Malal
- "... and he that went before now came last, and that which was white and black and all direction was thrown against itself. Grown mightily indignant at the words of the Gods, Malal did turn his heart against them and flee into the chambers of space... And no man looked to Malal then, save those that serve that which they hate, who smile upon their misfortune, and who bear no love save for the damned. At such times as a warrior's heart turns to Malal, all Gods of Chaos grow fearful, and the laughter of the Outcast God fills the tomb of space..."
- -- from The Great Book of Despair.
"Chaos Divided"
Malal
The character Malal was created in The Citadel Journal for second edition Warhammer Fantasy by John Wagner and Alan Grant as the patron of the Warriors of Chaos character Kaleb Daark, who allied with the forces of good to fight Chaos while pursuing his own goals by confronting Khornates and Skaven using his soul-drinking magic axe. He was sent by Malal to assassinate one of the Chaos God of Law Arianka to prove himself worthy, a story which continued in three chapters. In 1986 Kaleb and his mount were given stats in Journal and his miniature was advertised, and it along with the fourth chapter were never released for unknown reasons ("creative differences" is all that was ever revealed). Malal was referenced in several other Games Workshop works, with the Ogre Kingdoms character Skrag the Slaughterer originally being a worshiper of him (later retconned to Great Maw instead) who was cast out from his tribe for stealing an axe made of "starmetal" (later retconned to cooking his chief's favorite Gnoblar), escaping to a Chaos Dwarf hold to force them to forge him armor before slaughtering all of them, followed up by a skirmish scenario called "The Crude, the Mad and the Rusty" where the surviving Chaos Dwarf plus two Goblin Fanatics and a golem against him. The first edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay states he is a rogue Chaos God who wants to destroy the Four, a Champion of Malal is killed by the protagonist in a short story found in the Ignorant Armies short story novels, and the Chaos Marauders cardgame had a card which depicted Beastmen preparing to fight other Chaos beings.
All in all, Malal was designed as an antihero side to Chaos who is beneficial to the side of Order but is too Chaotic Evil for any being to trust, and actively drains both friend and enemy of energy to feed himself. Serving him is advancing oblivion, fighting him is to be annihilated. Any infighting on the part of Chaos resulted in Malal growing in power, essentially introducing the concept of total war to the Warp entities. Only by cooperating and shifting their attention to the mortal realm could the other Chaos Gods escape his influence, where they found his minions waiting for them.
During the year 1987 Wagner and Grant experienced a falling out over several comics they were producing at the time including Judge Dredd and work for DC Comics as well as several works for smaller publishers. This was followed by a sudden scramble for rights earned by them during their time creating for different companies and resulted in them suing Games Workshop for total ownership of Kaleb and Malal. Games Workshop had hired them for freelance work rather than as actual employees meaning they technically owned the characters they created. If Games Workshop ever used Malal again, they would either have to pay a royalty fee or enter into a lawsuit over the ownership of the character, which they surprisingly never did. Malal was only used once more, in the The Dying of the Light campaign where a Chaos sorcerer of Tzeentch named Heinrich Bors switches to Malal in order to have control over his own fate again.
Although Wagner and Grant technically own Malal and Kaleb, neither have done anything with the characters as Wagner continues to mostly write Judge Dredd while Grant now works on zombie-related stories.
Zuvassin the Undoer and Necoho the Doubter were created by Games Workshop to replace Malal in the "The Enemy Within" adventure for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay during the "Something Rotten In Kislev" campaign.
Zuvassin and Necoho together represent the same thing that Malal did, the concept of Chaos destroying itself and Khorne, Tzeentch, Slaanesh, and Nurgle plus the Chaos Gods of Order each falling prey to the primordial nothingness they emerged from in the same way the mortals do into them.
Zuvassin and Necoho were only given a second mention, listed as Chaos Gods in the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay supplement "Tome Of Salvation".
