Moord Nag

<infobox> <title source="name"><default>Moord Nag</default></title>

<image source="Image"></image> <image source="image"></image> <group><header>Basic Information</header> <label>Civilian Name</label> <label>Aliases</label> <label>Gender</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Death</label> <label>Age</label><default>Unknown</default> <label>Post-timeskip</label> <label>Ward start</label> <label>Relations</label> <label>Family</label></group> <group><header>Professional Status</header> <label>Occupation</label> <label>Classification</label> <label>Unique Features</label> <label>Alignment</label>

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<label>Location</label> <label>Teams</label> <label>Previous Team(s)</label> <label>Base of Operations</label></group> <group><header>First Appearance</header> <label>Worm Debut</label> <label>Ward Debut</label></group> </infobox> Moord Nag is a Namibian warlord, and one of the most powerful parahumans in Africa, politically and otherwise.

Personality

Likely triggered while isolated and being controlled by another in keeping with the master pattern.

Dismissive of human life possibly linked to . She held to her word, and thought that speaking english was beneath her.

Reputation

Took control of a huge section of Africa with only the help of Aasdier, and still hold it after eight years.<ref name="25.5 e3">The Doctor spoke “Moord Nag? We could use your assistance.”

The woman and her shadow pet with its crocodile skull looked at Doctor Mother. “Laat hulle almal sterf. Ek is tevrede om die wêreld te sien brand en die vallende konings te spot. Ek en my aasdier sal loop op die as van die verwoeste aarde.”

“She says no. Let them all die,” the woman from the Birdcage said.

“Can I ask who she is?” Faultline asked.

Tattletale was the one to answer. I think she got a measure of joy out of rubbing the fact that she knew in Faultline’s face, “Moord Nag. Warlord based in Namibia. As far as the current warlords in the area go, she’s had the longest lifespan at about eight years or so, and she’s gotten things to the point where most of the other bastards around there are kowtowing, asking permission to attack this city or occupy that area, to go to the bathroom or unite two groups in an alliance.”

“Die badkamer?”

“Us, basically,” Tattletale said, glancing at me. She turned her head to look at Grue, “Only on a much, much bigger scale, and she did it alone.”

“Ek het dit reggekry met aasdier,” Moord Nag responded. “Nie alleen nie.”

“With your pet monster, right.” - Excerpt from Scarab 25.5</ref><ref name="SB1" /> She was known to have killed thousands of people, yet was still free.<ref name="25.5 e2">“Your daughter was a mental wreck the last time anyone outside of the Birdcage saw her. There are too many dangerous individuals in there. She,” Chevalier said, pointing in the direction of the woman with the shadowy pet with the massive bird skull, “Has killed thousands of people. That’s nothing compared to what some individuals in the birdcage have done. We’d be letting the wolves run free again, in the hopes they deal with the lion.” - Excerpt from Scarab 25.5</ref>

Appearance

Moord Nag keeps her hair in braids<ref name="25.5 e1" /> and wears a t-shirt with the sleeves removed and the bottom half cut off and an ankle-length dress that is frayed at the edges.<ref name="25.6 e1">Moord Nag appeared, riding her shadow’s skull like a surfer might ride a wave, except there wasn’t any joy in the act. Her arms remained still at her sides, her head not fully erect, eyes almost looking down, as if she watched the skull with one eye and Khonsu only merited her peripheral vision.

She didn’t wear armor. Her top was a simple t-shirt with the sleeves removed and bottom half cut off. There was a faded image of a rock band on the front, her bra straps showing through the gaping armholes. Her dress was ankle length, frayed a little at the edges. Her feet were bare, her hair in braids and tied back behind her neck.

The skull dipped close to the ground, and the warlord stepped off as though she was getting off an escalator. The shadow’s head had taken on the appearance of a serpent’s skull, complete with fangs, and the body was a column behind it, stirring around Moord Nag without touching her.

It lunged, and fragments flew off Khonsu’s shoulder as the shadow made contact, rubbed against him. It was as though the shadow’s body were a series of circular saws, a rasp.

