"A Heretical cult known as the Admonition seeks to seize control of the planet Atoma Prime and lay waste to its inhabitants."
- —Unknown

The Mark of Nurgle
The Admonition, also known as the Cult of Admonition, is a Chaos Cult dedicated to Nurgle, the Chaos God of disease and despair, that exists within the lower and middle reaches of Hive Tertium, the primary hive city of Atoma Prime, the capital world of the Moebian Domain of the Imperium. Imperial forces who confront these cultists have nicknamed them "Dregs."
The word "admonition" means a firm, authoritative, or harsh warning, reprimand, rebuke, or counsel. The majority of the Heretics of the cult encountered by Imperial forces spout some line mentioning "truth." This "truth" is likely what the cultists admonish the population to accept -- the insane ideology of Nurgle, which basically calls upon mortals to embrace the inevitability of rot, decay, disease and death in order to be freed by the Plague Lord from the fear and despair such outcomes produce.

A Dreg Rager melee infantryman of the Cult of Admonition, as the Inquisition forces call them. Note the extensive Nurglish mutations and sigils which are now apparent across the body.
The Dregs' primary objective seems to be summoning Nurgle's Daemons into realspace by weakening the veil between the Warp and the mortal universe through the unleashing of death on a truly massive scale across Tertium using the Plague Lord's supernatural diseases. All across Tertium the Heretics have written in the Dark Tongue portions of a Daemonic summoning ritual that claims, "Nurgle shall be called with Death."
The cultists' willing embrace of Nurgle seems to have its root, like many Chaos Cults active in the Imperium, in the rage and hatred the Emperor's subjects so often feel towards the difficult circumstances of their lives. The hordes of still-living Dregs seen roaming Tertium's lower levels can be heard chanting, "rage, rage, rage" in an unending cacophony.
This is the hatred the cultists feel for the corrupt ruling-class of Atoma Prime and the Moebian Domain; the endless cabal of greedy nobles squabbling in pointless struggles for power while the hive city and the greater Moebian Domain rots and crumbles around them, its people living lives oppressed by tyranny and economic deprivation.
Little is done by the Imperial elite to counteract the entropic decay of this microcosm of the larger Imperium, and so the cult's "admonition" could be less of a warning than simply the attempt to make the physical reality of Hive Tertium and Atoma Prime accord with the metaphysical truth that has defined them for millennia -- that they are stagnant and rotten to the core. As such, embracing Nurgle can be seen by the cultists as obtaining a form of "freedom" from the oppression and poverty of life in the Imperium, however insane and twisted.
In the Era Indomitus, the Admonition unleashed the Walking Pox upon the hive city and a swarm of undead Zombies and Poxwalkers soon began to assault the lower reaches of Hive Tertium. To deal with the undead threat, the elite Moebian 6th Regiment was redirected from frontline deployment in the Fringe War to assist in combating the Nurglish corruption.
Instead, the Chaos-corrupted Astra Militarum regiment turned on the people it had sworn to protect and began to support the uprising as a Traitoris Militarum force dedicated to overthrowing Imperial rule on Atoma Prime and spreading the dark "truth" of Nurgle and Chaos to all its people.
To stop this growing corruption, the Inquisition under the command of the Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor Grendyl recently deployed its forces, including large groups of Acolytes, into Hive Tertium in a race against time to save the hive city before the cult's corruption can grow into a cancer that could consume the world, or even eventually threaten the entire Moebius Domain.
History[]
Origins[]

A Dreg Bruiser, another fanatical melee combatant of the Cult of Admonition.
The exact origin of the Nurglish Chaos Cult later known as the Admonition are unknown, but the organisation grew covertly among the population of the lower levels of Hive Tertium, its leaders and members always keen to remain hidden amongst the population. The cult, like most such organisations dedicated to the Ruinous Powers in the Imperium, operated using a cell structure intended to protect the larger organisation from the infiltration of its constituent parts. Multiple cult cells soon operated throughout the lower and mid-levels of the great hive city, passing messages to other cult cells through obscure, heretical Dark Tongue symbols and markings, all while practicing dark rituals and feeding their twisted faith.

