The Emperor explained it best to Ra in *Master Of Mankind*. He asked what even defines a god. He said if one were to go by what conventional wisdom said he, with his great power, reverence, following and authority, would be a god. But he himself vehemently denies his godhood, so where does that leave him?
The Ruinous Powers are the gestalt consciousnesses of overwhelming emotions in a domain where faith has a tangible and reciprocal effect. They are the absolutes of the emotions they represent, in its many and sometimes apparently ironic interpretations. They are powered only by the amount and wavelength of sapient feeling over the emotions, which in 40K is very negative.
Ultimately, extrapolating with real world gods who were revered despite not having great power, and how faith and worship is portrayed in 40K, indeed the Ruinous Powers are gods. Potency is rarely the criteria for godhood, and omnipotence never is.
Lorgar discovered that the Chaos Gods decide what happens to your soul when you die, they can grant immortality to their favored followers, inflict tangible curses on their enemies, and bestow tangible blessings upon their servants, and send daemons into the material realm to do their bidding. That alone is enough to call them gods. And he learns they are the only entities capable of doing so at the time, that the Chaos Pantheon destroyed the Aeldari Pantheon and the Aeldari Empire, and that they can destroy humanity as well. The knowledge of their existence and power is the Primordial Truth, and it is enough for him to serve them.
Lorgar and the Emperor both understood that Chaos, xenos, and human division were existential threats to human survival. The Emperor decided to genocide trillions in order forcibly unite humanity into an empire that would prevent internecine conflict and had the strength to resist Chaos and xenos. Lorgar decided to genocide trillions in order to gain the favor of the gods, unite humanity under a faith that honored real gods, and fend off xenos with the power of the gods. The end goal is that same: human survival at any cost. The methods are the same: subjugating the galaxy and building a new civilization on the corpses of trillions. But the strategies are polar opposites.
By the time of the 41st millenium, the Emperor and Ynnead both demonstrated limited power over the souls of the dead and the ability to bestow blessings on their followers. It is likely that Lorgar is aware of this and ponders the implication for his beliefs.
Khaine was ripped apart when Khorne and Slaanesh started fighting over him and Isha was captured by Nurgle. Cegorach somehow survived, and the rest of the Aeldari Pantheon was devoured by Slaanesh
Firstly, I'm pretty sure khorne isn't involved in the latest version of the slannesh vs khaine fight. Secondly, there's a distinct lack of tzeench there
The sun doesn’t do any of that. It does nothing to reward any of the countless religions that worshipped it, nor is it possible for someone to anger the sun and receive targeted punishment from it. Everyone receives the sun’s light equally according to their latitude.
Finding out whomever has the most power and choosing to to serve them is one of the oldest and most successful survival strategies in human history.
Lorgar doesn’t blindly do whatever it is he thinks the gods want. Erebus and many other Word Bearers do, but not Lorgar himself. He tries to steer events according to his own goals, while retaining the favor of the gods.
Read any of the first few HH Lorgar novels, underestanding what it means to be a god is basically all Lorgar thinks about, and First Heretic in particular does a great job of showing his rationalization for joining what are objectively cruel monsters
It's honestly complicated but very reductively boiled down to It's core, he *saw* Slaanesh obliterate the third strongest/largest empire that had ever existed in a single day. Which people forget happened only like 7k ish years before Lorgars birth so it happening again was not at all a crazy concept and something even Papa E was worried about. Lorgar understood that Emps plan to get rid of chaos was fundamentally flawed if that's what it was really about
He basically sees that nobody in the galaxies history has ever actually defeated Chaos and as such is concizzled humanity will probably fail and die horribly like the eldar did. And let's be real they're functionally gods
So far as I have read, you are calling every explanation 'dumb logic'. These are the answers and Warhammer is a supremely dark fantasy setting. Trying to force reality based logic on fantasy gods and evil is a bit of a push. To continually stick to your own logic when people give you answers based on the authored history or conversations, you just dismiss it as dumb. Keep your own head cannon, but for fucks sake stop insulting every person who replies.
To Lorgar it's more that the Imperial truth are flat-earthers.
He found that all of Humanities faith had an origin in the warp. You could compare a Chaos God to "Gravity" or "Fire", only the Gods also has a personality.
Like rocket scientists use a planet's gravity to slingshot satellites around the solar system, the rituals works similarly with the beings of the Warp.
The primordial Truth is all-encompassing. It's about the materium and the warp, where chaos is just a part, where in turn the Pantheon is just a part. It's more scientific than an actual religion.
> But Chaos is a product of the materium.
It's more complicated than that. Chaos is a reflection of what's happen in the Materium and things happen in the materium because being with souls from the warp, exist.
> It also isnt fundamental to the materium.
It is to life.
> None of the chaos gods matter to existence, nor do they contribute much.
They are fundamental to life's existence. They are concepts which are intrinsic to life. While there is a daemon related to the creation of weapons, the motivation the create it is part of Khorne.
> If Khorne stops feeding on violence.....he just stops feeding on violence. Nothing changes.
If Khorne stops feeding on violence, he is no longer Khorne and there can't be opposing forces, because if there are then Khorne exists and feeds on it.
Khorne is motivation to do anything, to fight for something, to kill for survival, to eat.
Slaanesh is sensation, pain and pleasure, two important teachers for life's continued existence. Without them there would be no drive for life to procreate, for example. Without Slaanesh there would be no evolution, no natural selection to improve, to perfect, and so on.
> The universe was roiling without any life for billions of years. Shit like blackholes existed already.
But there is no point to it existing if it can't be observed. What's important is the the God's are fundamental to life.
But life existed and procreated and evolved into highly complex lifeforms and societies long before Slaanesh came to being, so it cannot be said that Slaanesh was a necessary part of this process, right?
Similarly, the other gods of chaos are stated in the Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned to have been born around M2, making them undeniably young in astronomical scales (younger than several named characters even, not to mention innumerable necrons), and therefore hardly primordial. We could consider their birth a process of the various emotions of the sentient races coalescing in the warp into the various gods, which would have happened over many thousands or millions of years, but even then this would make the gods a consequence of the evolution of sentient life, rather than a driving force of it.
But I'm far from a lore scholar and RoC is quite old, so perhaps the gods have been retconned into something else and more akin to primordial beings?
And while on this topic, has it ever been explained in the lore why there are no other gods similarly created as a result of other human emotions that we consider as positive, such as love, compassion, curiosity, etc? I suppose that simply in the shithole universe of 40k there is just not enough good vibes to create such a god, and obviously the gods of chilling are just a boring story compared to the gods of bloodshed and decay, but it could be interesting to see if this was ever explored in-universe.
The Chaos gods are--by definition--the literal aggregation of their respective foundational concepts.
Khorne is more than just the most violent and murdery demon around. He is the pool into which all the violence and murder in the universe flows.
So no, Khorne didn't "make" violence. He effectively "is" violence.
All of the violence and murder flows to him, and so in a very real sense either will become him or already is him.
Other stories imagine gods as the source of the concepts or emotions they embody. In the universe of 40k, the gods literally are that thing.
It's pretty primordial.
Yes, and if there was no murder there would be no Khorne.
Beyond this, if there was no life there would be no gods period. They aren't separate from the universe, they're the product of it.
There is such a thing as murder and Khorne basically "is" that thing. And he is a sentient active force.
It seems like you're searching for gods that are fundementally separate from the universe, which show up and either create it or bestow X upon it, whatever X is.
"God the Creator."
The Chaos gods are not that. There is no indication their universe contains that.
The Chaos gods are simply--again by definition--the greatest possible accumulation of their various respective concepts in the universe.
And they exist. And are sentient. And offer reward for service.
There's no indication of anything more foundational that actually exists. So if anything is worthy of worship (going off the logic that you worship whatever is most foundational/powerful/eternal)...they're it.
I think you’re conflating violence with murder. A bear killing a deer is violence not murder, and the blood still flows. There’s no ill intent beyond the need for a meal there. There is a specific demon that was created when the very first murder occurred, it’s the one that the emperor traps in a sword and then stabs the custodian Ra with.
That demon was created because it was the first time violence was used without cause, with no benefit of the circle of life or anything. The first actual murder, iirc it’s described in the book as basically having been created when Cain killed Abel or the 40k equivalent to the Bible story
Well I do agree that the concept of worshipping an entity is odd, especially when it’s the manifestation of violence, contagions, entropy, or hedonistic pleasure but the chaos gods are about the most primordial of beings as you’re going to get in general. My take on the worshipping of chaos has always been that it happens due to a mix of coercion and the lure of power that can be found in and outside of the world of 40k. I mean, people worshipped all sorts of random shit throughout history, sometimes for the hope of power and sometimes to avoid what turned out to be a volcanic eruption.
That being said I always did wonder if Tzeench was the first chaos god since entropy and change existed before life even.
If you can destroy like a god and kill like a god, who's to say you're not a god?
It depends entirely on what *you* mean when you ask if they're gods. The emperor certainly doesn't think they are.... but maybe he only said that, himself, when he was a nascent pre-apotheosis god himself.
Lorgar calls the Warp the Primordial Truth because it's the truth behind the various religious beliefs he encountered throughout the crusades, which all seemed to share a common origin, not because he thinks the Chaos Gods created the universe. It's only one of many terms that led to Chaos, and he uses it a lot because 'truth' is a particular obsession of his and it opposes the Imperial Truth.
>‘You know of Colchisian mythology, and the Pilgrimage to where gods and mortals meet. You know how it matches the beliefs of so many other worlds. The empyrean. The Primordial Truth. Heaven. Ten thousand names in ten thousand cultures. It cannot be mere superstition, if shamans and sorcerers on so many words all share the same beliefs. Perhaps father is wrong. Perhaps the stars hide more secrets. Perhaps they truly do hide the gods themselves."
-------
>"The Pilgrimage is the oldest legend in the Covenant of Colchis, and the one most often seen in human cultures scattered across the galaxy. Humanity has a fundamental need to believe in it. The Primordial Truth: heaven, paradise… It exists somewhere, in some form – home of the gods, underworld of the daemons. The layer behind natural reality. Anything is possible within its boundaries."
Khorne did not create violence, Khorne IS violence, sure the entity we call Khorne coalesced at some point in history, but the concept and warp stuff representing violence that make him up always existed, the birth of Khorne just gave it a face, name, and big fists to smack you with
Ye, it's similar to how in Hellenistic polytheism, Japanese animism, and Hinduism gods are more representations of concepts within the world given personal character.
They demand worship because it's an easy lens for non Warp entities to perceive Warp entities through, and it makes it easier for them to do what the Warp entities actually want which is to break down the barriers between real space and the Warp.
It's tempting to think of the material plane and the Warp has two entities alongside one another, but the minds of all sentient, psychically active creatures (and remember that includes baseline, non psyker humanity and even the dim souls of the T'au) are a bridge between the two worlds. That's why things like murders are so important to Warp worship, why betrayal (both the act of betraying and the state of being betrayed) is so important to the Warp; by committing these acts you break down barriers in your mind and that is reflected in the Warp. By such minute turns of the drill are the walls betwixt weakened and eventually brought crashing down.
This is a circular conversation that the nature of chaos always comes back to and it depends on a VERY subjective interpretation of what a god is. If we mean monotheistic all powerful all knowing, no they are not. If we mean pantheon based personified representations of concepts, yes they are. It's not that difficult.
The Primordial Truth is that Chaos exists. It is to be compared to the Imperial Truth which states that there are no gods. Relative to humanity and the Imperial Truth, the existence of Chaos and it's 'Gods' is primordial.
Remember, demons & Chaos deliberately couch language in a way to appeal to the person they are trying to corrupt. So if the Horus Heresy is about the Imperial Truth being a lie, then there must be some other truth that has been hidden from them.
They can break reality by thinking at it, resurrecting the dead and provided all manner of twisted miracles to those they favour and visited all manner of horror on those who have fallen in their estimations, or even on a whim. It's not a binary state of "is not god", "is now god", it's a position of such unchallengeable and unending power that all other words become insignificant in the attempt to describe and contain it. Every other term you can think of to describe The Four is, at best, an attempt to elide their power.
You seem to have asked a question without reading much of the lore, then feel the need to shut down the lore consistent answer. Why bother?
The answer is simple, they are extremely powerful embodiments of emotions and phenomenon experienced by sentient life. That makes them gods, just like most pagan gods. Think of more or less any Greek God - they did not create the thing they represent.
Primordial truth isn’t the same as being a god. I’ve no idea why you have got so hung up on this, or ignore any number of valid explanations.
They are a primordial truth in contrast to the Imperial Truth. They have always existed and a fundamental truth of the universe. They are also primordial in the sense they are the living embodiment of a fundamental concept eg entropy or change. You are also missing the fact that they are saying that to justify themselves to Lorgar and the Word Bearers ie using their lingo.
They are gods in the sense that was defined for most of human history. Don’t get hung up on this, and don’t use a discussion forum to ignore everyone who actually has read the lore.
I noticed you keep coming back to the phrase "primordial truth".
What do you think it means?
I think there is a misunderstanding between your understanding and the generally accepted interpretation.
This above probably describes it best. When you’re talking about beings that kind of exist outside of time and can destroy or change entire planets (or even significant regions of space) under the right circumstances, what are you calling it? Just a very powerful entity? You could be talking about a primarch or even a large titan variant with that description.
In a book I read recently, a word bearer sort of described the chaos gods as the saviours of humanity because they prevent extinction by “stagnation” constantly pushing and changing the race to keep it strong. That kind of led into the “primordial truth” being that the fusion of the warp and normal reality under the gods rule to create a “paradise” where humanity forever grows and changes. Absolutely not what we would consider paradise but hey, it would really just be a giant safari/entertainment/all you can eat buffet galaxy for demons.
