Dungeons The Dragoning Redux: The Immateriums, Chaos, Daemons and other nasties

Yes, I'll keep posting Dungeons The Dragoning 'remake' stuff because it amuses me. There is just something so stupid, so hilarious but also so liberating in just saying 'screw it, let me be silly' and imagine a universe where the basic D&D stuff co-exists with the properties of Games Workshop, White Wolf and others. This is basically the tabletop equivalent of picking your favorite toys and smashing them into each others, creating a weirdass story where Optimus Primal team up with some Pokémon and three or four Power Rangers...from different teams across several season.

Hey, look: while I was a very lucky kid when it came to toys I sadly never got to have a full Power Rangers team due to how quickly these toys went off the shelves and were replaced.

One thing I have noticed as I get older is that, paradoxically I care less and less about trying to be mature, at least not at all times. Elfgames are inherently stupid/silly and even in today's era we would still be scorned as weirdoes by anyone suitably older and un-nerdy to have no damn clue why all of a sudden the dorky stuff has entire industries built on exploiting the money of hipsters and aging neck beards alike. Its just silly, its just fun and I need to stop feeling so insecure damn it!

A Dissection of the Immaterial

The ancient form of the Immaterium, its most primordial and ancient form was not the churning chaotic mass of the Warp but rather the impossible Wyld. To most people not very well versed in the natures of the Realm of Souls it would seemingly appear as completely identical: both are chaotic endless expanses of thoughts, souls and potential matter and energy constantly churning. The Wyld still exist but it only exist in the deepest regions of the Immaterium, having been tainted and corrupted into the Chaotic expanse (note the capital C here!) of the Warp: its energies corrupted and tainted to be tinged with all the fear, madness, rage and possibly bodily fluids of countless lives collectively crapping their pants at the War in Heaven and Usurpation of the Old Ones.

The Immaterium, as a dimension, encompass the entire galaxy and far beyond it. It is composed of the following parts:

• The Ethereal Plane is the part closest to the Materium, created from the immediate thoughts of all life forms. It is a boring, grey reflection of the material world and generally isn't very useful for long distance travel. There are entities which have the ability to phase into it and switch between a material and immaterial form such as Phase Spiders. The Old Ones (and several other beings) call it The Umbra or The Shadow.
• The Shadowfell is a specific part of the Umbra which has morphed into its own thing primarily due to the use of necromancy. It can be accessed through the Ethereal Plane or the Material Plane and exist as a dark realm of death and gloom, inhabited by the fossilized form of souls: what we would call ghosts. It is also called The Underworld.
• Within the Warp are other self-contained Realms, which are often the domain of beings who have ascended to become Gods. While many beings claim to be Gods, for the purpose of this section it will refer to potent spiritual beings who have become one with the Immaterium but are distinct from Daemons.
• Around and constantly gnawing at these parts of the Immaterium is the infamous Warp, which is the corrupted and twisted Chaotic mess which most people are familiar with. The Warp is the domain of the Ruinous Powers of Chaos and of their Chaos Daemons. Its energies induce madness and uncontrolled mutations.

The Ruinous Powers

You know them well! Except Malal, of course...

While they are called 'Gods of Chaos', these beings are both much more than Gods but also less. The oldest Dragons and other survivors of the War in Heaven sometimes call them the 'Heads of the Wyrm' for they are all conjoined and part of the same ultimate, undivided Chaos even if no Chaos God would ever concede such a fact. The concepts they embody are fundamental and were always part of the Wyld when it first formed. Once corrupted, however, these concepts slowly coalesced into malignant entities of which the main pantheon is composed of four and an additional member. They are:

• Khorne, the Blood God: Embodiment of rage, bloodlust, strength and survival among other things. This guy needs no introduction, being obsessed with war and destruction as well as the shedding of blood in all forms.
• Nurgle, the Lord of Decay: Embodiment of pestilence, plagues, decay, entropy and corruption. Kind of a nice guy by comparison.
• Tzeentch, the Changer of Ways: Embodiment of change, mutation, fate, hope and general RNG fuckery. He also the Chaos God most associated with magic and sorcery even if he lacks monopoly on it. If anything has a % chance of failure you could blame it on him.
• Slaanesh, the Prince of Pleasure: Embodiment of passion, lust, desire and general obsessions that turn a bit too grim or self-destructive. Slaanesh is generally the Chaos God most associated debaucheries that turn a PG-13 rating into something that makes the MPAA kill themselves.
• Malal, the God of Team-Killing Fucktards: Also called the Unspoken God, the One-Who-Doesn't-Exist, Malice and 'That Asshole'. Malal is the embodiment of Chaos own self-contradiction and self-defeating douchery.

Below each Chaos God is an innumerable host of Daemons, ranging in power and intellect between mindless and useless slug-daemons to towering Daemonic Nobles (sometimes called Daemon Lords, Daemon Princes, Archfinds and more) who is each an endgame boss who can devastate entire worlds on a whim. Adding to this are endless permutations of cultists, madmen, mutants and other Chaos-aligned horrors.

The ultimate goal of a Chaos worshiper is Apotheosis into a Daemon Prince (again, title may vary): in doing so they become infused with a portion of the Ruinous Powers, shed their mortal form and become immortal beings of immense power. Each of these beings is a dreaded monster of legend: former tyrants, impossibly skilled assassins, twisted necromancers and more. Some ascended during their life time through service to Chaos while others found themselves rewarded after their death even without having ever known of the powers of Chaos, having caught the eyes of the Dark Gods who didn't want such a gifted (unwitting) servant to pass on when they could keep doing what they were doing for eons to come.

The ranks of Daemon Lords are vast and include many horrid figures such as Orcus, Daemon Lord of the Undead who serves primarily (but not exclusively) Nurgle and Tzeentch as a patron to all manner of undying abominations as well as their potential creator. Just as he spread a Chaotic sickness and corruption he also is a patron to Necromancers, imparting upon them foul sorcerous secrets to transcend life and death. Doge Klypse, the Archbishop of Madness scribbles mad texts which may or may not hold horrific prophecies involving even the end of Chaos itself while the Knight of Entropy exist to only end things, turning the entire world to dust and ash as it bring about the annihilation that ultimately is Chaos. Meanwhile, Asmodeus, Lord of the Nine and (Self-Proclaimed) God of Tyranny exist just to show how confusing Chaos is. Having been infused with the power of Malal, Asmodeus turned Chaos against itself and created a Realm which combine the twisting and corrupting powers of Chaos with an iron-clad, terrifying rule of tyranny and he now wage a never-ending war against Chaos with his armies of Devils.

The Gods

Sigmar in his Age of Sigmar depiction.

There exist in the Immaterium beings of immense power which are not the Ruinous Powers or their servants. The process of their ascension, in many ways, echoes that of Daemon Princes but the ways it was achieved are different. The Gods (sometimes called the Incarnae) are powerful and unique beings, possibly creations of the Old Ones or possibly purely through the will power and belief of life itself. Like Daemon Princes they shed their material form, becoming indestructible beings who dwell within the Immaterium. However unlike Daemon Princes these creatures neither obey the Ruinous Powers nor do they resonate of its energy. Perhaps, in ancient times, before the Immaterium became tainted by the Warp this is what happened to truly exceptional mortals and not the birth of a Daemon Prince.

Wielding the power of an Incarnae as a Cleric is far less dangerous than channeling the corruption energies of Chaos but also much more difficult. It requires a special gift, a sense of communion with beings greater than oneself whereas everyone and everything can fall into Chaos in due time. Because the Gods represent Order (or at least, Neutrality in the Law/Chaos axis) they have a harder time interacting directly with the World than Daemon Princes since they innately try to preserve and maintain the fabric of reality to some degree whereas servants of the Ruinous Powers simply want to break things and care not if oxygen molecules become tiny shrimps that shoot rainbows from their eyes...rainbows that melt your brain, of course.