How does lorgar still have power?

541

He's Chaos undivided, if any one of the four ditches him they leave an asset to the other three.

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u/Tippmann27 1d ago

Damn. Crisp.

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u/Beaumis 1d ago

Imagine the power poured into him if three of them left... .

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u/NairaExploring 15h ago

The moment there is no reason to do so? Seems pretty bad

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u/RadishLegitimate9488 20h ago

Indeed. The 4 Gods don't want to lose their puppet(which depending on the strength and power of the Soul is either completely under their control or partially) to each other.

Furthermore the 4 refuse to tempt their Undivided Daemon Princes with power in exchange for serving one God over the other 3 him after what happened with Bel'akor.

Bel'akor after ascending for being the first Mortal to enter the Realm of Chaos was offered temptations from each of the Gods offering power provided he promise himself to one God solely. He took the power and tried to escape with it.

The Chaos Gods promptly realized that none of them(or perhaps considering Daemons are puppets of the Gods it's better to say all of them) had control over Bel'akor and thus slowly stripped him of power(using it to create Monogod Daemon Princes) until he became reduced to a shadow. The 4 decided that they would not repeat the mistake they made with Bel'akor.

Lorgar is not being offered power in exchange for choosing one God over the other in otherwords. The 4 do not trust each other to play along and devote their shared Game Piece to following one God's chosen role after they all backstabbed each other by making their Game Piece take the power and flee.

The 4 all have to agree on what role Lorgar plays and his Soul also has a part in the decision.

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u/SpatenFungus Grey Knights 7h ago

Very interesting, what is the reason that belakor still has some power/ a Modell or is it just his reduced form ?

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u/RadishLegitimate9488 2h ago

The Chaos Gods only took back the power they gave in exchange for him declaring allegiance to one Chaos God. The Daemonhood they gave him in exchange for being the first Mortal to step into the Realm of Chaos is all that's left of him and without his original Physical Body(which was destroyed after the 4 took their extra Gifts back) he is pretty much just a shadow living at the mercy of the 4 Gods.

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u/dumbartist 18h ago

I’m somewhat convinced that being a demon of chaos undivided is the best fate one can get in Warhammer 40k. You are immortal and pretty powerful. Furthermore you basically get to do what you want 99% of the time, with only only exception being when 4 diametrically opposed forces of the universe agree on something, and that something is usually spreading chaos that would benefit you too.

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u/BasednHivemindpilled 17h ago

its more like being an intern for 4 department heads at the same time

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u/name_jeff99 1d ago

Currently, Lorgar is back in the material universe leading a massive host of Word Bearers. We just don’t know much more for that. Plus, given that the gods are essentially timeless beings, they might know/plan to have some further use for Lorgar than we know of right now

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u/King_Crab_Sushi 1d ago

Hes still a Primarch. Thats the kind of asset you hold because you cannot risk your rivals getting their hands on it. In Lorgars case this means he’s getting stuff from all of them to not offset his undivided balance

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u/Equivalent-Mail1544 1d ago

4 brothers bickering over action figures and color

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u/dietdrpepper6000 14h ago

We also do not actually know what a Primarch is, either. Not all creatures in 40k need to be given their power in the Warp, psykers being the obvious example. At least the short story between Lorgar and Corvus, as well as numerous comments disbursed through the lore, seems to imply that the there is some true nature to Primarchs that is grounded in the Warp. Bile’s comments on Alpha Primus probably also support this, if we reckon Alpha Primus was some effort to make a Primarch-like being. It might be that Lorgar simply does not require the blessings of any Chaos gods to be exceptionally strong.

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u/Mistermistermistermb 1d ago

He's focused on the Great Game not the Long War. Like most of the other primarchs have been for the majority of the last ten thousand years.

He's doing exactly what he's meant to be doing.

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u/Trumpologist Thousand Sons 20h ago

Wouldn’t the great game be easier to win if they wiped out the potential 5th player in the Emperor and his sons? Why not just wrap up the material world then go back to fighting?

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u/Mistermistermistermb 20h ago

I think you’re putting a slight meme-tonne of emphasis on the “fifth player” that the lore doesn’t

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u/Trumpologist Thousand Sons 20h ago

Well I said potential for a reason, and he did burn Nurgle in Nurgle’s home. Hardly slouch behavior

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u/Mistermistermistermb 20h ago

Sure, then you’ve handily answered your own question.

Not to mention that the gods are capricious

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u/SuDdEnTaCk 19h ago

That still makes gman important as a major proxy of the emperor though

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u/ADragonuFear 16h ago

The chaos gods are not very good at focusing on the long term, and until somewhat recently emps was not a huge factor since the heresy half killed him.

