Warhammer: Chaos Gods and Daemons / Characters

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"They come to claim us for their dark masters, to choke the world in decadence, to drown it in disease and blood. What hope can there be for the mortal world? It is assailed by nightmares and its most dangerous dreams, each one given murderous form by the power of ancient and terrible gods."
—Liber Malefic

Beyond the veil of reality lies the Realm of Chaos, a world of roaming magic where thoughts and feelings are given form, and where the Four Chaos Gods live: Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle and Slaanesh. All four rule separate realms inhabited by specific Daemons, each one a shard of their master's power and a reflection of the concepts they embody, as well as Beasts of Chaos and other thematic monsters. Most of the time the Gods and Daemons war amongst themselves, but occasionally they will set their attention to the material plane, spelling doom for all its inhabitants.

The Daemons of Chaos are a powerful yet fickle army, whose prowess waxes and wanes with the Winds of Magic and prone to simply fading away from the material world when deprived of the Winds. Their hosts are divided in four distinctive trends of units. First the straightforward close-combat monsters that are the Daemons of Khorne. Then the magic wielding Daemons of Tzeentch. Then the slow but extremely resilient Daemons of Nurgle. And finally the fragile but fast Daemons of Slaanesh. Daemons armies will usually a mix-an-match group of different Daemons with their own strengths and weaknesses.

Although the Gods and their Daemons are the enemy of the entire world, many factions being wise enough to see them as the ultimate threat to their existence, the Chaos Gods have the loyalty of some of its inhabitants. The Beastmen, as beings utterly corrupted by Chaos, rightfully see the Gods as their masters, and there are humans who, for power, earthly possessions or due to madness and seeing the truth of Chaos, have sworn themselves to these dark beings.

For trope pertaining to the gods and daemons of Chaos in other Warhammer setting, see Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gods and Warhammer: Age of Sigmar: Grand Alliance Chaos.

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Chaos Gods

Beings of incalculable power, the Four Great Gods of Chaos are the personifications of the various thoughts and emotions of all living creatures given sentience by the psychic energies of their home realm, the Realm of Chaos. Though by almost every measure of the word, gods, they are by their nature monomaniacal and completely single-minded (initially formed completely of a single emotion or concept) as well as being completely dependent on the emotions of mortal and immortal creatures for their power and continued existence. The interplay of the various concepts they embody leads to all of the 4 Gods perpetually in a great rivalry with one another. This conflict is mirrored in the material plane by the combat that takes place between the mortal and immortal servitors of the Dark Gods, which is the reason for the constant civil war that the Chaos Hordes find themselves ensnared in. For as victory in these battles lends greater influence to their patron God, the victorious champion will find himself rise in favor in his Patron's eyes. For despite the myriad differences, the Gods all desire total domination in one form or another. And absolute power cannot be easily shared - especially not among Gods. Thus, this eternal struggle for dominance is known as the Great Game.

Despite their labeling as beings of fathomless evil, the Chaos Gods represent both the highest and most base aspects of sentient thought. The Great Powers personify Rage, Scheming, Despair, and Lust, but also Bravery, Hope, Perseverance, and Love.

Tropes applying to the Chaos Gods as a whole

Animal Motifs: Savage Wolves for Khorne, Creepy Crows for Tzeentch, and Flies Equals Evil for Nurgle (even his symbol is a stylized fly). These are just the most easily recognized motifs; background materials, especially the older ones, note that many Chaos cults can be disguised as mere animal totemists because there are many possible animals that can be revered as befitting one or more of the Chaos Gods. For example, snakes can be seen as symbols of both Slaanesh and of Tzeentch, bulls as symbols of Slaanesh or Khorne, toads and slugs of Nurgle, etc.
Big Bad Duumvirate: The Chaos Gods are the biggest threat to the world in Warhammer Fantasy, having nearly destroyed the world on a number of occasions through their demons and mortal servants.
Blue-and-Orange Morality: All of them, being the embodiment of abstract concepts, are prone to this.
Cosmic Plaything: They view everything that has ever existed as this.
Deal with the Devil: The Gifts of Chaos are the result of this, giving one power but at a horrible price, each likely to eventually drive the receiver to madness:
- The Gifts of Khorne will make you among the most powerful warriors in the world, but the more you immerse yourself in his blessings, the more consumed by rage and battle-lust you'll become, with only incredible strength of will being able to stave off the madness.
- The Gifts of Tzeentch will give you magical powers and arcane knowledge that can allow you to walk unchallenged against your opponents, but the knowledge is of things you cannot know.
- The Gifts of Nurgle will give you the ability to overcome death itself, but you will be a walking corpse plagued with disease.
- The Gifts of Slaanesh will make you faster than ever, and pain will not be a detriment any longer, but you will develop a need for sensation that becomes all-consuming.
Eldritch Abomination: Physical descriptions for three of the Chaos Gods fail because of how incomprehensible they are, with the accounts of those insane enough to try glimpsing into the Realm of Chaos wildly differing from another, let alone those who tried looking upon the Dark Gods themselves. The exception is Slaanesh, who is supposed to be inhumanly beautiful.
Enemy Civil War: Though they have some interest in the material world, the Great Game, the struggle for dominance in the Realm of Chaos, is the main priority of the Chaos Gods. It's also unwinnable, because when one becomes stronger, the others gang up on the stronger to bring him back down to a manageable level. And if one were to succeed, Chaos would ultimately stop being, well, Chaos.
Equal-Opportunity Evil: Contrasted with the Empire where society is highly rigid, discrimination is rampant and advancement opportunities are limited at best and nonexistent at worst. The Chaos Gods aren't actively nondiscriminatory so much as they don't care about anyone's societal background or standing when it comes to how well they serve in their patron's name. Some Chaos worshippers even cite this as a reason for turning against the Empire.
Everyone Has Standards: The Chaos Gods pleaded with Aenarion the Defender not to use the Sword of Khaine to avenge his family.
Fantasy Pantheon: A very dark example. In Fantasy Battle, they're roughly correspondent to the Norse Gods. Khorne being Odin (minus Odin's association with sorcery and wisdom) and Tyr, Tzeentch being Mimir and Loki (and picking up Odin's association with magic), Slaanesh being Frey and Nurgle may correspond to Hel. And that's only for the Norscans, they all correspond to various Turkic or Slavic gods for the Kurgan and Hung, Tzeentch is Tengri or Sventovid (it's also notable the Kurgan name for Tzeentch — Tchar — appears to be derived from Tsar), Khorne is Kyzaghan or Perun, etc, etc.
Four-Temperament Ensemble: Khorne corresponds to Choleric and Slaanesh to Sanguine pushed to their logical extremes, while Tzeentch and Nurgle respectively twist Melancholic and Phlegmatic.
God of Darkness: The minor chaos god Obscuras has powers mainly based on shadows, and can grant his followers the ability to see in the dark.
God Needs Prayer Badly: Chaos feeds off the emotions of sentient races, but otherwise doesn't need it directed at them specifically. It simply helps to focus the energy they receive.
Greater-Scope Villain: The Chaos Gods rarely pay any attention to mortal affairs, spending the vast majority of their time fighting each other, but the powers that are available to mortals because of their very existence (and the corruption and madness that results from them) are the motivation for multiple evil factions in both settings, and created those same factions in the first place.
The Heartless: Even positive emotions such as Hope or Acceptance feed the Chaos gods.
Mad God: All four fit the gold standard, but Tzeentch is especially... inexplicably illogical.
The Omnipotent: Within their own planes of existence. Their influence in the real world, while still extremely palpable, is very limited by comparison.
Orcus on His Throne: Despite their near limitless power, the Chaos Gods very rarely take direct action. To them, that's the duty of minions, not omnipotent masters.
Personal Hate Before Common Goals: Even if Malal and his followers share the same goals of conquest and destruction as the rest of Chaos against the rest of existence, they also aim this goal towards Chaos itself. Because Malal represents hate and the self-defeating and autodestructive aspects of Chaos, his primary goal above anything else is destroying any plan and any force put in motion by the rest of Chaos Gods. As such, while Malal's followers do share the same hate against the concept of Order as the rest of the forces of Chaos, their hate of Chaos itself is also so great that they would never purposefully join another Chaos faction in order to fulfill it.
Pure Is Not Good: Subverted actually, the gods are neither good nor evil, but simply elemental.
Red Baron: The True Gods, the Gods of the North, the Northern Powers, the Aesgardr, the Hungry Gods of the Dark, etc. This is just what the Norscans and other followers of Chaos call them.
Retcon: All mention of Malal was written out of the setting due to no one being quite sure who owns his copyright.
Satanic Archetype: Four of them. All of them rule over legions of daemons, tempt people to their cause, and want to raise hell. Each of them has a certain Satan-like trait — Khorne is all about violence and bloodshed whose daemons look the part, Nurgle is the Plaguemaster (a trait often attributed to the devil in medieval Christendom), Slaanesh encourages total following of pleasures of the flesh, and Tzeentch is the ultimate Manipulative Bastard.
Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Once in a while, the Chaos Gods will stop their infighting and work together. Fortunately, it never lasts long.
Top God: The Chaos Gods are constantly competing against one-another to become the strongest member of the pantheon. Khorne holds the position most frequently, as he is empowered by conflict so he grows stronger whenever anyone fights against him, but the other gods sometimes take the position from him when their own domains grow in power and influence.
Troll: They're prone to screwing around with their followers just for the heck of it. One of their favorite tricks is promising elevation to daemonhood is imminent for their mortal followers before changing their minds, moving the goalposts, or just reducing them to chaos spawn for giggles.
Unseen Evil: The very first edition of the game had pictures of them, but later additions only describe them rather than portraying them in artwork. That said, the Great Unclean Ones are said to physically resemble Nurgle himself, which could imply that the Chaos Gods' "main" forms simply look like their Greater Daemons. Depictions from related (but distinct) universes like the Great Horned Rat in Total War being a giant Verminlord◊ and Slaanesh in Age of Sigmar a giant Keeper of Secrets◊ with a Celestial Body would also point towards that being the case.

Khorne

Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!

The Blood God, the Brass Lord of Battle, Arkhar, Kharnath, Kjorn, the Bloodwolf, the Axe-Father. Khorne is the most renowned, widespread and powerful of the Chaos Gods, he is the embodiment of hate, rage, wrath, violence and the urge to kill... but he is also comprised of martial pride, courage, the will to protect others, and honor. Khorne's commandments are simple; death and violence are what he exists for, and those who worship him strive only to kill in his name. The most common saying about Khorne is that he cares not from where the blood flows, only that it flows.

Khorne is described as resembling an impossibly huge and muscular warrior clad in bronze armor and wielding a monstrous waraxe, though he is sometimes portrayed as having the head of a monstrous horn-sprouting wolf under a great winged helmet. His sacred number is 8.

