The Mark of Nurgle
A Warp Clock is a relic of the Chaos God Nurgle created by the Daemon Primarch Mortarion and given to his mortal servants among the Heretic Astartes of the Death Guard that can draw on the power of the Warp to weaken the boundaries between realspace and the Empyrean. These devices were crucial in the early successes gained by the Nurglish forces in their offensive against the Realm of Ultramar during the Plague Wars of the Era Indomitus.
History[]
After their creation by Mortarion, the artefects were secretly placed on several worlds in the Realm of Ultramar by agents of the Death Guard and were connected to each other through the development of a network of "roots" connecting the affected worlds through the Warp. This Empyric network weakened the fabric of realspace in the region of Ultramar and allowed Nurgle's Warp-enhanced supernatural plagues to more easily spread across the region.
The Warp Clocks' unnatural root network also aided Mortarion's forces by strengthening his mortal followers' connection to the Warp and weakening the boundaries of realspace enough that his Daemon allies were able to remain permanently manifested in the mortal universe.
However, once the existence and purpose was discovered by the Imperial defenders, the relics were destroyed one-by-one by the Ultramarines and the other forces under the command of Lord Commander of the Imperium Roboute Guilliman. The loss of each Warp Clock on the worlds where one was located after an intensive battle with the forces of Chaos greatly weakened the network and diminished Nurgle's influence in Ultramar, ultimately becoming a key reason that the Imperial forces under Guilliman were able to expel the Death Guard and their Daemonic allies from the region at the end of the Plague Wars after the final battle between Guilliman and Mortarion on Iax.
Sources[]
- Dark Imperium: Plague War Second Edition (Novel) by Guy Haley, Ch. 10