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Dark Souls

2018-01-04T05:42:05Z

2605:E000:7ECF:7F00:CD17:EF84:FE30:832B: /* Dark Souls III */

{{/vg/}}
{{skub}}
Dark Souls is a game [[Dwarf Fortress|all about dying. Over and over and over and over.]] Except this time it has [[monstergirls]].

Dark Souls is a third person RPG created by From Software and Namco Bandai Games. It is the spiritual successor of Demon's Souls (would have been sequel, but the developers lost the rights to the Demon Souls' name), and is considered by some of its playerbase to be one of the hardest games ever created, which is '''very''' wrong. Veteran players will tell you that the game is exceedingly fair, and you only die as a result of your own fuckups. Just be ready to fuck the fuck up again and again until you learn it. And since it generally rewards skill and being a munchkin, it is popular in [[/v/]]-circles for its punishing gameplay.

For reference, imagine a fantasy tabletop game run by a [[Gamemaster|Killer DM]] who wants to your character to die if you get the least bit sloppy with your Spot checks, don't [[Powergamer|optimize your build]], and don't carefully study the rulebooks and monsters manuals before you even start playing. Oh, and other players in other groups will occasionally come to your table and roll some dice to kill you, often before you can even roll initiative, for some [[loot]] and [[lulz]]. At the same time though, the Killer DM is also fair by makeing your frequent deaths more of an inconvenience then it might be so that you can learn through trial and error if nothing else so that you do eventually beat his challenges. That is pretty much the Dark Souls experience.

Relevant to /tg/ mainly in that people sometimes throw it around as "this is how you do a [[grimdark]] setting properly", "wouldn't it be cool to set a game in this setting?" (Answer: No, because the damn thing is so vague), and "the material GMs can rip off file". Both [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/197831/dark-souls-board-game| Dark Souls] and the younger brother [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/195856/bloodborne-card-game| Bloodborne] have their own board game incarnations, with the former being a exploration dungeon crawler and the latter a card game of collecting blood tokens and defeating monsters.

Also explicitly said by the creator to have been heavily inspired by [[Berserk]], be it in its aesthetic, character similarities, or just blatant references. That has to count for something.

==Story==
One of the most definable aspects of Dark Souls is its method of storytelling... or lack thereof. Besides the opening cutscenes of all three games, nothing is outright explained to the player. Any lore you find is either based on dialogue with NPCs or descriptions of items and weapons, and even then it's often cryptic and intentionally vague, usually left up to interpretation. As you play through the games, a bigger picture becomes painted as you gather items and converse with the world's inhabitants, with the player connecting the dots and speculating what's happened. This can feel rewarding to someone who finds satisfaction in building the world piece by piece and interpreting things their own way, but understandably [[Rage|infuriating]] to anyone who wishes for something more straightforward. Much of the lore explanations that we have are often speculative or what little we know actually ''did'' happen, which isn't much.

'''So do note''' the summary below is only one interpretation of the events unfolding and NOT set in stone, if you do play through the series yourself you might come up with a completely different interpretation of said events. With ~90% of the series's lore being intentionally vague these are as valid as any other interpretation out there.

{{Spoilers}}
===Dark Souls I===
At the beginning of time there were rocks and dragons. Then there was fire, and four people picked up the fire: Gwyn, the Witch of Izalith, Gravelord Nito and the Furtive Pygmy. The first three of them used the power of the fire to become badasses and kicked the dragons' asses, and built the realm of man: Lordran. Things went pretty swell until the Witch of Izalith noticed that the fire was going out and tried to rekindle it, only for it to go wrong and become a horrifying abomination made of fire, sticks and demons. In a desperate final attempt Gwyn kindled the fire with his own soul, which worked for a while. Around this time people stopped dying: if they did they came back from the dead. This was swell at first until the undead started to turn into Hollows, crazed murderous zombies. A search for the cure of this undeath started, and for the meantime the undead were shipped to an insane asylum.

That's where the game begins. You (your player character is called the Chosen Undead in the Dark Souls community) escape the asylum, ring two bells because a sullen guy in chainmail tells you to and you meet a horrifying snake with human teeth, no lips and a horrifying flesh-mustache. This snake, Kingseeker Frampt, tells you to take Gwyn's job because he's no longer fit for it and to go fetch a bowl to put souls in. You then travel through a trap-riddled fortress and make it to Lordran. Here you meet Gwyndolin, Gwyn's [[giant]]ess daughter, who gives you the bowl and well-wishes. To get to where Gwyn is you need to fill the bowl with four souls: those of the Witch of Izalith, Gravelord Nito (who's a spooklord doing weird things with skeletons), Seath the Scaleless (a traitorous dragon who turned against his kin for being bullied because he didn't have scales) and the Four Kings of New Londo, whom were given power by Gwyn for their loyalty. You have to kill a big dog wielding a big sword to get to them, too. Putting their souls in the bowl lets you meet Gwyn, who's become Hollow himself. Beat him and you can succeed him... as the kindle for the fire. Bad End.

