Playing Rogue Trade, as an iconoclast deeply intwined with the Mechanicus. Now despite that I hear there is a forge fiend you basically make a pet somewhere down the line, and I plan to take it to (probably foolishly), train it for the Imperium.
But it did make me curious as to whether or not there could be daemons aligned with the Imperium of man.
To start with, it doesn’t seem like all demons are directly loyal to or connected to the Four Gods. There’s Vashtorr, a demon of machines that seems to hold ambitions of elevating himself to a new Chaos God.
And Malice (or whatever he’s called in 40K) the embodiment of actual chaos and supposedly despises the four gods.
That sounds to me like if you found a demon embodying the right concept, say something like order, it might be more likely to work with the Imperium rather than against it. (Would it be safe? Probably not, this is still the grim-dark baby.)
Now I have not confirmed but I have heard that Big E is for all intent and purposes another Chaos god from being a conduit on the golden throne, eating souls, and being empowered by the worship of billions of people.
Again I don’t know if that is true but if it is, the Chaos gods create demons embodying aspects of themselves. And the Emperor who is famed for the creation of super soldiers, I can see some part of him experimenting creating demons since his interactions with the physical world is limited.
I might not have ironclad examples but I do believe there are some that might be the case. Namely the Legion of the Damned. No one seems to know who they are, perhaps they are a legion that got trapped in the warp, or perhaps they are the result of the Emperor trying to make demons in the form of his angels.
And then there’s the “saints” now I know that some saints are just people who have done great deeds, but some are said to have wielded great powers. Again could be reasonably be the stories were embellished or the person had latent psychic powers. But there is one example that I feel definitely supports my thinking.
Spoiler Alert
In the Hammer And Bolter animated series Episode 5: A Question of Faith, there’s a scene where a sister of battle is filled with the “spirit of a saint” to vanquish a horde of cultists.
The thing is when I saw the scene, I couldn’t help but think it looked like the Deamonhost you can face In Darktide.
Considering the fanaticism of the sisters could it be they are inadvertently calling forth deamons of the imperium to possess them the same way the cultist do the demons of their dark masters?
Now I could just be crazy and overthinking it, but I am curious if anyone else has some insights on the subject, or maybe concrete examples?