Orc
The Fractureborn
Orcs in Erenel are known as Fractureborn, born from the shattered remnants of the world after the Great Sacrifice. They are a resilient, shamanistic people who believe they were shaped by the world’s pain and chosen to carry its rhythm forward. Guided by a mystical force called the Pulse, a primordial beat that echoes through stone and soul, Orcs see themselves as guardians of balance and endurance. Their culture is steeped in ritual, memory, and sacred silence, where scars are stories, and strength means surviving what others cannot. They walk not in conquest, but in cadence with the earth itself.
When the universe was torn open by the Great Sacrifice, the world trembled. From the wounds in the stone and the cracks beneath the sky, the Orcs rose. They were not born of divine design but from raw need, pulled into being by the trembling heart of the world itself. The Orcs of Erenel call themselves Children of the Pulse, for they believe it was the Pulse, the deep rhythm that beats beneath the surface of all things, that gave them life. It is not a god they serve, but a presence. A buried voice, older than faith, that hums in stone and fire, in blood and memory.
Orcs are known across Erenel as Fractureborn, shaped by the world’s suffering and sculpted by its silence. They believe they were the first to awaken in the aftermath of The Above and The Below's formation, the first to scream into the empty sky, and the first to take up the burden of survival. That burden defines their culture. Strength is not about domination but about enduring what the world cannot. Weaknesses are not scorned but treated like a storm to be weathered and mended. Every scar is a verse in the long song of endurance, and each generation must add to it.
To live as an Orc is to listen. Their elders teach the art of hearing the Pulse through stone drums, whispered chants, and the breath between movements. Their rituals involve shaping memory into motion, retelling their origin not with quill or scripture, but with rhythm and endurance. They do not pray to be spared. They rise each day to carry the weight of the fractured world, and when they march, they do so in time with the Pulse that still echoes from the first crack in the sky.
What is the Pulse?
The Pulse is more than a metaphor to Orcs. It is a primordial resonance, a living rhythm that thrums beneath the land’s crust, echoing through stone, bone, and blood. Some believe it began the moment the universe shattered during the Great Sacrifice, when divine creation cracked and sent shockwaves through the earth. Others claim the Pulse has always been present, a buried life beat of the world itself, only truly heard by those shaped in the silence after the creator god Al'Madoon, the Architect fell quiet. To Orcs, the Pulse is not a god or spirit. It is older than names. It is the new world’s first sound, still echoing.
Scholars outside Orc tradition argue that the Pulse may be an echo of the Bond channeled through the land itself, or even a reaction to the Utterance carved by the Dwarf and Minotaur. But to the Orcs, it needs no justification. The Pulse is the soul of Erenel made rhythm. It is not to be questioned, only followed. To walk in harmony with the Pulse is to find strength without cruelty, truth without words, and purpose forged in stone. When the world falls out of step, the Orcs rise, not as conquerors, but as its steadying hand.
Basic Information
Anatomy
Orcs are broad-shouldered and powerful, with dense muscle and thick-boned frames shaped for survival in a world that once cracked open around them. Their average height ranges from six to seven feet, with a weight that reflects their robust builds and relentless endurance. Skin tones often resemble the world they rose from and come in deep slate gray, rich earthen brown, muted moss green, or volcanic black.
Orc tusks are more than features of intimidation, they are considered ancestral conduits. Passed down through bloodlines, they grow and curve in distinct patterns, which many Orcs carve with ritual markings or bead with stone charms. Hair is worn long and often braided, incorporating threads of metal, bone, or woven cords dyed with mineral-rich clays. Their physiques speak of function over vanity. Scarification is common and deliberate, with each mark a testament to endurance and memory. To the outsider, they may appear hardened and grim. But among their kin, these features are expressions of beauty, legacy, and the earth’s living voice given flesh.
Civilization and Culture
Naming Traditions
Orc names are earned, not given. At birth, a child is gifted a seed name, a short syllabic identifier spoken softly by the matron or shaman who assists in their first heartbeat ritual. This name is a whisper of potential, meant to carry the rhythm of the Pulse. As the Orc grows and survives their first great trial, they are granted a true name, revealed in ceremony by a clan elder who “hears” the right cadence in their soul. Some names thrum like drums. Others hiss like fire. All are tied to a memory.
Masculine Names
Brogar, Harok, Mokh, Thund, ZugorFeminine Names
Ashka, Kaetra, Orna, Shava, YuralClan Names
Broken Tooth, Iron Tusk, Long Runner, Shattered AxeMajor Language Groups and Dialects
Drom'Thar
The language of the Orcs is called Drom’Thar, which translates loosely to “Voice of the Stone.” It is a low, resonant tongue, filled with rhythmic patterns, elongated vowels, and grinding consonants meant to mimic the sounds of shifting earth and drumming stone. Spoken Drom’Thar is often accompanied by gesture and breath cadence, as Orcs believe that words alone cannot carry the weight of true meaning without rhythm.
