"What is time but a foolish barrier mortals place before themselves as a shield against the unknown? What is flesh but a binding mortals wear to hold back their truest essence? I can teach you the true secrets of the Warp, little mortal. The only price is that you allow me to do so…"
- — A bound Horror of Tzeentch in service to the Nine-Eyes Cult
All the Horrors of Tzeentch -- Pink, Blue and Brimstone
To describe a daemonic Horror is all but impossible, for they are pure Chaos unbound, given capering and energetic form by the will of Tzeentch. The Lesser Daemons called Horrors are often used as daemonic slaves by the Greater Daemons called Lords of Change.
They do not have static material bodies, sometimes taking on a discernible form, at others blurring into a frantic mass of colour as they dash and scramble across the battlefield. Horrors can nonetheless be said to have two distinct states defined by the colour they present to the naked eye -- the Pink Horror and the Blue Horror.
A Pink Horror of Tzeentch
Lesser Daemons of Tzeentch are literally magic made manifest. Pink Horrors, as they are known, frolic together in cheerful, brightly coloured mobs that caper and whirl, cackling insanely at their own incomprehensible jokes as they blur and cartwheel across the battlefield.
As bright bolts of raw sorcery leap from their outstretched fingers, the Pink Horrors are filled with an increased joy, emitting squeals of laughter supplemented with many "oohs" and "ahhs" of delight as the magical lightshow screams overhead. These energies have a tendency to engulf the Pink Horrors' enemies in searing conflagrations of mutation, much to the joy of the daemons themselves.
The principal weapon of the Lesser Daemon of Tzeentch is not its scrabbling claws or the gaping, fang-lined maw that sits amidst its rubbery torso, though one bitten or scratched by a Horror will be forever changed by the experience. Instead it is the raw Warp energy that flows in the creature's veins. With a cackled word or gibbered phrase, the Horror throws balls of multicoloured flame at the enemy.
Where these strike home they do not merely burn, but also wreak the most disturbing and peculiar changes, turning enemies to statues of screaming glass, to clouds of butterflies with anguished human faces, to strains of maddening music, mewling infants or horrific mounds of tentacled flesh. Only Tzeentch can know what strange fate awaits those kissed by Warpfire; even the Horrors themselves are oblivious, and take great joy in each sanity-shattering change as it is wrought.
The only way known way to end a Pink Horror's jubilant mood is to blow it to pieces or otherwise cut it apart. It is then that the Pink Horror undergoes a total transformation, splitting into halves that reshape themselves into smaller copies of the original. These new daemons are different from their predecessor in two respects.
The first is that their colour changes from pink to vivid blue, earning them the name of Blue Horrors. The second change is that the gleeful attitude of the Pink Horror is reversed -- Blue Horrors are morose, whining and petty, eternally squabbling about whose fault it was that they lost their pink status once again.
These replacement forms are miserable and sullen to the point of aggression, lurching after those who ruined their day to stab and throttle until they kill those with the temerity to have killed them first. Should a Blue Horror be killed before it can get its revenge, it will divide once more into two tiny Brimstone Horrors, blazing yellow manifestations of pure spite and bitterness that seek only to burn their enemies to scattering ash.
Pink Horror
A Pink Horror of Tzeentch
Pink Horrors are identified by their luminescent pink skin and their high-pitched squeals of laughter. They whirl about in a frantic and barely controlled ecstasy, all the while giggling insanely. Flashes of energy dart from the Pink Horrors' fingertips as they leap across the battlefield, consuming the enemy in Warp-fire.
The casting of these spells fills Pink Horrors with increased joy, and they emit especially high-pitched merriment as the eldritch energy screeches from their upraised hands.
When wounded, a Pink Horror exhales a final lunatic cackle before rapidly decomposing into an ectoplasmic blob of gyrating magic. With a characteristic whoop of satisfaction, this residue swiftly alters color and divides into two Blue Horrors.
Blue Horror
Blue Horrors are diminutive replicas of their parent daemon, though their temperament is quite different. They are sullen and malicious, like evil-tempered children, and wear perpetual scowls as they sneer and grumble their way through a battle.
Once spawned, Blue Horrors swiftly rejoin their fellows, adding a deeper whining note to the incessant chortling of the group as they attempt to grapple with enemies and squeeze the life from them.
Brimstone Horror
Just as a dying Pink Horror splits into two lesser incarnations, a slain Blue Horror will split once more into a pair of Brimstone Horrors. Named for a stench so strong it offends even other daemons, these diminutive Warp creatures may look bright and whimsical, but they are in truth spiteful and vindictive. They realize that the glories of authority and prominence are forever beyond them.
To make themselves feel better, they burn everything they come across by hurling magical flame -- to a Brimstone Horror, Warpfire is the great leveller. Those that try to extinguish them or stamp them out are quickly surrounded, the Brimstone Horrors joining hands in an incandescent ring around them and singing mocking songs as they turn their victims into blazing pillars of flame.
Unit Composition
- 10-30 Pink, Blue or pairs of Brimstone Horrors in any combination
Notable Horrors
- The Blue Scribes - A pair of Blue Horrors named P'tarix and Xirat'p, created by their master, the Chaos God Tzeentch, to travel throughout the dimensions of reality to find and learn every known spell and scrap of forbidden knowledge so their creator may once regain his position as the most powerful among the Ruinous Powers.
- The Changeling - A Horror of Tzeentch who long ago was bestowed by the Lord of Change with a doppelganger's ability to assume any shape of any other creature. The mischievous Changeling plays practical jokes in both the Realm of Chaos and realspace, sowing discord and conflict, where ever he roams and taking delight in breeding mistrust and confusion.
- T'zar, the Broker
Sources
- Black Crusade: The Tome of Fate (RPG), pp. 8, 11, 15, 19-20, 103
- Dark Heresy: Daemon Hunter (RPG), pg. 96
- Codex: Chaos Daemons (8th Edition), pp. 49, 104
- Codex: Chaos Daemons (6th Edition), pg. 38
- Codex: Chaos Daemons (4th Edition), pg. 35
- Codex Heretic Astartes - Chaos Space Marines (8th Edition), pp. 93, 130
- War Zone Fenris: Wrath of Magnus (7th Edition), "Chaos Daemons"
- War Zone Fenris: Curse of the Wulfen (7th Edition), pg. 102
- White Dwarf 341 (UK), "Scions of the Dark Gods - Design Notes: Daemons of Tzeentch," pg. 25
- White Dwarf 368 (UK), pg. 6,7
- Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned (1st Edition), pg. 34
- Rogue Trader: The Navis Primer (RPG), pg. 136
- Deathwatch: Mark of the Xenos (RPG), pg. 111
- Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War (PC Game)
- Games Workshop Online Catalogue - Lords & Heroes: The Blue Scribes
- Fateweaver (Novella) by John French