Alternatively, with some sequence-breaking you can meet another of Frampt's kind, Darkstalker Kaathe. Kaathe tells you that succeeding Gwyn will only prolong the inevitable and make this shit start all over again, so you have to let the fire go out so that humanity can live free of the fire's influence. Except in the DLC you discover what this means: you travel back in time to a period where everybody and everything is corrupted by the Abyss, the manifestation of a world without fire. You descend into the Abyss and defeat Manus, a manifestation of the the Furtive Pygmy, to make sure the future happens. Letting the fire go out means the curse of undeath ends, and the world alongside it. Bad End.

Yeah it's a pretty dark game.

===Dark Souls II===
Your character (a different person than the Chosen Undead from DS1) has lost their memory as part of becoming undead and travels to the land of Drangleic to get it fixed. Drangleic has been ravaged by a war with an invading army of giants, and it really shows in places. Here you meed the Emerald Herald, a top-tier [[waifu]] who tells you to gather the souls of the four lords so you can meet king Vendrick. These four lords are a Balrog-expy, a female prisoner locked beneath a prison fortress, a monster made of corpses and a spider whose ass is also a spider. They are all linked to the original four lords: Gwyn, the Witch of Izalith, Gravelord Nito and Seath respectively. After thse battles (which you can have in any order you want) you get to make it to the king's castle, only to meet queen Nashandra who tells you that the king has left and you gotta find him if you want access to the Throne of Want, the throne that Vendrick never took but [[Yugoloth|will grant its owner immense power]]. After a grueling trek involving boatloads of knights, the undead and a creepy foreskin frog you finally find Vendrick... who has become a mindless Hollow. Taking his ring nets you access to the manor of Aldia, Vendrick's older brother. He's been turned into some kind of fleshy tree-like abomination after his experiments regarding the curse of undeath, seeking a way to escape the cycle of light and dark. You meet Aldia a few times througout the game where he tells you about all this. Going past Aldia's manor you travel up to the shrine housing the Ancient Dragon. He was one of the creators of the Emerald Herald, whose mission it was to break the undead curse. She failed, and now guides you to meet the Ancient Dragon who gives you a way to enter the memories of the dead. Through this you can go back in time to the war against the giants and defeat their king, which nets you the key to the Throne of Want.

This is where Nashandra reveals herself to be a shard of Manus of the Abyss and tries to murder you in a rather easy boss fight. After putting her down Aldia shows himself and seeks to test you to see if you're worthy of the Throne or the ending of the cycle. Defeating him nets you the same choice as Dark Souls 1: continue the cycle of Light and Dark and get the Bad End, or don't turn the world to Light again and let it end for the Bad End.

As part of the three DLC packs you travel to the realms of other kings, who too had their queens who were shards of Manus and manipulated their kings. If you gather all their crowns as well as Vendrick's and bring them to Vendrick's final resting place you can get yourself a neat crown that renders you immune to going Hollow.

===Dark Souls III===
The fire is going out yet again, but it's so terribly weak now that it might not even last another cycle. This sees the rise of the Unkindled, those Undead who tried but failed to link the fire back in a previous age and were turned to ash. In practice they're pretty much undead. Now the Unkindled seek to gather the Lords of Cinder, for big badasses who did pull it off back in their day but don't feel like trying it again. So it's your job to find them, kick their asses and either get them to do it or use the cinders you take from them to link the fire yet again. So you set out to kill yet another four big bosses and get something from them. In this you're aided by the Fire Keeper of the Firelink Shrine, which is your hub world of the game where you can buy stuff, level up and advance the plot. The Lords of Cinder are a group of elite soldiers keeping the Abyss in check and murdering Undead and Unkindled alike (which is a problem now that they are unkindled themselves), the [[ooze]] Aldrich who ate a fan-favorite character from Dark Souls I and now wears the corpse as a hat, Yhorm the [[giant]] who is highly resistant to just about anything but a single weapon whose special attack can take him down in a few hits and the brothers Prince Lorian and Prince Lothric, the former being a crippled and nearly brain-dead husk of a man (who can still kick your ass) and the latter being a small and frail [[wizard]] whose magic can revive his brother. After collecting the four cinders you can fight the final boss, the amalgamation of all previous Lords and link the fire, which doesn't consume you this time around to hammer home how weak it has become.

There are three alternate endings. One has you give the Fire Keeper some eyeballs so that she can put the fire out (it makes sense in context), which gets you the second ending you see in Dark Souls 1 and 2. Another is achieved by doing the previous one, then ''killing'' the Fire Keeper so you can take the First Flame for yourself, you selfish bastard. The third requires you to break out a strategy guide because no way in hell will you find that one on your own. At the end of a highly specific number of tasks you become a creature that is part Unkindled, part Undead. Instead of letting the fire consume you, you consume ''it'' and become the Lord of Hollows, escaping the cycle of fire and dark that Aldia tried to accomplish so long ago. This is arguably the "best" ending, but given that this is Dark Souls everything is relative.