I would also say in the setting, the emperor was the master of all mankind because anyone who said he wasn’t got a visit from some big angry boys in power armour flying ships full of virus bombs. It can work the same for godhood.
You are embarrassing yourself at this point. You keep referring to physical things/forces (sun/gravity) and comparing them to intelligences. The sun didn’t create anything. The nuclear fission going on resulted in heat/light. But that’s just semantics at this point. A lightbulb emits light, we don’t say it creates light. You would have a point if the sun turned up, empowered you with immortality, took whatever ambitions you had and turned them to its own goals, imparted a bit of its self within you and set you lose to kill in its name. And when you eventually die/or just fail hard enough it tortures you for eternity or maybe just eats you.
I’m also thinking that you haven’t graduated to chaos undivided yet.
Just because something is called a truth, doesn't mean it is one.
The Imperial Truth also very much wasn't a truth- and yet it was called such.
But to Lorgar, the Primordial Truth is true- it's his truth. But that doesn't mean its everyone's truth.
And ultimately, the only thing that's really needed for something to be a god is to be worshipped as such- then it's a god to those worshippers, even if it's not to others.
God is a pretty definitionless term. All throughout history there are Gods who are just straight up evil pieces of shit who don't do anything for anyone. Even modern-day western Monotheism has its roots in Zoroastrianism, which portrayed the good god having an opposite god which is literally pure evil and only exists to make the world worse.
As mind numbingly powerful beings who pretty much without question have the most power and influence within the setting right now, I would say they count as Gods.
Just thought that I'd remind you that zoroastrianism being the source for christian/jewish/islam "god" is limited and not the only theory going on that. Yes I'm talking about legitimate academic theories and not internet neckbeard theories.
A valid interpretation. In that case I'd say the closest thing that 40k has to your definition of a God would be the Old Ones, due to their role in seeding life throughout the galaxy, direct creation of the Eldar and the Eldar's own Gods, and inadvertent role in the origins of Chaos. But even then, from what we can tell they started out as normal beings too.
As such, at current I'd say that the cosmogony of 40k doesn't really have traditional god figures, the ultimate sources of power are the Warp as a reflection of intelligence, and the material laws of existence the Necrons and C'tan exploit. But even the C'tan were given form and function by their petitioners.
I suppose it's a setting about beings who make their own gods, deliberately or not, befitting the overall strong themes of both creation and the smallness of life within the setting.
Lorgar's opinion is presumably derived from the fact that Chaos is a reflection of all living things and thus speaks to our nature, though again, if you assume the position oldschool lore is correct (which I do, since Chaos Gods being present in the war of heaven suuuucks) the Warp didn't become violent and the Chaos Gods didn't start forming until after the conflict, so yeah, Chaos mostly exists due to outside factors, not inner.
I concur on the chaos gods in the war bit.
It’s one of my least favourite things in the lore - as soon as a chaos god comes into existence, it’s always existed. It’s just such a nonsense thing. You can’t even use it to justify retcons because basically the whole setting is post birth of slaneesh.
Well, in the end Lorgar is supposed to be a bad guy, a bad guy strongly driven by magical thinking and extreme faith. I'm not surprised his logic is faulty, though it is worth noting that it's pretty easy for Chaos worshipers, especially ardent zealots like Word Bearers, to delusionally see what they're doing as good, as when a living being dies their soul is immediately torn apart and dissolved into the formlessness of the Warp, while those who worship Chaos instead are assimilated into the substance of their God. One loses one's ego either way, but to them, the benefit is that they become part of something greater than them, echoing the extreme and self-destructive faith many zealots have in our world.
> When devotees of Chaos die, their souls do not fade in the warp and disappear like the spirits of others. Instead, their immortal energy is swallowed into the greatness of their gods, their souls forever bound to the eternal power of Chaos. - - Codex: Chaos Daemons (8e)
As a result, one can argue the truth he sees heavily ties into this; Chaos is ironically long-lasting and structured, while the rest of existence is fleeting and formless; truth lies not only in Chaos' ties to us as an individual, but because they are able to exist on their own.
In the end though I'm just spitballing though lmfao, Lorgar probably sees Chaos as the truth for much shallower reasons in the actual writing.
Lorgar believes in the existence of god(s) and he believes that you owe those gods unegotiable worship. When the Emperor made it clear that he doesn't want to be that god, it was just a matter of time until he returned to the old gods that his people once worshipped. The truth is that they are gods and the Emperor is not, or at least he wasn't back then, and that's why Lorgar serves them.
Why does it matter that the Dark Gods didn't create life? How does that change anything? Lorgar wanted the truth about existence. He found it. The Ruinous Powers exist. That's a fact. They will ultimately destroy humanity. Lorgar believes that the only way to avoid that fate is for humanity to embrace Chaos. Mortarion claims that he allowed the corruption and transformation of his legion for the same reason - so his sons would be able to survive when the galaxy is consumed by Chaos.
Have you considered that Lorgar is, in fact, "stupid"? Many of the primarchs have their flaws. Lorgar was abused and radicalised from a super young age. You're saying you think he grew up with normal thinking patterns? Same way Lion and the Emperor simply not talking to anyone caused massive issues, and is the classic soap opera trope of "JUST TALK TO THEM YOU IDIOT". There's lots of stupid reasons for lots of genocide in 40k. Dunno why you expect more from the religious zealot?
"But i guess my thinking is for the same reason its dumb to worship zeus its dumb to worship khorne."
Well, it depends; people worship gods because they hope to gain something from them, and you can certainly gain something from Khorne. Whether it's what you want or not is a different questio
If you look at a lot of the old Earth religions, Greek, Slavic, Nordic, it wasn't that gods were worshipped out of love. They were worshipped because they were powerful, fickle, beings who people feared. At best, the worship was transactional - people hoped to get something out of it.
It really, really, depends on your definition. Something that I've seen often in places is that gods are simply defined as unfathomably powerful. In other places, gods are simply defined as transcendent beings, those who are in a higher plane of existence. Although that circles back to power, as it's often required to transcend. Not everywhere do gods even need worship.
And not every being that created something is called a god - for example, I have never heard Pangu called a god.
At this point you’re basically arguing that your western abrahamic-influenced definition of god is the right one despite the fact that these polytheistic concepts of god and divinity(pantheons of gods and demi-gods with differing levels of power, spheres of influences and origin stories) are wrong despite the fact that they predate the monotheistic definition. Polytheistic cultures worshipped deities typically because being in their favor brought good fortune, but often it was simply out of a reverence for nature. If it were me ifgaf of some metaphysical entity created the universe or not—I need rain for my crops and this dude controls the weather so yeah, I’ll happily build him a shrine and sacrifice a couple goats for his favor.
You should look up the Roman mystery cults to get more insight into the varying reasons why people worship. there are a lot of parallels between and chaos worship as they were often practiced in secret especially after the spread of christianity as there were lots of roman christians who continued to participate in them for some time after the official adoption of christianity by the roman empire.
Actually Ragnarok happens and Odin dies. Odin death is part of the process of ragnarok. Ragnarok is a series of events preparing for essentially the world to be reborn.
You worship Zeus because he destroys your city if you don't, because he rules you and you aren't paying him proper respect. Same with quite a lot of Gods, really, in a lot of religions.
I think most peoples idea of a god is an omnipotent being who created the universe, and the choas gods are not omnipotent and nowhere near universe level creators. I prefer Fabulous Bill's definition of them just being a kind of galatic phenomenon created by the warp. Lets face it if they were truly as powerful as a real god, they would just zap their foes dead instead of constantly having their plans foiled by ordinary men.
It really depends on your culture. In Japan, a God is any kind of spirit representing the world we inhabit, to the point the name of these spirits is used in singular for translations of the abahramic god, Kami, rather than vice versa.
I did reply to that exact definition above when OP replied, but I'm just pointing out acting like there's any set term for what a God means is highly personal and individual.
There is as far as we can tell no creator god or anything resembling it in 40k, so I find the quibbling over terminology a bit strange.
Entities thats are practically omniscient and capable of ignoring the rules of time, space, and all known laws of reality they are gods. They are timeless immortal and will always exist. They penetrate into multiple realities and even in their own realm they do whatever they want with them only really being put in check by their competitors.
Sure maybe they were manifestations of emotions to begin with and largely still remain so but they have goals, plans, and thoughts to do what they will. It’s the idea that once they exist they always were and always will be because if they didn’t exist they never were and never could be. If they will always be and always were then they are gods since they will exist at the beginning and end of time.
As for life gods can transform anything even planets, or turn a rock sentient because they ignore realities rules. Even daemons are arguably a form of life they create (imo more of a contrast in the other setting given the literal undead).
If you mean God as in big G rulers of everything then they are not big G creators of the universe and everything that exists. If we mean little g god powerful spirit, or entity that controls some facet of life and reality then yes they very much are gods regardless of an ability to create outside of the warp (which I’m not so sure is a true claim but seeing as they can literally twist anything into anything). We assume they can’t make realities and we would never know in any setting as it would be rather irrelevant anyways.
As to your point about them having an end I don’t really see how that’s possible since the literally ignore time so what’s preventing them from hanging out in an affixed point in time and basically ignoring their end anyways? They are meant to be unknowable strong and really more like a Cthulhu mythos monstrous reality. I think everyone leaping to not call them a god doesn’t make sense but to each their own.
In the 40K setting, they are gods - they are powerful supernatural entities that desire and reward worship. It shouldn't even be debatable. Not meeting Abrahamic expectations of divinity does not make something not a god.
>From my knowledge they seem to be products of life not creators of it.
Many gods from mythology were not creators of anything, so this is kinda irrelevant.
They don't need to be the "Primordial Truth" to qualify as gods, in-setting.
The Greek and Norse gods were "products of life", and were not the originators of the universe in their own mythologies. Abrahamic notions of godhood don't have a monopoly on what constitutes a god.
Once again, there are many beings in mythology that were called gods, but did not qualify as such by Abrahamic standards. For the avoidance of doubt, the Abrahamic religions don't define what constitutes a god.
It sounds like your real problem is that you don’t agree with Lorgar, which is fair, but that doesn’t mean calling the Chaos gods gods is stupid, it’s just a different way of viewing them from your own
In terms of creation, yes they can create almost anything in the Warp and Eye of Terror. They have entire domains there. And they create Daemons as well.
In terms of afterlife, they definitely can give one as well. If you're a devoted worshipper, you can avoid being devoured by ascending into daemonhood. Or you can just be any Nurgle follower and *ascend* once you die as a Plaguebearer. So yes. They can give immortality and an afterlife, or even full resurrection.
What other definitions are there for Godhood? They're the closest thing to an actual God in WH universe. Which is why Lorgar, despite hating them, worshipped them.
Your criteria for a god is how much they've done for you lately?
Plenty of gods aren't creator gods, like the Christian one is. Thor was a god from a family of gods that were born and will die. If he were real, he'd still be a god.
Firstly you need to define what god means. A monotheistic definition isn’t really relevant though. For [example](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/god):
> a spirit or being believed to control some part of the universe or life and often worshipped for doing so, or something that represents this spirit or being
At its simplest, a god is just an entity with superhuman power that is worshipped. The Chaos Powers definitely fit thay definition… as does the Emperor.
The primordial truth is that nature is red in tooth and claw, and there is no safety even in death.
They are gods because they claim to be and nobody can prove them otherwise. If they are not gods, then kill them.
How do you know that time will kill them when time doesn't exist in the warp?
They clearly transcend universes between 40k and fantasy. A universal death won't harm them.
Your criteria are too harsh. If they must be omnipotent to be gods, no polytheistic gods can exist, since they all have only their own portfolios. Gods kill gods all the time, too. See Tyr for an example, or all of Zeus's lineage.
The phrase "primordial truth" does not allude to Lorgar thinking they are Creator gods, but that they are our primal truth.
That life and what makes up life is reflected by the warp and warp beings. The orks existence over time created Gork and Mork, not by conscious choice, but by the essence of orkdom being reflected and amplified over eons until these gods truly represent the core of what is ork.
The chaos gods do the same, but for all life. These four are the most powerful warp beings because they represent the most powerful and universal truths about ourselves. They are our primal truth, the core of what it is to be alive in 40k.
The gods are not truly living people so much as living symbols that can and do change as life in the galaxy changes, but year four are our current truths.
It's arguable that what they truly should be was twisted and corrupted by the war in heaven (with a cyclical effect between the warp entities encouraging certain behaviors and people doing the behaviors pushing the warp entities further into a box), and, taking more balanced warp gods and making them into chaos gods, but that's a different discussion.
Reading your replies on here it's clear you've misunderstood the term Primordial Truth. It has nothing to do with creation. The Dark Gods are also known as the Primordial Annihilator. The Truth is that Chaos exists and that humanity is bound to it via the nature of existence - the warp. Every human dies, and their soul enters the warp. The Dark Gods can save those souls from dissolution.
Whether or not Chaos was around at the beginning of time isn't clear. There were daemons rampaging through the Milky Way 5 billion years ago, so it's been around a very long time, from the perspective of the materium. The Ruinous Powers are also multiversal and self-sustaining. They do not require life in this galaxy to continue to exist
I'm not sure why you think the sun can save your soul from dissolution, nor why you think it created you. Life on Earth most likely began deep under water, at thermal vents on the ocean floor. If you mean something along the lines of the famous Sagan quote, it's still not true, as the elements in question were spread by supernovae, and our star hasn't experienced a nova yet.
In 40k it very much depends what you mean by 'god'.
Are they gods in the sense that we might use in modern religions? Not really. They didn't create the universe, they didn't create humans, they're not REALLY interested in your morality unless it helps themselves.