Animal Motifs: Khorne is associated with Savage Wolves and hounds. He is referred to by his followers with epithets such as the Bloodwolf or the Hound, and his daemons include the savage, doglike Flesh Hounds.
Arch-Enemy:
- Khorne is fundamentally opposed to Slaanesh. Where Slaanesh is self-centered and hedonistic and its followers kill and torture to satisfy their own desires, Khornate dogma teaches spreading death and spilling blood freely for its own sake and that one should take no pleasure in anything else. Khorne is also not big on torture, which is meaningless postponing of the kill.
- Khorne also hates Tzeentch because he considers sorcery and manipulation to be cowards' weapons.
- He hates Nurgle as well due to his corpulence and passivity. Khorne believes that you have to go out and make things happen, rather than just waiting. Nurgle's careful stewardship of blessings and enhancements to his followers also runs counter to Khorne's overriding instinct to destroy.
Ax-Crazy: Khorne is the living embodiment of hate and rage — words simply don't exist to describe just how furious he is at any given moment of the day.
Badass Boast: There was one for him in the Saga of Khorne from the Liber Chaotica.
"My Master is the beginning and he is the End. He is the Master of mortals and the core of our dead hearts. Deny him and you deny yourselves. Honour him. And acknowledge he to whom we owe it all."
Battle Cry: Khorne has what may be the most famous example of all four in the setting: BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!
The Berserker: Not only Khorne, but his daemons and followers.
- Hilariously, and seeing as how worshipers of Khorne really are Vikings in this continuity, Khornate warriors often perform practices that historical Berserks are said to have done in Norse sagas.
Berserk Button: Khorne may be very easy to anger, but he is especially angered by the following:
- Cowards. If one of the followers of Khorne displays cowardice, let's say he won't live long. Even if someone from the other side shows cowardice, Khorne will unleash the hounds.
- Presenting him with the skulls of unworthy foes.
- Weakness of either mind, body or soul.
- Magic. Khorne views sorcery as a cowardly, deceitful way to avoid fighting one's battles, and despises those who use it.
BFS: He has a sword too. He once took it in a mighty rage and smote an endless, screaming crevasse in the Realm of Chaos that has never healed. Given that the Warp is an immaterial place of emotion that constantly shifts and turns and that this scar is one of the few things that has remained constant should go a slight way towards preparing you for how powerful Khorne is.
Big Red Devil: Khorne's daemons fit this archetype, but Khorne is described as being heavily armoured with the head of a wolf.
Blood Knight: Khorne may care not from whence the blood flows, but he does put importance on it flowing from hard-won sources. So, both he and Khornate worshipers always love a good fight.
Blue-and-Orange Morality: Can a being of such power truly be judged by mortal ethics? Khorne is the embodiment of rage, to judge him harshly for killing and destroying is like judging a forest fire evil for burning. In particular, it would be a fatal mistake to think that he has something against slaughtering civilians en masse because of some ethic: It's simply that he prizes more fights against a Worthy Opponent.
Brutal Honesty: Khorne looks down on deception and trickery as weak. As such, his daemons are one of the few daemons whose claims can be taken for granted (or with less salt than other daemons), for they are brutally honest when speaking, with extra emphasis on the "brutal" part.
Determinator: Khorne isn't kidding when he says he'll give you a will to dominate all others.
Decapitation Presentation: A common end result of his followers winning fights, as they collect the skulls of the worthy and put them on spikes and wargear. The worthiest are offered to Khorne, and those join the pile of the Skull Throne.
Does Not Like Magic: In a nutshell, it's for pussies. On the other hand, Khorne has no qualms with bequeathing enchanted weapons and armors to his followers to further increase their already incredible killing power. Daemon summoning is also okay. In essence, Khorne permits sorcery so long as you're not using it to fight your battles for you, expecting you to use this equipment personally or joining the daemons in the fight. Pointing out that this might be hypocrisy will see you die a death more violent than any can imagine. Khornate units are one of the few Chaos units innately blessed with some form of magic dampener and Khorne does not possess his own lore of spells (he's the only god whose mark prevents its bearer from becoming a spellcaster).
Do Wrong, Right: His reason for exiling Skarbrand rather than killing (and possibly resurrecting) him was that the Bloodthirster didn't have the guts to challenge Khorne directly, opting to ambush him instead.
Emotion Eater: Any expression of anger, no matter how small or for whatever reason will make Khorne more powerful. And any instance of killing will serve him, whether it is done by his followers or by those who think they oppose him.
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Maybe. His shield-maiden, Valkia the Bloody, is considered by many to be his consort. She's undeniably his favorite servant, and he enjoys watching her acts of butchery more than any of his other champions, but it's unlikely that Khorne can truly feel affection for others.
Even Evil Has Standards: Khorne detests cowards. This includes people who offer him unworthy kills.
Evil Is Burning Hot: Khorne and his daemons are frequently depicted as wielding flaming weapons and occasionally being on fire, going with the whole Hellfire motif.
Evil Is Hammy: In a World of Ham, Khorne and his followers (well mainly his followers) manage to out-ham everyone. Just hear this: Ye gods... Beware, the end of this video may cause you to have an indigestion from pork overdose.
Expy: Bryan Ansel (essentially co-creator of Games Workshop), has stated that Khorne was the based on the Conan the Barbarian version of the Celtic deity Crom.
Flaming Sword: The weapons of the Bloodletters, his lesser daemons, carry this effect. Combined with their ability to suck the blood from anything they cut, and it's easy to see why they're called "Hellblades".
Flanderization: While he is still the god of martial pride and excellence at arms, early editions of Fantasy (and 40K) emphasized that his followers would spare the weak or even non-combatants, but over time he has slowly evolved into a god of mindless slaughter, who "cares not from where the blood flows, only that it flows." This aspect has been revised to Khorne being indifferent to the weak and helpless and ultimately thinking they are unworthy of his scorn, and sometimes even out-gambitting Tzeentch when he feels like thinking. He also sends his hounds upon those cowards who flee from battle, abandon their brothers, or kill non-combatants (sometimes). That said, he's far less flanderized than his 40k version.
Feel No Pain: Played with. In battle, Khorne Berserkers will be filled with such Unstoppable Rage that nothing short of death will stop them (severed limbs will just slow them down). Some champions of Khorne are actually blessed with a Healing Factor, so that even grievious wounds can't kill them.
Firearms Are Cowardly: Khorne does not like his followers to shed blood without risking their own. Consequently, he forbids his followers from using ranged weaponry — the only exception, the Skull Cannons, are designed to require periods of melee combat to reload their ammo.
Four-Star Badass: Khorne himself, being a God of War, is probably the originator for every tactic and stratagem of war ever created. Khornate Chaos Lords are also often this in ADDITION to being unstoppable berzerkers. One particularly good example is Egil Styrbjorn.
Genius Bruiser: Supremely powerful and possesses knowledge of everything that's related to fighting and killing.
Hair-Trigger Temper: Eeyup. He has the most sensitive hair trigger temper, his daemons are lesser reflections of his unending rage, and he causes this trait in his mortal followers.
Hates Everyone Equally: Khorne is the embodiment of hate, to the point it would be inaccurate to say that Khorne actually likes anything. Rather, those things Khorne favors are not favored because he "likes" them but rather because they provide more potent fuel for his hatred.
Hellfire: His daemons often have weapons that burn with unholy fire.
Hot-Blooded: As a living incarnation of rage and hatred, Khorne has very little in the way of emotional control, and tends to immediately act upon his latest impulse.
Horny Vikings: Out of all the Chaos Gods, the Norse tend to revere him the most.
I Have Many Names: Arkhar, Kharneth, Khorghar, the Blood-Wolf, the Wolf-Father, the Axe-Father, for starters. In addition to his other well deserved titles granted by other mortal races.
In Love with Your Carnage : To Valkia the Bloody. And most of his greatest champions, really.
Metallic Motifs: Khorne is heavily associated with brass, which is the primary metal used in his daemons' weapons and armor.
Might Makes Right: General Khornate philosophy is that strength is the only virtue; compassion, generosity, mercy and similar emotions are foolishness and weakness.
Muscles Are Meaningful: Khorne's blessings tend to be geared toward making his favored straightforwardly better killers, including things like horns, talons, and most frequently of all, ropey bulging muscles.
Named Weapons: His sword/battlaxe has been called 'Warmaker' and 'The End of All Things'' at various points.
Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Khorne himself, his daemons and his followers tend to take on names that very directly describe their taste for violence and murder and their considerable skill in these things.
Noble Demon: Subverted. While he may have a code of honor, he IS endless violence and fury incarnate.
Odd Job Gods: Khorne's portfolio includes battle, strength, excellence-at-arms, death, rage, bloodthirst, anger, hatred, vengeance, oaths and hunting. At least amongst Norscans and other Northmen, as their view of the gods tends to be more nuanced, for obvious reasons.
Off with His Head!: Khorne encourages his followers to behead their opponents in order to offer their skulls to him.
The Power of Hate: Khorne is characterized as literally the sapient embodiment of hate itself, colaesced into a lifeform that possesses Reality Warper abilities, if not Physical Godhood.
Proud Warrior Race Guy: Khorne is the most popular god in the North as he relates to the Norscan way of life more directly than the other gods. Life in the North is so violent and bloodthirsty that not taking Khorne as a patron would be suicidally idiotic, so there's not much of a choice.
Red Baron: The Blood God, the Lord of Skulls, the Lord of Battles, the Father and Inheritor of all Rage, the Brass Lord of Battles, the God of War, etc, etc.
Savage Wolves: The wolf is Khorne's sacred animal, he's is often described as having a wolf's head, his flesh-hounds are very lupine in appearance and his titles amongst the vicious Norse tribes include "the Blood Wolf" and "the Wolf-Father".
The Stoic: When not foaming-at-the-mouth furious or hateful, Khorne is this. Khorne exists only to fight and slay, and is indifferent to anything else, which is part of the reason why he hates Slaanesh so much.
Tranquil Fury: It usually overlaps with this, considering he is the God of war and murderous, Ax-Crazy rage.
Unstoppable Rage: Very frequently. He is the god of rage, after all.
Villainous Valour : Courage pleases Khorne greatly. If you don't show it, however... don't expect to live long.
War God: Khorne is the Chaos God of war, battle and slaughter and of all emotions that come with them, gaining power from rage, hate and bloodthirst. He's very much a battle-oriented war god — he and his worshippers and daemons value strength and might above all else and have nothing but disdain for anything they perceive as cowardly or weak, such as stealth, deceit, magic, mercy, overly complex tactics or really any battle plan that doesn't boil down to rushing your enemy in a furious horde and hacking them to pieces in vicious close combat. Unsurprisingly, as he gains power from hate and violence and given the kind of universe Warhammer takes place in, he's generally depicted as the mightiest of the Gods of Chaos.
Warrior Heaven: Khorne's realm is one for the men who worship him, being great halls where they fight for all eternity. Warriors who died in their beds are cursed and shamed by the Blood God, and punished by being chained to forges and made to create weapons for his legions.
Would Not Shoot a Civilian: Originally, his followers would not harm innocent civilians out of honor, but as time went on, it started to be more about ignoring civilians because they present no challenge, and Khorne desires worthy kills. After the Worthy Opponents are out of the way, all bets are off.

Nurgle

There, feel the glory of necrosis, and rejoice! Nurgle loves you, little one!

The Fly Lord, Neigel, Nierg, Nieglen, Onogal, the Crow. Portrayed as a being horrifically bloated and deformed by the ravages of disease and decay, pustular guts falling through his torn skin, pus and blood and bile and other filth oozing from every pore, Nurgle is the eldest of the Chaos Gods, and may be the most disgusting and terrifying of them. Ironically, he's also the nicest, maintaining a caring and loving manner. Nurgle claims to love all creatures — that just happens to include viruses, bacteria, fungi and other disease-causing organisms. Nurgle's followers spread disease and decay across the world, forced to sing the songs of gratitude to "Grandfather" or "Papa" Nurgle. He is is born from the world's fear, despair, fortitude and the will to live no matter what.

