Well, you might include covetousness - not just raw greed for anything, but the specific desire to own what belongs to someone else, be it gold, land, magical power, their soul, etc. If there’s one sub-current to the Chaos Dwarf psyche I think is often downplayed or forgotten, it’s their desire to have all the things they have been “denied” and which are “rightfully theirs” - such as the artifacts of their Dwarf Cousins, or the power of the Warriors of Chaos.
Something else I considered, that probably just fits into what you said is the idea of them really, really wanting something that nature denies them. Not just because it is the property of someone else.
For example a type of gem that requires hundreds of thousands of tonnes of rock to be mined first.
Looking at my list I realised I could also cover the nature of greed within their whole system of government and the society. Would this be worth doing do you think, or would it just lead off into huge description on it’s own? As it is if I cover all the areas I’ve listed so far this could easily stretch to 30 pages without any art.
Depends on the tack you take. There are ways to address the nature of Hashut that tie directly into Chaos Dwarf society - his position as “the Father of Darkness” ties into the ancient ancestor-worship of the Dwarves, and the pyramid symbolism could explain Chaos Dwarf monotheism to a point - Hashut is on top, and everyone else is beneath him, he literally owns the Chaos Dwarf sorcerer-priests, the priests literally own their clans, and so on and so forth down to the little Chaos Dwarfling and her first snotling slave.
I’m going to split those parts into two different places in the list.
the position of hashut within the pantheon and how this relates to the dwarfs is one thing I already wanted to cover.
Your point has raised 2 things I’m interested in hearing your opinion on.
Firstly I’m going to be taking a view of hashut being the god of greed. All greed, everywhere. So this is not exclusively a Dwarf or Chaos Dwarf god, the emotions he draws from would come from almost every living creature (in some form). The Chaos Dwarfs are essentially greed personified, to the exclusion of common sense and social wellbeing, so obviously he draws a lot of strength from them and is mainly their god, but is a lot closer to the Dwarfs than they would like to admit…
So I will need to do something to explain if the dwarfs worshipped him before the cataclysm, and what changed if they stopped.
Secondly, I need to do some thinking on the whole ‘father of darkness’ thing and how that relates to anything.
I did have an idea that the small creatures inhabiting the warhammer world are not capable of most of the emotions that feed the big four. Not sure if animals are capable of greed either… Anyhow, if I went with that I could explain the darkness thing because Hashut as a whirlpool of emotions would have existed since there were creatures capable of providing those emotions. Which would put him as the oldest god in the warhammer world. Back from the time of darkness!
Edit. That or the shiny things are in the ground, which is dark.
The other part of your post, about symbolism and how this feeds down is going into my section on worshiping hashut.
Firstly I'm going to be taking a view of hashut being the god of greed. All greed, everywhere. So this is not exclusively a Dwarf or Chaos Dwarf god, the emotions he draws from would come from almost every living creature (in some form). The Chaos Dwarfs are essentially greed personified, to the exclusion of common sense and social wellbeing, so obviously he draws a lot of strength from them and is mainly their god, but is a lot closer to the Dwarfs than they would like to admit...
Grimstonefire
It's been said - and demonstrated - that humans will f***, eat, and/or worship anything, sometimes at the same time. There are human worshippers of Khaine and the Horned Rat, and I have no doubt there are human worshippers of Hashut. Norsemen and Chaos Marauder tribes know of Hashut as Dark Father, so it's not beyond reason they would worship him. So I don't think Hashut as the manifestation of greed is beyond the pale.
So I will need to do something to explain if the dwarfs worshipped him before the cataclysm, and what changed if they stopped.
I don't know if Hashut existed as such before the first incursion of Chaos. He's a (relatively) minor and probably young deity compared to the Big Four. It's very apparent that untainted Dwarfs know of him, they even swear by him (By the bald beard of Hashut!), but it's impossible to say when or how pervasive his influence is.
It's also possible - and this is stretching things a bit - that Hashut has multiple aspects, or ways in which greed is expressed. Which is something I've played with a bit before.