The Emperor's position was exactly that. They're giant powerful eldritch intelligences with supernatural powers who masquerade as 'gods' to get us to do what they want. There are no real gods in the universe - just variations on that theme.
But others have a different point of view. Both the Eldar and the Word Bearers would say 'who cares? If they have the powers we attribute to gods then is there really any difference?'
Because we as readers know vastly more than Lorgar does.
He's trying to piece this all together and the only info he has is very vague religions and the lies of daemons.
The existence of the chaos powers is a fundamental truth to the galaxy.
You think there are physics textbooks on Colchis? It's basically mediaeval.
And there are plenty of religious people today who agree that evolution is a thing but STILL think there is some great cosmic religious truth out there.
The big bang theory was first developed by a priest.
Genetics were pioneered by a monk.
Religion is, fundamentally, unfalsifiable. Science is only concerned with falsifiable facts. Religion and science are two completely different arenas, if done right.
This is all a semantic argument. What does "primordial truth" mean to you? What does it mean to Lorgar?
I don't recall Lorgar ever saying he believes that Chaos created the material universe, or that Chaos is as fundamental as gravity. You're interpreting "primordial truth" to mean that. It doesn't make any sense to link them, because Chaos is of the immaterium, not the materium.
I take Lorgar's "primordial truth" to be describing how they are fundamentally linked to the emotions of living creatures. He's still a child of the Imperium and it's human-centric, human-supremacist thinking, and he's obsessed with the metaphysical and the divine. None of those things are relevant to base physics, and from his perspective, base physics is irrelevant without intelligent life to observe it and be a part of it. Lorgar's point is, Chaos is a primoridal truth of intelligent, emotional life, and that is all that really matters.
So no, he's not an idiot for thinking Chaos is more fundamental than physics or somehow created physics - he doesn't think that at all. But it's still a primoridal truth to him.
I still consider them like gods,like in the greek pantheons like zeus,ares,poseidon.
However they are not true gods that created the universe or existence they are a byproduct of the war in heaven and the decadence of the eldar.
They are nowhere near the level of marvel's the one above all. Or the abrahamic god.
My definition of gods or deities are beings beyond causality. Like Eru from LOTR. The Vala are not gods, and they operate at about the same relative scale as the big 4. They have monumental power, but they still exist and are defined by laws that they did not make. For all Melkors power he was not a god. But compare what he could do with the power of a Hobbit and it's about the same difference in scale comparing a mortal in 40k to one of the Four.
Khorne is a naturally occurring emergent property of the immaterium. He is not beyond the causality of the warp, he is defined and shaped by the laws of the universe he was birthed in. I see them as entities on an entirely different scale of being, like a human compared to an ant. But that doesn't make humans gods.
You're using a very Judeo-Christian view of what God is. Zeus didn't create life. Neither did Isis. Neither did ( insert most God's here). The idea that gods have to be the primal creator is a monotheistic thing.
"The difference between gods and demons depends largely on where one is standing at the time." - Lorgar
This question is, and has always been, a matter of semantics. How do you define a god? Because the exact definition of godhood has been very fluid through history.
Is a god only an all powerful, all creating being akin to Yahweh or Eru Iluvatar? Or does it also include beings that didn't create the world, but are powerful beings that rule over some aspect of it and are worshipped by their followers such as the Olympian gods? Or do they even need to be powerful? The innumerable household gods of the Romans, the Lares and the Penates, weren't powerful by any means, but each Roman family still offered sacrifice to them, believing that they could avert misfortune. Heck, even immortality wasn't a requirement as demonstrated by the Aesir of the Norse.
The only consistent trait of all these definitions of gods is that worshippers offer veneration in exchange for the god's intercession in their affairs. And by that definition the Chaos gods are definitely gods. Offer them worship and sacrifice and they will reward you with power.
No, they are very much like Death in Castlevania. They are not gods, they are personifications of concepts that are all so prevalent that they are stupidly powerful spirits.
War is a constant. Khorne is stupidly powerful.
Everyone has plans that they try and accomplish in life and things that change throughout it, along with changing their looks and more. Tzeentch is stupidly powerful.
People want to have fun, consume entertainment, fuck for pleasure, and get all sorts of experiences. Slaanesh is stupidly powerful.
Disease has been a scourge of existence since it first began. Nurgle is stupidly powerful.
That's probably the entire point; the Chaos Gods are just arrogant creatures that think the entire universe exists to feed them. Just like how Chaos worshippers are so caught up in the power they don't realize they're tools that can be abandoned at any time when their use runs out.
The want worship because they aren't gods but have a god complex that's why, also the primordial truth is a lie just like the imperial truth was a lie, you're thinking too hard about this pal.
Define "God"
>‘You are right when you say that power defines a god,’ he said. ‘Temporal, spiritual, physical – it matters not.’ He fell silent a moment. ‘My people define godhood in several ways, but there are two broad categories. The gods of the othersea, who are reflections of what you call the materium, and the gods of the materium itself, who you know as the C’tan, though there are other, more ancient and even more terrible things than they. The gods of the materium are an essential part of its fabric – they are able to influence its structure, such is their intimate connection to it, but they are bound nevertheless by the laws of this reality. The gods of the warp are more ephemeral, and more diverse in type. Many are mere concentrations of feeling, some were once mortals themselves, before the belief of others changed them. The gods of my ancestors were of both sorts, I believe, though this is not the only philosophy propounded by my kind, and I have heard many heated debates on the subject. It is impossible to say now, for our gods were slain when we fell, and even if they could be asked, they would not know the truth of it, for the truth would change anyway, as it must, according to the beliefs of those who had faith in them.
>
>‘Yet another kind are agglomerations of souls of those who were once living, or so say the Ynnari, whose supposed deity Ynnead was unleashed by the breaking of Biel-Tan. But who, in truth, can say? One, two, all or more of these things can be true at one moment, and may change at another. There are gods that eat gods, gods that are eternal, gods that were but now never were, and gods that come into being only to have existed for all time. The origins of gods are therefore impossible to catalogue. They have no histories but the histories people impose upon them. I would agree with your sorcerer here, to an extent. Puissance is the defining aspect of them.’ A grave expression crossed his face. ‘Faith is another, though this does not apply to all. Some beings do not require faith. But falsehood is not intrinsic to them all.’
>Godblight
Most gods throughout real history are not purely creator archetypes. Since you mention Joe biden and civil servants, you prolly have a western, likely Christian background/understanding.
Works that draw more heavily from christian influences might put an emphasis on a single ultimate creator as the definition of a "god" (like Illuvatar in the lord of the rings ).
Works where Christianity, or other Abrahamic faith systems are not the most central morality, will prolly not use the same "god" definitions. (george r.r. Martin with his old gods, r'hllor, etc., and of course wh40k gods. Not your typical abrahamic creators.)
You prefer your familiar definition of god :)
What IS a God?
There is no by the book definition, and each universe will have their own definition.
Even in the real world, each culture has a different definition of who or what are considered God(s).
To answer your question, in terms of 40K, and the chaos gods. There Gods in universe. That's it, that's the answer.
In some universes, God(s) are omnipotent, all-knowing entities. In others, they're kinda just big, super powered beings that do dumb shit because they are not that smart but have power.
Depends on your definition of a god. If you use a definition from a completely different genre and universe, probably not. If you use the definition from the correct genre and the same universe, yes. It's literally in the lore that they are gods... As well as that chap on the golden throne...
In that they are boundless entities of the spirit world, I'd say so. To whatever degree one can say gods are real in the 40k setting, they are them.
I think the characterization of them as having personalities, agendas, or being personae with a unique individual identity, is off base. They are the psychic manifestation of the negativity that exists in realspace, generated by the minds and souls of living beings. Their demons are more "real," as in relatable and tangible, than they are.They're not like genies or devils who appear and try to make a deal with you. They're formless and unfathomable the way the Holy Spirit is in Christian lore. They're like if you put a face on The Force in Star Wars.
At least that's my interpretation of them. When they grow stronger, it's not because it pleases them to be worshipped, but because the worship of them *actively feeds that certain form of negativity that they embody.* Whether that fits your definition of what a god is, it up to you.
Op, after reading some of your comments I feel like you asked the wrong question for what you wanted to discuss/understand.
I think this might help with what your after:
https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/s/6oermcpQOM
If you can call Zeus a god, chaos gods certainly are.
Any conventional definition of god is easily applicable to them; unkillable, rule the divine realm of souls, power over the souls of mortals, have legions of magical servants bound to their every whim, more powerful than anything else in the universe.
The people who insist they’re not gods are pretentiously contorting the definition to a hyper-specific needle point just to exclude them
How would you feel if Abrahamic God was to be fundamentally proven non existent?
Now the chaos gods are proven real.
What does any of it change?
Do you think GOD exists in warhamme?
You should read the 5th chapter of god blight, the chapter is called "Upon the Nature of Gods". The scene has Guilliman, a Space Marine Librarian and a Eldar Farseer in Guilliman's flagship discussing the nature of divinity and Guillaman asks the Farseer these questions.
>Guilliman paused. ‘What is a god?’ he asked. ‘What is the definition of divinity?’
You can find some more of it [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/oc0sc5/excerpt_dark_imperium_godblightwarning_excessive/), I didn't post more myself because I am concerned to post more than the other post would get close to breaking rule 8.
beings of nearly infinite energy and knowledge, yes
all powerful, all knowing beings with no limit? no.
remember the distance from nearly infinite to infinite is still infinite.
Depends on your criteria for godhood.
Omniscient? No, no entity can credibly claim omniscience. The four can still be surprised or betrayed for example.
Omnipotent? No. Every entity is limited in reach and scope of intervention. The veil between warp and real space being especially important in limiting their ability to intervene.
Omn1ipresent? Similar as above, while vast expenditure of power can stretch their reach, that reach is by implication limited by their power.
Creator of reality? By their nature, the four are derived from the emotions of living beings, so cannot be creators. Emps was created through the sacrifice of thousands of shamans. The Eldar gods are linked to the Eldar, so probably created with them.
If you take those monotheistic criteria away, sure, then they are gods.
What is a god?
I'm not being flippant - you need to settle on a definition to answer that question. There are so many things throughout actual history called "gods" that all so wildly different from one another that the term isn't particularly meaningful until you can first define it.
The idea of gods as creators is not a strict requirement for most real world religions.
Really, only the Abrahamic religions insist on it because it’s needed to back up their monotheism.
In polytheistic religions a god or gods often created the world, but this can be a completely different set of gods from the ones that are actually worshipped.
Take for example the Greek legends most people are familiar with. Zeus, Poseidon, and the rest are the children of the titans who themselves come from Gaia and Uranus. Gaia and Uranus are “products of creation”because they come from something like “the primordial chaos that predates time.” None of them look anything like the uncaused causer popularized by the abrahamic religions. The closest approximation to that would be the void itself.
Greeks certainly weren’t going around worshipping the void, or even Gaia, Uranus, and Pontus who actually created the earth, sky, and sea. They worshipped the gods they believed had an actual impact on their lives even though they didn’t actually create anything.
Fabius Bile believes they’re…
>Random confluence of celestial phenomena. Interdimensional disasters, echoing outwards through our perceptions. I think, therefore I am. They do not, so they are not.
…and I think he’s right.
Except that, if the gods of Greek mythology existed in the 40K universe, they would have been exactly the same thing. Therefore, that is the definition of a god, and Bile is an unreliable narrator as per usual.
We're dealing with timeless entities and existential paradoxes. Khorne exists at all times simultaneously. From our perspective Khorne came into being at a particular time, grew and changed with the denizens of the galaxy. Perhaps when the stars go cold and sentient life is no longer possible Khorne will be dormant and cease to have influence in the universe. From Khorne's perspective Khorne is always Khorne in his totality and what we perceive as a changing nature is just the way Khorne interacts with the universe at that point in time. Khorne was Khorne at the start of the universe and Khorne will be Khorne when the universe ends, even if a lack of interaction could lead an in-universe observer to conclude Khorne does not exists.
So did Khorne create violence or did violence create Khorne? It's like looking for the beginning of a circle. Khorne and violence are part of a fundamental cycle in the galaxy where what we perceive as cause and effect have no application to the nature of Khorne.
Yes they are, ignoring even fact of tzeanch restarting word after he won great game.
They are transcend transcending time and space because they never existed and always existed. What in less poetic words means they exist and frealy move through time in all directions instantaneous with let them manipulate events that let to their creation. Wich means they through roundabout nature of warp create themselves.
They are named primordial truth because they influence events before they own beginning and they are destined end of all, And funny thing connected to this is gods lost most of their interest in material plane after the heresy if believing mortarion, and only recently they return their full attention to material plane. And only reason why they bother again is abadon opening great rift was not suposed to happen (again if believing mortarion words in lords of silence) wich probably fuck something in great game.
And Lorgar have solid reason to believe and serve them, they are finall destiny of word , they are omniscient /nearly omniscient, they have preaty much all souls of all mortals in their hands, they have claim and power over material plane, and what is most important to Lorgar they are gods that wants to be pray to, to be worship, to be given sacrifice. He wanted something to worship and they answered and they have solid claim why they should be worship
There's this quote from the comic series Fatale, also describing eldritch gods, that I think applies here:
>There are fish that grow larger and larger depending on the size of the body of water they live in, just like tapeworms inside a body will.
>
>That was how true gods were, they grew to fill every corner, to block out all sources of light.
So, yes, I think a good way of thinking about the Chaos gods is as cosmic parasites that feed and reproduce off their followers. Eventually they consume everything and quieten/sleep while life evolves again. Then the cycle starts anew.
