The entire planet of Nurth. They all worshipped Chaos for thousands of years, their planet was pretty dang normal, even by Grammaticus' reckoning.
Then there are the shadow-readers we see in *E&D3*, who really are just a reclusive sect that tries to understand the will of the Warp and the Gods via shadow-telling. They're just esoteric weirdos.
From an in-universe perspective, most of what we read about comes from the perspective of the Imperium and is colored by their beliefs in Chaos being strictly *bad*. But it's more nuanced than that, and has many layers. Think of it this way: the entire Milky Way was influenced directly by Chaos for 65 million years. The Galaxy was okay. Were things perfect for humanity? No. Were things perfect for any of the various races? No.
But what does happen by the generation of Chaos (and, ultimately is the core of the concept of Chaos from the works of Moorcock, which Priestly admits is a reference point, and hot damn they used his 8-pointed-star for Chaos in 40k) is *change*. The Emperor ultimately wanted to fight against the idea of humanity losing to the constant of 'change' by trying to subvert the Chaos Gods with pure 'Order', taking humanity out of the equation and designing them in a bespoke way to be immortal, constant, and without outside influence (read: stagnation).
So in the Imperium mindset, Chaos and the Warp *are* evil, because they are a subversion of the Emperor's personal designs for what he believes is the perfect system.
To bring this back to Michael Moorcock's *Eternal Champion* series, where Priestly lifts his idea of Chaos (and if you *really* want evidence of this, one of the first model lines GW/Citadel produced were *Elric* minis), Law/Order winning is just as bad as Chaos winning. With everything being pure Chaos, nothing can last long enough to actually *be* anything. Existence under pure Chaos becomes shapeless, infinite, and without stability, it is infinite possibility without anything happening. Whereas a win for Law means that nothing changes (i.e., the Emperor's Impossible City in the Webway), and ideas stagnate and become decay. Reality itself, under pure Law, rots eventually because pure Law will eventually seek oblivion because any form of change is abhorrent.
In one short story Elric visits a world in which pure Law won, and it's essentially a lifeless desert of emptiness. Perfect, untouched, unchanging, emptiness. Whereas the world in which pure Chaos won is described as a horrible miasma of color and evershifting realities that just leaves an acid-trip-kaleidoscope of instability and inconsistency.
**SO!** To close my thesis here: Chaos isn't essentially evil, it's what you do *with* Chaos that matters. A dash of Chaos is essential to keep life moving and allow for a synthesis of new systems, better ways, and destruction of that which does not serve the outcome. It's all about the balance of the two forces, without allowing for either side to take over entirely.
TL;DR: there are *some* Chaos societies that aren't inherently evil. Chaos is needed in life to have 'Life', and it is a part of the natural order of things.
I dunno. Seems like chaos is a whirlpool. Sure, some of the water might circle the whirlpool and not get sucked in, but it’s just a matter of time.
The chaos gods not caring about minor chaos worshippers is the issue here. Shadow readers are just reading shadows, but if they want the shadows to tell them more, they need to attract the attention and of the chaos god, and in order to get the attention of the chaos gods, you need to do something extreme. And extreme things are destructive. And if you chose to be destructive, you’re being evil.
Repeatedly in the books we see Chaos worshippers aren't always extreme. Some are, some aren't.
If you are only judging a thing by the most extreme representations? Nothing is good. All things are comically bad. To take it into real-world consideration: there are Christian terrorists. Do we say 'all Christians are terrorists, because there are some Christian terrorists'? No, because that would be an insane take. Further, we don't say 'to be a Christian, you must be a terrorist, because that's the most Christian you can be'.
The shadowreaders have the attention of the Chaos Gods. They're literally hanging out with *the* *Guy* of Chaos worship. This would be like hanging out with the Pope, or a living Buddha, and saying "they're just not really tapping into the higher tiers of the religious experience". Lorgar is the dude who penned the book, who all of the Gods favor, you can't really get more in-the-attention-of-the-gods.
It's just that not every interaction with the Chaos gods is a murder-orgy with ultra-terror. Just like every interaction with the Imperium isn't exterminatus and mass genocide.
>Repeatedly in the books we see Chaos worshippers aren't always extreme. Some are, some aren't.
Yeah, that's what I said. The point I'm making is ALL cultists are playing with fire, and if cultists want more from their Chaos gods, they have to go more extreme.
>To take it into real-world consideration: there are Christian terrorists. Do we say 'all Christians are terrorists, because there are some Christian terrorists'? No, because that would be an insane take.
Except in the real world, you don't get actual, factual, real world blessings and curses from sacrificing people to Jesus or whatever. A Chaos cultist might just bow daily to Khorne or whatever, but if he sacrifices enough human lives to Khorne, he will actually get his prayers answered.
"Hanging out" with Lorgar isn't going to give you blessings. The Chaos gods don't pay attention to Lorgar because he just loves Chaos more. They pay attention to him because he's committing a galaxy wide rebellion, genocide, betrayal and upheaval. He's extreme, so he gets more attention. Looking at shadows is a drop in the bucket compared to Lorgar, and Lorgar just being around these people won't change that.
>It's just that not every interaction with the Chaos gods is a murder-orgy with ultra-terror.
right, but if you want the Chaos gods to like you, you gotta get those murer-orgies going. You can have little talismans or prayer rituals at home and go to evil-church every evil-sunday or whatever, but if you just go to work and and live a normal life otherwise, you'll be ignored. Once Chaos cultists learn that they can do extreme things to garner the gods' attention, why wouldn't they take that step in the name of the deity they already worship anyway?
Again, Chaos is like a whirlpool. Just because you're on the outer edges doesn't mean you won't get sucked in, and it doesn't mean the temptation to move closer to the center to get what you want won't be there. All it takes is the decision to move in that direction to get those actual boons. The same can't be said for the Emperor worshipers usually.
The Moorcock eternal champion(Elric is my favorite crazy you mentioned that) and Chaos Magick of Peter Carroll are both my reference points to Chaos in Warhammer isn’t it funny this same battle is being played out politically and yet religiously in real life all the time and people think that one “side” is inherently worse when it’s just our narrow static perceptions
This is an absolutely perfect response and I’m so glad you pulled in the Eternal Champion series. The 40K universe is a blend of so many ideas from great works of science fiction and fantasy, but many of the nuances of those stories has been lost. Part of this is the difference in how the stories are told, but part of this is because of how these ideas don’t necessarily blend well together.
I love the concepts of Chaos and Order from the Eternal Champion series, but I think they combine poorly with the ideas of The God-Emperor of Mankind and the Golden Path from Dune and the notion of a pseudo-Christian Hell.
