Adeptus Ridiculous - THE CHAOS DWARFS | Warhammer Fantasy lore

Episode Date: May 25, 2025

https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculoushttps://www.adeptusridiculous.com/https://twitter.com/AdRidiculoushttps://shop.orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculousThe Chaos Dwarfs, known as the Dawi Zharr in Khazalid, or Uzkul-Dhrath-Zharr in their own tongue, are the corrupted, evil kin of the Dwarfs. The Chaos Dwarfs rule an empire in the blasted Dark Lands to the east of the Old World. They worship Hashut, the Father of Darkness.During the time of the northward Dwarf migration (-4300 IC) into the Worlds Edge Mountains, some Dwarfs travelled east across the plateau of Zorn Uzkull - the Great Skull Land - in their quest for precious ores and gems, reaching the dismal Mountains of Mourn. Then, during the Coming of Chaos (-4000 IC), these Dwarfs were cut off from the rest of Dwarf civilisation by swirling Chaos energies and rampaging legions of Daemons. The rest of the Dwarfs assumed they had perished in the deluge of Chaos. In reality, the hardy Dwarfs were not killed but neither had they remained unchanged by Chaos. [1a][4a]Eventually even these stubborn Dwarfs succumbed to the warping effects of the Chaos energies, gradually becoming the perverted and cynical mockery of traditional Dwarfs. Some of their number even became hideous mutated fusion of Dwarf and bull - the Bull Centaurs. Abandoned by their Ancestor Gods, the Chaos Dwarfs cried out for salvation and a dark voice answered: the Chaos entity Hashut, the father of darkness.Following Hashut, the eastern Dwarfen society started down a dark path and they became the Chaos Dwarfs at around -3500 IC whilst the great citadel of Mingol Zharr Naggrund - The Great City of Fire and Desolation is created by powerful sorcerers from black iron and obsidian in -2700 IC. The Orc and Goblin tribes of the Dark Lands and Mountains of Mourn are enslaved a hundred years later.Support the show

Welcome to the adeptus ridiculous podcast. My name is Kirioth. That over there is D.K. We're joined by Shire, but there is no bricky this week, as he's on his eternal quest to visit every single Warhammer YouTuber on the planet. This week, we're talking some fantasy. I have no idea what we're talking about. And we've got some fresh, tasty new merch to discuss, potentially.

Oh, fresh and tasty merch. Where can they get that merch? that fresh and tasty merch. How about the dice, the hoodies, the objective markers, the t-shirts? Where can they get that, though? They can get that from orchidate.com. Wow. And it's, I mean, I'm blowing one of these already.

Two more stickers. There is an excellent one of Shai saying never having good days, which honestly suits the time every time we start doing one of these episodes. That's going to be a chart topper. Absolutely. That's going to be sold out immediately. And there's me. There's a little me holding a little cup. That's awesome.

I love that. It's proof that Funko Pops can look good as long as you don't vacuum the soul out of them. Right? It's great. The one simple step to make it a good looking Funko Pop, just make it look good. Easy. Yeah, easy. And Funko Pop has objectively failed at that.

Just, I am, look, I'm sure there are some fans out there right now that are looking at their Funko Pop while being like, how dare you, sir? How dare you? This is my identity to each their own. But to me, they all look like soulless dolls of hate and evil. So that's a great statement to follow to each their own. Yeah, yeah, totally. Fine if you like them.

I hate them with every fiber of my being. So, Kyrith, I got to say that was a pretty good intro, except when we do fantasy, it's called Realm of Ridiculous. And we never told you that. And there was no way you could have known that. But otherwise, great intro. You know what the other fun? I did know that, though. I did know that.

I just panicked on the moment. That's okay. The other fun thing about these episodes is I get to give other people quotes. I've been thinking about this almost all day. All day. So you, you, you, kids. Kyriyth, you get a quote today. And I feel like Bricky is usually fairly decent on these.

He's usually in the ballpark. I feel like he's got a better quote-guessing ratio than I do, which is not a high bar. I understand that, Chad. It's not a high bar, but there it is. So you're going to take up the man today. Are you ready for your quote, Kiryath? Yeah. Give it to me.

Okay. You may curse us, shun us, deny, our existence, but that is no matter. You have done so for centuries. Had you not abandoned us, our vast family would never have been sundered. Thanks to your cowardice, we are strong and mighty, seeing the truths that have long been hidden. Curriott, what's that quote? I mean, the reference to a big family being shunned, see, I think family, I immediately think, like, vampire counts, but that's just because of Total Warhammer 2 and 3 and 1, where it's, it's like, there seems to be a lot of people with the same last name, but, oh, yeah, okay,

I'm gonna help you out. We already did an episode on the vampire counts, so it can't be that. Yeah, okay. Someone will strike that off the board for you. Can't be them. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. There's nothing about delusion in there, because the other one I thought was maybe the flesh eater courts, but then I'm, see, I'm stuck in Asia Sigma as well.

I'm much more aOS than ever was fantasy So I'm trying to remember And I mean there is some overlap So you know That's true Pushed aside shunned Had you not abandoned us Our vast families would never have been sundered

That's a big part of it Is there feelings of abandonment There's got to be There's got to be some There's got to be some elves that have been pushed aside Right there's got to be some elfin, like, shunning and kicking out for not being pure enough or nice enough or... There absolutely are.

But it's not them. It's not them. I will give you a little help because, you know, you're not here for a lot of fantasy episodes. It's not elves. Some sort of... Chaos dwarves. That's not going to be chaos dwarves. Curiaf, it is actually 100% chaos dwarves.

It is actually 100% chaos dwarves. percent cast horse. How do, where did you pull that out from, by the way? Well, I mean, I get it was the family thing. That was the only other thing I think. It's like, well, if it's not elves, I feel like the dwarves have got a big, like, clan-based sort of, you know, you've got all the book of grudges stuff, which I vaguely know exists. And yeah, it was the only thing other than elves that might be family related.

That also wasn't just the fact that there's 1,800 vampires with the same name. Well, congratulations. because you guessed it, because today, on Realm of Ridiculous, we are, in fact, covering the chaos dwarfs. And this might be a not very long episode. I mean, it's going to be a good size one, but there's not like a ton of lore on the Chaos Dwarfs, but I feel like it's interesting enough,

and the Chaos Dwarfs are well-known enough that, you know, they deserve their own episodes. Because they didn't have their own stuff for fantasy for a while, I feel like. They had like forge world stuff for ages. And then when AOS came out, then there was still the forge world stuff. But it felt like as factions go, it felt like sort of traitor guard for 40K, where it's like if you're willing to spend a ton of money, you can have something that doesn't really get much in the way of new rules

and is like a, almost like a legacy army that they just didn't really ever stop making. but also never really put any effort into either. Despite the fact, that picture by itself, by the way, those massive, like, demonic steam engine things in the background go so hard. It's unreal. They do love their siege weaponry. We will talk about they love their siege weaponry. And Possum was good enough to leave a good chunk for the end of this episode about

sort of why there's not a ton and kind of what you just said about how sometimes it might be, a little bit pricey too. So we will definitely definitely talk about that. Hell yes, I'm excited. Hell yeah. And so we did already cover just the regular dwarfs in a previous episode, and

the chaos dwarfs are obviously sort of their offshoot angsty siblings. And for a quick sort of TLDR on how they got this way, at the outset of sort of the fantasy setting, you have the old ones who

are basically just terraforming the fantasy planet. Fantasy planet is called malice. So, you know, they're, they're terraforming it, and they are seating the planet with all of the different races, and they are preparing it for the Great Plan. And so the dwarfs get seated, and they're sort of, you know, they're having a good time, and they are expanding from their mountain homes in the Southlands. They start heading north into the World's Edge Mountain and they're digging tunnels, they're building dwarf holes, they're harvesting precious gems, and they would just go further and further north. Naturally, they would eventually hit kind of this, this desolate, barren spot in the north of the World's Edge Mountains. It's called the Great Skull Lands. It's a plateau that's specifically

known as the Plateau of Zorn Uskel. It's a solid name, by the way. Right. Crazy how good that is. The plateau of Zordosco. Sounds very green skin. And naturally, a lot of the dwarfs decided like, oh man, there's this barren, desolate wasteland in front of us.

Like, there's no reason to go into that. Let's just head back into the World's Edge Mountains. We'll continue harvesting the tunnels. There's plenty of resources there. There's no reason to chance it in that. shit that's in front of us. But not every dwarf decided to head back. Some were a little more adventurous.

Some were like, okay, maybe we're not going to head into that. But let's try going like southeast. Let's try going to the mountains of Morn. And so they start heading out east. They start heading southeast. And, you know, there's tons of resources there. There's really no reason to go back to where they came from because in the mountains of Morn, they're like, oh, wow, look at all these resources.

we're good. Like, we can just stay. Great, wonderful. Love it. Why leave the land of plenty? Why do you just stay where you are and you can do what you like if there's a ton of resources? Yeah, absolutely. So you've got dwarfs in the west that are doing great and you've got dwarfs in the east that are doing great. They're both sitting on just, wow, resources of plenty and they're communicating with each other. They are trading. There's no. Nothing getting in their way. Wow. The dwarfs are just, man, they ate and left no crumbs, as the kids say. So, because of course everything's going really well, I'm going to go ahead and assume that at least one section of this very big, very happy, very contented, and, you know, full of resources, families are going to get absolutely and royally screwed over, right? I'm guessing that's the way that's going to go. It's funny because literally the next line in my script is, but if you know anything about Warhammer, nothing stays nice and content for long.