There are two DLC packs this time around. The first one is Ashes of Ariandel, which sees you teleported into a world inspired by the Painted World from Dark Souls I. After fighting a bunch of vikings you meet a woman in a church named Sister Friede who tells you to leave and gives you a parting gift. At this point you can do just that, or opt to explore some more. You start to realize that this world you're in is decaying: riddled with rot and filth it longs for the fire that allows it to be reborn. But the fire is not there and you eventually discover why: the local religious leader Father Ariandel is flagellating himself and uses his blood to snuff out the flame whenever it starts to build up. And this was not his plan: it was the plan of Friede. Who is in service to the Dark and seeks to end the Age of Fire. What follows is a battle with Friede and her fancy scythe, who gets up after you beat her and is joined by Ariandel who tries to beat you to death with a bowl. After beating this duo you think it's over... only for Friede to get up yet again and pulls out a ''second'' scythe to try and murder you with. After all this you can find a lady in the attic of the church who paints the world you're in, formerly using the blood of Ariandrel. She tells you that to paint fire she needs special paint and that her uncle is getting it for her. You also fight what should be an expy of Artorias the Abysswalker and his puppy dog Sif from Dark Souls I, but the delivery is a bit flat.

This comes to a head in the second DLC, The Ringed City. You get teleported to a world gone crazy, where everything is folded together in a variety of non-euclidian ways. Travering the ruins of the Earthen Peak of Dark Souls II fame you fight a pair of fiery demons and make it to the Ringed City. Dodging entire companies of archers and massive knights devoured by the Abyss you discover an amnesiac knight whom you help get his memory back (and you know who this is) and fight a massive fuck-off dragon who can easily wreck your shit. You eventually make your way to the ruler of the city: Princess Filianore, the youngest daughter of Lord Gwyn. She's asleep and holding an egg as a shoutout to ''Angel's egg'', so of course you gotta touch that shit. This destroys the egg and everything around you, turning the city into a massive wasteland. Traversing this massive open land (one of the largest in the series) you fight who might be one of the last knights of Gwyn and find your target: the same guy who teleported you into the painted world, the uncle of the painter lady. This is Slave Knight Gael, who is on the hunt for the Dark Soul of Humanity. And when you find him, he's got it. What follows is one of the most impressive and dangerous battles in the game against not Gael but the Dark Soul itself. Striking him down nets you the blood of the Dark Soul, which you can give to the painting lady to paint a new world and let the old one burn. This would've been a lot better were it not that this DLC stuff is contained within itself and has no effect on or a big relation to the plot of the main game. Still, it's an awesome battle.

Dark Souls

2018-01-04T05:34:19Z

2605:E000:7ECF:7F00:CD17:EF84:FE30:832B: /* Dark Souls II */

{{/vg/}}
{{skub}}
Dark Souls is a game [[Dwarf Fortress|all about dying. Over and over and over and over.]] Except this time it has [[monstergirls]].

Dark Souls is a third person RPG created by From Software and Namco Bandai Games. It is the spiritual successor of Demon's Souls (would have been sequel, but the developers lost the rights to the Demon Souls' name), and is considered by some of its playerbase to be one of the hardest games ever created, which is '''very''' wrong. Veteran players will tell you that the game is exceedingly fair, and you only die as a result of your own fuckups. Just be ready to fuck the fuck up again and again until you learn it. And since it generally rewards skill and being a munchkin, it is popular in [[/v/]]-circles for its punishing gameplay.

For reference, imagine a fantasy tabletop game run by a [[Gamemaster|Killer DM]] who wants to your character to die if you get the least bit sloppy with your Spot checks, don't [[Powergamer|optimize your build]], and don't carefully study the rulebooks and monsters manuals before you even start playing. Oh, and other players in other groups will occasionally come to your table and roll some dice to kill you, often before you can even roll initiative, for some [[loot]] and [[lulz]]. At the same time though, the Killer DM is also fair by makeing your frequent deaths more of an inconvenience then it might be so that you can learn through trial and error if nothing else so that you do eventually beat his challenges. That is pretty much the Dark Souls experience.

Relevant to /tg/ mainly in that people sometimes throw it around as "this is how you do a [[grimdark]] setting properly", "wouldn't it be cool to set a game in this setting?" (Answer: No, because the damn thing is so vague), and "the material GMs can rip off file". Both [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/197831/dark-souls-board-game| Dark Souls] and the younger brother [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/195856/bloodborne-card-game| Bloodborne] have their own board game incarnations, with the former being a exploration dungeon crawler and the latter a card game of collecting blood tokens and defeating monsters.

Also explicitly said by the creator to have been heavily inspired by [[Berserk]], be it in its aesthetic, character similarities, or just blatant references. That has to count for something.

==Story==
One of the most definable aspects of Dark Souls is its method of storytelling... or lack thereof. Besides the opening cutscenes of all three games, nothing is outright explained to the player. Any lore you find is either based on dialogue with NPCs or descriptions of items and weapons, and even then it's often cryptic and intentionally vague, usually left up to interpretation. As you play through the games, a bigger picture becomes painted as you gather items and converse with the world's inhabitants, with the player connecting the dots and speculating what's happened. This can feel rewarding to someone who finds satisfaction in building the world piece by piece and interpreting things their own way, but understandably [[Rage|infuriating]] to anyone who wishes for something more straightforward. Much of the lore explanations that we have are often speculative or what little we know actually ''did'' happen, which isn't much.

