1 00:00:03,279 --> 00:00:10,240 Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. Hi, 2 00:00:10,520 --> 00:00:13,120 Speaker 1: my name is Robert Lamb and this is The Monster Fact, 3 00:00:13,400 --> 00:00:15,800 Speaker 1: a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind, 4 00:00:15,840 --> 00:00:20,040 Speaker 1: focusing in on mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters in time. 5 00:00:23,400 --> 00:00:26,319 Speaker 1: In the previous two episodes of The Monster Fact, we 6 00:00:26,400 --> 00:00:30,720 Speaker 1: discussed chaos demonology within the fictional far future universe of 7 00:00:30,880 --> 00:00:35,720 Speaker 1: games Workshops Warhammer forty thousand, we discussed both the blood 8 00:00:35,720 --> 00:00:39,400 Speaker 1: god Corn and Zinch, the Changer of Ways, as well 9 00:00:39,400 --> 00:00:42,320 Speaker 1: as some interesting connections they each have to military and 10 00:00:42,400 --> 00:00:46,320 Speaker 1: religious history. Today, we turn our attention to the play 11 00:00:46,440 --> 00:00:52,199 Speaker 1: god Nergal, the master of contagion and general grossness. His 12 00:00:52,280 --> 00:00:55,840 Speaker 1: demonic minions are foul oozing and blowed in wrecks. His 13 00:00:56,040 --> 00:01:00,640 Speaker 1: mortal followers also willingly give their bodies and soul over 14 00:01:00,720 --> 00:01:04,080 Speaker 1: to this sort of corruption. From the top of his ranks, 15 00:01:04,080 --> 00:01:08,600 Speaker 1: the monstrous great unclean one, to the lowly swarms of Nerglings, 16 00:01:08,640 --> 00:01:12,679 Speaker 1: we see a common likeness said to resemble Nergal himself, 17 00:01:13,319 --> 00:01:19,199 Speaker 1: rotund toadlike humanoids with rupturing guts and rot toothed grins. 18 00:01:19,880 --> 00:01:22,840 Speaker 1: As such, it's easy to equate Nergal with the Christian 19 00:01:22,880 --> 00:01:27,440 Speaker 1: deadly sins of sloth and gluttony. But the ninth addition, 20 00:01:27,880 --> 00:01:32,040 Speaker 1: Chaos Demons codex from game's workshop tells us that Nergle 21 00:01:32,160 --> 00:01:36,399 Speaker 1: is actually empowered by mortal suffering and despair. It is 22 00:01:36,400 --> 00:01:39,160 Speaker 1: when famines and pestilence are at their worst in the 23 00:01:39,280 --> 00:01:44,000 Speaker 1: universe and vast interstellar populations lose all hope that Nergal 24 00:01:44,080 --> 00:01:48,200 Speaker 1: advances on their souls and physical worlds. He offers them 25 00:01:48,240 --> 00:01:51,240 Speaker 1: a bit of twisted wisdom. It is not courage to 26 00:01:51,320 --> 00:01:54,520 Speaker 1: resist disease and corruption, It is courage to give in 27 00:01:54,640 --> 00:02:00,200 Speaker 1: to these forces and to embrace Nergal's blessings. Nergalles name 28 00:02:00,200 --> 00:02:03,720 Speaker 1: was of course inspired by the ancient Babylonian god Nergal, 29 00:02:04,160 --> 00:02:07,320 Speaker 1: a god of pestilence, famine, and war who could be 30 00:02:07,320 --> 00:02:10,320 Speaker 1: called upon to protect his worshippers from these very forces. 31 00:02:10,840 --> 00:02:15,760 Speaker 1: He also became associated with the Samaro Acadian underworld. Forty 32 00:02:15,800 --> 00:02:18,680 Speaker 1: Kay's Nergal is in many ways a darker and more 33 00:02:18,720 --> 00:02:23,280 Speaker 1: twisted take on these elements. On the battlefield, the demonic 34 00:02:23,320 --> 00:02:27,080 Speaker 1: forces of Nergal make for quite a grotesque horde, full 35 00:02:27,120 --> 00:02:32,560 Speaker 1: of humanoid plague bearers and great sluglike monstrosities. There's also 36 00:02:32,600 --> 00:02:36,920 Speaker 1: a dark whimsie to such units as the Grand cultivator 37 00:02:36,919 --> 00:02:41,919 Speaker 1: horticulous Slimus on his snail demon Mount Mulch, as well 38 00:02:41,960 --> 00:02:45,800 Speaker 1: as the capering blessed Nerglings. But of course we have 39 00:02:45,880 --> 00:02:50,120 Speaker 1: to focus in on the Herald of Nergal Sloppety bile Piper. 