I have noticed that my players have been pretty quick to compartementalize chaos stuff into being of one of the four chaos gods based on soem pretty narrow definitions. Khorne is blood and violence, Nurgle is disease, Slaanesh is sex and Tzeentch is magic. I am planning to shake those preconceptions a bit, so I am trying to come up with other aspects of the gods powers that aren't quite as usual.

Nurgle: Famine and slavery.

Slaanesh: Food and arts.

Tzeentch: Political upheaval and breaking of taboos.

Khorne: Hunting and martial honour? Honestly, Khorne is the one I'm having the hardest time with.

Anyone else have some other concepts/aspects for the gods that are outside the usual cliches?

If you read enough about the gods, youll see everything you have put is attributed to them, so your on the right track.

One thing to remember is, while these entities are The God of Slaughter, for instance, that doesnt mean that other gods arnt really really good at it as well.
For instance, a charismatic individual who sparks a system wide rebellion that results in bloody conflicts and the deaths of millions, could easily do so in Korns name without ever lifting a fist.

A Tech Priest may dedicate his life to crafting the strongest engines, the sharpest blades or the most accurate guns and sell his soul to Slannesh to gain such mastery

A Chief Chirurgeon may unleash a deadly disease on a planet to kill off/distract the population so he can loot an ancient vault and recover a lost relic of Tzeench


Just think outside the box *wise nod*

Khorne is theoretically in it for the results. He just wants lots of people to die violently and doesn't care how or who. Except, he also hates psykers. Huh? Psykers are awesome at killing people. There's two ways to resolve this conundrum:

1 - Accept that Khorne is overwhelmingly more one-dimensional than the other Chaos Gods. He hates subterfuge and trickery of all kinds and only likes it when people murder other people directly. He's too stupid to see the big picture benefits of a charismatic demagogue inspiring millions to slaughter without actually killing anyone himself. This does mean that Khorne is kind of a dumb god, but it gives him a coherent philosophy and nothing about being a Chaos God requires you to be a supergenius. Khorne is a warp entity literally made of rage, so it's not really that surprising that he's bad at longterm planning.

2 - Accept that Khorne's spite for psykers is completely arbitrary and makes no sense with the rest of his philosophy. This kind of inconsistency is not very good for a game because players will ask themselves "will this kind of thing please Khorne or anger him?" and they will be completely unable to answer that question because Khorne's personality and motivations are inconsistent. But 40k already has that problem (will slaughtering enemy and bystander alike cause you to fall to Khorne? Well that depends: Are you a World Eater in the Great Crusade, or a Cacharadon in the Badab War? Because for some reason that makes all the difference in the world) so continuing to have it wouldn't be the sacrifice it normally would.

There's also option three: Write new fluff to explain the inconsistency. I have a whole thing I wrote where Tzeentch arranged for Khorne to be created by orchestrating an absurdly massive and bloody galactic war (in the same way that the Eldar's centuries-long drug-fueled superorgy ultimately birthed Slaanesh) and then used Khorne as an attack dog against Nurgle, and eventually Khorne grew sick of it and went off to do his own thing, and Tzeentch corrupted the psykers amongst Khorne's followers into worship of himself rather than Khorne and used that in to try and seize control of Khorne's followers, using the corrupt psykers to give orders which they would report as having come from Khorne. And Khorne's solution to that problem was "no psykers, ever" and also that's why Khorne doesn't really like Tzeentch (although he hates Slaanesh even more, because Slaanesh was his replacement after Tzeentch's attempt to regain control through psyker moles failed).

There's enough blank space in between the War in Heaven and the Fall of the Eldar that you can write a lot of new stuff without having to retcon anything, and the War in Heaven is generally only vaguely understood by fans and not super popular so you can retcon chunks of that without usually causing an uproar, but there's still a drawback which is that at some point you have to sit your players down and explain all this to them and they might end up zoning out.