'''So do note''' the summary below is only one interpretation of the events unfolding and NOT set in stone, if you do play through the series yourself you might come up with a completely different interpretation of said events. With ~90% of the series's lore being intentionally vague these are as valid as any other interpretation out there.

{{Spoilers}}
===Dark Souls I===
At the beginning of time there were rocks and dragons. Then there was fire, and four people picked up the fire: Gwyn, the Witch of Izalith, Gravelord Nito and the Furtive Pygmy. The first three of them used the power of the fire to become badasses and kicked the dragons' asses, and built the realm of man: Lordran. Things went pretty swell until the Witch of Izalith noticed that the fire was going out and tried to rekindle it, only for it to go wrong and become a horrifying abomination made of fire, sticks and demons. In a desperate final attempt Gwyn kindled the fire with his own soul, which worked for a while. Around this time people stopped dying: if they did they came back from the dead. This was swell at first until the undead started to turn into Hollows, crazed murderous zombies. A search for the cure of this undeath started, and for the meantime the undead were shipped to an insane asylum.

That's where the game begins. You (your player character is called the Chosen Undead in the Dark Souls community) escape the asylum, ring two bells because a sullen guy in chainmail tells you to and you meet a horrifying snake with human teeth, no lips and a horrifying flesh-mustache. This snake, Kingseeker Frampt, tells you to take Gwyn's job because he's no longer fit for it and to go fetch a bowl to put souls in. You then travel through a trap-riddled fortress and make it to Lordran. Here you meet Gwyndolin, Gwyn's [[giant]]ess daughter, who gives you the bowl and well-wishes. To get to where Gwyn is you need to fill the bowl with four souls: those of the Witch of Izalith, Gravelord Nito (who's a spooklord doing weird things with skeletons), Seath the Scaleless (a traitorous dragon who turned against his kin for being bullied because he didn't have scales) and the Four Kings of New Londo, whom were given power by Gwyn for their loyalty. You have to kill a big dog wielding a big sword to get to them, too. Putting their souls in the bowl lets you meet Gwyn, who's become Hollow himself. Beat him and you can succeed him... as the kindle for the fire. Bad End.

Alternatively, with some sequence-breaking you can meet another of Frampt's kind, Darkstalker Kaathe. Kaathe tells you that succeeding Gwyn will only prolong the inevitable and make this shit start all over again, so you have to let the fire go out so that humanity can live free of the fire's influence. Except in the DLC you discover what this means: you travel back in time to a period where everybody and everything is corrupted by the Abyss, the manifestation of a world without fire. You descend into the Abyss and defeat Manus, a manifestation of the the Furtive Pygmy, to make sure the future happens. Letting the fire go out means the curse of undeath ends, and the world alongside it. Bad End.

Yeah it's a pretty dark game.

===Dark Souls II===
Your character (a different person than the Chosen Undead from DS1) has lost their memory as part of becoming undead and travels to the land of Drangleic to get it fixed. Drangleic has been ravaged by a war with an invading army of giants, and it really shows in places. Here you meed the Emerald Herald, a top-tier [[waifu]] who tells you to gather the souls of the four lords so you can meet king Vendrick. These four lords are a Balrog-expy, a female prisoner locked beneath a prison fortress, a monster made of corpses and a spider whose ass is also a spider. They are all linked to the original four lords: Gwyn, the Witch of Izalith, Gravelord Nito and Seath respectively. After thse battles (which you can have in any order you want) you get to make it to the king's castle, only to meet queen Nashandra who tells you that the king has left and you gotta find him if you want access to the Throne of Want, the throne that Vendrick never took but [[Yugoloth|will grant its owner immense power]]. After a grueling trek involving boatloads of knights, the undead and a creepy foreskin frog you finally find Vendrick... who has become a mindless Hollow. Taking his ring nets you access to the manor of Aldia, Vendrick's older brother. He's been turned into some kind of fleshy tree-like abomination after his experiments regarding the curse of undeath, seeking a way to escape the cycle of light and dark. You meet Aldia a few times througout the game where he tells you about all this. Going past Aldia's manor you travel up to the shrine housing the Ancient Dragon. He was one of the creators of the Emerald Herald, whose mission it was to break the undead curse. She failed, and now guides you to meet the Ancient Dragon who gives you a way to enter the memories of the dead. Through this you can go back in time to the war against the giants and defeat their king, which nets you the key to the Throne of Want.

This is where Nashandra reveals herself to be a shard of Manus of the Abyss and tries to murder you in a rather easy boss fight. After putting her down Aldia shows himself and seeks to test you to see if you're worthy of the Throne or the ending of the cycle. Defeating him nets you the same choice as Dark Souls 1: continue the cycle of Light and Dark and get the Bad End, or don't turn the world to Light again and let it end for the Bad End.

As part of the three DLC packs you travel to the realms of other kings, who too had their queens who were shards of Manus and manipulated their kings. If you gather all their crowns as well as Vendrick's and bring them to Vendrick's final resting place you can get yourself a neat crown that renders you immune to going Hollow.

