Nurgle
To me death is not a fearful thing. It's living that's cursed.
-Jim Jones
Introduction
The God of misunderstood sick fucks and all disease. He is a fat fuck who loves eating shit like Weeaboos. (Also, his name is pronounced NUR-gul. Get it right). He is also the leader of the only legitimately good faction in all of Warhammer 40k, seeing as literally everyone else in the galaxy is irredeemably evil in one way or another. Well, he is too, sort of, but not as evil as everyone else. Good as in 'honestly good intentions' in the most twisted way possible.
He was the first Chaos God to begin to form some time in the post-Roman era (probably during the Justinian Plague in the 5-600s), but Khorne was the first to gain sapience during the orgy of violence that was the Mongol invasions. Nurgle quickly followed suit and became fully conscious during the Black Death.
Chaos God of disease, decay and filth. He is the only Chaos God with the power of Love bullshit that's Slaanesh, Nurgle's power is life energy (and maybe friendship). There is a difference between paternal love and romantic love/lust. He promises freedom from pain, and the gift of life eternal. And choking bitches.
In the cold, dark grimdarkness of space where life sucks and everyone's a dick, Nurgle cares. And he loves you. He brings you family, love and the time to embrace that love fully. He accepts you for who you are, just stay that way. Don't wash, don't change. You're great the way you are.
Nurgle's chosen are the Plague Marines/Champions of Nurgle, who have willingly accepted his myriad plagues, turning them into shambling, bloated zombie-like things that feel no pain. Though it is not always known, he does have a few sisters of battle who follow him. He gets along okay with Khorne (presumably because his marines are also pretty tough, and Martial Camaraderie /Love of Family thing is close enough) and hates Slaanesh because while Khorne embodies the external expression of force and emotion, Slaanesh embodies the internal expression (nah, Slaanesh just really hates him because Nurgle stole his chick). He loathes Tzeentch, because all of the bird-boy's planning will come to naught in the end when all decays and falls apart. NOTHING, we say! Nothing!
Nurgle's followers refer to him as Papa Nurgle, and usually paint their armor in snotty greens, dookie browns, or biley yellow. Most often greens, though.
Nurgle is hero of all fa/tg/uys; fat and smelly but still getting laid! Nurgle saved the Eldar goddess Isha from Slaanesh, who was buttraping her. Slaanesh is still upset and doesn't really like Nurgle. Nowadays, Nurgle and Isha live as a happy couple in Nurgle's residences somewhere in the Warp. Nurgle likes to cook, and Isha is always eager to taste his stewings.
Papa Nurgle's units are:
- Plague Marines mostly consist of members of the Fourteenth Legion, although a substantial number of the Sixteenth Legion are now also "blessed" with Papa Nurgle's gifts; as Astartes who are immune to pain and minor injuries these guys are predictably difficult to kill.
- Nurglings, which look like tiny child's toy versions of Nurgle himself. They're so KYOOOT and every Nurgle trooper wants the "shlorp, pitter, drip" of a pet Nurgling of their own.
- Plaguebearers look like the bloated corpses of the drowned, but instead of water they swell with pus and black bile. They are surrounded by buzzing flies, making it harder to make ranged attacks, and they really love to share what they have. Their arms are made for hugging! They're reincarnated souls of Nurgle's followers or those who fell to Nurgle's Rot (which kind of makes them Nurgle's followers!). Nurgle's so generous that the gift of daemonhood isn't just for daemon princes!
- Beasts of Nurgle are exactly the puppydogs you asked Santa for, complete with wagging tails, a long tongue to lick you on the face, the scampering excitement of youth, a sluglike texture and paralytic toxins. If they get a little too excited they might piddle corrosive acid.
- Great Unclean Ones are greater daemons with a great sense of humor, and a jolly split belly ready to jiggle with laughter. Such jolly guffaws make their entrails dangle from their open festering wounds, which Nurglings and Beasts love to jump up and play with. You can smell the tangy perfume of ruptured boils, and it's said Nurgle himself is kind enough to coat their swords in the contagion of his own throne -- whatta guy, never too high and mighty to help his followers!
