Orcs and Goblinoids

Orcs and Goblinoids

Goblinoid violence is nothing new; Hobgoblins, Bugbears, Goblins, and Gnolls share a history of wars and atrocities too long to list. But much of their history is terrestrial, spread across isolated planets over an entire galactic quadrant. The story is much the same for the orcs— until the development of the arcane warhead, they were planetbound.
Things may have never changed were it not for the intervention of Avia-Ra missionaries, who landed on the Orc homeworld of Or’n to spread the word of the Sun Above. They were not remotely successful—in fact, they were promptly gunned down by Orcish military—but the discovery of worlds beyond their own, along with a single working Dark Matter drive, shunted the orcs onto a technological path ending in disaster.
Whereas the Elves and Dwarves saw the potential of Dark Matter technology to power their worlds and travel the far reaches of space, the orcish military knew they had discovered a weapon. Within a decade, an orc faction scraped together a crude bomb using the technology and dropped it on a city of their enemies; to their surprise and everyone’s horror, millions died in an instant.

End of the World

The weapon was the first of its kind, but not the last. They would later come to be called arcane warheads, devices that warp the fabric of magic to its breaking point, tearing a hole and unleashing a devastating explosion. Each warhead leaves behind a permanent hole in the fabric of magic—a spherical Dead Magic Zone, normally a few dozen feet across, which drifts through space indefinitely or clings to the ground at the point of detonation. No weapon in history has proved more catastrophic or terrifying.
The arms race that followed the first arcane warhead was as precipitous as it was volatile. In addition to simply building tens of thousands of warheads, most Orc factions became obsessed with gaining the high ground on their enemies. First taking to space, Orcs positioned arcane warheads in orbit, then installed missile silos on their moons. Each move brought the Orc war tide further out into space and inched Orckind closer to doomsday.
No one knows for sure who fired the first shot, but suddenly, all at once, the missiles were launched. In a chorus of explosions, Or’n was reduced to a smoldering, lifeless rock. Hundreds of millions perished in the inferno;millions more, however, survived among the stars.

The Warhorde

The remaining orcs continued their bitter fight in other systems (bringing their arcane warheads with them), eventually cobbling together or capturing low-class Dark Matter engines to extend their territories. When they arrived in other systems, the orcish militaries conscripted or allied with the other goblinoids they discovered, embroiling all goblinkind in their eternal war. Before long, the orcish armies were a mishmash of Bugbears, Gnolls, and Hobgoblins, and the Orcish war devolved into something not wholly their own
The swarm of shifting alliances, bitter rivalries, and splintering factions are collectively called the Warhorde, for no single coalition remains dominant for long. Sometimes, the Warhorde will focus its attention on some outside threat, like the expansion of humans at Lakshay, but such distractions are as rare as they are short-lived. Most of the time, the daily politics of the Goblinoid factions preoccupies the Warzone, and the Goblinoid factions rarely venture outside their space

The Goblinoid conflict is contained to a swath of the galaxy called the Warzone, which is littered with dead magic pockets from an unending rain of arcane warheads. After centuries of fighting, few easily-habitable planets are left within the zone, and the Orcs, which once started this war, have become as orphaned as the Nautilids. The great Orcish war is long-forgotten; few even remember the nations of Or’n or what they once battled over. While most orcs would rather see the war put to rest, the Goblinoid factions continue their eternal march of war.