Chaos Dwarfs.

[MrBigMr]

I know there was a thread about them a while ago, but it was more about why normal dwarfs hate them, rather than what I'm interested in. And what is that? Well, everything. Ok, I've read a little here and there, but there's still some questions left unanswered by said sources, nor am I always clear what is official and what is not.

The rulebook talks of the city of Zharr-Naggrund under the Chaos dwarfs, but is this the only place for Chaos dwarfs? Are there other groups elsewhere? Do dwarfs fall to chaos all the time (well as in some bunch of them here, another there), or have the split from the main dwarf race as a whole (like the DE and WE from the HE)?

Do they have cults or factions dedicated to different gods like human Chaos worshipers, or do they have their own twisted for of it?


I'm just asking as I'm working on a Chaos dwarf army at the moment using normal dwarf rules just to make it more interesting and having some reason to make converions and modelling for the army.

I had the idea of them being from a stronghold that was known for their fine craftmanship. Then they were besieged by Slaanesh for a long time and during that time they were challenged many times to prove their skills. They managed to break the enemy off, but they became really cocky about their superior craftmanship and started challenging other forges to compete with them. In time this vanity led them to start seeking even more ways to improve their designs and in the end to break the rules, which led other dwarfs to shun them. They thought the others were just jealous and continued with their dark ways to seek knowledge and skill. But all the while they were secretly being corrupted by Slaanesh through their vanity to nudge them over the edge and finally it all paid off when they swore allegiance to the Dark Prince for all the secrets on forging superior weapons and items.

Is this type of army background anywhere fitting into the world or not?

[forthegloryofkazadekrund]

try going to

www.chaos-dwarfs.com

or

www.chaosdwarf.com

for more info, should find a lot of very helpful people there

[Lord Lucifer]

Long story short:

Dwarfs expand their empire. Dwarfs try to push past the desolation. Most Dwarfs think "This place sucks, it's not worth it, coal is useful, sure, but there's no prestige in this. We're turning back", other dwarfs are undeterred and won't give up, so press on, forming the city that will become Zhar-Naggrund.
Earthquakes/volcanic flow/expansion of Realm of Chaos happens, Zhar-Naggrund gets cut off
Dwarfs there get desperate, feel abandoned
In desperation, turn to the worship of the dark God, Hashut, Father of Darkness.
Dwarfs now have priesthood of Hashut, study magic, and start doing un-Dwarf things like enforce slave labour.
Chaos Dwarfs now rampant slavers with huge industrial sector.
EPA seriously pissed by breaches of air-polution limits, FEMA called in, incapable of dealing with fictional universes outside of their mandate, pollution continues.



Those are the Chaos Dwarfs
Then there's Dwarfs that turn to Chaos, like the guy that forged the Chaos Runesword. They're completely different. Like the Elves that turn to Chaos are different to Dark Elves

[Urgat]

The rulebook talks of the city of Zharr-Naggrund under the Chaos dwarfs, but is this the only place for Chaos dwarfs? Are there other groups elsewhere?

There's lots of CD city scattered around the darklands (Uzkulak, the Black Fortress, etc). There's some kind of tunnel that goes under the moutains and the lands to get to I don't remember which sea (for their naval fleet), so there's probably CD settlements along the coast there too. Afaik, no other CD settlement otherwise, but they've got a fleet, they might have small colonies here and there.

Do dwarfs fall to chaos all the time (well as in some bunch of them here, another there), or have the split from the main dwarf race as a whole (like the DE and WE from the HE)?

Split, in -4000, Sigmar's calendar. Dwarfs are very resistent to chaos, it took being stranded for years and years in a land bathed by the chaos powers during the first chaos incursion.
There was "normal" dwarf mutants before (I remember a short story about Gotrek and Felix killing some), but that's long gone.

Do they have cults or factions dedicated to different gods like human Chaos worshipers, or do they have their own twisted for of it?

They all worship Hashut, the Father of Darkness.

I had the idea of them being from a stronghold that was known for their fine craftmanship. Then they were besieged by Slaanesh for a long time and during that time they were challenged many times to prove their skills. They managed to break the enemy off, but they became really cocky about their superior craftmanship and started challenging other forges to compete with them. In time this vanity led them to start seeking even more ways to improve their designs and in the end to break the rules, which led other dwarfs to shun them. They thought the others were just jealous and continued with their dark ways to seek knowledge and skill. But all the while they were secretly being corrupted by Slaanesh through their vanity to nudge them over the edge and finally it all paid off when they swore allegiance to the Dark Prince for all the secrets on forging superior weapons and items.

Well, why not? But dwarfs like that won't have any links with "chaos dwarfs" as you think them. Chaos dwarfs are really a badly named race. It's not random mutants or whatever, it is one solid, hierarchized society, and they all look the same, you could say the mutation didn't go haywire, it got channeled and is the same on every chaos dwarfs.
They also don't really meddle with other races much, excepted to get more slaves and material.
Then, they hold no allegiance to any of the Greatest Four (), it's Hashut and Hashut only.
And finally, I'm not sure what you mean by "fine craftship". If it's, like, pretty jewelry, finely sculpted metals or whatever, that's not them. They make big, large, crude machines powered on steam and coal, with enormous gears and mechanical parts, imagine a grand, dwarfish version of the industrial revolution in the 19th century, but on a collosal scale.

