Gorhask Plain

The Pig-Faced Orcs call their homeland Gorhask Plain, though the description is misleading. Around a central core of open land stretch heavy forests, low hills, and wide grazing lands that perfectly suit their dual way of life. The populace are physically imposing: larger and stronger than humans, broad-backed and thick-armed, built for sustained hard labor and even harder fighting.

What outsiders miss — fixating on the tusks and the tribal conflict — is that Gorhask society is genuinely fluid in a way that few other cultures on the continent are. A warrior raised in a Corser forest camp might settle into farming when age suits it. A field-born Orc might join a forest raid without anyone treating the transition as unusual. The two ways of life are not castes. They are options, available throughout a life, and the ease of movement between them is what makes the whole society function.

Geography and Demographics

The topography of Gorhask supports a split existence. The region is bordered by the dense Raventhorn Weald and the swampy margins of the Gurren Fen.

Two Ways to Live: Society and Culture

Pig-Faced Orc society breaks down into two broad, overlapping cultural groups:

Corser Tribes: Resembling wild boars in both build and temperament, these are the hunter-gatherers of the deep woods and fens. Their camps are temporary, but their collective territorial memory is long and fiercely defended.
Agrarian Tribes: The more settled-looking Pig-Orcs who favor permanent village life. They meticulously farm the open land around the Haskroot Downs and the slow bends of the Velkrun River. Their fields are carefully defended, and their vital granaries are never left unwatched.

Political Structure and Conflict

There is no lasting, unified political structure in Gorhask. At any given time, at least two major tribes exist alongside several smaller ones. Alliances are fluid and situational — tribes might engage in peaceful livestock trade one season, feuding over grazing rights the next, or full-scale civil war the one after. External alliances shift easily when another faction offers weapons, coin, or a mutual enemy.

The absence of central authority is not dysfunction. It is the expected state. Observers who arrive expecting a capital and a treaty partner leave frustrated. Those who understand the structure deal with individual tribal leaders directly and accept that any agreement has a natural expiration tied to the circumstances that produced it.

Religion and Magic

Some tribes maintain shamans known as Mud-Readers — individuals who claim the ability to bargain with primal spirits tied to the soil, bloodlines, and the beasts of the land. Their practices do not resemble conventional arcane or clerical working. What they do resemble is results. Even those who doubt the mechanism afford the Mud-Readers a measure of respect, because dismissing them has a poor track record.

Military Doctrine

Pig-Faced Orcs fight with brutal, functional discipline. Their military structure leverages natural strength and specialized war beasts:

Equipment

Fur and leather armor is common, reinforced with bone or scavenged metal.

The Tusker Advantage

Their greatest asset is the Tusker — a massive, ill-tempered war beast bred from giant boar stock. Tuskers serve as powerful mounts, chariot-pullers, and living battering rams. The sound of Tusker hooves breaking a charge is documented in multiple Chronicle Project accounts as capable of shattering formed enemy lines before contact.

Neighbors and Enemies

The Gorhask Plain is located centrally in the north of Thrapsus and is surrounded by potential rivals and prey:

Mouse Empire: To the immediate North and West. The Pig-Orcs view Mouselings as prey, leading to constant raiding and conflict.
The Fen (Frog Folk): The swampy margins of the Gurren Fen border Gorhask Plain to the East, leading to frequent clashes over territory and resources.
Ashbound March (Goblins/Hobgoblins): The broken mountains to the South-West. Relations are fluid, shifting between temporary alliances and open feuding depending on season and resource availability.
Karuun Enclaves: The Karuun lie to the East, beyond the Fen — a powerful but distant presence whose territory the Pig-Orcs occasionally clash with.

Notable Settlements and Points of Interest

Key locations function as centers of trade, defense, and breeding within the Plain:

Graskhollow (Capital): A fortified market-city at the heart of Gorhask Plain where tribal leaders meet to bargain, trade, and occasionally engage in political assassination. The political center precisely because no single tribe controls it fully.
Rivenroot: A Corser stronghold buried deep in the Raventhorn Weald, designed to be hard to find and nearly impossible to assault successfully.
Velkrun Ford: A river-town controlling the main crossing of the Velkrun River and nearly all external trade entering the region.
Hogspire Fields: An agrarian hub surrounded by extensive farms and the crucial Tusker breeding pens. The quality of a tribe’s Tuskers is often a proxy measure of its overall strength.
Brindlewatch: A hill settlement overlooking the Haskroot Downs, renowned for training the fastest chariot warriors in the plain.
Mudreach: A loose, sprawling settlement on the edge of the Gurren Fen where many Mud-Readers gather and where territorial disputes with the Frog Folk most frequently originate.