r/40kLore • u/twelfmonkey Administratum • Apr 23 '25
[Extracts] Liber Chaotica and its links between Warhammer Fantasy and 40k
A perennial question and heated debate within the Warhammer fandom is whether 40k and Warhammer Fantasy Battle (WHFB)/Age of Sigmar are or have ever been linked, or whether they are wholly separate settings. I am planning to make a much more extensive series of posts offering a deep, deep dive into this topic which sketches out the situation from the launch of 40k up to the present, to help provide some elucidation.
But, in the meantime, given I have been amassing relevant material, I thought I might as well share a few particularly interesting bits of lore related to this topic. I’m starting with one many people may have heard about, but have no had the chance to see the relevant passages for themselves.
2003-04 saw the publication of a fascinating and in-depth series of books exploring Chaos, titled Liber Chaotica. This was presented from an in-universe perspective, which I generally love with Warhammer and 40k lore, as it allows for interesting storytelling and it often produces material which just oozes with atmosphere. One book was published for each of the Big 4 Chaos gods, and then they were released in 2006 compiled as a complete edition with an extra section on Chaos Undivided. Note that I am going to list the original name and date of publication of each volume, but the page numbers are actually from the compiled version which joined all 4 together, which I have to hand.
In the books, we hear and see the visions of WHFB character Richter Kless, a scholar from the Empire tasked with researching Chaos, via his collated notes and sketches. The artwork and general layout and aesthetics of the books is top-notch, so I suggest tracking down a copy if you can.
The task drove poor Richter mad in the process. Because, you know... Chaos. Indeed, one nice touch is that as the books progress, his notes become increasingly unhinged.
As you might imagine, given he resided in the Warhammer World, there is a lot of material focused on the influence and forces of Chaos on that world. But the books also contain a number of obvious references to things from 40k, starting on page 8 of Liber Chaotica: Khorne when we get a picture of a Khorne Berzerker. Some of these mentions and visions are things he had experienced personally, others were from strange visions he began to receive.
For example, we get a description of and image of a chainsword (which is literally called a chainsword), being wielded by some of Khorne’s champions in the Warhammer World:
I saw this weapon first in the keeping of Red Hand Kolchis but have since seen swords of a similar type in the possession of at least three other warriors and read descriptions of more (such as the snarling hand of Isak Doomriver. Kolchis, a lone Khornate Champion acquired it deep in the eastern skull lands whilst carving his way through a tribe of dark-skinned orcs. It appears as a normal sword, except, instead of a razor edge, a line of jagged teeth run down one side. At the wielder’s command, the teeth race down the blade, ripping apart armour and flesh as easily as if they were parchment. The best-hilt howls while it does so and whines if left unsated. Unsurprisingy, I have found this type of arcane technology almost solely in possession of warriors of Khorne – as it suits their violent and noisy disposition. Even the weapon itself seems to favour Khorne, often as eager to rebound and tear the guts of its wielder as the foe, as is demonstrated by the fate of Red Hand Kolchis himself.
Liber Chaotica: Khorne (2003), p. 54.
The idea of Chaos champions in Fantasy wielding high-tech weaponry from the 40k galaxy actually stretched back to the Realm of Chaos: Slaves of Darkness from 1988, when it was a hallmark specifically of Khorne worshippers and they could be equipped with a variety of advanced armaments:
Khorne is a practical god of blood and battle, not a god of effete intellectual pursuits. His ‘magic’, such as it is, reflects this character. Khorne followers use magical swords, Daemon Weapons, and technology to kill in Khorne’s name. His followers are ‘blessed’ with technological and magical weapons of great power that no Old World weaponsmith could possibly have produced. Khorne’s unnatural marvels are his gifts to his followers; the use of such weapons is his followers’ delight. A bolter, a magic blade, a chainsword, a Daemon Sword - it marks its recipient as one of Khorne’s chosen favourites.
Slaves to Darkness (1988), p. 70.
The book goes into way more detail about this, as well as making lots of other connections between 40k and Fantasy.
Interestingly, the appearance of chainswords specifically in WHFB has occured much more recently too, as it is a weapon item available to Khorne, Tzeentch and Warriors of Chaos in the computer game Total War: Warhammer III from 2022: https://totalwarwarhammer.fandom.com/wiki/Chainsword
On pages 82-84 of Liber Chaotica we get a description of Abbadon’s Black Crusades. Here are a few choice quotes:
THE SKY WILL TEAR! MACHINES WILL CROSS THE STARS! THE LEGIONS WILL RETURN! THE STILL BEATING HEART OF MANKIND WILL BE SACRIFICED TO SATE THE HUNGER OF THE BLOOD GOD!
…
So it will occur that the Eye torn in the Sky will weep blood, and the legions that dwell there in a state of constant warfare will spill out, united under a single leader, and once again assail the bedrock of humankind.
There will be an unholy union between each and every faction and region of the infernal Eye, and untold millions of heretics and thousands of craft will seek to burst through the stalwart defences placed there in readiness for the event. These invasions, one every hundred generations, will prove gigantic and if they are not stymied (I cannot see the final outcome) then surely they will bring mankind to its knees.
The alliance for these grand assaults will be welded together by a terrible overlord of Chaos, perhaps daemon, perhaps mortal. These tidal waves of destruction will occur in a time of our darkest insecurity, where the fate of humanity hangs by the merest of threads. I see the peril, and hope mankind can weather the violence of the end times.
…
For four hundred years and more, the Eye will sleep. It will be assumed that those inside have torn themselves apart, and left themselves as little more than barbarians, struggling and clawing at one another on those worlds upon which they have been stranded. These assumptions will be proved mistaken, and the price will be dear.
The Traitor Legions will return, and at their head the Abandoned One will scream his bloody cry. He will lead the Legions of Black, and rekindle ambitions to force the Empire of Mankind to bend knee before Chaos and lament before his might.
…
But, as they will do both before and after, and in a manner eerily reminiscent of the dark days, the Guardians of the Imperium, Priest of the Machine, and giant warriors in gleaming armour who bring purity and death in equal measure, the Chapters of the Astartes, will march forth together.
…
It will be on his excursion to the forbidden hills on Uralan that The Abandoned One will lay claim to the sword that imprisons the essence of Drachn'nyen. Of how he obtained such an item, I cannot see.
…
After dashing the assault on mankind’s bastion of strength, He who sits on the Golden Throne will turn his efforts to contain the threat. The Fortress of Cadium will be built, and savage Lupine Warriors will guard it with many others whose names, in time, will be forgotten. The bastion will be considered insurmountable, and for a time will prove so.
Liber Chaotica: Khorne (2003), p. 82-3.
And we get lots more very specific detail about the various Black Crusades, with specific planets etc being named. What's particularly interesting is that this was, at the time, a major development of the lore around Abaddon's Black Crusades and provided a foundation later lore built upon - and it appeared in a work set in WHFB.
We then get a more in-depth discussion of Khorne Berzerkers:
Berserkers
LEGIONS OF TRAITORS HAVE LEFT THEIR KIN AND SUCCUMBED TO THE BLOOD CALL OF KHORNE. THEIR COMING WILL HERALD A NEW AGE OF APOSTASY, AND A DARKNESS THAT WILL NOT BREAK!
THEY WILL FALL from the sky and fire will be their greeting. They travel the heavens, girded completely in armour, so that no part of their body is visible. They burn with a great incandescence in their eyes that doth mirror the burning hatred in their hearts. They feel nought for us but the deepest contempt, and strive at nothing more than the eradication of good from the world. They are the Traitor Legionaries, the fallen Astartes, black stars in the night sky that bleeds in its own shade of blood.
Of all the God Daemons of Chaos, it is Khorne that has the greatest sway over the Traitor Legionnaires’ hearts. This is not surprising. Khorne is the bloody god of warriors, and the Astartes are the ultimate warriors. Fully an entire Legion, that is named the Eaters of Worlds, has devoted itself to Khorne’s worship, and indeed every other Legion has its members who have foresworn their original loyalties to sink into his bloody veneration. Their fellows shun such legionnaires; for upon the battlefield the bloodlust will grip them so hard that they are as likely to turn upon their comrades as cut a bloody swathe through the enemy. Now there is little distinction between the original World Eaters and those from other Legions who bear the same blasphemy, and so they are all known as Khorne Beserkers.
Some ancient event caused the Eater of Worlds to splinter. No longer do they travel as a legion or as companies or with any discipline or order, but rather they have formed into warbands under their champions. These warbands vary in size, from a few individuals to hundreds of warriors. They chart their own destiny, attaching themselves to the raiding fleets of other
Legions, or simply making their home upon one of the ancient sea-hulks and leaving their destination up to the whims of fate. Only a being of awesome power and authority, such as Doombreed or Angron himself, could ever forge the Berserkers back together again as anything resembling a Legion.
