Shade daemon?

Today I was reading my codex and came up on something I have never heard of before. on page 10 under inward to core 2nd paragrath it says of a realm in commaragh were it has gone under shadow called Aelindrach were loads of mandrakes are and that there might be a portal to a world of shade daemons. does anyone have any more info on them?

Wel Commaragh is a realm in the webway wich runs trough the warp. It is possible for realms to cross eachother so the Aelindrach district exists in the realm of commaragh and the mandrake realm (not the real name). This is not a real portal but rather an overlapping piece of reality, a transition zone.
The origine of mandrakes isn't sure but it could be that they're warp creatures. Like the many creatures tammed by beast masters.
By the way Kheradruakh is trying to make things worse by making his cool dais thing with skulls. His fluff states that it will open a portal to a place beyond the shadows where the mandrakes and their allies live.

So in short the mandrakes live in a shadow realm. this realm overlaps with commaragh in the Aelindrach district.

This is what I can make of it, but I might as well be wrong

@up
You arent, Its just as you say. Maybe FW will make "shadow" creatures aka mandrake parents as playable unit ehhh...I bet they wont but its nice to dream.

that would be awesome , but on topic, ivaldir covered it

to me it just sounds like the warp. As we know the webway lies between the Empyean and realspace, so it does point that mandrakes have sided with Chaos, or atleast some denizens of the warp (not all are Chaos spawned) that being said, who knows what they are up to. Its GW using open ended stuff again just to keep us speculating.

I know I posted it on this forum somewhere, but I really don't want the Mandrakes to simply become "Chaos did it". It's been left vague, and should either be left that way, or as I like it, have it as some other force, the Utterdark, the Void Beyond Reality, at the furthest reaches of the Webway, where it goes past both reality and aethyr.
Yes, I know it probably won't ever be official (i.e. never), but damn if it doesn't sound cool.



...Ok, maybe I'm kinda a fan of the Lasombra too...

Creatures that live in the warp or other dimensions aren't necessarily allied to chaos.
Creatures tamed by the beastmasters come from planes that exist out of realspace but they aren't a part of the chaos legions. They are just beings living in a strange place XD

ivaldir wrote:

Creatures that live in the warp or other dimensions aren't necessarily allied to chaos.
Creatures tamed by the beastmasters come from planes that exist out of realspace but they aren't a part of the chaos legions. They are just beings living in a strange place XD

The Warp is Chaos though. If it makes you better, change the phrase to "I don't want everything to be answered by 'the Warp did it'." Yes, not everything in the Warp is related to the Chaos Gods, but it's still Chaos. The two are indivisible.

Ok point taken XD

Aroshamash wrote:

The Warp is Chaos though. If it makes you better, change the phrase to "I don't want everything to be answered by 'the Warp did it'." Yes, not everything in the Warp is related to the Chaos Gods, but it's still Chaos. The two are indivisible.

I'll have to disagree with you there. From what I got out of the older fluff, 'Chaos' is the part of the Warp that as been affected/contaminated by the psychic effects of physical beings. The implication being that the Empyrean existed before life began and will remain when all material life is extinguished.

Granted, that might be just a Cthulhu fan reading a bit more than was intended into old background. But the idea that the Warp is not all Chaos does explain the reference to Warp Entities older than and resentful of the Chaos Gods in the 3rd Edition Chaos Space Marine Codex.

Nope, all of the Warp is a blend of one or more of the 4 Chaos Gods. Probably the best way of thinking about is the Warp is an ocean with 4 corners. Each of those corners is one of the Chaos Gods. At each of the corners, and a fair chunk of the surrounding area, the "sea" is purely composed of each God, and within these "seas" are whirlpools, which are the Gods. For example, Khorne is both a specific God (the "whirlpool" at the very corner of Rage), but Khorne is also all Rage. Khaine is another whirlpool, incredibly close to the corner, but he was "evicted" by Khorne after the Fall. As you get further away from each corner, the "seas" start blending together (which is where you find the more "normal" gods, with a more complex base, like agricultural deities, and so on), with the centre being a perfect blend. That's how the Warp "works".

The Warp cannot exist without life. It's the emotional and psychic energy of the mortal realm. All emotions tie back, no matter how distantly, to the Chaos Gods. How you're getting confused is that the extremes of emotions that are the current Chaos Gods didn't always exist.

