for the dark prince!

Finished up my daemon prince conversion for this year’s secret santa paint exchange. I magnetized the weapons for wysiwyg

Something I doodled last night to counteract a shitty mood: It’s Slaanesh! He was long overdue for a redraw and the commissions I got of him recently finally spurred me into doing it~

Anyway, I’m still a little wiped out from last night, so there won’t be much in the way of threading today. Blease enjoy this snoat (snake goat)!

N’kari’s eyes appreciation :3c

Dinovember 2023 - The Dinosaurs of Chaos

So, I had an idea for the past few days, and thought about how to interpret dinosaurs influenced by the chaos gods, but with the big twist in that.. well. Chaos is merely a part of everyday life, including nature. Some blessings are more beneficial than others though...

Tyrannosaurus of Khorne: Violence for violence sake, it takes skulls and sheds blood for a god that its animal brain cannot comprehend. It prefers prey that can fight back, for the worthier the foe, the better its skull pile that marks its territory is... AND it helps with attracting mates.

Carnotaurus of Slaanesh: Gifted with even MORE speed than the regular, already speedy kind, this Carnotaurus can catch anything with both speed and tentacled maw... because it has too. It will starve in less than a day if it cannot, and a fight can quickly become a death sentence.

Therizinosaurus of Tzeentch: Born with two heads, one with eyes, and one with a mouth, and only got more and more mutations as it grew. In spite of this, it's very much a normal Therizinosaurus in behavior, and simply uses its additional limbs for its own benefit. So long as its "main" head, the one with the eye, remains intact, everything should be fine.

Ankylosaurus of Nurgle: A lumbering, slothful thing, one that relies less on armor and more the fact that it's a fungus infested, disease carrying, toxic fume spewing thing that's absolutely hazardous to anything near it... unless you're angry enough Khornate rex!

wonder what you'd get seeing worship of each chaos god if you're looking at it from, like, a purely external setting, as opposed through the lense of the Imperium or the Empire of Man

like, if it's not strictly through seeing them as three giant, horrible heresies in the face of the Emperor or Sigmar, what do we see? even war gods preside over other things

i think the most obvious ones we see is typically Nurgle. he's grandfather Nurgle, he's papa, he's a paternal god of the dead, like Osiris. maybe his followers see him as a curative god, he's kind, he's loving, and he gives humanity the cures to their ailments, and a kind passageway to his garden afterlife. hell, he might even be an agricultural god, allowing the old to die and fertilize the lands for new crops to grow.

next, Tzeentch. Tzeentch is probably a sort of "teaching" god, like Thoth or Prometheus. he's not as directly caring as Papa Nurgle, but he's the one that came around and taught humanity the intricacies of writing, magic, mathematics, astronomy, and gave us the gift of knowledge. perhaps Tzeentch's largest portfolio would be his status as a god of change, invoked in ceremonies marking important events in one's life, like births or marriages. or more radically, a god invoked to topple oppressive governments.

i initially though Slaanesh would be one of the more restrictive ones, but i think they could be pretty easy to narrow down. Slaanesh is a god of arts, of music, of love and color and fertility and all the important little things that makes life worth living. Slaanesh there in every dance, every sculpture, every loving moment between siblings, lovers, parents and children, and Slaanesh is there in the paintings and songs and everything that commemorates those feelings.

Khorne, on the other hand, is a very rigid god. war gods are popular, just see Mars in rome, but war gods are often gods of royalty, gods of governments, and gods of law. Khorne may be a god of both the structured order of the city, and the chaotic wilderness of the woods outside its walls. a slaughter god is important to farmers and butchers, to hunters and soldiers, and to lawmen and the wild.

that's just the big four, so minor gods like Mal, the Horned Rat, and potentially Vashtorr could have their own representations! i honestly just wanted to see what people see in these gods that makes them objects of worship, instead of evil.

@warpcursed continued from here.

" I am RECLUSIARCH COLUMBA of the Stars Repentant! " The mysterious Marine spoke with quite a bit of pride to his voice.

He couldn't remember how long it'd been! Oh, how long it had been since he last got fresh air in his lungs!-- Well, he couldn't call it fresh air, since what lingered was the scent of death with Nurgle's horrors-- How long it had been since he had finally seen another human being, a citizen of Mankind! What stood before Ozura was a relic of an old age, with purity seals plastered over olden Heresy-era armor.

The armor was painted with old midnight blues, vertically halved with a more pearlescent lighter blue paint. Gold gilded the armor, fabrics with High Gothic in all sorts of writing draped from near his shoulder plating to the floor like olden stoles, and all sorts of scratches and cuts and damage was all over the armor. Though, the deepest looked to be some markings that were made deliberately upon the chestplate-- in the shape of the Terran dove constellation, Columba.

The Reclusiarch's eyes barely blinked. They stayed locked on Ozura in a constant thousand-yard stare, some warp frost slowly melting and dissipating as the Astarte now got used to being in realspace once again.

