u/k3lk3l

One of my favorite characters, I am overjoyed to see how far he has come. Archaon now calls on his army specifically due to the success of Decadent Host. May his incomprehensible beauty shine on forever, even after death.

SIGVALD, PRINCE OF SLAANESH

>In all the Mortal Realms, there is no soul more detestable yet enthralling than Prince Sigvald the Magnificent. Tall, powerful and beautiful beyond words, his skin aglow with a daemonic radiance, he personifies exterior beauty but spiritual rot. A thousand legends swirl about the early life of Sigvald, each more grotesque than the prior. They agree only that Sigvald was in thrall to the Lord of Delights before he ever knew his god’s name. From his earliest years, he pursued every hedonistic desire without shame; no sooner had some diabolic lust seized him then he grew obsessed with fulfilling it. Slaanesh has always doted upon him, and ever since Sigvald willingly sold his soul to eternally keep his youth, the god has granted him boon after boon – provided he continues to indulge so fearlessly.

>Sigvald hails from the World-that-Was. In the last days of that cycle he suffered a humiliating defeat by a king of troggoth kind. Slaanesh looked unkindly on this and sealed the prince’s soul in a mystic mirror to drift across the cosmos as punishment. But Sigvald was cunning, and when that mirror came to rest in the city of Shadespire, he used its powers to manipulate successive treasure hunters and bring about his escape. Some portion of imprisoned Slaanesh must have witnessed his old favourite’s return and grew fond, for the daemonically reborn Sigvald was now even mightier and crowned by infernal horns. All this has only deepened his vainglory. So too do the supernatural phenomena that mark his approach; most famously, mirrors for leagues around increasingly reflect only distorted ugliness, as if all beauty is reserved for him. Yet a single scar remains on Sigvald’s body to remind him of his defeat, and when pleasure fades, the knowledge of its presence can drive him to a screaming furore.

>Many diversions tug at Sigvald besides combat. Yet though he sneers at those who chase martial glory alone, he also cannot abide to be seen as anything less than a supreme warrior. Golden armour and mirrored shield shimmering, the latter so he may admire himself at any moment, the Magnificent One darts into battle with hearty laughter and quicksilver speed. Wielding the blade Shardslash – a weapon modelled on a previous sword that many champions have since claimed to possess – he carves open both master warriors and milling hordes. Sigvald cares nothing for leadership; he expects his devoted to follow his radiant presence and thinks only of how he might prove his sublime skill before the greatest audience.

A DECADENT ENTOURAGE

>Sigvald professes to take his royal duties seriously. His Decadent Host is not just some dull military force; it is a court of libertines who have caught his fickle gaze, committed hedonists – or at least those on the path – with some unique dream to cultivate or diversion to provide. But ultimately, Sigvald cares for only one thing: Sigvald. In his immense narcissism, he remakes all his followers, even the most earnest, in his vain image. Any who resist – or worse, unintentionally upstage the prince – best hope for death, as it is far better than the other fates he might devise. Yet such despotism makes the Decadent Host fawn over their master more. Though some of their captains are obsessive strategists, most warriors of the Host think only of pleasing Sigvald, the atrocities they commit in battle all intended to earn his brief gaze.

FAVOURED SCIONS

>The Decadent Host of Sigvald is perhaps the greatest of these riotous hosts, for the Magnificent One is an old favourite of the god, and it takes a truly vile soul to remain in Slaanesh’s good graces. Sigvald’s sheer self-obsession is an elemental force that fills his followers with a need to offer him conquered lands as tribute. He delights in the adoration of ‘lesser’ mortals, and his volatile whim has spurred rampages across Ghur, the Ossiarch Empire and ravaged Hysh. Countless tales of atrocity surround the Decadent Host, and the Everchosen himself has called on them specifically to do his bidding. Sometimes, Sigvald even deigns to listen.

>Yet pure infamy and conquest is not the goal of every Hedonite host. Many follow no strategy save satiating the obsessions of their overlord. The Retainers of House Orscollion – taking pride in their service to the eponymous Lord of Gluttony – are devoted to hunting down their sorcerous master’s next elaborate feast, sometimes literally so. They consider themselves a cut above the Hedonite hoi polloi, a society of sneering gourmands sampling the finer things in existence. As their current cannibal rampage across Ghyran’s Everspring Swathe shows, however, they are amongst the most repulsive and bloodthirsty of all in their desires.

>Many other Hedonite hosts exist. Secret cultists flock to the twin-beings Synessa and Dexcessa, who plot to pervert civilisation from within. Vasillac the Gifted notoriously maintains but a handful of servants, so total is his self-absorption. Yet, even entrapped as Slaanesh is, the god senses and savours all their dire deeds.

MONUMENTS OF MAGNIFICENCE

>Vainglory and paramountcy are two of Slaanesh’s most cherished sins. To raise immense idols in praise of one’s own puissance is also an act of worship to the Dark Prince. Such constructions become obsessions, the lives of thralls and servants spent without concern – if not willingly sacrificed to imbue the idols with spiritual traces of anguish. Yet none can rival the immense golden edifice of Sigvald the Magnificent. It was Sigvald who subjected this region to horror, who composed the Six Great Desecrations of Uel Tazalar. To gaze upon this radiant masterwork is to be struck dumb and ensnared; hundreds of supplicants kneel agog in its orbit, surrounded by an osseous desert of past victims, staring up at the shimmering icon and forgetting all self-preservation as they waste away to skin, rags and bone. Ironically, Sigvald himself has never deigned to visit the monument wrought in his image. Why would he, he says, when he can admire the real thing any time in his mirrored shield?