Generally speaking he's the third most powerful Chaos God after Khorne and Tzeentch, who are generally first and second respectively. But even at his weakest he's always stronger than Slaanesh at his/her/its/hermaphrodite's strongest. His power waxes during great plagues and times of great despair, decay, and stagnation and also gains strength when people deny their ambitions and wanes during periods of great hope, change, evolution and when cures for his plagues are found, he also loses power when people give in to their ambitions. During an especially big plague and/or period of stagnation (even more so than is usual for Warhammer 40k any way, excluding GW's own stagnation of the storyline, which would in theory make him the strongest god, but as soon as this is acknowledged things are no longer stagnant, just as Tzeentch planned), decay, and despair he can temporarily become the mightiest chaos god and his realm will encroach upon the realms of the other chaos gods and the neutral (undivided or unaligned) parts of the Warp, but eventually the event that fuels his little burst of power will end and he will return to the position of third strongest.
Anecdotes about Nurgle
About a year ago, I was out having a few drinks with the guys, when in walks Nurgle. He bought drinks for everyone in the bar. When we were all too hammered to drive home, he loaded us all up in his old Mazda and bused us around town until we all made it back home. And when that cop pulled us over and tried to make trouble, Nurgle boiled his eyes out of his anus. Nurgle is a great guy.
Me and Nurgle were going to go see this movie, I can't remember the name, and we were passing through the bad part of this Khornate neighborhood. These bloodletters ran out in front of the car and started denting up the damned thing. Nurgle just sits there, waiting for them to get out of the way, with that big goofy smile on his face. It wasn't until one of them busted my window and tried to drag me out of the car that Nurgle absolutely flips out. Before I know it, the whole road is now ground zero for like an army of little black things. I couldn't figure out what they were until the bloodletters start screeching, running around in circles and clawing at their nuts, as their genitals just start exploding, one by one. Nurgle drives off, just wearing a smile. Fucker gave them all a case of super crabs. We laughed all the way to the show. I love Nurgle.
When I visited the Nurglette's family and met Nurgle, he greeted me at the doorstep, football in hand, wearing an old fuzzy sweater and funny orange slacks, with a big goofy grin that says, "I like you already."
Y'know, its a good thing in that grimdark universe, with pointy aliens blowing off your limbs, some undead robots trying to de-atomize you, the Imperium with its Throne Vegetable, the EMPRAH trying to Exterminatus the shit out of everybody else, you get to have the most loving family circle ever. Sure you start to stink a little, a sore there, a rash in your ass, but hell, you never ever feel pain or get upset since you no longer fear death, you get to have an immortal, eternal father that spreads joy and gifts all around, with plenty to spare, and a nurglette wife that is most loving and caring, if you can stand her farts. And while you will be the most hideous thing in the universe, what use is appearance and health if everybody else is willing to take it away from you?
That Nurgle is a pretty fun guy to be around, just like Khârn.
Once Gork and Mork found a Greater Daemon of Nurgle wallowing around in an Orkish Cesspool, the pair responded to this by beating the ever loving shit out of it. Needless to say Nurgle wasn't particularly happy about his servants being used like a disgusting, puss filled tennis ball, so he cursed them with a powerful (and oh so very foul) crotch rot, the two Orkish gods went on to return to their usually activity of beating each other senseless and somewhere Tzeentch, The Eldar Laughing god Cegorach, and the C'tan Deceiver were shouting just as planned, then Nurgle gave Tzeentch a big hug (filled with lice, fleas, ticks, puss, bile, saliva, rotting flesh and vegetation, dirt, mucus, and other gross crap) and dirtied all of his feathers and forced Tzeentch to take a very long and thorough bath to feel remotely clean again. He then gave Cegorach a hug and the Laughing god also fled into the webway to take a bath to feel clean again. He then tried to give the Deceiver a hug but soon found out why everyone thinks that the Deceiver's special teleportation rule is so dickish and was unable to lay a finger on the star sucking, life eating, golden jackass.
Side Effects
Side effects of worshiping Papa Nurgle include (and are not limited to): Boils, scabs, internal bleeding, external bleeding, bleeding from the gums, eyes and ears, sweating, dehydration, carbuncles, rash, pus-filled sores, nausea, vomiting, bloody vomit, black vomit, black & bloody vomit, sneezing, runny nose, dry nose, coughing, dry cough, wet cough, not-so-dry-but-still-raspy coughing, fever, hay fever, athlete's foot, athlete's arm, swimmer's ear, tennis elbow, farmer's tongue, milkmaid's nipples, browning of the nipples, tender nipples, hard nipples, kitten nipples, shitting dick nipples, vertigo, drowsiness, sleepiness, insomnia, mad cow disease, mad postal worker disease, loose bowels, constipation, anal leakage,smallpox, super small pox, black death, genetic disorders, heart attack, blood clots, spilling guts, frothing mouth, rabies, puss excrement, moderate gas, medium gas, severe gas, holy-shit-who-died gas, mortality, sudden mortality, baby mortality, immortality, super-mortality, nurglopromorphism, blood clotting, AIDS, STD's, zombification, crabs, super-crabs, ebola, everything tasting of goats, racism, super-racism, reduced sex drive, spontaneous breakouts of HEUHEUHEU, increased sex drive, and mild discomfort of the neck. In most cases side effects were generally in the extreme and permanent. Consult your physician before worshiping Nurgle.