A Dreg of the Cult of Admonition armed with an Heavy Stubber.
The cult allied itself with one faction of the hive's criminal Water Cartel, and assisted its leaders in culling their rivals among the Water Cartel's other factions. These factions had once fought, often violently, for control over the lower hive's water recycling refineries in the district known as The Torrent. But with the aid of the Admonition, their allied faction of the Water Cartel, led by a figure known as the "Ragged King," managed to secure control over the facilities and bring an end to the cartel's infighting.

A Dreg of the Cult of Admonition armed with a shotgun.
These changes in the lower levels went unnoticed by the hive's Enforcers, the local planetary law enforcement agency, due to the Water Cartel having gained control of all the Enforcers within their district standard centuries before through the persistent provision of large bribes. The cartel's new leadership soon became complacent with their new-found power and were betrayed by the Admonition, which launched a coup against the new Water Cartel leadership that resulted in the slaughter of their former allies in a swift and brutal massacre.

A Dreg armed with a Tox Flamer, a standard Flamer loaded with promethium fuel that has also been infected with Nurgle's various supernatural plagues.
The citizens of the Water Cartel's district of The Torrent initially hoped this change in the leadership of the Water Cartel would be a positive one. The Water Cartel had long been little more than an oppressive and uncaring alliance of brutal underhive gangers who had let the heavily populated hab blocks of the district decay into barely livable slums. However, the Admonition had little interest in using its newfound power to aid the people of the surrounding district, as they sought only to gain control over the hive's water supply so that they could more effectively spread the diseases and other "gifts" of Nurgle throughout the hive city.

A Dreg Stalker who stalks the enemies of Nurgle through the corrupted levels of Hive Tertium while armed with an autogun.
What began as an uprising among a group of minor gangs in the hive's lower levels grew into something more with the outbreak of an unnatural pestilence throughout the lower and middle levels of the hive. Several hive levels were soon locked down to prevent the further spread of the infection and the initial quarantine was maintained by the Enforcers and the troops of Atoma Prime's Planetary Defence Force.

Groaners are former citizens of Tertium who have been infected by one of the many plagues of Nurgle.
In addition, Atoman Astra Militarum troops scheduled for deployment to the frontlines of the Fringe War, the elite Moebian 6th Regiment, was rerouted back to Hive Tertium to assist the world's security forces in quelling the growing Chaos threat. Unfortunately, once the Moebian 6th had arrived planetside and were well-positioned within the hive city, they revealed themselves as Traitors who had turned to the service of Nurgle and allied themselves with the cult they had been intended to fight against.
Assault on Hive Tertium[]

A Dreg Tox Bomber is a mutant Chaos Cultist of the Admonition who carries Blight Grenades into combat, the rotting Human heads of the Admonition's slain enemies that are filled with vile toxins and the vectors of Nurgle's supernatural diseases like the Walking Pox. They hurl these organic grenades at enemies, hoping they will be overwhelmed by the toxic fumes and rapid-onset infections that are released.
The Cult of Admonition and the Traitoris Militarum Moebian 6th Regiment now work together to gain further political and economic control over the hive city and spread the pestilential "blessings" of Nurgle such that they might turn as much of Tertium's population to the service of the Plague Lord as possible. The means through which they corrupt the population to the service of Chaos and bolster their ranks includes unleashing the myriad Nurglish supernatural pathogens, outright physical subjugation, and the use of mind-altering vox-waves (radio waves) to seed Chaos propaganda among the populace.
The district of the hive's lower levels known as "The Torrent" controls the main water refineries for Hive Tertium and it has been used by the Heretics to spread Nurgle's plagues across the city through the water supply. Many new pathogens are brewed by the cult's adherents atop the district known as the Hourglass' abandoned naval refueling docks in Excise Vault Spireside-13. Other new strains appear unnaturally throughout the heavily corrupted and quarantined zone within the hive, such as Hab Block Laranax in Hab Dreyko. Other forms of the blight are infused into stimms and other pharmaceuticals and disseminated through the populace using the hive's own crucial medicae system against itself.
The Heretics also seek to recruit the populace to the cause of Grandfather Nurgle on an unconscious level through the use of mind-altering radio carrier waves. These are emitted from the Comms-Plex at Inter-Orbital Data Relay Station TRS-150, high atop one of the Hourglass's many abandoned naval freight depots.
While the Admonition and the Moebian 6th plunged the hive city further into the early stages of a full-on corruption by the forces of Nurgle, the Ordo Hereticus of the Inquisition, commanded by a mysterious Inquisitor named Grendyl, requisitioned a Rogue Trader frigate named Mourningstar and dispatched it to Atoma Prime with a large warband of Acolytes under the command of the Interrogator Iven Rannick and other senior Acolytes to deal with the growing Chaos threat.
Activities[]

