Slaanesh

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Slaanesh
Slaanesh Imprisioned 01.jpg
Titles Dark Prince[13a]
God of Excess
Lord of Pleasure
Prince of Excess[5d]
The Pleasure Lord[6a]
The Despoiler[6a]
The Serpent[6a]
Serpent of Pleasure[12a]
Domains Excess[7a]
Sensation[7a]
Depravity[7a]
Pleasure[7a]
Hedonism[7b]
Anquish[7b]
Type Elemental deity
Chaos God
Status Imprisoned
Aspects Decadent Fiend[3a]
Horned Man[7a]
King-Queen of Forbidden Secrets[7a]
Loesh the Serpent[7a]
Pallid Bull[5c]
Oslaan[5b]
Shining Wyrm[7a]
Shlarranesh[5b]
Shornaal of the Gilded Pavilion[7a]
Slaa-Nulthé[5b]
Home Six Circles
Relatives Dexcessa (offspring)[8a]
Synessa (offspring)[8a]
Affiliation Chaos
Followers Hedonites of Slaanesh

Slaanesh is the most beautiful of all the Chaos Gods. He is known by many titles as the Dark Prince, the God of Excess and Lord of Pleasure. He himself is currently lost, his throne standing empty, as his minions anguish and the other powers of Chaos rejoice.[1a]

Manifestations

Due to its whims and the ability to shift both form and substance on a whim, the art of the depraved often depicts him as a parody of human desire. Because of this and the great pains they take to never appear the same way twice, Slaanesh is more undefinable by mortals than any of the other Chaos God.[5b]

His most common depictions are of a half-male, half-female horned hermaphrodite or of a flawless youth with perfect, smooth limbs and a pair of hypnotic eyes, abyssal dark in nature. These forms are often dressed with sumptuous finery that exaggerates their form rather than conceals it. His devotees portray him in strange ways, like in the aspects of Oslaan and Shlarranesh.[5b]

There are other more esoteric depictions made by his enemies. Out of fear, the Hyshian schools of enlightenment represent him with a melody written on a six-bar stave, used by many aelven survivors out of fear of drawing his gaze. The Seraphon depict him as an icon, an angular spiral with each twist symbolising an act or decision that leads deeper into corruption.[5b]

Personality

Slaanesh has a very fickle mind, and thousands of moods and whims flit through it every single day.[5e]

Slaanesh takes great pleasure in the torture that the Aelf Gods inflict upon him. His greatest horror is to find something dull, such as the potential future where Nagash won and converted the Mortal Realms without life or celebration.[2]

The Dark Prince loves the taste of aelven souls, for they have highly attuned emotions and are naturally passionate, obsessive and focused beings. This extends to their deities, which are an irresistible target for him.[4]

Slaanesh has a profound interest in pain as it is a sensation that no mortal can avoid, which leads to it paying special attention to the Lords of Pain among his servants.[9a]

Slaanesh desires the edges of the Mortal Realms more than any other because that is where the purest and most lethal incarnation of that Realm's nature. Such extremes greatly please the Dark Prince, especially the spectacular transformative disasters from mortals that wander there, amusing them to no end. Because of this, the god seeks to claim these mutable and volatile territories, such that many of these places already connect to Slaanesh's domain.[5b]

Powers

Like all Chaos Gods Slaanesh is given animus by mortal emotion, but unlike the others, he is not powered by the nature of feelings and desires. Rather, he is powered by the degree of one's emotions, as everything taken in excess empowers the Dark Prince.[5b]

Religion

The worshippers of Slaanesh can come from anywhere, such as the warlords and shamans of primitive bloodthirsty tribes, to the sophisticated and richest inhabitants of the new cities, as the indulgence of primal lusts appeals to them. Those who keep their vices and double lives carefully hidden eventually reach a point of no return, turning from secret to joy and open celebration. Others think themselves as infallible and rule with absolute authority gravitate towards Slaanesh, for they only respect an even greater tyrant with the power to dispose of them.[5b]

Many artists, like poets, dancers and musicians are seduced by the desire to perfect their skills in exclusion of all else, including their humanity, which leads them towards Slaanesh. These lost souls become addicted to substances and unwholesome acts, gaining momentary fulfilment from debauchery. But they cannot rest as they must forever seek to surpass their previous iteration of indulgence to fund truer forms of satisfaction.[5b]

Aspects and Alternate Names

There are many gods of decadence and sensation worshipped by the Slaves to Darkness and other followers of Chaos, these deities are near-universally believed to be distant from their siblings and followers. Some are also gods of creative pursuits and excess, their followers devoting themselves to singular crafts as a form of devotion.[7a]

