Gods and Gods, or Gods and gods?

[Mr Mystery]

Just a quick pondering....

So there's a much wider pantheon in the Age of Sigmar. We've got 5 Chaos Gods, albeit with 1 in absentia. These are of course Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch, The Great Horned Rat and Slaanesh. And these five are most definitely Gods in the traditional sense, replete with powers of creation etc.

Then we have the new Gods. Or should that be gods, noting the lower case 'g'.

See, they seem to be a breed apart from the Chaos Pantheon, mostly because they can exist/manifest within the Mortal Realms, and for seemingly indefinite periods - compare to Khorne, whom it seems can intercede, but not actively participate.

By my memory, that pantheon (working for now on the assumption it's separate entirely from the traditional one) comprises Sigmar, Alarielle, Grungni, Gorkamorka, Tyrion and Mallerion - and technically Grimnir, but he needs to pull himself together (boom boom!). So they definitely outnumber the Chaos Gods.....but are they anywhere near the same potency?

That Alarielle can mould life is clear - but despite The Lady of Vines (literally Alarielle's Right Hand), I, pretty sure she hasn't created life.

Sigmar has definitely created the Stormcast Eternals, but that's not exactly working from scratch in the way a Daemon is (they're imbued with a portion of his power, not formed of it).

The others we don't know a great deal about yet - or if we do, I've fergot!

So what exactly are Sigmar and Chums? Just incredibly potent immortals worshipped as deities (so gods), or bona fide, 'real space' Gods With A Capital G?

Weigh in with your thoughts and opinions :)

[Erik Setzer]

If you're counting other Incarnates, don't forget Nagash. He's practically the God of Death, though perhaps more "mortal" than a Chaos God.

Gorkamorka/Gork & Mork should be more powerful. I think that's a case of their schizophrenic writing, not knowing what they want to do with AoS's story. They're trying to keep it as a continuation of WFB's story. Okay, but then Gork and Mork were actually true gods, not just people who had a wind of magic shoved into their mortal body. So why would they suddenly be less powerful, especially if the Orcs are even more powerful than they were before? And of course there's the issue of them saying "it's sometimes one god, sometimes two gods," which feels less like an interesting point about the character and more like they realized too later that they'd mixed up parts of the fluff and had to explain the inconsistencies (IIRC, there's a "Fist of Mork/Gork" in the new Orcs, suggesting yet again that it's two gods still). Sigmar never should have been able to fight either of them to a stalemate, but did so for the narrative reason of he's the main Mary Sue and he can do whatever special stuff they want him to be able to do.

Ah... yeah. Bit of a rant, want to rant more, but I won't. Orcs are my main love, and seeing their gods reduced so low is annoying. It hurts my green pride. If I wasn't sitting in a cubicle I'd let out a WAAAAGH! of frustration.

I don't think Sigmar or Alarielle (or even Nagash) could take on one of the Chaos Gods and win one-on-one. The Incarnates still aren't proper gods on the level of the Chaos Gods, they're just really powerful mortals. The only reason it's any question at all is they kind of blurred the lines a bit to make the main characters more "exciting."

[Mr Mystery]

Yeah...hands up. I forgot Nagash....my bad!

[Erik Setzer]

I was shocked - shocked, I say! - to see him missing from the list. That dude's whole life goal has been to become a god, and now he's pretty much got control of the dead (and hates the Stormcasts and Chaos followers because they don't die properly like they should).

[odinsgrandson]

Doesn't inability to manifest on the mortal planes leave something wanting in the way of omnipotence?

I can't really see why some gods are more godlike based on the things they cannot do.

[Mr Mystery]

It's more a measure of influence, rather than outright power - if the two can be so neatly separated.

The 'Big Five' haven't traditionally been able to fully manifest in the mortal plane - they're bound by the same rules as Daemons, and there's just not enough juice to keep them manifest for any appreciable amount of time.

So for example, Khorne isn't able to just walk up to Gorkamorka and kick all his teeth out, Tzeentch can't sit down with Teclis (another I missed off the list!) to engage him in a game of riddles directly, and so on and so forth. But, they can tweak and twist reality to aid their underlings, swing their sword to effect a battle (as seen in End Times). But beyond that, they depends entirely upon Cats Paws - be that Archaon, or their Daemons, or their Mortal Hosts.

