"From out of the blizzard’s whitewash came three massive shapes, pounding forwards through the snow and ice, the ground reverberating with every titanic footfall of the monsters. They were giant, shaggy-hided beasts, each as tall as a castle wall. They had huge trunks of muscle extending from their wide heads, and one of them raised this prehensile limb to the heavens and again the terrifying trumpeting sound echoed across the battlefield. The immense beasts were quadrupeds, with large flapping, dark furred ears and beady eyes filled with burning rage, and each had four immense tusks that curved down to the ground. Atop the backs of these monsters were strapped immense howdahs of timber, their sides draped with furs and leathers and dotted with shields, and within these structures were dozens of warriors."
- —Calard of Garamont witnesses the War Mammoths of the Norscans.[3]
A titanic Chaos War Mammoth[2a]
The Chaos War Mammoth is like unto a living mountain, a wooly colossus bedecked with an elephantine trunk and great curved tusks.[2a] Of all the terrible beasts that roam the wastes of the uttermost north, few are as dangerous as the great primeval creatures tainted by Chaos and known to the scholars of the Old World as Mammoths.[1a]
Role
Concept art for a Chaos War Mammoth created for Total War: Warhammer.
War Mammoths travel the snow-covered steppes of the farthest north, sweeping their tusks to expose the twisted grasses and small creatures that live beneath. A beast of such size consumes vast amounts of food and over time has ingested great quantities of Chaos-tainted material. Over the years the mutating effects have worked on the herd animals, causing them to sprout extra horns, and turning them violently aggressive. War Mammoths tolerate nothing in their presence and will attack anything they can see. They sound out trumpeting blasts before stamping the enemy flat, leaving behind only stains in the churned snow.[2a] They respond to any other creature that manages to gather their notice by smashing it into the ground, or if it is a large enough monster in its own right, impaling it with huge tusks the size of mighty tree trunks.[1a]
A Chaos War Mammoth as rendered for Total War: Warhammer.
The approach of a War Mammoth begins as a distant rumbling, like thunder over the horizon. Yet, growing steadily louder, the booming thud of the beast's approach causes the ground to tremble in rhythm to the four-legged strides until, at last, the gargantuan creature towers above.[2a] These massive creatures are capable, through sheer bulk and roused fury, of demolishing buildings, trampling forests flat and crushing anything smaller than themselves (which is just about anything alive) into an unrecognisable, bloody smear. Although not actually evil as such, they are entirely belligerent and uncaring beasts that cut a swathe of destruction wherever they go. This is magnified a thousand-fold by the fact that when they have young they travel in communal family herds and that they are fiercely territorial.[1a]
A Chaos War Mammoth as rendered for Total War: Warhammer.
To the Chaos-touched Northmen tribes of the Northern Wastes, the Mammoths are living totems of might and power -- beasts who go where they will and destroy what they will, and are so considered sacred creatures in their own right. From the shores of the Sea of Claws to the cold wastes of K'dathi, they are venerated by Norscans, Kurgan and Hung alike.[1a] The northern tribes know that a single War Mammoth can suddenly charge out of a blizzard and level a village in mere moments. The damage a whole herd of such beasts can do is nothing short of cataclysmic, wiping out entire tribes in an instant. Luckily, most Chaos War Mammoths encountered away from the frozen north are rogues -- warped individuals that disdain even their own herds.[2a]
A rendering of a Chaos War Mammoth howdah for Total War: Warhammer.
The barbaric northern tribes seek out calves abandoned by their mothers, for if caught and trained early enough, a Chaos War Mammoth can be ridden into battle as a nigh-unstoppable shock weapon. To tribes which through fortune, sorcery, or the favour of the Chaos Gods come to bring one of these creatures into the fold (for none can ever be truly tamed), great honour and fear is attached.[2a]
A rendering of a Chaos War Mammoth Warshrine dedicated to the Chaos Gods for Total War: Warhammer.
It is the Dolgan tribe of the Kurgan that have historically had the most success adding the prodigious strength of the Chaos Mammoths to that of their tribes through the jealously guarded secrets of their Shaman-Sorcerer, Sayl the Faithless. These Chaos War Mammoths, or vraszas as they are known among the Dolgan, make fearsome foes in battle against which few mortals have a hope of standing firm against. The greatest warriors of the tribe ride into battle on their backs, fighting from fortified wooden platforms called howdahs, while others, given over to the tribe's Shaman-Sorcerers, carry the mighty war-altars of the Chaos Gods, held aloft and inviolable for all below to see.[1a]
A rendering of Chaos War Mammoths for Total War: Warhammer.
Notable War Mammoths
- Soulcrusher - This Chaos Mammoth is a legendary destroyer of both the physical and metaphysical, annihilating souls by trampling foes into an unrecognisable pulp.[4]
Videos
Miniatures
Sources
- 1: Tamurkhan: The Throne of Chaos (8th Edition)
- 1a: pg. 132
- 2: Storm of Magic (8th Edition)
- 2a: pg. 112
- 3: Knight of the Realm (Novel) by Anthony Reynolds, pg. 80
- 4: Total War: Warhammer III (PC Game)
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