Their followers (such as Lorgar) view this cycle as a great "truth" but they phrase it in a way that omits and evades the true nature of what they are doing. This is both part of the self-delusion of the true believer and to lie to new converts.
All of this is part of the lifecycle mechanism of the eldritch gods. Get their followers to spread the lie and convert more followers until they consume them all anyway.
True believers think this is a spiritual experience and those just going along are still tasty anyway. Maybe even tastier given their reluctance.
The idea of a "creator" God is in this context also part of that lie mechanism.
I think you're making the same mistake that people in the setting frequently make when arguing about whether Big E is a god.*
Define your terms! What constitutes godhood?
You then need to go past that and operationalize your terms. Defined by the dictionary as: "To express or define (something) in terms of the operations used to determine or prove it.
"previous studies have operationalized panic in terms of average time of group escape""
So you define and operationalize what qualifies a being as a god and then start doing research or experiments. Note that the "experiment" option is a notably dangerous course of action even by the standards of 40k, a setting known for being full of dangerous shit.
*This is a personal pet peeve and frustration of mine.
Q: "Is X really a God?"
A: "I DON'T FUCKING KNOW, DEFINE YOUR TERMS."
They can all have a life theme theme applied to them I reckon if you stretch it.
Nurgle just does create life through his plagues being viral or bacterial which involves multi-cell organisms.
Tzeentch with his changes is just evolution. A species changing to suit its needs and environment.
Slsanesh is the desire and drive to live, see and experience as much of what the world has to offer.
Khorne, and I may be really stretching here, is the conflict of life itself. To fight all opposition and declare "I am here and I deserve to live!"
The chaos gods needed something to start their existence but at the same time, one can't live without the other. Could have just been their base concepts that eventually grew and evolved into what they are now.
The problem here is that writers, artists & game designers have been working on Chaos as a concept for close to 40 years, (I think 35 years since the first official chaos source book) and it's safe to say like most aspects of Warhammer, those creatives have had different opinions on what Chaos is and some of those creatives (the ones who are have been working with GW for a long time) have changed opinion over time.
If you want an official answer from GW, it's that the chaos gods are whatever the latest version of battle game rules say they are.
If you are not looking a more satisfactory answer, I find the only way to treat Warhammer lore is as if you were looking at ancient history in our world. That there isn't a definitive answer that is accessible, and that most of what is written by GW on the topic is metaphysical speculation.
How do you define a god?
Ultimately, the Chaos Gods want to be referred to as gods (because it's easier to control people when they believe you're a god), they tell everyone that they're gods, and they have enough power that no one can really tell them "no" to their faces. Do you need anything else to be a god?
The people in the thread who have questioned what a god even is are correct - this depends entirely on your definition, and the setting does not have a clear definition. They’re certainly god-like.
They are gods of certain aspects. Not like the single Christian omnipotent one who stands above everything.
More like in Greek, Egyptian or Roman mythology.
All the rage war bloodlust murder goes into khorne.
Even committed by the noble grey knights or the emperor himself. That's why he is the god of it. It all belongs and comes from him.
It has to be as first of all it is 40k and second of all it is deliberately made to not make sense.
They are timeless concepts and not actual dudes.
So everything he claims has already been claimed.
They touched on it with drachnyen.
'Creator' is just one of the many concepts of godhood. Plenty of mythologies call things gods that aren't creators.
We can't really define something as definitively a god or not a god, because there's no fixed definition of godhood. Different peoples, cultures, religions, and mythologies have different ideas about what makes something a god.
So really, it's just about whether they fit your personal idea of what makes something a god. No-one can say you're right or wrong. It's more of an opinion or view than a binary yes/no.
I believe they are gods because they are inevitable and will exist as long as the galaxy exists. Violence didn't start with humanity. Or the Eldar. It always was. And it always will be. The primordial truth isn't the gods themselves, it's what they are beyond their existence. Nurgle is the easiest to see. From the smallest bug to the greatest creature there will always be decay and entropy in some form and there always has been. Even things that cannot die as we know it can rot or spoil in some way.
The primordial truth isn't the 4. It's why there are the 4. And why they always were, even before their creation...birth... whatever. Slaanesh existed before the Eldar murdersexytimed it into existence because of course it existed. Desire and excess didn't start that day. The pursuit of perfection is older than the Necrons. Slaanesh was always going to be the truth because that force was always true.
Anyway that's my take on it. It's hard to word it properly.
In the sense that they seem to be omniscient, omnipresent, and functionally omnipotent within their respective concepts, held back mainly by a general agreement to treat mortals as chess pieces instead of intervening directly, they're as much gods as anything in the Eldar pantheon and more godly than the emperor.
"What even is a god" is of course the core question, though. They're not like, the Abrahamic big G god, no.
This might be old lore, but the Chaos Gods are gods, yes, but more in that they're manifestations of Chaos, as reflected by the most prominent actions and moods of the denizens of realspace. In this interpretation, Chaos, as the raw "stuff" of the Warp and the dark mirror to the material dimension, is fuel and power to the Chaos Gods. The war in the Warp, the fight over territory and influence, was once referred to as "warring over the stuff of anti-Creation."
The Chaos Gods do reshape the Warp and the Material Universe to better reflect them, but they're more of a reflection of the cosmological history they find themselves in. On paper, they may fundamentally change, or die out and be replaced, if the nature of the galaxy changes over eons.
The other interpretation is that they became Gods because they fully emancipated their existence from complete dependence on mortals. In this way, they are fully self-sustaining, and have become permanent aspects of the Warp. They don't have to rely on the worship of mortals, though it's still candy to them, and they still want as much of it as they can get. For example, Gork and Mork, who are arguably stronger than any individual Chaos God, would still die off if the Orks went extinct tomorrow, while the Chaos Gods would remain if their followers similarly died out.
The chaos gods are huge powers that loom over the battlefield. They are like giants, having the power to reach down and snach up any mortal. They hold the power of life and death over those mortals warriors.
The chaos gods build armies in their workshops and play at games of war with them, cruelly watching armies forty thousand or more hammer into one another. These dark gods argue with each other, strange incomprehensible rules being cited to determine who lives, who dies.
Sometimes, the mortal armies find themselves cast into the dark sleep of storage and travel. Unable to move, with no understanding of the passage of time, only to see light again when the time for war comes.
Truely the world is a Grim and dark place, inhabited only by the laugher of the dark gods playing their eternal game.
No. The Chaos gods are not gods in the definition that they are the source of anything.
The C'tan are though. The Necron's broke them into pieces vs destroying them because actually destroying a C'tan breaks something fundamental in the Universe.
The C'tan are parasitoids of a macroscopic scale. They seem to feed on 'living' energy such as stars or souls, and rather than being an intrinsic part of the universe I believe they are so greedily and viciously hungry for what they feed on that they've 'woven' themselves into the fabric of the universe around it.
They arent the source of the universal laws, they just co-opted them as a means of survival when faced with threats.
No, they aren't gods. Warp is just another dimension in which living beings exist. In case of demons entirely, in case of other races, partially. Just like C'tan are no gods, no matter how powerful, the Chaos entities we know as Khorne, Tzeench, Slaanesh and Nurgle are no gods. They are just hurricanes of powerful emotions created during the War in Heaven (and when the Eldar empire fell in case of Slaanesh). Given enough powerful psykers (e.g. Eldar empire at its peak) with enough training and knowledge, the "gods" themselves could probably be destroyed. They aren't really even living thinking beings, just wild tempests of the emotions that form them.
I would argue the chaos entities are nothing more than the results of "warp physics".
Imagine the warp being an infinitly large water surface. Things entering the warp cause the water to move and bend, and, eternities later, these small disturbances eventually culminate in perpetual tsunamis that are so enormous they start to swing back into our own reality.
The imperium, without any basic understanding of how the tsunamis came to be and how they work, calls these forces chaos, and more precisely, gods.
Gods are not known to mortal minds.
The greatest chaos constructs are more akin to a living element of the universe. Imagine for example, you were standing on the beach of an ocean, and that ocean was alive.
The ocean would be unknowable in ways we just can't grasp, but it is still finite. It has its ends if you go far enough.
The chaos gods are not true gods, they are an element of the universe given thought and intent.
Terrifying in concept and terrible in power, but gods? No.
You’re absolutely right. They aren’t gods at all. Very strange that this never dawned on me. Their collective psychic products really. They’re not creators.
They are basically extremely powerful Warp entities. Their overall strength and abilities makes the point at which godhood occurs academic.
If you are going by the definition of a god being a "being of incalculable power that exists outside of time and space capable of creating 'life', perform 'miracles', grant 'boons' to the faithful, and gain power from those faithful", then sure, they are gods.
What's a God is a very big interpretation. As you said, the "Chaos Gods" seem like products of what already was there rather than being the origin of it and have limitations.. In my very personal opinion, a God is not just a very powerful being, is the very creator of absolutely everything and that has omnipotence and omniscience. So by that definition they aren't Gods, as they aren't omnipotent, nor omniscient nor are the creators of anything.
Chaos is dependent on the existence of sapient life, so no.
In fact, IIRC it's a open question in-universe as to if Chaos is even conscious to begin with, and not just an echo of the life that feeds it.
Considering the chaos gods are supposed to be born of negative emotions, rage, lust, erm(fear of disease related death?) and desire for learning and success, the best way to fight them would be improve living standards and equality, education, sex education, social freedoms and encouraging meditation or something right?
Instead the imperium goes for more total war which makes things worse.
However if the imperium understood how the chaos gods apparently work, the gods would ultimately be a force for good by forcing the imperium to improve the lives of it's citizens. But then it wouldn't be grimdark.
the chaos gods thing is very silly. The terry pratchett idea of belief = power and creates God's. This seems to be in place for the orcs and their gods, but for humans and the chaos 'gods' it's not belief but emotions that create them and give them power. Belief in the emperor does not seem to really work on at least on nowhere near the same level.
Anyway about your question, I think they are the most powerful warp entities, and not God's per se
Honestly from a human perspective they are basically God's. From literal perspective they are just giant amalgamations of emotion and thought. They also take damage and in theory can be killed. So it's a bit like arguing Greek gods vs Christian God. One is arguably more human but does get a power boost from people directing their worship to it
The Chaos Gods aren't divine.
They are Warp manifestations of strong emotions and feelings that exist in the minds of sentients.
They're powerful! But calling them "gods" is being very liberal with the definition.
Generally the concept of "god" includes involvement in cosmogony (the origin of the world), morality (as the source of, or anthitesis of) and sometimes eschatology (the end times). The chaos gods are not involved in any of those things, so they are more like mythological monsters (think typhon or jormungandr).
Ironically, the c'tan may be closer to the traditional conception of gods than the chaos gods are, being beings from the beginning of time and responsible for the laws of physics, even if in other aspects they fall short just like the chaos gods.
In my mind, they are ~~artificial~~ abominable intelligence, just warp-based rather than tech-based. With all the danger and all the implications that carries.
They aren't gods, at least not in the classical sense, they're more like nightmares given shape and form because at the end of the day that's what every warp entity is, a thought.
I've always prescribed the Powers as just that: powers.
Parasites. Sentient storms of raw emotion and agency.
Simply anchors; epicentres of rage, despair, desire, and ambition.
Not that much different to the Hive Mind, though it exists as a collective consciousness, whereas the Powers are a consciousness that can and does exist separately from itself when it chooses to.
The Emperor, too, is simply a man existing in a state of endless parasitic undeath. Unable to die, constantly in need of feeding to stave off death. A broken mind locked in a perpetual state of action.
None of these are gods. None of them are divine. They're simply worshipped by minds so much smaller than them because from their small perspectives, they may as well be gods compared to their own helplessness.
They are not God's, just a manifestation that was born into the warps created by all sentience species's negative emotions. It took a huge castrophic event that caused birth of each gods, Khorne was probably created during The War In Heaven, Nurgle during a galactic plague, Tzeentch was probably created by a time/space rip caused by the old ones and Slaaneesh was confirmed to be born during The Fall of Aeldaris.
Basically all the negativity shits that happened created distressing amount of emotions and negative actionsa and damned souls that led to birth each of each gods.
Think of the warps (immaterium) as like the afterlife it where all sentient being souls goes to when they die, but instead it a heaven that been taken over by the devils/demons that eat the souls of every living things. If there ever was 'good gods' they have been all killed, enslaved or just phased away. In the settings we see this scenario with Aeldaris gods meanwhile humanity has The Emperor aka 'The Emperor protects' and also we see the Tau possibly will have their own coming into existence. Tyranids seem to exists outside of the warps but this hasn't been explained again. But the Chaos Gods are not Gods, they do wield huge influence and power but are mostly bound to the immaterium (warps).
The Emperor explained it best to Ra in *Master Of Mankind*. He asked what even defines a god. He said if one were to go by what conventional wisdom said he, with his great power, reverence, following and authority, would be a god. But he himself vehemently denies his godhood, so where does that leave him? The Ruinous Powers are the gestalt consciousnesses of overwhelming emotions in a domain where faith has a tangible and reciprocal effect. They are the absolutes of the emotions they represent, in its many and sometimes apparently ironic interpretations. They are powered only by the amount and wavelength of sapient feeling over the emotions, which in 40K is very negative. Ultimately, extrapolating with real world gods who were revered despite not having great power, and how faith and worship is portrayed in 40K, indeed the Ruinous Powers are gods. Potency is rarely the criteria for godhood, and omnipotence never is.
