Death Guard

The Death Guard are one of the Traitor Legions of Chaos Space Marines. They worship and devote themselves exclusively to the Chaos God Nurgle and as a result of his mutational "gifts" they have become Plague Marines; Astartes who are eternally rotting away within their Power Armour and infected with every known form of disease and decay but who are immune to all pain or minor injury.

Mortarion
When the 20 gestating Primarchs of the Space Marine Legions were scattered across the galaxy through the Warp from the Emperor of Mankind's secret gene-laboratory deep beneath the Himalayan Mountains on Terra in a mysterious accident likely caused by the Ruinous Powers of Chaos, one came to rest on the planet Barbarus, a world wreathed in poisonous fog. The population of the world was split into two groups: the controlling warlords who were necromancers who possessed fantastic psychic powers, along with the human settlers, who had been trapped on the planet millennia before and were now forced to eke out an existence in the poison-free valleys of the planet, fearing the wrath of the warlords and their undead and mutant creations.

The Primarch-child was taken in by the most powerful of the warlords, who found him amongst the corpses of a battlefield, screaming and wailing where a normal child would have suffocated and died long before. The Overlord of Barbarus took the child in with the intention of creating a son and heir, naming him Mortarion - the child of death.

Mortarion was kept in a fortress positioned at the limit of even his superhuman tolerance to the toxins in the air, while the Overlord moved his own fortress to the highest peak of the world, beyond where even Mortarion could go. He trained the child, who had a highly keen intellect and voracious appetite for knowledge; Mortarion learned everything from battle doctrine, to arcane secrets, from artifice to stratagem. However, the young Primarch's questions began to turn towards subjects the Overlord did not want to talk about, namely the pitiful creatures in the valleys that the many warlords preyed upon for corpses to reanimate and bodies to warp.

The Deliverance of Barbarus
Finally, knowing he would be unable to find the answers he desired from his adoptive father, Mortarion broke out of the fortress that had been his home and prison after killing several guards stationed at the gates of the fortress, and headed for the valleys of Barbarus. Breaking through the poisonous mists, Mortarion discovered that the prey of the warlords were in fact the same species as he, and swore to deliver them from their oppression. The people of Barbarus were slow to accept this pale, gaunt stranger from the mountains, but Mortarion was given a chance to prove his worth when mutant creatures enthralled to another warlord attacked the village. Seeing that the peasants were unable to effectively fight back, Mortarion joined the fray, wielding a massive harvesting scythe that made short work of the beasts. The warlord smiled when Mortarion advanced upon him and withdrew to the apparent safety of the deadly fog, only to be pursued and butchered by this inhumanly resilient Primarch. Accepted into the village without further reservation, Mortarion began to train the villagers in the art of warfare. Soon, representatives from other villages journeyed to learn from Mortarion, while the villages scattered across the valleys of the world were transformed into strongpoints. Mortarion travelled from settlement to settlement, teaching, building and defending his people.

He recruited the toughest, most resilient men he could find, forming them into small units that trained under his supervision. He enlisted the aid of blacksmiths, craftsmen and artificers to create special suits of armour that would allow men to travel through the poisonous fog. As each battle in the mists was fought, Mortarion and his Death Guard would learn how to better adapt the armour, and themselves, to reach the more poisonous heights. Eventually, only one peak denied them access, the one on which Mortarion's adoptive father had made his home.

The Coming of the Emperor
Despite his adoptive father being a ruthless necromancer, Mortarion felt reluctant to attack the man who took him in and called off the planned attack. Returning to the village, Mortarion's mood darkened when he found his people talking not of his victory but of the arrival of a benevolent stranger who promised salvation to the people of Barbarus. Finding this stranger in conference with the village elders, Mortarion claimed that his people needed no outside help. The stranger commented that even Mortarion and his Death Guard were having trouble pacifying the final warlord, and offered a challenge. If Mortarion could defeat the Overlord, the stranger would leave. If not, Mortarion had to swear fealty to the stranger and the Imperium of Man he represented.

