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Chaos Dwarfs are found to the east of the civilized lands, where their ancestors were settled long before they were caught by Chaos. The Chaos Dwarfs, or ''Dawi Zharr'' (Dwarf for "Dwarfs of Fire") as they are properly called, hate their bretheren immensly. They are unlike other Warhammer dwarfs in many ways, being enthusiastic Slavers with Orc and Goblin slaves, as well as humans, under Hobgoblin overseers. Many of them are potent sorcerers, having abandoned the ancestral Dwarf Rune magic in favor of more conventional sorcery. However dwarfs are not built for handling wild magic, and they will slowly turn into stone when they do. This is seen in many sorcerers, who have both arms, leggs, and even their whole bodies exept the head turned into granite. These mages rule over the other Chaos Dwarfs in a council made up of the oldest of their order. This council is lead by Astragoth, a Lord who has nearly completely turned to stone. They worship Hashut, the Father of Darkness, instead of the Dwarf ancestor gods. Chaos Dwarfs are portrayed in a semi- Assyria n/ Babylonian style---their beards are arranged in vertical curls, and their armor, weapons and architecture are reminiscent of these cultures. For the most part, they are physically unaltered save for long, tusk-like lower Canine Teeth , but some of them have developed a Centaur -like mutation, with the lower bodies of bulls. These creatures are called Bull Centaurs, and it is they who guard the Temple of Hashut in Zharr Nagrund, their capital. Unlike most of the races in the Warhammer World, the Dawi Zharr see little need for further campaigns into distant lands to gain more land or belongings; they have all the slaves they need in the Mountains of Mourn and the Darklands, along with more material wealth than they actually need (although being dawfs, this is never quite enough). All of the Chaos Dwarfs slaving goes toward building and preserving their only major city, Zharr Naggrund. Zharr Naggrund is situated in the middle of the Plain of Zharr, a massive crater in the Darklands full of underground workshops and mines. The city was almost wiped out when the Chaos Dwarfs made a massive rocket called the Hammer of Hashut. It flew off course and nearly wiped out the city, but thankfully only a few goblin tribes were killed. The city itself is a massive ziggurat, with gates larger than there's any physical need for. On the top is the Temple of Hashut, where slaves are sacrificed. The Bull Centaurs guard their charges here and gaze out on the road below, lined by the bodies of sorcerers turned to stone by their own magic. HISTORY OF THE CHAOS DWARFS The Destruction of the Goblin Kingdoms Before the Great Disaster, the region now known as the Dark Lands was a well-watered and fertile region between the Worlds Edge Mountains and the Mountains of Mourn. Nomadic tribes of Orcs, Hobgoblins, and Goblins roamed the land as hunters and gatherers. They fought each other with weapons of stone and bone, each wanting the land for itself. The Goblins were the more organised and numerous. They were the first to establish kingdoms on the fertile plains and trade with the Dwarf clans that had migrated from the Worlds Edge Mountains. The Hobgoblins, on the other hand, were cunning hunters, skilled at ambush and setting traps. They were also more likely to cheat Goblin traders than deal with them honestly. In contrast, the large and brutish Orcs simply took whatever they wanted and killed anyone who stood in their way. Their love of fighting one another kept their numbers low, a fact for which the more civilised but physically weaker goblins were ever grateful. The Chaos Incursion ignored the Dark Lands until Hashut’s revolt against the Lords of Chaos. Fleeing from the Daemon Princes sent by the Blood God to destroy him, Hashut made his stand in the Dark Lands. The savage battles they fought boiled away the rivers and left the land a desiccated ruin. The servants of the Daemon Princes destroyed Goblin and Hobgoblin villages to deny Hashut any possible allies. The Goblin kingdoms crumbled under the onslaught and their people fled to the Orc villages for safety. The Hobgoblins retreated into the Mountains of Mourn to save their own skins. Only the Orcs fought back, gathering into larger tribes and joining the battle with relish. These new (though unwitting) allies gave Hashut the opportunity to turn against his pursuers. He killed many, but Khorne always sent more. Knowing they would eventually overwhelm him, Hashut withdrew into the underground darkness to rebuild his strength. Khorne’s slaves followed and finally cornered their quarry in a large underground cavern. Suffering from their own wounds, the followers of the Blood God imprisoned Hashut behind a great door of brass and darkened iron to hold him till Khorne saw fit to exact his vengeance in person. As the Warp winds drained into the Elf-created vortex, Khorne’s minions in the Dark Lands began to