Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome back to Fantasy Fireside and today I'm here with
Colin once again to discuss Warhammer Fantasy and we're doing a very, how shall I say this,
a very popular request from the comments that I've been observing over the last few months.
Colin, would you like to reveal what faction we're talking about today?
I would be delighted to. Today we are talking about the Dau'i or the dwarfs in not Warhammer speak.
Dwarves! Everyone likes dwarfs, I know it's well known, I'm partial to my elves but that doesn't
mean I dislike dwarfs, I quite like dwarfs and in Warhammer Fantasy I think dwarfs have got to be
up there and factions I like. So with a rundown of what we're going to be doing today, are we
going to go through different factions or specific characters? What should the audience be expecting
for this one? It'll just be a nice chill little brief overview of their history, talk about
some of the big stuff that happened, a little bit of tabletop how they play, a little bit about
their culture, just dip your toes into a little bit of everything, nothing super in depth, just
nice little chill and we'll talk about hey, you ever see those short angry people? This is
what they're all about. That can be misconstrued for a lot of things, I've been to Wales.
No, no, no, not that. Anyway. So is anything in particular, any questions you got beforehand
before we dive in? I suppose I'm assuming that there isn't a, how do I put this, like when you
think of the different races in Warhammer, are they part of the, not first founding, but there was
a big super duper being and then there was this, this, this, this, this and they were part of that
original, like we made this batch of things. I'm not sure exactly if everything just came into
fruition, other than the Skaven, came into fruition all at once or if they were different,
it's kind of hard to explain, but do you know what I mean? Yeah, and that's actually the
perfect way to put it, you're actually pretty close with how it works. Their history begins,
their version of their history is that their ancestor gods shaped them from the earth and
taught them culture and all that good stuff. The non-dwarf version of their history is that the
old ones, like you said, the big super being, it's still the old ones in fantasy. When they came to
the Warhammer world, they started making races to fight against chaos. They wanted to make the perfect
anti-chaos race and the elves were first, they made the elves and they weren't what they were
looking for. They were very powerful with magic, they were more than happy to fight in a war,
but they were a bit too frail, they were prone to following their ambitions, a bit
kind of selfish almost, and so just overall not what they were looking for. So they made sure
Ulthuan, the island of the elves, was all nice and good for them. It did still help them out a bit,
they didn't just throw them into the wind, they gifted culture and all that stuff, but they moved
on to round two, which was the dwarfs. So they took what they learned from the elves and switched
the formula around a bit. So what they did with the dwarfs was not only can dwarfs for the most part
not use magic, they're so anti-magic that when dwarfs, if you get enough dwarfs around,
you just can't use magic. It's almost like they're a race of blanks.
That's interesting, I didn't realize that, that's quite interesting.
It's not quite blanks because they do have souls, it's just like the way they're made.
Dwarfs have souls guys, come on.
They have souls, I swear. No, it's not like they're not blanks, they have a soul,
but it has such a stabilizing effect on chaos and magic that weaker magicians just can't use magic.
You'll be hearing a lot of this this episode, and Gottrick and Felix, Gottrick and another dwarf,
Malachi McKyson, get blasted by this wizard's magical kamehameha. They just stand there and
take it. You're like, you think a dwarf is going to bow to this weak stuff? Come on.
They just, it just doesn't work. So the old one gave them that ability. They made them proficient
with crafting technology and mining and all the classic dwarf stuff and made them, they saw that
the elves were, you know, ambition could lead to problem. So they made them not only very
like oriented towards clan family, all that, they made them a very conservative culture,
because the figure is like, they're going to be very slow and steady with things,
that way chaos can't wrong foot them.
So essentially to anyone who's not familiar, that it's like they're the antithesis to the,
like you've got a spectrum, it's like one side, it's the elves, the other side, it's the dwarves,
and then I guess humanity's somewhere in the middle?
Somewhere in the middle? Kind of. Humanity, they want to, they
tread some kind of different, like in the middle, but also different. It's weird. Maybe
another time we'll cover that mess that is humanity in these settings.
That's the video title earlier. The mess that is humanity.
It's just as messy in fantasy as in 40k. But while the old ones did get what they wanted,
it almost went too well. And the dwarves steadiness and refusal to like,
adapt, proved to be more than a weakness, like chaos could trick them much easier than the elves.
And magic, like inability to use magic, it ended up just being more of a hindrance than a help,
because it turns out being able to summon a firestorm is quite handy when you need to kill
a lot of demons. Yeah, and no matter how big your hammer is, it's not quite that,
it's not quite a big tornado of a lightning or anything like that.
It's like, even if like every swing is a dead demon you make, the elf casting firestorm is
going to get a lot more than one demon per firestorm, that kind of demon.
Yeah, is this the whole, that still only counts as one? Does it? No, I don't think it does.
Yeah. And they're, another thing is like, they gave them the like, an emphasis on oaths and
keeping records and all that stuff, which on the one hand did help them, you know,
respect each other and be loyal more than anything else. But as I'll touch in later,
they're so obsessed with oaths and like honor that it kind of hurts them more than it helps them.
So old ones moved on, but the dwarfs were given culture, I believe to merge the two stories.
The old ones taught the first dwarfs culture and those dwarfs spread around to the rest of them,
is how I try and merge the two mythologies of the dwarfs themselves and the old ones.
So moving on, they have those dwarfs, be it either their gods who taught them everything
or the gods or the ones who taught were taught by the old ones. They are known as the ancestor
gods because the dwarfs worship their ancestors beyond all else. And the main ones, the three
main ones are Valiya, Grimnir and Grungni. Valiya, goddess of Hearthholm, she's the mother of the
dwarfs. Grungni is the goddess of craftsmanship and you know, the classic the dwarfs hammering
away at his anvil. He's that god. And Grimnir is the god of, it's not, he's a war god, but it's not
super, like not a war god like Ares or Cain or Khorne because the dwarfs, if they can help it,
don't want to go to war. They're more than willing. He's a reluctant war god. It's like,
oh fine, I'll... It's like most other, like in Warhammer, the war gods, it's like they're
happy to be there. Like, you know, Cain, the avatar of Cain, Khorne and his bloodthirsters,
they're more than happy to be in the battlefield. Yeah, Cain has no side hobbies. He's just like,
I just fight. I just like to kill. Although I guess in fantasy, Cain does have a hobby and
it's screwing with his followers. So they can keep fighting, I suppose. Exactly. But the dwarfs,
not super into war, although they are more than happy to throw down if they need to.
So Grimnir is that god, as well as the god of slayers we'll talk about later.
And they were the, you know, the first rulers of the dwarfs and over time they would become
the ancestor gods. And then we get to the bit in Warhammer fantasy early lore where
chaos invades through the portals the old ones were using to ferry materials and whatnot to
the Warhammer world. So the old ones leave and for the most part, the dwarfs' response is
to shut the door of their holds and just wait the problem out. Which to be fair-
That's simple as that. Demons, shut the door. That's what we need to do.
I mean, that's pretty much what they did. And to be fair, I mean, it worked well enough.
But one dwarf, one divine dwarf specifically, that god Grimnir, wasn't having that. So he
marched to the chaos wastes, built himself a fortress, and basically just told all of chaos
to come at him. He was literally come at me bro, personified. Brilliant.
And that's what he's been doing in Warhammer lore until the end times, which I believe is about
6,000 years long. He's just been sitting in the warp murdering demons.
Again, you gotta have a hobby. I mean, Cain and him, it's something to do. I mean, if you're
an eternal being with ultimate power, you might as well do something useful. Unlike some other
gods from even Warhammer who were just kind of like Khorne in 40k. He's like, what's he up to?
Sitting down, just waiting for something. I don't know. Doesn't really seem that active.
At least the emperor has his lighthouse hobby to keep him from busy. Khorne's just like,
no, I'm sitting on the chair again. I'm watching the orcs fight my generals on my throne.
So he's just like a guy watching the super bowl every day on repeat.
Do you ever do anything? He's like, no, this is all I do.
I do this. Sometimes I go grab beer.