" A PLEASURE, Ozura! " The Space Marine now grinned to him-- but quickly, as a gurgling croak was heard from another poxwalker that DARED to enter his presence, Columba had suddenly spun around and grabbed at the giant, heavily-tattered standard and drove the tip of it into the infected creature, killing it instantly with a rather loud, " SAINT OF SAINTS SMITE YOU, CREATURE! "

Then, as if he hadn't just killed the thing, he turned to Ozura right after shoving the corpse of it off his standard with his boot. " Now-- where was I? Ah... Right! My friend, which planet is this? And why are you here? Surely a battle-psyker like yourself wouldn't be sent here on your own. Right?... er, right? "

His big ol' grin had tinges of worry to it now that he was thinking on it all. He remembered traversing through the realms of the Warp, through the blood swamps of Khorne, the horrid gardens of Nurgle, the endless labyrinths of Tzeentch and the circles of Slaanesh-- but then, a rift in the Warp had appeared!... and he took that chance the moment he could, and found himself here. Surely, it had been due to this fellow here!... but where were his comrades? By Lord Aurelius, if this poor man had been left to his own devices-- with daemons of NURGLE, no less...!

This is the collector’s edition of Power Behind the Throne (2021), the third two-volume installment in Cubicle 7’s renovation of the classic Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay campaign, Enemy Within.

As with the previous two volumes, this adventure is already a goddamn masterpiece, so all the extra polish and modern renovations really just make a good thing better. And, given the weight of all the connections and NPCs and histories, the reorganization and the efforts at supporting the GM are welcome additions.

I don’t honestly know how you run the main book without A. The Companion or B. The Middenheim sourcebook (and this is also true of The Horned Rat). Both provide so many details that, if they aren’t necessary, they seem at the very least extremely interesting. There are short adventures, information on the Slaanesh cult, the Jade Scepter, rundowns of even more NPCs, some new, some old, some with alternate options for their running. You need the Companion for the garden party scenario which, for my money, is a fulcrum for the early part of the action, the best way to introduce players to some of the bajillion important NPCs. This a beautiful, but intricate, undertaking. In sum, the first three volumes of Enemy Within take a classic and deck it out in all the luxury a hall of famer deserves.

And this marks the edge of familiar territory. We’re off the map tomorrow. Can this level of quality be maintained?

First of the Gardens

Nurgle was the first of the siblings to keep a garden, and he would be copied in this by Slaanesh and Khorne. Khorne’s “gardens” are more accurately described as farms, where Blood Fruit and other battle-stimulants are grown. Slaanesh created his garden last in direct competition with Khorne and Nurgle, desiring the most beauteous display of the gods. The flowers and fruits he grows are ordered and organized and never rot or decay.

This certaintly invited criticism from Nurgle (compared to Nurgleth, Slaanesh’s garden is sorely lacking in biodiversity) and several waspish comments that eventually escalated into a full blown war. It marked one of the very few times Slaanesh has instigated a war with Nurgle.

To this day, Nurgle’s unwanted “helpful suggestions” is a sore spot between the two gods.

The Screamers of Tzeentch, with their thirst for the extremes of human emotion, were actually an idea of the Pleasure God, Slaanesh. However, the Changer deceived The Lord of Pleasure and manifested the daemons before Slaanesh did, making obsolete the myriad "proto daemons" the Lord of Excess was testing and trying.

Unwilling to be marked as copying or unoriginal to Tzeentch, Slaanesh was forced to abandon the idea for these daemons, instead creating the Steeds of Slaanesh. Slaanesh's steeds can flirt with time itself, and this grants them their immense speed.

Like Snakes and Mongooses, if Screamers and Steeds encounter one another in the wilds of the warp, it is on sight aggression.

“ Frivolity.” Skarbrand rumbles, though it’s not as venomous as it usually is. He steps out of the ocean, fastens his armor to himself, and begins to trek home. There’s an itch on his wing joint, which he absently scratches with his claws.

Slaanesh's immaculate appearance is a partial ruse. Like all of the gods, he has left his realm before and been subject to the dangers outside of it, for a God only has complete control of his personal domain. And whilst outside his realm, the Serpent has seen combat, and been damaged from that combat. Ordinarily, foes are simply too slow to keep up with the God of Pleasure, but if there's anyone who can manage to tag him, that is Tzeentch and Khorne.

Fittingly enough, Birds of Prey and Hounds are notable adversaries of the Snake...

But looking at Slaanesh, you would never knew. While Khorne keeps his wounds as trophies of battle and even Tzeentch has persistent marks and damage on his protean form, Slaanesh repairs any damage he suffers, especially on his face. The finished result looks immaculate, but in truth, if the light hits him in just the right way, silver lines where damage once was can be seen.

It resembles a Silver Kintsugi.

Open discussion:

If Warhammer 40k had daemons in the His Dark Materials/The Golden Compass sense, i.e. representations of a person's soul in animal form, what would corruption by Chaos look like?

