Orcs

The orcs are Nandaahrs native inhabitants (alongside with the Dwarfs) who live in scattered clans in the eastern plains of Nandaahr.

Their Appearance

How does an orc look like? Good question and I´m glad to be able to enlighten you.
An orc will most lokely be taller and a lot more mean looking than you. The average orc is around two meters tall. Some are a bit smaller, some even taller. Their women most of the time also make it past two meters. And orcs - no matter the gender - are packed with muscels. But that is no surprise, their life as semi-nomads is pretty harsh most of the time and means a lot of physical labor which results in these massive muscels. What makes them unique is the green skin. Not as green as an emerald, but deepending if they are from the north or south it is more or less dark green. Another quite obvious sign are the big fangs which grow out of an orcs lower jaw. Sturdy white straight fangs. And when you look up, past their most of the time very broad noses you will be stared at by a pair of piercing eyes, the color of molten gold with pitchblack pupils.
Most orcs wear buns at the top of the head and shave everything else of (they have no beards). The women most of the time have their jetblack hair tied in a thick plait. Just like humans, orcs ears are round and they have five fingers and toes.
Now you have a basic idea of what they look like - but they obviously don´t walk around naked, so what does an orc wear in his day to day live you might ask. Good for you I have an aswer to that question too.
When they are not at war, orcs wear simple shirts made of wool and wide trousers. Over the shirt the orcs wear a coat that is buttoned on the right side for males and on the left side for females. Dependeing on status, wealth and season these coats can be quite colorful and are made of silk, cotton, fur or leather. To complete the outfit, orcs wear a silky belt which is tied around the waist multiple time and boots with upward pointing tips.
During war orcs trade these colorful clothes for heavy dark armors made of vardium, a steel that (in Nandaahr) is only found in some places in the orcish territory. To make them look even more broadshouldered than they allready are, the armors most of the time feature shoulderparts who extend over the shoulder, and just like the boots, have these typical upward pointing tips. An orcish helmet features horns, mostly pretty big ones, and the armor is covered by strange patterns. All in all an orc in full armor is a truely frightening sight.

Ritual Magic

Just as every other race in Aar the orcs have their own access to magic. For the orcs magic mainly consists of ritual magic and magic runes. Before battle orcish shamans draw runes on the warriors bodies. The paint consists of the blood of the warriors, the blood of powerful animals and some special herbs that grow in their homeland plains. These runes have different effects, some give their bearer superhuman strenght, some improve the speed and the reflexes, stop wounds from bleeding and numb the pain. Some even cause a bloody rage that lets the fighters barge into the enemy without thinking about their own wellbeeing.
Their rituals are extremly powerful. If enough shamans take part in a ritual, they can alter the weather or the route of herds of prey. A few tales speak also about locust plagues or animals teaming up against invaders.

Orcish beliefs

The gods of the orcs are as copious as the clans. The highest god is Ogethan, ruler of the sky. His three children are Tshagatai - the Sun and the twins Inara and Yelda - the two moons. His enemy is the night, Tulga, who envies Tshagatai for his realm and longs for Inara and Yelda - but with the light spared for them by their restless brother he can´t have them.
Apart from these main gods, the orcs have a massive amount of gods, if I want to tell you about all of them, believe me, you will be sitting here for days... Maybe another time. But there are two more you should know about - after Ogethan, the goddess of the land and fertillity, Qara and Thorag, the god of war and battles. That are the important ones.