Greed is the one thing that separates doing ordinary things (like procreation with your spouse) from worshipping chaos (rampant orgies). Each of the chaos gods represents a normal part of the human psyche that has been taken to an extreme, and greed is the driving force for going to those extremes. So if Hashut represents greed then he can certainly be the reason that the Chaos gods became as they are.
Except that that goes against some of the other fluff, including a piece that posits all four gods might be aspects if the original Tzeentch. Tzeentch being split into pieces when the other three rebelled against him is what brought magic to be in the world, ad may have been the cause f Chaos appearing as well.
I don’t know about Hashut being older/the driving force of all chaos. Him having influence on the other gods makes sense, but he can’t be too big in it all i.e. The reason the big 4 are who they are! Hashut deserves a place with the big four, not above them! Also, the chaos gods are not beings of darkness, they’re beings of emotion. All four of them have desire, rage, ambition, self-preservation, and covetous in them, it is just a matter of which one defines them more.
I think Ancient History’s first post is spot on. Hashut is not just greed… That would be too simple. It’s wanting what is clearly not yours ad justifying it. This also fits with the rebellion against Khorne fluff I have heard before.
However, one thing I’ve always thought a little bit is that Hashut may not actually be a chaos god, but a stranger deity that was always in the world. Magma is a strong theme, so it is as if he comes from inside the planet itself. He is a dark deity, but he is much more inside the mortal realm than the other four. Hashut could be the god of the world before light was on it’s surface… Hence the whole Father of Darkness. He is a night god to me, one that does not rely on emotions of his followers but is able to interact with them himself in a direct role. This fits with his discovery by the eastern dwarfs. Also, it fits with the fact that they are te Dawi Zharr, not the Dawi Chaos.
I think you’re all over-thinking it a bit. The Warhammer cosmology isn’t really that well-defined - intentionally so. Chaos and the Warp is very Moorcock in its conception, following no real pattern. There isn’t always a god of everything, and the gods don’t often fit into a balanced paradigm. Like “real” gods from human history, they just pop up at random, following no rhyme or reason. Hashut doesn’t necessarily fit into any kind of pantheon; he probably just exists because the Chaos Dwarfs worship him, and reflects their prejudices as they reflect his.
According to the Deamon rulebook, chaos gods could all be part of one and other. Slaanesh is described as an incarnation of the pleasure the other gods feel in their own fields. So is of no matter wich god represent what compare to the others. Hashut seem to represent the excess of the dwarf psyche. Love of craftmanship and prosperity turned into greed, violent posesion and industrial development regardless of the consequences.
I’ve always liked the idea of economy being the main difference between dwarfs and chaos dwarfs:
Dwarfs - medieval artists and guilds.
Chaos dwarfs - industrial furnaces and raw capitalism.
To keep things simple I may only touch very briefly on the whole ‘all gods are part of one god’ theory. It would get insanely complex for me to write the whole thing thinking that.
For Hashut to only exist as a ‘chaos Dwarf’ god would be one of those strange chicken or egg scenarios. I.e. they called out in their anguish and something answered. But the something would not exist unless the Aethyric being already had enough soul energy to give Hashut consciousness. The timeline from the gods point of view would be as if they had always existed (I believe), but from the warhammer timeline point of view they never go back in time I believe. It can’t exist before it existed, if you know what I mean. The only exceptions to this are demigods like Sigmar, Grimnir, Valaya etc. But I wasn’t planning on making Hashut a living being.
So that would not work as a creation explanation because of when Hashut appears in the timeline. Or rather it’s not how I will be approaching it as it would require a huge amount of thinking and explaining. Hashut will predate the chaos dwarfs.
It would be possible to do it that way if Hashut appeared after a thousand years into their timeline etc (as Sigmar, horned rat, 3 dwarf gods did).
@Thommy
A pantheon is just a list of gods is it not?
Technically speaking, there is an aethyric being for every single emotion. Most are not conscious gods and get swallowed into other beings.
