous minor Daemonic entities in the Warp who are Chaotic in nature too. The Chaos Gods tend to have less direct control over them, though they still serve the overall universal force that is Chaos:Astral Spectre - Spectres are powerful entities composed of congealed psychic energy and Warp-stuff. When manifest in the physical world, they take the shape of incorporeal spectres: patches of moving darkness, unnatural mists boiling with flickering images, half-transparent figures that cast no shadow and a host of other forms.Dispayre - Famished and tattered figures with hollow eye-sockets and mouths frozen in endless silent screams, Dispayres serve no single great power; they desire only to bring sorrow and madness. Darkness clings about them, and they make formidable stalkers and assassins for malefic cults.Fury - A Fury is a Daemonic Beast of Chaos Undivided. Ancient lore suggests that Human servants of Chaos that display a tepid attitude towards Chaos as a whole, reject the patronage of any of the gods, and who's service to Chaos in their life as a whole was unremarkable, are reborn in the warp as these beings. Forever to soar the violent winds of the Warp without a place.Soul Grinder - Soul Grinders are former Daemons of Chaos that now, in general, serve Chaos Undivided. They are dedicated to the Forge of Souls, an organization of Daemonic smiths in the Realm of Chaos which is independent of the control of any of the major Chaos Gods and uses Soul Grinders to maintain that independence.Warp Predator - Warp Predators are near-mindless animalistic creatures whose hunger for life is boundless. They are drawn to the soul sparks of mortal life like sharks to bloody water. Once such predator is the Ebon Geist, a thing blacker than the emptiest void, a killing shadow, thin and writhing that can pass through dark spaces as insubstantial as a nightmare fading into forgetfulness. The Geist murders with its chill talons, leaving nothing but bodies consumed to desiccated husks, the screaming shadows of its victims cold-burned into the hull where they perished. |
Chaos Daemons - Exalted Daemons: Certain Daemons can serve their patron Chaos God so well that they are granted special favour in their god's eyes. These Daemons, who can be of either Lesser Daemon or Greater Daemon status, are often more powerful and granted greater abilities than their counterparts of the same type.So, for instance, an Exalted Greater Daemon often commands authority over even other Greater Daemons when serving in their god's Daemonic legions and likewise for their lesser brethren. |
Chaos Daemons - Blood Legions: Of all the Chaos Gods' Daemonic armies, it is the Blood Legions of Khorne that are the most martial. Though they are savage and unrestrained creatures, Daemons of the Blood God occupy a strict hierarchical structure based on sheer might.Khorne's belief that the strongest of his followers should dominate has proven to be a simple but highly efficient organisational methodology.The legions of the Blood God have carved out the largest of all domains in the Immaterium through incessant war. In the brutal press of melee on the battlefield, Khorne's forces are unmatched by those of any other god, and the strength and ferocity each of his Daemons exhibits there decides where they rank in his armies.Highest in order are the Bloodthirsters. Clad in baroque armour, wielding fearsome brass axes and whips, each is a demigod of war. Were they simply warriors and nothing more, Khorne's Greater Daemons would be terrifying enough.His foes are not so fortunate, however, for the Bloodthirsters are tasked with leading the Lord of Skull's Blood Legions on the battlefield; there they bark guttural orders to the ranks of Lesser Daemons around them, and assert their dominance and dedication to Khorne by defeating the mightiest of the enemies' combatants. Figures of awe amongst the servants of the Blood God, they often attract an entourage of Daemonic champions that follow them into glorious battle.Each Blood Legion is divided into eight cohorts, which are individually comprised of eight packs of Daemons led by a Herald of Khorne or a Daemon Prince. The exact composition of these cohorts, and the auxiliary formations and creatures that may fight alongside them, will often depend on the type of Blood Legion they belong to.For instance, the heart of Red Tide Legions is made of Bloodletter cohorts that overrun the foe with waves of infantry attacks; such is the scale of death around them that they will often be followed by packs of carrion-feeding Furies.In contrast, the Hellfire Legions are siege specialists that prefer to engage the foe at range, and go to war in the shadows of Skull Cannons, Soul Grinders and, in the greatest of conflicts, the massive Daemon Engines known as Lords of Skulls.The Brazen Thunder Legions are the most mobile of Khorne's armies; the ground shakes beneath their Blood Thrones and the Bloodcrushers they lead, while Flesh Hound packs chase down any that attempt to flee. Exactly how many types of Blood Legion exist is known only to Khorne himself.At full strength, each Blood Legion is typically formed of eight cohorts, and each cohort is composed of eight packs of Daemons. These formations can vary for many reasons, although most commonly it is through the addition of auxiliaries or an influx or decrease in Warp energies upon the battlefield.It is also not unusual amongst the minions of Khorne for a cohort to subjugate the Daemon packs of another such formation, bringing them to their side by force during savage, and sometimes ritualized, infighting. |