So with that, the great incursion of chaos for the dwarfs is over, like I said.
They kind of just waited it out. The elves and lizardmen were the ones doing the fighting,
the dwarfs were like, you have fun over there everyone.
Yeah, just like with a cup of tea just peeking through the keyhole like,
they're going well. Yeah, I'll chin up. Keep going.
I'll check on you in 10 years. They had their ale and waited. But once, you know,
once everything was over, they reach out into the world. And, you know, as we know, dwarfs live in
mountains and the Warhammer fantasy ones are no exception. But they got pretty ambitious with it.
So, Andy, if you remember the World's Edge Mountains, which are kind of at the edge of
Warhammer Europe, that's where the dwarfs live. Only they used to have this massive empire
stretching through all of it. They had what's called the underway, which is basically an
underground highway just across the entire thing. And it's how they traded. It's how they traveled
and explored. They would build it out. They'd mine from it. They would put entire cities in it,
especially since most of their cities are underground, there being dwarfs and all.
And they built just many of these most monumental and amazing things. And actually, this is kind of
the Roman Empire equivalent of fantasy because ancient religious texts to Sigmar in the Empire
actually written in Kosolid, the dwarf language, much like ancient Christian texts were in Latin.
Dwarfs were, they were very influential. And, you know, as they were spreading out, developing,
trading with themselves and all that, they eventually came into contact with the elves.
And you might think, oh, this is going to be miserable. This is going to be a bloodbath.
But actually, no. When they first met each other, they became the best of friends, the two races.
It helped that, aside from each other, like they were the only other civilized races they had found,
because any humans they found were either still in the barbarian, like, like Germanic tribe stage,
or were the tomb kings who, if they did fight, it usually ended with Setra handing them their asses.
So they just stayed away.
So they weren't keen on being friends with him.
So they were good friends. And funnily enough, it was Malekith, I know you've heard a little bit
about him, the king of dark elves, who was actually when he was still just, there was just elves,
and he was just part of the elves, he actually became best friends with the dwarf high king
who they made contact with, named Snorri Whitebeard.
So this is, this is pre-douchebag, like, Malekith.
This is, yeah, this is pre-douchebag Malekith when he was,
actually a pretty, like, noble, chill dude. They even, like, I think, Malekith gave him a goblet,
like a wine goblet made out of Ithilmar, which, you know,
Frodo's, like, the mithril vest. Like Mithril, yeah.
Imagine someone just making a wine goblet out of mithril, which is basically what he did.
That'd be quite nice, yeah, just put it in a museum. Yeah, and I think they, Snorri gave
Malekith, like, this wonderfully crafted, like, horse armor.
Oh no, not horse armor. Seven pounds for horse armor and oblivion. Oh, I've still got the scars.
Please no. No more horse armor. Legend says Snorri had another name, Todd Howard.
Yeah.
But, you know, they were good friends, although actually I did skip over one thing from the
incursion on Chaos, one thing that did happen with the dwarfs. A bit of a backtrack real quick.
There was a group of dwarfs who expanded eastward into what is known as the Darklands,
and when Chaos came into the world, they were cut off from not only the other dwarfs,
but the ancestor gods themselves, who would come to hate them because they saw themselves
as being abandoned by their kin and gods.
Oh, wah, wah.
Guessing this is the Chaos dwarfs, like, wah, oh, we went a bit too far away, we got, okay,
wah, wah, shut up.
Oh yeah, that was a... They're not quite full Chaos dwarfs, but they were, they were,
they were on the fast track, but moving on to the dwarf dwarfs. A little bit of a backtrack,
because I just remembered I skipped past it, my bad.
That's okay.
So, these two races are friends, and for a while, things are just good. Like the high
elf colonies are spreading across the old world and beyond, the dwarfs are expanding
more and more throughout the mountains, and even though they don't get too much out into
the open fields and stuff, they're still pretty good. And they're still pretty good,
you know, open fields and stuff, they do have little outposts and everywhere now and then,
and you know, things are good. Although, unlike most, I feel like, actually, no, pretty much,
unlike pretty much every, almost every other major event in Warhammer, Chaos didn't involve
itself too much with this, the downfall of the elves and the dwarfs. What ends up happening
is that over time, although they're still good friends, they start headbutting each other a bit,
like, you know, just button heads.
Novelties worn off a little bit. It's like a marriage, like, oh, the magic's wearing off a
bit. Oh, he's leaving his socks on the floor. Oh, that's annoying. Oh, he's not doing the dishes.
That's annoying, it's just building up.
Like, you know, elves are very, you know, they're very regal and prim and proper,
and everything will be done according to social graces and politeness.
You know, that's not to say dwarfs can't be very regal and polite and stuff, but once,
once, you know, once formalities are concluded, it's time to break out the keg, and every dwarf
is going to do a keg stand with their own keg that they brought. Whereas the elves are all about,
you must temper yourselves and be nice and prim and proper and polite, and the dwarf would
chug a keg of beer and then burp loud enough to register on the Richter's tail.
Yeah, and then do a massive fart, and you're like, oh, dwarfs, never change.
Yeah, so it's like, they don't, they don't hate each other yet, but like you said,
the novelty's wearing off a bit. And then, and then it's time for Malekith to ruin things.
Something of note is that before Malekith became the worst, when Snorri Whitebeard died,
peacefully of old age, Malekith was at his deathbed, which should go to show you just how
much they used to respect the elves, that a dwarf was, an elf was allowed to witness the death of
their high king. And Malekith swore an oath that the dwarfs and elves would remain, would remain
friends forevermore, and he would do all in his power to keep that oath. And that is a very
relevant thing to keep in mind for later. Can I ask a quick question?
By all means. How many dwarfs do you know in Warhammer
lore that died peacefully in their sleep? After this? Not many. I don't know if there's
any after this guy. So, with that in mind, during this time, after his death, Snorri Whitebeard's,
that is, Malekith and his mom, Marathi, decided, Marathi had always been kind of an evil bitch,
Malekith just decided he would join her, tried to become the Phoenix King by force,
was defeated and driven off, and now the dark elves are a thing. But Malekith still remembered
that, hey, wait a minute, I want to be king, but the elves who are not the people who came with me
to the wastelands of Canada are still friends with the dwarfs. I mean, that's where Nagarond is,
it's Warhammer Canada. Fair enough. They just got like a really messed up maple leaf as they're flying.
Just very gothic. Yeah. But Malekith, he would have known that, although they were still good
friends, the novelty had worn off and there were some tensions between dwarfs and elves. Mostly
over small stuff, nothing too big, but Malekith knew he was a cunning man. He was gonna provoke
things a bit, and it worked out better than he could ever have hoped. What he did was he had
taken some armor that was high elven armor, disguised some of his troops in it, because the
thing about dark elves, they're not a different race. It's more of a factional thing than anything.
They're not a different race than regular high elves. It's not like, is it in Elder Scrolls
you've got the Falmor and the high elves are different species? Oh yeah, there's the Dunmer,
the Bosmer, the Altmer. It's not like that. The dark elves and high elves, they're all elves,
it's just different. They don't like each other. It's like, goffs are not the same as emos,
but they are both human. Yeah. So Malekith dressed his soldiers in this and had him raid and sack
dwarven caravans and leave just enough evidence behind to suggest that was the high elves who did
that. Just lots of inconspicuous high elven armor. Just laying around. Like, like, letter saying,
bye mum, can't wait to see this. It's just like, signed, random, anonymous, high elf. Like, hmm,
this doesn't look set up at all. Yeah, that's about what happened. So, this actually though,
did not immediately lead to just awful, horrible things, because the dwarf at the time, the dwarf
high king, was a wonderful dwarf named Gottrick Starbreaker. Now his name is Gottrick, no relation,
but his name is Gottrick, which means this man, he kicks ass, this dwarf. Do we know why he was
called Starbreaker, because that's a cool title? I don't believe I could find a reason for it. I
think it's just, that is an awesome name. They were just like, we need to give this character
status, give him the baddest, most cool title. Gottrick Starbreaker. That's peak names right there.