@up
Now you are wrong. Good post but you messed up with last statment. They existed, always, before time was time....or to be specific since first animal/xeno/ect was capable of being angry or frighten.

Warp=Chaos, but there are some "creatures" that arent demons in warp ie. enslavers.

Aroshamash wrote:

Nope, all of the Warp is a blend of one or more of the 4 Chaos Gods. Probably the best way of thinking about is the Warp is an ocean with 4 corners. Each of those corners is one of the Chaos Gods. At each of the corners, and a fair chunk of the surrounding area, the "sea" is purely composed of each God, and within these "seas" are whirlpools, which are the Gods. For example, Khorne is both a specific God (the "whirlpool" at the very corner of Rage), but Khorne is also all Rage. Khaine is another whirlpool, incredibly close to the corner, but he was "evicted" by Khorne after the Fall. As you get further away from each corner, the "seas" start blending together (which is where you find the more "normal" gods, with a more complex base, like agricultural deities, and so on), with the centre being a perfect blend. That's how the Warp "works".

The Warp cannot exist without life. It's the emotional and psychic energy of the mortal realm. All emotions tie back, no matter how distantly, to the Chaos Gods. How you're getting confused is that the extremes of emotions that are the current Chaos Gods didn't always exist.

Incorrect. The Warp is not a blend of the 4 Chaos Gods at all. The warp existed and was calm long before the chaos gods, or indeed any malign warp-entities. They just have power over certain parts of it, and there are random unaligned daemons wandering about the place. The warp was thrown into turmoil by the anguish of the physical races caused by the Necrontyr rampage, their extreme emotions turning it from a gentle stream to a roiling storm.

Now, read my post again, and tell me where I said the Warp is only ever a mix of Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch and Slaanesh. I specifically state that Khorne is just a specific God, but that at the moment, he's the most powerful, so has "sovereignty" over Rage as a whole, for example. Before Khorne came along, there was Khaine as the dominant Rage-vortex, and the Warp was more peaceful than now. Before Khaine, there was something else, but as like is attracted to like within the Warp, the seperation of emotions would always have existed, even when they weren't as extreme. This is what the Realms books imply, and what the Liber Chaotica, Hordes of Chaos and MvS states.

Yes, there exist beings in the Warp that are so "general" as to not fall directly under the sway of any of the Vortices, like the Enslavers, but they're still comprised of the same energy. They're simply in the "centre of the compass", as it were.

In summary, the Warp is a blend of Rage, Despair, Lust and Hope. Currently, each of those domains is most strongly influenced by Khorne, Nurgle, Slaanesh and Tzeentch, but they weren't always. At one point, those 4 points were incredibly dormant, but they still existed. However, they are the most "primal" of emotions, hence why the Warp has formed 4 Gods.

Aroshamash wrote:

Nope, all of the Warp is a blend of one or more of the 4 Chaos Gods.

Right there.


Also, don't forget Malice, god of hate, anarchy and terror. I'm amazed Malice is a 'minor' chaos god, considering how prominent fear and hate must be in 40k.


Also, no-one knows what exactly the Eldar gods were. We know they obviously existed within the warp to some extent, but what they are exactly we're not sure, it's all very interesting. This is even more curious considering that when the Avatars are destroyed they don't return to the warp like most daemons, but return to the craftworld.

Poor Poor Malice... he has been forgotten in all but the fan's hearts

The problem being is that the Eldar Pantheon has not been fully explained. Some say they were actual Old Ones, and that stuff like Khaine is a manifestation of their imprint on the warp, Or They were Old Ones, and the Eldar worshiped them, and created the Warp Beings that became their gods. All that we know is that they can actually effect the physical world (Avatar, Cogearch's meddling) Just like all the "gods" (The 4 chaos gods, Gork and Mork)

I did not like Liber Chaotica, and its "All is One" Feel to it. To me it feels like a cop-out and trying to say Chaos is Everliving. True, it is, but there are other beings that dont have to be alligned to them, as have been shown in recent and previous fluff.

What are Anarchy, Hate and Terror except for elements of Rage and Despair, with elements of Lust and Hope thrown in for Anarchy (the looting and those who philosophically agree with it)?