DEXCESSA
THE TALON OF SLAANESH

>When Morathi sliced open the gullet of the Dark Prince in her ritual of apotheosis, she unwittingly let loose a terror – a shard of Slaanesh’s own essence, cast forth to coalesce and divide. This was the Newborn, the Two-who-are-the-Lord, infernal scions of Slaanesh who may one day inherit their chained father’s throne. Each half holds the other in contempt, yet they represent the totality of Slaanesh’s nature, and so often they fight as a pair to remake the realms in their daemonic image.

>Dexcessa embodies excess at its wildest, most rapacious and manic – the ecstatic frenzy that one does not awake from until the damage is done. They are ever consumed with lusty impulses to mangle and maim, to bathe in pain and terror with ululating howls of laughter. Physical sensation is everything to the so-called Talon of Slaanesh, be it the lustre of gaudy ornaments or the pricking mutilation of flesh. Not for Dexcessa the belief that the surest road to damnation is the gradual, well-intentioned path. Their pleasures are base, elaborate and overtly deplorable, and in battle this translates into exultant bacchanals of slaughter.

>Dexcessa is an arrogant force of nature who cannot abide taking orders from another. They see themselves as Slaanesh’s chief warlord, often overthrowing lesser champions and ordering their warhosts to abandon long-fought campaigns and focus on new, bizarre objectives more pleasing to the Talon. Only Synnessa’s wicked tongue can convince Dexcessa to listen – and even then the daemon rails at the patience advised by their despised sibling, ever liable to suddenly act.

SYNESSA
THE VOICE OF SLAANESH

>Synessa is the other half of the Newborn, one of the god-heirs of Slaanesh unleashed upon the realms. Like their kin Dexcessa, they remain a nascent thing, a budding echo of the Dark Prince’s full majesty, yet already their strength rivals that of their sire’s greater daemons. Synessa, more specifically, is the manifestation of Slaanesh’s beguiling allure. They despise Dexcessa’s propensity towards crude violence, seeing it as artless at best. Any fool can win a victory through tearing foes and mangling flesh; the greater accomplishment by far is to do so without ever needing to lift a clawed finger.

>Befitting their appellation of ‘the Voice’, Synessa relishes any chance to play the glorious demagogue who inspires swathes of mortalkind to plunge into ruinous vice; more than one stronghold has fallen into anarchy through such passionate oratory. Yet the daemon also embraces the role of the suave tempter, the imp of the perverse, the proverbial devil on the shoulder. They carefully craft every exchange to ruin their victims, yet they ensure that these fates are always of the mortal’s own volition and choice. Unlike Dexcessa, who cannot abide to appear in anything less than majesty, Synessa is more than happy to adapt a comparatively unassuming guise and slip into the heart of society, spreading discord simply by exposing what mortals desire and providing them opportunities to realise it. When Synessa is in the ascendancy and wrests control of the daemonic hosts from their sibling, the battleplans they devise are things of obsessive beauty, every detail meticulously arranged and every disagreement mollified with a gilded tongue. Even the Lords of Change do not readily enter into a war of words with Slaanesh’s Voice.

>For all their favouritism towards more subtle seductions, there are times where Synessa must back up their commands with action. Unfortunately for those who would contest the Newborn, to speak the Dark Prince’s words also grants access to his most dire incantations and sorceries. Synessa is a master at wielding the arcane energies of Slaanesh. With but a single syllable and a simple flick of their accursed staff, they can compel over-stimulated organs to rupture, bid allies turn on one another in jealous frenzies, and command enemies to rend and tear at their own skin. Through these same means can Synessa raise up mortal supplicants into throes of ecstatic obedience – the fact that they are often left witless and drooling in the aftermath, burned out by the majesty visited upon them, is quite immaterial.

>THE LORD OF DELIGHTS

>Slaanesh. The name is both honey and bile. Youngest and fairest of the Dark Gods – as far as it can be judged in the timeless Realm of Chaos – Slaanesh is called the Dark Prince but in truth is neither male nor female: nothing so limited. He is whatever will most entice those who behold his manifold aspects. He has been depicted as an androgynous lord, a serpent with scales of silver, a stave of music that worms into the mind, a colour that burns the eye. In all that overstimulates can he be found.

>Worship of Slaanesh as opposed to that of the other Chaos Gods is perhaps the easiest to rationalise, for he is empowered by and thus rewards the pursuit of hedonistic desire. Any self-gratifying urge or act pleases him. Rote indulgences are not enough, though, to earn his favour; excess and transgression are needed to draw his eye. To pledge your soul to Slaanesh is to have your senses sharpened until the world seems a banquet of delights to feast upon. Yet the more one indulges, the less satisfaction they find. True pleasure blossoms in the all-too-brief moment a desire is finally realised, and repetition is the surest way to numb bliss. Slaaneshi cultists must always go further, pursuing ever more sadistic whims. In time, the Dark Prince’s faithful are consumed by depraved obsessions and selfish lusts that justify any indignity to sate their dark needs.