Date Discovered: August 20, 1958
Place of Origin: Miskatonic Valley, Massachusetts
Notable Stomping Grounds: Miskatonic Valley, Boston, Wherever Plumera and her family goes
Biology: N’yergolep, or Nergle for short, is a failed beyonder experiment. Originally an inhabitant of Mars, Nergle was captured when the beyonders invaded the Martian home world. Upon being captured, Nergle was subjected to a lot of the same experiments as Deluxman and Promythigor, which granted them incredibly powerful psychokinetic abilities. However, instead of gaining an extra eye like the previously mentioned Earth Kaiju, his single eye became three lobed; having three irises and pupils in a single eye. Nergle is also a member of the same group of Martian animals as Kemlasulla and Sombarvot, but their anatomy is inversed. Nergle lacks their armor plating (and their skin is actually fairly weak) and Nergle’s legs are small and used for manipulating objects while their tentacles are used mostly for moving around.
Nergle’s psychic abilities grow more powerful as they get more scared and stressed out. At max power Nergle’s psychokinesis is so powerful it can allow them to manipulate and lift entire skyscrapers. However, they don’t have much conscious control over how it interacts with the environment, and things will seemingly start levitating at random.
N’yergolep’s powers set includes
-An Enhanced Healing Factor
-Extreme Stress Fueled Psychokinesis
Personality: Despite N’yergolep’s frighting appearance and extremely powerful abilities, they’re ultimately a nervous wreck. Nergle didn’t leave their containment pod for over a year out of fear. Ready to flea at any moment, Nergle is constantly on edge. They often make high pitched squeaking sounds when startled or surprised, and they need a lot of reassurance to calm down. Despite being afraid of nearly everything, there’s not a shred of hatred or malice in Nergle’s heart. Even when running for their life, they only use their psychic powers as defense against projectiles and physical attacks, and never use them to purposely harm others.
After coming into contact with Plumera and her family and becoming part of it, there has been a significant decrease in anxiety attacks Nergle has experienced. Plumera and her gang of disabled and pacifistic kaiju have made Nergle feel welcomed and have been by their side and have been there to help calm them down during panic attacks, especially Plumera herself. N’yergolep has since remained very close to Plumera at all times.
The Story: Many cities were hit hard during the beyonder invasion, and some more than others. Boston was one of those unlucky cities. Few buildings stood, and recovery efforts had only just begun. When reports of an unopened beyonder containment pod in the nearby abandoned town of Miskatonic Valley reached the citizens of Boston, they were understandingly distressed. They had only just begun rebuilding their city, and to have another kaiju set foot in it would be devastating.
The military decided to send in a small team to investigate the crash site. When they got to Miskatonic Valley they noticed a lot of strange things. At first it was the occasional pebble or bucket floating around, but as they got closer to the containment pod entire houses and near kaiju sized chunks of the earth were defying gravity. Cautiously, they managed to open the containment pod, and were greeted with N’yergolep.
All it took was for a shivering Nergle to look the soldiers in the eye and squeak in terror before everything descended into madness.
The soldiers fired at N’yergolep, grazing their skin. As Nergle shrieked in pain, the ground surrounding the pod cracked and rumbled and the floating debris started swirling around the containment pod. Nergle burst from their containment pod running for their life. The ground split in their wake while the debris followed them. They ran straight through Miskatonic Valley and, unfortunately, in the direction of Boston.
The soldiers called for backup, and radioed the people of Boston to evacuate. News stations on the radio also started reporting that there was other kaiju in the area headed toward Boston as well. Fortunately, reports confirmed that the kaiju were in fact Plumera and her family.
Over the past few years since her appearance, Plumera has gained world wide recognition for traveling to places with human activity with fun and socializing in mind. Her ability to understand the basics in multiple languages had increased and she had shown scientist that she could actually hold basic conversations via writing, and that she was not merely parroting words. While she has been guided to Typhon Island on multiple occasions, she always eventually leaves to seek out humans, which is never really a problem since she has never caused trouble and has in fact de-escalated many situations involving kaiju. Plumera had also created something of a family for herself by befriending disabled and abandoned monsters, most of whom were rejected beyonder monsters like Nergle.
The monsters following her were a giant blind genetically engineered hybrid between plants and tyrannopyrodon dubbed Rose by the press due to roses sprouting from her skin after being under the love and care of Plumera, a pink baby kaiju of a species related to Zillser given the name Bubblor, a member of a species related to Ugugular that resembled Chinese architecture named Shēnghuó tǎ, and a levitating golden beyonder relative capable of telepathy given the name Dhyandogen. Plumera had managed to befriend each of these monsters and teach them to not hurt people, and Boston hoped that she could do the same to the new kaiju as well.
