The Great Horde

The Great Horde (Orcese: Gradava-khanalet-verad, literally "The Grand Old Clan of Verad") is a dominant political entity in Ayomar. The entire Ogrwha area is controlled by the Great Horde, or The Horde.

Orcs are the most populous race in the Horde, with most other races being half-orcs or human and aquatic elf slaves. Of the half-orcs, most are the offspring of slaves. Of the current human and elf slaves, over 90% were born outside of Horde territory.

History
There is evidence a sentient and relatively advanced ancient kingdom lived in the Ogrwha, long before the establishment of the Great Horde. Ancient city ruins and relics are scattered throughout the grasslands. Wether the mysterious kingdom was eliminated/driven out by the orcs or left because of other reasons it is still unknown. One other and less accepted theory is that the kingdom was established by orcs but a rapid cultural transformation happened, leading to the orcs' current lifestyle.

The Great Horde was founded in 200 IY by the great warchief Bal-verad-bralat-dru (Literally, "One-Verad-Brave-Clan"), commonly called Verad the Great. Before Verad's unification, the orcish hordes of the region was marred by endless tribal conflict. Although violent and aggressive, no other race felt the orcs posed a legitimate threat outside of the occasional, chaotic raiding parties. In fact, in the years leading up to Verad's unification saw the orcs' territorial holdings declined rapidly because of invasion. Verad seeing the threat of constant internal battling called a council of his rival warchiefs. During the council, Verad's largest rival, "Greentooth", agreed to join Verad's warband if he could best him in one-on-one combat. Verad, being a goblin and much smaller than his rival, used his dexterity to beat "Greentooth" winning the respect of all the present warchiefs, who elected him the first Grand Warchief of the Great Horde.

United under one warband, the orcs began to reclaim their lost lands, and gained some new ones leading to the Horde's current size. After Verad's death after eating some bad chili, many in the plunged into chaos. Verad had a harem of over 1,000 regularly stocked orcish and human women, which left him with no less than eight true heirs and countless bastards. Civil war seemed eminent; however, the heirs rather than destroying what their father built decided to have a duel to establish the rightful ruler. The sons of Verad established the law of succession that day. After a Grand Warchief perishes an honor duel is held between all legitimate sons, the winner is declared Grand Warchief. Although historically the duel was only to submission, the duel now seems to be to the death. Currently, Verad's direct descendent and the 61st Grand Warchief of the Bralat-dru dynstasty Sal-bal-verad-graba-bralat-dru (Literally, "Six-One-Verad-Graba-Brave-Clan"), commonly called Graba.

Culture
The Horde highly values war. Although not inherently conquest-minded, the Horde is extremely paranoid leading to "preemptive invasions" and border skirmishes with surrounding neighbors. The Hordes is one of the few known places on Ayomar that not only accepts slavery, but wholeheartedly embraces it. Their frequent slave raids also leads to trouble with neighboring countries. The warrior culture is very big in the Horde, with almost every citizen trained in some form of combat or defense. However, in order to become a recognized soldier, one must own a horse, leading to another unusual characteristic of an orcish society; horse back riding. Few orcs outside of the Horde's lands knew how to ride, let alone a horse. The Horde army consisted of fierce mounted warbands, that have mastered the art of mounted guerrilla warfare.

Orcs of the Horse live slightly long lives for orcs. Still being considered adults at the age of 14, orcs in the Horde are considered middle-aged until 20, old at 28, and venerable at 45. Also, orcs dying of natural causes around 80 years was not entirely unheard of, although still rare.

Orcs in the Great Horde tend to be more civilized than orcs living outside of the Horde's lands. While a member of the Horde it is illegal to purposely kill slaves or punish slaves for their master's misdeeds. Although the majority were still practically objects and status symbols, women orcs could inherent tribal warchief titles from their parent, so long as she won the duel of succession. Wives, sisters, and mothers were given slightly more rights for women. They could only be hit by male heads of the family and were allowed to join their husband/brother/son's replacement's harem rather than having to provide for themselves. Other than that, orc wives were basically a higher form concubines, there was a "romantic" aspect of the relationship, and sons, and to an extent daughters, of wives were the only offspring to be considered potential heirs. Women offspring of the Grand Warchief could not take place in the duel of succession. The Horde also had a minimal form of medicine, yet compared to other orc societies shockingly more advanced and infighting was very slightly less common.

That being said life in the Horde was still extremely hard and survivalist. There are very few semi-permanent settlements that cycle through the various ruins that dot the Ogrwha. For example, the Grand Warchief will move which ruin his warband is camped at based on the seasons. Life expectancy, for orc or slave, is still extremely low compared to other kingdoms. Infighting is still extremely common. In fact the average reign of the Grand Warchief is a little less than three and a half years, most being killed in battle. Out of the 60 Grand Warchiefs to come before Graba, only ten died outside of battle and only one of those died because of age.

Government
The government is a patrilineality dominance monarchy. The Grand Warchief and his warband are the highest ranking individuals in the Horde. Directly under the Grand Warchief, are the Master Warchiefs and their warbands. Under the Master Warchiefs are the the Good Warchiefs and their warbands. The lowest level of "nobility" were the Tribal Warchiefs and their warbands. Tribal Warchief was the highest status a woman could gain. The "nobility" of the Horde were the warchiefs, their mothers, full brothers, full sisters, wives, and legitimate sons.

If one was not a warchief, an orc is either a Marshal, Fodder, or Worms. Marshals are the warchiefs advisors. Each warchief has as many marshals that he/she wants, most are potential heirs, lifelong friends called blood brothers, maternal brothers, and occasionally mothers. They are granted no special treatment outside of their individual warband, except the Grand Marshals.

The Fodder is made up of the grunts and muscle of the warbands--the soldiers. To be Fodder one must have a horse and a weapon. Fodder is rewarded with a level of orcish prestige, higher weekly rations, and share of loot.

Worms are the non-military citizens of the Horde. They consist of blacksmiths and other trade professionals. Worms must pay taxes to be allowed to follow the warband and receive their weekly rations. Worms can save up and buy a horse to become Fodder. Worms are not necessarily poor. Some of the wealthiest members of the Horde are Worm horse breeders and vendors, who choose not to fight for some reason or another, usually deformity from a battle wound.

Slaves consist of the lowest class. Many orcs who could not afford to even be Worms, sell themselves into slavery. Because slaves receive some form of sustenance desperate worms who become slaves actually increase their life expectancy by half a year to a year.

Geography
The Ogrwha is a steppe, usually characterized as a semi-arid and continental climate. Extremes can be recorded in the summer of up to 40 °C (104 °F) and in winter, –40 °F. Besides this huge difference between summer and winter, the differences between day and night are also very great; for example 86 °F can be reached during the day with sub-freezing temperature readings at night.

Settlements
The individual tribes of the Horde are nomadic. Most do not stay in camp for longer than one week. They do tend to stay in one general area, although most head south for the winter. The closest thing to settlements in the Horde are the ruins which are frequently locations of warchiefs' seasonal camps. Because the ruin is a popular host to a warband, here are the ruins:
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