Codex: Chaos Daemons (2018), p57 — Horticulous Slimux

The Grand Cultivator

With a thump of his tumour-hardened foot upon the shell of his faithful mount, a snail-like creature known affectionately as Mulch, Horticulous Slimux rides to battle. It is not the quickest of charges, but what it lacks in speed it makes up for with sheer toxicity.

Horticulous Slimux has been Nurgle's head gardener since before time. A Herald of special powers, Horticulous has an eye for tending the diseased plant-growths so beloved by Nurgle. None knows better when to deadhead a skullrose, divide up a witchspike shrub, or graft new tendrils together to make entire new flora. Indeed, if he had his way, Horticulous would spend all his time tending and pruning the endless vegetation fields around Nurgle's great manse. The Lord of Plagues, however, has other ideas.

Nurgle moves in cycles, and after seeing his Grand Cultivator at work in his garden for a time, the God of Decay senses the need for a change, and sends Horticulous into realspace to plant his seeds. There is none better at spreading the glorious growths of the garden. Horticulous is a pragmatic and humourless being, and goes about his task - whatever it may be - with the same no-nonsense approach. He finds the uncontaminated regions of reality disturbing, and seeks to garnish them as quickly as possible with Nurgle's blessing, although he will grumble as he does so of his 'beauties back home', for he trusts no one to tend his prized plants in his absence. But no sooner has Horticulous set his grundleplough working than Nurgle grows restless again. He decides that now is not the time for planting, but instead the time for reaping. And so, hefting his rusty pair of pruning shears, Horticulous joins the Plague Legions for battle. Heads and limbs are snipped with the same precision and skill he shows when trimming down a bleeding marrowtree.

As he goes about his duties, Horticulous conjures the tendrils and mutated fronds of Nurgle's garden and ushers them into reality as if with only a thought. Within moments of sowing a seed, a boundless fecundity erupts, creating a small facsimile of his master's garden. Such infested areas, populated by the likes of daemonic Feculent Gnarlmaws, augment the diseased hordes of Nurgle and cause all others to weaken in the unnatural miasma.

It is rare to see Horticulous alone, for he is almost always accompanied by bounding packs of Beasts of Nurgle. The creatures frolic in the slimy and poisonous wake left behind by the Grand Culvitator's squelching mount, and will respond to the Herald's call with unmatched enthusiasm. Horticulous tolerates the Beasts' antics, but the same cannot be said for Nurglings. When no Great Unclean Ones are watching, Horticulous has been known to feed the imps to Mulch. This foul diet ensures Mulch's bite is extremely toxic.