A mutant is a Human who suffers from an extreme and dangerous deviation from the baseline Human anatomy and physiology. The mutant enemies faced by the Inquisition in Hive Tertium appear to have been underhive mutants experimented on by the Chaos Cultists of the Admonition who have sought to further alter the individual. These mutants have been adorned with Dark Tongue runes and Nurglish symbols. On their swollen, rotting flesh has been grafted an apparatus of metal that acts to inject tubes of a green liquid into the mutant, like serving as a toxic combat stimulant.
Many of the activities undertaken by the Cult of the Admonition have a metaphysical as well as a physical component, eating away at the soul of the cult's targets as well as the flesh. This effect often manifests as various psychoses that helps the victims be recruited by Chaos Cults like the Admonition. Unlike the undead Poxwalkers, these "Groaners" are still technically alive -- they bleed, and still feel hunger and pain from their injuries. However, unlike the Dregs who are higher up in the cult, they have not progressed to a point where they no longer feel pain or fear. Groaners typically carry crude melee weapons such as pipes, gear-head axes, and other improvised close-combat weapons.
The Cult of Admonition is responsible for many of the blasphemies now festering within the lower and middle levels of Hive Tertium: the supernatural "Zombie Plague" and "Walking Pox," responsible for the creation of legions of Zombies and Poxwalkers, the manifestation of Daemonic slugs known as Beasts of Nurgle, fleshy abominations called Chaos Spawn and other Nurglish mutants, as well as the possession of various Daemonhosts for the Nurglish Plague Legions.
The Admonition seeks to spread their "One Truth" to all, willing or otherwise. This truth is to accept the "gifts" of Nurgle which relieve fear, despair and suffering through the acceptance of the Plague Lord's corruption in mind, body and soul. More than any simple pathogen, Nurgle's supernatural diseases, such as the Walking Pox, the Zombie Plague and Nurgle's Rot, are in truth metaphysical curses upon the weakness in the Human soul that is then given physical expression.
The cult has raised an unnatural growth akin to a fleshy, decaying tree deep within the bowels of the hive city as the barrier between realspace and Nurgle's Garden in the Realm of Chaos begins to thin in Hive Tertium. The Daemonic tree seems to be the heart of the Nurglish corruption taking hold within the hive city.
The cultists of the Admonition, often called "Dregs" by their Imperial opponents, are known to converse in the Daemonic Dark Tongue of Chaos, and Dark Tongue runes and other blasphemous sigils are now found throughout the levels of Hive Tertium under their control as heretical graffiti.
Sources[]
- Warhammer 40,000: Darktide (Video Game), In-game Dialogue: Explicator Zola - Map: The Torrent; Sergeant Major Morrow - Map: The Torrent; Item Descriptions: Dead-Eye's Punishment Uniform (Lower Body); Map Director Dialogue: Map: Hourglass, Map: Chasm Station, Map: Carnival
- Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - Vox Transmission II
- Warhammer 40,000: Darktide - Vox Transmission IV
- Fat Shark Dev Blog: Moebian 6th
- Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Steam store page - Prerelease (2020)