Drom’Thar is traditionally passed down orally. Its written form is rarely used outside of ceremonial carvings where it is etched into stone, bone, or metal using deep-cuts. Scholars who study Drom’Thar say listening to it feels like standing at the mouth of a deep cavern just as a tremor rolls.
Culture and Cultural Heritage
Thrumwells
Orcs see themselves as keepers of the world’s rhythm, not chosen by divine right, but made worthy through hardship. This belief turns every act of protection, from defending a child to holding a crumbling bridge at war, into something sacred. The Pulse must be preserved in action, not prayer.
Orcs do not build temples around the Pulse. Instead, they watch over seismic convergences, volcanic chambers, hollow mountains, and deep cavern networks where the world’s beat is strongest. These places, known as Thrumwells, are sacred grounds guarded with sweat, and fortification. Thrumwells are not always visible to outsiders. Many are hidden behind landslides, cloaked in ancient forest, or carved so deep below that only a generation of listening has revealed their location. Orc communities may abandon an entire village to defend a threatened Thrumwell, knowing that if its rhythm fades, the surrounding land will slowly lose its memory.
When unnatural forces threaten to disrupt the Pulse, Orcs answer with uncompromising force. They do not negotiate with those who break the rhythm. They strike to restore balance, often performing ritual chants known as Thrum Songs before battle to “wake the stone” and let the land witness their deeds. If the Pulse ever falters, it will not be because the Orcs were silent.
Thrum Song
More than mere chants, Thrum Songs are the lifeblood of Orc memory and spirituality. Each one is a living rhythm passed down through clans, sung to honor ancestors, mark great deeds, or stir the Pulse before battle. A Thrum Song begins not with words, but with breath and rhythm, including deep chest beats, footfalls, or strikes upon stone. The tempo must match the moment: slow and resonant for mourning, sharp and relentless for war, or trembling and fragile for birth.
To sing a Thrum Song is to call forth the memory woven into its beat, allowing the present to momentarily align with the past. Some are short and sharp, meant for quick invocations. Others may last hours, unfolding like a saga across firelight. It is said the oldest Thrum Songs carry such weight that the very ground beneath the singer stirs, as if the world remembers what was sung before.
Lifespan
About 100 years
Average Height
Medium (about 6-7 feet tall)
by Dean Spencer
Death of Graaer Deathbrand
Graaer Deathbrand was a legendary Orc. Once a war-priest, then a revered elder, his broken tusks were capped in amber and carved with the entire saga of Ka’Morak’s founding. His final years were spent half-awake, in and out of fevered trances, listening to what he called “the low drum under the roots.” When death finally came, wrapped in mist and cold breath, the clan gathered around him to hear his final words, expecting a farewell, a blessing, perhaps a poem. Instead, Graaer whispered a secret.
“The Greenbeat is not the Pulse. It is its echo... twisted. Something beneath Ka’Morak wears the forest like a mask. And it is waking.”
With that, he passed with his eyes open, unfocused as if still watching something only the elder could see. Since then, the trees around Ka’Morak have grown restless. The sacred drum tree no longer sings. Hunting parties speak of shadows that move against the wind. The shamans of the Broken Tusk now wonder if their village sits atop a slumbering wound, or worse, something that feeds on the Pulse to mimic its rhythm.
by Dean Spencer
Nobtable Orc Clans
Broken Tusk Clan
Chieftain yet to be namedTerritory: Northern Wildwood
Hidden beneath the shadowed boughs of the Northern Wildwood, the Broken Tusk Clan walks a wilder beat than most. In their moss-draped village of Ka’Morak, they listen to a forest born variant of the Pulse known as the Greenbeat, claiming it speaks through root, not stone. Ritual tusk-breaking is a rite of clarity, symbolizing the severance from tradition to better hear the new rhythm. Since the death of Chieftain Graaer Deathbrand and his cryptic final warning, the clan now lives in quiet vigilance, suspecting something ancient and wrong beats beneath the roots of their home.
Red Hilt Clan
Chieftain: Warkha FrozenwishTerritory: Valor’s Endland
From the war scarred crags of Valor’s End, the Red Hilt Clan is defined by weapon craft and stoicism, forging both warriors and weapons said to sing with the Pulse when unsheathed. Led by Chieftain Warkha Frozenwish, a soothsayer said to have dreamed of her death a hundred times and survived them all, the Red Hilt follow a martial path of poetic precision. Their weapons are not merely tools of war, they are instruments that carry the clan’s stories. To be Red Hilt is to live and die by the sound of steel drawn with purpose.
War Horde Clan
Chieftain: Murook SteelhornTerritory: Bastion
The War Horde Clan is a nomadic siege force, rooted not in place but in momentum, with massive iron clad caravans that rumble across the Bastion wilderness. Under the command of Murook Steelhorn, a towering warlord who wields both warhammer and stone shield, the clan embraces a brutal, communal rhythm where all things are shared. War Horde Orcs believe the Pulse lives in motion, not stillness, and their campfires burn with the chants of marching songs and the pounding of war drums. To face them in battle is to be swallowed by the mountain’s fury on the move.