There we go. That's like me. Yeah. So then the great catastrophe happens. And I don't know. How familiar are you with 40K? Oh, not 40K. With fantasy?

Very, very little. I don't know that much at all. No one at my local gaming store when I started playing 40K played fantasy. And so it sort of passed me by. And my main experience with it was when things went into the end times and everyone get very angry. And that was my first time seeing a lot of people talk about fantasy. And that was in the context of it doesn't see much point getting into this because

it seems like they're killing it off. And they did. So the great catastrophe is this huge event. It basically affects almost every faction in fantasy, but more or less. So the old ones, like I said, they created all of this. Before they showed up, this was just a big desolate ice planet, more or less. It's like Earth, but in the Ice Age. And they had these giant portals at both poles of the planet so that they could come and go as they please.

They can terraform. They can make it a nice, like, green, lush planet. Everything is great. Great catastrophe is when these portals, inexplicably, for seemingly no reason, just fucking explode. Nice. And they explode and they leave two massive tears in reality on both poles. And just the worst bullshit of chaos comes pouring on through, making everybody's life a living, breathing hell. that is some classic war hammer right there

oh for sure absolutely and one of the things that happened is that because of the great catastrophe the mountains of morn which are in the area called the dark lands

it gets totally and completely cut off from the east and the dwarves in the west are like oh wow the poles just exploded there's chaos everywhere. There's demons all between us and the mountains of morn. And there's new, like,

there's just these new surges of magic energy that were never there before that are just surging like tidal waves. And so the dwarfs were just like, yeah, those guys in the east are so fucking dead. There's no chance they survived. We barely survived. It is so jover for our guys over there. Just like, wow, we dodged a bullet. Pity about the rest of the family, but what are you going to do? And honestly, for a good chunk of, I feel like a good chunk of the

great catastrophe, the dwarfs saw what was going on, and they were like, yeah, not our problem. And they just closed all the doors to their hold, just went into their mountains and were like, yeah, we're not coming out until all this shit sorts itself out, because I, nope, nope, nope, we're, nope, F dat. But wouldn't you know it? The dwarfs in the East weren't dead at all.

And as time passed and no one came to help them, they believed that their brothers in the West had completely betrayed them. Not only that, they believed that they had been betrayed by the very pantheon of gods that they had been worshipping this entire time, the sort of dwarven pantheon of gods. They were like, how come our god of war Grimnir didn't just. carve his way through chaos to come save us. We've been firm believers. Valiah is like their goddess of hearth and home. And it's like, she didn't offer a shelter. We're dying out here.

And they saw no aid from their god of mining, grungi. And they were just like, man, they've all forgotten us. We've been completely and utterly isolated and nobody cares. They're not looking for us. We're struggling out here. We are not doing well. it is not fine. Totally justified as well.

Like, to be fair, there's a massive apocalyptic event, and you are suddenly cut off from all support, and just nothing, nothing happens to change that, nothing you do makes any difference. Like, the feeling of abandonment has to be really severe in that sort of situation, when it just feels like there's no help coming and you just permanently under siege,

you would at some point be like, I'm pretty sure that everyone else wasn't wiped out. So any chance of a hand? Anyone? No? Oh, cool. I guess it's just fend for yourself then, which if you've got a pantheon that was actually active as well,

that's pretty bad. Yeah, back then, I think their pantheon of gods were actually people that existed too. And a joke a lot of people make, I don't know if it's a joke, but they're like, well, you did kind of over-exert and over-extend into a land you didn't fully understand.

And while there may have been a lot of resources and stuff, you know, you kind of put yourself into this position a little bit yourself, right? Which I don't know, because things were going so well. Everybody was communicating. Everybody was, like, so I don't know if that's really valid, but some people do say,

you kind of did it to yourselves by overextending into the dark land, right? So, so did that. Oh, go ahead. I can kind of, I can say, it, but then also how do you kind of justify that when it's a case of here is a massive unprecedented global event? Yeah. The like of which has never happened before.

It's like, okay, you did push pretty far. Yeah. No one else saw the portals exploding into horrific chaos. Yeah, exactly. So, and it's not like if they knew they would have gone, we'll ride it out. They probably wouldn't have gone if they'd known. Oh, sure. A little bit.

Yeah, a bit like, as shy says, victim blaming. Yeah, and the resources there were good. And they're still good. Like, it was, where they ended up in the mountains of morn is still plentiful. Like, even after the poles exploded, there are still good resources to be had here. So it's not like they just kind of wandered off there for no reason. So, yeah. So in order to actually survive all this, since they had no help from their brothers, no help from their

family, no help from their pantheon, they began to worship a minor chaos god named Hachut. This is the god of fire, greed, and tyranny, and would become known to the chaos dwarves as the father of darkness. That is a solid name. I do, I'm a little bit familiar with Hachut because of War Cry, because they did a war band, which was the horns of Hachot. And it had been, like, thrown around as a rumor. And it made me think, well, I'm pretty sure I know that that's related to the chaos dwarves in some way, but I wasn't sure how.

I think there might have been a unit name that was on Fordwall or something. And I was like, oh, can I get to see, like, actual plastic chaos dwarves? Because their models look great back in the day. And then it seemed to all just be normal humans in tall hats. And I was like, this is not what I signed up for. What the hell is this? Come on, you know. Do you?

Oh, hey. Usually, I have to read the quote because, you know, I'm usually the listen. You want to read the quote that Shai posted? Yeah, let's go. Okay. Where was Grimnear when our warriors were dying? Where was Velaia when our children sickened? When we called out for aid in the deep places where we delved,

it was not Grungney who answered our call, but mighty hash us who delivered us in our time of need. Who are the real traitors here? Our kin who abandoned us to madness and death, or we who only sought to survive against the forces of chaos. One day there will be a reckoning and it will be the sons of the father of darkness

who will have the victory, not the weak-willed spawn of the pathetic ancestor gods. Jesus, really went in right at the end there. That goes so hard, yeah. Also, Mordian Slagfist. Oh, yeah, Slagfist is such a, that's such a chaos dwarf name,

just like, oh, there's, oh, I've got Slagfist. for fist, just molten iron for fish. The only downside to that name is slag obviously like molten rock and iron and whatever. But also in the UK, the word slag is effectively an insult to a woman of... I was going to say it's kind of a... Some repeat, I guess. Yeah. Also, Possum left a fun little note about this.

Originally, the chaos dwarfs were generalized as corrupted by chaos and tended to align more with corn. But Hachut was added to kind of establish their uniqueness, despite being manipulated by chaos. There is also this sort of Nido quote from a person named Astrogoth, the oldest living chaos dwarf sorcerer lord. That is, one day, Hachut shall rise from his slumber and trample the world beneath his brazen hives. The dead shall outnumber the living, and those that remain shall be dragged in chains to the pits of Tsar to Toil for the great glory of Hachut, and all will be blessed darkness. Hardcore. I like that.

That's really cool. I quite like that they've got their own, like, facet of chaos as well, rather than it just being corn. And you're like, oh, well, normal, you know, your standard dwarves that haven't formed to chaos, they've got berserkers. But chaos dwarfs have also got berserkers, you know, since dwarves have got slayers. It will just be like a weird mirror. of just like, yeah, who can, who has got the most big acts,

whereas actually having it be something a bit different and it being based around darkness as opposed to just blood and skulls. I don't know, that makes them way more interesting. I think so too. Also, I love the Slayers. Slayers are so cool. They really are.

I love the fact that like one of the greatest slayers to ever exist. I think it's Gotrick and it's like, oh, yeah, he's still alive. He's so good at his job. and it's like, nope, no, no, no, he's a slayer. The fact that he's still alive and hasn't died in combat because he's too good means actually he is effectively the worst slayer ever. He's being bad at his job by being so good at killing things.

By being so hard to kill, yeah. Anyway, in return for the chaos dwarfs worship and obviously their souls for him devourer, we would see some of the first instances of like actual dwarf magic. Like normally the most magical sea from a dwarf is like a run smith. And they're just, you know, crafting and smithing magical runes on weapons and armors to give them like special properties. But now we have demon smiths, sort of these cursed chaos dwarf sorcerers. And a thing to note about the demon switch, smiths, which I will talk about a little bit later, it's not just like a magician.

Smith is is naturally a powerful sorcerer, but like most dwarfs, they are also just masterful engineers. And also, these are going to be sort of your priests of Hachut. It's they're packed with Hachut that gives them their powers. Demon Smiths, these chaos dwarf sorcerers, are bound to their God. Also, the demon smiths who become like the tip tip topi are called sorcerer prophets. And these... Oh, go ahead. Sorry, can I...

Normal dwarves, they... So do they not really have like mages, wizards, the like, it's more literally like crafting... Literally they craft runes. The runes are packed with magic and that's what gives them power. Whereas... Yep.