40 00:02:51,120 --> 00:02:54,400 Speaker 1: Like other plague bearer demons, he's a green skinned humanoid 41 00:02:54,440 --> 00:02:57,959 Speaker 1: bursting with infection and decay, but he's also a jolly 42 00:02:58,040 --> 00:03:02,200 Speaker 1: soul full of song and twigs did mirth. The Kodax 43 00:03:02,320 --> 00:03:05,760 Speaker 1: tells us that he princes on the battlefield, infected by 44 00:03:05,760 --> 00:03:10,280 Speaker 1: a deadly and highly contagious laughing disease. In one hand, 45 00:03:10,320 --> 00:03:13,520 Speaker 1: he grips a jester's merit, decorated with his own face, 46 00:03:13,560 --> 00:03:17,399 Speaker 1: of course, as well as a steaming mass of guts 47 00:03:17,400 --> 00:03:21,480 Speaker 1: fashioned into a set of bagpipes, which he plays. His 48 00:03:21,600 --> 00:03:24,800 Speaker 1: performance hastens the troops, but the Kodax tells us that 49 00:03:24,840 --> 00:03:29,000 Speaker 1: it's uncertain if this is accomplished via inspiration or annoyance. 50 00:03:29,840 --> 00:03:33,079 Speaker 1: He spreads the dancing plague as he cavorts, and when 51 00:03:33,080 --> 00:03:36,720 Speaker 1: he eventually falls on the battlefield, his own body will 52 00:03:36,720 --> 00:03:39,400 Speaker 1: turn into the next set of gut pipes for the 53 00:03:39,480 --> 00:03:42,800 Speaker 1: next Herald to take up and play. Now there's a 54 00:03:42,800 --> 00:03:45,200 Speaker 1: lot of fun gallows humor to this unit, but it 55 00:03:45,280 --> 00:03:50,480 Speaker 1: also may raise some interesting questions about actual bagpipes. For starters, 56 00:03:50,480 --> 00:03:53,320 Speaker 1: we should clarify that while bagpipes are strongly associated with 57 00:03:53,360 --> 00:03:56,800 Speaker 1: Scottish and Irish tradition, some form of bagpipes have been 58 00:03:56,840 --> 00:03:59,720 Speaker 1: played for centuries across Europe and parts of Asia and 59 00:04:00,640 --> 00:04:04,200 Speaker 1: in different cultural traditions. It does seem that animal stomachs 60 00:04:04,200 --> 00:04:07,200 Speaker 1: were used in the creation of bagpipes on occasion, such 61 00:04:07,200 --> 00:04:11,840 Speaker 1: as the stomachs of sheep or seals, but most bagpipes 62 00:04:11,840 --> 00:04:13,680 Speaker 1: you encounter today are going to be made out of 63 00:04:13,720 --> 00:04:18,000 Speaker 1: synthetic materials or animal hides. In some cases, the bagpipe 64 00:04:18,160 --> 00:04:21,240 Speaker 1: may be made from a largely intact skin, with the 65 00:04:21,320 --> 00:04:25,000 Speaker 1: various stocks of the bagpipes connecting to where the limbs 66 00:04:25,040 --> 00:04:28,360 Speaker 1: and head of the animal would have previously attached. So 67 00:04:28,400 --> 00:04:31,520 Speaker 1: on one level, the notion of bagpipes made from flesh 68 00:04:31,839 --> 00:04:35,720 Speaker 1: is not that far removed from their material origins. Additionally, 69 00:04:35,720 --> 00:04:38,919 Speaker 1: there is something to the way bagpipes inhale and exhale 70 00:04:39,160 --> 00:04:42,840 Speaker 1: that encourages the animal comparison. Ohen of course, the TV 71 00:04:42,920 --> 00:04:47,839 Speaker 1: series Garth Marengue's Dark Place exploited this quite humorously in 72 00:04:47,880 --> 00:04:50,960 Speaker 1: the episode's Scotch Mist, in which an animate pair of 73 00:04:51,040 --> 00:04:55,680 Speaker 1: bagpipes attacks the main character. As for the comparison to 74 00:04:55,720 --> 00:04:59,320 Speaker 1: be made between bagpipes and human entrails, I actually found 75 00:04:59,360 --> 00:05:02,119 Speaker 1: an interesting treatment of this in the eighteen fifty humor 76 00:05:02,200 --> 00:05:06,840 Speaker 1: book Memoirs of a Stomach by Sydney Whiting. The author, 77 00:05:07,000 --> 00:05:10,839 Speaker 1: writing as a human stomach, compares itself to the bagpipe 78 00:05:11,080 --> 00:05:14,600 Speaker 1: and shares a supposed origin story of the musical instrument. 