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 first part, we’ll be looking at the faction in Warhammer Fantasy Battles and the Old World.
Few of the races of The Old World are immune to the corrupting influence of dark powers, and the Dwarfs, while hardier than most, are no exception. The Chaos Dwarfs represent the embodiment of the Dwarfs’ worst traits – they’re greedy, violent, and obsessive, known for being industrious warmongers and brutal slavers. Despite being dwarfs they’ve been corrupted by long exposure to the power of Chaos, and they’ve become deeply invested in dark sorcery. They act as a dark mirror to the dwarfs, giving the Chaos side of things their own faction of small, angry, bearded warriors with war machines and some sick hats.
What’s Up With Those Hats?
Glad you asked! The big hats are a key part of the aesthetic of the Chaos Dwarfs – they’re based on some sketches from John Blanche and inspired by Babylonian and Assyrian warriors, with tall, pointed hats and curly black beards. Their cruelty is also drawn from the Assyrians, whose brutal rise and rule over the Middle East from 900 to 612 BCE is known for being incredibly sadistic. Their enthusiasm for torture is legendary, and they were also known for the mass slaughter of their enemies.
They also had long beards and pointy hats, and that’s an aspect that plays a major role in their design. There’s a wonderful story about the creation of Chaos Dwarfs that ended up in a YouTube video last year – if you’re interested in learning more about the Chaos Dwarfs and the humorous story behind their creation and hats, I’d recommend checking out this video interview with Rick Priestly and Alan Perry from Filmdeg Miniatures:
White Dwarf Presents
The Chaos Dwarfs began life as a series of White Dwarf articles. Specifically, White Dwarf #161, released in May 1993. These were later collected in 1994 into White Dwarf Presents: Warhammer Chaos Dwarfs, the first and only full army book for the faction. In the years following, the faction would get only cursory updates and additional army lists in collected pamphlets like Ravening Hordes or the Old World Legends document, and not arguably not get full support again until their recent re-launch in the Age of Sigmar.
Written by Rick Priestly, the original article tells the story of how the Dwarf race spread northward from their ancestral home in the Southlands into the Worlds Edge Mountains, following ores and precious gems. As they excavated the mountains and dug deeper into their mines, they continued further north, finally arriving at the upland region referred as Zorn Uzkul, or ‘The Great Skull Land.’ There they found a vast, inhospitable plateau. While many turned back, some continued east into the Mountains of Mourn. Over time the other kin lost contect with those Dwarfs, believing them dead. But they persisted.
The Chaos Dwarf Empire is situated in the Mountains of Morn and the adjoining eastern region of the Dark Lands. It’s described as ‘a stark and cheerless place,’ where the ground splits and little grows. It’s a land filled with volcanoes and choking black smoke, oil pools and tar pits, and streams of lava bubbling up from below the surface. It’s a dark land but one rich in mineral wealth – massive deposits of the mineral and gems, gold, and silver which the Dwarfs covet.
Over centuries, the instincts of those dwarfs settling in the Mountains of Mourn became perverted into a twisted mockery of traditional dwarven values. They embraced sorcery and fashioned a massive, monstrous city of black obsidian and daemonic furnaces called Zharr-Naggrund. At the center of Zharr-Naggrund is a massive tower and at the pinnacle of the tower is the Temple of Hashut.
Hashut
The deity of the Chaos Dwarves is a bull-shaped god named Hashut, whom the Chaos Dwarfs refer to as the Father of Darkness. His temple is guarded by Bull Centaurs, monstrous beasts with the torso of a Chaos Dwarf and the lower body of a bull. Atop the temple is the iron statue of Hashut, filled with glowing coals so that anyone who touches it suffers horrible burns.
As far as Chaos gods go, Hashut is a minor player. He’s the god of fire, greed, and tyranny, and typically represented as a massive flaming bull wreathed in smoke and shadow. He may be more an archdaemon than a minor god necessarily, but either way he demands sacrifice and subjugation from his followers in return for his patronage. The Chaos Dwarfs provided both, and Hashut protected them from mutation and gave them sorcerous power.
The power of Hashut flows through the sorcerers of the Chaos Dwarfs, dark wizards who rule over the city. Although few in number, they meet in a conclave to concoct evil plans, with the oldest and most powerful commanding the strongest voice among their peers. These sorcerers grow in power over time, but they pay a terrible price for that power – as they grow in power, their bodies turn to stone. This starts with their feet and gradually moves upward, until they are no longer mobile. They may construct steam-driven bodies with sorcerous engineering to stay mobile for a time, but they eventually succumb to the curse, becoming statues placed along the roadways around the tower.
All of the Chaos Dwarfs belong to one of the Sorcerers, acting as subjects and kinsmen, bound by oaths of blood-loyalty. Among these, the Bull Centaurs are the most trusted, acting as guards and taking on the most dangerous tasks for their masters.
Slave Races
Compared to the other races in the Old World, Chaos Dwarfs don’t have large numbers. Instead, their society relies on a vast number of slaves who are put to work in the Tower of Zharr-Naggrund and in the mines below the wastes. Warrior bands of the Chaos Dwarfs scour the Dark Lands for captives to bring back to toil in the mines and forges, or for sacrifices to be made at the Temple of Hashut.
Among these slaves, it’s worth mentioning the Black Orcs – a separate strain of Orcs bred by the Chaos Dwarfs and altered with evil magic. These are stronger than ordinary Orcs but more loyal and not as prone to squabbling. Unfortunately, they were also too smart and well organized, meaning they were prone to starting rebellions and leading other Orcs and Goblins to throw off their chains. The Black Orcs were eventually driven off into the Mountains of Mourn, where they remain to this day, with many tribes often being recruited into Chaos Dwarf armies.
