A continuing ork invasion has befallen the Midlands.

RELATIONS
HATED AND HUNTED
THE STUFF OF NIGHTMARES
"Orks, in contrast, were the stuff of nightmares, tales of unrestrained brutality: slaughter without reason, torture and disfigurement purely for its own sake, rape of the old and young, and other atrocities that defied comprehension. It was said they spared no one, not women, not children, and consumed the flesh of those they killed." [So Yu believes in B1.C14]"Orks, in contrast, were the stuff of nightmares, tales of unrestrained brutality: slaughter without reason, torture and disfigurement purely for its own sake, rape of the old and young, and other atrocities that defied comprehension. It was said they spared no one, not women, not children, and consumed the flesh of those they killed." [So Yu believes in B1.C14]
Known for their warbands that leave nothing but ruin in their wake, orks are seen as savage forces of destruction. Respectively, they are feared and despised across the lands.
Mind you, be wary of what you hear, as fear makes the best foundation for fiction.
BELIEFS AND TRADITIONS

An insight into general beliefs and traditions shared by various hordes.
BATTLE CUSTOMS
▪ A battle's final blow is always delivered in silence [B1.C13].
TEHARUN
T̰́̇ͦ̀è̸̷̸̬̤̗̊_̸̵̰̦̗̒͜ȟ̗̍ͤa̶͉͉͍̭̰̅̀̈͜ͅȓ̶̶̛̦͇͙̟̈̿͒ͮ͑̋̚͡u̟͖͔̖̙͙͆̄̿ͩͧ̃̽̓̈̌̀͟͞n brings the Full Dark.
THE WRONGING ROCK
"It had been over seven moon cycles ago when Gorak had first resolved to kill Nagrak, determined to offer him as a sacrifice to the Wronging Rock." [B1.C13]
As of [B1.C13], nothing more has been revealed about the Wronging Rock.
HORDES AND INDIVIDUALS
Orks live in hordes, which are grand unions conisting of 30 to up to 500 orks that are generally led by a singular krag. It is possible for an ork to leave one horde and join or create another.
An ork’s harde describes his closest kin, such as brothers and sisters. His setaharde comprises kin belonging to the generation of his parents, while his anharde are his offspring.
Please find here a glossary of hordes and characters that have been mentioned or appeared within the narration.
Haraak — Frostbite Horde of the Albweiss
“Their guttural cries erupted like thunder, their infuriated faces twisting into grotesque forms, reminiscent of the totemic masks they so often wore in battle — faces molded by the harshness of this frozen wasteland, scarred by years of war, and etched with burning rage. Greenish flesh, marred by frostbite, split in jagged cracks across their bodies, streaked with freezing blood that crystallised into sharp crimson lines. Their breath escaped in sharp, angry bursts, misting in the frigid air as they rallied, reformed, and readied for battle once more. Where they had been desperate and decimated, they suddenly revolted in death-defying determination, driven by a primal wrath that was raised by the appearance of a towering male”, their krag. [B1.C13]
The Haraak are a grand horde that see themselves as guardians of the Albweiss Mountains. They claim vast parts of the southern mountainside of the northern Midlands. As of [B1.C13], they consist of a total of 190 orks and two orichs led by Gorak the Frostbite.

HORDE CULTURE
Mountain Nature
For generations, the Haraak have been forged by the hostile mountain terrain. Their skin is muted, as if the colour had been drained by the frozen peaks they call home; pallid blues, ashen whites, and the earthen browns of dead soil.
"Survival was imprinted in [their] kind — primitive, unrelenting, and deeply ingrained. Orks did not think their paths as wizards might. They felt them. Each step upon the mountain, each shift of the wind, each scrape of rock beneath their feet, was embedded into their bodies like a special sense." [B1.C14]
Life and Survival
In the frozen expanse of the Albweiss, any form of sustenance is a rare commodity. Despite their attempts in cultivating wapa, the Haraak are reliant on every source of nourishment they can find. They endure great hardships and peril. It is ingrained in their nature to risk their lives daily to sustain their horde.
