| rdfs:comment | - Were it up to the Plaguebearers, these heads would remain upon their abacuses for eternity, clacking along their poles as the number of plague-slain grows. Unfortunately for the tallymen, the Great Unclean Ones view the shrunken heads as parcels bursting with joy, and cannot bear to see such delightful gifts wasted. As such, they often send Nurglings to steal the heads from the Plaguebearers. Not all such raids are successful, as the Plaguebearers glumly expect other Daemons to interfere in their work, and all too often a diminutive thief finds himself caught and impaled, burbling with disgust, next to the very prize he thought to steal.
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| abstract | - Were it up to the Plaguebearers, these heads would remain upon their abacuses for eternity, clacking along their poles as the number of plague-slain grows. Unfortunately for the tallymen, the Great Unclean Ones view the shrunken heads as parcels bursting with joy, and cannot bear to see such delightful gifts wasted. As such, they often send Nurglings to steal the heads from the Plaguebearers. Not all such raids are successful, as the Plaguebearers glumly expect other Daemons to interfere in their work, and all too often a diminutive thief finds himself caught and impaled, burbling with disgust, next to the very prize he thought to steal. Should a Nurgling succeed in his mission, however, the Great Unclean One rewards him with a titbit of rotting flesh and sends the mite on his way. If the shrunken head contains particularly interesting pestilences, the Great Unclean One sometimes keeps it, in order to study the virulence within. All too often, however, the Greater Daemon quickly loses interest, adding the purloined head to the pile of gewgaws and trinkets from which he chooses gifts to bestow on particularly pestering mortals. Of course, few beneficiaries realise the true provenance of these plague-filled heads. If they survive the act of giving (and not all do), they see the thing merely as a weapon to be hurled at the enemy, rejoicing in the flies, maggots and the diseased cloud of pus that burst forth when the head ruptures. So the story goes, Blight Grenades came about following the occasion upon which the Great Unclean One Ku'gath presented three whole abacuses full of shrunken heads to the Death Guard Traitor Legion. Other heads had been presented to mortals before, but never in such numbers. The traitors were greatly pleased with this sign of favour, for each head contained a pestilence fit to reduce an entire planetary system to a diseased-choked charnel. Indeed, this was the purpose for which Ku'gath’s gift was pledged, and over the space of a decade, the Death Guard used the heads to transform ten-score verdant Agri-Worlds of the Demeter Sector to liquefying ruin. Soon, however, the shrunken heads were all used, and no amount of prayer or sacrifice to Nurgle, or to Ku'gath, saw the supplies restored. Both god and Daemon had grown bored with the antics of the Death Guard, and turned their attention to other things. Seeking to replenish their stocks, the Legion's sorcerers descended upon the worlds of the Demeter Sector and crafted their own versions. Heads were struck from bloated corpses, their skulls extracted and their flesh boiled in great bronze vats filled with black blood. The cavities were then filled with infected matter, and the orifices plugged shut with wax. Though these Blight Grenades were by no means as effective as Ku'gath's original gift, the Plague Marines have ever after sought to refine the recipe to achieve its full potential. Different warbands favour different concoctions of plague. Most consider Nurgle's Rot the only true blessing a Blight Grenade should deliver, though Cankerheart and the Crimson Seep are both popular choices. It is said that only Mortarion has truly mastered the original formula, and is saving it for his next inevitable battle with the Grey Knights, when the Battle of Kornovin’s indignities will at last be repaid.
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