Hashut and his children: The Chaos Dwarfs
Strictly speaking, there is a fourth “subtype” of fantasy dwarves: Chaos Dwarfs. Long ago, these dwarves from the east of the world lost contact with their brothers (and sisters) – and more importantly: the contact with their ancestors.
Left to their own devices and in a constant battle against the chaos demons, this part of the dwarves eventually desperately sought protection and found it in Hashut, a lesser chaos god and the lord of hatred, fire, and tyranny.
Although dwarves actually have a high resistance to the powers of chaos, they ultimately succumbed to Hashut or rather: they willingly follow him. The bond to Hashut had a significant influence on the Dawi Zharr – or Uzkul-Dhrath-Zharr in their own language:
- The Chaos Dwarfs can cast spells, but at the cost of slowly turning their bodies to stone.
- Chaos corruption has caused some dwarfs to mutate, such as into bull centaurs, more or less a likeness of Hashut.
- Through new technologies, Chaos Dwarfs can “forge” demons into new creatures, the K’daai, or simply imprison them and use them as “batteries” for even more powerful war machines, likely the most destructive artillery in Warhammer Fantasy.
In the realms of mortals, the Chaos Dwarfs still exist, even in comparatively stronger form: The hellforges of Hashut. Games Workshop just released this as a new army for Age of Sigmar in 2025: Warhammer introduces new dwarfs who do forbidden things, directly converting hundreds of fans
