Grimstonefire:
Something I have been considering after reading the bit that person wrote on warseer regarding that rumoured new army is to ammend my Chaos Dwarf background to be a bit different…
I think what I have in mind might already be well described in one or more of the 40k novels or armybooks. Basically I was thinking that at a certain point in their history (possibly even at their origins) their small empire vanished into a magical storm. Every Dawi Zharr vanishes. The story would continue that they built an empire in the metaphysical realm known as the empyrean, in a distant fringe territory not occupied by any of the greater gods.
Their sorcerers created unimaginably complex and arcane buildings, over time they became twisted and daemonic. A vision of madness.
The fluff angle for how they were protected from the other daemonic legions is something I’m working on, perhaps some divine protection if they made weapons for the legions? Or Hashut doing his thing?
Eventually through some long and epic story they manage to return to the mortal realm, and bring most of their empire back with them!! The buildings would not all appear at the same time, and so those left behind have unusual stories to tell.
It could have been they were there 100 years or 10,000.
In a conceptual sense I was thinking that the CD empire would be roughly geographically the same as where they will turn up. Or to explain it a bit better; imagine an alternate dimension where the cities fall on a map (the distances between them) would be roughly the same as where they will appear in the dark lands.
So as you can imagine this creates the opportunity to invent a lot of interesting locations and really expand their places of interest. To even imagine the crazy architecture that could be made in the realm of chaos would be cool.
It also creates a massive potential for development further along the line.
Thoughts?
I’m sure this concept must have been done before in 40k somewhere?
snowblizz:
I guess the conceptual problem is placing physical beings into the Empyrean. That really shouldn’t work, you don’t survive in the raw energy. Unless you are a sorceror at least.
The Dark Eldar live in a pseudorealm. It isn’t really part of the Warp.
One Felix and Gotrek novel (Giantslayer) has them traversing the Paths of the Old Ones, which sounds a lot like the Webway from 40k which the DE realm should be part of as well.
CDs are strongly linked to obsidian and its is supposedly anti-magical, so there you have an in.
Grimstonefire:
Sorry, you’ve lost me there. Do you mean the CD have found a way to access the Paths of the old ones?
Ancient History:
There’s precedent for material creatures surviving in the Realm of Chaos, at least temporarily. Many sorcerers, Chaos Champions, and one loco chameleon skink have managed to visit and survive there for a time.
Zaramuskharaz:
I think someone has been playing The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind far too much!!! You dwemer!! 
Just like me!
I ever thought how mysterious they were and how this could be placed here, with our stocky CDs…
My thought is: it would be at least strange. I mean, imagine some Ogres coming down from the Mountains of Mourn, looking for Chaos Dwarfs to trade (Ogres were loking for canons to train Leadbelchers). Then, they arive at Zharr Nagrund… just to find the entire city hollow. No one. Not even a mere hobgoblin or even a runaway slave. No one. Empty.
Imagine if Archaeon comes to Zharr looking for someone to make Hellcannons for him. AND there is no one. Not a living soul wherever he wanders with his Chosen. Weird indeed, would delay the Storm of Chaos for some time!
I think it IS very interesting. On 40K, I think the only Dark Eldar city is within the Webway, I’m not sure if it qualifies as within the Warp (Empyrean or whatever).
And the CDs would come to the Material World to fetch some slaves them go back home, like the Dark Eldar on 40K do! Fantastic!
Any comments?
Ishkur Cinderhat:
I think what snowblizz means is that fluff-wise the Empyrean is a realm of raw psychic energies. You just can’t enter that realm in corporeal form and live there, because it’s the realm of souls and daemons. In 40k the Empyrean AKA the Warp can be entered by Starships as a means to travel FTL. They need a psychic shielding called Gellar fields to survive that trip (otherwise they would be torn apart by daemons) and to them the Warp is a black void without substance or stars.
So from a fluff-oriented-point-of-view it seems hard to justify an empire of mortals living/surviving in that realm.
Grimstonefire:
@ Zaramuskharaz
I meant more that they were trapped there against their will a long time ago, probably at least 2000 years ago in warhammer history. Then all of a sudden they started appearing again out of nowhere! Certainly would explain why GW has ignored them for so long!! :D There are almighty storms and suddenly a whole city of twisted spires and corrupted temples just phases into existance.
