Black Crusade & Nurgle

Currently involved in a black crusade campaign as a plague marine, but I'm new to chaos as I usually am a loyalist

Does Veeky Forums have any ideas for rituals, goals, or plague marine behaviour? What should my character be doing

Well, first off you're immune to dying from any disease. The itches, bloating and flesh-eating symptoms? They're all still there. Constantly.
Those are all gifts from Papa Nurgle, gifts you ought to share. In fact, every new disease you contract is just a new way of spreading Nurgle's love to others- especially the servants of the Corpse-on-the-throne.

Now Nurgle characters I've seen are usually one of two personalities:
>Grim, death-bearing tallyman, or
>Gleeful spreader of disease.
If you can find a better way to express a follower of Nurgle, go for it. He's the chaos god of despair, but despair to the point that you have nothing left to lose so you might as well be happy about it.
To a Nurgle cultist, everything is going to rot away eventually, why not help it along? It doesn't need to be a grim affair either, after all Nurgle does what he does out of a form of love, not hate.

Specific rituals might include
>Sticking rusty bits of metal in your body to introduce/speed along necrosis
>Sharing around portions of diseased blood (possibly yours and/or others partaking in the ritual)
>Keeping a tally of how many others you've killed/infected
>Discovering and cataloging new strains of disease, possibly sent by Nurgle just for you
>Ritually implanting new parasites into your bloated, leprosy-ridden flesh

A third alternative is what I take to be Nurgles true nature. (headcanon ho!)
Nurgle is an abusive partner. He binds you to him with disease and squalor, such that no-other will love you. Only he and his followers will, but they're all as broken and damaged as you. Eventually you'll end up just like them, bitter and resentful and searching to fill that hole in their soul and heart with the empty love of mind-broken sycophants. Just like they were to another person once. It's a vicious cycle.

>>Ritually implanting new parasites into your bloated, leprosy-ridden flesh
poor parasites

>To a Nurgle cultist, everything is going to rot away eventually, why not help it along?

Why are all nurgle things fat blaots? Where are my starving skelington cultits with thick dark circles in the eyes?

Same reason as for why everything Nurgle related is called "Plague". Because GW doesn't have a creative bone left.

As for OP, why not be actually helpful in your own twisted way: Feed the hungry, house the poor and comfort the sick. Form support groups and little enclaves to make sure your little ones have the support structure they need?

And of course while doing that spread the love and faith, its better from everyone that way after all.

Despair all ye nations; there's no hope for us now
For we made this monster, put a crown on his brow
He fed on our apathy, our pain made him swell.
We gave him dominion: He gives us hell

There was one mention in Dark Millennium of an emaciated Great Unclean one, pulling himself along on lanky broken legs

Dark IMPERIUM*, that cancelled game is going to give me an eternal mental block

Smear your shit everywhere like a beastman.

Have a nurgle marine that can't get sick and feels really self conscious about it, going so far as to rub greasy food on their face to induce acne.

Think it depends on the type of disease that the cultists carry with them. Nurgle's Rot mutates a host to start looking like Nurgle, but something like the Spine Shakes turns you into a walking skeleton.

The Pox Walker lore states that it's a different strain of the zombie plague possible mixed with Nurgle's Rot, so why not have people get effected by other types of terrible plagues?

As for goals, Black Crusade helps since everyone is aiming for ascent to Daemonhood (Apotheosis in the books), but for exactly how a Plague Marine would do it, I could think of a few things.
>A Marine is created being taught he is better than humanity, so one who detests the weak and sees disease as an opportunity to condemn all the unworthy so that the strong can rise up might be a good angle. I think there is a trait called Pity the Weak (which should probably be called contempt but whatever) that might help, and it still works with Nurgle being a loving father since his human servants usually end up more severe and bitter.
>Play a marine who is the inverse, one who was sickened (lol) by the false hope that the Imperium inspired in its followers, who himself lost all hope in someway, and who sees the spread of disease as a way to give them the truth about life and free them from pointless struggle. Good if you wanted to try someone sympathetic in a twisted way.

The Lexicanum fluff on The Purge (Warband) provides a good example of non-Death-Guard Plague Marine motivations

>Maybe a Plague Marine who is indebted to Nurgle in some way, and really just wants to learn more about him for the sake what he did. Like you could create a chapter ( or just use Death Guard, your choice) that was struck with terrible disease but was spared by Nurgle and now works to advance his will.
Besides that, check the books. The Tome of Decay and the rest sort of seem to contradict Nurgle Lore (one section even says he serves to give hope in the darkest times, but he's god of despair, but who cares, the books make it cannon) but it might give you some ideas about how a Nurglite acts, and there are as many interpretations of the Chaos gods in the galaxy as there are worlds, so pick something above all that is going to entertain you.
I might steal that. I was thinking of doing a Slaaneshi Marine who had a co-dependency obsession. Someone who lived for his battle brothers and needs that companionship to function. I thought it would be a good way of turning a helpful party member, or just a general This Guy character into someone as twisted as everyone else in Black Crusade

I like that interpretation. It fits with the abusive relationship he has with Isha.

I never liked that people say Isha is his "wife". She's trapped and gets tortured on a daily basis (and not in a good slaaneshi kind of way). That's some Stephen King "Misery" type shit.

Look into the bugchaser/giftgiver scene - those people are fucked up, in a very Nurgle way. And it's not just AIDS they're chasing.

Nah, they'll be happy with all their new friends. The more the merrier!

This makes the most sense. The most miserable people cause the most misery despite their best "intentions".

After all misery loves company.

Hey thanks everyone! I thought of creating some sort of weird warp plagues, ones that have a supernatural side to them as well as a biological side...

>Nurgle is an abusive partner
Top tier character interpretation