===Dark Souls III===
The fire is going out yet again, but it's so terribly weak now that it might not even last another cycle. This sees the rise of the Unkindled, those Undead who tried but failed to link the fire back in a previous age and were turned to ash. In practice they're pretty much undead. Now the Unkindled seek to gather the Lords of Cinder, for big badasses who did pull it off back in their day but don't feel like trying it again. So it's your job to find them, kick their asses and either get them to do it or use the cinders you take from them to link the fire yet again. So you set out to kill yet another four big bosses and get something from them. In this you're aided by the Fire Keeper of the Firelink Shrine, which is your hub world of the game where you can buy stuff, level up and advance the plot. The Lords of Cinder are a group of elite soldiers keeping the Abyss in check and murdering Undead and Unkindled alike (which is a problem now that they are unkindled themselves), the [[ooze]] Aldrich who ate a fan-favorite character from Dark Souls I and now wears the corpse as a hat, Yhorm the [[giant]] who is highly resistant to just about anything but a single weapon whose special attack can take him down in a few hits and the brothers Prince Lorian and Prince Lothric, the former being a crippled and nearly brain-dead husk of a man (who can still kick your ass) and the latter being a small and frail [[wizard]] whose magic can revive his brother. After collecting the four cinders you can fight the final boss, the amalgamation of all previous Lords and link the fire, which doesn't consume you this time around to hammer home how weak it has become.

There are two alternate endings. One has you give the Fire Keeper some blueberries so that she can put the fire out (it makes sense in context), which gets you the second ending you see in Dark Souls 1 and 2. The other requires you to break out a strategy guide because no way in hell will you find that one on your own. At the end of a highly specific number of tasks you become a creature that is part Unkindled, part Undead. Instead of letting the fire consume you, you consume ''it'' and become the Lord of Hollows, escaping the cycle of fire and dark that Aldia tried to accomplish so long ago. This is arguably the "best" ending, but given that this is Dark Souls everything is relative.

There are two DLC packs this time around. The first one is Ashes of Ariandel, which sees you teleported into a world inspired by the Painted World from Dark Souls I. After fighting a bunch of vikings you meet a woman in a church named Sister Friede who tells you to leave and gives you a parting gift. At this point you can do just that, or opt to explore some more. You start to realize that this world you're in is decaying: riddled with rot and filth it longs for the fire that allows it to be reborn. But the fire is not there and you eventually discover why: the local religious leader Father Ariandel is flagellating himself and uses his blood to snuff out the flame whenever it starts to build up. And this was not his plan: it was the plan of Friede. Who is in service to the Dark and seeks to end the Age of Fire. What follows is a battle with Friede and her fancy scythe, who gets up after you beat her and is joined by Ariandel who tries to beat you to death with a bowl. After beating this duo you think it's over... only for Friede to get up yet again and pulls out a ''second'' scythe to try and murder you with. After all this you can find a lady in the attic of the church who paints the world you're in, formerly using the blood of Ariandrel. She tells you that to paint fire she needs special paint and that her uncle is getting it for her. You also fight what should be an expy of Artorias the Abysswalker and his puppy dog Sif from Dark Souls I, but the delivery is a bit flat.

This comes to a head in the second DLC, The Ringed City. You get teleported to a world gone crazy, where everything is folded together in a variety of non-euclidian ways. Travering the ruins of the Earthen Peak of Dark Souls II fame you fight a pair of fiery demons and make it to the Ringed City. Dodging entire companies of archers and massive knights devoured by the Abyss you discover an amnesiac knight whom you help get his memory back (and you know who this is) and fight a massive fuck-off dragon who can easily wreck your shit. You eventually make your way to the ruler of the city: Princess Filianore, the youngest daughter of Lord Gwyn. She's asleep and holding an egg as a shoutout to ''Angel's egg'', so of course you gotta touch that shit. This destroys the egg and everything around you, turning the city into a massive wasteland. Traversing this massive open land (one of the largest in the series) you fight who might be one of the last knights of Gwyn and find your target: the same guy who teleported you into the painted world, the uncle of the painter lady. This is Slave Knight Gael, who is on the hunt for the Dark Soul of Humanity. And when you find him, he's got it. What follows is one of the most impressive and dangerous battles in the game against not Gael but the Dark Soul itself. Striking him down nets you the blood of the Dark Soul, which you can give to the painting lady to paint a new world and let the old one burn. This would've been a lot better were it not that this DLC stuff is contained within itself and has no effect on or a big relation to the plot of the main game. Still, it's an awesome battle.

Death Guard

2018-01-04T03:30:20Z

2605:E000:7ECF:7F00:CD17:EF84:FE30:832B: /* Horus Heresy */

{{Infobox Traitor Legion
|Name = Death Guard
|Heraldry = [[File:Deathguardlogo.png|250px]]
|Battle Cry = None. The Death Guard fight in complete silence.
|Original Name = Dusk Raiders
|Number = XIV
|Primarch = [[Mortarion]]
|Original Homeworld = [[Barbarus]]
|Current Homeworld = [[Plague Planet]]
|Champion = [[Typhus]]
|Specialty = Attrition, close-range firefights, mass infantry, bio-warfare, [[Iron Hands|the flesh is STRONG]].
|Strength = Unknown; we can't tell the live ones from the dead ones. (Legion strength by the 13th Black Crusade)
|Allegiance = [[Nurgle]]
|Colours = Green and brown, inevitably the most disgusting and nasty-looking shades of each.
}}

