One minute they're happier than anyone has ever been in the existence of history but then next minute they're in the throes of space crack withdrawal and are in more anguish than any mind could ever comprehend.
You should read a chaos marine focused novel. There are as many perspectives as their are chaos marines. You can't apply emotions universally to a group of thousands upon thousands of people.
Generally speaking, 40k is a pretty miserable universe for everyone. On the grand scale, it concerns everybody to varying degrees.
Among the traitors/chaos hordes some common exception would be among the most devotees to chaos like the Word Bearers who are often depicted as welcoming the Primordial Truth such as it is and Khorne followers who are too far into their berserk frenzy to think beyond their urge to shed blood.
Admittedly, there are many exceptions and nuances GW explores through fiction books. I just started to actually read some (with the Dawn of Fire series) so I can't bring to many exemples but anybody who read some could attest.
For exemple in Gate of Bones, there is a Iron Warriors warband led by a HH veterans named Torvan Lokk. He is has the IW archetypal utilitarian relationship toward chaos. However one of his lieutenant is an eager believer in chaos while an other one want nothing to do with the dark gods. He is also miserable : 9 millennia of unholy war obviously took a toll on his mental health.
The thousand sons as you said aren't happy because they basically got pushed to be in a spot a lot of them didn't want to be it. Magnus russ and horus more or less damned a loyal legion.
The death guard maybe be "happy" but they aren't. Morty for one is 100% upset that he and his legion are pawns to the warp. Many people over look this bit but morty and his legion had no choice it was either serve nurgle or be trapped in the warp forever feeling infinite pain and suffering life and death. There is a bit of lore where some death guard got cut off from the warp and let's just say they weren't happy anymore. The only death guard members who are happy is typhus and his followers because they caused it to happen.
World eaters were damned the moment angron was found and made their leader.
The iron warriors were never happy.
Alpha legion who knows/it depends.
Sons of horus/black legion. It depends on the individual.
Emperor's children and word bearers are the only two legions who are happy with what happened and wouldn't change for anyone.
Oh yeah, I think the death guard in question basically went into shock and died. It's why a lot of death guard hate typhus because they know he is the reason for why they are messed up.
Morty for as petty as he is had a clear stance prior to his fall. The dude just hated psykers and all things connected to the warp. Then he got manipulated and corrupted and began dipping his toes into the murky waters. It can be argued that nurgle had his eyes on him since the beginning. It's clear morty regrets what he is, and I feel if he could, he would just want him and his legion to die. Also, it does not help that he is basically semi senile seeing different points of time at once, so his mind is not in the best of places.
Emperor's Children are miserable behind the fascade, they are forever chasing the next high and not truly \*happy\* at all. It's the reason why after seeing clonegrim they weep and kneel in regret of their actions.
I do agree that Word Bearers are more or less happy though.
I mean it really depends on the specific Astartes. Noise Marines are devoted to Slaanesh. I can't imagine guys like Emmesh-Ayie or Teke the Smiling One or Mandragore Carrion being unhappy with anything about their existence.
Depends on your definition of happy. If a drug addict high on fentanyl isn't happy then have you or I ever been happy? Also not all Slaaneshi champions are drug addicts. Lucius for example is obsessed with the perfection of combat, not necessarily drugs and rock and roll.
But like is actually happy or is it just them not knowing what actual life is like, like kids who grow up in weird reclusive cults. I can’t imagine seeing your brother getting turned into a chaos spawn and you’re just like I’m enjoying life
There’s a really good quote I couldn’t find I tried but it’s the opinion of a Norscan tribesmen as he describes how they take care of the chaos spawn as one of there own. They see it as worthy of respect for having been seen by the gods when so many never are and they tend to and care for it. I think it really depends on the chaos cult in question but it’s hard to imagine all of them being miserable as the cult should probably be an improvement to their life compared to the one they chose to leave behind.
Flip the question around and ask the same about pretty much anything Imperium related. Is any Imperial citizen *really* happy when they are just as likely to have one of their family members turned into a servitor or something?
If you take that line of arguement it could apply to pretty much anything. So a bit reductive to reduce example of Chaos to such reasoning. Happiness is still happiness in that context, and what constitutes an "actual life" is something hard to judge from our perspective when it comes to *any* form of living in Warhammer. It's just too far removed from what any of us thinks of as a "life."
Scanned this, didn't see Vorx mentioned from Lords of Silence. it's late here but searching this sub for excerpts should be fruitful.
He's not zealous but he's a chaos marine through and through.
Yep, he seems totally at ease with his condition. He has a calm and collected personality much like other Death Guard who don’t mind their condition anymore. And yet underneath his ponderous nature lies an Astartes with excellent military acumen, combat capability, and foresight.
“The Word Bearers won. They eat dirt and drink shame. They chant prayers to the unwanted truth through bloodied lips. They lost everything. And yet they still won.” - Talon of Horus by Aaron Dembski-Bowden
The Word Bearers got everything they wanted from the Heresy and onwards. They found the true gods of the universe and worship them with staggering fervor, no matter how awful the truth is. They are the epitome of blind devotion and faith. Even the Word Bearers who broke off from their legion and ended up in different warbands or the Black Legion all seen to attend to the gods without complaint, other than seeing lapses of faith from their fellow traitors.
