The Legend of Karsa Orlong

A decade after trade routes were established between the cities of Reme and Bard’s Gate, and the Ironcrag Cantons of the Mithral Mountains, there was born an Orc who was to become a legend amongst his own people, and who would become known across all the lands of Yore. A Half-Giant Orc of forbidding stature and unrivalled martial skill, Karsa Orlong was born amongst the Akrin and lived his early years high in the snowy peaks of the Icespires.
The story goes that his father was a reclusive Stone Giant forgemaster called Thord, who was blessed by the Dao (Earth Genies) and could play with the powerful energies of earth and rock like they were children’s toys. His mother was an Akrin witch, Nida, who had secretly rejected Gruumsh and instead whispered her prayers to the Demogorgon, who had been banished to the Abyss by the Elder Gods, Asmodeus and Bahamut. The Demon Lord heard her prayers, and told her if she bewitched and seduced the Dao-blessed Giant, she would be the mother of one who would bring his people down from the mountains and out of the swamps, unite the Akrin and Urzin, and restore the Orcs as rightful rulers of Yore.
Demogorgon sanctified this bizarre union, and after Karsa was born he forced Nida to give up her son to be raised by the Giant. In 1582 NE, there appeared at the Orc Hold a huge Orc bearing a massive, double-handed flint great-sword, carved of a single shard of flint and imbued with Dao magic that meant it could not be shattered, offered resistance to arcane spells, and cleaved through enemies like a knife through butter. Any who wielded it would have the strength of Giants, for within the blade was held the Soul of Thord, whom Karsa had killed in a fit of rage, and bound to the blade through a demonic ritual when his father told him of his true origins.
The Akrin viewed this monstrous, barbaric Orc as a demigod, who had appeared as if from nowhere, could not speak their language, but carried himself with all the pride and strength of a King. They envied his brutality, his rage and his simple vision of the strong ruling the weak. Only Nida knew who he was in truth – the spawn of Demogorgon – and she kept herself to the shadows, fearful she would be outed as a heretic disavowed of Gruumsh. The Akrin called Karsa the “Soultaker”, and his sword Souldrinker, which Karsa himself simply named Thord. Soon, by means of sheer aggression and dominance, he was Chieftain, and had learnt some of his people’s language and culture.
Karsa began to lead raids on the local human communities, recently decimated by plague, which occupied the foothills and lowlands as far east as the Duskmoon Hills. Most of these were essentially single-handed victories, as he carved his way through the “Children” who opposed him, his militia merely finishing off the wounded in his wake. Leaving whole towns burning, their populations annihilated, he became known as Karsa the Scourge, and Orcs everywhere, the Urzin included, became bolder and even began to occupy some of the lands of the people they destroyed. The Orcs began to believe that they could return to their origins as the First Kind of Y’Orc (or Yore), and they set their sights on the Bard’s Gate and the Dwarf Cantons.
In 1587 Karsa led the Akrin against the Ironcrag Dwarfs, who were forced to barricade themselves under the mountains to escape his devastating fury. These wars were long and bloody – a stalemate that continued for nearly 15 years. Many Dwarfs and Orcs lost their lives, but Karsa could not unearth the Dwarfs from their Underhalls. In the end, Karsa allowed himself to be captured by the Dwarfs and taken prisoner, whereupon he called for single combat against their Champion, Ragnar Shaggy-Breeches. With Souldrinker strapped across his back, Karsa was supremely confident in his own prowess and scornful of the “Little Child” he was to fight. But Nida, resentful of her enforced withdrawal to the shadows, and angry that Demogorgon had not allowed her to share in her son’s victories, meanwhile spilled her secret to the Orcish elders and took her own life, cursing her own son with her dying breath, swearing by some dark lord whose fearful name had been forgotten by most.
On hearing that his mother had been alive and had not made herself known to him, and now she was dead, Karsa became angry at Demogorgon and swore to find a way to the Abyss, to kill his patron once and for all, as soon as he was done with the Dwarfs’ Champion. But through the power of the binding of Thord’s soul, Demogorgon could invest power in Souldrinker, and when Karsa drew blood the Demon possessed Ragnar’s body and destroyed his Half-Orc progeny, ripping Karsa’s head from his shoulders and tearing out his heart. Dwarfish priests called upon Perun the Thunderer, God of War, to drive out Demogorgon’s sorcery, although Ragnar was driven insane by the possession and never recovered.
Nobody knows what became of Souldrinker after the fateful duel. Some say the Dwarfs buried it in some forgotten tomb, as their ancestors had done with the Sword of Idu Maagog. Others say that the sword shattered upon drawing Ragnar’s blood, or that it flickered and vanished from this plane of existence like a candle being snuffed out. If the last be true, who knows in whose grasp the sword now lies…