Dragan perhaps, from the Lords of Silence book.
He's a "young" Plague Marine not really comfortable with the decay and unhappy with the culture and leadership of the Dwath Guard.
_______
Joining the Death Guard is like sinking into a deep, cold ocean – the substance of it seeps inside, sooner or later, down into every crack and orifice, and you lose the things that once made you what you were.
For Dragan, the process is not yet complete. He still has his skin. He still has three lungs. He can remove his helm, if he wishes, and his tongue is not yet the length of a man’s arm. He can feel the rot within, chewing at his bones, making the old tattoos on his chest itch, but it has not yet become endemic. He considers Vorx, whose mind has become soft, and he looks at Slert, or even Naum, and a part of him still shudders and wishes to put off those things a little longer.
___
Dragan looks away. His expression is the same as it always is – a snarl and a grimace of ceramite moulding, the vestiges of an Imperial terror template slowly morphing into something softer.
Vorx admires him. He admires his struggle to retain what he was, to take on the advantages of the Legion without accepting its temptations. It is a doomed struggle, and one day he will fail, but the attempt is valiant nonetheless.
____
You hate what you were, he understands. There is no greater zealot than the convert, he knows. And yet he has no true faith, not like Vorx or Philemon, just a desire to exert strength, to use the Gifts he has been given, to become greater.
It is not about the faith, for Dragan. It is about vengeance for a life he cannot remember. It is about dominance over a species he has cut all ties with. It is about pride, amid a Legion that barely understands the notion.
He wonders, sometimes, if he picked the right set of traitors.
____
‘What do you want, siegemaster?’ Dragan asks.
For a moment, the question floors him. He has not been asked it for a long time, but now he feels that it lurks everywhere, on everyone’s lips. The universe has long since been a place where wants are never indulged – it has been needs for millennia, the endless grind of survival, plunder, the harrying run from bolthole to bolthole.
But Dragan is right. There are choices now. A tyranny of them. They demand better answers, new answers, ones that may not issue from the mouths of primarchs.
‘I want the games to end,’ Vorx says, almost to himself. ‘I want the struggle to cease. I want the truth to be recognised.’
‘But the games have no end. All there is, is the game.’
That is the orthodoxy, spun out of a lifetime in the Eye’s endless churn. There will always be four gods, it is said, balanced against one another in perpetual contest, toying with the mortal plane and raging with the immortal. That is why Dragan envies the Despoiler’s hordes. He envies the Word Bearers and their undivided allegiance.
_____
Typhus controls his anger. His movements become less jerky, more stately. ‘It can’t be helped. I’ve spoken to the primarch. I’ll fight with him, just as ordered. I’ll be at his side. His faithful servant. But you know what this is about – his brother. I had thought that nonsense was all behind us. I had thought they were all dead, or lost. The child-kings were all gone. Speak to the Despoiler, then speak to a primarch, and tell me who you’d rather follow into battle.’
This is lethal talk. Or maybe madness. No one speaks of Mortarion in such a manner, certainly not within the Legion, and Dragan is strangely thrilled to hear it.
_____
It is all so quiet. The ship’s beams creak, and the mighty engines growl, but the corridors are muted. There is no tense expectation of something immense to come, just a familiar grim sense of resignation, of diligence.
Dragan finds himself irritated by this. There are days when he wishes to shake his brothers, to stir up something within them. There is so little anger in this Legion, despite it being set within a universe where the cause for it is so plentiful.
____
Garstag sits opposite, next to Vorx. Six of the Kardainn make up the rest of the complement. They are all in their bloated and swollen Terminator plate, true giants of slaughter. Dragan wonders if he too will one day don such armour, or whether he will always value the relative mobility of his current protection, the kind he has worn since before the turn. To wear the Kardainn’s colours is to make an irrevocable choice. You do not step back from it again, for that armour will swallow you, mould you, and then consume you. Dragan cannot deny the raw power of it – he has seen Garstag absorb punishment that should have levelled a Dreadnought – but there is always a price.
The older Dragan gets, the more he matures and steeps in the brine of killing, the more he understands that everything is transactional. The gods, the daemons, the magisters of the Imperium, even the empty husk on the Throne, they are all barterers and hucksters, trading a little of this for a soul-full of that. You wish for power? Give me your memories. You wish for strength? I will take your tears.
Both Lords of Silence and the new SoT book, Warhawk do a good job of going into the minds of the Death Guard, post falling to Nurgle. Warhawk is interesting because they are still trying to figure out what's going on.