I hate to say it, Shadows Revenge, but the Liber Chaotica isn't alone in the "All is One" angle. I'll say it again, people are fixating too much on "Rage = Khorne", when it's actually "Rage = mostly Khorne, but also Gork, Mork, Khaine, the Redemption's image of the Emperor, war-gods of the various minor Xenos races, and every other emotion that is even loosely to do with Rage, right down to 'mild irritation', 'martial honour' and so on". Enslavers are such a mixed blend of the various emotions that the influence of any of the 4 isn't really noticable, other than them being both comprised of Warp energy.

Anyways, I suppose no-one's going to be convincing each other any time soon, so let's just agree to disagree. It's the nature of 40k, everyone can find sources backing their own view.

Now if I remember my fluff, the Emporer is a completely seperate power outside the warp. Any and all acts of faith/belief is supposeably done by him (and I dont mean just in the propoganda sorta of way, I mean actually him) Like the BA guy getting over the Black Rage, and become the badass that is Mephiston. But if I remember his power is outside of the warp right??? or can anyone give me evidence otherwise???

And Khaine is seperate from Khorne, yet they're both Rage. The Emperor has a seperate identity within the Warp, but the God-Emperor is still a Warp-entity, and therefore comprised of Warp energy, which inherently polarises into Rage, Lust, Despair and Hope. Personally, the God-Emperor seems like a perfect balance of Despair with Hope, with some Rage thrown in, for some good old-fashioned xenophobia.

The Warp-Emperor is a very different thing to the physical Emperor, in that the Warp-Emperor is shaped by the worship, imagery and expectations of an entire galaxy. After all, the physical Emperor was a staunch atheist who denied he was a God, yet the God-Emperor is very much a god, and answers prayers and so on. Why? Because the Imperium believes the God-Emperor protects his people and answers their prayers, so the Warp-Emperor has been shaped to reflect that, regardless of what the "original" Emperor was like.
Of course, whether they're actually two different Warp-presences, or whether the soul/s of the actual Emperor has been changed over time, we'll never know. Personally, I like the idea that if the Emperor is ever reborn, his "soul" born into another host, then it won't have the same memories or what-have-you of the original, because that's not what he's been shaped to be. The Self has been consumed by the Role. Even if the physical-Emperor is somewhere within it, his memories are only one of countless thousands of "origin stories" of the Emperor that have been told over the generations.

As for the Eldar gods, I take the same approach as the Emperor. Originally, there might have been an actual Khaine-the-Old-One for example, who was worshipped/revered/honoured by the original Eldar. However, over time the ways the Eldar saw their God, and how they remembered the original Khaine, came to differ drastically from what it was actually like. Perhaps he was originally simply the Old One that led the Eldar into battle against the Necrons, nothing more. However, what came to pass is that Khaine was remembered for his place leading the Eldar to war, until that became the focal part of his remembrance. Other aspects of his memories got lost to time, subtly altered and twisted. Maybe Eldanesh was an Eldar who disagreed with one of Khaine's plans, and got cut down for his insubordination, which over time has been changed into the current myth. By the time of 30k, the memories had been completely consumed by the invented myths and legends of the Eldar. Khaine is no longer 'merely a general', with Eldanesh being the subordinate who got cut down. Khaine is the God of War, and Eldanesh the warrior he cut down in his hatred of the Eldar.
After all, within the Warp, the Gods essentially become self-fulfilling prophecies. A deity is seen in a particular way, and is shaped by those expectations, and comes to reflect them, which only serves to strengthen the views of the mortals, which shapes the Gods, which reinforces the myth, which shapes the Gods, and so on and so forth.

Hmm... good point, but If I remember right (old fluff ofc, so could of been retcon by now) that the Emporer is in fact a warp entity to begin with (that being made of say... several thosand souls) reincarnated into human form. So there being a physical Emporer (the one on the Golden Throne) and a warp created one by his followers is highly doubtful, but in fact its his soul/power doing it.

And ofc I wish they explained the Old Ones/ Eldar Pantheon thingy, but its part of the game, we fill in our own stories

My point was that A) the Warp comes to reflect our expectations, as that colours the emotions, so to speak, and B) the God-Emperor acts in ways completely opposite to what he was like back then. You also have the fact that he's more powerful now than back then, because he's been strengthened by the belief, worship and souls of 10,000 years of fanatics. That sort of thing would tend to fit in with A), to put it lightly. My point was more that the Emperor has been changed from what he used to be.