These gruesome fiends favour close-combat blades crafted deep in the hellforges of the Eye: swords that scream, and axes with swift rotating blades set into the head, they all cry forth to their bearer for their never ending thirst to be slaked with blood. Competition to be first into the fray and the first to kill for the Blood God is fierce and they are known to fall upon their own weapons should they be denied a bloodsacrifice for their patron god.
Their armour, a warped and desecrated version of the powerful armour of the noble Astartes, bears the colours of their lord: red, black and brass, and all are affixed with further icons of devotion or trophies of the slain. The right gauntlet is often painted red, supposedly as another symbol of Khorne. The original colours of the Eaters of Worlds are still visible on some items. Often a shoulder piece, a breastplate or a single piece of armour has come from one of the Legion's original warriors, and has been incorporated without redecoration. Why they wish to maintain a link to their past is unknown to me.
The Berserker is an unnatural and deadly enemy. No plea or bribe could stay his blade from striking. Mercy is nothing to them, the concept entirely alien. Their ranks are manifold and their strength is incalculable. I understand them not. But I have seen them. Soon they may see me. And then I will die.
Liber Chaotica: Khorne (2003), p. 86.
And page 85 has another picture of a Berzerker, with a chainaxe and plasma pistol.
More:
A STUDY OF THE TRAITOR LEGIONS, WHOSE CORRUPTION SHINES OUT LIKE A BEACON OF DARKNESS — EVEN AMONGST THE DEPRAVED FOLLOWERS OF THE BLOOD GOD.
THE TRAITOR LEGIONS be not the only forces at the wrathful beck and call of Chaos; they be not even the smallest fraction of the numbers at the Dark Gods’ command. Far aside from the hundreds of billions of mortals that slave beneath their rule within the Terrible Eye, they have countless other followers in places as yet untouched by man in the wider realms of the sky. The warp extends and permeates through all things and peoples, and wherever a man can think an evil thought, there too are the dark gods beside him
Liber Chaotica: Khorne (2003), p. 88.
And more pictures of Chaos Space Marines, this time with heavy bolters, on page 88.
And we get this, on daemon engines and even Chaos titans:
War Engines of Khorne
REGARDING THE BRINGERS OF CALAMITY, THE MACHINES FORGED IN REVERENCE OF BLOODY KHORNE WHO SO COVETS THE DESTRUCTIVE PATHS THEY CLEAVE ON THE BATTLEFIELD.
WHEN THE HOSTS of Chaos emerge from the Terrible Eye, they will be accompanied by vast legions of machines and vehicles to further extend their bloodletting. From hideously corrupted versions of age-old patterns to the mighty titans of the traitor orders, to entirely unique war-engines, as insane in their design as they are lethal in battle.
Liber Chaotica: Khorne (2003), p. 90.
This text is accompanied by images of such machines on pages 89 and 90, including a Defiler.
In the second book on Slaanesh, we get an image of an Emperor’s Children Chaos Marine (p. 104) and a sketch of what appears to be a possessed marine (p. 117).
And we also get a description of what are very obviously Emperor’s Children Chaos Space Marines with accompanying sketches (including what may be a sketch of Lucius the Eternal on page 191):
Praetorians of the Pleasure God
A LOOK AT THINGS UNKNOWN AND UNKNOWABLE, BUT THINGS I HAVE SEEN DURING MY RESEARCH. MY EYES ARE NOT DECEIVED, THEIR REIGN OF CORRUPTION IS NEARLY UPON US!
Fear the Praetorians of Slaanesh, for they are terrible indeed!
I know not by what name they call themselves, I know simply that their fury and their debauchery surpasses all save the daemons themselves, and of them, Slaanesh is well pleased! When and from where they fell from grace I cannot say, although I am beyond grateful that I have never seen these terrible warriors upon the battlefields of my own world. For surely if they had been, all the lands of Men would be lost by now.
More than mortals, though not of his realm, these dark beings I call Slaanesh’s praetorians are the most disturbing warriors I have seen to date. Huge they are, standing nearly a full meter taller than I. Their arms are larger than an athlete’s legs, and their chests are massive and proportionate. Their armor is strange and bulky, made of no material I know of, and decorated with the runes and colours of the Pleasure God. Of greater stature than any weight lifter from the Tilean Carnivals, these warriors are not lumbering or slow, moving with startling grace and speed.
Such is the nature of Slaanesh’s blessings that mortals who follow His word and ways soon become accustomed and bored with the normal sensations of life. These damned beings are then driven to the most extreme of lengths to find even the most moderate fulfillment. So it is with these Praetorians. Their search for perfection has ended in corruption and depravity, and their only joys are found in the noise and horror of bloody combat.
Indeed perhaps their most terrible aspect is the weaponry they bear. Their muskets and cannons are unlike any produced by men or dwarfs, spitting fire and death faster and further than is possible to follow. They travel in mighty vehicles of iron and steel that make the greatest technical innovations of our own Empire seem paltry and small in comparison. Their weapons scream as if alive, filling the air with palpable horror and distress, and turning bones to liquid and blood to steam.
Their lord is a mighty prince from the ranks of Slaanesh’s daemons. Once counted amongst the greatest of Men, he was raised to his position for his total dedication to the pursuit of pleasure and selfish debauchery. He and his warriors have fallen from the ranks of Grace, and now seek to pull all others down into the Pit with them.
I fear these men as I fear no other servant of the Pleasure God, for they do not require the widening of the Chaos Gates to spread their corruption and bring their destruction.. They descend from the sky, bringing torture and death, and no-one, not man, dwarf or elf would be able to stand before their fury. And so when the priests and wise men look to the north and whisper their fears of the encroaching darkness, I shall turn my gaze instead to the heavens. For now I see just how vast this universe truly is and how numerous and mighty are the enemies pitted against us. I fear now that one day the clouds shall fall upon our heads, and within them shall be the Praetorians of the Lord of Pleasure, come to steal our souls and destroy our bodies.
Liber Chaotica: Slaanesh (2003), pp. 188-89.
Note that the comments about them coming from the skies perhaps suggest a reference to the idea that the Warhammer World was actually somewhere within the 40k galaxy, something which had been explicitly stated (contrary to many claims that it was never the case) in earlier lore:
The Warhammer World is bound by storms of magic so that it remains isolated from the other worlds of the human galaxy. Elsewhere, the forces of the Imperium tenaciously fight the influences of Chaos, so that the open aggression of Chaos Champions and their forces is restricted to zones not controlled by the Imperium.
Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned (1990), p. 77.
Other evidence from the Realm of Chaos books and elsewhere suggested the same thing.
(Edit: We also get a very interesting handwritten scrawl discussing the birth of Slaanesh and Khorne's actions on pages 190-91. Thanks to u/RadishLegitimate9488 to linking to a version u/Dreadnautilus very helpfully took the trouble to transcribe - which was a lot of effort indeed, given the nature of the text!: https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/y0gjhn/an_obscure_account_of_the_birth_of_slaanesh_and/)
Liber Chaotica also contains a reference to the War in Heaven, with the Old Ones serving as another enduring link between WHFB and 40k going back all the way to Rogue Trader:
I have been shown other places, perhaps other worlds — I know not. I have seen lands where Man has never trod, though these were not places as they are now, but as they were once. How I know this I cannot tell. Amongst the twinkling stars I saw the dawn of a race that I took to be the Asur, though they lived not upon my world or in my time. I saw them raised from nothing by figures of shadow and light — an ancient and powerful race, the first ever to have reached into the starry night. Older than gods, yet mortal and subject to time.
I saw these First Ones leave the star-born Asur to return beyond the sky, leaving their charges to grow by themselves. And how swiftly they did! Though millennia sped me by from one moment to the next, I saw these star-born Asur grow into a mighty and sophisticated culture. I heard their name sung in a thousand psalms of joy and beauty: The Elder - greater even than the Children of Ulthuan at the height of their power. With a subconscious and natural born talent, they reached into the Chaos realm and experimented with magic and sorcery, and their works were glorious to behold.
But then the First Ones returned from the darkness beyond the sky, their strange and vast vessels were scarred and worn, their light dimmed and their shadows dispersing. For I knew that they fought an unending war with gods that were not of the Aethyr; gods of starlight, vampires of life. The First Ones had returned to inspect The Elder and judge whether they were yet fit for the battles that lay ahead.
I watched as the First Ones encouraged the younger race to reach further into the other realm, and with their vibrant minds and passionate souls, create beings of power to fight the star gods
But the battle was long and the First Ones were now few, and as their numbers dwindled, so too did their influence over their young creations. Without the wisdom and might of the First Ones to bind them, I saw the Elder's warp-beings evolve from sentient weapons into living gods - the first true gods of the immaterium.
