Orcs

The Orcs were a lost people, their homeland ravaged by the reign of Dormondus, King of the Underworld, during the long time of the Dead World. So it was that Gorghast, Great Chieftan of the Orcs, came to Alderheim, and asked Bjor Dragonslayer, who had slain Maritas the Great Wyrm, for passage through his land to find a home for the Orcs.

On the steppes between the Hedros and the Black Hills, the Orcs finally found a home, though it was overrun with kobolds and still under threat of the Dragons. Gorghast was killed, and there was much disarray among the Orcs. Urtha of Bloodtree, seeing that the Orcs would perish without the aide of strong friends, reached out to the King of Men, and secured an ally for the Orcs against their enemies.

So it was that the tribes of Orcs came to be a part of the great Kingdom of Balarai.

Urtha was named Jarl of Orgheim, but unlike the humans, who passed down their kingship by blood, all the clan leaders met in Orgheim when the need arose and declared their Jarl by moot.

During the First Goblin War, the Orcs fought fiercely against their ancient cousins, determined to show their loyalty to their new alliance. Such was their valor in this war, that an Orc, Grot of Burningeyes, was named Lord of the King's Army in 103 Alderheim Calendar.

In 153 AC, when Queen Veras was wounded by raiders on the road to Orgheim, the clan leaders gather in a new moot to strip Hazor of Bluewind of his seat as Jarl for his failure to keep his Queen safe. Queen Veras claimed that this is unnecessary, but Hazor of Bluewind accepted this admonishment, and vowed to rid the countryside of brigands as a simple soldier.

Hazor the Redeemed died in 156 AC after having hunted down and killed the last of the raiders who had attacked the queen’s caravan.

During the reign of Queen Greta the Prosperous, on February 1st 258, the Jarl of Orgheim (Nothalis) paid a visit to the capital. She interrupted an attempt by Greta’s son, Yoldor, to depose his mother and take the crown. Nothalis found herself between the Queen herself and the Prince’s men. Nothalis refused to let them pass, and though she was killed, she kept them at bay long enough for the Queen’s men to arrive and regain control of the palace.

In 289 AC, when Xanathus the Black Dragon came South, the Orcs fought his brood to a standstill on the shores of Lake Ordas. Vrogo of Blackbones, Jarl of Orgheim, was killed in battle against the kobolds, but the battle was still won. Unfortunately, the Mystics and Battle Mages Orgheim could muster were too few and lacked the strength to bring the Dragon down, and Xanathus made it South to ravage and plunder the Dwarf holds of the Black Hills and even the lands of Balarai proper, where the Dragon killed Queen Brega in battle. The war against the kobolds of Xanathus lasts until 315, when Xanathus was killed by the Dwarves of Nordheim.

During the 4th century, the Orcs continued to secure the North of Balarai against the kobolds and their dragon masters. This forced the kobolds to focus their efforts to the West, on the Dwarven Kingdom of Nordheim. This invasion, in 379, began the Twenty Years War. While the fighting in Orgheim was limited during this time, Orcs were seen on every front of the war both as mercenaries and as part of the King's Army.

In the year 415, Gaz'roth of Bluewind, Jarl of Orgheim, was jailed by King Leod for treason. The clans of Orgheim held moot, but chose not to replace Gaz'roth as Jarl. Instead, they sent envoys to the King to petition for his release. King Leod agreed, but only if Orgheim would give him an army of Orcs to help fight his war against the Goblins. Reluctantly, the clans agreed. For over a year, the clans of Orgheim fought the tedious and bloody war of King Leod in Goblin Lands, until Thromel of the Golden Hall, Jarl of Grofheim, met with Gaz'roth, and both their forces abandoned the campaign and returned to Balarai in 416. Hondur, King of Nordheim, joins Orgheim and Grofheim in supporting Leod's brother Olag. Orcs and Dwarves had always had good relations, sharing a common foe in the kobolds and their dragon masters, and we can assume this ancient friendship played a major part in their agreement to rebel against the king.

By 417 AC, Leod is captured and killed by the Revolutionary Army, and King Olag is crowned in Alderheim. Orgheim celebrates the death of Leod, who unjustly imprisoned their Jarl and forced them into a war they did not want, with Tyrants Day, where they beat and burn King Leod in effigy every year.

In 423 AC, Jarl Ordrog of Brokenwing assembles an army at Orgheim, hoping to invade the Kobold lands in the Hedros. The invasion instead stumbles into a Kobold army headed for Orgheim. The too armies clash in the hills, and the orcs, while victorious, are forced to discontinue the campaign for a year while fresh recruits are mustered from the clans. The second army, in 424, fights it's way up the Hedros to the very gates of Dul'vo'thum, the ruins of a Jotun stronghold from the First World, but here the kobolds fought under the command of Skeleks Half-Dragon. This winged kobold of great strength and magical power turned the tide of the battle, and the day is won by the kobolds.

The war between Ordrog and Skeleks, called the Brownscale War, last for ten years. During the first few years, Skeleks and his brood refused to meet the Orcs in the field, using secret ways beneath the earth to attack clan caravans and then fade into the hills. Ordrog finally forced them into fighting when he once again laid siege to Dol’vo’thum. Ordrog took the stronghold with the aid of a traveling wizard named Urol.

Grossiah, the brown dragon and Skeleks’s sire, entered the war in 428. While Ordrog managed to hold Dol’vo’thum, his main force was pushed out of the mountains and below the Eye of Gorghast. Urol the wizard slew the dragon in single combat on Mt. Hrona, but it was almost a year before the armies of Orgheim managed to relieve the garrison of Dol’vo’thum. Emboldened by the death of the Dragon, Ordrog pushed further into the mountains, relentlessly pursuing Skeleks Half-dragon. The fighting in the mountains was slow and bloody, and only came to an end in 433, when both Ordrog and Skeleks were killed the battle of Mt. Thur’mok. Their respective armies scattered in the aftermath.

What followed was nearly ten years of infighting and chaos in Orgheim. The Clansmoot that met after Ordrog’s death could not agree on a new Jarl. The clans fractured and warred against one another. High King Olag of Balarai attempted to restore order, but he was never able to do more than temporarily quell the violence. Each year on the anniversary of Ordrog’s death, the Clansmoot would meet again, but each year they failed to come to an agreement.