Morai Heg, Asuryan, Hekarti and Tzeentch

[Sezax]

I wish to ask how many descriptions of Flame of Asuryan are to be found in current ABs? I always imagined his flame to be very different from flames of Tzeentch, but lately I have seen it described as multicolored...Even my old idea about white-blue flame seems now suspicious to me...not to mention the idea of perfectly recorded future in the Pyramid of Asuryan.

Even more obvious link leads to Morai Heg, seer-goddess with ravens and crows...

If it is Hekarti, who provides the spell Power of Darkness, then it is interesting to note that it is VERY similar to Boon of Tzeentch. Not to mention that her description as many-armed and omnipresent Hydra Queen of Sorcery associates her even more closely with the Lord of Change...

In the old Chaos AB it was clearly stated that all good gods are but fraction of Four Chaos Gods, which was probably the greatest proof of WHFB being separate universe from 40000...

What I find very interesting is the new AB of Daemons...Not only are Chaos Gods now described extremely anthropomorphic and vain...It also provides countless possibilites how to explain gods in WHFB.

Thats good because some players (like me) love both druchii and Slaanesh and dont wish to choose, while others (like Dalamar) hate any hint of possible connection. This way we can all imagine to have that fictional world work in a way which we prefer.
(like mine http://sezax.wordpress.com/2009/05/14/cytharai-x-cadai/ )

What retcons do you think we can expect from GW about this topic?

I for one think it depends a lot on individual developers. Gav Thorpe seems clearly fond of idea of having cytharai as disguised Chaos Gods. This is his answer to me on his blog:

On Slaanesh – Back when we were rewriting the High Elves and Dark Elves, there was much discussion with Rick Priestley and Alan Merrett regarding the relationship between elves and Slaanesh. The conclusion reached was that it seemed highly strange that the elves would worship one Chaos God in its ‘raw’ form (Slaanesh) whilst simultaneously worshipping another (Khorne) in a elfified version (Khaine). So it was decided that while a few of the highest-ranking cult members might know the true power bein worshipped (Morathi, and later Malekith and maybe a few others) it would be unpalatable to the vast majority of elves, hence the debasement of the cytherai into the Cults of Pleasure. It is part of the insidious corruption of Chaos that one can be the pawns of the gods without even knowing it!

On the other hand the new Chaos AB makes it easy for people like Dalamar to believe in separate gods. If Khorne has rings with heads of lesser gods, than separate gods are bound to exist. Elven gods especially since Slaanesh will one day cage Loec and Nurgle has already done that to Isha (sorry I mean some Poxfulcrum or whatever ).

One can imagine the Cadai and Dwarwen Ancestor Gods as Old Ones.

Or it is possible Polar Gate originally led to some ,,Realm of Order" with Cadai and this connection was lost with the coming of chaos. That would explain the prehistoric kinds of magic, which are somehow meant to be different from Magic Winds.

Maybe good lesser gods live in isolated little inner realms surrounded by Realm of Chaos and are thus limited from manipulating mortals since the coming of Chaos.

Have any of you read that story about how Slaanesh told Khorne about blade, which seems very similar to Widowmaker? Blade older than Chaos?

[Drainial]

It has always seemed reasonably clear to me that Chaos did exist before the collapse of the gates but the Old Ones' mastery of magic/technology (which was so intermixed as to become inseparable for them) was great enough to refine it out leaving just energy with none of the daemonic influence. In making the gateways permanent they perhaps greatly increased the magic potential in the Warhammer world (which seems far greater than most psychic wielders in other worlds in 40k and while I know they are meant to be separate they are not really, but that is a separate argument) and thus made it vulnerable. That is mostly speculation from reading various sources, rule books, Lizardmen books, the Liber Chaotica ect.

As for the flame while I don't have my versions with me at the moment there is almost certainly a description in the HE book and there might be one in the DE book but I don't think there are ones in other army books. There is presumably one in the book Malekith but again I don't have it with me. Personally I have always thought of the Flames of Asuryan as being very controlled, a flame like a lamp or bunson burner rather than the wilder, more fierce flames I associate with Tzeentch. Unpredictability is a key part of Tzeentch and Chaos in general (only the weaver of fate sees all ends and no future is certain). I always got the impression that the room of days was while very accurate rather limited in its scope with only the future of things related to the Phoenix throne being shown but that is conjecture and there may be evidence to the contrary I am unaware of.

