Kairos Fateweaver

Pollywannacracka. Also this otherwise badass picture makes his second head look kinda weird and atrophied; it's variously portrayed either this way, as a sort of mutant outgrowth, or as a natural bisection, like the Aquil*BLAM*

Kairos Fateweaver is one of the more powerful Lords of Change in the service of Tzeentch, known as his Oracle. His name derives from an Ancient Greek concept of the key and propitious time for an action to be taken. While χρόνος (chronos) referred to time as a linear series of events, καιρός (kairos) had "a qualitative, permanent nature." Very apropos of the warp.

While Tzeentch knew everything there was to know about the past and present, he was unhappy that he couldn't get a perfect view of the future. In an attempt to overcome this issue, he went to the Well of Eternity at the center of reality. (How much of this is intended to be absolutely literal is absolutely unclear, but the 40k universe is a strange place.) However, because Tzeentch is kind of a massive bitch, he didn't want to go in himself and sent his Lords of Change instead. The problem: none of his servants ever returned.

Fed up with this, Tzeentch eventually grabbed Kairos and tossed him into the well. He survived, but emerged incredibly aged (which for a creature of the warp immune to the passage of time is saying something) completely insane (even by daemonic standards) and with a second head (resemblance to the Imperial Aquilla is ENTIRELY coincidental...). He knows everything from the past and the future and when asked a question, one head will tell the truth, and the other will tell an equally believable lie. It's possible that the Imperial Aquila is a representation of Kairos. *BLAM* Heresy!

During Lorgar's quest for knowledge in the Eye of Terror, Kairos appeared to him and gave Lorgar a choice, saying that the Aurelian could either seek revenge on Roboute Guilliman for the destruction of Khur, but ensure that Chaos would lose the upcoming war, or put aside his personal desires and work for the big four, and ensure their eventual victory. Aurelian notes that in this single instance, both of his heads were telling the truth. He also disguised himself as an entirely different oracle (with a little bit of a shout out to H.P. Lovecraft) in order to trick Ahriman and the Thousand Sons into regathering Magnus's shards and binding them together in a way that Tzeentch preferred (oddly, getting Lucius the Eternal to help out, who was just kind of there, doing his dueling thing and fucking off from his chapter to hang out with the Thousand Sons for a little while.) It's been implied that Kairos tried repeatedly to influence the Lion in the time he wandered the forests of Caliban as a youth; unfortunately for Kairos however, he really couldn't have picked a worse primarch to try this on, and the Lion being the Lion each and every time shut him the fuck down until big bird just gave up. Centuries later he tried overtly attacking the Lion and his fleet during the Thramas Crusade, and that went even less well.

He's also part of the ship, "Accursed Eternity" that was formerly a space marine battle barge and the one who taught Blood Drinkers the blood ritual.

Gathering Storm

He was tasked by Magnus and allied with the Red Corsairs to capture Guilliman by binding the primarch with chains made of his own guilt, anger and disappointment. He initially succeeded but was immediately fucked over by none other than Cypher, who led a troupe of Harlequins and a bunch of Khornate daemons led by Skarbrand to fuck him right up his daemonic cloaca.

The End Times

He tells Archaon that he will be killed by someone "who is not mortal", but Archaon is like fuck that shit and tells him to attack Averheim where Valten resides. Like all things Tzeentch related, he failed and had his heads cut off to summon a more useful servant, a greater daemon of khorne Ka'Bandha.

Total War: Warhammer 3

Kairos is the first playable Legendary Lord for Tzeentch in Total War: Warhammer III, where he leads the Oracles of Tzeentch faction against the forces of Cathay. In story, Kairos has been sealed out of the Chaos Realms by the dying Ursun's roar, and is looking for a spell to get himself back in. This spell comes in the form of the Book of Fates from The Advisor, who offers to give him Ursun's eyes to see the present in exchange for a drop of Ursun's blood to break his curse from the book. As part of a Tzeenchian faction, Kairos has the Changing of the Ways, a campaign ability that lets Kairos mess with factions without needing direct intervention, for example he can take a settlement for himself or give it to a different faction without needing to go to war, or he can trigger a war between two factions at will. This consumes Grimoires, a currency you obtain fighting battles and with some buildings.

Kairos is one of the most powerful spellcasters in the game, with the ability to swap out spells from other lores and a technology, that increases winds of magic recharge for ever pink/blue horror unit in his army that isn't engaged in combat, so he can fly around and burn enemies to a crisp. His unique skill tree buffs spellcasting, decreases miscasts, buffs some units like Lords of Change and buffs barriers in his army. He also has some unique blue line skills that grant buffs factionwide, something rare for a Legendary Lord. These buffs mainly affect his Changing of the Ways, but he also buffs public order factiowide. He's garbage in melee though, so keep him away from dedicated fighters.

In the Realms of Chaos campaign, he starts in the northeastern part of the Chaos Wastes, a couple of provinces away from Cathay. You will have to balance between consolidating your starting position and striking out at Cathay before they spiral out of control. You have a couple of allies close to you, but you will have to do a bit of cleanup before you can focus on Cathay, mainly from ogres and a minor Khorne faction. Your teleport stance, which lets you bypass mountains like the Greenskins, should work wonders in the Mountains of Mourn. Oh, and Ku'gath starts a couple of provinces south of you, but you should have no problems with him if push comes to shove. In the Immortal Empires campaign, Kairos follows the trend of his fellow monogod Legendary Lords, and starts in the southern tip of the Southlands, because of...reasons. He shares this position with Teclis, who also moved down south for reasons unexplained, and will be your main opponent early on. Not that you will lack fighting opportunities, since the land is plagued with Lizardmen. Volkmar is some provinces north of you, too. If you feel the pressure, the Southern Chaos Wastes is a decent place to expand and consolidate, with one minor Slaaneshi faction and one minor Tzeentchian faction, you should have no problem. Just watch out for Oxyotl. And you risk opening another front with Lustrian factions. So, be mindful of what you do. You have the tools, since Tzeentch is in a great position in terms of army composition.