I didn’t mean they actually ‘lived’ there now, though some will still be trapped.
In the 40k fluff Ku’gath keeps thousands of caged slaves from all over the universe. So I assume it must be possible for them to survive a while.
There is solid ground there. It’s not all spirits.
I guess my idea was that in the unimaginably vast empyrean that there is a small corner that is either overlooked, or protected. Geographically it would not need to be that big, a grain of sand in the whole beach that is the realms of the other gods. Perhaps a mountain range in the middle of a vast desert, or some protected realm hidden down in a canyon of obsidian.
Zaramuskharaz:
Maybe a Fortress floating on the middle of nowhere? Hummm… might work!
Like it had some sort of powerful magical sealing, so that the demons would be kept outside. Since the laws of physics wouldn’t work, I think it would look like this, or something similar:
Imagine! It could take A LOT of demonic-research and some willing sorcerers, but I think this could work! 
And the idea of appearing out of nowhere is also a good one! I also meant when they did ‘vanish’, how would the ones that traded with then would react? Taking the empty strongholds for themselves?
snowblizz:
I think what snowblizz means is that fluff-wise the Empyrean is a realm of raw psychic energies. You just can't enter that realm in corporeal form and live there, because it's the realm of souls and daemons. In 40k the Empyrean AKA the Warp can be entered by Starships as a means to travel FTL. They need a psychic shielding called Gellar fields to survive that trip (otherwise they would be torn apart by daemons) and to them the Warp is a black void without substance or stars.
So from a fluff-oriented-point-of-view it seems hard to justify an empire of mortals living/surviving in that realm.
Ishkur Cinderhat
That was indeed what I was talking about. Almost all cases it is sorcerors of some kind and its more spiritual than physical, though there are instances, again mostly by Chaos followers, who travel to the realm of Chaos physically. I was throwing around some of the established "in the warp but not really" instances I could recall.
In some 40k novels if you look out in to the Empyrean you see a swirling mist of colours. Only the Navigators are able to make sense of it though.
I was just toying around with ideas that made sense in the in-game perspective. Somekind of fantasy version of a Gellar field would indeed be the way. Using Obsidian monoliths in a sort of anti-waystone manner could be an idea.
EDIT: Damn, lost my first edit attempt.
@Grim, see that's the thing there IS no "solid ground" in the Warp, other than if some powerful entity chooses to create it as such. And I'm not convinced it really is a physical reality as we see it.
I don't buy the need to "explain" things either. Ogres were not migrant workers form the mountains of mourn before GW decided to retcon it and make it so. If you like to invent some interesting fluff I don't see that as a problem but not being heard form is and never has been an issue really. GW pretends races have always existed as soon as they make them up.
Grimstonefire:
If Hashut is indeed a god capable of creating earth, that would be a place they could go right? It wouldn’t exactly be kind of Hashut to move all his loyal followers into the abyss.
The warhammer version of the empyrean seems to be described very differently to the 40k version of the warp. In DoC the descriptions focus almost entirely on physical locations. Some of which have no obvious connections to any god.
Then of course I could just describe the events leading to their disappearance, and a bit on the time lag in things appearing, but leave what actually happened in the empyrean completely up to the imagination? It would solve a lot of problems and add mystery.
Zaramuskharaz:
ThatThat could also work!
"In a dark, shadowy place of the Immaterium, a Fortress made of pure Obsidian floats/stands. There, the Chaos Dwarven Warhost of Grimstonefire, and his own sorcerers, plans on taking over the material plane once more, bringing havoc and chaos!"
How 'bout that? I could use some of that fluff form for myself!
snowblizz:
If Hashut is indeed a god capable of creating earth, that would be a place they could go right? It wouldn't exactly be kind of Hashut to move all his loyal followers into the abyss.
The warhammer version of the empyrean seems to be described very differently to the 40k version of the warp. In DoC the descriptions focus almost entirely on physical locations. Some of which have no obvious connections to any god.