  • Decadent Fiend: A apex defiler, breeder and feaster worshipped by the Slakefrays[3a]
  • Horned Man: A god of depravity and sensation worshipped by some of tribes of the Slaves to Darkness.[7a]
  • King-Queen of Forbidden Secrets: A god of depravity and sensation worshipped by some of the tribes of the Slaves to Darkness. The Dreaming Clans of Hysh claim that this god speaks to its followers only through the use of mirrors.[7a]
  • Loesh the Serpent: A god of depravity and sensation worshipped by some of the tribes of the Slaves to Darkness. Many devotees of Loesh believe their god is chained to the sea bed of the Sea of Elemental Truths in the Realm of Ghyran.[7a]
  • Pallid Bull: A secret cult within the city of Threnstice worshipped this aspect and atracted the Doombull Ghor-Garghorr[5c]
  • Oslaan: An aspect depicted in the artwork of the Gelder Vizier. An immense obese glutton of unknown gender covered in obscene tattoos.[5b]
  • Shining Wyrm: A god of depravity and sensation worshipped by some of the tribes of the Slaves to Darkness.[7a]
  • Shlarranesh: As aspect depicted by Bhan Gaddr. A great white serpent made of writhing bodies, with four arms tipped in knives and their true screaming face hidden behind one stolen from an impossibly serene woman.[5b]
  • Shornaal of the Gilded Pavilion: A god of depravity and sensation worshipped by some of tribes of the Slaves to Darkness.[7a]
  • Slaa-Nulthé: An aspect revered by the Stargazers of Ulthar. She who Devours is an ever-staring eye, at the centre of a vortex of shrieking maws.[5b]

History

Before the Mortal Realms

At the end of the World-That-Was, the gates of Mirai were broken open and its underworld were plundered by Slaanesh. Slaanesh consumed so many aelven spirits and gods, Mathlann being the last, that he was overwhelmed, left bloated and helpless. [1b][4][12a][13][14a]

He withdrew into a hidden lair to digest this great meal, but he could not escape the plots of Tzeentch. Despite this and being in a near-stupefied state from feasting on aelven souls, he surpassed his brother gods in power and influence. Only the discovery of the Mortal Realms by Chaos and the promise of claiming eight new worlds stirred him from his digestive lethargy.[1b][4]

Age of Myths

First, he started subtly influencing the Mortal Realms, snaring mortals by giving them distant echoes of sensation, but as civilisations expanded, he created cliques and cults of self-advancement and pleasure, so that they would become more easily influenced by the power of the Dark Prince.[4]

But his greed would make him seek to devour the Aelven gods, found in Uhl-Gysh. This was a gambit to trap the god by the four aelven deities, Malerion, Morathi, Teclis and Tyrion bound the god Corpus in vast magical chains. They then removed the aelven souls he had once consumed out of him causing him torturous pain.[4] By manipulating Khorne, Tyrion and Malerion, Tzeentch ensured that the newly born aelf gods would capture the Dark Prince.[1b]

Trapped between realms where his Hedonite worshippers could not find him, his titanic emotions raged from bitter wrath to masochistic joy, from devious contemplation to roaring, oath-swearing bellicosity. The extraction of aelf souls from Slaanesh by the aelven god created a sense of hollowness that was indescribable. On a physical level it was a hundred times worse than the agony of a mortal's intestines being pulled slowly through a hole in his gut while on a spiritual level, it was similar to the death of beloved offspring. The process was repeated over and over but Slaanesh thrived in intensity and found satisfaction in anguish and enlightenment in the most desperate of times.Needs Citation

Age of Sigmar

After a few decades of both revelling in intense agony and also being tortured by it, Slaanesh began to detach a part of his mind, to not just seek a path out of his confinement but also to transform his fall into a rise to a new level of power. Though he was too tightly bound by sorcery to bring more than a sliver of his power to bear, he came in dreams to his most favoured Hedonites to grant them visions and released many of those mortals driven mad within the six circles to blight reality in his name. Scholars in Hysh and Ulgu had let their curiosity blossom believing that Slaanesh was long gone and gazed into the abyss and from his prison in the void, Slaanesh stared back.Needs Citation

