Okay, its fairly well established that Slaanesh emerged from the fall of the Eldar. I read somewhere that Khorne arose during the Middle Ages of Terra, but it seems more likely he was formed during a bunch of warring across the galaxy.

Where did Tzeentch and Nurgle come from though?

Tzeentch is the oldest, we do know that.

It seems unlikely that medieval earth could spawn any Chaos gods when there are only a few hundred million people on earth at the time while other species are building star empires. My theory is that Chaos is timeless and thus the Chaos of the past and present can be influenced by the future universe. So perhaps the Chaos gods can form early and still be a creation of humanity, because they are created by the future humans of the Imperium with their countless trillions of people. Perhaps the middle ages is when Khorne forms because that is a period when several forms of iconic warfare arise - as people of the Imperium still think of swords and medieval combat when imaging war - so as a result the time when Khorne forms is the time period when that kind of stuff comes from.

Keep in mind that the warp is timeless, and as a result the Gods have always existed, and never existed.

SomVone said:

Unfortunately a lot of the canon seems to contradict that. Such as the stuff about the Necrons and Old Ones. At that time the Warp was considered to be a lot more stable and less threatening. I think it's better to say it is timeless -inside- the Warp. With different parts having different reactions. But Slaanesh really didn't exist until the Eldar birthed him. And because of his birth the Warp became more unstable and powerful than ever. He in a nutshell created a fourth Chaos thing to allow people to be corrupted that never existed until then.

I also seem to recall that Khorne was supposedly born when the first being bashed out the brains of another sentient with a rock. Or something like that. So he's old.

Nurgle? Not sure there.

EDIT: Oh, Khorne wasn't formed by Medieval Earth. You're probably confusing him with a Daemon Prince that apparently was after he "slaughtered his way across Eurasia."

There were two books quite some time ago (80's or 90's i believe) called Realms of Chaos that detailed stuff about the origins of Chaos. Their canonicity(is that a word?) now a-days is unsure, but from what they said the Chaos Gods have existed as long as the warp has, but if i read the timeline correctly, they only achieved sentience in roughly 1900 our time, and the birth of Slaanesh happens sometime just after the year 2000.

They did however have their defining traits before then (change, blood, despair).

In vile heresy against canon and good taste I would say that the Chaos gods were created during the war between the Necrons and the Old Ones and their warrior races. That galactic way should've been able to produce anger, despair and hope enough, as well as emotional turmoil to make the warp what it is today.

As Far as I remember the original 3 chaos gods were pretty much weapons the old ones used to fight the c'tan, a last ditch attempt when the necrontyr had pushed them back to their last line

Problem was before they could control their weapons after winnin the war, an enslaver* plague went and ****** them up

*enslavers are warp entities that invade psykers and use them as portals to bring in more enslavers, thus infecting entire systems

Tzench must be a creation of the Slaanii or at least the fall of the Slaaniii...

Korne and nurgle a resultant fo the Necron/C'tan vs Old ones/Children Races.

Slaanesh was born when the Eye of Terror was created, in M30. It was the birth of Slaanesh that swept away the warp storms around Terra, and what allowed the Emperor to begin the Great Crusade.

Other than that... it's flexible. Some fluff stated that Tzeentch has always been, that Khorne was born during the Middle Ages of Earth, and that Nurgle birth was heralded by the Black Plague. Other fluff says other things.

Slaanesh is the only one with a rock-solid birthdate, the others are all contradictory and varied.

Dulahan said:

Thats right! Doombreed I think his name was...

Nerdynick said:

Yeah, I think Doombreed is suppose to be Genghis Khan right? I had heard that Genghis Khan and the Mongolian Empire in general are what gave birth to Khrone. Which raises a question, why was Slaanesh's birth the only birth that ripped a giant hole in the fabric of existance?

Ryder said:

Could be any number of things. Again, humanity definitely wasn't responsible for Khorne. Daemon Princes like him, yep (Don't get me started on that, fictional universe and all. But for fricks sake, Chingiss Qan wasn't THAT bad, no more than anyone of his age - but that's the Mongolist in me speaking, and this is a fictional universe)

The Warp has gotten worse and worse as time goes by. Slaanesh may have been the straw that broke the camel's back, or in this case tore a gaping hole in humanity. That big things that caused The Warp to just break through as it did.

