In our Lore Explainer series we take a deep look at the lore of various games, settings, and factions. This article is the first in a three-part series looking at the lore behind the Chaos Dwarfs across the Old World and Age of Sigmar. In this third and final part, we’ll be looking at the faction’s new incarnation in the Mortal Realms.
Welcome back to our three-part series on the lore of the Chaos Dwarfs. Last time around, we talked about the Legions of Azgorh and how they were integrated into the Age of Sigmar. This time, we’ll be looking at the lore around the Helsmiths of Hashut and where they stand in the brave new world of the Mortal Realms.
The Chaos Dwarfs had to wait an entire decade to get a proper update in Age of Sigmar, and their long drought finally ended with the 2025 release of Battletome: Helsmiths of Hashut. The new book completely overhauled the faction, updating their lore and changing their aesthetic. There are still big hats and bulls here here, sure – but aesthetically it’s fully distinct from the chaos aesthetics we’ve seen for Age of Sigmar’s Chaos factions, including those few chaos dwarves shown in Warcry. It’s a new day, and it’s worth diving into the lore here in more detail.
Humble Beginnings
The Helsmith cosmogony starts off in Age of Sigmar’s Age of Myth, a time when gods walked the earth and a bunch of cool shit happened. If you believe the Zharrdron (Chaos Dwarves) there were originally four Duardin elder gods: Grungni, Grimnir, Valaya and Hashut. Hashut, the eldest of the gods, began the conquest of the realms to establish holds in Aqshy and Chammon. Grimnir and Grungni both convinced Hashut, with Valaya’s help, to surrender these realms to his siblings and take Ghur as a land to be tamed. So he took his kin to Ghur and established Ur-Zorn (the first ziggurat) and tamed the god-bulls of the realm. Soon his siblings came and once again chided him, spreading rumors of artifice made using the spirits of the god beasts.
Of course Hashut did no such thing, but for the love of his siblings he swore an oath that no such machine would be made under his rule. And things would have stayed that way if Grungni hadn’t opened his stupid mouth and said that he had done a better job in Chammon and that his mechanical works were superior. Hashut few off the handle at this, calling it the Great Betrayal. He considered his oath null and decided that if they were going to accuse him of dark magic and using spirits to make machines, he may as well just do it – that’d show them. So he learned to bind and use the souls of daemons, making new, horrifying engines of war. He also created gifts for Grungni and Grimnir that would drive them mad and stoke their rage. They’d end up going into self-exile in the mountains until their rage could abate.
This didn’t go over super well with Hashut’s remaining sibling, and Valaya led her forces to march up on Ur-Zorn. Negotiations did not go well and a mighty battle ensued. Hashut’s forces lost and Valaya destroyed Hashut’s physical form. But while the Duardin forbade speaking about Hashut, his temples and shrines deep beneath the mountains remained, and the surviving Zharrdron swore revenge.
That’s a fun story but it’s definitely the magical faction lore version, designed to make Hashut look good. There’s a bit of lying going on here but also the Zharrdron get the last word because the whole “Duardin agreed never to talk about Hashut” thing means that this is the first time we’re hearing about him given we’ve already had the Duardin battletomes release. So we just don’t get their sides of the story – and may not at all.
The Age of Chaos
During the Age of Chaos, daemons were everywhere. Most mortals found ways to retreat to safety and survive – including the Duardin, who were forced back into their holds. But soon supplies ran out, with daemons in the mines and caverns beneath the holds and the forces of chaos outside of it, these Duardin were stuck. No one knows which runesmith decided to utilize the daemons of the holds first, but using rune inscribed stone, they crushed and pulverized the daemons into workable soul stuff. Which is how all Helsmith technology works today.
That’s when Hashut reached out, speaking to the clans and introducing himself as their primordial deity. Hashut had stolen fire from the Dark Gods and helped them master the craft of using daemons as arcane fuel in exchange for their loyalty and worship. And the Duardins’ natural resistance to magic helped them in this process, giving them the endurance to carve the runes necessary to contain them. They moved slowly beyond runic magic, mastering the arcane and learning to seal the wild energy of Chaos in steel.
The Zharrdron flourished during this time, rising from their holes to expand and take sites of power in their domains, bleeding them dry without a care in the world for the desolation they were spreading. They erected ziggurats in every realm except Azyr, expanding their grim industry, with only the other Duardin really understanding the threat they posed – but those dwarves were too proud to ask for help taking on what they saw as a mark of ancestral shame. And they were too stubborn to unify against their fallen kin, so the Zharrdron continued to spread. Their relationship to the other forces of Chaos was… not amazing. Some didn’t like how the Helsmiths used daemons, but Archaon’s legions weren’t among them and the Everchosen’s forces became regular customers.
On the other hand, the Zharrdron hated the Skaven. They themselves never mastered warpstone and were more than a little jealous about it, and Hashut himself never really got into the Great Game. So when the Skaven ran rampant across the mortal realms and twisted the landscape in the Hour of Ruin (the big 4th edition reintroduction of the Skaven), the Zharrdron took up arms against them, gleefully destroying gnawholes and emptying their alchemical sewage into their tunnels. Eventually Varanguard emissaries intervened, telling them that this was all according to Archaon’s plan and if they just chilled out for a few minutes they’d get to reap the rewards.
The Zharrdron relented, but their desire for conquest had been rekindled and if they weren’t ready to fight, learning about Grungni’s return from his centuries of self-imposed exile certainly got them there. The Damonsmiths would become particularly interested in the Stormcast Eternals, whose souls bore the mark of Grungni’s divine handiwork. Daemonsmiths offered large bounties for Stormcast souls to dissect.