As for similarities between gods and goddesses it is only natural that even if they were completely separate similar goddesses would grant similar boons to their followers, there are only so many ways to represent the blessings of a magical god game wise after all even if the techniques are far removed from one another. Personally I subscribe to the separate but connected theory; Hekarti is not Tzeentch and Mannan is not Tzeentch but some elements of the worship of those gods will also manifest indirectly as worship of Tzeentch. The corruption of the pleasure cults is something of a special case as Moraithy purposely twisted their rituals and practices towards direct worship of Slaanesh.

[Saintofm]

I can see that. Every culture has or had at least one god/goddess that represented key facets, such as war, wisdom, love, lust, fertility, death, and so forth with some doing double duty (like how Poseidon is both responsible for the sea and earthquakes).

Would it be any different for the the world of Warhammer?

[Merkava]

Uh, hope it's not too deep digging (the discussion was on the first site!) but I'm quite interested in this topic.

I personally developed warhammer paradigma using concepts from Mage:the Ascension RPG. The main idea is that faith is shaping the reality - what mortals percept as reality is in some way only their imagination of how the world works - and changing one's concept of world leads to changing the world.

In my interpretation of warhammer world - both W40k and WF I see the nature of universe as - everything is made of Chaos. In Chaos exists consciousnesses, who, with force of their will, shapes the Chaos into beings - both etheral and material. The joined imagination of beings is creating universes, working with some laws of physics (which are based on strong enough will - either of one consciousness, or joined will of many). Making long story short, Warhammer Universe exists because beings living in it belive in it's existence, and it follows some rules because they belive it shall follow them. Next, some beings are stronger than others in their willpower - they are gods, other are weaker, and they are mortals. Weaker wills must follow the rules stronger ones belive in. Magic (and technology!) is in fact the act of will, that is strong enough to bend the rules to caster's wishes. All magic, warp navigation, religion, work based on joined willpower of beings that are conviced that they should work.

Why worshippers are important to gods? Because the more worshippers god has, the more joined will he can gather. He by himself owns powerfull will, but willpower of his worshippers adds up to his, so that he can overwhelm others and shape reality as he wishes.

Why Sigmar became god? Because so many people 'belived' in his power, that their joined will moved him to the upper level.

And now to the point. As faith works in both ways, not only gods shape belifes of mortals, but also what mortals think about gods shape them. If more druchii belives in Cytharai, gods of Cytharai are more powerfull and concrete. But if druchii starts to think that Cytharai are only aspects of Chaos Gods, Cytharai looses grip on willpower and can even 'merge' with Chaos Gods.

It suits to what I read in one of WFRP books - that when the Gates crashed, the pure Chaos entered the world and from that Chaos came all gods. In my understanding, they were just 'beings' when they crossed the Gates. But as their chaotic nature met up with mortal's concepts of mercy, death, murder, sickness, they shaped into antropomorphic manifestations of these concepts - Shallya, Morr, Khaine, Nurgle and so on.

I could talk a lot more about it, but probably no one would have patience to read through these, so maybe if anyone wishes to ask questions or point out wrongness in my concept - I'm open for discussion.

p.s. Pardon my errors in vocabulary/grammar/orthography. English is not my native language.

[Naghsaro]

I have always seen Khaine as "Khorne" as with the real life we have multiple gods with the exact same attributes but with different names.

One persons Enoch is anothers Thoth to a thirds Hermes.

The demons Tz'arkan leaves hints to the possible identity of Khaine when in discussion about the windowmaker with Malus. When he refers to Khaine in the discussion he refers to him as "The Blood God"

[Saintofm]

Yes, but Khaine shares aspects of both Khorn and Slannesh.

Khaine may prefer sertain ways of killing, but his Brides who kill with rage filled wild abandoned (more Khornite) and the perfectionist Assassins (more Slannesh and even Tzeetch when it comes down to it) are all in the cult of Khaine.

[Underway]

In the 40K fluff it is said that Khaines essence was fought over by Slannesh and Khorne because he had aspects of both. In the end he fell through the crack between the two gods into the mortal world and thus the Eldar Avatars were created.

Khaine is definatly composed of parts of both. In the end you have to wonder if there are other gods besides chaos gods active in the Warhammer world. If you accept that there are (Gork and Mork, Dwarven ancestor gods, Elven gods, Sotek, Sigmar, Lady of the Lake, Orion) but they are not as active as the chaos gods. Are they all chaos gods? Perhaps, as chaos by its very nature comprises everything, law, good etc... as chaos are all colours of the rainbow.

[Omnichron]

Maybe it's a bit like some of the ideas of the Planescape RPG... where everything originally came from the abyss (or chaos if you like) and developed out from that origin.

So, while Khaine might have been a mix of Khorne and Slaanesh, he is another entitiy now... and maybe it's exactly the same with all the other gods.

