Adeptus Ridiculous - DWARFS: THAT’S GOING IN THE BOOK! | Warhammer Fantasy Lore

Episode Date: September 29, 2024

https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculoushttps://www.adeptusridiculous.com/https://twitter.com/AdRidiculoushttps://orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculousThe Dwarfs, or the Dawi as they call themselves in their tongue of Khazalid, also called the "Elder Race" by Men, and sometimes as the "Dwarfen Mountain Holds" when referring to their kingdoms as a whole, are one of the oldest and proudest intelligent mortal races of the Known World, with a great wealth of history and power that stretches back to time immemorial. They once held an empire which stretched from Norsca in the north to the jungles in the Southlands, and from Mount Silverspear in the east to the Grey Mountains in the west.Support the show

Everybody to the realm of ridiculous, where we talk about Warhammer fantasy and why elves are cringe. Before we get started on today's episode, if you enjoy this podcast and you want to support us, check out patreon.com slash adeptives ridiculous. And also, if you're interested, you can do a free trial by using many of the various options like Apple, Google, and so on. And if you like it, you can continue to support. And if not, hey, we did our best. check it out, get access to the Discord, all kinds of cool posters, bloopers that they happen, and so on. This might be a blooper. We're going to find out soon. And also check out the merch down in the description at Orkinate.com. It's a great place to get merch, and there's lots of it. And in fact, there's a lot of new merch coming soon. Keep your eye out. October is going to be a big one. Oh, is it a spooky one by any chance? Because it's October. Is there any movies or anything else?

There's actually going to be a lot of things in October. We got a lot of options. I like it. I like it. I like it. Many a thing. So. Okay.

Okay. So Patreon.com slash at that's ridiculous and orchidate.com. D.K. It's me. Hi. What's up? Hello. Good morning.

Good morning, everyone. I am, I have been great. How have you been? Oh, you know, just the usual stressing out over this episode. Because it's probably going to be. be a pretty big one, you know, no big deal, just having a sort of, you know, inner crisis, you know, the usual, you know. That's actually quite interesting that you say that, because as far as I'm concerned,

I always thought this one's going to be a, uh, a rather short one. Short! I'm not going to react to that. How dare you? How dare you? On the dwarf episode, make a short joke. How dare you? Don't, no.

No. But as you know, and I think as everybody knows, we are covering the dwarfs. today, also known as the Dawi. I hope I said that right in their native language of Kazalid. And something about today's episode, there are a lot

of sub-factions of dwarves. There are tons of like important characters. But today, guys, we're kind of just doing like an overview of the dwarfs. So don't expect like long memoir memoirs on like

Gatrick and Felix because I guarantee P-U, they and a certain angry bunch of dwarfs are going to get their own episode later down the line. And also a bunch of the branching off factions of the dwarfs probably will too. So just want to get that out of the way real quick. Gottrigger Felix, the duo that everyone seems to love, right? Oh, yeah. Everybody in Warhammer Fantasy loves Gottrick and Felix. Rightfully so, because they are, they're bad.

It's a good bad Like they will They they get they get shit done Okay I don't know anything about them So this is all like something I'm unaware of yet curious Yeah

But we'll get there They look like a like a metal rock band Wait is one of the dudes a human Uh yeah I think Felix is a human Oh I thought it was two dwarves Is shy is I said we weren't gonna talk a lot about

Cotrican Felix But I just want Is Felix from Britonia at all? Just because I saw a thing where it was like, oh yeah, because Gautrick is a slayer. And we'll talk about slayers in a little bit. And I was reading that they really love pairing up with Britonian, I think it's quest takers.

And I wasn't sure if that's how Gatrick and Felix got their thing. He's from the empire. Okay, well, there you go. That's how much I know. But anyway, so I think, as we learned in the intro, I think most people have a search. mental image of a dwarf. And it's basically the same in Warhammer fantasy. The dwarves are kind of this short and stout race of powerful miners and crafters.

And they're specifically said to have arms and legs as thick as a tree trunk. And they have these ridiculously long beards. They have this deep sense of loyalty to their kin. Their heritage and their bloodline is very important to them, as is anyone who has gained their choice. trust. And naturally, because of their size, now strong they are, they make just naturally really good, just miners and craftsmen. And it said the dwarfs praise three things above all else. Age, wealth, and skill. Age, wealth, and skill. So, okay. I mean, this is Warhammer Fantasy. So

this is what a dwarf, like, should be in a sense. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's what you expect from a dwarf really. And because of that, a lot of their crafting skills and the people who do them, they're based on guilds. Like one specific guild handles weapons or armor.

They have a guild specifically for brewing ale. Hell yeah. Yep, there's an engineer's guild. I think the largest guild is usually the Warriors Guild. There's a run-smith guild, stuff like that. And some of these guilds, like I think the

Rune Smith Guild belongs to basically one specific family clan. So if you're born into that clan that's like, yeah, we own this guild, like we own the weapon smithing guild, then chances are you are growing up and you are going to learn how to craft weapons or run stuff because you are going to follow in the footsteps of your family ancestry, because that is huge to dwarfs. And clans are kind of exactly what you'd expect. Like generally speaking, that's your family, that's your pack, that's who you run with. And clans are, like, they trace their lineage all the way back to being like direct descendants of the founding dwarfs,

who we'll talk about in a little bit, or like if you've got a lineage that has the royal blood of a king, then naturally your clan is of much higher standing and of much more importance. Some clans don't really have great standing because their lineage is just like I mean, like I don't want to say their lineage is nothing, but it's not like their lineage found a city, it's not like they had a king, it's not like they did something really important, and usually they kind of act as just like wandering traders,

they just go from city to city trading their wares and stuff. And the absolute lowest class you can get is if you are just a straight-up, exile that has been disgraced and banished from a dwarf hold. So, right, because not being a part of your kin and family is like the biggest blow. Yep, yep, nothing could be worse. Well, basically nothing. Also, naturally the dwarves are very fond of their beards.

And their beards generally show their status and their age. So the longer your beard is, the more respected and wise the dwarf is. And the wealthier you get, sometimes dwarf will really like bling out their beards with like these metal clasps and trinkets and stuff to really show like look at how long my beard is. Look at how just, oh, immaculate my beard is. I'm so wise. I've lived for so long.

And from what I could gather, female dwarfs kind of the same, except they worry about the length of the braids in their hair. And I was looking over the dwarf codex, and they have this interesting little blurb that's like, should a dwarf ever be like confused? Man, I don't know what to do. I don't know where I'm going. I need guidance. Essentially what they do is they look for the dwarf with the longest beard, and they're just like,

brother, what do I do? You've got the long beard. You've got the knowledge. You've got the wisdom. You've got the experience. Tell me, what should I be doing? And the younger dwarfs, the ones that have either no beard or like, you know, they're just starting to grow it in. They're called beardlings, which is this really demeaning title, like kind of like how you'd see a kid.

Oh, hey, kiddo. Hey, champ. It's kind of like it has that same vibe to it because I got that short beard. They don't have any, like, clout yet. Sure. And conversely, the older dwarves are called long. Beards or gray beards for obvious reasons. Yep.

