Quote Originally Posted by The Glyphstone View Post
It is nice to think of Kharne as the epitome of the guy who's gone so far into crazy that he's come out the other side in a sort of meta-stable sanity.
This is what was strongly implied in The Eight-Fold Path. He feels the pull of the nails and wants to indulge in the slaughter of the Blood Angel.... But he also knows that if he does, he'll probably get hurt and be unable to take any more skulls, so he puts the rage and bloodlust aside in order to one-shot his enemy, ready to fight later.

He does it a couple of times - first against a hapless scribe who is sent to fetch him from his lair to meet with the Warlord who wants to hire him. Khârn imagines tearing the guy limb from limb and smashing his skull on the floor like an eggshell... And then consciously chooses not to because it's not worth his time, regardless of "Khorne cares not whence the blood flows" and all that meme stuff.

Khârn has weaponised his insanity. He switches it on when he needs to massacre an army, but for the rest of the time he overrides it and continues on his mission for Khorne, which often involves not killing people. He represents the greatest extremes of the World Eaters - the most violent and frenzied of rage held back by the coldest and most unrelenting self-control.

Quote Originally Posted by TheGlyphstone
I guess I misremembered then.
The 7th Edition Codex is somewhat more neutral about the event. He burns the buildings out of contempt, but there's no description of him being berserk while he does it - he drives his soldiers at the walls and kills them if they turn back, so it could be interpreted as a cruel form of motivation, rather than a deranged rampage.