Gods of 40K
Nurgle
Oh Papa Nurgle please, let us out to play,
Oh Papa Nurgle please, let us dance today.
Oh Papa Nurgle please, give us broth and bone,
Oh Papa Nurgle please, hear me shriek and moan.
The Lord Entropic
Woe he who enters both mighty and great, for I am Ozymandias, Guardian of this gate.
All must come to ruin who enter this land, even ruin itself, by ruin's own hand.
Plague and pestilence, rot and ruin, so does the Warp reflect collapse even as it creates. Ennervation some call it, Entropy to others, it is the fate of all things to die. As such it should be of little surprise that the Warp, in all its perverted nature, would defy this.
So stands tall the Lord of Decay, Master of the Ripe and Ruin. Nurgle is his name, Sisyphus by those who know true, for his will is to endure eternal, never changing and never moving. It is by his decree that rot binds tight, by his order that sickness run free, death ever out of reach.
Such then is the fate of those who pledge allegiance to the Grandfather, forced to exist in repetition and toil, enjoy the madness out of choice left barren. It is love of the most absurd kind, for it chokes as it claims, smothers as it
seeks to protect. Vile obsession perhaps, or just the
death of soul and song...
This is the Path of Decay, as rotten without as it is within, poisoned by depraved consent. What dreams possessed are abandoned to sorrow, what hopes unravelled by a gift without equal. There can be no change upon this road, for that is the price you pay.
From dust to dust, from ashes to ashes, this way does existence lie barren, empty of life, empty of death.
Only Silence, forever at the end.
A Bad Apple
All things have a
beginning, even that
which cannot start nor end.
Caught eternal in existence, Nurgle's
moment of birth would define the
universe's path towards cessation without stop.
The dark lore and ancient pages describing those beings within the Warp speak of many things, and of birth do they speak freely but without much proof. From battles long past between empires that devoured stars do some state the beginning occured. The War in Heaven that split asunder reality and tore the veil so deep that madness was born.
Other legends persist of a time during humanity's ruin, as plague swept through the Middle Ages and devoured all in its path. The fade into nothing was a feast before the nascent thought, and upon each life taken, each land abandoned, did he glut himself into existence.
Last speak those of a time without time, for when life was born, so to was death. The Reaper exists and always has, for the day that he doesn't is the day that no one would be able to tell.
This confusion and doubt feeds only into his desire however, for ignorance is but the rot of the mind. Progress is inimical to the Lord of All, and so truth must be destroyed. That death comes is the only fact of importance, that all hope is lost, the only words to have meaning.
From this description would you then imagine a gallows figure, a haunting spectre of devastation and sorrow. Such a belief could not be further from the truth, for he is a corpulent creature of jolly smile and booming laughter.
A dichotomy then, that proves more horrifying than any revenant being of ruin. Surrounded by diseases given thought and malice, scarred by rot and infested organ spilling from his infected wounds, the sight of Nurgle is enough to kill... The smell enough to drive one into the abyss.
Nurture and
Nourish
While the other Gods may show inconsistent apathy to their followers, or take sadistic joy in their suffering, Nurgle instead offers love. Love, because little else has the power to disguise what horror lies in his service.
Those seeking to return his compassion do so through ritual long held dear to the Lord of All. The number seven, for instance, holds a special place in his heart, and such numbers his legions and most perfect of plagues.
In ruins do they pray, natural and machined, relics of a time long passed and a haunting reminder of the fate of all. Here do they raise high their decline, plot their goals of nought, and devise life from decay and death.
Those who wish to prove themselves to the Grandfather must do but the simplest thing... Endure. Survive, and you shall find plague and pestilence as gifts, bring low the enemies most glorious moments, and you shall find anonymity amidst the eternal hordes that follow you.
Reap then, and you shall find the harvest most prosperous...
The bounty of the grave, resplendent.
Servants of Sickness
Insidious then, is the lure of the void. Once your path starts down the road to ruin, your choice matters not, your damnation already fait accompli. Often does it start from the most benign of seeds, or rooted in a terror that has driven mortals into darkness since the first soul asked, "What happens next?"
The doctor seeks answers to diseases that cannot be cured, hunts for salvation as those they loves die. The noble looks upon their legacy and despairs, for it is incomplete and ragged. The mortals fears change, and so seeks to make it stop.
So then does the doctor begin to understand, wisdom given as soon his curiosity becomes love. The diseases more important than the host, intricate and divine in their perfection. Restoration becomes malady, the need to cure but another vector of decay as their humanity grows infected.
The noble, desperate, offers sacrifice for just another year, promises payment for but one last chance to finish what they began. Death releases them but the cost is great, and so their legend turns to rust even as they scramble for more coin to pay the keeper.
The question is asked, the answer replies... "Nothing."
Countless have sought the cure to finality, and the legions of Nurgle are thick with those too foolish to turn away from the hand black with rust. Astartes and angels, mortal and monster, l'appel du vide sings and they act without thought.