Like once your beard hits the floor, yo, that's like king shit. And everybody looks up to you and respects you. Is that, I'm assuming, never mind. I was like,

that sounds like a hazard, but I honestly don't know if it matters. I think when it hits the floor, they have been known to maybe like, um, fold it up a little bit or like, tie it up so that maybe they don't like, they're not like constant like tripping over it.

It's not getting in the way of like swinging their arms around and it's not like getting in the way of their daily tasks. So they'll probably like braid it and like put like a clasp on it or something. Like, okay, you can tell it's really long. But like, look, I still have to function. Right. Damn, look at that beard. Oh, yeah.

Even his beard has axes. Yep, yep. That's, uh, that picture specifically is a slayer. and we will talk about them because there's something else. I don't know much about dwarf slayers, but though I do know that I want to like the

Cathonian berserks which are like melee axe wielding Voton in 40K I believe that was supposed to be like their stand in for the slayer dwarves but I don't know a ton about them so we'll talk about them for sure

something else. I was reading was because of how strong dwarven kinship is. They are like one of if not, if not the most unified races in the entire fantasy world. And it's because of that and just their nature and

how much they're unified that it's believed that they'll probably endure longer than any other fantasy race. They'll always pull themselves up from the gutter and no matter what gets thrown at them, they will always persevere.

And boy, does the fantasy world love throwing shit at the dwarfs? We'll get into that. And, of course, I'm sure you already know. But the dwarves are big on their oaths, and they are really big on their grudges. When it comes to an oath, a dwarf will do everything in his power. to make sure that he upholds a sworn oath to the bitter end. Even if it comes at great personal cost to them, the oath must be upheld.

Like, I was reading that even if an oath was sworn by, like, say your great, great-grandfather, he makes this oath that like, oh, yeah, my family will always have your back. Or like, oh, yeah, you know, I'll pay you back or something. even if the dwarf that made that oath dies, it is still up to the current generation to make sure that that oath is upheld.

Even if the oath giver has long since died, it is still your responsibility. It is still your family's responsibility to make sure that oath is seen to the bitter end. So I guess like your father, I don't know, it does like a major oath against someone or something. And then you are like, all right, well, got to be a part of this. Yep.

Like if it's a loyalty pact and you're like, oh, God, but I hate that other clan. It's like, doesn't matter. Your father's father made an oath to them. We're going to uphold that oath because we are not heathens. I feel like someone's going to be saddled with some crap because of that. Actually, I don't think too many people get saddled. with overwhelmingly awful things because dwarves are usually pretty good to

each other so Is this oath only to other dwarves? Pretty much Okay because I thought I was like my oath Other races they will like if they make an oath to you They will uphold it Well that's what I'm trying to figure out like like maybe I'm confusing the idea of the oath But my first thought basically went like

Ah my oath is to kill every elf And it's like, okay. Okay, like a revenge oath, you know? Fair or no. Yeah, yeah, sure. Sure, revenge oaths are a thing where it's like, oh yeah, I swear to you that I will like, take revenge because the elf killed our father and we will not rest until, you know, it's dead or we're repaid, sure. But I feel like that falls more into like almost grudge territory, right?

because that's also the other big thing that dwarves are into, right? It's the grudges, right? They hold their grudges. And just because it's basically the same as an oath where it's like even if the dwarf who bore the grudge died, that doesn't mean that the grudges wiped clean. It's sort of like the sins of the father are the sins of the son. You have to make it right where your ancestor failed to make it right. So I feel like those like revenge oaths, maybe more like a grudge, right?

That's more grudge territory. And likewise, if you do make an oath with a dwarf, like you and the dwarf agree to this oath, you damn sure are expected to uphold it the same way a dwarf would uphold it for you. So if you make that oath with the dwarf, be careful because they will expect you to keep it and their children will expect you to keep it and their children's children will expect you to keep it so so do you ever get the situation of like a human

who does a work or some kind of pact like that and then the humans like oh I didn't realize what I signed up for you know I think I think this is more in the grudge territory but I remember I forget whose video I was watching but they were telling about this specific instance where the humans had made like

I don't know, an oath or something like, hey, you know, we promise we'll pay you X amount of dollars or coins for this work. And essentially that's like, oh yeah, you're making an oath with me. And I think they were like maybe a couple gold coins short. Shouldn't have been that big of a deal. And apparently the dwarfs were none too happy about it and they like raised the city to the ground. Oh. And I mean, oh, okay. Yeah, because you broke the oath. You didn't. pay us what you said you were going to pay us. We got into a deal. You reneged on the deal. Now we almost

see this oath as a grudge. And now we are taking our pound of flesh where you forgot to pay us. Wait, I'm sorry. What was that term you used? Renegged? Yeah. That is. I've never heard that word in my life. That's okay. I'm old. I'm just, I just, all right, damn. All right. All right. And also, it's important to note that in a dwarf's eye, if you disrespect one member of the clan, congratulations, you have disrespected all of them. So you've got to be careful around dwarfs with what you say and what you do and what owes you you make or you break. Because if you dare, insult, dishonor, annoy a dwarf, well, my friend, that could. very easily go into the Great Book of Grudges.

And that's your segue for the well-known and loved great book of grudges. Uh-huh. The Great Book of Grudges. A book that has been passed down from Dwarven King, Dwarven High King to Dwarven High King, listing all the grievances that have ever been done to the Dwarven race. And each of these grudges is written in the High King's blood. Oh, God, I didn't know that part. Yeah, it's serious, dude.

And it is only the high king of the dwarves that can add or strike items from the Book of Grudges. And as you can imagine, the Book of Grudges is the oldest book in dwarf history. I think I either read or heard someone say that this thing is well over 4,000 years old. And it's written in blood And it's written in blood It's written in King's blood All the marks against the Dwarven Racer in there Also do you remember Caledore 2

From the War to the Beer The War of the Beard He's the main dude Who like killed the elf that was grovelling at his feet Or was he the guy that got his beard cut off He was the Phoenix King That allowed all that to happen And ordered the beard to be cut off

Oh he was the elf. Apparently, Caledore the second, he had over 400 entries in the book of grudges. Can you imagine how much blood he would have to spill specifically for this one guy? Yeah, the high kings are just like, guys, look, can we just switch to ink? I'm running out. I would love, absolutely love, the. somehow the ability for us to to be able to quantify the like pints of blood

that was required specifically for this one guy I do too I wish I wish they could like oh yeah it was like four gallons of blood it's like holy Jesus and while a lot of grudges in the book are like serious crimes

against the dwarf dwarfs dwarfs there are also some like really comical ones that I found on the wiki. Like, there was this Britonia that was put in the book of grudges because he kept needlessly wasting time with the dwarfs with pointless formalities.

Okay. That was his grudge. Someone also got put in the great book of grudges because he refused to drink Dwarven ale for a drinking competition and instead forced a dwarf to drink wine for the contest

instead. Okay. I, I, first I was like, oh, whatever, but then that second part makes a lot more sense. Right. And it was determined that he goes into the book because, wow, what a massive waste of time. We were drinking wine when we could have been drinking Dwarven ale into the book. Wait, wait. He went there because, wait, they put him in the book because he was forced to drink just not.

