Terminus Est - Herald of Death: Once, the Terminus Est -- while in a class of its own -- was like other warships of the Imperium, its slab-sided hull festooned with guns, its armoured prow bearing the emblems of the Emperor. However, nothing that succumbs to the power of Chaos will escape its mutating effects for long, not even a mighty battleship of the Imperium.Now its ancient bulkheads are held together only by rust, its corridors are choked by the eternally rotting corpses of its crew, and indescribable foulness drips, oozes and dribbles from its every inch. Where once proud plasteel, ceramite and adamantium plates covered its decks, now a living, slick layer of infected flesh dominates.Festering bone shards, rotten fangs and malformed teeth project from every surface. The trapped souls of all those that have served and died upon its decks distort the fleshy walls with their rotting faces, screaming and wailing from their pestilent prisons within the hull.Over centuries in the Warp the battleship has soaked in the very essence of Chaos; it has become a living thing, its decaying form crawling with Nurgle's minions. The halls and chambers of the Terminus Est have been transformed into a reflection of Nurgle's realm.Bloated flies fill the foetid air, while soupy pus drips down from overhead like warm rain. The repellent, twisted things that shamble through this miasma of corruption are barely human any more, bloated with disease and riddled with weeping sores. These "crew" tend to the ship's needs, feeding decaying corpses into its engines or nurturing its garden of shining boils and pustules until they are ready to burst.Only the Death Guard Plague Marines are unhindered by the vessel's contagions, marching about its corridors silent and grim as the ship bears them across the stars. However, in truth, the Terminus Est needs neither crew nor captain to guide it, having taken on a dark sentience from its daemonic patron.The Plague Lord's gifts have also found their way into the gun decks and weapon batteries of the Terminus Est, and where once macrocannon hurled vast plasma warheads into the void, now strange and horrific growths take their place. Dribbling sphincters line the side of the ship, periodically belching filth out into space; when an enemy ship comes into range they spasm and cough out meteoric torrents of caustic debris.Each discharge is capable of blinding sensors and burning through the hull of enemy vessels. These Warp weapons are just as deadly as any macrocannon or lance turret possessed by the Imperium, and make the Terminus Est a deadly opponent.The rotting hull and distended gun decks of the Chaos vessel have fooled more than one Imperial captain. Only when the Imperial warship draws too close to escape does Terminus Est release its full fury, fleshy cannon yawning wide to bathe its foe in a viscous surge of bile.Worse than the catastrophic hull damage the daemonic weapons can inflict is the contagion they impart. Able to live in the cold emptiness of space or leap through vacuum to infect new hosts, the Destroyer Plague carried by Typhus and the Terminus Est is capable of killing the crew of a compromised ship in mere hours.Typhus and his flagship are inextricably linked, and the Terminus Est is as riddled with the Destroyer Plague as its captain. Warp-flies fill its corridors and chambers, a seemingly unending stream of glistening insects buzzing across every deck.These same swollen minions of Nurgle also protect the Terminus Est from enemy ordnance or boarding craft, forming a writhing, undulating cloud around the warship. From a distance across the gulf of space this carpet of Warp-flies distorts the shape of the vessel, making it hard for gunners to lock onto a section of the Terminus Est or target any of its vital systems.Any ship foolish enough to try and dock with the Chaos vessel or initiate a boarding action will become enveloped by the Warp-fly cloud, the tiny horrors choking augurs and spilling through hull breaches and cycling torpedo tubes.Typhus almost always captains the Terminus Est. He sits at the helm of the warship, his heavily armoured form hunched atop a throne of rotting bone and skin, the funnels of the Destroyer Hive buzzing with Warp-flies upon his back.Centuries of void-borne warfare have made Typhus a master of ship-to-ship combat, with the added advantage that he shares a symbiotic relationship with the Terminus Est and need not rely on fallible mortal officers or crew. When the battleship appears it is often at the head of a Plague Fleet, comprised of dozens of other vessels that have suffered the touch of the Lord of Decay.It is whispered that when a ship's crew suffers from a Warp-borne sickness the Terminus Est will appear on the edges of its augurs. For days the Chaos vessel will shadow the ship as the infection culls its crew and weakens their resolve. Only when the survivors cry out to Nurgle for salvation will the Terminus Est approach, welcoming them into the service of the Dark Gods.