Librarium Chaotica: Tzeentch, the God of Change (Warhammer 40,000 Lore)

And so it was that my plea was answered and a messenger appeared to me. Both terrible and wondrous was he to behold. His eyes were twin hollows that burned with sapphire flame, and great wings rose from between his shoulder blades to stretch high above his head, their surface shimmering like mother of pearl. He stretched out his hand and bade me follow him into the aether and follow him I did along paths that never were to a place that should not be far away he led me to the gates of the end far beyond the terrious realms of man. There I looked into the immortal realms and beheld four great thrones within the endless plains of oblivion. I asked the messenger, "Whose thrones are these?" And the messenger said, "They are of the four ancient powers, the spirits of destruction, desire, despair, and difference. Both throne and dominion are they sibling gods, masters of mortal hearts. And from those thrones did exude a forgetfulness that drew unto itself the hearts and minds of all humanity. For in them were both the greatest strengths and the greatest follyies of man. Dancing around those thrones, I saw every vision of cruelty. Demons without mercy, whose countenances were filled with fury. A million teeth protruding from a thousand mouths. Their eyes burned like desert sun, and all the manifest horrors of mankind spilled forth from hateful lips. Then I felt the thorns of despair puncture my heart and fear caught my breath. I begged the messenger to take me away from this place of cruel gods and covorting demons and bear me hence to the land of wholesome gods of virtue and piety. So much did I long for the comfort of such divinity. But the messenger merely smiled. And in that smile, I beheld all the malice, all the pity, and all the cruel humor of an uncaring world. He told me that there was no other gate save the gate we now stood before. No realm other than the one that lay beyond. I shied from him then, for I believed in my heart that surely what he spoke to be untrue. And I told him such. If this is the only realm, said I, where then are the palaces of the Ilddari deities, the battleground of the green skin god, the swarming ancestors of the coral, the hunger mind of the crave? Where is the golden throne of earth, the seat of the truest divinity, of the god emperor of mankind? Before me, all I behold is primordial annihilation. The thrones dominions of chaos. And then the messenger seemed to grow in size so that his head eclipsed the pale sun, and his shimmering wings seemed to fill the vaults of the sky. There is only one gate, he said once more, and only one realm that lies beyond. You may behold only darkness before you, yet you do not see the endless lights that dance within." And then the messenger began to fade from view, becoming transparent like mist upon the breeze. His parting words were as a subtle knife, puncturing the bladder of my false hopes. Mortals see so much yet understand so little. For as much as the divine molds the realms of the real to fit their purposes, so too does the materium sculpt the divine through its base aspirations. You gaze upon the aether for proof of light or fear of the dark. Yet the aether is neither light nor dark except when mortals make it so. And then the messenger was gone. Heed my words, all ye who read this. For I have gazed upon the abyss, and my eyes are forever changed. All that was once hidden has now been revealed to me. I have seen all worlds. The secrets of scheming gods and lesser men that would be kept from us. They are bread and wine now to my heart. No longer shall I labor under the shallow misconceptions of received wisdom and dictated fact. Truth shall ever be my companion from this day hence. For the scales have been lifted from mine eyes, and they have beheld the hope of our eternal salvation. At last, I can be forgiven. For at least I can see that I have sinned. The thousand faces of chaos verses 1-9 treaties recovered in the librarium of the radical inquisitor Helena Dan Brassus late of the Ordo Melius following her disappearance. Known most commonly as Zech, the greater intelligence of primordial annihilation that governs change and transformation represents, if anything, the sheer calamitous momentum of chaos. The great sorcerer, the master of fortune, the architect of fate, the changer of the ways. Zenith dances across the strands of time, destiny, and causality, delighting in the weaving of impossibly complicated schemes and lunatic plotting. Their mutability, the endless boiling change they embody is as unto the warp itself. For within the evershifting tides of the immaturium churn maelstroms of emotion, belief, and narrative, the raw stuff from which primordial annihilation finds its power. Accordingly, they have perhaps more guises than any of the other greater intelligences, the so-called dark gods. Zech is change, its embodiment, the locust of the mortal desire for change, and even their