The tentative ceasefire with the Skaven lasted until a bunch of Stormcast Eternals, chasing a group of Skaven, came into conflict with the Zharrdron at Factory Odro-Siz on the edge of the Forge Anathema’s territory. They fought over the factory for two days and the Stormcast were eventually driven back. The incursion would incite Zharrdron fury and lead them to mount for a new age of expansionism and fighting against the Skaven, Archaon’s orders be damned. But they were saving their greatest ire for the Duardin who denied Hashut.
Denizens of the Realms
The Helsmiths are no longer confined to a few mountaintops in Aqshy – they now have residences and factions across the Mortal Realms. The Forge Anathema is the primary sect here and yes, they do live in Aqshy, holed up in their cluster of ziggurats in the Adamantine Chain of mountains. The Helsmiths of the Forge Anathema were eager to accept Hashut’s blessings and wear rich purple attire.
The Ur-zorn live within the horn-like hills of Korrok, east of Ghur’s heartlands. There they reside in Ur-Zorn, the first ziggurat, citadel of the bull and stronghold of the Scorched Sect. Supposedly Hashut dwelt there at one point or another, teaching his followers to harness the stuff of Chaos. The Ur-Zorni are religion fanatics and consider their traditions supreme. They wear pale jade armor and they tend to wear more ceremonial garb and headgear. They rear more bull-centaurs than any other faction of Helsmiths.
The Zharrvyxa live in Shyish, on a colossal dredger-reg in the Sea of Drowned Sorrows, a massive ship of iron that belches black smoke. The Vyxian Duardin wear red and gold armor and their primary claim to infamy is that they specialize in using the souls of the dead for their industry. They’ve mastered the methods of breaking down underworlds with their magic, burning the spirits they acquire in arcane furnaces and leaving toxic ectoplasmic runoff in their wake.
The Muspelzharr reside in the mountains of Chamon, surrounded by realmgates to Aqshy that turn the heart around them molten. They study warping-flux magic and believe themselves rightful rulers of more or less everything. They wear black and gold into battle.
Hashutite Society
The Zarrdron have a class-based structure and care deeply about blood lineage, with clans of higher standing living in opulence in the highest levels of their ziggurat-cities while those of no repute work in the bowels, providing mundane labor. From birth, Zharrdron are indebted to their betters, and must work to build influence or gain their own industrial holdings. They’re ambitious, though this ambition is tightly controlled. Though their souls belong to Hashut, they’ll often barter grueling servitude in order to get ahead. The long work to fulfill these centuries-long pacts of toil is what gives their culture a semblance of stability.
Magic plays a major role in Heshutite society. In the lost ancient days the Khazalid empire harnessed rune magic to wage war and power automata. The Zharrdron have corrupted that practice with the influence of Chaos, creating automata imbued with the stuff of Chaos. Over time they’ve become physically corrupted as well, growing talons, tusks, and stone flesh and some whisper of large, sorcerous creatures with the bodies of beasts and the heads of Duardin elders stalking the shadows of Hashut’s high temples.
The Zharrdron will trade with anyone who can offer them wealth. Ogre tribes, Kharadon, and isolated cities are all common partners, though the Zharrdron’s oldest pact is with the Kruleboyz, mirroring their relationship to Hobgoblins in the Old World. Kruleboyz are natural allies for the Zharrdron – cruel and cunning, they trade resources dredged from their mires for iron and explosives. They also trade with the warriors of Chaos and Archaeon’s forces. Pretty much everyone. Except the Skaven – they hate the Skaven.
Although the Zharrdron do mess with magic, only a few can actually manipulate it. Supposedly this is only those with royal blood, and heads of family will often try to stoke sorcery in their children. When a child is born from unfavored lines they’ll often be kidnapped and “adopted” by the noble houses, and a clan which produces such an heir can turn it into a lot of power. Eventually these children become Daemonsmiths, sorcerers who can manipulate the stuff of Chaos and wield it for killing power. And, similar to the Chaos Dwarfs of the old world, that interaction with magic slowly petrifies them. This is most prominent on Urak Taar, the first daemonsmith and most powerful of them, whose body has become an angry mass of cracked basalt.
Hobgrots
Remember the hobgoblin slaves Chaos Dwarfs had in the old world? Well they’re still kind of here. Zharrdron forces are often accompanied by mobs of hobgrots, who are larger and more imposing than other grots but a bit more sensible. They’re disposable soldiers to the Helsmiths, and they fight for material gain and pilfer whatever they can. They also act as go-betweens between the Duardin and the Kruleboy orruks, facilitating trade or materiel and captured beasts. They tend to infest the lower levels of ziggurats and fall into service under whoever will take them. They act as toadies, thugs, and assassins. They’re not technically ever referred to as slaves, but we don’t get the impression that they’re free and full members of Zharrdron society.
Final Thoughts
The split creation myth is one of the more interesting parts of Helsmiths lore. Specifically, it’s interesting to consider that the Helsmiths aren’t devoted to The Pantheon or really aligned with chaos outside of being evil wizards who harness daemons for their engines. There is not a single mention of any of the major Dark Gods in their battletome, and when the chaos factions are mentioned, it’s either the Varanguard getting their weapons from the Helsmiths or them actively killing Skaven. It’s an interesting take on the chaos formula, providing motivations that exist beyond the great game. The Zharrdron are definitely their own faction, and though they respect Archaon, they aren’t his subjects in any way.
In a lot of ways the lore for the Helsmiths mirrors that of the Chaos Dwarfs from the Old World, but sets them apart from other Chaos factions in a more interesting fashion. There’s certainly a bigger emphasis here on their hatred for their Duardin cousins than there was before, and less of a focus on them as brutal slavers. It’ll be interesting to see where they go from here, now that they can finally play a real role in the development of the Age of Sigmar lore.
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