To Reader
If you join Nurgle, we can't promise that you'll be the most attractive person in the world, or that you will be accepted in many places, but Nurgle has a place for each and every one of us in his great big ole diseased heart.
Relationship with other Gods
- Tzeentch: Nurgle and Tzeentch are archenemies, though their relationship is still a great deal friendlier than Khorne and Slaanesh's. Nurgle thinks that Tzeentch should accept people for who they are, consider the people that he steps on in his many schemes and plots, and should be more loving to his followers and daemons and treat them like a family instead of faceless pawns. Tzeentch thinks that Nurgle should stop staying in the past, get over collateral damage, and stop being such a wuss with his minions. They are again however, far more likely to work together than Khorne and Slaanesh would be if only for a while.
- Khorne: Nurgle isn't very comfortable with Khorne's "Kill 'em all, fuck sorting them out" policy though he likes the fact that Khorne refuses to allow himself or his followers and Daemons to attack the innocent or helpless (except in most of Khorne's fluff when the writers forget this and he does, but hey (this is clearly imperium propaganda to make khornites look bad)), even if Nurgle doesn't like the reason for it. Nurgle thinks that Khorne should calm down, stop fighting anything that looks like it would present anything resembling a Challenge, and should actively protect those who can't fight for themselves rather than just punish those of his followers that break this rule. When asked what he thinks of Nurgle, Khorne just responded with a long stream of curses, oaths, obscenities, and swears strung together while foaming at the mouth. They did however help to save Khaela Mensha Khaine from being raped up the ass, killed, then eaten by Slaanesh, though Khaine ended up being broken in the process.
- Slaanesh: Nurgle isn't big on Slaanesh's omniphilia, sadomasochism, and Slaanesh thinks that Nurgle is an ugly fat blob. If anything, Nurgle likes Slaanesh less than he likes Tzeentch. The very instant Slaanesh was born Nurgle watched with horror as the hermaphrodite raped then killed nearly all the Eldar Gods and Goddesses and saved Isha from the perverted freak and cheered Khorne on as he fought to save Khaela Mensha Khaine from Slaanesh and helped Cegorach hide in the webway gates.
- The Nightbringer: The Nightbringer is rather upset that Nurgle often steals his Grim Reaper schtick, as well as thinking that Nurgle is a no-good two-bit youngster, while Nurgle isn't very happy about the whole separation of the warp and materium as he butchers all living things, and farm them for their souls thing.
- The Deceiver: Nurgle thinks that the Deceiver is like Tzeentch without the magic and having the dickish features intensified tenfold. When asked his opinion the Deceiver gave us a set of riddles, caused one third of our interview crew to walk away, convinced another third to attack us, and made the rest of us see trippy hallucinations.
- The Void Dragon/Machine God: Nurgle isn't very fond of the fact that the Void Dragon eats the souls of those who have metal parts in their bodies and is quite scared of what he'll do when he wakes up, but the Void Dragon was rather unreachable since the Adeptus Mechanicus laughed at us when we asked for entry into their Noctis Labyrinth.
- The Outsider: Nurgle isn't sure what to think of the Outsider, but then again no one is because he doesn't want to come out of that big sphere of his.
- The Emperor: Nurgle's old friend, nice chap he was. Nurgle's happy that the Emperor was so kind to allow his maggots and germs to eat at his rotten body but when we asked the Emperor for his opinion we got no response.
- Isha: Nurgle's lovely Girlfriend that he rescued from Slaanesh ten thousand years ago, he loves her very much and cooks for her. Isha is a god of healing and this allows her to remain in perfect health despite Nurgle's infamously poor hygiene. This arrangement is begging for a romantic sitcom.
- Khaela Mensha Khaine: Nurgle feels upset that he and Khorne couldn't save Khaine before he was broken in the fight. But Nurgle tries to be nice to the Avatars of Khaine that pop up every now and then even if they don't often return the favor, since being the Eldar god of War and Murder precludes silly things like friendship.
