Cyclone — Roleplayer Guild

The Conqueror King

"Enter! Da great an' powerful king will hear you beg now," Gormon loudly announced.

Into the chamber walked a beastmaster with the leashes to two rabid hulks of fur in hand. The massive wolves bayed and howled madly, but such was the ogre's strength that not even they could tear free from him, though they came closer than he might have liked to admit.

"Ay, king! I got more warbeasts trained for yer kennel. I jus' need you to gimme more good ogres to round up 'em jungle beasties, the last hunters are all eaten or ran away by now."

Ommok sat upon a massive yet plain throne hewed out of the stone in the wall of his cave-fortress. With irritation he observed the 'tamed' beasts and wondered how useful they would be for his purposes when they were likely to devour anything in sight. Whereas he and his shamans had learned to bind firedjinn utterly to their will to make the perfect soldiers, the beastmasters just... took what monsters they could capture from the Venomweald, then beat the creatures with sticks and starved them until they became vicious tenfold.

"How many warbeasts do I feed already?" Ommok demanded.

The Beastmaster winced at Ommok's words. The king's freakish size was terrifying enough, but something about that stone he held was also disconcerted. With a dumb look he stammered, "Uh... uh..." 

With a scowl, Ommok raised his stone and peered into the useless Beastmaster's mind. In a few moments he rifled through the scattered memories faster than the beastmaster could have even remembered them. Thirty-two. Maybe less, if they were eating each other again. Wordlessly, Ommok commanded the Beastmaster to flee from his sight and the ogre ran out in a trance-like state, wolves in tow.

Afterwards, there came one of Ommok's shamans to report the summoning and binding of another djinn, to the king's approval. Then came all manner of worthless disputes and squabbles for him to resolve, which he settled arbitrarily and with nothing less than tyrannical punishment for those that wasted his time. Finally, after a half hour it seemed as though he had listened to and dealt with the odd hundred or so matters that had demanded his attention. He began to rise, but was stopped by Gormon.

"No, you not done yet great king!" Gormon had proclaimed. "Enter! Da great an' powerful king will hear you beg now," he cried out once again. He quickly dropped the totem and club that signified his position as Ommok's ancient. Then the ensign left Ommok's side and began to run out the door.

Ommok roared, "What are you doing?!"

"Followin' procedure, boss!"

He left the throne room. A few moments passed, and then the great brute lumbered back in. With a look of seriousness, Gormon began, "My king, it bothers me ta bother you, but all we got all da pointies an' all da choppas an' all da clubs ready, and da boyz wanna know when we get ta finally use 'em. You promised we'd go smashing things! Now's da time! Give da order!"

The ogre king contemplated that for a moment. His preparations had been in the making for quite some time now, and soon he would indeed need to make his move. "We go tomorrow,"

Jubilantly, Gormon said, "I gon' tell all da boyz at the fightin' spot den! I gon' tell them as soon as my boss lets me take break!"

He snatched up his club and totem from where he had left them on the ground, and then turned to Ommok once again. "Boss, can I haz a brea-"

"Go."

The ancient dropped his tokens of office once again and then ran off down a passage that led out of the caves and into the ogre city. Ommok, meanwhile, meandered down another tunnel that led even deeper into the caves. 

He eventually came to a set of chambers that hosted his sorcerers. They were not numerous, for it was rare to find an ogre of any exceptional intellect or affinity for magic, but they were powerful enough. With Astartian magic they could force their will upon lesser creatures and dominate them in a weak mockery of the power that Ommok's Stone granted him. With the shamanism that they had learned as part of the former alliance with Slag, they were able to do something similar to djinn. By summoning and binding many lesser djinn too weak to even see, they could essentially conjure a flame and control it as if it were one of their own limbs. With greater effort they could gain power over a stronger being and keep it permanently subdued; they had nine such beings subdued in the cave, mostly firedjinn.

Then, there was one that had proven impervious to the lesser wills of the shamans. Its name was Flayr, and it was the very being that had taught them the ways of djinn. Naturally it was greater than those beings that the ogres could summon, and not even when working together could they subdue it.

From a dark corner came the blazing heat and glow of a hundred torches; 'twas the djinni of flame that Slag had sent them years ago.

Ommok himself could only barely subjugate Flayr and for short periods of time, for djinn had a different manner of mind and they were mostly impervious to his Stone's power. As far as his own mastery over the ways of shamanism went, he was no more able to dominate Flayr in that manner than the other ogres.