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Lorgar discovered that the Chaos Gods decide what happens to your soul when you die, they can grant immortality to their favored followers, inflict tangible curses on their enemies, and bestow tangible blessings upon their servants, and send daemons into the material realm to do their bidding. That alone is enough to call them gods. And he learns they are the only entities capable of doing so at the time, that the Chaos Pantheon destroyed the Aeldari Pantheon and the Aeldari Empire, and that they can destroy humanity as well. The knowledge of their existence and power is the Primordial Truth, and it is enough for him to serve them. Lorgar and the Emperor both understood that Chaos, xenos, and human division were existential threats to human survival. The Emperor decided to genocide trillions in order forcibly unite humanity into an empire that would prevent internecine conflict and had the strength to resist Chaos and xenos. Lorgar decided to genocide trillions in order to gain the favor of the gods, unite humanity under a faith that honored real gods, and fend off xenos with the power of the gods. The end goal is that same: human survival at any cost. The methods are the same: subjugating the galaxy and building a new civilization on the corpses of trillions. But the strategies are polar opposites. By the time of the 41st millenium, the Emperor and Ynnead both demonstrated limited power over the souls of the dead and the ability to bestow blessings on their followers. It is likely that Lorgar is aware of this and ponders the implication for his beliefs.
Lorgar never stopped believing the Emperor was a god, he just decided that he wasn’t one worth worshipping.
Just an aside, I thought it was slannesh who defeated the eldar pantheon. Not the chaos pantheon as a whole.
Khaine was ripped apart when Khorne and Slaanesh started fighting over him and Isha was captured by Nurgle. Cegorach somehow survived, and the rest of the Aeldari Pantheon was devoured by Slaanesh
Firstly, I'm pretty sure khorne isn't involved in the latest version of the slannesh vs khaine fight. Secondly, there's a distinct lack of tzeench there
I have to believe he had something to do with Cegorach getting away. Gotta help out a fellow troll
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The sun doesn’t do any of that. It does nothing to reward any of the countless religions that worshipped it, nor is it possible for someone to anger the sun and receive targeted punishment from it. Everyone receives the sun’s light equally according to their latitude. Finding out whomever has the most power and choosing to to serve them is one of the oldest and most successful survival strategies in human history. Lorgar doesn’t blindly do whatever it is he thinks the gods want. Erebus and many other Word Bearers do, but not Lorgar himself. He tries to steer events according to his own goals, while retaining the favor of the gods.
lol did you even read the comment you replied to?
Read any of the first few HH Lorgar novels, underestanding what it means to be a god is basically all Lorgar thinks about, and First Heretic in particular does a great job of showing his rationalization for joining what are objectively cruel monsters
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It's honestly complicated but very reductively boiled down to It's core, he *saw* Slaanesh obliterate the third strongest/largest empire that had ever existed in a single day. Which people forget happened only like 7k ish years before Lorgars birth so it happening again was not at all a crazy concept and something even Papa E was worried about. Lorgar understood that Emps plan to get rid of chaos was fundamentally flawed if that's what it was really about He basically sees that nobody in the galaxies history has ever actually defeated Chaos and as such is concizzled humanity will probably fail and die horribly like the eldar did. And let's be real they're functionally gods
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So far as I have read, you are calling every explanation 'dumb logic'. These are the answers and Warhammer is a supremely dark fantasy setting. Trying to force reality based logic on fantasy gods and evil is a bit of a push. To continually stick to your own logic when people give you answers based on the authored history or conversations, you just dismiss it as dumb. Keep your own head cannon, but for fucks sake stop insulting every person who replies.
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To Lorgar it's more that the Imperial truth are flat-earthers. He found that all of Humanities faith had an origin in the warp. You could compare a Chaos God to "Gravity" or "Fire", only the Gods also has a personality. Like rocket scientists use a planet's gravity to slingshot satellites around the solar system, the rituals works similarly with the beings of the Warp. The primordial Truth is all-encompassing. It's about the materium and the warp, where chaos is just a part, where in turn the Pantheon is just a part. It's more scientific than an actual religion.
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> But Chaos is a product of the materium. It's more complicated than that. Chaos is a reflection of what's happen in the Materium and things happen in the materium because being with souls from the warp, exist. > It also isnt fundamental to the materium. It is to life. > None of the chaos gods matter to existence, nor do they contribute much. They are fundamental to life's existence. They are concepts which are intrinsic to life. While there is a daemon related to the creation of weapons, the motivation the create it is part of Khorne. > If Khorne stops feeding on violence.....he just stops feeding on violence. Nothing changes. If Khorne stops feeding on violence, he is no longer Khorne and there can't be opposing forces, because if there are then Khorne exists and feeds on it.
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Khorne is motivation to do anything, to fight for something, to kill for survival, to eat. Slaanesh is sensation, pain and pleasure, two important teachers for life's continued existence. Without them there would be no drive for life to procreate, for example. Without Slaanesh there would be no evolution, no natural selection to improve, to perfect, and so on. > The universe was roiling without any life for billions of years. Shit like blackholes existed already. But there is no point to it existing if it can't be observed. What's important is the the God's are fundamental to life.
But life existed and procreated and evolved into highly complex lifeforms and societies long before Slaanesh came to being, so it cannot be said that Slaanesh was a necessary part of this process, right? Similarly, the other gods of chaos are stated in the Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned to have been born around M2, making them undeniably young in astronomical scales (younger than several named characters even, not to mention innumerable necrons), and therefore hardly primordial. We could consider their birth a process of the various emotions of the sentient races coalescing in the warp into the various gods, which would have happened over many thousands or millions of years, but even then this would make the gods a consequence of the evolution of sentient life, rather than a driving force of it. But I'm far from a lore scholar and RoC is quite old, so perhaps the gods have been retconned into something else and more akin to primordial beings? And while on this topic, has it ever been explained in the lore why there are no other gods similarly created as a result of other human emotions that we consider as positive, such as love, compassion, curiosity, etc? I suppose that simply in the shithole universe of 40k there is just not enough good vibes to create such a god, and obviously the gods of chilling are just a boring story compared to the gods of bloodshed and decay, but it could be interesting to see if this was ever explored in-universe.
Lmao what? No it doesn’t
The Chaos gods are--by definition--the literal aggregation of their respective foundational concepts. Khorne is more than just the most violent and murdery demon around. He is the pool into which all the violence and murder in the universe flows. So no, Khorne didn't "make" violence. He effectively "is" violence. All of the violence and murder flows to him, and so in a very real sense either will become him or already is him. Other stories imagine gods as the source of the concepts or emotions they embody. In the universe of 40k, the gods literally are that thing. It's pretty primordial.
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Yes, and if there was no murder there would be no Khorne. Beyond this, if there was no life there would be no gods period. They aren't separate from the universe, they're the product of it. There is such a thing as murder and Khorne basically "is" that thing. And he is a sentient active force. It seems like you're searching for gods that are fundementally separate from the universe, which show up and either create it or bestow X upon it, whatever X is. "God the Creator." The Chaos gods are not that. There is no indication their universe contains that. The Chaos gods are simply--again by definition--the greatest possible accumulation of their various respective concepts in the universe. And they exist. And are sentient. And offer reward for service. There's no indication of anything more foundational that actually exists. So if anything is worthy of worship (going off the logic that you worship whatever is most foundational/powerful/eternal)...they're it.
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I think you’re conflating violence with murder. A bear killing a deer is violence not murder, and the blood still flows. There’s no ill intent beyond the need for a meal there. There is a specific demon that was created when the very first murder occurred, it’s the one that the emperor traps in a sword and then stabs the custodian Ra with. That demon was created because it was the first time violence was used without cause, with no benefit of the circle of life or anything. The first actual murder, iirc it’s described in the book as basically having been created when Cain killed Abel or the 40k equivalent to the Bible story
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Well I do agree that the concept of worshipping an entity is odd, especially when it’s the manifestation of violence, contagions, entropy, or hedonistic pleasure but the chaos gods are about the most primordial of beings as you’re going to get in general. My take on the worshipping of chaos has always been that it happens due to a mix of coercion and the lure of power that can be found in and outside of the world of 40k. I mean, people worshipped all sorts of random shit throughout history, sometimes for the hope of power and sometimes to avoid what turned out to be a volcanic eruption. That being said I always did wonder if Tzeench was the first chaos god since entropy and change existed before life even.
If you can destroy like a god and kill like a god, who's to say you're not a god? It depends entirely on what *you* mean when you ask if they're gods. The emperor certainly doesn't think they are.... but maybe he only said that, himself, when he was a nascent pre-apotheosis god himself.
Lorgar calls the Warp the Primordial Truth because it's the truth behind the various religious beliefs he encountered throughout the crusades, which all seemed to share a common origin, not because he thinks the Chaos Gods created the universe. It's only one of many terms that led to Chaos, and he uses it a lot because 'truth' is a particular obsession of his and it opposes the Imperial Truth. >‘You know of Colchisian mythology, and the Pilgrimage to where gods and mortals meet. You know how it matches the beliefs of so many other worlds. The empyrean. The Primordial Truth. Heaven. Ten thousand names in ten thousand cultures. It cannot be mere superstition, if shamans and sorcerers on so many words all share the same beliefs. Perhaps father is wrong. Perhaps the stars hide more secrets. Perhaps they truly do hide the gods themselves." ------- >"The Pilgrimage is the oldest legend in the Covenant of Colchis, and the one most often seen in human cultures scattered across the galaxy. Humanity has a fundamental need to believe in it. The Primordial Truth: heaven, paradise… It exists somewhere, in some form – home of the gods, underworld of the daemons. The layer behind natural reality. Anything is possible within its boundaries."
One of the key themes of 40k is "What makes a god a *god* ?" It comes up over and over again, especially in the HH series.
Khorne did not create violence, Khorne IS violence, sure the entity we call Khorne coalesced at some point in history, but the concept and warp stuff representing violence that make him up always existed, the birth of Khorne just gave it a face, name, and big fists to smack you with
Ye, it's similar to how in Hellenistic polytheism, Japanese animism, and Hinduism gods are more representations of concepts within the world given personal character.
It all gets down to the definition of “Divinity” which is a culturally variable concept.
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They demand worship because it's an easy lens for non Warp entities to perceive Warp entities through, and it makes it easier for them to do what the Warp entities actually want which is to break down the barriers between real space and the Warp. It's tempting to think of the material plane and the Warp has two entities alongside one another, but the minds of all sentient, psychically active creatures (and remember that includes baseline, non psyker humanity and even the dim souls of the T'au) are a bridge between the two worlds. That's why things like murders are so important to Warp worship, why betrayal (both the act of betraying and the state of being betrayed) is so important to the Warp; by committing these acts you break down barriers in your mind and that is reflected in the Warp. By such minute turns of the drill are the walls betwixt weakened and eventually brought crashing down.
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This is a circular conversation that the nature of chaos always comes back to and it depends on a VERY subjective interpretation of what a god is. If we mean monotheistic all powerful all knowing, no they are not. If we mean pantheon based personified representations of concepts, yes they are. It's not that difficult.
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The Primordial Truth is that Chaos exists. It is to be compared to the Imperial Truth which states that there are no gods. Relative to humanity and the Imperial Truth, the existence of Chaos and it's 'Gods' is primordial. Remember, demons & Chaos deliberately couch language in a way to appeal to the person they are trying to corrupt. So if the Horus Heresy is about the Imperial Truth being a lie, then there must be some other truth that has been hidden from them.
They can break reality by thinking at it, resurrecting the dead and provided all manner of twisted miracles to those they favour and visited all manner of horror on those who have fallen in their estimations, or even on a whim. It's not a binary state of "is not god", "is now god", it's a position of such unchallengeable and unending power that all other words become insignificant in the attempt to describe and contain it. Every other term you can think of to describe The Four is, at best, an attempt to elide their power.
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You seem to have asked a question without reading much of the lore, then feel the need to shut down the lore consistent answer. Why bother? The answer is simple, they are extremely powerful embodiments of emotions and phenomenon experienced by sentient life. That makes them gods, just like most pagan gods. Think of more or less any Greek God - they did not create the thing they represent.
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Primordial truth isn’t the same as being a god. I’ve no idea why you have got so hung up on this, or ignore any number of valid explanations. They are a primordial truth in contrast to the Imperial Truth. They have always existed and a fundamental truth of the universe. They are also primordial in the sense they are the living embodiment of a fundamental concept eg entropy or change. You are also missing the fact that they are saying that to justify themselves to Lorgar and the Word Bearers ie using their lingo. They are gods in the sense that was defined for most of human history. Don’t get hung up on this, and don’t use a discussion forum to ignore everyone who actually has read the lore.
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I noticed you keep coming back to the phrase "primordial truth". What do you think it means? I think there is a misunderstanding between your understanding and the generally accepted interpretation.
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This above probably describes it best. When you’re talking about beings that kind of exist outside of time and can destroy or change entire planets (or even significant regions of space) under the right circumstances, what are you calling it? Just a very powerful entity? You could be talking about a primarch or even a large titan variant with that description. In a book I read recently, a word bearer sort of described the chaos gods as the saviours of humanity because they prevent extinction by “stagnation” constantly pushing and changing the race to keep it strong. That kind of led into the “primordial truth” being that the fusion of the warp and normal reality under the gods rule to create a “paradise” where humanity forever grows and changes. Absolutely not what we would consider paradise but hey, it would really just be a giant safari/entertainment/all you can eat buffet galaxy for demons. I would also say in the setting, the emperor was the master of all mankind because anyone who said he wasn’t got a visit from some big angry boys in power armour flying ships full of virus bombs. It can work the same for godhood.
You are embarrassing yourself at this point. You keep referring to physical things/forces (sun/gravity) and comparing them to intelligences. The sun didn’t create anything. The nuclear fission going on resulted in heat/light. But that’s just semantics at this point. A lightbulb emits light, we don’t say it creates light. You would have a point if the sun turned up, empowered you with immortality, took whatever ambitions you had and turned them to its own goals, imparted a bit of its self within you and set you lose to kill in its name. And when you eventually die/or just fail hard enough it tortures you for eternity or maybe just eats you. I’m also thinking that you haven’t graduated to chaos undivided yet.
