Oh what will the underground city of Omru bring? There is a stronghold with an Ogre leader and Orc at minimum. Did you know Ogre and Orc are supposed to be the same word? I wonder when/who decided to separate it into two races.
I’m really hopeful that the city of Omru is separate from the Stronghold. It could be that the stronghold was built to try and maintain control over the city. Just the term itself lends itself to being separate. If it had said the stronghold of Omru or something differently perhaps it would have made me think differently. Mentioning the city of Omru then a stronghold just makes it sound like two different places.
Sounds to me like the city of Omru is built around a stronghold of some kind. Our dear beloved Ogre Lord - likely a tier 2 humanoid - is probably the lord of the city. We know he has a treasury. He probably also has a lot of fairly powerful subordinates in addition to an army. I imagine it Richter will end up having to fight for the lordship, gathering his own forces. I can't imagine an ogre lord is doing a great job of running a city.
Well I guess I’ll be the contrarian. I really hope Omru is a underground Orc city that has a group of Ogres squatting on them from a stronghold near it. That would allow Ricther to build a stronger relationship with the Orcs. Hopefully he can develop them into allies. It would also open a door to any help he might need dealing with the Ogres. If Ricther loots a city’s castle, fort, or stronghold he could make a lot of enemies from a diverse group from those living there. Especially seeing how everyone under ground would likely feel the pressures of the alliance. The alliance moving in from one side and waters popping up on the other. Times could be getting really hard for those stuck in between them.
Orcs in the land are as a general rule vicious warriors obsessed with war. Remember the orc that created the skill unusual materials? He was an outcast amongst orcs because of his interest in crafting. He was only accepted after proving he could craft weapons of war superior to those they had. We have a warning from the Kindir that the orcs are pushing into new areas. There are also the racial relationships to consider. Inviting greenskins into any kind of alliance is to ask for trouble with the dwarves/elves/sprites and vice versa. That doesn't mean they should never invite a racial enemy of an established race to settle in the village or ally with them, just that its a recipe for trouble. As an example, Sion unthinkingly reacted with deadly force upon seing a racial enemy, a goblin. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that humans and kobolds are racial enemies as well, that would explain Richter slaughtering them without a shred of remorse or consideration for whether there might be a different way to handle things. Overall, i'd probably hear the orcs out, maybe make a few temporary alliances and then move on before they find an opportunity to plant a knife in my back. On the other hand I wouldn't be surprised at all if the orcs were dead by chapter 2 and Richter had the fifth set of eyes as a new chaos seed vassal candidate.
Going on my own random guesses. If there are 2 groups the city and the stronghold. I would think all the slaughtered orcs were from the city and these warriors are more likely to be working under the ogre at the stronghold. Going by different things I think could be interesting with this whole area: New Vassal (w/PoP)>Vassal> Heart Crystal for settlement points> Mercenary band of orcs > New random orc immigrants(or more slaves) to the Mist village.
While Aleron does follow the nature of races to an extent we don’t know how he will portray the Orcs or the Ogres as of yet. We do know thatbin hos world not all Dark Elves follow the traditional Dark Elf role. I think it’s more of a Earthly issue with Skin color which I understand where he is coming from. I do think Aleron had already set Ricther up to become allies with the Orcs and to eventytake them in as a sworn banner man. At least he gave him the banner to lead them with anyway.
I don't remember us seeing any dark elves in the village, i only remember one of them coming up and she seemed like a pretty standard drow matriarch. If he follows normal dnd the dark elves are not just underground elves with dark skin, they are a cruel and twisted race. That cruelty has its grounding in their history, culture and religion, as well as in their general nature. Ogres have been portrayed in his other series, so unless this is a radically different group we know he sticks pretty close to the standard dumb, cannibalistic ogre brutes with massive strength and constitution. An ogre lord is likely more of the same, possibly with some intelligence and wisdom thrown in. Orcs have been portrayed. Richter gets a view straight into the life of one when he uses the skillbook unusual materials. So we know in general terms how orc clans operate, and how they treat their own. We also have a few mentions of orcs and goblins being in the firetip mountain range, along with a warning from Krom that they are a serious danger to Richter's emissaries. The ones he sent to Krom's clan to hire warriors and establish relations. The implication from the epilogue is that things turn sour between Richter and the orcs. Its possible he'll take them or some other warband in regardless.
If I remember the banner right it is a rag with virtually no durability left. Edit: It does lead to some interesting questions, namely what is Yarosh? An ancient orc nation? Their god? Totem? Warchief? Richter should make a flag for the mist village, a symbol of the village and of the endless glory of his rule. He doesn't need +5460 to fighting spirit, a thousand would already give them some staying power.
I don’t see Aleron making all Dark Elves evil. I find this slightly laughable. As many ones as I referred to his book an D&D only to be told he doesn’t take stuff straight from D&D. Aleron will not have a complete race of dark skinned people being evil. He has mentioned several times that he wanted everyone to know and understand Ricther is black due to the lack of main characters in story lines being black. With many people around the world having a mind set the dark skinned people are bad he will not pass that through his writings. I’m just not buying into that and in this series. Aleron will have to prove it to me other wise. Who was it that had told me here sometime back that the Orges would be more civilized and intellectual in this series? I think they pooped on me for scoffing at them building a high level city.