I thought it was like he forced to drink wine, but it sounds to me more like it's because they wasted his time with like mediocre. liquor. Basically. Yeah, it's like, we could have spent that time drinking Dwarven ale and you made me drink wine? Into the book. That's so funny and very petty. To be fair, that that grudge supposedly will only stand and it'll get wiped out as soon as the offender apologizes and admits to the superiority of Dwarven ale. Why would you put like your thing in blood if all you have to do is be like, I'm sorry, Dwarvenail is better? know, that's one thing I love about Warhammer fantasy is how, like, tongue and cheek

they're willing to be, where it's just, like, the great book of grudges has, like, you wasted my time with inferior alcohol. I just, I kind of love how, like, petty it is. And to be fair, to dwarves, their ale is really important to them. That is true. You are right. The alcohol is drinking is very, very important. I'm saying Dwarven Ale is petty bricky? Are you saying it's not important? I do love, I do love this, like, just how much they're, they're, I agree about it. And I was, again, I was looking over the codex, and I found it funny because there is specifically a line there when it's talking about the great book of grudges, and they're like, you know, not a lot of grudges get stricken

from the book because, and their line was essentially, well, let's be honest, it's a lot more fun to hold a grudge than it is to forgive one. So that's, you know, they just, they think it's fun. They think it's fun. So also something I found really interesting about the dwarves is apparently they do not celebrate war at all. Like generally, if there is a war party that's heading out to battle, like you would assume that the dwarfs would be like, oh yeah, they'd be hooping and hollering and yeah,

let's go. We're going to a fight. But apparently it's a very very. entirely like sort of somber and solemn affair. Um, because from what I've gathered, like they love making weapons of war. And they know how to use them really well,

but they don't love fighting. Like they don't love going to war. Like, they'll fight you if they have to. But really, they'd rather kind of avoid it. So the craftsmen more than anything. Yeah.

Their craftsmen more than anything. Uh, wait, even the Slayer dwarves? Well, Slayer dwarfs are a loo. That's fine. Little different. They're kind of an outlier, to be fair. But again, we'll talk about them. I heard the well, and I was like, all right, never mind. I got the point. Yeah. Another, like, pretty

important fact about the dwarves that I was not super aware of is that they can't, like, they can't use natural magic. They can craft magical weapons and armor using, like, runestones, but only, like, runesmiths can craft those. Dwarves can't cast spells. And I think they literally just can't even person. the winds of magic. And I saw a quote, I think it was on the wiki that specifically they can't because their ancestors had the good common sense to see that magic, you know, magic is just really weird.

And it is entirely too hard to control. It's too unpredictable. Like even in the best of times, it's like, oh, yeah, I sort of did what I wanted to do. And in the worst of times, it will just like completely corrupt you, rip you apart, and just really like, oh, whoops, accidentally summoned a greater demon. So they just don't use magic. They can't use magic.

They actually have decent immunity to magic as well, which is sort of going to be our, like, transition into the origins of the dwarves. Because like we've said in previous fantasy episodes, it's like the old ones who basically seeded the fantasy world with all of these lesser races, like the humans, the elves, the elves and of course the dwarves. And I've heard that the reason that they can't use magic or resist magic isn't because their ancestors. Well, it's probably also because they're ancestors, but also because the old ones wanted them

to be much more resilient to like chaos. Like they didn't want the dwarves to be susceptible to chaos corruption. So it was by design by the old ones. They're like, no. No magic. No. I mean, that that makes a lot of sense with my kind of like initial thoughts on dwarves. They're they're all about like, not necessarily like safety, I guess, but it's all very like controlled.

Oh yeah. Yep, yep. They're craftsmen. They want to control everything and this magic stuff just too unpredictable. Sure. Yeah. That makes sense from the concept point of view. Yep.

Also, the dwarves end up worshipping what they call the ancestor gods, which. consist of like so they call them the ancestor gods if they're not actually like gods they were actual like the first living ancestors that led the dwarves in the early days

there are three main ones you have grungni who is like they're sort of mining crafting and smithing god grim near who is basically more or less they're god of war

and then you have Valiah, who's the goddess of like healing, home, hearth, and like the brewing of ales. So she's like, you know, sort of this motherly goddess figure to the dwarfs. This sounds about, yeah, Shai said like, hey, this is basically just Dragon Age. And I'm like, yeah, I was thinking that a little bit. It's a little bit like Dragon Age. Is that how drag, I haven't played Dragon Age origins and probably like, oh, over a decade, which...

Same. So I didn't remember that. And actually, oddly enough, apparently, Valiah is the wife of both Grungni and Grimnir, who are also brothers. So... It's a little weird. You know, you know,

we learned about the elves, than the dark elves before. Yeah. I'm just going to let the role this one. one out and just let it roll. Yeah, we'll just let that roll. You know, their ancestor gods. It's, it's fine. And very much, uh, unlike sort of like the elven pantheon where it's like gods and stuff. Like I said before, ancestor gods were actually once like flesh and blood, uh, mortals. They did real deeds. They founded real things. And the dwarfs believed that they're, that the spirit

of these ancestor gods are always kind of like watching over them and guiding them, right? And it's always kind of weird with fantasy, because like you have these like origin points with the old ones, like, oh yeah, we seated them. And oh, yeah, you know, we're the old ones. We taught them everything we needed to know. And then, like, the factions end up having, like, these deities that, like, aren't the old ones.

And it's always kind of weird to me. Because, like, you think the dwarves be like, oh, yeah, we're just going to worship the old ones because they taught us everything. And it's always kind of this weird, like, you kind of have to connect the dots and be like, oh, yeah, the old ones. probably taught the ancestor gods everything they know about dwarf culture, crafting, smithing, magic, all that stuff. The ancestor gods go on and teach everyone all they need to know. The old ones disappear. Old ones get forgotten. And it kind of just becomes,

hooray! The ancestor gods taught us everything we know, right? So I guess, yeah, I guess I kind of thought they would also not necessarily worship the old ones, but at least like kind of. It's wee bits. Like it would at least be in their story somewhere, right? Because it's like they're the ones that taught the ancestor gods. But yeah, I feel like once the old ones bailed, they kind of just get forgotten a little bit. And just everybody just kind of goes off and worships their own like pseudo deities and stuff. Don't the lizard guys still worship them?

Oh, that's true. The lizard men kind of do still worship the old ones. That's right. A lot of their temples and stuff are to worship the old. old ones and yeah, that's true. That's fair. Hey, look at you. I remember. You're so fantasy-filled.

Oh, that's not go too far. Okay. And it was these early ancestors that would eventually lead the dwarfs to their home in the World's Edge, World's Edge Mountain where they would find a vast wealth of minerals.

And you got your usual suspects, gold, silver, iron, stuff like that. But there's also this really cool mineral called Gromril, which is the toughest material in the fantasy world, and it's best suited for rune stone, weapons, and armor. Does it, like, conduct with magic or something like that? I think it's just because it's just so tough and it's just so strong that, like, hey,

we want to make that even better with, like, ruin stuff. And it's like, now you are really, really super strong. But yeah, Gromrille essentially, like, think. Mithril. Gromril, Mithril. Kind of the same idea. I read that

as because Shai posted it in all caps. It's Mithril. G.W. stole Mithril from Lord of the Rings. This didn't... Isn't every fantasy property of all time

of Lord of the Rings rip, though? You know, I feel like that's probably fair. Like, Lord of the Rings is to fantasy. What, like, Dune is to sci-fi. Or is it... Or is it Lord of the Rings was...