Is this type of army background anywhere fitting into the world or not?

So that army might fit in the world (though I do have difficulties picturing dwarfs falling to slaanesh, granted), but not in the propper Chaos Dwarfs fluff.

Voila, hope that helped

[Revlid]

Origins of the Chaos Dwarfs

I thoroughly enjoy the relationship between Chaos Dwarfs and Dwarfs, as it is very different to the typical fantasy “X vs Dark X” relationship. Namely, while Dwarfs are thoroughly ashamed of their Eastern cousins, they are happiest (if that term can be used) simply pretending they don’t exist.

Why? Dwarfs go out of their way to defeat Chaos, Greenskins, Skaven and Elves; they must have at least an equal grudge against the Chaos Dwarfs, and pursuing it makes just as much sense as pursuing their similarly-unavengeable grudges against those other races. So why don’t they? Simply because the existence of the Chaos Dwarfs is, I believe, the one grudge the Western Dwarfs have accepted that they cannot avenge. Why have they accepted this? Because the grudge was never theirs to avenge. Out of all the thousands and thousands of grievances recorded in each Hold’s Book of Grudges, this is the only one that the Dwarfs have truly accepted as their own fault.

Chaos? Attacked us first, wholly unnatural.
Greenskins? Attacked us first, disrespectful brutes.
Skaven? Buggers attacked us first, and they’re foul Chaos spawn.
Elves? Betrayed our trust, displayed utter arrogance.
Chaos Dwarfs? WE were the ones at fault here.

Most Dwarfs, in the deep of their souls, accept this, and cover it up by denying the existence of the Chaos Dwarfs, defeating them where they can, and becoming angry and blustery when confronted with their existence.

The Chaos Dwarfs, on the other hand, don’t. They really don’t see a problem. As far as they care, they were hit with something that didn’t kill them, and it made them stronger. They were thrust into the fires of Chaos and, rather than burning, were reforged. They were denied help from one avenue, so they took it from another. This initial lack of understanding makes the story of a Chaos Dwarf ambassador approaching the Dwarfen High King far more palatable to me, as before I found it, well, rather silly.

This lack of acceptance of what they had to do to survive is what has led them to treat the Westerners as inflexible prigs and backward hicks, not the fact that they don’t worship Chaos/Hashut. This base understanding of what must be done to survive lays the basis for their vast trading (and slaving) empire: Ogres, Men, Beasts, Daemons, Dwarfs, Goblins, Orcs, Elves, they don’t care, so long as their end of the deal will prolong their survival (and make it a damn sight more comfortable). They’d happily trade with the Empire, Brettonia, and High Elves if it weren’t for their shortsighted condemnation of their methods of survival.

High Elves and Dark Elves are polar opposites; Dwarfs and Chaos Dwarfs inhabit dark and light-tinged greys. That said, there should be no mistaking the fact that Chaos Dwarfs are evil. It may have started as survival, using intimidation tactics to scare off vastly outnumbering Greenskin tribes or slaves to support a then-dwindling population, but now slavery, torture, living sacrifice and brutal sadism is part of their culture. True Neutral they ain't.

[Lord Lucifer]

True Neutral they ain't.

Thou Shalt Not Invoke D&D Alignment When Discussing the Morality of the Races of the Warhammer World


It'd be interesting to know how far the rot has spread in the Dawi'Zharr. If the sadism and cruelty and live sacrifices are supported by the priesthood of Hashut, and merely tolerated as necessary by the citizenry of Zhar-Naggrund, or if the entire society takes perverse joy in sadistic acts?

The thing that's most interesting about Warhammer cultures... actually, I'll rephrase that.
Warhammer cultures/nations/factions etc. are most interesting when discussed in terms of motivations, goals, and desires, rather than polarized into convenient categories to allow alliance games/campaigns to work on a team-on-team mentality (rather than a goal-oriented campaign)

You can look at the Warhammer world and just break it into Goodies and Baddies (the Goodies being Empire, Bretonnia, High/Woodsy/Superfluous Elves*, Dwarfs, Dogs of War, and Lizzies. The Baddies being all TEH EVIL! races of 'Chaos', Skaven, Chaos Dwarfs, Dark Elves, and Undead).
This REALLY simplifies things, and overlooks tremendously the vast variety of personalities, factions, acts and intentions within the group, tarring polar opposites within the same race with essentially the same brush. Magnus the Pious was a good bloke who sacrificed much in the defence of his people, thoroughly good chap, whereas Boris Goldgather taxed his countrymen to death during the height of the worst plague they'd ever seen, and had his favourite donkey given a position within his Imperial Entourage, and his death by plague was celebrated rightly by all... polar opposites within the very same job)
Saying the Empire is a bunch of Good Guys overlooks all the glaring contradictions with that sentiment. Certainly the xenophobic militaristic and expansionist Imperials aren't nice guys.
However, you CAN look it like that. But it's not very deep, there's little to read into there, and all up, it lacks dramatic integrity and any sort of narrative drive. All opposition is simply going through the motions.