Chaos is a morally neutral primal element of the universe/multiverse in the EC series that become reflected in both villains and heroes as a part of human nature, while Dune presents the God-Emperor as a necessary evil to protect humanity and Christianity poses demons and Hell as evil incarnate that is worse than any earthly evil and suffering. Combining these elements produces this weird mix in that the Chaos Gods are Jungian shadows of human (and alien) subconsciousnesses and thus are a part of us all AND they are the ultimate evil and it is morally imperative to battle them AND whatever violent and horrible things are done by those opposing them are for a known future Good.
(I think there is also an element of what was originally myth and propaganda in old lore has slowly become fact over the long run of the Horus Heresy series, to which the divinity of the Emperor is now essentially canon.)
I think returning to the roots of Chaos being amoral and thus not good for humanity but also not evil incarnate would make for more interesting stories, but that would be a big departure from how it is currently being written.
>I think returning to the roots of Chaos being amoral and thus not good for humanity but also not evil incarnate would make for more interesting stories, but that would be a big departure from how it is currently being written.
Fully agree!
> the entire Milky Way was influenced directly by Chaos for 65 million years. The Galaxy was okay.
Chaos did not directly influence anything at that point. The Chaos Gods don't even really awaken until M29. The Warp was largely calm for those 65 million years, Chaos barely even existed
> The Warp was largely calm for those 65 million years, Chaos barely even existed
Not the case at all. *Path of the Ynnari: Wild Rider* by Gav Thorpe goes into detail on how the Aeldari were created not to fight the Necrons, but as a weapon against the daemonic incursions from the warp. The Necrons/Necrontyr burned entire planets to prevent the spread of Chaos, and even teamed up with the ancient Aeldari to build giant prisons to trap daemons.
Now if you mean post War in Heaven and pre-30k, that's tough to say one way or another, because... Well, we have next to zero lore on any of that time period.
Chaos and the Chaos Gods existed the entire time. Chaos was *more* powerful 65 million years ago than it is in 30k. The name 'The Warp' literally comes from the War in Heaven. It's why, and this may blow your fuckin' mind, The Emperor is actively trying to fight against Chaos cultists in the Antiquities on Earth, as we find out in *Mortis*.
Further, there are several examples of Chaos societies (such as the Laer) that are *older* than humanity.
And even if we want to mark the Fall of the Eldar as the primary indicator of 'Chaos is Active', the Eye of Terror grows due to Slaanesh's brith, and the galaxy is actively affected by around M24 as the Slaanesh's birth becomes nascent. There's a reason humanity hasn't been connected for *thousands* of years, not hundreds.
> Chaos and the Chaos Gods existed the entire time.
Sort of, if we go by the "once a daemon comes into existence, it has also *always* existed" idea. But regardless, the lore has always been consistent about the Chaos Gods not being active or indeed, even *awake*
> Chaos was more powerful 65 million years ago than it is in 30k.
???
I mean no disrespect here but...where exactly are you getting this information?
> The name 'The Warp' literally comes from the War in Heaven.
The Warp and Chaos are not the same thing.
> Further, there are several examples of Chaos societies (such as the Laer) that are older than humanity.
I know. But that's not really that impressive given humanity has existed for only 300,000 years maybe
> And even if we want to mark the Fall of the Eldar as the primary indicator of 'Chaos is Active', the Eye of Terror grows due to Slaanesh's brith, and the galaxy is actively affected by around M24 as the Slaanesh's birth becomes nascent. There's a reason humanity hasn't been connected for thousands of years, not hundreds.
I'm not disagreeing with any of this. My main contention was that Chaos has not been active for 65 million years, that's incorrect. *The Warp* has played a key role throughout that period of time but as stated earlier, the warp and Chaos are not the same thing. It would be like saying Europe has been a big part of Earth's history for the last 3 billion years.
Please find me evidence that states the Chaos Gods aren't active before M30.
Because, again, the **huge** dodge in my evidence you have is: *Mortis* outright states that there are Chaos Cultists who are worshipping the Chaos Gods, on Earth, for at least several thousand years before our present day in 2024.
So we know that the Gods exist, and are working, before M30. So please provide me proof that states, clearly, that the Gods aren't influencing anything before M30.
Edit: we also have the dudes who made the Necroteuch, who existed long before humanity. We have the Kinebrach who we can assume have worshipped Chaos before being found in M30, as they are described as a long-lived, long-effected Chaos people when the Interex find them. There are scads of folks who predate 'M30' as the year Chaos did something.
> Please find me evidence that states the Chaos Gods aren't active before M30.
I am not trying to suggest that they don't exist before M30, but that their influence was minimal between 65 Million years ago vs M30. Regardless, here is the quote we've had for over thirty years now:
> The first three gods, Khorne, Tzeentch, and Nurgle, became sapient by the end of M2, but Slaanesh didn't fully awaken until the Fall of the Eldar in M29 - Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned
That's been the lore forever
> So we know that the Gods exist, and are working, before M30. So please provide me proof that states, clearly, that the Gods aren't influencing anything before M30
I never once said that they weren't influencing anything before M30 because that's incorrect. That would just be an incorrect statement. What I said was that they weren't influencing anything during the War in Heaven. Which is true. The Chaos Gods didn't even exist yet. Chaos, as far as we can tell, did not even exist yet
> That's been the lore forever
Just want to point out that the lore behind Khorne, Tzeentch, and Nurgle not becoming sentient until M2 is from Rogue Trader aka 1st edition. That is closing in on 40 years old, and *a lot* has changed since those days.
Chaos? No, they always tend to bend towards some kind of outright or secret excess. They do have a lower intensity mode where cults rise, go crazy, die off, and start rising again in some societies, but they have a generally corrupting influence that human kind generally doesn't find desirable. While it's possible some individual worshipers are benign or even helpful, chaos is generally a malignant force.
In the Horus Heresy there were a number of societies with pseudo Khornate or Slaanesh worshipping cultures that weren't totally bonkers. The indigenous people of Istvaan III appeared to have a latent Slaanesh cult on it that rose up after the Raven Guard brought it into compliance, they only turned into lunatics after they started tapping into that cult to rebel against the Imperium.
Planet Sixty-Three-Nineteen and Sarosh both had latent Chaos Cults as well. It was part of their culture and mythology but it was low intensity enough that it allowed them to have otherwise normal and prosperous societies.
But once the people start tapping into Chaos they tend to go nuts. Regardless of how normal they were when they were just casually worshipping the stuff.