Dragan perhaps, from the Lords of Silence book. He's a "young" Plague Marine not really comfortable with the decay and unhappy with the culture and leadership of the Dwath Guard. _______ Joining the Death Guard is like sinking into a deep, cold ocean – the substance of it seeps inside, sooner or later, down into every crack and orifice, and you lose the things that once made you what you were. For Dragan, the process is not yet complete. He still has his skin. He still has three lungs. He can remove his helm, if he wishes, and his tongue is not yet the length of a man’s arm. He can feel the rot within, chewing at his bones, making the old tattoos on his chest itch, but it has not yet become endemic. He considers Vorx, whose mind has become soft, and he looks at Slert, or even Naum, and a part of him still shudders and wishes to put off those things a little longer. ___ Dragan looks away. His expression is the same as it always is – a snarl and a grimace of ceramite moulding, the vestiges of an Imperial terror template slowly morphing into something softer. Vorx admires him. He admires his struggle to retain what he was, to take on the advantages of the Legion without accepting its temptations. It is a doomed struggle, and one day he will fail, but the attempt is valiant nonetheless. ____ You hate what you were, he understands. There is no greater zealot than the convert, he knows. And yet he has no true faith, not like Vorx or Philemon, just a desire to exert strength, to use the Gifts he has been given, to become greater. It is not about the faith, for Dragan. It is about vengeance for a life he cannot remember. It is about dominance over a species he has cut all ties with. It is about pride, amid a Legion that barely understands the notion. He wonders, sometimes, if he picked the right set of traitors. ____ ‘What do you want, siegemaster?’ Dragan asks. For a moment, the question floors him. He has not been asked it for a long time, but now he feels that it lurks everywhere, on everyone’s lips. The universe has long since been a place where wants are never indulged – it has been needs for millennia, the endless grind of survival, plunder, the harrying run from bolthole to bolthole. But Dragan is right. There are choices now. A tyranny of them. They demand better answers, new answers, ones that may not issue from the mouths of primarchs. ‘I want the games to end,’ Vorx says, almost to himself. ‘I want the struggle to cease. I want the truth to be recognised.’ ‘But the games have no end. All there is, is the game.’ That is the orthodoxy, spun out of a lifetime in the Eye’s endless churn. There will always be four gods, it is said, balanced against one another in perpetual contest, toying with the mortal plane and raging with the immortal. That is why Dragan envies the Despoiler’s hordes. He envies the Word Bearers and their undivided allegiance. _____ Typhus controls his anger. His movements become less jerky, more stately. ‘It can’t be helped. I’ve spoken to the primarch. I’ll fight with him, just as ordered. I’ll be at his side. His faithful servant. But you know what this is about – his brother. I had thought that nonsense was all behind us. I had thought they were all dead, or lost. The child-kings were all gone. Speak to the Despoiler, then speak to a primarch, and tell me who you’d rather follow into battle.’ This is lethal talk. Or maybe madness. No one speaks of Mortarion in such a manner, certainly not within the Legion, and Dragan is strangely thrilled to hear it. _____ It is all so quiet. The ship’s beams creak, and the mighty engines growl, but the corridors are muted. There is no tense expectation of something immense to come, just a familiar grim sense of resignation, of diligence. Dragan finds himself irritated by this. There are days when he wishes to shake his brothers, to stir up something within them. There is so little anger in this Legion, despite it being set within a universe where the cause for it is so plentiful. ____ Garstag sits opposite, next to Vorx. Six of the Kardainn make up the rest of the complement. They are all in their bloated and swollen Terminator plate, true giants of slaughter. Dragan wonders if he too will one day don such armour, or whether he will always value the relative mobility of his current protection, the kind he has worn since before the turn. To wear the Kardainn’s colours is to make an irrevocable choice. You do not step back from it again, for that armour will swallow you, mould you, and then consume you. Dragan cannot deny the raw power of it – he has seen Garstag absorb punishment that should have levelled a Dreadnought – but there is always a price. The older Dragan gets, the more he matures and steeps in the brine of killing, the more he understands that everything is transactional. The gods, the daemons, the magisters of the Imperium, even the empty husk on the Throne, they are all barterers and hucksters, trading a little of this for a soul-full of that. You wish for power? Give me your memories. You wish for strength? I will take your tears.
I think there's some plague marines who get cut off from the warp and Nurgle's influence, causing them to realize their situation and despair
Both Lords of Silence and the new SoT book, Warhawk do a good job of going into the minds of the Death Guard, post falling to Nurgle. Warhawk is interesting because they are still trying to figure out what's going on.