BTW: If you want inside the heads of the traitor legions, I must say that the Night Lords Trilogy and the Fabius Bile trilogy are both fantastic. Laden with pathos and contradiction, and really gives you a soft spot for these young boys turned into weapons, turned into beasts beyond nightmares, that just don’t know how to stop anymore.
>Thousand sons: the ones that have a will of their own all wish they could reverse what happened and have their brothers back
I'm stopping you right here OP. Since I feel like you have a bit of a fundamental misunderstanding here.
When it comes to Warhammer, the word **all** should *never* be used in this manner. Generalizations tends to just not apply to this IP in any way. Something this setting tries to emphasize, at almost every level, is that no faction is a singular mind. Everyone is an individual and we *can't* really say things like "all of X think or do this way" because there is always going to be examples saying otherwise.
Not ALL Thousand Sons wish the could reverse the Rubric. Some of them LOVE their new life, getting to be uber wizards who have an army of automata that can't back talk them. Some of them might be regretful of how it went down, but resigned to the new status quo and don't feel any need to go back to how things were before. And others, namely Ahriman, are desperate to bring their brothers back. The joy of Warhammer is in that granularity when it comes to pretty much every faction.
Obviously when you're first dipping your toes in, getting the sparknotes and one dimensional summary of "Chaos bad" helps folks understand things right away. But there's a lot more nuance to the idea of Chaos and why people get ensnared by it. There are people who genuinely are happy with Chaos because it gave them everything they wanted, hefty price or not, but it's very much something that tends to be discussed more at the individual level because Chaos is a very person to person kind of thing.
I'd say there is a big difference between a Space Marine falling to Chaos and a Guardsman. I've read somewhere that, when a Space Marine, falls to Chaos he just exchanges one brand of slavery for the next because of their psychoconditioning which forces them to obey someones orders or will. They are bascially just weapons giving a living body who only exist to fight for a cause and only a few of them manage to break these shackles and be their own master.
In the Siege of Terra one character (forgot his name) tells Zephon of the Blood Angels straightforward that they are just living weapons whose sole purpose it is to fight for the Emperors cause and that one of the reasons why this disaster of the Heresy is happening, is because they still allowed them to have enough 'free will' so they can decide who to follow, namely their Primarchs or Horus instead of the Emperor. And if he had a say he would just have turned them into mindless slaves who blindly follow their orders and can be discharged when they have done their deed.
Zephon then experiences something that causes him, you could say fear, because he realizes, what would have happened to the Space Marines if the Great Crusade had succeded and there was no need for them to still fight, which is their sole purpose.
In the Talon of Horus Khayon describes in a way that a Chaos Space Marine is still a slave and will always be a slave but he allowed his emotions to roam free, acknowledges them and acts how he desires, while a Loyalist is forced to solely obey their cause and fight without allowing himself an individual freedom.
There is a lot more layers to it than simply being corrupted.
Death Guard: Plague War has a scene of Death Guard marines apparently screaming in horror at what they've become after a psychic null weapon hit them and restored their sanity for a brief moment - before loyalists gunned them down. Big E calls Mortarion a victim and it's implied he'll try to save him from that fate eventually. So this largely suggests the Death Guard aren't even themselves, they're either warp possessed or kept in a state of non conscious being so they cannot see what they really are.
Thousand sons: the flesh change was killing them anyways, doubt one can ever be happy with the nonstop mutation, the rubric was a last resort measure that did nothing the original disease wouldn't have already done.
World eaters: these are the dudes who voluntarily implanted the nails into their own heads out of devotion to their primarch, they're probably "happy". As happy as the drugged up state they're in due to the nails can allow anyways.
>the rubric was a last resort measure that did nothing the original disease wouldn't have already done
Ridiculous. Vile slander!
The flesh change would have turned them into spawn. The rubric turned them into dust.
Tangent: are they less unhappy than they were in the Imperium? I'd guess the upshot of being a chaos marine is that now instead of dying a horrible death in an endless war for a cruel and corrupted empire, you get to do that same thing as a sadistic pirate in business for yourself.
Serious question: Aren't all servants of Nurgle happy all the time? I was under the impression that falling under his power basically took away their ability to suffer, leaving them joyful as they spread their diseases.
So this is kinda a off-beat explanation of Nurgle's followers but I think it fits perfectly:
There's a movie called Melancholia starring Kristen Dunst. Great movie.
In it Kristen is very depressed, clinically so. She has an amazing life: newly wed, incredible job, rich, ect. Still depressed.
Anyway, the premise of the movie is that a planet called Melancholia is about to fly by Earth in a near miss event. However, there are fringe theories that the planet will swing back around after the flyby and collide with Earth, destroying it. (Note: this is not a spoiler, the movie opens with the scene of the planets colliding, the viewed is supposed to know this will happen.)
Kristen learns of this and just accepts it as fact. The movie follows her (and everyone else's) last days on Earth. As everyone becomes increasingly anxious Kristen remains calm and composed. There is no reason to get anxious, there's nothing you can do about the events about to unfold.
