Uploaded by SFaccountant 
2000x1200 PNG 2.44 MB
Interested in advertising on Derpibooru? Click here for information!
Help fund the $15 daily operational cost of Derpibooru - support us financially!
Description
“The unicorns are proving nothing if not… predictable. There was one, however, that wanted to look through my artifacts. She decided to borrow a tome: the Contagion Apocrypha.”
“Ah, excellent choice!” Solon said approvingly, standing up fully as he finally gave the Sorcerer his full attention. “I alwaysh liked that one. Lotsh of fun. How did she take to it?”
“Evidently she and two other mares made to study the tome in her quarters after curfew. Security teams were alerted by their neighbors, who were awoken by the panicked screams. By the time the response team cut through the layer of hardened mucus that had sealed their door, they found the ponies unconscious and infected. They have since taken to Nurgle worship quite enthusiastically.”
“That’sh wonderful!” Solon said brightly. “It’sh about time shome of them turned to the darker powersh. I wash shtarting to think they really were immune or shomething. What are their namesh?”
“Poison Kiss, Rot Blossom, and Breezy Blight, Warsmith,” said Serith.
Solon was silent for a few seconds. “They changed their namesh after they were marked?”
“No, Lord. Those were their names before.” Serith paused. “In retrospect, we probably should have seen this coming.”
“Ah, excellent choice!” Solon said approvingly, standing up fully as he finally gave the Sorcerer his full attention. “I alwaysh liked that one. Lotsh of fun. How did she take to it?”
“Evidently she and two other mares made to study the tome in her quarters after curfew. Security teams were alerted by their neighbors, who were awoken by the panicked screams. By the time the response team cut through the layer of hardened mucus that had sealed their door, they found the ponies unconscious and infected. They have since taken to Nurgle worship quite enthusiastically.”
“That’sh wonderful!” Solon said brightly. “It’sh about time shome of them turned to the darker powersh. I wash shtarting to think they really were immune or shomething. What are their namesh?”
“Poison Kiss, Rot Blossom, and Breezy Blight, Warsmith,” said Serith.
Solon was silent for a few seconds. “They changed their namesh after they were marked?”
“No, Lord. Those were their names before.” Serith paused. “In retrospect, we probably should have seen this coming.”
A great many of his devoted children do need to be… persuaded of his beneficence, it’s true. And this persuasion invariably takes the form of making a cultist ill to near-death and then offering them relief. But the Destroyer Plague was a one-off event specially designed to convert the Death Guard. It takes more than a bad rash to break the will of an Astartes.
This was a much happier and less dramatic conversion.
… That’s my excuse, anyway.
Last time I checked, Nurgle’s Gift hits hard and fast. The first of the Death infected with the pathogen nearly turned into bio-slag in their own suits upon exposure… But that was a long time ago and I have no clue what the Shambling Corporste Entities that rule GW have done to Nurgle’s ilk.
Iron Warriors don’t follow any particular God, certainly, and tend not to be very into the whole evil religion, but I’ve seen no indication that they bar individual warriors from taking on cult marks, or expel those who do.
In Storm of Iron there was an obviously Tzeentchian Warsmith, and a Khornate Chaos Lord. These weren’t characters that were “let in” to the Iron Warriors because their allegiance was observed and judged to be ultimately helpful; they were Iron Warriors who got in touch with their inner Chaos (during the events of Angel Exterminatus) and nobody decided to get rid of them after that. So I don’t think it’s a matter of what the Iron Warriors “need”, but what the individual soldiers want. There’s every reason to believe these are the exceptions rather than the rule, but in an army of tens of thousands that’s still going to make for lots of exceptions.
Perturabo himself is tight enough with Papa Nurgle that they whipped up a machine-plague together that devastated the Forge World of Toil. So I don’t see a lore conflict.
@Blade brandier
I think the clean look better emphasizes the contrast between the MLP and WH40K elements, personally.
Besides, they’ve only been infected for like, a week.
Eeeh, not really. The Death Guard Marines, bearers of the great Plague are bloated and otherwise bodily changed. But the secret behind them does only the Death Guard legion know, and they keep it pretty tight.
Normal marines can follow Nurgle too without looking like walking zombies or whatever, but they aren´t that tough, just having a little buff on toughness.
Shouldn’t these Nurgle followers also be putrified and bloated?
The only cult they let in, is the cult of Khorne, because the Berserkers are making ideal stormtroopers to attack a breach.
And before anypony says: “Hey, Nurgle is for buffing defence and taking hits feels nothing.” Gosh, they are Iron Warriors, they build fortifications for life and have half their bodies being mechanical already, they have no need for Nurgle or any other cult.