So, Calchas dwarves, they actually have proper... They actually have proper... It sounds weird, saying... Proper magic. I don't know how else to phrase it, but I didn't realize that normal dwarves, it was like... you make a run, the run's got the power.

I thought they still had things like sorcerers and the like, but that's, again, that's a really fun difference. They are heavily resistant to magic and chaos. But yeah, generally speaking with dwarfs, I believe it is just like, they don't use magic, they use their runes, they use their ruin-enhanced weapons.

And those, those, those, those, those, those, those run-smith weapons are nasty. That is nasty. If you get a ruin carved dwarf weapon or armor, it's like, oh, that's good. That is a family heirloom for the rest of your family's existence because it is probably busted. Yeah. And presumably really hard to make.

Like you've got to have access to someone who's got a very rare talent. Actually, you know what, Sean, now you mention it. I think I've just realized, yeah, I think in Dragon Age dwarves are like resistant to magic and stuff, aren't they? Which I'd never really thought about before. Never, that's never sort of registered previously. I believe, is it Rune Fang that is crafted for every elector count shy in the empire? And those are like Rune Smith crafted swords specifically for them that are just like, even if you are an immortal vampire, if you get struck by it, you die, die. And so...

Badass. Yeah, they make some crazy weapons. The anti-emortal sword. Yeah. That's great. Mm-hmm. And so, like we said, generally speaking, dwarfs just, they weren't built to be mages. They weren't built to use magic.

And so when they were given this gift by Hushut, it's like, hooray, the gift of magic. But it's like, you weren't built for that. So it does come with a drawback. It comes with the curse of stone. This is a fairly self-explanatory curse, but as time passes, the demon smith's body will slowly turn to stone. It starts at their feet and kind of just slowly works its way up.

Oh, the ultimate irony. The lot who are brilliant at mining and great stone smiths and, you know, engineers becoming a statue. Oh, love it. And they try to prevent this as much as they can because what they'll do is since they are such skilled engineers, they will literally build sort of these steam-powered bodies and limbs so that even if their lower body has been turned to stone, they can still be mobile.

They can still use their arms and they just have these like that picture right there. The lower half of his body, I believe, is just stone. But he's kind of got that, I don't know if I want to say it's an exoskeleton that he's made for. for himself so he can still get around work and toil. That's great. That's really cool. Mm-hmm. It should also be noted that there aren't a ton of these chaos dwarf sorcerers rolling around. There's like maybe a couple hundred or so at any time for like their whole population. And while there really isn't like, there's no really specific one leader or one

big hierarchy with the chaos dwarves, generally speaking, you are going to listen to the demon smiths, you're going to listen to the chaos dwarf sorcerers, you're going to listen to the priests and stuff like that. They're going to hold a little more sway, a little more power, a little more control over the populace. And Possum gave me a cool little quote

from Total War III to add to this bit. Fools all, they know nothing of our great work, of what we have accomplished. Our kin will never progress while they continue to look at the meaningless past for guidance. The old dwarf empires all fell. Doesn't that seem like a significant sign of their weakness? Their adherence to tradition will be their downfall.

Vikram Flame Tongue Chaos Dwarf Sorcerer. Another strong name. Loving the names for this. Oh, yeah, they're so great. I love them. Also, much like with normal dwarfs, the older you are, the more responsible. you are and obviously the more weight your voice is going to carry. Also, I pose this question

to Possum because I was kind of curious about the curse of stone because I was like, how fast does the curse of stone work? Like, you know, because in a lot of fantasy media, it's like, okay, you've got these great magic powers, but they're tied to this curse. So it's like, if you use your magic powers more, does that make the curse move faster? Because, you know, you're using the power more so maybe the curse speeds up. And Possum's answer to this is essentially not really. Basically, the curse of stone is just the inevitable end to any demon smith. It is just a slow process.

It doesn't seem to have any bearing on their magical ability or their usage of magic. It's just it is going to happen. You can't stop it. You can't speed it up. You also can't slow it down. So that kind of makes it this just like existential dread of oh my God death is indeed looming. As it says, oh, go ahead, go ahead. I was just thinking given that a lot of like when it comes to fantasy tropes, that thing of the exchange of power speeds up whatever the downside is.

It would actually make it more interesting if it was just a set thing of, okay, you've made the pact, you are turning to stone, you know from previous people doing this that you have. roughly this many years, you need to do as much as you can with yourself in that time, that would be something that I think is a bit different to a lot of, especially kind of more generic kind of exchanges of power when it comes to fantasy, because it feels like a lot of them are just, I can summon lightning, but every time I do, I get weaker or whatever, it's that kind of, every time you do it, it gets worse for you. Just having a linear progression of, you're just going to turn into this. Now, you know you've got this much time.

Let's see what you do with that time. That's, again, a little bit different. Like, it feels like there's some fun, like maybe not some versions of fantasy tribes, but making them a bit different from what you'd normally expect with the chaos dwarves. And even worse, as it says in one of the white dwarf magazines, the oldest sorcerers are just blackened immobile stone statues. their mighty minds trapped inside forever. Oh, so not, I should have seen that coming.

Not dead, dead, just trapped. You are just trapped for eternity in immovable stone, aware of everything around you. You get that reverse Dr. Stone, right? I don't know, I don't know if there are any anime weabs out there, but yes, it's just the reverse Dr. Stone, unfortunately. Can you write a will? Like, if I ever turn into a full statue, please take a... a ruin-empowered pickaxe to my forehead.

Just, you know. That's actually a fair question. I didn't think to ask, like, because obviously, like, by the time the curse of stone gets up to, like, your chest, you're like, well, shit. There's not a whole lot I can do anymore, even with all of the engineered stuff.

I wonder if anyone's ever been like, hey, this is my last will and testament. I don't want to be stuck in this forever, so if you could just, like, put a bolt round in my head right now, do it, please. I don't want to be trapped in this thing forever. I wonder if that's been done. Someone's got it with any least thought about it, right?

Passum, leave a comment. Let's go. Anyway, at the very center of the Chaos Dwarf Empire is their capital city called Tsar Nagrand. I'm probably mispronouncing that. So sorry, any Chaos dwarf fans, which has this massive mountainous tower made of obsidian called the Tower of Fire and Desolation.

There are innumerable furnaces constantly roaring and melting iron for whatever weaponry, armor, or chaos bullshit that they're cooking up next. It also sounds like because this tower is made out of obsidian and it is like the size of a mountain, there's always sort of this like red glow to it. because all the fires and all the smelting and all the smiths and founties are all just billowing this heat off it. So it's always got this eerie sort of orange glow on it or around it, like in that picture. Yeah, that art is solid. I'm kind of getting, I'm going to, I'm going to be the one to do it.

Do it. I think I'm going to be the one to do the boss baby thing. Do the boss baby. Is it Saraman's Empire, Eisengarde, where it starts out nice and green and then you've got the tower in the middle and then it's, it just becomes a series of mines and crafting pits and there's smoke and lava and all that stuff going around it. Reminds me of that.

Although, to be fair, you can say that about, what, 90% of fantasy? Oh, reminds me of Tolkien. I wonder why. Remember in our last episode where you were like, man, somehow you just keep jumping ahead in the script

and mentioning stuff that we're about to talk about. The literal next thing I was going to talk about was If you look at the wiki, there is a little blurb of like sort of information at the bottom where it specifically says this area has taken pretty decent inspiration from Mordor from the Lord of the Rings. Oh, it's close. Which once you look at it, it's like, oh, yeah, I totally see it. Like as soon as I saw that, I was like, oh, yeah, all of these descriptions of like the fires burning, the obsidian towers, just the way the chaos dwarves are. It totally makes sense.

And Possum expanded on this even further, saying, like, the city is built on the plain of Tsar or the plain of Zar Duke. This area is described as an utterly massive crater that is to the west of where you'd find the Ogre kingdoms. The reason why it's a crater is because of just the sheer amount of destruction that the chaos dwarves have created. It was stripped to its core. It's been overmined. overdeveloped. The river that runs through it, the river of ruin, is described as being just deathly polluted because it's got all of the waste from the foundries and the forges, and all of that just drains into the sea of dread. The air is just thick with smoke. The sky is like

perpetually just full of ash and just death. So it's like Mordor for sure, but Possum says, it actually also, like you said, gives a very stark sort of Eisengard vibe, especially with the rapid industrialization of a once very lush green area. Yeah, yeah. I just thought, out of nowhere, do they name these places themselves? Because it, we've got what? It could be. The plain of firing desolation, the river of ruin, the sea of dread.

are those things that the chaos dwarves themselves were like, I've got just the name for this particular landmark. You know, it might have been them because they've been there for a long time. They've been there since, you know, since the old ones were still around, since time began essentially. So they might have named it that just because they're so spiteful and they're like, oh, whatever, what do I care if that river is in ruin? I'm making cool shit over here.

What do I care if the sea is dead or full of dread? I don't care, right? So it might have been them. Like a reaction to their own stripping the landscape of everything it has. There's almost like a recognition that what they're doing is probably not that helpful long term. But, hey, everyone else needs to be taught a lesson because they left them to die. And as such, you name places like the veil of woe. the river of ruin.