It is, but the term has connotations of a coherent cosmology. When you speak of the “Greek Pantheon”, you’re talking about the Gods worshipped by the classical Greek culture, and generally not about the various foreign deities they may have adopted, or the minor variations from different regions, or the innumerable Hero Cults and animistic spirits worshipped locally. Furthermore, one would not talk about a “Pantheon of the Ancient World”, a kind of vast catalogue of all the gods and spirits worshipped across the world at a given point in history - that wouldn’t be a correct use of the term, but it would be literally “a list of gods”: gods which an open-minded thinker of the day might all believe to be real.
When you talk about a pantheon, you’re talking about a culture’s “family” of gods, or other mythological characters. I think that Warhammer, being a world in which gods are real, doesn’t fit into that kind of paradigm, because pantheons are for our world, in which gods aren’t real. So you have the big four Chaos Gods, and then an infinite number of lesser gods, greater daemons, spirits, spites, djinns, and who knows what else, all of which are both aspects of the Big Four and beings in their own right. Hashut is just one of these - he might be big, he might be small, he might be the god of this or the god of that, but I think that whatever he is won’t fit into any kind of coherent “family” of gods, like the Big Four.
I was just using the term loosely to refer to all gods, in liber chaotica it is the pantheon of men thinking about it. Clearly I will need to rethink that word, as the Chaos Dwarfs do not have a pantheon, just one god.
My point is basically to set the scene that hashut is not one of the big 4, but not just some tiny entity likely to be destroyed at any moment.
No, I’m not saying that either - but I think the unknowable nature of Warhammer gods, and the inherent anarchy of the cosmology, is one of the fun things about it. All gods are Chaos Gods, so they should be chaotic! They shouldn’t be easy to pigeon-hole, or to fit onto each point of an eight-pointed star. Some stuff just is.
Hello there…I 'm not writing much but i read a lot:D
Cool topic I like the greed stuff:D
First i must say No one of us has an idea from where Hashut came…we should ask to the first who wrote of him:D
I agree with Ancient hystory and Redhammer.
I feel (yes i’ve an emotional feeling about Hashut) he could be “greedy” for something he has been denied of!
My feel is He is a “earthly entity”…I mean a force of nature (the hot nucleus of the earth, red hot magma in an undergorund darkness) probably come to consciousness (or self awarness) during the opening of the gate to the Warp on the world…
So i suppose He existed from the very begin, but developed later. So He’s is not part of or in relation with the Chaos Gods…he doesen’t dwell in the Chaos realm, he has no daemons (for the moment)…but only living beings (Taurus: Lammasu is a CD creation, a magic crossbreed of a Cd and a Taurus)
Even if he cannot create (Creation is a a God’s Task), he still has a lot of power…but he can only corrupt, tranform (Same is told for Devil in christian tradition) taint…or enslave
This could explain why he waited in the darkness, Looking for someone to worship him,
Why changed the common dwarf (notably resiting to all magic, and even warpstone…but not to the power of Hashut) to be his personal “Carnival of chaos”
He also managed to get Dewarf to know and practice magic…
Probably Sacrifice is a way to increase his power (Blood for the Blood god, skulls for the throne of skulls)
He can enslave even daemons (daemon-binding technology)
So i Think that at least in His Opinion he’s been denied the right place as Father of all Chaos Gods
and he’s is on his way to get this! He want’s to be a proper God but he can’t yet!
Probably CDs are givin him a lot of respect calling him Father of all Darkness (he’s not but he wants to)
the Industrial stuff i think is something unexpected (or a secondary aspect) of the CDs …
In other words the greed has been transferred to the dwarf nature to enanche this aspect. But it was also a free area of influence…that Hashut could take.
Moreover if you make a comparison with our world…we have a strong dualistic concept of evil and good…we have god and have devil…
but in warhammer world The evil…is striclty related to human beings and their emotions, it lacks the supreme evil…the Dark One…the Lord of Darkness…In such a world there’s no place for a “Devil” or a Fallen Angel…or only a secondary role
Nagash is probably the closest thing to a “Devil” and has much in common with Hashut, even if they share a very different origin
I generally subscribe to Thommy H’s position. If you are looking to tie in the concept of Father of Darkness with something coherent, your suggestion concerning valuables being hidden in the dark underground is a valuable one. It could be expanded on, I suggest with emphasizing the duality of fire and shadow as a devotional motif. In example, in the Game of Thrones books, the God of Fire, Rhllor, also has shadows in his domain because shadows are cast by the flames.
