Chaos Gods

The four gods which rule over the Realm of Chaos in Warhammer Fantasy Battles and the Warp in Warhammer 40,000. They love nothing so much as dicking with each other, except perhaps dicking with their mortal followers, and dicking EACH other (shhhh). Before they were gods, they were generally benevolent beings, when the Warp was a calm sea. Each one is formed by the emotions of living souls clumped together in the Warp/Realm of Chaos. Contrary to standard thought, they personify good attributes as well, and are powered as much by good as by bad. Even if said god started out entirely bad, in their eventual evolution as part of their natures, they will kill gods who represented entirely good things, and will gain not only their values, but their power by said value. Be aware many of the gods values will and do intersect. This is as much due to the chaotic nature of the gods as it is to the multitude of emotions that make up the living. They are:

• Khorne: BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! MILK FOR THE KHORNE FLAKES! Oh, sorry. In case it wasn't obvious, Khorne is the god of battle, martial honor, and oh yeah, BLOOD! Although primarily formed from hate and rage, bravery and honor are also thrown in the mix. Also in the mix are mercy, courage, regret, fear, athleticism, determination, daring, impulsiveness, love, and struggling onwards in the face of all odds.

• Nurgle: The god of filth, pestilence, decay, and generally being a cool dude. Formed from despair and fear of death, acceptance and stoicism are also included. Other values include stoicism, inevitability, empathy, kinship, happiness, struggle, love, tradition, and memory. Nurgle is also notable for being the only Chaos god that cares for his followers whatsoever, well into love...well more than the others anyways. Currently husband of the Eldar goddess of healing, fertility, and love, Isha.

• Slaanesh: The god/dess of pain, pleasure, and perfection... or in other words, a god of emotions formed from emotions, not all of which are bad. In 40k, the Eldar created him/her by having so many damn orgies they tore a hole in space. I shit thee not. Formed mainly from hedonism and excess, but as with the others, love and creativity are also attributes of Slaanesh. Others include kindness, tranquility, jealousy, sensuality, expression, individuality, joy, peaceability, HEAVY METAL, and admiration.

• Tzeentch: The god of Just as planned, and magic. Tzeentch is formed from paranoia and plotting, but also amazingly enough, hope and ambition. Other values include trust, happiness, dissatisfaction, aspiration, progress, knowledge, learning, protection, love, and will.

As you see, all of them are powered by love.

And as you can also see, as a result of all this, none of them can ever really die.

What a world!

The Other Ones

Older editions of Warhammer Fantasy and 40k mention several lesser Chaos gods. Nowadays, they only appear in WFB (and even then, only sparingly), with some (the Horned Rat and Hashut in particular) generally considered to be separate from the "main" Chaos pantheon. These include:

• Be'Lakor: A fallen Chaos champion, who was apparently so crazy powerful that becoming a daemon prince was a demotion. Somehow still able to grant his followers unique magic powers.

• Hashut: Father of darkness and god of the Chaos Dwarves. And if his followers are any indication, god of penis-compensating hats.

• The Horned Rat: Patron of the Skaven, and god of...well, rats. Also disease, mutations, etc., but mostly rats. The Horned Rat once appeared in material form; he's the only Chaos god to do so. Of course, he just started eating a ton of the Skaven present, but still.

• Malal: Renegade Chaos god. Interbutt lore states that he is the god of fractiousness and dissent, which, given the company he keeps, makes him a tad redundant.

• Zuvassin: A minor god who just likes to see shit fall apart, specifically nonphysical stuff like schemes and lives. He and Malal are the co-chairs and so far only members of the Useless-Ass Gods Club (Necoho would join the club, but he doesn't believe it exists).

• Necoho: The god of atheism. I wish I was making that up. It actually works though since anything expressed in the materium becomes reality in the Realms/Warp.

• Mo'rcck, Phraz-Etar, and Ans'l: Puns on the last names of sci-fi and fantasy author Michael Moorcock (who wrote a lot about conflicts between Law and Chaos), artist Frank Frazetta (who drew a lot of movie and comic book posters, especially in sci-fi and fantasy), and Citadel Miniatures founder Bryan Ansell (who also wrote several of the First Edition rulebooks). These guys helped set the tone of the early Warhammer 40,000 universe (purposefully or not), including the propensity of putting spikes on Chaos things, and so they were homaged in the (initial) Third Edition Codex: Chaos Space Marines, which mentioned that Chaos Space Marines often put "spiky bits" on their armour in praise of these three gods. They were never mentioned anywhere else.

/tg/ has recently deduced Necoho's true identity