Then of course I could just describe the events leading to their disappearance, and a bit on the time lag in things appearing, but leave what actually happened in the empyrean completely up to the imagination? It would solve a lot of problems and add mystery.
Grimstonefire
I think the thing is that we are hearing about the Warp (much easier to type) in WHFB filtered through how it appears to those able to perceive it. "Physical" and "realms" are just metaphoric labels assigned to something
we just cannot really comprehend. Sort of like 10-dimensional string theory.
WHFB is more often talking about the Realm of Chaos (and not the Warp itself) that's were the funky stuff happens, empty flying castles and all that shizzle.
I think the idea of Hashut protecting them works fairly well. Chaos energy wells over the earth, the proto-CD are whisked into something like the warp, they probably wouldn't know what exactly, they work to keep it at bay and strike a deal with an entity, worship for protection. Fairly plausible. Cold even throw in Old Ones, Hashut is fallen Old One so like them he creates something like the Paths of the Old Ones an in-but-not-in-the-warp place for the CD to stay. Maybe they even learn to travel around it in floating fortresses a la DE but not on water but the Sea of Souls through some anti-magic/Hashut do-hickery.
TwilightCo:
Dunno…
In my humble opinion I believe that this over reaches (and over complicates) things too much. Come, walk with me down memory lane, all the way back to circa 1988 and “Slaves to Darkness”. Mentioned through out this book are many cities and, fortresses located “within” the Realm of Chaos. Perhaps its just my take on it, but I noticed that “they” include the unstable area (for miles and miles) around the poles as the RoC from time to time. Places like, “The Marcher Fortress” and the “Inevitable City” were referenced by an Empire citizen named Marius Hollscher (I don’t remember if he was or was not an Empire person, but that sure is an Empire name) who visited these places physically. That gleaned from the use of first person referencing through out his excerpts.
Additionally, in that grand ol’ time it was not unheard of for Champions of Chaos to wield weapons of technology (Chain swords, auto guns, plasma pistols, you get my point) which I’m sure industrious peoples could find ways of producing reasonable facsimiles of. For instance, who is to say that the “Black Hammer of Hashut” is nothing more than a Thunderhammer powered by warpstone/wyrdstone/very little peddling hobbos?
That’s all…
snowblizz:
Dunno...
In my humble opinion I believe that this over reaches (and over complicates) things too much. Come, walk with me down memory lane, all the way back to circa 1988 and "Slaves to Darkness". Mentioned through out this book are many cities and, fortresses located "within" the Realm of Chaos. Perhaps its just my take on it, but I noticed that "they" include the unstable area (for miles and miles) around the poles as the RoC from time to time. Places like, "The Marcher Fortress" and the "Inevitable City" were referenced by an Empire citizen named Marius Hollscher (I don't remember if he was or was not an Empire person, but that sure is an Empire name) who visited these places physically. That gleaned from the use of first person referencing through out his excerpts.
Additionally, in that grand ol' time it was not unheard of for Champions of Chaos to wield weapons of technology (Chain swords, auto guns, plasma pistols, you get my point) which I'm sure industrious peoples could find ways of producing reasonable facsimiles of. For instance, who is to say that the "Black Hammer of Hashut" is nothing more than a Thunderhammer powered by warpstone/wyrdstone/very little peddling hobbos?
That's all...
TwilightCo
We need to define what we are talking about. The Realm of Chaos is a physical place, much like the worlds inside the Eye of Terror just vastly influenced by the raw power of Chaos. They are however not in the dimension of the Empyrean. That's what I was getting at above.
There's a big difference in the Inevitable City and Khorne's realm. One is a "real" place the other entirely metaphysical. And most of these stories tend to be "spiritual" journeys. Such as those "eyewitness" accounts from StD & LaD and Liber Chaotica.
Grimstonefire:
I was thinking yesterday that if I could get away with transporting them ‘only’ into the Realm of Chaos it would make things a lot simpler. They would not have left the warhammer world at all, so to speak.
It would still fit into my concept that they could build an empire and have it transported back roughly (dimensionally) in the same places as before, because in the actual RoC the laws of physics don’t apply. So the whole CD empire could fit into a small mountain range, that would only be visible to those who can find it. They could realistically build things from rock, but also raise unimaginably complex temples and zigguarats that would not be possible to build anywhere else.
