WARHAMMER ARMIES - DEAMONDS

'Those who follow Chaos are left with no vestige of Humanity, and become unrecogniseable in the service of their Dark Powers. Traces of humanity and decency are ruthlessly expunged from all followers of Chaos. Sanity is always the first casualty.'

'Those who follow Chaos willingly do so at the cost of their sanity, their humanity, and their souls.'

Khorne

Khorne is the power of Chaos in its aspect of mindless and absolute violence, destroying everything and everyone within its reach, slaying both friend and foe alike...The gore-maddened followers of Khorne harry beyond the edges of the Known World, delighting in slaughter...His foolwers favour red, black, and brass in their dress and armour, the hues of blood, death, and Khorne's own armor respectively...He has no temples as such, since he is worshipped on the battlefield. Furthermore, his followers believe that they would displease him by wasting valuable time building temples and worshipping in them when they could be slaying in Khorne's name...Every life taken by a follower of Khorne increases the Blood God's power. He looks with particular favour upon those who take the lives of their friends and allies, and the more death and destruction a creature has caused, the more welcome it is as a sacrifice to Khorne. Any follower who lets a day pass without contributing to the bloody-handed slaughter by which Khorne is worshipped will incur the god's great disfavour...

Followers of Khorne have no friends and few long-term acquaintances - all are soon-to-be sacrifices to Khorne. Even another follower of Khorne may try at any time to offer their lives to the Blood God! Followers of Khorne may have allies for a short time, but they are always aware that all other intelligent beings fear and hate them, and will seek to destroy them at any opportunity...The followers of Khorne are all Warriors...He is worshipped only in the act of killing...The code of Khorne is simple: blood and more blood...The only way to gain favour with him is by killing - enemies or friends, all the dead are equal in the eyes of Khorne. The only way to incur his displeasure is by not killing...

Excerpt from a Treatise on the Chaos Wastes and life, both politic and religious, near the mouth of the warp...

Khorne is the one chaos god that has come anywhere close to dominating the chaos wastes. His legions of bloodthirsty demons and war children sweep across the blasted plains in a never ending killing frenzy. The demons surge and spawn from the northernmost city of chaos in the Realm of Chaos itself. This is the bastion city of Khorne, Khorinaun. Khorne's mighty fortress of iron and brass lies behind a magnificent 500 foot wall of bone and sinew, melted and fused between great slats of thick, blackened steel. Beyond the wall is the road, a wide expanse of ancient rock stained and faded from centuries of blood and gore trampled into its surface. The monolithic fortress; the Ironraim, towers above the barren, corpse flooded plains that lie beyond the wall. Surrounding the castle, and winding about it like a great, sentinel serpent, is the bastion stair. The staircase is framed by great arches of carved bone that are grasped and wound with great living veins that pump and leak gouts of blood down the faded steps. Iron cages of demons, horribly mutated, hang from the arches, screeching and bellowing infernal praises to Khorne. he stairs wind about the outer walls of the castle until they surpass its mighty pinnacle and continue into the sky until they overhang the great northern warpgate itself. The stairs culminate in a huge whirling cloud of gore and debris that writhes above the warpgate, leading into the closest of the gods domains in the chaos warp, the realm of Khorne. From the last step, concealed within the hurricane of gore, one could look sheer down almost 5000 feet straight into the churning black depths of the chaos warp itself.

The Ironraim castle's north side hangs over a great cliff above the sea of chaos. Khorne's domain in the wastes has near total control of the south side of the great warp gate. The Ironraim is as big as a large city in the empire, and its illogical iron corridors echo with screams of death and praise and sweat with the demonic heat of the beasts that lurk within. Large open courtyards house meadows and blasphemous trees and plants of deadly poison and morbid colors. Corpses; frail and mutated from the chaos energies that waft through the fortress, hang about the walls like moss; many still bound in rusted manacles. Weapons old and new lie about the cracked floors and rest against the black walls throughout the castle. Outside the castle, in the miles of bloody fields between the Ironraim and the wall are hundreds of thousands of corpses stuck on pikes and poles. Skulls litter the landscape by the thousands, and crows and undead carrion birds sound their shrill caws over the carnage.

The wall has many gates in its face, sliding double doors of solid stone braced by steel. It is through these great gates, pulled open by hordes of spawn, that powerful champions of the god walk, laden with trophies from hundreds of murders, hoping to prove themselves in the great fighting pit, the arena of Khorne, the home of the Heh-Koab, "the Block". In the lowest level of the great palace is an enormous gladiatorial ring; an arena where champions seek to impress Khorne by combatting each other, and ultimately challenging Heh-Koab. The huge daemon is a steward of Khorne on earth. The thing appears to be a giant rectangular block of stone, with "fossilized" imprints of hundreds of crushed bodies all over its surface. The Block thunders slowly end over end, and releases great boulders and spheres of lava from its surface. No champion or daemon of Khorne has yet to knock Heh-koab on its back or tear the raised symbol of Khorne, formed from twisting black chains, from its surface. To accomplish such a feat would supposedly render one the most powerful follower of Khorne in the world, though as yet none have survived the test. As the block crushes its opponents beneath it their bodies splatter blood-lusty viewers with gore as they burst. The howling throngs of champions and demons alike are overwhelmed with a feeling of invincibility and jovial bloodlust. This moment is the closest thing to true happiness that a champion of Khorne can experience. It is at this time that even followers of Khorne have been given to strange orgies and displays of all types of lust. The effects wear off after a day, but those who see the Block in action for the first time gain +d6 attacks permanently.

Heh-Koab The Block: This massive stone abomination is thirty feet long, fifteen feet wide, and seven feet high. Its surface is covered with seeming imprints of the crushed bodies of past victims, demons and champions alike. The Block moves by lifting itself and falling, end over end, toward its opponents. An opponent caught beneath its massive weight is crushed. The "top" side of the block has upon it a large symbol of Khorne, formed from anchored black chains. It requires a great strenght to rip the chains from the stone; during which the champion or demon is pelted with balls of lava and large rocks that burst from the stone's surface as though it were liquid. The Block is immune to all types of magic other than magic weapons.

NURGLE

Thus happiness and human endeavor are sired by a coming to terms with decay and futility. This realisation is the key to understanding the Great Lord of Decay and his worshippers.

Once we comprehend what it is that the Chaos Power Nurgle embodies, it becomes easier to understand what might otherwise seem a contradictory or even perverse nature. On the one hand he is the Lord of Decay, his body wracked with disease; on the other, he is full of unexpected energy and a desire to organize and enlighten.

The living know they will die, and many know that they will live with disease or other torment, yet they drive this knowledge into a corner of their minds and keep it pinioned there with all manner of dreams and activity. Nurgle is the embodiment of that knowledge and of the unconcious response to it, of the hidden fear of disease and decay, and of the power of life which that fear generates.

Nurgle is the eternal enemy of the Chaos Power Tzeentch. Nurgle and Tzeentch draw their energy from opposing beliefs. Whereas the energy of Tzeentch comes from hope and changing fortune, that of Nurgle comes from defiance of born of despair and hopelessness. The two Great Powers never lose an opportunity to pit their forces against each other.