Nurgle's sacred number is 7.

Affably Evil: Nurgle maintains a caring, cheerful manner. While infecting his followers with disfiguring ailments and horrific diseases and plagues.
Animal Motifs: Nurgle is typically associated with insects, especially ones attracted to carrion and disease, and especially flies and maggots. Swarming clouds of droning insects almost always accompany his followers, and his more bestial daemons resembles immense flies and their giant, bloated larvae.
Arch-Enemy: Of Tzeentch. Is also none too fond of Slaanesh, since Slaanesh is the god of self-indulgence and pain whereas Nurgle is the god of endurance and (in his own twisted way) community.
Beneficial Disease: Nurgle's followers regard every disease as being a blessing from their lord. This is often the form that Nurgle's boons take when granted to his favored children.
Blue-and-Orange Morality: Maybe. He claims his horrific plagues to be gifts, and that the despair they cause you are your way of saying thanks to him.
Body Horror: Nurgle's physical form, and what frequently happens to his followers and their victims due to his "gifts".
Dead Weight: Though not necessarily technically "dead", many of Nurgle's more "blessed" followers and the most favored of his daemons otherwise fit into this trope. Taking the form of bloated abominations, their skin bursts with open wounds and sores they do not tend to, the stench of rot surrounds them, pus and maggots squirming within their bulging flesh, and they can take a pounding without being discouraged.
Defeat Means Friendship: Twisted in a way only Nurgle can. No matter how hard you resist him, he will "love" you all the more, so that when you finally give in, you really have his attention.
Despair Event Horizon: The god of this. When you have passed it and fully given up on everything, you are Nurgle's.
Faux Affably Evil: While he's typically a jolly and generous individual despite being a horrifying God of Evil, he sometimes gets portrayed as a selfish and cruel individual hiding behind an avuncular façade.
Feel No Pain: The boon of Nurgle is that he will comfort all pain. Follow him, and you never have to worry about getting hurt again, Papa Nurgle will kiss it and make it "better" with cancerous growths.
Friend to All Living Things: Nurgle loves all living things. Including parasites, fungi, bacteria, and viruses. And he'll make sure you love them too, and give them a nice home in your flesh and bloodstream.
Garden of Evil: The Garden of Nurgle is a thick weald of rotting trees, dripping with disease, and inhabited by daemons and miscellaneous beasts.
Graceful Loser: Nurgle's followers view death as a natural part of the cycle that will nurture rot and decay, and thus view their own defeats as inevitable.
Lack of Empathy: Maybe subverted, as Nurgle is the only Chaos God that seems to care more about his followers than himself. Although you really don't want his help.
Necromancer: Ironically, despite the fact you'd expect this to be Tzeentch's dominion, given his fixation on changing (life into death being "one of the most meaningful changes") and mastery of magic, Nurgle is the Chaos God most associated with The Undead. This is less so in Warhammer Fantasy, however, where necromancy has become increasingly associated with "evil order".
Odd Job Gods: Nurgle's portfolio covers Disease, Decay, Poison, Fear, Despair, Entropy, Endurance, Willpower, and Healing.
The Patriarch: Nurgle views himself as a loving, generous, playful parental figure to his followers and they adore him for it, lovingly referring to him as "Grandfather", "Grandpa", "Papa", "Father" or "Uncle" Nurgle.
The Pig-Pen: Why clean up? You will just get dirty again. Besides, Nurgle loves you just the way you are, no matter how filthy you get, so why not let yourself get filthy and have a bunch of friendly bacteria and maggots on your body to keep you company?
Plaguemaster: Nurgle is the being responsible for all diseases in the world, as he brews up more and more effective plagues and afflictions in his cauldron.
Red Baron: The Plague Lord, the Fly Lord, the Plague Father, the Lord of Decay.
Stepford Smiler: His followers are functionally this. They maintain a happy demeanor while having their bodies decaying, but joining Nurgle's happy family in the first place requires that you have a moment of absolute despair and give up on life entirely. Behind every rotting smile and burbling laugh is a soul that has given up on life.
Straw Nihilist: Nurgle and his followers are all about this, even if they're all very cheerful about it. Their only purpose is to spread disease and misery further, and having abandoned all hope and ambition they have nothing explicitly to live for other than to die and feed the cycle of rot. On the flip side, they also have the endurance and willpower to not just lay down and die, which makes them all the more dangerous. Put another way, Nurgle is Tzeentch's Last Man.
The Swarm: Expect these anywhere near Nurgle. Many of his daemons are surrounded by swarms of flies, disease-spreading bloodsuckers, filth-spreading roaches, and carpets of maggots born from the carrion his followers leave in their wake. The newest Chaos Daemons codex has retconned the Beasts of Nurgle into being the maggots of monstrous fly-beasts, which are ridden by plaguebearers to form Nurgle's Plague Drones.
The Virus: The many "gifts" of Nurgle, including his signature Nurgle's Rot, all of which he handcrafts in his own realm in the Realm of Chaos. Each new disease in the mortal realm is because of Nurgle and his disgusting cauldron.
Walking Wasteland: Disease, decay, rot, and corrosion are all Nurgle's domain, and his daemons and followers will spread them where ever they go to further honor Papa Nurgle.
The Worm That Walks: Some of Nurgle's daemons (such as the Plague Savants) are so full of maggots and other carrion breeders that they are practically animated by them.

Slaanesh

Long shall be your suffering. Joyous be your pain.

The Dark Prince, the Serpent, Lashor, Loesh, She Who Thirsts. The youngest of the Dark Gods of Chaos, and the physically weakest of the Dark Gods, Slaanesh is perhaps one of the most popular to worship, as it preaches the indulgence of every whim and the seeking of every pleasure, and so it has a very wide power base among the nobility of several races. The Dark Elves, while officially dedicated exclusively to Khaine, also have a strong underground of Slaanesh worshippers; Morathi herself is a Champion of Slaanesh in all but name, and not only was her creation of the Dark Elves inspired by her dedication, she still seeks to bring them all to Slaanesh's worship. It is the embodiment of Squick, love, lust, pleasure, pain, excess, hubris, pride and desire.

Slaanesh's sacred number is 6.

The Ace: One could make the case. Slaanesh is the God of Pleasure, so anything that one derives pleasure from falls under its domain, and it encourages you to find pleasure in absolutely anything, and in turn Slaanesh itself enjoys cultivating new skills and experiences. This includes losing. It's actually noted that many Slaaneshi cultists turned to Slaanesh's worship to cultivate their skills to new heights. The desire to be the greatest duelist, painter, singer, sculptor, etc is just as welcome to Slaanesh as sheer hedonism.
Ambiguous Gender: Slaanesh's traditional depiction is as an impossibly beautiful creature that is a man on its left side and a woman on its right side. The confusion is often played up for humor within the fandom.
Arch-Enemy: Of Khorne, whose mindless barbarism contains no thought of the self. Also a lesser enemy of Nurgle, who is similarly "selfless" and focused on spreading his blessings to others instead of sating oneself. Slaanesh also tends to regard Nurgle and his followers as ugly, smelly and disgusting.
Beauty Is Bad: Slaanesh is perhaps the cruelest, most callous and most self-centered of all the Dark Gods.
Big Fancy Castle: The Palace of Slaanesh, as horrific as it is, is magnificent to all senses. It's surrounded by six rings made to tempt visitors in every way, and their palace at the centre is the most enthralling place of all, since merely seeing Slaanesh in person will break your will and force you to become their slave.
Charm Person: Those who gaze upon Slaanesh can do nothing but fall down and worship its inhuman beauty. This extends to its daemons, though a powerful mind can resist their presence. With Slaanesh itself, however, it doesn't matter how powerful your mind is — unless you are a god or something equally powerful, you will falter and fall before it. When Archaon was being tested by the four gods to prove himself worthy of the Crown of Domination, he was forced to fight hordes of daemons of Tzeentch and Nurgle while resisting their powers of mutation and decay, and to best a Bloodthirster in single combat, but Slaanesh's challenge to him was simply to appear before Archaon in person, threatening to reduce the Everchosen to a mindless fawning slave by the sheer power of his godly charm, arguably the most difficult challenge of all.
Circles of Hell: Slaanesh's castle in the Realm of Chaos is surrounded by six circular regions devoted to the six forms of desire; Avidity, Gluttony, Carnality, Paramountcy, Vainglory, and Indolency. If these regions sound familiar, they are based on the Seven Deadly Sins.
Deathless and Debauched: As the god of pleasure, Slaanesh and his demons are all devoted to hedonism in some way or another. The best of his champions can achieve a measure of immortality in the material realm, most of which is spent on either violence or decadence; the best of them become Daemon Princes devoted to an eternity of ever-worsening hedonism.
Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?: Slaanesh loves Elven souls more then any other type of soul, and ever since Chaos entered the world, it has constantly stolen elven souls on their way to the Underworld. However, occasionally, Loec, the elven trickster god, will try to rescue a stolen elven soul by challenging Slaanesh to a game of chance... and win by cheating. One wonders why Slaanesh even agrees to these games if he never wins them, but the novel experience of Slaanesh losing at something might be a factor.
Drugs Are Bad: Inverted, as Slaanesh considers anything which heightens sensory experiences to be good. Many of its followers will experiment with a wide variety of substances to better experience all the pleasures they can offer. Such followers are also one of the Chaos factions most likely to use combat drugs when going into battle.
Evil Feels Good: Or, rather, "if it feels good, then it's not evil". Slaanesh encourages his followers to ignore all morality, sanity and any other impediments to feeling pleasure. Alternatively, if you gain pleasure by recognizing something as evil and perverse and doing it anyway, or even doing it because it is evil and that's how you get your jollies, come join in the fun.
Extreme Omnisexual: Anything that moves and many things that do not. If it provides a physical or emotional thrill, it goes for Slaanesh's followers, no matter what it is.
The Fighting Narcissist: Something of a hat, Slaaneshi warriors tend towards inhumanly fast reflexes with all the arrogance it entails, especially as they're opposed to the brutal berserkers of Khorne.
Gender Bender: Slaanesh can freely switch between male, female, hermaphrodite, and any other blending of gender features one can imagine. Some of its followers acquire this as a "gift" as well.
The Hedonist: Slaanesh is the embodiment of all desires and exists only to sate those desires.
Hermaphrodite: More conventional portrayals of this are certainly within its grasp. Most of its worshipers end up like this as well.
It Amused Me: That they might receive pleasure from the act is the only reason followers of Slaanesh need to do anything.
It's All About Me: It really is the crux of Slaanesh's message. The other Dark Gods have some message of serving a great cause (kill everything for glory, change the world, spread "love" to everyone). Slaanesh stresses that only you matter, and everything that gets in the way of your pleasure deserves to be killed or tortured.
Love Goddess: In a "rape is love" kind of way, and it very technically counts as one due to the Dark Prince's portfolio including Love.
Odd Job Gods: Slaanesh's portfolio covers Excess, Depravity, Pain, Perversion, Pleasure, Love, Lust, Desire, Mastery and Beauty.
Out with a Bang: Slaanesh has a disturbingly high amount of ways to do this, not all of which are sex as we know it. Slaanesh is also said to grant his/her/it's foes one moment of ultimate ecstasy before snuffing their life out. That this is also a gift offered to Slaanesh's own followers is one of the things that makes them willing to die for their patron when their creed otherwise emphasizes self-serving behavior instead of self-sacrifice.
The Perfectionist: Slaanesh encourages that you take your talents to the absolute peak of skill in all arenas, be it on the battlefield or not. As a consequence, its followers are often very precise fighters that rarely miss their strikes.
Pleasure Planet: The Palace of Slaanesh. Where every possible depraved act thinkable (and some that are unthinkable) are performed.
Power Perversion Potential: Slaanesh is arguably an inversion. The powers he grants to his followers are totally intended to be used for perverse purposes, but in a pinch can be repurposed to serve more pragmatic needs. Perfumes that cause bliss to inhale can incapacitate and fog the minds of foes, extra long tongues for tasting and stimulating can be used to ensnare, etc.
Pragmatic Villainy: Unlike the other Chaos Gods, Slaanesh does not want the world to be destroyed, because then there would be no one to corrupt and sway, and things would get boring.
Pronoun Trouble: Often used as a joke by the fandom, as you've probably noticed by reading this far.
Psycho Pink: Slaanesh is associated with the color pink and just so happens to be the most hedonistic of the Chaos Gods. Their mark is also pink.
Red Baron: The Dark Prince, the Serpent, She Who Thirsts.
Safe, Sane, and Consensual: Completely averted and rejected. The followers of Slaanesh consider safety, sanity, and consent to be blasphemous concepts for getting between them and what they want.
Sense Freak: Long time, hyper-desensitized followers will immolate themselves, just to feel something new.
Sex Is Evil: An incarnation of this is the simplest way of viewing Slaanesh.
Sex Is Violence: Slaanesh honestly seems to be unaware of the difference.
So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Literally. Slaanesh is described as so beautiful that merely glancing at it can make you fall in love with it, to the extent you will sell your soul to Slaanesh right then and there without hesitation. Slaanesh does not view this as a curse.
The Sociopath: The logical end result of the Dark Prince's ethos are followers who no longer care about other people, and only view their fellow man as objects or means to get their own thrills.
Wicked Cultured: Slaanesh is not only about physical sensations such as sex and torture, but also enjoying such things as art and music. Generally, though, Slaanesh and his/her followers gradually move more towards the "wicked" part than the "cultured" part as time goes on.