Ignoring the protests of his Death Guard, Mortarion left alone to confront his adoptive father, motivated by a compulsion to prove himself to the stranger below. The confrontation was brief. The air surrounding the Overlord's fortress was so poisonous, that parts of Mortarion's armour began to rot. He collapsed at the gates of the Overlord's citadel, bellowing challenges. The final thing Mortarion saw before he passed out was the Overlord of Barbarus coming to kill him, then the stranger leaping between the two and slaying the Overlord with a single sword thrust.

When he recovered, Mortarion swore fealty to the stranger, who revealed himself to be Mortarion's father, the Emperor of Mankind. The Emperor granted Mortarion command of the XIV Space Marine Legion, then known as the Dusk Raiders, who quickly adopted the name and regalia of Mortarion's Death Guard. However, the Emperor's slaying of his adoptive father proved to be a grudge Mortarion long held against his true father.

The Great Crusade
Mortarion believed that victory in battle came through sheer resilience, and Horus, who used the strengths and weaknesses of the different Legions to create the most efficient fighting force possible, used his Legion in co-ordination with Mortarion's frequently. Mortarion and the Death Guard would draw out the enemy and tire them down, and then the Luna Wolves would strike. This combat tactic worked brilliantly, and Mortarion grew close to Horus.

Mortarion was a grim and driven Primarch, his breathing apparatus and scythe an inseparable component of his aspect. The pallid, hairless Primarch was viewed by others as a freak, and was distant from all his brother Primarchs save the Warmaster Horus and Konrad Kruze, the Night Haunter. Some even whispered that Mortarion was more loyal to Horus than he was to the Emperor; however the Emperor claimed that loyalty to Horus was de facto loyalty to the Emperor, for the two were that close. Events would prove the Emperor sorely mistaken.

The Horus Heresy
When Warmaster Horus turned to Chaos, it did not require much effort to drag Mortarion and his Death Guard Legion down with him. Horus had been one of the few Primarchs with whom Mortarion had felt comfortable, and as such he showed more loyalty to the Warmaster during the Great Crusade than to the Emperor himself. In addition to this, First Captain Calas Typhon, Mortarion's right-hand man, had long been a secret follower of the Ruinous Powers and eagerly manipulated the rest of the Death Guard into treading the path of damnation.

Mortarion revealed his true colours during the scouring of Istvaan III, when he willingly sent potentially Loyalist elements of the Death Guard into Horus' trap. Once the Astartes who remained loyal to the Emperor were purged, the Death Guard then fought alongside their Traitor brethren during the Drop Site Massacre on Istvaan V.

During the subsequent assault on Terra itself, the Death Guard were part of Horus' invasion force. However, en route, the entire Death Guard Fleet became trapped in the Immaterium due to the actions of Typhon. Typhon slew the fleet's Navigators (claiming their loyalty was still to the Emperor), then promised to lead the fleet himself with his psychic powers. The Destroyer Plague infected the fleet while they drifted aimlessly through the Warp, making a mockery of the Death Guard's legendary resistance to poison and contagions. Desperate, Mortarion offered his own soul and that of his Legion to the Ruinous Powers in exchange for deliverance from eternity trapped within the twisting corridors of Warpspace.

In the Warp, drawn by the actions of Typhon, the power known as the Chaos God Nurgle responded, claiming the Death Guard for his own. The Death Guard emerged from the Warp vastly different from when they had entered, now fully dedicated to the cause of Chaos. Mortarion himself was transformed into Nurgle's greatest daemonic servant: the Prince of Decay.

In the end, Horus was defeated by the Emperor, but unlike the other Legions, who splintered and fled into the Eye of Terror, Mortarion's Legion, now calling themselves the Plague Marines, made an orderly withdrawal, force after force breaking themselves on the Legion.

The Post-Heresy Death Guard
Within the Eye of Terror, Mortarion was elevated to a Daemon Prince by Nurgle, given a new world, now known as the Plague Planet, which he shaped into the image of Barbarus, placing himself in his adoptive father's position. He is believed to still be alive in the 41st Millennium. Typhon (now called Typhus the Traveller) took a more active role in continuing the war against the Imperium by abandoning his master and striking out on his own, bringing the 'gifts' of his patron to the Emperor's followers. Typhus was especially active during the 13th Black Crusade, securing his own plague-ridden stronghold by the end of that conflict.

