It might just be that I have been bedridden this week because of the coronavirus, but I have been thinking about Nurgle a lot. Papa Nurgle, Grandfather Nurgle, God of Disease — Nurgle has a lot of names in Warhammer. Nurgle is a really popular deity, not only in-universe but amongst the players and creators of Warhammer games. Why? Nurgle is not what I would necessarily call appealing; He is the god of diseases, a rotting god with zombie-mutant servants whose entrails drag in their feet and slime and viscera trail behind them. But Nurgle remains strong; both Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000 have tons of models made for their Nurgle factions, to the point that the Death Guard of Warhammer 40,000 have so many models I can’t even remember all of them. And I’m very good at remembering Warhammer models.
Part of this popularity is in attitude. Sure, Nurgle is the god of disease and death, but why be all gloomy about it? Servants of Nurgle are a disturbingly cheerful bunch. They just really want everyone to share the gifts their dear Grandfather gave them, and then everyone can see the truth: life is shit, so let’s wallow in it. Nurgle factions are one of those that you can’t take too seriously; Nurglings are joyful little gremlins who run around naked and do stuff just for shits & giggles, Beasts of Nurgle are just giant, overly-excited slug puppies, there’s a guy called Sloppity Bilepiper who plays bagpipes made out of guts and dances around in jester hat. Nurgle just…is like that. They do have their grimdark side and serious characters like Mortarion and Typhus in Warhammer 40,000, but Nurgle factions have managed to keep their mischievous, dark comedy spirit as part of who they are.
This is why I like them as well. But this does not explain their popularity in video games, where this cheerful side is rarely seen. If you look at more recent Warhammer video games, Nurgle is featured as the villain faction again and again. Vermintide II features the tribe of Nurgle worshippers called Rotbloods, who are mostly vaguely rotting and sometimes they yell creepy lines like “I want to touch”. In Chaos Gate — Daemonhunters, the titular daemon hunting Grey Knights fight against Nurgle Daemons, and finally even Mortarion, the Primarch of the Death Guard. And now, in the upcoming Darktide game, Nurgle is once again assaulting humanity with diseases, mutants, and vaguely human-like hordes of cultists.
None of these really feature the morbid humor of Nurgle that has made them popular. They mainly feature the corrupted, diseased look of zombies and nothing else. And I guess the answer is there. They are zombies. More specifically, they are the perfect shorthand for zombies. Zombies have been used in games for almost as long as there have been games because they serve a very delicate purpose: they are human, but not too human, so shooting them is easier. Media has taught us to recognize a zombie archetype even without them being explicitly named as such. Zombies don’t have to be zombies to function like zombies, they just have to look and feel the part. Zombies are great all-purpose tools for meanings: are zombies pitiable creatures who are lost? Are they the ravenous side of humanity brought to its extreme? Do they represent the somewhat iffy “hordes at the gates of civilization”, that need to be fought against no matter the cost? Zombies can be anything, and they have been anything.
As for these games, Nurgle is basically representing zombies. Cultists and minions of Nurgle have lost their innate humanity in a more visual and visceral sense than those of Slaanesh, Tzeentch, or Khorne. We are meant to see the followers of Nurgle and think “zombies”, and then proceed as planned. In the context of these games, they really represent the mindless hordes that assault civilization, bringing disease and death with them. These games would work really differently if instead of the shambling horde of rotting corpses we would face, oh let’s say, alluring leather-clad servants of Slaanesh, unreasonably angry barbarians of Khorne, or robed cultists of Tzeentch. Games like Darktide would feel very different if this one key element was changed. How would your reaction to the game, world, and act of wanton slaughter change, if the hordes running towards you looked like this or this instead? Games like Vermintide and Darktide are based on zombie survival shooters, so using Nurlge makes sense. Nurgle’s popularity in video games is tied to their familiarity. This familiarity helps game developers to use them in the games really effectively, trusting in the shared common ideas of zombies doing part of the job.
And while it works, it is a really safe option to use and since these games often omit the more cheerful and funny side of Nurgle’s worshippers, they tend to be a little…bland. The four chaos gods are one of my favorite things in all of Warhammer and despite their hyper-visibility regarding other factions, I still enjoy seeing them being adapted into video game villains. I got really excited over the Enter the World of Slaanesh- trailer for Total War: Warhammer III because Slaanesh has been absent from games for so long. And I would love to see more than Nurgle in video games that feature chaos as the sole/secondary opponent. There’s a lot of fun stuff to work there, but since most of Warhammer 40,000 games are just about shooting up hordes of faceless mooks, I don’t see this changing anytime soon. Really got my eye on you, Rogue Trader.
Maybe I wrote this text as an intricate ritual to Nurgle so he would lift his damned “blessing” off me and I could go to the game store to pick up some paints. Please Grandfather Nurgle, give me a break.
Aasa T
PS. I really should write about Slaanesh one of these days.
