Chaos Daemons army rules, detachment abilities, stratagems and lore for Warhammer 40k, with links to the full unit datasheet table.
Chaos Daemons, or simply Daemons (pronounced DEE-mahns), also known as a "Neverborn" amongst the forces of Chaos, are intelligent and usually malevolent entities of the Warp comprised of purely psychic energy. Daemons are both sentient and self-aware embodiments of Chaos and collectively the greatest servants of the Chaos Gods and of Chaos itself as a universal force.
Daemons are created at the whim of one of the four major Chaos Gods from a fraction of the god's own power within the Immaterium and act as an extension of its will. A Daemon's appearance and intrinsic character reflect the god's own nature. These Daemons may be reabsorbed into the god's psychic signature in the Warp at their whim.
The Chaos Gods are not alone in Warpspace. They have created servants from their own essences -- the entities that mortals have named "Daemons" based on their ancient legends and religious mythologies -- who are not so closely bound to the Warp. Daemons are entities of a somewhat different nature to their divine masters, and are the most numerous of the creatures to be found in the Empyrean.
A Daemon is "born" when a Chaos God expends a portion of its own power to create a separate being. This psychic power binds a collection of senses, thoughts and purposes together, creating a separate but closely related personality and consciousness that can move within the Warp.
The Chaos God can reclaim the independence it has given to its Daemon children at any time, thus ensuring their loyalty. It is only though the loss of this power that a Daemon can truly be destroyed, its mind dissolving into the whirls and currents of Warpspace.
Some worshippers of Chaos believe that the souls of mortals who most fervently worshipped the Ruinous Powers in life are transformed into Lesser Daemons upon their death and the entry of their soul into their patron god's domain in the Realm of Chaos. For instance, this belief is held especially for the Bloodletters of Khorne, who Khornates believe were once the Blood God's greatest mortal warriors, and the Plaguebearers of Nurgle, who some hold are the souls of those mortals who have been afflicted with Nurgle's Rot.
As minions of the Chaos Gods, most Daemons lack self-will, at least as Humanity understands it. Instead, they serve only to spread the aims of their divine masters. For example, a Daemon of Khorne seeks only battle, and wages war upon other Daemons with the same fervour as it does upon mortals.
Daemons seemingly spend much of their existence in conflict with other Daemons, as each of the Chaos Gods seeks to expand its power and influence as part of the Great Game. It is only when the mortal universe is involved that Daemons tend to band together and cooperate, and even then, such alliances are short-lived, as each of the four Chaos powers seeks to prevent the others from gaining any sort of advantage.
Daemons have no physical presence within the Warp. The Realm of Chaos is anathema to the laws of physics and the starships that navigate its depths do so by taking a skin or bubble of "reality" with them when they enter using their Warp-Drive. Instead of possessing a true physical form, Daemons project a form conjured from raw psychic energy that is essentially a lesser interpretation of their divine master's fundamental nature. Hence, the bizarre and inhuman appearances projected by Daemons indicate their presence, status and allegiance to a Chaos God.
Though it may appear to be made of normal matter when it materialises in realspace, a Daemon's form is no more physical than it is in the Realm of Chaos. In fact, they are beings of pure Warp energy given shape and depth.
Over the aeons, the galaxy has witnessed Warp-based catastrophes and Daemonic incursions beyond counting. Since the inception of the Imperial Inquisition, even the fact that such a thing is possible is deemed too dangerous for the common citizens of the Imperium of Man to know, for knowledge of the Daemonic breeds heresy as surely as a flyblown corpse breeds maggots.
Because of this, the vast majority of knowledge concerning Daemonic incursions into realspace has been eradicated from extant Imperial records. The events that follow are recorded only in proscribed Imperial texts and heretical xenos scripts that the Inquisition has yet to destroy. They represent a mere fraction of the ever-increasing instances of Warp anomalies that have infested the Imperium.
The creation of Warp-Drive and Standard Template Construct (STC) technology, along with the emergence of the first Navigators, heralded the start of a golden age of discovery in which Humanity spread outward from Terra and colonised the stars. Warpspace, although little understood, was seen as entirely essential to Mankind's interstellar ascendancy, and was at this time a force associated with hope and salvation.
Throughout this period Mankind saw an exponential increase in the number of psykers that existed among its population. Aided by advanced artificial general intelligence, continued technological advancements regularly expanded the boundaries of what was achievable for Humanity, and so this period came to be known as the Age of Technology.
The collapse of Mankind's galactic civilisation came with terrifying swiftness, and the Age of Strife began. Warp storms broke forth in numbers never seen before, cutting off swathes of the galaxy and isolating Human colonies from one another. As such holes emerged in realspace, Khorne's Bloodthirster generals led the Blood Legions in Daemonic incursions that slaughtered the populations of countless worlds.
The inhabitants of entire star systems were enslaved, yoked to the whims of the Dark Gods. Across the galaxy, weaponised wonders of Mankind's technological peak were unleashed, turning many planets into irradiated Desert Worlds or Dead Worlds. The populations of those planets that were not utterly annihilated, including Terra itself, were reduced to savage barbarism.
Lore excerpt from Warhammer 40k Wiki on Fandom, available under CC BY-SA 3.0.
74 Chaos Daemons datasheets on the current roster, each with its points, model statistics, keywords and abilities.
32 Chaos Daemons datasheets that are no longer part of the current army roster. They are kept for reference and for players whose collections still contain the models.