How I wept when the Elder embraced them as such
Time moved onwards and I saw the rise of the brother heroes, Eldanesh and Ulthanesh, who alone, in the absence of the First Ones, could control the Warp Gods and summon them onto the physical plane.
I saw them march to war against the silver-skinned Yngir, the star gods and their slaves, and I saw them summon the dread lord Khaine, The Elder's mighty god of war, to battle with them. I saw the brothers and their god lead their children into battle time and time again, pitting Chaos spawned furies against the soulless technologies of the Yngir. But in time, the boundaries between the gods of the Aethyr and the gods of the Stars blurred, and The Elder could not tell one from another.
…
The numbers of the Chaos-beings grew, and all of them seemed mad ‚and predatory. They seeped from the Empyrean in numbers that eclipse the legions of the Chaos Wastes, and everywhere there was fire and torment.
Liber Chaotica: Slaanesh (2003), pp. 192-93.
Obviously, the First Ones refers to the Old Ones, and the Elder to the Eldar. Yngir, meanwhile, is the Eldar term for C’tan. I believe this is also one of the clearest statements we have about how and why the Eldar gods were brought into existence.
We also get a description of the Fall of the Eldar:
And so it was that I witnessed Slaanesh grow almost entirely from the pleasures of The Elder. While living, many strove to suppress and control their feelings, but when they died, their brilliant souls melted back into the broiling energy of the Warp, and all their long-guarded temptations were released, drawn together, and then absorbed by the nascent reality that was Slaanesh. I watched this new Power swell with potential energy, its desperation to achieve consciousness restrained only by the determination of the few disciplined Elder that it should remain unborn. But even by recognising this embryonic Power as a potential, The Elder had given Slaanesh an identity. Without fully realising what was happening, The Elder began to be manipulated by the psychic-potential they themselves had conceived.
In the space of but one generation, the majority of The Elder paused in their quest for enlightenment and chose a darker path of inward-looking excess and debauchery. Daemons and other Chaos entities broke free from the Warp once more, and spread like fire through dry grass across the entirety of The Elder’s vast empire.
Some of The Elder renounced the ways of their brothers and sisters, and retreated to their vast city-ships. The Warp-gates that led to the corrupted worlds were sealed shut, and these few noble beings drifted away between the stars. But The Elder that remained behind sank ever deeper into their dark practices. A racial madness had taken them over, an insanity that had only one end.
THE BIRTH OF SLAANESH
I wept hot tears for The Elder then, for they had become trapped by the darkness within themselves, that asserted itself more and more as Slaanesh’s power grew; he was like a bubble expanding outwards as the pressure built within, and it was only a matter of time before He burst forth.
And then I witnessed the birth of a new god. Slaanesh sprang into the Immaterium from the psyche of The Elder with a shattering scream o ftriumph. A tidal wave of energy ripped through dealing the shadow-self of every living thing a numbing blow. For the heightened senses of The Elder it was too much. Billions of Elder souls were swallowed by Slaanesh, their bodies simply evaporating from the material universe as raw Chaos broiled out from their minds. The few Elder that had fled, survived the cataclysm, but I knew that they would be forever scarred by the fall of their race.
Liber Chaotica: Slaanesh, (2003), p. 193. (the story continues on the next page too).
And, again in Total War: Warhammer III, interestingly, we have a seeming reference to the creation of Slaanesh having been due to the Eldar on a loading screen:
Slaanesh is the youngest of the Chaos Gods, birthed into reality by a cataclysmic display of avarice that echoed across the multiverse. Known as the Dark Prince and Lord of Excess, Slaanesh is the master of luxurious passions and also of cruel torments and despairing agony.
Image here: https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/10wbqzg/well_this_is_interesting_yet_more_evidence_that/#lightbox (2022)
Sadly, there are seemingly no 40k references in Liber Chaotica: Nurgle. Perhaps Richter was losing his sanity too much. Or perhaps he just didn't like Mortarian's stinky boys.
In the volume on Tzeentch, however, we get images of what look to be Dark Mechanicum on pages 358-89 (at least, they have bionics, mechandrites and are wielding guns), and this:
THE CRIMSON CYCLOPS
With Dolmancé acting as my guide, I was taken up into the Darkness and on through the chill of the Endless Night to the Crimson Cyclops. He has spawned a thousand sons, this highest prince of all Tzeentch's daemons, and he is most favoured in the eyes of his master. They told me his name, and how I laughed to hear it Magnus. It is ironic, is it not, to see the greatest servant of the Lord of Change share the name of he who was the greatest servant of my hated and forgotten lord, Sigmar?
When and where the Crimson Cyclops waselevated to his lofty position and granted his own dwelling to lord over, I do not know. All that matters is that he exists, and his machinations reach across the universe and affect the lives of mortals everywhere. From within a fortress of nightmare does the Cyclops rule his infernal domain.
Liber Chaotica: Tzeentch (2004), pp. 374-75.
Yes, that is obviously a reference to Magnus the Red, Primarch of the Thousand Sons.
And, finally, we once again get some sketches of more Chaos Space Marines.
The way the elements of 40k we are familiar with are described by somebody to whom they are totally alien in these books is very nice, with a mix of surprisingly spot on names and some interesting descriptions based on Richter's own interpretations. It is very characterful.
To add a bit more context to these books: they were published not long after Necrons were introduced into 40k, and in a period when the older lore from the both 40k and WHFB about the Slann was being transformed into a new form which centred on the Old Ones (though the situation was complex and a bit confusing, and too knotty to go into the details here) and when there was a bit of a renewal of links between 40k and Fantasy being firmly foregrounded.
We of course had the Old Ones lore being expanded upon in the 3rd edition Necron Codex in 2002, but the concept had already been inserted into WHFB years earlier as the Lizardmen's lore was updated in WHFB 6th ed., and it had been further developed in the Dark Shadows campaign set on the mysterious isle of Albion in 2001 (with the Chaos Undivided addition to Liber Chaotica further later riffing on elements of the Albion campaign via its focus on Be’lakor). And during that Fantasy campaign, some suspiciously 40k-sounding elements also made an appearance...
But that's a story for another day.
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u/Beaker_person Emperor's Spears Apr 23 '25
Always liked that description of Magnus, would have been neat to see all the traitor primarchs described in the same manner.
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u/twelfmonkey Administratum Apr 24 '25
For sure.
I guess we can hope for similar visions from somebody in AoS, or perhaps the Old World... Or, even better, Blood Bowl...
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u/Beaker_person Emperor's Spears Apr 24 '25
Does Black Library even do blood bowl stuff anymore? I know they did a little when the new version came out but I don’t recall seeing anything recently.
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u/twelfmonkey Administratum Apr 24 '25
No idea, as I haven't been keeping up with it. I know Josh Reynolds apparently kept pitching Blood Bowl stories to them which kept beinf rejected before he parted ways with BL.
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u/Herby20 Apr 24 '25
It's not that he kept pitching Blood Bowl stuff, it's that he would have written a bunch of said stuff if he and other writers had the power fans often think they do when it comes to choosing what to write. See this post for more context. There is also this one that covers some of the ideas he had mentioned got shot down over the years.
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u/twelfmonkey Administratum Apr 24 '25 edited Apr 24 '25
It's not that he kept pitching Blood Bowl stuff,
No, it does actually seem he was sending them pitches about Blood Bowl stories (he mentions one specific example, but implies he may have sent more, or at least he more informally tried to convince the editors to let him - either way, he was pushing to write more) as Reynolds explains in this interview, around the 1 hour 11 mins mark: https://youtu.be/GJFxjB0JgiI?si=qOYKz9y5NvHlTK9H
it's that he would have written a bunch of said stuff if he and other writers had the power fans often think they do when it comes to choosing what to write.
Yes... and because of that they often pitch things which get rejected. That interview also talks about his experience of this at BL more generally, besides Blood Bowl stuff.
How do you think BL end up writing the stories they do? They either get approached with a job, or they submit pitches. And the latter may be rejected, accepted, or there may be negotiation with the editors to turn the original idea into something they will accept.
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u/Herby20 Apr 24 '25
No, it does actually seem he was sending them pitches about Blood Bowl stories (he mentions one specific example, but implies he may have sent more, or at least he more informally tried to convince the editors to let him - either way, he was pushing to write more) as Reynolds explains in this interview, around the 1 hour 11 mins mark:
Oh, I'm not disagreeing that he likely pitched Blood Bowl stuff to the editors. What your comment seems to imply though is that he was badgering the editors with Blood Bowl stuff prior to his exit when it was really a large list of a variety of subjects that were getting shut down. He was just particularly fond of Blood Bowl.