Now don't get me wrong, that influence is nothing to be sniffed at.

But, let's compare to Sigmar and The League Of Super Best Friends Who Had A Bit Of A Falling Out. They exist in the mortal realms. They can actively, physically and personally seek out the Champions of Chaos, and give them a bloody good going over all on their Jack Jones. Indeed, Sigmar and Nagash are expressly said to have done just that at the opening of the Age of Chaos.

Now, here's where we get to the more interesting bits.....it seems The Five cannot strike at their Mortal Plane Rivals directly - or else surely they'd have done so by now? Especially Sigmar. Yet Nagash was struck down by their Chosen, Archaon.

That Nagash didn't die doesn't mean an awful lot for getting a handle on the potency of the Mortal Realms Pantheon - I mean, he's Nagash, and he never has been one to let the destruction of his body stop him....

But that they didn't strike at Sigmar themselves, despite opportunity to do so? How to interpret that? Here's some initial thoughts to consider (but by no means all the possibles!)...

A) They don't have enough physical influence to strike down their rivals.
B) Tzeentch caused it (never, ever rule that one out!)
C) Gods can't kill Gods (different from A!)

There's a lot of pondering involved in this question :)

[Morgrim]

I think 'godhood' works as concentric rings. In the centre you have plain old mortals, who have no power beyond what is in their own skins and no influence beyond what they can personally do. The more powerful you get, the further outwards you move, but the powers are coupled with restrictions.

So the next ring would be the Incarnates as they were in the Old World. They have power from the Winds of Magic, they can do things beyond mortal abilities, and they wax or wane based on their Wind's strength... but they're still entirely killable and, short of the world ceasing to exist and throwing everything into chaos, they tend to STAY dead. Or at the very least have to be manually brought back by someone/something with the power to do so.

I'm not sure if any of the former Incarnates fall into this category currently, but Nagash's Mortarches seem to.

The next ring out would be some of the Incarnates and possibly Gorkamorka? (I'm half convinced the one mentioned is actually an avatar/favoured champion of Gork and Mork, and has taken the same name because how else to you impress orcs?) Now actually immortal, but still bound to the planes themselves. Young Gods, as it were. They have worshippers and gain strength from them and can perform feats of mythological skill, but can't travel to the rings further out. But they can still lead armies in person whenever they please, which is nice. I think Archaon is currently in this category. It may be arguable that Sigmar used to be by the End of Times, but I don't know enough to say for sure.

Stepping out another ring, we're hitting the realms of undisputed divinity. Beings that can directly affect the mortal realms, but seem to only do so at key moments with a lot of support, and are arguably bound so tightly to their home plane that it takes armies of worshippers or feats of grand summoning to allow them direct, unfiltered influence. Most of the time they act through proxies. This is where Sigmar currently is; he uses the Stormcast as his instruments rather than fighting at their head. The times he does fight directly are the stuff of legends. Dracothion belongs here too, and I'd argue that Nagash does as well. Gork and Mork should be on this level, and possibly are if GW sorts out their fluff. In the Old World this was the home of the Great Horned Rat, but he's now pushed up to the final level.

The most powerful and outermost ring is the home of the Chaos Gods. They have their own, independent realms that are formed of their very desires and can only be accessed with permission or great effort and have immeasurable amounts of power within them. The trade off is that they cannot manifest at all in the mortal realms; they simply cannot fit in the metaphysical sense, because the energy required to fully summon them is unobtainable. So everything they do must be conducted through proxies. They can push quite a lot of power into these proxies, so it isn't that much of a hindrance, but occasionally it blows up in their faces (hi Archaon). If one could eliminate their rivals nothing would be capable of standing in their way. Unfortunately everyone else knows this, and so the majority of their time and effort is spent fighting each other. Their pawns in the mortal realms are primarily to expand their influence and potential powerbase so that they may one day have the ability to cast down their rivals, but they'll work together to achieve a particularly potent goal like corrupting an entire world (generally because they think that once it is achieved, they'll be able to backstab the other Gods and claim it all for themselves).

[Erik Setzer]

See, this is where AoS's fluff gets messy, and why at some point they'll need to rewrite most of it to fix it.

