Gotrek Gurnisson
From HammerWiki
Gotrek Gurnisson is a famous Dwarf Slayer. He is known for travelling with his rememberer, companion and possible friend Felix Jaeger, a human poet from The Empire. In WAR, both these characters can be found in The Screaming Cat, a Tavern in Altdorf. The exploits of Gotrek and Felix are detailed in the Slayer Series of novels started by William King and being continued by Nathan Long; published by The Black Library, the publishing arm of Games Workshop.
[edit] Overview
Gotrek is portrayed to have once committed a terrible deed that cast shame upon his family and clan, causing him to renounce his former life as an Engineer and take up Slayer Oath and seek an honourable death, fighting against monsters and other dangerous creatures. Gotrek is incapable of not giving his all to a task and sees it as dishonourable to simply let his opponents kill him; as a result, he has been so successful (or arguably, unsuccessful) in his quest for an heroic end that he has now been adventuring for over 80 years. Gotrek has the typical appearance of Dwarven Slayer: heavily muscled and tattooed with a beard and hair dyed bright orange and spiked with pig grease. He is missing an eye which was lost in a battle with a horde of Greenskins.
Some decades into his travels, Gotrek saved Felix Jaeger from being run down by the Emperor's cavalry during the infamous "Window Tax Riots" of Altdorf. In an act of drunken stupidity, the young poet swore to accompany the dwarf on his travels and to write an epic poem about him once he was dead. Though Felix claims to regret this, each chapter of a Slayer novel begins with an excerpt of the text "My Travels With Gotrek", supposedly the result of this oath and implying that at some point, Gotrek finally meets his fate. Luckily (or unluckily for Gotrek) this has not yet happened in WAR.
Though the exact nature of Gotrek's crime is never stated, the story Beastslayer features a Chaos Lord of Tzeentch requesting a vision of his twin sorcerers. After a scene depicting Gotrek's acquisition of his axe, the next scene involves Gotrek returning to a burning village, ending as it focuses on the corpse of a dwarf woman and her baby. The next scene depicts Gotrek in the throneroom of a Dwarf hold, arguing with a Dwarf lord. Though no dialogue is given, the lord's guards attack Gotrek, resulting in the slaughter of virtually every dwarf present in the chamber. The scene finishes with Gotrek shaving his head with a knife.
[edit] Gotrek's Weapon
Gotrek wields an enormous battleaxe, forged of starmetal and imbued with immense magical potency by ancient Dwarf Rune magic. He gained this weapon during his excursion into the northern Chaos Wastes, where he recovered it from the body of the dead son of King Thangrim Firebeard. Gotrek's axe is . This weapon was the Runemaster's Axe of the lost dwarven horde of Karag Dum. The Elven Mage Teclis once read the magical aura of Gotrek and determined that immense power was flowing from the axe and subtly changing the Slayer into something greater than an ordinary Dwarf. In the book Elfslayer, Max Schreiber notices that after 20 years of adventuring neither Gotrek or Felix seemed to have aged, and that they seem to recover quickly from wounds. It is hinted that both the slayer and felix have become altered by being in the proximity of the rune axe, granting longer life, greater reslience, etc.