However, when you consider each nation on its' own merits, and each group within that, and each notable personality in those groups, and try to understand what motivates them and how they interact with other groups, how those interacting groups form a larger group to interact with yet more large groups, and up and up until you reach the global level, THEN you've got something worth sinking your intellectual teeth into.

The strongest alliance in the Warhammer world is one of necessity. Dwarf Kingdom of the World's Edge Mountains, under the High King Thorgrim Grudgebearer, and the Sigmar's Empire under the Emperor, Karl-Franz Holswig-Schleistien (sp?).
The alliance was formed with the founder of the Empire, Sigmar of the Unberogen, in recognition of his rescue of Kurgan Ironbeard, and later his aid in driving the Goblinoids east of the World's Edge Mountains at the Great battle of Blackfire Pass. The alliance is primarily a matter of honour, and secondly, one of necessity. The Empire needed the guidance and help of the Dwarfs to form in the first place, and the Dwarfs recognized they'd need a strong ally to help contend with the greenskins and other foes. This has been reinforced through many shared military endeavours (both aided the Kislevites during the Siege of Kislev), and furthermore the Cult of Sigmar has many Dwarf-friendly tenets of faith at the very heart of their religion. So much so that the Grand Theogonist is supposed to assume a Dwarven name upon assumption of the title (something that Johann Esmer scandalously refused to do!)
The alliance here is not because they're both good guys, but because they have a common goal and mutual strength aids both in their seperate endeavours. Importantly, there's little clashing in their goals. The Dawi prefer to delve into the earth, Humans rely on the land and rivers for their means of survival.

The Asur and the Empire are a different story. They have no standing alliance, remaining civil exclusively because conflict is too costly (it's unlikely the Elves have the strength to subdue the tenacious humans without destroying themselves in the process anymore, and any war of extermination waged on the Empire will bring the Dwarfs into play, Ulthuan cannot afford this... and for the Empire, Ulthuan is simply too defensible to assault, at least from their position with the shifting isles and the great port of Lothern and the vast majority of the High Elf navy stationed there, it would be suicide).
Any cooperation is guiding by self-interest. And invariably happens on the soil of the Old World.
Teclis chiefly recognizes the value of the Empire, and seeks to strengthen it knowing it has bigger fish to fry than Ulthuan right now, and knowing it is a perfect target (and therefore distraction) for Chaos, the Greenskins, the Skaven, the Undead, and the non-spiky Norsc Raiders. Thus leaving the Asur the joyful task of continuing a millenia-old civil war with no end in sight.
The Asur are no longer Chaos' chicken soup for the Soul, with the realms of Man being far more attractive (more easily corrupted, and more vibrant melting pots of emotion, their brief frenetic little lives have a delicious vitality).
The Asur would happily sacrifice the entire race of Man to further their goals, they have NO love or respect for the value of human life, they're simply another savage tool to be manipulated. And Humans still consider Elves to be evil baby-snatching witches who are hopelessly corrupt, and probably give you warts (which explains why they have so few themselves!)

The same applies to every major group in the Warhammer setting, they all operate on private ambitions and cooperate when their goals overlap, and come to blows if the contradiction in goals is greater than the perceived losses war would cause

[Condottiere]

Thou Shalt Not Invoke D&D Alignment When Discussing the Morality of the Races of the Warhammer World

Since when?

[Lord Lucifer]

Since always, it's kinda an old-school joke 'round these parts.
That and D&D's metaphysical Alignment system is, well, crap.

[Condottiere]

Agree - but the nine categories might be considered memes.

[Jimjim]

try going to

www.chaos-dwarfs.com

or

www.chaosdwarf.com

for more info, should find a lot of very helpful people there

Great reading, but some of the info is simply wrong I'm afraid.
It tells of Karak Vlag being a place of the Chaos Dwarfs.. Did'nt the dwarfs who found Hashut find him in the Mountains of Mourn? Karak Vlag (Desolation or Isolation Hold) was known for its masons and engineers, and it was the most fortified hold in the whole Worlds Edge Mountains.. The "split" in the dwarf race happened 4000 years before Sigmar, and Karak Vlag mysteriously dissapeared in 2301, during the second chaos incursion, but it wasn't the home for so called "Skull Dwarfs" for over 6000 years??

[Lord Lucifer]

Yep, Karak Vlag has always simply been the north-most Dwarf Hold, never associated with the Dawi'Zharr

[wizuriel]

that thread on their orgin is actually fan fiction

GW fluff doesn't cover the orgin of the chaos dwarfs well. in a nutshell they got cut off during the chaos invasion and afterwards were worshipping hashut, were mutated and now chaos dwarfs (none of the inbetween is covered).




but yeah my take is the CD maybe evil but they are still the most ordered society in the game. The sorcerer lords rule the city with the priests under them. The CD still hold clans and honour and respect their elders. Also I don't think many slaves are sacrificed to Hashut most are put to work. It might be cruel and unusal work but its not mindless torture like the dark elves do (everything the CD do is done for a reason pretty much).