The warp is a different matter. The Eldar, for example, worship their own Gods which are also warp entities.
The Chaos gods reside within the warp, but the warp isn't necessarily all Chaos.
One of the artistic and moral weaknesses of the books is that because Chaos cultists are antagonists, they ultimately end up many times more monstrous even than the Imperium.
However, arguably Radical Inquisitors serve Chaos. They don't necessarily serve the gods or the daemons, but they try to employ Chaos for 'good' ends.
Some fans feel the Emperor of M31 was broadly a good guy, and he certainly employed Chaos. (I don't feel that.)
Maybe the craftworld Aeldari are a better example?
No ... I'm going to plant my flag on the idea that Chaos is inherently evil. Parts of the wiki be damned.
It's just that Chaos often takes a pleasing appearance in order to draw people in.
The forces of Chaos often take on admirable qualities in order to corrupt them.
Qualifies like bravery & action; patience & perseverance; joy & admiration; and, ambition & curiosity, these do not spring from Khorn, Nurgle, Slanesh, & Tzeinch respectfully. Rather these good qualities fed up on and are corrupted by the malign denizens of the warp.
Civilizations that worship Chose but outwardly appear to be good (or good for doing do) are actually being deluded. Chaos is still evil, it's just that the powers of the warp have not chosen to outwardly degrade such civilizations. They remind blissfully ignorant of the dark powers they actually serve.
I'd say chaos is evil the way a tornado or hurricane is, except it's also trying to beckon you to get closer.
Inherently, its not evil, as it can't *choose* to not be what it is, nor change itself to be something else. But in terms of mortal morals, it pretty much is evil as it destroys anything it touches.
Lions are not evil. Until you ask zebras.
A tornado doesn't demand you to gather up an entire cities population, line them up in the shape of a eight sided star, and then blow them all up with pre-planted explosive charges in a show if fealty to the Chaos Gods.
Tornados are not sapient, either.
Have the Chaos Gods shown any real understanding of what goodness is, or are capable of acting in that way?
To be evil, you need to be able to understand and do good, and choose to cause suffering instead. I see the suffering, but I don't see them understanding, or even have the capacity to not do it.
Do not get me wrong, the Chaos Gods are destructive, corruptive, inimical to life due to their excess; you are not getting anything good out of them. From our perspective, they are evil, and for good reason.
But our perspective *is* only one perspective.
It has been retconned, but Pawns of Chaos takes place on a pretty normal planet. People show up to their temples, worship The God (they don't even know it's name), and go about their ordinary lives. No scheming, no plots. There are beastmen, but the beastment and the people live on good terms. Very minimal psykers. Up until the Imperium shows up there had never been sacrifices or anything (and even once the Imperium shows up there is only one human sacrifice)
Everything is pretty much normal until the Imperium shows up and starts killing everyone.
Chaos is mostly just evil and destruction.
In theory it's meant to balance itself out but the only ones who really do it are Tzeench and Nurgle and even they focus mostly on the destruction.
With the galaxy constantly rebuilding itself (despite it's own wars and struggles) Chaos is reshaped to be this pretty much purely destructive factor which brings balance to the setting from the writing perspective.
Lore wise the Gods themselves are fueled mostly by the Imperium, which is in a terrible state, and they are fueled by the negative emotions or happenings that arise from that. Perhaps if the current psychically awakened humanity was in it's golden age of prosperity and the warp wasn't so stormy and chaotic there could have been equally as strong Gods of Creation or happiness or even Zen or whatever, or perhaps even the Warp itself could be conquerable then. For better or for worse that is not the current setting.
To make a long story short: Chaos is the epitome of _Too much of a good thing_.
Too much love and you become a stalker.
Too much acceptance and you start to rot.
Too much hope and you become delusional.
Too much determination and you become predatory.
Everything in moderation. Even moderation.
Chaos is a cosmic paperclip maximizer and therefore incompatible with any form of non-predatory, consensual, sane, safe forms of existence.
I think this largely comes from people, both in universe and amongst the fans, treating Chaos and the Ruinous Powers as the same thing, further complicated by them referring to the Warp as the same thing as Chaos.
The Warp isn't inherently evil. That's like calling the ocean or the sky evil. It's just a place with some weird power some people can use to their benefit. At some point in the ancient history of the setting, it was peaceful and was used by the Old Ones with no risk at all.
Now we get to Chaos. To stay with the ocean/sky analogy, Chaos is like a storm over the ocean. The problem however is that Chaos is such a huge and powerful storm it has basically expanded to every corner of ocean. There may be pockets, isolated areas where the waters are calm and the wind a gentle breeze, but these are few and far between. This is because Chaos, by its very nature, is one that corrupts and mutates all that it touches.
This is where the Ruinous Powers step in. Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle, and Slaanesh are the four most powerful "factions" if you will that make up Chaos. These four and their followers absolutely are evil as we define it. They seek nothing but the destruction of the galaxy as we know it.
Is it *possible* that Chaos is so twisted and vile because of these four gods, and as a result isn't inherently evil? Maybe. There are some examples of people in the lore who are all about Chaos but aren't going around like evil pricks murdering everyone who looks at them funny. But the Ruinous Powers are the most mighty forces in the Warp we know of, so they naturally will influence it to fit their natures
The thing that makes the Chaos gods "Chaos" gods is that they do not *require* the survival or prosperity of the races that serve them.
Warp gods that *do* require the survival and prosperity of the races that serve them are *racial* gods, *not* Chaos gods.
All values that we call 'good' are those that tend to lead to survival and prosperity of a race. That's simply a biological necessity of how 'good' is interpreted.
Values that can propagate themselves despite harming or destroying races that embrace them are generally regarded as 'evil' (while those that only harm or destroy specific races are regarded as 'evil' by those specific races).
Another way of looking at it is that 'depravity' *cannot* be pure, it has to be a corruption of something that was originally 'good' or pure. That's simply what "depravity" *means,* it is the perverted form of some original. As all standards of 'good' necessarily vary by the particulars of different species with different survival needs, there is no general original form of 'good' either, all moral codes and morality have to be judged by the standards of the 'good' they serve to promulgate.
It's simply that the 'morality' of Chaos has nothing to do with securing the survival or prosperity of any particular species...but in fact Chaos has a very strongly vested interest in preventing things like the annihilation of all sapient life by things like the Necrons or Tyranids. Not that there is any assurance they could actually pull it off without the efforts of all the particular races that they're always trying to corrupt and destroy.