Chaos Daemons - Scintillating Legions: The air fills with kaleidoscopic bursts of magical energy as the convocations of the Great Conspirator materialise for battle. To mortal eyes, the different Daemonic legions of Tzeentch are impossible to distinguish, each one as bizarre as the next, yet there is method within the madness -- although none save the Architect of Fate himself could truly comprehend it.While Tzeentch prefers to further his ends through sorcery or schemes, there will often be no better alternative than force to achieve his goals. Thus are Tzeentch's Daemon legions deployed, armies unlike anything seen in realspace.These convocations go to war in a capering, bounding, spell-wielding carnival of violence, obliterating foes with hellfire and change-magics. Unlike the militant cohorts of Khorne or the cyclical forces that serve Nurgle, Tzeentch's legions are often in flux, shifting composition or altering tactics to better serve their master.Each Scintillating Legion is commanded by one of Tzeentch's Greater Daemons, a Lord of Change, each utterly dedicated to their master's cause. A Lord of Change is granted great independence to operate, and with the help of their advisers and champions, they will command a legion suited to their own proclivities.Those that love to bask in the glow of destruction might head a Conflagration Legion -- a force centred around formations of Flamers, capable of wielding the most powerful of Warp-flames.Others favour the Legions Anarchus, which are far less predictable in composition and specialise in sudden and wholly unexpected incursions.Those Greater Daemons who are masters of duplicity will lead one of the Veiled Legions; the most mysterious of Tzeentch's forces, these surface rarely and are almost never brought to battle, and slip off unseen after their plan's culmination.Each of Tzeentch's Daemonic legions is divided into nine hosts, and these are directed in battle by Daemon Princes and Heralds such as Changecasters, Fluxmasters and Fateskimmers. The leaders of the hosts compete to attract more praise from the Lord of Change that commands them, and even between the legions, there is no end to the machinations as rival Lords of Change plot against one another and sabotage each other's plans.It is another game within the Great Game, and one beloved most by the Great Schemer himself, who frequently weighs the tributes paid to him and proclaims his judgement. Thus do the sigils of each Daemon legion dance across the Pyramid of Yrch deep in the Crystal Labyrinth, blazing into a new order of countenance.It is a hierarchy that moves often, but the nine most favoured Daemonic legions are each granted control of one of the Fractal Fortresses that tower over the Crystal Labyrinth, an honour all Tzeentch's servants desire to attain. |
Chaos Daemons - Plague Legions: To those subjected to their loathsome assaults, the legions of Nurgle seem like an amorphous mass, but amidst the shambling anarchy there is purpose and design. Like the stages of the diseases they carry, each Plague Legion is part of an overarching cycle of fecundity and decay, and exists only to see Nurgle's garden flourish and his gifts bestowed.From the Garden of Nurgle lumber the Plague Legions, the dreaded armies of the Great Corrupter. When they go to war, be it in the Realm of Chaos or realspace, they bring the boundless generosity of their master and the products of his endless labours with them, and leave contagion, anguish and death in their wake.All Plague Legions are Nurgle's creations, and so carry pestilence and propagate their master's foul will, yet each is associated with specific stages of the Fly Lord's cycle of decay and regeneration.The Fecundus Legions are tasked with the making of diseases; it is they that travel across reality and unreality to gather the raw ingredients that will be added to the cauldron of their foul god, and the worst ills suffered by the mortal races can be attributed to their diligence.The Infecticus Legions are the harbingers of infection, the carriers of new diseases that lay the groundwork for the greater virulence to follow.The Pathogenus Legions are disease fully bloomed, sickness made manifest, the very height of contagion; they are equally capable in both attack or defence, and will be often be deployed to guard key sites within Nurgle's Garden or spearhead an assault.The Epidemic Legions contain the most Daemons, for they expand, proliferate, and regenerate; it is they that spread