Greetings,

I was having a strole at RPGDriveThru when I stumbled about a product called "Cults of Freeport" (Green Ronin). The teaster text mentions the following cults

* The Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign: A foul group of madmen devoted to the horrific Unspeakable One.
* The Priesthood of Yig: The ancient religion of the lost Valossan Empire that seeks to find its place in a world dominated by lesser races.
* The Lost Souls of Yarash: Bloodthirsty pirates that butcher innocents to glorify their bloody-handed god.
* The Esoteric Order of Starry Wisdom: A hidden cabal of wizards behind Freeport's Wizards' Guild who search for the power contained within the elusive Azoth Stone.
* Scions of the Destroyer: A filthy cult of demon-worshippers, they strive to release Abaddon from the Bottomless Pit and usher in the final age of the world.
* The Charnel Children: A ghoulish pack of cannibal children led by a muttering lunatic devoted to the bestial Charnel God.
* The Society of the Velvet Whip: Deviants dedicated to the exploration of pleasure and pain, they infest Freeport and erode its morality with their excess.
* The Obsidian Brotherhood: A strange cell of killers and scholars united in their thirst for the knowledge contained within the fragments of a being known only as the Wanderer.

Besides some very obvious adaptions of Lovecraft, some of the other cults remind me of Khorne, Slaanesh and Tzeentch. I wonder if this is "by inccident", if Warhammer has that much influence that other writters adapt ideas/concepts... or if Warhammer adapted said concepts themselves from somewhere.

I'm thinking two things:

1. The themes that the chaos gods embodies are pretty general. There are bound to be similar gods in other settings.

2. The company that did/does the Freeport books is the same company that did WFRPv2. So I think it's a given that they were inspired.

/Magnus

I was about to write the same as Magnus Seter said at point 1: the Chaos gods portfolios are quite general and common for a fantasy/science fiction setting.

Moreover, most of them also have a "sword and sorcery" feeling that makes them look as though they're coming straight from a pulp magazine of the 20s or 30s.

Hi to the two of you

(sorry, but I could not resist! )

@Magus
Thanks for pointing it out, I think this will be the reason why

@The four gods of Warhammer are very generic.
I will second to this as we are talking about Khorn. One bloodthirsty god of slaughter isn´t really different to any other. The relation to Tzeentch that I´ve drawn is perhaps a little far fetched. At least, it seems so to me as I think twice.

But this Slaanesh-thing... can you give some other examples where you´ve found similiar gods? I am curious about how far fledged they really are... so I know where I else I can turn to for... "inspiration"

Thanks!

I seem to remember that a lot of inspiration for the chaos gods were drawn from the writings of Michael Moorcock, most notably the Stormbringer saga.

The Melnibonéans were a degenerate lot, so I think that reading the Stormbringer books will give more inspiration regarding Slaanesh.

/Magnus

Gregorius21778 said:

But this Slaanesh-thing... can you give some other examples where you´ve found similiar gods? I am curious about how far fledged they really are... so I know where I else I can turn to for... "inspiration"

I'm quite sure that a Zothique tale or two by Clark Ashton Smith feature a pleasure god or cult: too bad I read them (too) many years ago and can't remember much more than that.
If you find that book, pick it: it's a nice reading. I liked it so much that later it induced me to try and read Vance's Dying Earth stories: and, by the way, the "Dying Earth RPG" has a nice and humorous "Demon Handbook" (I'm unsure of its title) where you might find more suggestions.