Plague narratives, from Thucydides’ account of the Plague of Athens to Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death, pervade literature and represent a compelling theme and narrative device into the modern age. The Warhammer universe is rife with plague narratives, often the work of the Chaos God Nurgle, or his followers, human, transhuman or demonic. In addition to more conventional themes in plague narratives, such as the insidious and often inescapable nature of contagion, or the notion of a plague as an instrument of divine wrath, Warhammer also includes a distinctly modern theme – the horror and consequences of unchecked biological warfare.
In Jørgen Riber Christensen’s The Formula of Plague Narratives (2015), the five most frequently occurring elements in a sample of narratives ranging from the Bible to modern popular media were “Numbers of Dead”, “Source of Pestilence”, “Description of Symptoms”, “Role of Physicians” and “Official Measures” – all elements that are realistic descriptions of the disease, giving the narrative a feeling of scope and authenticity. How well then do plague narratives in Warhammer cohere with our modern understanding of infectious disease epidemiology, and where do they depart in service of the tone and themes distinct to the “Grim Darkness of the Far Future?”. This presentation considers three examples, drawn from Warhammer 40,000 as well as the Horus Heresy, ranging in scale from personal to planetary. These include the sterile procedure of Belisarius Cawl in Wolfsbane, the battlefield isolation and decontamination procedures described in Dark Imperium, and the use of the Life-Eater virus in several cases of planetary-wide Exterminatus. Which of these examples requires a fantastical departure from reality and which are the very real patterns and fears of contagion of the modern world, merely projected onto Warhammer’s vast and inhuman scale?
Author bio
Eric Lofgren is an infectious disease epidemiologist as well as an avid wargamer. His work primarily focuses on healthcare associated infections, while his spare time is spent writing for Goonhammer, and attempting to make progress on his substantial hobby backlog.