He was a chill dude though. Usually, a lot of the dwarves immediately were praying for blood. He
told them all to calm down, and he sent an envoy to the phoenix king of the high elves, and was like,
hey, what's up with this? What happened? He didn't want payment or blood. He was like, I just want to
know why it looks like a bunch of your soldiers killed our trading caravans. The phoenix king at
the time was named Kalador II. Kalador II? That sounds like a patch for an RPG character. What was
that? Kalador II, I guess, is probably the better way to put it. Although he could have titles like
Starbreaker and The Second. It's a bit lame. Yeah. He's also known by both races, high elves and
dwarves alike, as Kalador the Fool, and a lot of other not nice things. Because even among the high
elves, they think he's an idiot. When a high elf is calling another high elf an idiot, when they're
not just busy sucking each other off, that's when you know that this guy's a clown. And so when the
dwarf an envoy got to Kalador II, the second, the return, and asked for an explanation, he told them
to go to hell and just ignored them. So the things changed. What happened was, Gottrick then sent
the next envoy, it was like, all right, fine. You have two choices now. You're either going to pay
us for what was destroyed, or you're going to pay us in blood, and we're going to kill some of you
until we think it's even. And Kalador's response to this was to shave the beard of the dwarf envoys.
No. Which already bad for dwarfs. In Warhammer, it's a step further, as many things in Warhammer
are, and beards are sacred. Like shaving a dwarf's beard, they would rather you just kill them.
And now it was time for blood. There was no more asking. The elves clearly, at least from their
point of view, are not only attacking them, but now committing the highest disrespect on them that's
possible. So the War of the Beard is what the elves call it. The War of Vengeance is what the
dwarfs call it. It was on, and this is basically World War I for Warhammer fantasy. Across the old
world, the high elf colonies and the Karazhan core, the kingdom of the dwarfs, they just start
wailing at each other, and it is brutal. The end result is that at some point in the war,
Gottrick loses his son to the elves, which puts him pretty solidly at this point in second place
in the hating elves competition in fictional universe. Easy second. So yeah, he's... The end
result is Kaelor the idiot, the fool, the stupid, no good, Vietx King gets his head cut off, and the
grudge is resolved. Love to see it. Yeah, unfortunately the war, because it's a war, created
a lot more grudges against the elves, and drastically weaken both races. And with the end
result of this is, on the elves' end, they all get recalled back to Ulthuan as the colonies need to
be recalled home, because the dark elves took this chance and invaded the continent again. And the
dwarfs, although the elves have been kicked out, and they didn't really lose territory, because the
elves all went back home, they lost a lot of resources and manpower. They're now broke. And
I'm assuming this whole time, humanity's just been watching, picking their nose, going, look at that
thing. It's quite a tall thing fighting a very small thing. Well, that's impressive. Yeah, they
just sat there like, I don't know what a cannon is, but that is really loud, and then
someone exploded. I don't want to be over there. Maybe my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson
will develop that cool boombox machine. What's a machine? I don't know. But for now, let's go
eating raw meat again. It's fine. For now, I'm gonna walk about a mile in the other direction,
because I'm afraid right now. But yeah, the dwarfs, now things theoretically could have been better.
They were weakened, but their main enemy is gone, and the underway is still nice and secure,
their holds are still nice and secure. Except now it's time for the Time of Woes, the dwarf version
of the Age of Strife. What happens was a one-two punch. The first one, I know I talked about,
in our Skaven beginner to expert, go watch that if you haven't, which was the Skaven decided to
expand their capital city with a giant destructive machine that worked a bit too well and caused
entire mountain ranges to collapse, and the dwarfs live in mountains, and their underways are in the
mountains, so that did some damage. I was picturing the first guy who ever heard the rattling in his
study with a newspaper headline, elves suck, and he's just there with his cup of tea and his
everything's shaking, going what the hell? And then green nuclear fire erupts throughout his house.
Yeah, poor guy. The second thing was the lizard men, the slan, the direct servants of the old ones
themselves, looked at the planet and decided that these mountains needed to all be moved about five
feet to the left. So they did so with magic, because the slan are busted. They just collected
moved the mountains a little bit over. I'm picturing that same dwarf, he's just like,
rebuilt his everything, his library, his study, he's just like, right, back to reading the newspaper,
and then everything starts moving, for god's sake, could you give me two minutes? And as you can
imagine, for people whose everything is built into the mountains, this did not agree with their
structures. So almost everything is just getting horribly destroyed. The wonderful fancy holds
they've built that are decorated with both dwarf and elven just artifacts now lost the time,
getting real smashed up. And I'm assuming they like a lot of fantasy settings, the dwarves go
hard when they're like, we're going to build a statue, how big, how big can we make it like?
25 foot tall, stout dwarf looking statue, and they're like, that looks beautiful. And they just
cracked down the middle. Oh, yeah. Yeah, like it's like that. So you know, like the Imperial
Palace is the giant space marine and you know, custodians in the room. It's that just dwarfs.
Real big, real menacing and posing and it's all busted now. And to top this off, Andy, do you know
just in fantasy settings in general, what race is usually the biggest enemy of the dwarfs?
They have to take a guess. Take a guess. Take a guess. Well, not elves. They're big rivals.
Usually they're not outright enemies. They're willing to work with each other. Goblins?
Yes. Goblins and orcs. Do not get around. I was thinking like my brain went,
what's Dragon Age? Darkspawn. OK, that's unique to it. Lord of the Rings. Goblins. Yeah, that'll do.
Yeah. The greenskins, goblin orcs, dwarfs hate them. And the Time of Woes is one of the main
reasons why, because after the slahn and the skaven just got done fisting the everlasting
realm of the dwarfs, the greenskins saw these big old holes in the mountains with a lot of cool
things in them and went, right, we want that. What's that down there? Oh, I'm going to go have a look.
Oh, there's little people. Oh, they got axes. This will be fun. Orcs, no. It was pretty much
exactly that. And so greenskins swarmed in and began taking dwarf holds. I found a funny hat.
Brilliant, guys. Brilliant. Yeah. And when that wasn't enough, the skaven were like,
right, right. This is a whole lot more space to build in. And people already built buildings for
us. How wonderful. And then they just started attacking too. So between the War of the Beard,
the two races moving the earth itself and orcs, goblins and skaven just marauding in,
the dwarfs are now on the back foot horribly. I know initially they had some success against
the skaven because they have this armor called grumril. That's the name of the metal that makes
it and it's basically unbreakable. What it isn't is resistant to gas attacks and flame throwers,
which the skaven then invented to deal with the dwarfs.
Would it be fair to say at this moment in time, they're having the worst time with
any of the races at the time? Or is there someone who's getting a worse deal?
Probably equally as bad as the high elves, to be honest, because while this was happening to the
dwarfs, Malekith was undoing the magical vortex that kept demons from appearing all over the planet.
Ah yeah, you can't have a nice, just someone else having a love for time. No, everyone's having a
bad time. Because he decided that if he couldn't be the phoenix king, no one could be phoenix king,
so everyone needs to die. So no one's having fun right now. I mean, I guess the humans are
still picking their nose. It could be worse, I guess, for them. So the dwarfs are now just losing
ground to everything. And I know one of the capital of the dwarfs, Karazakh, Harak, was able to be
kept secured, but they lost a lot of their other great cities. There was one called Karak Zorn,
which is this dwarf Atlantis, basically. Like dwarfs, treasure hunters love to go seek it out
and find its riches. The last thing, communication that was sent out by them was that they were
under attack by lizardmen, and it was not going well for the dwarfs, and then everything was cut
off. So add lizardmen to the pile. So four against one, brilliant. Yeah. And then it was, there's
Karak Eight Peaks, which is Warhammer Stalingrad, because the dwarfs, the goblins in this game,
and are in a giant three-way war for it with every now and then, one of them gains the upper hand,
only to immediately be booted out. So, and the underway, of course, was shattered by all the
earthquakes and whatnot, and now it's filled with orcs and rats. So not great for the dwarfs. There
is a little upturn, though, because I say once things are stabilized, once they stop getting
worse, they're not good, but once they stop getting worse every five seconds, and it's like every
couple of years, it's a new disaster, instead of every couple of days. After a dozen disasters,
you get nostalgic for disaster number ten, because that was two disasters ago. You go,
that wasn't so bad. I enjoyed it. What you didn't. Yeah. Once you got to that point, where they
calmed down enough, you could start ranking the disasters, something good happens, and it's that
the High King of the Dwarfs, Kurgan Ironbeard at this time, is captured by orcs. You might think,
why is that good? It's good, because this brings him into contact with a young barbarian chief
named Sigmar Eldenhammer, Sigmar Unbarogen. Before he's a god, he's just an angry Conan the Barbarian
guy, and he rescues this dwarf from orcs. Really what happens is, Sigmar just shows up to kill the
orcs. The dwarf sees this young lad going to town, and is like, you know what? We should be like him.