Khorne does not hate psykers more than he hates anything else, really. Khornate warlords utilise astrotelepathy and warp travel, they summon daemons and wield daemonwepons - and there are khornate warlords who are psykers themselves. What khorne does hate with passion is when you worship him (by murdering people or leading armies or developing weaponry) not using your own strength (or skill, or stealth, or cunning, or tactical excellence, or sharp intellect), which is the only thing in the material universe khorne has grudging respect for, but using the power of the warp. He hates when mortals vanquish their foes by snapping their fingers and mumbling a spell, desecrating the act of murder in the process. Actually, the only way to piss him off even more is to seduce your enemies and not shedding blood at all. So yes, a psyker who uses his powers only to resist enemy sorcery or to forge weapons or otherwise perform utility tasks but never to kill people directly is ok - it's not the witch-hunting mania of imperium, it's your classic fantasy might and magic, sword and sorcery antagonism.

What is a bit more important when dealing with the blood god is not being a coward. Never pick targets weaker than you unless you've killed em all. Kill those who have the guts to raise arms against you first, women and children second. Have martial pride and code of honour not unlike samurai or viking. You try gaining the blessing of the Blood God by throwing infants skulls to his throne and before long instead of apotheosis you will see a pack of hounds chasing you like a coward and weakling you are.

I would say it really boils down to emotion more than action. Khorne is how his worshipers imagine him to be and they feel most connected to him when following what they imagine would please him the most. But what really feeds him is the feelings of rage and the release of it in battle. The chaos gods are too big and unfathomable for something as banal as "Khorne doesn't like wizards because they're cowardly" to make much sense, It's more like psychers usually work with restraint to contain their powers and tend to use their intellect to strategize instead of being led by their anger, so their state of mind is not naturally conductive to what feeds Khorne.

An interpretation like this makes the rules a bit looser when it comes to what is accepted by a god and not. Most of the rules are actually man-made and change from group to group, what's important is what emotions following those rules incites in them. Heck, you could have Khornite chess players if they were really, really angry while playing chess

I've been thinking a bit about this since I made the post.

Once you start thinking of the gods as wanting emotions, not particular actions, they start to be more complex. Nurgle, for example, isn't actually a god of disease. Disease is just a symbol his followers understand. What he actually wants is depression and hopelessness. Which can come from all kind of sources. Heck it would even make an argument for Nurgle giving people hope because the bigger the hope, the greater the depression when that hope is lost.

Look closely at the nurgle symbol - three circles, death, decay and rebirth, permanently locked in a cycle. Everything withers, dies, decomposes and gives life anew. Those not blessed by nurgle are afraid of this cycle, try to resist it or even turn it back. Those who are just accept this universal truth know no despair, or pain. They are brought closer to their god, into the metaphorical center of the circle, where you are both dead, alive, and decaying - that's how champions of Nurgle look like.

Khorne is all about rage. He's not about subtleties or control, it's the direct bloodthirsty confrontation that drives him, the raw emotion of vengeance, hatred and rage, preferably acted upon through brute force.

Psykers are just the opposite here, they need absolute control to wield the powers of the warp otherwise bad stuff happens. U sing Psychic powers requires a lot of control, something you have to do with the right mindset and a lot of experience. An emotion like rage is just counterproductive to achieve that, one slip of the mind can be fatal to a psyker.

Yes, Psykers can do a lot of bloodshed as well, but the basis of that bloodshed is not rage or an uncontrollable frenzy, hence it goes against Khorne's ideology and thus why he hates Psykers.

Being strong, having honor and a lot of martial prowess are just the means to achieve what Khorne wants, it's not necessary but preferable. It will allow you to be a better killer for Khorne, and as a bonus you'll survive longer ( Khorne himself doesn't care). .

At least that's my take on it.

"Always angry, all the time" and "Suffer not the witch to live" khornate will in no time be left armless, ship-less, hungry and dead. Yes, as the corruption grows, so too does the inhuman rage of the khornate worshipper, just like insanity is taking over anyone worshipping Tzeench for a while, but the idea of "strength" being the equivalent of "skill" and khornate martial pride not being optional, but mandatory and enforced by weakling-hunting flesh-hound packs makes more sense IMHO.