Khonsu’s field made contact with the shadow’s body, catching the middle of its body. Moord Nag didn’t even flinch as her serpent was trisected, the middle section dragged away. - Excerpt from Scarab 25.6</ref>

Abilities and Powers

Moord Nag's power, near as anyone can tell, is an enormous living shadow named Aasdier that follows her around. It has a instinctual reaction to anything that could possibly harm her,<ref name="SB1" /> it bases this off of intent and it will even destroy attempts to investigate himself and or his master.<ref name="25.5 e1">I could make out a station with a woman, black, accompanied by a massive shadow of a monster with an auroch’s skull for a head. The woman’s head hung, her hair braided or bound into dreads, I couldn’t be sure. I moved my bugs closer to check to see if she had any weapons, and her pet shadow reached out to block the swarm. They died so quickly it was almost as though the shadow had killed before it made contact.

I decided to leave her alone. - Excerpt from Scarab 25.5</ref> Aasdier gained an ongoing expansion of pursuance and stature when it ingested the bodies of dead humans.<ref name="list">Moord Nag Master pet 'scavenger' gains permanent increase in size and power by consuming the dead Independent - Parahuman List, bolded edit by Wildbow.</ref> Originally he could fit in the palm of her hand<ref name="SB1" /> and was very weak,<ref name="R2">Scavenger doesn't start off strong or big, though. - And yet another comment by Wildbow on Reddit</ref> by 2011 it was large enough for her to ride on. It switches out various skulls, including bovine humanoid avian and crocodilian it is unknown if these are added or a feature of Aasdier himself.

It is unclear if there is an upper limit to how powerful Aasdier can become and how many lives he can take to fuel and empower himself, each absorption usually only gives him an extra teaspoon of mass or so. He can however lose and regain mass with certain failures on the part of the host or other damage.<ref name="SB1" /><ref>Speck 30.5</ref>She requests five thousand lives as her price for fighting an Endbringer (with the implication being that she needs that amount to be strong enough to challenge an endbringer) so she was confident that she could use that amount.<ref name="SB1" />

Aasdier cannot go through walls, at least without destroying them first, the same effect that can kill people and bugs<ref name="25.5 e1" /> and scour the body of Endbringers.

History

Background

Triggering as a young girl whose agency was taken from her, the woman who would become Moord Nag called for a corpse-eater made of shadows.<ref name="SB1">On Moord Nag's territory:
All of Namibia, half of Angola, Botswana, and a slice of South Africa

On Moord Nag's power:
Breaker/spectral minion of ambiguous solidity (as it desires) and form. Kill people = minion gains a bit of mass.
Started off like a palm-sized critter. Gained maybe a tablespoon of mass per kill.
She's had a few setbacks along the way. Trying to game it/fool the shard kinda backfired once or twice. Power eraser ate a good chunk once. Found someone who made clones, ate clones. Looked like it worked for a bit, then power rebelled, and she lost a huge chunk of her minion at a critical moment.
She basically has auto-defense. Her spirit will identify incoming attacks & hostility and move to block.
If I were to stat her out in Weaverdice, I'd give her a series of 'stances'. Ride, Safe, Offense. With her spirit behavior changing accordingly.
She doesn't manually control the spirit, but Breadth and Depth are set enough & her conflict yields are high enough that it's effectively a subconscious extension of her anyway, with trust on both sides.
She doesn't turn it off or put it away. She's not in a positions where she ever would or has to. She can send it away. But again, moot point.
It can move through walls but only by destroying them in the process. There's something congealed in there, so it wouldn't pass through a keyhole.