Zuvassin
Zuvassin is a rogue Chaos God who undoes the plans of any being, Chaos or not, including Tzeentch. He accepts all followers for all reasons and doesn't issue instructions since his followers should technically be working to subvert them, so that anything Zuvassin gets involved in becomes a complete mess where nothing can be predicted and everything goes wrong for everyone to varying degrees making him the only Chaos God who embodies the concept of "Chaos". Any time you could make a list of possible outcomes for any given thing then draw in Zuvassin, the "INCONCEIVABLE" result will occur; a coin will fall through a portal into another dimension and land on all surfaces at once, a six-sided dice will crack in half while being rolled and reveal a 7 and 8 inside results, both factions in a battle will actually somehow end the day with more soldiers than they began with.
Necoho
Necoho is the god of contradictions and paradoxes, and represents the "Chicken or the Egg" question where the supernatural exists and doesn't. He fights against the concept of belief and faith and as a result is the enemy of all spiritual creatures and faithful worshipers. He only ever actually appears as a simple mortal being and counts everyone and nobody to be his followers. Necoho will one day bring about the end of the Chaos Gods when nothing left will worship them and they will cease to be.
Legacy of Malal
Both players and Eavy Metal painters alike continued to use Malal even if he had gone without a mention, and was still considered to be canon. The early days of the Warhammer forums had the discovery of Malal as something of a rite of passage for Chaos players as well. Malal paintjobs continued to show up in many Golden Demon competitions and Eavy Metal showcases alike.
Be'lakor
with the introduction of Mordheim, the Cult of Chaos faction revolved around a character called the "Shadowlord" who was a Chaos God of some kind and had caused the ruin of the city. Many players believed him to be the return of Malal, and many early paintjobs for the Cult were in Malal's white and black skull motif. The story was later revealed to actually be a plot by Be'lakor, a mere Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided who had wanted to escape the control of the Four and had made the ruined city his domain before realizing he had only traded one cage for a much smaller one, and slunk back to the laughter of the Four with his tail between his legs and a revisionist version of the story already in his head. In many ways Be'lakor was intended to replace Malal as the non-Four alternative to Chaos, although Games Workshop writers by this point had made Chaos the Mary Sue faction for so long that the concept of anything being a danger to them was laughable so the "Chaos outsider" became just a whiny petulant part of Chaos that managed to wreak great destruction in the mortal world while attempting, and failing, to give a black eye to his masters.
Malice
Malice was created for 3rd edition Warhammer 40000 in the Chaos Space Marine Codex. An axe identical to Kaleb Daark's is described which was created to kill other beings of Chaos, and a Chaos Space Marine Chapter in Malal's colors was shown under the name "Sons of Malice". They later got a short story in White Dwarf where a Sister of Battle discovers they were a loyalist Chapter who had fallen to Chaos while still fighting for the Imperium, exalting in cannibalism and blood rituals while praising Malice as the god of anarchy and fear. They then proceeded to cannibalize the Sister and her group, and were exiled from the Imperium for their heresy, and they continue fighting against the other forces of Chaos. But once again, Malice was never mentioned again although his color scheme was repeated in subsequent works.
Canon/Archaon
Malal/Zuvassin/Necoho/Malice have existed in a sort of limbo in canon for quite a long time. Technically they were never retconned, and "non-canon by exclusion" is a weak accusation as that would mean every character and every character must be mentioned every edition for them to remain canon. Many statements have been given saying the Chaos Gods only exist in the Four, although this was said both before and after each of the previous Chaos Gods were written meaning the statement has always been a false one. Some people have taken on the perspective that the "Chaos God of Go Fuck Yourself" is a continually shifting being, more in flux than Tzeentch and that each incarnation is comparable to Doctor Who incarnations.
