Who Are the Main Characters of Warhammer 40,000?: The Armies of Chaos
The Imperium’s primary foe, the Armies of Chaos seek to wipe out the Imperium and the Emperor’s religion in the name of their dark gods.
The Chaos Space Marines, the corrupted foil of the Space Marines that serve the gods of Chaos rather than the Imperium, broke off from the rest of humanity 10,000 years prior during events known as the Horus Heresy, named for the turncoat former favored son of the Emperor. Like the Adeptus Astartes, the Chaos Space Marines are split into different legions, each serving one or multiple of the four primary Chaos Gods, known as the ruinous powers: Khorne, the god of war and murder; Nurgle, the god of plague and decay; Slaanesh, the god of pleasure and hedonism; and Tzeentch, the god of change and magic.
These forces are supplemented by the Chaos Knights, corrupted versions of the Imperium’s own giant war machines, and the Daemons, the hellish servants of the Chaos Gods that exist in the nightmarish psychic sub-dimension known as the Warp alongside their masters.
