Gilgorath
Gilgorath Windfury
Hundreds of years ago, the Burning Sun Clan struggled against no enemy. No head was too high to remove, no armor too thick to cleave. In their hearts burned the drums for war, in their minds thrummed the need for battle. The Burning Sun Clan roared through the deserts of the Scorchlands with reckless abandon, and their fierce axes, their rending claws, and their gnashing toothy maws ripped and bloodied their enemies as they took and took - leaving ruin in their wake. They were swift like a mighty hurricane, and relentless like a swarm of locusts. The cries of villages they pillaged fueled their war machine, and the horizon spurred their lust for more. But their victories came at opportunities - for unlike other clans, they were cunning. They waited for their enemies to collide against each other to take what they wanted, and the Queen’s War provided many such chances, until the Queen’s eye turned to them.
Manipulated by the Queen, the Burning Sun’s reavers drove themselves into Ghal Ankhar only to be rebuffed by a waiting dwarven force as a cover for some greater machination. The Clan was decimated - and worse, was revealed as a threat to be hunted. As the host of orcs was routed and pursued deep into the Scorchlands, they happened upon a desert caravan carrying unrefined manacite. Seizing the goods, the Clan retreated deep into the desert lands, and discovered in order to survive how to manipulate this manacite to heat their camps, cook their food, and aid in the protection of their camps.
Then the Clan began to appreciate their newfound life and started to do something their orc brethren would think unimaginable - they settled.
For centuries the Clan existed in secret seclusion, a rough orcish paradise built in a desert canyon. They contended with the silent warriors that traversed the lands, the orc hunters, the rare caravan that would pass through their area - none that would enter their territory would leave to tell stories about it. They raised their young to be grim hunters of desert monsters, and compassionless murderers of those that would discover them. Generation after generation would be reared, grown, and pass away without knowing about the world around them, but their fires were hot and their food plentiful - thanks to the manacite that was also slowly poisoning them.
With this poison, each generation discovered that they could do something a previous could not - their warriors were faster or could spontaneously grow larger than others. Their shaman chieftains could wield lightning with their hands, or even take the form of the beasts they hunted in the wild. With these gifts they could protect themselves from greater dangers, but they also brought greater attention to themselves. And soon, in the world after the Autumn Queen, the manacite they used became very valuable indeed.
Gilgorath Windfury was the eldest son of a long line of chieftains of the Burning Wind Clan. His father, Uthgar Windfury was a powerful shaman, able to bring thunder when he was angered, and rain when he chanted. And above all else - he was wise. The Windfurys were chieftains for many generations, and while they were rivals with fellows families such as the Bonefists and Halfmoons, they were well respected as protectors of the Clan. And while usurpers were always prevalent in the arching history of the Burning Sun Clan, very rarely was a Windfury dethroned from the position of chieftain. Unlike his predecessors, Uthgar recognized that perhaps their greater destiny was beyond their borders. He taught his sons the words of the common people found in the books they had pillaged. And he did what no other chieftain had ever done before him - he made contact with caravans and let them live.
The Bonefists and Halfmoons raged over this betrayal. And in a Kah - an airing of grievance between families and chieftain that usually resulted in lusty violence, dancing, and feasting - Uthgar was slain by usurper Roktar Bonefist, and the Windfury family was disgraced. Uthgar’s death was questionable as Roktar, a young orc who had shown little understanding of the arcane energies that filled the Burning Sun bloodlines, had easily bested the more powerful Uthgar. Yet while some sort of deception was believed to have taken place, with no proof the Bonefists took power, and reduced the Windfury children to be lowly hunters for the clan.
Shamed, Gilgorath hunted the mean desert monsters that prowled their lands with his powerful axe, Grimgnaw. After a particularly brutal fight with a dust digger that took most of the day, Gilgorath drug his kill back into the camp late at night only to find it dark, cold, and lifeless. The manacite was gone. His wife, his children, and his siblings laid dead, among the corpses of Halfmoons and Bonefists alike. While Roktar was missing, Gilgorath had little doubt that the coward would soon be a corpse in the wild too. And, befitting the last living son of Uthgar Windfury and of the first orc clan to settle, Gilgorath did something that the orcs of the old times would also not do - he wept. Setting the camp ablaze, he vowed to bring those who did this to a swift and merciless end, and marched out across the desert sands.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Gilgorath's journey ended prematurely, in the darkened woods outside of Belden. Having followed Artemesia to murder some Bog Witches that were ruining the town, he found himself staying alive far longer than he should've, keeping the witches at bay and slaying them to allow his friends time to escape. He ultimately died as he lived, on his feet, with his axe in his hand, hacking and slashing, hacking and slashing. While he never discovered who ended his clan, or found the path of Roktar, he joined his elders and found his family in the endless desert of the afterlife.
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