Legion Organisation
Mortarion was always an infantryman, and the Death Guard Legion was organised around those principles. Obedience was extended throughout every rank, and the Legion was renowned for operating as a single body in combat. The Death Guard were organised into larger Companies than other Legions, each company possessing a near identical cross-section of the Legion's equipment and specialists.

After Mortarion's ascension to Daemonhood, the Legion began to splinter into smaller forces, although the Plague Marines endeavour to organise themselves into multiples of seven, Nurgle's sacred number. What few vehicles remain go unmaintained, sustained either by daemonic possession or controlled by packs of Nurglings.

Headquarters
The original homeworld of the Death Guard, Barbarus, is assumed destroyed by the Inquisition, like the other worlds belonging to the Traitor Legions. Mortarion has crafted a new home from a daemon world within the Eye of Terror, which resembles Barbarus in many regards. Human slaves are kept in villages below the poisonous mists of the world, while the Plague Marines and other servants of Nurgle reside in fortresses constructed on the mountainsides.

Plague Marines
The members of the Death Guard are also known as Plague Marines. As a result of their servitude to Nurgle, they are rife with all manner of deadly diseases, which renders them immune to pain. In game mechanics terms, this makes them harder to wound and kill than other Chaos Space Marines. While all members of the Death Guard are Plague Marines, not all Plague Marines are from the Death Guard Legion; other Chaos Space Marine armies may field Plague Marines as part of their forces.

Plague Marines under the tutelage of Mortarion know how to win a battle with sheer attrition. Because Mortarion based the Death Guard heavily on infantry, the Death Guard are short some measure of fast assault vehicle and heavy weapons. As a result, Death Guard without Terminator Armour normally have to settle for special weapons such as the Melta Gun and Plasma Gun to replace heavy weapons such as Lascannons and Autocannons. Also, because the Death Guard are infantry-based, a Death Guard army can be made solely of Marines with no vehicles or daemons whilst still functioning as well as any other army. The average Death Guard can lay down a heavy rain of bolter shells while still standing his ground if charged. In the game, the Plague Marines' dedication to infantry-based combat is represented by each Marine receiving the "True Grit" rule, which enables a model to fire a standard bolter (normally a two-handed weapon) in one hand, allowing them to advance and fire more effectively.

Deathshroud
The Deathshroud were the elite Battle-Brothers of the Legion who served as Primarch Mortarion's mute bodyguards during the Great Crusade.

Great secrecy surrounded this elite cadre - their numbers being chosen from amongst the ranks of the Death Guard Legion - singled out and personally selected by their Primarch for their bravery and valour. Once chosen, the selected Battle-Brother would foreswear their former life as a common rank-and-file Astartes, swearing binding oathes of secrecy. They would be listed as killed in action to allay any suspicions as to their true identity, forever concealing their faces by always wearing enclosed helmets, masks or hoods. Their identity known only to their Primarch himself, even in the event of their death.

The Deathshroud wore Artificer-crafted Terminator Armour of the highest quality, presenting a foreboding appearance with their barrel-chested appearance and like their Primarch, wielding large scythes called Manreapers. It was the Deathshroud's sacred duty to never stray more than forty-nine paces from Mortarion, with two Deathshroud customarily escorting the Primarch at any given time, though there may have been more hidden in the shadows. These stoic warriors presence was quite intimidating, standing uniformly at attention, still as statues. But in battle they were equally frightening, whatever the odds, they always moved inexorably towards their target, like automated killing machines.

Special Weapons and Equipment
What follows is a small selection of the unusual gear which can be carried by members of the Death Guard:
 * Nurgle's Rot: A psychic power obtained by some members of the Death Guard. The horrific plagues of Nurgle are summoned and unleashed upon the enemy. Those not tightly armoured are instantly affected, and quickly killed by the infection.


 * Blight Grenades: Shrunken heads of those who have been killed by the Death Guard, they release a cloud of gas on detonation.


 * The Manreaper: The powerful daemon weapon Manreaper pays homage to Mortarion, and is carried by Typhus. The weapon often takes the shape of a scythe, like the one used by Mortarion to gain the trust of the human populace of Barbarus. The Manreaper is able to cut down swathes of enemy troops and is poisoned with a vicious toxin, allowing the bearer to wound his opponents with ease.