weaken. A huge Orc army descended upon the retreating Khornates and the bloody battle further devastated the land. Both sides suffered horrible losses, but the simple and brutish society of the Orcs survived the war against Chaos. The more advanced Goblin culture was destroyed, forever leaving the Goblins as slaves of the Orcs. ''As for the take on the rest of Chaos Dwarf fluff, there is an argument between the clasic and quite out of date Games Workshop fluff, and the newer revisitet fluff. Ocne of the main arguments against the old fluff is that the dwarfs would just have killed the God Hashut, instead of worshiping him. The newer fluff has a reason for this. This page on The Hand of Hashut includes some of this argument.'' OLD FLUFF The Corruption of the Dwarfs: the Oath-breakers Unlike their western brethren, the Dwarf clans of the Mountains of Mourn didn’t receive Grungni’s warning before the Warpgates collapsed and Warpdust seeped into their settlements. Yet, the eastern Dwarfs realised that something was amiss and closed their doors. A surge of Warp matter obliterated the Dwarfs’ surface entrances and entrapped them below. For hundreds of years, the Dark Lands Dwarfs were trapped underground. No matter where they tunnelled, impenetrable rock prevented them from reaching the surface. The Dwarfs burrowed ever-deeper, always seeking a way past the rock that trapped them. They eventually tunnelled into a magnificent underground gallery with walls of obsidian. Carefully exploring the cavern, the Dwarfs found a huge sealed door made of brass and darkened iron with arcane writings inscribed on it. Rune Lord Grimdalf the Grey took it upon himself to translate the glyph learn what was beyond the door. After many years, Grimdalf successfully read the script and, as he mouthed the last syllable, the resulting blast tore him apart. The sound of it reverberated throughout the tunnels, as did the roar of whatever it was Grimdalf had set free. The thing from behind the door was free and Dwarfs were dying. Even when they finally tunnelled out of the earth, the killings continued during the night. In time, fewer died and some Dwarfs were even allowed to return to their fellows with tales of a gigantic creature from the Darkness. With their Dwarfking dead (one of the beast’s first victims), the remaining clan leaders selected a delegation to approach the creature in its lair to learn its intent. It told them that its name was Hashut, Father of Darkness, and that he would grant them great power if they worshipped him alone. Hashut told the Dark Lands Dwarfs that their Ancestor Gods abandoned them to the onslaught of Chaos. Should they refuse, promised Hashut, their lines would come to an end and their achievements would be forgotten. A heated argument broke out between those who saw wisdom in Hashut’s words and those who saw forsaking the Ancestor Gods as the first step to damnation. At the height of the debate, weapons were drawn and Dwarf slew Dwarf. Seeing the fight from afar, Hashut granted sorcerous power to those elders who favoured him, tipping the battle in their favour. To honour their new god, the victors sacrificed many of their brethren to Hashut, while they gave others to him as slaves. Some of these he mutated into the beasts that serve him: the Great Taurus and Lammasu. Hashut also took the most ferocious fighters for his cause and shaped them into the Bull Centaurs, his distinguished servants. Lastly, the victorious clan elders were permanently rewarded with powerful sorcerous abilities, which they used to Hashut’s glory. In a final desperate act against their now debased rulers, the remaining Runesmiths revolted against Hashut’s new order. But, the corruption of the Dark Lands Dwarfs had even affected the power of the Runesmiths. The battle raged for months, but the Sorcerer-Priests were too strong. The Runesmiths were broken and enslaved, while the more powerful among them were sacrificed to Hashut after several days of ritual torture. With the last vestiges of their former culture removed, the corruption of the Dark Lands Dwarfs was completed. Hashut rewarded them with tusks to mark them as his own, while he granted the most devout cloven hoofs and horns. Though they remained unknown to the Dwarfs of the Old World for millennia, the Chaos Dwarfs proved to be their nemesis. The campaigns of the Dark Land denizens forced the greenskins’ western migrations that led to the ruin of several Dwarfholds and the decline of the Dwarf Empire of Karaz Ankor. The Old World Dwarfs never recovered from their loss. NEW FLUFF The War of Greed Unaware of the violent magical storm blowing down from the north that raged above them the Dwarfs dug night and day to reach the surface. Lacking most of their mining equipment they dug for weeks through the hard black rock. As unyielding as the Dwarfs themselves they named it Obsidian, or ‘obstinate rock’. So it was that during those desolate times the eastern Dwarfs found some of the wealth that they had been