Tzeentch

Do not ask which creature screams in the night. Do not question who waits for you in the shadow. It is my cry that wakes you in the night, and my body that crouches in the shadow. I am Tzeentch and you are the puppet that dances to my tune...

The Changer of Ways, the Great Conspirator, the Architect of Fate, Tchar, Chi'an Chi, the Raven God. The manipulative one, the Dark God who sees all things that may be and redirects the future to serve his own inscrutable whims and goals. Tzeentch is the lord of Change, and considered the second most powerful of the Chaos Gods, for Change and Chaos are synonymous. Born as the collective embodiment of the world's hope and envy, Tzeentch is the patron of all who would seek change, in any form — but they may get more than they desired. Tzeentch exhorts his followers to bring change, in any form, to anyone and everyone, and sorcerers owe him particular allegiance.

Tzeentch is rarely described, but they tend to wildly vary, which is fitting for the Lord of Change. One ancient portrayal is as a ghastly, dwarfish thing, with horns arcing up from either shoulder over a head sunken into his neck and many whispering mouths crawling over his body. Another is a serpentine figure with bird like features. His sacred number is 9.

Animal Motifs: Tzeentch is strongly tied with birds, especially corvids. He is often referred to as the Raven or the Crow, and his daemons include the Lords of Change, who resemble giant humanoid birds, and Pink Horrors, who often sport avian beaks.
Arch-Enemy: Of Nurgle. Nurgle is the god of cycles, despair, rot and stagnation. Tzeentch is the lord of change, hope, mutation and optimism. The two are fundamentally opposed because they want the opposite thing (endless stagnation into despair and rot vs. constant random evolution).
The Archmage: Tzeentch is the most powerful manipulator of sorcery and psionics in the Warhammer canon. He has since fallen from grace, but is still one of the undisputed masters of magicks. His staff, upon shattering, became not material pieces but rather individual spells, hence Tzeentch is the inventor of magic.
Badass Bookworm: This guy is pretty much the smartest entity in Warhammer lore and the most powerful Chaos god when at full strength, which is worrying given the rumor of having all the pieces of his magical staff in his possession being true. Some might speculate Tzeentch is letting the way its fellow Gods establishing Khorne as the strongest Chaos god is just Tzeentch's plan to keep himself from being bored of winning too easily.
Batman Gambit: Tzeentch does this as a thought exercise, every moment of every day for all eternity.
Bilingual Bonus: Tzeentch is typically stated to be known by the Cathayans as Chi'an Chi. In modern pinyin, this would be most closely equivalent to Jiān Qí (奸奇; the "Qí" is pronounced like "Chi"); Jiān (奸) means "traitorous" or "deceiving", while Qí (奇) means "strange" or "bizarre", thus giving a final name that means something like "treacherous strangeness" or "deceitful strangeness".
Blue Means Smart One: Tzeentch, the god of trickery, sorcery, secrets and knowledge, is associated with the color blue — his daemons are blue, his cultists dress in blue, his Impossible Fortress is made of blue crystal, and the god himself is colored blue when he's depicted directly.
Body Horror: Of all the Chaos Gods, Tzeentch is the freest in doling out mutation, simply because constant, perpetual change is his reason for existing and his followers should embrace this in mind, soul and body.
Bright Is Not Good: Sky blue and gold are his favoured colours. He can change into any colour if he wills it.
Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: He really has a problem with this, considering his modus operandi. A significant number of his own daemons would freely desert or double cross him if given the chance, save for the fact he's the only one who knows their true names. The other Gods are wary of him because of it. Ironically, he's also the one who usually forms alliances between the Chaos Gods. This is probably the biggest reason they are wary of him; if the Great Conspirator wants to team up, they already know the offer is loaded in Tzeentch's favor and will fall apart soon.
Combat Tentacles: The appearance of random tentacles is one of Tzeentch's favorite gifts to his faithful. Sometimes it's one of your two arms transforming, sometimes it's a new limb.
Consummate Liar: He is called the Liar God for a reason.
Eldritch Location: Tzeentch's realm is influenced by the Lord of Change to never abide by any constant except that it changes. One of its most remarkable landmarks is the Crystal Labyrinth filled with Alien Geometries, as walls shift, time warps, and direction doesn’t mean anything. Archaon nonetheless managed to navigate it by closing his senses and only trusting his instincts.
Evilutionary Biologist: Tzeentch is fuelled by the same energies that drive evolution, and seeks to force evolution upon others, hence the readiness with which he dispenses physical transformations. The problem is that Tzeentch doesn't comprehend moderation (or doesn't care), and instead causes his worshippers and victims alike to evolve and mutate and change and change and change until they become indescribable horrors or die (or both).
Eyes Do Not Belong There: If Tzeentch feels you need more eyes, you damn well are getting more eyes.
Failure Is the Only Option: Taken to its illogical extreme. Tzeentch will die if any of his myriad plans succeed, thus every one of his plans will fail because he sabotages them, and he has several plans that run completely contrary to each of his other plans by design (though not as the end). This is the real measure of his chessmastery skills, the fact that he has millions of these simultaneously running, most extremely complex and many spanning centuries, and not one of them succeed even by accident because he is that damn good.
For the Lulz: Tzeentch cannot be foiled, simply because he doesn't actually have a plan to foil. If Tzeentch ever actually "won", then he would probably cease to exist, because that would mean that nothing would ever be able to change any more.
God of Knowledge: He is the Chaos god of sorcery, trickery, schemes, and forbidden knowledge. Tzeentch is the patron of all those who would use magic to bend the world to their whims, who seek after knowledge that no mortal mind can bear, and who scheme to entrap others in complex webs of blackmail, secrets, and deceit.
Go Mad from the Revelation: Tzeentch is the keeper of all knowledge, and may grant that knowledge to those who supplicate it from him. However, those who do so do not always have minds capable to accepting the horrible truths Tzeentch has to offer, and this is an all too common result.
Hopeless War: One could theorize that thanks to his inherent self-defeating disorder and the fact that he is the most Magnificent of all Magnificent Bastards, it's because of him that the cause of Chaos is eternally doomed to fail because Tzeentch can never allow it to succeed. Instead it is in his interest and integral to his nature to maintain a Forever War. Still, that is small comfort for the Empire, especially since they aren't the only ones fighting Chaos and some other horrid race could easily replace him.
Immortal Genius: Tzeentch and his forces often epitomize this trope. The Chaos God of Change and Magic, he is not only practically omniscient, is possessed of vast swathes of information on almost every conceivable subject, maintaining vast and impossible libraries of forbidden knowledge. His greater daemons, the Lords of Change, are masters of magic and brilliant tacticians. Mortals who serve him well may eventually be awarded with both immortality and inhuman wisdom, perhaps even ascending to become the near-omniscient Daemon Princess of Tzeentch... provided they don't go insane first.
Jackass Genie: Beware his sick sense of humor and his close attention to the fine print.
Mad God: He's a god of scheming who can never allow himself to actually win because it would kill him, so he creates plans upon plans upon plans which are all deliberately set up to fail. Even by the standards of the Chaos Gods, Tzeentch is batshit crazy.
Magical Library: The Hidden Library of Tzeentch. It holds every magical spell, every prophecy, every piece of knowledge one could hope to find. Just two small problems: the books are alive, and they're pure evil.
Magnificent Bastard: invoked Tzeentch is the literal god of Magnificent Bastards. Whatever you do, he will benefit, Just As Planned.
Mobile Maze: The Maze of Tzeentch, which shifts and contorts to trap any who enter it, and it is mostly built with Alien Geometries.
Multi-Armed and Dangerous: It's not uncommon for Tzeentch to gift his followers with new limbs, although whether or not it's helpful depends on where on your body the extra arms pop out of.
Odd Job Gods: Tzeentch's portfolio covers Hope, Envy, Treachery, Transformation, Change, and Magic/Psionics. Tzeentch is the patron god of anyone who hopes to pull off any kind of plan. However, he's also the patron god of Gambit Pileups, anyone who is a Spanner in the Works or Unwitting Instigator of Doom, and ensuring you Didn't See That Coming.
The Omniscient: It comes with being the god of knowledge. It's implied, however, that one thing still eludes his grasp, foresight of the future. He can see the general direction of things, but it's one of the few uncertainties still hidden from him. It is this ignorance that caused him to throw Kairos into the Well of Eternity.
Red Baron: The Architect of Fate, the Changer of Ways, the Great Mutator, the Lord of Change.
Status Quo Is God: Ironically for a god of Change, he is the greatest enforcer of this trope in-universe. The perpetual wars of the Warhammer world spring from his manipulations and schemes.
Trickster God: The Trickster of the Chaos Gods, given his favor of deception and deceit. Although what he considers a practical joke, only he would consider funny..
Troll: It's Tzeentch, he is the embodiment of the word and all it stands for. His followers often get killed because Tzeentch sends them incorrect visions of the future, just to get them killed.
Übermensch: Tzeentch is the patron god of these: He constantly seeks to change, evolve, and discard old laws and restrictions in favour of making your own way based purely on your own will and vision. Nurgle, who wants to decay in the existing world, serves as the Last Man.
Xanatos Gambit: When the plot itself is the payoff, any of Tzeentch's schemes become this by default. The question is only which one of his pawns reaps their payoff.
Xanatos Speed Chess: Tzeentch is pulling this constantly against everyone else in the world. Simultaneously. Tzeentch is also pulling this constantly against himself.