The Lord of the Rings... put our basis for fantasy, or was there a basis for fantasy that Lord of the Rings, like, basically solidified? I don't remember. If there was one before Lord of the Rings, I feel like that one's just been, like, kind of forgotten to time, and the one

that most people will, like, use as a basis as Lord of the Rings. I don't remember. I don't remember if it was like Lord of the Rings was written way back of the day, and this was, like, the first time for the stuff, but uh, oh, yes, of course, shy. All fantasy and this is inspired

of Lord of the Rings. rings except rings of power show, which is inspired by the shit I took the other day. I'm glad that we've cleared that up. Excellent. Well, touch. But it was inside the world's edge mountains that the dwarves would start making their holes, their cities. In their language, they call them Kareks.

And the dwarves would sort of colonize the inside of the world's edge mountain. And so they would, they would like, they'd get inside and they would kind of dig these tunnels and they'd like oh man this spot is just prime for like harvesting gold and so we're going to build this really intricate sort of um they're building a character and it's like okay this carrick is dedicated to harvesting uh gold and they go way deep i think their minds are literally called the deeps um and they just go way down and their whole big cities are built around these sort of holds. So they go from point to point in the World's Edge Mountain,

they start making holds. And certain holds are, you know, maybe they'll specialize in engineering because the materials are better for them. Maybe they'll specialize in weapons because, oh, this hold maybe has a little more, there's some grom real here. So surely the run smith guild

and like the Weaponsmith guild needs to be here. So little by little, they just sort of colonize. they make an underway in the World's Edge Mountain. Terraria looking landscape, a little bit. Yeah, it kind of does. And these tunnels from Kara to Karak are like labyrinths.

And specifically, because the underway can be a little treacherous, right? You never really know what you're going to encounter down there. So they try to make sure that these tunnels in the underway are guarded by this elite group of dwarfs known as the iron breakers. And they are covered from head to toe

in the finest to Gromril armor. There is no safer place to be in the underway tunnels than with the iron breakers. So if you're going to go from Carrack to Carrick and you're doing your trade route, it's like, well, let's maybe make sure there's an iron breaker on guard duty because, you know, I mean a little treacherous.

The Iron Breakers, like, hired, or they just kind of folks that are down there, like, doing their thing? They're, like, the craziest warriors, and their job is literally guard the tunnels. Okay. Yeah. And the sort of... Oh, they're tough. It's a tough dude. Oh, yeah.

You don't mess with the Iron Breakers. And the sort of central hub, the capital, the crown jewel of the underway is known as Keras, a Karek. I am probably butchering these, sorry, which means ever peak in the Dwarven language. And this capital city has literally never fallen in Dwarven history. It has never fallen into enemy hands. Is that the, oh, geez, that's a serious keep. Yeah, it is a big, big deal. I believe, I might repeat this in a second, but the, in more modern times,

they literally just don't open the main gates because this is like this is the place where everybody is like safe it can't fall they never open it unless there is a massively huge thing going on those gates stay closed and the dwarves in keras a karek stay safe but i'll probably talk about that in a little bit anyway um so yeah in in these kareks in the world's edge mountain This is where the dwarves are just tirelessly digging, mining, making materials, making the greatest weapons in creation. And each Karak gets a king to rule over the hold.

Make sure they're doing what they're supposed to be doing. They're producing as they should, mining as they should. And generally speaking, there aren't too many, like, tyrannical dwarf kings. Because they have a council of elders, too, to sort of help, like, advise them. and council of elders made up of like important guild leaders, priests, and any dwarf who reaches the age of 150

is immediately put into the council of elders. Because again, age super important. You've got experience. You've got wisdom. Let's go. Yeah. Oh, damn. That is badass.

Holy. Yep. Dwarves are not messing around. And of course, because, uh, because, uh, The other great thing about the council of elders is even a dwarf king who's like, oh, yes, I am the highest and mightiest. Even a dwarf king won't look at the council of elders and see all of these older generations to be like, no, I'm not taking your advice.

Even the king is like, you know what? You're respected. You're wise. I will take your advice to heart. So, I mean, consider like, okay. So maybe you're getting here, but I do have to ask, it seems to me that with the exception of the book of grudges. The dwarves seem to be relatively reasonable people that almost scream protagonist territory here.

Absolutely. I would agree. They are generally very reasonable people. If you don't disrespect them and you don't disrespect their family, they are absolutely super reasonable people. Right. But disrespecting does include saying that Dwarven Ale is. like not good

true but it's not like they're gonna like take a like they'll put you in the book of grudges for funzies but it's not like they're gonna like hunt you down and kill you for that either is that not what you do in the book of grudges I mean as long as the dude apologizes and says Dwarven ale is good they'll be like hey that's fine I always assume the book of grudges is like a hit list

eh like there are ways to get off of it without you know but like shy said they're reasonable until you piss them off and then they become the worst's most unreasonable asshole. Okay, fair enough. Okay, okay. I guess maybe I assumed otherwise because, like, I thought it was kind of like a hit list.

It was like, hey, you know, people in the book of grudges, like, we're going to, like, kill them. I mean, that is the case a lot of times. Like, they will, but no. Well, one of them is just, just has to say sorry. So, like, that's why I'm a little bit like, maybe I was a little bit off. Yeah, but also what's super nice about dwarf lore is in previous episodes,

we've kind of already touched on like the heavy hitter moments. So a lot of this can just be like nice and sort of quickly summarized. Like we know for the most part during like the great catastrophe when you got these big nasty chaos portals going everywhere, the dwarves kind of just were like, ah, you know what? Let's just shut the doors and let everybody else deal with this and will come out when everything's cool. It's so funny that they did that. It's just, you know, I don't really feel like this is a good place to be. all right, close the shutters.

Yeah, pretty much. But as it turns out, the ancestor god of war Grimnear was actually like not content to sit back in his hold and he would actually go out and fight off hordes of chaos in order to like try and protect his kin.

It's also said that Grunni, who invented like runestone and runestone smithing, specifically made Grimnear like these two really cool like run stone axes so he could properly fight off chaos. And Grimnir would stop me if this sounds familiar. He would shave off all of his hair except one single solitary red mohawk,

covered in tats, two big axes, and he would stand before a chaos gate all by himself, where it is said that he killed demons and held off chaos. until the elves could complete their vortex and drive off chaos for good. Okay, so the dude literally just like sat there and like took his shirt off and basically we just like basically like a goddamn movie. Yeah, and basically beat the, beat the demons up. That's a very, it's a very dwarven sounding thing to do. Yeah.

And once the vortex was complete, no one could find Grimny. Where did he go? Who knows? Did he die? I don't know. Did he jump in the portal? Maybe. Maybe he's just fighting chaos forever. Who knows? And eventually, Valiah and Grungney kind of just like disappeared. Like, that's what I read in there. They just disappeared. Supposedly they returned to the mountain's heart where they would live forever as like the spiritual guiders for all dwarf kind. Is that cope? Do we think it's cope? I mean, it's probably just them trying to venerate their ancestors, honestly. Like, they probably just, you know, died. And they were just like, oh, no, but they're the ancestor God. So, like, let's venerate them and let's, their spirits are always watching over us.