searching for all the long. A large chamber was discovered containing ancient artefacts and a large collection of gold and gems. In the centre of which raised on a plinth was a large and intricately carved golden bull statue that glowed brightly from the light of the Dwarfs torches. Overcome by madness and plagued by grief of the failure to protect his people King Zharkhoran was unaware of the subtle voices in his head as he sat alone amongst his wealth and despaired. Over many days they worked on his mind, sowing seeds of doubt and mistrust on all those he perceived would take his gold. He became increasingly aggressive and eyed all those around him with a suspicious look. Fearing for their king many reassured him of their loyalty in a bid to ease his troubled mind. Others resented his lack of leadership in a time of crisis and openly criticising their new king to whom they were supposed to swear loyalty. Very quickly this developed into open hostilities as clans grouped together and took sides; those supporting their king, and those wanting only to wait until the storm passed to return to the other clans in the Old World. Zharkhoran sensing a conflict was coming gave all those who swore loyalty to him a portion of his gold. Through some rousing oratories he convinced them that those not loyal to their king were traitors who would try to steal their wealth. So it was that the clans divided and war erupted all across Zharr Naggrund. Families fought each other when they disagreed, and the hold was split into vast areas of control. No longer able to dig to the surface, the war waged for many months in the pitch black as both sides fought and retreated. Scrambling over bodies in the dark and fighting for the most part with hands and stones it was a hellish nightmare. Those loyal to their king lived in halls near to his throne room, cut out of the obsidian walls surrounding the chamber containing the golden bull. Unaware that this rock had absorbed magical energy seeping down from the storm above, they were oblivious to the mutating effects it would have. They did not realise as they slept that their bodies were slowly being changed. Over the coming months it gradually gave them the extra strength they needed to end the war and those not loyal to the king were finally defeated. Rise of Hashut As the war waged on, Zharkhoran had increasingly been absent for many battles. Confined to his quarters and kept under careful watch by his Runelords he had suffered many bouts of madness as his hold on this reality grew ever weaker. In his ravings he spoke of having visions of Hashut, a noble Prince of Darkness and how only through praying for some of his strength could they ever hope to be spared. Having fought an extermination campaign against their own kin for their king and believing this to be a vision from one of the great ancestor gods the prophecies of his race had foretold, they proclaimed the will of their king in his absence. Welcoming the news of such divine intervention in those desolate times many prayed for deliverance. As the war ended and their food ran out, the Dwarfs made a last effort and finally managed to reach the surface. The Dwarfs that emerged from Zharr Naggrund were very different from those that had arrived only six months previously. They had been terribly brutalised by the slaying of their own kin and were altogether greedier and more barbaric than any of their race left in the Old World. They had also developed an unhealthy pallid skin colour and most had lost a lot of hair. The land had changed as much as the Dwarfs themselves. Ash covered much of the landscape, and very little vegetation was left. Many mutant beasts roamed the lands, some were many legged and green-skinned monstrosities. Others were chaos spawn with the heads of large ogres. All around were vast pits of oil, and gold seams that the storm had revealed. Despite being freed from their underground prison, none wished to return west to share this new wealth. The fate of King Zharkhoran was never recorded, but his disappearance was marked by the first of the Bull Centaurs to arrive from the Dark lands. Spawned from those Dwarfs not able to reach protection before the magical storms came they were drawn to the Zharr Naggrund from far and wide. Although evidently touched by the winds of chaos, some of the assembled clans recognised within them Dwarf kin and the aspect of their one god Hashut. They were not to be denied to the city by proclamation of the council of Runelords, where they grouped together around the golden bull of Hashut. Over the following centuries many such creatures would emerge similarly marked. The Golden Age Over the following three thousand years the Eastern Dwarfs rebuild Zharr Naggrund and prospered as never before. The old stronghold had been greatly extended and fashioned into the shape of an enormous ziggurat, at the pinnacle of which was a great temple to Hashut where the golde |
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