Thanks to all for the informatiuons 
I’m quoting this thread, but the question is valid for everyone!
Chaos Men aren’t controlled by Nurgle, got it… but I was thinking… there is this influence that changes Northern Men’s aspect (the plague) and that increases their instincts at the expenses of reason (wich is still kept, now I know)… isn’t it more or less what happens with Beastmen?
Beastmen are a different breed, figuratively and literally. In another thread about Beastmen (which i can’t find for no reason) it was rightly stated that the influence of Chaos strips them of any humanity. Even an in complete hiding raised child, which get’s taught everything to be a decent human being, can’t act against it’s nature and will at some point turn against it’s parents and caretakers. The chaotic influence is more direct, more changing and final. It’s an irreversible do-over. You could argue the same about Norscans, but the influence on them is more over time and through the cultural influence of their tribe.
Norscans are not seeing the Chaos gods the same way an imperial cultist would see them. They are part of their religion and culture, more akin to a worse version of pagan gods than a corrupting power to give over your soul for power. You honor them by doing things certain ways and sacrifices, not just corrupting the people or area around you.
More like a version of Vikings with darker intent and mutations.
Bear in mind, their corruption is almost as final as that of the Beastmen, the close proximity to the Chaos Wastelands and the gates has changed the whole populace as well as the pacts their ancestors made with Chaos, ‘there is no escape from Chaos, it marks us all’.
The reason for going over the Norscans is to differentiate them better: The Beastmen are, when the change happens, totally enthralled to their (chaotic) animal nature. And that change mostly happens at birth (through ‘regular’ chaotic influence during pregnancy).
There is no reasoning with Beastmen, no trade, no diplomacy, no peace (at least for the Forces of Order). Their whole being is targeted to destroy civilization. Norscans at least occasionally trade, or can get bribed to not invade, at least for a while.
But being how they are makes them, at least for the Chaos gods and all the other forces of Chaos, inferior. They behave like beasts and are treated as such, used as cannonfodder by the Warrios of Chaos during their invasions. For the Chaos gods it’s just not as enticing to influence them, they are already fully commited, not like the humans who are their prime target for corruption (and elves, yes, but that’s mostly only for Slaanesh).
They will nevertheless venerate the Chaos gods, because their corruption can’t be shaken of, the same way the Fimir do.
It’s like being a second tier worshipper, never reaching the same heights the humans will.
The amount of individuals that have a firm grasp of Chaos Lore in this thread starts to be very disturbing.
Begone friends!
Yes, this post right here, witch hunter.
if men of chaos humps a empire woman and she give birth to a fertile offspring, then such men are still hummie. if not then no.
To Nurgle, any living being can be considered fertile ground with the offspring being the same, if you know what i mean. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
brow wiggle
Papa Nurgle loves all His children! Even if they don’t pay Him lip-service or even curse Him, the Great Papa’s love is unconditional as befitting a father of His grandeur and girth! He loves the man as much as He loves the babe and the maggot writhing in both their guts, and the bacteria and virii festering in all of them, for to Grandpapa Nurgle all life is sacred and evenly worth cherishing. His followers are fulfilled in the great knowledge that they bear the greatest fecundity, becoming the very grounds from whence life sprouts in even its most minute forms!
There must come a point where they can no longer be considered humans though, when their gifts take them into something not-a-man. Puss squirting out of the holes where your eyes used to be or something like that.
When they become a Chaos Spawn, pretty much.
Yeah but I think long before that, when they’re still human-like. the CW in the game in fact could be considered more than men/not men. Bloody tall, necrotic, tough beyond usual human toughness. They’ve gone over to something less-than-human but more-than-human too.
A Chaos Warrior is a living weapon, encased in warped armour and imbued with raw, superhuman strength. Having shed the concerns of petty mortality, he dons the mantle of war in the name of dark gods — his life that of unending battle. War is his only comfort, the fickle affections of his blasphemous patrons his only joy. Conquest is his nourishment, destruction is his muse. Perdition is his cradle, bloodshed is his bed. Subsumed in the din of deific violence, he stalks the face of the world as an instrument of godly ruin, the loathsome laughter of his abhorrent benefactors forever ringing in his ears. Driven ever on towards the brink, he takes the abstract and makes it concrete, his flesh sustained, his hunger stillled and his need for sleep sated all by the very acts of waring and triumphing. A yearning abyss of the oldest night will forever loom before him, and he must always gaze into it with eyes that never blink.