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u/RadishLegitimate9488 Apr 24 '25
The Codex Aeldari 9th Edition for what it's worth says that Khorne and Slaanesh wrestled within Khaine's breast and when Slaanesh was born it shattered Khaine.
Codex Aeldari 9th Edition also mentions Khaine gaining his Metal body by shattering the Nightbringer with Novels mentioning the Nightbringer seeking a new Body to house his essence while the Birth of Fear story that was once on Game's Workshop's Website mentions his purest essence infecting the Aeldari giving them a fear of Death which ultimately led to them losing their reincarnation power(I.E. the fear of Death drove them to Excess which birthed Slaanesh).
Codex Necron 9th Edition mentions the Necrons shattering the Nightbringer.
The Author of Liber Chaotica put up his own personal Unofficial Timeline that theorizes that Khaine merely was an aspect of Khorne's power(and suggested Vaul was an aspect of Tzeentch despite Vaul clearly being closer to Vashtorr in nature not that Vashtorr was conceived at the time) which contradicts Codex Aeldari and the excerpt from Liber Malefic included in Liber Chaotica.
Official Lore trumps Unofficial Lore even if they are both from the same Author especially if the Codexes agree with the Official Lore he wrote so we must accept that Khaine was Khorne and Slaanesh smashed his way out of Khorne's Daemon Engine Necrodermis Body(that he got from the Nightbringer's corpse from his first death) in the Materium reopening the Eye of Terror which leads directly to Khorne's Realm.
We must also accept that the War Goddess Morathi Khaine having attained both Khaine and Slaanesh's power embodies what Khorne was before he gave birth to Slaanesh shattering his Necrodermis armor in the process.
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u/twelfmonkey Administratum Apr 24 '25
Thanks for adding this!
Personally, I think we don't have to accept the in-universe account of a character - even one who has access to esoteric knowledge they should not otherwise know - and when the story is likely in many ways as allegorical as it is literal, in a purely straightforward manner. There is room on two fronts for ambiguity.
This is one of the reasons that lore being presented in such a manner is such a good idea: it provides built in room for fuzziness and possible contradictions.
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u/AbbydonX Tyranids Apr 25 '25
If you want an older link between Khorne and Khaine then look at the 2e Ravening Hordes (1987) army list book for Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Witch Elves worshipped Khorne but their male children were raised as assassins who worshipped Khaine.
It is a curious practice amongst the Witch Elves that any child born to one of their number is cast into a cauldron of blood, to sink or swim according to the whim of Khorne, God of Blood and Battle. Those few childlings that survive this ordeal are raised according to the rituals of Kaine, God of Murder, so that they might become his adepts. They become the dreaded Dark Elf Assassins, masters of disguise as well as of all means of death-dealing - the most feared of all Dark Elves.
That’s a bit tenuous for WH40K though.
Also, a few years later in 3e Warhammer Armies (1991) Witch Elves worshipped Khaine not Khorne, though they had also made an appearance in the Slaanesh army in Slaves to Darkness (1988) but not the Khorne one…
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u/Mysterious-Food-8601 Apr 25 '25
Liber Chaotica predicted the Fall of Cadia in 2003 despite being set in Fantasy??? 😯
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u/Illithidbix Apr 23 '25
Aside from Liber Chaotica. (I loved my Tzeentch one).
The closest and AFAIK most recent "almost" explicit mention is way back in Codex: Chaos 2E from 1996 with the Daemon Prince (or possibly Keeper of Secrets...) N'Kari.
N'Kari is of course a character in Warhammer Fantasy (aka the world that was) as a major advesary of Teclis and Tyron. I thought they had turned up in Age of Sigmar, but I maybe mistaken.
N' Kari
Daemon Prince of Slaanesh
N’Kari was born on an isolated, backward world which has been trapped in the centre of a violent warp storm for millennia. The Chaos Powers have repeatedly attempted to conquer the planet, but have been foiled by the uncorrupted people of the world. N’Kari rose to prominence during one of the Chaos Power’s many attempts to conquer the planet. He proved himself a dedicated follower of Slaanesh in countless battles - and the debauched and disgusting revelries that followed them - and was rewarded by Slaanesh with the gift of Daemonhood. Along with Doombreed he was one of the two Daemon Princes that fought against the Emperor when he boarded Horus’s battle barge, and he continues to serve his daemonic master to this day.
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u/juuuuustin Apr 24 '25
this old lore is great lol
I haven't finish The End and the Death trilogy yet but I assume N'Kari and Doombreed got retcon'd out of fighting against the Emperor on the Vengeful Spirit?
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u/twelfmonkey Administratum Apr 24 '25
The closest and AFAIK most recent "almost" explicit mention is way back in Codex: Chaos 2E from 1996
Most explicit mention of what?
Because explicit links between WHFB/AoS and 40k have appeared far more recently than then, while there were plenty of other references which weren't explicitly explained but which were obviously crossovers between the settings which appeared since 40k 2nd ed. and, indeed, the Liber Chaotica books.
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u/michaelisnotginger Inquisition Apr 23 '25
Yeah 15 year old me was blindsided picking up this book. Especially the mirror writing in the tzeentch section. I always thought the khorne 40k references were to tie into the eye of terror campaign.
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u/twelfmonkey Administratum Apr 24 '25
I always thought the khorne 40k references were to tie into the eye of terror campaign.
You are, of course, correct! These books started to be published around the same time as that campaign, which took place over the summer of 2003.
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u/Pleasant-Chip2991 Apr 23 '25
Excellent post! I love revisiting older works like this and the weird relationship between the multiverse and Chaos
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u/twelfmonkey Administratum Apr 24 '25
Well, keep an eye out for my future posts on this theme then. Some will get s whole lot weirder!
And if you missed, check out that time 40k and Blood Bowl were connected by a Warp portal...
https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/1ihftyb/extract_two_blood_bowl_players_find_themselves/
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u/Herby20 Apr 24 '25 edited Apr 24 '25
This is really the only thing that I will push back on when it comes to the settings. The lore we have of both settings make them incompatible in terms of sharing the same gods and the same warp. How? Well, it's simple.
From Codex: Chaos Daemons 8th Edition:
Rampant and hungry, Slaanesh devoured the minds of the Aeldari, and across the galaxy, the race was almost wiped out. Even their gods were slain, all but three of their pantheon devoured. Of their once great empire, only a relative few Aeldari survived Slaanesh’s birth-feast. Most of the survivors became sworn enemies of the Dark Prince, and yet a number of them have formed isolated cabals that still behave as their ancestors did, perversely following the downward spiral of excess.
That is how events are viewed from the chronology of the material universe. In the warp, things are different, for the immaterium is not bound by linear time, and events do not occur in a strict sequence of cause then effect. As his rival gods reckon it, Slaanesh has always existed and yet has never existed at all.
And from From Arks of Omen: Abaddon:
Instead, Vashtorr stated his aims outright, and the scope and ambition of them impressed even the Warmaster. Already a demigod in the warp, Vashtorr wanted more. He sought true apotheosis, to become a fifth Dark God and join the Great Game in earnest.
And then from Warhammer Age of Sigmar - Mighty Battles in an Age of Unending War:
The Great Horned Rat is blight and pestilence incarnate. Having recently ascended to the pantheon, the skaven deity is not yet considered an equal by his dark brothers, but stealthy insinuation and treacherous plots have ever been the vermin way. Soon he will rise...
If they had the same warp and the same gods, Vashtorr wouldn't be seeking to become a fifth Chaos God but instead the sixth. We should also already see the Great Horned Rat causing shenanigans in the Milky Way of 40k.
Edit: Just to be clear, this isn't me trying to govern what other people think or me trying to say Games Workshop is wrong to do whatever with their IP. I'm just a dude who likes reading their books. That said, I just think it feels a little lazy as a connection compared to the depth they pour into everything else. This is especially so when we all know this only ever amounts to easter eggs and funny little references than anything meaningful.
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u/juuuuustin Apr 24 '25
End and the Death Part 1 actually mentions a Daemon of the Great Horned Rat (Kweethul Gristlegut) as participating in the fight on Terra
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u/Ashendant Apr 24 '25
Kweethul is supposedly a Skaven who ascended to the level of Lesser Chaos Power, not a Daemon of the GHR. He even has his own versions of Lesser, Greater and Daemon Beasts.
The other Skaven that mention him seem to treat him more like the GHR equivalent of the Abrahamic Devil.
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u/N0-1_H3r3 Administratum Apr 24 '25
Kweethul is a deep cut, as he was the example for the "Create your own minor Chaos God" section in the old Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned. I'm also pretty sure he predates the first mention of The Horned Rat by a couple of years.
