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Hive Mind

2020-09-28T10:28:44Z

2A02:1811:5180:A200:ADB4:5B42:50DE:9F1F: /* Warhammer 40,000 */

{{Topquote|All consciousnes is one, separated only by a thin veil of the physical|Jace Beleren, Vryn's planewalker}}
{{Topquote|What is a drop of rain, compared to the storm? What is a thought, compared to a mind? Our unity is full of wonder which your tiny individualism cannot even conceive.|The Many, System Shock 2}}
{{Topquote|Ĥ̸̦̘Ẽ̴̻͍͔̜̉͠Y̷̺̌̀͋̚ ̶̼̏G̵̬̬̑̿̒͝Ư̴̲̭̙̠͆̒̅Ȳ̶̧̙̩͌S̸̫̝͎̲̆̈̌̉.
̶̢͙̯̂̓̃̑A̷̺͙̯̟̓̎̃̉Ǹ̴̢͓̀̈́͠Y̵̜̱͚̪͗͊̈́O̶̡̥̾̍͝ͅṆ̶̡̰̓̑͑ͅE̴̘͍̊̀̏ ̴͕͈̓̂H̸̥̘̬̫͋̆U̶̮͉̜̝͌N̵̨̫͗̆̀G̷̩͇̀̕R̶̰̍Y̸̨̩͗̏ ̵̛̱̱̀̅T̷̘͖̂̔̓̐ͅO̵͙͋̎̽D̵͇͗͗Ä̷̫̝̅Y̸̬̑?̶̧͔̬͂̊͐ ̴̪̖͆́͠
̴͔͍̓̓͌͂B̵̘͓͖͝Ë̶͚̪͇͙́͌C̵͇͉̺͈̈́A̴̲̼̻͐ͅÚ̴̖͓͝S̶̈́̈͜E̴̡̛͔̲̓͘ ̸͚̋W̷̢͗ͅE̶̲̳̰͒̊̆̂ ̷̦̾̀̉S̷̱̻̳̐̈́͠U̸̦̫͕̽̍̉͝R̸̮͌͠È̴̟͠ ̵̢͚̣̻̍͆Á̶̳̗̈́̓͠R̵̪̉̒̒̕E̶̥͍̎̐̕̕.̷̦̎̏̀̈́.| [[Tyranid]] Hive Mind, TTS}}
You know how your brain is made of a bajillion on/off chemical switches? What if you had a meta-brain that was made of a bajillion brains? Congrats, you're now envisioning what is basically a '''hive mind'''. Some hive minds have a central hub 'queen', or multiple 'queens', while others have delegated thinking-drones with their own personalities (Type A). Others however have no sort of "core" units any more than you have "core" neurons (Type B). A hive mind race is depicted as either a race of individuals each in perpetual telepathic contact with all the others, or else, in the logical conclusion of the neuron analogy, the entire race is actually all a single person whose practically in multiple places at once.

Eusocial insects colonies like ants, termites, bees and wasps, are usually the textbook example of a hive mind. Ants, however do not have any dedicated thinking units, nor any command structure: their queens are just immobile baby factories. There is no single thinking body or overriding mind spread among the insects; each individual acts on its own volition, informed by its instincts and acts for the [[Greater Good]] of the colony. Said instincts, honed by evolution for social coexistence, gives each individual a predictable purpose and behavior independent of any higher thought organization. Each ant or bee is born knowing its place in the colony, and uses its own intelligence (humans have 344000 times more neurons then an ant) to perform actions that keep the whole colony alive, when said colony is reliant upon every other member of the colony also doing the same to manage resource intake, keeping the hive clean to limit sickness, protect the hive from other predators or rival colonies, and occasionally produce breeding members to make more colonies. Really creepy when you think about it too much.

With a hive mind, you can have from a dozen to a city full of faceless minions that never fail morale checks; because each individual is wholly devoted to serving the greater whole in a Type A hive mind, and because the single person is no more troubled by losing five bodies than you would be by losing five neurons in the Type B hive mind. Given this, their aforementioned connection to vermin, and the fact that the concept easily lends itself to a race of space communist(s) (even though having "core" units would make them a caste system), hive mind races are almost always the villain, being given a raging hard-on for imperialistic expansionism. {{Blam|Cease this instance Guardsman!}}

Despite this, a hive mind could logically serve several quite nonvillainous roles rather well. Depending on just how the multiple individuals/bodies actually communicate with one another, they could serve as [[Astropath|an excellent means of instant long-distance communication]], for example. But this is rare in fiction, the closest example of a 'good' hive mind are the Geth from [[/v/|Mass Effect]], and they're a loose example given the exact nature of how their intelligence works.

==Warhammer 40,000==
In Warhammer 40k, the "Hive Mind" is the ultimate, supreme grand master awesome badass overlord of all [[Tyranids]]. It blots out all psychic signals, including the [[Astronomican]], [[Astropath]] communications, and even the [[Warp]]. The latter is very upsetting to anyone that isn't a Tyranid (or a Necron, but the majority of them don't care either way).

The Hive Mind is made of literally every Tyranid creature, and the hive fleets are merely appendages of the Hive Mind. This means it is very, very, very big - fucking huge, actually: its capacity for violence and reach is far beyond that of [[Khorne]]'s while denying him any actual bloodlust, renders [[Tzeentch]]'s plans impotent (individual Tyranids have no minds to outsmart), the immortality offered as part of a greater whole is beyond the shambling eternity of [[Nurgle]], and no temptation nor depravity of [[Slaanesh]]'s can sway a Tyranid away from the Hive Mind any more than you or I could cajole a liver cell into acting like a kidney cell. The Emperor himself cannot penetrate the will of an entire spacefaring species acting as one.

There are only two recorded cases of the Hive Mind being in any way foiled: Varro Tigurius (in a story written by [[Matt Ward]], natch), and one case when a besieged [[Eldar|Craftworld]] managed to get a distress call out past the Hive Mind to the [[Eldar]] pirate prince [[Yriel]] (this fleshing out of lore was also written by [[Matt Ward]], but here it was a concentrated effort by an entire planet of highly psychic aliens, and more than one of their best died from the strain).

When facing a Tyranid in battle it is not the individual before you that you fight, but the Hive Mind as a whole operating through the body of said critter. Now this actually is as bad as it sounds, but luckily for the other races of the galaxy the Hive Mind is not flawless. Its largest weakness is that it is pretty much a gestalt, its power and aptitude to influence events growing with the amount of individual bodies in a given place at a given time. There are [[Lictor|exceptions]] [[Genestealer Patriarch|to this rule]], but generally speaking a single isolated Tyranid organism isn't any more dangerous then, say, a hippo or a wolf. Sure, it can fuck you up; but without higher level thought it can't make a plan other then stampede, gore you and then stomp on the paste. It can't think beyond basic predator hunting tactics and forget about strategic thought. Even a large mass of Hormagaunts, while dangerous, has no ability to form tactics or act with forethought beyond that you would expect from a wolf pack, a wolf pack with swords instead of forelimbs mind you, but wolf pack none the less. But when expressed through the synapse creatures designed to channel it, the Hive Mind can express its full power through its otherwise stupid minions and the Tyranids can become nigh-on unstoppable.

Another weakness of the Hive Mind is that even when present in overwhelming numbers, it is neither omniscient nor omnipotent and it still can be tricked, outsmarted or even beaten into submission by sheer [[Necrons|resilience]] and/or [[Tau|firepower]]. This said: while the Hive Mind does make mistakes and can be outsmarted, you can fool it with the same trick only once; losses are anticipated and are useful either to cull the genepool, as fuel expended to ensure victory and/or simply to gather knowledge about a given lifeform to better adapt against it for the next time a Hive Fleet encounters said lifeform. The Tyranid Codex reminds us that even defeats anywhere may serve to ensure a victory somewhere else -- pray that you are at "anywhere" and not "somewhere else."

If you want to know its full brilliance: it once outwitted the [[Ultramarines]]. There you go.

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Tyranid]]

Daemon Prince

2020-09-28T09:37:31Z

2A02:1811:5180:A200:ADB4:5B42:50DE:9F1F: /* Dedicated to Nurgle */

{{Promotions}}
{{heresy}}
''For the rulers of the demonic hordes of [[Dungeons & Dragons]] and [[Pathfinder]], see [[Demon Prince]].''
[[File:Daemon_prince_by_corbella.jpg|400px|thumb|right|[[Dawn of War|PATHETIC CREATURES!!!]]]]
{{topquote|1=DESPAAAAAIR, for I am the end of days!|2=[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiYaz_MBjIk The most memorable of Daemon Prince quotes]}}

In [[Warhammer 40,000]], [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]], and the [[Age of Sigmar]], people fall to [[Chaos]] for many reasons. Of these, the ones who desire power, sometimes called Chaos Champions, are most ambitious, and thus most likely to catch the attention of the [[Ruinous Powers]].

When the champion earns enough of their patron god's favor, they can be rewarded with Daemon Princedom. They forfeit their souls to their god and are granted a daemonic form and name, given power beyond any mortal, heretical or otherwise, and often placed at the command of an army, or a Daemon World.