Many of them hail from the bloodstained glaciers of Norsca, a veritable hellscape where monstrosities of maddening shapes such as chimerae, giants and mutated dragons do battle with horn-helmed and grim-faced tribes. The frozen north is an irrevocably tainted region in which caves become glistening mouths, cliff faces fold in on themselves over and over again, skies scream and withered trees clutch at unfortunates. The sun itself can simply decide not to rise for years without rhyme or reason, even as it continues to shine upon all over realms. In such a light-contempted land, men are forsaken in a chilling dark, with monsters and bloodshed gnashing in every corner. It is a frigid wasteland constantly lashed by chilling, mutating blizzards and chaotic magicks running rampant, its inhabitants - humans and monsters alike - locked in an eternal bloodsport at the behest of insane gods. It is a place where men hew steel into shapes of brutal efficiency and adorn their flesh with the implements of war, that they might cast themselves at godly, malformed monstrosities.
Such are the neverending spillover from a ruinous domain in which the metaphorical morbidities of all mortal life are forced into torturous, physical forms. On gore-gristled plains of ice, scarred warrior throngs chance their blades and whet their bloody appetite for more upon horrors-rendered-flesh. Men writ large throw their reckless, desperate mettle against monsters of legendary repute for reasons as base as barbarousely digging into bloody innards and ripping their teeth into raw and tainted meat. The laughter of loathsome divines rings in their ears as gifts of flesh - god-given mutations - are ladled out without care for fairness upon these faithful murderers, their blood and bones forced to contort to the impossible whims of immaterial caprice.
Thus, to be norscan-born means to be of prime warrior stock, inured to violence and horror from an early age, faith-driven to cull the weak and battle the strong. Each thick-set and muscular, they stand no less than a head above the soft-bellied wastrels of other human nations. Where the men of the south would cower secure behind their high walls, the men of Norsca roam the far corners of the world in search of adventure and plunder. Where the southlanders indulge themselves before a fireplace, glutting on fine wine and cheese, the men of the north must hunt and kill for their daily bread and rip into raw meat with their bare hands and teeth for their efforts. Where the men of the south complain bitterly of travelling abroad in fog or sleet, the Northmen brave howling blizzards clad in little more than flea infested scraps of fur. Comparing the men of the north to the waifs and estrays of the south would be to compare wolves to sheep, and just as well, for what the northlanders want they take from lesser men.
Brought up in such loathsome and ruinous surrounds has brought about a perverse difference in the perception of reality. To conventional humans, reality ‘as is’ is quite the most important and ultimately most ‘real’ thing. Gods may or may not exist, their influence may or may not be visible or just be some chance happening. People are generally neither inclined nor opposed to believing that the gods of major religions may have some influence here and there, even exert a miracle or two in times of most dire need or splendor, but beyond that the world of the divine appears as far from normal humans as the skies are to the crawling maggot.
To the men of the frozen north, these perceptions are utterly reversed. The world of the ‘here and now’, ‘reality’ as normal humans would call it, is naught but a test of the gods at best, a cruel lie at worst. The mutations that occur so regularly in such a tainted region serve as a direct substantiation of godly influence, separating the special from the mundane. Proof of the divine, miracles and the impossible-rendered-possible surround them every day of their lives. Indeed, it is physically possible for them to wander even farther north to approach the very abode of their gods, though for most such a pilgrimage ends in any number of horrible ways as it is a realm of ineffable madness. To norscans, the true measure of existence lies not in the current, but in the beyond, in the realms of the dead, the daemonic and thus divine. To attend the burials of fellow warriors, to behold the rituals of vitkis, seers, sorcerers and daemonologists is the way even a simple warrior can peer into that which is truly ‘true’. This affords them a clear psychological advantage over their enemies, for where the men of the south and east might fear the pain of their death, the Norscans embrace it as the only road to the true realm beyond the waking dream of flesh.
