Orcs

Two orc peoples have been identified:

• The orcs who live in the Grey Mountains, particularly in and around the fortress of Hoth Achaar.
• The orcs of Grumluda, a country beyond the Shrouded Lands. See the Grumluda entry for more. Both orc peoples have a nobility.

Half-orcs are the result of a union between orc and human.

Orcs of the Grey Mountains

Hoth Achaar was built with orc artifice as well as the cunning of the dwarves. This combination of styles is called Titan-Grumludish architecture. The fortress-city’s quartermasters still carefully balance the city’s defences and the city is kept in good condition.

Whether the orcs cooperated with the dwarves, and to what extent, is unclear. There were orc construction crews and slaves inside the city, but it appears it was not until the Disciples of Othonoi conquered the city that the orcs were influential in the direction of the city.

Ritual, consensual torture is a key part of orcish culture.

Orcs returning home from elsewhere sweat out corruption in the sweat lodges.

Troubles have broken out among the orcs, ending the Skibart practice of avoiding trouble by paying tribute. Now the halflings must resist orcish incursions, which they do through guerilla warfare and gnomish magic. (20.03)

There was a time before the orcs and elves were sundered. (09.09)

Orc women can face the Double Duty. Some who tire of their children leave them to become changelings (22.03).

Religion

The orcs venerate the lords of the sky and the underworld depicted on the gharsang.

The orcish faith requires practitioners to move to different temples, although this may be simply because of the unusual defences of Hoth Achaar.

The orcs perform rites to their strange gods at the Ten Thousand Stumps (24.02).

Connections

• Hardrald Longspear fought an orcish army on Longspear Bridge (22.11).
• The Keepers of the Sainted Foot are raided by orcs (20.04). A recently-arrived novice appears to be scaring the orcs off.
• Before the great falling out of orc and dwarf, the two races defeated the goblins. At that time, the Kingswood stretched much farther - but orcish and dwarven axes felled many oaks (24.02).
• The orcish border is guarded by a long series of wooden carvings of leering faces (gharsang).
• The orcs have sent an expedition to the west with the aim of colonizing another old dwarven fortress (14.02).
• The payment of pipeweed tribute from Skibart clan halflings has been interrupted (20.03).
• The first ogres were born in Hoth Achaar, during the Pact of the Eye where dwarves coexisted with orcs. Ogres are half-orcs, half-dwarves, though they breed true. It appears that the energies of the Eye of Gruumsch made such unions possible.
• The humans of the Freeholds have launched at least one failed campaign against these orcs (17.03). The Verlimes waged war against the orc tribes, though the soldiers disbanded and some were killed in the Last Skirmish (17.03).
• The King of the Mountains was killed by a great orc with a half-burned face. (34.00)
• The minotaurs of Lastmaze kill the northern orcs, though it was the southern orcs who enslaved them and destroyed their homeland. (18.02)
• The Tomb of the Nameless is a site of pilgrimage. (42.02)
• Orcs find boiled catfruit (from cat trees) a delicacy.

Particular orcs

• The Skullcrusher orcs are remarkably peaceful. Some of this tribe are overseeing construction of the Farnsfall Holding (11.03).
  • A Skullcrusher orc hired by Chelind died (16.16)
• Vartran Montra-brey, some hundred years ago, planned an audacious attack on the Hold of the Bloodied King, but was foiled (22.04)
• Brigadier Kalas Montra-brey is an elfcatcher and attache to Shuttered’s Grumludish embassy. He takes elvish slaves for fights in Shuttered’s arenas. He has a battalion of half-orcs.
• The orcs living near the Glittering Gorge care little for gems, but have found an ingenious way of retrieving them. (36.02)
• Lysha is a half-orc that lives at the Farnsfall Holding (11.03).
• The Baker is a former slave living in Titan’s Skull (34.01). There are many orcs among the slaves in the silver mines of the dwarves.
• There are two rival garrisons of Hoth Achaar orcs in Those Vexatious Caves (14.02).
• Krel, a companion of Corian, is a changeling.