base recognition of it. Form and face and body are as nothing to this entity, for they shift with the passage of everything between seconds and eternities. Inquisition records concerning the cults bound to Zincha's worship have recorded the veneration of its embodiment in everything from aven forms to growing flesh to the very wind itself. They cannot be said to have one dominant form. While none of the greater intelligences have anything that we can conceive of as a true form, their aspects across reaches of time, space, and history do tend to converge around commonalities. The blood god, for example, is usually depicted as a brazen warrior bedcked in ornate armor, while the dark prince's depictions are redolent, sensuous being embodying all gender expressions at once. Not can be said of the changer of the ways. While aven forms appear frequently, this has been surmised as mortal misinterpretation of the deity's greater emanations as being somehow tied to their master's form visually. While the lords of change, as they have become known, are indeed aven in aspect, such as not the same with Zch. Heretical scholarship records that even to the members of an individual cult, no one person will conceive of their patron in the same form. This has been corroborated by inquisitorial interrogations of captured heretics. Damned souls who, despite being bound to the exact same cult, declare confidently their god incarnates as a hooded magis, a column of fractal light, a single unblinking many hued eye, or even as burning runes upon a wall. Each heretic provides such testimony with equal shortity. And while of course the minds of such wretches must be assumed to be irrevocably compromised, the sheer commonality between the uncommonality speaks to the fundamental inconsistency of this particular entity. Yet despite their inherent formlessness, the domains of the changer of the ways are very well known to their devotees. schemes, politicking, the weaving and usurppation of fate, and the governance of knowledge. Idolattors of the architect of fate are typically defined by their desire for secret knowledge, sorceress power, and political machinations. They are invariably subtler than those worshippers of, say, the blood god with whom Zinth has an apparently eternal emnity. There are those that believe that their deity holds all secrets within all of existence, keeping to them the truth of everything until the end of time itself, and thus the paths of all possible fates can and have been achieved. The most foolish of these weward imbeciles believe that their mortal minds can, when girded through devotion, parse some measure of knowledge from the seething maelstrom that is their chosen god, and thus bring boons to themselves. These fools believe that they understand some sliver of the motivations of such an entity or their fathomless plans. One cannot imagine the delusion that fuels such people. Zech is the master of lies. Truths and falsehoods alike spill from them like waves of the sea. They can be trusted no more than any of the so-called dark gods, but if anything, even less. Theirs is a word utterly meaningless in value. For to become enthralled to the changer of the ways is to become a moat of flatsom within the roing whirlpool of their endless plans. Zch feeds upon the mortal need for truth and shity and our awareness of the potential for change to work great boons and curses upon our lives. The desire to be masters of our own unwritten futures exists within the heart of every human. We are fleeting things. Our mortal lives, especially in this age, defined by suffering, strife, and uncertainty. We yearn to craft a future for ourselves free from these concerns. And within that need, the changer of the waves finds purchase. This is no doubt true of all mortal species within the galaxy to some degree. But as one's discourses upon these Eldrich subjects have hopefully displayed, humanity is bound to the warp in ways that render our impact on it greater than that of other species. Of course, we have not been the catalyst for the birth of a chaos god, as the hated fallen Elari were, but heretical scholar Alente have appined that we, as the dominant rulers of this galaxy by divine right, are now primed to be the creators of yet another. Regardless of these filthy ideas, we must assume that our fears, hopes, and dreams of our future are the most profoundly impactful of emotions that fuel a being such as Zinch, just as our mortal fears of death and decay fuel Nurgle, the god of plagues. Four. Truly, what human cannot claim to dream of wealth, comfort, freedom, a better tomorrow than the hateful today? Who can say that they do not wish to better themselves or at least better the material conditions of their kin or of their society? As a saying impossibly ancient oftines, who does not consider the grass in the next field to be greener? Indeed, such dreams and hopes are not the sole domain of the impoverished or the powerless. Lust for power and