You say "Tzeentch can't sit down with Teclis." Wait... but Tyrion and Malerion specifically went after Slaanesh to go find and fight Slaanesh. That means the Incarnates and Chaos Gods *can* exist on the same plane and interact. Especially if those two guys found Slaanesh and did something to Slaanesh. (Sorry, I'm not sure what pronoun is right when talking about a multi-gender deity.)

Then there's the weird thing with Gorkamorka (I like the concept that it's an avatar of the Orc gods rather than them manifest, and that *would* explain the two-or-one thing).

It seems they haven't yet made up their minds on who's a god or not, what the abilities of various characters are, any of that stuff.

[odinsgrandson]

See, this is where AoS's fluff gets messy, and why at some point they'll need to rewrite most of it to fix it.

You say "Tzeentch can't sit down with Teclis." Wait... but Tyrion and Malerion specifically went after Slaanesh to go find and fight Slaanesh. That means the Incarnates and Chaos Gods *can* exist on the same plane and interact. Especially if those two guys found Slaanesh and did something to Slaanesh. (Sorry, I'm not sure what pronoun is right when talking about a multi-gender deity.)


It only needs a rewrite if you think that sort of messiness is an issue. I get the impression that GW aren't trying to limit themselves with clear rules to their magic system.

Maybe that GW is going for a mythic approach. Gods in mythology are basically capable of whatever the story suggests- sometimes the immortals cannot be killed (imprisoned Loki) and sometimes they can (dead Baldur).



Probably, the chaos gods are the weaker ones- the only personal encounter that'd been had was a big loss for the chaos god.

So the incarnates are more powerful. Clearly.

[Mr Mystery]

That's an interesting consideration.

Though when Slaanesh was Godnapped, he was absolutely full on Elf souls. He's also traditionally the weakest of The Four (though whether he has more power than The Great Horned Rat is another discussion).

[grimmas]

It only needs a rewrite if you think that sort of messiness is an issue. I get the impression that GW aren't trying to limit themselves with clear rules to their magic system.

Maybe that GW is going for a mythic approach. Gods in mythology are basically capable of whatever the story suggests- sometimes the immortals cannot be killed (imprisoned Loki) and sometimes they can (dead Baldur).



Probably, the chaos gods are the weaker ones- the only personal encounter that'd been had was a big loss for the chaos god.

So the incarnates are more powerful. Clearly.


Very good point. If your rules are too tight in that regard it's very much going to limit your creativity to some degree. GW clearly do not want to limit AoS, certainly in regard to creativity.

Khorne (or rather his sword) did make a brief and very destructive appearance in the Old World during the Endtimes. So it isn't totally impossible for the chaos gods to manifest.

On the OP I'd say that the Chaos gods were more representative of an Abrahamic God. In that they are individually very powerful but somewhat restricted to a separate plain of existence and will effect the world through their followers and indirect means rather than directly involve themselves in person. Where as the others are representative of a polytheistic pantheon like the Norse or Greek gods who are more limited in their scope of power but who do directly involve themselves with events.

[Morgrim]

Do we actually know what has happened to Slaanesh yet? As far as I knew, the two confirmed facts are that Slaanesh is missed and hir daemons are searching for hir, and that certain ex-elvish Incarnates (now almost certainly some flavour of divinity) were involved.

If they're of a similar power level to Sigmar, it would make sense that they could 'punch up' enough to temporarily disable a Chaos god. Or maybe some sort of trickery was involved and Slaanesh can hear everything their worshippers are praying, but no matter how much shi shouts none can hear hir. (Okay, so that's blatantly inspired by my recent phone troubles...) Malerion is the God of Shadow, I sincerely doubt he confronted Slaanesh head on.

[Erik Setzer]

I haven't gotten the latest book (or the novels, because I'm not in a novel reading mood), but the last I remember reading as official fluff, Slaanesh was simply "missing" and the two Elves were looking for Slaanesh, and that's it. There's nothing to suggest they found Slaanesh and actually did anything. It was basically a plot point dropped there to excuse a lack of new Slaanesh stuff and explain the new Elves whenever they get released. And then the Internet got hold of it and rampant speculation took over.

[Mr Mystery]

Will double check my book, but I'm fairly certain Slaanesh was Godnapped?

[Erik Setzer]

Will double check my book, but I'm fairly certain Slaanesh was Godnapped?