CD are a lawful evil race (well kinda between neutral and evil)


edit: my personal favorite fanfiction on their orgin is the CD went to the dark lands, some turned back but a fair amount stayed. During the chaos invasion unlike the normal dwarfs that had their deep holes and heroes the CD only had some shallow holes and no one stood up for them. They retreated into their hold with an impossible large army at their gates. With their doom inevitable and locked in their dark prison having been abonded by their family and clans (something I'm sure that has never happened to a dwarf before) the chaos dwarfs turned to depression and bitter anger. Out of the darkness, despair, anger ect Hashut was born (Hey is human emotions can give birth to chaos gods why can't dwarf emotions)

edit 2: but yeah back on topic. The chaos dwarfs don't really have any ties to chaos or the big 4 (Hashut is a chaos god but the CD are not chaos). Still they do trade with chaos and now live without morals so I guess some CD on a trade mission to a Slannesh stronghold could have gotten corrupted and warped. Might be harder to pull off with normal dwarfs as they would choose death before corruption

[MrBigMr]

Might be harder to pull off with normal dwarfs as they would choose death before corruption.

That's the funny thing about corruption, it usually works so subtly that once you're in its grips, it's too late and you haven't even noticed it yourself. It's not like one day you wake up and BANG! you have an extra pair of limbs. It starts with small things that over time build up.

Well, why not? But dwarfs like that won't have any links with "chaos dwarfs" as you think them. Chaos dwarfs are really a badly named race. It's not random mutants or whatever, it is one solid, hierarchized society, and they all look the same, you could say the mutation didn't go haywire, it got channeled and is the same on every chaos dwarfs.

So they're closer to the style of the DE with their Khaine worship and such?

And finally, I'm not sure what you mean by "fine craftship". If it's, like, pretty jewelry, finely sculpted metals or whatever, that's not them. They make big, large, crude machines powered on steam and coal, with enormous gears and mechanical parts, imagine a grand, dwarfish version of the industrial revolution in the 19th century, but on a collosal scale.

I've never really like the overly enveloping "dirty corruption" of evil. I've always more liked the Star Wars Empire and Nazi Germany type of organized, clean suited evil.

So that army might fit in the world (though I do have difficulties picturing dwarfs falling to slaanesh, granted), but not in the propper Chaos Dwarfs fluff.

In other word they'd be Chaos dwarfs and not Chaos Dwarfs. But there's nothing wrong with the concept though, right?

And are dwarfs not petty and vain people? They covet fame and fortune, have great sense of pride and amazing ability to shun all reason with their stubborness. In 40K Fulgrim, the Primarch of the Emperor's Children fell when a Slaaneshi daemon continually appealed to his vanity. It's not all about sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. What pleases you, pleases Slaanesh, and if great craftmanship and wealth pleases you, then it pleases Slaanesh.

Voila, hope that helped

Yes, and others as well.


And I have to agree with oh Lord here about the allegiance thingy. Maybe it's my hippie views that have evolved during my life travelling far and wide this little world of ours, but I don't believe in some ultimate evil. It's merely a concept to elevated one above the other. I don't even find GW's Chaos to be that "evil", as it's founded upon the very desires within us. We are the fuel and source of Chaos. It doesn't not corrupt us per se, it merely sets us free from the boundaries of "civilization." There's nothing in Chaos that wasn't in us to begin with. Calling Chaos evil is pretty much like calling nature evil. Chaos gods are mere manifestations of ours emotions.

[Urgat]

So they're closer to the style of the DE with their Khaine worship and such?

Don't quote me on that, I'm not expert of HE, but don't they recognize khaine too? Anyway, DE and HE are the same race, just like the humans from the empire and bretonia are the same race too. Chaos dwarves have, no doubt, evolved differently, they got different physical traits (tusks). I don't really like to liken CD to DE, but yeah, it can be something like that, just a dwarf settlement that has gone wrong. Both got a civilisation going on, it's not a mishmash of clans or whatever like chaos or greenskins, if you want.

I've never really like the overly enveloping "dirty corruption" of evil. I've always more liked the Star Wars Empire and Nazi Germany type of organized, clean suited evil.

Well, CD are very organized, as wizuriel stated. their dirty side comes from the slave deal going on, the sacrifices to Hashut, and a good deal of coal smoke

In other word they'd be Chaos dwarfs and not Chaos Dwarfs. But there's nothing wrong with the concept though, right?

Eaxctly I was waiting for some to say the word so I don't mispell it, put calling CD Dawi Zhar is probably more correct anyway, and helps avoid confusions. As for the concept, if you come up with a suitable explanation, there's definitively nothing wrong with it.

And are dwarfs not petty and vain people? They covet fame and fortune, have great sense of pride and amazing ability to shun all reason with their stubborness. In 40K Fulgrim, the Primarch of the Emperor's Children fell when a Slaaneshi daemon continually appealed to his vanity. It's not all about sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. What pleases you, pleases Slaanesh, and if great craftmanship and wealth pleases you, then it pleases Slaanesh.

