Admiral:
[align=center]
The Shackled Consorts of the Bull God[/align]
The Chaos Dwarf mindset is dominated by the might and decrees of Hashut and his chosen Prophets on the world beneath Chaos. To them, the Father of Darkness is an overpowering figure of not only mythology, but everyday life. His harsh judgement and cruelty awaits anyone who would cheat with their temple tribute or otherwise stray from the true path. Hashut is the one god worshipped by the Dawi Zharr, yet he is not alone to be shown respect.
In their mythology, the Chaos Dwarfs envision Hashut as their own tribal god amongst the Dark Gods of Chaos, and as such they only make passing adorations to the four grand divinities of the Chaos pantheon, namely Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle and Slaanesh. Other Chaos deities, including Malal, may be offered some small devotion at best, but are more often than not little more than concentration spots in the Realm of Chaos for the harvest of Daemons, or even a source of raw material as a string of unfortunate Daemon Princes found out to their loss; immortality may be spent in a prison shaped like a weapon or cannon. It’s not all bliss just because you never truly die.
More focus is instead reserved for the many lesser figures of Chaos Dwarf religion, including the seven founders of the Brotherhood of Hashut, as well as famous holy men and Prophets of history and indeed living ones. Daemons are an ever-present part of Dawi Zharr consciousness, and their myths are filled with them, both lesser and greater. Chaos Dwarf medicine is even geared to exorcise particular types of Daemons tormenting the sick with certain ailments. Concerning the perils of Daemonsmithing, who can say if they are wrong to believe so?
Certain mythical Daemons are often invoked during spellcasting or conjuration of Daemons, and many of those Daemons invoked for rituals spend their days locked in arcane prisons, half in the Empyrean, half in the most forbidden depths of the Temple of Hashut. Should the Temple ever fall and these mystical cages be broken, then a maelstrom of damnation worse than the inferno of hell would befall the Dawi Zharr, yet the Blacksmiths of Chaos care little for such hazards.
One minor aspect of Chaos Dwarf religion which is nevertheless of some importance to the common people, is the belief in the Shackled Consorts of the Bull God. This is a body of nine holy and one unholy female demigoddesses bound to Hashut.
Various beliefs about their origin exist. Some sects claim them to be enslaved and reforged Daemons (what kind of Daemons are another matter of conflicting opinions), others argue that they are ascended Cow Centaurs chosen by Hashut for their perfect beauty and cruelty. The most common belief, however, is in that of the ten lost sisters.
According to the myth, the ten daughters of a forgotten Sorcerer-Prophet were once taken in a grand procession to the Temple of Hashut, never to be seen again. The ten sisters had been chosen for their virtues, including stern childrearing, humility in front of their fathers and (former) husbands, harsh punishments to slaves and industriousness. Each sister excelled in one particular female virtue of Dawi Zharr society, and they had been chosen by the priesthood because Hashut demanded wives from the ranks of His worshippers.
They were taken inside the holy of holies, and there a mysterious ritual was undertaken, lasting for a whole month and exhausting three Sorcerer-Prophets to the point of death. Thousands of slaves were sacrificed, and the ten sisters bathed in slave blood and ate slave flesh together with the sacred Temple guardians, the Bull Centaurs.
The amount of ritual components grew as large as they grew bizarre. K’daai spirits were said to cook the guts-covered bloodbaths of the submerged sisters whilst a Lammasu flew through the hall, reciting gibberish incantations gathered in the far north from mad sorcerors, whilst exhaling fumes of enchanted incense.
Outside the large Temple, hordes of Chaos Dwarfs would one day cover themselves in ash and sacrifice one slave each whilst singing dirges, hungry until nightfall. The next day they would don their best hats, gabble mad rhymes and whirl like tops through the streets for hours at end, before the husbands carried their wives on their shoulders in a grand parade flanked by the revered guard unit, the Immortals, carrying torches and Orc skulls carved with magical invocations. Slave blood ran in rivers as Zharr-Naggrund seemed to turn insane.
