Another Goal Falls as the Final Day Dawns
almost 8 years ago
– Sat, Dec 10, 2016 at 09:06:18 PM
Possagek omulz djaearulz kagga!
The orcs have broken into a semantic storage vault and upgraded their language with a 3rd, 4th, and 5th declension! Feminine, masculine, and neutral nouns will all now have a second declension pattern, with new endings to match. From this point forward, all nouns coined as part of this campaign may take one of the new declensions. Let’s take a look at the new endings.
New feminine endings:
–ard, –ash
New masculine endings:
–b, –p, –f
New neutral endings:
–at, –ath
Rules and patterns for all three new declensions will be added to the grammar section of the dictionary. It may not look like much now, but this will affect everything in the language from the phrase book to new seasons of the show.
Now fully armed with two conjugations and five declensions, the orcs set their sights on their biggest prize yet: +1 bonus words for all backers of this campaign. Will they get there? They’ve got 24 hours.
Grinnel zak randudz!
Sponsor an Orcish Clan: Sample Clans
almost 8 years ago
– Mon, Dec 05, 2016 at 09:13:32 PM
Kirkarit okelkuluz orkuluz!
This update focuses on two sample clans of the sort that will make up the "Orcs of Fartherall" section of the book. Backers who select the "Sponsor an Orcish Clan" level or above will work with me to create a new clan with its own history, customs, and relations. All clans created as part of this campaign will become canon in the world of JourneyQuest and The Gamers.
Today's sample clans fall on opposite ends of the modernist-traditionalist spectrum: the Red Heels and the Mancutters.
The Red Heels (Loradkiladz)
Considered the most civilized of the orcs by the multicultural south, the Red Heels struggle to maintain their place in orcdom.
History
The Orcish clans began to coalesce in the aftermath of the Red Exodus, when the orcs freed themselves from enslavement under the dwarven mountains. Some stayed and fought. Others hid. The orcs who would become the Red Heels ran. And ran, and ran, and ran, stopping only when hunger and fatigue forced them, until they ran out of continent to cross. By then, they’d reduced their feet to the cracked, bloody pulps from which they took their name. And it was there, in a cold lonely corner of the world, that they built the settlement that would become Orksport: the largest Orcish city in the Afterlands.
Today a thriving trade hub and a metropolis in its own right, Orksport is the only passenger route to the Afterlands by ship from the Wicked Kingdoms. It also boasts the only university in the Afterlands and is considered a beacon of civilization by the races to the south.
Customs
The Red Heels are arguably the most modern of the modernist orcs. They don’t cut their faces with ranking scars, and many have adopted the human custom of dressing for comfort. They still hunt, but they do so in great nature preserves they manage outside the city. They have the longest life expectancy of any orcs, averaging an unheard of 40 years.
Orksport is governed by the Council of Champions, which draws its representatives from the different districts in the city, various organizations within Orksport (such as the denwatchers, nature wardens, various trade guilds, etc.), and the city’s racial minority groups—yes, there is even a human champion on the council. Ultimate decisions are made by the Premiere, who is elected by the champions, but whose decisions can be overruled by a supermajority of the council.
The Red Heels also sport one of the world’s best rugby teams: the Orksport Steelhead, the only Orcish team to play in the dwarven/human Mountain Kings League. The Steelhead are also perennial champions of rugget, an Orcish variety of rugby that focuses less on the kicking game and more on biting.
Relations
Among the modernist clans, the Red Heels are a shining example of what orcdom can be. But to many of the traditionalists, the Red Heels are an embarrassment at best, and traitors at worst. For many orcs, the Red Heels are too humanized—they’ve got gadzorks in their ruling body, and have even been known to farm. But grumble as they may, they still trade with the Red Heels for goods and they can’t produce on their own—the highest quality materials in the Afterlands flow through Orksport.
The Red Heels are keenly aware of how the other clans view them, and try to ease tensions and curry favor by hiring them, usually as security or as denwatchers while they hibernate. Though many clans consider them not Orcish enough, the Red Heels are not pushovers; Orksport has been besieged many times in its history, but has never fallen—and the ones besieging it, each time, were orcs.
The Mancutters (Huamthrakkulz)
The Mancutters are the orcs parents warn their children about. They’re also the orcs that Orcish parents warn their children about.
History
After the Red Exodus, the founders of the various clans reacted to their newfound freedom in different way. Some, like the Red Heels, ran. Some, like the Blue Brooks, hid. Others, like the Black Spears, stood and fought the dwarves and humans who came to recapture them. But only the Mancutters pursued the humans back over the mountains, howling for blood the entire way.
Today, the Mancutters (you can guess how they got their name) are the only clan that lives south of the Afterlands in human-controlled regions. Completely nomadic, they live by raid and pillage, taking what they need when they need it. The humans have made numerous attempts to exterminate them, but the Mancutters just melt away into the wilderness and mountain caves, only to counterattack when the humies have overextended themselves.
It didn’t take long for the Mancutters to learn that their greatest ally against the humans was fear. They go out of their way to terrify their opponents, which has led to many of their brutal customs and their reputation as the most savage of the orcs.
Customs
The Mancutters live in a constant state of warfare and struggle. As one of the purely nomadic clans, they are constantly on the move, though they do return to certain spots semi-frequently. In recent decades, though, they have had to range farther, as the human kingdoms began to abandon regions they raided most often.
Part of what so terrifies humans about the Mancutters is that they are a sapivorous clan: they eat other sentient species. They also make great use of the leftovers: human-hide leather armors, banners sewn from skin and strewn with skulls and teeth, drums make from stretched faces of the fallen. Incidentally, many of orcdom’s greatest skinsmiths hail from the Mancutters.
The Mancutters are in no way a united clan. Their numbers break and shift as they wander or are forced out of their camps by human counterattacks. They're ruled by the strongest: warchiefs who maintain their power as long as they can fight off challengers.
On the battlefield, the Mancutters prefer to fight by ambush and trickery, only engaging in pitched battles when they have a clear advantage. They make great use of smoke and chaos and noise to rattle their opponents, and tend to scream the whole battle through. One particularly unsettling custom involves cutting their own tongues in sight of the enemy. This not only spooks the onlookers, but puts the taste of blood in the Mancutters’ mouths, which they claim prepares them for battle.
Relations
The Mancutters haven’t done the other clans any favors with their campaigns of terror against the humans. In fact, the reason humans consider all orcs barbaric savages is because most of them have only ever encountered Mancutters. Word of their atrocities travels far.
As far as the other clans go, the Mancutters consider non-nomadic clans to be weak, and hold a special disdain for city-builders and farmers. The other clans consider the Mancutters sadistic barbarians, but the Mancutters are the first they’ll hire when they march south. Why? Because Mancutters scare the living crap out of the humies. To humans, Mancutter raids, on their own, are terrifying but can be defended against. But an organized multi-clan horde, with a Mancutter mob howling out in front of ranks of orcs marching in lockstep? That’s an end-of-the-world kind of terror.
