Sorcerer (Warhammer 40,000)

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

– The Lord Acton

Neroth, a Sorcerer, ruining someone's day.

Start with a Space Marine Librarian, add some heresy, and you get a Chaos Sorcerer. They are the heavy-duty psykers of the Chaos Space Marines. They feel the Warp overtaking them, and to them, it is a good pain.

For the most part, Sorcerers see themselves as great discoverers of arcane knowledge, studying the Warp from a perspective that the foolish worshipers of the Corpse God deny themselves. They often lead warbands of other Chaos followers, as sorcerers can be just as charismatic and powerful as a chaos lord.

While they certainly can be scholars or warlords (or both), the dirty secret of the Sorcerers is that they are just as much pawns of the Chaos Gods as everyone else. Magnus the Red (and all of the Thousand Sons) learned this the hard way during the Horus Heresy, when the Rubric of Ahriman turned all non-psyker Thousand Sons into Rubric Marines.

Tzeentch is often considered the patron Chaos God of Sorcerers, as arcane knowledge (and manipulating pawns) is part of his purview. Nurgle and Slaanesh also have Sorcerers within their ranks, though not to the same extent as Tzeentch. Khorne, on the other hand, usually hates them (in fact, they cannot take the Mark of Khorne in-game), but he may make an exception for particularly bloodthirsty psykers, like Azariah Kyras, and he probably has the biggest rage boner ever for blanks. (Unless you count he who shall not be named...)

It is worth noting that while most sorcerers are psykers, and a psyker's natural affinity with the Warp does give them a better advantage, not all sorcerers are psykers and certainly not all psykers are sorcerers. Sorcery leans more towards ritual and using mediums to manipulate the forces of the warp (like cursed artifacts, demonic symbology, and pacts), rather than sheer mental power; if Khorne actually opposed all psykers *and* all sorcerers, it would be basically impossible for Khornate cults to summon their patron's daemons.

If you watched Darth Vader's walk-in-the-park ending scene in Rogue One then you have a decent example of what it is to stand up against an average fluffwise Sorcerer (its close, but a real 40K sorcerer would involve more warpfire and telekinetic dismemberment), indeed, even in the Dawn of War series most Guardsmen squads would get mowed down by a Sorcerer without him suffering any serious scratch. The Thousand Sons also offer a promotion rank to Exalted Sorcerers.

Dawn of War II

A Tzeentch-worshiping Chaos sorcerer is one the three commanders usable to Chaos in Dawn of War II. He functions as a support hero that's meant to pummel enemies from a distance; as such, he's the least powerful of the Chaos commanders in melee, but his abilities can do a lot of damage.

Also, the sorcerers have Scott McNeil's Sindri voice, and listening to it is reason enough to use them.

Noteworthy Sorcerers

• Magnus the Red, daemon Primarch of the Thousand Sons. Most famous and powerful Chaos Sorcerer, ever.

• Ahriman: Probably the second most famous and powerful Chaos Sorcerer of all time. Responsible, among other things, for the epic fail/epic win that was the Rubric of Ahriman, which turned his legion into the state that it is now, getting his ass kicked from his legion in the process. Is now searching for (and failing to find) the Black Library. To his credit, he has gotten closer with each failure, and is now frighteningly close. Some say that he's reconciled with his legion and its members have joined his search. Update: He has found it.

• SSSSIIIIINNNNNDDDDRRRIIII: Sorcerer of The Alpha Legion. He became was possessed by ??????? a Daemon Prince, but got his ass pwned by Gabe, so he couldn't properly ascend and died, ascended into daemonhood but was banished by Gabe was eaten by the real daemon prince at the height of the Tartarus campaign. What happened to him exactly is pretty fuzzy, but it's generally accepted that he won't be coming back. He is a notable sexy-voiced bastard. Currently residing in Abaddon's bionic arm.

• Neroth: A sorcerer of the Black Legion and the nagging wife of Eliphas. Unlike the pansy bitches above who prefer to plot and sit on their asses, Neroth's entire thought process, life motivation, and military strategy amounts to "APPLY WARPFIRE", which tends to divide the opinions of elegan/tg/entlemen on him. Rumors of his being a Khornate Sorcerer are unsubstantiated. Rumors say that he hosts a barbecue every Sunday in the Vengeful Spirit. Also a sexy-voiced bastard.

• Nemeroth: A sorcerer with his own warband, the Chosen of Nemeroth. A manipulative guy who corrupted a radical Inquisitor into the creation of a warp-fueled power source only to almost ascend to daemonhood and invade a forgeworld in the process. Like Sindri, he also was killed while ascending, but by one of the very few awesome smurfs. Oddly, he isn't armed with any Force weapons, but rather with a pair of flesh-engraved lightning claws and terminator armor (unless he has Force lightning claws - you should ask him). His face is fucked up, even compared to Eliphas. Also, even for a Space Marine, he's huge.