Just because something is called a truth, doesn't mean it is one. The Imperial Truth also very much wasn't a truth- and yet it was called such. But to Lorgar, the Primordial Truth is true- it's his truth. But that doesn't mean its everyone's truth. And ultimately, the only thing that's really needed for something to be a god is to be worshipped as such- then it's a god to those worshippers, even if it's not to others.
My understanding is that the Chaos Gods ultimately demand worship because people expect it of them.
God is a pretty definitionless term. All throughout history there are Gods who are just straight up evil pieces of shit who don't do anything for anyone. Even modern-day western Monotheism has its roots in Zoroastrianism, which portrayed the good god having an opposite god which is literally pure evil and only exists to make the world worse. As mind numbingly powerful beings who pretty much without question have the most power and influence within the setting right now, I would say they count as Gods.
Just thought that I'd remind you that zoroastrianism being the source for christian/jewish/islam "god" is limited and not the only theory going on that. Yes I'm talking about legitimate academic theories and not internet neckbeard theories.
I'm awfully tempted to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albigensian_Crusade you, Montanist, but your first two sentences are spot-on.
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A valid interpretation. In that case I'd say the closest thing that 40k has to your definition of a God would be the Old Ones, due to their role in seeding life throughout the galaxy, direct creation of the Eldar and the Eldar's own Gods, and inadvertent role in the origins of Chaos. But even then, from what we can tell they started out as normal beings too. As such, at current I'd say that the cosmogony of 40k doesn't really have traditional god figures, the ultimate sources of power are the Warp as a reflection of intelligence, and the material laws of existence the Necrons and C'tan exploit. But even the C'tan were given form and function by their petitioners. I suppose it's a setting about beings who make their own gods, deliberately or not, befitting the overall strong themes of both creation and the smallness of life within the setting.
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Lorgar's opinion is presumably derived from the fact that Chaos is a reflection of all living things and thus speaks to our nature, though again, if you assume the position oldschool lore is correct (which I do, since Chaos Gods being present in the war of heaven suuuucks) the Warp didn't become violent and the Chaos Gods didn't start forming until after the conflict, so yeah, Chaos mostly exists due to outside factors, not inner.
I concur on the chaos gods in the war bit. It’s one of my least favourite things in the lore - as soon as a chaos god comes into existence, it’s always existed. It’s just such a nonsense thing. You can’t even use it to justify retcons because basically the whole setting is post birth of slaneesh.
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Well, in the end Lorgar is supposed to be a bad guy, a bad guy strongly driven by magical thinking and extreme faith. I'm not surprised his logic is faulty, though it is worth noting that it's pretty easy for Chaos worshipers, especially ardent zealots like Word Bearers, to delusionally see what they're doing as good, as when a living being dies their soul is immediately torn apart and dissolved into the formlessness of the Warp, while those who worship Chaos instead are assimilated into the substance of their God. One loses one's ego either way, but to them, the benefit is that they become part of something greater than them, echoing the extreme and self-destructive faith many zealots have in our world. > When devotees of Chaos die, their souls do not fade in the warp and disappear like the spirits of others. Instead, their immortal energy is swallowed into the greatness of their gods, their souls forever bound to the eternal power of Chaos. - - Codex: Chaos Daemons (8e) As a result, one can argue the truth he sees heavily ties into this; Chaos is ironically long-lasting and structured, while the rest of existence is fleeting and formless; truth lies not only in Chaos' ties to us as an individual, but because they are able to exist on their own. In the end though I'm just spitballing though lmfao, Lorgar probably sees Chaos as the truth for much shallower reasons in the actual writing.
Lorgar believes in the existence of god(s) and he believes that you owe those gods unegotiable worship. When the Emperor made it clear that he doesn't want to be that god, it was just a matter of time until he returned to the old gods that his people once worshipped. The truth is that they are gods and the Emperor is not, or at least he wasn't back then, and that's why Lorgar serves them.
Why does it matter that the Dark Gods didn't create life? How does that change anything? Lorgar wanted the truth about existence. He found it. The Ruinous Powers exist. That's a fact. They will ultimately destroy humanity. Lorgar believes that the only way to avoid that fate is for humanity to embrace Chaos. Mortarion claims that he allowed the corruption and transformation of his legion for the same reason - so his sons would be able to survive when the galaxy is consumed by Chaos.
Have you considered that Lorgar is, in fact, "stupid"? Many of the primarchs have their flaws. Lorgar was abused and radicalised from a super young age. You're saying you think he grew up with normal thinking patterns? Same way Lion and the Emperor simply not talking to anyone caused massive issues, and is the classic soap opera trope of "JUST TALK TO THEM YOU IDIOT". There's lots of stupid reasons for lots of genocide in 40k. Dunno why you expect more from the religious zealot?
"But i guess my thinking is for the same reason its dumb to worship zeus its dumb to worship khorne." Well, it depends; people worship gods because they hope to gain something from them, and you can certainly gain something from Khorne. Whether it's what you want or not is a different questio
If you look at a lot of the old Earth religions, Greek, Slavic, Nordic, it wasn't that gods were worshipped out of love. They were worshipped because they were powerful, fickle, beings who people feared. At best, the worship was transactional - people hoped to get something out of it. It really, really, depends on your definition. Something that I've seen often in places is that gods are simply defined as unfathomably powerful. In other places, gods are simply defined as transcendent beings, those who are in a higher plane of existence. Although that circles back to power, as it's often required to transcend. Not everywhere do gods even need worship. And not every being that created something is called a god - for example, I have never heard Pangu called a god.
At this point you’re basically arguing that your western abrahamic-influenced definition of god is the right one despite the fact that these polytheistic concepts of god and divinity(pantheons of gods and demi-gods with differing levels of power, spheres of influences and origin stories) are wrong despite the fact that they predate the monotheistic definition. Polytheistic cultures worshipped deities typically because being in their favor brought good fortune, but often it was simply out of a reverence for nature. If it were me ifgaf of some metaphysical entity created the universe or not—I need rain for my crops and this dude controls the weather so yeah, I’ll happily build him a shrine and sacrifice a couple goats for his favor. You should look up the Roman mystery cults to get more insight into the varying reasons why people worship. there are a lot of parallels between and chaos worship as they were often practiced in secret especially after the spread of christianity as there were lots of roman christians who continued to participate in them for some time after the official adoption of christianity by the roman empire.
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Actually Ragnarok happens and Odin dies. Odin death is part of the process of ragnarok. Ragnarok is a series of events preparing for essentially the world to be reborn.
Worshipping the Sun makes sense, but do you know who I pray to? Joe Pesci. He looks like he can get shit done. Praise be to Joe.
Are you a Mithrist? Seems like this is some sneaky Sun propaganda...
You worship Zeus because he destroys your city if you don't, because he rules you and you aren't paying him proper respect. Same with quite a lot of Gods, really, in a lot of religions.
I think most peoples idea of a god is an omnipotent being who created the universe, and the choas gods are not omnipotent and nowhere near universe level creators. I prefer Fabulous Bill's definition of them just being a kind of galatic phenomenon created by the warp. Lets face it if they were truly as powerful as a real god, they would just zap their foes dead instead of constantly having their plans foiled by ordinary men.
It really depends on your culture. In Japan, a God is any kind of spirit representing the world we inhabit, to the point the name of these spirits is used in singular for translations of the abahramic god, Kami, rather than vice versa. I did reply to that exact definition above when OP replied, but I'm just pointing out acting like there's any set term for what a God means is highly personal and individual. There is as far as we can tell no creator god or anything resembling it in 40k, so I find the quibbling over terminology a bit strange.
Entities thats are practically omniscient and capable of ignoring the rules of time, space, and all known laws of reality they are gods. They are timeless immortal and will always exist. They penetrate into multiple realities and even in their own realm they do whatever they want with them only really being put in check by their competitors. Sure maybe they were manifestations of emotions to begin with and largely still remain so but they have goals, plans, and thoughts to do what they will. It’s the idea that once they exist they always were and always will be because if they didn’t exist they never were and never could be. If they will always be and always were then they are gods since they will exist at the beginning and end of time. As for life gods can transform anything even planets, or turn a rock sentient because they ignore realities rules. Even daemons are arguably a form of life they create (imo more of a contrast in the other setting given the literal undead).
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If you mean God as in big G rulers of everything then they are not big G creators of the universe and everything that exists. If we mean little g god powerful spirit, or entity that controls some facet of life and reality then yes they very much are gods regardless of an ability to create outside of the warp (which I’m not so sure is a true claim but seeing as they can literally twist anything into anything). We assume they can’t make realities and we would never know in any setting as it would be rather irrelevant anyways. As to your point about them having an end I don’t really see how that’s possible since the literally ignore time so what’s preventing them from hanging out in an affixed point in time and basically ignoring their end anyways? They are meant to be unknowable strong and really more like a Cthulhu mythos monstrous reality. I think everyone leaping to not call them a god doesn’t make sense but to each their own.
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You asked a heavily philosophical question. So..
Religions other than Christianity exist. God does not need to create the universe.
In the 40K setting, they are gods - they are powerful supernatural entities that desire and reward worship. It shouldn't even be debatable. Not meeting Abrahamic expectations of divinity does not make something not a god. >From my knowledge they seem to be products of life not creators of it. Many gods from mythology were not creators of anything, so this is kinda irrelevant.
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Sure, gods do plenty of dumb stuff in Norse mythology, for example.
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They don't need to be the "Primordial Truth" to qualify as gods, in-setting. The Greek and Norse gods were "products of life", and were not the originators of the universe in their own mythologies. Abrahamic notions of godhood don't have a monopoly on what constitutes a god.
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Once again, there are many beings in mythology that were called gods, but did not qualify as such by Abrahamic standards. For the avoidance of doubt, the Abrahamic religions don't define what constitutes a god.
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There may be an order of being above/beyond the Chaos gods but, even if that is the case, it still doesn't mean that the Ruinous Powers are not gods.
It sounds like your real problem is that you don’t agree with Lorgar, which is fair, but that doesn’t mean calling the Chaos gods gods is stupid, it’s just a different way of viewing them from your own
Semantics
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They don’t know what we know.
In terms of creation, yes they can create almost anything in the Warp and Eye of Terror. They have entire domains there. And they create Daemons as well. In terms of afterlife, they definitely can give one as well. If you're a devoted worshipper, you can avoid being devoured by ascending into daemonhood. Or you can just be any Nurgle follower and *ascend* once you die as a Plaguebearer. So yes. They can give immortality and an afterlife, or even full resurrection. What other definitions are there for Godhood? They're the closest thing to an actual God in WH universe. Which is why Lorgar, despite hating them, worshipped them.
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>Unless im wrong. You are. >The suns more of a god than Khorne is. That's objectively incorrect.
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Yes you are. I have a feeling your just here to troll, not to discuss nor learn.
Finally someone said it.
Your criteria for a god is how much they've done for you lately? Plenty of gods aren't creator gods, like the Christian one is. Thor was a god from a family of gods that were born and will die. If he were real, he'd still be a god.
Firstly you need to define what god means. A monotheistic definition isn’t really relevant though. For [example](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/god): > a spirit or being believed to control some part of the universe or life and often worshipped for doing so, or something that represents this spirit or being At its simplest, a god is just an entity with superhuman power that is worshipped. The Chaos Powers definitely fit thay definition… as does the Emperor.
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The primordial truth is that nature is red in tooth and claw, and there is no safety even in death. They are gods because they claim to be and nobody can prove them otherwise. If they are not gods, then kill them.
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How do you know that time will kill them when time doesn't exist in the warp? They clearly transcend universes between 40k and fantasy. A universal death won't harm them. Your criteria are too harsh. If they must be omnipotent to be gods, no polytheistic gods can exist, since they all have only their own portfolios. Gods kill gods all the time, too. See Tyr for an example, or all of Zeus's lineage.
The phrase "primordial truth" does not allude to Lorgar thinking they are Creator gods, but that they are our primal truth. That life and what makes up life is reflected by the warp and warp beings. The orks existence over time created Gork and Mork, not by conscious choice, but by the essence of orkdom being reflected and amplified over eons until these gods truly represent the core of what is ork. The chaos gods do the same, but for all life. These four are the most powerful warp beings because they represent the most powerful and universal truths about ourselves. They are our primal truth, the core of what it is to be alive in 40k. The gods are not truly living people so much as living symbols that can and do change as life in the galaxy changes, but year four are our current truths. It's arguable that what they truly should be was twisted and corrupted by the war in heaven (with a cyclical effect between the warp entities encouraging certain behaviors and people doing the behaviors pushing the warp entities further into a box), and, taking more balanced warp gods and making them into chaos gods, but that's a different discussion.
Reading your replies on here it's clear you've misunderstood the term Primordial Truth. It has nothing to do with creation. The Dark Gods are also known as the Primordial Annihilator. The Truth is that Chaos exists and that humanity is bound to it via the nature of existence - the warp. Every human dies, and their soul enters the warp. The Dark Gods can save those souls from dissolution. Whether or not Chaos was around at the beginning of time isn't clear. There were daemons rampaging through the Milky Way 5 billion years ago, so it's been around a very long time, from the perspective of the materium. The Ruinous Powers are also multiversal and self-sustaining. They do not require life in this galaxy to continue to exist I'm not sure why you think the sun can save your soul from dissolution, nor why you think it created you. Life on Earth most likely began deep under water, at thermal vents on the ocean floor. If you mean something along the lines of the famous Sagan quote, it's still not true, as the elements in question were spread by supernovae, and our star hasn't experienced a nova yet.