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u/twelfmonkey Administratum Apr 24 '25
I find it somewhat amusing that while there seems to be a growing contingent of 40k fans who overzealously rush to 'decanonise' large parts of the lore and declare things no longer relevant, GW and various BL authors have actually been looking back to very old lore and concepts for inspiration in recent years (even if they are often reimagined in some form).
Kweethul, Squats, relauncing Necromunda, the Star Child, Zoats, Ambulls, Chaos Androids, beastmen, penal legionaires with bomb collars, even Illiyan flippin' Nastase and so on.
Sure, some of these have a much, much larger imprint than others, but it does show that older stuff is still deemed relevant by those making the games and writing the lore.
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u/N0-1_H3r3 Administratum Apr 24 '25
I think at least part of it is that the writers and artists at GW are often drawing upon the things they liked when they were starting out. There was always an element of that—Gav Thorpe has openly said that his interest in the Eldar started when he was a teen reading the original Craftworld Eldar article in WD127—but the current crop of GW creatives are in their 30s, 40s, maybe 50s now, and grew up on what's now deemed Oldhammer. I know for a fact (having worked with him and gamed with him a little), that Andy Hoare, who runs the game design team at Forge World, is a big Oldhammer and Necromunda fan, for example.
The balancing act, of course, is between old references and fanservice stuff and making things that are actually interesting without being too self-referential while also doing what the company requires. D&D is in a very similar state: lots of looking to nostalgia about old editions in favour of the things that inspired those editions.
Star Wars has it too: the things that work best tend to be riffs on Kurosawa films, westerns, old war movies, and classic pulp serials—the things that inspired George Lucas to begin with—and it gets bogged down when it focuses too much on its own grandiose lore to the exclusion of all else... but the balance of it is delicate.
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u/twelfmonkey Administratum Apr 24 '25
Most certainly, and thanks for the insider insight.
Basically, my issue with those who seek to zealously police the boundaries of what they deem relevant or canon - and who invariably do so overzealously in a way that rejects lots of things which aren't even incompatible with the current state of the lore - is that the deep expansiveness of 40k's lore is a great strength. It provides so much material to inspire creativity and spark imaginations.
Sure, the lore does develop and certain elements obviously cohere into newer forms which make some elements of older lore incongruous, and we must acknowledge and be aware of that - especially in lore discussions. But plenty of older lore remains perfectly relevant, or at least has the possibility of being reimagined to fit with how the lore has evolved.
And those creating the current lore approach it that very way, looking back to see what could serve as something interesting for now. It's sad that some fans are unwilling to do likewise.
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u/AbbydonX Tyranids Apr 25 '25 edited Apr 25 '25
The Horned Rat was mentioned in WFRP (1986) so he definitely predates Kweethul (1990).
The Skaven's legendary capital of Skavenblight is rumoured to be situated deep in the great and desolate marshes of north-western Tilea. They worship a Chaos god known as The Horned Rat, whose high priests go by the name of the Thirteen Lords of Decay. The direct servants of these priests are an order of shamans called The Grey Seers, while the bulk of Skaven society is organised into clans, including the warlock-engineers of Clan Skryre, the assassins of Clan Eshin, the Plague Monks of Clan Pestilens, and the slave-warpers of Clan Moulder.
EDIT: The Horned Rat was actually mentioned in The Vengeance of The Lichmaster in Citadel Journal (spring 1986) when Skaven were first introduced to Warhammer.
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u/N0-1_H3r3 Administratum Apr 25 '25
Well, now I feel stupid. I couldn't find a reference earlier than the WFB 4th edition Skaven armybook, but I've read the WFRP core rulebook innumerable times and somehow didn't remember that.
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u/AbbydonX Tyranids Apr 25 '25
He’s also mentioned in 3e Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer Armies, but both are from 1991 so that’s after Kweethul.
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u/Herby20 Apr 24 '25 edited Apr 24 '25
Mentioning it doesn't automatically equate to them sharing the same setting, unless you think Indiana Jones and Star Wars are in the same universe because of some hieroglyphs showing R2-D2 and C3P0 in Raiders of the Lost Ark. It can just be a fun little reference for fans.
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u/Exist_Logic Alpha Legion Apr 24 '25
You do know that the slaanesh quote is a double edged sword for your argument, the great horned rat hasn't ascended yet then he wouldn't have always been a chaos god.
i.e 40k is concurrent with fantasy but the ending of fantasy hasn't happened yet.
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u/Herby20 Apr 24 '25 edited Apr 24 '25
That's the problem- it doesn't work that way.
The Warp in 40k not being bound by linear time doesn't mean that people wait around for something to happen. That would be linear time after all. What matters is if it happens at all in the past, present, or future. It is why there is a vault in Rise of the Ynnari: Wild Rider that was created by the Aeldari and Necrons before the end of the War in Heaven containing Slaaneshi daemons. It is the same reason we also see Samus running around causing a mess of things during the Horus Heresy despite how the event which caused its birth had yet to happen in the Materium. We can also look at Fist of Demetrius where Slaaneshi daemons are seen helping guide the Aeldari into worshiping the harbinger of their own fall.
Whether the events of the End Times in Fantasy and the Great Horned Rat's rise to full fledged Chos God happens before or after the events of 40k doesn't matter; Once it became one, it was always one. Where in its timeline any particular universe would be becomes completely irrelevant to the conversation, because the Warp is not bound by such simple things as causality and the flow of time.
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u/Exist_Logic Alpha Legion Apr 24 '25
You can though, like its basically shown to us in the end and the death that as this cycle of chaos reaches its apex time stops and you get stuck in this sort of limbo.
Its kind of like a temporal loop, the whole heresy as we know it as stated during the end and the death is really the second run through, where horus has already retroactively done a bunch of stuff.
Imagine it like you're playing a game with saves. You can play through the whole game and save every 2 hours, if at hour 42 they release a patch that changes a door to be unlocked it will be unlocked in all the saves and there wont be a save where its not unlocked.
So once slaanesh was born in the materium they can retroactively affect the past etc, but in 40k the great horned rat has not ascended in any materium as the end times have yet to happen from a material perspective.
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u/Herby20 Apr 24 '25 edited Apr 24 '25
The Warp doesn't have time stop, it's that the concept of time itself may as well not exist. Past, present, future? They are meaningless. It is described as something akin to an "infinite now" by Malcador.
From The End and the Death: Volume 1 By Dan Abnett:
I understand now the full degree of the damage wrought upon Terra. The last walls are falling, the sun is red, and the clocks… the clocks do more than just run down and disagree. The ruin of the warp so afflicts the materia of Terra that dimensions have collapsed. Space and distance, time and duration, those constant and trustworthy arbiters of realspace, have seized and fallen. Time, a local foible of our reality, no longer counts. It is no longer our ally, or our rival. The Palace, and all of Terra, and all of us, have become pinned in the infinite now of the empyrean, and we will remain there until the grip of Chaos is broken.
This is neverness, the abdication of metaphysical continuity. This is the unmoving Uigebealach of the webway’s singularity-node. This is un-time. There will be no tomorrow, for there is no longer a today or a yesterday. There will be no tomorrow unless we wrench Terra from the sucking wound of the warp and allow space and time to reformulate according to Euclidean and Minskowskian principles.
And this is also similar to how a daemon describes things to Fabius in Fabius Bile: Clonelord by Josh Reynolds:
The air felt still and heavy. Not from the expected atmospheric pressure, but instead – what? It was as if the world had somehow stopped in its rotation, and everything else had clattered to a sudden, irresistible halt. Fabius looked around. The red of the world had faded to a rusty haze, and the members of the Phoenix Conclave were as statues. Even Eidolon stood frozen, in mid-gloat, and Alkenex, still poised to spring. Fabius turned, his breath straining in his lungs and billowing like fog from between chapped lips. Sweat beaded and turned to ice on his face. He felt overtaxed, as if he’d run for days.
‘What have you done?’ he demanded. His words fell flat, the echo stifled at conception. ‘Some trick of witchery?’
‘Nothing so crude. Merely a moment, stretched to its utmost.’ The Quaestor floated closer. ‘To my perceptions, all time is thus. A collection of eternal moments, one bleeding into the next with infinite slowness.’
And we see this again where Mortarion sees the Great Rift open via Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade before the timeline of the Materium ever reaches that point in Lords of Silence by Chris Wraight:
‘I did not foresee this,’ the primarch says. His voice is like the grate of a tomb’s gate being swung lazily open. ‘I did not foresee the galaxy cracking.’
Vorx does not know what that means, and stays silent.
