City of Rust - Nurgle Dwarves Log

[Melcavuk]

Continueing on from brainstorming with Demorte some time ago I've finally found a hobby window in which to explore to City of Rust, a whole dwarven skyport simply faded into legend many centuries past. Today such a port seems to exist only in the drunked rambling of aged sailors, or in the ghost tales told to new ship hands to keep a keen eye out when they are on watch. But what... some ask... would have come of such a place if it ever existed, if the pestilence of nurgle had seeped through the filtration units, one such rumour having spread through dwarven holds and sky ports alike is the tale of the vast breweries of the pirate port once more billowing toxins into the atmosphere as they refine the ale, such casks sent out with envoys to distant dwarven kingdoms as tokens of peace. Such ale however is whispered to be brewed in the fatted extracts of bloat leviathans, nurglings frockling amongst rotted corpses as they swim in the fermenting brew. Watch... they say, keenly for the brew of the Bug Man, for few who drink the Bugmans Brew can drink anything but.

 

Background:

Lost Haven - The City of Rust (Aka The Rust Yard) created by Melcavuk

Once a bountiful port Lost Haven has long since become known as the City of Rust, this port housed many a mighty house and fool hardy captains ever to sail the skies of the realms. So close was it to the migration path of the Leviathans of the sky that on a clear day a dwarf with iron in their loins could lean across the size to see these mighty beasts pass far below the monolithic city. The primary trade for the port reside in its massive docks capable of housing countless slain leviathans that the engineers, khemists and more than a handful of deranged smugglers could carve into the carcasses. From them came lush oils, a bountiful hide that could turn even the most keen of blades, and its bones when ground down into powders could be used medicines and explosives but more valuable of all lay the massive glands of Aethergold that allowed these beasts to fly despite their enormous bulk.

It is said that a Storm of nittle-bugs once hit the city unlike any other, swarm after swarm of these seething bugs and flies cascading from rot clouds seeking to devour all that lay within. Still this was no match for this great skyport, the vault seals remained intact and despite the cleanup operation taking some weeks the casualties sustained where minimal. Trade however took the most damage, the carcasses of leviathans held in dock waiting to be carved up had been devoured by the storm. Every saleable resource disappearing in the blink of an eye, such a loss could be rectified however as the city had no shortage of eager captains willing to sail the Aether streams and hunt down fresh prey. Over two dozen ships left port, the armada descending on the Leviathan migration with equal parts wrath and greed. Their haul was magnificent, the city was once more full and its spirits higher than ever before, all hands gathered to witness the great armada deliver their prizes to the loading docks ready to carve into these fresh treasures. One by one each ship severed their tow cables dropping the hulking corpses onto the docks below, the dull thud and wet splats of impact reverberating throughout the port, it was only as the last corpse descended upon the port that the foul stench of rot began to pierce even the strongest of filtration units. One by one the leviathan corpses bubbled and shifted, every movement pouring bile and puss from open sores onto the decks of the ships, and with a mighty groan their bloated Aetherbladders erupted into a sea of nurglings giggling idiotically as they spread like locust across the city.

Since that day no word has come from the city of rust, it exists as a floating graveyard high above Ghyran, sombre and dead. Some shiphands speak of seeing ships of bulbous flesh and steel floating around the city, that the stacks from the Aetherfurnaces can still be seen venting on a still night. Some say that there were survivors, though what cursed wretches these might be has yet to be seen.

 

 

Model concepts:

Working on two of my counts as Endrinriggers first, along with A Corrupted Khemist

 

Rot Riggers - Fullfilling essentially the same role as Endrinriggers in a normal Overlord fleet these diseased dwarves are largely held together by the seals on their suits preventing guts and puss spilling through the air, they ride atop fetid plague drones of nurgle. As the fleet approached such drones can be seen suckling on the teats of the bloat leviathans buried within the Nurgle Fleets husk fleet, whatever sustenance they derive would turn even the most hardened dwarfs stomach. Their riders seem borderline comatose as their mounts feed, responding to none but the strongest of stimuli as if worker bees awaiting orders from their queen, any yet when battle is joined whole waves of these mounted cavalry detach from their husk ships, descending in a plague of locust upon their chosen targets

 

 

[TeddyMadeMeDoIt]

6 hours ago, Melcavuk said:

Watch... they say, keenly for the brew of the Bug Man, for few who drink the Bugmans Brew can drink anything but

Love it! 