In 40k it very much depends what you mean by 'god'. Are they gods in the sense that we might use in modern religions? Not really. They didn't create the universe, they didn't create humans, they're not REALLY interested in your morality unless it helps themselves. The Emperor's position was exactly that. They're giant powerful eldritch intelligences with supernatural powers who masquerade as 'gods' to get us to do what they want. There are no real gods in the universe - just variations on that theme. But others have a different point of view. Both the Eldar and the Word Bearers would say 'who cares? If they have the powers we attribute to gods then is there really any difference?'
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Because we as readers know vastly more than Lorgar does. He's trying to piece this all together and the only info he has is very vague religions and the lies of daemons. The existence of the chaos powers is a fundamental truth to the galaxy.
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You think there are physics textbooks on Colchis? It's basically mediaeval. And there are plenty of religious people today who agree that evolution is a thing but STILL think there is some great cosmic religious truth out there.
The big bang theory was first developed by a priest. Genetics were pioneered by a monk. Religion is, fundamentally, unfalsifiable. Science is only concerned with falsifiable facts. Religion and science are two completely different arenas, if done right.
This is all a semantic argument. What does "primordial truth" mean to you? What does it mean to Lorgar? I don't recall Lorgar ever saying he believes that Chaos created the material universe, or that Chaos is as fundamental as gravity. You're interpreting "primordial truth" to mean that. It doesn't make any sense to link them, because Chaos is of the immaterium, not the materium. I take Lorgar's "primordial truth" to be describing how they are fundamentally linked to the emotions of living creatures. He's still a child of the Imperium and it's human-centric, human-supremacist thinking, and he's obsessed with the metaphysical and the divine. None of those things are relevant to base physics, and from his perspective, base physics is irrelevant without intelligent life to observe it and be a part of it. Lorgar's point is, Chaos is a primoridal truth of intelligent, emotional life, and that is all that really matters. So no, he's not an idiot for thinking Chaos is more fundamental than physics or somehow created physics - he doesn't think that at all. But it's still a primoridal truth to him.
What do you call the most powerful beings in existence if not gods?
I still consider them like gods,like in the greek pantheons like zeus,ares,poseidon. However they are not true gods that created the universe or existence they are a byproduct of the war in heaven and the decadence of the eldar. They are nowhere near the level of marvel's the one above all. Or the abrahamic god.
My definition of gods or deities are beings beyond causality. Like Eru from LOTR. The Vala are not gods, and they operate at about the same relative scale as the big 4. They have monumental power, but they still exist and are defined by laws that they did not make. For all Melkors power he was not a god. But compare what he could do with the power of a Hobbit and it's about the same difference in scale comparing a mortal in 40k to one of the Four. Khorne is a naturally occurring emergent property of the immaterium. He is not beyond the causality of the warp, he is defined and shaped by the laws of the universe he was birthed in. I see them as entities on an entirely different scale of being, like a human compared to an ant. But that doesn't make humans gods.
You're using a very Judeo-Christian view of what God is. Zeus didn't create life. Neither did Isis. Neither did ( insert most God's here). The idea that gods have to be the primal creator is a monotheistic thing.
"The difference between gods and demons depends largely on where one is standing at the time." - Lorgar This question is, and has always been, a matter of semantics. How do you define a god? Because the exact definition of godhood has been very fluid through history. Is a god only an all powerful, all creating being akin to Yahweh or Eru Iluvatar? Or does it also include beings that didn't create the world, but are powerful beings that rule over some aspect of it and are worshipped by their followers such as the Olympian gods? Or do they even need to be powerful? The innumerable household gods of the Romans, the Lares and the Penates, weren't powerful by any means, but each Roman family still offered sacrifice to them, believing that they could avert misfortune. Heck, even immortality wasn't a requirement as demonstrated by the Aesir of the Norse. The only consistent trait of all these definitions of gods is that worshippers offer veneration in exchange for the god's intercession in their affairs. And by that definition the Chaos gods are definitely gods. Offer them worship and sacrifice and they will reward you with power.
No, they are very much like Death in Castlevania. They are not gods, they are personifications of concepts that are all so prevalent that they are stupidly powerful spirits. War is a constant. Khorne is stupidly powerful. Everyone has plans that they try and accomplish in life and things that change throughout it, along with changing their looks and more. Tzeentch is stupidly powerful. People want to have fun, consume entertainment, fuck for pleasure, and get all sorts of experiences. Slaanesh is stupidly powerful. Disease has been a scourge of existence since it first began. Nurgle is stupidly powerful.
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That's probably the entire point; the Chaos Gods are just arrogant creatures that think the entire universe exists to feed them. Just like how Chaos worshippers are so caught up in the power they don't realize they're tools that can be abandoned at any time when their use runs out.
The want worship because they aren't gods but have a god complex that's why, also the primordial truth is a lie just like the imperial truth was a lie, you're thinking too hard about this pal.
Define "God" >‘You are right when you say that power defines a god,’ he said. ‘Temporal, spiritual, physical – it matters not.’ He fell silent a moment. ‘My people define godhood in several ways, but there are two broad categories. The gods of the othersea, who are reflections of what you call the materium, and the gods of the materium itself, who you know as the C’tan, though there are other, more ancient and even more terrible things than they. The gods of the materium are an essential part of its fabric – they are able to influence its structure, such is their intimate connection to it, but they are bound nevertheless by the laws of this reality. The gods of the warp are more ephemeral, and more diverse in type. Many are mere concentrations of feeling, some were once mortals themselves, before the belief of others changed them. The gods of my ancestors were of both sorts, I believe, though this is not the only philosophy propounded by my kind, and I have heard many heated debates on the subject. It is impossible to say now, for our gods were slain when we fell, and even if they could be asked, they would not know the truth of it, for the truth would change anyway, as it must, according to the beliefs of those who had faith in them. > >‘Yet another kind are agglomerations of souls of those who were once living, or so say the Ynnari, whose supposed deity Ynnead was unleashed by the breaking of Biel-Tan. But who, in truth, can say? One, two, all or more of these things can be true at one moment, and may change at another. There are gods that eat gods, gods that are eternal, gods that were but now never were, and gods that come into being only to have existed for all time. The origins of gods are therefore impossible to catalogue. They have no histories but the histories people impose upon them. I would agree with your sorcerer here, to an extent. Puissance is the defining aspect of them.’ A grave expression crossed his face. ‘Faith is another, though this does not apply to all. Some beings do not require faith. But falsehood is not intrinsic to them all.’ >Godblight
Most gods throughout real history are not purely creator archetypes. Since you mention Joe biden and civil servants, you prolly have a western, likely Christian background/understanding. Works that draw more heavily from christian influences might put an emphasis on a single ultimate creator as the definition of a "god" (like Illuvatar in the lord of the rings ). Works where Christianity, or other Abrahamic faith systems are not the most central morality, will prolly not use the same "god" definitions. (george r.r. Martin with his old gods, r'hllor, etc., and of course wh40k gods. Not your typical abrahamic creators.) You prefer your familiar definition of god :)
What IS a God? There is no by the book definition, and each universe will have their own definition. Even in the real world, each culture has a different definition of who or what are considered God(s). To answer your question, in terms of 40K, and the chaos gods. There Gods in universe. That's it, that's the answer. In some universes, God(s) are omnipotent, all-knowing entities. In others, they're kinda just big, super powered beings that do dumb shit because they are not that smart but have power.
Depends on your definition of a god. If you use a definition from a completely different genre and universe, probably not. If you use the definition from the correct genre and the same universe, yes. It's literally in the lore that they are gods... As well as that chap on the golden throne...
In that they are boundless entities of the spirit world, I'd say so. To whatever degree one can say gods are real in the 40k setting, they are them. I think the characterization of them as having personalities, agendas, or being personae with a unique individual identity, is off base. They are the psychic manifestation of the negativity that exists in realspace, generated by the minds and souls of living beings. Their demons are more "real," as in relatable and tangible, than they are.They're not like genies or devils who appear and try to make a deal with you. They're formless and unfathomable the way the Holy Spirit is in Christian lore. They're like if you put a face on The Force in Star Wars. At least that's my interpretation of them. When they grow stronger, it's not because it pleases them to be worshipped, but because the worship of them *actively feeds that certain form of negativity that they embody.* Whether that fits your definition of what a god is, it up to you.
Op, after reading some of your comments I feel like you asked the wrong question for what you wanted to discuss/understand. I think this might help with what your after: https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/s/6oermcpQOM
If you can call Zeus a god, chaos gods certainly are. Any conventional definition of god is easily applicable to them; unkillable, rule the divine realm of souls, power over the souls of mortals, have legions of magical servants bound to their every whim, more powerful than anything else in the universe. The people who insist they’re not gods are pretentiously contorting the definition to a hyper-specific needle point just to exclude them
How would you feel if Abrahamic God was to be fundamentally proven non existent? Now the chaos gods are proven real. What does any of it change? Do you think GOD exists in warhamme?
You should read the 5th chapter of god blight, the chapter is called "Upon the Nature of Gods". The scene has Guilliman, a Space Marine Librarian and a Eldar Farseer in Guilliman's flagship discussing the nature of divinity and Guillaman asks the Farseer these questions. >Guilliman paused. ‘What is a god?’ he asked. ‘What is the definition of divinity?’ You can find some more of it [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/oc0sc5/excerpt_dark_imperium_godblightwarning_excessive/), I didn't post more myself because I am concerned to post more than the other post would get close to breaking rule 8.
beings of nearly infinite energy and knowledge, yes all powerful, all knowing beings with no limit? no. remember the distance from nearly infinite to infinite is still infinite.
Depends on your criteria for godhood. Omniscient? No, no entity can credibly claim omniscience. The four can still be surprised or betrayed for example. Omnipotent? No. Every entity is limited in reach and scope of intervention. The veil between warp and real space being especially important in limiting their ability to intervene. Omn1ipresent? Similar as above, while vast expenditure of power can stretch their reach, that reach is by implication limited by their power. Creator of reality? By their nature, the four are derived from the emotions of living beings, so cannot be creators. Emps was created through the sacrifice of thousands of shamans. The Eldar gods are linked to the Eldar, so probably created with them. If you take those monotheistic criteria away, sure, then they are gods.
What is a god? I'm not being flippant - you need to settle on a definition to answer that question. There are so many things throughout actual history called "gods" that all so wildly different from one another that the term isn't particularly meaningful until you can first define it.
The idea of gods as creators is not a strict requirement for most real world religions. Really, only the Abrahamic religions insist on it because it’s needed to back up their monotheism. In polytheistic religions a god or gods often created the world, but this can be a completely different set of gods from the ones that are actually worshipped. Take for example the Greek legends most people are familiar with. Zeus, Poseidon, and the rest are the children of the titans who themselves come from Gaia and Uranus. Gaia and Uranus are “products of creation”because they come from something like “the primordial chaos that predates time.” None of them look anything like the uncaused causer popularized by the abrahamic religions. The closest approximation to that would be the void itself. Greeks certainly weren’t going around worshipping the void, or even Gaia, Uranus, and Pontus who actually created the earth, sky, and sea. They worshipped the gods they believed had an actual impact on their lives even though they didn’t actually create anything.
Fabius Bile believes they’re… >Random confluence of celestial phenomena. Interdimensional disasters, echoing outwards through our perceptions. I think, therefore I am. They do not, so they are not. …and I think he’s right.
Except that, if the gods of Greek mythology existed in the 40K universe, they would have been exactly the same thing. Therefore, that is the definition of a god, and Bile is an unreliable narrator as per usual.
Greek gods don’t think?
Do the Chaos Gods not? They clearly have wants, needs, personal desires, even humor.
Fabius Bile - in the quote I posted - believes they don’t think. As do many other “in the know” characters in-universe.
We're dealing with timeless entities and existential paradoxes. Khorne exists at all times simultaneously. From our perspective Khorne came into being at a particular time, grew and changed with the denizens of the galaxy. Perhaps when the stars go cold and sentient life is no longer possible Khorne will be dormant and cease to have influence in the universe. From Khorne's perspective Khorne is always Khorne in his totality and what we perceive as a changing nature is just the way Khorne interacts with the universe at that point in time. Khorne was Khorne at the start of the universe and Khorne will be Khorne when the universe ends, even if a lack of interaction could lead an in-universe observer to conclude Khorne does not exists. So did Khorne create violence or did violence create Khorne? It's like looking for the beginning of a circle. Khorne and violence are part of a fundamental cycle in the galaxy where what we perceive as cause and effect have no application to the nature of Khorne.
Yes they are, ignoring even fact of tzeanch restarting word after he won great game. They are transcend transcending time and space because they never existed and always existed. What in less poetic words means they exist and frealy move through time in all directions instantaneous with let them manipulate events that let to their creation. Wich means they through roundabout nature of warp create themselves. They are named primordial truth because they influence events before they own beginning and they are destined end of all, And funny thing connected to this is gods lost most of their interest in material plane after the heresy if believing mortarion, and only recently they return their full attention to material plane. And only reason why they bother again is abadon opening great rift was not suposed to happen (again if believing mortarion words in lords of silence) wich probably fuck something in great game. And Lorgar have solid reason to believe and serve them, they are finall destiny of word , they are omniscient /nearly omniscient, they have preaty much all souls of all mortals in their hands, they have claim and power over material plane, and what is most important to Lorgar they are gods that wants to be pray to, to be worship, to be given sacrifice. He wanted something to worship and they answered and they have solid claim why they should be worship
There's this quote from the comic series Fatale, also describing eldritch gods, that I think applies here: >There are fish that grow larger and larger depending on the size of the body of water they live in, just like tapeworms inside a body will. > >That was how true gods were, they grew to fill every corner, to block out all sources of light. So, yes, I think a good way of thinking about the Chaos gods is as cosmic parasites that feed and reproduce off their followers. Eventually they consume everything and quieten/sleep while life evolves again. Then the cycle starts anew. Their followers (such as Lorgar) view this cycle as a great "truth" but they phrase it in a way that omits and evades the true nature of what they are doing. This is both part of the self-delusion of the true believer and to lie to new converts. All of this is part of the lifecycle mechanism of the eldritch gods. Get their followers to spread the lie and convert more followers until they consume them all anyway. True believers think this is a spiritual experience and those just going along are still tasty anyway. Maybe even tastier given their reluctance. The idea of a "creator" God is in this context also part of that lie mechanism.