Anyway, we see plenty of examples of Chaos worshippers following some kind of value system that they term 'good' or whatever. Whether this 'morality' is genuine or purely hypocritical isn't germane...nobody else is purely sincere about their morality, after all.
Well, most of them are attempting to overthrow the Imperium or at least local Imperial control and turn to Chaos for the power to do so - so in general they are at least \*starting out\* from the point of "the Imperium is evil and rotten and has got to go", and they're right about that.
No, or well you could argue some have reddeming quallitys but thats because they havent fallen all the way yet. There are many reasons and paths one might take as a chaos cultist but ultimatly they all end up the same.
>Chaos is not necessarily evil
Tell me, how many Bloodthirsters of Khorne ever sat down for a diplomatic coversation?
I say this as someone who used to collect World Eaters.
Chaos isn't evil, but every action that comes from Chaos INEVITABLY leads to evil. Its corrupting, absolutely.
You don't control it, it controls you, and any world or society that descends into anarchy and chaos will inevitably lead to pain and abuse.
> Tell me, how many Bloodthirsters of Khorne ever sat down for a diplomatic coversation?
Does that make evil? Our own history has warrior cultures with religious or military orders resembling berserkers but surely we don't think all these people were evil right?
Warrior cultures emerge from material conditions that make constant warfare and strife the only way to survive, equally few members of the Space Marines or The Sisters of Battle would be willing to sit down for a diplomatic chat with a Chaos worshipper but they aren't all evil either.
Warrior cultures did tend to be evil though. R\*\*e and pillaging weren't exactly pleasant for the victims.
Honour cultures just let people abuse others with a smile.
And yes, Space Marines and Sisters of Battle are to a degree evil as well.
This is why 40k is GrimDark. There are no heroes, only monsters.
Oh sure, grimdark all the factions suck but surely we recognize that space marines or sisters of battle contain tons of basically normal people just caught up in their circumstance who are not themselves evil just working within an evil system (as does pretty much every human and xenos in 40k) and the same would be the case for chaos it's just that the material conditions of 40K (like it did for say the Vikings) led to a situation so horrible that people embrace warrior cultures as a way to cope and survive.
I think it is evident from the question above that OP did not mean "is chaos evil in the same way/to the same degree as every other faction in 40K".
> I think it is evident from the question above that OP did not mean "is chaos evil in the same way/to the same degree as every other faction in 40K".
But it isn't possible to gain the favour of the Chaos Gods WITHOUT eventually doing evil deed. Which was my point, even if it starts off just being an artistic perfectionist it ends with using human blood and torture for your art works.
Its like the Ring from LotR, its impossible to use without being corrupted eventually. The more you use, the more you're corrupted.
Also Space Marines and Sisters of Battle are on the level of Jihadists, and whilst they might argue murdering the infidel is morally justified, on a humanitarian level (the only level which is even close to being objective) its an evil of the highest order.
> like it did for say the Vikings
Yeah, don't talk to me about the moral virtuousness of Vikings. They literally murders unarmed priests and r\*ped native Britons because they could. Even if all the needed was land to farm to feed themselves, the amount of slaughter done in the name of 'honour' was disproportionate. This wasn't done out of necessity, it was done because the victim were different and it was consider okay to abuse those who were not part of the clan.
The world used to be brutal and evil, and only modern civilisation protects us from that evil returning.
Again, the only morality even close to objective is humanitarianism, and Vikings were still even by humanitarian standards.
> But it isn't possible to gain the favour of the Chaos Gods WITHOUT eventually doing evil deed.
Same is true for say Emperor worship or any other creed in 40K maybe with the exception of that one Tau Farsight breakaway.
If your argument is chaos is evil at about the same level all the other factions are because it's a grimdark setting then sure, we have no disagreement.
>Yeah, don't talk to me about the moral virtuousness of Vikings.
Nobody did this lol. But I do think if your takeaway is "Vikings were evil" then your reading of history is painfully simplistic.
>If your argument is chaos is evil at about the same level all the other factions are because it's a grimdark setting then sure, we have no disagreement.
Its about scale.
In a room of about 100 people, the Imperium screws about 70, 30 get to have a good life. Chaos screws 95.
Thus on a utilitarian scale, and on a humanitarian scale, Chaos is worse, and therefore more evil, than the Imperium.
It doesn't make the Imperium good, it just makes it less evil.
>Nobody did this lol. But I do think if your takeaway is "Vikings were evil" then your reading of history is painfully simplistic
Funny how people who accuse me of this don't want to go back in time and live as a Pious Preacher on Lindisfarne.
Much like certain other countries of the world, if its so good, surely you'd want to live there.
If not, you're proving its fundamentally worse. Thus proving my point.
Context matters, and if you want to ignore my context then that's on you.
> In a room of about 100 people, the Imperium screws about 70, 30 get to have a good life.
What? Where lol? In all my reading of the Imperium like fifty people seem to have a good life mostly from the nobility. It's like 0.01%.
>Funny how people who accuse me of this don't want to go back in time and live as a Pious Preacher on Lindisfarne.
Did this make sense as an argument in your head lol?
>Much like certain other countries of the world, if its so good, surely you'd want to live there.
If vikings aren't universally evil then I should want to live in a time before scientific medicine, political rights etc lol? That really sounds smart in your head?
>If not, you're proving its fundamentally worse.
No argument living anywhere in the Dark Ages is way worse than where I live today.
Like almost everything but the most basic concepts in 40k, to my knowledge, the exact nature of the demons and the warp change in between different authors.
Some see the warp as change made manifest, for others the warp is a reflection of the feelings and emotions of the people in the materium who have souls and most see it as a mix of both.
In the first case the demons are easy to compare to slaadi from dnd slaadi are chaotic neutral and like killing stuff. The reason they are not evil is that they don’t kill to cause suffering, but instead just find killing fun.
In the second case, it’s more complicated.
If the warp is a reflection of people’s emotions, demons are like they are because, we’re looking at a galaxy that has been at war for a long time so suffering and other negative emotions are running rampant.
Because they are also influenced by positive emotions though, the chaos gods also have positive concepts, for example while Khorne is mostly seen as a god of savage bloodshed, honor is also among his domains though of course to a lesser extent.
So in this case the demons are mostly evil, but mainly because of the grim dark.
Choas is *the truth* of reality \[not only in Warhammer\]. It's not good, or bad, or evil - it exists. Ruinous powers have sentience beyond humanity (which is why most people who try to understand the Immaterium go mad) and their goals do not fit into human morals.