Khorne will tolerate psyker powers in a support role - communications, navigation, making things. He'll even tolerate a psyker using his powers to make himself a better fighter. What Khorne does not tolerate is psykers cheating and using the warp to kill people, because making someone's head explode with magic is cheating, while making their head explode with a bullet is just fine.

This is because Khorne is all about equal opportunity (to kill people) - not everyone can use powers to kill people, but Khorne wants everybody fighting and killing - and everybody can use a weapon/bare hands/etc, even if they're lousy fighters.

Something regarding Nurgle. I have long wondered what the emotional draw of Nurgle is. While it makes sense that somebody would want to pursue pleasure or knowledge (or even war, violence, and anger) what emotions are linked to Nurgle and why would somebody feel drawn to that? While pondering this, I considered that Nurgle has traditionally been portrayed as the enemy of Tzeentch, god of (among other things) change. Some sources also say that the emotion linked to Nurgle is defiance of death. Combining these two ideas made me come to think of Nurgle as the god of conservatism, the desire to cling to those things to which we are attached, to love the old and to reject the new. As things age, they decay, become worn, are supplanted by younger better things - which is why physical decay is such a recurrent theme with Nurgle. Yet Nurgle is also a loving god, the god that loves and clings to things forever, old friends, old possessions, old values. Nurgle is the god of the elderly who cling to their lives despite their aches and pains, who value their rusty old cars and dilapidated homes, who recall the glory of their youth which is now faded and decaying. Nurgle is the god of refusing to let go and this is why a great many people are drawn to Nurgle. Disease is just one superficial trait that arises from Nurgle's link to death, decay, and age.

As for Khorne, I can see Khorne reimagined as well to some degree. Like Lupa, I think that Khorne hating psychics doesn't make any sense. The more people I see grasp at straws to justify the hatred of psykers, the more convinced I am that hating psykers is silly. There are plenty of things less violent and more thoughtful that Khorne doesn't seem to mind - like technology. A psyker who blows up people with his mind is a lot more violent than the scientist who designs the ships, weapons, or armor that warriors of Khorne need to be competitive. Also, I think that the image of a psyker of Khorne is cool - a psychic filled with rage, whose anger is so powerful that it manifests physically as psychic fire for telekinetic force.

Though I could see expending on Khorne in general, making him represent more than just mindless rage, but rather the ideology of struggle and conflict. An idea of a Darwinian struggle where the strong prevails over the weak, where strength can mean physical strength or varieties of mental strength, as long as those mental traits allow triumph in battle. The kind of idea Hitler expresses in this quote: "Man must realize that a fundamental law of necessity reigns throughout the whole realm of Nature and that his existence is subject to the law of eternal struggle and strife. He will then feel that there cannot be a separate law for mankind in a world in which planets and suns follow their orbits, where moons and planets trace their destined paths, where the strong are always the masters of the weak and where those subject to such laws must obey them or be destroyed. Man must also submit to the eternal principles of this supreme wisdom. He may try to understand them but he can never free himself from their sway."

I think that could be a good way to imagine Khorne, more than just blood crazed psychic hating berserkers.

For Slaanesh, it seems like so much focus has been put into showing that it is more than an S&M dominatrix god, that I'd almost like to see more focus on the S&M dominatrix side of Slaanesh.

Something regarding Nurgle. I have long wondered what the emotional draw of Nurgle is.

The absolute horror of realizing one's own mortality and wanting to stave of death for another second for some.

Some see that Nurgle is not only decay, but also rebirth, and can accept the love Grandfather provides them with in his ever changing family of life.

On the Khorne psyker thing, it was mentioned earlier, but Khorne appreciates when you get your hands dirty in some way physically, using the warp is essentially taking Khorne's help without even asking then saying "look at what I did!"

