Ungern
The ungern are spawn of the Horned God (Unklar, and their form reflects his own. They have dark brown or red skin, are largely hairless but for a short mane that stretches the length of their spine and shocks of it around their cloven feet. Their hands are clawed, feet are hooves and their legs have triple joints. They have wolflike heads with long, tooth filled snouts. They stand about six feet tall, and though they are rather thin, they are powerfully built creatures. Their lean muscles are like corded iron. Their torso and back are shaped like beaten metal. Their necks are thick, with bands of iron muscle stretching into their broad shoulders and backs; all this to support their great horned heads. Sprouting from the creatures backside are great horns and these range in shape, size and form. Some rise directly from the spine and are more like a ridge from head to tail, others rise from the upper back and sprout above the head like a set of antlers and yet still others grow up and through the skull and rise - like their masters - like great horned crowns.
These horns are the most distinguishing marks the ungern carry and generally the greater and more ornate the horns, the greater the ungern. The horns grow with age and require much trimming and care and they are often decorated with all manner of jewelry, studs and the like. The ungern are fond of growing their manes to great lengths and braiding them and decorating them with bits and pieces of jewelry. They often travel without clothing, carrying only their weapons, but they are wickedly intelligent beasts and don shields and plates of iron for war. Their armor is always ornate with glyphs and runes carved throughout. They are able smiths and forge their own weapons and armor, build their own war machines, or at least instruct their slaves how to do this.
The ungern are well groomed and rather social in their own circles, but when in the company of lesser races, such as orcs,
goblins or the like, they display a tremendous amount of unbridled rage and cruelty. They have no particular hatreds for anyone, but complete disdain for all living things that do not serve their master. And, most of those that do, are tolerated
only for the sake of their service to the Horned God. Only the Mogrl command respect from the ungern and they serve them
loyally and without question. They are highly organized and work together in all things. They are not migratory, and rarely
move once they have taken a castle or refuge as their own. Their culture is one of power and violence. Strength and intelligence are prized above all things and the greater ungern usually have both properties in abundance.
When away from their master’s dens, they live in tight social groups of several hundred to a thousand. They do not build
their own homes but rather settle in the home of someone else. They do not do menial tasks themselves, but utilize slaves, often stolen from villages, caravans or bred in their dens. They do not mate, but rather spawn like reptiles. Females, who are utterly unrecognizable from males, lay huge clutches of fertilized eggs in mounds of wet, sodden earth. The young hatch several weeks later, crawling from the mounds with tremendous appetites.
They are largely on their own, forced to steal food from the other ungern until they are large enough to force their way to
the community board and hunt with the others. The young are fierce and their boldness is rewarded by the adult ungern, who
largely ignore the small creatures. In this way, they are taught that boldness of action is always rewarded. The pups do not suffer a high mortality rate, only the mewling weak are left to die, and thus the ungern communities, when left unchecked,
grow quickly.
The ungern live in any clime, but prefer the colder latitudes to the warmer ones. They possess a natural affinity for the cold and do not suffer from it as do other races. They prefer to dwell in large fortified towns, castles or cities and only when they are on the march do they live in tents or yurts. They seek the rule of law, particularly that of their master. They do not understand chaos and seek to destroy it in all its guises, good or evil. They take great pleasure in one on one combats, following a vague code of ethics and honor in such battles. Though, often if an outsider defeats an ungern in single combat, that person is killed by the collective group.
COMBAT: In battle, the ungern almost always dress in armor, helms and shields. They wield axes and other heavy cleaving
weapons such as bardiches or halberds. Their archers are famed for using great horned bows, and though they can only fire one arrow every other round, the damage they do, 2-16, more than makes up for it. If there are more than one, they always fight as a unit, speaking their own guttural language to communicate actions.
IN AIHRDE
Before the FORGES OF KLARGLICH were made, before the hounds of darkness issued forth from Aufstrag, and long before the MOGRL were crafted in the PITS OF WOE, Unklar fashioned the ungern. When first he came through the portal, Unklar slew the high priest NECTANEBO. After that, he fell upon the EMPEROR'S GUARD and the GOD-EMPEROR OF AIHRDE himself. All fell to the Horned God with an ease that made that beastly creature forever after hold great disdain for the folk of the All Father’s fashioning. So immediately he gathered to him the substance of the The Void and with the languages of the All Father, he crafted the ungern, the “black spawn.” Some say that they were born of a union between the DARK FEY and wild evil men enslaved in Unklar’s service. But this is not so; they are of the VAL-AUSTLITCH, those creatures forged from the Language of Creation and the Val Eahrakun, of whichUnklar was the greatest. The The Judgement of Corthain does not
bind them and the ungern move freely about the planes as few other creatures can.
In the black days of the Winter's Dark, when the Horned God,
Unklar, ruled the land, the ungern issued forth from the fortress of Aufstrag. They served Unklar as soldiers and captains, and
spread his evil throughout the lands. They were the battle lords that destroyed Kingdom of Kayomar Kayomar, drove the ELVES OF THE SHELVES OF MIST into ruin and plundered the dwarf halls. Their numbers were great and they led the armies in countless battles, ever in the service of their dark master. They filled the holds of Aufstrag with their evil and their numbers grew beyond scope. But during the Winter Dark Wars they suffered greatly. In the great BATTLE OF LOGN-KOR where the LORD OF SORROW led over 90,000 of his folk, many of them ungern, into the VALLEY OF THE SUN, they met their first great calamity. The floods destroyed them all, with only the Lord of Sorrow and a few servants escaping that calamity. Later that year, at BATTLE OF GOKSTEAD DEEP, several tens of thousands more were destroyed by the ravages of the northmen. And beyond, in a myriad number of battles, their numbers were wasted away. When at last Unklar was driven from the plane, they fell into disarray and fled to distant parts.
Since those days, they have recovered some. They live now in scattered holds all about the world of Aihrde, but most frequently in the east, near the GRUNLICHE MOUNTAINS, Aufstrag and the GRAUSUMLANDS. In the west, they are found in the Darkenfold and the wilds north of Kayomar and south of the GOTTLAND where they contend with the fierce hobgoblins of those lands.
They ever search the dark parts of the heavens, looking for their master to whom they continue to make dark sacrifice.
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