An adventurer can spend a great deal of his time crawling about in disgusting places like sewers, mouldering castles, and Goblin caves. Furthermore, he can come into brutal, physical contact quite frequently with the filthy, vile, and unclean minions of Chaos. All of that putrescence the adventurer wallows in…what if it somehow got into his body? Through his skin, his mouth, nose, into his lungs and gut and brain; turning black and rotting, emitting terrible smells, attracting crawling insects, creating blisters and hideous, burning rashes; and perhaps other more serious deformities…[1a]
Someone driven to believe he possesses a Body of Rot operates under the delusion there is something terribly wrong with his body. In reality, there is absolutely nothing wrong with him at all, unless he’s lost a limb or eye, in which case the individual often believes that is how the trouble began.[1a]
The person might believe one of the following is wrong with him: noxious odour, rash, blisters, bizarre mole, tumour or growth, imaginary insects living under the skin or in hair, head changing shape, limbs changing shape, or some specific body part rotting or becoming grotesquely large.[1a]
The person feels this rebellion by his body is very obvious to others. Furthermore, when meeting a new person, the afflicted person might be unable to resist talking in a disparaging way about his supposedly hideous countenance.[1a]
Someone with a Body of Rot spends a great deal of time searching for a cure for his imaginary condition. He visits physicians of all sorts, and despairs of ever returning to normal. Someone who talks of strange things happening to his body will be sure to get the unmerciful attention of Witch Hunters and other Zealots. Finally, there are some followers of Nurgle who are fascinated by this disorder, and seek to kidnap people who suffer from it for unholy rites.[1a][1b]