Truth or Lie?

To get a straight answer from what is effectively two creatures where one tells the truth and the other lies is tricky but doable. provided you restrict yourself to true/false questions. Karios's heads work much like the Knights and Knaves logic puzzle made famous in Labyrinth. You can pick either head and, for some true/false question Q, ask, "If I asked you Q, would you answer True?"

Kairos's Answers

	You picked the Honest head.	You picked the Lying head.
The answer to Q is actually True.	Yes	No (lie)
The answer to Q is actually False.	No	Yes (lie)

Unfortunately we're not done. Although not explicitly confirmed in canon, which head lies and which head tells the truth will probably change with each question, unlike in Knights and Knaves, so you should not determine which head is lying for this question and then use that knowledge to change your next question. For example the Knight and Knave puzzle is often framed like one will lead you home the other to death hence why knowing which one lies is so important, if after asking the question the Knight and Knave could switch roles, then you have no way of knowing whose lying and therefore knowing which one will take you home/doom you. Asking Kairos questions for which there is no false answer, such as "If 1=2, then what is the Emperor's favorite cheese?", or no true answer, such as "How many inches do I weigh?", making him incapable of lying or telling the truth, may result in the sort of paradox that leaves you thoroughly Tzeentched.

As you can imagine attempting to outsmart an insane, immortal, all-knowing daemon isn't the best of ideas. Unless Kairos is fully compelled to answer you truthfully (like in the case of Lorgar); he might just flip the table and turn you into a gribbly mess of mutated flesh as his way of refusing to put up with your shit. In fact, since Kairos has already seen the past and future it's highly likely he has already foreseen your attempts at trying to get a straight answer out of him and prepared his answers beforehand. Thus, Kairos is less "knights and knaves" and more "Hardest logic puzzle ever by George Boolos". In addition to one liar and one truth-teller, add in a random element (traditionally a third character who answers at random, and who is indistinguishable from the others aside from his answers; in Kairos's case, he probably swaps heads), and add onto that they deliberately answer in a language you don't speak (The three gods riddle), and of course they not only know exactly what kind of question you're going to ask but will also make sure that both their responses sound perfectly true with no way to tell which one is false, and further add that if they don't like your question they are going to kill you. And then laugh. And then display your corpse at the museum of failure wearing a silly hat.

Basically the only way to get an answer out of him IF you have a way of phrasing the questioning such that you bypass the whole which head lies and which tells the truth thing, is if you are strong enough to compel him to answer your question... and in 40k the number of characters that can do that are on a very short list, which spoiler: you are not on.

In fact the only way to get useful information out of him is to winnow a massive pool of data down to two. If you ask him "what planet in the galaxy is my macguffin" he will only give back 2 answers out of the entire galaxy, one wrong planet and one correct one. He is going to fuck with you of course but now you know you have a 50% chance to be right, and if you're powerful enough to summon a greater Demon, you can figure the rest out.

On the Tabletop

For 40k 9th edition, we are still waiting for a proper codex tho

Name	M	WS	BS	S	T	W	A	Ld	Sv	Points
Kairos	12/8/6	3+	2+	6	7	16	5/3/1	10	6+	270

Kairos now has the exact same point cost as a regular Lord of Change, so comparisons are pretty straightforward. The main thing you loose is one point of WS (the LoC has 2+) and some deal of customization, but for everything else Kairos is straight up better. To start with, the LoC comes equipped with a Staff of Tzeentch that has S=6, AP=-2, D=3, whereas Kairos comes equipped with the Staff of Tomorrow that gives S=8, AP=-3,D=D6, and both weapons turn slain characters into a Chaos Spa... One of those fucking things, the LoC has to pay 5 points extra to get that weapon profile with a Baleful Sword, but this sword works like a power fist in that it substracts 1 from all hit rolls and its just a +1, instead of a +2 to strength.

Similarly, Kairos has a Smite Range of 36", whereas a regular LoC needs to be equipped with a relic to increase it to 30" from its default 18". The lord of change knows two spells from the tzeentch discipline and can increase the known amount with relics and stratagems, but Kairos knows all of them. Finally both the regular LoC and Kairos have a bonus to psychic casts that start at +2 and go down as they take wounds, but the LoC can cast and deny two times per phase whereas Kairos can cast and deny 3 times. The biggest reason reason you would want to use a LoC over Kairos is have a tankier bird with The Impossible Robe relic that gives it a 4+ invul save (3+ after Ephemeral form) and a good warlord trait, like Incorporeal Form to give it a "disgustingly resilient" reduction of wounds taken or Daemonspark to make your horror blobs terrifying.

Whatever the case, Kairos will make sure to make your opponent despair during the psychic phase and he'll be able to annihilate one or two vehicles with his flying movement and melee attacks that hurt like lascannons. Just be sure you have a way to prevent him from getting sniped by lascannons first.

Gallery

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