The most notable amongst these servants are the Death Guard, once bright stars in humanity's future, now pox-ridden and hollow. Beneath the wings of the Agent Apocrypha do they stride, relentless and eternal, scarring the very earth as they pass.
Before them walk mortals, eager in service to groups such as the Sevenfold Conjunction and the Plaguechildren, preaching of Nurgle's loving word even as they gather themselves to unleash a tide of ruin, their lives easy sacrifices for the glory of the Grandfather.
The Plagues have Eyes
Those servants born of the mortal coil may be legion,
but the darkness numbers endless in its desire to
destroy. The Daemons of Nurgle are creatures of
horror and fear, laughing fiends of joyous decay
who spread sickness by their very name.
The very least of these are the Nurglings and Plaguebearers, hordes of chittering diseases and
corpulent humanoids wielding blades of rust. Weak
and slow, only fury and the deadliest of blows can
stop their advance.
Then there are the mutants, those crude creatures of bountiful pestilence. The Molluscoid, thick with slime and shell, the Bloat Flies and their rotten kin. The Feculent Gnarlmaws, the swarms of Eyestinger bugs and the Bests of Nurgle themselves. Each is a glorious celebration of sickness and decline, devolution of the finest order.
Above the desolate hordes then ride the Heralds, masters of the Legions in Sickness and wise to the ways of disease. These are but the lieutenants however, servants to the Great Unclean Ones whose forms is made in magnificent homage to the Grandfather. Towering over all else, bolsters by the darkest magic, they are the true harbingers of extinction.
The Masters Malaise
From such a loving figure, it should be of little surprise that some of his children stand out in his favour more than others. These entropic champions are formidable beings, nigh inviolable and rife with pestilential power.
Mortarion, Lord of the Death Guard and Reaper of a thousand worlds. Upon wings of tattered flesh does he soar high, cleaving through with magic and dark might.
Typhus the Traveller, architect of truth to the Death Guard. His passage is foul with plague, the dead crawling forth to serve him.
Ku'Gath the Dour, pessimistic and quiet, he was once the most favoured in Nurgle's court of Daemons. Wise and cunning beyond his peers, he sows malaise and doubt in equal measure to disease.
Epidemius, the chronicler of catastrophe. He is the Grandfather's Tallyman, and is tasked with wandering the cosmos in his efforts to record all acts pestilential.
And finally, Horticulous Slimux, the Gardener of Nurgle and tamer of the wild beasts within his realm. Never smiling and never laughing, he takes his duties seriously as all should in praise of Father Fly.
The Gardens Putrescent
As foul as the servants of Ruin are, no more foul are they than the realm they call home. The Gardens of Nurgle are an endless swamp, thick with poisonous plant beast.
Macabre in fashion, every plague and pestilence, sickness and viral strain, can be found within its depths. Bacteria without name but holy in purpose, fungi whose spores inflict the most cursed of afflictions, all these exist in celebration of life without change.
Though one would be forgiven for thinking this wilderness to be a product of chance, nature given free reign to devour as it likes, they would be wrong. The chaos apparent to the untrained eye is instead cultivated with care, each plant nourished, each island within the virulent waters given purpose by careful hands.
Through this must one delve to find any proof of a creator however, and few will do so gladly. Past the buzzards however, and the trees that feed on blood, one will eventually find the ramshackle abode of the Lord of Decay.
The Blighted Mansions of Misery and Mirth, decrepit and ancient, stand tall amidst the jungle shroud. Within these crumbling walls does Nurgle work away upon his creations, the mad scientist lost in joy as he works his wonders upon the world.
Alone he is not however, for not only do his plagues burble happily within their flasks, but so too does another live within these halls. Isha, Goddess of Life, trapped and caged by chain and Nurgle's toxic love without restraint.
As he works, so does she, spilling secrets of hope and healing to those who need it most, learning from her captor even as she foils his every move.
So would it remain, a paradise of stasis and regression... But others planned different. A trap gone awry, Guilliman lured into the Forests Contaigon and escaped by the power of the Emperor, whose last act was to set aflame even as Nurgle's brothers sought vengeance for his recent success.
Such petty violence achieves nought however, for in the end...
It changes nothing.
The Cauldron of Nurgle
Hewn from his own body, warped like metal into a vast basin, the Cauldron of Nurgle is the pinnacle of the Plaguemeister's craft. It is within this bubbling pot that death is given form, life sprung eternal to claim its due. Such is the way of the alchemist, equal exchange for an equal price.
Art
1: Unknown
2: Plaguebearers and Nurglings by helgecbalzer
3: The Great Unclean One by Igor Sid
4: Nurgle's Blessing by Jacob Atienza
5: The Lords of Silence Cover
6: Grandfather Nurgle by Oleg Leshiy Shekhovtsov
Afterword
I hope you all enjoyed this installment of the 40K Lore by Jackeyblob. If you have any feedback or criticism, please don't hesitate to let me know. The next chapter will be taken from the suggestion most interesting to me, so I look forward to hearing from you then.