So he breaks free of- I like him. Yeah. So he breaks free of his chains, tosses Sigmar the
legendary hammer, Galmaraz. They all beat up the orcs, and the dwarfs finally form an alliance
again with Sigmar and his people, who would become the empire of mankind. That's not perfect,
because dwarfs have kind of become a bit mistrustful of others since the elf thing.
But they swore that as long as the empire of man didn't wrong them, they would be allies for the
rest of time. So hey, dwarfs have a friend now, and humans have a friend now, which I know,
40k man as you are, that's quite different from the norm. Humans not genociding someone else on
site. Yeah, well the thing is, 40k doesn't really have much about the the leagues of Votan yet.
Yeah. Oh well, they didn't really have a chance to be friends, because they're like,
it probably wouldn't be, because it's 40k, but still. Yeah, no, that's fair. They haven't
been much time, and every other race is- the best you have is the Eldar, who will graciously decide
not to kill you that day, because it doesn't benefit them. But yeah, no, they are, two races
are good friends, and the dwarfs, they don't give them all of their secrets, but you know,
they give mankind smithing, like how to work with iron, which is huge, because humanity had
barely been in the Bronze Age by this point. Just lots of like sheep skin. Like, I made this
cool piece of armor, and the dwarfs are just going, oh fucks, no, get that off. Come here,
come here. This is an ingot, we're going to make it into a nice breastplate. Can you spell breastplate?
It's impotent, so they go, with an R, it's not beastplate, put the lamb down. Put the
tongs down, we don't need the tongs yet. We are not cooking, please stop. Yeah, it's that kind of
thing. But you know, hey, they're friends. Yeah, of course they're in a way. Yeah, and so, over time,
it's a mix of like, every now and then, the dwarfs will gain a bit of ground, but it's largely a
losing battle. It's just a very slow losing battle. Like, every dwarf hold taken, and they are being
lost, but like, the casualty ratio is like, one dwarf lost to like, a hundred orcs or skaven or
whatever. Probably like, one to a thousand with the skaven. But they are still losing things.
And this trend kind of continues for a pretty long while, until you get to modern fantasy,
which is the time of Thorgrim Grudgebearer. Now, an important thing to know about the dwarfs is that
they keep every single thing someone did wrong to them in a book called the Great Book of Grudges
that they write down with the blood of their king. He writes it in the book.
And this guy, Thorgrim, was chosen to be the next High King by the last one as he was dying from
wounds, although he died over the course of like, a year to let the contest go through.
So, quite sturdy, that guy. And Thorgrim made quite the declaration, and that was that he was going
to wipe clean every single grudge in the book. A book that, mind you, dates back at least 4,000
years. All of them gone. He's ambitious, Thorgrim, to say the least.
It's like a really, really dark version of My Name is Earl. Like, right, here's all the bad things
I've ever done, but you reverse it. Yeah, here's all the bad things YOU'VE done, and you're going to pay for it.
And karma's not gonna save you. Yeah. Although, he's a good king. And he begins revitalizing the dwarfs
for the first time in a while. They actually start taking ground, and that's what leads us to the
modern times of Warhammer fantasy. He's somewhat moderate, usually dwarfs, if you wrong them.
You can pay with gold, but odds are you're gonna pay with blood. Thorgrim is much more open to be like,
how about we hash out a deal? He'll give us some money, and we'll forget the whole business.
And, you know, he's good with inventions, all that stuff, and things start
improving for the dwarfs for the first time in millennia. Good for them.
So, before we get to the sad bit, the end times, it must always be covered.
It is never a joy to cover it. Although, the dwarfs, I guess to be fair, thank you Dexcom for the surprise appearance.
They do have some cool moments at the end times, they'll give them that, but it's still overall shit.
But a bit before that, I said I'd talk about their culture a bit, so I will.
The default fantasy template of dwarfs, you know, the short, they live in mountains,
you know, they eat rocks, they drink a lot. That applies to these dwarfs as well.
There's just a couple of things that stick out. One, of course, is those grudges and oaths.
If a dwarf makes an oath, he's going to keep it. Like, every single thing in his power that he can
possibly do, and then some more, he's gonna do it. And he expects you to do the same if you make him an oath.
Like, Gottrick and Felix actually start, because Felix drunkenly causes a riot over attacks.
And, well, not drunkenly at the time, he gets drunk, but at the time he's a dumb college kid
who somehow incited a riot. And right as the royal bodyguards of the emperor Karl Franz himself
are about to run him down, Gottrick steps in, murders them, because he's Gottrick Guernissen,
and he's allowed to just do that. He's one of those characters who's just allowed to be as overpowered as he wants.
A reference to Parks and Rec, which is like, I have a permit, and he just gives it to the guy that goes,
he just says, I can do whatever I want. He's like, yeah, that's Gottrick.
His permit is an axe. Felix swears an oath to be his Remembrancer, funny enough, which is,
he will record the tale of Gottrick's death, so he will be preserved for posterity for all time.
Felix did not know how seriously dwarfs take their oaths, and nearly left Gottrick's service,
which probably would have resulted in his head getting cut off 17 books before the series ended.
And a good thing he didn't, because in another Gottrick and Felix book,
I'll get to that, but there's a... oaths are a very big business.
Actually, I can just get the example now. Another thing about them, if you wrong them, you're done.
There was a tale of a human caravan, or like a human city, its ruler had a contract to some dwarfs to build on their wall,
because dwarfs are real good at building stuff. So the dwarfs built them the wall, and when the payment was covered,
the humans shorted them about two coins worth of payment.
Probably just fell out of the wagon, or out of the guy's pocket when he was carrying it, to be honest.
Dwarfs didn't care, so they went back to the town and killed everyone in it,
because the humans had wronged them, you see.
So yeah, they take their grudges seriously, and their oaths very seriously.
I have a question, if I may.
I know you say that, I think it was implied at the beginning that dwarfs aren't very good at being
duplicitous, or sneaky, or some such, but has a dwarf ever tried to forge an oath, or a grudge,
or something, so that overreaction to like, oh, there's a grudge I have to uphold,
has anyone ever taken advantage of that, that you know of?
Other races, happily, but it's kind of like a double-edged sword, because
the thing about dwarfs is they will take that oath seriously and do it with their dying breath,
but if they find out you screwed with them, you're going in the book, which means your head is
coming off. Which means that- Moving their anger to a different point, like, I will harness this
some other way. Yeah, which is why, while yes, you can do it, other cultures have learned it's
probably not worth it, because the short-term gain you get out of like, tricking them for this one
oath is not worth the long-term loss of the dwarfs deciding your entire city is now on the shit list
and needs to go. Is one oath worth 10,000 grudges? Yeah, it's pretty much, it's that.