Slaneesh is not JUST sex, jeeze that should be the first thing any follower of the gods is taught. Yes, people are normally initially drawn into their fold by that physical pleasure, but very quickly they are exposed to a variety of other pleasures and excesses. Anything from exotic food to drug to literature to feeling each and every way one can be harmed without death occurring are all under their (I'm using gender neutral terms for Slaneesh) repertoire.

If any god is one dimensional I've always personally felt it was Tzeetch. Trickster god of knowledge and magic, been there done that.

I have also spent quite a bit of time thinking about Nurgles followers and what exactly the motivation is. One that really fits the kind of happy "gift giving" version of nurgle worshippers that you often see is this:

Imagine you are informed you are terminally ill. There is no cure, there is nothing to do except accept that you are going to soon die. You then decide to get the most out of what time you have left and your priorities change. Lots of stuff that you thought were important suddenly have no meaning. You are free to do whatever you want. You discover that you have never truly lived until now.

The next step: Other people should also get to experience this fantastic feeling of just accepting inevitable death and just enjoy the ride to the bottom instead of pointlessly struggling against it. If you could, you would make everyone terminally ill. Sure, they may curse you at first, but once they accept the situation they will see what a blessing it truly is to be dying.

Remember, Nurgle is called Lord od All, and for a good reason. When you are young, you might have strength to claim skulls for Khorne, or sharp mind to plot schemes as the Fateweaver's adept, or good looks and stamina which come in handy when you are endulging into every excess Dark Prince can give you.

But as years pass by, sooner or later, you'll notice your body succumbing to age. You are withering, no longer able to please your diety, hopeless, alone and well into the final stages of your lifespan. And that's when Nurgle embraces you, takes away your fear, insecurity, saves you from death as long as you join his family and spread his cause. That is, by the way, why a lot of Nurgle champions never bother hating followers of "opposed" gods - you can follow your short-lived illusions as long as you wish, Nurgle Champion, being immortal, will see you eventually succumbing.

Exactly. Gross and yucky as champions of Nurgle are, he is actually the most seductive of chaos gods, because his offer is so simple.

"You are dying. I can stop that."

Slaanesh is excess - be it sex, drugs and rock-n-roll, or the exceptionally focussed samurai-esque swordsman who pointedly kills every foe in one, perfectly executed blow.

The basic view of the chaos gods is pervasive because it is simple. Generally speaking, people like clean and concise definitions. Thus, it's easy to see Khorne as Ares - god of war and nothing more. It's equally easy to see Tzeentch as simply the patron god of psykers because most Tzeentchian champions are sorcerers of some sort.

This tendency is both short sighted and fails to really give the Dark Gods the depth they deserve. For that reason, I tend to push the following for the gods in my campaigns:

Khorne: Push the honor and leadership angle. Khornates generally dislike psykers and use of sorcery because it is a dishonorable means of combat. It's a cheap trick, or viewed that way. The use of astropaths and other warp-related things is a necessity and, to be honest, not really related to combat. Similarly, Khornates will respect a fiery leader, one who commands their respect and obedience with deed and with word.

Tzeentch: Plots, lies and other means of manipulation. Warp-fuckery is just the surface of Tzeentch... the thing that is visible. What Tzeentch really values and rewards is a follower that demonstrates the ability to move pieces on the proverbial chessboard without said pieces even knowing who is behind the move. When the person you have manipulated does as you desire whilst believing that the action was their idea in the first place - this is when the Lord of Change is most pleased. In my view, someone like Ahriman is an unsophisticated **** that pulled one big move and has been riding it ever since. Even his big move was somewhat base as it demonstrated no more cunning than what it took to cast the rubric. Tzeentch will also respect intelligence and knowledge, but only insofar as the adherent can use it to their own ends.

Slaanesh: Perfection... in whatever you do. This is what Slaanesh desires. Whether it be the perfect orgasm, the perfect crab-claw or the perfect sword strike, slaanesh will reward the adherent that strives to perfect whatever it is that he or she is doing. Excess is easy to accomplish and demonstrates no real proficiency other than the ability to acquire whatever it is that you want to overindulge yourself with. Slaanesh, in my mind, will be far more impressed by the person that takes one thing and does/makes it perfect(ly).