Daemons of Chaos

The physical manifestations of Chaos itself, and the forces of the Dark Gods themselves. They are inhuman monsters made of pure magic, incredibly powerful and utterly merciless, delighting in slaughter and depravity. Once the four Chaos Gods would frequently be at each others' throats, but now they seem to have set aside their differences to terrorize the world.

They were eventually given their own codex as a separate army, in both this game and Warhammer 40,000. As a result, you can use most of the army models for both games whenever you want, which is quite handy for saving money and time.

General Tropes

Always Chaotic Evil: Daemons, being shards of their malevolent masters, have no concept of right or good, just an overriding imperative that they must obey their masters. They do this by ripping off mortal skulls, killing mortals with plagues, toying with their existence or tempt mortals into damnation, and they do enjoy it.
Blue-and-Orange Morality: Daemons of Chaos are defined first and foremost by the aspects that their master represents, as such they have no real concept of bad or good, nor does earthly possessions or glory mean anything to them. For instance, a Daemon of Nurgle loves disease and rot, and dismisses any other opinion as someone who just hasn’t seen the truth yet, being quite happy to show everyone the errors of their ways.
Close-Range Combatant: The Daemons of Chaos, as a whole, lack shooting weapons but are daunting in close quarters, although the abundant magic helps. Daemons of Khorne are even more extreme examples, being such close-combat monsters that even the lesser Bloodletters could win against the elite of mortals. However, they even lack magic and only have rare Skull Cannons.
Complete Immortality: Actually killing a daemon seems to be basically impossible. It's possible even the Chaos Gods can't do it, as Be'lakor's continued existence would seem to suggest. Their physical forms can be destroyed but they reform in the Warp. That said being so destroyed does hurt and seems to weaken them, at least for a while (and for a daemon "a while" could be centuries or longer) and the Chaos Gods have also found creative ways to make out-of-favour daemons wish they could die.
The Corruption: Daemonic presence influences the material plane, as the environment changes and lifeforms mutate in the presence of the foul energies of Chaos.
Cyborg: With a touch of Magitek. Soul Grinders are daemons who surrendered themselves to the Forge of Souls to gain a half mechanical body, and were then tasked with reaping souls for the Forge in exchange for this might. Their legs are replaced with mechanical spider legs, their hand is replaced with a power claw, making them terrifying blends of daemon and machine. The legs give them Implacable Advance so they can move and shoot their weapons, and their Iron Claw is a fearsome weapon that can potentially trap opponents. Moreover, the mechanical parts give the Soul Grinders a natural Toughness 7 and a 4+ Natural Armour.
Demonic Possession: The Daemons are responsible for one of the bad results while trying to use magic. When rolling a 11 for the Winds of Magic, it means a Daemon is assailing the enemy wizard, potentially possessing them if they happen to be mortal. As such a designated enemy wizard must pass a Leadership test or be replaced on the tabletop by a daemon Herald to represent the takeover.
Demon of Human Origin: Daemon Princes were formerly mortals who were allowed to become full-fledged Daemons by impressing the Gods through a particularly impressive feat. They represent a cheaper and Jack of All Stats counterpart to other Greater Daemons, being still close quarters monsters and Wizards at a lower cost.
Eldritch Abomination: The Realm of Chaos is inhabited by many of such monsters whose appearance keeps shifting and doesn't obey the natural laws, although the models on the tabletop poorly reflect that by the nature of the medium. As such, all models in the Daemons of Chaos faction at least cause Fear by how freaky they are.
Emotion Eater: All Daemons are borne from the psyches of mortals and feed off strong emotions, especially the ones tied to their patron gods. Wrath will empower Daemons of Khorne, for instance.
Entropy and Chaos Magic: The Lores of Nurgle and Tzeentch are all about entropy for Nurgle and mutating reality for Tzeentch.
Even Evil Has Standards: Possibly an example of Gameplay and Story Segregation, but despite how duplicitous and backstabbing Chaos forces can be, all of them, even the Daemons of Tzeentch, are forbidden from firing on a melee - only Skavrn have rules for that.
Large and in Charge: The Greater Daemons of Chaos are the biggest daemons of their respective factions, towering over lesser daemons and typically being the toughest things in their armies.
The Legions of Hell: The Daemons of Chaos are all part of their respective god’s armies, all organized in meaningful armies relative to the holy number associated with said god. For instance, Khorne is associated with the number 8 and his Daemons are organized into 8 legions.
Lightning Bruiser: Greater Daemons are fast, durable, and hit like tanks. Bloodthirsters can easily tangle with most special characters in the game with pretty good chance of winning. On the tabletop, the bare minimum a Greater Daemon in Strength, Toughness and Initiative is 6, as much as a Dragon. The only exceptions are Great Unclean Ones, which are strong and tough but very slow.
Luck-Based Mission: For anyone that attempts to play a Daemon Army. To represent how fickle and random Chaos is, many aspects of the army are tied to dice rolls to involve luck as much as possible. The Reign of Chaos special rule ties existing Daemon models to the Winds of Magic, of which players must make a roll every turn. An ebb of the winds will cause units to potentially disappear on the spot, but a really lucky dice roll may mean more Daemons appearing for free. Characters also do not choose upgrades like mortals, instead they roll a dice and the result determines whatever the character gets, be it a special rule or a genuine magic item.
Made of Magic: All Daemons are made of the essence of Chaos, which is magic. As a result, they get several rules representing the fact that they are not material beings in the first place. Their attacks count as magical, they get a natural ward save but since their presence depends on the concentration of magic in the air, they also get the Daemonic Instability rule that, on a Leadership test, may automatically take out models as they fade from existence.
Mook Lieutenant: Heralds of the Chaos Gods are empowered lesser Daemons that can lead entire battalions of Daemons when Greater Daemons cannot be bothered with prizes below their standards. Even then, these Heralds are fearsome units that easily equal the Lords of their mortal equivalents stats wise.
Our Demons Are Different: They are shards of the Chaos Gods, who themselves are the personifications of mortal emotions in the Warp. As such they possess a degree of sentience and personality, but which entirely revolves around the aspects of the psyche their associated God represents. For instance, a Daemon of Khorne will always seek battle and bloodshed.
Power Pincers: Soul Grinders have giant mechanical pincers that can trap a single model so that their attacks automatically hit it.
Your Soul Is Mine!: Daemons like to feast on people, more specifically their souls. None moreso than Daemons of Slaanesh who love Elven souls beyond all other options.

Daemons of Khorne

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/herald_of_khorne.png

A Herald of Khorne

Daemons of Khorne are fast, tough and violent things, exulting in battle and carnage. They eschew all magic and almost all ranged warfare, preferring instead to destroy their enemies in frenzies of blood-spattered melee violence.

Abnormal Ammo: The Skull Cannons of Khorne shoot skulls. However, the skulls inside the cannons are infused with a portion of Khorne's mighty wrath, catching on fire and beginning to laugh as they are shot at the enemy. It makes for a fearsome range 48" Strength 10 shooting attack with the Flaming Attack and Multiple Wounds rules.
Anti-Magic: The Daemons of Khorne have a natural resistance to magic, as Khorne hates magic and thus his daemons too share this boon, and strong emotions give them further power, presumably fueling this resistance.
The Berserker: Daemons of Khorne are all like this, described as hungering to spill blood and claim skulls in the name of their master, and as such have Hatred against everything in existence.
Big Red Devil: All humanoid Daemons of Khorne are bright red, have hooves and sport Horns of Villainy. Bloodthirsters complete the look with a pair of batlike wings.
Demon of Human Origin: Bloodletters are believed to originate from the souls of Khorne's most impressive followers, transformed into daemons after their deaths.
Full-Frontal Assault: Bloodletters typically go into battle completely naked, their daemonic nature protecting them from their enemies, giving them their pseudonym of Naked Slayers.
Hell Hound: Flesh Hounds of Khorne are daemonic beasts that belong to Khorne and which he sics on anyone who incurs his wrath. Being relentless predators, few can survive being hunted by a pack of these beasts. On the tabletop, Flesh Hounds of Khorne represent are a fast unit.
Horse of a Different Color: Bloodcrushers are Bloodletters mounted on the backs of Juggernauts, daemonic monsters resembling biomechanics rhinoceri.
Nothing but Skulls: Khorne's territory is littered with skulls whenever it is not covered by lakes of boiling blood. His own Cool Chair, the Throne of Skulls, is in the middle of a field of skulls that previously belonged to champions that made great offerings to their God.
Rhino Rampage: The Juggernauts of Khorne evoke this the most, being massive and tough beasts equipped with a unique horn on their foreheads. To represent that, they only get Movement 7 but Strength 5 and Toughness 4 as well as 3 Wounds, and their Brass Behemoth rule increases the armour save by +2 instead of the usual +1.
Skeleton Motif: Khorne and his Daemons as a result are obsessed with skulls, and they often have skull motifs on their armors and clothing or actually sport real skulls.
Super-Persistent Predator: Once the Flesh Hounds have the scent of a victim, they will pursue them tirelessly across the world without ever losing their track or growing tired.

Daemons of Tzeentch

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/herald_of_tzeentch.png

A Herald of Tzeentch

Like their master, daemons of Tzeentch are beings of constant change and swirling madness. They're usually unremarkable in melee at best, but they're spellcasters to the last and in battle overwhelm their foes with barrages of arcane blasts and tides of mutative warpfire.

Asteroids Monster: Pink Horrors of Tzeentch split into two Blue Horrors upon being sufficiently injured, that will attack the enemy before disappearing too.
Cephalothorax: The bodies of Horrors of Tzeentch consist primarily of giant heads, dominated by huge toothy mouths, attached to a variable number of stubby limbs.
Feathered Fiend: Lords of Change, the Greater Daemons of Tzeentch, are avian beings with beaks and large, vibrant wings.
Flying Seafood Special: Screamers of Tzeentch resemble flying stingrays, being mounts and beasts of burden pulling the Burning Chariots. The Screamers can Fly and can shoot Warpflame.
Glass Cannon: Daemons of Tzeentch are characterized by a very high damage output, especially from range, combined with physical frailty. In battle they usually rely on overwhelming their opponents with barrages of ranged attacks, because they can't endure protracted melee particularly well.
Hellfire: Half of the spells from the Lore of Tzeentch are based on throwing around Warpflame, special chaotic fire. It actually makes the spells quite unreliable compared to other lores, as they have a chance to inflict more wounds but also give their target the Regeneration rule.
Hover Board: Some of Tzeentch's daemonic champions ride on flying Discs of Tzeentch, which are actually Screamers forced into a rideable shape.
Mind Manipulation: Several spells from the Lore of Tzeentch and the entirety of the Lore of Slaanesh involve the Daemons influencing the minds of the enemy. The Lore of Slaanesh in particular involves temptation, causing strong emotions or even assaulting the souls of the enemy army with dark visions and promises.
Red Oni, Blue Oni: Pink Horrors are energetic and happy, while Blue Horrors are surly and morose.
Sky Surfing: Some Daemons of Tzeentch ride of Discs of Tzeentch, Screamers bound and reshaped into flying disks capable of bearing the weight of riders.
Squishy Wizard: Daemons of Tzeentch are not particularly tough in close quarters and are even relatively weak. However, they are especially attuned to Magic and are all Wizards in one form or another.
Too Many Mouths: Flamers of Tzeentch are simple trunk-like bodies bristling with mouths, all breathing unnatural fire.
Winds of Destiny, Change!: Daemons of Tzeentch are associated with the God of Fate, so it is no wonder they also have a modicum of control over how destiny unfolds. Wizards from the Daemons of Tzeentch can reroll results of 1 to represent that.

