Nurglings

"Nurgle's children, our sweetest, our favourites...how much Nurgle loves his children, how much Nurgle loves his little darlings..."

—Insane scribblings written in the entrails of a still living man

A Daemonic Nurgling of Nurgle

Nurglings are the very image of Father Nurgle himself, having friendly, mischievous faces and bloated, green bodies fitted with disproportionate limbs. The only difference is their size. A Nurgling is no taller than a foot high. These foul things inhabit the bodies of larger Daemons, preferably the Great Unclean Ones who spawn them. Nurglings creep into the crevices, burying themselves beneath the diseased flab of their bulky forms and suckle on the cancerous wounds that weep foul pus. While covering their host, they jockey for the favour of their master, purring with pleasure when caressed or squealing with delight when offered a choice morsel of flesh.^[2a]

Even as disgusting as they are, nothing compares to how they are often created. A Nurgling grows in the rotting flesh of a Great Unclean One. Like infants, they feed on the nutrients of the mother, though in this case, it is the rancid milk of pestilence. In time, a diet of filth enables the Nurgling to grow large enough to allow it to eat its way out of the wet innards, born to whatever horrid existence it faces. Queerly, Great Unclean Ones tend to see these vermin as their children. They coddle them, coo at them, and caress them, showering them with affection — though such endearments are no obstacle to the Greater Daemon’s tantrums and bottomless hunger. Many Nurglings rot away, get caught between the Daemon’s prodigious toes, or are dissolved in its gastric juices.^[2a]

Overview

An assortment of Nurglings of various size and shapes

Nurglings are also bred from the pus shed by Great Unclean Ones. As these massive, bloated fiends walk the land, they leave a swathe of oily filth in their wake. The fluid collects in sticky pockets, lying in wait for the hapless passer-by who has the misfortune to dip his foot in the morass. The foulness enters the victim’s body, travelling through the blood to lodge inside of the abdomen where it grows, feeding on the body’s excrement. In time, when it is large enough, it distends its host’s belly and cries out insults and profanities as much and as loudly as it can.^[2a]

It eventually grows tired of such behaviour and travels out through the mouth or anus, depending on its mood, to be free and seek its fortune in the world. Such experiences, whilst terrifyingly unpleasant and maddening, are never lethal — just very uncomfortable. Such Nurglings may look for others of their kind — they are indeed sociable creatures, but many content themselves in the filth and squalor of human cities, feasting on offal piles, sewers, and the like. But from time to time, the Nurgling will seek its original Human host out of some strange affection, to visit a plague as a means of gratitude.^[2a]

Warfare

When faced with an enemy they advance in a furious swarm, clawing and gnawing at the foe’s legs, biting his ankles and licking at any interesting sores or abrasions they discover. Their tiny teeth are as sharp as razors, leaving festering little bites upon their victims, but rarely killing them outright — although such an attack can prove to be the beginning of a long, disease-ridden demise, as something nasty takes root in the wound.^[1a]

Miniatures

• 6th edition
• 4th-5th edition
• 4th-5th edition
• 1st edition

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Source

• 1: Warhammer Armies: Daemons of Chaos (8th Edition)
  • 1a: pg. 47
• 2: Tome of Corruption (2nd Edition Fantasy Roleplay)
  • 2a: pg. 226