"Now, where most peoples’ intuitive reaction to grabbing for something that turns out quite alive and stinging would be to let go and pull back, the common ork is inclined to do the exact opposite. Where generations of Haraak had survived in the harshest of environments, every sparce trace of sustenance could mean life or death for the horde. Those who could capture and hold onto their prey survived, be it a planned or unprepared encounter. So if you grabbed for a stick that turned out to be somewhat of a mountain snake, a thing that slithered and stung, you better squeezed and shook until it was still." [B1.C14]
RELATIONS — THE ALBWEISS MOUNTAINS
The Mountain Divine
As much as they see themselves as the guardians of the mountain, the Haraak recognise the Albweiss as powerful and autonomous entity that directs their fate, as Gorak outlined after defeating the voltera in [B1.C13]:
"The kill, as precious as it was, did not belong to him. It was not his victory alone. The mountain had been with him, had chosen him. It had gifted him the moment when the ledge crumbled, when the voltera’s weight had torn through the fragile surface and sent it plummeting to its death, and so, the spoils were not his to claim. Gorak’s people had long known this truth: the mountain takes as it gives. It demands tribute, and those who survive its trials do so only with its blessing." [B1.C13]
Nagrak sees himself chosen to fullfil the mountain's will by rising "as the krag of all krags, the harbinger of the Era of Orks" [B1.C14].
The WERISS
The is the sacred touch of the mountain, which Nagrak believes to experience in [B1.C14].
Warmth
"This warmth carried a stillness that defied the chaos of his world, a sensation so soft and consuming it felt impossible. It was like the whispered memory of the rarest of sunlit days that the most fortunate of orks may hope to experience once in their lifetime, where no storms tore through the sky and the pale glow of Sey was not scattered by frost and gale." [B1.C14]
To the Haraak orks, warmth is a sacred and almost divine sensation, a rare gift in a world where frigid winds howl and blizzards ravage the mountains.
Silence
"Simply put, Nagrak did not know silence. Oh, he understood quiet all right, but not raw and true silence. As an Albweiss ork, he had lived all his life amid the unending fury of mountain wind and blizzard, where the storms howled day and night. To live in the mountains was to live with a constant roar in your ears and a constant tremor in your bones, to feel the air tearing at you even when you slept. The wind was always there. Its voice filled the gaps in thought, smoothed over memory, and made the rare moments in which the storms settled just before shifting directions seem like fleeting dreams." [B1.C16]
Those who live on the Albweiss Mountain never experience true, unbroken silence.
Mountain Eye
As of now, no explanation about the Mountain Eye has been given. [B1.C13] revealed that frosthearts, salran of a glacial blue, are crystallised fragment of the legendary Mountain Eye, bridging an orich’s will with raw power.
IN BATTLE
“Orks fought as one, and they would not abandon one of their horde, not now, not ever.” Balthagar Hammerfist [B1.C13]
Coordinated Attacks
"The voltera fought back with primal fury, gnashing its fangs at anything within reach and tearing furrows into the earth with its claws, scattering ice and snow into the storm. Yet each time the beast lunged forward, the circle of orks would pull back. The warriors moved as one — retreating, reforming, and advancing again in ever improving synchronisation. They were a deadly tide pulling back and forth, crashing against the beast in unrelenting waves, striking with every surge." [Ba.C13]
In battle, the Haraak display both reckless bravery and strategic coordination under their krag's leadership.They fight with a wide array of axes, hammers, blades, spears and shields [B1.C13].
Magic
The Haraak's two orichs, Bayazak and Tergak, are able to coordinate complex attack of ice and stone. When capturing the golem in [B1.C14], they have shown to evoke a powerful seal of confinement.
Their salran of choice are frosthears.
ORKS OF THE HARAAK
Balthagar
Horde chronology: Haraak [B1.C13].
Setaharde: Unknown.
Harde: Gorak [Brother].
Anharde: Unknown.
Name Chronology: Hammerfist [B1.C13]
First mentioned: Encountered by Midnight while fighting Ahrasik and his party in [B1.C13].
Death: [B1.C13]. Defeated by the golem activated by Salgier. Crushed by a boulder at the end of the fight.
APPEARANCE
“That stunned silence shattered by Balthagar’s roar, a guttoral cry that ripped through the storm and reverberated through the bones of those still standing, his raw force a violent jolt to their senses. He stood defiant, his breath coming in heaving gasps but his stance unyielding. The avalanche had swallowed half his warband, but Balthagar remained, a towering figure among the survivors. He was a mountain of muscle clad in crude armour, by far the tallest among them.” [B1.C13]
WEAPON
A grand axe like Gorak's, quite chipped, and a mighty warhammer. All offense, Balthagar carries no shield.
PHILOSOPHY
Be it wizards or orichs, Balthagar opposes the idea of controlling the elements through magic:
"The orks were the mountain’s guardians, its protectors, bound by blood and ancient oaths. They were never meant to control it, to dare contain its essence within the crude bounds of spellwork. The mountain had no master." [B1.C13]
"An ork never shies from battle or death, but to see the mountain turned against them, twisted to obey a wizard’s will, was a blow to their very core." [B1.C13]
Bayazak
Horde chronology: Haraak [B1.C13].