On Moord Nag before "breadth and depth" set in:
Moord Nag was a traumatized pokemon trainer with one pokemon in a war-torn country, and her pokemon didn't always cooperate. - archived conversation on Spacebattles</ref>

Story Start

With the aid of Aasdier, Moord Nag became the de facto ruler of much of Namibia with many smaller warlords paying her homage, a position she has held for eight years.<ref name="25.5 e3" /> Now her effective territory extends past Namibia, well into Angola, Botswana, and even a small part of South Africa.<ref name="SB1" />

Post-Echidna

When Weaver attempted to use her swarm to see if she had any weapons, Aasdier blocked and killed the insects. She listened as Doctor Mother thanked them for coming before she mentioned that people died every day. Teacher said that he had given her the ability to understand and speak English, and that it wouldn't cost her anything to use it. She told him that she wouldn't speak it.

Doctor Mother asked Moord Nag if she would help them and she turned her down. Tattletale then told Faultline about her before Moord Nag corrected her, saying that she wasn't alone because she had Scavenger. Doctor Mother asked her what it would take to get her to fight and Moord Nag told her she would need to replenish her power. Doctor Mother said that Cauldron would supply her and Moord Nag told her that she would need five thousand lives. Dragon and Chevalier objected to the deal though Moord Nag told them that the contract was sealed before walking away.<ref>Scarab 25.5</ref>

Moord Nag later rode Scavenger into battle against Khonsu. She stepped off Scavenger before it lunged at the Endbringer. Scavenger was trisected, but continued to wind around and tear into Khonsu's body. It attacked Khonsu's injuries, knocking him off balance, and then pushed Moord Nag out of the way of one of Khonsu's fields. Aasdier proved himself resistant to the fields effects. Then, having enough, Khonsu teleported away from the battlefield.<ref>Scarab 25.6</ref>

After her debut on the battlefield against the new endbringer the warlord was unsuccessfully targeted by its sibling.<ref name="25.6 e2">Indiscriminate, January 20th, 2012 // Khonsu
Notes: First appearance. Scion/Moord Nag victory. List of all one hundred and sixty three targets and casualty numbers here.

Lüderitz, April 2nd, 2012 // Leviathan
Notes: Loss? Driven away by Eidolon. Secondary targets Swakopmund, Gamba, Port-Gentil and Sulima.
Target/Consquence: Moord Nag. Guerilla tactics continue, losses in notable but not devastating numbers, but his target survives. - Excerpt from Scarab 25.6</ref>

Gold Morning

Having survived the opening moments of the event Moord Nag was contacted by Cauldron for another meeting. She was given an interpreter to tell her about the particulars of the conversation.<ref name="27.2">All of the other major players were present, minus the Birdcage contingent. The Thanda had six members in near-identical robes. Their logo was a block of letters arranged in a five-by-five grid. Moord Nag had a ring of skulls around a black circle. Faultline’s crew had a wavelength, like a reading on an seismic monitor.

[...]

I looked over the room. Moord Nag and the South American capes had interpreters rattling off the particulars of the conversation. The Protectorate, the Irregulars, Faultline’s crew, the Suits… all bristled with anger. - Excerpt from Extinction 27.2</ref>

Moord Nag later fell under Khepri's control and was used as part of a ploy for the goddess to capture Glaistig Uaine.<ref name="Speck 30.4">I took control of Alexandria, instead, Pretender. Controlling the person who was controlling the manipulative bitch Alexandria. I took Legend, who was part of that fight, two foreign capes and Moord Nag.

They were the ones running interference, buying us time to breathe.

Now I positioned them. As I’d done with my bugs, I lined up the shot.

He took the bait, shooting. I moved everyone out of the way. - Excerpt from Speck 30.4</ref> Khepri sent her into the front-lines alongside Alexandria and Legend as Ash Beast attacked Scion. Mere minutes afterward, she was pulled back and sent through dimensions to scavenge from the dead.<ref name="30.5 e1">I needed to consolidate my strength. I had capes gathering materials. Moord Nag was among them, one of the scariest warlords of Africa, now traveling between dimensions to scavenge from the dead, her pet shadow devouring mountains of flesh from mass graves and battlefields, swelling in size. - Excerpt from Speck 30.5</ref> Moord Nag was then redeployed alongside other heavy hitters, relieving the force that had been fighting Scion. Sifara used his power to move Moord Nag closer only for Moord Nag to have a stroke from mental stress. This stemmed from Khepri's control being very similar to her trigger event.<ref name="30.5 e2">I sent Moord Nag in with the other heavy hitters, relieving the force that Scion was fighting.

