Nergal

The god of plague and disease, often invoked to appease his wrath, not worship him.

His aspect was as the midday sun and symbolized the most brutal, deadly heat, not life-giving light.

Lord of the Underworld, particularly in Babylonian texts where he became consort to Ereshkigal, Queen of the Dead.

A god of war and pestilence—his arrival meant death on a mass scale, whether by battlefield, pestilence, or fever.

A Babylonian god of death, plague, pestilence and rot, he is the son of Enlil, the god of wind and sovereign rule, and Ninlil, goddess of air and grain. Though divine by birth, Nergal was marked by an absence, not a gift—his soul carried the seed of rot, ruin, and inevitable silence of a Whitherer. Plague demons were said to move at his command, and his very name was synonymous with fever, pestilence, and suffering. 

Where his godly kin shaped civilizations and nurtured fertility, Nergal represented the death that followed. He was god of the harsh summer sun, the kind that scorched fields and blackened crops, and god of pestilence and plague, riding on the breath of fever and delirium. Nergal is inherently tied to the unraveling of life’s fabric. His power is not merely destructive—it absorbs, drains, and corrupts. Fields did not recover after he passed through; they forgot how to grow.

One major myth tells of how Nergal descended into the Underworld and seized control by conquering or seducing Ereshkigal, depending on the version. He became co-ruler, reigning over the dead with iron silence and insatiable hunger. In the poem Erra and Ishum, he grew restless and unleashed devastation across cities after tricking the high god Marduk into submission, inciting wars, destroying temples, and releasing diseases to purge the world of weakness. In a rare confrontation between gods, Utu, god of the sun and justice, challenged Nergal over the desecration of a sacred grove. The battle was fought in silence at dawn, with neither speaking a word. It is said that the sun dimmed for seven days afterward, and neither god spoke of it again. The grove never grew back.

Among the Babylonian gods, Nergal stood alone as the only known Whitherer—a metaphysical presence defined by unmaking it. His presence corrupted ecosystems. Cities that once thrived found their wells poisoned, their priests stricken with coughing fits, their children stillborn. Unlike the Singers—those souls who could infuse the Pattern with vitality and song—Nergal’s essence was anathema to life, but Nergal was corrupted. He did not bring death as a necessary function of balance. He spread death as a means of domination. He was a conqueror not of armies, but of immune systems. His campaigns began with plague, followed by social unraveling, then spiritual despair. Only then would his war banners rise over cities already dying.

Though feared more than revered, Nergal had a powerful cult following, particularly in places where war and plague were frequent realities. Temples dedicated to Nergal were silent, sun-scorched, and always built on ground where nothing else would grow. Rituals were somber and often involved sacrifices to appease his wrath or redirect his gaze elsewhere. His worship was centered in:

• Kutha (Cuthah) – His principal cult city, built over a deep pit believed to be an entrance to the Underworld. Priests here conducted rituals of pestilence control, sacrificing to hold back outbreaks.
• Meslamtaea Temple – Named for one of Nergal’s epithets (“He Who Comes Forth from the Underworld”), this temple functioned as both sanctuary and funerary gateway.
• Field Shrines – Temporary altars were erected in fields where crops had failed, often in hopes of redirecting his gaze.

Worship of Nergal was never warm. It was pragmatic, often bordering on desperation. His priests wore black and burned offerings at noon. His festivals were held during the height of summer and involved public lamentations, disease warding chants, and animal sacrifices. He was not loved. He was feared, bribed, and kept distant.

“Where they bloom. I unmake. While their songs cling to hope, mine is silence, and it always arrives.”

— Nergal, spoken to the god Utu before the gates of Eridu

First Age Incarnation: Nazariy Moroz