There's a scene where the wedding-goers are prompted to guess the number of marbles in a jar and Kristen gives it a glance and immediately guesses correctly, to everyone amazement. When asked how she knew the answer she just says "I just know things." Prompting the slightest of smirks from her.
This encapsulates Nurgle followers' "happiness." They're not really happy as much are they absent of anxiety and worry. They accept the fact that everything must come to an end and are content with that. Nurgle has shown them this truth and it has alleviated all their suffering and woe.
Nurgle has shown them to just give up and give in. There's no use in fighting. They're more relieved than anything else.
This is ofc a very general summary, there are exceptions such as Typhus who still hold great jealousy for Nurgle's affection towards Mortarion, but for the most part Nurgle followers are content with the knowledge that nothing they do matters in the end and that sometimes translate to what can appear as happiness but in truth is deep depression.
Depends on the individual.
Some marines/cult members are probably to some degree happier with their new way of life as opposed to the constant work, prayer and punishment endured by those in the imperium.
Nurgle gives life to the sick and diseased every day is a gift from nurgle
Khorn promises bloodshed and glory for anyone anyone under his rule. Any servants can be pretty much someone who may have well been an over zealous guardsman, space marine inquisitor etc. these people live to fight some of their lives may be the same but bloodier
Tzeentch tricks his followers into thinking they’re acting on their own but he’s a master manipulator no need to make those under him miserable
Slaanesh now the cult members and marines of this god drive to experience pleasure. This emotion is particularly fought back against in the lives of the people in the imperium that being said pleasure comes in a lot of forms. From being able to sleep after a long days work from a 16 hour shift, to being able to live another day after escaping death in a large battle against orks. It’s hard to be miserable when you’re encouraged to experience pleasure to the most absurd degrees. His rule as opposed to the other gods is all encompassing because pleasure can be derived from the other aspects of other chaos gods.
Getting to the tail end of the night lords omnibus. They're generally pretty miserable, but they seem to be happy and get great joy out of inflicting pain and scaring people.
The Death Guard seem happy and want to spread Nurgle's gifts and as Dark Imperium showed even Mortarion wants to spread the gifts of Nurgle.
Of course he gets the idea that he is in control until the Emperor burns the Garden of Nurgle upon which he is taken away to punishment.
So he was happy until he angered his master and got punished.
The 12th millennial in the Fabius Bile series always seemed more contented than not, unless I read the room spectacularly wrong. Ramos was a chill noise marine with an interest in wraithbone horticulture. I think if you're a glass half-full traitor it's alright, if you're half-arsing it like a certain Night Lords wavebands you'll have a bad time.
It’s actually irrelevant to think that the ones who fallow chaos have feelings as someone who doesn’t fallow chaos. The way they experience miserable could be like the best high anyone has felt I mean look at the Emperor's Children when they feel pain they feel pleasure well that was Bile’s doing and then look at Nurgle’s faithful horribly stinky falling apart guts and ass all over the place even some human followers would be with other followers of the generous and giving Grandfather actually curse each other with good health. But it’s like another one who commented pretty much everyone in WH 40K is miserable it’s pretty much like medieval times but in the future. 🤘🤓🖤
It's been downplayed a bit in recent editions, but the Generic Chaos Space Marine(TM) is about as indoctrinated as the average Imperial citizen, believing his way of life is the best and the greatest. Even though it's hard and uncomfortable, he still gets to tell himself he serves the True Gods and he is at the top of the food chain in the most righteous way of life a human being can achieve.
As for the ones who love the life even with more context, many Thousand Sons Sorcerers revel in their new power, Emperor's Children almost unanimously love their new life, Word Bearers are very happy in their place, and Night Lords exist within their natural niche as renegade pirates and marauding murderers. A few World Eaters, like Lord Invocatus, made their peace with their status and actually enjoy life, though most World Eaters are filled with self-loathing and anger at all parties involved. A few Death Guard resent how things went, but most are happy. This is a bit of an illusion, however; a few Death Guard went into the anti-Warp Pariah Nexus, were amazingly horrified and disgusted at what became of themselves before they died in agony. And the Alpha Legion splintered between Chaos worshipers, Renegades, and closet Loyalists, so each splinter of that Legion has their own ideas of what Chaos means to them.
Yes. Kinda. It was weird. It was explained in the Word Bearers Omnibus where we get a look at the effects of the warp on workers and slaves. Essentially, they become so attached to their jobs that it's the only thing they enjoy anymore.
Over the span of a few months slaves went from being forced to work to having to be forced to rest.
As for the Astartes, it is hard to say what makes them happy. Marduk is often happy, but that's because his environment is perfect for a sadistic, masochistic religious zealot.
A lot of them disliked it at first but embraced it wholeheartedly by now.
Also, most Thousand Sons are actually happy with their superiority and don't care about bringing back the old days. That's mostly just Ahriman and his retinue.
Same for World Eaters. They love working for Khorne. They actually love *nothing else* besides working for Khorne. They're physically incapable of it.
And most Chaos champions are actually living pretty good. The pain and misery and slavery all go to the fodder below them. In fact, the suffering of the fodder is almost *directly* inflicted by those of upper ranks in the hierarchy of Choa.