Setaharde: Unknown.
Harde: Unknown.
Anharde: Unknown.
Name Chronology: Unknown.
Magic: Orich.
First mentioned: Mentioned to be one of the horde's two orichs in [B1.C13].
“Nagrak’s mind inflated with delusions of destiny, convinced that his future mirrored the likes of Bayazak and Tergak, the horde’s revered orichs, whose mystical insight into the forces of nature guided the warriors with a blend of wisdom and raw, elemental power.” [B1.C13]
APPEARANCE
His skin bears an unnaturally blue hue, like frostbite made flesh, while deep-carved runes scar his body, marking him as a one of the rare spell-wielders among ork-kind.
MAGIC
"The orich wielded his stones with an uncanny deftness, a skill as much honed by learned discipline as it was founded in an instinct embedded deep his being. His scarred hands moved in a trance of command and control, as incantations slipped from his lips in a language birthed from the mountain itself." [B1.C13]
Bayazak shows exemplary control over the winds and ice of the Albweiss, creating spears and rains of shards, directing ice tendrils like the hands of a giant, and immobilising his enemies by freezing them onto the mountain. When fighting long-range, he uses magic to strategically: To keep his presence concealed when fighting long-range, he alters the angle of his ice attacks so that they cannot be traced back to his location. To actively control the movements of his enemies and to lure them into traps, he deceives them about the origin and range of his attacks [B1.C13].
Congruent with her concept of existence, where a living entity is represented by an arachnid, Midnight feels:
"He was not simply manipulating the elements, not taking the snow, ice and wind from the mountain to make them forces of the orich. He was not tearing through the layers that defined the mountain. He did not sever the web to steal from all that inherently belonged to the mountain, from all that was of the mountain. No, he left the web unharmed. With his magic, he directed the arachnid to pull the threads for him. And the mountain complied." [B1.C13]
She had furthermore witnessed him performing a complex binding seal in [B1.C13].
Gorak
Horde chronology: Haraak [B1.C13].
Setaharde: Unknown.
Harde: Balthagar [Brother].
Anharde: Unknown.
Name Chronology: Frostbite [Youngling]. Frostblade [B1.C13].
First mentioned: Encountered by Midnight while fighting Ahrasik and his party in [B1.C13].
"His name, whispered with reverence and fear among his kin, was Gorak the Frostblade. His reputation stretched far across the Albweiss Mountains, a legacy of bloodshed and brutality that had marked his decades of survival in the frozen north. His savagery was tempered only by a sharp, calculating mind, a trait that had kept him alive and dominant where countless others had fallen.” [B1.C13]
APPEARANCE - A MOUNTAIN OF A KRAG
“He came from above, a hulking figure recklessly descending from the cliffs. His body was draped in furs thick with grime and stiffened by ice that had formed jagged spikes. They clung to his body like armour, adding to his already imposing presence, as though the mountain itself had forged him from its brutal elements. His broad, bare shoulders were a mass of sinew and scar tissue, each line carved deep into his flesh. His tusks, one chipped and worn, and the other gleaming with silver, jutted out from a jaw that had been broken and healed too many times to count. He was older than the others, his face lined with prominent wrinkles of age and hardship, yet his eyes burned with a flicker of cunning that belied his savage appearance." [B1.C13].
Gorak's voice is guttoral and fierce:
"Gorak’s voice thundered above the chaos, his breath billowing in clouds of mist. His orders were sharp and decisive, yet loaded with the weight of decades of warfare. Every muscle in his massive body was taut, his icy furs clinging to him, blending his form with the swirling snow and frost around him. Yes, he was as much part of the mountain as the mountain was part of him. He was the mountain incarnate, an unyielding force of nature that understood both the unforgiving terrain and the desperation of a cornered beast." [B1.C13]
WEAPON
A grand axe; a brutal weapon with a blade chipped and blackened from countless wars. In contrast to his brother, who is all offense, Gorak also carries a round shield.
RELATION TO BALTHAGAR
In battle, Gorak and Balthagar are known to fight as one, instinctively covering each other’s blind spots: "Whenever the beast reared up, claws slashing toward Baltagar, Gorak was there, his strikes relentless, delivering a flurry of blows to keep the voltera at bay. And when the creature attempted to trample Gorak, Baltagar hurled himself forward, deflecting its massive paws and claws with sheer brute force." [B1.C13]
LEADERSHIP IN BATTLE
"Gorak’s tactics turned the battle into a deadly game of timing — in unison, the orks figured out when to strike, when to withdraw, and when to press their advantage. Gorak needed to build on that. As soon as the warriors showed the necessary level of coordination, he initiated the next step of his plan." [B1.C13]
In [B1.C13], Gorak exhibits great control over his warriors, bringing order to their storm of violence and snapping the hot-blooded orks back into disciplined formation with his voice alone. Fighting Ahrasik, he proves to strategically prepare and utilise his warriors to overcome both planned and unexpected challenges.