As it's implied that heretics that haven't fully apotheosed to full daemonhood are still in possession of their soul, just that it's owned by their respective patron god, I'm of the opinion that the soul animal daemons mutate the further their person falls to Chaos. They probably have the mark of their god or of Chaos Undivided grow more prominent on their bodies in some way, and apotheosis involves the merging of the person and the soul animal daemon into one singular entity.

There's also the idea that the god would just eat the person's daemon outright, but I don't think that's what happens as in HDM/TGC this kills the man or leaves them as a husk of a person. Maybe that's what Slaanesh did to the Eldar though.

Additional question: What would established characters'/your OCs daemons be?

Cain's would be a hare named Jezebel, who travels in his sash, on his shoulder, or buttoned up in his coat.

Jurgen's daemon would be a very large, very sad looking mutt dog who is far more canny and dangerous than their mangy appearance implies.

Amberley Vail would have a cat or a fox, I'm not sure which.

40k hypothesis:

Sacred Numbers, Tzeentch as the Lord of Time, and the True Creation of the Chaos Gods

so, we all know the story of how Slaanesh came into being: the Aeldari spread across the galaxy, and their pride lead to sadism and hedonism becoming the norm. the combined psychic debauchery murderfucked a Chaos God into existence. we have actual records of the Fall of the Eldar, so this is set in stone.

HOWEVER, we have no such record for the other three Chaos Gods. there's something I've seen floating around about them coming into being around the Middle Ages, but the idea of ONE Chaos God coming into existence with the collective trauma of millions of worlds of Aeldari, and *THREE* coming into existence with the collective trauma of a single CONTINENT seems like a bit much.

so, how can we mark down the true creation of the Chaos Gods? simple! their sacred numbers. Slaanesh is the youngest with Six, then comes Nurgle with Seven, Khorne with Eight, and the oldest, Tzeentch with Nine.

the easiest of the three to pinpoint down would be Khorne, coming into existence with the War in Heaven. thousands of worlds scorched by the C'tan, the slaughter of the Old Ones, the creation of the Orks, it'd be too perfect for a fledgeling God of Blood to come into being

I have no clue what event could've formed Nurgle, so get back to me with that.

and last of all is gonna be Tzeentch, which, naturally, is gonna be convoluted fucking mess of plots.

so, my hypothesis is this: Tzeentch came into being with the beginning of Time. this is a lie. Tzeentch only APPEARS in the Timeline with the beginning of Time, granting him his sacred number of Nine.

brief tangent to make this make sense: Tzeentch is a God of Time. the true driver between all of Change and Mutation is Time. without Time, nothing changes from its starting state AT ALL. his power over Time gives him his power over Fate, and over Seers and Astromancers and anyone who'd wish to divine the future. got it? got it

so, Tzeentch sorta just pops into existence, fully formed, at the beginning of Time. cool. why? no better time to start weaving his infinite webs of plots and plans! with him having EVERY SINGLE IRON IN THE FIRE since the BEGINNING OF TIME, he'd no doubt win the Great Game, which is the TRUE beginning of Tzeentch.

with him finally defeating every other Chaos God, he's free to ravage the Galaxy as he pleases. Human, Eldar, Tau, Necron, Ork, hell, even the TYRANIDS would be reduced to ever-mutating husks of psychic power. the Galaxy would rend itself into billions of arcane sigils at once. the very foundations of Reality is Corrupted, and THIS EVENT is the trauma that TRULY CREATES TZEENTCH

with this English-esque plotline finally complete, the Newborn Tzeentch flings himself back in Time to the start of everything, to start plotting yet again, never satisfied with the stagnancy of Victory

Legionary Icon Bearer

Mark of Tzeentch, Boltgun

Legionary Butcher

Mark of Slaanesh

Legionary Shrivetalon

Mark of Tzeentch

Yeah I'm enjoying this scheme. The blood splatter on the Slaanesh model just kinda blends in, but, it's still pretty cool

Narvo "the Blunt Instrument" Quin for Marine Meat Monday!

He's one of the "old as dirt"-terran-aristocrat Third Legion-guys (he's looking down hard on the "chemosian rabble") and he and "Bull" Ramos are marking the upper end of the scale when it comes to stocky/heavy build for Emperor's Children.

One of Fabius' first "dead? Not on my watch!"-projects he came back after Isstvan V, salvaging and repairing his Terminator Armour (few EC are using Terminator Armour, since they prefer speed over durability).

He's one of the few of Fulgrim's sons who never stopped searching for their gene sire after he fucked off to Slaanesh-knows-where to practice selfcare with pilates or something. He was the first to succeed in finding Fulgrim, but as usual, trying to please an absent father never turns out to be a good idea.

Narvo then spent a few millenia sulking, training hunting "dogs" and finally letting himself get dragged back again into the Eye's usual political madness by Fabius and Savona.