"Your fury thrills me, fills me with amusement and desire. Come now, priest, rake my face with your nails, gouge and tear my skin. If you hate me as you say, then take out my eyes, and rip my hair! Burn them on your fire. Show me you have passion, priest. Show me you feel fear. I can read your every anxiety, for you are no warrior to fight me. Even now your stuttering spirit edges to the throne of my Master."
- —Extract from the poem, "The Horned Man", from the Liber Chaotica.[2b]
A Champion of Slaanesh
The Champions of Slaanesh are the Chaos Champions and Chaos Lords of Slaanesh, the Chaos God of pleasure and pain. They are every bit as decadent as their Chaos Cultist kin in the south, nimble and fast duellists that slither through enemy blows like a striking viper.[1a]
These individuals exult in their transforming bodies, wearing Chaos Armour that accentuates the most grotesque of their mutational changes. Despite their grotesque appearance, they retain something of their sensual qualities, and those who see them are as equally attracted as they are repulsed.[1a]
The senses of Slaaneshi Chaos Champions are often greatly increased, and their minds are so fast to react that they fight in a superhuman blur which many enemies struggle to even see, let alone defend against. As such, Slaaneshi Champions are often the greatest among swordsmen and duellists in the Old World.[1a]
Like all Chaos Champions, these individuals gather a warband of Chaos Warriors and Chaos Marauders to better serve Slaanesh. Instead of moving from battle to battle, they are content to exploit each other in foul orgies of flesh and fluid.[1a]
Such gatherings can last for weeks, the members dying from exhaustion. They can only tear themselves away from their disgusting gatherings long enough to respond to an external threat. Woe be to the survivor of their attackers, for these warbands see any captive as a new toy with which they can act out their darkest fantasies.[1a]
Role[]
A sketch of a Slaaneshi Chaos Champion from the Liber Chaotica journal entry of Priest Richter Kless, later declared insane.
For countless millennia, these most debased servants of Slaanesh have seduced man, woman and beast with their beauty, art and by means of their incantations, conjurations and accursed crafts. They revel in their perversity, taking unholy delight in all manner of abominable deeds. Yet even the meanest of the Slaaneshi cannot simply be ignored as just debauched hedonists.[2a]
The Champions of the Pleasure God are the most dangerous of all his mortal servants, both as warriors of appalling ruthlessness and demagogues of alarming skill. They spread their divine master's depravity amongst the foolish and unwary, promoting such extreme heresy and deviance as to be an affront to nature itself.[2a]
Slaaneshi Champions seem to almost always follow the same path: as they become more and more absorbed into their goals, they become increasingly distant from their followers. But this aloof persona only serves to fuel the blind adoration of the Champion's followers, and it is not long before the most successful amongst them are worshipped as mortal avatars of their Dark Master's perfection. These Champions are proud of the unwholesome gifts that Slaanesh bestows upon them, and bathe openly in the praise heaped on them by those they regard as lesser mortals.[2a]
Once they have reached this point, there is no salvation for these Champions. Whether they succeed in being raised to the position of Daemon Prince, or whether they are cast down as Chaos Spawn, they will never escape servitude to the will of their tempestuous master. Indeed, no-one that receives the mark of a Chaos God can ever truly be saved, and they may never turn from the path of Chaos. Their souls belong to their Dark God, and they must stay to the path that their divine master lays out for them, or perish and face an eternity of torment. There is no half-way point in service to the Ruinous Powers.[2a]
For the most successful of Slaanesh's Champions there comes a point when they become so far removed from mortal concerns that all remnants of Humanity are left far behind. From then on their entire existence focuses around their never-ending quest for the ultimate sensation and the fulfilment of their own selfish goals. Once elevated to, or perhaps trapped within this intensely narcissistic perspective, the Champion of Slaanesh will see all other creatures as subservient to their will, there only to adore and obey them or be destroyed.[2a]
Notable Slaaneshi Champions[]
- Dechala the Denied One - Dechala is the mutant High Elf Champion of Slaanesh who is the leader of the Tormentors warband.
- Sigvald the Magnificent - Sigvald is perhaps the greatest Chaos Champion of Slaanesh and the leader of the warband known as the Decadent Host.
- Styrkaar of the Sortsvinaer - Styrkar was the Champion of Slaanesh who was the proudest of Archaon's Lieutenants.
- Vandred the Majestic - Vandred was the Champion of Slaanesh who was a former lieutenant of Archaon.
Miniatures[]
.png "Chaos Champion of Slaanesh (1).png (177 KB)")
.png "Chaos Champion of Slaanesh (2).png (136 KB)")
Sources[]
- 1: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition: Tome of Corruption (RPG)
- 1a: pg. 162
- 2: Liber Chaotica: Slaanesh (Volume II)
Gallery[]
