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Ancient History
The Keep of Muurdish, the only horc capitol known to exist at any time, is now a lost ruin.
This page is a collection of myths and tales rolled into a basic history for the Il'khan people. It's accuracy is not guaranteed, but it is sanctioned by King Yanic Perrault, in the hope that the knowledge of their creation and glorious past can be reborn into the world once again.
The Creation and the Perfection
Long ago, Gruumash, at the beginning of the world, rebelled against Iluvator, the creator. He became jealous of Iluvator’s acceptance of Aule’s mistakes, as well as his allowance of the race Aule created. He kidnapped from creation a creature called an Elf, and put it in the dark, where he tortured it and forced it to destroy, as this was not the nature of an Elf. Gruumash called his child Orc. The Fathers were well hidden, though, and the child of Gruumash found only five of them. Gruumash, being much displeased with his son, cast him into the canyon ignorance in the land most difficult on which to live. He then looked upon the race of Man, created by Iluvator, and was delighted by their intelligence and the ease with witch they were corrupted, foresaw a chance to redeem his spawn. The evilest, cleverest humans were brought together with the orc, and forced to multiply. Several half-Orc half-Man spawns were made in this matter. The god Gruumash continued to breed his slaves until he was satisfied. Gruumash then named these creatures Il’khan, the Perfect Ones. By the time the First Great War had begun, Gruumash’s creation was complete. He created a race of Man-Orcs. He decided to unveil them against the object of his hatred, the Dwarves. However, as the Il’khan marched against the Dwarves and their allies, Man, the Il’khan found themselves utterly outnumbered, and were defeated. As Gruumash fled with the Il’khan into the mountains, he made his final change to the super-race. The Children of Gruumash were bestowed with incredible fertility, and thus they would always be numerous and impossible to defeat. They had finally become, as their name suggests, perfect.
The Legend of the Nameless One
At this time, a human champion whose name was lost in time attempted to slay Gruumash and claim the Crown of Shadows from his head, thereby gaining lordship over the evil creations of the world. Gruumash easily defeated this foe, however, but found him to be an immortal, and so Gruumash bound him in iron upon a throne in the highest mountains in the Barren Peaks, torturing him forever with fear and taunts, images and sorceries, and by allowing this would- be king of evil a throne from which to watch as Gruumash ruled the subjects with the power the human had coveted. Some say that from this throne the Nameless One can see everything in the whole world at once, and thus may know where the head of Gruumash may lie, and thus where the Crown of Shadows could be hidden, and possibly even know how to recover it.
The Golden Age
In the days of the Il’khan, only at one time have they been truly prosperous. About five thousand years ago, a Horc empire was formed. It stretched all the way to the shores of Edo, whose people the Horcs found weak and useless, and south to the Southern Mountains, stopping there only because the humans had quite nearly pushed them back before being enslaved. Also, King Orbloud, realized that if the dwarves were conquered, although it was very conceivable, would be devastating to the economy of the humans, on whom the Horcs relied for tribute. At this time, in valley named Urtol, within a mountain called Muurdish, a great Il’khan capital was built. The capitol stretched toward the middle of the earth for over four miles in some places, and was spread throughout the whole of the Urtol Valley. The city house some two million Il’khan in peacetime, with its numbers dwindling to as low as a mere twenty thousand caretakers and elders in times of war.
The Dwarves in the Southern Mountains became jealous of the Il’khan, and sought out a way to destroy the Horc Empire. They sent an entire army of seventy thousand Dwarves through the Underdark, and arose from it in the Barren Peaks in strategic locations. As the Horc armies were at war, very few of the Il’khan could fight to repel this onslaught. The Dwarves razed and dismantled the Il’khan capital, and the Horcs returned home to find every elder and child dead. What’s more, the Dwarves left not one stone standing on top of another. The devastation was so great that the Il’khan could not rebuild, and were spread far and wide across the land.
The Bondage of Gruumash
During this time Aule, creator of the Dwarves, had ambushed Gruumash and taken him prisoner. Aule bound Gruumash in a device that forced him to look upon his people’s destruction and weep. When the breaking of the Il’khan was complete, Aule cut off Gruumash’s head with an axe, and it fell to the earth. The place where it landed is unknown, but it is thought that the Crown of Shadows would corrupt any land where it fell, and thus that land would forever be barren.
And thus ends the words of the Prophet-King of the Il’khan:
“My people shall once again rise to their power. They shall take up the sword and lay down the pick; they shall pick up the whip and lay down the hammer. They shall once again be lords of the realm.”
-The last words of Orbloud, shortly before Execution at the hands of the Dwarves.