And there were definite battles with The Warp way back when. Maybe it's just that the tech of the C'tan (Or their powers in this case) and Old Ones managed to close down old breeches of the sort. Maybe they naturally degrade as the Warp waxes and wanes? Maybe at some point a Nid like thing went through and snuffed them out. Maybe an old Ork Waaaaagh had some fun and plugged it. Who knows!

Maybe they are aliens.

So aliens that we think they are demons.

After all, even in the Warp seems to be rules: gellar fields, demonic pacts, sorcery, ecc.

Maybe Slaanesh has existed even before the fall of eldar, but he was only a lesser demon, who managed to feed himself with their psychic powers.

You guys have to remember the GODs are not real entity, just an amalgamation of residual ideas and etc. They are a state, a feeling, an emotion, etc.

You cannot define them qualify them, Slanesh as always been there but the Eldar decadence simply created a critical mass strongh enough of is personnality to form into a "cohesive" warp entity. Yet entity not in the term we can fantom...

The warp is Immateiral nothing and everything, the gods are the same a bit of nothign and everything, mostly emotion and intension resonating in the warp.

crisaron said:

I would agree except for the fact that the Chaos Gods are sentient...As evidenced by the blessings and curses bestowed on their champions and their words as spoken through their Daemons.

I think that make them much more than just amalgamations of ideas.

it is my understanding that in all the chaos BL literature have always implied they are not "sentient" but an idea with a goal. They are not sentient behings with petty needs and what not, they are more and yet less, since Khorne never is anything else then furry, slaughter, boold desire to kil and maim... Khorne can't try to deceive you, that is for the weak and the wizards...

XiMao626 said:

Also in how they were VERY afraid of The Emperor. To the point of talking to Primarchs directly.

The Heresy book hint that the Primarch are stuff of the warp given human form... When Horus is looking at the emperor Primarch factory he sees shapes and form made of shifting mather.

Also It is beleived that the Emperor could be Chaos Undivided Incarnated, an Old Slannii, an elder Immeterium god, etc...

Again do you really beleive they where afraid? Lies wihint lies, within lies... Was it not the ultimate plan of the Emperor (the Dark Angel idome) where the Emperor created both side (chaos and Impire) to create an invincible army on both sides of the rift.

I believe I read once that the Gods were the emotions of setient lifeforms distorted and given form and senteince by the warp, this was in an older codex/armybook I think. Khorne was rage/anger, Nurgle was despair, Slaanesh was lust and Tzeentch was hope.

Yes, I do think they were afraid. It takes a lot to get all four Chaos Gods to get along.

Why? Because the Emperor intended to take the war to Chaos.

Now, was he going to become a Chaos Undivided God? BAM! More powerful than the other 4. A reason to be afraid. They don't like others being in charge.

Some other sort of god that can challenge if not defeat them? BAM! A reason to be afraid.

A C'Tan? Yep. Reason to be afraid.

Old One/Slaani/Bargain Bob's Discount Ancient Racer? BAM! Yep, let's be afraid. These guys may well have harnessed and enslaved the Warp during the war against the C'Tan..

Remember, the Emperor is a guy who back in the middle ages was able to punk a C'Tan and imprison it below Mars. That's some hardcore stuff. His Primarchs were superior to Greater Daemons. He was supposed to be as far above the Primarchs as they were above Marines (And the marines in turn above normal men).

And ultimately, the only reason the Emperor lost to Horus (Or, well, fought to a draw) was because he was afraid to go all out against his favorite son. Sure Horus probably was a lot closer in power to him with all the Chaos Mojo. But it explicitly states the Emperor held back until the end. Probably after the Mortal Wound when it was finally apparent he had to end Horus.

In regards to the Emperor: Well back when the Great Crusade was going on, the emperor clearly stated multiple times that he was NOT a god. That he was just a man. It was not HIS Imperium, it was everyone's. He told everyone there were no "gods". This was the basis for the Imperial Truth. He was just the most powerful psyker that had ever lived. Even when the Word Bearers worshiped him as a god, he made them all kneel and told them that they were his greatest failure in everything he has ever done (says a lot when you think about the 2 lost Legions and what THEY could have done to be permanently be stricken from records forever).