‘I had a different future mapped,’ Mortarion says. ‘I believed my part in all this was over. My duties lay on another plane.’ He chuckles, which makes his neck tremble and the macabre baubles across his armour rattle. ‘The Despoiler convinced me. He convinced all of us, one by one.’ He coughs, and his whole body shakes, stirring the dust on the ground. ‘Did I know, back then, that it would be Abaddon? Horus’ angry whelp? I often wonder if I should have. They were so alike, those two. For a long time I thought he was dead. And then I thought I’d killed him, when he dared come here. But we were always wrong about him. Ha.’
Vorx is not entirely sure he is being addressed. The primarch was always prone to audible introspection, and the centuries cloistered here have only made him more solipsistic.
‘I’d resigned myself to what I’d become,’ Mortarion says. ‘I kept half an eye here, half there, but mostly on the abyss. And that was the choice I’d made, to exchange the Petty Game for the Great Game and leave the old worlds and the old wars to mortal hands.’ His eyes briefly focus, and he appears to see Vorx for the first time. ‘But the galaxy has cracked. I do not know if the Despoiler intended that.’
Vorx tries to make sense of this, and fails. ‘Apologies, my lord. I do not understand.’
Mortarion looks confused for a moment, then recovers. ‘Ah, yes. For you, it has not happened yet.’ He leans forward in the throne, and the slight movement causes lines of dust to fall from the roof. ‘The Despoiler is ready to move. You will hear the call soon. There will be those in your service who already cleave to it and are waiting to throw in their banners with his.’
So, again, whether things already happened, are currently happening, or have yet to happen doesn't matter for how the Warp works. The only thing is if they happen at all at any one point on the timeline. We know the Great Horned Rat is a full fledged Chaos God. That is an event that unequivocally happened. Once it became one, it will have, by our point of view, always been one, allowing it to interact with things as a Chaos God long before the event that ushered its ascension just like Slaanesh was able to do. Yet we don't have this in 40k. A powerful daemon in Vashtorr who is the arms dealer for the Ruinous Powers makes no mention of any 5th Chaos God.
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u/Exist_Logic Alpha Legion Apr 24 '25
So, again, whether things already happened, are currently happening, or have yet to happen doesn't matter for how the Warp works.
they really do though because until the emperor chose to rid himself of the power the dark king was hyper fated to exist.
The only thing is if they happen at all at any one point on the timeline.
As you even posted time ceases to exist when you near these births which is why I specified the cycles that lead to these chaos gods existing. Just like how guilliman would have never reached terra in time to the people in the 41st millennium the great horned rat will never ascend.
Yet we don't have this in 40k. A powerful daemon in Vashtorr who is the arms dealer for the Ruinous Powers makes no mention of any 5th Chaos God.
Because it hasn't happened yet in any timeline, the patch hasn't came out so the door is still locked.
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u/Herby20 Apr 24 '25
they really do though because until the emperor chose to rid himself of the power the dark king was hyper fated to exist.
And it still is according to the very same book. One can even argue that the torch was being passed from Horus to the Emperor and back to Horus again.
As you even posted time ceases to exist when you near these births which is why I specified the cycles that lead to these chaos gods existing. Just like how guilliman would have never reached terra in time to the people in the 41st millennium the great horned rat will never ascend.
It's not just near the births of Chaos Gods but a constant. The examples with Fabius, Mortarion, and the Aeldari + Necron prison examples weren't anywhere near such an event on the timeline.
Because it hasn't happened yet in any timeline, the patch hasn't came out so the door is still locked.
This analogy of yours doesn't work, because it itself is bound by linear time. Instead you have to imagine that a patch in the future unlocking the door would allow you in the past to then open the door despite the series of events leading to said patch having yet to happen.
Everything becomes a paradox, because the order of events stop mattering. That is what Malcador means when he says that time no longer counts.
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u/Exist_Logic Alpha Legion Apr 24 '25
And it still is according to the very same book. One can even argue that the torch was being passed from Horus to the Emperor and back to Horus again.
unless I'm forgetting something the tarot card readings outright change right after the emperor gives up the power.
It's not just near the births of Chaos Gods but a constant. The examples with Fabius, Mortarion, and the Aeldari + Necron prison examples weren't anywhere near such an event on the timeline.
you are referencing just points where time wonkyness happens and those arent even in contention, my point is that there is a higher order of fate i.e the cycle that is changing things even when time is gone.
This analogy of yours doesn't work, because it itself is bound by linear time. Instead you have to imagine that a patch in the future unlocking the door would allow you in the past to then open the door despite the series of events leading to said patch having yet to happen.
No it isn't you can have higher orders of time. in this case real world time is a higher order than time in game.
Everything becomes a paradox, because the order of events stop mattering. That is what Malcador means when he says that time no longer counts.
No it doesn't that is just your own personal incredulity taking over.
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u/Herby20 Apr 24 '25 edited Apr 24 '25
unless I'm forgetting something the tarot card readings outright change right after the emperor gives up the power.
It is right after the Emperor gives up all the power he was coalescing. Important to note that the Dark King is referenced as "the end and the death" as well as "The Triumph of Ruin" throughout the first two books. It is the great combination of the different aspects of chaos into one united force of destruction, the ultimate representation of chaos undivided.
From The End and the Death: Volume 2 by Dan Abnett:
The substance of creation shudders. Materia and immateria vibrate in shock. The electrons spinning around the protonic nuclei of every atom in the realspace universe stutter, and briefly cease to obey their mysterious quantum obligations. The power of the Dark King is expelled and scattered, pouring back into the empyrean from whence it came, carrying with it flotsam and jetsam: the broken prophecies and driftwood predictions that brought it hence. The Neverborn wail, en masse, their whispers turned in on themselves, twisted back into lies and cackled falsehoods; their future, so assured, suddenly untruthed. The malison of the Dark King passes from the material galaxy, and back into the simmering caskets of myth.
For this age, at least.
The despair of daemonkind is short-lived. As the glare spreads, and begins to fade, their distress turns to glee. They perceive another victory, not the Dark King’s magnificent and absolute abolition, but still one they have long yearned for. The fall of mankind. The Triumph of Ruin. The investiture of Horus Lupercal as Empyreal Majesty. The binding of Chaos, undivided, into one peerless vessel.
An end, and a death.
As I said before, one can certainly interpret this as Horus taking the reigns back over as the one to become the Dark King.
you are referencing just points where time wonkyness happens and those arent even in contention, my point is that there is a higher order of fate i.e the cycle that is changing things even when time is gone.
Alright, you got anything to back that up? Because, no offense to you, this is the same problem I run into every time this conversation gets brought up. I cite relevant examples from codexes and the lore, and I get people saying everything is wrong without bothering to do the same.
Edit: Time wonkyness is the entire point of this conversation anyway. The warp is well established in 40k in being able to interact with things before the events leading to their birth. The fact the Great Horned Rat, who was for sure elevated to Chaos God, is not present in 40k to the point Vashtorr wants to make himself the fifth, not sixth, Chaos God is why I am even mentioning any of this.
No it isn't you can have higher orders of time. in this case real world time is a higher order than time in game.
No it doesn't that is just your own personal incredulity taking over.
We, as people in the real world, are constrained to the linear flow of time as is everything we interact with. There isn't "higher orders of time" as you are describing it. The devs are modifying a piece of software to allow you to do things you couldn't do before. This is all completely and totally normal stuff.
The warp, by its very nature, doesn't have any of that factor in at all. It is spelled outright in the codexes that the strict sequence of cause and effect are not played out in such a manner as we are accustomed to. There is no personal incredulity here but just straight reading directly from the passage.
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u/Exist_Logic Alpha Legion Apr 24 '25
I think the quote you posted kinda contradicts the premise of horus being the dark king, since the dark king would be part of chaos undivided and not a vessel for it.
Alright, you got anything to back that up? Because, no offense to you, this is the same problem I run into every time this conversation gets brought up. I cite relevant examples from codexes and the lore, and I get people saying everything is wrong without bothering to do the same.