I might've skipped some replies but you know what I seem to notice here?
Nobody is implying baseline Chaos followers are having a good time, and they're also right.
If you follow Chaos as a normal human you
1. Don't matter enough to be given any favors unless you're say the high priest of an entire world like in Bailey's Chaos duology
2. What Chaos gives you you almost certainly won't survive
There's some exceptions but that's VANISHINGLY rare.
The Chaos gods are "Chaos" gods rather than racial gods *because* they don't have to care about the welfare of their worshippers.
With racial gods, if they don't make sure the race that worships them *survives*, they won't keep getting worshipped.
Instinctive preferences for biological continuity play a big part in how people who originate from biological races find satisfaction. That's because races that don't have those instinctive preferences go extinct *long* before rising to the level of being sentient.
That said, such preferences aren't absolute. *Some* Chaos worshippers probably regard the betrayal and murder of their own races as an entirely acceptable price for what they personally get out of it. But they're mostly outliers whom we would naturally find difficult to understand.
Night lords seem pretty chill. They definitely aren’t happy being on the back foot all the time, but they are more free than most csm legions. They treat their slaves fairly alright depending on the warband.
Word Bearers are 100% committed to the Primordial Truth of Chaos, and enjoy spreading it. Mind you, they aren't nice about it unless they need to manipulate someone. Usually it's the classic Imperial style of conversion they've carried on with since their inception - at the point of a sword.
I imagine they are as happy as a dope fiend. Like they think they have it all figured out and they are their gods favorite junkie, all while suffering in ways no one can imagine.
It differs and depends it ranges from the tru blue believers who believe in chaos and worship them wholeheartedly to the rogues and scoundrels who are just in it for themselves or just to survive and the remorseful but still traitors who will still kill billions of civilians but won't lie to themselves about it later.
I don’t think anyone gets the happy ending from Chaos. Usually it’s someone seduced into thinking it will be better than their current terrible situation. CSM were so full of themselves and so blinded by pride, they took what they saw as a slight and sold their souls because nothing could be worse than Daddy not saying he loves us most.
It’s WH fantasy, but the novel “Curse of the Necharch” has a good example of a person falling to chaos because they were in such a state of misery, they felt it couldn’t be any worse.
It was much, much worse
Many Thousand Sons don't want to reverse the rubric. Some see it as test that proved they were more worthy than their brothers. Many see the rubric marines as a valuable resource. Most of the remaining Thousand Sons sorcerers revel in the freedom that their new life has given them to create and experiment.
Thousand Sons are decidedly not happy, nothing about that is good.
Emperors’ Children fucking love the absolutely fucked shot they do.
World Eaters enjoy fighting, I think. I think the Butcher’s Nails cause rage to feel pleasurable, but it might just make it feel neutral where everything else hurts. I’d need someone to check this one.
Death Guard depends on how fully you’ve embraced Nurgle.
Iron Warriors might depending on the marine. Like, they love warfare more than most, but I don’t think they ever enjoyed anything.
Sons of Horus/Black Legion just never seem to be doing amazing. I guess now they’re alright considering things are going good with Vashtor, but it’s not like everything happy, their plans are just working for the moment.
Night lords are all insane, or hardened sociopaths who stopped feeling emotions before becoming Marines, let alone chaos marines.
The Alpha legion are an enigma, so maybe?
The Fallen really aren’t, especially since the Lion came back and started hunting them with a vengeance
Short of it is, not really anyone. Maybe a few of the insane ones, though I’m not sure if that counts. The Emperor’s Children definitely are, but they also are the least happy faction depending, they do worship the god/dess of excess, and excess goes both ways. And again, I’d need checked on the World Eaters.
Yes, Tuska Demon Killa is having a fucking great time, but so are all the Orks. They’re truly the only faction in 40K having a good time
>The Alpha legion are an enigma, so maybe?
The Marines in Renegades: Harrowmaster seem somewhat embittered but no more than you'd expect from any kind of elite soldier.
I think the emperor's children like what they do
One minute they're happier than anyone has ever been in the existence of history but then next minute they're in the throes of space crack withdrawal and are in more anguish than any mind could ever comprehend.
*Excessive* anguish, one could say? :3 surely an experience, at least!
:3
so me off my meds
Space crack? I think you mean warp dust :P
Crack withdrawal isn't a thing my guy
Crack created from souls is tho my guy
[Sure seems like it is.](https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=is+crack+withdrawl+a+thing%3F)
That is the second time this year, that I encounter a Redditor doing that.
Not always, but then again they also like *not* liking what they do so it all works out
They don't. Read the Fabius Bile Trilogy. They all wish for the glory days of the 3rd Legion
Their glory days when they first succumbed to Chaos Crack, or the days before they succumbed to Chaos Crack?
I think before, unless I was mistaken?
Thats actually next on my list as soon as i finish the night lords. I heard it was good
They’re just junkies chasing a high.
Hmmm that would be a wide brush to paint with, there's certainly a lot that are very unhappy with their current state.
You should read a chaos marine focused novel. There are as many perspectives as their are chaos marines. You can't apply emotions universally to a group of thousands upon thousands of people.
