Naukada Kaumntok
Alias: "Red Empire" in the Common Tongue.
Government Type: The Red Empire is home to innumerous warlike tribes of varying strengths, consisting of a number of Orcish clans and various different tribes of Beastkin, in their diversity. All of them, though, Orc and Beast alike, are submitted to the empire's strongest tribe: the Naukada, or "Red Orcs". The Naukada Krin—the chieftain of the Red Orcs—is, by that right, the ruler of the whole of the Kaumntok. He leads the entire empire in war and in peace (but mostly war), and is believed by the Orcish clans of the Kaumntok to be a god incarnate. When the Naukada Krin dies in battle, the Orcs of the Kaumntok do not believe that the Naukada Krin has died, but rather that he has changed form; the strongest child of the former Krin, or, if he has no offspring, the strongest of his tribesmen, is then worshiped as the Naukada Krin's new incarnation.
Faction Species
Red Orcs, the founders and masters of the Naukada Kaumntok. They are similar in all ways to their green counterparts, but are less variable in size and shape and are, of course, tinted red rather than green. Naukada have the height, weight and physique of an average physically fit human, but their lifestyle means that the average Naukadan tribesman is tougher than the average human farmer. Female Naukada are slightly more slender than the males, though they too are capable of becoming able warriors. Unlike green-skinned Orcs, there are no Naukada who are either gigantic like an ogre or troll or small like a goblin, their size being relatively uniform. Culturally and politically, too, the Naukada are united. It is a rare sight to find a Red Orc outside of the Kaumntok, excepting on a raid into neighboring kingdoms, as all of the Naukadan clans are located within the Kaumntok's boundaries.
Quite simply, Orcs that aren't red skinned, although "balor" literally translates to "green". The Naukada refer to all non-Naukada Orcs as Balor, even those which are more like goblins or trolls, or who are tinted some shade other than green (or even no shade at all). Balor are a common sight in the Naukada Kaumntok, but most of their number of course live outside of the Red Empire, many even residing in corners of Geryon far and away from Nagath itself. Though they believe themselves to have been divided from the Balor at the very creation of the Orcish race, the Red Orcs do not besmirch them. It isn't uncommon from Naukada and Balor to interbreed, and the child will always have the tint of the mother.
The Tshriv are a semi-aquatic species of humanoid beastkin, and one of the most intelligent of their kind. They resemble a cross between men and fish, their hairless and pale bodies featuring webbed toes and feet, making them well-suited to water. Of slender build, and with a greyish-blueish complexion, the Tshriv are well-known for their massive eyes, which can be coloured any variety of blue from the shade of the brightest sky to the murkiest depths of the sea. A stewardly folk, Tshriv clans are one of the few tribes of the Naukada Kaumntok to trade openly with outsiders, welcoming foreign merchants into their coastal villages for honest exchange. The one group of peoples excluded from their lands are the Xaxylii, their traditional foes, whom they slay on sight in their own territory and are just barely able to tolerate when they are seen in the other realms of the Kaumntok.
A race of vaguely humanoid beasts, half minotaur and half wild pig, the Xaxylii inhabit the northern face of The Claws, in the eastern part of the Red Empire. Their bodies are pudgy, bald spare for being riddled with isolated long strands of hair which sprout from their flesh in random places, usually becoming ingrown. Their hands are humanoid, but less useful than a human's hands, only able to muster a basic grip of simple objects rather than exercising anything close to fine motor skills. Their faces are disgustingly foreign to a human gaze, a huge pig's snout covering up half of their head and a long pair of slightly curved horns protruding from their skull. Their wit is sub-par; they are one step up from bestial, known for infighting even within the Kaumntok—not necessarily out of rebellion, but simply because they cannot comprehend order and peace. The Xaxylii have an ancient blood feud with the Tshriv, whom they kill on sight in their lands and are only occasionally barely able to tolerate when visiting other areas of the Red Empire.
Considered by themselves to simply be human beings, the slave-race of the Sharforukak are mutated and mutilated men found in the Kaumntok's west, near The Marches. They are easily identifiable, often missing entire limbs, or otherwise in some variety of freakish proportions, their flesh twisted and mangled as if their bodies had melted in the sun and then cooled again. Being slaves of the Naukada, they do not have their own tribes or territory, and simply live with whichever Naukadan clan to which they are attached. The Naukada teach that the Sharforukak are a branch of humans cursed by the god of the humans, Shar, for forsaking his worship. As it is common for the Naukada to abuse the Sharforukak, often to the point of death, and being that most of the race's offspring are stillborn, too mutated to live, it is an open secret that a great many of those called Sharforukak are actually ordinary humans captured in raids and mutilated. When taken into Votartok to be enslaved, the humans are removed of one of their limbs or otherwise disfigured, to ensure that they fit in among the Sharforukak and could not easily return to human society. Within a year of being passed around by the Naukada, it is hard to tell a man captured as a healthy human being from a true, born Sharforukak.