Yeah, but it's a different kind of pride. I don't see dwarfs willingly side with Chaos w/o being twisted first, there's that grudge thing going one and its like engraved in their genes, dwarfs probably have a colossal amount of grudges written concerning chaos worshippers, so allying with them would go against that, and this, probably, is the biggest obstacle one would face trying to mix dwarfs and chaos (the propper CD conceptors avoided this by introducing a new god, then from them on they could make the CD society evolve so it now works differently and CD accept to deal with species dwarfs would kill on sight: eg, during the latest campaign, the Crown thing, the CD provided Grimgor with weapons, while a normal dwarf would rather kill himslef than lend a knife to an orc).

And I have to agree with oh Lord here about the allegiance thingy. Maybe it's my hippie views that have evolved during my life travelling far and wide this little world of ours, but I don't believe in some ultimate evil. It's merely a concept to elevated one above the other. I don't even find GW's Chaos to be that "evil", as it's founded upon the very desires within us. We are the fuel and source of Chaos. It doesn't not corrupt us per se, it merely sets us free from the boundaries of "civilization." There's nothing in Chaos that wasn't in us to begin with. Calling Chaos evil is pretty much like calling nature evil. Chaos gods are mere manifestations of ours emotions.

Well, skavens and DE are quite evil, nonetheless. You can accept the will to conquer as you'd do with any other race, but they're evil with their kin as well, DE especially; taking pleasure in torturing others is evil no matter how you look at it, and the whole DE deal seems to revolve a lot around how cruel they are. No matter how you look at them, there's no redeeming factor, imho.
I agree about chaos, though, I see GW chaos more as some primal force of nature. Well, besides Tzeench maybe, with all his plotting and so on, but I think the apparant cruelty of his ways are just a mean to his twisted goals, I don't think he takes pleasure in being cruel. As for Slaanesh, he's more twisted than evil, I suppose, I'm pretty sure you could write fluff about nice slaanesh followers who would never kill.

[MrBigMr]

Don't quote me on that, I'm not expert of HE, but don't they recognize khaine too? Anyway, DE and HE are the same race, just like the humans from the empire and bretonia are the same race too. Chaos dwarves have, no doubt, evolved differently, they got different physical traits (tusks). I don't really like to liken CD to DE, but yeah, it can be something like that, just a dwarf settlement that has gone wrong. Both got a civilisation going on, it's not a mishmash of clans or whatever like chaos or greenskins, if you want.

I just ment the comparison in the way of being an off shoot of the original race with Chaos influence (isn't Khaine rumoured to be Khorne?), but not an entirely Chaotic race like the marauders (coming from all over the place, rather than one set group).

I'm pretty sure you could write fluff about nice slaanesh followers who would never kill.

You're saying that like I haven't. Well, not "never kill", but my 40K Chaos army fluff is more about the personal relations of the people than toppling the very foundation of the Imperium. Besides, I find it funny that the Chaos Space Marine codex actually states they're able to feel things like love, where as nothing like that is never mentioned in any of the loyalist codexes.

[Brother Siccarius]

In the time before the coming of chaos, when it was dwarfs and elfs, and their expansion was great. When Chaos came, the dwarfs in the Great Skull Land were caught with their drawers down, as it were. Their holds were neither as strong nor as deep as those of their cousins in the mountains, and so they were exposed to chaos. What exactly happened isn't entirely known, though a popular theory is that they came across an ancient tomb or hold when trying to dig further to safety. How it came to be there is highly speculated, but since chaos was whipping around the world at the time it's hard to say. But somehow, in there they found an ancient being that came to be called Hashut, the Dawii Zharr god of Fire and Shadow (story sounds slightly familiar, neh?)

But, anyways, since then the Dawii Zharr (or Chaos Dwarfs) have built up Zharr Naggrund, their capitol, layer on top of layer in the form of an artificial mountain ziggarat. They use mainly slave labor and bought allegiances with the Ogre Kingdoms (to who they seem to share at least some friendship).

They use sorcery, and their sorcerors fill a class similar to priests of other races. Unfortunately sorcery comes at a price, a Dawii Zharr sorceror will gradually turn to stone over centuries of use.

It's believed that the Chaos Dwarfs have multiple holdings through the entirety of the Great Skull Land, though it's never specifically stated in fluff, it's assumed by fandom (and it works pretty well, all in all). Similar to Khazalid dwarfs their holds are ruled by families, clans, or something similar to high nobility of the emperor and the dwarf clans of the holds.

They speak their own language, a sharper, more ancient and slightly twisted form of Khazalid that also incorportates some of the chaos they have been exposed to.

ect. ect.

Read some of the posts in the background section of chaosdwarfs.com or the wiki on there. It should help you out.

[Urgat]

I just ment the comparison in the way of being an off shoot of the original race with Chaos influence (isn't Khaine rumoured to be Khorne?), but not an entirely Chaotic race like the marauders (coming from all over the place, rather than one set group).