Does it actually specifically say that? Having a hard time remembering, but I feel like that might have just been a rumor. But hey, I might have missed something or confused a couple bits.

[Mr Mystery]

Yup.

Just checked. Tyrion and Malerion kidnapped him.

[Path Walker]

She was all bloated and sleeping off eating all the delicious Elf souls from the End Times and was easy prey!

[Erik Setzer]

Yup.

Just checked. Tyrion and Malerion kidnapped him.

Where is that noted? Want to go brush up on that, and I'm not keen trying to sift through hundreds of pages to find it.

[Path Walker]

Pretty sure that's stated in the free Primer they put out, if not, its certainly in the first of the big books. The unnumbered one.

[Mr Mystery]

Yup.

Their godnapping shenanigans contributed to the rise of Chaos - they were too distracted by that quest to properly stand with Sigmar.

[Erik Setzer]

Looking at page 57 of the core book, I see it noted that Malerion and Tyrion wanted to find their own kind, but it doesn't really get specific on what happened. Slaanesh ate the elves, and had to retreat to a secret lair. The only hint that they found him was:

"As secretive as he was, however, Slaanesh did not escape the plotting of Tzeentch, who manipulated Khorne and the two newly born aelf gods."

It's also interesting that in the same paragraph they capitalized "Chaos God" but not "aelf gods." Kind of ties into the topic here.

So that book leaves it up in the air on whether they found him or not, and certainly what happened after that.

I also seem to have missed the passage on Malerion finding Morathi (albeit "changed"). Didn't she end up going off with Slaanesh or something? Sure, she was in the midst of daemons when he found her, but... well, it's so vague that it's hard to guess what was going on.

And, of course, it notes in those pages that the elf gods couldn't find any other elves anywhere, which is what got them wanting to go off after Slaanesh... and then later we're told there were plenty of elves who eventually retreated into Azyrheim, in one of the strongest ways the fluff is contradicting itself. They want to have Slaanesh have eaten all the elves, but they wanted to sell elf models right now and explain why someone can play an army of elves. Just didn't really think it through when they were first writing that all the elves were missing. They need a Lucy Wilson type person. (For those who didn't know, she was in charge of keeping the continuity straight in the Star Wars universe, until Lucas himself started mucking with it, and then eventually it all got out of hand with the desire for money over a cohesive story. She did a good job for a long time, though, but no Lucy Wilson around is how we get the mess in The Old Republic MMO.)

Also, hey! Got a preferred pronoun for Slaanesh! Guess that makes sense as Slaanesh is the Dark Prince, but it changes depending on how he's feeling or who he's manipulating.

[Mr Mystery]

Bit of minor threadomancy, because recent books have clarified things somewhat, not least Alarielle's triumphant (and if the constant sold out is anything to go buy, rather lucrative) return.

Specifically, it's now clear Alarielle can[i] create new life, and arguably new life forms. And it's the latter I find particularly intriguing.

So far as I can recall, this makes her the first entity outside of Chaos Gods and the Old Ones to be capable of this feat. Stormcast again don't count in my book, as they're upgraded mortals. But Sylvaneth are [i]all Alarielle's children.

Now, there are of course some fairly broad assumptions here, mostly that Alarielle and the rest of Sigmar's pantheon are all of the same, roughy analogous power level.

The same is possibly true of Gorkamorka, with the rise of Ironjawz. However, it's not at all clear if Ironjawz are the inevitable end product of Orcs fighting non-stop for 500 years (yep, we now have a set time scale for the Age of Chaos, or at least how long it's been since Sigmar sealed Azyr, and the beginning of the Realmgate Wars), or the direct result of Gorkamorka's divine influence.

To be fair, that ambiguous nature is very fitting for Orcs - their history has always been patchy, and centred on particularly impressive Bosses and their exploits. What isn't ambiguous however is that they're recognisably Orcy, in so far as the more they fight and win, the bigger and bigger they get (and the rowdier and fightier).

Of course, I'm not for a second suggesting Gorkamorka/Gork/Mork consciously thought 'wot I needz IZ BIGGS BOYZ!' Because that's not even remotely Orcy (or really suggested). Instead it's more 'this is what happens when the big guy personally leads a Waaagh!)

Right, discuss!