Gorvak Tarbh

Gorvak Tarbh, the Blue-Blooded Bull

High Bull of the Blue Skull Clan
“The mountain bends to no king.”

Titles & Epithets

• The Blue-Blooded Bull
• Keeper of the Boarspine Pass
• High Bull of House Tarbh
• Breaker of Chains’ Grandson
• The Storm in the Horned Helm

Birth and Lineage (598 PR – 602 PR)

Gorvak was born beneath thunder. His mother, Grasha Horn-Widow, was Drog Tarbh’s daughter — a fierce huntress who had carried war axes before she ever held her son. His father was a deep-orc war-smith named Varok Ironhide, one of the last survivors of the Underdark exodus.

He was born in the mountain camp of Boarspine, wrapped in a cloak of bullhide and marked at birth with blue ash upon his brow. The shamans whispered that his first cry made the torches flicker — a sign that Muragaas, the god of Fire and Craft, had already claimed him.

When Drog Tarbh, founder of the Blue Skull Clan, held his grandson for the first time, he dipped a finger in blood and painted two horns upon the infant’s forehead.

“May your blood be blue as the stone, and your wrath red as the forge.”

The Boy of Bone and Storm (603–615 PR)

Gorvak’s youth was a forge of hardship. His earliest memories were of hammer and anvil — shaping blades with his father beneath the cliff-forges of the Boarspine. When he was ten, he joined the hunting packs, learning to track mountain beasts through fog and snow.

At twelve, he took part in the Horn-Trial, the rite of passage of his people. Instead of a mountain bull, he faced a rogue Stone-Tusk, a monstrous beast that had gored three hunters. Gorvak slew it with a shattered spear and claimed both horns. He drank mead from one and used the other as the crest of his helm.

The warriors began to call him “Little Bull of the Blue Blood,” for he never bled red like the others — the minerals of azurite had turned his blood dark blue.

The War of the Pass (616–619 PR)

When Drog Tarbh died of old age, Gorvak’s uncle Hurn the Half-Horned seized control of the clan, swearing allegiance to the Tudor Empire for gold and steel. He sold Tarbh warriors as mercenaries, enslaving some to fight in the arenas of Embermoor.

Gorvak, then eighteen, rebelled. He led a faction of forgers and warriors loyal to the old Tribalricha gods. The conflict that followed became known as the War of the Pass, a brutal mountain civil war fought among snow, stone, and kin.

For three winters, the Blue Skulls killed each other beneath the peaks. In the final battle at the Boarspine Gate, Gorvak shattered his uncle’s helm with his bull-hammer and cast his body into the gorge. The thunder that followed was said to be Vagdarr’s roar of approval.

When it ended, Gorvak stood bloodied before the clan, holding the black-and-blue banner.

“We bow to no throne, no empire. We serve the mountain and the gods that carved it.”

He was crowned High Bull by the surviving shamans, beneath twin fires—one black, one gold.

The Reforging of the Clan (619 PR)

After the War of the Pass, Gorvak rebuilt what kin had torn apart. He reformed the Blue Skulls into something more than raiders—a mountain nation hidden in fog.

He divided the tribe into three herds:

• The Horn-Breakers, the iron-armed warriors of the pass.
• The Forge-Bulls, smiths and engineers of Muragaas.
• The Dream-Bloods, shamans who walked in Voormish’s visions.

He taught his people discipline, ironwork, and trade. He reopened the forges that had been silent since Drog’s time, trading blue-forged steel and beast hide to both Whitestone and Embermoor.

From House Vipère he purchased alchemical oil that turned their blue paint into permanent pigment, giving rise to the True Blue Skulls—warriors whose flesh could never lose its sacred hue.

He met with Lord Lucien Vipère in secret at the border fortress of Ebonmarch, where the two made a pact:

• Vipère would send coin and weapons.
• Tarbh would keep the Boarspine Pass open and slay any Abritus knight who tried to block Tudor trade.

It was a deal sealed not in ink, but in blood poured upon stone.

The Battle of Frostlight Peak (620 PR)

The Abritus lord Sir Elden Goldcrest, under orders from Emperor Marius’s council, marched north with one hundred knights to “cleanse the mountain of orc raiders.” Gorvak met them head-on in the snow.

He waited until nightfall, when fog rolled down the slopes, and then struck from both sides with horns blowing. The knights never saw the traps—ice-pits, falling stones, and burning pitch. The mountain itself fought for the Blue Skulls.

When dawn broke, only thirteen knights remained. Gorvak let them go, blindfolded, with a single message to carry home:

“Tell your emperor the mountain is awake.”

From that day, Albion ceased its crusades in the Boarspine region.

Faith and Fury

Gorvak’s faith is Tribalricha reborn in iron. He teaches that every god’s gift must be earned:

• Vagdarr’s strength through unity.
• Hurthka’s courage through battle.
• Muragaas’s fire through creation.
• Yarmrus’s storm through endurance.
• Voormish’s dream through wisdom.
• Horamush’s rage through restraint.

To Gorvak, rage is a weapon, not a master. He forbids senseless slaughter, saying:

“A beast kills in hunger. A warrior kills in purpose.”

His shamans claim that during storms, Gorvak prays naked on the cliff edge, lightning dancing around his bull helm. They say he has been struck three times and never fallen.

Allies and Enemies

Allies:

• House Vipère – Mutual trade and blood-pact.
• House Rongeur – Smuggling and ship access via Leadenport.
• Corchon Tribe – Distant kin; sometimes join raids together.

Enemies:

• Order of the Silverbrand – Declared Gorvak a heretic and a butcher.
• Knights of Whitestone – Border skirmishes frequent.
• Fenraith Tribes – View the Blue Skulls as mountain invaders, though some Fenraith trade in secret for steel.

Appearance

Gorvak stands near 8 feet tall, with azure-blue skin darkened almost black around his eyes and scars. His armour is forged from blue steel, etched with runes of fire and kinship. His weapon, Stormbray, is a colossal warhammer inlaid with azurite veins — a symbol of Drog Tarbh’s original forge-hammer reborn.

When he marches to war, his voice echoes down the valleys like thunder; his troops answer by striking their hammers against shields in rhythm, a sound known as “the heartbeat of Boarspine.”

Family and Legacy

• Father: Varok Tarbh (deceased)
• Mother: Grasha Horn-Widow (deceased)
• Grandfather: Drog Tarbh, the Chain-Breaker
• Daughter: Sharn Tarbh, War-Mother and leader of the Horn-Breakers
• Bloodline: The Tarbh line claims to descend from the ancient Orc god Vagdarr himself, through the line of warriors who first lit the Underdark forges.

Current Era (620–Present)

Today, Gorvak Tarbh rules the Blue Skull Clan from Boarspine Hall, a fortress of black stone carved directly into the mountain’s heart. The hall’s walls are covered in blue-painted skulls, each representing a fallen warrior of the Tarbh blood.

He sits upon a throne made from the fused horns of slain minotaurs, beneath banners of bull-hide dyed half black, half blue. From there, he commands raids, trade, and diplomacy alike — a king in all but name.

Whispers in Whitestone call him “The Bull King of the Border.”
Whispers in Embermoor call him “The Viper’s Shield.”
But to his people, he is simply Gorvak Tarbh — the Blue-Blooded Bull, the Storm that Endures.

Quote of the High Bull

“The mountain is not my home. It is my heart.
The world tried to bury us beneath stone,
but we learned to breathe the dust and drink the fire.
Let every skull be blue — so all will remember
what the darkness made of us.”