So Nike is the real world equivalent?

weaver95 said:

This is very, very true.

Also, I sometimes wonder if Slaanesh and Khorne's bitter rivalry is due to the occasional epic warrior who gets immense pleasure from killing and inflicting pain. Imagine a Conan-type figure who's being tempted by both gods, a deistic tug of war.

Necrozius said:

Well, I think it's more about every warrior like that rather than a specific one. The source of their rivalry is the focus of intent and purpose, internal or external. Slaanesh is all about the internal motivation and experience, while Khorne cares little for a follower's personal experience and only for their external actions. Khorne sees Slaanesh as useless and inneffectual while Slaanesh sees Khorne as pointless, empty, and shallow.

Well, that'd be a human's translation of their views anyway, as they are alien intelligences.

Aureus said:

Totally agree with everything you said except the last part.

I actually think out of every horror in the 40k universe, the Chaos Gods are the most knowable and easily understood by the human mind. That's part of what makes them so frightening yet alluring and capable of corrupting said mind. They are, essentially, distilled sentient emotion and drive. Each is a bloated runaway reflection of one of our aspects divorced of the other balancing that makes one whole. They are a reflection of our internal selves on our worst day... cranked to eleven of course.

Which came first Khorne or Children of the Corn? Yes, I know it's corny. Macha preserve me, that was bad.

Graver said:

Well, yes and no. In part they are very knowable in the sense that you describe. However, they are also much more than just humanities creation, all existed before humans ever did except Slaanesh, who was born of the Eldar. They've taken a lot from humans though, so in part they are comprehensable. On the other hand, they remain partially of alien origin, and are so massive in scale and taken to such extremes that everything ends up being a close but rough translation when broken down into human terms.

Aureus said:

Ah, I see what your getting at now. Yup, I guess I'll have to agree with you on that point now.

Letrii said:

Slaanesh is both the most 'recent' Chaos god and at the same time, Slaanesh has always existed. Time doesn't flow the same way in the Warp as it does in this universe. So from the perspective of various warp entities Slaanesh has always been there, except when it wasn't. And no, that doesn't make any sense, but that's the warp for you.

Slaanesh is called 'She Who Thirsts' by the Eldar, yes. But it really doesn't have a 'set' gender. Being a god of extremes, it's both male/female and hermaphrodite all at once. I guess the best way to put it is that Slaanesh is the most beautiful thing you have ever seen. And it wants to have sex with you. well...with your soul anyway. And maybe your left boot.

Slight derail:

Personally, I really dislike the idea that a hardcore Chaos God was created by star fairies. Makes Slaanesh seem less "metal" to me.

Sorry for the derail.

Necrozius said:

What if those fairies were coke shorting blood baithing mad massacuring necrophillic fairies? That's at least 80's hair-band level and, after all, in the 40k universe, who's more glam then Slaanesh? ;-)

Graver said:

...You have a point.

I retract my statement. That is, I would if we were allowed to edit our posts.

BTW, Man'O'War was a pretty awesome band- and I swear that at least one of their songs was about Khorne.

Anyways...

Graver said:

This is distilled win. Pure win.

Necrozius said:

As someone who's studied fairy myth, I can honestly say that if you'd read or heard the "fairy tales" that I'd read/heard, you'd find fairies to be pretty <censored> hardcore.

Ogres are actually fairies, for example.

Can you direct me towards the ones you've read?

The fae are not people to mess with.... *shudder*

I actually have Tuatha de Danann (the people, not some weird fae BS) ancestory, and they still scare the crap out of me... mythological or otherwise.

I'm a druid venerating the Irish traditional pantheon.

I can try to dig up the old texts. A lot of my knowledge of fairies comes from my days as a goth. Being the son of a reference and research librarian and a college professor meant being the best educated goth in town. I know more little snippets about vampires, werewolves, witches, fairies, etc., than most people I know (this isn't much in the way of bragging - I'm really just a "critter geek"). I'll see if I still have the research cites that I once compiled.

Fairies, though, I can say with no compunction whatsoever, are wonderful, mystical, beautiful, desirable, and freaking horrifying. At the same time.

Pneumonica said:

As much as I loathed Exalted and all things in that setting, I have to admit that the one thing white wolf got right was the Fae. soul sucking immortals from the warp that could (and did) feed on the hopes and dreams of humanity. They had the ability to selectively 'damage' a person by feeding on particular emotions...and that damage was permanent. So they could feed on someone's ability to love...and it would be gone forever. when you think about it, that's fairly horrifying.

I think most people make the connection of slaanesh as the god/goddess of sex and sexual pleasures, perverse, forbidden etc. This is quite often the only view of this god.

However if this was the case, the deamons of this god would look and behave like succubus and incubus do in mythology, and not how they seem to do in either warhammer universes. I know its toned down, god knows we wouldn't want kids seeing or reading about such things, but firing explosive rockets and chopping people up with chain weapons is perfectly acceptable.

Slaanesh along with Tzeench are realistically the only two chaos gods who could exist for normal people. Khorne can't really exist without being locked up, and nurgle would be confined to third world countries with lots of disease.

I am very much in favour of luring players with other trappings than sex, as that does not often work with roleplayers and so Slaanesh can work equally well be providing expensive gifts, large sums of money, anything to lure someone in really with things they want. Slaanesh is all the deadly sins at once!

40K and WFRP are linked by the warp, and eldar, when they where in almost every part of the galaxy, created slaanesh from their pure exctasy, and slaanesh/khaine fought khaine is hurt, and still is badly, which released the shard stuff that they use to become avatars. slaanesh entering tore open the eye of terror, and now the eldar are trying to create a new god of death to combat slaanesh

Who/what is Khaine?

Letrii said:

Full name: Kaela Mensha Khaine(=Bloody Handed Murder in the Eldar language).

Khaine is the Eldar god of war, murder, slaughter and carnage. Its the warp manifestation of the violent side of the Eldar psyche.

Most of the other Eldar gods were killed in ancient times by the Chaos Gods or by Khaine himself. Some people claim that Khaine is just an aspect or part of Khorne, but the Eldar vehemently deny this.

When fighting with Slaanesh, Khaine was injured badly, and fragments of him were spread through the webway and are used nowadays by the Eldar to transform one Eldar temporarily into an avatar of Khaine: a towering humanoid of molten metal with fresh blood constantly dripping from it's right hand and wielding a huge sword.

After reading some of the details concerning the Old Ones and their war against the Necrontyr, there are times when I wonder if the Eldar gods were 'built' by the Old Ones as a means to prepare the Eldar in their fight against the Necrons. It sort of fits - the chaos gods are something that nobody intended to create but they could be something that were an unintended consequence of what the Old Ones were trying to do with the Eldar. At that point in the war, the Old Ones were losing and pretty desperate.

Let me add yet one more thought to this random and pointless speculation and I'll shut up - if the Old Ones *did* create the Eldar Gods (and perhaps the Orc gods as well) then maybe they built or created a means to controls those gods. would such an item be able to control the chaos gods as well? Or maybe the Old Ones realized what had happened with the chaos gods and tried a last minute ploy to create a means to impose some measure of control over those unintended gods.

like I said though, i'm just throwing stuff out there. use, abuse and/or ignore me completely as you will.

Letrii said:

Yes, you are. My son ;P

I was wondering if you knew what the name meant or if you just saw it somewhere and liked it.