Suppose you reverse that concept, and instead Hashut is the darkness, who keeps the fire for the shadows it casts, and the valuables it forges. For the darkness is deepest when cast by the brightest flame, yes? The motif of greed is also easily interwoven with both darkness and fire. Fire devours, consumes, and hungers. The darkness waits, and guards, and keeps for itself by concealment. The darkness as keeper of valuables could extend to non-material things as well, such as the explanation for the gift of sorcery, for those things hidden in darkness are under Hashut’s sway and how many arcane secrets have been hidden from the light?
Perhaps it could be extended even further to explain something like his totem. Perhaps when confronted with the living darkness before his revelation, his first discoverers offered sacrifice of a bull. The darkness tasted of it, and assumed its form. Then to see what became of their sacrifice, they hurled a torch after the bull, and the bull-shadow tasted of it, and devoured its essence. Forward from the light-less cavern strode the darkly burning bull-god, pleased by this sacrifice, to demand more in kind. Seeing that they could go out into the hateful day, Hashut pulled gifts from the dark places to bless them with, that they might go forth and drag yet more back into the burning, dark places whence his essence is thickest.
That was a fun bit to play with. Resonating with anyone else’s ideas?
2. I don’t think that Hashut came to “normal dwarfs” and said “hello I just corrupted Your brothers, so from now on call me father of darkness”.
3. This leads me to the conclusion that Hashut is a ancient dwarf “diety/devil/demon”. Imagine dwarfs still living in the Southlands, at the earliest stage of their race existence. They lived in some caves, simple underground systems, surrounded by darkness. In this darkness lurked the countless dangers of the only world they knew. As the Oldest Ones and/or Dwarf Ancestors emerged, times changed and those “bad demons” were forgotten, or regarded as entities unworthy of any mentioning or praise.
4. Similar idea was presented by Gav Thrope in his Malekith book. Nagarythe elves worshiped “ancient bloody/tribal gods”, cults that were long forbidden elsewhere.
I am currently writing about the symbolism behind things, or rather I was before I got a bit side tracked… So that stuff will certainly give me some ideas.
I’ve done lightning and the skull, I’ll rework ancient history’s explanation of the ziggurat.
Your ideas on the duality of flame and shadow are something I hadn’t really put a lot of thought into. The brighter the flame the darker the shadow (which actually sounds like a great title for a story…)
Lightning
Lightning is a very common symbol the Chaos Dwarfs use. For them it can represent various things. It may be representative of the magical storm that surrounded and created them during the time of chaos. It may also be seen to be not only a direct connection between gods and mortals, but symbolic of the raw power of Hashut in the mortal world. Another reason it may be popular amongst the Chaos Dwarfs is because in nature there are few forces more destructive and powerful than lightning, it is something that all mortal creatures would know the power of and fear. For the Chaos Dwarfs to use this they perhaps feel people will think it is symbolic of themselves, an apt comparison considering their views on the Lesser Races.
A particularly arrogant Chaos Dwarf may have lightning flowing outwards from their personal rule, or a skull, to symbolically represent the power they want their enemies to believe they have.
The skull
Skulls are extremely common symbols used throughout the Dark Empire, mainly because of the common associations of the power the Chaos Dwarfs have over the life and death of millions of slaves. The skull itself has long been seen as a dread reminder of death amongst even the most primitive of races.
The split skull has more obscure connections to Hashut. It may be depicted as splitting by natural means, perhaps to show the brutal dominating power the Chaos Dwarfs and Hashut by extension have over those they enslave. Used in combination with other symbols however opens up many more interpretations.
The split in the skull is often depicted as lightning. It is my belief that this represents a more direct connection with Hashut, the literal power to split skulls. Lightning is sometimes shown hovering about the skull, perhaps both a threat and warning of the power Hashut has.
@Gorim
Having primative worship of deities before the ancestor gods is certainly a route I could have taken but I’m pretty happy with it the way it is.