Of course, the road to Princedom is a high-stakes game with only two outcomes: success or failure, there is no middle road. Those who fail their god's expectations, find themselves on the wrong end of a Chaos God on a bad day, or they could not handle the ascension to Princedom, are "rewarded" with [[Chaos spawn|Chaos Spawndo- NO WAITFSDASDAGIAJDFASHDSDFd...]]. The few that beat the odds and their god's expectations are rewarded with their god's personal blessing and close favor: the greatest things a mortal could possibly ask a god. Not everyone can achieve daemonhood, many will die in their quest, many more will fall short and be turned into something best not described, but for chance of immortality and near limitless power: any heretic with more ambition than common sense will rarely be able to resist such a prospect.

In the [[Fantasy Flight Games]] WH40KRPG [[Black Crusade (RPG)]], this is what happens to a [[player character]] who reaches 100 Corruption with the GM's arbitrarily selected Infamy Threshold for Princedom. Should a PC reach 100 Corruption with less, he will be transformed into a [[Chaos Spawn |Chaos Spaa...]] ha caught myself on that one, don't want to end up like my previous writer!

Now, that being said, it would make a lot of fucking sense to believe that Daemon Princes are some OP motherfuckers that can pwn anything that dares to put foot on their lawn. Well...you are pretty wrong. It is usually the Daemon Princes that tend to invade Imperial Worlds and end up getting their can kicked in by mortals whom they see as inferior beings of nothingness (although if only because of the plot armor of their Imperial enemies and GW's need to make sure the status quo remains as it is.). The only perk they have is that if they get their ass chopped up they are banished to the [[Warp]] where they will derp around until they are called by the [[Chaos Gods]] once more to attempt to be useful to them.

For roughly half an edition, [[Warhammer Fantasy]] also had Exalted Daemons, which were a kind of lesser Daemon Prince created by fusing a daemon and a still-mortal human together, sort of like possession, but without necessarily killing the soul of the possessed in the bargain. This idea, like [[Chaos Undivided]] being its own power and granting its own mark, was removed with the update from Hordes of Chaos to Warriors of Chaos. Now, if your goal is just to get daemon up there [[Possessed Marine|are]] [[Warp Talons|some]] [[Daemon#Lesser_Daemons|other]] [[Daemonhost|ways]] to do that...

==Famous Daemon Princes==

===Daemon Primarchs===
* [[Lorgar]], [[Primarch]] of the [[Word Bearers]], really, ''really'' dedicated to Chaos Undivided. Doesn't do shit these days, but recently got off of the couch to teach [[Abaddon|Abby]] new techniques for summoning daemons. After the Great Rift opened, Lorgar finally decided to get a real job and has started to personally lead his legion again. He has recently been seen in the material realm leading a large host of Word Bearers for reasons yet to be known.
* [[Perturabo]], Primarch of the [[Iron Warriors]], technically dedicated to Chaos Undivided, [[Malal|but mostly to himself]]. Doesn't do much these days, but manages to royally fuck shit up when he does.
* [[Mortarion]], Primarch of the [[Death Guard]], dedicated to Nurgle. Gets into some antics with [[Grey Knights]] once in a while. Has now appeared to have gotten off his ass and is now bringing <s> death and decay</s> [[Nurgle|Granddaddy's]] cuddles to the wider Imperium.
* [[Angron]], Primarch of the [[World Eaters]], dedicated to Khorne. He's the only Daemon Primarch who reliably, actually does shit.
* [[Magnus the Red]], Primarch of the [[Thousand Sons]], dedicated to Tzeentch. Spent most of the last ten millennia hanging out at the top of his wizard's tower, derping out and shouting "JUST AS PLANNED" when something happens and it can be interpreted as beneficial. Occasionally has an actual fight with the [[Space Wolves|Space Puppies]]. Recently avenged Prospero by wrecking the Fenris system. He got banished by Logan Grimnar, which was JUST AS PLANNED, because the Space Wolves went to Cadia, leaving Fenris undefended, at which point, he brought his daemon planet into the Materium and has been fucking the Imperium up ever since. Just. As. Planned. Also notable for being the first Daemon Primarch with rules since [[Epic]]. ''Before'' his physical, 30K version got rules.
* [[Fulgrim]], Primarch of the [[Emperor's Children]], except it's actually just his body possessed by a Daemon. [[Retcon|Or maybe not.]] Shit's weird at this point. Dedicated to Slaanesh. Spends his days on his Pleasure Planet getting bored with mass-daemonette-orgies. TOTALLY has nothing to do with the giant, serpent bodied monster currently fucking 11 different kinds of shit up with Lucius.

===Dedicated to [[Khorne]]===
* [[Doombreed]], the first Daemon Prince of [[Khorne]], and some sources say the first Daemon Prince ever. (The rest say it was [[Be'lakor]].)
* Kraxnar, his bro in the original counter-based game "Warmaster" who was later replaced with some asshole called [[N'kari]].
* [[Azariah Kyras]], heretical [[Chapter Master]] and Chief [[Librarian]] of the [[Blood Ravens]] and, apparently, [[C.S.Goto|Khornate Sorcerer]]. He still gets killed in [[Dawn of War II|DoW II: Retribution]]. Since his ascension was only partly finished, he may still have been mortal, meaning he might be back eventually, though odds are that he was permakilled. Although it was Ulkair who turned him to the dark ones, it was the very daemon freed from the first game of Dawn of War that made it's home in his body
* [[Samus]], a weird warp entity with no relation to the vidya character (he'd probably bite the gravel if he tried to fight her for the right to be called the one true Samus), who is basically just summoned by arbitrary death when the plot of the Horus Heresy calls for it. According to Forge World, he's basically a daemon prince of the Ruinstorm and fucked with the Smurfs a lot, and was also one of the first daemons encountered by Horus before he fell to Chaos (though at the time, it was assumed to be "only an unusual xenos"). Still active in M41, though less powerful without his Ruinstorm bonuses.
*[[Sindri Myr]], though it wasn't long before [[Gabriel Angelos]] banished him. Sindri was probably expecting to just come back, since the whole reason you become a Prince is to be immortal, but instead found himself in the belly of a Greater Daemon (he's only technically one of the K-man's princes since he ascended using a Khornate daemon's power, but he himself undivided).
*[[Valkia the Bloody]], a daemonic equivalent of a Valkyrie, she was originally a badass viking shield maiden, killed a lot (and we mean '''a lot''') of people for her patron God, had two children, killed her husband and a bit later defeated a Slaanesh daemon prince in close combat. She then mounted the head of said prince on her shield and went to the Chaos Wastes to present her trophy to Khorne, but tripped at the goal line. Khorne was mad as fuck and brought her back to life, turning her into the entity she is today, coated in armour that constantly bleeds and being quite literally dead sexy.

===Dedicated to [[Slaanesh]]===
[[File:Ax'Senaea.jpg|400px|right|thumb|Worship Slaanesh and be a hot Daemon Prince instead!]]
* Some Slaaneshi asshole called [[N%27kari|N'Kari]]... maybe. Nowadays they're apparently a [[Greater Daemon]].
* Ax'Senaea, a power-mad lady who completely subjugated the planet of Laodomida, but wanted to control her mind (note that she is so solipsistic that these are the same to her). She was bonkers, so a sorcerer convinced her to be possessed by a Slaaneshi [[Keeper of Secrets]], hinting that it would give her the power to do so, but in reality, the sorcerer was expecting the daemon to kill her. After all, no one but the most potent of psykers can hope to bind a greater daemon to their will without being completely possessed by the daemon instead. It backfired on him, getting himself killed in the process, as Ax'Senaea managed to subjugate the daemon ''through sheer arrogance and self-obsession''. Yes, she managed to make a greater daemon heel by being a bitch. She eventually used her new-found psychic powers to exert even more control over Laodomida and more nearby planets, in the process, drinking up two more Keepers of Secrets after draining each of them of their power before banishing them back to the warp. When she got to the fourth one, [[Slaanesh]] had noticed her talent and turned her into a daemon princess, which was also a jab to his/her servants for being too weak to defend themselves from a human. In true Slaaneshi fashion, however, despite attaining the highest daemonic honor her god(dess), she still desires more power and control over everything, and now seeks to subjugate daemons now instead of just humans.
*[[Doomrider]], bike riding Slaanesh prince on fire. Back in the old days he'd show up, wreck face and disappear back into the warp before the game's end. Now he's apparently a severed head in the White Scars' Fortress-Monastery.
* The Mistress of Spite, a horrifically fat daemon princess who ascended after singlehandedly eating the populations of entire worlds. Used to be one of N'Kari's girlfriends before he dumped her; she started taking over the Daemon World of Contrition to try and woo him back, but now she simply makes life there hell for the resident daemons for the sheer sake of feeding on their despair. Notable features include 6 horns, three arms (the third has a huge pincer for a hand) and horrifically vagina-like orifices on each forearm that are sheathes for razor-sharp extendable bone spurs. (are we sure that this is Slaanesh's work, or is this some Tzeentchian monstrosity................. probably both)
* [[Azazel]], the Prince of Damnation, literally the first Daemon Prince character to ever be playable (way back in ''Champions of Chaos''). Said to have been the leader of the Gerreon Tribe in Warhammer Fantasy, but he betrayed Sigmar and fled to the Northern Wastes to serve Slaanesh. Looks like an incredibly beautiful angel, until one spots the horns that curl from his brow, the chitinous claw of his left hand, and the two-headed scorpion-like tail that sprouts behind him. So beautiful he can hypnotise anyone who looks at him and turn them into his slave.
* The Sapphire King, a metaphysical manifestation of the [[Iron Hands]] being really really cross at Fulgrim. He can turn Iron Hands into [[Chaos Spawn|Chaos You-know-whats]] just by standing next to them. He got his shit pushed in by [[Chapter Master Smashfucker|Ironfather Kardan Stronos]].
* [[Syll'Esske]]. The latest member(s) of the club, and the ultimate proof Daemons can fall in love too!