Another general thing is they're very conservative, and when I say that, I don't just mean like,
you know, liberal versus conservative, I don't mean that in politics, I mean that if something
hasn't been a blueprint for 500 years, it's considered dangerous and radical technology
to the dwarfs. They're kind of like the Mechanicus, only in 40k, you know, old tech is dangerous and
scary and might be corrupted by demons. The dwarfs are just like, if this isn't one million percent
reliable and tested over centuries, I don't want anything to do with it. Some of the younger
engineers are usually a bit more radical, but a bit more radical means they'll only wait 50 years
before they start the prototypes rather than 500. And I suppose if you're an upstart and you go,
I've got this cool contraption and then you've got a mentor, the mentor goes,
I didn't say you could do that, that's going in the book, that's a grudge, like oh, can't win,
can't win. That, it usually does not lead to grudges for the most part, but it does lead to
them being like social outcasts for, you know, being dangerous radical thinkers, so they usually
fall in line. Some of the little things, nepotism is not a dirty word to dwarfs. You know, we would
see someone only get a job because they're like, you know, their dad is the boss of the company and
we'd go, what the hell, that's some BS right there. The dwarfs go, well yes, his dad runs the mining
guild, of course he should be next in line. Does that transfer over to high kings or is that more,
oh you have to prove yourself? That is generally one of the more prove yourself positions, but
almost everything else under it is if you know the guy, you're probably getting in.
So yeah, that's how they work that. And their most standout thing to me is the slayer oath,
which is, say, I don't know, say, two scenarios. Andy, let's say you've done
something just horribly wrong. You've allowed a dwarf army to fall like to goblin invaders
and it's something that's very easily and provably your fault, not just, you know, there was two of
you and 200 goblins, you know, that's not your fault. If you screw it up bad, something like that,
you need to take the slayer oath, which means you need to shave your head, except for a mohawk,
dye that in your beard red, cover yourself in tattoos and you now need to find death in battle,
such as Gottrick Gurnison's fate and many other slayers. He is far from the only one.
So he's not a natural ginger? No, I believe he's actually, he's got brown hair.
Ah, I see. Of course, now will come to me for my grievous sin. Let's say I lost just a little bit
I lost just a little bit too much money gambling one day. Well, dwarfs like money, quite obsessively
so I'm taking the oath too right along with you. For some reason I was thinking like, I wonder like
what would be the minorest thing like you own an elder, an elf body pillow, right? You gotta
shave your head. That's the minimum. I mean, I don't even know if they'd let you take the oath.
They might just kill you on the spot for that one. Yeah, it's and it's that little thing that,
especially in a lot of Warhammer novels, I like this a lot about fantasy and the dwarfs in
particular is that they nail it home that these are not just short people who do things slowly
and live a long time. They are like their psychology, their psychology, everything about
them is alien to humanity. Like they work on a different level than we do. It's like,
I know I've already mentioned it again, but I love the series. It's like with Dragon Age,
the dwarfs in that one, when you first go to, if you're, if you don't start as a dwarf in the first
game as like a character, you go there and you find out there's like a caste system and there's
like the royalty, there's like the trades and then there's like this underclass that live underneath
the building and like criminals and people who've shamed and they have like tattoos on their faces
and then if you're really bad, you have to be part of the Legion of the Dead and you have to
man the wall against the darkspawn that are trying to like, borrow up and kill you and I like that
when there's more to then, oh, they got beards and they drink ale and that's like, that's the surface
level, but there's even a character in the series who's like the only dwarf who has like shaved his
beard and it's cause he's a bard and he's like, oh, I'm not like the other dwarfs, I'm a puckish
rogue and he's like one of the most interesting characters, but yeah, I feel like if someone
was to get into war hammer fantasy with no knowledge, is there like a, other than gotrick,
is there a bounty of like books about the dwarfs or is it a bit more slim pickings?
There's a few, I know one of the, it's called the omnibus, I'm actually reading right now,
The Warlord of Eight Peaks is about one of the three books and it is about the dwarf king
Belegar Ironhammer, whose family used to be the kings of that Acheric Eight Peaks I mentioned
and he's made it his life goal to retake it ever since he came about to be the king of his clan
Engrund, so there are some other stuff, gotrick and felix is far and away the best, but there's
that one, there's a couple others up the top of my head, I'm afraid I can't remember off the top of my head
There is a book series though about the War of the Beard, which so if you want to read some about
that, Dwarves Killing Elves, Elves Killing Dwarfs, good time, there are some books about them, it's
Warhammer fantasy, you know it leans a bit more towards the humans mostly and the elves kind of
in second, but there are still enough books for the dwarf lover out there to get into
And where was I, oh yeah, Slayer Oath, so you go to what's called Carrot Kadrin, the Slayer Hold
which is the main gathering point of slayers, it's where the Shrine to Grimnir is, he's considered
the first slayer because he forsake everything to go hold the line against chaos forever
So they write their name on this big pillar and they are now considered dead by their friends and
family and they just need to find something big enough to kill and they kind of have different
ranks, like you know you join you're a slayer and the first thing you know they usually do, they'll
kill orcs, you know they'll kill random rotting whatever and if that doesn't do them in, they
move up and that's how you get troll slayers, which is those slayers who've killed the troll
and it didn't kill them and this is where the thing about dwarfs where you kind of really, it
hammers home like I was saying earlier, they're not people, they're alien, the longer they go
without getting killed because they are genuinely seeking death, like they're not avoiding it,
they're trying to die in battle, so they start going a little bit, they get a little bit annoyed,
they troll and kill them, so then they work their way up and they go and fight a giant
and then they become giant slayers, so that still doesn't kill them and by this point they're not
just annoyed, they're probably going a little bit crazy, so. And this is the naming convention of
the gotrick and phoenix books isn't it? Yeah it's uh it'll be like ex-slayer, whatever gotrick is
killing this day it's ex-slayer, so for most of them move up again, if you still haven't died of
the giant, dragon time, if you're a dragon slayer, all right you're probably frothing at the mouth by
this point, but if you're still alive go find a greater demon, that'll surely kill you and if it
doesn't you become a demon slayer, very few of those because by this point you have probably died
in battle, but if you still haven't you get these demon slayers who are basically like one
walking balls of rage and insanity because they just want to die but they...
I'm just imagining one charging into the ground just going kill me, come on kill me, you know.
But that's exactly what it is like in the gotrick and phoenix books there's this uh this one time
where they go to Carrickadrin which is you know the slayer hold and gotrick and a whole bunch of
other slayers are like charging into battle and they're all shouting like I bet I'm gonna die
first, nah I'm fine in my doom today. Race here to see you die, like what? It's a weird school yard
game. And it's just the thing is like they also you know they can't just off themselves they need
to be trying like their hardest otherwise Grimnir won't take him it's not an honorable death.
So and slayers are kind of weird because on the one hand they're outcasts, their family like as
far as they're concerned, their friend's dead he just doesn't know it yet. On the other hand
these are the slayers most likely to uh like meet with other cultures because they don't care they're
gonna die anyway so they're just gonna kind of wander about and if they find a human to be friends
with good for them. Maybe even an elf if they're insane enough and get past the first round of
stabbings. And they're also a wonderful sight to see on the battlefield because one they're charging
in first which means the enemy's gonna shoot at them first and they're usually pretty good at
killing things because even if you know they die they don't care about staying alive which means
they're gonna charge head first and take at least a couple of things with them. Do um for example are
there like any mercenary bands that take advantage of these guys and go look I'll put you in a fight
wherever you're deaf and I won't pay you but like come and join me and we'll find you that fight
that will kill you. Is that like a thing? All the time. They will usually pay them a little bit
although not like a lot like for the most part they'll pay them enough for like food lodging
and ale. You've got to pay for the ginger hair dye like yeah I need that. I'll pay for the hair dye
in my booze and you've you've paid your slayer. Because again it's like a win-win the mercenary
company gets a wonderful ally and the slayer gets a lot of chances to maybe die. That was actually
one of the things Gottrick did before the Gottrick and Felix books he was a mercenary with a
a human who became an innce keeper and him and Felix actually worked for the guy for like I think
three of the books. It's actually really cool and a nice like character development for Gottrick
and Felix it's like oh there's more to Gottrick than just angry ball of rage. Not much but there
is more if you look deep enough. Some other stuff the reason beards are so important is because they
worship their ancestors. They like old things and what better way to tell how old someone is
than how long their beard is. To the point that even one of the dwarf military units is just
called long beards. When your beard touches the floor you join the long beards so you tie it you
wrap it into a braid and tie it up so it doesn't touch the floor anymore so you don't trip. You
get it. Wear it as a belt. Yeah you get an upgraded suit of armor and you're a long beard now. It's
not mandatory to join but most of them do just because it gives them respect and they're it's
a morale booster. And are there any other questions because I have a few little little tidbits here
and there like I said a little bit more surface level but if there's any stuff you'd like clarified
feel free to ask. So you know you mentioned about how one of the the gods when just kind of outposted
what did the other two do? Do we know anything about the other two of what they've done in the
setting other than existed? So Grungni so he um he's he's just like this man they got you know
they pray to him when they're crafting something make sure it's nice and perfect. Like for example
dwarves have these things called rune smiths which they can't use magic normally like you know like
a wizard but they can bind magic into runes you know like like enchanting and skyrim kind of.
