History of the Orhal Part I

Subject: History of the Orhal Part I Tue May 06, 2008 5:28 pm

The Creation of the Orhal

Many years ago the Mages of Tol Ancry were the sovereign lords of the Gray Sea having won their independence from the Silvanos of the Silver Forests.

Under the great mage Aaodor they founded the city Astanor which was filled with great fountains and road rivers and thousands of resplendent statues who fed the great fountains and pools with enchanted water that was purer than that of the ocean itself.

The great city was whispered of in every port bordering the Gray Sea and soon all manner of people flocked to the city hoping to call it home.

Smaller towns and ports sprung up around the Isles and soon the nation of Tol Ancry was formed. All was well for many decades and Tol Ancry grew in wealth and fame, until the coming of the Daegur. Having won their own independence from the fractured Silvanos these mountain folk had quickly struck out into the world. From the Crescent Mountains they marched northward and southward founding cities and fortress mines stopping only when they met the Gray Sea in the south and the Barrens in the north.

At the Gray Sea they founded two ports. These ports were South Gate and Dor-Grun, with Dor-Grun easily the greater of the two. For a time all was status quote and Daegur merchants and Ancry traders sold their wares in peace. But only for a time. The Ancryans were losing ground to the Daegur, their limited wares unable to compete with the expanding Daegur market.

Determined to not lose the wealth they had retained for so many decades the Ancryan’s sent forth great ships equipped with powerful hydro cannons and mages to blockade the Straights of Latherin which led to the wharfs of Imperia and beyond that the Sea of Kings and the Western Sea States.

In return for a modest toll the Daegur ships would be allowed to pass. Surely no small price to pay for access to western waters? Apparently so, for not a single spring later the Daegur Empire invaded Tol Ancry in retaliation for the blockade.

The following days were nothing short of a disaster for the nation of Tol Ancry as the Daegur army swept across the islands leading toward their capital.

The Ancryan fleet was recalled but was hit by a great storm that blew them of course.

The descendants of Aaodor were becoming desperate. It seemed nothing could stop the Daegur advance. Then when all looked darkest a group of sorcerers known as the Naldorast came bearing deliverance. A secret and illegal sect inside the Ancryan government, they used forbidden alchemy both old and new to forged a brew, to in an effect, turn normal men into monstrous warriors. After several tests the Ancryan Council desperate for any edge bought the formula and began to put it into effect. They potion would allow its recipients to retain their minds but sacrifice their bodies. The sorcerers explained this with wicked glinting eyes, for there was no way to undo what was done, though these first brave men and women considered this a small price.

Hundreds of volunteers were gathered and injected with the brew. Then in the hundreds they began to change.

The Orhal were born.

The Daegur had just seized the port of Andork the last stepping stone on their path to the Ancryan capital city of Astanor.

Thus the Orhal were unleashed and the Daegur were decimated. The tactics used against the normal armies of man proved no use against the brutal savagery of the Orhal. Charging into battle with seemingly no concern for their own lives they bit deep into the Daegur forces and slowly but surely forced them back.

Eventually were forced back unto the very beaches that they’re invasion had begun. The Daegur made a last ditched stand on that isle and were duly crushed. All that remained of the Ancryan military had taken the potions or were forcibly injected with it. And while perhaps small in number compared to what they might have had before the war, the Orhal numbers still stood well in the thousands.

The Daegur quickly fled to their mechanical ships and safe haven…or so they thought. The Ancryan fleet had finally arrived home bearing mages and soldiers which quickly set upon the steel crafts. In a matter of hours nearly the entire Daegur fleet was destroyed. Those surviving vessels sped straight toward the port of Dar-Gron.

The Daegur had been defeated. For now. Already the Low King of the Crescent Mountains had received new of his army’s seemingly unstoppable string of defeats and ordered the marshalling of the hosts of Dar-Grund…

What followed was a decade long war between the dogged Orhal and the strained armies of the Daegur. Locked in several wars throughout their Empire the Daegur were forced to prioritize their forces on a global scale and thus were never able to lay the killing blow against the insolent human islanders and their mutant slaves.

Unlike those who came before them, these Orhal no longer retained their memories or minds the alchemy having been cruelly twisted soon after the first of the Orhal were born.
Meanwhile greedy for any source of humanity the Naldorast -who had quickly taken over what remained of the Alcryan leadership- quickly set about all the nearby ports. None were safe from their designs and their Orhal army and thousands of unwilling souls were dragged to the capital and mutated into soldier slaves.

Eventually the tide turned and the Ancryans rose to attack, their army stronger than ever before. The Orhals -now numbering in the tens of thousands- stormed the city of Dor-Grun. Countless Orhal fell before the cities walls, their lives often thrown away uselessly, by the unlearned minds of their magician commanders

However in the end the sapped garrison of Dor-Grun was forced to yield to the might of the Orhal and the city was lost. Though South Gate still stood with Dor-Gron’s fall the war was in effect over. However something changed in that final battle that the mages couldn’t understand. The Orhal while still obedient began to sing songs their masters did not teach them and speak words they did not know. Their numbers seemed to grow inexplicitly as no reinforcements arrived.

However these strange happenings seemed of little consequence then for news had come that Cirion the Wrath had landed on Tol Ancrya. The great Silvanos conqueror immediately set forth toward the city of Astanor. Upon his arrival he is said to have stood upon a great formation of rocks overlooking the city and cried, “Death to the heathens who think they could master what only a god can control!”

With that Cirion, drew forth the Storm Stone, which is said to bear the very essence of Sirrion the Spirit of the Sea. As he lifted it into the air the clouds bellowed and the great many waters of Astanor began to stir and awaken. What followed next is spoken of only in legend but it says that the very waters of Astanor came to life and created waves so great that it sunk the city.

Perhaps this myth of grandiose power speaks true for even to this day the underwater ruins of Astanor the Sunken City can been seen by those few who still travel to the Broken Islands of Tol Ancrya.

For even as those few islanders left waited with hope –and dread- for the armies of Ancrya to return a great travesty was unfolding and their waiting was doom to naught.

For but in a single night through unknown means and an unknown force the Orhal learned free-will, and rose as one in a great rebellion and slaughtered their former slavers. Singing alien songs the Orhal no longer humans but something much more marched northward toward their destinies.

So The Legacy Of The Orhal Begins

Subject: Re: History of the Orhal Part I Tue May 06, 2008 10:05 pm

Mmmmm... Mutie skullz.... *censored*

Wait... the Orhal are the Orcs aren't they....

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