At least, I see Khaine as something else than Khorne and Slaanesh. I even consider the forbidden cults to not be directly linked to Slaanesh, although I've not read all the fluff about that matter and might be wrong about that one.

[Saintofm]

Khain is basically the embodiment of the Greek war God Ares as he is the biggest jerk in a pantheon of jerks (even the Roman Mars, which would latter take on aspects of Ares when the Romans borrowed some of the Greek gods, Mars wasn't as much an asshole).

Greeks feared more than reveared Areas as he was a god of wanton destruction, and prefered his half sister Athena who was a Goddess who was more interested in strategy and restraint than KILL! MAIM! BURN!


As for other gods and such, I can see every one having dozzens if not hundreds. For crying out loud, the Romans had a goddess of the sewers and a god of Sheep, and Applo was a soldiers god, Niki a goddess of vctory, and Nemmessass a goddess of luck and vengeance.

[Omnichron]

goddess of the sewers

Sounds like nurgle to me :p

Anyways, I'd leave the gods of other places to their respecitve religions and just focus on the warhammer religion!

[Underway]

I though Niki (aka Nike) was a goddess of good footwear... or perhaps child labour. So confused...

Many of the warhammer gods can be considered aspects of other gods. Couldn't Sotek be a combo of Tzeench and Khorne? How about the Horned Rat -Tzeench and Nurgle for sure. Hashunt - Tzeench and Khorne as well. Where things get bizzare is trying to figure out things like the Lady of the Lake - Slannesh with honour? Honour is a khorne thing.

[Lepaca]

Firstly I think we need to be very aware of the fact that the Chaos Gods work very differently in fantasy and 40k and to not mix the two of them up.

In 40k they are in a way immortal and incredibly powerful aliens from a different dimension that consist of the raw psychic energies of the warp and feed on the emotions and worship of mortals (mostly humans and Eldar).
They are also definately not the same beings as the Eldar gods!

In fantasy they are "just" your typical gods and their worship is more of a cultural thing than a feeding on emotional energies.
Also in this setting they are not clearly distinct from many of the other gods that many of the mortal races worship.
Asuryan for example definately has a lot of attributes in common with Tzeentch. His worship includes a lot of avian imagery, his most holy temple contains a mystical multi-colored flame and his elite guardians have detailed knowledge of the future. He is also a deity of hope.
Khaine on the other hand has a lot of similarities to Khorne (blood, war, frenzy, etc.) but does also have some notable differences (no focus on honorable combat, magic is not forbidden, assassination is encouraged). So does Khaine=Khorne hold true? Yes and no: To me Khaine is the concept of Khorne reinterpreted in an elvish way just like Asuryan is an elvish version of Tzeentch.

[Saintofm]

I though Niki (aka Nike) was a goddess of good footwear... or perhaps child labour. So confused...

Many of the warhammer gods can be considered aspects of other gods. Couldn't Sotek be a combo of Tzeench and Khorne? How about the Horned Rat -Tzeench and Nurgle for sure. Hashunt - Tzeench and Khorne as well. Where things get bizzare is trying to figure out things like the Lady of the Lake - Slannesh with honour? Honour is a khorne thing.

Technically the Chaos Dwarf God is since he's a, for lack of a better term, a heretic blood thirster who dabbles in magic (thus earning the rage eternal from Khorne).

[Merkava]

Well, but there is other important difference - Cadai and Cytharai do not fight with each other. They coexist 'peacefully', worhsipped both by Asur, Asraii and Druchii, while Chaos Gods contantly fight with each other...

I think that those are not aspects of each other but different entities, although they share some common ground. But it would be like saying that Phoenix King and Witch King are aspects of the same, because they both are elven kings

If we focus on what one have in commen with other, we will fall in the trap of Chaos, that wishes us to see everything as a melted soup of raw potential. What we must focus on are the differences. Khaine is also the Defender of Ulthuan who saves Elvenkind from Chaos. Thus he cannot be Chaos power. Same as Lady of the Lake's virtue is purity, thus she cannot be aspect of Slaanesh.

And also I am not sure if in Khaine'a faith there is Pleasure from Killing as a gift or dogma. I'd rather say that Khaine, as an eternal warrior, blesses killing as necessity, while 1) killing enemy is best way to win, and 2) He needs to consume souls to gain strength to continue fight. And feeling pleasure from killing is just an additional matter, coming from typical in elvan psychology that they do feel all emotions much stronger, and killing, if you break the tabu, is pleasing psychologically. And even if you insist that pleasure from killing is god's bless, I'd still insist that is given not by Khaine but rather by Athari.

That's what I think.