In regards to the Chaos Pantheon: In the Necron codex, it says that the Old Ones use of Warp-based technology was anathema to the Necrontyr. They couldn't even understand it in their short lifetimes (before they turned of course). Since the Old Ones made and remade worlds to their liking, spawning countless young races such as the Eldar (insanely brilliant and highly psychic and drawing their power from the warp), the Ork (once possibly brilliant but now more instinctual, with latent psychic potential around other orks), and possibly even humans, who above all have the biggest effect on the warp.

Back to the Eldar: the Eldar God Khaine is pretty much a Greater Daemon (or possibly even a small version) of Khorne himself. The Godess Isha is trapped in Nurgle's Manse within the warp (now idk about you, but it sounds strange that unless the eldar pantheon actually existed, then a "mythical" being could not be stuck in a warp-mansion with a being of pure thought and ideals given sentience). The Laughing God is the only one that escaped the Eldar deity-holocaust that Slaanesh brought about in m30 during it's birth. This means that the Eldar pantheon are somehow on the same playing field as the Chaos pantheon,

This being said: Look at the Imperium 10,000 years ago and back to now. The most powerful psyker in existence is now a veggie "god" sitting on a throne being fed psykers daily to keep what little life he has left.

Now look at what the Eldar WERE and how far they have progressed. The Goddess Isha gave birth to the eldar and breathed life into them directly in the middle of what we know today as the Eye of Terror, the largest and most destructive warp-storm ever known.

When Gork and Mork were around, the Orks were highly advanced, not the brutish creatures that fly around on giant rocks we know them as today that seem to either remember things through instinct or inspiration.

Could it be possible that the Chaos Pantheon and even the xenos gods were the Old Ones of the time? Could they have been so powerful and advanced in their abilities that other races saw it as magic rather than science? If this is true, then the Chaos pantheon of old, the Eldar pantheon, and Gork and Mork all gave rise to the galaxy that is what we know it as today. This being true means that the Necrontyr once stood against them. This prompted the creation of the myriad xenos to fight the Necrons. This means that at some point, the Necrons were actually winning. Not using warp travel+ having no souls to steal back to the warp + sucking the life and soul out of everything in their path = fighting creatures from the warp in a more perfect war than even the Old Ones expected.
My conclusion? Old Ones = Gods of every pantheon from the oldest races.

chicken and the egg question mate.

Did we create the gods or where the gods created by us and the other Xenos. I most books they will hint that the warp was made of the stuff long tiem ago but our toughs and feeling gave it shapes overtime... I doubt the enslaver existed before we did (how can yuou reproduce without an host if you are a parasite)...

So everything in the Wapr would be a resulting of us and we are a resulting of it...!?

PULL UP A SANDBAG!!!!!

here is some old fluff from back when the realms of chaos books were about, The emperor was the life force of thousands of shamans given physical form.

also apparently he is not so vegatated as we think as his life force is supposedly forming a new god callled the Star Child and actually ha physical decentants

of course he could be an old one too as they are one of the oldest mentioned things in game.

now i am showing my age lol time to go hide somehwere and store my completly random bits of 40k lore somewhere before i have my mind wiped by GW for actually having an idea whats gone missing

It's been quite clearly stated that the emperor is basically a gestalt entity consisting of the last 100 "shamans" (powerful psykers that guided humanity through reincarnation) who convened because more and more of them got eaten by the chaos gods. They committed mass suicide and all reincarnated in the body of a single human (born in what was then called Anatolia, modern day Turkey) whose very physiology changed from all the power.

The Gods are sentient, though not in a way humans could ever grasp. Inside the warp, legions of daemons battle daemons of other gods, and even each other in what is thought to be a representation of a god's thought process. They do think, but they're not sane, at least not by the measure of the material realm, they're basically distilled anger, despair, ambition and lust given alien sentience through sheer force of will and critical mass.

The exact origins stories of Tzeentch and Nurgle are unknown, but the Liber Chaotica (a, mostly fantasy, book released by Black Library on Chaos and the Chaos gods) opens its chapter on Khorne with the story of his birth.