Orc Kingdoms
The Kingdoms of the Darklands are a loose alliance at best, and vary greatly in their customs and laws, although there are some common threads. They all retain from their earliest foundations some form of dual monarchy, with a Queen and a King - although those specific titles are not widely used - dividing responsibility for foreign and domestic affairs. They also all blend conservatism and progressiveness in their social attitudes as well as government policies. Having rejected their creators and all other gods, the Orcs of the Kingdoms have a powerful sense of self-determination, but conversely the ancestor cult which forms the backbone of society resists change. Broadly, new is acceptible, so long as it builds on and adapts the old, instead of replacing it.
The most marked commonality is that almost all Kingdoms are divided into administrative districts called hundreds. A hundred is the area assessed to be capable of raising one hundred skilled fighters - either hunters or warriors - in times of need, and beholden to provide half that number to the kingdom's forces in the event of war. By a wide variety of means, each hundred chooses, appoints or elects both a Captain and a Hunter of the Hundred, an orok and an uruk who leads the civic government and represents the district at court.
The ancestor cults are quite different from those of northern and Cainan orcs. While there are some traditional speakers for the ancestors, their role is more commonly taken by ancestor priests called Lorespeakers, who lead the reverance of the ancestors in the manner of a religion. There is some clash between the lorespeakers and speakers for the ancestors, with the latter insisting that the voice of the ancestors must be heard directly, and the former insisting that the message is more important than the speaker. The cults share some of their spiritual role with the Woodcutters.
The Kingdoms tend to be more conservative than the more integrated tribes, especially as regards the traditional gender roles: warrior and hunter. While there is no pressure for an orc who identifies as uruk to be a hunter, or an orog to be a warrior, but it is considered unusual for a warrior not to be orog, or a hunter not to be uruk. The organised militaries of the Kingdoms adhere particularly closely to these roles, with exceptions almost unheard of among the highguards. The Orders of Purifiers are much less conservative, being inherently outide the social order. The roles of lorespeaker and woodcutter are not traditionally proscribed, and nor are the many civilian roles which have evolved since the fall of the Dark Lords.
Even these civilians are not entirely non-combatant, of course, given the hostility of the Darklands, and especially in rural areas, every orc learns to fight. In the cities, especially those surrounded by secure territory, there is more scope for civilians to develop specialised trades, pursue mercantile activities and, as in civilised areas everywhere, turn to crime. While there will always be entrepreneurs, most crime in the Darklands is regulated by large gangs, called thief tribes, who enforce their own rules with brutal and unforgiving efficiency. Loyalty is their watchword, although that loyalty typically runs more in one direction than the other. While junior members of the thief tribes often live much of their lives hidden in plain sight, the senior thieves distance themselves from ordinary society, wearing distinctive colours and tattoos. The formal ancestor cults strongly disapprove of auch anti-social activities, but many of the thief tribes nonetheless have their own speakers, and are in their way quite spiritual.
After millennia of back and forth, the established kingdoms are:
- Ragged Coast - The western coast is wracked by storms, and lined with jagged rocks and reefs. It is ruled from Blades' Breaking, the first port of the Darklands.
- Cinderlands - The badlands north of the Ragged Coast grow wild with strangling creepers, despite the baking climate. The orcs of the Ashfort and its dependencies struggle against the heat, the creepers and incursions from the Ophionic Empire to tame the land.
- Howling Plains - Home of the last great packs of wargs and dire wolves, the dry plains are ruled by the spirit masters of Empty Tomb and defended by some of the deadliest cavalry in the world.
- Lowlands - Damp and marshy, the Lowlands are home to the great boars of the Darklands. Ruled from Hollow, a city built on the inside of a great, round hill, the need for constant drainage has produced a particularly strong line of artificers.
- Saltmire - Between the Jagged Coast and the Salt Delta, the low-lying sands of the Saltmire are home to salvagers and shellfishers. The great keep in the leading city of Chainwall was built from the shackles of a multitude of freed slaves after the fall of the Dark Lords.
- Deep Forest - Deceptively beautiful, the Deep Forest is home to many monsters, and the orcs that hunt them. The capital of the kingdom is the border fortress of Spears' Rest in the southern foothills of the Great Shield.
- Border Marsh - East of the Saltmire, the Narrow Sea mingles with the rivers out of the Great Shield in the saline marshes of the Salt Delta, extending back into the expanse of swamp which guards the borders with the Domain of War. The capital of the Marsh is the port of Lastcut.
- Black Desert - The one region of the Darklands that still defies the efforts of the Kingdoms, the dark, cold sands of the Black Desert surround the ancient domains of the Giver of Banners. Many Purifiers patrol the desert borders, but few venture into the heart of the desert.
- High Country - The orcs of Northguard defend the highlands between the Black Desert and the Ophionic Empire from Yuan-ti aggression. The warbat roosts of Nighthall, in the foothills of the Great Shield, are also a part of the High Country.
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