79 00:05:15,279 --> 00:05:18,360 Speaker 1: In it, a necromancer reanimates the stomach of a fallen 80 00:05:18,400 --> 00:05:21,880 Speaker 1: Scottish warrior as bagpipes. Allow me to read a bit 81 00:05:21,920 --> 00:05:26,080 Speaker 1: of it to you. Quote. There sat the weird king 82 00:05:26,160 --> 00:05:29,880 Speaker 1: a wand in hand, and there lay the digestive organs 83 00:05:29,920 --> 00:05:33,120 Speaker 1: of the departed. At length, he uttered a few strange 84 00:05:33,160 --> 00:05:35,880 Speaker 1: words in tracing some hieroglyphics in the air. With his 85 00:05:36,040 --> 00:05:40,360 Speaker 1: royal finger. He exclaimed aloud, change thou thy form a 86 00:05:40,600 --> 00:05:43,960 Speaker 1: thing of mighty use. When in the living clay and 87 00:05:44,120 --> 00:05:47,560 Speaker 1: on thy tube, let there be stops and keynotes, And 88 00:05:47,680 --> 00:05:50,359 Speaker 1: in thy bag let there be wind, And let the 89 00:05:50,480 --> 00:05:53,760 Speaker 1: natives of this region have cunning to play upon thee 90 00:05:53,839 --> 00:05:57,159 Speaker 1: and let thy tones be ever as the shrieks of 91 00:05:57,200 --> 00:06:00,560 Speaker 1: a tortured man, so that the Arenus may be satisfied. 92 00:06:00,920 --> 00:06:05,360 Speaker 1: And let thou be called now and hereafter bagpipe, so 93 00:06:05,720 --> 00:06:08,800 Speaker 1: that what I spoke may come to pass Evan unto 94 00:06:08,920 --> 00:06:13,000 Speaker 1: the letter he said, and his astonished retainers raised from 95 00:06:13,040 --> 00:06:17,240 Speaker 1: the earth, the first instrument bearing that name born unto Scotland. 96 00:06:17,680 --> 00:06:19,760 Speaker 1: Now again, this is a work of humor and should 97 00:06:19,800 --> 00:06:22,920 Speaker 1: not be interpreted as Scottish lore. If anything, I detect 98 00:06:22,960 --> 00:06:26,960 Speaker 1: some possible anti Scottish sentiments to the work, but suffice 99 00:06:27,000 --> 00:06:29,919 Speaker 1: to say that Grandfather Nurgel was not the first to 100 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:33,880 Speaker 1: snicker at the idea of stomachs as bagpipes. It's also 101 00:06:33,920 --> 00:06:37,560 Speaker 1: worth noting that laughing plagues have occurred in the real world, 102 00:06:37,960 --> 00:06:41,600 Speaker 1: likely cases of mass hysteria. But this is another story 103 00:06:41,680 --> 00:06:44,920 Speaker 1: and shall be told another time. Join me next week 104 00:06:44,960 --> 00:06:48,320 Speaker 1: as we continue our journey through the chaos demon factions. 105 00:06:48,800 --> 00:06:51,839 Speaker 1: Tune into the Monster Fact each Wednesday in the Stuff 106 00:06:51,839 --> 00:06:54,440 Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind podcast feed. As always, you can 107 00:06:54,480 --> 00:06:57,159 Speaker 1: email us at contact that's Stuff to Blow your Mind 108 00:06:57,720 --> 00:07:07,479 Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production 109 00:07:07,560 --> 00:07:10,720 Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit 110 00:07:10,720 --> 00:07:13,720 Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to 111 00:07:13,760 --> 00:07:14,600 Speaker 1: your favorite shows.