Orkhun

The Orkhun are a race of humanoids predominantly found in the Caeronate of Carn in southwestern Alteniquia. Often called Orcs, they are characterized by their brutish demeanor and dark purple eyes. The Orkhun claim to originate from a land they describe as a desolate, dead place where islands float in a never ending, bottomless sea of darkness. They first emerged in Rathnir from the caves beneath the city of Morvanne and, after a short period of conflict, came to live in peace with the native people. In later years the people of Morvanne discovered an unusual entity beneath their city – a portal floating above a pool of lava that was suspected to lead to a foreign realm, which they concluded to be the homeland of the Orkhun.

Biology and Appearance
A strong, hulking race, the Orkhun are not known for their elegance. Their faces are rough and homely, their brows the size of a human child’s finger and lacking a nose, instead having a small mound with two small nostrils in place of one. This makes it difficult for the towering Orkhun to breathe out of those nostrils, and so they appear to primarily breathe using their mouths. Many Orkhun have a pair of long, thick tusks on their bottom sets of teeth, which contribute to their characteristic underbite and grow in size as an Orkhun ages. The rest of an Orkhun’s teeth appear chipped to other humanoid races with no tooth being the same as another.

An Orkhun child’s arm is said to be larger than an adult human’s head by the time they reach adolescence. The natural strength of the Orkhun has led to the otherwise monstrous people finding their place as soldiers, miners, and smiths.

The gruesome appearance of the Orkhun comes with some variety, namely in their skin color. Although all Orkhun share the same color of eyes in varying shades of purple, which have a barely noticeable glow to them in low light, their skin comes in green, yellow, and red hues. Their skin, however, always seems to be devoid of most of its color, which is suspected to be a result of developing in the lightless realm they originally hailed from. Thus, their skin color can more accurately be described as gray-green, gray-yellow, and gray-red.

Origin
According to Kharoq storytellers, their homeland is one darkness. There they led a life of constant struggle fighting off a species of tall creatures said to be made of shadows. The floating islands they inhabited were shared by a number of tribes which, to their detriment, fought one another on frequent violent clashes, only leading to the death of an entire generation of warriors. Tribes often made their homes around the only source of sustenance in that realm, sprawling, violet trees bearing bitter fruits, and lived in small enclosures made from these trees. The fruits, unfortunately, are said to be as much of a curse as they are a blessing, making its consumer disappear and reappear in a different location. In most cases this was not an issue, but it was not unheard of for some, even children, to be lost forever after eating the fruit. Life in this realm, which the Kharoq refuse to honor with a name, was short and full of strife, with many of them cursing their existence.

Fleeing the Void
One day, after eating from the cursed fruit, a chieftain was teleported into the center of an island. There he found a dark, ominous void, although different from that which surrounded his home. After spending hours trying and ultimately failing to use his bare hands to dig out of his prison, he jumped into the void, being teleported to a foreign realm. There he wandered an empty fortress beneath the earth, coming across a number of blunt instruments. The chieftain returned through the portal, committed to bringing his tribe to this realm. Using his newly acquired tools, he labored for days until he reached the surface of his tribe’s island. The chieftain returned to his tribe as quickly as he could to tell his story, his people desperate to go through this portal themselves.

As the tribe prepared to depart, word had spread to neighboring tribes on their island and others. The chieftain and his tribe were met by a host of other Orkhun tribes, all seeking passage through the portal. As the chieftain began funneling his own people into his tunnel first, fighting broke out as the various tribes desperately tried to fight their way to the portal. Countless were slain in the fighting, including the chieftain and many other prominent Orkhun across the tribes, a self-inflicted culling of their population.

Those who crossed through the portal did nothing to continue the fighting, immediately casting their weapons back into the portal when they reached the new realm. The Orkhun present in the stone fortress soon banded together, united by their shared suffering, and began pillaging the fortress for food and equipment. During this, one Orkhun was always stationed at the portal to receive any latecomers. Weeks had passed, however, and not a single being crossed through it. The room housing the portal was then shut off from the rest of the fortress, now housing numerous united Orkhun.

Emerging from Darkness
It had only been a generation before the Orkhun, who were still organized in their original, although now much smaller, tribes, began exploring the caves around their underground fortress. Before long, an exit was discovered to an even larger world. This world, with all sorts of strange plants and creatures, was different from where they came from. The sun’s light was blinding to many of those who were first to emerge from the caves, but they endured the discomfort, eventually growing accustomed to it.

When the Orkhun first saw the native Reylleans, they were thought to be the same as the beings of shadow they had fought for generations. A series of small but violent conflicts broke out once more, each of the Orkhun tribes raiding small settlements of locals, killing their inhabitants and seizing their food and eventually housing for themselves. It did not take long for the locals to organize themselves, however, and they were quick to retake their lands from the unorganized Orkhun tribes. The Orkhun were driven back to the shadows of their cave, which they defended furiously from incursions by the Reylleans.

Fearing the end of their people, Kharoq, a warrior from the most populous of the Orkhun tribes, brought the chieftains together and, after days of discussion as their people fought Reylleans entering their caves, was chosen to emerge as representative to the Orkhun to seek peace with the locals. Using primitive forms of communication, Kharoq, in exchange for committing the Orkhun to the defense of their new realm, secured lands for his people. As a prominent warrior in the conflict against the locals, Kharoq was widely respected in the months following the agreement. His offspring were similarly respected, and over time the tribe of Kharoq was recognized as a tribe in their own right amongst the Orkhun living in the lands later known as Rothia in the Caeronate of Carn.

Extant in Light
The Kharoq and their allied tribes grew close with the noble House of Corvennon of Morvanne, soon growing to become an integral part of the city. While many remained in their mountain strongholds and cave fortresses, others, including many of the Kharoq, frequently visited and stayed in Morvanne. The previously slow and inefficient shipyards of Morvanne were quickly turned into the most productive in the region, and the Orkhun became master shipwrights in the city. Others used their strength to become smiths, using the techniques of their people, a closely kept tradition to the Orkhun, to create durable weapons and arms.