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"Despair all ye nations, deny not that we're sick, for Our blood is like water where once it was thick. And our minds have grown leaden, our bodies gone weak, and venom pours from our lips whenever we speak...
Despair all ye nations, for the time draws apace, when the rot of the cynic shall steal our good grace. And our sweetest of dreams shall fade to lost hope, our pride and our arrogance; our noose and our rope...
Despair all ye nations, see the years drawing on, our great cultures are fading and soon they'll be gone. So conceited our scholars, they jeer through their teeth, with their theories so shallow -- quite soulless beneath...
"

—Extract from the works of Maximillian von Hohenstausen, arrested and charged with heresy, 2515 IC[2a]
Warhammer Champion of Nurgle

Eogric the Vile, a Champion of Nurgle

Champions of Nurgle are those Chaos Champions and Chaos Lords who have sworn their bodies and souls to the service of Nurgle, the Chaos God of disease, decay, and despair. The Champions of Nurgle include some of the foulest, most disgusting and hardiest of Chaos' mortal servants. The bodies of these Chaos Champions are riddled with vermin and disease, their skin a sallow hue and always surrounded by a great stink of rotting flesh that attracts only the swarms of flies indicative of Nurgle's foul will.[1a]

These men and women often wear heavy suits of Chaos Armour to aid in retaining their forms. The multiple diseases that infect them soon work on their bones, converting them into little more than bags of slippery, rotten flesh. Such foulness leaks out from the joints of their armour, spilling onto the ground behind them, leaving trails akin to that left in the wake of a snail's passage.[1a]

Disease and death are sacred to Nurgle and his Chaos Champions embody these concepts. They are swollen and bloated, often little more than moving sacks of pus and infectious fluid. Whilst slow, their bodies have been dulled to pain and as such can endure immense amounts of damage before they die. Many can even regenerate their wounds.[1a]

Role[]

"Despair all ye nations, for the ending is near, when the Lord of Lost Heart shall govern us with fear. Our weakness unfetters as we face this unknown, and our path trails to nothing; we stand here alone...
Despair all ye nations, the Corrupter has come, and the sad days of this world are nearing their sum. For the shining ideals through endeavours we sought, grow sour as He passes and are coming to nought...
Despair all ye nations, there's no hope for us now. For we made this monster, placed a crown on his brow. He fed on our apathy, our pain made him swell, we gave Him dominion, he gives us his hell...
"

—Extract from the works of Maximillian von Hohenstausen, arrested and charged with heresy, 2515 IC[2a]
Warhammer Fantasy Champion of Nurgle

A horrific sketch of a Nurglite Champion of Chaos, drawn by Richter Kless, author of the Liber Chaotica, who was later declared insane.

Though it is true to say that those who first step onto Nurgle's path are invariably usually first lost to despair, once they have received the blessings of their heinous new master, the Plague God's converts seem to change in both attitude and demeanour. There are reports by soldiers and witch hunters who have had the misfortune of being faced with the warriors of Nurgle, and each has testified to their foul opponents' energy and even mirth upon the battlefield.[2b]

So what has changed within these damnable heretics? Surely, if their god is one of ultimate despair, cynicism and fear, the disgusting servants of Nurgle must have to reflect these dominant aspects of their god, as, indeed, the followers of Slaanesh and Khorne seem to reflect the dominant drives of their gods, the desire for pleasure and murder, respectively. Perhaps the intention of this sudden energy and determination that Nurgle grants to his dedicated servants is given as a kind of twisted solace.[2b]

There is an old proverb that says that it is a comfort in hell to have companions in suffering. One may wonder if it is this notion, or something similar to it, that is the driving force behind Nurgle's Chaos Cults and armies. Perhaps Nurgle's servants attain some twisted (though genuine) comfort or relief in their suffering by actively seeking to inflict approximations of their own suffering upon the rest of the mortal world. The greater the suffering, misery and despair that Nurgle's servants inflict upon the world, the greater their contentment and humour seems to be.[2b]

Champions of Nurgle 2

A Chaos Lord of Nurgle

Sister Marie, a priest of Shallya, believes that Nurgle's warriors are unaffected by despair and apathy for the same reason that they do not die from the many physical corruptions their master heaps upon them. Her argument is that although a plague might cause the creatures it infects to wither and rot, the plague itself is perfectly healthy.[2b]

She believed that all diseases are caused by minuscule predators, carried upon the air or within fluids, that penetrate into our bodies to exist as parasites within our blood or organs, or whatever else they might need. The sores, coughing or any other physical attribute that this invasion might cause, are apparently only symptoms caused by the infiltrating parasites -- the parasites themselves (and therefore the disease itself) does not suffer from the symptoms it causes.[2b]

In other words, one can think that Sister Marie was indicating that by dedicating themselves to Nurgle and receiving his blessings, Nurglite cultists and warriors cease to be simple carriers of disease, and become actual embodiments of them to some degree.[2b]

This explains the form Nurgle takes in the few depictions that the Shallyans have of him in their holy books and iconography: He is always portrayed as an ordinary-looking man, but with grasping hands and a hungry gaze. Nurgle is the prime infector, not the infected...[2b]

Notable Champions of Nurgle[]

  • Valnir the Reaper - Among the most favoured of all Nurgle's mortal followers, Valnir is a semi-Daemonic being who was resurrected from death by his foul god.
  • Festus the Leechlord - Festus the Leechlord, also known as "Doktor Festus," "Old Sawbones," the "Dark Apothecary," the "Fecundite," and later as "Festus Empowered, the Gardner of Nurgle," was once a proud Imperial physician of the highest caliber, who rose to become one of Nurgle's most exalted mortal servants. He is the founder of the Tinean Fellowship, ostensibly a guild for Imperial physicians and apothecaries that was actually a secret Chaos Cult of the Plaguelord.

Miniatures[]

Sources[]

  • 1: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition - Tome of Corruption (RPG)
    • 1a: pg. 162
  • 2: Liber Chaotica Volume III: Nurgle (Background Book)
    • 2a: pg. 2
    • 2b: pp. 19-23
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