End Times and Age of Sigmar for Warhammer Fantasy both suggest that the concept of a fifth Chaos God is over with as in the leadup to the event Be'lakor snarked that the Chaos Gods of Law never existed and that only the Four exist. But his truthfulness is in doubt partially because the character who "never lies" simply stated once in the 40k universe that he never lies "because its boring", and was never proven to be a reliable narrator. It is also dubious because of the proven disconnect between Black Library and the actual army books evidenced during the massive contradictions during the event and the casual attitude of the writers, meaning that anything in said books must be taken with a huge grain of salt.
Regardless, during the event when every character (that Games Workshop remembered existed) played a part in the event and no fifth Chaos God other than Horned Rat did anything means he and his other selves may truly be non-canon. In Age of Sigmar, Archaon is promoted to a Chaos God (remember that Fantasy and 40k share the same Warp which exists outside of time, so Archaon is now a god by technicality in 40k as well) representing the combined strength of the other Chaos Gods (with the exception of Slaanesh's replacement in the Great Game, Horned Rat, whom he rejects) and his Black Library novel life goal is to destroy all gods and kings to let men control their own destiny and exalt in their own achievements in a spectacularly Ayn Rand way. Although the actual army books state he is loyal to Chaos, the Black Library goals fall very much in line with Malal and in an accidental bit of meta his contradiction in goal even fits into Necoho's sphere. Beyond that Be'lakor (who states himself as Archaon's creator and father) is the one who manipulated Archaon's life, from a Warrior of Chaos raping his Empire mother to him becoming a devout priest of Sigmar to him losing his faith and becoming a being of pure evil who rejects both Sigmar's light and Be'lakor's blackness. This blend of light and dark fits quite well into Malal's scheme. So it may be possible that Archaon is the latest incarnation of the Malal concept.
/tg/ Fluff
Followers of Malal are kind of like Chaos Agnostics. They doubt that anything exists, including the Emperor, Chaos itself, and you. Especially you. The Chaos Space Marines chapter known as the "Sons of Malice", with their alternating black/white colour scheme are as likely to kill Chaos Forces as anyone else on the field, except for each other.
Malal, when he was actually canon, was the Chaos God of Fear, Darkness, Anarchy, and batshit loony self-destructive urges; Chaos battling Chaos. This also made him the God of paradoxes, radical Inquisitors and the like trying to turn Chaos against itself, and the outcast god since he was trying to buttfuck every other Chaos God and their followers. The thing about Malal was that even though he was one of the biggest personifications of Chaos there could be, he constantly tried to destroy Chaos and if he were ever successful in ending Chaos he could be destroyed as well. Not that this pants-on head crazy a-hole cared, as suicidal tendencies and teamkilling just became part of his portfolio instead. When Malal gets involved, the Great Game turns from Risk to Call of Cthulu with Old Man Henderson as the head cultist.
Since Malal was supposed to be the antitheses of Chaos he had only a few champions, all of whom were supposed to be STUPIDLY powerful and would go around bitch-slapping other Chaos champions with their anti-daemon daemon-axes of doom while wearing warp-resistant warp armor. The servants of Malal fight in utter silence, but that makes them way more badass than the rest of chaos. So yeah. They work with the forces of Order, but are fairly likely to engage in teamkilling to the degree that Orks are shocked by their sudden but inevitable betrayals. Because of this followers of Malal have to already be balls to the wall nuts and have superhuman will. Malal's trademarks were black and white bisecting armor and a horned skull equally bisected black and white. His sacred number was 11. His signature weapon was the Dreadaxe which was a daemon weapon made out of a Daemon that hates Daemons, and it looked like a pterodactyl head on a stick. You can still find examples of this weapon in the CSM 3.5 dex and in Your Spiritual Liege's wonderful fluff assassin of a Codex: Grey Knights.
