Cult of Chaos

The **Cult of Chaos**, also known as the **Chaos Cult**, the **Cult of the Warp**, and the **Cardinals of Damnation**, is the infamous and by far the most dangerous religious organization that has existed in the Milky Way Galaxy, with it repeatedly being a threat to the Terran Imperium, Galactic Republic, Confederacy of Independent Systems and many other states across the galaxy time and time again. Be it through major conflicts like the infamous Great Chaos Crusades or minor conflicts that has scared numerous worlds, there is no doubt that about the danger of not just this cult but also the dangers of their gods and the realm of the Force they came from, the Warp. And unlike religions of before, many of its' beliefs are very much real, typically in the form of their twisted gods of Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch and Slaanesh and their numerous varieties of warp-born dark-side creatures dubbed simply as Daemons, but also the influence it has over people, as those either expose to or worships the "ruinous powers" inevitably twist and morph into something unrecognizable, becoming monsters that do whatever their gods demand.

Technically speaking, the Cult of Chaos isn't a single religious organization, rather its' a complex web of interconnected and interrelated cults and sects that all ultimately have the same key belief structure, namely those of the Chaos Gods themselves and the Warp they came from. Aside those, these various subcults and sects all have vary considerable from one to the other, not just in terms of practice but also worship and actions. Some of these cults and sects only worship one of the four gods and others worship the gods equally. Whatever the case maybe, it does not make the group any less dangerous, just more divided and prone to infighting.

One of the most troublingly aspects to the Chaos Cult is the influence the Warp can and will have over their members, even those outside of the cult itself. Numerous times, mercenaries bands that only worked with them due to a contract would end up becoming yet more twisted members of the cult, killing not in the name of money as they once have but for their new gods. Its' this influence that makes them so dangerous, and why precautions are to be made to ensure that its' corruption does not hold in any force that spends long enough periods of time fighting them. Other times this influence can be subtle, as what happened to the Space Marines who aligned with Horus following the end of the Horus Rebellion. They joined the Cult of Chaos out of sheer desperation as the Imperial government was actively hunting them down. However, these Space Marines only intended to be apart of the group for a short time, when that was has long sense been forgotten by these now Chaos Marines all of whom have long sense forgotten their former solves and become corrupt and twisted versions of their worse personality traits and vices.

The Chaos Cult is not the only Warp based cult found in the galaxy, simply its' the most well known. There are numerous other Warp cults throughout the galaxy, both present and past, however most of these cults often times fracture and dissolve in time due to a number of reasons that vary from cult to cult. Simply put, due to the Chaos Cult's nature and structural organization, it allowed it to last considerably longer then other Warp cults, with most barely reaching a century before eventually breaking apart. The only other Warp cult that even comes close to the Chaos Cult in terms of age would be the Cult of the Eternal Damnation, and that has been in existence for the past 2500 years, and even then it is a far cry from the ten thousand that the Cult of Chaos has enjoyed.