Old Zogwort

Old Zogwort is held by many to be the single most powerful Weirdboy ever to have lived among the tribes of the Orks, a psyker of such raw capacity that even other greenskins give him a wide and nervous berth. His origins are as strange as his powers. He was born during a total eclipse on the death world of Catachan, and because his spore had matured inside a nest of bloodvipers, his infant form was riddled with venomous snake bites before he had even clawed his way up out of the soil, an Ork who came into the world already fighting, and already marked by poison.

Zogwort grew into a dour, belligerent old curmudgeon, and his psychic might swelled until his fame outstripped even that of his own Warboss, Skabgutz. Like all Weirdboyz he channels the ambient Waaagh! energy thrown off by the Orks around him, but where a lesser psyker might vent it as crude green lightning, Zogwort wields it with terrible precision. The energy builds within him until he can bear it no longer, then bursts forth in a blinding cascade of pure viridian light that engulfs his chosen foe.

What that light leaves behind is the thing every enemy dreads and every Ork finds hysterically funny: Old Zogwort's Curse. Where a proud champion or armoured hero stood a moment before, there remains only a heap of empty clothes, dropped weapons, and one extremely confused squig, blinking and snuffling amid the gear of the warrior it used to be. That Zogwort can reduce a mighty foe to a small and edible fungus with a single glare has made his curse infamous across countless battlefields.

Restless and forever hungry for more power, Zogwort eventually abandoned Catachan altogether. Gathering up his beloved squigs and his menagerie of pet snakes, he set off in search of ever larger gatherings of Orks, whose massed psychic energy could fuel his abilities to still greater and more catastrophic heights. Wherever the greenskins muster in sufficient numbers, there is always the chance that the snake-bitten old prophet will appear among them, ready to turn the enemy's finest champions into so many puzzled squigs.