Dwarves in space: Squats and the conglomerates of Votann
If you like dwarves, but prefer dystopian visions of the future, you might appreciate the Squats from Warhammer 40,000. Squats – or Homo sapiens rotundus – are “metahumanoids” (engl. “abhumans”), akin to allowed mutants in the Imperium of Man.
Due to persistent warp storms and tremendous gravity on their original home worlds, the anatomy of the people living there has changed so that they have become smaller and stockier – just like you imagine dwarves.
The Imperium has almost forgotten about Squats and lost contact with most of them, at least until quite recently. The conglomerates of Votann are the descendants of the Squats with their own culture and rules. They call themselves the “Kyn.”
Kyn and their fantasy counterpart of the “standard” dwarfs share several characteristics, such as:
- particularly high resistance to chaos
- great skill in craftsmanship, mining, and technology
- strong sense of tradition and ancestor veneration
What makes the conglomerates of Votann so special is that half of the population actually consists of forbidden technology: Ironkyn are sapient machines, hence artificial intelligences, who live together with the Kyn in a society. On equal terms.
In Warhammer 40,000, artificial intelligence is strictly forbidden, at least in the Imperium. However, this probably won’t bother the Kyn, as after so many millennium cut off from the Imperium, the connection is likely no longer truly there.
More about the Kyn and the conglomerates of Votann can be read here: In Warhammer 40,000, there are space dwarves and they are even tougher than in Deep Rock Galactic
You can actually play all of these dwarves in Warhammer, at least in the tabletop. Here are some tips to save money on your armies.
If the hobby still seems too expensive or time-consuming, you can find most of them even in video games – with the exception of the conglomerates of Votann. However, they do appear as reinforcements in the new Mechnicus 2. If you don’t know where to start: Here are the 7 best games to get started in the world of Warhammer