===Dedicated to [[Tzeentch]]===
* Phokulozortis, a Daemon Prince residing in [[Black Crusade (RPG)|the Screaming Vortex]]. A shapeshifter who loves to answer botched summonings and bungled invocations whilst pretending to be the intended daemon, in which guise he feigns being the sorcerer's loyal minion, but secretly screws them over. In his true form, he has the many-mouthed tentacled mass of a lower body like a giant Flamer of Tzeentch, four arms, and three heads like those of a Lord of Change. Artwork vs. descriptive text contradicts each other if he has wings like a Lord of Change as well, though.
* Ghargatuloth, one of the most powerful Daemon Princes in existence, requiring over 300 Grey Knights invading a planet to kill it ([[Exterminatus|there's obviously not better alternatives]]). His body is, in essence, a thousand-mile high erect penis with mouths and eyes all over it. Despite massive amounts of [[Just As Planned]] with a scheme taking a thousand years to fulfill, and allegedly being one of the most intelligent daemons that Tzeentch has ever created, he fails again and again because of the Grey Knights - armed with plot twists so contrived and plot armor so thick that not even the Shaper Of Ways' right hand had a chance.
* Thunderfist, originally a Tzeentch-worshipping alchemist whose cult fled after his mutation (psychadelic skin and dimensional instability) became discovered, but somehow survived long enough to lead an army of misfits and monsters. Tzeentch elevated him to daemonhood after he singlehandedly slew the Nurgle champion Festus with only his spells. One of two Chaos Champions created by Games Workshop back when they first wrote ''Realms of Chaos'', used to highlight how the [[Path to Glory]] rules worked.

===Dedicated to [[Nurgle]]===
* Bubonicus, originally the sole member of his village to survive a plague thanks to his prayers to Nurgle, who led a horde of [[beastmen]] and cultists out of the forests of the Old World and into the Chaos Wastes, where after many years of hardship and struggle they reached the Glades of Nurgle, where Nurgle rewarded Lothar's faith with daemonic ascension. One of two Chaos Champions created by Games Workshop back when they first wrote ''Realms of Chaos'', used to highlight how the [[Path to Glory]] rules worked.
* Mamon, or the "Arch-Corruptor of Vraks," a deacon who fell to Chaos and brought down most of Vraks and Cardinal Xaphan with him.
* Cor’bax Utterblight, a Daemon Prince of the Ruinstorm brought into the Horus Heresy by the [[Word Bearers]]. More or less a mountain of filth, Nurglings and plague.
* Ignatius Grulgor, a former Captain of the Pre-Heresy Death Guard 2nd Great Company. Famous for getting killed by Nathaniel Garro, only to be raised a Plague Marine, killed again, and eventually raised a Daemon Prince. Like a lot of Nurgle Daemon Princes, Grulgor doesn't do a lot lately, and his current whereabouts are unknown.
* [[Foulspawn]] - The only Chaos Spa... '''THING''' ever raised to Princedom.

===Dedicated to [[Chaos Undivided]]===
* [[Nemeroth]], who got it even worse than Sindri: he was killed DURING his ascension rather than immediately afterward, which means he might not be back.
* [[M'kar]], some loser from the [[Word Bearers]] whose only purpose for appearing in any fluff is get to his ass handed to him by the [[Space Marines]]. Ironically, he's taken more seriously in Grey Knights. (Mostly because he managed to troll Kaldor "He makes it happen" Draigo. And then it sort of backfired....*)
* [[Eliphas the Inheritor]] as of the [[Dawn of War]] series, but not really. In ''Dawn of War: Dark Crusade'', he can take it as his ultimate upgrade; since the [[Blood Ravens]] were the canon victors in that story, he instead gets mulched by an unnamed daemon prince for [[Abaddon|failure]]. In ''Dawn of War II: Retribution'', the outro for the Chaos campaign gives a glimpse of a newly-daemoned-up Eliphas. Of course, with Dawn of War 3 out to verify what we already know, the Blood Ravens are the canonical winners again. That leaves Eliphas either dead again or serving penance as [[/d/|the bottom]] for [[Abaddon]]'s pet [[Chaos Spawn|Chaos SpaAARRGH]]. It's largely moot in the end of course, since Eliphas is so badass that becoming a Daemon Prince is a ''demotion'' for him.
** By which we mean the playable Daemon Prince upgrade from Dark Crusade sucks ([[Derp|trading campaign exclusive upgrades for a daemon prince unit designed for multiplayer balance, and not a separate unit for the campaign upgrade]]), so you should never take it.
* [[Be'lakor]], the very first Daemon Prince who was such a badass in life that Princehood was a ''demot''-- wait, we just made that joke, didn't we? Shit. Well, anyway, in [[WFB]] he led the hordes of [[Chaos]] at the dawn of time, but then he became an arrogant bitch, so [[Tzeentch]] cursed him to Princehood and made him the Harbinger, who would crown the Everchosen of Chaos. In 40k, he was also the first Daemon Prince, as well as the first, last, and only Daemon Prince elevated by the joint action of all four Chaos Gods (with the exception of Lorgar and Perturabo, apparently). He was greatly involved in [[Abaddon]]'s rise to power (according to him), although it's likely he plans to betray the Warmaster at some point in time (something Abaddon is fully prepared for). Quite notably, Be'lakor has shown a strong tendency to undermine the plans and ambitions of other Chaos Champions; although he himself believes this to be a product of his own free will and the desire to prove his own superiority over his potential rivals, it is in fact the result of all four Chaos Gods using him as a pawn to strike at one another. Apparently unknown to them is the fact that Be'lakor's ultimate goal is to find a way to become a Chaos God himself. Also has a pretty sick metal band named after him so maybe it not all that bad.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be%27lakor] Some people suspect he was the Dark Knight's Joker, because seriously that guy didn't even need an army to turn up Gotham City into a bloody mess and before you say he is prehuman, well, the Warp is atemporal, so yeah, traitorous Agent of Chaos anyone? (Except that it can't be right, because the Joker is on one long streak of [[Just As Planned]] for the entire goddamn movie, barely spills a drop of blood and doesn't inflict plague or despair. So he's Tzeentch through and through, with maybe a little Slaanesh in the mix.)
* Cherubael, a daemon who is unfortunate enough to wound up bound in the mortal realm as a daemon host and controlled against his will, [[FAIL|multiple times]]. Whether or not he is actually a daemon prince is up for debate as that's just what [[Gregor Eisenhorn]] called him and he never bothered to correct him. He seems to be old school as he revers a long dead daemon king that died millennia ago when he lost a war against the Four as they came to power. Whether daemon prince or greater daemon, Cherubael is unbelievably powerful, being able to obliterate other more loosely controlled daemon hosts who have greater access to their powers as a result. Currently serving as Eisenhorn's attack dog.

== Crunch ==
[[File:Deamon Prince 5th ED.jpg|450px|thumbnail|right|What's that Loyalist? Had enough already?]]
===Warhammer Fantasy===
Since [[Games Workshop]] made its "brilliant" decision to break up the [[Hordes of Chaos]] into [[Warriors of Chaos]] and [[Daemons]] of Chaos, the Daemon Prince has been duplicated, each in a subtly different method. As a result, they need to be looked at differently depending on which army you're looking to play out.

====Warriors of Chaos====
In a mortal army, Daemon Princes use up Lord slots, competing with Chaos Lords and Sorcerer Lords, plus the various special characters. A Daemon Prince costs 25 points more than a Chaos Lord, but has higher Weapon Skill, Ballistic Skill, Strength, Wounds and Initiatives (+1 for all save BS, which is +2) - cheap, until you consider they have to also take their special equivalent of a Chaos Mark (+10 points for Khorne or Nurgle, +15 for Tzeentch, +5 for Slaanesh). Non-Khorne Daemon Princes can be Wizards (+35 points per level, max level 4), can take Chaos Armor for +20 points, can Fly for +40 points, can take 25 points of magical items, and up to 100 points of Chaos Mutations/Powers. All in all, these characters can be real point-sinks.

The big problem with Daemon Princes is that they're so expensive, but so fragile; all they get is a lousy 5+ Ward Save, and a 4+ armor save if they spend 20 points on it. Their ability to spend 25 points of a suit of magic armor can make them a little more survivable, but all in all, they're glass cannons.

====Daemons of Chaos====
Daemon Princes in a Daemons army get pretty unfairly gimped; they cost more than in a Warriors of Chaos army (250 vs. 235), only get 75 points of Daemonic Gifts vs their 100 Chaos Powers + 25 Magic Items, and they have to roll randomly on their Gifts instead of choosing. The only plus side is that their Marks are much cheaper (-5 points compared to their Warriors versions - yes, that means Daemon Princes of Slaanesh only cost their default 250 points).