 * The Destroyer Hive: The Destroyer Hive is only available to Typhus, the "Herald of Nurgle". It is a monstrous swarm of plague-infested flies, so numerous they blot out the sun and flood the air surrounding Typhus with contagions. It was the prize granted to Typhon when he delivered the Death Guard to Nurgle, his very body now host to the innumerable horde.

Legion Combat Doctrine
The Death Guard believed that victory came through sheer relentlessness. Their weapons, while not ornate, functioned without flaw. They did not manoeuvre in fanciful patterns to confuse the enemy, instead standing their ground and waiting for the enemy assaults to falter before striking back with fatal force. Any environment or situation Mortarion and his advisors could not compensate for, the Death Guard would overcome through sheer stubborn resilience.

Mortarion learned warfare on a world almost covered in mountainous terrain, and even though his massive intellect allowed him to grasp the use of tanks and vehicles, the primacy of the foot soldier remained the Death Guard's trademark. Each Marine was well trained in a variety of disciplines, able to function in almost any role or environment.

Legion Beliefs
When Nurgle's Rot laid the Death Guard low during their time trapped in the Warp, their pride and arrogance in their strength and contempt for those they deemed weak was laid bare. The Plague Marine's subsequent surrender to Nurgle left the Death Guard with an incredible depth of self-hatred and despair that only fuels their sole desire: to infect the strong, slay the weak and bring everyone and everything to rot and ruin. Their own debasement would no longer seem so shameful if Nurgle's pestilence dragged the rest of the galaxy down into the same depths of ruin and despair.

Battlecry
The Death Guard have no battlecry, believing that like plagues and pestilence, death should come silently. Pre-Heresy they used "For Terra and Mortarion" and the Seventh Company used "Count the Seven."