Nurgle: Yes, we all know about the disease part. We are aware that puss, snot and general decay will make grandpa a happy god. I prefer to have the players focus on the "healing" and (re)birth aspects of Nurgle. Grandfather as many adherents that spread disease. He needs more of those like he needs a shot of penicillin. What Nurgle will reward is the concept of creation. Whether than be taking a sick person and saving their life without removing the pestilence or creating a new drug/toxin, Nurgle will respect this more than taking puss from one's own boils and smearing it upon an otherwise healthy person.

The basic view of the chaos gods is pervasive because it is simple. Generally speaking, people like clean and concise definitions. Thus, it's easy to see Khorne as Ares - god of war and nothing more. It's equally easy to see Tzeentch as simply the patron god of psykers because most Tzeentchian champions are sorcerers of some sort.

This tendency is both short sighted and fails to really give the Dark Gods the depth they deserve. For that reason, I tend to push the following for the gods in my campaigns:

Khorne: Push the honor and leadership angle. Khornates generally dislike psykers and use of sorcery because it is a dishonorable means of combat. It's a cheap trick, or viewed that way. The use of astropaths and other warp-related things is a necessity and, to be honest, not really related to combat. Similarly, Khornates will respect a fiery leader, one who commands their respect and obedience with deed and with word.

Tzeentch: Plots, lies and other means of manipulation. Warp-fuckery is just the surface of Tzeentch... the thing that is visible. What Tzeentch really values and rewards is a follower that demonstrates the ability to move pieces on the proverbial chessboard without said pieces even knowing who is behind the move. When the person you have manipulated does as you desire whilst believing that the action was their idea in the first place - this is when the Lord of Change is most pleased. In my view, someone like Ahriman is an unsophisticated **** that pulled one big move and has been riding it ever since. Even his big move was somewhat base as it demonstrated no more cunning than what it took to cast the rubric. Tzeentch will also respect intelligence and knowledge, but only insofar as the adherent can use it to their own ends.

Slaanesh: Perfection... in whatever you do. This is what Slaanesh desires. Whether it be the perfect orgasm, the perfect crab-claw or the perfect sword strike, slaanesh will reward the adherent that strives to perfect whatever it is that he or she is doing. Excess is easy to accomplish and demonstrates no real proficiency other than the ability to acquire whatever it is that you want to overindulge yourself with. Slaanesh, in my mind, will be far more impressed by the person that takes one thing and does/makes it perfect(ly).

Nurgle: Yes, we all know about the disease part. We are aware that puss, snot and general decay will make grandpa a happy god. I prefer to have the players focus on the "healing" and (re)birth aspects of Nurgle. Grandfather as many adherents that spread disease. He needs more of those like he needs a shot of penicillin. What Nurgle will reward is the concept of creation. Whether than be taking a sick person and saving their life without removing the pestilence or creating a new drug/toxin, Nurgle will respect this more than taking puss from one's own boils and smearing it upon an otherwise healthy person.

^This. This is the Chaos Gods that I love and adore.

I also got the impression that Tzeentch has been trolling the absolute hell out of Ahriman ever since he started his quest for the Black Library because Ahriman really is an arrogant **** who is so obsessed with achieving magical power that he had completely neglected all the values that a true worshiper of Tzeentch should seek to embody.

Let's look at this objectively:

Scenario 1) Ahriman successfully enters the Black Library and claims it for Chaos. Result: Tzeentch gets access to the Black Library of the Elder. Tzeentch wins.

Scenario 2) Ahriman's latest plan for the Black Library fails but he survives to try again another day. Result: Ahriman is a powerful psyker and can be used as a very useful pawn to distract Elder and Imperial forces from other, more subtle agents of Chaos. Tzeentch wins.

Scenario 3) Ahriman dies when his latest plan for the Black Library falls on its face. Result: Tzeentch gets a soul to torture for a while to take his frustrations out on the fool. Sooner or later he or another demon might decided to give Ahriman flesh and blood again with a firm warning not to **** up again. Tzeentch wins.