And probably that kind of thing. That's fine. That works. I wasn't sure, like, because some, some people have just, like, straight up disappeared to have never been seen again. Oh, sure, sure. Um, we also know that when the dwarves and the elves first met, they were actually really cool with each other. Maliketh made

first contact. The two races were actually pretty close allies and they had like a really prosperous friendship. And when Malikethe failed to become the Phoenix King, it was through his plotting with the dark elves and you know killing the dwarves and all that

that the war of vengeance and the war of the beard happened. You know when the high elven shaved off the dwarf and envoy's beard. Oh yeah, no. don't worry. The war of the beard is the one thing I will definitely remember because it's so ridiculous and I love it to death. It really is. Though I found out that the straw that broke

the camel's back was obviously the Dwarven envoy being shaved. But apparently before that, tensions were already getting like a little out of control between the Dwarves and the elves. Like from the Dwarven perspective, things were getting heated because like elves are pretty arrogant and they assumed that they made like all the best stuff like elven craftsmanship is the finest and most glamorous in the land and when

they started trading with the dwarves the dwarfs felt like you know the elves started to realize that you know dwarven weapons are just a little sharper dwarven armor just a little more resilient and so the elves were getting really

jealous that the dwarves were so good at what they were doing And so there was like this just, you know, there was this resentment that was growing and growing until the War of Vengeance. Yeah, I think I remember that, the general jealousy, that kind of thing. Yeah. And following the War of Vengeance, the dwarfs were kind of spent. Like, they had just been in a long, bloody, I think it was like, I think it was actually like a 400-year war with the elves. and while it was basically a Pyrrhic dwarf dub

well actually it was absolutely a Pyrrhic dwarf dub because their resources were spent even though they took the Phoenix King's head his crown they made him beg they were really spent and oh do you do you want to read Chai's quote? Yeah we scourged them from the forest

and drove them from the lands after that who were we to try? trade with. Commerce between our races had been the source of much wealth, tainted though it was. Worse, the cost in lives was much worse than the cost to our merchants. The finest warriors of three generations fell in that bitter struggle. While we had war with our faithless allies, the dark gathered its strength. So, yeah, they were like crap, I guess. Like, oh shit. Yeah, they were really spent. And unfortunately, while they were trying to recover, So remember how I said that fantasy loves throwing shit at dwarfs?

As in like hurting them? Yeah, because they are about to get hit with two really big umfis in very short succession. Okay. First off, there's this massive natural disaster that kind of sort of wrecks a lot of the world's edge mountains. Basically, what happened is the slon were like, Hmm, you know what? I'm looking at this map. And those mountains, those World Dead's mountains,

they're due for a realignment. They need to be shifted about, oh, yay, miles thater way. And so they have a small argument amongst themselves. I'm like, you know what? You're right. Those mountains do need to be realigned. And so they go to the geomantic web, and they start shifting the whole mountain range around.

What a bunch of assholes. Yeah, and naturally, this is very bad for the dwarves who lived in the mountains because it meant their holds are literally getting torn apart. Not all of them, but like a bunch of their holds were suddenly just like, oh, guess what? Your hold is flooded with lava now. Countless are dead, you've lost the resources, the hold is broken and lost. Hooray.

What a strange thing. The slaughter are like, you know what? It's time for some redecorating. Move the mountains. We are long overdue for some redecorations. Oh my God. Interior Design is my passion. Move Mount Whitney now.

Now. But things get even worse because as they're trying to recover from that disaster. So they're trying to recover from the War of the Vengeance and everything they lost there. Now they're trying to recover from the sland, literally moving the mountains and flooding some of their holds with lava. Things get worse because now the Skaven to this. decide to do some very Skaven things. The Skaven decided that they wanted their little rat holes to cover the entire world. So they have like this crazy machine that was powered by Warpstone.

And it's kind of just pulsing and whirring under their city of Skaven blight. But like with most Skaven technology, it broke. It malfunctioned. And the machine was so large and so full of warp. stone that when it blew up underground, it basically affected almost every dwarven Carrack and brought even more catastrophe and more ruin to them, more earthquakes, more just world-splitting nonsense. So they are just straight up not having a good time at all right now. And while the world is literally getting turned upside down, somehow things get even worse,

worse. Because while everything is falling apart, the greenskins and the Skaven have decided, you know what? Let's actually start raiding with our troops in the underway. And let's try to claim, like we see all of these really cool dwarven holes and Man, look at all the resources they have. Wow. Look at all the gold. Look at all the gromrill. Let's make rating parties.

And the Skaven, one who expand their rat hole network anyway, so they wander in there and they see all this and like, oh, fun. They don't do this together, right? No, no. This is like a, almost like a three-way war between dwarves, scavens and like the greenskin, which is like orcs, goblins, trolls. And would you believe me if I told you that this time period for the dwarfs was known as the time of woes? Of woes. Would you believe me if I told you that? I mean, it sounds like things were just kind of being a little shit here and there.

So I would believe, you know what, D.K., I would believe you. Wow. Thanks, buddy. I appreciate your trust in me. And so naturally in the time of woes, things not going well for the dwarves, but they fought valiantly. They're fighting, they're trying to fight off the Skaven, they're trying to fight off the greenskin. And at the very least, they are making sure that their capital city, their pride and joy. Keras A. Karek does not fall. But boy, they sure have lost a ton of their ancient cities. They've lost a bunch of their holds to the catastrophe, to the scavin, to the scaven, to the,

the green skins. It is really bad. And like I said, Carazay Carrack, they just don't open their gates anymore. Like, unless a war party is going out to reclaim something, those gates don't open ever. Carraisei Carrack was the fancy hold, right? Yeah, it is their capital city. It is, essentially, that's where the high king of the dwarfs lives. Right. If you are the king of care as a care act, you are always going to be the high king, which I think I'll talk about in a little bit, but we'll get there. And so the dwarves would continue in this constant struggle fighting off scavin, goblins, orcs, night goblins for like a thousand years trying to win back their homes. Some dwarves are like, you know what, nope, we're not getting anything back.

We are going to go west into the gray mountains. And I think at this point, there are also some dwarves that they wander a little too far from home and they get a little cut off and they go a little crazy, but that's for a whole different episode on a whole different topic.

Wait, Chaos dwarves? Yeah, chaos. Oh, okay, okay. I've heard a little bit about that. Yeah, they've got great hats. And it's also at about this time that humans are starting to cross

over the World's Edge Mountain for the first time. Dwarfs see them and they're like, oh, they're dealing with the green skins too. Bestie, us too. So they kind of, this is where they take them under their wing. This is where they kind of like start teaching them to craft and sort of all that stuff. And if you remember in our Empire video, this is also when the High King of the Dwarves Kurg and Iron Beard gets captured by the Greenskins. And then Sigmar Heldenhammer saves him. And then the High King Gives him with Gal Maraz. Right. I remember that.