Malal has a fortress in the Chaos Wastes in Warhammer Fantasy where he captures and trolls Greater Daemons by trapping them for all eternity unable to do whatever it is that they embody. This one Keeper of Secrets he has, for example, is caught in a field that nullifies all sensation so it can't indulge in cocaine fueled sex parties with Doomrider, thus eternally pissing of said daemon forever in the only way that works. He also put a Great Unclean One in a vat of Febreze; blinded and binded a Lord of Change and put him in a cage that never changes; and locked a Bloodthirster in an indestructible zen garden.
Unlike his brother gods he is capable of entering the materium/Warhammer World through demonic possession if his followers had enough sacrifices, but since his followers rarely manage to not kill each other long enough to make headway towards any particular goal it mostly falls to his Champions to get shit done.
In Age of Sigmar, Malal actually controls the space between the Realms and decides when the Realmgates will function and when they will not, plucking those he desires from the space between spaces and doing with them as he wills. Since Chaos no longer fights itself he has weakened to a degree, and must now rely on his plan to turn Archaon to his will and take the massive powers the Four invested in him which will mark the beginning of the end of Chaos.
(In 40k, Malal is actually THE ELEVENTH PRIMARCH!! Think about it: Malal's sacred number is 11, the Renegade warband Sons of Malice worship the god Malal, and the Sons of Malice also center their rituals and trophies around the number XI. And what is the number of one of the missing legions? ELEVEN. And their warband contain a large amount of unknown (Read: ANCIENT) suits of Power Armour that predate even the Great Crusade. This could mean that The Sons of Malice are actually serious possibilities as candidates of the XI Legion! *Mind Blown*)
At one point in the 36th Millennium (though of course time is a nebulous concept in the warp), the other four gods got really sick of Malal's constant interference in their plans. While Malal was at the time the strongest individual god, the other four knew that he couldn't deal with them all at once. So Tzeentch gathered the other gods and formulated a plan to deal with Malal once and for all. So one day Nurgle knocked on Malal's door and asked Malal to step outside, at this point Tzeentch signaled the others to attack and the other Chaos Gods jumped out from behind their cover and beat Malal to death. It required about a century of constant beating, but eventually Malal died. Upon his death the other Four Chaos gods celebrated for one thousand years now that the cheese lord was out of the way. Sadly Malal's bastard offspring Malice and Zuvassin managed to slip away. However, it might be possible that Malal/Malice may just be an Alias for the Emperor, working incognito, looking into ways he can ultimately end the four-fold scourge of the Warp. It might be possible he would use "Malal/Malice", using the powers of the Dark Gods against them. That includes using the Sons of Malice(Grey Knights?). Just as soon as Kaldor stops sniffin' Warp Dust. A final theory is that he's become a sneaky git and painted himself purple to wait out until the time is right to hit the big four just hard enough to finish them (considering the current state of Daemons on the tabletop, that might not be too far off), and in the meantime manipulates Orks into fighting each other by pretending to be Gork, then Mork (or Mork then Gork?) to draw them into arguments while causing the Imperium to weaken itself by BLAMMING everyone capable of uplifting the condition of man. He probably got the idea sometime after he left a giant sword for Farsight to eventually find, but before he altered Macha's biochemistry to amp up her hormone output. In fact, the truth is much more terrifying. Malal in fact managed to travel back through time to the present, where he is now trying to manifest. This is the source of the Zalgo legends across the internet.
In Warhammer Fantasy he still exists, and is secretly sponsoring Nagash's recent rise to power. He hasn't been seen or mentioned because he's been crashing on the Horned Rat's couch after burning his own house down.
Getting Malal on the Table
As Games Workshop have proven themselves to be a bunch of IP abusing faggots, it once again falls to /tg/ to get anything done.