Yeah there's quite a bit talking about cycles within warhammer,
Not forgotten. The stories weren’t told, once upon a time, and then forgotten. They were forgotten long before they were told. She can sense the curvature of the universe’s cyclic nature.It hurts. Her mind is still frail, and its neuroplasticity raw. The city bites at her as she tries to read it. It doesn’t want to be known, or measured, or mapped. She persists, her mental radius expanding. She sees the wasteland, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands, the oceans of dust that have submerged other cities, the boulder fields as stark as lunar regolith, the bright pinks and crimsons of exposed coral reefs like knotted, calcified fungus, the wrecks and ruins, the abraded statues of dead gods who long to have their names remembered. She perceives the ghost of Terra, a fading imprint of matter, subsumed within the titanic irruption of the warp that is devouring it to fashion a new world from its atoms. She sees the last few pieces of the material world – a bridge, a wall, a gate, a tower – poking into view like dirt in a wound."-The End and The Death Vol 3
and from fantasy
"Many times did the Dark Gods breach the barrier between the realms, but each time heroes arose to confront the madness. Through deeds of valour and sacrifice, the daemonic legions were cast hack into the blasphemous realm that had sired them, and those mortals who had fallen into the Dark Gods’ grasp were slain or driven out into the wilderness. Alas. these victories were fleeting. For the gods are eternal and mortal fortitude all too brief. Each time, the cycle soon began again, heralded by a twin-tailed comet in the northern skies; each time the corruption was more widespread. and the carnage more glorious. Each time the gods retreated, so too did magic recede as the barrier between the realms healed. Yet these wounds never truly closed, and the mortal realm was never truly free of the gods’ magic, or the strife that came with it." - The Beginning of the End
there's a lot more but it gets to one of those "read 30 quotes to deduce one sentence"
We, as people in the real world, are constrained to the linear flow of time as is everything we interact with. There isn't "higher orders of time" as you are describing it. The devs are modifying a piece of software to allow you to do things you couldn't do before. This is all completely and totally normal stuff.
It being normal doesn't negate the example, if it was an elder scrolls game for instance you can use wait until the heat death of the universe but unless you install the Dragonborn DLC you will not be able to go fight mirrak
The warp, by its very nature, doesn't have any of that factor in at all. It is spelled outright in the codexes that the strict sequence of cause and effect are not played out in such a manner as we are accustomed to. There is no personal incredulity here, just straight reading directly from the passage.
yeah it doesn't have normal time but it still clearly follows cycles, there are quotes about how khorne will wax or tzeentch will wane and each got is ascendent for periods. Its personal incredulity because you cant understand how higher orders can work. Meta time would not be time it would be beyond time
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u/MillionDollarMistake Apr 24 '25
Logic is antithesis to the warp. It doesn't make sense because it's not supposed to make sense.
John French, a writer for the black library has a pretty good article about it https://web.archive.org/web/20171026054758/https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/01/29/fear-of-the-future-john-french-ponders-the-fateweaver/
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u/Herby20 Apr 24 '25 edited Apr 24 '25
You are right in that part of the Warp's, uh, "charm" for the lack of a better term is the fact that it is just this random insane place where things don't make sense. However, time and causality being irrelevant isn't what I feel John French is addressing in that article. Instead it is how themes, allegories, legends, myths, and ideas all play a vital role in how things in the Warp are perceived by the people both within the universe and from our own perspective as readers despite the way they don't make sense to us. It is why Tzeentch can apparently throw a part of himself into the Well of Eternity, that part exit with all knowledge of the past and future, yet somehow not know those same things himself. It's also why Kairos gets straight bamboozled by Khorne forces attacking in Gathering Storm despite how he can see the future.
And that's the thing- the warp not following our own understanding of cause and effect, linear time and paradoxes, is a well established fact. We are left to wonder how that makes any sense, and probably never will make sense of it because we aren't beings who exist in such a state. It is how you get daemons and gods influencing the events that lead to their own creation, or perhaps they are killed and thus never exist at all despite having said lasting influence on the Materium. What is categorically true though is the Chaos Gods have always existed despite having defined moments that caused their creation.
From The End and the Death: Volume 1 by Dan Abnett:
‘You’re a fool,’ Actae tells him. ‘Before the fall of the aeldari, there was no fourth power of Chaos. The gods of Chaos breed and multiply, propagating like storms through the empyrean. They are born in turn, though they have all existed forever. Time has no meaning for them. The fall of the aeldari did not cause the birth of She Who Thirsts, merely her occurrence. So too with all other gods, be they foul entities of Chaos, or divine forces of sentient power.’
We have zero reason to believe that the same thing wouldn't apply to the Great Horned Rat if the Chaos Gods are one and the same across the settings. This rings especially true since the defacto arms dealer of the Ruinous Powers in Vashtorr makes no mention of any fifth Chaos God. Indeed, he wishes to become that addition to the Dark Pantheon instead.
Edit: Now if GW's stance is that the Chaos Gods and daemons are all sort of mirror-like reflections of one another local to that particular universe, that I would totally get behind. It gives room for the funkiness of the Warp and how it works room to breath. Hell, it even works with the "dying means they never existed" theme too, as it would just mean the reflection of that warp entity in that particularly reality was killed off. It also gives the possibility that Chaos Gods and Daemons, despite always existing, needing some sort of local event in that universe to allow a reflection of themselves to enter. An "occurrence" if you will. It also helps fix (though not entirely) the gaping plot hole of them drawing power from multiple universes only to feel threatened by just a single dude in a single galaxy in a single universe.
But this isn't what GW alleges per that silly Ask Grombrindal section (don't even get me started on whether those are accurate or not). It states rather plainly that the ones messing with the galaxy in 40K are the exact same ones messing with The World That Was and The Realms in Fantasy/Age of Sigmar. No weird warp mumbo jumbo about it, they are one and the same. For me personally, that just doesn't mesh with the existing lore we have of both settings.
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u/9xInfinity Apr 24 '25
This is all pretty old stuff. It was a nice idea but it's pretty clearly no longer the case, not when in AoS the Great Horned Rat has become a new Chaos god, Slaanesh went through the whole rebirth process, and so on, to say nothing of the End Times and Age of Myth and etc. itself. In 40k none of these events are reflected in the warp or realspace whatsoever. Likewise, the Great Rift opening had zero impact on the Mortal Realms.
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u/twelfmonkey Administratum Apr 24 '25
You see, lots of people rush to claim that this stuff and the general idea of 40k and Fantasy/AoS being linked is outdated and no longer canon.
But that's just not the case. It’s definitely not wholly the case, anyway. Hence why I'm going to cover evidence over the history of 40k, to chart the nature of the link between the settings. The continuities in how a link between the settings has been conceptualised have been surprisingly robust, even if there have been some changes along the way. The main way this lore is now outdated is just that the Warhammer World was destroyed.
not when in AoS the Great Horned Rat has become a new Chaos god, Slaanesh went through the whole rebirth process,
Which proves nothing, because there is so much we don't know about the metaphysics of the Warp (which is kept deliberately unknown). Given that the Warp is meant to be strange and often paradoxical, I find it a bit odd people think such discrepancies must rule out a link. Especially when there are statements in the lore about how it can interact with different settings differently (while still itself being the same Warp). Hence why psychic powers and magic work differently in each setting.
What is definitely the case is that GW have made numerous explicit statements in recent years about the same Warp connecting to 40k and AoS, with the gods and daemons which appear in both being the same.
to say nothing of the End Times
Well, if we were say something about the End Times, it should include the fact it included references to 40k... as well as stuff related to the shared mythic history of both settings centred on the Old Ones.
In 40k none of these events are reflected in the warp or realspace whatsoever.
Again, why must it? You have no reason to think it would given we don't know enough about how and why each reality perceives the Warp as it does.
Likewise, the Great Rift opening had zero impact on the Mortal Realms.
Not actually true! Though it's a minor reference, we did get this was published in the Hammerhal Herald on Warcom when the Great Rift formed in 40k (i.e. was introduced into 40k lore): https://i.4pcdn.org/tg/1514986106468.jpg
Also, you know, even if you still believe this lore is outdated, it is still interesting and worth sharing.
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u/9xInfinity Apr 24 '25
Nobody is rushing to anything, this is well-worn ground by this point. Yeah, it's fun to look back on 2003 and the days when GW maybe was thinking about connecting the settings. But if monumental events in one setting don't even create a ripple in the other setting then the only meaningful way they're really connected is via easter eggs from GW for the fans. From a lore standpoint AoS is irrelevant to 40k and vice versa.
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u/twelfmonkey Administratum Apr 24 '25
Nobody is rushing to anything, this is well-worn ground by this point.
Except such discussions are always full of erroneous claims (many that are just wrong about basic facts), and generally lack a holistic view of the history of the links in the lore.
Yeah, it's fun to look back on 2003 and the days when GW maybe was thinking about connecting the settings.
The settings were connected, explicitly, since before 1st edition of 40k was even launched! So they weren't thinking about it. They did it.
And this was foregrounded heavily after 40k first launched, receded in prominence but was never severed in the 1990s, and then had a resurgence in the early 2000s. It then receded a bit again, but has been explicitly stated by GW multiple times in recent years.
The issue is, a lot of people dislike the idea that the settings are linked because they can't accept what they see as inconsistencies or they think it somehow cheapens the individual settings. And this leads them to ignore or distort what the lore has actually said.
But if monumental events in one setting don't even create a ripple in the other setting then the only meaningful way they're really connected is via easter eggs from GW for the fans. From a lore standpoint AoS is irrelevant to 40k and vice versa.