I was gonna say the skyrim method of like ah I might not be able to do like 2 000 damage of
destruction magic but if I make a fortify potion and then I build and then I put these gloves on
and then I make an enchantment and then I take the enchantment off and then they do a bigger and
better potion and then they and then you do the endless loop of like alchemy and enchanting so
you're like my stick of fire now does seven billion damage oh great. That's what they do they do all
sorts of things with the rune magic it's really cool they're called rune lords and rune smiths who
have these centuries-long apprenticeships to learn how to perfectly do every rune they can learn.
So that's how dwarves do magic. Have the space wolves nicked any of that for their own because
I know they're they're big on runes but have the has there been bleed over to the 40k universe or
we're not sure? I imagine I mean it's similar enough to where I want to say there's but got to
have some influence with it. The difference I imagine will be that space wolves are kidding
themselves when they say they're not using psyker powers. When dwarves runic magic is actually
different because magic and warhammer when if you just capture it in its raw form very dangerous
very unstable you've got a decent shot of blowing yourself up with you know chaos explosions and
stuff whereas the dwarves they're forcing it into an orderly shape and making it stable
like they grab it by the balls and hammer it into a workable form basically. That's an image
amazing. Yeah so there is there are similarities but it's it is still different like it's not just
I mean with space wolves so I get my own super duper magic it's you know the dwarves sit down
learn over centuries of practice how to do this and then make magic their bitch. So there are
some differences. Did you have another question? I thought you were asking someone else but I
kind of went off on a tangent about the magic. So that was grungi right? That was grungi yeah.
And the other do we know anything about the other one? Yeah Valea what happened to her is she went
to a vault went to sleep and promised the dwarves that when she was awoken when they found vault and
opened it she would lead the dwarves into a golden age and for a while you know they looked for the
vault couldn't quite find it though at least I don't believe they had found it and if they did
they couldn't open it. Just like I can't find it let's go get pissed I've got a castle.
For a little bit there's some cool characters there's of course Thorgrim Grudgebearer the high
highest of high king of the dwarves leading the people he wants to not just hold out but
retake land and expand for the first time in thousands of thousands of years wipe clean the
grudges very cool dude there's also Gottrick Gurnason the best and worst slayer to ever exist
because everything that comes across him dies he is a brutal killing machine and his whipping
whipping boy Felix Yeager who is perhaps the unluckiest man in the entire Warhammer universe.
For very well dressed. Very well dressed he's quite a sharp looking man he's also been
stabbed shot ribs broken bled heartbroken many times. He must have a good tailor.
He has a hell of a tailor to keep everything well stitched. For the organ blood and you know.
But they're quite famous they've been all over the world from Cathay to Lustria to the Southlands
and the Tomb Kings and Hecarah all over the place they kill everything they come across
and yeah very good series if you haven't read Gottrick and Felix do read it I implore you.
Other dwarfs Malachi McKyson also from Gottrick and Felix so is the next one by the way I'm
mentioning five three of them are from Gottrick and Felix very good books and I love them.
Malachi McKyson the mad slayer engineer he was just an engineer for the dwarfs he was a bit too
radical though and one of his inventions blew up and cost some dwarf lives so they made him take
the slayer oath but all that amount to do was he kept being an engineer he just got even more
reckless with it so for example he built the Hindenburg just straight up he built a zeppelin.
So in a fantasy setting but do the the dwarfs already have like a kind of air fleet and he just
and he just yeah or did he just invent air traffic? They have gyrocopters which are dwarf helicopters
they put guns on them and fortune it's on their way across the earth but McKyson took it a step
further and built zeppelins and then put a lot of cannons on it because he is just built different
he's built insane he's very friendly he actually lets Felix pilot the the blimp for a bit teaches
him how to do it. Do you want to take the helm of the big deaf cannon? Yeah sounds quite fun.
He's also very Scottish most dwarfs in Warhammer they're not actually Scottish he is yeah they're
more northern yeah and it's to the point that usually like I don't know I've I like to think
I'm a little bit good figuring out like like when someone's saying some of the thick accent I usually
still understand them when I was reading Gautrich and Felix I had to look things up I had no idea
what I was reading half the time like I would look and go this isn't English. I know I've mentioned
it on the channel before but I love that Forgrim's voice actor is the dad from Peppa Pig and this is
like that's why he's got that. There's also hey up I'm from tip north I'm Forgrim Goodsbearer I'm not
having any of these knifeys over here in um I don't know Newcastle why oh can't have it. Short?
Short? Yeah uh McKyzen though he's a really cool dude uh invents all sorts of crazy things like
the blimp he's actually built three of them uh the first one was called like the the uns like the
unbreakable well what do you think happened to that one then it broke the second one was called
the spirit of Grungni which to be fair it took a dragon several fights against chaos and then a
sorcerer sneaking onto the ship to finally bring that one down and then he named the next one the
unstoppable although to be fair to that one it shows up in the end times and it's never seen
being destroyed and there's even some small hints in Age of Sigmar that he might have survived the
end of the world. Do you reckon we'll ever get a model made of one of them? I would pray to God I
get a Malachy McKyzen model man that thing would be beautiful. Yeah. Although. Ten grand. The next
dwarf more than that I wish for Snorri Nosebiter model. I've heard a lot about him you've mentioned
him I was just editing a quiz today we did recently and you mentioned him I'm like who is this
Nosebiter I keep hearing Colin talking about him. He is uh an actual friend of Gottrick from before
either of them were slayers. I won't spoil his backstory what I will say is his job is to do two
things it is to make you laugh and smile when you're reading the Gottrick and Felix books because
he is at almost all times and like just the upbeat happy dumb idiot like he speaks a bit of a lad
like he doesn't have a mohawk what he did was he painted some nails red and then drove them into
his brain into his skull for his own mohawk so he speaks in third person now. Wow. He's happy he
he drinks a lot him and Gottrick get into what they like to call headbutting contests
where they just headbutt each other and see who gives first. Wow that's a friendship right there.