Nergle fled in the direction of Boston with the military hot on their trail, and Plumera trailing a few miles behind as well. She came across Miskatonic Valley and subsequently the containment pod. Dhyandogen and Shēnghuó tǎ immediately recognized the structure as beyonder technology, and judging by how fresh the destruction around it was, it was recently opened. Dhyandogen telepathically alerted Plumera of the situation at hand, and it’s urgency. Plumera picked up Bubblor (who had been trying to climb onto her back) and handed him to Rose, while Dhyandogen told her about the situation at hand. Rose was blind, a little clumsy, and had faulty regenerative abilities. The new kaiju might not be very friendly, and so Rose would have to stay behind with Bubblor for both of their protection.
Plumera, Dhyandogen, and Shēnghuó tǎ made their way to Boston. Plumera hoped she wouldn’t have to fight, since not only was she terrible at fighting, but she absolutely hated it as well. She was thankful to have Shēnghuó tǎ and Dhyandogen by her side. If things were to go south then Shēnghuó tǎ was willing to be a meat shield, and Dhyandogen would easily be able to restrain the new kaiju with his manipulation of gravity. Both options weren’t favorable though, as they could potentially escalate the conflict and stress out both sides.
Upon their arrival to Boston, they were greeted with the sight of the military hammering into a terrified N’yergolep who was using their psychic powers to use buildings and rubble to block as many attacks as they could. Dhyandogen approached and used his telepathy to ask the military to stand down. The military withdrew after seeing the trio of kaiju. They knew their weapons weren’t enough to take Nergle down, and hoped that Plumera and her companions could resolve the conflict.
Plumera was the first to step up. With the military backing off, N’yergolep’s attention was focused solely on the trio in front of them. Plumera continued her approach, and stopped when about a hundred feet was between the two. She then started making cooing noises to try and sound friendly. Nergle eyed her nervously while using their psychic powers to lift up a building and make it float between the two.
And so it stayed that way for awhile. Plumera sitting non-threateningly and trying to look as innocent as possible, while Nergle occasionally peeked over the floating building. Eventually N’yergolep was no longer stressed enough to lift up a building, and put it down, however they were still stressed about the situation. Dhyandogen then moved up beside Plumera, and eventually Shēnghuó tǎ. Dhyandogen made a mental link with Nergle and spoke to them.
“Do not worry. We mean no harm. We know of the pain you have suffered from the small tentacled ones from the stars. I too have suffered because of them, and so has the yellow and red one with many heads beside me. They are no longer here. There are less dangers in this new world, and you must be careful around the stone jungle the small two legged ones. You might hurt them”
At that moment Nergle looked at the ground, and saw a family trying to hide in an alley. They looked at the child the two adults were hugging closely, and saw them crying in fear. N’yergolep never knew they were hurting such small creatures, and they never wanted to hurt anyone. With tears in their eye, they turned back to Dhyandogen.
“Follow us. We will protect you, and help you to not hurt others”.
Nergle carefully emerged from behind the building, slouching a little out of shame. Plumera stepped forward and extended her wing out in friendship. Nergle cautiously extended their own leg and grasped her hand, and squeaked in surprise when she shook it. Plumera, Dhyandogen, and Shēnghuó tǎ turned to leave the city, but before they left they looked back at Nergle expecting them to follow.
So that’s my submission for @tyrantisterror’s atom contest, coupled with a kinda “meh” short story. I always wanted to expand Plumera’s family if there was ever another atom contest. The story is basically how Plumera adopts a new monster into her family. I also wanted Unit 01 from from the last contest (which was probably the saddest and most depressing submission out of the 70 something contest entries) to have a happy ending. So I retconned her death and renamed her to Rose. I had a ton of ideas from the first contest that I decided not to do here. From a swamp kraken that looked like a hamburger to a baby bioluminescent bat that had a hormone imbalance that made him constantly angry. But I also really wanted to do a Martian monster. So I took Kemlasulla (arguably my favorite atom monster) and inverted him both physically and personality wise, but Nergle is also a nod to one of the forms nyarlathotep takes. Martian monsters also aren’t male or female, so I made Nergle non binary. This entry also has a bunch of Cthulhu Mythos references, so see if you can spot them all. This entry is also a treat for me because every one of my previous submissions all make an appearance. So yeah, that’s my submission.