outwards, ensuring initial gains turn into rampaging outbreaks.The Rot Legions revel in decay, their festering powers and potent blessings able to break down anything; more than any other Daemonic legion, their presence cultivates the ground for the Garden of Nurgle to spread.The Morbidus Legions are the reapers, the tolltakers, and the bringers of death.The Necroticus Legions are the most resilient; they use hopelessness and despair as a weapon, and can absorb terrific punishments.And on it goes, each of the Daemon legions of the Plague God specialising in some grotesque aspect of Nurgle's cycle of birth, decay, death and rebirth.Each Plague Legion is led by a Great Unclean One, a Greater Daemon of Nurgle that acts as its general. They dote over their charges in the manner of a loving parent, cajoling each of their Plague Legion's seven Tallybands upon its appointed tasks.Ever eccentric, Nurgle encourages the same aberrations amongst the most powerful of its shepherds. These unusual traits go as far towards colouring the composition and tactics of the army they lead as does the Daemon legion type itself.Some Great Unclean Ones, for example, favour entirely airborne assaults, going to battle with clouds of Plague Drones that darken the skies and excel at aerial strikes. Others enjoy seeing their victims buried in slavering Beasts of Nurgle, or ground slowly into the dirt by wave after wave of mumbling Plaguebearers.Great Unclean Ones cycle through phases over the course of their immortal lifespans, assuming new mantles with each new legion they take command of; for example, they may lead an Epidemic Legion to spread diseases before moving on to command a Rot Legion in order to bask in such maladies.When the cycle nears its end, a Great Unclean One will scab over with necrotic patches, and in his state of advanced decay will lord over a Necroticus Legion. It is not long before his body will shed the rotting husk of its old skin to reveal the new blooms of fresh disease, and it is then he will once again lead a Fecundus Legion.Beneath the Great Unclean One are the leaders of the Tallybands, either Daemon Princes or Heralds of Nurgle such as Poxbringers, Sloppity Bilepipers and Spoilpox Scriveners.Each receives a grandiloquent title of the general's invention, selected to match the bearer's skills, proclivities, or war tasks. Examples include the Lords of Fulsome Filth, the Almighty Bringer of Rancid Decay, or the Sloptoxic Master of Bubbling Buboes.The Tallybands can vary in size, swelling to epidemic proportions as Nurgle's power waxes in the Realm of Chaos or contracting into small, elite warbands when it wanes. At its peak, however, a Tallyband is composed of seven packs of the Lesser Daemons known as Plaguebearers or Plague Drones.Depending upon the predilections of its leader, and the ebb and flow of the cycle, a Tallyband may also include Beasts of Nurgle or swarms of Nurglings, although such anarchic beasts rarely remain with the formation beyond the duration of a single battle. |
Chaos Daemons - Legions of Excess: Slaanesh's Legions of Excess strike with a sinuous grace, hitting the foe in a whirling blur of lithe and bladed limbs. As they do so they are at once horrific and alluring, mesmerising and loathsome. Slaanesh's Daemonic legions vary in composition and purpose, but all desire to spread their lord's corruption.Slaanesh uses temptation and the promise of pleasures to seduce mortals and Daemons alike, and thus are many brought into submission by the Dark Prince. These insidious tactics take time, however, and often a less subtle approach is required to fulfil Slaanesh's whims.When the souls of mortals need to be forcibly cut from their bodies rather than given willingly, or a territory within the Immaterium must be fought over, Slaanesh calls upon his Daemonic armies -- the Legions of Excess. Although Slaanesh's forces cannot match the raw power of Khorne's cohorts, the resiliency of Nurgle's Tallybands, or the eldritch might of Tzeentch's hosts, they are possessed of a speed and lethality that is unequalled in the Immaterium and realspace both.A god of whims and bizarre fancies, the Dark Prince encourages such personal fulfilment in his generals, the Keepers of Secrets -- the dark heart of a Legion of Excess.There are also noted instances of Legions of Excess being led by Daemon Princes, for Slaanesh lauds the greatest of his once-mortal champions perhaps more so than any of his brothers. While some of the Dark Prince's generals are obsessive in commanding a single type of Daemonic legion, the majority will change formations as mood or need suits them.Each type of Legion of Excess varies greatly in both composition and the tactics they employ. The Flayer Legions are given over to wanton destruction, and their many Daemonettes take great pleasure in the act.The Hunter Legions are masters of the quick kill, and are built primarily around fast-moving cavalry and chariots; they are ideal for tracking down specific quarry, for Slaanesh always collects its due.The