Daemons of Nurgle

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/herald_of_nurgle.png

A Herald of Nurgle

Daemons of Nurgle are pestilent, bloated things dripping with disease and filled with the urge to spread their master's pestilential love. They're typically very slow but very tough, and are adept at slowly grinding their foes down in protracted melee engagements.

All Animals Are Dogs: Beasts of Nurgle are great masses of fat, disease, pus and tentacles that act like giant, hyperactive puppies. These disgusting daemons want nothing more than to play with everyone they see, pouncing on and lovingly licking any mortal they come across. Beasts become very despondent when their new playmate stops moving, having succumbed to the diseases and sheer bulk of the daemon, but they soon forget them as they see more potential friends to play with.
And Call Him "George": Beasts of Nurgle want to play with all the "friends" they meet on the battlefield. However, they are about six feet long, strong enough to crush a man under their bulk, and secrete all manner of toxins and virulent diseases, so their affections are invariably fatal for their playmates.
Belly Mouth: Many of Nurgle's daemonic minions have their bloated and disease-ridden stomachs split by a jagged maw that continuously drools pus and putrid saliva. This is also a common mutation gifted to the Plague God's mortal minions.
Body Horror: Daemons of Nurgle, especially humanoid ones, tend to be hideously malformed and ravaged by disease. They are all covered in giant buboes, swollen blisters and weeping sores, and it's very common for them to also possess partly or wholly ruptured abdominal cavities that let their viscera trail down and onto the ground.
Cyclops: One of the typical physical characteristics of a Plaguebearers of Nurgle is a single, cyclopean eye set in the centre of their faces. These eyes often weep with pus and mucus.
Evil Is Visceral: Nurgle loves life, although this translates in him dispensing random growths of organs, organic ichor, or miscellaneous lifeforms inside his followers and victims. As such, his Daemons often expose unpleasant organs, and are covered in tumorous growths and bloated lesions.
Flies Equals Evil: Flies are strongly associated with Nurgle, being harbingers of life from dead flesh. His daemons are surrounded by swarms of demonic flies, and inflict a penalty to hit them in close quarters. The Rot Flies are Big Creepy-Crawlies versions of the trope, being huge enough for Plaguebearers to ride them. As they can fly, it makes the Plague Drones surprisingly maneuverable.
Mighty Glacier: Daemons of Nurgle are quite slow, notably lacking the high speed and maneuverability that other daemons benefit from. However, their slowness is balanced by strength and sheer toughness, as their bloated and pus-filled bodies can absorb a lot of punishment before real damage is done.
Mini Mook: Nurglings are diminutive Daemons that are essentially short copies of Nurgle, swarming the battlefield with numbers.
Non-Malicious Monster: Beasts of Nurgle are in truth jovial and friendly creatures that just want to play with everyone they meet. However, since they're are also massive beasts full of virulent diseases, and their idea of playing is to jump onto people and slobber corrosive acid on them, they end up as weapons.
The Pig-Pen: The Daemons of Nurgle are quite filthy, but they prefer to see it as them being full of life: bacteria, insects and other pests are lifeforms indeed.
Plaguemaster: Daemons of Nurgle play around the pestilent magic they are made of. The Lore of Nurgle entirely revolves around maladies and putrefaction.
Poisoned Weapons:
- Plagueswords are corroded and quite dull blades, but they weep a necrotic slime that decomposes flesh to the touch. As such they count as Poisoned Weapons.
- Baleswords are weapons said to be created from congealed waste matter infected with one of Nurgle's most deadly plagues, meaning that they are essentially swords made out of poison. Not only do these blades give the bearer the Poison Attacks special rule, but they also allow them to do Multiple Wounds.
Pupating Peril: Occasionally, Beasts of Nurgle grow frustrated with the fact that their new "friends" refuse to play with them and eventually give in to hatred after being banished from the physical world. Retreating to the depths of Nurgle's garden, they develop a cocoon out of sheer resentfulness — in which they gradually metamorphose into the forms of giant insects so that they can take their revenge on the mortal realm as Rot Flies.
Share the Sickness: Nurgle's followers view their diseases as gifts, and seek to share them with others.
The Swarm: Nurglings are diminutive daemons too small to pose meaningful threats to other beings on their lonesome, but which typically gather and move in large swarms; each real-life nurgling model thus consists of several figures standing on each other's shoulders. On the tabletop, each nurgling models gets four attacks per turn to represent its component daemons all attacking independently.
Too Important to Walk: Those daemons that rise in favour with Nurgle will often go into battle atop a Palanquin of Nurgle carried by a horde of the diminutive plague daemons known as Nurglings. From this ornate, yet mouldering, throne the daemon can oversee the movement of his troops while the Nurglings protect their master with their teeth and claws.

Daemons of Slaanesh

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/herald_of_slaanesh.png

A Herald of Slaanesh

Daemons of Slaanesh exult in physical sensation, be it the excess of their master's palace, pain and agony on the battlefield, or the thrill of hunting mortals over days or weeks to drag their souls into the realm of Chaos. They're usually swift but fragile, and focus on swift strikes against foes using their piercing claws and pincers while avoiding protracted melee grinds.

Fragile Speedster: Daemons of Slaanesh are typically much faster than other Daemons. However, they are quite fragile, emphasized by their need to be in close quarters where their speed really shines.
Hot as Hell: Being shards of Slaanesh's power, they're unnaturally attractive to mortal foes, despite their obviously monstrous features. Their curves and revealing outfits or lack thereof help. They love above all else to tempt mortals and enslave them.
Horse of a Different Color: Daemonettes can become Seekers when riding a Steed of Slaanesh, bipedal daemonic beasts that are part-horse and part-snake that grant the Daemons of Chaos army a very fast cavalry unit (they are classified as Fast Cavalry and have Movement 10).
Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Keepers of Secrets have two regular arms and two ending in blades or pincers.
Multipurpose Tongue: Steeds of Slaanesh have a long whip-like tongue several meters long that is coated by a paralyzing poison. The Steeds use these tongues to attack their enemies, immobilizing the opponent so that they are helpless against their rider's tender mercies.
Power Pincers: Daemonettes have large pincers in place of ones of their hands, gaining the Armour Piercing rule to represent its grip.
Spiked Wheels: Seeker Chariots ridden are festooned with razor-sharp blades, including great scythe-like blades mounted on their viciously barbed wheels. Their Daemonette charioteers take great pleasure in driving their elegantly brutal machines into the enemy at great speed, resulting in their victims turning into a red mist as they are lacerated by the chariot's blades.
Whip of Dominance: Whips are particularly associated with Slaanesh due to their theme of hedonism, sadism, and pleasure. Many Slaaneshi units, both mortal and demonic are armed with them in combat.
- The Lash of Submission is a Slaaneshi spell that temporarily brings an enemy squad under the caster's domination.
- The Steeds of Slaanesh are designed to resemble whips, with one of their names actually being Whips of Slaanesh. Their tails and tongue are also whip-like.
- Many Daemonettes wield whips in their non-mutated arms.
- The Alluresses who ride atop Seeker Chariots are armed with a pair of lashes of torment rather than the crab-like claws that most Daemonettes sport. They use these long, multi-tailed barbed whips to drive the Steeds of Slaanesh pulling the Chariot to extra speed or as actual weapons.
- As the greatest creations of the deity of sadists, some Keepers of Secrets go into battle with living demonic whip. They are able to unleash flurries of powerful blows with these weapons with pinpoint accuracy, both at range and in the close confines of melee combat.
- Slaaneshi Daemon Princes are known to wield demonic whips, both as weapons and to command and "punish" their own troops.
- Chaos Lords, Heralds, and Chosen of Slaanesh wield demonically empowered whips and are actually able to fight with them effectively in battle despite being mortals.

Notable Daemons

Chaos Undivided

Be'lakor, the Dark Master

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/belakor.png

Be'lakor was one of the earliest Chaos warlords, leading vast hordes of Daemons to ravage the world long before the Elves rose up against them. He impressed the Chaos Gods so much they turned him into a Daemon Prince, the first time they ever did that to a mortal follower of Chaos Gods. He is still among the most powerful of all Daemon Princes and can grant his followers unique magic powers. But he eventually grew proud and considered himself better than the Chaos Gods themselves, so Tzeentch cursed him for his arrogance. Tzeentch made him be the one to crown new Everchosens of Chaos while never getting to become the Everchosen himself, which pisses him off to no end.

Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: In his backstory, he was the very first mortal to be granted daemonhood. He schemed later to go even further and become the fifth God of Chaos.
Big Bad: Of Slayer, the final book in the Gotrek and Felix series. And of the Albion campaign. And of Mordheim. And quite a few other things. He gets about.
Casting a Shadow: On the tabletop he's a level 4 wizard of the lore of Shadows. At one point he was even known as the Shadowlord.
The Corrupter: He manages to exploit Hellebron's resentment at Malekith after he outlaws the cult of Khaine, and the racism of Drycha and Coeddil towards the elves, and swayed them to his side.
Dark Is Evil: Heavily associated with darkness. He appears as a large, dark-skinned daemon, is a caster of the lore of shadows, his title is "The Dark Master" etc.
Godhood Seeker: His ultimate goal and he's been quite creative in finding several methods to attempt this.
Living Shadow: His fate after being smited by the Chaos Gods for his arrogance.
Manipulative Bastard: Be'lakor's most defining characteristic is his cunning and his love for weaving long-term plans. He was responsible for two major disasters in the world — the crushing of Mordheim beneath a warpstone meteorite and the war for Albion — and those are just the ones that are known about.
Near-Villain Victory: Most of Be'lakor's plots can be summed up as "It almost worked." His biggest issue is a tendency to attract too much attention in the final stages of a plan, leading to him being dogpiled by other interested factions.
Pride: His pride went to his head, causing him to consider himself better than the Chaos Gods.
Renegade Splinter Faction: While utterly Chaotic in nature he hates all the Chaos Gods and only works for them when forced to, with his own plots being centred around raising himself, preferably above them.
The Resenter: He resents how he must be the one who crowns the Everchosen instead of being the Everchosen himself.
Satanic Archetype: Massive ego? Check. Known by many names, none of which are his original? Check. Big, batty wings and Horns of Villainy? Check. Shadow Powers? Check. Struck down to a denigrating position for trying to rise up against his masters? Super check!
Winged Humanoid: Like many daemon princes, his default form is a large horned humanoid with a pair of bat-like wings

Khorne

Skarbrand, the Exiled One

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/warhammer_skarbrand.png

Once the mightiest of all Khorne's Bloodthirsters, the marshal of Blood God's war-hosts and his strong right hand, favored over all others. Skarbrand fell to the machinations of Tzeentch and allowed his pride to cloud his judgement. He betrayed Khorne, allowing his rage to overwhelm him to the point of striking at Khorne himself when his back was turned. Although this was only enough to cut a tiny chink into Khorne's armor, the Blood God's fury was boundless; he throttled Skarbrand's very soul, squeezing him dry of every aspect of personality beyond rage, before hurling him across the Realm of Chaos, banished forever from Khorne's sight. Now a mindless engine of destruction, his wings ruined, Skarbrand rages endlessly across the Realm of Chaos and the mortal world alike, taking mountains of skulls and spilling oceans of gore, but never to find redemption in the eyes of his former master.