Territory
The centre of the Naukada Kaumntok, both literally and symbolically, is Lake Ukha, or the "Ukha Gujatkar" in the Naukada tongue. It is from here that the Red Orcs' creator-god-king was born, walking out of a sea only just born of the ashes of the fallen god Ukha. Along the Ukha Gujatkar's north coast sits Ahvavain, the Red Empire's capital and largest settlement, and the place at which the Naukada Krin is said to have departed the Ukha Gujatkar. The Krin's seat is located here, among a swath of simplistic semi-temporary hovels, a smaller number of homes of wood and stone, and even a handful of buildings created of stone and metal. Foremost of the latter, dominating the landscape for miles around, is the Avowas: a tower of stone, painted red and reinforced with iron, that serves as the personal residence of the Naukada Krin.
The lands of the Kaumntok east of the Ukha Gujatkar are divided into two regions. The closest of these, Diravebenia, "The Ground Beneath the Sky", is so-named for being the land over which the ashes of Ukha flew on their way to the Ukha Gujatkar. Diravenbia is a land of hills, growing higher as one approaches The Claws. It is populated mainly by Orcs, chiefly the Naukada themselves, although they do not represent a commanding majority, especially in the lands of the region furthest from the shores of the gujatkar. East of Diravebnia is Firukavukontok, "the land of the first sons of Ukha", which is the only of the Red Empire's territories populated primarily by Beastmen. The most predominant Beastkin species found here is the Tshriv, an industrious and intelligent race resembling men, but with large eyes, webbed toes and feet, and without a strand of hair. Their clans, among them some of the most recently subjugated of the vassals of the Kaumntok, hold sway over the territory of Firukavukontok closest to the rivers and sea, where it is humid and swampy. They are the ancient foes of the Xaxylii, the inhabitants of the region's mountains and the inland areas far from the river. Whereas the Tshriv are industrious and fairly intelligent, the Xaxylii are monstrously destructive and uncooperative, subject to the Naukada by force alone. A twisted mess of minotaurs and boars, they covet the lands of both their fellow Xaxylii and the territory of the Tshriv, and the banner of the Kaumntok has far from ended their persistent infighting.
Immediately west of Lake Ukha is Votartok, the homeland of the Naukada, and the first land conquered by Naukada Krin and his reborn army, centuries ago. The area's largest minority is the Sharforukak, the "forsaken of Shar" in the Naukada tongue, a race of heavily mutated and deformed humans with hideously disfigured features. Votartok a flat, fertile land, perfect for both farming and grazing, but having been used for neither for the last four hundred years. Holding little game or forage, Votartok's primary service to the Kaumntok is as a staging point for raids against Shartok, the human kingdoms to the west: what men call the 'The Marches' and 'The Imperium' in the Common Tongue. Flanked by rivers, Votartok is easy to defend from outsiders, and any encroaching human armies that do cross the rivers can easily find themselves swarmed by the Naukada's superior numbers, and without battlefield features to use against the tenacious tribesmen. Where the flatness of Votartok ends, in the south, is where the land of Ashtwa begins. Mainly populated by Balor—literally "Green" in Naukada—the orcs of Ashtwa are not Naukada, having green tinted flesh instead of red, but they follow the Red Orcs' teachings of Shar and Ukha and Krin all the same. The most devout and loyal clans of Ashtwa even paint themselves red, in reverence of Naukada Krin, a gesture both respected and mocked by the Naukada themselves. The landscape of Ashtwa is polluted, its rivers turning sour and devoid of fish and its soil unfit for seeds as one travels further and further south, but it is home to the most cherished plant in all of the Kaumntok: the hugi. This small black flower, budding year around and endemic to southern Ashtwa, is used for various purposes by the many peoples of Nagath, both within the Naukada Kaumntok and well beyond. The flower saps the life of the soil in which it is grown, killing off competing plants and desolating the environment, contributing to Ashtwa's bleakness. It is valued all the same, however, for each part of the plant is incredibly effective at its purpose; the petals at pleasure, the stem at pain, and the roots at healing. The most numerous Beastkin race in Ashtwa, the Zionuk, are short of stature and quite plentiful, but shy, their clans sharing the east-central area of Ashtwa alongside the Balor, trying as hard as they can to keep to themselves. The Zionuk have skin as if charred black, coarse and dead. This outer rigid layer of flesh can be removed from them with even slight injury, so little as an especially firm poke, and underneath it can be seen that their softer inner flesh is translucent, their veins plainly visible. They are resistant to the effects of hugi, and only their clans are known to be able to cultivate it without ruining the soil.
Faction Religion/Ideology: The beastkin of the Red Empire follow their own gods of great multitude, one for each clan, to whom they attribute various legendary deeds and sacrifice their captured's flesh to when their bellies are already full. All Orcish clans under the sway of the Red Empire, however, worship the Naukada Krin as a living god. The clans all have their own legends about him and his strength and prowess, like the beastkin, telling that he once shattered this or that mountain, slew however many men, or perhaps bedded whatever number of foreign chieftesses. Central to the belief in him, however, is that he is the creator: not of the world, but of the Orcs in particular.
