So, one way that (in universe, at least) some people thing about Chaos Undivided is that the Chaos Gods are not just a pantheon, they are minor parts of a greater whole, either broken or intact but schizophrenically fighting themselves.
Assuming they are broken, what would they look like if broken further, or if the totality was broken along more general lines?
Take Khorne and Tzeentch, for example. Khorne is a very proficient commander, and Tzeentch would have to be at the level of grand strategy if nothing else to be able to manipulate wars to his benefit. Take the higher level military command aspects from both, and you end up with a Tzeentch who is a very good politician and wizard but would have trouble manipulating a battle beyond being able to get the right people in the right place, a Khorne who gives no thought to war as a whole and focuses entirely on individual accomplishment and slaughter, and a third god of passionless warfare. A being who directs campaigns with tactical genius that would make Creed blush but thinks nothing of glory or of making things needlessly complex. Moving from battle to battle, war to war, with a minimum of casualties on his own side and the exact right amount of casualties to ensure that the enemy is well and truly broken but without wasting a single bit of valuable ammunition.
Any ideas, or is this total garbage and I should feel bad for thinking it up?
>>47619821
very interesting. I would like to hear more, if you wish. if you could make an entirely alternative chaos pantheon, that would blow me away.
>>47620100
Well, basically, the idea is to take an aspect of a chaos god, check if there's something similar enough in a different one to fold it together, and work with what you get.
For instance; Nurgle and Khorne. Nurgle endures. Khorne fights. Cross the two aspects, and you get a god of siege and attrition; attack his champions, and expect to lose half your invading force to the environment before you even get to start fighting. Cross Khorne and Slaanesh, and you get a god of warriors; their only joy will be battle, and only against worthy opponents. Nothing about torture and sexual decadence, and they will simply bypass the weak rather then killing them as a matter of course. They seek only to be better warriors.
I can't do a whole new pantheon myself because I'm mostly familiar with Khorne to a pretty strong exclusion of the others; they just don't interest me like the grumpy old bastard does.
>>47620316
That being said, the place to start would be with their aspects. Who represents what.
Khorne represents battle, war (different from battle), bloodshed, slaughter (different from bloodshed the way I'm using it), martial honour, a warriors code (again, different), possibly a warrior nobility, duty, and survival of the fittest. You could reasonably make some sort of chaos god out of each of those aspects. Just make sure that none of the other gods would have any influence in it (Slaanesh, for instance, attracts warriors with an over inflated ego, and could have its fingers and other body parts in several of those things) before you make it; either take care to separate the two aspects, or combine them fully.
>>47620441
>Slaanesh
Slaanesh attract whoever see battle as more than just a bloodshed, and actually enjoys it.
Mercenaries, duellists, noble elité, and all sort of maniacs.
>>47622144
I know. Which is why I brought it up.
I get what you are saying but the Chaos Gods and their followers are meant to be in a vice of excess or deficiency
They are super obsessed with a particular thing
If you take khorne and slaanesh
you get a highly skilled but brutal warrior but will less of the obsession with blood and perfection is what it seems like you are saying?
But that is no longer a vice of something
They become more balanced in their attitude and less chaos-y
you could argue that any space marine would match those characteristics
If you find a mid point between the extremes which is also an extreme in itself then that would work but i cant think of anything that doesn't just become a kind of specialization rather than worship like siege and attrition is more just iron warrior or death guard battle strategy rather than something that can be worshiped or taken to the extreme
>>47622823
With Khorne and Slaanesh, you would be left with nothing but blood and perfection, if you wish to combine them that way.
Even the greatest Slaaneshi champion does more than just fight (they may incorporate it into their fighting, but its not just about being a highly technical warrior). Take the obsessive perfection with being the best of a Slaaneshi Champion, but restrict it to fighting. Take the worthy opponent focus of a Khornate champion, add it to the above, and you get someone who lives for the high of a challenge but can't derive pleasure from anything else. Weak opponents would be killed, but if they didn't try to attack they would be outright ignored as being entirely beneath the notice of the champion. They wouldn't be slaughtered simply because they're there to be slaughtered, and they would be tortured because the champion doesn't really care about torture or taking as many lives as possible.
The drive to find worthy opponents, however, could lead to some rather horrific acts; attacking imperial worlds for the express purpose of drawing Astartes there. Conquering planets and setting up intense gladiatorial games to forge the best possible warriors for a hint of a challenge, using whatever methods possible to force them to become stronger and better. The obsession with finding better opponents would ultimately be a self defeating one; as the champion gets stronger and more technically perfect, his pool of targets gets smaller and smaller and smaller, forcing him to do more and more to even achieve the smallest hint of the challenges that where everywhere when he was younger.
>>47622971
I like the idea desu
only issue is you take the mid point between 2 extremes and then make it extreme
Say you take the mid point between being a pacifist and attacking everything in sight and you are left with a sort of moderate person
A person that picks there battles and isn't too this or too that
But then they take 'picking battles' to the extreme
Its not a perfect analogy but i hope you understand what i mean
The place between the two extremes is where a good person should be
A space marine would strive to be a skilled warrior that picks targets and does not attack everything and does not torture for pleasure
There only way it can really be made excessive is to lean towards either khorne of slaanesh
I think you need a unique identity rather than a combination between the other Gods because the current chaos gods are made to be all encompassing so leave very little room for new ones
>>47623336
>The place between the two extremes is where a good person should be
That is literally a fallacy. Golden Mean fallacy, Argument to Moderation, whatever.
I think you missed the purpose of this. Its based on the idea of taking the totality of chaos and working around it to make more specific deities rather than the general four we currently have.
Imagine chaos as a pizza. Its currently cut into four piecesand since it was overcooked a bit broke off and we call it Malal. But imagine that it wasn't cut yet. Maybe the person with the pizza cutter decides to make five pieces. Or eight. Or twenty.
Its still all encompassing, its just more specific. Rather than a small amount of really big slices, you get a large amount of smaller slices. Remember the OP; you're draining aspects from one or more of the chaos gods to make a new one, so the remaining whole still encompasses exactly the same amount, just in a different way.
>>47623422
>That is literally a fallacy. Golden Mean fallacy, Argument to Moderation, whatever.
Yeah but i mean according to generalised fairly tale concepts. The theory is that chaos is all about taking something to excess and it corrupting you but obviously in reality and in practice within 40K that is not always the case
In the same way i would refer to chaos as baddies and emperor as goodie but in reality it is way more subjective
I understand what your concept is now yh makes sense. If we can change the current power of the Gods to accommodate these new ones then yeah it can be easily done
I never liked how slaanesh is both achieving perfection and seeking pleasure
Most of the gods could be divided into at least 2 or 3 just based on their descriptions to make them more specific
