The Mark of Finding Appears in the Shadow Marches

Founding

The Mark of Finding appeared among the humans and half-orcs of the Shadow Marches a thousand years ago. For millennia, the Shadow Marches were the domain of the orcs of Khorvaire. It was a land scarred by the ancient conflict with the daelkyr, where the descendants of the first druidic Gatekeepers and those corrupted by the touch of Xoriat continued to battle in the darkness. Five hundred years before the Mark of Finding appeared, in -500 YK, humans had come to the Shadow Marches, refugees from the distant continent of Sarlona who were fleeing the growing power of the Inspired of Riedra in the wake of the Sundering. Though many of the orcish tribes of the Marches met the first waves of human settlers with hostility, a handful of the tribes welcomed these strangers. Over time, this union of cultures produced both the human and orcish Marcher clans of the modern age and the jhorgun’taal: the“children of two bloods” in Orcish, the half-orcs.

The Mark of Finding appeared among the humans and half-orcs of the Shadow Marches a thousand years ago. For millennia, the Shadow Marches were the domain of the orcs of Khorvaire. It was a land scarred by the ancient conflict with the daelkyr, where the descendants of the first druidic Gatekeepers and those corrupted by the touch of Xoriat continued to battle in the darkness. Five hundred years before the Mark of Finding appeared, in -500 YK, humans had come to the Shadow Marches, refugees from the distant continent of Sarlona who were fleeing the growing power of the Inspired of Riedra in the wake of the Sundering. Though many of the orcish tribes of the Marches met the first waves of human settlers with hostility, a handful of the tribes welcomed these strangers. Over time, this union of cultures produced both the human and orcish Marcher clans of the modern age and the jhorgun’taal: the“children of two bloods” in Orcish, the half-orcs.   When the Mark of Finding appeared among the clans of the Shadow Marches, it was carried by humans and half-orcs alike. Some considered this to be a divine gift to the humans and half-breeds to make up for their greater physical frailty compared to the Marcher orcs—a magic mark in lieu of the great strength and dark-piercing eyes that Eberron had granted the orcs. The mark appeared among three clans of humans and their half-orc kin—the Aashta, Velderan, and Torrn—and over the next five centuries, the hunters of these clans would become legends within the Shadow Marches.