Discussion Asuryan and Chotek

I've been pondering Warhammer metaphysics then the End Times put the kibash on my musing then Age of Sigmar beat the corpse. Here's the cliff notes version I came up with.

The Four Chaos god are too chaotic to manifest their will directly on the physical plane. The innate Order in the world is anathema to them. They need corrupted mortals to do the heavy lifting though they can manifest lesser daemons in the physical world for brief periods of time when the Winds of Magic are just right.

The Old Ones are in a sense literally too good for this world. There is too much Chaos in the world for them to manifest their will directly on the physical plane. They left partially because of this and partially as part of some political/metaphysical/military move beyond the understanding of the mortals. By distancing themselves they forced the four Chaos gods to distance themselves from the physical plane though that has been slowly eroding.

To shepherd the mortals and not abandon them completely. The Old Ones created the "New Ones." The New Ones are essentially children of Chaos and Order. The idea was by incorporating a tiny amount of Chaos into the essence of the Old Ones, it would create gods who would serve Order with just enough Chaos to make them adaptable. Also it would serve as inoculation. By incorporating a tiny bit of Chaos into their essence, the New Ones would build up a tolerance to let them withstand Chaos corruption. These New Ones were mostly vague concepts until they latched on to specific mortal races and shaped themselves based on the hopes and fears of pockets of mortals. For instance the being now called Sigmar used to be an abstract god of justice, courage, and valor. He latched on to the legend of the mortal Sigmar to define itself better and gain power from the Empire's worshippers. The Assuryan are similar.

The problem is some of the New Ones had too much Chaos in their recipe. Either because the Old Ones screwed up or because the Chaos Gods interfered. This created New Ones that don't seem to have much Order in them. Gork and Mork, the Great Horned Rat, the Great and Hashut.

Khaine and possibly Sotek (the only Lizardmen New One) represent close to 50/50 mixes.

I'm still musing over how much power mortal belief has in shaping the gods and how much power the gods have in shaping mortal belief.

I have a brief outline for the Scalenex End Times. The Four Chaos gods each manage to manifest in the physical world via great acts of ritual and destruction. This breaks the safeguards put in place by the Old Ones and the New Ones all spill into the physical world. Problem is most of the New Ones show up far away from their worshippers and thus at a fraction of their strength.

As soon as people and gods alike figure out that the gods are vulnerable alone and gain strength from being in the proximity of their worshippers, this creates a mad dash as various armies fight to literally reclaim their gods or to destroy or waylay their foes.

Example, Sigmar shows up in the Southlands and he needs to rely on Lizardmen to help him get back to the Empire. Sotek shows up in the Mountains of Mourn and pretty much has to fight his way to his people, but he decided he'd rather go find the Great Horned Rat and eat him then go help the First. Gork and Mork showed up far away from each other and the nearest greenskin. They aren't clever enough to realize they should seek out Orcs and Goblins and instead just start attacking everything in sight.

Maybe it's because I've been reading a lot of Rick Riordan lately but I believe the gods would not generally be what their followers picture. In a lot of cases, they are pretty irked at their own followers for misapplying their philosophies and teachings.

Anyway, long story short. I think Assuryan would be the closest to the Old Ones in power, outlook (and remoteness)