The Outpost

The Uthine orcs have dwelt in the deeps of the Gelderland for many years, since before the fall of their dark master, the Horned God. Long they hunted the knotted forests, capturing the unwary and carting them off to their slave pits or cooking fires. They carved their dens from the hard earth, and rock-capped ridges of their wild land. They claimed it all for their own and spread the depredations of their evil to every corner. But more than that the orcs ranged far and wide in hunt of prey, sacking villages from as far away as the Lichtfield and the Twilight Woods. Those who fell afoul of the Uthines were carted back to the dens to face whatever horrors the orcs devised for their own pleasure.

Their power waned with the fall of the Horned God, for in those days the Fontenouq returned to the world. Elves of towering rage and a vengeful disposition, they made war upon all that had served the Horned God. They were pitiless and sparred no evil the sword or fire of the wrath. And they hated orcs and all their foul-hearted breed most of all. These elves, with high-brow helms, long spears and wicked swords drove the orcs from their hunting grounds, burned their encampments and slew their people, old and young. They did this in sufferance for all the evil of their past.

The Gelder Wars, as men style them, the war between the Uthine and Fontenouq resembles little of the great cataclysmic battles of the past. It is more a guerrilla war than ought else. The orcs range out in small bands, hunting elves who stray too far from their towers, alone and unawares. For their part the elves leave their towers in small groups to track down their hated foe and slay them where ever they can. Thus the war has been ongoing for many years, fought in small battles, but always brutal and neither side showing the other mercy. At times the two peoples fight for years on end, with little respite, at others the tide of violence recedes and there is little blood or loss of life.

During the early years of the Gelder Wars the elves cleared much of the northern Gelderland of the orcs and they settled there, building high towers and small keeps in that lonely country. They claimed the land as their own, though in truth there are no borders, and it is a wild and dangerous place. The elves live in singular towers, separated by many miles from their nearest neighbor and they have no central government. Each family rules itself, usually led by the most able of their group. The devout themselves to their pleasures, wether poetry, music or some other art, but always war, the manufacture of weapons and armaments.

Recently the orcs, long grieving the loss of the north country have decided to strike a major blow agains the elves. Knowing that the towers of the Fontenouq usually accommodate only a single family of elves, and are built far apart, they intend to gather a great host and strike the elf holdings in rapid succession, with overwhelming force, so that they do not have time to group and call to their neighbors for aid.

But of late the orcs have stopped their raids and vanished into the deeper woods and it has been quiet, far too quiet.

~ The Outpost