In that case yup, that's the same, indeed

You're saying that like I haven't. Well, not "never kill", but my 40K Chaos army fluff is more about the personal relations of the people than toppling the very foundation of the Imperium. Besides, I find it funny that the Chaos Space Marine codex actually states they're able to feel things like love, where as nothing like that is never mentioned in any of the loyalist codexes.

Lol, was a general "you", and it's my bad luck (heh, again? I thought it was just with dies? ><) that you did something like that lol.
Well I could pretty easily picture, say, a Cathayan prince dedicated to Slaanesh living in his palace, spending his time in debauchery, w/o feeling the need to kill, maim or torture, for instance. Or an Empire noblewoman, or whoever.

[Ethlorien]

Agree - but the nine categories might be considered memes.

At least in the latest edition they've cut that number down to five.

Me, I like the idea of Chaos Dwarfs. Not a fan of dwarfs at all, but the chaos variety I might consider if they get an updated army book in the future.

[Lord Lucifer]

So they're closer to the style of the DE with their Khaine worship and such?

Pretty much, except slightly different.
Druchii are the Elves who sided with Malekith during the Civil War, and their descendents. The Cult of Pleasure, headed by Malekith's lover, Mother Dearest (incest, fun for the whole family!), eventually sided with Malekith who was using the 'CoP Problem' as a cover for his own ambitions and was previously ruthlessly persecuting them, so there is a great deal of genuine worship of a Great Power of Chaos going on there. This was, however, easily seen as quite detrimental to society as a whole (as indulgence of the Great Four tends to be), so setting up the worship of Khaine as the state religion (easily accepted, most of those siding with Malekith were warriors).
This has kinda been corrupted over time to focus on the more negative aspects of Khaine, to the point where the Druchii Cult of Khaine and the Asur Cult of Khaine look very, very different.
Complete, violently opposed, conflicting offshoot.

The Dawi'Zharr are similar, but with enough interesting points of difference to keep them somewhat original and not entirely redundant.
They never had a civil war, they simply pressed too far afield and ended up in a land full of unglamorous wealth (oil and coal and iron, oh dear), set about mining the hell out of it, and got caught up in an expansion of the Chaos Wastes and cut off from home. The Dawi thought their eastern cousins were lost, wrote it off as a bad idea and left it at that.
The eastern Dwarfs, in desperate times, turned to one of their proscribed cults, the Cult of Hashut, Father of Darkness.
This was, I believe, a Dwarf 'god', but a forbidden one (like the Cult of Khaine in the human pantheon, a god of murder is not to be worshipped yet some do anyway). And just so happens to be an actual Chaos God (by which I mean a Warp Entity like Sigmar, Ulric, Vaul, and Nurgle) rather than an Ancestor, which are still special cases that have not wholly been explained.
When the Dwarfs of the World's Edge Mountains became aware of the Dawi'Zharr, they look upon them as their shameful secret, proof the Dwarfs can be corrupted wholesale, and tend to lock away any hint of their existence, much like Karl-Franz's mutant nephew

In other word they'd be Chaos dwarfs and not Chaos Dwarfs. But there's nothing wrong with the concept though, right?

There's Dwarfs that turn to Chaos, and then there's the civilization of the Dawi'Zharr centred on Zharr-Naggrund

And are dwarfs not petty and vain people? They covet fame and fortune, have great sense of pride and amazing ability to shun all reason with their stubborness. In 40K Fulgrim, the Primarch of the Emperor's Children fell when a Slaaneshi daemon continually appealed to his vanity. It's not all about sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. What pleases you, pleases Slaanesh, and if great craftmanship and wealth pleases you, then it pleases Slaanesh.

Yep, entirely possible for Dwarfs to be corrupted. However, MUCH harder than Humans. Dwarfs are very, very conservative and emotionally dulled, they don't take to extremes in quite the same way humans do. Their character is quite stable by comparison, so it's harder for the Powers to get a grip on the Dwarf psyche than on the vital and exuberant humans or the sensuous Elves

And I have to agree with oh Lord here about the allegiance thingy. Maybe it's my hippie views that have evolved during my life travelling far and wide this little world of ours, but I don't believe in some ultimate evil. It's merely a concept to elevated one above the other. I don't even find GW's Chaos to be that "evil", as it's founded upon the very desires within us. We are the fuel and source of Chaos. It doesn't not corrupt us per se, it merely sets us free from the boundaries of "civilization." There's nothing in Chaos that wasn't in us to begin with. Calling Chaos evil is pretty much like calling nature evil. Chaos gods are mere manifestations of ours emotions.