''"Not a bad chap when you get to know him (and sooner or later, everyone gets to know him)."''<br>

-Terry Pratchett, on Death (the character within the Discworld Novel Universe)

''"Sometimes, when I'm alone, I like to cover myself in Vaseline and pretend I'm a slug."''<br>

-Internet Cancer

The Death Guard are one of the nine [[Space Marine]] Legions who betrayed the [[Emperor]] during the [[Horus Heresy]], and became [[Chaos Space Marines]]. They worship the [[Chaos God]] [[Nurgle]] and in return he infests their armor with pestilence and disease. The Primarch of the Death Guard is [[Mortarion]], who has been elevated to [[Daemon Prince]] status. Their original homeworld of Barbarus was a septic tank disguised as a planet, entirely populated by country bumpkins (and a few Dark Eldar) and stank continuously of horseshit. Barbarus has since been destroyed (probably for the best). The new homeworld of the Death Guard is now the lazily named Plague Planet (<strike> it fucking rhymes too!</strike> Actually it's an alliteration, which is still awful) where all the Galaxy's diseases from meningitis to crotch rot collect.

==History==
Not many neckbeards dare to paint them up. Back during the Unification Wars of Terra, before the coming of Mortarion, they were known as the Dusk Raiders due to their early-evening assaults, using the confusion of the afternoon twilight to catch their enemies off-guard, during dinner. Because Mortarion had been endowed by the Emperor with the aspect of humanity's Teenage Edginess, he renamed his legion the Death Guard instead, and <s>had them repaint their armor to the charming colors of algae-green and mudslick brown white </s> their armor was unpainted, save for a snot green trim and the legions heraldry. They got dirty after they started swimming in the drops.

Due to living in the utter shithole (in their case, quite literally) that was Barbarus, where the local air was equivalent to huffing the engine exhaust from a Chinese cab, the Death Guard soon grew proud of their 'ridiculously tough beyond humanly possible' bodies, which made them resistant to almost all forms of poisons and diseases (didn't stop them from succumbing to Nurgle's Gift, hur hur!). Due to their affinity to biological and chemical elements (likely programed into their Geneseed as well), the Death Guard quickly became the Emperor's personal bio-chem experts. It wouldn't be a surprise if their main source of orbital bombardment was [[Exterminatus|Virus Bombs]]. In fact, they probably bathe in that shit on a daily basis. They also smoked A LOT of weed.

Before the Horus Heresy, the Death Guard differed from the other 17 known Legions in that they had only [[Nurgle|seven]] Great Companies, although these held far more men than those of other Legions such as the [[Ultramarines]] or [[Space Wolves]]. There were three privileged titles held by captains of the Death Guard. The captain of the First Company was known as the First Captain, the captain of the Second Company was known as Commander, and the captain of the Seventh Company was known as Battle-Captain.

The Death Guard tended to be organized into units of foot-slogging infantry, rather than mechanized squads (since the Death Guard themselves were already tough to the point they might as well have Hull Points). Mortarion ensured that his men were [[Ultramarines|well-equipped and highly-trained.]] He also ensured that they could fight in almost any kind of atmosphere, and placed little emphasis on specialized units using jump packs or bikes. The Death Guard did not have dedicated Assault and Tactical Squads. Every Marine was equipped with a bolter, bolt pistol and close combat weapon and told to fight with whatever weapon circumstance dictated. The Legion was also well known for its use of Terminator Armour. Possibly as a result of this, the Death Guard were highly successful at high-risk boarding and close-quarter operations such as [[space hulk]] clearance.

=== Horus Heresy ===

By the time of the Horus Heresy, the Death Guard was known to have had roughly 95,000 Space Marines.

During the [[Horus Heresy|Galaxy's Greatest Hangover since the]] [[Fall of the Eldar|Fall of the Eldar]], the Death Guard and Mortarion were one of the traitor legions to rebel against [[Emperor|daddy]]. Within the Heresy, Mortarion's smaller fleet led a [[Fail|failed]] attempt on [[Prospero]] to convince [[Jaghatai Khan]] and the [[White Scars]] to join with them, only for <s>Genghis </s> Jaghatai to tell the psychic-hating bigot to fuck off and thus, the White Scars and Death Guard battled to a stalemate. Some fight scenes later, Mortarion meets up with Typhus (then Callas Typhon), who pulled a dick move and killed off the [[navigator]]s, but convinced Mortarion that he could lead them to Terra. As you might expect, entering the [[Warp]] without a Navigator's help is just asking for something bad to happen. [[Rape|Then came the Destroyer Plague, and their fate was sealed.]] Their superhuman constitution and grim determination proved worthless against the Destroyer, and so they embraced Papa Nurgle to be freed from the plague and relieved of their suffering, at the cost of, well.....

