[center][img]http://r53.cooltext.com/rendered/cooltext186903826828590.png[/img]
The Painter King[/center]

The Venomweald and its surroundings were usually abuzz with a thrum of its own: there was the slithering of all manner of horrors upon the dark jungle floor, the chirps and clacks of innumerable insects and birds, the woody snaps of carnivorous plants taking their prey by surprise, the roar of great monsters...

No other place on Galbar had such a unique cacophony. Now, however, all of that din was drowned out by the rumble of the grey skies above. A Stormlord or three had seen fit to bring rain, and so the showers came down in deluges. The choking vegetation, so thick and rapidly growing that the jungle managed to sometimes strangle itself, eagerly swallowed all the rain that was offered. The rainforest always thirsted for more, the oppressively humid air never enough to satiate the parched plants. Meanwhile, the animals sought cover and tried to endure, for the damp itself had a way of rotting one's flesh to the bone. Here, what didn't kill you just hadn't finished yet.

Yet on the outskirts of that twisted jungle, there marched a procession of ogres. Even now their march was done barefoot and barely clothed; their hides were thick enough and their bodies stout enough that the paid little mind to the deadly jungle, much less to its rain. If any were fit to thrive in this hellish place, it was these ogres. If any were fit to rule the ogres, it was Ommok.

From their nearby burrows and hollowed hills that they called home, they marched to the bluff where Ommok lived in his cave. Where the others had carved out their own homes in the dirt, here Ommok lived in a natural and spacious cavern of rock, for he was King and so he had to tower over others. If they lived in dens of dirt, he would live in one of stone.

Each one holding great bundles of meats and fruits haphazardly to their chests, they marched in and deposited the week's tribute in a great heap at the feet of Ommok, who sat upon a boulder in the back of his cave. Ommok was a giant among giants; the tallest ogre anybody had ever seen and also one of the fattest. He was also the eldest of his kind, his first memories seeing the Big Sky God touching the Urtles and making the first ogres. Ah, Ommok had seen the birth of those first of his kind and then of their children, and their children, and their children, yet still he stood strong. While the others of his generation had by now all been devoured by horrors in the jungle or succumbed to old age, the mystical power of Astarte's rock had spared him from death. So it was that he had sat upon that rock in his cave for countless years, having the others hunt and forage his food for him for he no longer had an appetite for such menial tasks. In return, he was king and so he settled whatever disputes arose.

The rest of his time he devoted to three great tasks: eating, painting, and dreaming. 

Eating, ironically enough, was perhaps his least favorite of the three. He ate all the tribute that the others brought him so that he would stay the biggest and strongest of all ogres; if any grew bigger, then they might have a claim to be King. 

Painting was the one task that he took most seriously as King; it was his duty to share knowledge, and so he worked tirelessly to do so. After countless years of toil, only perhaps a quarter of the cave's surface was covered in painting. There was much more to be learned and shared, it would seem. He spent the greater part of the long day gathering that yellowish brown clay called ochre (that pigment was the color of ogre skin, and so of course they had named it after themselves) and smearing it across the walls of his cave to make pictures. The pictures depicted the history of the ogres and all that he could remember, for he had been alive to witness everything. Young ogres would go to the first few chambers of Ommok's cave and have their elders show them the pictures that depicted what to eat, what to kill, what to eat once it was killed, and other important lessons. As they grew older they would be taken into deeper and deeper chambers within Ommok's cave, until at last they could come to the very back and then meet their King upon his boulder. After that, it would be their everlasting privilege to bring the wise King tribute at least once each year.

His final great task was dreaming. Each and every night he went to sleep clutched a flat rock, and each and every morning he would awaken and paint pictures upon that stone tablet of all his dreams before they slipped from his mind. It was known that sometimes the Spirits came down from the sky to teach the ogres new things, and so Ommok dutifully dreamed to listen to their gifts of wisdom. There had come the time where the sky itself was painted odd colors (on the night that others called Phantasmagoria) and on that single night Ommok had dreamed of a hundred things that he painted down and then brought into fruition. From dream to picture to real thing, the ogres were avancing whether the gods had intended them to or not.

[hider=Summary]
-Ommok the immortal ogre king is introduced.
-The ogres live on the outskirts of the Venomweald in a mostly Stone Age environment, though they invented a few things (like painting with ochre and digging out earthen holes to live in) on their own.
-Ommok takes tribute from the other ogres and eats a lot so that he can remain the biggest ogre.
-Ommok paints pictures on the walls of his cave to share all sorts of knowledge with the other ogres.
-Intentionally or not, the ogres are benefiting from Phantasmagoria and the advances that the gods haven't directly sent to the ogres. The ogres are surprisingly clever, and with Ommok actively seeking out and recording knowledge, they're progressing quickly into something of an organized feudal society that could become a threat.[/hider]