The chains hooked into the Prince of Chaos, fashioned of a fusion of shadow and light magic, had no true physical form and were composed of pure and unsullied magic taken from the edges of their respective realms. They had been devised by the hermetic arts of Teclis, strengthened by the immutable truths of Tyrion, and quenched in the umbral powers of Malerion and Morathi. A cloud of misdirection and shadow surrounded the chains to prevent him from learning their secrets. Thus the Keepers of Secrets went after the aelves that helped their gods build and maintain the ritual obelisks of the Hidden Gloaming. They could not tolerate the presence of a Chaos God for long without slowly going mad and had to return to Ulgu or Hysh to recover before returning to the twilight realm. During this time they were vulnerable and the greater daemons gradually uncovered that which the seers sought most to hide by dwelling on how best to keep those secrets safe and obsessing about their duty leaving themselves more open to Slaanesh's wiles. When the seers realised their error they kept it a secret possibly due to a subtle Slaaneshi spell or fearing the wrath of their gods, spiteful Malerion and maniacal Morathi above all and none could think for long on the fact that they might one day be responsible for unleashing their race's ancient nemesis upon the realms once more.[5a]

From the greater daemon Glittus, Slaanesh learned that the Chain of Purest Hatred could only be undone by the one who loathed Slaanesh the most. While the aelven gods believed this to be one of them in reality it was the Blood God whose hatred of Slaanesh spans for aeons. As Khorne would not willingly help Slaanesh and Slaanesh would never seek help from the blood god, Slaanesh sent the Infernal Enrapturess, Allegaria Sen'sathra to steal the sacred daemon axe Eigngrom. Khorne was enraged and sent Karanak across time and space to destroy the Daemonette and reclaim the axe. A merry dance of chase and counter-chase saw the two rivals hunt one another across the realms while Slaanesh entwined the Chain of Purest Hatred around him. Atop the Serried Peaks of Aqshy Sen'sathra used her cunning to slay Karanak. Khorne was angered and he unleashed a mind-shattering explosion of rage directed at Slaanesh that awaoke billions of slumbering mortal souls a cold sweat of terror. The blast wave rocked the runic obelisks and shattered the chain that was wound around Slaanesh into a million shards which was soon replaced by an illusion. The Chain of Utmost Betrayals could only be broken by an act of extreme dissonance such as the slaughter of thousands of unblemished souls by their own righteous protectors. Thus Slaanesh fanned the flames of Chaos cults in the cities of Order with whispers, dreams and artful seductions while ensuring that they reached a critical point all at the same time. In a realm-spanning event that would one day become known as the Fated Uprising, dozens of Chaos cults, predominantly those of Slaanesh, but also of Tzeentch and Nurgle rose up in rebellion. During the Purge of Vindicarum, the Celestial Vindicators took their blades to three quarters of the population and gouged out every trace of treachery and evil, putting to the sword every single citizen with a hint of corruption or hatred in their heart – just as Sigmar had in Azyrheim so long ago while in the Battle of Excelsis the Knights Excelsior butchered every citizen that stood against them. In Hammerhal Aqsha, the investigations of the Hammers of Sigmar, which had started with a single Lord-Castellant, escalated to open war in the streets between those under the sway of Slaanesh and the golden warriors who in their righteous wrath killed innocents. The screams of those unfairly slain by their own protectors echoed across the void, weakening the chain and turning into dust as a butchery reached its peak. The chain was again replaced by an illusion.[5a]

During the Time of Tribulations when he was being tortured, tiny wish of energy drawn from his essence, he was caught between crippling agony and blinding ecstasy and at the zenith of sensation he had visions of Nagash victory over the Mortal Realms. At first he smiled at the ancient spirits excess, feeling his needs, obsessions and megalomania that he could never escape, but then he realised that such victory would be his worst horror, sending him trashing in mad panic against his penumbral chains. Such future would be dull.[2]

However when the Shyish necroquake created by Nagash erupted across the cosmos, it rocked every Mortal Realm, subrealm and void-borne satellite to its foundations and instantly shattered the chain which was bound to the cosmic law of the realmspheres themselves, as the implosion of Shyish was an event of such magnitude it reordered the laws of reality across every realm at once. Further the web-like tissues of misdirection made from the spider-web realmstone of Ulgu by the arts of Malerion that covered the chains were torn although were not dispersed entirely due to the skill of Malerion. Slaanesh spotted the damage in the lie-sheaths of each chain nonetheless, for his senses were becoming clearer by the day. He learned the secrets of dozens of chains that had been damaged by the unravelling of their fabric, and committed them to memory even as their magical integrity was repaired once more by the talented aelven mages that acted as his jailers.[5a]