Mortarion also had a personal guard, the speechless and silent [[Deathshroud|Death Shroud]], who were known to be within 49 (Get it? Nurgle's holy number is seven and 49 is seven squared?) paces of their Primarch, Morty.
Oh, and they enjoyed drinking a cup of venomous, poison bile to commemorate victory. Mortarion drinks that stuff like water, though his captains have trouble holding their guts inside after drinking.
All in all, the Death Guard were stoic, poison-drinking, sour-faced martial warriors before [[Horus]] threw his [[Horus Heresy|surprise birthday bash]], and ended up rotting avatars of <s>[[AIDS]]</s>, Syphilis, and decay by the time the party was finished. Just like [[That Guy|that ONE GUY]] who always shows up.

==Post-Heresy==
[[File:Death Guard Assraping Tau.jpg|650px|right|thumb|After being repulsed by one kind of [[Ultramarines|Blueberries]], Mortarion and co decided to compensate the loss by [[Anal Circumference|venting]] [[rage|their frustration]] upon another pile of [[Tau|Blueberries.]]]]

So the Death Guard and the rest of the Traitor legions failed (what were they even trying to do again?) and were kicked to the [[Eye of Terror]] to do their daemonic stuff in private. The Death Guard, along with any non-[[Word Bearers]] or [[Black Legion]] factions, soon broke apart into splintering warbands. The split of the Death Guard can be contributed to [[Mortarion]] doing whats trendy when you become a Daemon-Primarch; Do whatever the fuck you want and have nothing to do with your Legion FOR 10,000 YEARS. Typhus, who was always a dubious shit-nugget to his Primarch, decided to take as much of the legion into his own hands and go crazy with no intention of Obeying Mortarion when he returns. What a Douche. Though he did get some shit done.

Another Death Guard warleader, by the name of Thagus Daravek, got similar ideas but on a bigger scale. Through sorcery he realised the destiny that Abaddon was on course for, and tried to claim it for himself. Rounding up massive warbands, he became the Lord of Hosts, doing everything he could to wipe out nascent Black Legion. He even went so far as to bind the daemon that had been Iskandar Khayon's tutelary to him, giving him power over Khayon, and used this to follow the Black Legion into realspace. With Abaddon already mired in battle with the Black Templars he would have wiped them out, cleaned up the remaining Templars and sailed off into history. Only Khayon ordered the Black Legion fleet to do a runner, engaged Daravek aboard the '''Vengeful Spirit'', and chopped his head off. Good effort, at least.

In theory, the Death Guard, like the Word Bearers, are one of the few Traitor Legions that still have some sort of cohesive centralized command structure. Mortarion commands seven Plague Companies, each consisting of multiple Sepsis Cohorts, which are divided into two Maladictums which in turn consist of seven Colonies. In practice, Mortarion rarely commands his minions (especially Typhus), and the forces of the Death Guard are so scattered that they are mainly divided into informal warbands called Vectoriums, mostly consisting of Colonies or Maladictums from the same Plague Company.

As of the 42nd millennium, Mortarion decided to stop playing X-Box and Puffin' his "Barbaran gas" to make up with his old homie Big Blue. Suffice to say, the Death Guard saw what [[Magnus the Red|Magnus]] [[Thousand Sons|and friends]] did with [[Sortiarius]] and decide to do something similar. That is carve out their own mini-empire called the [[Scourge Stars]] right to the north of [[Ultramar]] so they can annoy and pester [[Roboute Guilliman|Big Blue Wonder]] for as much as Morty pleases. This act has cemented the Death Guard as Ultramar's [[That Guy|worst neighbor]] since the first Tyrannic War. Thus Mortarion and the Death Guard launched the '''Plague Wars''' after [[Roboute Guilliman|Grandpa Smurf's]] resurrection and the breakout of the Indomitus Crusade.

During the [[Fate of Konor]], Mortarion and his bros decided to launch an assault on the star system. Whilst he had lost three of the planets (Unsurprising since Imperial players outnumbered Chaos players to an obscene level), through sheer grit and resistance, the Death Guard mange to take over the planet of Vanitor. Although even then, it was a pyrrhic victory at best since the Death Guard had to lob a lot of resources to finally turn the tide of the battle. They did manage to also take another planet called Drenthal, but they ultimately they lost the final, decisive battle to the Ultramarines. This was due to Mortarion putting all of their hopes and resources in a heavily corrupted former Eldar maiden-world turned into the Death Guard's very own Death Star, strapping continent-sized Space Hulks to it and dumping whatever forces he had left in the system onto its surface. Much like the alluded super-space station, it got blown into smithereens during the loyalist assault when strike teams penetrated deep into it's engine core and [[Awesome|manually detonated a cyclonic torpedo]]. After a few more battles things finally came to a head on Iax where Guilliman and Mortarion duked it out amidst the ruins of the planet before Nurgle recalled Morty back to the Scourge Stars. Apparently the other Chaos Gods had gotten jealous and wanted to take the Plague God's recently acquired real estate for themselves. And so, amidst what is assumed to be the expletive-ridden ranting by Mortarion at the chaos gods fucking him over again, the snide commentary of Typhus at yet another failure of his father and the hearty laughter of Ku'gath at the irony of it all, the Death Guard left Ultramar.

After the fiasco of the Plague Wars, the Death Guard was forced to go back to their little turf to fend off Tzeentchian and Khornate shenanigans over the Scourge Stars. At the same time, Mortarion and his Death Guard also manage to meet face to face with the remnants of the Tau's fourth sphere forces. [[FATAL|You can imagine how ''that'' turned out.]]