Scenario 4) Ahriman dies and his soul is destroyed in the process. Result: Ahriman's death alerts Tzeentch to a threat to the forces of chaos as a whole at the cost of one renegade that had been thrown out of his legion thousands of years prior. While Ahriman was a powerful magic user, there are plenty of other Pskyers out there just waiting for the chance to prove their worth to the Master of Fate. Removing the threat to chaos that Ahriman died to discover is a very good start. Tzeentch Wins.

Khorne: Push the honor and leadership angle. Khornates generally dislike psykers and use of sorcery because it is a dishonorable means of combat. It's a cheap trick, or viewed that way. The use of astropaths and other warp-related things is a necessity and, to be honest, not really related to combat. Similarly, Khornates will respect a fiery leader, one who commands their respect and obedience with deed and with word.

Tzeentch: Plots, lies and other means of manipulation. Warp-fuckery is just the surface of Tzeentch... the thing that is visible. What Tzeentch really values and rewards is a follower that demonstrates the ability to move pieces on the proverbial chessboard without said pieces even knowing who is behind the move. When the person you have manipulated does as you desire whilst believing that the action was their idea in the first place - this is when the Lord of Change is most pleased. In my view, someone like Ahriman is an unsophisticated **** that pulled one big move and has been riding it ever since. Even his big move was somewhat base as it demonstrated no more cunning than what it took to cast the rubric. Tzeentch will also respect intelligence and knowledge, but only insofar as the adherent can use it to their own ends

Black crusade source materials agree - Korgin World-Reaver is a good example; he gives you one chance to surrender, but if you take it....he accepts. And sticks to it. Because you're not worth the effort of killing. He will impose punitive surrender terms to try and provoke you into growing a spine and fighting next, time, though.

Ahriman has improved quite a bit in the Ahriman:Exile and Ahriman:Sorceror books, as well as his villain appearance in Atlas Infernal. He is ridiculously 'just as planned' - manipulating the inquisition into doing exactly what he wants where he wants, having a fallback plan for everything, and letting people betray him in order to set up their own demise.

One thing to understand is that Ahriman isn't a worshipper of Tzeench. He's stuck doing things Tzeench wants because the Raven God set things up that way, but he hates Tzeench. A big part of his motivation is the Rubric - it was supposed to save the legion, not functionally destroy it, and he's trying to find out if the rubric was flawed from the beginning, or if Tzeench tampered with it, and if there's anything he can do to save his legion.

He goes so far as to call his plans 'declaring war on fate'. He's interested in the Black Library for what it might tell him about Tzeench's weaknesses, not just raw 'psychic smashy' powers.

That's not to say he's short of such. The four major thousand sons characters featured in Black Library novels to date (Mhotep in Battle for the Abyss , Atharva in Outcast Dead , Ahriman in....quite a lot, Khayon in Talon of Horus ) have all had truly ridiculous psychic power. Atharva brain-wibbling the prison guards from inside a psychically shielded cell, Ahriman tearing open a warp vortex large enough to act as a starship's warp engine, Khayon essentially telekinetically throwing a small cruiser.... Be very scared of the boys in blue.

TIL: Ahriman is magical Batman

I'd like to make a simple note, the base chaos gods emotions.

Lust - Slaanesh. Lust in all forms mind you, for the purest knowledge, feeling, someone else's possessions or a mate. Just lusting for things.

Hope - Tzeentch. Hope is change. Hope is a desire for more. Whilst it's not exactly an emotion, it's certainly something that every mortal feels.

Rage/Anger - Khorne, clearly. I think the martial aspect of Khorne has been discussed enough. It is the thrill of a military campaign played to perfection, a warriors pride and honour becoming the best of him, twisting him, as chaos does.

Despair or Fear - Nurgle. He is despair. Humanity fears disease. To conquer your fears, deal with them moreso. To conquer death, become it. Become immune to it. Every human is afraid of something. Nurgle will help you relieve that fear. Moth most powerful of emotions.