The Burn Face Tribe of Savage Orcs

Burn Face Tribe

Long ago the Old Ones created the Sauri to purge the world of races not fitting with their plan. Many races were exterminated but they never could exterminate the Orcs or Goblins since they reproduced by spores, killing them to the last man was no guarantee they wouldn’t make a resurgence. Even Lustria itself couldn’t be fully purged. The First could not stop the occasionally greenskin flotilla from making the journey from the Old World, but they had nearly succeeded in ridding themselves of Lustria’s “native” greenskins.

The last Lustrian tribe of savage Orcs meandered like a rudderless ship after the death of their warboss, but had managed to give their foes the slip. The tribe wandered into a steamy stinking rocky field and the tribe’s shaman declared the place auspicious and had all the would-be warbosses fight to the death there. Whoever emerged from the field alive would be the tribe’s new war boss. After a fairly short but brutal bloodbath, the fight was down to two contenders. Evenly matched, the fight dragged on and on. After over an hour of a seeming stalemate, the field erupted in a giant geyser boiling both fighters to death. The geyser was declared the tribe’s new boss.

The Orcs camped out around the field for days, made offerings and looked for signs on what they should do. The geyser erupted multiple times a day, but no clear sign was visible. The shaman who once decided on the field should be their dueling spot camped on top of the geyser hoping for a sign. The geyser erupted and the shaman was badly burned, but still able to walk. He declared he had a vision from the geyser and guided by his addled portents, led the tribe to a victory over the foes who original routed them. The Burn Face Tribe was born.

From that point on, all leaders chose to prove themselves by facing the Great Firewater. Unit champions must let themselves be splashed at the edges of the eruptions to be accepted. Big Bosses and initiate shamans have to run through the geyser. Warbosses and Great Shamans have to stay put on the base from start of the flow to the finish. Losers are eaten. Sometimes captives are taken to the geyser as the tribe has grown to prefer boiled meat flavored with sulfur (as opposed to eating meat raw like most savage Orcs). Even on the march, they’ll take water from the geyser with them for strengthening potions (placebos) or as a flavoring agent.

No Goblin has yet survived a significant exposure to the Great Firewater (relatively few have been bold enough to try). Some Goblin leaders have learned that eruptions happen at predictable intervals, and the Orcs have not figured this out. A Goblin can get his way by timing declarations carefully and then asking for a sign of the Great Firewater’s approval. Predicting the eruptions isn’t fool proof. Thus, some goblins have been beaten up or eaten when mistaken.

The Great Firewater has protected the tribe for centuries. Unbeknownst to the Savage Orcs and Goblins, the geyser wastelands held no interest at all to the Lizardmen. Skinks and Sauri alike dislike the sulfurous smell, the erratic temperature changes and the fact that food there is both fairly scarce and tastes like sulfur. Thus they weren’t even noticed by the First Children of the Old Ones for quite some time. Even afterwards it was decided it was not worth the trouble to dislodge them. The greenskins were religiously attached to the geyser fields so they did not roam far. Skink patrols were ordered to harry warm blooded invaders towards the geyser wastes, so the greenskins would kill them. Thus they were able to eliminate minor threats without a single Saurus needing to lift a talon.

Before the last Storm of Magic, the Shamans grew agitated and sent their forces away from the wastes farther and more often than ever before. Due to the manipulations of Slann Lord Desserex, the Burn Face Tribe was decimated by the forces of the vampire Count Renliss. The Goblins recovered faster than the Orcs and the Goblin shamans began running the tribe afterwards. Soon the Spider God came into prominence along with the Great Fire Water and Gork and Mork. With the aid of ever increasing numbers of spiders. The Tribe seemed to be poised to make a comeback before Kaitar and his army attacked seemingly eradicating them.

The surviving spiders went feral and there are no more signs of boiled offerings in the geyser fields. The First Children of the Old Ones of the area believe that at last the Burn Face Tribe is no more. The area around the geyser has experienced an upsurge in both the numbers and aggressiveness of the giant spiders present. Is this a portent of another resurgence of the Burn Face Tribe or are they just fighting to establish a niche like all the reptilian and mammalian predators?