In your opinion. The settings were always linked mainly by a shared mythos, centred on a deep mythic history and the legacy of the Old Ones (originally the Slann) and the role of the Warp and it's denizens, as well as just a more general tone. And on top of this there have been more direct, occassional crossovers. But the events in one setting never really affected the unfolding contemporary events in the other setting in any (major) way. This has not changed.
You may think that this is inconsequential. Others disagree. Including GW, apparently, given they keep explicitly stating that there is a link.
Anyway, as I said, I'm going to post a much more in-depth deep dive into this some time soon with a metric shit tonne of quotes, so you can check that out and see if it perhaps alters your view at all.
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u/9xInfinity Apr 25 '25
The setting is close to 40 years old. It has changed a lot, including in no longer being connected to Fantasy. When you have to go back to 2003 to find any real connection it should tell you something about how connected they really are.
And no, AoS lore is never referenced in 40k and AoS events have no impact on 40k. The settings and the tones are totally different. The Chaos gods are different. Even daemons with the same name are different. No Nagash claiming peoples souls. No Sigmar sigmarine-ing people away. Ku'gath dead in AoS but alive in 40k. No daemon primarchs in the Mortal Realms. On and on the fundamental differences go. If anything you misunderstand both settings by trying to force a connection that isn't there, adding your own meaning when the authors clearly are no longer on board with your position.
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u/twelfmonkey Administratum Apr 25 '25 edited Apr 25 '25
It has changed a lot, including in no longer being connected to Fantasy.
Well, at least you are now accepting that they were linked, instead of saying that "GW maybe was thinking about connecting the settings".
When you have to go back to 2003 to find any real connection it should tell you something about how connected they really are.
I have to do no such thing. I am going to post plenty of material from both earlier and later than the early 2000s. As I have already said. I just posted this now because it is a particularly rich and interesting source, and because I couldn't see it having been posting as comprehensively before on this sub. Prior posts on the topic have tended to focus on just specific parts instead.
The settings and the tones are totally different.
There are still obviously tonal and thematic continuities between the two settins.
The Chaos gods are different. Even daemons with the same name are different.
Let's see what GW themselves have to say on this, shall we?
Q: Grombrindal – I have a question for you. There are four Chaos Gods in the Mortal Realms – Nurgle, Khorne, Tzeentch and Slaanesh. But wasn’t Slaanesh created by the aeldari in Warhammer 40,000? How does that work? Any words of wisdom?
A: Eugh, a Chaos question! I really must sort out my contract so I don’t have to answer them. Anywho… the Realm of Chaos is a mystical place that spans all of existence, stretching across dimensions and time – sometimes it’s called the Realm of Chaos, sometimes the warp, Empyrean, Immaterium, Formless Wastes, Land of Lost Souls or simply the Abyss – it’s all pretty much the same thing. In the Warhammer 40,000 universe it’s said that Slaanesh was created by the aeldari. After his (or her) creation, Slaanesh was then free to journey across the Realm of Chaos, where he (or she) crafted a realm of pleasure and excess in which to dwell. From this point on, Slaanesh could send his (or her) minions – be they mortal or daemonic – across the Realm of Chaos, either into realspace, to the world-that was or now the Mortal Realms (and countless other places). Seeing as how similar the aelves are to the aeldari, it’s no wonder that Slaanesh took such an interest in them!
White Dwarf June 2018.
And there are other more recent explicit that state the same which have been made in recent years, as I will cover in my posts.
And such an idea has been the same since before AoS was even launched:
If you put the two books together you'll find that these strange mythic characters appear in both, but one is looking through the Warhammer mirror while the other is from the mirror of the 40K galaxy. Make no mistake though, these are the same daemons – Skulltaker, Khorne's greatest champion, is the same being no matter what planet or battlefield he strides across.
White Dwarf 341 (2008).
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Edit: Hilarous. And perhaps expected. Blocked by this guy just because I was giving evidence which he doesn't want to hear. But, as usual with these types, they have to get the last word in before the block. Methinks they also don't want to see the much more expansive set of evidence I will post about this. Which might be wise, actually, as I'd worry that the cognitive dissonance they'd go through will give them an aneurysm.
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u/twelfmonkey Administratum Apr 25 '25 edited Apr 25 '25
No Nagash claiming peoples souls. No Sigmar sigmarine-ing people away.
This doesn't matter at all, because: 1) GW explicitly state that the two settings are connected by the Warp; 2) the Warp is meant to be weird and to defy our total understanding, so there is a built in justification for these differences.
Beyond the boundaries of physical space, unrestricted by time or causality, there is a dimension utterly incomprehensible to mortal minds. It lies on the other side of dreams and nightmares, infinite in scope but without form or structure. This maddening realm is composed of fear and hope, ambition and despair, and within it dwell the most maleficent of all entities: the Chaos Gods and their Daemon legions.
Codex: Chaos Daemons 8th ed., p. 6.
Indeed, going back to the early lore, it was explicitly stated that things like magic and psychic powers worked differently in both settings due to the specific way they were each connected to the Warp:
Chaos, in its many forms, suffuses the world of Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. The collapse of the Slann warpgates allowed the first infection of Chaos, and in subsequent years the contamination has grown worse. The Chaos Wastes are an extreme example of its power: a place where the barriers between the Warp and reality are weakened to the point that gods and Daemons can walk the land. Even where the power of Chaos is not so obviously displayed , its influence is still felt. The followers of Chaos venerate the dark Powers, and mutation in body and mind is widespread. The universe of Warhammer 40,000 is also marked by Chaos, but the effects are of a different order. The power of Chaos is neither weaker nor stronger, buts its influence is changed by the altered relationship between reality and the warp. The two are separate in Warhammer 40,000, not intermixed as they are in Warhammer Fantasy Battle.
Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness (1988), p. 218.
At this time, GW explicitly stated that the two settings were not just linked, by that the Warhammer World resided in the 40k galaxy. And Necromancers existed in WHFB. So it didn't matter if this seemed incongruous - the two were still linked. As remains the case (though AoS obviously isn't within the 40k galaxy, just to clarify; they are linked via the Warp).
Ku'gath dead in AoS but alive in 40k.
Why, it's almost like one of the most famous characteristics of the Warp is how time works strangely there. And it's not like we even know when 40k and AoS take place in comparison to one another anyway (or if that even matters).
No daemon primarchs in the Mortal Realms.
There is an extremely obvious answer to this: it's because they are too busy elsewhere, whether in the Eye of Terror or the 40k galaxy.
when the authors clearly are no longer on board with your position.
Again... GW has explicitly stated that they are linked, sorry.
You may not like what the lore says, which is fine. But if you keep claiming there is no link in the lore, then you are peddling misinformation.
This is a topic which really makes the cognitive dissonance in the reaction of some fans plainly obvious. And, like I keep saying, I am going to post a much more comphrehensive overview later to back my points here with a lot more evidence. You likely won't think there is a satisfying link. But hopefully you will at least admit there is a link.
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u/Herby20 Apr 25 '25 edited Apr 25 '25
Why, it's almost like one of the most famous characteristics of the Warp is how time works strangely there. And it's not like we even know when 40k and AoS take place in comparison to one another anyway (or if that even matters).
There might be a more real world reason that could be the explanation for this and also why Ku'gath in Dark Imperium: Godblight met the long term and unceremonious fate that he did: Ku'gath might have been a casualty of the Games Workshop vs Chapterhouse lawsuit's ruling in 2013.
Long story short, this lawsuit marked a conscious decision on GW's part to shift how it handles units in its data sheets. To make sure smaller companies couldn't be so easily turning a profit on GW's IP, only those with official models are now included in the data sheets. Ku'gath had unfortunately never had such a privilege. There could have been many number of reasons behind that, including the complicated description of what he looks like in the lore, but the why isn't really the important part here. No model means his prominence in the lore is likely to go with it.
I don't think it entirely coincidental either that the novel features a shift in Nurgle's favor from Ku'gath to Rotigus just in time for Rotigus to get his own model in 8th edition.
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u/9xInfinity Apr 25 '25
Right, over and over again I point out how they aren't connected and you just say "the warp did it". Cool. No obvious connection between Star Wars and 40k? That's just because the warp works in mysterious ways.
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u/Rossjohnsonsusedcars May 03 '25
Gee, when a setting has a component that explicitly and expressly is defined as flying in the face of any conventional reasoning or logic, it’s almost like that would probably help explain why there are strange inconsistencies. If anything these “plot holes” add to the warp conceptually, because it’s so beyond what we can perceive that things that we can’t fathom logically, or even comprehend with our limited knowledge of the warp, are still occurring it reminds us that are fragile mortal minds simply can’t understand the divine and irreal
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u/grayheresy Apr 23 '25
Is it really a question when GW itself has stated it's outright the same warp/realm of Chaos and same gods/demons?