Chaos is kind of a big thing, many many facets, and people are constantly simplifying things which confuses matters.
Chaos is simply that other plane of existence. The place where every emotion and sensation felt by real-world creatures is mirrored, where thoughts and dreams and concepts exist. Picture it as a dualistic existence, physical bodies in the 'Real World', and all emotions/thoughts/concepts/personalities/etc. in the Chaos realm.
The totality of this 'Chaos' realm is encompassed by four vast semi-sentient personalities, the Chaos Powers as we know them. They are not evil, they exclusively seek one thing, and that one thing is to increase, to grow. It's the same natural instinct that ALL living things have.
You could perhaps look at it the same way as Aristotle views the soul, the soul is basically that which makes living things 'alive', and ALL souls have the basic functional capacity to take nutrition and grow. This is the baseline for all life, and consequently is also the baseline for EVERYTHING in the Realm of Chaos. So the Big Four want one thing: To grow.
To do so they must increase the things that they are associated with. These are vast in their scope, not just the tight focus we normally associate these Gods with (Battle, Pleasure, Magic, Death)
The problem is, their growth pays no regard whatsoever to the effect they have on others. Their growth DOES corrupt us, because it causes us to over-indulge, to carry our emotions and actions to an unnatural degree, to unbalance things royally and bring destruction in our excess. This isn't evil... nor is it good... and sadly, nor is it entirely natural. It's destructive, because these powers are primal and HUNGRY!
The Chaos Gods aren't subject to the evolutionary process that actual living creatures must be subject to, that restricts populations to what can be supported by their environment. The Chaos Gods are VERY human in that regard.
The 'lesser' Gods are more clearly formed by the ideas of civilized creatures, and therefore are more subject to the restraints that civilization places on individuals. They're not as destructive in their drive for growth.
Not evil. Not good. Only run by an instinctual desire to grow, without restraint.

Now, the blokes in spiky armour are exceedingly proud and envious, and are therefore the most easily corrupted and the most vital, energetic supporters of their God and the means that support it. Those most ambitious and sociopathic creatures ARE evil, as we would deem them. But they're evil only because we're making the moral judgement. Without our judgement, the 'evil' is completely meaningless because it is NOT a motivating factor. They are greedy, covetous, sadistic, or even hopelessly idealistic and misguided. These are their motivators, and whether we deem them evil or not is completely irrelevant to their determined course of action

Don't quote me on that, I'm not expert of HE, but don't they recognize khaine too? Anyway, DE and HE are the same race, just like the humans from the empire and bretonia are the same race too. Chaos dwarves have, no doubt, evolved differently, they got different physical traits (tusks). I don't really like to liken CD to DE, but yeah, it can be something like that, just a dwarf settlement that has gone wrong. Both got a civilisation going on, it's not a mishmash of clans or whatever like chaos or greenskins, if you want.

Both worship Khaine, but it's two different sides of it. Dark Elves have come to worship the harsher, more murderous side, while the High Elves try to keep rather distant from Khaine and revere him pretty much exclusively in his role as Warrior and Executioner.

Eaxctly I was waiting for some to say the word so I don't mispell it, put calling CD Dawi Zhar is probably more correct anyway, and helps avoid confusions. As for the concept, if you come up with a suitable explanation, there's definitively nothing wrong with it.

The problem is Dawi'Zharr would make a terrible name for an Army Book
Up until about half way through 4th edition Chaos Dwarfs were literally Dwarfs that worshipped the Great Powers along with the Humans, Elves, assorted Orcs and so on.
Then came White Dwarf Presents: Chaos Dwarfs (interestingly enough, they've NEVER had an Army Book, only a series of White Dwarf articles later compiled into a compendium) in the middle of 4th ed. which was the first time the whole Hashut, Zharr'Naggrund deal was mentioned and the Black Orc Exodus became canon

Neither type of 'Chaos Dwarf' should preclude the existence of the other type in the warhammer world. The only problem is, how to publish both with distinct-enough names to avoid confusion?
And no suggestions of Hat Dwarfs!

Yeah, but it's a different kind of pride. I don't see dwarfs willingly side with Chaos w/o being twisted first, there's that grudge thing going one and its like engraved in their genes, dwarfs probably have a colossal amount of grudges written concerning chaos worshippers, so allying with them would go against that, and this, probably, is the biggest obstacle one would face trying to mix dwarfs and chaos (the propper CD conceptors avoided this by introducing a new god, then from them on they could make the CD society evolve so it now works differently and CD accept to deal with species dwarfs would kill on sight: eg, during the latest campaign, the Crown thing, the CD provided Grimgor with weapons, while a normal dwarf would rather kill himslef than lend a knife to an orc).

No-one willingly sides with Chaos, but everyone serves themselves. Subtlety is the key
And there's plenty of Chaos-worshipping Dwarfs. As noted, before 4th ed. that's all the Chaos Dwarfs were

Well, skavens and DE are quite evil, nonetheless. You can accept the will to conquer as you'd do with any other race, but they're evil with their kin as well, DE especially; taking pleasure in torturing others is evil no matter how you look at it, and the whole DE deal seems to revolve a lot around how cruel they are. No matter how you look at them, there's no redeeming factor, imho.

Humans are exceedingly evil with their kin also. Not just in Warhammer, but in real life. To apply that standard pretty much condemns every race in the warhammer world
The Dark Elves are cruel only as required by their religion, which is holding their society together and helping them endure the attentions of the Marauders and chaos gribblies from up north.
There's plenty of ways to look at the Druchii and see redeeming factors, provided you don't pay attention to the fan-views of Dark Elves (the joke that came up with their 6th ed. revision was "Now with 50% More Evil!")
And the Skaven do exactly what rats do, only with much more complex thought processes. It's perverted Darwinism taken to extremes, their drive is to survive in an INCREDIBLY dangerous world.

