So after listening to the fluff on the flying dwarfs, but not quite knowing any fluff on the fire dwarfs, it’s got me wondering what directions they could take CD if you consider them anew.
Presumably what little of the ravaged CD empire that did exist after the orcs was most likely very hard pressed to fight off the inevitable Chaos incursion that came at some point.
So I see a few possible options if you were to think outside the box
#1 Chaos Dwarfs follow the path of the Kharadron overlords and take to the skies!
#2 Chaos Dwarfs unite with the Kharadron overlords and just become rebel pirates to their code.
#3 Whatever the fluff is for the fire dwarfs and dragons, work a minor chaos entity in there as a bull. Job done.
#4 Where the dwarfs look to fly, the CD take exactly the opposite idea and delve more deeply into the earth than anyone else, using tunnelling transports.
#5 The CD harness technology and the raw power of chaos in ways as yet unseen (basically chaos squats). Perhaps some types of exo armour or Kollussus/titan cities as we are so few.
#6 We become slaves of chaos.
#7 Move in the direction of mad scientists/ genetic adaptation with chaos thrown in. Think Fabius Bile but as an army.
In my Warhammer Quest variant for the Chaos Dwarfs the adventure book I’m working on (since 2010, ugh) finally got some inspiration with the End Times. The main goal is aiding the Sorcerer-Prophets and High Priest of the Sorcerer Conclave to construct a warpgate through which the Dawi Zharr can relocate to a new realm. Certainly as part of this I have been focusing on ideas like #4 above (fits with the whole dungeon adventuring theme of WHQ anyway).
I liked the implied story with the Legion of Azgorh, that there’s a greater depth to Chaos Dwarf society and their army, and that the Hobgoblin Slaves and Big Hats were one aspect, and the Legion of Azgorh troops were another. I think capitalizing on this and combining some of the ideas is a great way to go.
Ideas I like (and would like to see aspects of ALL of these going forward):
#4 - delving ever-deeper into the earth and using their technology to create tunnels and rapid transportation just makes sense given their level of technology (daemon-powered trains, etc)
#1 - taking to the skies is also a great idea (although I’m biased as I’ve been thinking in this direction for ages).
#7 - still works and hearkens back to the old Chaos Dwarf models in terms of mutations. The mad scientist angle could/should really be a separate idea and I see it as a viable direction to combine in parallel with any other direction that is taken! Chemistry is a powerful tool and they already have gunpowder, combining it with daemonic control/binding expands the possibilities greatly.
#5 - I like the idea, a little, but am averse to the idea of a 40K direction… although a suitable power armour that’s powered by slaves and daemons could possibly work, as long as it doesn’t just look like a 40K dread or something similar.
#8 - I like the idea of Hashut surviving and this can be combined with any of the other ideas, but I don’t like the idea of warping a whole new race. I prefer the idea that the lineage of the Chaos Dwarfs in the Old World have somehow survived.
Ideas I don’t like:
#6 - NEVER. Slaves are what is made of lesser races. The Dawi Zharr are the masters.
#2 - too much like #6, we’d only be allies if it served our immediate needs, and besides, all other Dawi are lesser sons of line that bred greater lords.
#3 - too similar to the existing fire dwarf path. The opportunity here is to continue the totally unique path created by GW for the Chaos Dwarfs.
P.S. So what is the status of Hashut after the End Times? Was there any explicit mention?
I like to think in the roiling cascade of chaos energy at the world’s end the unnumbered petrified sorcerors walked again and could have pulled some petty serious magical shenanigans along the lines of preserving Hashut and his people or even transcending the ruins of Zharr-niggrund into not mearly a physical city, but a pocket dimension of its own.
There were once rumours of Chaos Dwarfs enslaved by Orcs to warmachines in AoS. Ironic twist, if true. Slaves to Chaos is also fitting in the same bitter heretical vein.
The sky is the limit in this wild magitech steampunk setting, and all of the scenarios discussed here could have happened.
Yeah a race of anceint mespotamian styled statues is a cool idea, I also meantioned the idea of fiery bull-themed Necron rip offs as well as a possibility in another thread (which I think could actually be kinda cool)
@Nicodemus: I seem to remember reading a synopsis of the end times stuff, and if I recall Gork and Mork fought and eventually “defeated Hashut” after the slaves of Zharr-Naggrund where freed which sapped his power. I dont know if they specificly destroyed or killed him though.