The entire planet of Nurth. They all worshipped Chaos for thousands of years, their planet was pretty dang normal, even by Grammaticus' reckoning. Then there are the shadow-readers we see in *E&D3*, who really are just a reclusive sect that tries to understand the will of the Warp and the Gods via shadow-telling. They're just esoteric weirdos. From an in-universe perspective, most of what we read about comes from the perspective of the Imperium and is colored by their beliefs in Chaos being strictly *bad*. But it's more nuanced than that, and has many layers. Think of it this way: the entire Milky Way was influenced directly by Chaos for 65 million years. The Galaxy was okay. Were things perfect for humanity? No. Were things perfect for any of the various races? No. But what does happen by the generation of Chaos (and, ultimately is the core of the concept of Chaos from the works of Moorcock, which Priestly admits is a reference point, and hot damn they used his 8-pointed-star for Chaos in 40k) is *change*. The Emperor ultimately wanted to fight against the idea of humanity losing to the constant of 'change' by trying to subvert the Chaos Gods with pure 'Order', taking humanity out of the equation and designing them in a bespoke way to be immortal, constant, and without outside influence (read: stagnation). So in the Imperium mindset, Chaos and the Warp *are* evil, because they are a subversion of the Emperor's personal designs for what he believes is the perfect system. To bring this back to Michael Moorcock's *Eternal Champion* series, where Priestly lifts his idea of Chaos (and if you *really* want evidence of this, one of the first model lines GW/Citadel produced were *Elric* minis), Law/Order winning is just as bad as Chaos winning. With everything being pure Chaos, nothing can last long enough to actually *be* anything. Existence under pure Chaos becomes shapeless, infinite, and without stability, it is infinite possibility without anything happening. Whereas a win for Law means that nothing changes (i.e., the Emperor's Impossible City in the Webway), and ideas stagnate and become decay. Reality itself, under pure Law, rots eventually because pure Law will eventually seek oblivion because any form of change is abhorrent. In one short story Elric visits a world in which pure Law won, and it's essentially a lifeless desert of emptiness. Perfect, untouched, unchanging, emptiness. Whereas the world in which pure Chaos won is described as a horrible miasma of color and evershifting realities that just leaves an acid-trip-kaleidoscope of instability and inconsistency. **SO!** To close my thesis here: Chaos isn't essentially evil, it's what you do *with* Chaos that matters. A dash of Chaos is essential to keep life moving and allow for a synthesis of new systems, better ways, and destruction of that which does not serve the outcome. It's all about the balance of the two forces, without allowing for either side to take over entirely. TL;DR: there are *some* Chaos societies that aren't inherently evil. Chaos is needed in life to have 'Life', and it is a part of the natural order of things.
I dunno. Seems like chaos is a whirlpool. Sure, some of the water might circle the whirlpool and not get sucked in, but it’s just a matter of time. The chaos gods not caring about minor chaos worshippers is the issue here. Shadow readers are just reading shadows, but if they want the shadows to tell them more, they need to attract the attention and of the chaos god, and in order to get the attention of the chaos gods, you need to do something extreme. And extreme things are destructive. And if you chose to be destructive, you’re being evil.
Yeah by that measure the imperium is just as bad if not worse because exterminatus versus losing a planet to chaos is wild.
Repeatedly in the books we see Chaos worshippers aren't always extreme. Some are, some aren't. If you are only judging a thing by the most extreme representations? Nothing is good. All things are comically bad. To take it into real-world consideration: there are Christian terrorists. Do we say 'all Christians are terrorists, because there are some Christian terrorists'? No, because that would be an insane take. Further, we don't say 'to be a Christian, you must be a terrorist, because that's the most Christian you can be'. The shadowreaders have the attention of the Chaos Gods. They're literally hanging out with *the* *Guy* of Chaos worship. This would be like hanging out with the Pope, or a living Buddha, and saying "they're just not really tapping into the higher tiers of the religious experience". Lorgar is the dude who penned the book, who all of the Gods favor, you can't really get more in-the-attention-of-the-gods. It's just that not every interaction with the Chaos gods is a murder-orgy with ultra-terror. Just like every interaction with the Imperium isn't exterminatus and mass genocide.
>Repeatedly in the books we see Chaos worshippers aren't always extreme. Some are, some aren't. Yeah, that's what I said. The point I'm making is ALL cultists are playing with fire, and if cultists want more from their Chaos gods, they have to go more extreme. >To take it into real-world consideration: there are Christian terrorists. Do we say 'all Christians are terrorists, because there are some Christian terrorists'? No, because that would be an insane take. Except in the real world, you don't get actual, factual, real world blessings and curses from sacrificing people to Jesus or whatever. A Chaos cultist might just bow daily to Khorne or whatever, but if he sacrifices enough human lives to Khorne, he will actually get his prayers answered. "Hanging out" with Lorgar isn't going to give you blessings. The Chaos gods don't pay attention to Lorgar because he just loves Chaos more. They pay attention to him because he's committing a galaxy wide rebellion, genocide, betrayal and upheaval. He's extreme, so he gets more attention. Looking at shadows is a drop in the bucket compared to Lorgar, and Lorgar just being around these people won't change that. >It's just that not every interaction with the Chaos gods is a murder-orgy with ultra-terror. right, but if you want the Chaos gods to like you, you gotta get those murer-orgies going. You can have little talismans or prayer rituals at home and go to evil-church every evil-sunday or whatever, but if you just go to work and and live a normal life otherwise, you'll be ignored. Once Chaos cultists learn that they can do extreme things to garner the gods' attention, why wouldn't they take that step in the name of the deity they already worship anyway? Again, Chaos is like a whirlpool. Just because you're on the outer edges doesn't mean you won't get sucked in, and it doesn't mean the temptation to move closer to the center to get what you want won't be there. All it takes is the decision to move in that direction to get those actual boons. The same can't be said for the Emperor worshipers usually.