The other benefit of course is that they’re not surrounded all the time by daemons!
Transporting them into the Empyrean is a completely different ball game. Here there are a whole load of fluff issues to overcome; how they survive against the infinite number of daemons, how they defend their floating empire thing against all the greater gods etc. It also raises the immediate question of the link between warhammer and 40k, as although they are not supposed to be linked, the empyrean/ warp is effectively the same.
Which would make more sense then? Empyrean or Realm of Chaos??
Also, considering that in both of them time is not relevant, and that I would need to include some decent stuff in the mortal realm in their timeline, how long would you make them disappear for? And when?
The obvious choice would be at their origins. The magic storm teleports them all over, and then X years later they return. But really it could happen at any point. In my existing fluff they reach a point around 500 IC I think where their fluff changes completely, their golden age is over. If I were to do it this far in (after they’ve already become Chaos Dwarfs), it would make things a bit more tricky as (in my fluff) all the major cities have already been built… So I could teleport only the CD, or teleport them + their whole empire? All that would be left is barren lands for 500 years etc, then suddenly the old cities return impossibly corrupted.
I guess logically it would make more sense for the CD only to be teleported before they build all their cities. They build them in the RoC then have these come back?
Edit:
Thinking about this, as laws of time/ space have no meaning wherever this is done, it would be much easier to just plonk the new cities down wherever the gods decreed, rather than saying ‘Daemon’s Stump returned exactly where it was before’. So ignore that bit from the above. Either the cities get moved entirely, or they build them from scratch in the RoC and their current Dark Land location is just where they moved back. Simple.
snowblizz:
I guess the Realm of Chaos makes more sense, though I was coming to like the Warp idea.
As to when… I guess the beginning is the logical place to pick. Though the fluff says they had started to dig in to the planes of Zharr, the holds were just so “new” that they hadn’t got far enough to be safe like the Imperial Dwarfs. So its not like they got caught out in tents or something.
Thommy H:
The big question about this idea, Grim is…why?
Why should Chaos Dwarfs have been magically transported to some other place, done some stuff and now come back? It doesn’t fit anything else in the background. It seems like you’re looking for some fluff that matches the way Chaos Dwarfs have remained unsupported for a while, but they didn’t just drop off the maps - they’ve always been there, with a continuous history that covers the whole period of the Warhammer background. It’s not like GW were telling the story of Magnus the Pious in 1995 and have added to it since then and have now reached the reign of Karl Franz - it’s always been the 26th Century (Imperial reckoning) in Warhammer, with the Chaos Dwarfs doing their thing like everyone else.
I just don’t get why this idea is more appealing than…I don’t know…the Chaos Dwarfs secretly being the Old Ones, or Zharr-Naggrund being made our of licqourice. If GW went with this storyline, they’d immediatley contradict fluff from some of their most recent army books, as well as everything known about Chaos Dwarfs in their previous incarnation. It would please no one, and I’m not even sure it would add much to the setting (it is essentially a Warhammer version of the Dark Eldar, after all).
If you want to develop some kind of splinter faction that this happened to, some “Daemonic Dwarfs”, I think that would work fine, but trying to shoehorn this idea into the existing backstory of the Chaos Dwarfs seems a bit difficult and unneseccary.
Grimstonefire:
On a related topic, I am a bit confused about what exactly this difference is between the empyrean/ warp/ realm of chaos/ aethyr.
I am inclined to believe that the Realm of Chaos/ Warp is where the Chaos Gods exist, but the Aethyr/ Empyrean is a place of pure energy in a different dimension where they and all other gods draw their power from?
In any case it would mean that what I was calling the empyrean above would be impossible for any mortals to actually live in, and it sounds too close to 40k. So the choices now are:
Inside the Realm of Chaos itself, (fighting against the gods from their floating fortress rock)
Just on the edge of the Realm of Chaos (where the daemons don’t actually ‘live’, but can come across easily).
