Pride and Prejudice and Pickaxes

Dwarfs are the exceptionally (read extremely) proud people of the Old World. Always grumbling behind their sacred trio of virtues: how old you are, how rich you are and how skilled you are. That’s the classic background, we know…but the very heart of the Dawi beats beneath the mountains – ahhh the old good Duraz – where the primordial stone-breaking toil of the Father-God Grungni still passes down to his sons: the Miners! Rooock & Stooone!

Ores to mine? Tunnels to carve? There are no Dwarfs more capable…so no living species more capable. Picks to swing? Skaven to bury? Just another productive day! One Twin-Tailed massive chunk made out of Warpstone?! Well, sounds like an omen-invitation for a warband of Dwarf Prospectors – ohhh the new bad Thengduraz!

And so, from the stone halls (always from underground) they march to the Manling Ostermark, toward the richest open-pit mine in all the Known World: Mordheim! Alright, it might be called “the City of the Damned”, but all it takes is a shovel in hand and just a pinch of blackpowder. All within reach from the High Lodefinder to the last Boki-Beardling sworn into the Guild…

“Dispossessed? Pffft! By the Gromril veins in all Karaz Ankor – and other Khazalid swears with no translation – we bear no stain on our honour! Just hard work and the proper stains of our hard work: calluses on the palms and wax on the brow are like Clan-brothers for us. Heigh-ho! We raid this cursed city not to buy back shame, we do it because it’s the ancestral duty of Miners. Not a single scrap of ore, dug from the depths or fallen from the sky, must ever end up in Ratmen paws…or worse Goblin grubbers…or even worse pointy-eared Elgi! That is dishonor. That is the real dispossession – one last obscenity in Dwarvish.”

So watch your tongue, unless you want a Maraz Mattock between the eyes or a place in the Book of Grudges, don’t go calling them “Treasure Hunters” like their kin. Sure, they hunt treasures, not out of disgrace, but on Guild commission. These warbands aren’t led by desperate nobles, only Chief Prospectors who can bore through granite and armor plates, paid in strong distillate (officially for the Steam Drill’s tank). Oh and these leaders know too well the power of Blasting Charges. Reminder: they are never shy about using them.

When newbie mercenaries arrive outside the walls of Mordheim and sees smoke plumes and booming echoes, they have to learn fast…a little adventure just turned into a big barrel full of explosives. The City of the Damned might soon detonate into the City of Rubble, just the daily welcome of the Dwarf Prospectors.