#kharneth

Sorry Khorne fans, but for me he is last of the big four. That doesn't mean I don't like him, love all the chaos gods, but here's why. Unlike my Nurgle and Tzeentch explanations, this will be a bit heavier like my Slaanesh.

THE GOOD

Khorne is a lawnmower. There's something satisfying at times to the simplicity of, lets go with Kharneth, I like that name better. Something delightfully simple to screaming "BLOOD FOR THE BLOODGOD" and going to hit something with a sharp piece of metal. Its almost therapeutic sometimes.

Also, as he cares not from whence the blood flows, Kharneth is thus clearly the god of [menstruation joke goes here]. And yes, I am... familiar with the Leman Russ quote. Though in a way I sorta do want a Norscan slang to be "the time of the hound".

Completely unrelated, I promise, but also Valkia the Bloody. A lot of love for a queen who gets told she's been selected as a Slaanesh daemon prince for concubinisation, and answers by killing him and marching into chaos to deliver his head to Kharneth personally.

THE BAD

Khorne is a lawnmower. Much fun as it is to skull for yon skull throne, I can find Kharneth a bit one-note in that respect. Which isn't bad exactly but tends to make him better in measured doses, you know? I like variety over the long haul.

THE UGLY

Here's where it gets heavy. Like Slaanesh, I relate to Kharneth well. Unlike Slaanesh, it is not a mixed bag of good and bad. It is just bad. It is parts of me I do not like.

Among my mental/emotional concerns for which I get medication and therapy is anger. Not strong enough a word. Rage. Fury. Berserkergang perhaps.

Times where the world has become a long red tunnel with ThingsThatNeedToDie™️ at the other end. The strength is unbelievable, though I pay for it after. And I don't just mean raw physical force. The absolute purity of purpose in such a rage is the greatest clarity I have ever experienced.

And that is a bad thing.

It is like an addiction. It may well be one, but I am not a biochemist so I won't conjecture. All it causes is harm and the sublime clarity doesn't last beyond the fit of rage. I miss it. I shouldn't but I do. And I have started trying to direct it in healthier ways. Promoting justice, if there is such a thing, or perhaps more accurately fighting injustices. Turning the furnace of anger toward productive ends.

That, however, leads me to the even less useful and harder to justify emotion I relate to with Kharneth: hate. Unlike the conflagration of fury, hate is the bitter coals that endlessly hunger for spiteful destruction.

I have stared into the abyss of hate. In some areas I have fallen into it. Most notably misandristic thinking. I hated men. Another trauma response, given who has hurt me in the past. And I know that it is wrong, I have made real progress with it. Unlike anger, I do not miss it. It is seductive, offering clear and simple answers to complex issues. "X is bad" with no other qualifiers can be unbelievably tempting in some cases. Complex is troubling, while simple is easier. Hate is so much easier than understanding. But I do not miss it. The toxic fumes from those ever-smoking coals is poisonous to mind, body, spirit, and society.

It is not rage, it is contempt. It is spite and venom. A desire to see something ruined or destroyed, not out of passion, but out of bile. And my susceptibility for it is a part of myself I really do not like. But to mention my fibromyalgia again: it is easy to hate the world when the world causes you nothing but pain.

Understanding is counter to hate, maybe not perfectly but I found it helps. After I was assaulted a few years back by a hired driver, I was aware how easy it would be to fall into hate because of that. So I threw myself into learning about his religion. Harder to paint all adherents of a faith badly when I knew more about it, was my thinking. It worked. I even gained an appreciation for the art common in that belief system, that I had not known about before, and learned some interesting history. Which helped me remember: it is not all of a demographic, it may be too much of a demographic, but not all. He was just a jackass.

Sorry to end the big four on a heavy note y'all. Here's a picture of cathartic destruction.

Khorne, the Blood God!

Phew! Here’s my second iteration of the Blood God. I don’t draw fire a lot of uhhh forgive any wonkiness? lmao

However, Tor'ravo'khorakus was simply mindless. And not at all furious.

This is not to say that the Lord of Battle’s gift escaped him; indeed,  Tor'ravo'khorakus destroyed many Bloodthirsters who thought to cull the ranks of the “defective” Deathbringer and this pleased Kharneth greatly. The Blood God doesn’t put stock in thought and doesn’t mind fools per se (the armies of the Dark Gods are largely comprised of ambitious fools) while Tor'ravo'khorakus’ deficiency regarding rage is a conundrum he briefly muses on, his battle prowess is unquestioned which is the more important thing in the Blood God’s eyes. Ordeals with his siblings awaken in him a dim distaste for his fellow Bloodthirster and so his brothers tend to give him a wide berth lest they risk being pulped.

Misunderstood, but nonetheless accepted by Kharneth, Tor'ravo'khorakus spends much of his day in the Mortal Realm, fiercely guarding those few places in the Chaos Wastes where flowers still dare to sprout and blood. He favors the red ones; this leads to his siblings sneeringly dubbing him The Carnation.

smash or pass - blood dad?

A Discovery I made today: Drawing muscles is hard 😔

Anyway, I’ve decided to work a bit more on Khorne 3.0. At least get a half body done. Hell, if I’m particularly inspired, I might even do a full body of the Skull King. Isn’t he just the ugliest bastard you’ve ever seen :3c?

IN FINDING KINSHIP WITH THIS TRAITOROUS DOG, YOU HAVE FOUND AN ENEMY IN ME AND MY LEGIONS! YOUR SKULLS ARE FORFEIT, YOUR BLOOD IS MINE, YOUR LIVES ARE OVER.

Kharneth roars the edict into the sky and it rings across the realms, the sheer power of the proclamation and his own rage stirring the simmering land into a crescendo. Within his realm, volcanos awaken and seas of blood boils. War daemons fight and kill and die all the more intensely. Outside his realm, the brothers feed the weight of Khorne’s wrath as well and still yet farther...

Earthquakes shake and rip of the lands of the North and even further down. The gentle sea turns violent as the earth beneath it shifts and cracks. Tidal waves surge and slam upon the coast, killing hundreds, thousands--