Inside the realm of chaos brings all the fluff problems mentioned above (when I was talking about the empyrean)
Just on the abyss is still a very dangerous place to live, but they would be on the solid ground of the warhammer world.
@Thommy
The way I’m describing all this does not really do the idea justice. I would need to write it properly into a story before the merits of it can be judged. I know this comes across as very confusing whilst I try and sort out my idea.
As to the question of why… I know this messes around a bit with the existing warhammer fluff (ignoring the CD part for a minute), but it is not entirely unfeasable. Who would know if a few hundred thousand dwarfs vanished for a few centuries to live on the edge of the realm of chaos? The elves? The Dwarfs (Grimnir might)? So if it is possible, it is an idea that could be considered. Would GW want to do it? Well, if they did it would certainly be such an epic introduction to the CD it would blast away the highly characterful backgrounds of even the HE and Dwarfs. In short (pun intended ;)) it would make the CD have a background and future that would be almost as epic as that of the Lizardmen, the grand daddies of all epic warhammer fluff.
There are alternative backgrounds that could be interesting, I have written one version, but this would open up such huge potential. Much better (imo) than an evil eastern dwarf empire who just happen to worship a chaotic/ chaos god and are otherwise happy to dig for gold, take a few slaves and stay at home polishing their golden horde.
Incase you hadn’t guessed by now, the current ‘existing’ back story of the chaos dwarfs does not mean anything to me. I stick only to the basics. ;) Time will only tell which way GW will go.
Ironically I’m probably the only person on here who will be hugely disappointed if CD come out the same fluffwise as they are now (given the little bits we can put together)! I share my dark path with all of you, but seeing as I’m the most radical CD fan I know of, my ideas are probably heresy to most of you.
Ishkur Cinderhat:
While I’m intrigued by the things you have in mind, I agree with Thommy that the whole point of moving the Chaos Dwarfs into another dimension and leave their cities and lands deserted for hundreds of years is still a bit unclear.
Leaving aside that the Chaos Dwarfs never were away from the Warhammer timeline (they always forged armour for the Chaos Warriors, provided slaves and nice cannons to the Ogres and hunted Gnoblars and Goblins), I would also expect all the other elements in the Darklands, namely Hobgoblins, Marauders and wild beasts, to take over the deserted towers and ruins left behind by the CD if they were to leave that place.
Why not instead have them stay out of the outer worlder’s history for a few years instead and explain later that they were building a top secret underground tunneling project to Lustria during all those years which sucked up all their manpower and energy? 
Thommy H:
Incase you hadn't guessed by now, the current 'existing' back story of the chaos dwarfs does not mean anything to me.
Which is fine. But, in that case, why preserve anything? I feel like you're throwing out the baby with the bathwater here - and, again, that's perfectly okay, but more people here kind of
like the baby :P. It seems like you could just go off and write your piece irrespective of anything to do with the "current" Chaos Dwarfs and just tell people to like it or lump it. Since it has no bearing on anything, just go for it! But, on the other hand, don't expect us to have much of an opinion on it if it has nothing to do with what we all think of as "Chaos Dwarfs"!
EDIT: Oh, about the Realm of Chaos/The Warp:
The Warp (also known as the Empyrean, the Aethyr, etc.) is an alternate dimension of pure thought and energy where daemons and Chaos Gods are given form by human (and human-like creatures') emotions. It is equal and opposite to the material universe.
The Warp sometimes bleeds through into real-space through rifts in the fabric of reality. These "warp storms" produce things like the Eye of Terror in the 40K Universe.
In the Warhammer setting, the Realm of Chaos is the area covering the northern pole of the planet. It's where a giant warp rift opened up when the portal used by the space faring Old Ones collapsed. It's equivalent to the Eye of Terror - it exists in both universes simultaneously. It has both physical dimensions (it's covers only a limited area), but is also a conduit to the Warp itself, so is in some ways infinite. The term "Realm of Chaos" thus refers both to the area of the planet occupied by the magical maelstrom of Chaos energy, from which Daemons and the Winds of Magic descend and where the mortal hordes endlessly war and to the infinite parallel universe where the Chaos Gods themselves lurk which you
get to from that area.
Make sense? No, it's not really supposed to.