But it's also worth noting that, again, this area that the chaos dwarves have occupied, this capital city and the area around it, it is, again, it is so resource rich. They do not have to go anywhere. They have everything that they need. It's kind of like their regular dwarf cousins where it's just like, why should we go anywhere? Our mountains, we haven't even scratched the surface of the goods and resources here. There's no need for us to go anywhere. So at this point, the chaos dwarfs are like, yeah, you abandon us, but hey, fuck you, we're good here.

And now we're going to make you pay. We can make infinite steam engines whilst we're here. Right. You're going to be out of look. And at the very tip-top of Zar Nagrand, again, I'm so sure I'm mispronouncing that, There is this massive temple dedicated to Hachut, who is usually depicted like this sort of fiery, smoky, menacing-looking bull. And there's this big effigy of Hachut up there that is described as a gigantic iron statue with a hollow belly. And they feed the belly with coals until the statue is quite literally just red hot.

And this is where the Chaos Dwar sorcerers usually convince. and sort of like scheme their next move. The temple is also guarded by bull centaurs, which are dwarfs who are just horribly, horribly mutated by chaos. Like when the poles exploded, they just got hit by an extra crazy dose of bullshit. And so now they have the upper body of a dwarf

and the lower body of a bull. I think I remember those models vaguely, and they looked solid. Like really, really cool. Yeah, there we go. There. Oh, yeah. And this is another one of those cases of like, yeah, dwarfs are normally, like,

absolutely resistant to the taint of chaos and magic. But sometimes when you are that close to an overwhelming flood of magic and chaos, it doesn't fucking matter how resistant you are. Bad stuff is still going to happen. Yeah, I guess it's like the difference between having an x-ray and being stood over Chernobyl when it flew. Yeah, exactly. Technically similar, technically similar, but the dosage makes all the difference. Oh, definitely.

Like, normally the only real mutations you'd see with the chaos dwarves are like some tusks or horns that look kind of stylish. In some cases, some of them do have cloven hooves, which they think these are great because they're like, ooh, this is. makes me look like a chute. I'm being blessed. I have been blessed by the father of darkness. Wow. Good for me. And they get to keep the fancy beards. There's no downside. They do. Bigger, faster. They look like they're, they look like they god, presumably hilariously strong when they're hitting other dwarves. And they still get to keep the beard. It's just win-win all round. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And back to the, uh, the bull centaurs. The first instance of the bull centaur

did come from the days when the chaos dwarfs kind of just randomly turned into this because like just there's just so much chaos bullshit running around and then it's like oh my god but now this is something that can actually happen at birth a dwarf

may turn into a bull centaur in utero and as you can guess this 90% of the time will kill the mother I was just going to ask how bad it was when it came to the, you know, the happy day. I can't imagine how painful it must be giving birth to a bull centaur.

I, y, y, y, y, y. But naturally, again, it's like, oh, bull centaur, this has got to be a blessing from Hachut, because it's like it is a dwarf and a bull combined. Brother, this has got to be the god. This has got to be Hushut giving us his divine blessing. And when they're born, they're raised by the sorcerers. but because this doesn't, and we'll talk about this a little bit later, we'll retouch this subject,

but because the bull centaur thing doesn't happen that often, sometimes the sorcerers will, you know, manipulate these babies and sort of make them become bull centaurs. so they'll use sort of these alchemical spells and other concoctions to sort of turn them into those like living war machines and they have like living metal skin and they get turned into like essentially they do become indistinguishable from like a real bull centaur but like they're much more like mechanical and like i said they have like living machines in them and so they are completely indoctrinated by the sorcerers to be like Oh my God, I need the sorcerer to live because when I get injured, they need to, they need to give me like special living metal mercury to like heal my wounds and stuff. And oh, I need to be more, I need to be more devout towards a should. I need to be just, you know, I'm the embodiment of our God. I have to be so good. So essentially these cast sorcerers at birth are just molding bull centaurs literally into.

just being the most devout creatures ever. Brainwashed and heavily dependent on them for everything they need. Yeah, yeah. Nice. And also there are sacrifices that are made to the temple of a shud almost daily in the form of, you guessed it, slaves. And these... You surprised me.

I'll be honest, when you described the temple the first time around, when you said, and they throw in, I was expecting... Babies, prisoners, slaves, like, you know, drop down list of insert the thing that would be most awful to throw in. So when you were like chucking in coal, just a second, I was like, oh, that's way better than I thought. But no, of course, it all comes back to, you know, I was going to say human sacrifice. Sacrifice of whatever sentient creature you happen to have come across that day. Yeah, you got to feed her should. You got to feed her should.

But the thing about bull centaurs is you look at that guy and it's like they're obviously very ferocious creatures. But apparently, I did not know this, bull centaurs won't eat anything that is dead. Bull centaurs prefer to eat their meals as their meals are still alive and wide awake. And apparently they prefer it if their meals are also screaming for help. Oh, lovely. Oh, great. I mean, that's just an added layer of horrible on top of all the other horrible. It's got to be really difficult to find a good restaurant if you're a bull centaur as well. It's a very niche cuisine, you know? Actually, to be fair, you're a bull centaur. You're probably hanging out at the very top temple of Hushut.

And so chances are the sorcerers are just bringing you slaves on a silver platter that naturally don't want to be there. So honestly, you're probably getting five-star dining experience as a Bull Centaur. It's a great meal every time. Yeah, every time. Apparently there are also two other creatures that are similar with the Bull Centaur and may share similar beginnings. We have the great Taurus, Taurus, Taurus, Taurus. Oh, I don't know why I can't say that word today.

I would say Taurus, but that might not account for other accents. And the La Masu Possum says visually one is like Teostra and the other is like Lunastra

I think those are Pokemon I want to say Tios I want to say that's sun and moon where one is like a fire sun

lion and the other is like a big bat that's in the shape of the moon is this a rare one where like neither of us

get the reference oh wait on hang on It's monster hunter. Oh, no. I mixed up Pokemon and monster hunter. My world is over. The chat will never let me hear the end of it.

Mother everything. I'm afraid. I'm afraid that is, that is monster hunter. Basically, it's like a big dragon lion. That's the best way to describe Teostra. And the other one, what was it, Lunostra? Mm-hmm. It's also very interesting trial.

Look these up, but he don't have to spell them. L-U-N-A. S-T-R-A, Luna-Stra. Pretty much the same. They've both got sort of, you know, cow-like, bull-like faces, but my gut thing would be, like, lion-dragon with some sort of bull face

would be my way to describe those. Oh, there we go. I don't know why I thought Pokemon for this. I really, I really don't. I just, oh, man. I have to be fair, that is pretty much Teosha. That looks exactly like it, the Lamassu. So, that's a good shout.

That's cool. That was a good reference. Good reference, Parsons. We just didn't know what they were. I only started to play. Well, I don't. And I was about to be like, where did they first come from? Because I only played World and Rise.

And that's another podcast, right? Anyway. That's next week's episode. Yeah. So the Great Taurus are essentially a gigantic red bull with bat wings that wants to kill you. It is the embodiment of pure rage and actively. hunts, dragons, goblins, ogres, and more. Of course, they breathe fire that is capable of melting weapons, yammers,

and they can get so angry that they get this, they shoot fire out of their eyes. Nice. You love eye beams. You love that. Hell yeah. Also, I love the list, the way the list was constructed. They're incredibly angry, incredibly strong. hunt dragons,

goblins. I'm going to go ahead and say that the difference between a goblin and the dragon, chasm-sized difference right there. I guess it should have really been... You've got a small, skinny, stew, do the stick. Or you've got a fire-breathing, flying monster. You know, I think the list probably should have been more like goblins, ogans, dragons, and more, probably.

But, you know, it's a tomato, tomato, but they're put it to fat. Right? You know, it's fine. So the winds sustain them in the dark lands. So they don't stray unless. sort of the winds go a bit astray too, so they wander with the wind itself. The wind gives them sustenance. There is a chaos dwarf legend that states that the great taurus were once of their kin that mutated similarly to the bull centaurs. Another separate myth states that the great taurus were sent by the

old gods as a punishment for the chaos worship in the area, and they exist to hunt down anyone there as perpetual punishment. Some chaos dwarves are known to somehow tame and control these beasts and use them as cavalry, which is insane to me that you could tame one of these sort of mythical

fire-breathing, eye beam, dragon bull things. That's badass. What an absolute legend. Imagine being the dude who brings one of those back to camp. Look what I've found. This is my pet now.

Imagine you fly. into battle on one of those, the amount of psychic damage and damage to the enemy morale when they see this big dragon winged bull thing shooting fire out of its eyes and mouth. It's just like, nope, I'm out. Fuck this. I don't need this that bad. I didn't sign up for that. No way. You told me I was fighting dwarfs that had big hats. What is that? I love that screenshot. That's what that dude's thinking. He's seconds away from turning round and going the other way. Yep. That is such a fun creature. It just looks so good.

Yep. Yep. And the Lamassu, the other creature is the Lamassu. It is a gigantic blue bull monstrosity. But instead of shooting blue flames and being filled with rage, this creature is known to be intelligent like a sorcerer. and can use magical manipulation on par with a sorcerer. They are insidious creatures that can do an incredible amount of damage, and it takes a lot of power to tame one.

