Warhammer 40K: The Garden of Nurgle
Today we travel to the rotting realm of corruption at the heart of the Lord of Decay’s power – the Garden of Nurgle.
The Garden of Nurgle is a realm within the Warp that falls under the dominion of Nurgle, the Master of Pestilence and one of the Chaos Gods.
This unwholesome realm is home to every pox and affliction imaginable and is alive with the stench of rot. This ‘garden’ is not a barren wasteland, but rather a macabre paradise of death and pestilence. A thick sheet of buzzing swarms of black, furry flies litter the sky, and twisted, rotten boughs entangled with grasping vines cover the moldering ground, beneath an insect-ravaged canopy of leaves. Defiled fungi both plain and extraordinary breakthrough the leaf-strewn mulch of the forest floor, puffing out vile clouds of spores. Muddy rivers slither across the bloated landscape.
The chief Gardener of Nurgle’s putrid realm is Horticulous Slimux and contains ravenous creatures such as Feculent Gnarlmaws.
Nurgle’s Mansion
Nurgle’s Blighted Mansions of Misery and Mirth consists of rotted timbers and broken walls reside at the heart of the garden; decrepit and ancient, yet eternally strong at its foundations. It is within these tumbling walls that Nurgle toils at his cauldron, a receptacle vast enough to contain all the oceans of the worlds of the galaxy.
When Nurgle’s power waxes, the Garden blooms, encroaching on the lands of the other Chaos Gods. Nurgle’s enemies would fight back, and the Plaguebearers would take up arms to defend it. Although the Garden will recede again, it would still have fed deeply on the essence of those who have fallen in such wars, and will lie in gestate peace until it is ready to bloom again.
Isha, An Unrequited Love
Nurgle keeps his companion Isha trapped in a cage in the Garden of Nurgle, in the corner of a room where he keeps the cauldron in which he creates all of his plagues. Being the Aeldari goddess of healing, Isha can cure herself of any of Nurgle’s diseases. Nurgle takes advantage of this by force-feeding her his latest creation and sees how long it takes the goddess to overcome its effects. If he is pleased, he releases it upon some unsuspecting world, if not, he starts over, working at his cauldron until he has something new to give to his ‘companion’. Whilst he is busy working though, Isha takes advantage of his distraction to instruct mortals on how to rid themselves of Nurgle’s poxes.
Notable Locations
- The Blighted Mansion of Misery and Mirth – Nurgle’s personal manse and lair.
- The Death Beds – Frequently visited by Nurgle, this sea of muck both traps invaders and restrains them for some sort of future use. If one of its victims tells a tale to Grandfather Nurgle that amuses him as he passes by, they may be plucked from the muck and rewarded for being used as a vessel for one of his newest plagues.
- The Poxyards – Testing ground for his newest plagues.
- Deathbell Lily Fields – Whenever someone in the mortal realm dies from one of Nurgle’s ailments, a pallid flower in Deathbell Lily Fields will emit a tiny chime.
- Hanging Gardens of Thus’Bolg – Made in honor of the Great Unclean One Thush’Bolg, who used his own intestines to hang his many Ork victims from a colony of trees.
- Bubbling Gully – here Typhus stopped the invasion of the daemons of Khorne, leading the final coordinated attack of Beasts of Nurgle and Plague Drones.
- Jungles of Nurgle – These steamy rotting lands were set to the torch by Grey Knights Lord Kaldor Draigo during his cursed travels across Nurgle’s realm.
Traveler, pray you never come close.