flamboyant Glamiatrix Legions are the most sorcerous, relying heavily upon psychic powers and mesmerism.The Terror Legions are a shock force, specialising in elaborate, gory displays of combat; they are infamous for unleashing a barrage upon the senses that can overwhelm weak-willed enemies.The Legions of Eternal Punishments have no specialty, but rather call upon all the damnations of Slaanesh, intermixing facets of magics and temptation alongside their finely honed battle-craft.Perhaps strangest of all the Legions of Excess, however, are the Courante Legions. To them, battle is but a dance; their garish Daemons whirl about one another as they slay the foe in bizarrely choreographed manoeuvres. While they lack the speed and pursuit of the other types of Legion of Excess, the elegance and creativity with which each kill is carried out often capture the favour of their divine master in a way that more practical assaults could never hope to emulate.Beneath the Keepers of Secrets in hierarchy are the Heralds of Slaanesh or Daemon Princes that each lead one of the legion's subunits, known as "cavalcades." Of these formations there are six in total in each legion, for that is the sacred number most often associated with Slaanesh.The main body of troops in most cavalcades are the Lesser Daemons known as Daemonettes, the handmaidens of the Lord of Pleasure. The cavalcades of those legions with a predilection for speed or hitting power, such as Hunter or Terror Legions, will often include a large number of Seeker cavalry, Seeker Chariots and Hellflayers in support of Daemonette packs.Any of the legion types can include the beasts known as Fiends, but they appear in greatest numbers in Glamiatrix and Terror Legions, and are infrequent in Courante Legions. |
Chaos Daemons - Daemonic Relationships with Mortals: Mortal worshippers of the Chaos Gods can interact with Daemons in ways other than simply fighting alongside them. |
Chaos Daemons - Possessed Chaos Space Marines: Some Chaos Space Marines willingly allow Daemons to inhabit their bodies so that they can enter the physical universe. Rather than the Daemon completely taking control, as in the case of possession by a Greater Daemon, these Lesser Daemons form an amalgam of Chaos Space Marine and Daemon commonly referred to as a Possessed Chaos Space Marine, or simply the Possessed. The Possessed are potent warriors, combining the abilities of a Chaos Space Marine with the sorcerous psychic powers of a Daemon.Closely related to the Possessed are Obliterators, which are mysterious, Daemonically-warped Heretic Astartes. They have become an amalgam of a Chaos Space Marine, a Lesser Daemon and heavy armor, and bear the ability to transform their bodies into powerful weapons, making them walking gun platforms.Obliterators have their own cult, which is most closely connected to the Iron Warriors Traitor Legion. It has since been learned by the Inquisition that the Obliterators were once the Techmarines of the Traitor Legions, horribly warped and transformed by their ten millennia of exposure to Chaos. |
Chaos Daemons - Daemon Weapons: Some Daemons can be forced into servitude by being imprisoned within the physical structure of a personal weapon; these mighty artefacts of Chaos are called Daemon Weapons. Daemon Weapons are extremely rare, but also very powerful, often able to tear apart reality, shoot powerful sorcerous bolts of psychic energy, grant their wielder extraordinary physical attributes, or perform other such unnatural feats.A Chaos warrior must exercise great caution with these weapons, however, as the imprisoned Daemon will often try to rebel against its master and attempt to devour the wielder's soul. |
Chaos Daemons - Chaos Spawn and Daemon Princes: As a mortal worshipper of Chaos grows more powerful with each of their victories in the name of the Ruinous Powers, his patron god or gods will sometimes reward them with mutational "gifts"; by the same token, with each failure, the god could also curse them with the same changes.However, the Chaos Gods are notoriously fickle and often bestow their gifts of change without rhyme or reason. These gifts can include mutations such as extra arms, tougher skin, wings or the ability to shoot fire from one's hands, equipment such as exotic weapons or powerful armour, or even Daemonic followers such as the Daemonic Steeds.With each gift, the warrior becomes partly Daemonic themself, being tied more and more to the will of their god and becoming more and more a slave to that entity's will. As a servant of Chaos continues to distinguish themself, and successfully carry out their god's desires, this individual will continue to receive Chaos gifts.These gifts can grant the receiver untold arcane powers that will make them potentially as powerful as a Greater Daemon. As the Chaos warrior attains more and more gifts, they will ultimately face only one of two possible fates for a mortal in the service of the Ruinous Powers:If the warrior receives too many gifts and is unable to endure any more, they