riches and knowledge are also the domains of all of those who have plenty to begin with. Greed is found within the halls of the powerful more often than within the slums of the poor. a hunger for even more than they yet possess or a desire to protect and entrench their status to avoid the scrutiny of others to move to a point free from responsibility. The ambitions of humanity are manifold and within this potent yearning dances the architect of fate. Treaties is your most humble servant has examined state that zinc is the metaphysical embodiment of this force. a conscious and sentient thing of change absolute. Theirs is the face that is seen by those who seek to change their environment, their lives, their selves rather than merely accept their lot in life. Due to the fundamental duplicity of their nature and the fields they govern, Zech is invariably the most subtle of their kindred deities, both in their worship and their actions upon the mortal plane. While the cults adhering to the dark prince are typically the most attractive, one has it on authority provided by several inquisitors that the worshippers of the changer of the ways tend to hold the greatest power in civic imperial society and are often the hardest to root out fully despite being relatively few in number compared to cults dedicated to others of the pantheon. Whereas Slaneth attracts hedenists of plenty, Carneth the blood crazed and overly bellose and Nurgleth the desparing masses, Zinch more often than not draws the attention of the educated, wealthy and privileged, or those who possess great personal ambition. The changer loves those who scheme and plot, especially should they pursue power in duplicitus and devious means. To his kindred, the blood god, the architect leaves the most direct routes to power, as Zinch delights in those who advance their goals through indirect and oblique pathways, those who leverage their intelligence to outwit opponents and secure their own advancement. Should a mortal soul impress the changer in such a fashion, their attention will be drawn, and the mortal begins to walk the unseen path, their new patron begins to lay for them. This is not to say that all who scheme are servants of the changer of the ways, or even damned to fall under their thr. Many, a great many, will simply never break the threshold of damnation, but may skirt its borders nevertheless. For the gods of the dark pantheon, more than anything else, consider to be actively seeking mortal souls to fuel their raging essences. Rather, however, than bestowing blessings, as his kindred may, Zech typically binds mortals to them by further complicating and convoluting said mortals plans, advancing them, yes, but subtly raising the stakes, provoking complications, and introducing new dynamics, pushing the mortal soul deeper and deeper into their own scheme until they are trapped within a labyrinth of seemingly their own devising. Only a miracle of circumstance will save them from ruin or death. And it is at this moment that Zinch will provide the empty promise of a path forward. Mortals that accept this offer are now forever damned, doomed to become part of the architect of fate's grand tapestry, even if they do not know it. As with all things concerning the dark pantheon, souls are always offered a choice. Their damnation must be wrought by their own hand. But of course, the dark gods will do their utmost to ensure the choice is weighted firmly in their favor. It must also be acknowledged that it is not merely the deceitful that the changer ins snares, but the educated across storied academia and the scholarly faithful both. One may be forgiven for a pining that surely the learned could not possibly become ins snared by so foul a thing as a dark god, for surely they are wise to the dangers implicit in such things. Such is itself flattery to the ego of many a man who has thought themselves above such concerns, too sure of their own intellectual prowess to see the path they trod, recklessly pursuing knowledge deemed forbidden that they might uncover some grand universal truths without incurring any cost to their souls. Hark the tale of the Crimson King of Prospero, Lord of the 15th Legion. for perhaps the most sterling example of such feckless conceit. The incomprehensible vanity of Magnus the Red has stained the Imperium's existence these 10,000 years gone. Yet others still, personages perhaps less humble than damned Magnus, but possessing some measure of intellectual hunger, have turned to the changer of the ways in desperation, questing for the answer to some grand unsolvable problem, in much the same way the Crimson King did. Others still have been simply lured in. For what better trap is there for the scholar than knowledge known to few others within prohibited toms and locked librarians dances the weaves of the changer of the ways honeyed snippets of lore laid out as breadcrumbs upon a woodland trail. As with all the temptations of primordial annihilation, the most