As soon as I saw Nurgle Dwarfs I had to jump in and take a look, it's something I've been thinking about for years as a Chaos Dwarfs themed army but sure I say it suits these Kharadron Overlords alot better the way you've done them, hats off mate! Great bit of conversion and even better story to go along with them

More please 

[Melcavuk]

Currently looking at units, simple conversions are usually the least fun but most common place so will be kitbashing

Arkanauts/Iron Drakes/Blightkings to make the majority of the infantry for the force (all will have the void suit things on but arms from irondrakes/ironbreakers for those specific units, blight kings components for flavour)

Ironclad combined with Tyrannoctye (tyranid drop pod) and if I can source it Mortarions wings will form the flagship for the fleet "All Fathers Bounty", essentially a living organism of tentacles and pustulent sacks emerging from creaking and buckling metal shell of the Ironclad, the ships captain and the beast are now but a single organism of unending gleeful consumption, every soul they consume merges with the fleshy bulbous mass.

[S133arcanite]

Those look great! I'm trying to organise a kind of AoS Pilgrym (basically heavily converted warbands made up of five or six models eventually fighting in a heavy-on-the-narrative multiplayer game) and I thought the plague endrinriggers would be great as the base for a warband . If your interested that would be amazing

[Melcavuk]

9 minutes ago, S133arcanite said:

Those look great! I'm trying to organise a kind of AoS Pilgrym (basically heavily converted warbands made up of five or six models eventually fighting in a heavy-on-the-narrative multiplayer game) and I thought the plague endrinriggers would be great as the base for a warband . If your interested that would be amazing

Sounds interesting, I think the scope of my project might end up involving models too huge to use in warbands (ironclad) but for smaller conversions would work.

 

More work on my Rot Riggers, parasitic beasts found under the lumbering massive of the leviathans that lurk above cloud level these lesser beasts of nurgle often feed on the exrement of leviathans only detaching to heed their masters battle call. When their host dies the beasts instead turn its rotting husk into their hive home. The nurgle infested dwarf kin have turned these creatures into befouled sky mounts to ride into battle, when lured to the corrupted sky vessels to serve as their new hosts these mounts follow a nurgle fleet in the same way they would a leviathan migration.

 

[S133arcanite]

Cool! I've got a blog on tga community running about Pilgrym, and it would be really cool if you joined in.  We'll be using basically made up or substituted rules for models, so the Rot-Leviathan-Ironclad would certaintly not be an impossibility. The background for the city of rust is great as well, perfect for a kind of infestation of the air type objective

[Melcavuk]

More fluff for the Nurgle Flagship:

 

The bounty they call it... PAH! Bounty my hairy dwarven ******, She was the crown jewel of the pirate fleet, broke many a blockade and many more an admirals dignity. Not much to look at she werent, old plating but fine dwarven steel, and when a dwarf makes something age means nought when it comes to reliability. They say she were docked at the lost port when it fell off the map, lost we thought her atleast and yet now when these survivors come flocking in from ravaged fleets they are half mad from the battles tolls, screaming of “His Bounty” coming to greet the dwarven holds.

 

They say she aint a ship no more, that some sky slug burrowed deep into her holds and just started eating everything... first the rations, then it moved onto the damn ale casks mores the pity. Then it was a deckhand... or two, or a dozen it really doesnt matter. Alls told they say the whole crew ended up in the pit of that damn slugs stomach, rotting away for the rest of eternity.... arent we all though.

 

When the slug had eaten its fill it werent no slug anymore... it grew with every meal until its swollen mass barely fit in the hold of the Bounty, every porthole ruptured be vile tentacles and oozing sores dripping pestilence onto the world below. A living ship... an abomination of a thing, devouring whole ships as it scours the sky, some call it the Kraken, the first they see of it is a shadowed mass of tentacles emerging from the heavy cloud... for many thats the last they see too...

 

And the captain? Well thats the thing, none can quite agree what happened to old man, some say he made a pact with the foul slug that his life be spared... some say he was the slugs first meal.... but there are those... of more creative imaginations, they say there was no slug, and its the captain in the hold... eating … just eating everything... everyone...