Urgrish

Journal Entry VIII: The Myth of Urgrish’s Birth—The Dawn of the Green Exodus

Aien Ballen, Contract Archaeologist to the Dragon Imperium, Year 5330 of the Third Cycle

Abstract

Among orcish clans, Urgrish is revered as the monstrous child whose very birth begat The Green Exodus and the first united Orc Crusade. Orc lore tells of her gestation as a ruinous strain upon her mother’s womb, culminating in a violent emergence that cost her mothers her life. Though cloaked in myth, two surviving relics offer tantalising glimpses of this primal event and its enduring cultural resonance.

Introduction

Legends describe Urgrish’s mother, a chieftain of the Stonehowl clan, as carrying an unparalleled unborn strength. As her due date approached, the fetus grew so enormous and sinewy that tribal midwives murmured of ancient blood-magics. On the night of her birth, orc witnesses claim the child awoke within the womb, shattered bone and sinew with her own force, and emerged fully formed and screaming. The chieftain’s death in childbirth became the first sacrifice to inaugurate Urgrish’s destiny: to bind fractured clans into a single crusading host.

Surviving Evidence

1. Embroided Birth Tapestry: Excavated from a hidden alcove, this fragmentary hemp tapestry depicts a great orcish mother stylised with swollen form. In rust and bone-white threads, the infant’s massive limbs rupture through the cord-like umbilicus. The reverse side bears chipped runic notations praising “She Who Shatters” and marking “Year of the Red Moon,” a possible calendar reference to Urgrish’s arrival.
2. Stonehowl Bone-Crescent Pendant: This pendant is carved from the femur of a giant boar and inlaid with greenstone flecks. At its centre, a fetal silhouette with overlarge musculature is encircled by seven crescent glyphs, perhaps symbolising the first seven clans she would later unite. Analysis reveals minute traces of maternal orcish hematic residue, hinting at its role as a midwifery talisman.

Hypotheses and Speculations

Given the tapestry’s runic margin and the pendant’s blood-infused core, I propose that Urgrish’s birth was orchestrated with deliberate sorcery, perhaps to awaken latent orcish potential. The “Red Moon” notation may align with celestial events that amplify magical energies, suggesting her gestation was timed to a rare astral convergence. Furthermore, the bone-crescent imagery implies that early orcs saw her arrival not merely as birth but as a forging of collective identity, each clan represented by a lunar glyph that would later unite under her banner.

Conclusion

Though Urgrish’s birth tale blurs the line between myth and memory, the Embroidered Birth Tapestry and Stonehowl Bone-Crescent Pendant attest to the event’s profound impact on proto-orcish culture. These relics preserve the dual legacy of creation through destruction and the forging of unity from splintered kin. As excavations continue among orcish shrines and battlefields, I remain eager for further evidence that might illuminate the true origins of the woman who awoke as a force of war and bound clans in her wake.