The drow seeming elves are grey skinned in this series. Vamps are probably still pale white skinned. Richter has a light chocolate skin color. Nexus is actually black skinned as well as the Imp. Goblins are green/red/black. Sprites are pale white skinned. Can't recall the color of the orcs.
I do not believe I was the one who pooped on someone for saying they might control a high level city, as I recall it the opposite happened. I recall being told that there was no way they controlled anything better than a filty rubble pile even when the books were clear on the fact the ogre lord controlled a city. It was my hope Aleron would go for the interesting ogres from Dragonlance - a verse he has borrowed from extensively - instead of the somewhat forgettable dnd version. I never said or implied it was a certain thing, simply that it was the better option imho. As Aleron is the writer he gets to choose the generic ogres if he wants to. Comes with the territory. As for the drow, where precisely do I state that there will be no exceptions to their general way of life and alignment? I never said any such thing. But its indisputable that Aleron has added several races that are pretty much evil and destructive all the way through. Gnolls, goblins, possibly orcs. Could there be exceptions with some redeeming traits ? Sure, there could be exceptions, individuals or clans who have abandoned the dark ways of their kin. That's the kind of stuff interesting stories are made out of. Overcoming your own base desires, growing to be something more than a vile, evil creature scrabbling for crumbs of power is a great starting point or end point for a story. Have we seen exceptions? Maybe, we've had rat the goblin in Law (probably a chaos seed) and at least one outlier orc who preferred crafting over wanton destruction existed at some point. He turned that crafting to creating weapons but at least he interests that diden't involve destroyiing others. Changing the nature of a fantasy race based off of not wanting to offend black or gray or yellow or white people sounds like the kind of apologist nonsense Disney might pull, highlighting the fact that decades ago there were some fairly racist undertones in their movies. In dnd Drows are evil, dark gray or jetson-black skinned elves. You have the occasional weirdo such as drizzt d'urden, but he is supposed to be the exception. If you dig a little deeper you'll realize that drow are probably another theft from nordic mythology, being based on Dökkálfar, who were black elves that lived underground. They were the opposites of Ljósálfar who had a fair complexion. Were the ancient scandinavians racists along with being raiders, thieves and slavers? Possibly. Doesn't change the nature of the tales they passed down. Doesn't mean we should change them to something more fitting our time.
True. Since those ancient peoples never saw a dark skinned persons It can't racist against them, except that those elves/dwarves were a different race/species. It would be like saying oriental mythology is racist for having some of their characters being pale skinned. There are/were people in sub Saharan Africa that killed people if they developed vitiligo, light eyes, or albinism (white devils). I actually did not even know what ethnic group the MC was supposed to be until book 2. I had to look back through and really look for it. And the author never made a point about it until relatively recently. You can be any race in the land and any melanin concentration, does that mean a black skinned human in The Land, that was from some Asian ancestry on earth is now "black"? Really it is probably more fucked up that he got to keep his same Race and shade of skin color when others didn't. Personally I think he should never have mentioned his skin color at all (not judge my color of skin but content of character; independent of color of skin), so that any person can put themselves in the shoes of Richter.
TY Medieval people did know of black skinned folks though. The moors were acknowledged as having some of the finest medical knowledge of their day, in addition to a solid knowledge of the scientific arts. Its only after the dark ages that racism against blacks became so common, especially in the colonies. Its a lot easier to justify enslaving a subhuman being after all.
Medieval is relatively recent for such ancient Lore, but I don't know how much about the slaves practices in their Nordic colonies (in the Mediterranean). I just know there weren't many of them compared to the Nordic peoples in any of their territories. Never a good idea to have your slaves out number you.
On that note, it will be interesting to see how [Edit: Aleron] deals with actual slavery if there is any. There are so many possibilities. I have read some books were the race has not woman, and keep slaves to procreate. They never have half-half children, as males of the fathers bloodline. But sense I read about a female goblin....that will probably not be the case. The goblins and trolls see other races as subhuman, (other races probably see them the same way). So I am expecting at least a number of sex slaves, as we have seen with the goblins. With the description of how that goblin was "breaking-in" his elf, I expect there to be some really messed up situations. (Side note, are there goblin sex slaves with the human settlements?)
Oh I expect to see slaves, but I have no question how Richter will respond to that kind of business especially not in his own realm. He will seek to deal with it however he can as he did with the indentured servants in Yves. Serfdom on the other hand, that's where it gets complicated because serfdom has had a lot of different implementations. Gennerally speaking the west european serf is a semi-free citizen who has indentured him or herself to a lord in return for protection. They were often landbound, but retained other legal rights enjoyed by freemen. I wonder where Richter will end up drawing the line as to what is an acceptable level of indentured servitude in his allies as well as at home. Vampire blood thralls are likely a step too far for his delicate sensibilities.