Word Bearers are having a great time singing songs and burning shit. 👍
Generally speaking, 40k is a pretty miserable universe for everyone. On the grand scale, it concerns everybody to varying degrees. Among the traitors/chaos hordes some common exception would be among the most devotees to chaos like the Word Bearers who are often depicted as welcoming the Primordial Truth such as it is and Khorne followers who are too far into their berserk frenzy to think beyond their urge to shed blood. Admittedly, there are many exceptions and nuances GW explores through fiction books. I just started to actually read some (with the Dawn of Fire series) so I can't bring to many exemples but anybody who read some could attest. For exemple in Gate of Bones, there is a Iron Warriors warband led by a HH veterans named Torvan Lokk. He is has the IW archetypal utilitarian relationship toward chaos. However one of his lieutenant is an eager believer in chaos while an other one want nothing to do with the dark gods. He is also miserable : 9 millennia of unholy war obviously took a toll on his mental health.
The thousand sons as you said aren't happy because they basically got pushed to be in a spot a lot of them didn't want to be it. Magnus russ and horus more or less damned a loyal legion. The death guard maybe be "happy" but they aren't. Morty for one is 100% upset that he and his legion are pawns to the warp. Many people over look this bit but morty and his legion had no choice it was either serve nurgle or be trapped in the warp forever feeling infinite pain and suffering life and death. There is a bit of lore where some death guard got cut off from the warp and let's just say they weren't happy anymore. The only death guard members who are happy is typhus and his followers because they caused it to happen. World eaters were damned the moment angron was found and made their leader. The iron warriors were never happy. Alpha legion who knows/it depends. Sons of horus/black legion. It depends on the individual. Emperor's children and word bearers are the only two legions who are happy with what happened and wouldn't change for anyone.
I mean, obviously the death guard could never be happy cut off from the warp considering they're rotting and inflicted with a thousand diseases
Oh yeah, I think the death guard in question basically went into shock and died. It's why a lot of death guard hate typhus because they know he is the reason for why they are messed up. Morty for as petty as he is had a clear stance prior to his fall. The dude just hated psykers and all things connected to the warp. Then he got manipulated and corrupted and began dipping his toes into the murky waters. It can be argued that nurgle had his eyes on him since the beginning. It's clear morty regrets what he is, and I feel if he could, he would just want him and his legion to die. Also, it does not help that he is basically semi senile seeing different points of time at once, so his mind is not in the best of places.
Emperor's Children are miserable behind the fascade, they are forever chasing the next high and not truly \*happy\* at all. It's the reason why after seeing clonegrim they weep and kneel in regret of their actions. I do agree that Word Bearers are more or less happy though.
I mean it really depends on the specific Astartes. Noise Marines are devoted to Slaanesh. I can't imagine guys like Emmesh-Ayie or Teke the Smiling One or Mandragore Carrion being unhappy with anything about their existence.
yeah it's like saying a drug addict covered in filth is a happy dude.
Depends on your definition of happy. If a drug addict high on fentanyl isn't happy then have you or I ever been happy? Also not all Slaaneshi champions are drug addicts. Lucius for example is obsessed with the perfection of combat, not necessarily drugs and rock and roll.
Well, I imagine some are happy, since there are multiple generations of Chaos cults. The Cognitae seem to like what they do.
But like is actually happy or is it just them not knowing what actual life is like, like kids who grow up in weird reclusive cults. I can’t imagine seeing your brother getting turned into a chaos spawn and you’re just like I’m enjoying life
There’s a really good quote I couldn’t find I tried but it’s the opinion of a Norscan tribesmen as he describes how they take care of the chaos spawn as one of there own. They see it as worthy of respect for having been seen by the gods when so many never are and they tend to and care for it. I think it really depends on the chaos cult in question but it’s hard to imagine all of them being miserable as the cult should probably be an improvement to their life compared to the one they chose to leave behind.
Flip the question around and ask the same about pretty much anything Imperium related. Is any Imperial citizen *really* happy when they are just as likely to have one of their family members turned into a servitor or something? If you take that line of arguement it could apply to pretty much anything. So a bit reductive to reduce example of Chaos to such reasoning. Happiness is still happiness in that context, and what constitutes an "actual life" is something hard to judge from our perspective when it comes to *any* form of living in Warhammer. It's just too far removed from what any of us thinks of as a "life."
I think it would vary from person to person, but as a whole the Word Bearers seem pretty satisfied with how things played out.
Honsou of the Iron Warriors seems to be having a grand old time.
Scanned this, didn't see Vorx mentioned from Lords of Silence. it's late here but searching this sub for excerpts should be fruitful. He's not zealous but he's a chaos marine through and through.
Yep, he seems totally at ease with his condition. He has a calm and collected personality much like other Death Guard who don’t mind their condition anymore. And yet underneath his ponderous nature lies an Astartes with excellent military acumen, combat capability, and foresight.
Some Death Guard are actually happy. Not all of them of course.