assured the soul in question is of their own incorruptibility, the greater the prize they are for the god that ens snares them. It is indeed usually these learned converts that pursue the sorceress arts, either once within the thrral of Zech, or it being the damnable area of study that prize open their door in the first place. The get of the changer of the ways have ever been considered the foremost practitioners of psychic arts and the channeling of the powers of the warp. And amongst the mortal followers, those have been known to manifest as cult magisters, rogue psykers, debased witches, and all manner of psychic filth. It has been surmised by the Inquisition that once within the greater patronage of the entity comes increased knowledge of how to manipulate the psychic abilities of both oneself and one's brethren, only metastasizing over time as a devote becomes even more held within the grasp of the warp. Whereas those dedicated to the blood god may find their bodies swell with unnatural musculature and those under the sway of Nurgle find themselves infused with unnatural resilience. Zinc's followers are rarely so physical, often indeed appearing emaciated or withered, but with prodigious sorceress powers to call upon that more than make up for any physical ineptitude. The servants of the architect are often the most dangerous and pissant wielders of Saitana. No doubt believing such sorceress power a great boon, even if it is in exchange for their very souls. The changer of the ways, more so than any of their Eldrich kin, is the mutability of chaos given some semblance of form. They are the promise the future could bring. infinite possibilities fractally reflected through our petty mortal imaginations. As with each of the pantheon, zincch has reached far beyond the primal desires that animate them and become far more than the sum of their evershifting parts. They are a multi-hued flame dancing within the eyes that sees beyond the real. Even to behold such formless anarchy as their emanations represent is enough to drive a man to lunacy. For what could be more enimical to the mortal mind than unlimited change? What horror! How nightmarish! Even before the mind is forced to consider the web of machinations, the arch manipulator slides this tide of demonic flesh through at every instant of untime they perceive reality from gibbering in every tongue ever uttered deep in the unspeakable places beyond the sensible universe. an aphorous malignance of unlimited possibility with not one iota of order through which such potential may be harnessed. Mindless maddening confusion yet containing within itself all knowledge. I I see it. I I I see it now held within the single candle flame by which I conduct my labors. A color, the yellow flickering of tallow light, yet not yellow, not orange, not quite red, but not blue, not green, not even the iridescence of an insect wing. It is the color of it is the color of a passage in a chronicle. It's it is it's a hue that comes from knowing the tint of information itself. I tried to tear my eyes from it. I must my labors are shackled within wards. I am shielded. And yet I I fear this soul flame is a pitiful thing and yet now grows. I I cannot see anything save for it. My words My words upon parchment dissolve, invert, become as unto gibberish. Yet they contain everything I have penned and that which I have not. as my solitude within this librarium, this trogloditic prison of supposed learning created within me such a yearning for light. Have I grown so frantic I neglect my slumber to stride through waking dreams of glimpsing an unknown sky. Why now do I hear the beating of drums across an inevitable city? Why now this detestable pounding and disgusting piping? Why now this chorus of screeching voices rising to tell me every scrap of learning I have ever desired. Why does this flame yet grow madness rides this music suffuses this light fleshless and incohate? Oh that I knew less. Come to me, blessed ignorance. Shield my sight from the sky I have secretly prayed for, lest I burn my eyes from their sockets. I do not wish to know. I do not wish to know. Bring me to the placid island of ignorance shelter me from the chaotic storms of infinity. I must flee. Flee. Bring unto me the peace of oblivion without knowledge or name. The unutterable things that cover beyond are usurpers of reason. Hope is as acid unto the soul. Better to perish within the dark. Not you ever behold the sky. Imperator. This video and this channel were made possible thanks to the very kind donations and support from my Patreon subscribers. If you'd like to help support the channel, head on over to patreon.com/oculousimperia. If you'd like to receive more updates about the channel and any future videos, you can contact me or follow me on Twitter @ Oculusmperia. Otherwise, please like, subscribe, comment, let me know your feedback, and as ever, thank you very much for watching. teach us. was Hallelujah. He would Is Praise God. She uses