Building from Part I of the series of The Word of Hashut and how it came to be.
Before the Word of Hashut had a name, a team, or even a whisper, the fan-made ezine world was already shifting. It wasn’t a movement yet. More the tremors before the quake. Small, uneven, sometimes chaotic, but full of potential.
The first sparks came in the mid-2000s.
Druchii Herald arrived with three issues that proved what raw motivation could achieve. Soon after, the Orc and Goblin tribes launched Waaagh! Magazine. Both projects were bold for their time. The layouts were rough, the writing inconsistent, but none of that mattered. They showed something the Warhammer scene hadn’t really seen before: fans could build real magazines if they were willing to grind.
Then came the second wave — and this one changed the landscape.
From the Under-Empire rose the Skavenblight Gazette, and with it a new standard. Here was a group swinging above their weight: better structure, cleaner presentation, and an unmistakable editorial voice. It proved that a faction-focused publication didn’t have to be “good for fans.” It could be good, period.
Other armies followed.
- Bellower appeared among the Ogres.
- Citizen’s Levy came out of the High Elf tower-cities.
Suddenly, the idea didn’t seem far-fetched: a dedicated forum could support its own magazine with lore, art, tactics, and community content.
But in all that creative noise, one faction was absent.
The Chaos Dwarfs had nothing.
No early attempt. No abandoned prototype. No rough PDF hiding in someone’s hard drive. Just silence and a scattered diaspora of players keeping the army alive out of sheer stubbornness. GW had left the Dawi Zharr behind, and most of the community wrote us off as a footnote.
That silence wasn’t going to last.
In early 2008, on the newly formed Chaos Dwarfs Online forum, I posted a message. Short. Intense. Direct. A question wrapped in impatience: why did every other faction have an ezine while we had none? Why had the most forgotten army in the game not even tried?
Looking back now, the tone is unmistakable. The urgency was already there. The drive was already there. The quiet implication — if no one else is going to do it, I will — was absolutely there. It reads like someone who had already decided what was coming next.
That post became the spark.
The forge lit.
And a faction that GW had abandoned was about to create something entirely its own.
Volunteers stepped forward. Sketches arrived. Drafts, concepts, and templates followed. Even before a single page of Issue #1 existed, momentum had started gathering around it. The other armies had shown what could be done. Now the Chaos Dwarfs would show what happened when a determined community decided to outwork the odds.
Reflection: The Shape of the Hammer
Looking back on that 2008 post now, I can see it with a clarity I didn’t have then. I didn’t know a thing about DISC types or what “High D” and “High C” meant. I only knew how I naturally operated: fast, focused, structured, and already mapping out the end before anyone else had agreed to the beginning.
Reading that old thread today, nothing about it feels strange or exaggerated. It feels exactly like I’ve always been. Direct. Driven. Already building the framework while others were still floating ideas. It was normal then, and it’s normal now.
What I recognize in hindsight is how that style probably landed for others — especially people wired differently. The intensity, the expectation of movement, the clarity of direction. For me, it was simply stating what needed to be done. For some, that kind of certainty can feel like a lot.
But that mix of High D and High C wasn’t a flaw. It was the reason Word of Hashut existed in the first place. The drive pushed the project forward. The structure and standards gave it shape. Without one, the ezine never would have started. Without the other, it never would have reached twelve issues and become something people still mention fifteen years later.
At the time, I didn’t know any of that. I only knew the Chaos Dwarfs deserved better, and waiting for someone else to make it happen wasn’t an option. Years later, I can see the wiring behind those decisions, but it doesn’t change the conclusion.
This is simply the way I’m built.
And for that particular moment in the hobby, it was exactly what was needed.
The next part will cover the early days of the ezine and also in a fit of insanity also producing Gold and Glory. The ezine for the Dogs of War.
Looking back? That is the right word: insane.
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