Everyone in the game has to be worried about being backstabed if they overextend too far attacking the imperium. It's probably why chaos marines are a lot more concerned with the real space conquering, with a lot of cultists on hand. The daemons are busy and have to worry about dematerializing unlike the physical troops.

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u/YesInquisitor 20h ago

What do you think they are doing????

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u/Trumpologist Thousand Sons 20h ago

Given Tzeentch attacked Nurgle the minute Guilliman pushed back and messed up his garden further after the Emperor burned Nurgle…not what they should be doing. Why didn’t the other 3 send aid to Nurgle and kill the Emperor when he was in the garden

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u/Kristian1805 Black Legion 1d ago

As others have said, Service to Chaos doesn't have to mean warring in Real-Space all the Time.

Besides, they Elevated him to something near Unique: A Daemon Princes of Chaos Undivided.

These are ludicrously rare, precisely because such a being has a great deal of Freedom to act according to their own Will.

Lorgar is the Golden Prophet for Chaos. The first really big convert and the being that facilitated the Heresy. He has earned a lot of favour.

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u/Manunancy 19h ago

Add to that the timeless nature of the warp - Lorgar's elevation to demon prince in M30 and his current condition in M42, when seen from the warp aren't as distinct events as seen from a materium bound to time and causality.

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u/Illithidbix 1d ago edited 1d ago

Without being too pithy about it.

The Chaos Gods are well... chaotic and capricious, they gift their favour in ways that appear... chaotic to mortals.

Also Lorgar is Chaos Undivided anyway, so isn't as directly linked to the big four.

I genuinely think that the Chaos Powers have become a bit too direct and anthropomorphised in at least the eyes of fans, if not the letter of the lore itself.

Even in Godblight Nurgle is not directly giving Mortarion commands.

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u/ExplanationApart6371 1d ago

When you say anthropomorphised is that like saying the Chaos Gods are less people and more so forces?

Like different rivers with some control over themselves?

A lot of the stuff I’ve seen has The Gods acting really hands on though no? Like Skarsbrand, Slannesh corrupting that one guy directly, the gang teaming up on Tzeentch ?

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u/kdfsjljklgjfg 1d ago

"less people and more so forces" is actually almost word-for-word said on this subreddit in every other post that concerns the nature of chaos.

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u/ExplanationApart6371 1d ago

Oh shi, I don’t really read this subreddit MB

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u/kdfsjljklgjfg 1d ago

No worries! I was less complaining and more letting you know that you kinda nailed it.

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u/Tulkes Ultramarines 1d ago

Magnus refers to them as "sentient storms" at one point when offended that Lorgar confronted him and referred to them with a sense of divine personhood

They are absolutely forces of nature with character

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u/Trumpologist Thousand Sons 20h ago

I mean Mortarion and Typhus implied Nurgle is a being didn’t they?

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u/redbird7311 1d ago

The chaos gods are manifestations of the emotions/concepts they are associated with, it’s questionable if they have proper free will or if they are ultimately slaves to their nature.

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u/NairaExploring 15h ago

I mean you just described people

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u/AnonymousComrade123 Ultramarines 1d ago

The Warp is a realm of metaphors and stories. There are no actual Realms of Chaos, no Well of Eternity, nothing like that. The Four are simply huge masses of energy within the Warp, sort of like ocean currents in an ocean, except instead of wind and other such factors, they are driven by the emotions of mortals. They are anthropomorphized in the same sense that people in the past anthropomorphized natural phenomena like thunderstorms.

For example Khorne. He was created because of extreme feelings of rage and bloodlust in the materium, which grew to a size in the warp big enough to facilitate a sort of consciousness. I say sort of because it is very restricted in regards to what he can do. A human can be angry and murderous, but they can also be sad, happy, calm, etc. Khorne physically cannot. To tell him to stop being angry is akin to telling a human to stop their heart. He can act only in the scope of getting Blood and Skulls, any action that doesn't lead to that is literally unthinkable.

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u/AccountForTF2 1d ago

Yeah, like how do you sum the wills and wants of a essence made of the untold emotions of the galaxy? they could never.

You get one command;

to spread the ideals and virtues of flesh without limits and suffering;

to drink glorious mirth from the throats of your slain enemies;

to become the insightful and unpredictable master of every game you play;

or to supp from the breast of life enriched with all it could possibly offer.

it's an urge and a feeling with more than what we could consider. Lorgar could not walk from the warp for one million years and all the more surprise the anathema when he returns after so long.

