The Orcish Horde

The Orcs are a race reviled and exiled for their brutal and warlike ways, over a millennia before the Death, the Elven Dragonlords cursed them and drove them from the West, through the Axebite pass and into the Endless Plains.

The Axebite River

The Elven lords had thought that the brutal land of rolling steppe, turgid rivers and stinking marshes would weaken and finish the blackblooded Orcs. During their first years of exile, many thousands of Orcs did indeed die of exposure, disease or the predations of the great and terrible beasts that inhabited the plains.

The Endless Plains

Orcish society broke down into warbands who fought amongst each other over land, mounts and supplies, devouring destroying each other and perhaps the Elven plan would have worked had not one of these bands chanced upon the ancient ruins of Koth.

Once Koth was the holy city of the long vanished Serpentmen but it had been abandoned for untold ages since the rising empire of the Elves had sacked it in the Age of Legends. Now it was not much more than a ruin, haunted by half forgotten ghosts but the arrival of the Orcs with their bloodlust and hatred stirred the spirit of Gorath, one of the Princes of the Fallen and he appeared to the warbands shaman and whispered promises of carnage, revenge and glory into the hearts of the Orcs. 

This warband became the first of Goraths Chosen and spread word of his dark promise to all they met until the worship of Gorath became universal amongst the surviving Orcish race. Within twenty years, the Great Horde, as it became known, had united or destroyed all Orcs upon the Endless plains and enslaved the Goblins they had discovered living on the Shores of the Cold Sea. 

The Cold Sea

With all opposition crushed, the Horde set out towards the West and the ground shook under the tread of their mighty warbeasts. At this time the Dwarves had not constructed the Great Wall to block the Axebite pass and the Orcish Horde flooded through into the Elven realms and destroyed all they found in an orgy of destruction. 

The sacking of an Elven Megacity

Army after army was utterly crushed until the Dragonlords halted the Horde at the very gates of Azgaroth and during a mighty battle that lasted for days, the allied forces of Elves, Humans and Dwarves finally beat back the raging Horde. The cost was high but he west was once again secure as the Horde was driven back through the pass and out into the Endless Plains.

Sadly for the remaining races, the war had weakened them so badly that they could not wipe out the Blackblooded raiders, instead walling up the pass to keep them in check. 

The coming of the Death has heralded a new era of bloodsoaked glory for the Orcs. Gorath has been reborn, formed from the stinking corpses of the Orcish shamans who sacrificed themselves in one night to bring their dark god to the realm of Aeroth and now his hordes once again march out to conquer the world and put all other races to the sword.

To the East, the Cold Seas Goblins, long enslaved are showing signs of restlessness and increasingly brutal reprisals by their Orcish overlords have fermented unrest and several tribes have rebelled and even now hide in the swamps that border the Cold Sea and strike at their hated masters.

To the South, the Orcs have entered the Jungles of Kesh and have disturbed the degenerate descendants of the Serpentmen and warbands have reached the boundaries of the Southern Desert and battle with the undead Children of the Worm. 

Southern Desert

The main horde though has concentrated on the West and the remains of the Elven empire. Although the only straight route and is still resolutely held by the Dwarves behind their great walls, the Horde has also flooded round the southern end of the Axeblades and Ironwall mountains and attack the ruined Elven states from the south. 

Warbeast tracks, coast of the Sea of Storms

Even as the horde moves up the coast of the Sea of Storms, they battle against the Sea Demons and from time to time, the Daughters of Leviathan, the monstrous offspring of another Fallen Prince, fling their deformed bodies at the horde.

It is a time of bloodshed and terror, set amongst the ruins of a once proud empire and the Orcs have come into their own!