That is not to say that even they are entirely immune to the paltriest trappings of their being, for indeed beneath all the layers of violence, bitterness and spite, the very core of humanity still remains within their race. However much they would prefer to claim such, the rancour and unquenchable bloodthirst of their culture arose not due to some inherent blight of their souls, but sprang from the bleak realities of their existence: They are perpetually surrounded by mortal foes from all sides; the hated heirs of Sigmar to the south, merciless horsemen to the east, the supremely malignant dark elves to the west, and the very abode of their calamitous gods to the north. Even their own lands, ostensibly claimed, are deleterious wastes perpetually lashed by furious blizzards and haunted by the constant discharge of horrifyingly misshapen creatures that spill from the realms of their ruinous divines, which themselves are terrifying idols of darkness who favour only the strong and demand the destruction of the weak. To survive a single day in Norsca means to have achieved a victory worthy of respect, and the mere act of reaching adulthood after having spent an entire growth in this blighted land is a baleful prospect, a deed akin to exaltation.
So… much… HERESY!
This thread is full of
They ceased to be human the moment they turned away from Sigmar!
Now take this heretic.
The note passed to you seems to be a ticket for privileged access in the public executions next week!
On the bottom it states: “Attendance mandatory under punishment of death.”
Nice post, thanks for the info… But honestly, even if you are right, Beastmen and Northern are clearly different, I don’t find any “objective proof” to say “ok, beastboys aren’t human anymore, northern are still human”.
I still find their process very very similar, just at a different level. For example a Marauder can be considered more human than a Gor; but a Chaos Spawn is clearly less human than a Gor.
It makes the entire thing smoky, nuanced… But I can’t consider Northern human. Personal opinion, sure.
Thanks for the story, very compelling.
P.s who are these horsemen?
That’s very simple: Beastmen never were human to begin with.
The horsemen to the east of Norsca are another set of Chaos-worshipping tribes, the most numerous in service to the Gods: The tribes of the Kurgan, the original inhabitants of the lands that would become known as Norsca. Whereas the Norscans gird themselves in heavy metal and pride themselves on honest footmanship, the Kurgans feature a mastery of horsemanship. Bronze-skinned brutes all, the Kurgans are to Kislev as the Norscans are to the Empire. Just because both Kurgans and Norscans worship Chaos changes nothing about the fact that they are embittered enemies to each other, for the Gods demand an unceasing spectacle of bloodshed, and both peoples are murderousely willing to prove they are the most worthy of worshippers.
The men of Norsca did not always dwell in Norsca. Before they became the Norscans, they were the Norsii, and they inhabited the north of the land that would become the Empire. The Norsii were banished by Sigmar’s father and the combined might of the many southern tribes, who would later form the various states of the Empire. The Norsii were outnumbered a hundred to one. Battered, bloodied and yet unbowed, their last measure of survival was a horrifying deathmarch to the north, a fighting retreat that lasted for years and saw them desperately battle on every side and at every turn against every tribe of humans who had united to finish the Norsii off in their weakened state. It was this march that purged every shred of kindness from the northmen, as the noblest of them stood their ground and fought to the last to hold the southern armies at bay and to give their kinsmen a chance of survival.
So the Norsii arrived at the shores of the hellscape where the southling armies dared not follow them. Their hearts deadened and their eyes cold from years of losing friends and family, the Northmen proceeded to practice the only trade they had any love left for: To raze and slaughter. The Kurgans that lived there were fought, tribes exterminated and incorporated as the Norsii carved out their stretch of home from the unforgiving bergs. But where the Norscans are few, the Kurgans are many, and so even after centuries of constant battle between the two, the Kurgans still live in the northern east of the world, making up the bulk of the Chaos Marauders as well as their horse-battalions.
Is that fact?
I thought the lore only states they appeared together with many daemons when the polar gates collapsed.
So the origin of being heavily mutated/a mend with a daemon or directly born from the warp (and by extension there fore from the collective psyche) is open to debate is it not?
I believe there might also be a bit of contradiction going on in the source material…
From the wiki:
The primitives of the land and the beast of the forest had merged into beings of both man and beast.
Beastmen come from humans in the same sense that irl humans come from monkeys. There’s ancestry there, but they’re born as beastmen. They’re born of chaos.