In a ruthless campaign he validated this title, slaying the six rival Clan Lords with his own hand. With the powers of an unlocked tome, Rothuk declared himself the Black Moon King, making an unprecedented claim as lord over all seven clans.

Their corpses are still frozen in the crust of the earth. I still cannot say what I saw, but the wall of the bowl was covered in their blood.

The warriors of Dark Sun stopped and looked to the skies. Then I heard Rothuk's bellow, like a mountain when it breathes fire. Down the great bowl of the haunted lands the Dark Sun ran, numbers very great. Missing for weeks, as the red Ogres of Dark Sun assaulted the last of his men, Rothuk emerged from the mists and shadows, forever changed. Into this haunt he trekked alone, with the Tome of the Black Moon, whispering that the secrets of the runes could be opened therein. Rothuk, Clan Lord of the Black Moon tribe, took his tribe to a mountain ridge far to the south, claiming it called his name. This scale of this conflict would have consumed the race, had not a dark messiah risen from the chaos. After eons of forced restraint, total war arrived. When cast upon the naked land of Terminus, the frail bounds between the clans ruptured in haste. We will never know, and that was always their purpose.' Maybe there is power in the Tomes, maybe there is not. I have studied for long days and nights, even from forbidden copies of other tomes, chained to the same stake as my father and his. 'I believe the Seven Tomes were given to keep us from destroying ourselves, though the Graven Hold did not say this with words. And there exists no proving measure for an Ogre greater than defeating another Ogre. But from prosperity to poverty, circumstance only masked an instinct that welled up in each clan, rising from the soul of every Ogre, male or female: dominance, by right of conquest. The smallest clan of the seven, Black Moon, memorized the few legible runes from childhood, relying on them for survival more than any other. If they perished, so did the tome, an effective if perilous tactic that illustrated the Ogre mindset in battle: 'My foe dies, or we both do'. Each clan handled their tome in their own manner: Bloodmare commissioned a hereditary order of mages to decipher the runes apart from collecting them all Way of Asturr kept theirs suspended over a pool of magma beneath their mountain fortress, chained to six blind warriors spread about the cauldron, illuminated only by the molten rocks. Thus, within their territories each militant clan thrived to the extent they respected those limits, the vast wisdoms of the tomes remaining untapped, for no Clan Lord would dare share his birthright with another. However, there was no mandate that they be used. If even one tome was destroyed, the pantheon would permit the Ogres be wiped from the face of Ghorrok. The Graven Hold hid the bulk of the tomes' knowledge within an indecipherable labyrinth of runes, until a time when the volumes would be shared amongst the seven clans equally. Only in peace will you thrive in your war.Ī male (left) and female (right) Ogre. Only under seven native eyes will their words be understood. Only by seven native hands will their seals be opened. One bestowed to each clan, the tomes leveraged a promise of unrivaled power against a warning of permanent defeat. These boundaries were handed down by the deities of the Graven Hold, along with the cryptic 'Seven Tomes of War'. On the continent of Suroth dwelt the Seven Clans of the Ogre race, coexisting only by forced observance of sacred borders. A world of glacial ranges, magma flows, expansive mountain plateaus and cave jungles where the very insects were said to grow to the size of a Terminus halfling. Unseat their emotions and their incomparable size wreaks unpredictable ends. When calm, Ogres are cautious and considerate before action. Yet careful study would reveal a race that relishes the dance of warfare tactics and in whom resides an unmatched respect for valor and courage, whether friend or foe. With their hulking presence and a culture that values the brutal skills of battle above refinements or leisure, the Ogres of Broken Maw are perilously dismissed as primitive by the uninformed. Once a unified and victorious host, the Ogres require a new breed of warriors to restore their heritage of militant glory.

Clan lord ranger studies