Gairackdar

Founded in the Year of the Immured Imp (604 DR), the Realm of the Wild Hunter survives today in the southwestern reaches of the High Forest, albeit much in reduced in strength, in lands long claimed by elf and orc alike.
Gairackdar is made up of orcs, half-orcs, and hunthorns (see page 260), whose ancestors settled the southwestern High Forest after migrating there as part of the Hunting Horn Horde. The current tribes of Gairackdar include the Bloody Eye, Horned Lord, Iceshield, Sharpspike, and Tanglethorn tribes. The Horned Lord, Sharpspike, and Tanglethorn tribes have resided in the abandoned Siluvanedenn city of Lothen of the Silver Spires (see page 79) since the Year of the Thirsty Sword (900 DR), while the Bloody Eye and Iceshield tribes have traditionally dwelt in small villages along the western verge of the southwestern forest. (Other tribes of the southwestern woodlands who lived closer to the Unicorn Run included the Gory Tusk, Grisly Sword, and Helmcrusher tribes, but they were all wiped out in recent decades by organized hunting bands of wood elf warriors at the direction of the Caerilcarn.)
The only city in this orc-ruled kingdom is Lothen of Silver Spires, built by the gold elves of Siluvanede, abandoned after the fall of Ascalhorn (see page 46), and then settled by the descendants of the Hunting Horn Horde in the Year of the Thirsty Sword (900 DR). The hunthorn kings of Gairackdar have long claimed all the territory west of the Unicorn Run and south of the Lost Peaks up until the forest’s edge, but the orcs have only ever controlled the westernmost reaches of the southern forest, demarked by scattered stone statues of fallen hunthorn kings. In recent decades, those borders have contracted even further, in the face of unrelenting attacks by the Tanavandor (see page 104).
The orcs of Gairackdar (known as the Gairackdarnaar) are unusual in that they venerate a corrupted aspect of Oghma’s servent, Herne, the Master of the Hunt, whom they call Herne the Wild Hunter. Legends suggest a fey marshal (a corrupted master of the huntMM5) led the Hunting Horn Horde into the High Forest centuries ago, and his descendants—an orc-fey hybrid race known as hunthorns who make up the Horned Lord tribe—are the traditional leaders and priests of Gairackdar. Herne was slain during the Time of Troubles and is now simply an aspect of Malar the Beastlord. Orcish shamans of the Wild Hunter lead their followers in savage hunts that range across the forest floor.
Traditionally the Stag King of Gairackdar is is a hunthorn of the Horned Lord tribe. In recent years, the Stag King has ruled from bloodbone throne of Uruth (see page 237), after it was captured from a caravan en route to Herald’s Holdfast in an ambush near the town of Nesmé in the Year of the Shadows (1358 DR). The current Stag King has fallen under the sway of the fey’ri of the Khov’Arvyndae (see page 89), who have begun to extend their control over the orcs of Gairackdar, transforming them into an army capable of wreaking havoc throughout the High Forest.