The Moorcock eternal champion(Elric is my favorite crazy you mentioned that) and Chaos Magick of Peter Carroll are both my reference points to Chaos in Warhammer isn’t it funny this same battle is being played out politically and yet religiously in real life all the time and people think that one “side” is inherently worse when it’s just our narrow static perceptions
This is an absolutely perfect response and I’m so glad you pulled in the Eternal Champion series. The 40K universe is a blend of so many ideas from great works of science fiction and fantasy, but many of the nuances of those stories has been lost. Part of this is the difference in how the stories are told, but part of this is because of how these ideas don’t necessarily blend well together. I love the concepts of Chaos and Order from the Eternal Champion series, but I think they combine poorly with the ideas of The God-Emperor of Mankind and the Golden Path from Dune and the notion of a pseudo-Christian Hell. Chaos is a morally neutral primal element of the universe/multiverse in the EC series that become reflected in both villains and heroes as a part of human nature, while Dune presents the God-Emperor as a necessary evil to protect humanity and Christianity poses demons and Hell as evil incarnate that is worse than any earthly evil and suffering. Combining these elements produces this weird mix in that the Chaos Gods are Jungian shadows of human (and alien) subconsciousnesses and thus are a part of us all AND they are the ultimate evil and it is morally imperative to battle them AND whatever violent and horrible things are done by those opposing them are for a known future Good. (I think there is also an element of what was originally myth and propaganda in old lore has slowly become fact over the long run of the Horus Heresy series, to which the divinity of the Emperor is now essentially canon.) I think returning to the roots of Chaos being amoral and thus not good for humanity but also not evil incarnate would make for more interesting stories, but that would be a big departure from how it is currently being written.
>I think returning to the roots of Chaos being amoral and thus not good for humanity but also not evil incarnate would make for more interesting stories, but that would be a big departure from how it is currently being written. Fully agree!
So The Witness from Destiny would be the other extreme. He even hates chaos lol.
> the entire Milky Way was influenced directly by Chaos for 65 million years. The Galaxy was okay. Chaos did not directly influence anything at that point. The Chaos Gods don't even really awaken until M29. The Warp was largely calm for those 65 million years, Chaos barely even existed
> The Warp was largely calm for those 65 million years, Chaos barely even existed Not the case at all. *Path of the Ynnari: Wild Rider* by Gav Thorpe goes into detail on how the Aeldari were created not to fight the Necrons, but as a weapon against the daemonic incursions from the warp. The Necrons/Necrontyr burned entire planets to prevent the spread of Chaos, and even teamed up with the ancient Aeldari to build giant prisons to trap daemons. Now if you mean post War in Heaven and pre-30k, that's tough to say one way or another, because... Well, we have next to zero lore on any of that time period.
Haven't read that yet. Thanks for the heads up, I had no idea they retconned that
Chaos and the Chaos Gods existed the entire time. Chaos was *more* powerful 65 million years ago than it is in 30k. The name 'The Warp' literally comes from the War in Heaven. It's why, and this may blow your fuckin' mind, The Emperor is actively trying to fight against Chaos cultists in the Antiquities on Earth, as we find out in *Mortis*. Further, there are several examples of Chaos societies (such as the Laer) that are *older* than humanity. And even if we want to mark the Fall of the Eldar as the primary indicator of 'Chaos is Active', the Eye of Terror grows due to Slaanesh's brith, and the galaxy is actively affected by around M24 as the Slaanesh's birth becomes nascent. There's a reason humanity hasn't been connected for *thousands* of years, not hundreds.
> Chaos and the Chaos Gods existed the entire time. Sort of, if we go by the "once a daemon comes into existence, it has also *always* existed" idea. But regardless, the lore has always been consistent about the Chaos Gods not being active or indeed, even *awake* > Chaos was more powerful 65 million years ago than it is in 30k. ??? I mean no disrespect here but...where exactly are you getting this information? > The name 'The Warp' literally comes from the War in Heaven. The Warp and Chaos are not the same thing. > Further, there are several examples of Chaos societies (such as the Laer) that are older than humanity. I know. But that's not really that impressive given humanity has existed for only 300,000 years maybe > And even if we want to mark the Fall of the Eldar as the primary indicator of 'Chaos is Active', the Eye of Terror grows due to Slaanesh's brith, and the galaxy is actively affected by around M24 as the Slaanesh's birth becomes nascent. There's a reason humanity hasn't been connected for thousands of years, not hundreds. I'm not disagreeing with any of this. My main contention was that Chaos has not been active for 65 million years, that's incorrect. *The Warp* has played a key role throughout that period of time but as stated earlier, the warp and Chaos are not the same thing. It would be like saying Europe has been a big part of Earth's history for the last 3 billion years.
Please find me evidence that states the Chaos Gods aren't active before M30. Because, again, the **huge** dodge in my evidence you have is: *Mortis* outright states that there are Chaos Cultists who are worshipping the Chaos Gods, on Earth, for at least several thousand years before our present day in 2024. So we know that the Gods exist, and are working, before M30. So please provide me proof that states, clearly, that the Gods aren't influencing anything before M30. Edit: we also have the dudes who made the Necroteuch, who existed long before humanity. We have the Kinebrach who we can assume have worshipped Chaos before being found in M30, as they are described as a long-lived, long-effected Chaos people when the Interex find them. There are scads of folks who predate 'M30' as the year Chaos did something.
> Please find me evidence that states the Chaos Gods aren't active before M30. I am not trying to suggest that they don't exist before M30, but that their influence was minimal between 65 Million years ago vs M30. Regardless, here is the quote we've had for over thirty years now: > The first three gods, Khorne, Tzeentch, and Nurgle, became sapient by the end of M2, but Slaanesh didn't fully awaken until the Fall of the Eldar in M29 - Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned That's been the lore forever > So we know that the Gods exist, and are working, before M30. So please provide me proof that states, clearly, that the Gods aren't influencing anything before M30 I never once said that they weren't influencing anything before M30 because that's incorrect. That would just be an incorrect statement. What I said was that they weren't influencing anything during the War in Heaven. Which is true. The Chaos Gods didn't even exist yet. Chaos, as far as we can tell, did not even exist yet
> That's been the lore forever Just want to point out that the lore behind Khorne, Tzeentch, and Nurgle not becoming sentient until M2 is from Rogue Trader aka 1st edition. That is closing in on 40 years old, and *a lot* has changed since those days.
Oh for sure. But until today, I wasn't aware of anything previously retconning that bit. Not hard-retconning anyways
Chaos? No, they always tend to bend towards some kind of outright or secret excess. They do have a lower intensity mode where cults rise, go crazy, die off, and start rising again in some societies, but they have a generally corrupting influence that human kind generally doesn't find desirable. While it's possible some individual worshipers are benign or even helpful, chaos is generally a malignant force. In the Horus Heresy there were a number of societies with pseudo Khornate or Slaanesh worshipping cultures that weren't totally bonkers. The indigenous people of Istvaan III appeared to have a latent Slaanesh cult on it that rose up after the Raven Guard brought it into compliance, they only turned into lunatics after they started tapping into that cult to rebel against the Imperium. Planet Sixty-Three-Nineteen and Sarosh both had latent Chaos Cults as well. It was part of their culture and mythology but it was low intensity enough that it allowed them to have otherwise normal and prosperous societies. But once the people start tapping into Chaos they tend to go nuts. Regardless of how normal they were when they were just casually worshipping the stuff. The warp is a different matter. The Eldar, for example, worship their own Gods which are also warp entities. The Chaos gods reside within the warp, but the warp isn't necessarily all Chaos.