Sifara moved the ball, moving Moord Nag a distance forward. Her pet shadow Scavenger loomed, as large as it had ever been.

And Moord Nag promptly had a stroke. I watched as Scavenger dissipated into smoke.

Wha- what? Why?

I reached out to Moord Nag, and I could feel the damage being done. I moved her back just as I’d moved her forward, shifting more capes onto the battlefield to deliver some ranged fire.

Why? I was stunned, and putting my thoughts together in regards to this was like trying to swim in molasses.

Had to act, instead of thinking. Investigate.

I used my ability to read the physical states of the creatures I controlled, reading my swarm much as I’d check a spider’s level of hunger, its health, fertility or the amount of venom available.

Almost across my entire swarm, people were threatening to lose their minds. Literally.

It was stress, a factor I hadn’t taken into account. I controlled their bodies, but I didn’t control their minds. They were bystanders, watching this all unfold, and even though I regulated their heartbeats, kept their breathing level, the mental stress accumulated.

There were exceptions in every category, but I could assess my gathered army with broad strokes of the brush. The thinkers were coping best, the tinkers nearly as well. The masters struggled the most, followed by the shakers and breakers. The rest fell in some middle ground. Moord Nag… my control over her had apparently tapped into some kind of trauma or phobia she had, so she’d been the first to reach some kind of fever pitch in terms of the buildup of stress-induced chemicals and reactions.

I was killing my own minions.

I moved quickly, scrambling to get measures in place before I lost any more.

An open portal and a telekinetic let me move Moord Nag to the only available, capable healer I had available. - Excerpt from Speck 30.5</ref>

Khepri sent her to Panacea to be healed and, after the healer initially refused, sent he repaired warlord back out against Zion. However the golden man was able the bash the pair away before Scavenger could reach full size.<ref>For all it mattered, they might as well have been a kids on the schoolyard, sticking their legs out to trip someone. Scion found his momentum again.

Panacea was healing Moord Nag.

I reached for the warlord, bringing her to me.

Scion struck her aside before Scavenger could swell to his full size. - Excerpt from Speck 30.5</ref> In the final battle in New York Moord Nag and Aasdier fought Zion side by side with Lung.<ref name="30.6 e2">Scion was in the midst of fighting a monstrous, hulking dragon-man and the warlord with the death-eating shadow. He saw the first of the faces that the reality-manipulator had created and lashed out, demolishing it.

[...]

Scion fought his way free, and the warlord went on the offensive, lashing out. She’d collected the bodies of the dead, as the faerie girl had collected their ‘spirits’. She was strong, though not quite as strong as she would have been if things hadn’t gone sour.

He tore into h- her pet and the damage was permanent. She pressed forward anyways, forcing him to retreat above the skyline. - Excerpt from Speck 30.6</ref>

Trivia

• Moord Nag and Aasdier in Afrikaans mean "Murder Night" and "Scavenger"<ref name="R2" /> respectively.
• Her early life would have been subject to another quest after PRT Quest had concluded.<ref name="R1">2. Moord Nag Quest - The Early Years, Africa - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit</ref>
• It is unknown what effect the Sowto uprising had if any on the rise of Moord Nag.<ref name="25.5 c1">The Soweto Uprising happened, but the events from 1982 onward were increasingly different. Warlords taking over and establishing particular sorts of order or disorder, rules, regimes and so on. Ensuing lies, propaganda, and misinformation muddled up a great deal in the status quo. - Comment by Wildbow on Scarab 25.5</ref>

Fanart Gallery

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  Image by Adrius15 on DeviantArt.
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  Image by DerTodesbote on DeviantArt.
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  Image by Pabel and Nine on tumblr

References

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