Admiral:
Chaos Dwarf Monumental Inscriptions
As may be seen throughout their scattered holdings in the turbulent Dark Lands, the Chaos Dwarfs are great monument builders. Their ziggurat city of Zharr-Naggrund itself is a vast monument to hierarchy and Hashut, whilst the titanic Gates of Zharr stand testament to megalomaniac power in the most desolate parts of the volcanic landscape.
Similarly, the great strongholds of the Chaos Dwarfs have all been shaped with vast symbolism in mind. The Black Fortress, topped by a giant bull’s head and home to the Legion of Azgorh, is built not only as a fortress, but as an unforgiving monument to the damnation of the outcast Infernal Guard which mans its ramparts.
Aside from these gargauntan structures, inside which the bulk of population and military might of the Dawi Zharr empire is housed, the Chaos Dwarfs also builds lesser monuments. The most infamous kind of these are the statues of petrified Sorcerers which line the road to Zharr-Naggrund, yet not all their monuments are crafted out of living creatures.
Most Chaos Dwarf monuments are built out of stone and metal, often decorated with grissly trophies and braziers when their armoured columns pass by in their eternal treks of empire. Many are built to cow and dominate the large Greenskin tribes roaming the Dark Lands, for which purpose they have to be of immense size and sturdy construction, lest an ambitious Warboss would attempt to topple or deface those oppressive monuments in a public act to rally further more tribes to his banner.
Other monuments are smaller, especially those erected by clans or individuals grateful to Hashut for a particularly rich slave catch or great ore veins in that area. Many of the monumental constructions have been erected by victorious armies in a mystically potent place or the spot where they vanquished their enemies.
The shape of these monuments varies immensely, from simple obsidian obelisks to miniature ziggurats with mythological fresques carved along their sides, their innards filled with the skulls of slaves and foes alike. Other monuments are instead pieces of landscape architecture, filled with sculptures, sacrificial pits and altars.
Statues and images of bulls and the holy spawns of Hashut feature prominently on a majority of monuments, as do lightning bolts, cloven skulls and scenes of cruelty and barbarity towards defeated enemies. The whole, vast range of Chaos Dwarf symbols are carved unto their numerous monuments. Many of these symbols are clearly grounded in a will to appear fearsome and strong, others are more esoteric, often originating in the Chaos Wastes in the far north or from the priesthood of Hashut’s everlasting quest of mystical insights, or indeed from that most vile and intricate craft of them all: Daemonsmithing.
Whatever their size and shape, the monuments of the Chaos Dwarfs are all carved with inscriptions in their own fell Khaozalid language, and sometimes with secondary texts in the script of the Chaos tounge or decidedly more cryptic alphabets. Even to the illiterate, the very look of these carvings seems to repulse the eye with their stylistic promises of oppression, violence and doom, even when not set amidst fresques of the same inclination.
These are generally boastful inscriptions, filled with words seemingly mad with power, contempt for others and a cruelty without limits. They breathe the mystical religion and world view of their carvers and are yet another window through which one may gain a glimpse of the Dawi Zharr mind.
A great many of these lines are curses against enemies, particularly the ones daring to defile the monument. Many of these curses are very real and founded in Daemonology, as may be seen in the weird glow or trails of smoke occassionally emanating from the script.
Whatever their geographical location or the year they were erected, these monuments, all taken together, tell the story of the Chaos Dwarfs as they themselves wrote it.
They wrote it in stone and metal, in fire and sorcery, in idols and altars. They wrote it in the flayed skin and the crushed skulls of vanquished enemies, and in the broken bones and torment of horror visited upon their slaves and sacrificial victims. They wrote it with deeds, and they also wrote it with words.
Those words all contribute to the great claims of empire which ruthless Zharr-Naggrund and all its vile holdings have in the Dark Lands and beyond. Their aims stand noone behind in this regard. The Dawi Zharr will not rest until they have reshaped the whole world into a hell of slavery and flames, and come the End Times, they believe this will happen.
These are the carvings of the Blacksmiths of Chaos.
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1.
“The ancestral spirits abandoned us, yet the Bull delivered us out of hell. Praise Him! Death to the vandal and Daemon.”
- Ancient inscription two paces away from unnaturally deep claw marks in the roof of the Red Socket Cave, deep in Zorn Uzkul
2.
“Here Warlord Ulkhranibal the Strong vanquished fifty thousand Orcs and three hundred thousand of their lesser kin. Bull Centaurs led the charge. The foe was crushed, then captured, then flayed, maimed and gouged. We left them out in the open to the mercy of the elements. May the Greenskin heed this warning, and should he or anyone else seek to defile these runes, then a flood of biting spirits will shred the intruder. Carved by Marthuk the Blind seven hundred and seventythree years after the Coming of Hashut.”
- Ancient inscription under the chin of the defaced Bull King statue in the eastern Blasted Wastes, around which the old mass graves of Chaos Dwarf warriors were recently exposed by a storm
3.
“Great was the fall of Zhargon, great is the end of all. Come doom, come damnation. There will be fire at the end, then nothing. Anyone who tampers with this inscription are to be torn by the Daemons Yzhxrak, Kriok and Malahatyss and fed to the Great Unclean Ones in the abyssal depths of the Realm of Chaos. The weather itself will be tormented by Azyr should erosion occur. Hashut wills it.”
- Ancient inscription high upon the Bare Rock, southwest of Daemon’s Stump, where the Doomseer sect once stabbed their flesh following the end of the Second Kingdom
4.
"Revered Clan Khurnakizul contributed generously from its deep coffers to the ascension of the ten sisters. Its folk were the most devout of the faithful, the most bloodied of those offering slaves to mass sacrifical ceremonies. All of our castes carried mountain and sky for the sake of High Hashut’s divine satisfaction. May the Father of Darkness be content with His best servants. The fortunate defilers will be shot. The unfortunate will wake inside their own nightmares, turned inside out and never to return. By His will, and by our magnificient lord Sorcerer-Prophet Azharmuk’s gratitude. Signed, Despot Turnakipal Azhargoth in the
List of Contents by Contributors: Chaos Dwarf Monumental Inscriptions
Admiral: 1-10, 17-18.
Bitterman: 15.
Fuggit Khan: 11-14.
Herby: 16.