===Warhammer 40k===
The Daemon Prince is considered to be an HQ in both of the Chaos Codices (Although they can also be a Heavy Support choice instead if a Greater Daemon with the same alignment is an HQ in the Daemon codex. More on that later). They both also cost the same at 145 points without upgrades, and when one looks at their stats, they will be amazed and wonder why are they so cheap? Well, here's the catch: they MUST choose a Mark (or a Daemon) of a Dark God, which will increase the point cost (with the exception of Be'lakor, who is the only Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided). Then you see it has a crappy save, albeit an invulnerable one - so you also have to spend 20pts to give it a 3+ armour. Wings aren't needed unless you're facing foes that ignore cover and/or can instant gib the Prince (again, will explain that later on), or don't want to deep strike the Prince and want to get into combat fast. To top it off, you don't have any weapons to start with. Again, not required, but you'll be missing out on the awesome toys it can take (The Black Mace, Staff of Change, Blade of Blood, etc.). Now that cheap Monstrous Creature became expensive, and sometimes close to the same cost of a Land Raider.

There's something else one must consider when taking a Daemon Prince, which is that they no longer have Eternal Warrior. This can be fixed by taking powers from the Biomancy table, but again, it increases the already expensive price tag, and the powers are random, so even if you go all out, you may end up wasting 75 points and still not get Iron Arm. A Khorne Prince can't even take psychic powers, not that you want to anyway if you worship the Blood God. This means the Toughness value is docked to 5, and there's no other way to increase it (except by buying Greater Gifts and trying to roll a one on the table, but obviously you should know the drawback to this). Some even argue that the Daemon Prince is overpriced for this reason, not just because of the needed upgrades, but the fact the damn thing can still be instant killed by Force Weapons, Railguns, and things of that nature. And given that you can take a Greater Daemon in the Chaos Daemons codex that are either equal cost or are much cheaper, why would you bother taking the Prince over their stronger counterpart?

But they do have some saving graces, and they move to Heavy Support (in the Daemon Codex) when a Greater Daemon of the same god is taken as an HQ, so this means you can take a Keeper of Secrets (cheapest MC out of the four), and then take the Daemon Prince with Wings, Warp Forged Armour, Lash of Despair, and one or two Biomancy powers. The Prince suddenly becomes an awesome anti-air MC, albeit an expensive one, that can fight against Flyers, Transports, and even horde units if you roll well. You can also run an army list around these if you want to run multiple Daemon Princes just for shits and giggles.

As for Chaos Space Marines, their Prince can wield the Black Mace. The weapon is AP4, but when a Daemon Prince takes it with him, he can dish out armour-ignoring wounds that can fuck up almost anything it comes across (thank you Monstrous Creature USR), so it makes their points cost worth it in the long run. It also comes with the extra Curse rule, which can completely remove ANYTHING that fails a toughness test in a 3" radius of the Prince (chances are low for more juicy targets, but somewhere in the grimdark future, the dice gods are laughing at your next victim)! <s>Plus the fact that you can get lucky and turn one of your HQs/Champions into a Daemon Prince if they roll for it when they take Gift of Mutation.</s> Gift of Mutation re-rolls both Daemonhood and Spawnhood results although a Champion of Chaos has a chance to become one when they kill a character in combat.

So in short, the Daemon Prince is considered to be an expensive (sometimes overpriced) rape train. Despite how it can get instant killed in a bad situation, and the bitching about the points cost when taking them to battle, the Daemon Prince is overall still a good choice, IF you can protect it and use them wisely.

====Warhammer 40k 8th edition====
He no longer has access to the Black Mace or pretty much any of the weapon relics. Sorry, everyone who modeled one with cool weapons. He CAN take the non-relic weapons. He also MUST swear allegiance to a god; for Khorne this gives him +1 attack for a deadly and fluffy 8 attacks, while the other three make him a psyker. Yay for Smite spam! Lastly he gains the trademark 8th edition 6-inch aura of reroll 1's to hit - while initially this only affected models sworn to the same god, it was later FAQ'd to apply to any models with the same legion and any daemon models sworn to the same god, giving him much greater utility. Also interesting to note about DPs: unlike other monsters, they don't have a damage table that mars their statline as they take more wounds throughout the battle. Certainly advantageous considering they're gonna take wounds throughout the course of a battle - if anyone tells you differently, they're lying and you're dumb.

Daemon Princes can have different loadouts and options depending on in which army they're fielded. Obviously, there's going to be different access to relics and psychic powers. Overall though, CSM princes hands down win comparing wargear selection as they have far more relics to choose from albeit with variable utility. On top of that, CSM princes get a bonus piece of wargear not found in Chaos Daemons armies - the warp bolter. It's basically a boltgun but with a higher AP and damage and it gives the prince a ranged attack so it would be very confusing indeed if a CSM prince didn't take one.

===Age of Sigmar===
Daemon princes in Age of Sigmar are hard-hitting hero/monsters, though not so much as their greater daemon counterparts. Each daemon prince can choose between Daemonic Axe (average hit/wound with 2 rend) and Hellforged Sword (slightly better to-hit with 1 less rend), in addition to Malefic Talons, with all attacks potentially doing multiple wounds each. Their other stats are 12" move (default 8" with 12" if it can fly, and there's no reason to not give it flight as of yet), 8 wounds, 4+ save, and 10 bravery. Good but not great, until your alignment choices are taken into account.

The daemon prince's alignment changes its abilities. Unlike 40k, daemon princes in AoS can be unaligned.

*Unaligned DPs heal wounds each combat phase after it kills models.

*Khorne DPs get +1 to-hit, making up for the axe's average stats, or making the sword even killier than it already is.

*Nurgle DPs get their save boosted to 3+, making them a bit more survivable.

*Tzeentch DPs are wizards who can cast and unbind one spell per turn, but only knows the two generic spells unless he is from TZEENTCH allegiance army that gives him an extra spell from the Lore of Change.

*Slaanesh DPs can be chosen to interrupt an opponent's combat activation, immediately piling in and attacking themselves, if they have not attacked already. Great for causing additional casualties to minimize your opponent's damage output.

Finally, as with all daemons, all Chaos wizards know the Summon Daemon Prince spell, casting value 8.
{{Chaos-Daemons}}
{{Chaos Space Marines}}
{{Death Guard}}
{{Thousand Sons}}
{{Emperor's Children}}
[[Category:Warriors of Chaos]]
[[Category:Age of Sigmar]]
[[Category:Slaves to Darkness]]

Daemon Prince

2020-09-28T09:32:44Z

2A02:1811:5180:A200:ADB4:5B42:50DE:9F1F: /* Dedicated to Slaanesh */

{{Promotions}}
{{heresy}}
''For the rulers of the demonic hordes of [[Dungeons & Dragons]] and [[Pathfinder]], see [[Demon Prince]].''
[[File:Daemon_prince_by_corbella.jpg|400px|thumb|right|[[Dawn of War|PATHETIC CREATURES!!!]]]]
{{topquote|1=DESPAAAAAIR, for I am the end of days!|2=[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiYaz_MBjIk The most memorable of Daemon Prince quotes]}}

In [[Warhammer 40,000]], [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]], and the [[Age of Sigmar]], people fall to [[Chaos]] for many reasons. Of these, the ones who desire power, sometimes called Chaos Champions, are most ambitious, and thus most likely to catch the attention of the [[Ruinous Powers]].

When the champion earns enough of their patron god's favor, they can be rewarded with Daemon Princedom. They forfeit their souls to their god and are granted a daemonic form and name, given power beyond any mortal, heretical or otherwise, and often placed at the command of an army, or a Daemon World.

Of course, the road to Princedom is a high-stakes game with only two outcomes: success or failure, there is no middle road. Those who fail their god's expectations, find themselves on the wrong end of a Chaos God on a bad day, or they could not handle the ascension to Princedom, are "rewarded" with [[Chaos spawn|Chaos Spawndo- NO WAITFSDASDAGIAJDFASHDSDFd...]]. The few that beat the odds and their god's expectations are rewarded with their god's personal blessing and close favor: the greatest things a mortal could possibly ask a god. Not everyone can achieve daemonhood, many will die in their quest, many more will fall short and be turned into something best not described, but for chance of immortality and near limitless power: any heretic with more ambition than common sense will rarely be able to resist such a prospect.

In the [[Fantasy Flight Games]] WH40KRPG [[Black Crusade (RPG)]], this is what happens to a [[player character]] who reaches 100 Corruption with the GM's arbitrarily selected Infamy Threshold for Princedom. Should a PC reach 100 Corruption with less, he will be transformed into a [[Chaos Spawn |Chaos Spaa...]] ha caught myself on that one, don't want to end up like my previous writer!

Now, that being said, it would make a lot of fucking sense to believe that Daemon Princes are some OP motherfuckers that can pwn anything that dares to put foot on their lawn. Well...you are pretty wrong. It is usually the Daemon Princes that tend to invade Imperial Worlds and end up getting their can kicked in by mortals whom they see as inferior beings of nothingness (although if only because of the plot armor of their Imperial enemies and GW's need to make sure the status quo remains as it is.). The only perk they have is that if they get their ass chopped up they are banished to the [[Warp]] where they will derp around until they are called by the [[Chaos Gods]] once more to attempt to be useful to them.