==Daily Rituals of the Death Guard==
06:00 - The Death Guard awake in the hand-dug graves. Massive, 10,000 year hangovers and rotting ligaments make getting out of bed difficult, some are unable to be roused from their graves for hours.

08:00 - Morning Meal. A zombified serf prepares the meat of another rotting serf, alongside a bit of fungus. Marines who are unable to rise from their graves make due by eating the fungi that grow on their bodies.

08:30 - Morning Prayers. A prayer is dedicated to Papa Nurgle. Each Death Guard secretly wishes a Nurgmas present from Nurgle himself. They all get presents, as every day is Nurgmas.

09:30 - Morning Firing Rites. The Death Guard proceed to have target practice upon captured Imperial citizens. Its a win-win situation as the citizens are revived as zombies and the Death Guard gets experience. [[Noblebright|Nobody loses, everyone wins. Such is life.]] Well that is unless said Death Guard is a horrible shot (and when your joints and eyes are rotting, steady aim isn't an easy proposition), in which case the citizen's terror and pain is prolonged.

11:00 - Battle Practice. The Death Guard engage in battle practice within the mud swamps of the Plague Planet. Unfortunately, the [[Slaanesh|Pleasure Pits of Pussy Planet]] were booked for the day. The stuck Death Guard are now able to climb out.

12:00 - Tactical Indoctrination. The Death Guard plan out their latest campaign to spread Papa Nurgle's Gifts. Unlike traditional legions; the planning phase looks and sounds more like preparations for a party, rather than a tactical debriefing.

13:00 - Evening Meal. A medium meal of Maggots, Dying flesh, and diseased organs is prepared by the zombified serfs. Most Death Guard prefer to order from [[Emprah Burgers|Chaos Burgers and McNurgle's]] as the food delivery is faster, and the quality is pretty much the same.

14:00 - Plague Checks. The Plague Surgeons now examine the Death Guard legion to see if any new diseases develop within their bodies. Typically nothing new happens, but they're always optimistic.

15:00 - Pet Training. The Death Guard now begin combat training with their daemonic beasts. Its mostly harmless (atleast for the marines), but will occasionally end up with a friendly "fatality" when said beast gets too enthusiastic.

16:00 - Evening Prayers. <s> This time Papa Nurgle has heeded the wishes of the Death Guard and has given them Nurgmas presents </s> NO PRESENTS! THEY GOT THEIR PRESENTS ONCE, NOW IT'S SOMEONE ELSE'S TURN!

17:00 - Pet a Nurgling Period. The Death Guard are allowed to pet some of Papa Nurgle's blobs of rotting cutsies.

18:00 - Daily Nurgle Wedding. A local wedding is held by two love birds in the Plague Planet. Celebrations are held as the Death Guard congratulate the groom and bride. Much confusion is had as to which is the groom and which is the bride. The Death Guard attempt to coax Mortarion into leading the procession, but typically gets silence in response. The Deathshroud are also visibly tense by this hour.

19:00 - Wedding Meal. A feast is held to congratulate the newly wed couple. Everyone is happy and the imperial citizens who were shot for target practice are now revived as zombies and are invited to see that not all things in Chaos are bad.

22:00 - Time with Daddy. Mortarion gathers whatever faithful Death Guardians he's commanding at the time and tells tales of the Heresy and how to serve Nurgle best.

23:00 - Free Time. The Death Guard have their free time where they pray to Nurgle, get as much disease as possible, help the locals, and be overall model citizens to those who inhabit the Plague Planet. Sometimes, the Death Guard congregate, and an ancient Terran plant species known as "The Weed" is ritually inhaled through an equally ancient tool known as "the Bong" in faint imitation of their Primarch's need for Barbaran gas. It has strange, pleasant effects, and Sometimes, Mortarion may share his "Barbaran gas" with his sons.
It's good stuff.

24:00 - Rest Time. The Death Guard go back to their graves and rest for a bit. Mortarion ponders where to spread Nurgle's gifts next. On rare occasions; Mortarion may leave his quarters during rest period. Reports of him playing with his own menagerie of pet daemonic beasts in the middle of the night are unsubstantiated and will result in horrible dismemberment if he ever hears you mention it.

== New models and Codex inbound ==
That's right heretics, new models coming out, including the Daemon [[Primarch]] [[Mortarion]] himself! You can see it [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BceinBiT9jQhere in this video by Warhammer TV]. A Death Guard codex is also coming.

[[https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/05/23/warhammer-40000-launch-date-announced-may22gw-homepage-post-1/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Facebook&utm_campaign=WHTVDIannounceMay23&utm_content=WHTVDIannounceMay23Q They're here!]]

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Image:Plague-marines.jpg|Death Guard Plague Marines, [[Cegorach|moar like AIDStartes, amirite? (Ha-Ha!)]]
Image:PhDG.jpg‎|Not much difference...
Image:Plague Marine Face.jpg‎|This is the face of someone happy with their decisions. He has never felt more alive.
</gallery>

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[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Chaos]][[Category:Space Marines]]