Chaos Gods
The four gods which rule over the Realm of Chaos in Warhammer Fantasy Battles and the Warp in Warhammer 40,000. They love nothing so much as dicking with each other, except perhaps dicking with their mortal followers, and dicking EACH other (shhhh). Before they were gods, they were generally benevolent beings, when the Warp was a calm sea. Each one is formed by the emotions of living souls clumped together in the Warp/Realm of Chaos. Contrary to standard thought, they personify good attributes as well, and are powered as much by good as by bad. Even if said god started out entirely bad, in their eventual evolution as part of their natures, they will kill gods who represented entirely good things, and will gain not only their values, but their power by said value. Be aware many of the gods' values will and do intersect. This is as much due to the chaotic nature of the gods as it is to the multitude of emotions that make up the living. They are:
- Khorne: BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! MILK FOR THE KHORNE FLAKES! Oh, sorry. In case it wasn't obvious, Khorne is the god of battle, martial honour, and oh yeah, BLOOD! Although primarily formed from hate and rage, bravery and honour are also thrown in the mix. Also in the mix are mercy, courage, regret, fear, athleticism, determination, daring, impulsiveness, and struggling onwards in the face of all odds.
- Opposing god - Slaanesh (Khorne considers him/her/it/hermaphrodite to be too frilly), although he's also not a big fan of Tzeentch (too tricky).
- Bro god - Nurgle,
although he doesn't seem to mind Khaela Mensha Khaine (they're probably the same thing, though).Fuck that elf pussy. I'm bros with ULRIC. - Dedicated Chaos Space Marine Legion - World Eaters
- Warriors of Chaos "Hero": Arbaal the Undefeated (ANGRY VIKINGS!! FUCK YEAH!!); Valkia the Bloody
- Sacred Number - 8
- Nurgle: The god of filth, pestilence, decay, and generally being a cool dude. Formed from despair and fear of death, acceptance and stoicism are also included. Other values include inevitability, empathy, kinship, happiness, struggle, love, tradition, and memory. Nurgle is also notable for being the only Chaos god that cares for his followers whatsoever, bordering on love (in fact, in 40k, he loves the Eldar goddess Isha so much that he chained her up and force feeds her his new diseases... yeah, love sucks sometimes).
- Opposing god - Tzeentch, the paragon of change, in opposition to Nurgle's representation of decay and inevitability.
- Bro god - Khorne, mostly because Nurgle is the only Chaos god Khorne doesn't hate.
- Dedicated Chaos Space Marine Legion - Death Guard
- Warriors of Chaos "Hero": Festus the Leechlord (this guy used to a doctor in the Empire; he's not even a Northman)
- Sacred Number - 7
- Slaanesh: The god/dess of pain, pleasure, and perfection... or, in other words, a god of emotions formed from emotions, not all of which are bad. In 40k, the Eldar created him/her/it/hermaphrodite by having so many damn orgies they tore a hole in space. I shit thee not. Formed mainly from hedonism and excess, love and creativity are also attributes of Slaanesh. Others facets include kindness, tranquility, jealousy, sensuality, DRUGS, expression, individuality, joy, peaceability, HEAVY METAL, and admiration.
- Opposing god - The brutish Khorne, obviously.
- Bro god - Tzeentch, although that's mostly because he's the least icky of the Chaos gods.
- Dedicated Chaos Space Marine Legion - Emperor's Children
- Warriors of Chaos "Hero": Sigvald the Magnificent (he really is quite magnificent...)
- Sacred Number - 6
- Tzeentch: The god of Just as planned and magic. Tzeentch is formed from paranoia and plotting, but also, amazingly enough, hope and ambition. Other values include trust, happiness, dissatisfaction, aspiration, progress, knowledge, learning, protection, will, and change.
- Opposing god - Nurgle, who won't get off his damn ass to do anything...
- Bro god(dess)- Slaanesh, who isn't as brutal as Khorne and not as much of a lazy bastard as Nurgle.
- Dedicated Chaos Space Marine Legion - Thousand Sons
- Warriors of Chaos "Hero": Vilitch the Curseling
- Sacred Number - 9
The Other Ones
Older editions of Warhammer Fantasy and 40k mention several lesser Chaos gods. Nowadays, they only appear in WFB (and even then, only sparingly), with some (the Horned Rat and Hashut in particular) generally considered to be separate from the "main" Chaos pantheon. These include:
- Be'Lakor: A fallen Chaos champion, who was apparently so crazy powerful that becoming a daemon prince was a demotion. Somehow still able to grant his followers unique magic powers. And yet, he's still weaker than Archaon.
- Hashut: Father of darkness and god of the Chaos Dwarves. And if his followers are any indication, god of penis-compensating hats.
- The Horned Rat: Patron of the Skaven, and god of...well, rats. Also disease, mutations, etc., but mostly rats. The Horned Rat once appeared in material form; he's the only Chaos god to do so. Of course, he just started eating a ton of the Skaven present, but still.
- Malal: Renegade Chaos god that only appeared in one comic for Fantasy. He is the god of fractiousness and dissent, which, given the company he keeps, makes him a tad redundant. That being said, he did have awesome champions who lived solely to hunt down the greatest champions of the other gods, which is pretty Awesome. Sadly (or not, depending on your opinion), Games Workshop idiotically lost the rights to his name, so he's been more or less retconned. Except now he might be back in 40k, with a Chaos Space Marine warband called the Sons of Malice who worship a god called Malice... who is, you guessed it, pretty much just Malal.
- Zuvassin: A minor god who just likes to see shit fall apart, specifically nonphysical stuff like schemes and lives. He and Malal are the co-chairs and so far only members of the Useless-Ass Gods Club (Necoho would join the club, but he doesn't believe it exists).
- Necoho: The god of atheism. I wish I was making that up. It actually works though since anything expressed in the materium becomes reality in the Realms/Warp.
- Mo'rcck, Phraz-Etar, and Ans'l: Puns on the last names of sci-fi and fantasy author Michael Moorcock (who wrote a lot about conflicts between Law and Chaos), artist Frank Frazetta (who drew a lot of movie and comic book posters, especially in sci-fi and fantasy), and Citadel Miniatures founder Bryan Ansell (who also wrote several of the First Edition rulebooks). These guys helped set the tone of the early Warhammer 40,000 universe (purposefully or not), including the propensity of putting spikes on Chaos things, and so they were homaged in the (initial) Third Edition Codex: Chaos Space Marines, which mentioned that Chaos Space Marines often put "spiky bits" on their armour in praise of these three gods. They were never mentioned anywhere else.