For roughly half an edition, [[Warhammer Fantasy]] also had Exalted Daemons, which were a kind of lesser Daemon Prince created by fusing a daemon and a still-mortal human together, sort of like possession, but without necessarily killing the soul of the possessed in the bargain. This idea, like [[Chaos Undivided]] being its own power and granting its own mark, was removed with the update from Hordes of Chaos to Warriors of Chaos. Now, if your goal is just to get daemon up there [[Possessed Marine|are]] [[Warp Talons|some]] [[Daemon#Lesser_Daemons|other]] [[Daemonhost|ways]] to do that...

==Famous Daemon Princes==

===Daemon Primarchs===
* [[Lorgar]], [[Primarch]] of the [[Word Bearers]], really, ''really'' dedicated to Chaos Undivided. Doesn't do shit these days, but recently got off of the couch to teach [[Abaddon|Abby]] new techniques for summoning daemons. After the Great Rift opened, Lorgar finally decided to get a real job and has started to personally lead his legion again. He has recently been seen in the material realm leading a large host of Word Bearers for reasons yet to be known.
* [[Perturabo]], Primarch of the [[Iron Warriors]], technically dedicated to Chaos Undivided, [[Malal|but mostly to himself]]. Doesn't do much these days, but manages to royally fuck shit up when he does.
* [[Mortarion]], Primarch of the [[Death Guard]], dedicated to Nurgle. Gets into some antics with [[Grey Knights]] once in a while. Has now appeared to have gotten off his ass and is now bringing <s> death and decay</s> [[Nurgle|Granddaddy's]] cuddles to the wider Imperium.
* [[Angron]], Primarch of the [[World Eaters]], dedicated to Khorne. He's the only Daemon Primarch who reliably, actually does shit.
* [[Magnus the Red]], Primarch of the [[Thousand Sons]], dedicated to Tzeentch. Spent most of the last ten millennia hanging out at the top of his wizard's tower, derping out and shouting "JUST AS PLANNED" when something happens and it can be interpreted as beneficial. Occasionally has an actual fight with the [[Space Wolves|Space Puppies]]. Recently avenged Prospero by wrecking the Fenris system. He got banished by Logan Grimnar, which was JUST AS PLANNED, because the Space Wolves went to Cadia, leaving Fenris undefended, at which point, he brought his daemon planet into the Materium and has been fucking the Imperium up ever since. Just. As. Planned. Also notable for being the first Daemon Primarch with rules since [[Epic]]. ''Before'' his physical, 30K version got rules.
* [[Fulgrim]], Primarch of the [[Emperor's Children]], except it's actually just his body possessed by a Daemon. [[Retcon|Or maybe not.]] Shit's weird at this point. Dedicated to Slaanesh. Spends his days on his Pleasure Planet getting bored with mass-daemonette-orgies. TOTALLY has nothing to do with the giant, serpent bodied monster currently fucking 11 different kinds of shit up with Lucius.

===Dedicated to [[Khorne]]===
* [[Doombreed]], the first Daemon Prince of [[Khorne]], and some sources say the first Daemon Prince ever. (The rest say it was [[Be'lakor]].)
* Kraxnar, his bro in the original counter-based game "Warmaster" who was later replaced with some asshole called [[N'kari]].
* [[Azariah Kyras]], heretical [[Chapter Master]] and Chief [[Librarian]] of the [[Blood Ravens]] and, apparently, [[C.S.Goto|Khornate Sorcerer]]. He still gets killed in [[Dawn of War II|DoW II: Retribution]]. Since his ascension was only partly finished, he may still have been mortal, meaning he might be back eventually, though odds are that he was permakilled. Although it was Ulkair who turned him to the dark ones, it was the very daemon freed from the first game of Dawn of War that made it's home in his body
* [[Samus]], a weird warp entity with no relation to the vidya character (he'd probably bite the gravel if he tried to fight her for the right to be called the one true Samus), who is basically just summoned by arbitrary death when the plot of the Horus Heresy calls for it. According to Forge World, he's basically a daemon prince of the Ruinstorm and fucked with the Smurfs a lot, and was also one of the first daemons encountered by Horus before he fell to Chaos (though at the time, it was assumed to be "only an unusual xenos"). Still active in M41, though less powerful without his Ruinstorm bonuses.
*[[Sindri Myr]], though it wasn't long before [[Gabriel Angelos]] banished him. Sindri was probably expecting to just come back, since the whole reason you become a Prince is to be immortal, but instead found himself in the belly of a Greater Daemon (he's only technically one of the K-man's princes since he ascended using a Khornate daemon's power, but he himself undivided).
*[[Valkia the Bloody]], a daemonic equivalent of a Valkyrie, she was originally a badass viking shield maiden, killed a lot (and we mean '''a lot''') of people for her patron God, had two children, killed her husband and a bit later defeated a Slaanesh daemon prince in close combat. She then mounted the head of said prince on her shield and went to the Chaos Wastes to present her trophy to Khorne, but tripped at the goal line. Khorne was mad as fuck and brought her back to life, turning her into the entity she is today, coated in armour that constantly bleeds and being quite literally dead sexy.

===Dedicated to [[Slaanesh]]===
[[File:Ax'Senaea.jpg|400px|right|thumb|Worship Slaanesh and be a hot Daemon Prince instead!]]
* Some Slaaneshi asshole called [[N%27kari|N'Kari]]... maybe. Nowadays they're apparently a [[Greater Daemon]].
* Ax'Senaea, a power-mad lady who completely subjugated the planet of Laodomida, but wanted to control her mind (note that she is so solipsistic that these are the same to her). She was bonkers, so a sorcerer convinced her to be possessed by a Slaaneshi [[Keeper of Secrets]], hinting that it would give her the power to do so, but in reality, the sorcerer was expecting the daemon to kill her. After all, no one but the most potent of psykers can hope to bind a greater daemon to their will without being completely possessed by the daemon instead. It backfired on him, getting himself killed in the process, as Ax'Senaea managed to subjugate the daemon ''through sheer arrogance and self-obsession''. Yes, she managed to make a greater daemon heel by being a bitch. She eventually used her new-found psychic powers to exert even more control over Laodomida and more nearby planets, in the process, drinking up two more Keepers of Secrets after draining each of them of their power before banishing them back to the warp. When she got to the fourth one, [[Slaanesh]] had noticed her talent and turned her into a daemon princess, which was also a jab to his/her servants for being too weak to defend themselves from a human. In true Slaaneshi fashion, however, despite attaining the highest daemonic honor her god(dess), she still desires more power and control over everything, and now seeks to subjugate daemons now instead of just humans.
*[[Doomrider]], bike riding Slaanesh prince on fire. Back in the old days he'd show up, wreck face and disappear back into the warp before the game's end. Now he's apparently a severed head in the White Scars' Fortress-Monastery.
* The Mistress of Spite, a horrifically fat daemon princess who ascended after singlehandedly eating the populations of entire worlds. Used to be one of N'Kari's girlfriends before he dumped her; she started taking over the Daemon World of Contrition to try and woo him back, but now she simply makes life there hell for the resident daemons for the sheer sake of feeding on their despair. Notable features include 6 horns, three arms (the third has a huge pincer for a hand) and horrifically vagina-like orifices on each forearm that are sheathes for razor-sharp extendable bone spurs. (are we sure that this is Slaanesh's work, or is this some Tzeentchian monstrosity................. probably both)
* [[Azazel]], the Prince of Damnation, literally the first Daemon Prince character to ever be playable (way back in ''Champions of Chaos''). Said to have been the leader of the Gerreon Tribe in Warhammer Fantasy, but he betrayed Sigmar and fled to the Northern Wastes to serve Slaanesh. Looks like an incredibly beautiful angel, until one spots the horns that curl from his brow, the chitinous claw of his left hand, and the two-headed scorpion-like tail that sprouts behind him. So beautiful he can hypnotise anyone who looks at him and turn them into his slave.
* The Sapphire King, a metaphysical manifestation of the [[Iron Hands]] being really really cross at Fulgrim. He can turn Iron Hands into [[Chaos Spawn|Chaos You-know-whats]] just by standing next to them. He got his shit pushed in by [[Chapter Master Smashfucker|Ironfather Kardan Stronos]].
* [[Syll'Esske]]. The latest member(s) of the club, and the ultimate proof Daemons can fall in love too!

===Dedicated to [[Tzeentch]]===
* Phokulozortis, a Daemon Prince residing in [[Black Crusade (RPG)|the Screaming Vortex]]. A shapeshifter who loves to answer botched summonings and bungled invocations whilst pretending to be the intended daemon, in which guise he feigns being the sorcerer's loyal minion, but secretly screws them over. In his true form, he has the many-mouthed tentacled mass of a lower body like a giant Flamer of Tzeentch, four arms, and three heads like those of a Lord of Change. Artwork vs. descriptive text contradicts each other if he has wings like a Lord of Change as well, though.
* Ghargatuloth, one of the most powerful Daemon Princes in existence, requiring over 300 Grey Knights invading a planet to kill it ([[Exterminatus|there's obviously not better alternatives]]). His body is, in essence, a thousand-mile high erect penis with mouths and eyes all over it. Despite massive amounts of [[Just As Planned]] with a scheme taking a thousand years to fulfill, and allegedly being one of the most intelligent daemons that Tzeentch has ever created, he fails again and again because of the Grey Knights - armed with plot twists so contrived and plot armor so thick that not even the Shaper Of Ways' right hand had a chance.
* Thunderfist, originally a Tzeentch-worshipping alchemist whose cult fled after his mutation (psychadelic skin and dimensional instability) became discovered, but somehow survived long enough to lead an army of misfits and monsters. Tzeentch elevated him to daemonhood after he singlehandedly slew the Nurgle champion Festus with only his spells. One of two Chaos Champions created by Games Workshop back when they first wrote ''Realms of Chaos'', used to highlight how the [[Path to Glory]] rules worked.