can be transformed into a Chaos Spawn. Some particularly powerful Chaos sorcerers have the ability to grant this dubious "gift" to a foe, instantly mutating them into a Chaos Spawn. Any servant of Chaos who has spent too much time in contact with the warping power of Chaos or the Immaterium -- perhaps through dwelling in the Eye of Terror -- may become a Chaos Spawn, even without the intervention of the Chaos Gods. Chaos Spawn are wildly mutated beasts of varied physical form, no two exactly alike, and are generally insane or non-sentient. A Chaos Spawn lives out the remainder of its pitiable existence at the whim of its God, serving as both gibbering cannon fodder for the armies of the Ruinous Powers and as a warning of the consequences of failure to all the servants of Chaos.A particularly successful Champion of Chaos who is able to withstand the "gifts" of their god and successfully champion the goals of the Ruinous Powers on multiple occasions can eventually become an exalted Daemon Prince. A Daemon Prince is among the most powerful beings that can be found on the battlefields of the Warhammer 40,000 universe. They are frequently massive in size -- much larger than a Human and at least 10 feet in height -- and are very skilled warriors with the experience of hundreds of campaigns behind them. Like all Daemons, Daemon Princes possess many potent psychic abilities. There are two types of Daemon Prince: those who have fully and willingly abandoned their mortal, physical form and have become a Daemon in their own right and those who have not yet lost their mortal form. The first type can display many of the powers of a Greater Daemon, but specialised anti-Daemonic weapons and psychic powers can be used to banish them to the Warp; the latter, while powerful and infused with the psychic powers of the Immaterium, are immune to such weapons, but can still be slain by purely physical means. |
Chaos Daemons - Daemonhost: Some especially Radical Inquisitors of the Ordo Malleus believe that one of the best ways to defeat the Chaos Gods is to turn their own followers against them. To this end, they will force a Daemon into possessing a Human body and, using powerful psychic spells, rituals and charms, bind it to the Inquisitor's will.These enslaved Daemons are called Daemonhosts, and they are sometimes brought to the battlefield where they use powerful Daemonic abilities to destroy the Inquisitor's foes. However, such Inquisitors are seen as dangerous Heretics by their more conservative Puritan brethren, and sometimes find themselves being hunted as though they were traitorous heretics themselves; by the same token, other Imperial forces will usually hesitate at the prospect of fighting alongside a Daemon, as this is heretical in the extreme.The Grey Knights in particular despise the thought of these so-called Daemonhosts, and refuse to fight next to such abominations to the will of the Emperor under any circumstances.Chaos Cultists and Chaos Sorcerers will perform the exact same ritual, albeit for a different purpose, in order to have Daemons that are able to maintain a physical form, but still possess many of the strengths of a Daemon.Certain Chaos Space Marine leaders, notably Abaddon the Despoiler, will bind his Daemons in such a way that they possess little free will. |
Chaos Daemons - Daemon Engines and Daemonically-Possessed Vehicles: Daemon Engines are similar in nature to Daemon Weapons; they are special tank-like machines which are forged in the realm of the Dark Gods and controlled by an imprisoned Daemon. They frequently carry powerful cannons which make them useful in sieges.The most common type of Daemon Engine is the Defiler created by the Traitor Legions since the end of the Horus Heresy, a large spider-like combat walker mounting the battle-cannon typical of Imperial Guard main battle tanks like the Leman Russ.In contrast to Daemon Engines, Daemonically-possessed vehicles are normal tanks and other Imperial armoured vehicles that have had a Daemon sealed within them through the use of Chaos sorcery, allowing it to control the vehicle in place of the normal Machine Spirit. This can be a strong advantage for the forces of Chaos because the Daemon, unlike a normal crew, cannot be killed or stunned by enemy attacks.The difference between a Daemonically-possessed vehicle and a Daemon Engine is in the crafting -- a possessed vehicle was built prior to its possession for a different purpose; a Daemon Engine has the Daemon imprisoned within its structure as a part of the vehicle's original creation.Possession also comes in two forms: a normal Daemon possession like that of a Possessed Chaos Space Marine, and a possession that is more akin to a parasite.Where the former Daemon receives direct control of the vehicle, the latter will actually become the vehicle. With a parasitic possession the vehicle becomes a living being like the Daemon, able to regenerate lost armaments or treads just as a living creature heals its wounds. |
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