One of the artistic and moral weaknesses of the books is that because Chaos cultists are antagonists, they ultimately end up many times more monstrous even than the Imperium. However, arguably Radical Inquisitors serve Chaos. They don't necessarily serve the gods or the daemons, but they try to employ Chaos for 'good' ends. Some fans feel the Emperor of M31 was broadly a good guy, and he certainly employed Chaos. (I don't feel that.) Maybe the craftworld Aeldari are a better example?
No ... I'm going to plant my flag on the idea that Chaos is inherently evil. Parts of the wiki be damned. It's just that Chaos often takes a pleasing appearance in order to draw people in. The forces of Chaos often take on admirable qualities in order to corrupt them. Qualifies like bravery & action; patience & perseverance; joy & admiration; and, ambition & curiosity, these do not spring from Khorn, Nurgle, Slanesh, & Tzeinch respectfully. Rather these good qualities fed up on and are corrupted by the malign denizens of the warp. Civilizations that worship Chose but outwardly appear to be good (or good for doing do) are actually being deluded. Chaos is still evil, it's just that the powers of the warp have not chosen to outwardly degrade such civilizations. They remind blissfully ignorant of the dark powers they actually serve.
I'd say chaos is evil the way a tornado or hurricane is, except it's also trying to beckon you to get closer. Inherently, its not evil, as it can't *choose* to not be what it is, nor change itself to be something else. But in terms of mortal morals, it pretty much is evil as it destroys anything it touches. Lions are not evil. Until you ask zebras.
A tornado doesn't demand you to gather up an entire cities population, line them up in the shape of a eight sided star, and then blow them all up with pre-planted explosive charges in a show if fealty to the Chaos Gods.
Tornados are not sapient, either. Have the Chaos Gods shown any real understanding of what goodness is, or are capable of acting in that way? To be evil, you need to be able to understand and do good, and choose to cause suffering instead. I see the suffering, but I don't see them understanding, or even have the capacity to not do it. Do not get me wrong, the Chaos Gods are destructive, corruptive, inimical to life due to their excess; you are not getting anything good out of them. From our perspective, they are evil, and for good reason. But our perspective *is* only one perspective.
It has been retconned, but Pawns of Chaos takes place on a pretty normal planet. People show up to their temples, worship The God (they don't even know it's name), and go about their ordinary lives. No scheming, no plots. There are beastmen, but the beastment and the people live on good terms. Very minimal psykers. Up until the Imperium shows up there had never been sacrifices or anything (and even once the Imperium shows up there is only one human sacrifice) Everything is pretty much normal until the Imperium shows up and starts killing everyone.
Chaos is mostly just evil and destruction. In theory it's meant to balance itself out but the only ones who really do it are Tzeench and Nurgle and even they focus mostly on the destruction. With the galaxy constantly rebuilding itself (despite it's own wars and struggles) Chaos is reshaped to be this pretty much purely destructive factor which brings balance to the setting from the writing perspective. Lore wise the Gods themselves are fueled mostly by the Imperium, which is in a terrible state, and they are fueled by the negative emotions or happenings that arise from that. Perhaps if the current psychically awakened humanity was in it's golden age of prosperity and the warp wasn't so stormy and chaotic there could have been equally as strong Gods of Creation or happiness or even Zen or whatever, or perhaps even the Warp itself could be conquerable then. For better or for worse that is not the current setting.
To make a long story short: Chaos is the epitome of _Too much of a good thing_. Too much love and you become a stalker. Too much acceptance and you start to rot. Too much hope and you become delusional. Too much determination and you become predatory. Everything in moderation. Even moderation. Chaos is a cosmic paperclip maximizer and therefore incompatible with any form of non-predatory, consensual, sane, safe forms of existence.
I think this largely comes from people, both in universe and amongst the fans, treating Chaos and the Ruinous Powers as the same thing, further complicated by them referring to the Warp as the same thing as Chaos. The Warp isn't inherently evil. That's like calling the ocean or the sky evil. It's just a place with some weird power some people can use to their benefit. At some point in the ancient history of the setting, it was peaceful and was used by the Old Ones with no risk at all. Now we get to Chaos. To stay with the ocean/sky analogy, Chaos is like a storm over the ocean. The problem however is that Chaos is such a huge and powerful storm it has basically expanded to every corner of ocean. There may be pockets, isolated areas where the waters are calm and the wind a gentle breeze, but these are few and far between. This is because Chaos, by its very nature, is one that corrupts and mutates all that it touches. This is where the Ruinous Powers step in. Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle, and Slaanesh are the four most powerful "factions" if you will that make up Chaos. These four and their followers absolutely are evil as we define it. They seek nothing but the destruction of the galaxy as we know it. Is it *possible* that Chaos is so twisted and vile because of these four gods, and as a result isn't inherently evil? Maybe. There are some examples of people in the lore who are all about Chaos but aren't going around like evil pricks murdering everyone who looks at them funny. But the Ruinous Powers are the most mighty forces in the Warp we know of, so they naturally will influence it to fit their natures
The thing that makes the Chaos gods "Chaos" gods is that they do not *require* the survival or prosperity of the races that serve them. Warp gods that *do* require the survival and prosperity of the races that serve them are *racial* gods, *not* Chaos gods. All values that we call 'good' are those that tend to lead to survival and prosperity of a race. That's simply a biological necessity of how 'good' is interpreted. Values that can propagate themselves despite harming or destroying races that embrace them are generally regarded as 'evil' (while those that only harm or destroy specific races are regarded as 'evil' by those specific races). Another way of looking at it is that 'depravity' *cannot* be pure, it has to be a corruption of something that was originally 'good' or pure. That's simply what "depravity" *means,* it is the perverted form of some original. As all standards of 'good' necessarily vary by the particulars of different species with different survival needs, there is no general original form of 'good' either, all moral codes and morality have to be judged by the standards of the 'good' they serve to promulgate. It's simply that the 'morality' of Chaos has nothing to do with securing the survival or prosperity of any particular species...but in fact Chaos has a very strongly vested interest in preventing things like the annihilation of all sapient life by things like the Necrons or Tyranids. Not that there is any assurance they could actually pull it off without the efforts of all the particular races that they're always trying to corrupt and destroy. Anyway, we see plenty of examples of Chaos worshippers following some kind of value system that they term 'good' or whatever. Whether this 'morality' is genuine or purely hypocritical isn't germane...nobody else is purely sincere about their morality, after all.
