Ogres

Description

Savage Ogres

Towering, brutal, and primitively tenacious, the Ogres of Ogria are some of the most feared denizens of the Frost Wastes. Native to these frigid, wind-scoured lands, these hulking beings are forged by hardship and honed by starvation. Standing twice the height of a man and built like living siege engines, their brutish forms are wrapped in layers of leathery, scar-scored flesh and crude hides. What they lack in intelligence, they more than make up for in savage instinct.

Their skulls are thick, both literally and figuratively. Ogres are notoriously dimwitted, slow to reason yet quick to rage, and utterly without tact or foresight. Language among them is guttural and sparse, and what passes for Ogre culture is mostly an echo of primal violence and raw necessity. They are tribal, territorial, and deeply distrustful of outsiders. Outsider, in this case, includes just about everything that breathes.

Survival in Ogria is not won by cleverness but by resilience, and here the Ogres thrive. Their nervous systems are dulled to pain, allowing them to shrug off wounds that would kill most other creatures. Their stomachs are as unforgiving as the land itself, able to digest nearly anything organic or inorganic. Rotten meat, tree bark, bone, leather, and even stones are consumed to fend off the gnawing hunger that stalks them through the snow. And should prey be found? They will eat it. Man, beast, or otherwise, Ogres devour what they conquer. Their savagery at times borders on cannibalistic frenzy, leaving behind only scraps and shattered bone.

Yet for all their barbarity, there is something bleakly awe-inspiring in their endurance. In a region of ice and ruin, they are among the few creatures who thrive without need for shelter, fire, or tool. Their existence is a crude defiance of extinction itself.

Those who venture into or near Ogre-held lands do so at great peril. Travelers vanish. Frontier villages are found gutted, their fires still warm. And when seen on the horizon, silhouetted against the driving snow, an Ogre warband is a vision of primitive apocalypse, no banners, no drums, just the slow, inevitable thunder of a people who endure not through brilliance, but through overwhelming force and the hunger of beasts.

Civil Ogres

While the wilds of Ogria remain haunted by warbands of ravenous brutes, not all Ogres live in the frozen north. Scattered across the southern realms, most commonly across Arboria, there exists a rare breed known, with no small irony, as "Civil Ogres".

These creatures are no more intelligent than their feral kin, still dim as dusk and guided by appetite and impulse. But through a strange mix of patience, manipulation, and generous feeding, some enterprising individuals have found ways to "domesticate" Ogres. If not in mind, then at least in habit.

The logic is simple: feed an Ogre, clean it, give it a warm place to sleep, and above all, make it feel appreciated, and you'll likely find yourself the proud owner of the strongest laborer this side of a siege tower. Ogres are prized for their raw strength and tireless stamina. Moving entire wagons, lifting fallen timber, dredging rivers, or pounding rocks in to rubble, what would take a crew of men a few hours might take one Ogre a few bored minutes. And they’ll do it happily… provided lunch is waiting.

Of course, few Ogres ever understand money, and fewer still can read a contract. Which is why more than a few merchants and mill owners have "cleverly negotiated" lifelong labor deals with an Ogre in exchange for little more than daily meals, a basic tunic, and vague promises of "great reward". To the Ogre, it all sounds generous. To everyone else, it's legalized exploitation.

But beware. Even an Ogre can eventually realize they’ve been cheated. And when they do, when the simple joy curdles into betrayal, what follows is not reason or complaint, but the sound of timber snapping and the sudden, irreversible collapse of whatever is near.

Thankfully, most Ogres remain blissfully unaware, their loyalty tied not to coin or cause, but to the person who feeds them, bathes them, and occasionally tells them they did a good job. In many rural communities, they've even become local celebrities, "the Ogre at the mill", "the Ogre who pulls the town barge", or "Ol' Gutbur, who fights the wolves for us". Children marvel. Traders take detours to gawk. And in more than one village, an Ogre has stood between the townsfolk and some wandering threat, earning their admiration with a single, flattening punch.

They are pretty rare, but wherever they're found, "Civil Ogres" are remembered, if not for their words, then for the sheer spectacle of what they are: lumbering, simple, and improbably loyal.

History

The origins of the Ogres remain shrouded in mystery. They hail from the northern reaches of old Hyperboria, but scholars still debate whether they share ancestry with Humans, Elves, and other descendants of The Exodus, or if their bloodline lies closer to the Mountain Giants, themselves thought to be a divergent branch of the ancient Titans, vanquished by the mighty Dragons in an age before mortals ever walked the world.

Whatever their true lineage, Ogres have long dwelled at the margins of civilization. Regarded as monsters, savages, or relics of a wilder time, they were shunned even by the tribal Humans of the Second World. Yet outright conflict was rare, driven more by mutual fear than enmity. An unspoken understanding formed: the Ogres kept to their territories, and the Humans to theirs.

But the balance shattered with the coming of The Cataclysm. As the Second World fell and the Ice Age gripped the lands, Humanity fled south in the desperate Great Migrations. And in a strange twist of fate, many Ogres followed, not out of a fear for their lives, but simple curiosity about where everyone was going, lumbering after the migrating masses with no true understanding of the danger they evaded. This accidental adventure saved them. Those who remained in Hyperboria, despite their endurance, eventually succumbed to the eternal frost.

The southward Ogres drifted to the bleak and barren fringes of Arboria, a land too harsh for most to claim, a place that would come to be known as Ogria. Here, they settled once more at the edge of civilization. But with no common banner or leader, their kind quickly fractured. Tribal disputes, clashes of dominance, and power struggles took root, echoing the wars of the small folk they had observed in the south. In the chaos of the Migration Wars, the Ogres mirrored what they saw, embracing strife as the natural order.

Today, the vast majority of Ogres dwell in Ogria, locked in their endless tribal squabbles. However, a few rogue clans roam the wider world, and scattered individuals driven by wanderlust or lured by opportunity have found their way into the cities and settlements of the smaller races, living strange lives among them on the edges of towns and tales alike.