Similarly, they are believed to have the same origin to the great Taurus or the Bull Centaur, but again, it is not fully known, but it's probably similar. Lamassu take a lot of power to summon or control, and only the most powerful chaos dwarf sorcerers can even hope to try to manipulate them. But this comes as a great aid to the sorcerers too. The aura around Alamasu can intensify the magical abilities of those who have tamed it.

But, ooh, it also can nullify the magical properties of those who attempt to attack one. So it's, it is an all-encompassing buff, debuff. You want this on your side. That's great. I really like the, again, that nice thing of, you've got the big angry, the big angry stampy thing. And then you've got the thing that looks like it would probably be roughly the same. But in some ways, way worse. I would argue being that smart. Oh yeah. And also having the ability to knock out magic or enhance it. That's, that's actually scarier to me than the bull with dragon wings that shoots fire from his eyes.

Because one of them, if you can get to Shelty, you probably, you might be. able to survive. The other one sounds like it would find a way, maybe not just to hunt you down, but make your life miserable first and then hunt you down. So, yeah. I like the way the Lamassi looks a lot better too, actually. Something about like, because it just looks a little bit more, I don't know if I want to say deform, but it looks more like it's got like a, it's got a face. And you can kind of see like the dwarf part of it a little bit and it's been sort of mutated like a big gargoyle, where the other one is kind of like, yeah, that's a bull with wings. Yeah, yeah.

The fact that it's got like a humanoid face adds a lot to it. It makes it look more like even like even more sort of mythological. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So another fun little fact about Tsar Nagran, their capital city, is that the road leading to like the tower and the pillar and the city the road leading to it is literally lined with all of the chaos sorcerers who have turned completely to stone. So if you are, yeah, if you're walking to Tsar Nagran, the road is just the red carpet that they roll out for you is just stoned chaos sorcerers. And all of them, their minds are still trapped in there.

I mean, if you walked down that avenue and you still thought yourself, you know what, I could go for that pact, then I don't know what to tell you. You've got, like, you need therapy. You need to work out why you are so self-destructive because that is like a whole road of just, that's a terrible idea and it's not for me. Either that or you have to be so dedicated to the reason you want that power and you have to be so sort of indoctrinated to Heshut. you're like, it's worth it. 100%. The ends justify the means. I'm in it. And that's, that is in a... Got a dedication.

That's an insane level of, like, dedication and sort of like... I was almost going to say religious brainwashing, but like, whew, that's some... Anyway, another thing you need to know about the chaos dwarves is that they... I wrote that they love their slaves, and it's not so much that they love their slaves. it's just, boy, they have a lot of slaves. God damn, do they have a lot of slaves. Like, one of the issues that popped up with their worship of chaos and giving to the dark powers is their minds did kind of get warped a little bit

as it does when chaos is involved. Like, they didn't kind of become these cold, vicious monsters that basically wanted to enslave anything that didn't agree with them. But, like, as your mind just, slowly kind of warps and twists, you kind of devolve and turn away from like what your normal dwarf

brethren used to do. And honestly, Hachshut needs human sacrifices all the time and slaves are great for that. Also, really good time to mention that the chaos dwarves do oftentimes act as like sort of the polar opposite

to regular dwarfs, because regular dwarfs would never, but they would never even think of employing like, they would never take a slave and be like, okay, build this thing for me. They're like, no, no, no, no, no. The slave would fuck that up. I'm the only one with the proper skill and the proper know-how to build that building. But the chaos dwarves view industry as something that is actually best done by others. Same with like when were they going to battle and we'll talk about this later. The chaos dwarves actually are kind of the minority of their armies, and it's mostly other slaves that do all the heavy lifting and all the fighting for them. So again, regular old dwarves,

not really known for their innovation either. They kind of, they don't love innovation. It's like, oh, my father did it this way, so I'm going to do it this way too. I don't know if that was a good accent. I don't think it was. That wasn't bad, actually. That was okay. But chaos dwarves are just ever growing tech-wise Because naturally, chaos dwarf isn't going to look at their past And be like, oh yeah, of course I have to honor that They're like, when a chaos dwarf look at their look ble when a chaos dwarf looks at their past They're essentially going to be like that's all the shit that betrayed me

That's those are the gods and the ideals and the stuff that like left me isolated out here in the first place why would I give a shit about honoring that? I am going to move forward. I have my eyes on innovation and the future and whatever I can do to move forward I'm going to do, even if that means having the most slaves that have ever existed. If that's the price that I have to pay, then that's the price I'll pay. It's like, I guess it's almost like they got cut off like geographically and socially. and because of the combination of both of those,

they basically got cut off from what they were considered to be their history as well. Where it's just why would we emulate what's already happened when we can do something different? What happened essentially means that everything we grew up with or grew up believing or believed as a full-on species, that didn't work. It all went wrong. Why would we just carry on? You've got change.

You've got to make things different, like a total societal shift away from everything that the dwarves believed and straight into mass slave ownership. Also, Shai said, listen, I'm really struggling to not boss baby iron warriors here with bitter industrial faction that considers the other guys' traders, loves to hurt slaves and are ruled by warped demons. Yeah, it do kind of be like that. And the other thing is the chaos dwarves will use their slaves for like a majority of just the grunt work. Like the building of Tsar Nagrund and that giant tower, they could not have done that on their own. If it was just chaos dwarves building it, never would have happened. It was pretty much completely done by slave labor. A lot of day-to-day maintenance on the buildings, on the city, on a bunch of stuff.

It's done by the slaves. So, you know, they, again, they don't love their slaves, but they sure do love using their slaves. Yeah, I was going to say work smart and not harder, but that sounds like some sort of tacit agreement with the practice, and that's not what I'm going for. And to the chaos dwarves, essentially anything that is a different race, anything that is not chaos dwarf is more or less that is a commodity to be collected. used and then chucked in the bin when it loses its value. They sort of have this xenophobia. Like the regular dwarfs have this sort of like, ooh, if it's not a dwarf, it's...

But the normal dwarfs don't quite act on it the way that the dwarfs do, the chaos dwarfs do, the chaos dwarfs really, really act on it. And they love collecting slaves. And honestly, there are very few things they won't turn into slave, but one of them, they don't like taking skate. Saven slaves and they refuse to take Skaven slaves. They don't take Skaven slaves because it's just, Skaven are just too goddamn devious.

And devious... I'm just a convenience thing, isn't it? It's not necessarily a mix of convenience and a quality of work, given, you know, how Skaven stuff is prone to exploding, collapsing in and itself, you know, turning people inside out. They probably, they probably tried it for a little bit and then went, look, that is the fourth sword that that guy's made this one. week that has spontaneously compressed and we don't understand why. Can we just stop using that guy, please? Yeah. So it's, it's probably a lot of that, but also something that I didn't think of is like, when we say the Skaven are devious, like there's obviously the sort of like they're always trying to backstab stuff, all of their stuff explodes, but there's also this idea that when you

take a Skaven as a prisoner or a slave or something, that Skaven might actually be a spy. and they might actually want to be captured so that they can sabotage you, especially with the chaos dwars because the slaves are taken to all of their important places to do maintenance. And Skaven have this nasty habit of potentially being sort of plague bear bombs that are just waiting to go off and wipe out your whole operation and just infest and infect everything and just ruining your whole. whole shit.

Also... There might be chaos. They're just the wrong type of chaos. Do we consider Skaven as chaos? Well, the Great Horned Rat officially became the fifth chaos god in AOS. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So in AOS, in AOS for sure they're chaos. And the Great Horned Rat becomes a chaos god.

But I always felt like in fantasy there was a bit of a coin flip as to like, you know, are they actually chaos because the Great Horned Rat wants to be the next Chaos God, but in fantasy it's technically not, we'll just go what they are. They're evil bastards. Like chaos in, but like a lower case C chaos. All this stuff is is like capital C chaos because it's under the control of the pantheon and worshipping gods, whereas the Skavin, even now they are part of like, the Great Horn Rat is part of the Pantheon in AOS.

they still feel like chaos with a lower case. They're just out there to cause absolute havoc 100% of the time. And I feel like they don't care who's on a receiving end. Oh, no, they absolutely don't. Yeah, let's go. Even if it's their own Skaven troops, they will absolutely just be like, oh, yeah, I can take out my rival Skaven in that bomb explosion too. Hell yeah, brother, let's go. Also, having Skaven working in your minds is probably a problem.

pretty piss poor idea. Because Skaven could literally just keep digging and digging and digging and dig a tunnel and essentially get back home. All the other species, in theory, would have to go the opposite way while escaping. And they're probably in such a desolate area that, like, if they're in the mines, they're not getting home. But ascaven, they can just keep digging, digging, digging, and eventually they'll find one of their little Skaven rat holes and just be back home.

And it's like, oh, shit. Now we got to plug up another Skaven hole that's in our city because we took like three Skaven slaves. They all dug their way back home and now there's, ow, stupid Skaven! I love the idea if they take three Skaven slaves and then a month later, they're like, I thought we captured three. There's like 50 in here. Did you capture more? No? I don't we talking about.

Where did they come from? Yeah. And now you've got a whole Skaven invasion on your hands. And it's like, ah, no more scaven slaves. Stop it. Never again. This is stupid. And notably, the chaos dwarves love.