Sigmar was the was the giga-chat that helped him out. Yeah, the super giga-chat. And of course, the dwarves and the humans have this really great friendship and really great trade partners, actually, because, of course, the dwarves, they can farm and herd like livestock and supplies, but, like,

they're not great at it. And the humans kind of suck, well, comparatively to the dwarves. They suck at smithing and crafting. so they become really, really good trade buddies. And especially if you remember the battle at Blackfire Pass, dwarves were on the verge of being overrun by the greenskins. Sigmar comes in, boom, saves the day.

The humans, I know the human empire tends to run with a lot of like gunpowder and like cannons and stuff. Did they like learn a lot of that from the dwarves? Probably, because at the time the dwarves are probably, the most technologically advanced race. So yeah, and I'm going to talk about this later, but the dwarves have a lot of steam-powered stuff. They have a lot of guns. So I have to believe that the dwarves taught the humans

about gunpowder, cannons, firearms, all that stuff, yeah. It's kind of nice to see a setting where, well, not that humans and dwarves don't ever get along, but it's kind of nice to see a setting where they're, like, constantly allies. Yeah. They are their good allies. Sigma did a good thing that day.

I'm too used to imperial, like, sheer imperial propaganda and hatred. Oh, yeah. Anything that isn't human must die. Yeah, so I'm too used to it. So it's kind of nice to see such like a, I don't know, a little bit of camaraderie. Yeah, yeah. But even with this alliance, the dwarves are still kind of fighting a losing battle. Because they are still, again, they're struggling.

like every day dealing with the Skaven and the greenskins and all that stuff, everything that happened in the underway, they are still not really making any progress getting their old holds back. And it wasn't until a new High King of the Dwarfs. His name was Thor Grim Grudge Bearer. What's fucking Dwarf's name? Right? When he became High King, things really started to turn around.

And usually the status of king, whether it's High King or the King of a specific hold, it's usually hereditary. It gets passed on from the previous king's heir. And like I said before, generally, High King of the Dwarves that deals in all dwarfedum, is always going to be the King of Kerasa, Karek.

And like we said before, it's only the High King that can call, like, a council of kings. Calls all of the kings from all of the holds, and it's like, this Council of Kings is going to determine major, major issues among all dwarf kind, which doesn't happen a lot because there are a ton of holds, there are a ton of kings. Traveling the underway right now, oh my God, it's so dangerous. Everything

is upside down. There are rats and orcs and everything everywhere. It's treacherous. So you don't call a council of the kings unless you really got to call a council of the kings. But previous high king's name is Arlickson is in really bad shape he'd been warring with chaos he's been trying to get land back really badly injured he's on death's door he has no air

and so the council of kings is called for the first time in I think the wiki said 3,000 years no council of kings in 3,000 years but they're like bro we gotta figure out who the next high king of our people is so it's kind of important that we call this

and so they get all their candidates and the candidates have one full calendar year to be like, here's why I should be hiking. And they finally settle on, I think it's Arlixon's cousin, Thorgrim Grudge Bear, because he collected like a bunch of like these long, lost relics

from holes that they thought had been long since just destroyed. And the big tipping point was Thorgrim Grudge Bear was like, look, I'm going to make it my life's mission as king. I'm going to go through my great book of grudges, and I'm going to collect on every single grudge in this book. Oh, my God, his mount is insane. Oh, yeah, Thorgram is a bad man.

But that's what he campaigned on is he's going to go and wipe out, he's going to wipe the book of grudges clean. And not only is he going to do that, but he's like, look, I'm going to get us our land back, I'm going to return us to our previous glory, and I'm going to make us better. And so, he was crowned, high king of the dwarfs, and despite Arlixon's grave wounds, he lasted a full year, a full year. And only once the successor was crowned, did he finally pass away. He was just too stubborn to die

That's so, oh, that old mini is so peak Like old school fantasy Yes And also that's the thing about like old dwarfs Apparently if a dwarf gets to be over 400 years old Apparently it's just commonplace for them to just live A really long time because they're just too stubborn to die I don't have time to die

I have too many wiki feet pages to edit Good old, um, like a croak who's just like no except at least this isn't like them dying and their spirit comes out and yeah but thorgrim leading the charge is high king they actually start taking back holes they actually start doing it yeah and he holds

one of the axes of grimnear one of the ancestor god's axes so he thorgrim grudge bear they go on a green skin killing spree they get a bunch of holds back they are finally For the first time in like forever, they are taking ground. They are taking ground away from the green skins, the scavin, everything. And right now, their sort of big mission is they are trying to reclaim this really important

hold called Kerak Eight Peaks. And this, this Kerak is second literally only to the capital city of Keras-A-Karach. In terms of wealth, significance, all that stuff, this is the one like, God, we got to get this back. It's so important. but it is like, it is just ground zero for like the three-way war. The dwarves have like a small foothold, I think, in the upper part of Carrick A-Kericks, but like they are not even close to like fully reclaiming it.

So that's sort of the quick and TLDR on a lot of the dwarven lore. Obviously, not including the end times because we haven't covered it. But like I said, you know, we've already covered a lot of their lore in previous episodes. So let's talk about more cool dwarf shit. So can. Oh, go ahead. Can shy or DK, can one of you please type out how Karek or whatever is spelled? I got you.

Keras a Karek. Spelled like that. Yeah, I would. Okay. Yeah. All right. Nope. That's fine.

That is Keras A Karek. Keras a Karek. I don't know how else to say it. Because it's got the hyphens. And that probably confuses everything when I'm trying to, like, say them. Yeah, it roughly translates to Everpeak in Dwarven language. But I've always seen it typed out as Kerasa Karek. Yeah, all right, sure.

That's fine by me. I needed to know. You need to visualize it. Sometimes we also see, like, a various amount of, you know, demon names. Like, oh, it's that fancy demon. sicka gachgha and it's all just one blithering line of yeah yeah and i'm like okay hmm sure yeah but hey let's let's let's talk about yes dwarf stuff we we talked about like their lore we kind of blitzed past it because really we've talked about a lot of it before but so for starters remember how we mentioned that the dwarves like

they like their ale they like drinking like ideally a dwarf would like nothing more than to spend his entire day, just like with some Dwarven ale, singing songs, chilling out. In Warhammer Fantasy, it's actually really cool because Dwarven Ail to them is literally nourishing. Like, if a dwarf ever completely ran out of food and all they had was Dwarven Ail, they could literally survive on just that for like months. It is nourishing for them. That's so, it's so, it's just like,

like a meal. Yeah, it's literally nourishing food for them. And don't you dare confuse their ale with that weak human shit. Because from what I've read, Dwarven ale will actually, like, if a human starts chugging Dwarven ale,

it's so strong, it might make them go blind or just outright kill them. And apparently, sorry, go ahead. No, no, it's just, it's just, what's the Rindcall

It'll let Oh yeah Krogan Krogan Everclear or whatever it is And it's like Would you like another one Sheper's like Yeah put more stuff in the thing That stuff goes in

More stuff in the thing yeah And apparently like There have literally been civil wars That have been started Because one dwarf in a hole was like Yeah your ale crap Ours way better And they literally started