===Dedicated to [[Nurgle]]===
* Bubonicus, originally the sole member of his village to survive a plague thanks to his prayers to Nurgle, who led a horde of [[beastmen]] and cultists out of the forests of the Old World and into the Chaos Wastes, where after many years of hardship and struggle they reached the Glades of Nurgle, where Nurgle rewarded Lothar's faith with daemonic ascension. One of two Chaos Champions created by Games Workshop back when they first wrote ''Realms of Chaos'', used to highlight how the [[Path to Glory]] rules worked.
* Mamon, or the "Arch-Corruptor of Vraks," a deacon who fell to Chaos and brought down most of Vraks and Cardinal Xaphan with him.
* Cor’bax Utterblight, a Daemon Prince of the Ruinstorm brought into the Horus Heresy by the [[Word Bearers]]. More or less a mountain of filth, Nurglings and plague.
* Ignatius Grulgor, a former Captain of the Pre-Heresy Death Guard 2nd Great Company. Famous for getting killed by Nathaniel Garro, only to be raised a Plague Marine, killed again, and eventually raised a Daemon Prince. Like a lot of Nurgle Daemon Princes, Grulgor doesn't do a lot lately, and his current whereabouts are unknown.

===Dedicated to [[Chaos Undivided]]===
* [[Nemeroth]], who got it even worse than Sindri: he was killed DURING his ascension rather than immediately afterward, which means he might not be back.
* [[M'kar]], some loser from the [[Word Bearers]] whose only purpose for appearing in any fluff is get to his ass handed to him by the [[Space Marines]]. Ironically, he's taken more seriously in Grey Knights. (Mostly because he managed to troll Kaldor "He makes it happen" Draigo. And then it sort of backfired....*)
* [[Eliphas the Inheritor]] as of the [[Dawn of War]] series, but not really. In ''Dawn of War: Dark Crusade'', he can take it as his ultimate upgrade; since the [[Blood Ravens]] were the canon victors in that story, he instead gets mulched by an unnamed daemon prince for [[Abaddon|failure]]. In ''Dawn of War II: Retribution'', the outro for the Chaos campaign gives a glimpse of a newly-daemoned-up Eliphas. Of course, with Dawn of War 3 out to verify what we already know, the Blood Ravens are the canonical winners again. That leaves Eliphas either dead again or serving penance as [[/d/|the bottom]] for [[Abaddon]]'s pet [[Chaos Spawn|Chaos SpaAARRGH]]. It's largely moot in the end of course, since Eliphas is so badass that becoming a Daemon Prince is a ''demotion'' for him.
** By which we mean the playable Daemon Prince upgrade from Dark Crusade sucks ([[Derp|trading campaign exclusive upgrades for a daemon prince unit designed for multiplayer balance, and not a separate unit for the campaign upgrade]]), so you should never take it.
* [[Be'lakor]], the very first Daemon Prince who was such a badass in life that Princehood was a ''demot''-- wait, we just made that joke, didn't we? Shit. Well, anyway, in [[WFB]] he led the hordes of [[Chaos]] at the dawn of time, but then he became an arrogant bitch, so [[Tzeentch]] cursed him to Princehood and made him the Harbinger, who would crown the Everchosen of Chaos. In 40k, he was also the first Daemon Prince, as well as the first, last, and only Daemon Prince elevated by the joint action of all four Chaos Gods (with the exception of Lorgar and Perturabo, apparently). He was greatly involved in [[Abaddon]]'s rise to power (according to him), although it's likely he plans to betray the Warmaster at some point in time (something Abaddon is fully prepared for). Quite notably, Be'lakor has shown a strong tendency to undermine the plans and ambitions of other Chaos Champions; although he himself believes this to be a product of his own free will and the desire to prove his own superiority over his potential rivals, it is in fact the result of all four Chaos Gods using him as a pawn to strike at one another. Apparently unknown to them is the fact that Be'lakor's ultimate goal is to find a way to become a Chaos God himself. Also has a pretty sick metal band named after him so maybe it not all that bad.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be%27lakor] Some people suspect he was the Dark Knight's Joker, because seriously that guy didn't even need an army to turn up Gotham City into a bloody mess and before you say he is prehuman, well, the Warp is atemporal, so yeah, traitorous Agent of Chaos anyone? (Except that it can't be right, because the Joker is on one long streak of [[Just As Planned]] for the entire goddamn movie, barely spills a drop of blood and doesn't inflict plague or despair. So he's Tzeentch through and through, with maybe a little Slaanesh in the mix.)
* Cherubael, a daemon who is unfortunate enough to wound up bound in the mortal realm as a daemon host and controlled against his will, [[FAIL|multiple times]]. Whether or not he is actually a daemon prince is up for debate as that's just what [[Gregor Eisenhorn]] called him and he never bothered to correct him. He seems to be old school as he revers a long dead daemon king that died millennia ago when he lost a war against the Four as they came to power. Whether daemon prince or greater daemon, Cherubael is unbelievably powerful, being able to obliterate other more loosely controlled daemon hosts who have greater access to their powers as a result. Currently serving as Eisenhorn's attack dog.

== Crunch ==
[[File:Deamon Prince 5th ED.jpg|450px|thumbnail|right|What's that Loyalist? Had enough already?]]
===Warhammer Fantasy===
Since [[Games Workshop]] made its "brilliant" decision to break up the [[Hordes of Chaos]] into [[Warriors of Chaos]] and [[Daemons]] of Chaos, the Daemon Prince has been duplicated, each in a subtly different method. As a result, they need to be looked at differently depending on which army you're looking to play out.

====Warriors of Chaos====
In a mortal army, Daemon Princes use up Lord slots, competing with Chaos Lords and Sorcerer Lords, plus the various special characters. A Daemon Prince costs 25 points more than a Chaos Lord, but has higher Weapon Skill, Ballistic Skill, Strength, Wounds and Initiatives (+1 for all save BS, which is +2) - cheap, until you consider they have to also take their special equivalent of a Chaos Mark (+10 points for Khorne or Nurgle, +15 for Tzeentch, +5 for Slaanesh). Non-Khorne Daemon Princes can be Wizards (+35 points per level, max level 4), can take Chaos Armor for +20 points, can Fly for +40 points, can take 25 points of magical items, and up to 100 points of Chaos Mutations/Powers. All in all, these characters can be real point-sinks.

The big problem with Daemon Princes is that they're so expensive, but so fragile; all they get is a lousy 5+ Ward Save, and a 4+ armor save if they spend 20 points on it. Their ability to spend 25 points of a suit of magic armor can make them a little more survivable, but all in all, they're glass cannons.

====Daemons of Chaos====
Daemon Princes in a Daemons army get pretty unfairly gimped; they cost more than in a Warriors of Chaos army (250 vs. 235), only get 75 points of Daemonic Gifts vs their 100 Chaos Powers + 25 Magic Items, and they have to roll randomly on their Gifts instead of choosing. The only plus side is that their Marks are much cheaper (-5 points compared to their Warriors versions - yes, that means Daemon Princes of Slaanesh only cost their default 250 points).

===Warhammer 40k===
The Daemon Prince is considered to be an HQ in both of the Chaos Codices (Although they can also be a Heavy Support choice instead if a Greater Daemon with the same alignment is an HQ in the Daemon codex. More on that later). They both also cost the same at 145 points without upgrades, and when one looks at their stats, they will be amazed and wonder why are they so cheap? Well, here's the catch: they MUST choose a Mark (or a Daemon) of a Dark God, which will increase the point cost (with the exception of Be'lakor, who is the only Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided). Then you see it has a crappy save, albeit an invulnerable one - so you also have to spend 20pts to give it a 3+ armour. Wings aren't needed unless you're facing foes that ignore cover and/or can instant gib the Prince (again, will explain that later on), or don't want to deep strike the Prince and want to get into combat fast. To top it off, you don't have any weapons to start with. Again, not required, but you'll be missing out on the awesome toys it can take (The Black Mace, Staff of Change, Blade of Blood, etc.). Now that cheap Monstrous Creature became expensive, and sometimes close to the same cost of a Land Raider.

There's something else one must consider when taking a Daemon Prince, which is that they no longer have Eternal Warrior. This can be fixed by taking powers from the Biomancy table, but again, it increases the already expensive price tag, and the powers are random, so even if you go all out, you may end up wasting 75 points and still not get Iron Arm. A Khorne Prince can't even take psychic powers, not that you want to anyway if you worship the Blood God. This means the Toughness value is docked to 5, and there's no other way to increase it (except by buying Greater Gifts and trying to roll a one on the table, but obviously you should know the drawback to this). Some even argue that the Daemon Prince is overpriced for this reason, not just because of the needed upgrades, but the fact the damn thing can still be instant killed by Force Weapons, Railguns, and things of that nature. And given that you can take a Greater Daemon in the Chaos Daemons codex that are either equal cost or are much cheaper, why would you bother taking the Prince over their stronger counterpart?