Empire of the sky

I suppose, since you seem interested in the orcs, you may have heard of the legendary empire of the sky? Of course you did! But even if you didn´t, that empire collapsed an incredible long time ago.
But, onto the empire. The empire of the sky was one of the biggest, if not the biggest empire the world of Aar has ever seen. It stretched throughout all orcish land - the entire eastern part of Nandaar. And eventhough there was no attempt to cross the Isthmus and the glowing mountains, I guess at some point some adventurous great Khan would have sended out an army, just to have a look. But that never happened. The empire was a rich nation, they had a standing army of soldiers who were paid to do nothing but exercise the whole day and improve their battleskills. To supply the whole empire with food, orcs eat mainly meat, eggs and milk, they had a gigantic amount of farmers who roamed the plains outside the bigger cities and the capital with their herds of cattle.
The great Khan was the absolute ruler, whatever he said was enforced by his golden guard, the elite soldiers that were selected in a great tournament each year, he watched over the "normal" Khans, his subordinates who ruled over the other cities. The clans who still roamed the plains as nomads and didn´t lived in cities where their own bosses most of the time, but in the territories of the cities they had to obey the cities Khan. And ofcourse they had to follow the call of the great Khan if he called in his citizens for whatever reason.
In the cities the clans didn´t mattered that much - don´t get me wrong - they were still important, but in the cities the profession or guild was an important part of daily life too. Most towns specialised in one profession and imported other goods they didn´t produced themselves - Khartolatsum, a city in the east for example was the blacksmiths forge of the empire. Here most of the weapons were crafted. And let me tell you, these weapons were of the finest quality an orc could manage, and when it comes to weapons orcs come damn close to the dwarfs. Some of these exquisite artifacts are still in use in the plains, mostly wielded by Khans and famous warriors.
But if this empire was so allmighty and powerful, why is it all ruins and dust these days? Well, that is the question right? Nobody ever conquered the empire of the sky. It was taken down by Nandaahrs weather. In the late days of the second era the climate warmed up and especially the eastern half of Nandaahr became more dry. Cattle dies of hunger and thirst and so did the orcs soon after. In the beginning the shamans held rituals and forced the sky to drop its precious water, but when the crisis started to get harsher even the rituals weren´t enough to satisfy the land thirst for water. Conflict arose and the decade of doom started, clans began to fight over water, cities fought over water, the great Khan tried to stop it, but in the end he had to join the battles because he too had a thisty clan to supply with the life-bearing liquid. The civil war lasted for about a decade, then the empire was gone and the clans as you know them toda were formed.
The drought lasted for about a century, then things got nearly back to normal, but until this day nobody managed to rebuild that empire.

The bigger Clans

There are three larger clans in Nandaahr who I think have to be mentioned here. Additional to these there are multiple others, but they are pretty small so it would would take a nasty amount of time give you all the details. 

Khanbaliq-Clan

They live in the northern part of East-Nandaahr from the northern trench to eastern sounds. The Khanbaliqs are the only orcs, besides their Arcaneum who have a stone fortress. In the middle of the big lake in the north on an island the fortress once was build by the great Khan of the empire of the sky and due to its remote location it survived the turmoil of the decade of doom and the Khanbaliqs took it when they stumbled upon the castle.
This clan is especially proud of their ancestors - their lineage derives directly from the last great Khan. Thats why they aren´t very well liked among the other clans, I once met them and they have their noses pretty high up in the air. Everytime a high Khan is elected the Khanbaliqs make trouble because they claim it should be their birthright to rule. Luckily, eventhough they are quite powerful, they still have to obey the few laws that exist in the orcish society.

Ordos-Clan

The Ordos-clans territory stretches down the whole coast and sounds down to the desert. They are very skilled fishermen and even tamed some strange seacreatures you really only want to see from afar (trust me, I´ve seen some and they frighten even me!). But apart from their marine buisiness the ordos-people are good archers and hunters. In the end they don´t care that much about what goes on outside of their borders. To describe their mentality in one sentence: "What comes from outside can stay there."

Ulaangom-Clan

Ulaangom-Warriors are the most fierce and dangerous orcs. They live in the boarder region between the central plains and the desert in the south. Of all orcish clans, the ulaangoms have the biggest bestiary. Over the centuries they have tamed thunderbirds, giant lizards and elefants - beasts of burden and of war at the same time.

Hight	~2meters (1,80 - 2,30)
Diet	Mostly carnivore and milk, but some vegetables too
Strenghts	Physical strenght, ressilience to pain and extreme temperatures