The most numerous slaves of the Chaos Dwarfs are the Hobgoblins. These treacherous goblins enjoy the favour of the Chaos Dwarfs and were instrumental in defeating the largest Black Orc rebellion, earning them the enmity of other Orcs and Goblins. Hobgoblins enjoy a particular status among the Chaos Dwarfs slaves – they are not forced to work in the mines but instead are used as warriors. They’re still sneaky, cowardly, and evil-minded, and tend to be taller than normal goblins. The Chaos Dwarfs employ them but do not trust them. They need Hobgoblins for their numbers, but know that the Hobgoblins need their protection to avoid being destroyed by the other greenskins.
Chaos Dwarf Warfare
Chaos Dwarf warriors fight with one of two weapons: Double-bladed axes and blunderbuss guns. The Blunderbuss is a gunpowder weapon that fires shards of spiked metal toward the enemy and are devastating at close range. They’re also ferocious hand-to-hand fighters, and a favorite tactic of them is moving up, firing a single blast, and then charging into close combat.
Of course, having small handheld guns means that, as you might expect, they have larger artillery as well. Chaos Dwarfs make use of massive artillery like the Earthshaker cannon to fire heavy shells full of powerful explosives. When these land they explode, dealing devastating damage to anything nearby. They also employ bolt throwers, often manned by hobgoblins. The Chaos Dwarfs were the first to enslave daemons into weaponry, creating the first Daemon Engines. The Iron Daemon and the Hellcannon are both iconic Chaos Dwarf units (on top of the Earthshaker Cannon which most players recognize as the Dreadquake Mortar).
There are two notable monsters employed by the Chaos Dwarfs: The Great Taurus and the Lammasu. The Great Taurus is a monstrous bull with dragon-like wings that are stabled in great pens beneath the Temple of Hashut. The Lammasu are chimeras believed to be rare mutations of the Great Taurus and are magical creatures able to breathe the very power of magic itself. They’re the favored mount of Chaos Dwarf Sorcerers.
Notable Characters
Although not part of the White Dwarf article series, the first collected army book added a number of special characters to the army for players to play with, though only Astragoth would receive a model. Zhatan the Black is the commander of the Tower of Zharr and a servant of the Sorcerer Ghorth the Cruel, “the most potent of all living Chaos Dwarf sorcerers.” Zhatan was basically your Chaos Dwarf Lord option.
Astragoth is the High Priest of Hashut and the oldest living Chaos Sorcerer. He used to be the most potent ever; now his powers have started to wane and he depends on a mechanical device for transportation as his lower half and hands have turned to stone. This guy actually got a model – Astragoth Ironhand – and it’s pretty cool.
Tamurkhan – The Throne of Chaos
The Chaos Dwarfs would see only token, “get you by” releases after their fourth edition army book, with an updated list in the sixth edition Ravening Hordes pamphlet. As a result, the Chaos Dwarfs were not major players in any of the later campaigns of The Old World, though they did see support in the Total War: Warhammer Fantasy PC game. The one big exception is the Tamurkhan – the Throne of Chaos book, released by Forge World in 2011 and written by Alan Bligh.
Tamurkhan – The Throne of Chaos was one of two Warhammer Forge supplements released during Warhammer Fantasy Battles’ 8th edition and is a campaign book that chronicles the rise and fall of Tamurkhan, a Nurgle Champion who led an assault on the city Nuln. Among his forces was Drazhoath the Ashen, master of the Legion of Azgorh, a Chaos Sorcerer who rode to battle on a Great Taurus named Cinderbreath.
The Legion of Azgorh are an interesting element here, acting as an odd bridge between the Old World and the Age of Sigmar for the Chaos Dwarfs. Because of that, we’ll cover them separately, in part two of this three-part series.
The End Times
As a faction, the Chaos Dwarfs “made it through” the End Times into Age of Sigmar and have recently seen a new release, but little is known about their actual fate in the End Times – there’s a throwaway line about them being destroyed in Grimgor’s book, but not much otherwise.
What we do know about the Chaos Dwarfs comes from short notes in an online interview and series of blog posts written by Josh Reynolds, one of the writers for The End Times. These never made it into any official materials and so should be considered only semi-canonical. Generally speaking the Chaos Dwarfs were defeated and wiped out during the war against Grimgor, with Astragoth betrayed by Ghorth and left a living statue before being shattered. Drazoath was supposedly felled by Grimgor and overrun by the green tide (though he survived into the Age of Sigmar so again, not necessarily canon). Zhatan the Black was gutted by Bragg the Gutsman and ripped apart by goblins. And Ghorth the Cruel was supposedly killed by Borgut Facebeater and lobbed out of a window.
There were some survivors, but generally the Chaos Dwarfs were more or less destroyed by Grimgor’s Greenskin and Ogre forces, overrun and destroyed by their former slaves.
Final Thoughts
After an ignoble run in Warhammer Fantasy Battles, the Chaos Dwarfs would also have a similar run in Age of Sigmar, using a get-you-by set of rules for the Legion of Azgorh for the first three editions of the game. At the same time, they saw limited support as only Legends in The Old World, until they finally saw a complete overhaul with the Helsmiths of Hashut army release in Age of Sigmar.
In part two of our series we’ll look at the lore behind the Legions of Azgorh in more detail and examine their lore in both the old world and Age of Sigmar, and talk about where they ended up before the faction’s reinvention.
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