Even so, when Flayr had learned of the alliance between Slag and Ommok coming to an explosive end, he had remained by choice. 'I am a pureborn spiryt of the all-consuming flame,' the djinn had said, 'and I should rather offer my aid to a base fleshling as yourself than receive commands from 'Baron' Slag, a lowly bastard of earth and fire.'

In reality Ommok had at first suspected that Flayr was a spy, but as time passed the firedjinn had only continued to prove invaluable. He continued to teach the shamans and aided them in their craft (although never without condescending words to say about their ineptitude and inferior status), and he alone was an advisor of equal intellect; perhaps that was why the king had grown fond of Flayr-- he was an island of sanity and wisdom among the sea of moronic creatures that were Ommok's species.

From that hole where he had been lurking, Flayr inched forward. His presence brought uncomfortable heat even from a distance and to a creature as resilient as an ogre. "The lord comes, and what a mighty lord is he! A so-called 'king' of wretched fleshlings, ruling a worthless stretch of wilderness from the comfort of some cave."

"One day, you will jape when I am in a foul mood, and then you shall know the meaning of ire," the Sorcerer King laughed back.

"I am Flayr, descended from the line of Char and a hundred mighty firelords, and your pitiful attempts at binding me would be wasted. Why would I teach you and your minions the ways of djinn if I thought you capable of ever enslaving me with that knowledge? Do you really think this 'ire' of yours could compare to a firelord's rage?"

"Shamanism be damned, I have the Stone, my birthright, my pow-"

"Yes, your favorite plaything, the greatest of all your artifacts. I succumbed to its power once, but next time I shall be prepared."

"I have come here-"

"To trade insults?"

"-to ask if the shamans are ready. My warriors grow restless; I have promised them blood, and they want it soon."

Flayr seemed to scoff; it was always hard to discern any meaning from his face or the tone in which his fiery form hissed words. "You are too cautious. You have seen for yourself the creatures that you seek to conquer, the 'Hain' as they were named by gods. They are weak, useless things; they have been gifted no such power over nature the likes of which I have given you ogres, and they were created with nowhere near the strength of even the most runty of your kind. I will accompany you and incinerate them all myself, if you so wish."

A few quick emotions flashed through the king's eyes. He tried to conceal his thoughts, but the djinn was too perceptive. It had a way of peering right through the cloak of terror and mysticism that normally shrouded Ommok and his mannerisms. "Ah, you do not want me to leave this place. Are you sure, ogre? If I were truly your enemy, would it be wise to leave me in your fortress without you or your shamans to contain me? Just imagine the destruction I could wreak..."

Ommok steeled at the threat, but before he could say or do anything Flayr went on, "But here I shall stay if you wish it. I wonder when it is that you will find it in yourself to trust me as utterly as you do Gormon, that worthless brute of an ancient."

"It is hard to trust what one does not understand," Ommok admitted.

"My nature lies clear before you to see: I am Flame, raw power and ambition and change, the most volatile and powerful of Zephyrion's elements, the most primal force of change. 

It is you fleshlings that are so complex. Take yourself for instance: Ommok, the wisest and eldest of ogres, yet also a vicious warlord of unmatched stature. A dutiful if not merciful king that believes in the strength of his own people, and yet is willing to conspire with djinni lords."

"You no doubt can see my great ambitions," Ommok retorted, "just as I can see yours, for we are not so different in spirit. But I know not what it is that you want, nor how you will seek to get it."

Flayr cackled and a shower of embers flew from his infernal maw. "Is it so hard to believe that I would seek the favor of a great shaman and king, whose power can only grow? One day you will understand why I have aided you, ogre, but until that comes and I seek your favor returned, I shall serve you as faithfully as any one of your little ogres or slaves. Go, Ommok, and conquer the Hain tribes. I shall be here when you return."

Without a further word, Flayr's blazing form shrunk down to a small fire and crept back into the recess from which he had come. From a distance, he looked no grander than the tiny fire of a brazier, but that only made Ommok more suspicious of his 'ally'.

On the following day Ommok led his great warband from their lands on the outskirts of the Venomweald. They marched through the wooded hills and wild craglands around the Venomweald, and then at last emerged in the great grasslands south. Ommok knew this land well, for though it had been many years since he had ventured forth on his pilgrimage to find the Stone, he had walked all these lands and seen the various tribes that populated them.