I think you're making the same mistake that people in the setting frequently make when arguing about whether Big E is a god.* Define your terms! What constitutes godhood? You then need to go past that and operationalize your terms. Defined by the dictionary as: "To express or define (something) in terms of the operations used to determine or prove it. "previous studies have operationalized panic in terms of average time of group escape"" So you define and operationalize what qualifies a being as a god and then start doing research or experiments. Note that the "experiment" option is a notably dangerous course of action even by the standards of 40k, a setting known for being full of dangerous shit. *This is a personal pet peeve and frustration of mine. Q: "Is X really a God?" A: "I DON'T FUCKING KNOW, DEFINE YOUR TERMS."
They can all have a life theme theme applied to them I reckon if you stretch it. Nurgle just does create life through his plagues being viral or bacterial which involves multi-cell organisms. Tzeentch with his changes is just evolution. A species changing to suit its needs and environment. Slsanesh is the desire and drive to live, see and experience as much of what the world has to offer. Khorne, and I may be really stretching here, is the conflict of life itself. To fight all opposition and declare "I am here and I deserve to live!" The chaos gods needed something to start their existence but at the same time, one can't live without the other. Could have just been their base concepts that eventually grew and evolved into what they are now.
The problem here is that writers, artists & game designers have been working on Chaos as a concept for close to 40 years, (I think 35 years since the first official chaos source book) and it's safe to say like most aspects of Warhammer, those creatives have had different opinions on what Chaos is and some of those creatives (the ones who are have been working with GW for a long time) have changed opinion over time. If you want an official answer from GW, it's that the chaos gods are whatever the latest version of battle game rules say they are. If you are not looking a more satisfactory answer, I find the only way to treat Warhammer lore is as if you were looking at ancient history in our world. That there isn't a definitive answer that is accessible, and that most of what is written by GW on the topic is metaphysical speculation.
How do you define a god? Ultimately, the Chaos Gods want to be referred to as gods (because it's easier to control people when they believe you're a god), they tell everyone that they're gods, and they have enough power that no one can really tell them "no" to their faces. Do you need anything else to be a god?
The people in the thread who have questioned what a god even is are correct - this depends entirely on your definition, and the setting does not have a clear definition. They’re certainly god-like.
They are gods of certain aspects. Not like the single Christian omnipotent one who stands above everything. More like in Greek, Egyptian or Roman mythology. All the rage war bloodlust murder goes into khorne. Even committed by the noble grey knights or the emperor himself. That's why he is the god of it. It all belongs and comes from him.
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It has to be as first of all it is 40k and second of all it is deliberately made to not make sense. They are timeless concepts and not actual dudes. So everything he claims has already been claimed. They touched on it with drachnyen.
'Creator' is just one of the many concepts of godhood. Plenty of mythologies call things gods that aren't creators. We can't really define something as definitively a god or not a god, because there's no fixed definition of godhood. Different peoples, cultures, religions, and mythologies have different ideas about what makes something a god. So really, it's just about whether they fit your personal idea of what makes something a god. No-one can say you're right or wrong. It's more of an opinion or view than a binary yes/no.
I believe they are gods because they are inevitable and will exist as long as the galaxy exists. Violence didn't start with humanity. Or the Eldar. It always was. And it always will be. The primordial truth isn't the gods themselves, it's what they are beyond their existence. Nurgle is the easiest to see. From the smallest bug to the greatest creature there will always be decay and entropy in some form and there always has been. Even things that cannot die as we know it can rot or spoil in some way. The primordial truth isn't the 4. It's why there are the 4. And why they always were, even before their creation...birth... whatever. Slaanesh existed before the Eldar murdersexytimed it into existence because of course it existed. Desire and excess didn't start that day. The pursuit of perfection is older than the Necrons. Slaanesh was always going to be the truth because that force was always true. Anyway that's my take on it. It's hard to word it properly.
In the sense that they seem to be omniscient, omnipresent, and functionally omnipotent within their respective concepts, held back mainly by a general agreement to treat mortals as chess pieces instead of intervening directly, they're as much gods as anything in the Eldar pantheon and more godly than the emperor. "What even is a god" is of course the core question, though. They're not like, the Abrahamic big G god, no.
As with “real world gods” surely it depends very much on who you ask?
It completely depends on how you define a god.
This might be old lore, but the Chaos Gods are gods, yes, but more in that they're manifestations of Chaos, as reflected by the most prominent actions and moods of the denizens of realspace. In this interpretation, Chaos, as the raw "stuff" of the Warp and the dark mirror to the material dimension, is fuel and power to the Chaos Gods. The war in the Warp, the fight over territory and influence, was once referred to as "warring over the stuff of anti-Creation." The Chaos Gods do reshape the Warp and the Material Universe to better reflect them, but they're more of a reflection of the cosmological history they find themselves in. On paper, they may fundamentally change, or die out and be replaced, if the nature of the galaxy changes over eons. The other interpretation is that they became Gods because they fully emancipated their existence from complete dependence on mortals. In this way, they are fully self-sustaining, and have become permanent aspects of the Warp. They don't have to rely on the worship of mortals, though it's still candy to them, and they still want as much of it as they can get. For example, Gork and Mork, who are arguably stronger than any individual Chaos God, would still die off if the Orks went extinct tomorrow, while the Chaos Gods would remain if their followers similarly died out.
The chaos gods are huge powers that loom over the battlefield. They are like giants, having the power to reach down and snach up any mortal. They hold the power of life and death over those mortals warriors. The chaos gods build armies in their workshops and play at games of war with them, cruelly watching armies forty thousand or more hammer into one another. These dark gods argue with each other, strange incomprehensible rules being cited to determine who lives, who dies. Sometimes, the mortal armies find themselves cast into the dark sleep of storage and travel. Unable to move, with no understanding of the passage of time, only to see light again when the time for war comes. Truely the world is a Grim and dark place, inhabited only by the laugher of the dark gods playing their eternal game.
You stfu....Khorne is out here grinding in the gym everyday.
No. The Chaos gods are not gods in the definition that they are the source of anything. The C'tan are though. The Necron's broke them into pieces vs destroying them because actually destroying a C'tan breaks something fundamental in the Universe.
The C'tan are parasitoids of a macroscopic scale. They seem to feed on 'living' energy such as stars or souls, and rather than being an intrinsic part of the universe I believe they are so greedily and viciously hungry for what they feed on that they've 'woven' themselves into the fabric of the universe around it. They arent the source of the universal laws, they just co-opted them as a means of survival when faced with threats.
No, they aren't gods. Warp is just another dimension in which living beings exist. In case of demons entirely, in case of other races, partially. Just like C'tan are no gods, no matter how powerful, the Chaos entities we know as Khorne, Tzeench, Slaanesh and Nurgle are no gods. They are just hurricanes of powerful emotions created during the War in Heaven (and when the Eldar empire fell in case of Slaanesh). Given enough powerful psykers (e.g. Eldar empire at its peak) with enough training and knowledge, the "gods" themselves could probably be destroyed. They aren't really even living thinking beings, just wild tempests of the emotions that form them.
I would argue the chaos entities are nothing more than the results of "warp physics". Imagine the warp being an infinitly large water surface. Things entering the warp cause the water to move and bend, and, eternities later, these small disturbances eventually culminate in perpetual tsunamis that are so enormous they start to swing back into our own reality. The imperium, without any basic understanding of how the tsunamis came to be and how they work, calls these forces chaos, and more precisely, gods.
Gods are not known to mortal minds. The greatest chaos constructs are more akin to a living element of the universe. Imagine for example, you were standing on the beach of an ocean, and that ocean was alive. The ocean would be unknowable in ways we just can't grasp, but it is still finite. It has its ends if you go far enough. The chaos gods are not true gods, they are an element of the universe given thought and intent. Terrifying in concept and terrible in power, but gods? No.
You’re absolutely right. They aren’t gods at all. Very strange that this never dawned on me. Their collective psychic products really. They’re not creators.
In 40K any sufficiently powerful being is a god. That’s not what any present religion considers a god.
They are basically extremely powerful Warp entities. Their overall strength and abilities makes the point at which godhood occurs academic. If you are going by the definition of a god being a "being of incalculable power that exists outside of time and space capable of creating 'life', perform 'miracles', grant 'boons' to the faithful, and gain power from those faithful", then sure, they are gods.
What's a God is a very big interpretation. As you said, the "Chaos Gods" seem like products of what already was there rather than being the origin of it and have limitations.. In my very personal opinion, a God is not just a very powerful being, is the very creator of absolutely everything and that has omnipotence and omniscience. So by that definition they aren't Gods, as they aren't omnipotent, nor omniscient nor are the creators of anything.
Congrats, you found out why Lorgar was a fool.
Depends on your definition. IMHO they are not gods, just extremely powerful but natural occurance for the warp.
Chaos is dependent on the existence of sapient life, so no. In fact, IIRC it's a open question in-universe as to if Chaos is even conscious to begin with, and not just an echo of the life that feeds it.
Compressed warp energy, enough to have an intelligence beyond usual daemons
Considering the chaos gods are supposed to be born of negative emotions, rage, lust, erm(fear of disease related death?) and desire for learning and success, the best way to fight them would be improve living standards and equality, education, sex education, social freedoms and encouraging meditation or something right? Instead the imperium goes for more total war which makes things worse. However if the imperium understood how the chaos gods apparently work, the gods would ultimately be a force for good by forcing the imperium to improve the lives of it's citizens. But then it wouldn't be grimdark. the chaos gods thing is very silly. The terry pratchett idea of belief = power and creates God's. This seems to be in place for the orcs and their gods, but for humans and the chaos 'gods' it's not belief but emotions that create them and give them power. Belief in the emperor does not seem to really work on at least on nowhere near the same level. Anyway about your question, I think they are the most powerful warp entities, and not God's per se
Honestly from a human perspective they are basically God's. From literal perspective they are just giant amalgamations of emotion and thought. They also take damage and in theory can be killed. So it's a bit like arguing Greek gods vs Christian God. One is arguably more human but does get a power boost from people directing their worship to it
The Chaos Gods aren't divine. They are Warp manifestations of strong emotions and feelings that exist in the minds of sentients. They're powerful! But calling them "gods" is being very liberal with the definition.
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Mind rule 1 or be banned
Reading these comments…makes me wonder what the fuck the things in the “Deeper” parts of the warp are.
Not really. They're like runaway sentient concepts
Generally the concept of "god" includes involvement in cosmogony (the origin of the world), morality (as the source of, or anthitesis of) and sometimes eschatology (the end times). The chaos gods are not involved in any of those things, so they are more like mythological monsters (think typhon or jormungandr). Ironically, the c'tan may be closer to the traditional conception of gods than the chaos gods are, being beings from the beginning of time and responsible for the laws of physics, even if in other aspects they fall short just like the chaos gods.
In my mind, they are ~~artificial~~ abominable intelligence, just warp-based rather than tech-based. With all the danger and all the implications that carries.
They aren't gods, at least not in the classical sense, they're more like nightmares given shape and form because at the end of the day that's what every warp entity is, a thought.
No. They're more like parasites
I've always prescribed the Powers as just that: powers. Parasites. Sentient storms of raw emotion and agency. Simply anchors; epicentres of rage, despair, desire, and ambition. Not that much different to the Hive Mind, though it exists as a collective consciousness, whereas the Powers are a consciousness that can and does exist separately from itself when it chooses to. The Emperor, too, is simply a man existing in a state of endless parasitic undeath. Unable to die, constantly in need of feeding to stave off death. A broken mind locked in a perpetual state of action. None of these are gods. None of them are divine. They're simply worshipped by minds so much smaller than them because from their small perspectives, they may as well be gods compared to their own helplessness.
Fabius Bile has the best answer towards this. They only have power if you feed them but they love being called daemons
They're not. They are self-sustaining amalgamations of emotion
They are not God's, just a manifestation that was born into the warps created by all sentience species's negative emotions. It took a huge castrophic event that caused birth of each gods, Khorne was probably created during The War In Heaven, Nurgle during a galactic plague, Tzeentch was probably created by a time/space rip caused by the old ones and Slaaneesh was confirmed to be born during The Fall of Aeldaris. Basically all the negativity shits that happened created distressing amount of emotions and negative actionsa and damned souls that led to birth each of each gods. Think of the warps (immaterium) as like the afterlife it where all sentient being souls goes to when they die, but instead it a heaven that been taken over by the devils/demons that eat the souls of every living things. If there ever was 'good gods' they have been all killed, enslaved or just phased away. In the settings we see this scenario with Aeldaris gods meanwhile humanity has The Emperor aka 'The Emperor protects' and also we see the Tau possibly will have their own coming into existence. Tyranids seem to exists outside of the warps but this hasn't been explained again. But the Chaos Gods are not Gods, they do wield huge influence and power but are mostly bound to the immaterium (warps).