"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 every bit as decadent as their cultist kin in the south, nimble and fast duelists that slither through enemy blows like a striking viper. These individuals exult in their transforming forms, wearing armour that accentuates the most grotesque of their changes. Despite their grotesque appearance, they retain something of their sensual qualities, and those who see them are equally repulsed as they are attracted. Like all Chaos Champions, these individuals gather a warband 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. 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 bands see any captive as a new toy with which they act out their darkest fantasies.[1a]
The senses of Slaaneshi Champions are often greatly increased and their minds are so fast to react that they fight in a blur which many enemies struggle to even see, let alone defend against. As such, Slaaneshi Champions are often the greatest among swordsmen and duelists in the Old World.[1a]
Overview
A sketch of a Slaaneshi Champion from the Liber Chaotica, journal entry of Priest Richter Kless, declared insane.
For countless millennia, these most dbased servants of Slaanesh have seduced man, woman and beast, with their beauty and art and by means of their incantations, conjurations and accursed crafts, revelling in their perversity, taking their unholy delight in all manner of abominable deeds. Yet even the meanest of the Slaaneshi cannot simply be ignored as just debauched hedonists. 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 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 champions' 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, I can see no salvation for these champions. Whether they suc-ceed in being raised to the position of daemons, or whether they are cast down as spawn, they will never escape the will of their tempestuous Master. Indeed, no-one that receives the Mark of a daemon god can ever 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 He lays out for them, or perish and face an eternity of torment. There is no half-way point. 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 per-haps trapped within this perspective, the champion will see all other creatures as sub-servient to his will, there to adore and obey him or be destroyed.[2a]
Infamous Slaaneshi Champions
- Sigvald the Magnificent - The Geld Prince and leader of the Decadent Host.
- Styrkaar of the Sortsvinaer - The proudest of Archaon's Lieutenants.
- Vandred the Majestic - The former Slaaneshi lieutenant of Archaon.