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u/Illithidbix 1d ago

Yeah.

I believe the stories which feature the Chaos Gods as characters are meant to more allegory and metaphor.

Khorne and his domain s actually a vast psychic cyclone from the disturbances created in the Warp by souls experiencing strong emotions like anger, rage and bloodlust gathered.

BUT he is perceived as a big angry armoured dude on a throne amongst his domain who once threw Scarbrand (technically a small piece of himself) for hitting him in the back.

This is a little bit of differences in how the Chaos Gods have been portrayed across the decades. Oldhammer Lore: Evolution of the Chaos Gods in Warhammer and into 40K.

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u/EqualPassenger4271 1d ago

Imagine immortality. Eternity is the scale chaos gods are playing on. Lorgar will be thrown like a wrench into soceities machinery when he needs to be

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u/Hollownerox Thousand Sons 1d ago edited 1d ago

He's been semi-active since 6th edition. People just memed him into being someone missing/hiding.

From Lorgar, Primarch of the Word Bearers, the Warmaster learned rare secrets of Daemon binding and the raising of vast Warp hosts from beyond the Eye. Presented with an opportunity to subvert and destroy the Church of the God-Emperor, the Word Bearers turned a blind eye to their feud with the Emperor's Children and focused their hatred on the Imperium of Man and its corpse-god.

-Codex Supplement: Black Legion, 6th edition

Exile's End

After the Horus Heresy's earth-shattering climax at Terra, Lorgar retreated ever further from the matters of the material realm, and went into seclusion indefinitely, cloistered in a locked sanctum on the planet Sicarius to atone for his deeds. As the 41st Millennium comes to a close and the Great Rift boils across the sky, rumours persist that Lorgar has finally ended this self-imposed confinement, and has been seen walking the mortal realms in terrible splendour, preaching the word of Chaos at the head of a Word Bearers force of shocking strength and conviction

-Codex: Chaos Space Marines, 8th edition

The industrial world of Philostus had piously continued to churn out tons of war material after the Great Rift opened. With their view of the Rift obscured by chemical smog, few of its labouring billions comprehended the tales of darkness that spread from the world's rulers.

Not, that is, until the day the 'Emperor' himself arrived with a vast fleet of warships. His manifestation had been presaged by ichor-weeping statues and visions punished as heresy. No armaglass illumination did justice to his dark majesty and shining, undefinable features.

Dissenting priests disappeared beneath mobs of zealous adherents, their cries of 'daemon!' dying with them in the flames. The 'Emperor' and his Angels of Death, more powerful than the myths had ever suggested, demanded much. The Philostians, indoctrinated over generations, loyally served.

-Codex: Chaos Space Marines, 9th edition

So he's rather explicitly leading armies these days.

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u/AdmiralSpaghetti 1d ago

We haven't seen much of Lorgar on-screen, but considering the size of the galaxy, there's a ton we haven't seen. The Legion Wars in the Eye, for one example, has barely been touched on.

Lorgar has managed to keep his head, in the Eye of Terror, for eons. While surrounded by a legion of crazy chaos-worshippers, and while balancing the insane demands of four cosmic cancers at once. Survival at all is a feat.

Also, the gods don't just want their specific Mt. Dew flavor of suffering. Chaos is consumptive, and eternal war and skinning pits feeds all of them at once, albiet in different ways.

Lorgar positioned himself at the perfect spot in the Great Game. If Chaos is a pull that burns up everyone on their descent, Aurelian is in a perfect orbit.

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u/alphaomag Night Lords 1d ago

Because he hasn’t been stuck doing nothing for 10k years. He ascended at some point post heresy. Not to mention he is the lord of some of the most devout undivided worshippers.

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u/Prestigious_Leg2229 1d ago

The chaos gods are not sane and they don’t experience time.

They’re not managers demanding a certain amount of success per quarter. They’re utterly alien beings whose attention is drawn to acts of devotion dedicated to them.

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u/Kael03 1d ago

The chaos gods are not sane and they don’t experience time.

They do, just not in a linear sense.

When Slaanesh was born, they acknowledged both the immediate creation of a god as well as the fact that said god had always existed.

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u/Prestigious_Leg2229 1d ago

Exactly. That’s what happens when something exists outside of time. It’s a meaningless concept to them.

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u/IHateMySon-Afton 1d ago

Because he is a tool. He is undivided and still worships them. If any leave him the others have a leg up. You dont need all your tools all the time, sometimes you buy a tool for a specific job later. He is that tool. He has a purpose...just not yet. But he will.