Humans
To field rapevikings of Malal in Warhammer Fantasy, run Warriors of Chaos models on Skaven bases. Nothing like blowing yourself AND the enemy up to say "It doesn't matter". Ironically (or appropriately depending on how you look at it) one of the best ways to represent 40k Malal dedicated Chaos Marines would be to use the Grey Knights codex. Think about it; elite marine units with sick powers and a plethora of daemon killing hardware, small army sizes, and more. Take an Unbound Dreadknight spam list and use Chaos bitz for a nasty Chaos smashing elite warband of Malal followers and lolstomp your opponents into the ground. Alternatively you can use C:CSM if you aren't a cheesed-out 12 year old or Daemonhunters vet.
Daemons of Malal
Have you ever lamented how you always wanted to put together a Malal themed army, but you didn't, because it wouldn't be worth it without the proper daemons? Well, now you no longer have a fucking excuse. Grown mightily indignant at Malal's lack of presence on the tabletop, several anons conspired together to bring you this. We even found models for it; they're at the bottom, listed as Hook Horrors. Play-testing would be very much appreciated.
Alternatively, modification to existing Daemon models using their original stats is fine too (a popular idea for example is a gleeful white and black Daemon Prince tearing itself in half along the color separation).
Malal Homebrew
Due to the fact that there is little concrete information about Malal content, especially in 40k where he has almost no presence, there are a number of ways to interpret the lore into a whole. Here is the link to the fan-created rule set: Malal Daemonkin
Dirges of Malal
Take the rot, to make it flesh.
Take the skull, the soul to rest.
Take their mind and give them peace.
Take their will. Sensations cease.
"We shall deny Nurgle their flesh to fester and rot"
"We shall deny Khorne their blood and skulls"
"We shall deny Tzeentch their destinies and fates"
"We shall deny Slaanesh their pleasure and pain"
"Death to the Dark Gods"
"For the Renegade God"
"Let the galaxy burn!"
To the Skin, Ice
To the Rot, Fire
To the Skull, Steel
To the Mind, Night
Followers of Malal
The Sons of Malice
Kaleb Daark
The Alpha Legion and their two primarch No such legion nor primarchs exist!
Scottish Koreans
Jumbo shrimp
Tau assault units(Farsight)
You
Me
Anarchists
Atheist preachers
Your Girlfriend
Tall midgets
Black albinos
Grey Knights
Billy Mays
Honest politicians
Gabe Newell
Chris-chan's long-lost perfect, popular brother
Josef Fritzl
Eldar units that aren't utterly overpowered
Screaming Mimes
Uncle Ruckus
Assurances that don't leave Lord Bale cold
Vladimir Putin's estranged twin brother that isn't a complete badass
Irreligious Word Bearers
Ronald McDonald
Ultramarines that deserve to live
Vegemonster
Tzeentch Berserkers
Bill Gates
Tyranid allies (7th edition anyone)
Ork mathematicians (a.k.a. Mathboyz)
Matt ward Fans (Newfags)
Chaos centurions and knights (Forge world made them.)
Pacifist Marines
Black Templar Librarians
Celibate and Sober Slaanesh Daemon (The 5th deamonette creation)
Cheap GW models
Egalitarian Eldar
Asexual and Altruistic Dark Eldar
Germophobic Plaguebearers
Ahzek Ahriman DOUBLEHERESY!*BLAM*
Two-Face
Mikhail Bakunin
Justin Bieber's popular twin brother
Pacifist army ants
Abstinent Daemonettes
Commissars that don't *BLAM* their own troops.
Virgin Bards
People who don't worship Malal
Gallery
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A Son of Malice.
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One of Malal's canon Daemon designs.
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One of Malal's canon Daemon designs.
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One of Malal's canon Daemon designs.
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One of Malal's canon Daemon designs.
| The Chaos Gods of Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Fantasy | |
|---|---|
| Four Main Chaos Gods: | Khorne - Nurgle - Slaanesh - Tzeentch |
| Other Gods of Chaos: | Archaon - Hashut - Horned Rat - Nuffle Malal - Morghur - Necoho - Zuvassin |
| Chaos Gods of Law: | Alluminas - Arianka - Solkan the Avenger |