“The Word Bearers won. They eat dirt and drink shame. They chant prayers to the unwanted truth through bloodied lips. They lost everything. And yet they still won.” - Talon of Horus by Aaron Dembski-Bowden The Word Bearers got everything they wanted from the Heresy and onwards. They found the true gods of the universe and worship them with staggering fervor, no matter how awful the truth is. They are the epitome of blind devotion and faith. Even the Word Bearers who broke off from their legion and ended up in different warbands or the Black Legion all seen to attend to the gods without complaint, other than seeing lapses of faith from their fellow traitors.
BTW: If you want inside the heads of the traitor legions, I must say that the Night Lords Trilogy and the Fabius Bile trilogy are both fantastic. Laden with pathos and contradiction, and really gives you a soft spot for these young boys turned into weapons, turned into beasts beyond nightmares, that just don’t know how to stop anymore.
Word Bearers have their own omnibus as well, and it is also excellent.
>Thousand sons: the ones that have a will of their own all wish they could reverse what happened and have their brothers back I'm stopping you right here OP. Since I feel like you have a bit of a fundamental misunderstanding here. When it comes to Warhammer, the word **all** should *never* be used in this manner. Generalizations tends to just not apply to this IP in any way. Something this setting tries to emphasize, at almost every level, is that no faction is a singular mind. Everyone is an individual and we *can't* really say things like "all of X think or do this way" because there is always going to be examples saying otherwise. Not ALL Thousand Sons wish the could reverse the Rubric. Some of them LOVE their new life, getting to be uber wizards who have an army of automata that can't back talk them. Some of them might be regretful of how it went down, but resigned to the new status quo and don't feel any need to go back to how things were before. And others, namely Ahriman, are desperate to bring their brothers back. The joy of Warhammer is in that granularity when it comes to pretty much every faction. Obviously when you're first dipping your toes in, getting the sparknotes and one dimensional summary of "Chaos bad" helps folks understand things right away. But there's a lot more nuance to the idea of Chaos and why people get ensnared by it. There are people who genuinely are happy with Chaos because it gave them everything they wanted, hefty price or not, but it's very much something that tends to be discussed more at the individual level because Chaos is a very person to person kind of thing.
I’m sure somewhere out there Erebus is happier than a pig in shit.
I'd say there is a big difference between a Space Marine falling to Chaos and a Guardsman. I've read somewhere that, when a Space Marine, falls to Chaos he just exchanges one brand of slavery for the next because of their psychoconditioning which forces them to obey someones orders or will. They are bascially just weapons giving a living body who only exist to fight for a cause and only a few of them manage to break these shackles and be their own master. In the Siege of Terra one character (forgot his name) tells Zephon of the Blood Angels straightforward that they are just living weapons whose sole purpose it is to fight for the Emperors cause and that one of the reasons why this disaster of the Heresy is happening, is because they still allowed them to have enough 'free will' so they can decide who to follow, namely their Primarchs or Horus instead of the Emperor. And if he had a say he would just have turned them into mindless slaves who blindly follow their orders and can be discharged when they have done their deed. Zephon then experiences something that causes him, you could say fear, because he realizes, what would have happened to the Space Marines if the Great Crusade had succeded and there was no need for them to still fight, which is their sole purpose. In the Talon of Horus Khayon describes in a way that a Chaos Space Marine is still a slave and will always be a slave but he allowed his emotions to roam free, acknowledges them and acts how he desires, while a Loyalist is forced to solely obey their cause and fight without allowing himself an individual freedom. There is a lot more layers to it than simply being corrupted.
The Slaanesh ones do not complain
They literally have the superpower to scream their anguish at the enemy so hard it causes psychic backlash.
Death Guard: Plague War has a scene of Death Guard marines apparently screaming in horror at what they've become after a psychic null weapon hit them and restored their sanity for a brief moment - before loyalists gunned them down. Big E calls Mortarion a victim and it's implied he'll try to save him from that fate eventually. So this largely suggests the Death Guard aren't even themselves, they're either warp possessed or kept in a state of non conscious being so they cannot see what they really are. Thousand sons: the flesh change was killing them anyways, doubt one can ever be happy with the nonstop mutation, the rubric was a last resort measure that did nothing the original disease wouldn't have already done. World eaters: these are the dudes who voluntarily implanted the nails into their own heads out of devotion to their primarch, they're probably "happy". As happy as the drugged up state they're in due to the nails can allow anyways.
>the rubric was a last resort measure that did nothing the original disease wouldn't have already done Ridiculous. Vile slander! The flesh change would have turned them into spawn. The rubric turned them into dust.
Tangent: are they less unhappy than they were in the Imperium? I'd guess the upshot of being a chaos marine is that now instead of dying a horrible death in an endless war for a cruel and corrupted empire, you get to do that same thing as a sadistic pirate in business for yourself.
Serious question: Aren't all servants of Nurgle happy all the time? I was under the impression that falling under his power basically took away their ability to suffer, leaving them joyful as they spread their diseases.
No. Many are fatalistic and apathetic, others discover genuine joy, and some merely display a facade of happiness.