But they do have some saving graces, and they move to Heavy Support (in the Daemon Codex) when a Greater Daemon of the same god is taken as an HQ, so this means you can take a Keeper of Secrets (cheapest MC out of the four), and then take the Daemon Prince with Wings, Warp Forged Armour, Lash of Despair, and one or two Biomancy powers. The Prince suddenly becomes an awesome anti-air MC, albeit an expensive one, that can fight against Flyers, Transports, and even horde units if you roll well. You can also run an army list around these if you want to run multiple Daemon Princes just for shits and giggles.

As for Chaos Space Marines, their Prince can wield the Black Mace. The weapon is AP4, but when a Daemon Prince takes it with him, he can dish out armour-ignoring wounds that can fuck up almost anything it comes across (thank you Monstrous Creature USR), so it makes their points cost worth it in the long run. It also comes with the extra Curse rule, which can completely remove ANYTHING that fails a toughness test in a 3" radius of the Prince (chances are low for more juicy targets, but somewhere in the grimdark future, the dice gods are laughing at your next victim)! <s>Plus the fact that you can get lucky and turn one of your HQs/Champions into a Daemon Prince if they roll for it when they take Gift of Mutation.</s> Gift of Mutation re-rolls both Daemonhood and Spawnhood results although a Champion of Chaos has a chance to become one when they kill a character in combat.

So in short, the Daemon Prince is considered to be an expensive (sometimes overpriced) rape train. Despite how it can get instant killed in a bad situation, and the bitching about the points cost when taking them to battle, the Daemon Prince is overall still a good choice, IF you can protect it and use them wisely.

====Warhammer 40k 8th edition====
He no longer has access to the Black Mace or pretty much any of the weapon relics. Sorry, everyone who modeled one with cool weapons. He CAN take the non-relic weapons. He also MUST swear allegiance to a god; for Khorne this gives him +1 attack for a deadly and fluffy 8 attacks, while the other three make him a psyker. Yay for Smite spam! Lastly he gains the trademark 8th edition 6-inch aura of reroll 1's to hit - while initially this only affected models sworn to the same god, it was later FAQ'd to apply to any models with the same legion and any daemon models sworn to the same god, giving him much greater utility. Also interesting to note about DPs: unlike other monsters, they don't have a damage table that mars their statline as they take more wounds throughout the battle. Certainly advantageous considering they're gonna take wounds throughout the course of a battle - if anyone tells you differently, they're lying and you're dumb.

Daemon Princes can have different loadouts and options depending on in which army they're fielded. Obviously, there's going to be different access to relics and psychic powers. Overall though, CSM princes hands down win comparing wargear selection as they have far more relics to choose from albeit with variable utility. On top of that, CSM princes get a bonus piece of wargear not found in Chaos Daemons armies - the warp bolter. It's basically a boltgun but with a higher AP and damage and it gives the prince a ranged attack so it would be very confusing indeed if a CSM prince didn't take one.

===Age of Sigmar===
Daemon princes in Age of Sigmar are hard-hitting hero/monsters, though not so much as their greater daemon counterparts. Each daemon prince can choose between Daemonic Axe (average hit/wound with 2 rend) and Hellforged Sword (slightly better to-hit with 1 less rend), in addition to Malefic Talons, with all attacks potentially doing multiple wounds each. Their other stats are 12" move (default 8" with 12" if it can fly, and there's no reason to not give it flight as of yet), 8 wounds, 4+ save, and 10 bravery. Good but not great, until your alignment choices are taken into account.

The daemon prince's alignment changes its abilities. Unlike 40k, daemon princes in AoS can be unaligned.

*Unaligned DPs heal wounds each combat phase after it kills models.

*Khorne DPs get +1 to-hit, making up for the axe's average stats, or making the sword even killier than it already is.

*Nurgle DPs get their save boosted to 3+, making them a bit more survivable.

*Tzeentch DPs are wizards who can cast and unbind one spell per turn, but only knows the two generic spells unless he is from TZEENTCH allegiance army that gives him an extra spell from the Lore of Change.

*Slaanesh DPs can be chosen to interrupt an opponent's combat activation, immediately piling in and attacking themselves, if they have not attacked already. Great for causing additional casualties to minimize your opponent's damage output.

Finally, as with all daemons, all Chaos wizards know the Summon Daemon Prince spell, casting value 8.
{{Chaos-Daemons}}
{{Chaos Space Marines}}
{{Death Guard}}
{{Thousand Sons}}
{{Emperor's Children}}
[[Category:Warriors of Chaos]]
[[Category:Age of Sigmar]]
[[Category:Slaves to Darkness]]

Gabriel Seth

2020-09-28T09:25:49Z

2A02:1811:5180:A200:ADB4:5B42:50DE:9F1F: /* The aftermath of the Battle of Baal */

[[File:Gabriel_Seth.jpg|400px|thumb|right|Gabriel Seth of the Flesh Tearers. Testicle-kicking extraordinaire.]]
{{Topquote|1=[[James Swallow|Swallow's]] take on Seth is a guy who understands exactly what he is and will play his given role to the hilt, and damn the pitfalls. He consistently strikes a balance between acting like a complete dick and yet somehow hitting the precise level of dick that he gets you steamed while also garnering exactly the attention he needs to get his point across. It's like he's attained a zen level of dick [[Eldrad|other dicks]] could only hope to emulate.|2=[http://castellankurze.tumblr.com/post/79885067338/ivorytowerblr-misterruse-we-are-disorder Someone exactly getting what Gabriel Seth is all about].}}

'''Gabriel Seth''' is the [[Chapter Master]] of the [[Flesh Tearers]] Chapter of the [[Space Marines]] and a ruthless though pragmatic man.

==Father of the Flesh Tearers==
When Seth became the Chapter Master of the Flesh Tearers in 815.M41 he immediately was told bad news by his Chapter's Sanguinary High Priest. The regular attrition on the forces of the Flesh Tearers combined with the degree the Chapter lost its members to the [[Black Rage]] the Chapter could no longer recruit enough new Marines to keep replacing losses: the Flesh Tearers were going extinct. Seth [[Rage|did not take well to this]], but he vowed that if the Flesh Tearers were to burn up they were not going to smolder out, oh no. If the galaxy was to lose the Flesh Tearers it would do so in a massive conflagration fueled by the bodies of heretics and aliens, mutants and daemons with the massive roll of honor of the Flesh Tearers as the capstone to the grave. And so started the epoch of Gabriel Seth and the Flesh Tearers (which is an excellent band name by the way).

Seth knew that his men were all but frothing [[berserkers]] who slaughter anything and everything they run into on the battlefield, be they friend or foe. As such many [[Imperial Guard]] and [[Adepta Sororitas]] commanders dislike fighting alongside the Flesh Tearers: they were rather likely to turn on their allies and civilians alike (perhaps as some kind of proto-[[Khornate Knights]]?) and [[RIP AND TEAR]] through them. The Chapter Master decided to aim the [[Rage|zeal]] towards enemies with less non-targets around: diving head-first into dangerous situations in enemy territories and passing distress calls along to other Chapters who do not butcher entire planets. Thus far Seth's plan is working: those who were out for the Flesh Tearers' blood at first are now praising them, though (of course) some skeptics remain. It is human nature to like and respect people who recognize their flaws and tackle those flaws head-on. Sure, people may still be sore about the team-killing, but they also respect that the Flesh Tearers are trying to prevent it from being a problem even though it puts them in positions where they often take heavy casualties. That they (appear to outsiders) are choosing to risk death than endanger fellow Imperials garners true respect. To be fair, if their issue had persisted for ten thousand years, they’d have been purged. It’s either a largely recent thing (the extremes) or an on-and-off occurrence that periodically comes along.

==Son of [[Sanguinius]]==
[[File:Oh my Emperor....jpeg|300px|thumb|left|The master of the Flesh Tearers looks like Jason Statham]]
The Flesh Tearers are a [[Second Founding]] of the [[Blood Angels]] and as such hold the Chapter as first amongst peers. When the Blood Angels called for a conclave of the successor chapters. Seth was at first reluctant to answer, but he quickly figured out he could gain from the situation. When he met with the others as the conclave (and a nearly lethal duel between two [[Brother-Sergeant]]s of the Blood Angels and Flesh Tearers) [[Dante]] revealed that after a big internal conflict (not as big as the [[Blood Ravens]] civil war, but damn close) the Blood Angels had lost many of their men. So Dante had decided on two things: to accelerate the Blood Angel recruitment process and that all of the successors were to pay a tithe of Space Marines to their progenitor. Seth told Dante where he could stick it, then went even beyond that by suggesting Dante did the reverse: disband the Blood Angels and distribute their Marines and wargear between the Second Founding Chapters.

