The Fanged Taiga

"First I remove their toenails. Then their fingernails. Then I take my time breaking every bone in their arms and legs, one by one. Then we get to the fun part - I get to use my skinning knife."
-Shuugshar Sharptooth

The Impenitrable Taiga

East of Harpsbilge is a thick pine forest of grasping roots, sturdy trunks, and crunching branches. The forest rarely grows thinner, save for around lakes and rivers and the occasional grove - prime spots to intersect with the forest's less than friendly inhabitants.
Harpsbilge has tried to take over The Fanged Taiga on multiple occasions, but each has failed. The forest is too dense for guns to be effective, too uniform for easy navigation, and too full of enemy ambush points. Going into the forest is like signing up to die thanks to these impenetrable natural defences.

Sharp Teeth & Orcish Chants

The Taiga is the home to a host of ever-warring orcish and goblinoid tribes. Chief among these tribes is The Sharp Tooth Tribe or orcs, which claims territory around the taiga's largest water source. The Sharp Tooth Tribe bullies neighbouring tribes into paying tributes in food and weapons, and the neighbouring tribes do their best to bully their neighbouring tribes into "lending" them the resources. These neighbouring tribes try to do the same, and the process repeats expanding ever outwards. In this way, almost every tribe in the taiga has some beef with every other tribe - even if the other tribe is on the opposite end of the forest.
These tribes generally resort to guerrilla warfare since the forest allows for it, but when two tribes have a rivalry strong enough, they will have a battle to destruction. Each tribe comes in full force at the other, screaming battle chants on the way. These are the ultimate fair fights for the goblinoids and orcs - though "fair" in this case just means slightly less underhanded.

Brutality is an Art Form

The orcs & goblinoids of the taiga take great joy in brutality, so much so that they've turned it into an art form. Merit within tribes isn't just judged by pure strength, it's judged by the creative ways a tribesman is able to torture and eventually kill their enemies. Gruesome displays of what happens to enemies of a tribe mark the territory they lay claim on, and it's no surprise that the edge of the forest bordering Harpsbilge is littered with flayed human corpses.