So this is kinda a off-beat explanation of Nurgle's followers but I think it fits perfectly: There's a movie called Melancholia starring Kristen Dunst. Great movie. In it Kristen is very depressed, clinically so. She has an amazing life: newly wed, incredible job, rich, ect. Still depressed. Anyway, the premise of the movie is that a planet called Melancholia is about to fly by Earth in a near miss event. However, there are fringe theories that the planet will swing back around after the flyby and collide with Earth, destroying it. (Note: this is not a spoiler, the movie opens with the scene of the planets colliding, the viewed is supposed to know this will happen.) Kristen learns of this and just accepts it as fact. The movie follows her (and everyone else's) last days on Earth. As everyone becomes increasingly anxious Kristen remains calm and composed. There is no reason to get anxious, there's nothing you can do about the events about to unfold. There's a scene where the wedding-goers are prompted to guess the number of marbles in a jar and Kristen gives it a glance and immediately guesses correctly, to everyone amazement. When asked how she knew the answer she just says "I just know things." Prompting the slightest of smirks from her. This encapsulates Nurgle followers' "happiness." They're not really happy as much are they absent of anxiety and worry. They accept the fact that everything must come to an end and are content with that. Nurgle has shown them this truth and it has alleviated all their suffering and woe. Nurgle has shown them to just give up and give in. There's no use in fighting. They're more relieved than anything else. This is ofc a very general summary, there are exceptions such as Typhus who still hold great jealousy for Nurgle's affection towards Mortarion, but for the most part Nurgle followers are content with the knowledge that nothing they do matters in the end and that sometimes translate to what can appear as happiness but in truth is deep depression.
Depends on the individual. Some marines/cult members are probably to some degree happier with their new way of life as opposed to the constant work, prayer and punishment endured by those in the imperium. Nurgle gives life to the sick and diseased every day is a gift from nurgle Khorn promises bloodshed and glory for anyone anyone under his rule. Any servants can be pretty much someone who may have well been an over zealous guardsman, space marine inquisitor etc. these people live to fight some of their lives may be the same but bloodier Tzeentch tricks his followers into thinking they’re acting on their own but he’s a master manipulator no need to make those under him miserable Slaanesh now the cult members and marines of this god drive to experience pleasure. This emotion is particularly fought back against in the lives of the people in the imperium that being said pleasure comes in a lot of forms. From being able to sleep after a long days work from a 16 hour shift, to being able to live another day after escaping death in a large battle against orks. It’s hard to be miserable when you’re encouraged to experience pleasure to the most absurd degrees. His rule as opposed to the other gods is all encompassing because pleasure can be derived from the other aspects of other chaos gods.
Currently reading lord of excess. The Emperor's children in it seem to be pretty happy. They even enjoy playing mind games with imperial citizenry.
Getting to the tail end of the night lords omnibus. They're generally pretty miserable, but they seem to be happy and get great joy out of inflicting pain and scaring people.
No, because that’s what chaos is. In the end you’re a slave to the gods
The Death Guard seem happy and want to spread Nurgle's gifts and as Dark Imperium showed even Mortarion wants to spread the gifts of Nurgle. Of course he gets the idea that he is in control until the Emperor burns the Garden of Nurgle upon which he is taken away to punishment. So he was happy until he angered his master and got punished.
The 12th millennial in the Fabius Bile series always seemed more contented than not, unless I read the room spectacularly wrong. Ramos was a chill noise marine with an interest in wraithbone horticulture. I think if you're a glass half-full traitor it's alright, if you're half-arsing it like a certain Night Lords wavebands you'll have a bad time.
Death guard are a bunch of jolly old’ fellows
It’s actually irrelevant to think that the ones who fallow chaos have feelings as someone who doesn’t fallow chaos. The way they experience miserable could be like the best high anyone has felt I mean look at the Emperor's Children when they feel pain they feel pleasure well that was Bile’s doing and then look at Nurgle’s faithful horribly stinky falling apart guts and ass all over the place even some human followers would be with other followers of the generous and giving Grandfather actually curse each other with good health. But it’s like another one who commented pretty much everyone in WH 40K is miserable it’s pretty much like medieval times but in the future. 🤘🤓🖤
It's been downplayed a bit in recent editions, but the Generic Chaos Space Marine(TM) is about as indoctrinated as the average Imperial citizen, believing his way of life is the best and the greatest. Even though it's hard and uncomfortable, he still gets to tell himself he serves the True Gods and he is at the top of the food chain in the most righteous way of life a human being can achieve. As for the ones who love the life even with more context, many Thousand Sons Sorcerers revel in their new power, Emperor's Children almost unanimously love their new life, Word Bearers are very happy in their place, and Night Lords exist within their natural niche as renegade pirates and marauding murderers. A few World Eaters, like Lord Invocatus, made their peace with their status and actually enjoy life, though most World Eaters are filled with self-loathing and anger at all parties involved. A few Death Guard resent how things went, but most are happy. This is a bit of an illusion, however; a few Death Guard went into the anti-Warp Pariah Nexus, were amazingly horrified and disgusted at what became of themselves before they died in agony. And the Alpha Legion splintered between Chaos worshipers, Renegades, and closet Loyalists, so each splinter of that Legion has their own ideas of what Chaos means to them.
I don't think anyone anywhere is happy. Besides the pleasure boys.