Forces dedicated to Slaanesh

Hedonites of Slaanesh

Main article: Hedonites of Slaanesh

The forces of Slaanesh are known as the Hedonites of Slaanesh. Embodiments of the excesses of civilization, they seek to spread ecstatic carnage to every corner of the Mortal Realms. Whatever appearances they may take, whether graceful or urbane, they are monstrously cruel.[10a]

Sybarite Carnivals

Main article: Slaanesh Sybarites

The nomadic Carnivals of the Sybarites are the mortal followers of Slaanesh. All of them sycophants of the Dark Prince, connoisseurs of excess, and participants in great carnivals of sin.[10a]

Daemons of Slaanesh

Main article: Daemons of Slaanesh

Every Daemon of Slaanesh is a sliver of the Dark Prince, radiating with their unholy radiance. Each is an alluring horror that has drawn uncountable proud souls to their doom.[10a]

Slakefrays

Main article: Slakefrays

Slakefrays are savage bacchanals that worship Slaanesh as the Decadent Fiend, an aspect of the deity that embodies the feaster, breeder and apex defiler. These Greatfrays have a relationship of both love and loathing for civilisation, filled with jealousy of the civilised and lust for fine things.[3a]

Slaanesh-Marked Warbands

Main article: Slaves to Darkness

The Slaves to Darkness are the mortal followers of the Chaos gods, and those who pledged their soul to Slaanesh have the Mark of Slaanesh upon their bodies. This mark grants them the ability to more easily move across the battlefield and charge without restraint.[11a]

See Also

  • For Slaanesh in the World-That-Was see: Slaanesh.

Sources

Deities of the Mortal Realms and Beyond
Ascended AlarielleKragnosMalerionMorathiNagashNerontes FaneSavage MaidenSigmarSix Smiths (Ong) • TeclisTyrion
Ancestor Gods GazulGrimnirGrungniValaya
Elemental Gorkamorka (Bad MoonGorkGulping GodMork)
Chaos Gods Dark Gods (Great Horned RatKhorneNurgleSlaaneshTzeentch) • Devourer of ExistenceEver-Raging FlameGreat GathererHashutNecohoNewborn (DexcessaSynessa)
Godbeast AuroxisAxactiarBitterbloodBoingobBrondtosDrakatoaFangathrakFangtharGhillnarad DhorGnorrosGuardian of the BalestormHammergordHrunspuulIgnimbrisJorharKharybtarKodzodonKrondMammothasMorbhegNagendraNharvolakNyxtorOkaenosRakka NakRavenakSarathrascaShattatuskShurihurathaSkalokSkwidmunchaSpider GodTatto'Na'KottoTestudinousUlfdengnarlUnnamed Kharibdyss GodbeastUr-PhoenixUrsricht‎Urs-Serkir
Star Titans AgraphonOhlicoatl
Zodiacal Godbeasts ArgentineBehematChimeracDracothionHydragosIgnaxLode-GriffonTwin-Headed SerpentVulcatrixVytrixYmnog
Unspecified Alhar-KrakenBeastgraveBrine-GodCinder GodCunning AgtheymaDreaming GodEightfold WatcherFirst ShadowGlareface FrazzlegitGod of SharksGod-Worm of the Great VentGorfatherGreat Bull-RoarerGreat MawGreat StinkhornIron DemiurgeKing of Broken ConstellationsLauchonLion God of EdassaLord of DustLost War Deity of the SeraphonManarchaelMirmidhMirrored TwinsMorghurMorrdaMother NightMother of All CatsMyrmidiaOuborothPrince of CatsNodh KurNulrakharObsidian EelOzolRanaldRavokSamnethSotekSpirit of the JungleStalagogTaalTjatsår MaiUnnamed God of PigeonsUnnamed God of the Order of the FurrowVannahVine GodVultzaXereusYahmBeyond the Realms (Y'ulae)
Asur Pantheon AddáiòsAeshaAnathAthaertiDrakiraErekEstreuthIshaKhaineKurnothLadriellaLileathMathlannMorai-HegNéthuThial
Old Ones ChotecHuanchiItzlQuetliQuetzlTepokTlanxaTlazcotlTzunki
ChosenDemigodsTypes (Aspect of ChaosCurse-GodDaemon-GodOld OneTutelary DeityUnderworld DeityWinter God) • Pantheons (Ancestor GodsAsurCrystal GodsDark GodsInvidianLittle Gods of WinterLords of MischiefOld Gods of AccarOrderSilent GodsSubterranean Gods)