He's uh he's a very dumb happy idiot although there are every now and then there's a line that
you know if that leads to you know make you think if he's either playing it up just a little bit
or he's smart in his own way like there's one line where he's like I think this like he's like
Snorri thinks this slayer is rushing to find his death he should just let it come to him when it
does so he's got quite the chill outlook on his situation for someone part of a death cult
and uh another line where uh someone makes fun of him uh and he looks him dead in the eyes and
says only Snorri's friend can make fun of Snorri uh and uh that guy's not making fun of Snorri real
quick uh so he's just no he's he's a really cool dude he is he is a short alcoholic angel he is
just nice for a dwarf nice for a warhammer character let alone a dwarf because they're
very gruff and rude like he's just a treat to read about uh his second job is whenever you get a
point of view of Snorri Nosebiter is to make you depressed because my god they like lamenters level
of depression this guy uh and then uh I won't spoil what happens but as you start reading towards
the gotch and felix book uh books coming out towards the end times uh you get why Snorri is
a slayer and that's horribly depressing and then you get the end of that book and I'll just be
brutally honest I was teared up a bit when I read that like that was seriously depressing to read
very like am I writing am I writing thinking that there's like nine or ten
god-freaking-felix books or something like that there's six omnibuses so I think there's like
wow 18 right okay I need to read then yeah there's uh you won't want you will want for more but
you've got a while to push off the I'm out of gotch and felix feelings uh yeah but yeah uh Snorri
Nosebiter probably my favorite warhammer character honestly uh but by god am I sad to read about him
uh although slight spoilers uh in age of sigmar he does have a very touching moment with gotrick
uh I won't say whether he was alive or dead to keep the suspense going maybe he died maybe he
didn't and he showed up later on as something else uh but he and gotch are forced guys
but him and gotch have a very touching moment and again that made me like that hurt to read or hurt
to listen to because in the audiobook but in like a good way it was like oh fuck man I don't want
this today well it was it was awesome though I love Snorri Nosebiter and the last specific dwarf
we'll talk about before the end crimes Snorri Whitebeard uh when that oh another snorri oh
oh I don't it is another snorri although you'll notice that the first dwarf I mentioned was also
named Snorri Malekith's best friend this time it's not just a coincidence you know Snorri Nosebiter
and uh Snorri Whitebeard uh because Snorri Whitebeard is later known as the Grombrindle the
White Dwarf uh Malekith breaking that oath was because it was an oath made on his deathbed
such a powerful oath breaking that had such an effect that the white dwarf rose from his death
and became basically an avatar of vengeance so wherever the dwarfs go uh if the dwarfs are in
trouble anywhere in the world there's a chance that the wife dwarf himself will appear uh to raise
their spirits and murder the hell out of whatever is fighting the dwarfs I guess he'd have to be
quite badass if he's named after the flagship uh warhammer uh magazines with with white dwarf like
oh yeah it's gonna be somewhat good I think actually they uh part of it was named after him
uh they because you know they they had the white dwarf you know grombrindle the white dwarf and
you know white dwarfs are also a you know a star so it worked perfect like hey there's the character
of the white dwarf and it's also you know we got warhammer 40k the science thing white dwarf like
the stars there's a little fun warhammer you know meta fact for you uh oh there's also one more dwarf
I lied I want to talk about joseph bugman uh you remember I was talking about bugs bugman's ale
now I wanted to try that he's uh he is the the greatest brewer in all of the warhammer universes
bar none uh his brewery was burned down by greenskins so he killed all of them and then he
rebuilt it but founded bugman's rangers so what they do is they go around the world with casts
of ale a mobile brewing force and they show up to dwarfs on the eve of battle give them some of the
best beer that's so good it not only feeds them but like boost their strength uh and then helps
them kill whatever they're fighting I'm sure I've seen the model he's pretty badass he's a
very simple him and the white dwarf but they're just it's just very cool concepts and they're fun
to read about so very cool any other any questions uh let me know in the comments below
any questions uh before I talk about the the no no times not particularly I think it's time to
embrace the the sadness of the end times uh all right so give the end times the very small amount
of credit they're due uh what little like bits of good in them that wasn't hogged by cetra
uh was reserved for the dwarfs although they also get shafted in other ways so you win some you lose
them early on in the end times thorgrim finally got his army together to just start going around
and stomping people into place retaking dwarf holds and early and uh also early on uh the ever
queen uh the daughter of the ever queen of the high elves alie athra was actually visiting on
a diplomatic mission because the phoenix king of the elves at that time was actually trying to
rekindle diplomacy with the dwarfs and was actually working because he's actually he's a pretty cool
dude he was the first elf in millennia to have dwarf beer uh and the child of the ever queen
and tyrian alie athra was visiting and the dwarfs actually liked her a lot uh just you know cute
elf princess very nice very charming and then manfred von karstein shows up because of course
he does he's von karst dining all over the setting again yeah he can't just let people have fun nope
he kidnaps her uh to help bring back nagash because he thinks and you know there is some
basis for this he'll get the ever queen's power into nagash through this uh because she is next
in line to become the ever queen basically the high elf incarnation of one of the elf gods isha
uh so that happens the dwarf tyrian because his daughter just got kidnapped nearly starts a brawl
between their two armies but thorgrim like i said he's a cool level-headed dude so he basically
just tells tyrian all right bud next time we're not helping and then walks off to go take more
holds uh in the meantime nagash comes back the whole alie atha thing hurt more than it helped
because the current ever queen wasn't dead yet so she didn't have the god power and also as
tyrian's daughter uh she had the curse of cain in her blood so really all that happened was nagash
got cursed when he came back uh he fixed this problem however by you know how he said vileya
was sleeping having a nap uh instead of a dwarf opening the hole nagash opened it so he went in
no drain the dwarf goddess velia of her power so now that golden age isn't looking like it's
going to be coming anytime soon and the gas just ate a god uh so that's rough uh in the meantime
dwarfs are fighting things are going bad because at the end times but dwarfs are still kicking
ass taking names at one point that belliger iron hammer fellow i mentioned gets murdered by the
scaven quake head taker and thorgrim who through convoluted convoluted stupid plot mess became an
incarnate of the winds of metal that magic despite the fact dwarfs can't use magic but don't worry
about it shut up don't think about it buy the novel the end times shut up uh he he did that so he uh
uh murdered quake head taker uh and this is one of again the few moments the dwarfs get some badass
in the end times it's like a 10 minute long beat down or he's not he's not even like hitting with
his axe he's just beating the hell out of him smacking quake around and the whole time he's
naming every single thing the rat had done wrong in the book of grudges like imagine i try like
imagine gilliam and right and he fights like i don't know uh i don't know can you name a chaos
lord who's not abanuff god here on black chaos lord okay like imagine gilliam's fighting here on
black heart and the whole time he's just listening like off every chapter from the bad ab war they
got screwed over in some way yeah like it to be fair he's an ultramarine successor as well isn't
he here on so yeah yeah that's right okay it's just like it's that kind of level of thing or
it's just like you read then it's like that's just that's cool everything going on around this is
awful but that that's cool i gotta give it credit so and he tops it off with bellegar iron hammer's
death which had just happened and then snaps queeke's neck with just one meaty dwarf hand
nice uh unfortunately however uh that was the dwarf cool budget for that end times book so while
thorgrum is retreating uh he forgets to close the door behind him in a secret passageway i'm not
making that up he just forgets to close the door behind him ah so the skaven assassin the doors are
so good at shutting doors we said earlier just like shut the door yeah uh but it didn't work
it didn't work uh so the uh skaven assassin death master snitch just skulks on in and stabs him in
the back uh despite also i might mention uh he was the incarnate of the wind of metal so surely
there's some tricks with that he could have done and despite the fact the hiking armor has runes
on it specifically to prevent backstabbing we need him to die the setting needs to end move forward
everyone please don't think about it he just his last words were i'm not short and then he died
yeah and then rest in piss shane gregoram so now the uh the closest thing to a leader they have
left is a dwarf named ungrem iron fist the slayer king he was the guy in charge of that slayer hold
and he also wants to die because he's a slayer he's the one in charge he's like i'm in charge
of the guys who want to die he's he's the fantasy version of dante i also want to die but i can't
because i need to be king of the ones who want to die sucks to be ungrem uh he's now the closest
thing i have left to a guy in charge uh he becomes the incarnate of the wind of fire after the elf
who was the wind of fire guide died uh i don't know again i don't know how he got it but whatever
he has it now and give it some times you guys it's the end times stop stop caring the faster
we get through it uh although to give this is the the next cool dwarf been in the end times uh
he takes pretty much every single dwarf left alive by this point uh and then every dwarf who
had ever lived rises from the earth as a ghost and just as one massive army just crashes into