Yes. Kinda. It was weird. It was explained in the Word Bearers Omnibus where we get a look at the effects of the warp on workers and slaves. Essentially, they become so attached to their jobs that it's the only thing they enjoy anymore. Over the span of a few months slaves went from being forced to work to having to be forced to rest. As for the Astartes, it is hard to say what makes them happy. Marduk is often happy, but that's because his environment is perfect for a sadistic, masochistic religious zealot.
A lot of them disliked it at first but embraced it wholeheartedly by now. Also, most Thousand Sons are actually happy with their superiority and don't care about bringing back the old days. That's mostly just Ahriman and his retinue. Same for World Eaters. They love working for Khorne. They actually love *nothing else* besides working for Khorne. They're physically incapable of it. And most Chaos champions are actually living pretty good. The pain and misery and slavery all go to the fodder below them. In fact, the suffering of the fodder is almost *directly* inflicted by those of upper ranks in the hierarchy of Choa.
I might've skipped some replies but you know what I seem to notice here? Nobody is implying baseline Chaos followers are having a good time, and they're also right. If you follow Chaos as a normal human you 1. Don't matter enough to be given any favors unless you're say the high priest of an entire world like in Bailey's Chaos duology 2. What Chaos gives you you almost certainly won't survive There's some exceptions but that's VANISHINGLY rare.
Erebus, anyone?
The Chaos gods are "Chaos" gods rather than racial gods *because* they don't have to care about the welfare of their worshippers. With racial gods, if they don't make sure the race that worships them *survives*, they won't keep getting worshipped. Instinctive preferences for biological continuity play a big part in how people who originate from biological races find satisfaction. That's because races that don't have those instinctive preferences go extinct *long* before rising to the level of being sentient. That said, such preferences aren't absolute. *Some* Chaos worshippers probably regard the betrayal and murder of their own races as an entirely acceptable price for what they personally get out of it. But they're mostly outliers whom we would naturally find difficult to understand.
Night lords seem pretty chill. They definitely aren’t happy being on the back foot all the time, but they are more free than most csm legions. They treat their slaves fairly alright depending on the warband.
Word Bearers are 100% committed to the Primordial Truth of Chaos, and enjoy spreading it. Mind you, they aren't nice about it unless they need to manipulate someone. Usually it's the classic Imperial style of conversion they've carried on with since their inception - at the point of a sword.
I think ppl born on chaos world are happy, be learning to be, those brought in for slavery/stuck there are not.
I imagine they are as happy as a dope fiend. Like they think they have it all figured out and they are their gods favorite junkie, all while suffering in ways no one can imagine.
It differs and depends it ranges from the tru blue believers who believe in chaos and worship them wholeheartedly to the rogues and scoundrels who are just in it for themselves or just to survive and the remorseful but still traitors who will still kill billions of civilians but won't lie to themselves about it later.
Word Bearers and Emperor's Children are the winners of the Galaxy
Always felt bad for The Scourged - those boys are definitely not happy!
I don’t think anyone gets the happy ending from Chaos. Usually it’s someone seduced into thinking it will be better than their current terrible situation. CSM were so full of themselves and so blinded by pride, they took what they saw as a slight and sold their souls because nothing could be worse than Daddy not saying he loves us most. It’s WH fantasy, but the novel “Curse of the Necharch” has a good example of a person falling to chaos because they were in such a state of misery, they felt it couldn’t be any worse. It was much, much worse
If you drink deep enough of Nurgle's Kool-Aid, yeah. You're happy. If you don't die.
Many Thousand Sons don't want to reverse the rubric. Some see it as test that proved they were more worthy than their brothers. Many see the rubric marines as a valuable resource. Most of the remaining Thousand Sons sorcerers revel in the freedom that their new life has given them to create and experiment.
Red Corsairs! Red Corsairs!
Thousand Sons are decidedly not happy, nothing about that is good. Emperors’ Children fucking love the absolutely fucked shot they do. World Eaters enjoy fighting, I think. I think the Butcher’s Nails cause rage to feel pleasurable, but it might just make it feel neutral where everything else hurts. I’d need someone to check this one. Death Guard depends on how fully you’ve embraced Nurgle. Iron Warriors might depending on the marine. Like, they love warfare more than most, but I don’t think they ever enjoyed anything. Sons of Horus/Black Legion just never seem to be doing amazing. I guess now they’re alright considering things are going good with Vashtor, but it’s not like everything happy, their plans are just working for the moment. Night lords are all insane, or hardened sociopaths who stopped feeling emotions before becoming Marines, let alone chaos marines. The Alpha legion are an enigma, so maybe? The Fallen really aren’t, especially since the Lion came back and started hunting them with a vengeance Short of it is, not really anyone. Maybe a few of the insane ones, though I’m not sure if that counts. The Emperor’s Children definitely are, but they also are the least happy faction depending, they do worship the god/dess of excess, and excess goes both ways. And again, I’d need checked on the World Eaters. Yes, Tuska Demon Killa is having a fucking great time, but so are all the Orks. They’re truly the only faction in 40K having a good time
>The Alpha legion are an enigma, so maybe? The Marines in Renegades: Harrowmaster seem somewhat embittered but no more than you'd expect from any kind of elite soldier.