High Orcish

Echoes of Titans: High Orcish in the Shattered Age

High Orcish. Not a tongue for the soft-eared or the weak-kneed. It's a language built on boulders, chiselled with war hammers, and seasoned with the blood of a billion-year reign. Think dwarven runes dipped in dragonfire, think elder kraken whispering curses from the abyss, think the grinding of tectonic plates under a sky consumed by a hungry god. A jagged symphony wrought from the throats of leviathans, the language rings with depths unfathomable and majesty inconceivable. Its guttural growls echo still through the hollows of history, though its full glory lies now among ruins once graced by the tread of immortal giants.
It wasn't just speech, mind you. High Orcish was a living tapestry, woven with magic, history, and the raw, untamed spirit of a species that carved kingdoms from mountain ribs and drank stardust for breakfast. Each word reverberated like a drumbeat, echoing with the triumphs and tragedies of empires long dead. Imagine a sonnet written in the tremors of an earthquake, a lullaby hummed by forgotten deities. Imagine the primordial rumble as worlds cracked like eggshells. Envision the roiling tongues of newborn stars, screaming their first light into the abyss. Hear the tectonic upheaval as continents clashed, mountains buckling like ocean waves beneath an obsidian sky. Such is the tenor of true High Orcish, language of the earth-striders, the star-kindlers. Speech and spell fused into one incantation, the merest whisper shaking reality to its marrow. This was the majesty of the language created by the Orcs from what they learned from the Titans before they left the mortal planes.
Gone are the days, though, when High Orcish rang through starlit courts and echoed from cyclopean citadels. The Cataclysm, that teeth-grinding nightmare, shattered the Empire like a clay pot, and with it, the language fractured. Now, it's a patchwork quilt, each dialect a tattered scrap of the grand tapestry. Some gurgle in smoky dens, gutter slang choked with soot and despair. Others, whispered in shadowed ruins, retain the grandeur of old, their every inflection crackling with ancient power.
In elder epochs now past reckoning, its strangely resonating syllables trilled from the gem-encrusted towers of imperial Zan Daruk, that primeval metropolis which bestrode the planes like the colossus it was. They echoed too through the labyrinthine halls of Ka Ruum Thuul, the Midnight Archives, wherein all knowledge of all times stood preserved, from cosmic genesis to far-flung opus yet unborn. And in the banned rituals of demon-priests, they gave eldritch life to entities whose names no mortal tongue dare speak.
Alas, gone are the glory days when High Orcish held all creation enthralled! For now, only scattered ghosts haunt the wastes and ruins left by the Cataclysm which strode howling from beyond the veils of sanity to unmake all that had been wrought. The speech of gods lies broken, its rune-tablets shattered, syntax sundered.
Only fragments linger to be unearthed: guttural cant used by tunnelers who burrow still through mountains like maggots in carrion flesh; elder whispers clinging to standing stones on haunted moors; even phrases still guarded by sects dwelling in lightless depths, who commune there with beings not of this earth.
But don't mistake fragmented for weak. Even a shard of High Orcish can cut deep. Learn a few guttural syllables, and you can command respect – or fear – in the right orcish hovels. Speak a full sentence, and the very air around you hums with forgotten magics. Master it, and you open doors to vaults buried deeper than time, or bargain with entities older than stars. And should some intrepid soul gather enough shards of the lingua arcana, they may find doors long sealed crashing open to reveal vaults both ancient and spine-chilling in their sprawl. Or unchain incantations able to summon entities drowned in the sea of aeons. Or even tap the racial memory lurking below the surface thoughts of all orckind, that inheritance of glory and terror spanning countless cycles of creation and destruction.
But be warned, adventurer. High Orcish is not for the faint of heart. It's a language that bites back, scratches your soul with its harsh consonants, and leaves you gasping for breath. It's a river of molten silver, and if you're not careful, it'll consume you whole.
Still, for those with the courage, the rewards are worth the risk. It's a key to understanding a lost world, a map to forgotten power, and a glimpse into the soul of a species that once touched the divine. So, go ahead, crack open that dusty tome, listen to the wind whisper through ruined arches, and let the echoes of titans guide your tongue. Just remember, with every word, you tread the path of legends, and legends have a way of leaving their mark.
A few tidbits to whet your appetite:
High Orcish uses a base 12 numeral system, reflecting the twelve moons of their ancestral planet. Verbs conjugate not just for tense, but also for intensity and purpose, making a simple "hit" a complex tapestry of intent and consequence. Nouns have "spirit echoes," additional words whispered after the main name that reveal a person's lineage, deeds, and perhaps even their hidden desires. Mastering the language grants access to a unique form of magic, fueled by the collective memories of the orcish race.
Remember, adventurer, High Orcish is not just a language. It's a dare. Are you brave enough to speak it?
So what say you, oh seeker after dread secrets? Will you risk the razor-edged runes that can slice souls and leave sanity in tatters? Will you chant the forbidden utterances that can shatter mortal minds like wine glasses, unstoppering madness and torment? If so, know that you follow in the footsteps of titans who clove worlds with a whim and lit dying stars with but a gesture. Their mantle awaits any who dare seize it. But remember: such power is never free. And one day, you too may face the ruin borne by cosmic forces beyond your ken. The only question is, will that day be too soon? Or not soon enough...