Ax-Crazy: He's so Ax-Crazy he actually induces Sanity Slippage by his mere presence, driving all others on the battlefield into homicidal spasms of pure hatred. His rule Rage Embodied allows him to never lose Frenzy and forces all models on the table to have Hatred while he's still alive.
The Exile: Khorne banished Skarbrand from his realm for daring to strike at him. Skarbrand ultimately wants to get back into Khorne's good graces, but is too insane to realize that this will never happen.
Fallen Angel: He's a demonic variant on this trope — he was once his god's mightiest and most favored champion, but attempted to strike Khorne down in a fit of pride and rage and was punished by being physically thrown out of the Blood God's domain, shattering his wings and leaving him forever exiled.
Feral Villain: When he attempted to strike Khorne himself, the Blood God responded by burning all thoughts and emotions from his mind except pure rage, and then threw him out of his realm. In the modern day, nothing is left of the former champion but endless, mindless fury, devoid of any kind of thought, reflection or personality, and the Exiled One rages endlessly across the world as he vents himself on whatever he happens to encounter.
Good Wings, Evil Wings: His wings, originally bat-like, have been shredded, leaving nothing but bare bone and dripping gore. He can't fly any more as a result.
How the Mighty Have Fallen: He used to be the most powerful Bloodthirster around and Khorne's favored champion. Now he's a broken and insane ruin, desperately seeking favor he can never obtain.
Lightning Bruiser: Not as much as normal Bloodthirster since he can't fly, but he does move faster on foot and hits harder.
Make Me Wanna Shout: Skarbrand is capable of bellowing with such force that it shatters buildings and pulverizes living beings, giving him a Breath Weapon on the tabletop.
Must Make Amends: He fights endlessly and fruitlessly to regain Khorne's favor, reaping a tremendous tally of skulls in the hope that his former master will deign to notice him once more.
Red Baron: He's known as the Exiled One, the Wrathful Reaper, and the Drinker of Blood.
Unwitting Pawn: Skarbrand was so crazy that it was a simple thing for Tzeentch to manipulate the mighty Bloodthirster into attacking Khorne as part of the ongoing conflict between the Chaos Gods. To his credit he took off a chink of Khorne's armour but was branded, had his wings ripped off and was exiled for his treachery.

U'zhul the Skulltaker

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/uzhull.jpg

Khorne's greatest Bloodletter, who roams the Realm of Chaos and beyond atop the mighty Juggernaut Khul'tyran, seeking out mighty warriors to challenge and claim the skulls of. The most challenging foes have the honor of being used to comprise U'zuhl's cloak of skulls.

Anti-Magic: His Locus of Abjuration gives him Magic Resistance.
Badass Cape: His Cloak of Skulls is covered in enchanted skulls, giving him a 4+ armour save.
BFS: Like most Bloodletters, he's got one. He has the Slayer Sword, giving him Flaming Attacks and the Killing Blow rules. In a duel he gains Heroic Killing Blow.
Hero Killer: What he's designed to be in game. He packs a special rule that allows him to instantly killing anything if he rolls a 5 or 6 when rolling to wound, unless it's immune to that. His Skulls for the Skull Throne! rule forces him to issue and accept challenges.
Red Baron: His name is U'zhul, though he's far more commonly known by the epithets of Skulltaker, Khorne's Champion, the Blooded Wanderer and the Slayer of Kings.
Skeletons in the Coat Closet: He wears a cloak made of skulls woven together with gristle and gore.

Karanak

Greatest and most terrible of all Khorne's Flesh Hounds, this three-headed daemon beast is Khorne's chosen hunter, sent to claim whoever has transgressed against Khorne's warrior creed or offered an insult to the Blood God's colossal pride. With his first head able to track his prey through space, the second head through time and the final head through the victim's own thoughts, only the mad can hope to escape the Hound of Vengeance.

Anti-Magic: His Brass Collar of Bloody Vengeance gives it Magic Resistance but also forces enemy Wizard to suffer a Strength 10 hit when they miscasts near Karanak.
Canis Major: Flesh Hounds being giant, muscular red lizard-wolves.
Hell Hound: Combines Hunter and Portent. As far as mythological parallels go, he's a combination of Cerberus (the three-headed guardian of Hades from Classical Mythology), Gramr (Cerberus' Norse Mythology equivalent), and Freki & Geri (the wolf companions of Odin from Norse Mythology).
Multiple Head Case: Three heads. One tracks the prey through the material world, the other through time, and the last through the prey's own mind.
Red Baron: He's known as the Hound of Vengeance, Endless Hunter, and Talon of the Skull Throne.
Scarily Competent Tracker: One head can track a target's scent anywhere in the material world, the second head can track through time itself, and the third head can track the target by their own thoughts. Its Prey of the Blood God rule allows it to reroll fails rolls to hit and wound against a single chosen model.
Super-Persistent Predator: Once Karanak has caught the scent of a target, he will never rest or cease pursuing his victim — he will simply keep coming, again and again forever, until his quarry has been killed.

Tzeentch

Amon'Chakai

Oldest and most powerful of all the Lords of Change, Amon'Chakai is said to hold ultimate knowledge over fate and destiny. He despises order and civilization, and works to see it all torn down, so that Chaos might rule. It is said he sees the threads of destiny as easily as a man sees the path before him, and he works to elevate and destroy both his enemies and his allies in accordance to his own mysterious whims.

Anti-Magic: If Amon'Chakai targets a wizard with his All-Seeing Eye, he can permanently strip them of the ability to cast a random spell.
Arch-Enemy: Amon'Chakai absolutely despises Nurgle and his followers, even more so than the standard Lord of Change. As such, he has the "Hatred" rule towards them.
Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Debuted in the original "Champions of Chaos" sourcebook as one of only two daemonic special characters. He subsequently was removed from canon.
Evil Sorcerer: Even amongst the Lords of Change, Amon'Chakai is a powerful wizard. In a game where most wizards max out at 4th level, he's a 5th level wizard.
The Generic Guy: Amon'Chakai's greatest flaw as a character is that he's not really that unique. He mostly comes off as a standard Lord of Change, but up a notch. This may have caused him to be replaced with Kairos Fateweaver.
The Jinx: Weaponized with his unique power, the Hand of Destiny, which lets Amon'Chakai blight the fate of a single enemy model. All attacks against that model hit automatically for the rest of the battle, even if Amon'Chakai is killed.
Seers: His All-Seeing Eye ability allows him to choose an enemy character and force its player to reveal all of that model's equipment, magic items, special abilities and spells.
Winds of Destiny, Change!: His ability to manipulate destiny and fate is central to his character, and manifests in-game as the source of his Hand of Destiny power.

Kairos Fateweaver

Tzeentch has long obsessed over the dread Well of Eternity at the heart of his Impossible Fortress, for it was said to contain knowledge hidden even from Tzeentch's mind. Yet not even a god such as he could be sure of his survival if he were to enter it. Finding his servants to be far more expendable than himself, Tzeentch seized the Lord of Change Kairos and threw him into the Well. Kairos remained in the depths for time beyond counting before he clawed his way back, and since returning to the knowable world he has borne a second head and is the only being who can be said to know things even beyond Tzeentch's understanding. His right head sees all possible futures as clearly as day, while his left head sees the past without the petty filters of perspective and bias. However, while now gifted with sight of the past and future, he can no longer see the present. Tzeentch's right-hand minion, Kairos sits in the depths of the Impossible Fortress, whispering dread secrets revealed to him by the Well, even as nine times nine Lords of Change transcribe his babbling with quills plucked from their own plumage and Tzeentch's own blood as the ink.

The Archmage: Kairos is the most powerful sorcerer in existence — as his trip through the Well left him privy to knowledge beyond the ken of any other being, he knows literally every spell ever made or that will ever exist and can cast every single one of them. In-game, his left head can choose any four spells from the Lores of Life, Metal, Light and Heavens at the start of each battle, while the right can do the same for Death, Fire, Shadows and Beasts, and both can always access every spell of the Lore of Tzeentch.
Didn't See That Coming: The irony of Kairos' condition is that it leaves him totally blind to the present — his future sight doesn't resolve quickly enough to let him react to what his opponents are going to do, and he's consequently very poor in physical combat.
Disability Super Power: Kairos is physically crippled and blind to the present, but he can perfectly see in both past and future and is, without question, the most powerful spellcaster in the Warhammer world — in the tabletop game, he is a Level 4 Wizard and can chose spells from all of the eight winds of common magic.
Evil Genius: A formidable sorcerer and also a supreme seer for having been plunged into the Well of Eternity.
Good Wings, Evil Wings: Kairos Fateweaver has wings like all Lords of Change.
Genius Cripple: A formidably powerful sorcerer, but shriveled and feeble thanks to his experience of being thrown into the Well of Eternity aging him rapidly. He's also blind to the present (although one of his two heads can see the past and the other the future), which means he is virtually incapable of fighting in close combat.
Magic Staff: His Staff of Tomorrow allows the player to reroll a single D6 dice per roll, allowing Kairos to change destiny.
Multiple Head Case: His two heads have a habit of arguing with each other, having different opinions on what is going to happen.
Red Baron: He's known as the Oracle of Tzeentch, Keeper of Destiny Scrolls, and Mocking Watcher.
Seers: The best, even Tzeentch cannot see as much as Kairos although Kairos has trouble seeing the present now. His Oracle of Eternity rule gives him a 4+ ward save as he foresees every threat.
Why Won't You Die?: Likely to get this response from players because he has an impressive ward save that he gets re-rolls on, and can use magic to heal himself. The result is that he can easily be harder to kill than Great Unclean One.

The Blue Scribes of Tzeentch

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/warhammer_the_blue_scribe.png

P'tarix and Xirat'p, the Blue Scribes, are eternally squabbling Blue Horrors charged by Tzeentch with hunting down all spells and fragments of arcane lore in existence.