- Cegorach: While Nurgle thinks that the laughing god was more than a little selfish to hide behind Khaine and later Khorne, he is rather fond of the galaxy's greatest comedian and plays poker with him on a regular basis. Our interview crew died laughing due to a great joke Cegorach told them so we'll probably never know what Cegorach thinks of Nurgle.
- Malal: While Nurgle dislikes Malals emo selfdamaging tendencies, he as a nice guy can`t be angry at him for long. Even if Malal or one of his sons (Malice or Zuvassin) always smash the door in Nurgles face, when he offers them some of his homebaked cookies. When one of the champions of
Malal was asked about this statement he said it's complicated and tried to suck out interview crews souls.
- (Insert Box God here)
Famous Servants
Typhus the Herald of Nurgle - Mostly famous for being a tough son of a bitch to kill which is owed to the fact that Typhus is still inside Terminator armor and is fully pledged to Nurgle. Typhus is to Nurgle as Kharn is to Khorne, which is to say that he's Nurgle's favorite mortal servant. He just wants to give everyone a big hug, too bad everyone who gets hugged by him rots away into a pile of green slop. Typhus is also the name of a disease, cuz GW are nothing if not subtle (which is sweet considering typhus and typhoid fever are caused by ingesting food or water contaminated with a carrier's feces).
Ulkair the Great Unclean One - Ulkair is notable due to his history with the Blood Ravens, and was imprisoned by Kyras a thousand years before Chaos rising, but came back when Eliphas sacrificed a bunch of Blood Ravens to him and provided him with a plague marine to possess. But what really makes Ulkair famous is how fucking hard he is to to kill. While many thought that the Hive Tyrant Alpha was far too easy of a final boss in Vanilla dawn of war II, most agree that Ulkair went way overboard on the whole difficulty factor with a seven digit hit point count (Well he's a fucking Great Unclean One what do you guys expect?!)
Mortarion - Nurgle's Daemon Primarch, hasn't done much since ascending to Daemonhood but sit around and feel sorry for himself and is sadly less awesome that Angron who gets shit done. Is still really pissed over the fact Kaldor Draigo carved up his heart.
Scabeiathrax - Nurgle's version of Khorne's An'ggrath, Slaanesh's Zarakynel, and Tzeentch's Aetaos'Rau'Keres (say that five times fast) Famous for having T9 and 10 wounds meaning that he's completely impervious to any attack that doesn't at least have S6. He's the biggest and strongest of all of Nurgle's Greater Daemons and is probably the strongest of all of his servants in general. If Ulkair has 2,800,000 hit points, then Scabeiathrax would have 280,000,000,000.
Bubonicus - Nurgle's version of Khorne's Doombreed, Slaanesh's N'kari, and Tzeentch's M'kachan. Like Slaanesh's second in command, Bubonicus has no chance of being a real life historical figure unlike M'Kachan and Doombreed since he was born a good deal after humanity became a space faring species and was not in fact, born on Terra, but instead hailed from the same planet as N'kari. He is something of an oddity of the four great daemon princes since he's not roughly as old as Nurgle; while the other three are about as old as their respective gods. He has a huge line of dancers on one planet that goes across said planet's entire equator and they keep on dancing until they catch Uber-Syphillis and become Plaguebearers, at which point they leave to fight for Nurgle and someone else takes their place. The absolute fucking life of the party. His primary rival amongst the Daemon princes is not M'Kachan as one would expect, but N'Kari; as they were enemies in their mortal life. But now as daemon princes they are allies, marking an alliance of their respective gods to a lesser extent. Like the other great daemon princes, despite his importance to the fluff; he has no models or rules.
Puc'Kao - Nurgle's daemonic fairy of tooth rot, gum disease and sweets. Often seen as an overweight pus dripping cherub who likes to play pranks on people, usually meaning removing healthy teeth from the mouths of unsuspecting mortals as they sleep. As you can expect he is a fun guy.
Foulspawn - Foulspawn is the only known you-know-what to ascend to Daemon princedom.
Luke - I don't know where to start. Just... Ugh.
Chris-chan-It had to come to this at some point
As a general note, the general followers of Nurgle usually retain high levels of common sense in relation to other chaos gods. Probably because they don't usually go insane to the point of uncontrollable defecation like other Chaos God worshipers; they just defecate uncontrollably (sanity has nothing to do with it). So they get creative and tend to get cool gear and use it well. Plague Marines, for example, got bored with grenades and decided to instead use the SEVERED HEADS of their enemies; zombified, plague-ridden, embalmed severed heads are the standard issue grenades when you are a Plague Marine.