Going to war over it Wait, alcohol combustion engines? Makes sense to me. Makes sense to me because it's so strong and it's so potent that, yeah, you could probably use that for fuel. What a baller. Also, the most legendary brewer among the dwarfs was named Joseph Bugman, and he had the single best brewery in all of the fantasy world. Even the most stingy of dwarfs would agree that his ale peak. but one day his brewery gets burned to the ground by some goblins

and they take all the dwarves in the brewery captive and so Bugman's mission now is like to just revenge on the greenskins so he just goes around hunting green skins if he finds dwarves in need fantastic let me help you here's a mug of the best ale you've ever had in your fucking life and the other thing

that we got to talk about If we're talking about cool dwarf shit, we've got to talk about the slayers. Okay, all right, all right. So we've talked about how proud and honorable the dwarves are. And naturally, they get a little obsessive and they get a little bit of that hoarder mentality. So if they make a mistake,

or if they lose their treasure, they fail an important task, or they do something to bring great shame to their ancestry, they kind of next level freak out a little bit. And when it becomes too much for them, and they're like, oh, God, I, you know what, I'm just going to leave all of my worldly possessions behind except for my axe. And I'm going to make a pilgrimage for the shrine of Grimnir, since Grimnir is like the war god, the slayer god. And the shrine of Grimnir is at a place called Karak Kadrin, also known as the Slayers Keep. And once you make it to the Slayer's Keep, you take the Slayer's oath.

Quote from Gottrick taking the slayer's oath that goes, I am a dwarf. My honor is my life. Without it, I am nothing. I shall seek redemption in the eyes of my ancestors. I shall become as death to my enemies until I face he who takes my life and my shame. And then... That's kind of a badass oath.

Oh, yeah. I can imagine that being just like screeched. Yeah. I don't know. know why, but it reminded me a lot of like something that they would say in like full metal jacket. Full metal jacket? You mean? You mean like, like, the Marines or like a like a like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like a, like this like, oh yeah, this is my life. This is my gun. This is my honor. Without it, I am nothing, you know? Yeah. Maybe. Maybe in like the 40s. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, but then after taking the oath, the dwarf shaves his head save for a single mohawk crest that is dyed red a lot. A lot. with his beard, and then they spike it up with pig grease,

because they want to look, essentially they want to look the way Grimnear did when he went off to fight demons all by himself. Then the would-be slayer cuts his name into a pillar in Slayer's Keep that has the name of every slayer on it ever, and they are basically now officially a slayer. And the job of a slayer, as you may have guessed from the quote, They look for the hardest, craziest, most overwhelmingly difficult fights they can find because the only way they can be redeemed in the eyes of like their ancestors or whatever. The only way they get redeemed is to die in honorable combat.

Okay. So this is the classic like redemption, uh, death dishonor kind of combination. Yep. Reminded me a lot of repensia, except, I think the repensia can come back. Like, they can actually, like, they don't have to die for redemption, right? Yeah, repensia can technically be redeemed in battle. Yeah.

Do slayers never get redeemed? Only in death. Only in death, really. Only in death. And so slayers do not wear armor. Instead, they just cover their body with tattoos that are dedicated to grim near. And if you ever meet a slayer with a really long, tall mohawk, That means that even as a slayer, they have been fighting in the most insane, difficult battles they could find, and they've still survived.

They've still won. So that is probably the hardest, most fierce warrior you could ever find, which, that sounds pretty cool, right? It does. I mean, the idea is, like, yeah, I've been trying to, like, redeem myself by death in combat for so long now. and I'm just too good that I can't die. Exactly. So like a lot of slayers are actually like the really good ones are kind of riddled with like this depression because they're like, oh my God, I'm still alive.

Like this shame is just building and building and I'm trying to redeem myself. But like, I can't because the thing with Slayers too is they're not just going to jump into battle and let themselves be killed. That's not how it works. They don't feel like they feel they can only be redeemed when they get killed when they are trying their goddamn hardest. They're doing their best to actually win. Only get redeemed if it's like an honorable death in combat. So, okay. So they can't, I mean, for lack of a better word, they can't push out.

Yeah, exactly. They're not going to pull their punches. They're not just like, oh, whoops, accidentally left myself open. Doesn't work like that. Shai says, there's a story when dwarves are about to bomb some trolls with artillery, and then slayers come by and say, hold fire, we're going to fuck those guys up in melee. If we return, get booze ready. If not, remember us and then blow them up.

Yep. That sounds like a very slayer thing to do. Yep. This literally has like, crap, what's his name? Woody from Toy Story, like putting his hand on like, like hold on, let him cook time of thing. Let him cook. Yeah, that's the Slayers. Out of the way, I got this. And if I don't got this, then

Operation Broken Error or whatever. Like, like, blow us all up. Yep. And hey, they would probably love that. If they don't come back, they're like, nice, I've been redeemed. My family is, their honor is restored. They don't have to have the burden of my shame. And Slayers usually take on the name or the title of like the fiercest thing that they've killed.

So Slayers can have the title of like, if they killed, a demon. It's like, oh, you are blah, blah, blah, demon slayer or you're blah, blah, blah, troll slayer, because that's the biggest baddie that they've killed. Interesting. Yep. And like I said, it has to be honorable death. And slayers, if you talk to a slayer, they kind of hate talking about what led them to becoming a slayer because then they have to talk about their shame. They have to talk about their dishonor. And that, like, that makes it worse. That makes it heavier. They relive their shame. And it's like, oh. So they really don't like talking about that. So that's actually pretty impressive that they simultaneously really like do want to

die. But at the same time, we'll not take the easy path out. Like that's a bit of a cognitive dissonance there that they're able to handle, which is pretty cool. Which, which is interesting because whenever people talk about Gottrick, a lot of times they'll be like, you know, gothic is depending on how you look at it either one of the greatest slayers ever or one of the worst slayers ever because he's been alive for so long but he's a slayer he wants to die

he doesn't want like he is one of the greatest slayers ever from a standard like conceptual thing of fighting but he's one of the worst slayers ever because he's unable to to commit to the slayer acts and die he's just too good

he's too based Interesting. Interesting concept. Now to sort of round things out, let's talk about how dwarfs go into battle and war and some of their like cool machines because they've got some wild stuff. But there's this great quote that goes like this. Like when dwarves go to war, it's like we fight to protect our kinfolk. We fight to defend our clans. But more importantly, we fight to uphold our honor. Never forget the torment we have suffered. And for each and every. wrong our enemies heaped upon our ancestors, they shall repay in blood. Dwarf quotes are great, man. It's a very dwarfing, it's a very dwarven coat. Yeah. And your normal infantry are kind of what you expect. Lots of hammer wielders, axe wielding dwarves that are like covered in armor. Like I said,

you have dwarves that will carry pistols, crossbows. Some of them have flamethrowers called drake guns. There are literally miners who take great pride in their mining skills and so they will take to the battlefield with their pickax. Oh, that's fun. Yeah. And obviously, if there's a big war going on and a slayer is nearby, they're like, of course I'm going to jump into this amazingly glorious fight. Of course I will.