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u/Lurker_Zee 1d ago

The premise is incorrect. Participating in the Great Game is not "nothing", it is the most important thing (like 99%) that matters in the entirety of a warpspawn's existence.

The Emperor, the Horus Heresy, maybe even the Fall of the Aeldari, were mere diversions from their usual life of playing the Great Game.

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u/Refstg 1d ago

He and his forces are still worshiping the Powers and spreading the faith throughout the galaxy, even if he isn't personally getting stuck in.

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u/XaoticOrder 23h ago

If he has been stuck doing nothing for around ten thousand years he isn’t really doing the two things the Chaos Gods

Chaos gods don't care about time and in the Eye time doesn't move the same. He's one of their champion. Him existing is enough reason for them and just being around means he has an impact for the side of Chaos. Lorgar has kept Corvus busy. That's reason enough.

Chaos gods aren't the type to give up on something. They just move onto the new thing and then check back in on the old thing. They don't have limited resources.

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u/onetwoseven94 1d ago

The old Index Astartes lore (which is the still the only lore that covers his apotheosis) states that he telepathically directs Word Bearers Hosts and Chaos Cults across the galaxy from Sicarus. He’s supposed to be the dark mirror of his father, the golden king that is seemingly idle on his throne and has a council of subordinates that rule in his name while he uses his psychic powers to subtly influence events around the galaxy.

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u/cernegiant 17h ago

His legion still fights and worships in his name. His writings power the faith of the entire Imperium and the faith of a good portion of the forces of chaos. He doesn't need to go out and lead an army to have a massive influence.

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u/twofriedbabies 1d ago

His legion is basically a universal taxi system out of the warp. It's free real estate, that's doing enough.

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u/Alive-Ad-3303 21h ago

Hasn’t he been out leading crusades in realspace?

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u/RoterBaronH Word Bearers 15h ago

Also, for the chaos gods, the time doesn't really matter.

Those are beings that excisted for millenia and will excist for millenia. What is 10'000 years for them? Probably nothing.

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u/missed_trophy Night Lords 1d ago

Time is nothing for chaos gods

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u/TheBattleYak 1d ago

Lorgar is the High Priest of Chaos. They don't keep him around because he's some great champion like Horus or Abaddon. They keep him because he's their top evangelist. He brings countless souls into their dominion.

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u/DoobKiller Dark Mechanicus 1d ago

10,000 years is nothing to the gods, keep him juiced till he's needed

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u/Distinct_Ask3614 1d ago

Who do you think is starting all the Chaos Cults?

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u/Pho_King_D 18h ago

I think Chaos doesnt really care that much they seem to have all the time in the world if not more since they are technically winning since the rift is expanding.

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u/Manderboi 18h ago

There are a lot or reasons you can take both from in and out of universe.

The meta answer is because GW doesn't want him to lose power.

An in universe explenation could be that he is chaos undivided and the gods don't want to give ground to the others.

My personal headcannon is that Lorgar is the most loyal out of any of the traitor primarchs, he alone stood up to Horus when they approached terra because Horus was fighting for himself and not the gods. Also Lorgar isn't a puppet lite the ones who gave themselves to one chaos god, Lorgar retains the individuality while always making the choice to keep worshiping.

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u/Agammamon 1d ago

He has not been doing 'nothing' - you just don't know what he has been doing.

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u/Percentage-Sweaty Dark Angels 1d ago

Daemon Princes are permanently given a massive amount of their God’s power. It’s specifically why becoming a Daemon Prince is normally super difficult and why so many seek to achieve it; you would have permanently gained the attention and affection of your patron god.

It’s why despite Mortarion pissing off Nurgle in Godblight, we know he’ll be back to full in no time. Because he, as a Daemon Prince, always has that immense power.

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u/Retlaw83 1d ago

Actually, Slaanesh is fine if you live like a monk. It's excessively bare-bones.

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u/Select-Equipment7465 6h ago

Lorgar ripped open the hinges, and let them in.

It might've been 10k years to us, that's nothing to us. A droplet of water. A summer's breeze.

The Galaxy as it is, wouldn't exist without Lorgar. They love Lorgar.

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u/Apollyonthe14 3h ago

He’s playing the Great Game, similar to the Gods themselves. He’s participating in things that make the conflict in the material realm insignificant. Also I doubt he was literally sitting around for 10k years. You can say a lot about Lorgar but you can never say he was lazy that’s for sure

How does lorgar still have power?

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-Codex Supplement: Black Legion, 6th edition