A map of the Realm of Chaos; note the positions and distances between the places on this map are only allegorical; distance and time have no meaning in the Aethyr.
The Land of the Plaguelord, often known better as the Garden of Nurgle, is the home domain of the Chaos God Nurgle in the Realm of Chaos.[2a]
On the border of Tzeentch's realm is the domain of Nurgle, the Great Lord of Decay who presides over physical corruption and morbidity. Nurgle can truly be called the father of all pestilence, for his immense frame is home to every disease known to mortals. His gigantic body is bloated with corruption and exudes an overpowering stench. His skin is greenish, leathery and necrotic, its surface pock-marked with running sores, sweliing boils and numerous signs of infestation. Nurgle's inner organs, rank with excremental decay, spill through the ruptured skin to hang like obscene fruit around his girth. From these organs burst tiny Daemons which chew on the rotting bowels and suck upon the nauseous juices within. Such is the appearance of Nurgle -- though mere words can barely do justice to his truly impressive foulness.[2a]
Although Nurgle is ranked behind Khorne and Tzeentch the truth is that his power is not necessarily weaker, just less stable than that of the other Chaos Gods. When Nurgle unleashes his ghastly pestilences his power rises to a peak. Like a plague his power grows and may reach pandemic proportions, temporarily overshadowing that of all the other Gods put together. It is for this reason that Nurgle commands vary respect from all of his brother Chaos Gods. Though Nurgle's daemonic legions may not be as ferocious as those of Khorne, nor as numerous as those of Tzeentch, when Nurgle's power waxes even Daemons can fall prey to his repertoire of grisly afflictions.[2a]
Nurgle's great delight is in the cycle of existence, in life and death. At the heart of his mouldering mansion, he indulges his passion. Beneath mildewed and sagging beams, the great god labours for untold hours at an iron cauldron, a receptacle vast enough to contain all the oceans of the world. Nurgle works to create contagion and pestilence -- the simplest, yet most fecund, forms of life. Such is the ghastly irony of Nurgle's existence: everything he does is with the goal of bringing more life into the world, yet so many of his creations are inimical to other beings that Nurgle is widely thought of as a destroyer, not a creator.[2a]
With every stir of Nurgle's maggot-ridden ladle, a dozen fresh diseases flourish. From time to time, Nurgle ceases his stirring, and reaches down with a leathery hand to scoop a portion of the ghastly mixture into his cavernous mouth and taste the fruits of his labour. If the concoction does not meet with Nurgle's approval, he begins to prepare his soup anew. Should the putrid soup meet with approval, the god waddles to the corner of his workshop, where he holds Poxfulcrum, a Daemon blessed with the ability to heal infections, but afflicted with a vulnerability to them all. Opening the corroded cage, Nurgle forces her to imbibe the putrid mixture, watching with ill-concealed excitement for the signs and symptoms of his latest creation.[2a]
Though Poxfulcrum inevitably purges the disease from her body, the efficacy with which she does so allows the Plaguelord to evaluate his creation -- as he empties it into the grate below, the teeming liquid falls as rain upon the mortal world. As for Poxfulcrum, she whispers to mortals while the Plaguefather is busy at his cauldron, apprising them of cures for the ailments Nurgle unleashes upon the world.[2a]
So has she entered the beliefs of a thousand cultures under a thousand names. Some mortals believe her to be Nurgle's daughter, who cures only so that new diseases can take hold, while others see her as Nurgle's bitter foe, herself a deity of healing and patron to the afflicted.[2a]
Notable Locations[]
Below are listed some of the more notable locations to be found within the Land of the Plaguelord. For most of these, there is little more information than a name known to mortal scholars of the daemonic, though those are often evocative enough about the nature of these places.
- Abyssal Sump
- Arghus the Plague Moon
- Arnzipal's Island
- Bridge of Fools
- Eternal Swamps
- Fields of Tooth and Bone
- Fungus Lands
- Garden of Blight
- Gnawhame
- Great Tree
- Island of Lepers
- Lair of the Maggot Lord -- Likely the domain of Epidemius or, alternatively, of Tamurkhan
- Lair of the Thirteenth Lord
- Mansion of the Plague Lord -- The Mansion of the Plague Lord is Nurgle's vast, ruined manse and the seat of his power in his home realm.
- Ossified Halls
- Rotten Reaches
- Seven Stones
- Septic Isle
- Titan Graveyards
- Wyrmid Reaches