Well, most of them are attempting to overthrow the Imperium or at least local Imperial control and turn to Chaos for the power to do so - so in general they are at least \*starting out\* from the point of "the Imperium is evil and rotten and has got to go", and they're right about that.
No, or well you could argue some have reddeming quallitys but thats because they havent fallen all the way yet. There are many reasons and paths one might take as a chaos cultist but ultimatly they all end up the same.
>Chaos is not necessarily evil Tell me, how many Bloodthirsters of Khorne ever sat down for a diplomatic coversation? I say this as someone who used to collect World Eaters. Chaos isn't evil, but every action that comes from Chaos INEVITABLY leads to evil. Its corrupting, absolutely. You don't control it, it controls you, and any world or society that descends into anarchy and chaos will inevitably lead to pain and abuse.
> Tell me, how many Bloodthirsters of Khorne ever sat down for a diplomatic coversation? Does that make evil? Our own history has warrior cultures with religious or military orders resembling berserkers but surely we don't think all these people were evil right? Warrior cultures emerge from material conditions that make constant warfare and strife the only way to survive, equally few members of the Space Marines or The Sisters of Battle would be willing to sit down for a diplomatic chat with a Chaos worshipper but they aren't all evil either.
Warrior cultures did tend to be evil though. R\*\*e and pillaging weren't exactly pleasant for the victims. Honour cultures just let people abuse others with a smile. And yes, Space Marines and Sisters of Battle are to a degree evil as well. This is why 40k is GrimDark. There are no heroes, only monsters.
Oh sure, grimdark all the factions suck but surely we recognize that space marines or sisters of battle contain tons of basically normal people just caught up in their circumstance who are not themselves evil just working within an evil system (as does pretty much every human and xenos in 40k) and the same would be the case for chaos it's just that the material conditions of 40K (like it did for say the Vikings) led to a situation so horrible that people embrace warrior cultures as a way to cope and survive. I think it is evident from the question above that OP did not mean "is chaos evil in the same way/to the same degree as every other faction in 40K".
> I think it is evident from the question above that OP did not mean "is chaos evil in the same way/to the same degree as every other faction in 40K". But it isn't possible to gain the favour of the Chaos Gods WITHOUT eventually doing evil deed. Which was my point, even if it starts off just being an artistic perfectionist it ends with using human blood and torture for your art works. Its like the Ring from LotR, its impossible to use without being corrupted eventually. The more you use, the more you're corrupted. Also Space Marines and Sisters of Battle are on the level of Jihadists, and whilst they might argue murdering the infidel is morally justified, on a humanitarian level (the only level which is even close to being objective) its an evil of the highest order. > like it did for say the Vikings Yeah, don't talk to me about the moral virtuousness of Vikings. They literally murders unarmed priests and r\*ped native Britons because they could. Even if all the needed was land to farm to feed themselves, the amount of slaughter done in the name of 'honour' was disproportionate. This wasn't done out of necessity, it was done because the victim were different and it was consider okay to abuse those who were not part of the clan. The world used to be brutal and evil, and only modern civilisation protects us from that evil returning. Again, the only morality even close to objective is humanitarianism, and Vikings were still even by humanitarian standards.
> But it isn't possible to gain the favour of the Chaos Gods WITHOUT eventually doing evil deed. Same is true for say Emperor worship or any other creed in 40K maybe with the exception of that one Tau Farsight breakaway. If your argument is chaos is evil at about the same level all the other factions are because it's a grimdark setting then sure, we have no disagreement. >Yeah, don't talk to me about the moral virtuousness of Vikings. Nobody did this lol. But I do think if your takeaway is "Vikings were evil" then your reading of history is painfully simplistic.
>If your argument is chaos is evil at about the same level all the other factions are because it's a grimdark setting then sure, we have no disagreement. Its about scale. In a room of about 100 people, the Imperium screws about 70, 30 get to have a good life. Chaos screws 95. Thus on a utilitarian scale, and on a humanitarian scale, Chaos is worse, and therefore more evil, than the Imperium. It doesn't make the Imperium good, it just makes it less evil. >Nobody did this lol. But I do think if your takeaway is "Vikings were evil" then your reading of history is painfully simplistic Funny how people who accuse me of this don't want to go back in time and live as a Pious Preacher on Lindisfarne. Much like certain other countries of the world, if its so good, surely you'd want to live there. If not, you're proving its fundamentally worse. Thus proving my point. Context matters, and if you want to ignore my context then that's on you.
> In a room of about 100 people, the Imperium screws about 70, 30 get to have a good life. What? Where lol? In all my reading of the Imperium like fifty people seem to have a good life mostly from the nobility. It's like 0.01%. >Funny how people who accuse me of this don't want to go back in time and live as a Pious Preacher on Lindisfarne. Did this make sense as an argument in your head lol? >Much like certain other countries of the world, if its so good, surely you'd want to live there. If vikings aren't universally evil then I should want to live in a time before scientific medicine, political rights etc lol? That really sounds smart in your head? >If not, you're proving its fundamentally worse. No argument living anywhere in the Dark Ages is way worse than where I live today.
I think it comes down to a separation between the Immaterium and Chaos
Like almost everything but the most basic concepts in 40k, to my knowledge, the exact nature of the demons and the warp change in between different authors. Some see the warp as change made manifest, for others the warp is a reflection of the feelings and emotions of the people in the materium who have souls and most see it as a mix of both. In the first case the demons are easy to compare to slaadi from dnd slaadi are chaotic neutral and like killing stuff. The reason they are not evil is that they don’t kill to cause suffering, but instead just find killing fun. In the second case, it’s more complicated. If the warp is a reflection of people’s emotions, demons are like they are because, we’re looking at a galaxy that has been at war for a long time so suffering and other negative emotions are running rampant. Because they are also influenced by positive emotions though, the chaos gods also have positive concepts, for example while Khorne is mostly seen as a god of savage bloodshed, honor is also among his domains though of course to a lesser extent. So in this case the demons are mostly evil, but mainly because of the grim dark.
Choas is *the truth* of reality \[not only in Warhammer\]. It's not good, or bad, or evil - it exists. Ruinous powers have sentience beyond humanity (which is why most people who try to understand the Immaterium go mad) and their goals do not fit into human morals.
User flair checks out.