Notable Death Guard

 * Typhus the Traveller (formerly First Captain Calas Typhon) - The first Astartes of the Death Guard to turn to the service of Chaos in his desire for power, Calas Typhon, once the First Captain of the Death Gaurd's 1st Great Company and the second greatest Astartes in the Legion after the Primarch Mortarion, is now known as the Herald of Nurgle and the Host of the Destroyer Hive, perhaps the most terrible of the many pestilences unleashed on the universe by Nurgle. He is still in command of the powerful the Chaos Battleship Terminus Est, which has been under his control since the Battle of Istvaan III during the Horus Heresy, though it has been much warped by the power of Chaos and the Plague Lord since those long-ago days 10,000 years ago.
 * Battle Captain Nathaniel Garro - Nathaniel Garro was the Battle-Captain of the Death Guard's 7th Great Company. Leader of the 70 surviving Astartes who alone of the Death Guard Loyalists escaped the betryal of Horus on Istvaan III aboard the Imperial Navy frigate Eisenstein to bring word of Horus' betrayal to the Emperor. He held to the original tenets of the Legion when many of his Battle-Brothers chose to follow the Traitors, Horus, Mortarion, and First Captain Typhon's decision to serve Chaos and conquer the Imperium for themselves rather than trust in the will of the Emperor. After a lucky rendezvous with the Imperial Fists' space fortress Phalanx, news of Horus' treachery was brought to Terra and the Emperor, which could well have saved the Imperium. While his historical fate is uncertain, it is believed that Garro, along with the remaining Loyalist Luna Wolves Astartes, Iacton Qruze, was ordered by Malcador the Sigillite to gather 8 Astartes from both the Loyalist and Traitor Legions across the galaxy by the newly who would later form the precursor of the Grey Knights Chapter of Space Marines and along with 4 lords and administrators of the Imperium would forge the secret organisation that would later became the Imperial Inquisition. After arriving on Terra, Garro's Power Armour had all of its Death Guard regalia removed and replaced with the personal sigil of Malcador, an "I" with three horizontal lines through its center, the icon that would later become fasmous as the Rosette of the Inquisition. During his mission for the Sigiliite, Garro consistently referred to himself as a "Knight Errant" and the member of a "Legion of One." Garro wields the potent relic Power Sword called Libertas.
 * Solun Decius - Decius was a member of the 7th Great Company commanded by Battle Captain Nathaniel Garro, and the youngest member of Captain Garro's command squad. Brother Decius remained loyal to Garro, despite the corruption that had begun to creep into the Space Marine Legions under Warmaster Horus' command, in the form of the warrior lodges. Garro expressed his disapproval of the secretive lodges and so, Decius chose not to join the warrior-lodge that existed inside the Death Guard when offered membership. Being a part of Garro's command squad, he was aboard the Eisenstein when his Captain took control of the vessel and fled the Isstvan system in an attempt to bring word of Horus' treachery to Emperor. Enroute to Terra, Decius and a number of his fellow Death Guard fought a battle against the reanimated corpses of their former traitorous comrades, the first Plague Marine of Nurgle. Decius was grievously injured when he was stabbed by one of the Plague Marine's deceased knives, and in a vain attempt to halt the vile corruption, he bravely cut off his own arm. The severely wounded marine was then taken to the Apothecarion and put under the care of Apothecary Voyen, but alas, there was no cure to be found to ease young Decius' suffering. After completing their arduous journey and delivering their message to the Emperor's acting Regent, Malcador the Sigillite, Garro and his men were placed under house arrest and held in solitary confinement in a fortress on Luna, under the watchful eyes of the Silent Sisterhood. Their fate was yet to be decided. In the meantime, the mortally wounded Decius finally lost his fight to the Nurgle's Rot that ran rampant throughout his deceased and corpulent form. Giving himself fully to Father Nurgle, Decius' body metamorphosised into the mutated form of the daemonic entity, known as the Lord of the Flies. His twisted body took on a daemonic appearance; arachnid-like head with numerous eyes and mandibles in place of its mouth, his decapitated arm growing grotesquely into a large power claw-like, great skeletal hand. The Lord of Flies wrecked havoc inside the fortress killing two former comrades before Captain Garro strode forth and slew the monstrosity outside the fortress on Luna's surface, casting the Lord of Flies' daemonic spirit back into the Warp from whence it came.
 * Commander Ignatius Grulgor - Captain of the 2nd Great Company. During the massacre on Istvaan III Grulgor was posted on the Eisenstein to kill Captain Garro and the hundred strong company of Astartes with him. Was killed for the first time in a firefight in the gun decks of the Eisenstein, after a stray bolt pistol shot released the Life-Eater virus intended to be fired on Istvaan III. After the Escape of the Eisenstein and the following Warp trip, the body of Grulgor was reanimated by the Ruinous Powers as perhaps one of the first Plague Marines.  After a desperate battle, Grulgor's body was destroyed after the Eisenstein made an emergency transition back to real space. However, it is likely that Grulgor survived these events as a newly transformed daemonic spirit, as a Nurgleite Daemon Prince known as Grulgor heled lead the Forces of Chaos during the Medusa V Campaign in the late 41st Millennium.

Legion Fleet

 * Barbarus's Sting (Strike Craft)
 * Eisenstein (Frigate)-Destroyed
 * Endurance (Capital Ship)
 * Indomitable Will (Capital Ship)
 * Reapers' Scythe (Battle-Barge)
 * Spectre of Death (Capital Ship)
 * Stalwart (Battle-Barge)
 * Terminus Est (Capital Ship)
 * Undying (Capital Ship)
 * Valley of Haloes (Supply Hauler)-Destroyed

Following Typhon's treachery, these vessels were more than likely stranded in the Warp. The Terminus Est still exists in the forty-first millennium. There is also at least one other known capital ship, the Plagueclaw. This ancient capital ship or one of the other ships listed above may have been renamed in honour of their worship of Father Nurgle.

Legion Appearance
Pre-Heresy: Marble white with green trims and decorations. The Legion symbol was a skull within a spiked ring, like a star.

After their acceptance of Nurgle as their patron, their armour has taken on a sickly green appearance. They wear the Mark of Nurgle as their Legion badge.

Plague Marines are known for having many boils, sores, and open wounds visible on their bodies, and the more mutated often sport tentacles or the trademark single horn commonly seen on minions of Nurgle. The helmets of Plague Marine Power Armor often resemble old-fashioned gasmasks, particularly of a Russian or German make, in reference to the poison mists of Mortarion's homeworld.

Mortarion, with his pale skin, huge scythe and hooded robes, bears a great resemblance to classical representations of the Grim Reaper, the embodiment of Death himself.

Gallery
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