Daemon Prince Appearance?

[Spy_Smasher]

Lexicanum says "Daemon Princes come in various shapes" but has there ever been a Daemon Prince in any fluff whose appearance remained essentially human after ascending? I realize I can pretty much do what I want anyway (yay 40K!) but I was wondering if anyone knew of anything like this in the official record.

[Dlatrex]

Disclaimer: wild assertions with little supporting examples.

In the cases that I can think of where someone has found enough favor to achieve daemonhood the author telegraphs this spiritual transformation by describing a physical one. If you look at the Horus Heresy series, and see the transformations of Fulgrim, Angron, or Maloq Kartho; they are all described in vivid graphic detail, describing just how in-human the resulting creature is. The same was true of Nemeroth in the video game Space Marine.

Although it would make perfect sense for a Daemon Lieutenant to be able to keep a nominal human form and possibly infiltrate the loyalists, I do not know of one that has been described in the lore. The closest you could probably come would be Daemonhosts, some of which seem to be passed off as humans if not inspected too closely.

[KhornishGameHen]

Lexicanum says "Daemon Princes come in various shapes" but has there ever been a Daemon Prince in any fluff whose appearance remained essentially human after ascending? I realize I can pretty much do what I want anyway (yay 40K!) but I was wondering if anyone knew of anything like this in the official record.

Nemeroth (http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Nemeroth) from the video game Space Marine ascended to Daemon Prince status and still remained largely human in appearance (just Daemon Prince sized).

The game is technically canon and official, so this would count as an example of a more humanoid Daemon Prince.

Technically he was only partially ascended when you beat him in the game... but it could still be enough "proof" to be useful. *shrug*

12872

[Spy_Smasher]

Hmm. He still looks fairly bulky. Of course he is a Space Marine.

I wonder if I am "aiming too high" so to speak. Even though Daemon Princes are common on the table, are they meant to be rare in the fluff?

I imagine a chaos follower who is just pre-ascension would be be supremely bad-*** in combat. Like so close to Prince-level as to not make all that much difference on the table?

The story I'm envisioning involves a villain character where his time-line kinda gets a bit fuzzy anyway because he's spent so much time bouncing around in the warp. I suppose that it could be possible for the "heroes" to encounter him in some sort timey-wimey confluence of his appearance being one thing and his power being another.

[ggg]

If you look to the older novels - Eisenhorn, Ravenor and older still, daemons of great power are not necessarily of great size. When Carl Thonius from the original Ravenor trilogy became the Daemon Sleight (various spellings) he did not grow in size - or proportion. Sleight was said to be a daemon of immense power and could arguably be considered comparable to a daemon prince. I cannot remember the book off hand but I do recall another featuring a nurgle daemon lord who was the master of an infectious plague of unbelief but he was also described as being humanoid in size. The description 'daemon prince' is not really an entomological term or strict definition but is another term for ranking a level of the daemon and is not limited to its origins. It may be observed that for the purposes of 40k, the daemon prince usually encountered is an 'ascended' mortal and that mortal is usually a great warrior prior to ascension and it may not be of surprise that size and physical power is enhanced on becoming a daemon prince - like the daemon prince from the Night Lords books featuring Talos.

The main principle and most authoritative answer to consider is 'no matter what, the 41st Millennium is a big universe and anything can and probably will happen' (to paraphrase Rick Priestly) and therefore if you want to do it and you feel it fits, do it - all the more so if it is cool.

[Spy_Smasher]

Thanks guys.

[David Crossley]

The Soul Drinkers series of books has a Daemon Prince that resembled an Angel and one that was a sentient Virus inhabiting a mass of Human hosts.

[Houghten]

When Carl Thonius from the original Ravenor trilogy became the Daemon Sleight (various spellings) he did not grow in size - or proportion. Sleight was said to be a daemon of immense power and could arguably be considered comparable to a daemon prince.

Except, they killed him, and then... [paraphrased]
"you fools, that wasn't Slyte."
*giant mound of gibbering flesh OH YEAHs through the wall*
"That's Slyte."

[Lexington]

Paul Bunyan, Daemon Prince.

[RebelWarmaster]

IIRC, in the 3.5 chaos codex it was possible to have your chaos lord have enough gifts to count as a daemon prince, without having demonic stature. So he would still be normal size

[Spy_Smasher]

... one that was a sentient Virus inhabiting a mass of Human hosts.Hah. Gotcha. I think I'm in the clear whatever I do.

[Katharon]

Storm of Iron anyone? Come on!

[DaveTycho]

If you look to the older novels - Eisenhorn, Ravenor and older still, daemons of great power are not necessarily of great size. When Carl Thonius from the original Ravenor trilogy became the Daemon Sleight (various spellings) he did not grow in size - or proportion. Sleight was said to be a daemon of immense power and could arguably be considered comparable to a daemon prince.

Carl Thonius didn't become Sleight (or Slyte), he was possessed by the daemon, or more specifically, became Slyte's incubator until the daemon was ready to be birthed, in his full and very massive form, into the material world.

Remember that humans (or any other aliens) that get possessed by daemons aren't daemon princes, and that in the fluff, daemons possessing humans often retain the host's form if it suits its purposes, only changing the host's appearance to whatever it wants if secrecy is no longer needed.

Daemonhosts are also possessed humans, with the exception that the daemon is shackled to the host, and is unable to leave the host by either fleeing back into the warp or unleashing its full form into our world through the host.

Humans are turned into daemon princes by the chaos gods, and their wildly different forms are based, in part on what the chaos God thinks his new prince should look like, and in part what the guy turning into the daemon thinks he should look like, and the final result may not be what you want. While it is theoretically possible to end up roughly human sized, in practice most people want to become a daemon princes because it's the closet thing to becoming God-like as possible, and in the grimdark 40k universe, looking like a scary giant muscle-bound monster with wings is most people's twisted idea of what a God looks like.