It was not long before they neared a Hain village. This was the very first place where Ommok had encountered these 'Heen'. They had welcomed him, but then he had come as a traveler, and now he came as conquerer. His warriors would defeat them with their own weapons and inventions: spears, javelins, bows. If raw ogre strength proved insufficient, Ommok of course wielded the powers of his Stone, his beastmasters had all manner of monstrous creatures, and his shamans controlled a few mighty djinn.

...but of course, ogre strength was more than enough. The Heen village fell with minimal resistance; how could they resist against creatures twice their size? Village after village fell before Ommok's warpath. Some of the Hain remembered the friendly giant that had walked their lands many years ago, but none recognized the warlord before them as that same being, for that giant had not worked black sorcery or carried such a strange stone.

Some of the Hain stayed in their villages to serve new ogre overlords, for Ommok was not simply razing these lands when he could instead make them a part of his kingdom. The rest of them were brutally marched back to the wild jungle that was the heart of Ommok's kingdom. Their labor would help to grow his city, and decency demanded that needed to offer something as a reward to those that fought for him. These slave-Heen would make a suitable reward for his warriors.

After leading his horde on their warpath for the better part of two weeks, Ommok at last realized that these scattered tribes could offer no resistance. They would all fall within the next few months and there was no need for him to witness each conquest in person, so he split his army into numerous hordes and sent them each in different directions. Each army had a dozen ogres willing to fight to the death for the honor of leading the raids, but Ommok settled the disputes by choosing the largest of them and proclaiming them as the warbosses. Ogres rarely questioned things bigger or stronger than they, so the largest ogres of course made the best leaders.

With his lands already doubled in size, Ommok returned to his fortress. As the days passed, more and more Heen slaves were marched into the city. It seemed that every other day came word of another region's conquest; from each of these lands, the ogres brought back a trophy. Sometimes it was a grisly totem made of the chieftain's skeleton, other times it was a statue or other work that the Heen had crafted in homage to their new king.

Ommok paid such trifles little mind. Though he recognized the importance of demonstrating his might and prestige, he found himself more engrossed in his studies of magic.

We begin with Ommok ruling from his throne and meeting with some people. The revelation comes that he's been preparing warbeasts, training some sort of army, and having his shamans summon some djinn. All of this is with the intent to conquer some nearby Hain tribes to the south.
What follows is me lazily telling you that Ommok is a tyrannical and arbitrary ruler rather than demonstrating it through actual dialogue, and then my attempt at humor.
Despite his falling out with Slag, Ommok remains friendly with Flayr, a djinn that was supposedly Slag's loyal ambassador but that apparently loathed Slag to the point of favoring Ommok. Ommok and Flayr have a strange relationship of mutual respect as evidenced by their dialogue.
Finally, we get to the part where Ommok invades the Hain lands. He effortlessly conquers village after village, pretty clearly having erred on the side of overestimating the Hain's willpower and prowess in battle.
The conquests are so easy that Ommok returns to his fortress and leaves his army to conquer the rest of the Hain lands on their own; they split up into several hordes. Each one is led by a brutal warboss, in most cases the strongest and biggest ogre of the band.

The Iceborn

I) Iceborn Diplomacy

This situation called for the Iceborn's manner of diplomacy: storming the mines. It was clear that these strange creatures were no more than beasts, and so their presence could not be tolerated. The mine had to be cleared out of their kind before it could resume operations.

Though Dag was no coward, he was also no fool. "They might have prepared a trap," he declared, "so who stands brave enough to go forward ahead of the rest?"

There were a few volunteers: two old men who no longer feared death (and in fact, probably desired a death in battle) and one youth heroic perhaps to the point of stupidity. Those three would be the first to charge down the mine and into any trap or ambush, so Dag praised them and prayed to the gods and ancestors to protect them.

Those three ran eagerly down the mine's tunnel, then the rest of the army followed after with Dag at their head. They formed a tight shieldwall and walked somewhat slowly because of it, but in these tight quarters a shieldwall would offer them good protection.

Dag's orders had been clear: any giblin that carried a weapon or fought would be slaughtered. The rest were to be taken prisoner, and those that struggled would of course be beaten into submission.

-Dag decides for a preemptive attack. Three soldiers go down a bit ahead of the rest in hopes of triggering any traps or discovering any ambush. 
-Dag and the rest of the 150 soldiers formed a shieldwall and are following the first three.
-The goblins that fight are to be killed, with the rest enslaved.
-Still waiting on whether Sverker and the drunks found success with their meadery and honey stuffs.

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