History

Before there were names for the peoples of Gor'tharak, there was only the One Folk. They moved through stone as easily as through air. They sang to the bones of the earth and the bones sang back. Governed by consensus through the heartstones — vast crystalline formations that amplified thought and feeling — thousands of minds deliberated as one.

Seven of seventeen heartstones shattered simultaneously. The psychic web tore apart. The backlash killed thousands. On a single night, a civilisation that had lasted millennia was destroyed — and four peoples emerged from the wreckage, each carrying a fragment of what had been.

Without shared consciousness, the orcs fractured into clans. The goblins built something unprecedented underground — twelve great warrens connected by tunnel-roads spanning the continent. The Underthings were forgotten entirely, remembered only in nursery rhymes.

Refugees from the east arrived in longships bearing the sigil of the One God. The orc clans regarded these pale, tuskless creatures with pity. They were clearly weak. But they bred quickly, and their missionaries began preaching that greenskins were 'soulless beasts wearing the shape of people.'

The humans launched the Purification — a systematic campaign. The orcs had strength and tradition. The goblins had black powder and tunnel warfare. But the clans could not unite. Old grudges ran too deep. At the midpoint, greenskin peoples faced extinction.

Over a century of uneasy peace. Renewed multiple times at the Moot of Bones. The human empire grew stronger. The blight crept through goblin tunnels. And in the deep, something vast began to stir.