Lord of Change

A Lord of Change is the insidious Greater Daemon of Tzeentch, the Chaos God of Change and Sorcery. Lords of Change are creatures borne from some impossible nightmare, immense bird-like daemons with shimmering skin, wicked curved beaks and multicoloured, spectrum-shattering wings. Those who gaze upon these twisted prisms of pure magic begin to feel their sanity shred and reason slip away. Faced by a being of change incarnate, bedrock beliefs crumble and twist, and the mind seeks firm purchase in vain. Treachery, deceit, capriciousness: these are the hallmarks of the Lords of Change. Tzeentch’s greatest servants weave scheme upon scheme, a dense tangle of intermingling threads, so convoluted and eon-spanning that none can grasp their true purpose. A confrontation with a Lord of Change is likely to occur when and where the creature wills it. Few have ever managed to get the drop on these servants of Tzeentch, for the Changer of Ways is the master of destiny itself, and his greatest servants possess a portion of that power.

Combat Doctrine
Lords of Change tend to work behind the scenes, pulling puppet strings from the shadows. So subtle are these manipulations, and so skilled, that often the playthings of a Lord of Change remain unaware that they are in the thrall of a deadly daemon. Secret Chaos Cults, heresies, revolutionaries, and even Planetary Governors have all fallen under the thrall of a Lord of Change at one point or another. Even Tzeentch’s bitterest foes can be manipulated into fulfilling the Great Deceiver’s ends—under his greatest daemons’ careful guidance, brother can be turned against brother, friend against friend, and the most zealous of Inquisitors can stumble from the path of righteousness. To confront a Lord of Change is to wander through a fog-shrouded mire of lies, ever unsure that one’s actions are correct, one false step away from sinking irrevocably.

On the rare instances that a Lord of Change is bested, its schemes sundered and its plans laid to ruin, it will fight like a cornered animal, drawing upon its incredible sorcerous powers to fell its foes directly where deceit and deception have failed. Lords of Change are the greatest Chaos Sorcerers in the galaxy, and their mastery of magic is without peer. The mightiest psychic powers and spells employed by feeble human psykers and Sorcerers are the idle cantrips of a Lord of Change, for a Greater Daemon of Tzeentch is a creature of undiluted Warp energy and the mortal world quakes at its touch. With the merest flick of an elegantly tapered claw, bodies mutate and writhe, buildings twist and melt, and beings of madness and horror spring forth, cackling, from running rivers of flesh. Nothing that is done cannot be undone; nothing that is made cannot be unmade. To prevail against a Lord of Change, one’s convictions must be firmer than the foundations of the earth.

Appearance
Lords of Change are deceptively delicate-looking. Their long, spindly bodies are topped by a savage, cruel bird’s head. Great feathered wings extend from their shoulder blades, glittering and glinting with a thousand impossible colours. Their bones are hollow, and despite their enormous size, they barely seem capable of supporting their own weight, often leaning upon immense staffs, etched with innumerable eldritch signs and sigils. Their appearance, however, is yet another ruse: Lords of Change are fearsome fighters, serpent-quick with skin like iron. They are also lore-masters, and possess a thorough knowledge of the great feints and fighting techniques of the galaxy. To fence with a Lord of Change is to invite one’s own ruin; many overzealous warriors have been felled by their vicious claws, cruel curved beaks and terrible, reaping staves, disemboweled before they could even lift their blades.

Lesser Daemon Allies
Though a Lord of Change boasts many human slaves among his infernal retinue, it can also call upon a dreadful menagerie of Lesser Daemons when its back is up against the wall. The amorphous, spindle-limbed Pink and Blue Horrors writhe with the boundless, ever-shifting energy of unbridled Chaos, warping the world around them as they gibber and shriek. The tubular Flamers of Tzeentch resemble hideous living columns, studded with still-melting mouths and faces and festooned with long, spindly arms. The gouts of magical, multi-coloured fire they spew from their mouth-like hands burn, freeze, blister, mutate and vaporise their enemies. High above, drifting on the currents of the Aethyr, sail the manta-like Screamers of Tzeentch, twisted manta rays that trail slashing tendrils below their long, flat, strangely sinuous bodies. These tentacles are razor sharp, capable of flaying the flesh from even the most heavily-armoured foe.