Achievement In Ignorance: Xirat'p doesn't really know how to cast spells nor does he even know how magic works, he just reads the incantations aloud. Nevertheless, he still casts the spells effortlessly.
Counter-Attack: Their Spell Syphon rule allows them to make a casting attempt for each successful cast the enemy has performed the last turn. The more magic the enemy uses, the better the Scribes can use it to attack the enemy.
The Dividual: The Blue Scribes are treated as one single character since they never stray away from each other.
Gotta Catch Them All: Their reason for existence is to recover Tzeentch's magical might by recording all spells in existence, with P'tarix writing them down and Xirat'p casting them to check whether or not they're the real deal. Unfortunately, magic is constantly multiplying and amplifying itself; spells come into being faster than the two could ever hope to write them all down, damning them to their task for eternity.
Hover Board: The Scribes travel on a Disk of Tzeentch, a flying machine containing a sorcerously-bound Screamer daemon.
Random Effect Spell: Since they don't actually understand the sorcery they wield and can't decipher their own writing, in battle the Scribes sling spells at random without knowing what's going to happen. This is reflected in-game by having the player choose a lore of magic and then roll a die to determine what spell will actually be used.
Red Baron: They're known as the Azure Arcanologists, Tzeentch's Quaestors, and Wandering Wizards.
The Starscream: Defied. Tzeentch created them so that P'tarix can write magic down, but cannot read what he has written, while Xirat'p can read the resultant spell-scrolls but can't understand what he has read enough to write it down. This prevents the duo from simply amassing the magical might and challenging Tzeentch, because they can only do their role and nothing else.
Sdrawkcab Name: P'tarix and Xirat'p's names are clear mirrors to each other. And there may not even be a real order.
Spell Book: The Scribes have the Scrolls of Sorcery allowing them to cast any spell from a chosen lore, although the spell is randomly chosen and won't work if no suitable target is in range.
Too Important to Walk: The Blue Scribes don't walk but stand on a Disc of Tzeentch allowing them to Fly, as they have a lot of time and space to cover in their search for spells.
Unwitting Pawn: Tzeentch specifically selected these two for their mission because they're too stupid and argumentative to ever realize what they could do with all the power they're accumulating.

The Changeling

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/warhammer_changeling.png

Tzeentch's personal shapeshifting minion, who uses his abilities to sow chaos, confusion and mischief across the Realm of Chaos and beyond.

Asteroids Monster: His Locus of Transmogrification allows him to spawn more Blue Horrors of Tzeentch upon death.
The Faceless: The Changeling's true face is hidden under a hood.
I Know Your True Name: He's a victim of this; Tzeentch is the only one who knows the Changeling's true name and form, so he alone can control the creature.
Mirror Match: During battle, the Changeling typically tries to transform itself into a copy of the strongest enemy figure to use their own skill and strength against them and their allies. His "Formless Horror" ability represents this by allowing the Changeling to use its opponent's combat statistics instead of its own.
Perpetually Protean: According to his fellow daemons, he's changed so many times that he's long since forgotten his original appearance: whenever he appears undisguised, he wears a hooded cloak to hide the fact that he's constantly cycling through different forms in a desperate attempt to rediscover his old self — or so the rumors claim.
Red Baron: He's known as the Perplexing Prankster, Deceiving Horror, and Tzeentch's Trickster.
The Trickster: He delights in spreading confusion and humiliating others, and uses his shapeshifting as a primary means to do so — among other tricks he has played, he has taken the shapes of other Daemons to sneak into the other gods' palaces to steal items or perform sabotage, tricked enemy forces into battling each other, and impersonated messengers and important figures to spread misinformation and disrupt plans and strategies.
Voluntary Shapeshifting: The Changeling's signature power is to assume anyone's appearance and mimic to perfection how they behave. His Formless Horror rule allows it to change its stats to match that of any other enemy model.
Wild Card: Although Tzeentch likes to pretend everything the Changeling does is in his name, the truth is that the Chaos God simply lets the Changeling do whatever it pleases, even if sometimes it undermines one of Tzeentch's schemes, not that he didn't have a myriad of other ones playing out at the same time.

Nurgle

Ku'gath Plaguefather

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kugath_the_plaguefather.png

A Great Unclean One fascinated with the breeding of new, virulent strains of disease, determined to one day create a plague that can infect and destroy the Gods themselves.

Archenemy: He has Hatred against Dwarfs because of their natural resistance to disease, and also because they defeated him once.
The Atoner: His creation involved him accidentally destroying what would have been Nurgle's greatest plague, and he has dedicated his existence to replacing it. Nurgle himself just thought the event (Ku'Gath was a Nurgling that fell into the pot and became a Greater Daemon after drinking it dry) was funny and doesn't seem bothered by the loss at all.
Fastball Special: He throws nurglings plucked from his own festering boils and open sores, soaked in brewed plagues, at people. His Necrotic Missiles are a 36" range Strength 5 shooting attack that ignores armour save and are Slow to Fire.
Freak Lab Accident: Ku'gath is what he is because, while crawling on Nurgle's body, he fell into the Plaguelord's vat of diseases and consumed its contents, transforming into a Great Unclean One.
Mook Maker: Ku'gath is infested with Nurglings who constantly come out of his body to refill the ranks of Nurgle. His Nurgling Infestation rule allows nearby Nurglings units to recover lost wounds, representing fresh Nurglings crawling from Ku'Gath's form to join their swarms.
Red Baron: He's known as the Foetid Brewmaster, Plagueweaver, and Rotting Poxmaker.
Too Important to Walk: Instead of walking, Ku'gath sits atop a Palanquin of Nurgle and lets himself be carried around by a living carpet of Nurglings.

Epidemius

Nurgle's personal Tallyman, a member of the seven Proctors of Pestilence, charged with cataloguing all of the Plaguelord's innumerable diseases.

Gotta Catch Them All: Epidemius is tasked with recording Nurgle's every disease, which he is hard pressed to do as Nurgle can produce them faster than Epidemius can record them.
Red Baron: He's known as the Maggot King, Plagued Panjandrum and Reckoner of Mortality.
Too Important to Walk: Epidemius sits atop a Palanquin so that he's free to observe and record all diseases and what they do.
Unstable Equilibrium: Epidemius' signature rule is The Tally of Pestilence, rewarding Daemons of Nurgle with powerful stats buffs the more wounds they inflict.

Slaanesh

Azazel

One of the oldest and most powerful daemon princes in the service of Slaanesh, Azazel is believed to have once been a leader of the Gerreon tribe in the days when Sigmar was uniting the future peoples of the Empire. He betrayed Sigmar and then fled north to the Chaos Wastes, where Slaanesh took him in and elevated him to become the commander of the Dark Prince's daemonic legions. His darkly sensual beauty is said to be second only to his master, and many of those who have tried to face him have instead succumbed to desire and thrown themselves at his feet to die or become his playthings.

Ambiguous Innocence: In his description, it is stated that his eyes are simultaneously full of innocence, and yet cruel, calculating, and devoid of pity.
Beware My Stinger Tail: His twin-forked tail can grapple foes and impede their attacks in earlier editions of the game.
Charm Person: His most iconic power is his ability to enthrall the minds of others with his unearthly beauty. In-game, this is handled as the "Temptator" special rule, which lets him try to control an adjacent enemy each round. In 6th edition, he can only control a victim for one turn, but in earlier editions, the victim became a permanent addition to the Chaos forces if he succeeded.
Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: He was introduced in "Champions of Chaos" as one of only two daemonic special characters, and the only daemon prince character. His last appearance was a vaguely official update for 6th edition's Hordes of Chaos in Citadel Journal #50.
Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Azazel looks like a stunningly beautiful angelic being, but is a sociopathic, narcissistic monster who considers all other beings to be expendable toys.
Fallen Angel: This is his defining motif, with white feathered wings and white skin meant to conjure up the image of a traditional Christian angel... until you spot the horns, the tail, and the chitinous claw-blade for a hand.
The Fighting Narcissist: Like all Slaaneshi characters, he is narcissistic to the point of solipsism, but his vainglory and ego don't prevent him from being a very skilled and lethally focused fighter.
Good Wings, Evil Wings: Subverted; despite being very much a Chaos-aligned daemon prince, Azazel has swan-like white feathered wings.
Light Is Not Good: He has porcelain white skin and feathers, dresses in the finest brightly colored silks and huge, shining jewels, and looks almost like an angel at first glance. He's also an utterly heartless monster.
Magic Knight: Whilst he's primarily a martial combatant, he's also a modestly skilled (2nd level) wizard, specialized in the daemonic magics of Slaanesh.
Meaningful Name: "Azazel", in Jewish traditions, is a Fallen Angel who governs the concept of "Impurity".
Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Azazel's porcelain white skin and long, flaxen, jet-black hair are meant to convey the idea that he is hauntingly, soul-damningly beautiful.
Red Right Hand: His horns, his chitinous claw left hand and his tail all taint the image of a beauteous angel that he otherwise presents.
Wolverine Claws: Azazel's left hand is a massive, lustrous claw that is so sharp it can cut through almost anything. In his first appearance, this claw granted Azazel a bonus attack with a +2 bonus to Strength that did 1-3 wounds per hit.

N'kari

N'kari battling Aenarion.

"Arrogant mortal, I let you live once so I might experience the sensation of defeat. Now I am gorged on ten thousand souls and I am invincible. Be honoured! Your soul will learn agony and ecstasy under the lash of the Dark Prince of Pleasure once I send it to meet him."

The greatest of the Keepers of Secrets of Slaanesh, N'kari was sealed within the Vortex by the first Phoenix King, Aenarion the Defender, during Chaos' initial invasion of the world. He has since broken free periodically, each time trying to ply his vengeance on the descendants of his ancient foe.

Arch-Enemy: He's this to the line of Aenarion as a collective whole, as he hounds them eternally in vengeance for his defeat at Aenarion's hands.
Badass Boast: When facing down Aenarion on the Isle of the Dead, he claimed that Aenarion's victory in their earlier bout had happened solely because N'kari chose to lose in order to indulge in the sensation of defeat, but now he sought to win and was invincible.
The Ghost: He's a very important character in the background lore for Ulthuan, the Elves and the coming of Chaos, but never received a model or tabletop rules.
I Banged Your Mom: During the brief period when he was bound to Malekith, N'kari boasted of lying with Morathi multiple times, although adding that she wasn't aware she was sleeping with N'kari during all of them, and insinuates that Malekith may not truly be Aenarion's son.
Inconsistent Spelling: Downplayed. His name stays the same, but official sources vacillate on whether the K should be capitalized or not, and have spelt him as both N'Kari and N'kari.
The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: In Sword of Caledor, Malekith binds him in the form of a female elf. During this period, N'kari claims that he was becoming more and more like a living mortal, with his memories of the Realm of Chaos fading away.

The Masque of Slaanesh

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/masque_of_slaanesh.png

Once one of Slaanesh's most favored dancer-concubines, cursed to dance forever more when Slaanesh perceived her efforts at cheering them after a then-recent defeat to Khorne as mockery and then banished from Slaanesh's sight. Wherever she treads, she sweeps mortals and daemons alike into dancing with her until she leaves or they die. Usually the latter.

The Aloner: She was cursed by Slaanesh to dance forever and then cast out. Her Dance Alone rule means she cannot join units.
Dance Battler: She is the greatest dancer among Slaanesh's daemons. However, her Eternal Dance also affects nearby unit and depending on the dance chosen, will force various stats penalties on them.
Magic Dance: The Masque has several options to choose from, which allow her to erode her enemies' resolve with the Dance of Dreaming, sap their strength with the Fleshspasm Polka, or dull their reflexes with the Waltz of Letargy.
Multi-Armed and Dangerous: The Masque has three arms, two of which end in the viciously sharp claws typical of all Daemonettes. Her third arm is more humanlike and carries her staff that sports the masks of comedy and tragedy.
Poor Communication Kills: She tried to cheer Slaanesh up with her greatest dance yet after a crushing defeat, but Slaanesh mistook it as mockery and cast her out.
Red Baron: She's known as the Eternal Dancer, Accursed Maiden and Darkling Deceiver.
Super-Reflexes: Her Unnatural Reflexes grant her a 3+ Ward Save.

Characters / Warhammer: Chaos Gods and Daemons

Chaos Gods

Daemons of Chaos