Also, again, that's air quotes, love having green skin slaves. I would hazard to say that a majority of their slave force is made up of some type of green skin. Because, you know, they're just, they're hardier, they're stronger. They're able to, they're able to withstand all the fiery conditions of czar now. They can work in it. They're not too disturbed by it. They also particularly like hobgoblins because they're like a green skin, but they're just, they're a little more devious.

And they hobgoblins are more than willing to backstab a green skin. They're just sort of, we'll talk about this a little more, they're kind of like coded to be devious and backstabbing. And so the chaos dwarfs will give them sort of, I don't know if I want to say the honor of being like a slave overseer that sort of whips all the other slaves into shape. It's not that the chaos dwarves like love them anymore, but, you know, at least it's something. But yeah, like I said, Hobgobbs are essentially, they're hardwired to be treacherous and diabolical.

And so the chaos dwarves gives them the best opportunity to do this, even though the chaos wars will still control them and brutally beat them down and, you know, all that sort of stuff. But it's like, you know, hey, at least I get to be a slave overseer. Hooray, hooray. Little collaborators. Yeah. And because of this, the hobgoblins kind of rely on the chaos dwarfs for protection. Because without the chaos dwarfs there, the other greenskins would absolutely beat the shit

out of them and probably eat them alive. A little fun little thing. There is a notable hobgoblin chieftain that is in the service of the chaos dwarves, a person known as, or I guess a goblin, known as Gorda's backstabber. He has outlived many other hobbing chieftains

because he trusts absolutely nobody. A quote from him that shows his methodology is stick him with errors, sticking with knives and swords and spears, stick them quick and stick them where it hurts, but most of all, stick them when he's looking the other way. Nice.

I like the idea that he's got trust issues with a name like a backstabber. It's like, can I? You might be the cause of this, you know? Can I trust you, Gorda does backstabber? Oh, sure you can. Just look the other way, mate. Okay. What's that over there?

Yeah, what's that over there? Where? I, son of them. I should have known. Ah, God, I should have known not to look. It was right there in the name and yet. And I still look. God, you're so clever.

No wonder you've lasted but so long. which actually brings us to this really important event that happened to the chaos dwarfs and probably one of their most catastrophic fuck-ups ever. So like we said, chaos dwarfs have an absolutely staggering number of green skin slaves. And one day, the chaos dwarves, they were like, we're really tired of these green-skinned slaves. Like, they're always so rowdy. sometimes they won't listen to us.

There's so many of them. And like, they're always infighting too. Like, sometimes our slaves are just killing themselves and killing off their friends and stuff. And it's like, God, I wish we could make more obedient green skins. So one day, the castor was like, well, you know what? That's a great idea. Why don't we?

So they're like, you know, let's take the biggest, strongest, smartest orcs and let's use our dark magic to make them more obedient. That's why Husha gave us his magic. Let's do it. And as just a quick note, their obsession with sort of dark and forbidden magic actually brought them down the path of modifying life to create sort of perfect entities to do their work for them.

Specifically, they've also created the kadi, which are essentially half demon, half elementals, that act as servants to the demon smiths. and it's sort of this compromise of instead of summoning a demon, why not make your own partial one that can do all the stuff you want a demon to do, but this one actually listens to you

and probably won't double cross you. But a big problem that the chaos dwarves did not foresee is apparently it is quite impossible to overwrite an orc's sense of independence and I suppose free will. and all of the chaos dwarfs succeeded in doing was they made something called a black orc I was gonna ask if it was black orcs

Yeah, it's black orcs Aren't they like super brutal like extra strong Just like an orc times two I think I've seen those described as So essentially a black orc is literally just bigger stronger and much much smarter than your average orc. And because of this,

they made essentially what they did was they made the perfect leaders of a green skin slave rebellion. And honestly, I would almost say black orcs are like a normal orc times like a hundred, honestly. It's especially there is one specific one. I think what was his name? Grimgore.

Grimgore Iron Hyde. Right, Grimgore Iron Hyde. He is literally the strongest orc and strongest war boss that has ever lived. And that's what they made. And the chaos dwarves are responsible for that. Yeah, because he escaped from them. They couldn't kill him. And then he goes out into the fantasy realm and he causes so much hell.

This, oh, we, if you watch, if you go back and watch the Greenskin episode, we talk about Grim Gore Ironhide, he is basically impossible to kill. You are not standing up to him. Absolutely. Just a complete monster in every way. In every single way. And so, quite literally, the Black Orks lead a Greenskin slave rebellion. And they come really, really. really close to actually wiping out the chaos dwarves.

Like, they made it all the way to the temple of Hachut at the very top of Tsar Nagarin. And they were about to actually destroy the chaos dwarfs, but those fucking hobgoblins. The hobgoblins decided at the very last moment, they wanted to turn on the green skins. And so they end up turning on the green skins in just. just the most pivotal moment, and they end up shifting the tide of battle in the favor of the chaos dwarfs, and the chaos dwarfs are able to sort of get them under control again, a bunch that probably make it out, but they are able to be brought back underfoot by the chaos dwarfs. And I brought this question up to Possum because I was like, you know, if the black

Orks and the Greenskins made it all the way to the temple. Like, they must have basically crippled the chaos dwarves. What could those hobgoblins have possibly done to stop that and to, like, really shift the tide of battle? And Possum's response was, it's a bit vague, but it goes into what was mentioned before, where hobgoblins are just instinctively built to be treacherous and stab others in the back. And this is what they did to the black orcs. though it's not explicitly stated anywhere.

You can kind of presume the black orcs are on the front lines, as they should be, while the hobgoblins were towards the back. The hobgoblins took this to their advantage and were able to attack everyone from behind. And so this results in sort of this pincer move where you've got chaos dwarves attacking the greenskins from the front, and then you've got hobgoblins attacking from the back, and it's just, there's just no way to fight both of them. off and you just get scrunched into the middle. Yeah. Yeah.

Also, Shai said, at this point, very few black orcs remain in the service of the masters of Tsar Nagrand, though they're not permitted to enter the city itself, most escaped and joined with other orcs. Okay. That is a catastrophic, like, project gone wrong. Technically succeeding in making, like, stronger orcs, but amplifying everything about them, including making them way more intelligent. when what you really wanted was way more obedient, that, that is, that is bad. That is a bad,

a bad way to do it. Yep, that is, that is, yeah, yep, yep, yep. And it's crazy. Grimgor Iron High did escape from this. So that's almost the law quote. They sought to make them stronger, hardier, and more intelligent that they could better carry out the will of the chaos dwarves. They succeeded far beyond their expectations and desires. Yes. Hell yes. That's great. Yep.

Also, at this point, it's worth mentioning that also the knobblars managed to escape from the Chaos Wars, which knobblers are kind of like, you know, these little goblin-esque things. Are they like little tiny, like mini-goblins or whatever? Yeah, more or less. They're really popular with the ogres. Oghers love them. Eating them or actually? Actually, the ogres actually like, they love keeping them as like little pets and they love having

like a little knoblar and to sort of signify that it's like their knoblar, an ogre will like take a little bite out of its ear and be like, oh, look, that one that right there's mine. And because they taste awful and they don't want to eat them because they don't taste it. So they're fun to have as like a little, oh yeah, they're such dummies. But they're great though. We did an episode on them like, I think it was the last episode maybe and they're really fun too. But so they escape from the caves where the chaos dwarves are and

that's when they sort of flee to the mountains to seek refuge with the Ogre kingdom. And naturally, Noblar's are just always horrified of Chaos Dwarfs because, oh boy, Pepperidge Farm remembers. I can't blame them. Like, chaos dwarves, even by the standards of Warhammer Fantasy, 40K, AOS, like just Warhammer in general. Chaos Dwarves, absolute wrong guns to a degree. I think even more than some of the other chaos factions, it feels like. They just seem absolutely awful from top to bottom. Yeah, kind of.

They kind of are. And honestly, that's kind of the long and the short of the chaos dwarf's lore, right? Like they wander a little too far out with good reason. Chaos blows out the backs of the old ones portals. They get stranded because they're way too far off and everyone assumes they're dead. they blame everybody else but themselves worship chaos make slaves profit that's essentially their lore right i meant to ask this earlier i don't want to forget the old ones as am i right in thinking that at one point the old ones in fantasy and the old ones in 40k was supposed to be the same thing or am i misremembering

that if i'm not mistaken they might actually be the same ones okay because there is like a little overlap between fantasy and 40K like the chaos gods are literally the same in 40K and in fantasy so I'm not I don't remember if the old ones are the same and it's like oh yeah once their portals got blown out they're just like

ah screw this I guess we're going to go do the 40K stuff so I'm not entirely sure if they're the same I want to say they are the same same name same ideal behind them you know I would say probably the same right the one world was the test

run and then 40K was the next project. I'd argue if that was true. They really messed it up on the second try and all. And then the old ones are like, so necrons, eh? Our portals got blown out, so necrons, huh? Anyway, it was implied early on that fantasy world was a lost planet in 40K setting because Caldor Drago fucking showed up in fantasy, but eventually GW said no, they are 100% separate.