Silly. But like I said, dwarfs have some really cool, like steam-powered machinery too. Like I said before, they're like the most technologically advanced race and fantasy and they make use of like steam powered siege battering rams, big cannons, gunpowder. But the Dwarven engineers, they cook. What Shai has just put in chat is a gyrocopter. It's literally just a flamethrower copter. So that's not a flamethrower. That is a, so that's a steam powered helicopter that has a.

rapid fire cannon on the front of it. Oh. It's so small. Hey, it's not the size is what you do with it. Well, yeah, but it's a lot easier to sail across the ocean in a yacht than a rowboat. True. They also have a variant of the gyrocopter called the gyro bomber, which is a bomber copter. And these things have the greatest, like they have these bombs.

They're like bouncing betties essentially where they bounce and then a bunch of other bombs bounce out of them. And these are called grudge buster bombs. Oh my God. It reminds me of the grot bomb, dude. It's so small. Okay, the bomber one is a little bit longer and it looks a little bit better. Yeah, the bomber one looks a lot better. The dwarfs are also very fond of this thing called a flame cannon, which I know.

it sounds very obvious what a flame cannon would do, right? Ah, shoots flames. But the way it's described is so goddamn horrific. So the flame cannon looks like this big cannon that has like this dragonhead carved into the front of it. Behind it, there's these two vats. One has tar in it. The other has hot oil in it. And when this thing fires, it is not just spewing fire like a flamethrower.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. This thing is actually flinging burning tar and oil at you. It is flinging this molten mixture of flaming death. And the description goes a little something like this. Enemies struck by the flame cannon

have their flesh melted off, leaving only scorched bone and a foul-smelling liquid that is best described as goo. That's just... I mean, that's just napalm, right? I'd say, it's like, no, dumbass, you just made napalm. Yeah.

But, hey, that's the flame cannon. Have you, have you seen that TikTok guy where it's like, he's watching someone doing a cleaning solution? He's like, all right, let's see how long it's going to take. Okay, bleach and now he's made mustard gas. Congratulations. And then there's the later version of it where he's like, are you still doing this?

I'm trans now. And you're still making this shit. Yeah, Jesus. It's like, brother, that's, that's, that's Naipa. It always brings me back to Fight Club. Yep. And I would, oh, oh, go ahead. Oh, I just remember, like, the Eagle Parts orange juice and, like, gasoline, you make

Napal. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I would be remiss if I did not mention their grudge thrower, which is more less, the grudge thrower, which is more or less, very simply, it's a siege catapult. It throws stones. The reason for the name is because it became very commonplace. I think specifically in the War of Vengeance to write the grudges of elven betrayal

on the rocks so they would quite literally throw and kill the elves with grudges that they bore against them. That's so good. That's so over the top. It really is. I love the tors. And in more common times, they still do that.

They still write grudges on the stone, but along with the grudge now, they'll write like a powerful ruin on it and sort of amplify like, I don't know, the speed that the thing goes, but whatever. And that's sort of the way that dwarves go into battle. And apparently, like, the biggest hurdle that dwarven armies have is there's just, there's just not enough dwarfs.

You know, they're, like, they're really good fighters. They're really good at what they do. They have a lot of really, really cool stuff. But it's like, if even one dwarf dies, it's like a huge blow to the whole army. Like, it is, it's significant if a dwarf dies. Also, another interesting thing is apparently the dwarfs don't have, like, their own standing professional, like, military army. Like, when they go to war, they're just like every clan is expected to give soldiers,

weapons, all of their stuff in support of whatever Carrack is under fire or is any of that. They don't actually have, like, this one specific standing army, which I thought was kind of interesting because I would have assumed if anyone would have their own just organized militia be the dwarfs but they don't

it's actually I mean I guess it kind of makes a little bit of sense because the dwarves don't like war yeah and they're crafters right first and foremost they craft weapons they don't yeah they don't want to use them

they don't want to go to war but yeah yeah plus it also like in a sense you know a really good and tool can just be a weapon. Oh, sure, sure. Yeah. But yeah, that's, that's kind of, that's kind of what I got on the dwarfs. I think, I think that's a good overview of how they operate, where they came from, what they believe in,

what their weapons are, how they go to war, some funny little quirky stuff about them, and, you know, unless shy thinks I miss something huge. They don't, they don't seem to be particularly out abstract compared to the average dwarf that I'm aware of. when I think of dwarves I basically think of the things that you told me it actually makes me kind of interested and curious

in terms of like the Voton stuff because I know obviously Votons are dwarves but they clearly took a bit of a spin on it where the ancestors are screwed up AISTC cores Yeah yeah And also but they still have like their guilds

and hegemines and stuff It's just a bit more corporate As opposed to you know the whole thing It's actually kind of, I won't lie, this gave me a bit more appreciation for like the Voton because I'm like, oh, hey, like, these are, these are, these are, these are, every single thing I've ever heard about a dwarf, I hear here and I'm like, yep, that's a dwarf. That tracks. Like this is one of, fantasy dwarfs, yeah. Yeah, this is 100% a dwarf.

Everything about this is a dwarf. This sounds like a dwarf. These act like dwarves. These are dwarves. There's some neat stuff in there. I like the fact that the book of grudges is written in blood. That's really funny. That's crazy.

But yeah. I don't know if we have any math folks in the comments section, but if you could assume that the size of the book of grudges and how long an entry would be in blood to write. And the amount of entries, I'd love to know if we can, if we can quantify the amount of like pints or liters of blood required. I would love to know if it was like, oh, yeah, 4,000 years. of grudges, oh, that's got to be around, you know, four humans' worth of blood or something. Oh, that would be great to quantify. There's some options. I just thinking about that, but, uh, but yeah, no, I mean, these are, these are dwarves.

These are dwarfs. Yeah, they're dwarfs. Yeah. Also, they have, they have Hindenbergs. They have blimps. Yep. They have, they have thunder barges. Yep.

I guess they're more steampunk dwarves than dwarf dwarves. Oh, yeah. They love their steam powered, uh, locomotives, their trains. Yep, yep. Yeah, I remember people were very upset that the Voton got the land fortress instead of a train. They really wanted a train. Yeah, they're so steampunk pill that it's like, yeah, give them a train. A train would be pretty cool or some kind of flying thick boy.

I know that someone let me borrow some Caradon overlords, I think is the Sigmar version of dwarves. Okay. And they have literally just like a giant Zeppelin and it's awesome. Okay, okay. But I doubt this is the last time we're going to. going to talk about dwarves. There are a bunch of sub factions. There's the chaos dwarves and then there's going to be

what happened in end times and like we are not done with the dwarves by a long shot. Hell yeah. All right. Cool. Cool. Yeah. All right. I mean that's good. Do you have any hints for the next one? I'm not entirely sure I know what the next one

is. Okay. Okay. To give you it. I'm thinking of the various types of of factions. We've done humans. We've done elves. We've done Skaven.

Lizard men. Lizard men and now dwarves. I guess, and we covered a decent amount of the sub-factions of elves, too. Oh, yeah. People are going to demand Tomb Kings. We are coming up on October, aren't we?

Oh. Good point. So, maybe, might be time for a little, you know what is this? It is what it is. Good point. Good point.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. All right. Take us home, country road. Okay.

Well, what's the thing that Nagash always says? Uh, your soul is mine? That's not him. I don't know what Nick has. Whatever. All right. That's a D.K. I'm going to cut myself so I can put you in the book.

Oh. Thank you.