The worshipers of the Krin do not hold faith in the creator of the world, who they call "Shar", believing him to have died along ago. His conqueror and successor, so they say, was "Ukha", the shaper of the world as it is today. Legends say that after slaying Shar, Ukha took over domain of the world, but found that those beings born of the creator would not revere him, calling him a false god. That he could be worshiped as Shar was, Ukha created the beastkin, taking the animals of the world, shaping them into the forms he desired and blessing them with low cunning. The humans, created in Shar's own image, resented the perversion of the animals of the world into the beastkin, and sought to depose Ukha, whose form was a twisted mass of all animals to ever walk the land or fly the skies or swim in the sea. The loyal of Shar called forth their mightiest warriors and most talented smiths, and sent forth an army of a hundred thousand men to assault Ukha at his worldly keep, at Azoth Zul. Mankind defeated Ukah, destroying the god's keep. After burning his grotesque body, they sent his ashes to the wind, that his remains could never be revered.
Ukha's ashes were carried south by the wind, and landed where now sits a great lake, in the centre of Nagath. Such was the god's greatness that his scattered ashes weighed down the world, creating a depression into which flowed the sea. The beastkin wept, and many slew themselves, sacrificing their lives to pay homage to their fallen shaper. So much of the energy of Shar in the seas and so much of the captured power of Ukha in the beastkin flowed into the new lake that out of it, an entire new god was born. "Naukada Krin" waded out of the lake, in the form of a twisted man, imbued with the power of both Shar and Ukha, his flesh stained the colour of the blood of so many beastkin: the first Orc. Krin led all that remained of the loyal of Ukha to Azoth Zul, and slew the army of the greatest of the humans, whom had killed Ukha and taken up at his seat. Those that surrendered to Krin were fed to the beastkin, but those who died bravely in battle were rewarded. Raised by Naukada Krin, the Third God, with the power of both Shar and Ukha, they became the Orcs, created in Krin's image. The Red Empire's elders tell that those Orcs who willingly pledged themselves to Krin were stained in the blood of the fallen, adopting Krin's red tone for themselves and their ancestors, and that they became his devotees, the Naukada of today. The rest of the newly created Orcs ate of the flesh of the weak with the beastkin, who still wept for Ukha, and became so sick from dining on coward's meat and bones that they were turned green with illness. The Red Orcs then followed the Krin from Azoth Zul, going with him to forge an empire—the Kaumntok—at the site of Ukha's ashes. The rest of the Orcs, sickly and green, were doomed to wander Geryon with the beastkin, bereft of Naukada Krin's guidance.
Faction Description: The Red Empire is a coalition of Orcish and Beastkin tribes, brought to submission under the banner of the Naukada Krin, the high chief of the Red Orc clans and their god in the flesh. Both hostile to outsiders and prone to infighting, the Naukada Kaumntok isn't actually much of an empire in the purest sense of the word, and is referred to as such by the Imperium and their allies mostly for propaganda purposes.
Occupying a vast swath of territory in the centre of Nagath, The Kaumntok has many neighbours and is friendly with none of them. Skirmishes with foreign tribes of Orcs and Beastkin, unbowed to the Naukada Krin, are so common as to be endless, although the empire's natural boundaries—carved from centuries of bloodshed—make the permanent acquisition (or loss) of territory quite difficult. If the Naukada Kaumntok could be said to have cold relations with foreign Orcs, however, their relations with foreign Humans could be fairly called frigid. Humans encroaching on the Kaumntok's territory, or even prowling within sight of the rivers that demarcate it, are taken captive by the Naukada and horribly mutilated, dragged off to become a part of the horribly disfigured slave-race of the Sharforukak. What trade does occur between the Red Empire and the rest of Nagath is mostly conducted via the more cunning tribes of Beastkin that reside in Kaumntok territory. The Tshriv in particular, inhabiting the empire's east, are known for dealing peacefully with foreigners, their villages—sitting atop stilts in the eastern swamps—a destination for some number of merchants from across Nagath.
Faction History: TBA
Important Characters: TBA
Relations to other Factions: The Kaumntok has many neighbours and is friendly with none of them. Skirmishes with foreign tribes of Orcs and Beastkin, unbowed to the Naukada Krin, are so common as to be endless, although the empire's natural boundaries—carved from centuries of bloodshed—make the permanent acquisition (or loss) of territory quite difficult. If the Naukada Kaumntok could be said to have cold relations with foreign Orcs, however, their relations with foreign Humans could be fairly called frigid. Humans encroaching on the Kaumntok's territory, or even prowling within sight of the rivers that demarcate it, are taken captive by the Naukada and horribly mutilated, dragged off to become a part of the horribly disfigured slave-race of the Sharforukak. Only a fool tries to trade with a Red Orc.
What commerce does occur between the Red Empire and the rest of Nagath is mostly conducted via the more cunning tribes of Beastkin that reside in Kaumntok territory. The Tshriv in particular, inhabiting the empire's east, are known for dealing peacefully with foreigners, their swampy villages along the coast a not infrequent stop for minor merchants plying their modest wares. The Zionuk, too, in Ashtwa, even depend on foreign trade to sustain themselves. Their kind are nigh immune to the effects of the drug "hugi", whose flowers are native to their lands, and their people sell the cultivated flower to enterprising traders that then distribute the substance across Geryon, illicitly.
WIP