And you can find ways to rationalise taking pleasure in torturing others and not consider it evil, which I'll only mention VERY briefly to avoid the P&R forum:
Execution of Saddam Hussein. A lot of people cheered.
Watching 24. Fictionalized torture, but vicarious enjoyment all the same. Watching Hostel likewise, and Saw, and hell, even Fear Factor
BDSM
The execution parties texans like to throw, especially when the accused is a child molestor.
If you can justify the torture as legitemate (Gitmo?) you can derive a positive feeling from it in some way (satisfaction of doing the right thing if you believe it to be so, or a feeling of vindication, or the enjoyment of seeing someone get what they so richly deserve)


But the important point is, 'evil' is a moral judgement, relying on the morality of whoever is claiming it. No-one EVER does something 'because it's evil', it's NOT a motivating drive, and is an incredibly superficial way of looking at a conflict.
The interest is in finding out what actually motivates certain groups, seeing how that conflicts with other groups, and tracing how events unfold

I agree about chaos, though, I see GW chaos more as some primal force of nature. Well, besides Tzeench maybe, with all his plotting and so on, but I think the apparant cruelty of his ways are just a mean to his twisted goals, I don't think he takes pleasure in being cruel. As for Slaanesh, he's more twisted than evil, I suppose, I'm pretty sure you could write fluff about nice slaanesh followers who would never kill.

Tzeentch requires scheming and planning and the desire to bring about change. The 'mean' thing he does, which is ruin the attempts of his followers, just prevents them from reaching their goal, forcing them to continue to scheme and strive, satisfying HIS need.
Just as Nurgle urges his followers NOT to try and change things, because acceptance and apathy are his domain.
Slaanesh is the lord of pleasure and indulgence. Feeling good is good, but we have the moral value of temperence as a defense against the destructive nature of over-indulgence

I just ment the comparison in the way of being an off shoot of the original race with Chaos influence (isn't Khaine rumoured to be Khorne?), but not an entirely Chaotic race like the marauders (coming from all over the place, rather than one set group).

Khaine is not Khorne. They have an overlap of domains, things that indirectly feed Khorne also indirectly feed Khaine, but they are two distinct warp entities, inasmuch as warp entities can be considered distinct.
Likewise the Elf God Khaine is not the same as the Human God Khaine, despite the overlap.

[MrBigMr]

It's fun that depending on how you present something, it can either be heroic or pure evil. Spartans in 300 were noble warriors, while in Troy they were murderous conquerors and history has them as quite insane in their ways. They had their own culture and for their time it was important. Or look at the Chaos marauder barbarians. Blood crazed bastards with bulging muscles toppling civilization, never thinking too far ahead of them and solving everything with violence. Now imagine a barbarian with long hair, a big sword and an Austrian accent... Still the bad guy?

I've always disliked how Space Marines are wrapped in a cloak of heroism when they're nothing but mutilated children, brainwashed and all free will neutered from them in the service of a corpse god in order to do some of the most horrendious crimes imaginable. But I understand the need for it. I mean, if you think about it, Master Chief in Halo has a similar history (right, 'cuz I don't remember for sure?), and he's a big, bad ass hero.

As for things like Orks:

The Orks are the pinnacle of creation. For them, the great struggle is won. They have evolved a society which knows no stress or angst. Who are we to judge them? We Eldar who have failed, or the Humans, on the road to ruin in their turn? And why? Because we sought answers to questions that an Ork wouldn't even bother to ask! We see a culture that is strong and despise it as crude.

Makes you look at dem boyz with a totally different eyes now.

No-one willingly sides with Chaos, but everyone serves themselves. Subtlety is the key

I both agree and disagree. I don't know why. I mean, I do think someone is more than willing to throw themselves in the service of a Chaos god, depending on their motivation. But naturally it's about what the individual wants. We rarely do things we don't want. And even if we do, it's usually because we don't want others to know we don't like them.

There's people who choose to worship Satan, and I don't think there's any real corruption going on there. It's a little harder in WHFB and 40K universes where gods are real and "evil" corruption even realer. But I still don't see how a person with already questionable mental state couldn't choose to worship something willingly for what ever reason.

I always like to point out in the eternal Chaos Tau discussions that even if the Tau would be nigh impossible to corrupt, they're not Hindu cows like the fluff would suggest, but their society tried to make them into such (the Jedi "clear your mind from emotion, they are bad" thingy). Right before the Ethereals they were a violent race, and such evolutionary things don't disappear just like that (as taught in The Forbidden Planet). There are more then few cases of Fire Warriors doing more or less questionable things.

So imagine you live in a Demolition Man future where free sex is illegal, emotions are bad and yet on the inside you feel things you don't understand that well. Then comes a religion that tells you "it's ok to feel these things, even act upon them." Not everyone takes the bair, but some do.