Fun Nurgle Facts
- Nurgle, despite being the third most powerful of the Chaos Gods, has possibly the smallest fanbase in Warhammer 40k. Because apparently RAGE, Just as planned, and PROMOTIONS are better than anything Papa Nurgle can offer.
- Despite being the God of despair and decay, he's a lot friendlier than the God of change and hope.
- Nurgle is the only Chaos God whose daemons look just about like him. Plaguebearers don't, but that's because they're the souls of other people.
- Nurgle's main unit, the plaguebearers, and the second most fucking impossible to kill dudes in the game, succeeded only plaguemarines, who are plaguebearers with cool armor. Each one take 13.5 bolter shots fired at it to be killed (on average. never 100% trust teh mathhammer), which some find as unreasonable considering that they cost one point less than space marines, meaning that a more expensive model will have little hope of killing it in the time it usually take to complete a game. You don't want to know how many lasgun shots need to be fired at one to kill it. (all right, 36)
- As discussed in a /tg/ thread, the "Garden of Nurgle" may be a metaphor for Isha and Nurgle being the same entity.
- Because the idea of grandpa Nurgle in a dress pretending to be an space elf princess fits quite nicely with the "king of the neckbeards" theme some fa/tg/uys had developed.
- Nurgle used to be a Daemonette then Sly Marbo pissed on him
- According to Storm of Magic, when Nurgle gets upset or depressed, he wanders off into the many bogs of his region of the Realm of Chaos to hunt Plague Toads, squashing them to cheer himself up.
- According to the Tome of Decay for Black Crusade, Nurgle sees his role in the cosmos as a sort of galactic recycler; Chaos rises when life grows so older that order stagnates and decays, meaning its job is to consume and destroy everything, leaving abundant rot for new verdant life to be born from, clean and pure until it ages enough to call Chaos back into existence. Nurgle's job, as he sees it, is to euthanize the galaxy as quickly and as painlessly as is possible, and as far as he's concerned, the galaxy is well past the time where it's time for him to step in, clear it all out and make it into fertiliser to sow the next age of the galaxy.
- Ironically, if this is true, it means that Nurgle and Tzeentch should work together much more harmoniously; Nurgle clears out the old and gives Tzeentch room to create the new. After Nurgle cleanses the galaxy, Tzeentch coaxes life to take shape again and gives rise to the next cycle. It also suggests that this is why Nurgle and Tzeentch are fighting; the God of Change is not doing his job properly, instead perpetuating the status quo for whatever reason rather than letting Nurgle clear it all out so he can start over. It could also be that Tzeentch is still helping him, since his plans might appear to maintain the status quo but really be the seeds of final collapse; as happens with many cases of stagnation, the measures that seem to hold up a society or system eventually become too many and it all collapses at once.
- He apparently succeeds at this goal in The End Times of Warhammer Fantasy. Perhaps fitting along with the various analysis on this page, Tzeentch seemed mostly cool with it and Slaanesh wasn't.
- Nurgle's triple-circle symbol looks like a stylized fly, the animal most commonly considered holy to Nurgle, a stylized version of the biohazard symbol, and also represents the cycle of death, decay and rebirth over which Nurgle has dominion.
Gallery
*WARNING! NURGLINGS ARE NOT THIS CUTE!*
 | This article contains PROMOTIONS! Don't say we didn't warn you. |
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Nurgle's followers.
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Nurgle also has daemonettes. Too bad they all have chlamydia. (Then again if you join Nurgle then it doesn't matter!)
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Old and crusty. See previous.
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At home with the family
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She slept with the judge!
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Greater daemon of Nurgle, the Great Uncle One
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The powers of Nurgle laugh in the face of chlorine.
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Daemonette of Nurgle (don't fap, it'll fall off)
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None loves his Pokemon more than the Nurgle Trainer.
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The Herald of Nurgle, charged with organizing everything for the big guy's arrival at concerts, parties, etc.
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It's so mushy that it causes disease. Literally.
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| The Chaos Gods of Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Fantasy | |
|---|---|
| Four Main Chaos Gods: | Khorne - Nurgle - Slaanesh - Tzeentch |
| Other Gods of Chaos: | Archaon - Hashut - Horned Rat - Nuffle Malal - Morghur - Necoho - Zuvassin |
| Chaos Gods of Law: | Alluminas - Arianka - Solkan the Avenger |