being Nurgle, Khorne, Tzeentch and Slaanesh. but I'll answer with what I do know and I hope it helps.Īs you said within the current canon of 40k there are 4 main chaos gods. And only a small bit of Malal which is quite old already but is still viable. To my knowledge there isn't much known outside of the 4 main chaos gods. The 4 main chaos gods are the most powerful but there have been countless of "gods" Games Workshop being prone to retcon anything when they see it fit, a more recent version of a Rules book or Codex is canon in case of contradiction with an older version. The canon is everything from Codices and Rule Books, including supplementary materials as well as everybook from the Black Library, and articles in White Dwarf from the game's creators. To finish, I should precise what I mean by 'official source' or 'canon'. The case of Malal (or Malice), the Chaos God destructor of Chaos, is not clear to me, since the sources about it are very old. some worship the infinite and overwhelming diversity of Chaos, and asking unity in Chaos is a nonsense.In this sense, there is no Chaos God and no Demon, just a big great force/dimension called Chaos. some worship the Chaos as a whole, and each individual aspect we can see of it is only a facet of a greater whole.One ambiguity arises when considering worshippers of Universal Chaos: For example, Christians know 7 Cardinal Sin, is there a Chaos God of Sloth (who is understandably not very active in the 40k setting)? The fact that the Chaos Gods are created by emotions from the Material Universe doesn't seem to match with the "only 4 gods" theory. The least of the minor gods may be so limited in their power that expending their power to create a daemon means their entire power is expended in effect, the god becomes a daemon. These daemons may be reabsorbed into the god at whim. Gods are able to devote a fraction of their power to create daemons, whose appearance and character reflect the god's own nature. Precisely, the Lexicanum describes the difference between a Chaos god and a demon (with no source): For example, the Khorne entry describes him as "one of the 4 Chaos god" (not major or main god, just god) but the introduction of Chaos god does not give any number, and speaks about "the least of minor gods". But I find it quite imprecise on the question of Chaos God. The above information come from the Lexicanum, a usually well-documented unofficial source. What about minor gods?Īre there more than these 4 Chaos Gods in official 40k material? They are often referenced as the "major" Chaos God, but not always. The Chaos Gods, also called the Dark Gods or the Ruinous Powers, are powerful beings of the psychic universe known as the Warp, created and sustained by the emotions and souls of every living being of the material universe.Ĥ Chaos Gods appears prominently in the W40k universe: The most powerful of these warp entities are those known as the Chaos Gods, also sometimes referred to as the Dark Gods, Ruinous Powers, or the Powers of Chaos. (.) The term can refer to these warp entities and their influence, the servants and worshippers of these entities, or even the parallel universe in which these entities are supposed to reside. Finally, the question is about 40k, so WarHammer Battle sources (officially a different canon) are not accepted here.įrom Wikipedia's article on the concept of Chaos,Ĭhaos refers to the malevolent entities which live in a different timespace, known as the Warp. As explained below, the secondary sources like Lexicanum, usually very good and well-linked to primary sources, is ambiguous here, so only official material is accepted as answer to the question. Remark: This question was prompted by the answers to this question.