PHILOSOPHY
On the will to fight and live:
"In the decades Gorak had spent defending the Albweiss, it had always been the beasts that fought to the death to live, and the men and wizards that chose to die even before their lives ended." [B1.C13]
On the difference of peoples and beasts:
"In the decades Gorak had spent defending the Albweiss, it had always been the beasts that fought to the death to live, and the men and wizards that chose to die even before their lives ended." [B1.C13]
Maletar
Horde chronology: Haraak [B1.C13].
Setaharde: Unknown.
Harde: Unknown.
Anharde: Unknown.
Name Chronology: Unknown.
First mentioned: Encountered by Midnight while fighting Ahrasik and his party in [B1.C13].
"It was Maletar who seized the charge and rallied the remaining orks." [B1.C13]
In [B1.C13], after Gorak fell with the voltera and Balthagar succumbed to the golem, Maletar let the remaining warriors into battle.
Nagrak
Horde chronology: Haraak [B1.C13].
Setaharde: Unknown.
Harde: Unknown.
Anharde: Unknown.
Name Chronology: Runt [B1.C13].
Magic: Said to have the potential of developing orich abilities which have not yet manifested [B1.C13].
First mentioned: Encountered by Midnight while "fighting" Ahrasik and his party in [B1.C13].
"Nagrak’s path had been directed by the Albweiss itself. This was it. THIS WAS. THE. MOMENT." [B1.C14]
Ever chasing THE.MOMENT., Nagrak writes his own destiny, if only in his head:
"He would be the first and only to wield all magic." [B1.C14]
HE IS STUPID.
"His mind was a steel trap, yes, but the only prey ever caught in that trap was Nagrak himself. Because in the end, not only the truly cunning, but also the utterly daft see themselves as superior to their peers. The difference lies not in their conviction, but in reality. The truly cunning recognise the world for what it is and adapt, while the daft twist reality through their own, distorted perspective. They believe their own fantasies into existence.
Nagrak stood far on the wrong side of that spectrum, that his subjective self-perception had long turned into self-deception. He believed his rise was inevitable. In truth, he was more likely to be trampled underfoot than to guide anyone to glory, but he was simply too stupid to understand just how stupid he was." [B1.C13]
In [B1.C16, Nagrak's mental landscape is described as "rock-dense all the way around, mostly filled with metaphorical mud in between, thick, slow, and prone to stagnation". His consciousness, then, is "a vast, cavernous expanse, trapped in the centre of it all and mostly hollow, save for a few stalactites of half-formed, crystallised ideas, some memory stalagmites, and countless echoing chambers repeating the same dull refrains of stubbornness and frost. For all the overwhelming mass of rock and mud that dominated his mental terrain, this cavern offered room for thought." Sometimes, a droplet of insight appears; a rare occurrence, when a mass of mental mud manages to ooze all the way through the stone, while confused associations and half-formed impressions are filtered out.
APPEARANCE - THE RUNT
“Trailing in the shadow of Gorak’s massive bulk was a younger, wiry ork. He struggled to keep pace with the krag’s relentless momentum, his steps awkward and laboured, a stark contrast to the fluid brutality of the warriors around him. While the rest of the orks were hulking masses of scarred muscle, their bodies hardened by war and the brutal cold, the youngling’s disproportionate figure was painfully thin. Thick black hair, streaked with frost, curled around his head, making it appear much too large for his frail body. His limbs were gangly and awkward and his skin had taken on the sickly, pale hue of malnourishment. He looked like a starved scavenger. His name was Nagrak. He was the runt of the Frostblade’s horde, a misfit among warriors.” [B1.C13]
MINDSET - A DELUSIONAL MISFIT
"Yet, for all his physical shortcomings, Nagrak’s meagre frame housed a mind sharper than any blade wielded by his kin, and a fire that outshone the blind rage that fuelled the others. Where the rest were driven by innate bloodlust directed by the unwavering commands of their krag, Nagrak was driven by something higher, something far greater — a vision of purpose and potential, merged into boundless ambition.
At least, this is what Nagrak believed.