Before Dante could relieve Seth [[Angry Marines|of most of his primary and redundant organs]] a subordinate of the Blood Angels High Sanguinary Priest, Caecus, claimed to have found a solution: he had managed to artificially age a recruit into a fully-able Marine in a matter of weeks. Dante was not amused, but Seth was eager to see if the Priest's claim was true, with the future of his own Chapter in mind. Unfortunately the recruit (called a Bloodchild) was as flawed as the last time the aging techniques were used by [[Corax]], and the Bloodchild succumbed to the [[Black Rage]] in the middle of a combat trial and had to be put down. This infuriated Dante and ordered the research on the Bloodchild destroyed. Seth took the chance to approach Dante and made a bold offer: to disband the Blood Angels entirely and make them all Flesh Tearers (an offer that's [[troll|retroactively hilarious]] when it's revealed in a novel that decades ago Dante passed down a verdict for the Flesh Tearers to be disbanded and absorbed into the various Blood Angels chapters). Dante told Seth to go fuck himself, but then the alarms went off. Caecus had in a bout of desperation and an offer by one Magos Serpens made a terrible mistake: added blood from the Red Grail to the mix of the Bloodchild's prototypes, which spawned a horde of monstrosities called the Bloodfiends. With a nice [[troll]]face Serpens then revealed himself as [[Fabius Bile]] and the Bloodfiends broke loose. They tried to defile the tomb of Sanguinius, but with the help of Gabriel Seth and the other Second Founding Chapters the Bloodfiends were destroyed. Seth himself held the Priest Gate with Dante (postmortem analysis by Sanguinary High Priest Corbulo revealed that one in five of the Bloodfiends killed at the Priest Gate died of injuries resulting from a shattered pelvic bone), and Dante finally let out his frustrations, saying that Seth thrived on disorder. Seth put on a huge trollface and admitted as much, saying that he was essentially Dante's watchman: while the Flesh Tearers were the Great Angel's battle savagery, the Blood Angels represented all of Sanguinius and had to be held to a higher standard. Dante also proved that there was no bad blood (no pun intended) between two Chapter Masters when he rescued Seth from a Bloodfiend, calling him "brother" instead of the normal "cousin". Bile escaped with some of the blood of Sanguinius and became a target of the Blood Angels from that day on.

With the Blood Angels more, well, bloodied than ever, Dante repeated his request but added that it was nothing more than that: a request. Seth was the first to step up and repeated the final line of the Flesh Tearers Invocation Initiate to prove his point: if you messed with any of the Sons of Sanguinius, you messed with all of them, and pledged some of his men to the Blood Angels.

As of the current state of the Imperium, someone high up somewhere apparently wants Seth dead. The Chapter Master was lured to an old battlefield to make a vigil for his fallen brothers, but was trapped in an armourglass cell with an Eversor Assassin courtesy of a traitor ''(not [[Chaos|that kind]])'' Captain from his own chapter, who presented an Inquisitorial rosette and the alleged fact that Seth was leading the chapter to ruin as his justification. In other words, someone doesn’t like that Gabriel has basically solved the Flesh Tearer’s problem by simply making sure friendlies aren’t nearby. After being stabbed through the heart and in the forehead; Seth only barely managed to defeat the Assassin, pointedly [[Rip and Tear|NOT killing it]] (and a good thing too, as the resulting explosion likely would've killed him too) by smashing the Eversor to a bloody pulp and dragging its still living heap of a body back to his ship, where he locked it in a room with his former captain as a just punishment for the betrayal.

==The Devastation of Baal==

Gabriel was one of those who heeded Dante's call to all Chapters of the Blood to defend the Blood Angels home world from the incoming tendril of [[Hive Fleet Leviathan]]. In a move that surprised Seth himself, Dante called him friend, and privately loaned the Flesh Tearers a priceless treasure -- the Reliquary of Amit, the only work of craftsmanship done by the Chapter's first Chapter Master. In it was held the last remaining feather of the Primarch, preserved for all time.

The Flesh Tearers were assigned the defense of Baal Primus. When Seth found out that the renegade [[Knights of Blood]] had ''also'' decided to defend the area, he had to try long and hard not to pick a fight with his erstwhile "cousins", specifically the Knights of Blood Chapter Master Sentor Jool. After a slight detour and a history lesson, Seth decided to leave the Knights of Blood alone, but left an implied threat that it would ''not'' be a good idea for the two Chapters to meet on the field of battle.

The arrival of the [[Tyranids]] made any confrontation between chapters moot, and Seth threw himself into the defense with gusto, tempering the strong urge to [[Rip and Tear]] with actual tactical thought. The defense wore on, and the Chapter casualties mounted, and Seth would not expend his forces needlessly. This surprisingly strategic turn of thought enraged the Chapter's last remaining Reclusiarch, Appollus, who thought it would be better to lead the remaining Flesh Tearers into the horde and die in a blaze of glory, rather lose marine after marine in an unglorious defense far from Baal.

Faced between a quick if glorious end for his Chapter, and a slow one, Seth proverbially said to himself, "Screw this!" -- if the Flesh Tearers were to die out anyway, it would be doing something important. He decided to withdraw his forces to Baal, but not before dragging the Knights of Blood with him. He fought his way to where the renegades were holding out, deep in the Tyranid horde, and "convinced" Sentor Jool and his men to follow him back.

Then the Fall of Cadia happened.

The Great Rift grew, and with this (and the failure of a ritual on Baal by [[Mephiston]] and his coven of librarians from many Chapters of the Blood) the skein of reality grew thin. Seeing its chance, [[Ka'bandha]], the Angel's Bane, manifested in orbit around Baal Primus, and fell like a Warp-spawned meteor upon the moon.

==The aftermath of the Battle of Baal==
With the arrival of the khornate forces, Sentor Jool and the remaining Knights of Blood stayed to keep the daemons on the soon to be dead moon while Gabriel tried to find refuge outside of the satellite, both to preserve whatever was left of his chapter and to preserve Sanguinius' relic. While he was doing this, the influence of Khorne's on his red thirst was almost unbearable, and only due to the influence of Sanguinius' feather did he manage to stay lucid and sober. He was one of the first astartes to receive the news of the forces of the [[Indomitus Crusade]] coming to [[Baal]] to help at the last possible minute (which it wasn't, time had been deformed around Baal due to the [[Great Rift]]'s birth, and while it had been only a couple of days on Baal, decades had passed outside of it).

Seth appears as one of the few Chapter Master survivors. While Dante and him, discuss the future of the sons of Sanguinius, Seth confesses that he thinks Guilliman's Primaris Marines are going to be the end of the original astartes, saying that [[Roboute Guilliman|Guilliman]] is acting against the Emperor's design:

:''"You'' ([[Dante]]) ''are too noble to understand. [[Grimdark|That is not salvation, that is replacement]]. [[Primaris Marines|These new warriors]] will bear the colours of [[Flesh Tearers]], but without Sanguinius’ fury they will be Flesh Tearers in name only. All my time as Chapter Master I have waged war on our rage, to wrestle it into submission and use its strength to slay our foes. We are fury! From the time of [[Nassir Amit|Amit]], the savage lord, to this day, we have carried the white heat of Sanguinius’ anger in us. That was our gift and our burden. [[Red Thirst|The flaw]] is what makes us what we are. We are nothing without the struggle against it. He would make us all [[Ultramarines]] in red armour.''"''

With that, he leaves, lamenting the future of his chapter. Suffice to say, he is one of the more public characters that despise the idea of the Primaris Marines, and if something ever goes wrong with them, he may be one of the first to start a public campaign against them, despite the Primarch's wishes. [[Nassir Amit|Sounds weirdly familiar...]]. In the above quote, he forgets the Chapters are expected to teach the Primaris to be one of them and regardless they receive the means to make their own Primaris so those at least will be raised completely within the Chapter. He also places far too much emphasis on the flaws’ influence and forgets that any Son of Sanguinius is defined by far more than his flaws.

However, recent lore has confirmed that Sanguinius-born Primaris marines are also susceptible to the Red Thirst and Black Rage but the Todd news they can actually overcome it on there own which makes Seth happy. So Seth either has to come to terms that the Primaris marines are just as flawed as the original Sons of Sanguinius and consider them true battle brothers, or he's going to keep railing on them like that old coot down the street who hates these young whipper-snappers and their confangled techi-nology.

==Brawler on the Battlefield==
[[File:99800101050 GabrielSethNEW 01.jpg|300px|right|thumb|LET ME SEE YOUR WAR FACE!]]
{{Topquote|...indeed he himself is prone to rage-soaked savagery as any of his brethren.|Blood Angels Codex}}

Gabriel Seth foregoes the traditional [[Power weapon|Power Weapon]] of his fellow Chapter Masters in favor of the Blood Reaver: a massive sod-off [[Chainsword]] that in [[crunch]] terms doubles his strength to a total of 8 and gives a somewhat lacking AP-2, which funnily enough means that in 8th Edition he deals more damage than ever. It always deals 3 damage, and all rolls to hit of 6+ automatically inflict another hit. And while Seth has WS 2+ (with rerolls) and 4 attacks, well-armored foes might prove a problem. But if he manages to wound them all but the toughest targets die immediately. This also means that he's surprisingly effective against light vehicles, especially when backed by a properly-geared squad. Do not forget that he also has a Bolt Pistol and Frag/Krag grenades, which can really help out in a bind. He also has the Lord of Slaughter ability; if a squad finishes its consolidation within 6" of him it can immediately fight a second (but not a third) time, meaning that if Seth's unit does not immediately wipe out its opponent it has a second shot at doing so. And at 135 points (7 Power) he is a rather good purchase as long as you also have a dedicated assault unit for him to join ([[Veteran Squad|Company Veterans and Vanguard Veterans without Jump Packs]] come to mind) and a matching transport.

{{Marines-Characters}}

[[Category:Space Marines Chapter Masters]]
[[Category:Blood Angels]]