Admiral:
[align=center]The Great Thunderbull[/align]
Far away, in between two great mountain ranges, there lies a vast place known as the Dark Lands, home to roaming Greenskins and monsters, ravenous Undead and the diabolical empire of Zharr-Naggrund and all her holdings. These Dark Lands are nothing short of hell on earth, and its violent inhabitants are its Daemons.
The wastes of the Dark Lands are torn by volcanic eruptions, sulphuric gases, earthquakes and ruthless Chaos Dwarf strip mining in the north. The skies of the Dark Lands are beset by the black and deadly smoke clouds created by Dawi Zharr industry, and frequently rent asunder by lightning storms that are more akin to the wrath of some hateful god than natural weather occurences. Perhaps indeed they are.
To the Blacksmiths of Chaos’ malignant minds and eyes, the thunder and lightning up in the sky are as sure a sign of high Hashut’s might as are His soaring Tauruses and Lammasus. The Father of Darkness is the supreme divinity for the Dawi Zharr, yet their cavalcade of cults and sects worship Him as a complex ultimate being of both oppression, dark forging and fire, as well as survival, cruelty and domination. For indeed it is said that the bull have more than one hoof.
One common and popular aspect of Hashut is that of the Great Thunderbull, also known under such titles as the Cleaver of Skulls, the Lightning Father, He Who Rapes the Earth, the Celestial Fire and the High Shatterer. In this aspect, Hashut is seen as both a violent god of thunder and lightning, and an inescapable destroyer of run-away slaves and fleeing foes. This is an important reason for the common use of lightning bolts and shattered skulls in Chaos Dwarf iconography. Another is the sheer power of lightning in nature, and the terror advantages of using cranial and lightning motifs to cow enemies and slaves alike.
The Dawi Zharr believes that when on high, their Dark God tramples across both the skies of the real world and the Realm of Chaos in the shape of the Great Thunderbull. Up here, His charge is thunder and His wrath is lightning, and in the Realm of Chaos he crushes everything in His path. The Thunderbull is noisy and devastating, and indiscriminating in His rampage.
This aspect of Hashut is widely believed to be echoed in the mining explosions and the artillery barrages for which the Chaos Dwarfs have become infamous. As such, the very act of detonating explosives or firing a rocket or cannon is in itself a devout act of worship, and there exists many a prayer and mantra to be recited for such occassions.
Indeed, the common Chaos Dwarf blunderbuss handgun is intentionally flared to magnify sound to obstreperous levels in honour of the Great Thunderbull and for the terror visited upon the foe. Even the overbearing noise of Iron Daemons and the machines and heavy labour of Dawi Zharr industry bears a small connection to the holy Lightning Father. The rumbling charges of Bull Centaurs and the Taurus race are likewise seen as earthly proof of the Thunderbull’s divine power, and some musical instruments used by the Chaos Dwarf empire’s Legions are designed to mimic the might of thunder or a stampeding bull.
Those slaves who cannot withstand the ear-shattering reality of toiling for the Dawi Zharr overlords will eventually turn deaf. Slaves without hearing is still of some value to the Chaos Dwarfs and their subordinate Hobgoblin taskmasters, provided those slaves still can perform their simple, menial labour and understand instructions relayed as much by whip and gesture as by voice. Yet they are believed to be marked for doom by the Great Thunderbull, for one day they will outlive their usefulness.
Every Dawi Zharr knows that a deaf slave is soon a death’s slave, yet even so the thrall who turns deaf might have glimpsed salvation from his torment when the overpowering noise of their industrial hell became lost entirely on their ragged ears. For the hell ruled by the Blacksmiths of Chaos is a realm where thunder is eternal, whether it comes from on high or from on low.
Such is the hymn of the Great Thunderbull.