I guess that’s a very relevant point. About the official fluff on him.
Edit
from Dakka
I forget the particulars, but its mentioned in one of the Realmgate Wars books that they built a series of fortresses for Chaos. Hashut even gets a name drop. He’s probably looked upon as a minor god, like The Horned Rat is/was, before he took a place in the Chaos Pantheon.
Not to derail my own thread here, but reading into the end times fluff here, it actually makes me think your necrons idea is very similar to the fluff I wrote for my army.
So in my fluff long story short the whole army is transported right to the edge of the realm of chaos, and as a test of faith they have to prove themselves to Hashut or enter the Eternal Battle. Which I never really built upon, but basically I pictured it as when they died they had to fight against all the daemons of chaos to defend Hashut’s empire there. Sometimes they actually came back from the realm of chaos like the berserkers to fight on in the mortal world.
If you were to picture the CD as being eternal warriors, i.e. no new CD ever being born, nobody every dying, then that would open up a lot of things. Especially in terms of battlefield tactics.
Hmm… well if Hashut still exists and theirs Dawi Zharr enough to build multiple fortresses then sounds like we’re in good shape. Also some one has to help make all that chaos armor, as far as I know the fluff on chaos armor hasnt changed, we don’t make all of it- but we make allot of it.
We may well see a New Zhar-Naggrund on an astral map some day.
The Chaos armour fluff was only in one 7th Edition Warriors of Chaos army book though, bear in mind. I wouldn’t assume it’s still valid just because it hasn’t been contradicted - a whole world’s been blown up in the meantime! Furthermore, there’s a bit of Bloodbound fluff about Blood Warriors that suggests their Chaos armour coalesces from blood that coats their bodies after a particularly brutal rampage.
My fluff, which Skink has kindly mentioned, involves Hashut absorbing the essences of the Chaos Dwarfs destroyed in the End Times which is what allows him to find the Mortal Realms again (there are implications that mortal souls were drawn there to populate them). He’s discovered by duardin trapped during the Age of Chaos, and it’s basically a case of Hashut rebuilding what was lost on a much grander scale. But he’s limited in what he can do because he’s trapped and petrified beneath the Realms, only able to act through his sorcerers. They turn to stone as they approach oneness with the Father of Darkness, before being absorbed into him like the ancient Chaos Dwarfs. It goes the other way though, allowing the personalities of the fallen Dawi’Zharr to reappear as the living corrupted duardin take on more of Hashut’s being.
I love the idea of deep delvers who have grown super paranoid about security in the ages since Zharr Naggrund Mingol’s destruction. They are bound to the depths in earthy prisons of their own making, and their hearts are bitterly xenophobic. Fortress mentality etc. Also, they first encountered Hashut deep beneath Zorn Uzkul, so I like the idea of them returning to their “roots” / running back to try and find Daddy again in the steaming void-like depths of some desolate realm or another.
So let’s imagine that GW is a company wanting to make each model as expensive as possible! A shocking idea I know.
Anyhow, Dwarfs are obviously very small by nature, which doesn’t really justify charging a massive amount for them ordinarily (ignoring the £2.75 per model Arkanauts)…
So what I’ve been wondering is if you hypothetically said that CD were so rare in AOS they are more like individual models
So basically picture this guy, but scaled down only a little bit
I think that was what they were going to do, then flipped the elite guys into being Ogres and the Hobgoblins into Gnoblars, and the Ogre Kingdoms army replaced that plan.
It would have been more interesting if Ogres had been added as big slaves to revitalize the Chaos Dwarfs. (Instead of inventing Ogre Kingdoms out of whole cloth.)
The last thing the olde worlde needed was Gnoblars. More sprues of weak but numerous, puny and goblinous troops…? Nope.
I think I like 1#, #3, #5 combined with either/both of Grimstonefire’s ideas mixed in.
(Low) Flying platforms chock full of war machines, spitting Xbow bolts, Dwarfs with petrified feet mounted to the gunwhales, and the things leave scorched and molten earth in their wake.