Whilst the religious and sorcerous ritual hysteria grew in power, the ten sisters began to hear the voice of the Father of Darkness, their betrothed. Soon they could smell Him. Then they could feel Him. At last, as a coven of acolytes shaved their own beards at the fiery altar in an act of ultimate sacrifice, the ten women could see Hashut, covering their whole field of vision. It was said He was every bit as mighty to behold as was His feared idols.
What happened then, when the ten sisters passed from this world into becoming Hashut’s wives, is something of a mystery. Opinions diverge. Some cults claim that they melted into lava and sank without a trace left behind into the obsidian floor. Others think the Prophets sacrificed the women in the altar flames to let them reach a higher level of existence.
Most, however, believe that a fell Daemonic possession took place, whereupon the possessed women’s flesh was reforged, just like Daemonforged iron is hammered into armour upon the shackled anvil. They were turned into half flesh, half metal creatures shaped like bovine females wreathed in shadow and flame, and not a trace of their Dwarfen ancestry remained visible. They then transcended to the Father of Darkness whilst at the same time being locked for all time inside ensorcelled pens beneath the Temple of Hashut.
Yet one sister, Matzhkra, turned utterly insane in the process. Noone knows what her original virtue had been, but when the priesthood (and Hashut Himself) had finished breaking her and shackling her to the floor with chains engraved by Daemon claws, she had become Matzhkra the Leaden Trampled, the Slave Concubine of Hashut. Her tormented wailing is believed to be audible a split second before Daemonsmiths succesfully opens an Empyrean portal to hunt Daemons with sorcery.
Matzhkra the Trampled is widely believed to symbolize slavery, yet she also have a hidden meaning. The nine wives of Hashut are thought to be heifers, not cows (though some contradictory, popular legends about the Herd of Ten’s offspring with the Bull God also exist), while Matzhkra’s status is unclear. She is clearly the enslaved concubine of Hashut, yet the question of her being the demigoddess mother of Bull Centaurs and even Great Tauruses is one theological point which divides the many Chaos Dwarf sects.
What is clear and agreed upon, however, is that Matzhkra in her hidden meaning represents the Dawi Zharr, the race which is already dominated by Hashut, whilst the nine consorts represents the rest of the world’s races, those who are to be dominated by Him. Sayings, such as “the Old World is nought but a heifer to be mounted by the Great Bull God”, originates from this belief.
Yet in the fell forging of the ten sisters into the shackled herd of Hashut, a mythological connection to not only fertility, marriage and domination was established, but also to metals and geology. For the Chaos Dwarfs believe that each of these holy bovine females and their specific virtues are associated with one metal each, which streams in a molten flow from their udders into the Dark Lands generally and particularly into the Plain of Zharr, the great crater unsurpassably rich in minerals.
Thus it was was that the ten lost sisters became the Shackled Consorts of the Bull God, bound forever to His destiny, shackled by their overpowering husband yet still of some potent meaning to Chaos Dwarf families and women. To some cults, the wives of the Father of Darkness possesses a small portion of his ability to ward off evil spirits, and are as such called upon to thwart Daemons. Yet it is said in Zharr-Naggrund that the combined power of the nine wives of Hashut is not enough to challenge His left back hoof.
Their names are associated with the virtues of the Rinn’Zharr, and some of them, like Ulkzhana the Golden Fertile and Kertuli-Ma the Copper Rearer of Tuskbabes, are called upon during the difficult time of childbirth, something of immense importance to both Dawi Zharr society and empire. The spirit of Azhursag the Iron Ferocious is called upon when Chaos Dwarf women need to form ranks and partake in battle, whilst industrious and hardy maidens are favourably compared to Harzhkigal the Titanic Tough.
None of the wives of Hashut, not even the shunned concubine Mazhkra, exemplify a meek and docile character, for such weakness is frowned upon by the Chaos Dwarfs. It just isn’t ladylike.