Because at one point of his misbirth existence, he had been told that the blood of an orich coursed through his veins. From that day on, Gorak had kept him close, offering protection Nagrak had never known. Where once he had been shoved aside, beaten for his frailty and mocked for his runtish size, now he stood in the shadow of the krag’s brutal authority, and that shift in fortune granted Nagrak a new sense of importance that had gone straight over his oversized head. Nagrak’s mind inflated with delusions of destiny, convinced that his future mirrored the likes of Bayazak and Tergak, the horde’s revered orichs, whose mystical insight into the forces of nature guided the warriors with a blend of wisdom and raw, elemental power." [B1.C13]
DEVOTION
"The mountain’s will was vast and sacred — it demanded belief, not comprehension." [B1.C14]
Nagrak is highly devoted to the Albweiss Mountains, found to freely interpret any signs that are there, as well as those that definitely are not.
"When destiny called, you did not question its origin, its danger, or its intent. Nagrak, with the kind of blind certainty that only a true believer could muster, did not hesitate to interpret divine will and answer." [B1.C14]
His conviction to be chosen by the mountain and touched by the leads him to believe that:
"He would rise as the krag of all krags, the harbinger of the Era of Orks." [B1.C14]
STANDING AMONGST THE HORDE
"They knew him for what he was — a harmless nuisance, an insect buzzing in their midst. Nagrak’s antics were infamous, but they went largely ignored, for Gorak had made it clear that no harm should come to the runt. As long as krag’s decree of protection shielded him, the horde let him run free and endured his presence with silent contempt. And so, like a shadow clinging to the base of a mountain, Nagrak trailed after Gorak, blissfully ignorant of just how far out of reach his ambitions truly were.
In contrast, Gorak, looking down from the metaphorical mountain peak, was acutely aware of Nagrak’s delusions. He had made the disturbing experience that the runt did not grasp hierarchies, a dangerous flaw in an ork. Unlike the others, Nagrak never knew when to be afraid, when to show submission, or when to stand down. His irritating persistence had only worsened since the orichs had taken an interest in him, and Gorak found it increasingly difficult to tolerate the runt’s presence." [B1.C13]
Gorak would have sacrificed Nagrak to the Wronging Rock if the horde's orichs had not demanded for time to see if the runt would develop magical abilities [B1.C13].
MAGIC
While the horde's two orichs have been said to see potential for Nagrak to develop magical abilities [B1.C13], he has not yet manifested any elemental power. Still, not a day goes by that Nagrak does not believe to harbour "his moment".
POSSESSIONS
▪ Leather pants with several gems sewn into them.
▪ Frostheart gem, given by Bayazak and Tergak. Lost in the Weaver King's cave in [B1.C16].
▪ Speran ember, [involuntarily] entrusted to him by Balthagar in his moment of death [B1.C13]. Also lost in the Weaver King's cave.
Tergak
Horde chronology: Haraak [B1.C13].
Setaharde: Unknown.
Harde: Unknown.
Anharde: Unknown.
Name Chronology: Unknown.
Magic: Orich.
First mentioned: Mentioned to be one of the horde's two orichs in [B1.C13].
MAGIC
“They were a terrifyingly effective combination: one manipulated stone, the other ice, and together they wielded the inexhaustible resources of the Albweiss.” [B1.C13]
Where Bayazak wields ice, Tergak controls stone. When creating traps with Bayazak, he has shown to construct delicate and elaborate stone constructions:
"The scene unfolded with a speed and complexity that defied comprehension. The eruption of magic and stone was so sudden, so precise, that Midnight felt the ripple of its power shuddering through her very essence. The magnitude of the trap was suffocating, sending a tremor through her darkness." [B1.C13]
TERGAK AS STRATEGIST
Even in spontaneous battle, Tergak and Bayazak utilise complex strategy and multi-layered traps.
"It was a cowardly deception, like luring a beast into a cage by disguising the cage as the only escape, yet it was calculated and devastating in its execution. Midnight, for all her cunning, knew she could not have devised such a ruse herself. [...] Midnight realised that this battle had always been their hunt, a ploy of patience and misdirection. The orichs had weaponised the very fabric of the mountain and exploited the vulnerabilities of their enemies with chilling precision." [B1.C13]
Ulruk
Horde chronology: Haraak [B1.C13].
Setaharde: Unknown.
Harde: Unknown.
Anharde: Unknown.
Name Chronology: Unknown.
First mentioned: Found dead by Nagrak after fighting Ahrasik and his party in [B1.C13].
Ulruk was one of the warriors who died in the battle against Salgier, Ahrasik and the golem in [B1.C13].