Okay. Oh, I vaguely remember. that, like Caldor Drago showing up, like some sort of vision from somewhere, but I only remember that as being people being angry about it. I mean, to be fair, he ruins everything, so. Also, now would probably be about the best time to bring up another thing about Dwarven culture that is different for the chaos dwarfs, specifically y' old grudges. Now, as we all know, the non-chaos dwarves have this massive book of grudges, and it holds all the grudges.

It holds like ancestral grudges. And a big difference between regular dwarfs and chaos dwarves is actually the way that they handle their grudges. Our notable example has to do with the wood elves. There's a chaos dwarf sorcerer lord that was assassinated by a wood elf while he was in the temple of Hachut himself. And so when this happens, obviously the chaos dwarves are not thrilled. We don't have a ton of chaos dwarf sorcerer lords.

They are our pinnacle. They are our priests. They are the beloved. We are never going to forgive and we are never going to forget this crime against our people for as long as we live. So what the chaos dwarves do is they track down where this wood elf assassin was from. And they found that he lived near the Skull River in the forest surrounding its banks. And every hundred years on the day, on the anniversary of that assassination, the chaos dwarves would attack and scorch the forest there, burning it to the ground.

And then they would leave. And they would give it another hundred years or so so that it could rebuild and regrow, and they would just do it over and over and over. over and over again. They would burn it to the ground, let it rebuild, burn it down again because, God damn it, we don't forgive and we don't forget. That is a commitment to spite that is almost admirable,

how absolutely petty that is. God damn. And this kept happening until 2497 IC, when General Vrasnack of the Chaos Dwarves decided, you know what, It's time. It's time to end this once and for all, and amassed an unusually large army for the occasion and lit the woods on fire in an attempt to bait out the elves to face them. The elves eventually met them on the field of battle with a hastily assembled army, which included treemen and all that stuff, and they faced the chaos dwarves. naturally because it was such a large force because the elves army was just very hastily put together

the chaos dwarves absolutely bodied them very few wood elves made it out alive and the chaos dwarves took the bodies they took trophies and they of course took slaves back to their realm of course i mean what else are you going to do at the end of a battle And this is how the chaos dwarves like to handle their grudges. This is how they like to close out their grudges. They make you feel it for a long time until they finally, mercifully let you die and then take your withering corpse as a slave back to their crazy forge city. They're so hardcore.

They are so hard. One guy gets killed and it's like, I see you've chosen thousands of years of pain. I see you've chosen eternal torture. Yeah. Oh my God. So now we can talk a little bit about how the chaos dwarfs sort of go to war when they fight and all that fun stuff. Much like regular dwarfs, our silly little chaos dwarf buddies are also all, you know, like we said,

they're master craftsmen and like regular dwarfs, they're like really sturdy warriors. like the most sturdy warriors of ever. They love to tie off and curl their beards in kind of exotic ways. And as you've seen from many pictures, they also just love to wear those really big tall helmets. And depending on what specific like job or expertise the Chaos Dwarf has, their tall helmets could be stylized in very different ways and have different shapes, which means it's more or less a status symbol.

I don't think they need it for actual protection. I'm sure it protects them a little bit, but it's more to just show like, oh, here's my important job, here's how high up on the food chain I am, and all that good stuff. And Possum notes that the emphasis on headgear was sort of a means to roll in the goofy-looking old pictures

of the chaos dwarves into sort of a more contemporary version of the game. It's just people didn't want them to lose their silly, goofy hats. At some point, things like that just become so integral to how people think of a faction, but it's like, well, we can't ditch this now. I think it's the same thing with some of the old-ar stuff, where when you look at the older models of the Phoenix Lords, it's like, why is his head so big?

Why is his hat so tall? But that's what it looks like now. So you can't change it. You've got to just make it a little bit different to suit modern times. Same thing with the Chaos Wars probably, where it's like, okay, is that an old picture? I'm sorry to interrupt you, but that is so silly. What, the shape of the hat is incredible.

Oh, that's great. I had to interrupt you to bring, to bring attention to that picture because what? It's got like the chaos spiky bits on it as well. Oh, my God. Wow. Oh, that is, that is brilliant. That's a phone wallpaper if I've ever seen one, by the way. Oh, hell yeah.

Oh, yeah. Also, as we've said before, they love chucking their slaves. I keep saying they love their slaves, they don't love their slaves, but they love using their slaves. They hate their slaves. They love using their slaves. So, of course, they will chuck slaves at their problems until the cows come home. They have tons of slaves, and there aren't that many cast dwarfs. So, like, why would I risk one of the few?

chaos dwarf soldiers we have when we can just throw our seemingly infinite number of cannon fodder slaves at the problem. And the chaos dwarves themselves, when they do fight, as you might imagine, are just dripped out from head to toe in the finest weapons and armor that the demon smiths can muster. Their armor is usually sort of this blackish color and is very just naturally resistant to heat and fire. Also a good time to note that they are, by and large, the chaos dwarves are the most technologically advanced race in the old world. Their machines are essentially just completely unmatched in advancement in the fantasy world.

Again, as we've been saying this whole episode, this is also in large part because they just have so many slaves. They just have so many slaves to throw at industry and making stuff and advancing stuff that that is a large part of why they are so technologically advanced. It's really easy to produce a shedload of prototype products and machinery and guns and weapons if, you know, the risk of people dying in the process is meaningless to you. It's completely meaningful. You don't have to be careful. So, yeah, we accept that there is a good chance that just by. hitting this in the wrong way, you will die. But that's a risk I'm willing to take from over there in that corner of the room whilst you do it because you have no choice. Let's go. That is totally the quote. You could die from this, but that is a risk I am more than willing to make for you.

Yep. And generally all of their armor and weapons are covered in like these magic rooms that will bolster their power. They do use swords, axes, spears and the like. But Chaos dwarves love their guns. They use pistols, they use bladed fire glaive repeating guns, and of course the favorite gun of the chaos dwarf is the Hail Shot Blunderbuss, which from everything I read just kind of sounds more or less like sort of just a really amped up magic blunderbuss that they specifically love using because there are just in the darkland,

there are just so many fucking green skins. There are so many of them. And the blunderbuss, they love it because it's like, oh, is that like a whole lineup of green skins? One shot? Damn, they're all dead. Great. Love my blunderbuss.

Oh, God. They look so good. That's actually the, that is the squad that I distinctly remember being on Forge World and then never, never buying it. Because why would I just buy a random squad of dwarves when I didn't play the system they're involved in, but a whole, like, unit of those guys with, like, the almost blank helmets that cover the entire face with just the little pinhole, like, eye, eye sockets in them, all just holding these massive guns.

It looks so good. And yeah, the stock is also an axe. The front is an axe. The back is an axe. Oh, hell, yeah. That is an all-purpose weapon. Also, they have really cool helmets on. Like, They don't have hats those guys, but damn, those masks are. That the helm is a great. And I guess it goes without saying that also their guns are ruin etched to make them some really bussen guns, as the kids say. Anyway, sort of. Say that. Do they say that, though?

The kids do say, right? They totally say they're bussing. And it's a blunderbussing. So, of course, it's busin. One might say it's blunderbusset. No, okay, all right. That's. I'll give you that one, okay.

I'll give you that one. Sort of lastly, the chaos dwarfs also just love their big old siege weaponry and their demon engines. Being master craftsmen, they are really great at building them too. And they just love fielding them. Like they have this thing called the Hell Canon. Looks kind of like your average siege cannon, but it's imbued with a demon sentient, or a demon to the point where the chaos dwarves have to literally chain it to the ground so it doesn't just go roaring and wheeling into the enemy lines.

And apparently, and apparently sometimes chaining it down just isn't enough. Sometimes it breaks free and it just starts rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling, and just starts going fucking crazy because it's so bloodthirsty. I love that. Most cannons you have to stabilize. and you have to like put some sort of barrier or something to prevent the recoil from sending it flying backwards into your troops. These, you have to do that so that it doesn't actively attempt to run your own army over because it hates you.

Yeah, so the demon sentience doesn't just like, I'm so thirsty for blood, let me go! And it's like, hey, hey, chill, chill, chill, let us aim you first, Jesus. Your cloak was supposed to fire at range. Stop trying to run them over, please. We've made ammo for you. please let us use it. Also, these things run on a furnace that needs to constantly be fed the fresh flesh of their enemies, which eventually the cannon will also convert into energy bolts that it can fire at the enemy to.

Incredible. I'm assuming is a slave an enemy? Because surely... Sure, why not? I guarantee you chaos. Rorers are like, oh, we don't have any fresh enemy bodies? Well, there's a slave. Yeah, sure, chuck it in there.

Why not? We hate those fuckers anyway. Counts as an enemy, right? Come here, punch that hobgoblin. It counts. Yeah, sure, why not? Hostile action came in there. Yeah.