the chaos host taking down the world and the kingdom nice yeah uh return to the king only
with more alcohol and short people swearing which you know again like i said the end times does have
some cool moments and we're saying all right you know what that was cool if only this existed
anywhere else uh and unfortunately it's not enough the world still ends but one last character of
course needs to be mentioned none other than gotrick gurnison himself uh in the end times and
this is spoilers for everyone so if you haven't read the last gotrick and felix book i mean on
the one hand he has an age of sigmar model and books so you know he lives but if you want to
avoid the specifics of it do skip ahead a bit what happens to gotrick and felix in the end times is
they go to this ancient dwarf keep that had never been found until recently that had these ancient
dwarf monks around it uh who had been guarding it for so long that even at the glacial path their
society exam advances they spoke an unrecognizable version of causalid so they'd been there for a
while and uh it's found out that gotrick wasn't just some dude who's really good at killing
his axe was one of grim nears axes uh the god of the slayers and he was destined to become
grim nears replacement holding back the tides of chaos forever and so what happens is they get
there they find grim near grim near kills gotrick uh felix gets angry and tries to attack him
although he's a god so it doesn't really work well it's still cool shout out to felix for fighting
for his homey to his last breath nice try mate nice try he gave it his all and you know what
i respect to him for that uh and then uh gotrick is revived uh him and felix uh solo
bellacor and one greater demon of each chaos god uh quite badass and then gotrick i'm assuming
gotrick does all the heavy lifting and felix is just there like felix does help i i can't
he either helped he either fought bellacor that head on or a greater demon of corn that had a
grudge against felix specifically dead on is i like this there's one of the gotrick and felix
books where like an enemy has grabbed felix's arm and he's like pulling him for the and then you
just see gotrick like just about to cut the thing's head off and it's like that's a perfect
representation of like felix is like just distracting the enemies long enough for gotrick
to cut them in half no it's i mean that is what he does but to be fair to felix he is he is an
amazing fighter it's just he's next to gotrick's it's it'd be like you know it's like kato secarius
next to the lion yeah you know yeah kato's he's a damn good swordsman you're not beaten you're not
gonna look good next to the lion it's not your fault yeah no it's just no one is or i guess the
luther next to luther next to line would make better lucas next to full grim it's like yeah it's not
gonna work mate sorry it's like it's not even your own fault he's he's just better than you yeah
uh but and then very sad uh basically what happens is gotrick ascends is the wrong word probably
descends to the realm of chaos today grim nears place uh holding off chaos forevermore and felix
is teleported out of there uh except he's teleported into a collapsing cavern and the book
ends with ambiguous as to whether or not felix lives and it ends with him writing in his journal
if the day is won if this is ever found know this hear a slayer lies a very sad although admittedly
fitting end to a story about a guy seeking death and his best friend yeah and then the world blows
up setting over things for kind of yeah so all that work felix spent all that work trying to like
make a big document it's like oh not just the library the world's blown up so that was a long
waste of time geez also felix learned that his entire destiny was to just get gotrick to this
point which a bit of a he was just a courier basically he was just ensure gotrick does his
destiny is was felix's destiny which kind of a downer although uh for a couple things although
the dwarfs as they were in fantasy are gone there are plenty of duarden they're dwarfs let's not
get ourselves in age of sigmar including gotrick gurnison himself and there's actually a funny
moment where he comes across a bunch of like off-brand slayers and uh he thinks their chaos
apparitions at first and one of them's even like how did how did you get out of there duarden no
one should be able to live in chaos and he's like what the hell is a duarden what are you talking
about so it's nice at least someone at gw acknowledged the whole duarden crap someone
knew it was silly and uh you know there are still old dwarf models in age of sigmar uh in the
uh realm and the uh cities of sigma army lists there's the various armies that aren't traditional
dwarfs but you know they're still dwarfs and they're they're cool takes on the formula and of
course the old world's coming so dwarfs will be returning to the tabletop in fantasy and total
warhammer very fun game you can play as the dwarfs beat the hell out of everything who's wronged you
there's even there's even skills like thorgrim gets skills specifically just called
grudge against x and you get bonuses whenever you're fighting that faction so you need to declare
war with everyone straight away you specifically get skills against beating up people who've wronged
you it's awesome uh any questions there's actually one more dwarf i really want to mention just from
vermin tide any questions you'd have first i have no questions but i'd love to hear about this
vermin tide dwarf ah his name is barden gorgson and on the one hand he's a great character he's
again a friendly warhammer character which is funny because like out of all the warhammer characters
the two friendliest one are the dwarfs who usually look down on other races uh no very friendly
there's even a on their website a bit how about whenever anyone is feeling down out of the uber's
reich's five from the games or any of the other like background npcs you don't see barden will
show up in the night hear them out give him a cup of ale and be on his way once he knows you're
feeling better he's just he's just a cheerful guy you hear him back and forth bantering and singing
during the battle uh in the game just it's very cool he's very cool character on the other hand
he's made me hate the dwarf language uh fervently because what happens is like you know say there's a
there's a there's a ratling gunner uh you know salt's pyro say ratling gunner kruger will say rat
with a gun you know carillian and uh sienna will say something similar and then barden busts out
that there's a kagaburi ringi that way like what what what did you just tell me what does that mean
and you know in these kind of games it's helpful like hey you need to know what's coming and then
barden he could be saying racial slurs and ghazalib for all i know which actually he is a lot he is a
lot of the time especially because you're fighting skaven and dwarves don't like skaven promise i
don't know what he's saying and i need to know what he's saying because if i don't
a eshin rat is going to leap 50 yards away from me and kick my ass yeah uh no love me barden hate
the fact that he speaks in gibberish and i don't know what's about to kick my ass it might as well
be welch like oh while i while i was thinking about dwarfs i had to get that complaint in there
because again i like barden i do not like the fact that his call-outs do not help in the slightest
uh but uh that was uh again rough little fireside fantasies of dwarfs as always uh with fireside
there's plenty more uh to learn if you're interested but you know like we said this is a nice little
relax chat about the dwarfs and all the stuff that i love dwarves yeah it's and that's again i
remember you were saying like you know there's the surface level but it's the really get into them
you need a deeper hook the dwarfs have that deeper hook but again like they also have the surface
level which i think is equally important like because you know if you don't have the live in
mountains mine drink ale you don't really have a dwarf now do you yeah so they've got that but
they've got you know the slayer oath their grudges their affinity for technology to the point that
they have helicopters and trains in a fantasy world they're uh they're great all aboard dwarves
it's it's very cool stuff uh i like the dwarfs a lot not as much as the elves i'm afraid but you
know very cool and uh that was a lot of fun i mean i know a lot of the comments have been i think the
ones we've had the most are the dwarves and i think we've had a surprising amount people ask about
the lizard men and they were mentioned a little bit today but dwarves was by and large the most
popular request yeah lizard men are cool uh they're a lot simpler uh there's not as much character
going on for them because they're kind of biological robots uh that being said they make up for it by
just being kick ass i mean it's a it's an as tech lizard man riding a t-rex i don't think i need to
give a sales pitch for that one it kind of just sells itself if we did an episode it just be like
here's all the artwork and the models with no no commentary just one after the other i think epic
music i think that's all we need to do the lizard men episode we could just stream total warhammer
and you could you could watch and chime in like what the hell is that what's its backstory and
then i'll give you the 30 seconds of lore that it has and move on brilliant oh but uh yeah that was
uh that was the dwarfs everyone oh i suppose uh in that case i had a lot of fun learning about
dwarves if you guys in the comments have any faction or part of the setting any event you'd
love to to see next please let us know um it's always interesting diving into to the fantasy
setting and there's a lot of factions like even though we've done a few of these now there's still
so much still to go and uh and i will say that unless it's like a very unique uh request we'll
probably just go with whatever's most popular in the comments yeah if there's anything like the really
sticks out we're all like that'd be really interesting we uh usually just popular request
carries the day so hey you were saying lizard men were uh kind of second place i've noticed that too
if everyone wants the lizard man i'd be happy to throw something together for the lizard man
uh you come on someone else character faction yeah fire away if you went that if you want the
scaly voice you gotta let us know in the comments you know other than that
oh sorry uh but other than that i suppose that's that's the dwarfs from warhammer fantasy indeed
so thank you all so much for watching uh and uh yeah that about wraps it up take care everyone
bye