And they also love to use your sort of standard, like mortar shells, rocket launchers. They have a rocket launcher that is powered by shrieking hell-fired demons harvested from the cinders of Hachut. They have this cool thing called a skull cracker, which is more or less like, it's this locomotive

that's been retrofitted to basically act as like the coolest battering ram you've ever seen because it's fortified with like spinning blades, hammers, and picks and stuff like that. Also, Possum really wants me to talk

about rockets because the chaos dwarves they've built a few rockets, but... Sorry, I just saw the picture of the skullcrack. Right, that thing is so cool. It's ridiculous. It is the coolest retrofitted locomotive I've ever

seen, right? It's just, okay, we just need to keep sticking blades on this until it looks done. Absolutely. Love me, the skull cracker. Oh, that's great. But yeah, Possom wants me to talk, and I will talk, because it's cool, about how, you know, the Chaos Dwarves have built a few rockets in their time and they're not great at it.

Of note, one of their biggest rockets was known as the hammer of Hachut. It was a test rocket that was the size of a tower. It was launched, but it veered off course immediately and they almost accidentally nuked Zarnagrand itself. Wow. Fortunately, it missed and instead obliterated a goblin encampment and left a crater that was several hundred yards wide. That's so good. I love that their experiments seem to either result in things like skull crackers or tanks that want to also kill your own side or black or nuclear missiles that don't go where you want them to.

loving the, let's just keep throwing stuff at the wall and see what sticks. It seems like an equal, it seems like an equal ratio of success to failure, right? Yeah, but I suppose when you've got, you know, infinite slaves, the failures don't matter, do they? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And so now we're coming to the part about, so possum has left me a lengthy bit about, like, why is there a lack of lore? Why don't they have as extensive lore as, say, the greenskins or the empire or any of that stuff? And so, I guess to begin, the introduction of the Chaos Dwarves was a bit unique compared to the other races in Warhammer fantasy battles. They were first introduced through various issues of white dwarf during the fourth edition of the game.

This was a means to test and see if there would be, like, any interest in them. But this is immediately hit with the problem. In order to have a coherent army list, you would need to get all the issues relevant to the chaos dwarves, which wasn't easy. They did release a compiled version of it eventually, but this was also hard to sell in itself because it wasn't released like the other codex books were.

Another thing to note about it is that it wasn't really a unique army, and it took a lot of stuff from like the very, green skin armies at the time. All the above made it so that they weren't really sought after and they weren't really further supported at the time. It just wasn't, it's just, it was just weird. It was just strange.

It was just, a lot of weird, yeah. It feels like classic older games workshop where they sort of introduce something in a very kind of hesitant way. They make it really hard to find everything you need to use the thing they've introduced. And then when it's not picked up,

They go, I mean, no one's buying it. It's like, yeah. You made it impossible to get it all, man. Like, eventually, you made it really hard. Eventually, you made the compiled version, but that also was a hard sell. And it's like, man, what did you expect? Yeah. Yeah, it feels, it does, it feels sort of like that.

I guess it's the same thing as like back in the day when you had various supplements and stuff. And it was like, to be able to use this, you will need this other complete code. I feel like the space wolves ages ago, many editions ago, they had access to a Lehman Russ, where half the, I seem to remember you needed another codex to be able to really use that because it wasn't in the space walls one. But it's like, why not? Why not just put it in there? Yeah, it seems, it seems very, very classic games workshop the way they did the chaos

dwarves to start with. Then, then we hit sixth edition of Warhammer Fantasy, which coincides with a third edition of 40K, this is when things start to get a lot more grim dark. So it was sort of like, it was sort of like the perfect time for the chaos dwarves to come back. However, they needed to be reworked a bit. The original aesthetic was a bit too goofy for the setting, as we saw before. And some aspects, including the facial features, were a bit too problematic at the time and felt almost like this really goofy caricature that just not.

Nah. So in an attempt to work them into the newer edition at the time, they were reintroduced during the Storm of Chaos campaign, specifically the Hell Canon release, that gave them a more diabolical hatless engineer vibe that was kind of slick. However, again, they didn't really get any more support. Additionally, the only way you could actually run them at this time is if you had a copy of ravening ravening hordes as that book was the only book that had information on the compliant army. Oh, it's so like, come on, guy. Get your act together. Oh, wow. The difference. It is literally night and day. I mean, it, borderline, borderline, not the same faction.

Yeah, it is. That is one of the craziest glowups I think I have ever seen. They look so good. That again, that helmet. the blank helmet. Oh, it looks so good. You have gone from a goofy caricature to holy shit. That, I, I want, I want, I want that, I want that mini, right?

Yeah, I want to go and find those now, just for the sake of having them. Yeah. And the final nail in the coffin came at around eighth edition with the launch of Warhammer Forge, Forge World for Fantasy. It was going to have a book called Tamerkan, the Thurgeon, the Thurgeon, the Thurgeon, the Thurgeon, throne of chaos. It was not only a massive setting book, but also had a complete

chaos dwarf army list. However, the issue came with something that Kyriath would know about forge world pricing, baby. You gotta love it. You've got to love seeing a squad of 10 that costs four times more a squad of 10 from Games workshop.

Back in the day when it was Death Corps of Krieg, It's like, oh, I fancy a death court of Krieg Army. And then you look at the fact that 10 causemen was like 45 pounds. Yeah. And how many do you need for a guard army? Especially Krieg, who were mostly infantry. It's like, I mean, you either win the lottery or you just don't collect that. Yep.

Good luck. Yep. So as to sum that up, that shit was expensive as hell. So in order to play them, you would need extremely expensive models that were considered by many to be subpar, and you would also need a book that was far more expensive than most books. But, like other things Forge World-related,

the models took a long time to come out, and it became a bit of a waiting game that ultimately, it just wasn't worth the wait for most people. So, unfortunately, they never took off the ground properly, much like their rocket, the hammer, of a shit. Ha ha ha ha ha. Nice one,

possum. Excellent. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's that it tracks. It sounds about right. Trickling out really expensive releases that like make other armies look cheap.

Whilst also putting their rules in a book that's more expensive than all the others that you can't even use everything in there anyway because it's not available. So why did it fail? Who knows? Yeah, gee whiz. What? Golly. However, they do serve as a good race for the sake of the setting itself, and you do see some chaos dwarves as villains in some books,

particularly in some of the stories of Gottrick and Felix, and their presence alone makes them undeniably an interesting part of the setting. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is our Chaos Dwarf episode. I said it was going to be a condensed episode or a not as long episode. I'm trying not to use the S word in a dwarf episode. episode. I think I've done very well, but it ended up being very long because I did, I specifically was like, listen, Possum, there's not a ton of lore on the chaos dwarves. I'm not entirely sure why. So if you got anything you want to throw in there to beef up this episode as like why there isn't a lot of lore or why they do what they do, be free young sparrow. That's not a saying, but whatever, it's fine. You get the idea. And so shout outs to Possum for adding a, uh, good chunk of like really interesting sort of like why they're not doing as well and a lot of little anecdotes yeah so yeah be free unlike the labor that the chaos dwarfs for their industry

be free unlike a green skin under chaos dwarf rule yeah yeah but that's it that's all i got let's go chaos dwarfs we're so evil and we love slaves they said oh yeah and you can now get a Chaos Dwarf Blood Bowl team. Oh, hey, those are pretty cool, though. They are, actually. They're very fun. They're a bit goofy, but in the best way. Look at the difference, though, between the old Chaos Dwarf that was on Forge World,

the gun, and the new Blood Bowl team. Oh, man. Again, it's like they've gone back a bit, but you can get away with it in Blood Bowl, because Blood Bowl's silly, so it's fine. Oh, man, that old Chaos Dwarf Mini, the black and red one is just... Oh, man. What is that? The axe looks terrible.

The whole thing looks terrible, really. The color scheme is the only good thing about it, because black and red always looks good. But like, oh man, that's brutal. Oh, bless them. Love chaos dwarves. I do nothing about them. They're awesome.

I really like them now. Yeah. Oh, wow, they do look cool in Total War III. Holy. Oh, that's right. They have that whole trailer of like fire and blood and, in an industry. It's a really, really dope trailer.

Oh, what? Okay, what is that steam engine thing in the back? I didn't realize those were cannons on either side. That's, oh, it's so good. I think that might just be just a, oh, oh, ho ho ho. Oh, there we go. Oh, man, an iron demon and a dreadquake, you'll love to see it. Yeah, yeah, those are the ones, like, they're on Fourswell for so long,

and I just never went anywhere near them, and now they've disappeared, and I'm like, But that steam engine was insanely cool. Oh, yeah. God, the blades on the front make it look so much better, too. Like, obviously, it already looks great with the cannons and the coal in the back for the steam. But, God, something about those blades in the front. Just give it, like, this extra menacing vibe. Love it.

Looks proper evil. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. So, Carrie, any parting words before we call it a fantasy episode? I only that I want all the things that are no longer available now. Yay! Typical GW, right? Typical GW.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, I guess we're going to call that an episode. That is Chaos Dwarves. It was just as long as an episode as any other fantasy ones. So sorry for once again lying to you at the start of the episode. But I guess, hey, if you enjoyed the episode, head over to patreon.com, Adeptus Ridiculous for all the stuff that Curiaw said at the beginning. And then to shop.orgate.com for all the awesome stuff

Kirao said at the beginning too. Poster, shirts. Buy stickers. Oh, yeah, the cool stickers. Those stickers are so dope. A funcopopop sticker that looks good. It's not funco pop legally, but you get the idea. Do it.

See you next week, everyone. Buy the merch. Buy the merch. Bye everyone.