Ogres

Ogres are shapeshifting beings, remnants of the Stone Men created by the Giants. Ogres, in their true forms, are very tall, heavily-muscled and hairless. Their skin is smooth and grey, like polished stone. Their eyes are blank and white, and yet they see without difficulty. Despite standing almost eight feet tall at times, they can squeeze themselves into the shape of a child, of any sapient race, and thus they infiltrate the societies of the ‘Flesh Men’ that they so despise.
=== History ===
Ogres descend from the protoplastic Ghurs, the 'Stone Men,' created by the Giants out of the Walking Bones to serve as models and bases for all the created peoples save the dwarves. The Ghurs that were not shaped by the Old Ones were scattered across the world by the Giants and formed into the tribes of Man, unbound to any one god and thus a check on the power of the Old Ones. However, Mortus, jealous of the abundant new life, stole some Stone Men and hid them away. But as Mortus was of death, not life, he could not teach the Stone Men how to become fully formed. Defeated, he returned to his Marble Hall to brood, leaving the Stone Men without guidance. They sought about for a divine patron, and Rakith responded, teaching the Ghurs how to shape themselves. Borrowing the skins of animals, these Stone Men became the tribes of werebeasts that still live alongside mankind. However, some Ghurs refused to imitate beasts. They rejected Rakith and wandered, incomplete and unformed, over a land that had no place for them.
The ogres looked on the dwarves, Hesha, the maedi and even the nascent tribes of Man, seeking to emulate them. But no grand ogre kingdom took shape. The greatest impediment for the creation of a unified, ogre nation was the difficulty ogres had in breeding. Because of their protean natures, almost all ogre children were mutants. These spawn, called hogboons or felkin, were a hybrid mingling of the ogre and whatever it had bred with. Ogres, by their protean natures, were not limited to their own race, and could interbreed with anything, including beasts, of either sex. While hogboons all adored their ogre parent, they despised hogboons of a different lineage and were instinctively aggressive towards them. And though ogres were long lived, only very rarely did they produce ogre children. Thus, ogres, in their quest for heirs, inevitably produced swarms of hogboons, which in turn mated with any available vessel, producing more hogboons. Soon, whole hordes of hogboons occupied the wild places, warring against rival tribes in the name of their beloved ogre progenitor. Ogre society, if there was such a thing, was scattered and fragmented, with rival ogre warlords competing to produce hogboon hordes and send them against enemies, especially if these enemies had good breeding stock. Before the Night Wars, Hesha, maedi and dwarf frequently clashed with hogboons, and ogres infiltrated the societies of the ‘Flesh Men’ to both sow chaos and search for suitable mates. A quest to find the ‘promised,’ a mate who could produce many ogre children without mutations, energized the ogre chieftains, who utilized all manner of astrological and magical means to locate their promised and thus secure their dynasties. Scattered ogre holds were found across Altea and beyond, and none of these holds recognized a greater master. Indeed, a band of ogres even journeyed to the Fire Moon, though how they made the voyage is quite a mystery. 
Some legends claim that the Night Wars were instigated by jealous ogres, who took on the shapes of Hesha, maedi and dwarf and turned the great empires against each other, precipitating Nyx’s fall. But the Night Wars did not destroy the Flesh Men, indeed, the maedi emerged strong enough to conquer almost all Altea. The ogres were driven into the hinterlands, hunted and destroyed. The Azlan maedi began the long tradition of rooting out ogre ‘doppelgangers’ and destroying them, though these paranoid purges inevitably harmed many innocents. Still, enough ogres were killed that the unpopulous race came close to extinction. During this time an ogre chieftain named Barut had a vision of Mortus. The god revealed that he could not give the ogres permanent shape, for death is transformation, not stasis, but Barut might yet achieve his own mastery, and spare his people from destruction. Guided by the Worm God, Barut descended into the Abyss and journeyed to the realms of both the Old Ones and the Scions, learning, bargaining and fighting. When he returned to the World Above he was no longer fully mortal. Barut visited the greatest of the ogre chieftains and offered them a choice: pledge fealty to him, or die. Few stood against Barut once he had demonstrated his powers. With each new follower, Barut grew in strength, and in time he became a sort of living god, revered and worshipped by ogres and hogboons. To escape the constant persecution, Barut took his followers into Erebus, where they began to war with the inhabitants of the Underworld. Barut, immortal and seemingly free of mutation, fathered many ogre children, and with them carved out a mighty kingdom below the earth, the Kingdom of Irkala. Irkala spread its influence through Erebus, clashing with goblins, dhurj, gorgons and other beings, until the fall of the Azlans. With the destruction of Zakhema, the ogres’ greatest foes had been banished from the world. Barut decreed that once more his people would walk in the light, and so the hogboon hordes of Irkala emerged to seize what remained of the Star Empire. With the north under Irud’s rule, Barut turned to the south, where the human tribes of the Suhayl celebrated their freedom. Any joy was short-lived, as the ogres and their children spilled forth from Underworld gateways to conquer Khanaan. Barut raised a new capital at Emjedar, and put the humans to work, intending to spread Irkala’s influence across the Sunlands.
For over 200 years, Barut ruled as a god-king, and Emjedar filled with monuments to the ogre father’s glory. A Torag named Kothar put an end to Barut’s seemingly endless reign. With the aid of five genies, Kothar rode forth and rallied the Khanite tribes. A great host descended on Emjedar, clashing with swarms of hogboons and mighty ogre lords. Barut himself, a monstrous and twisted being, descended from his red ziggurat to battle Kothar. Though the Torag could not best the demi-god, he could trick him. With the aid of the djinn, Kothar trapped Barut in a ‘palace of golden sands,’ the ever-shifting corridors confounding the ogre father, who wandered the shifting maze in wrathful confusion. Without Barut, the ogres quickly splintered into warring factions. Torags and humans drove the ogres and their felkin north while Emjedar burned. Barut’s quarrelling heirs contended with foes above and below ground, and sprawling Irkala disintegrated within a few generations, devolving into a patchwork of rival holds and petty kingdoms. While some ogres remained underground, the bulk fled into the foreboding Seiyuf Mountains, seeking refuge from their vengeful slaves. In the Seiyufs, the ogres had to contend not just with hill tribes and wereoxen, but with the mighty gnolls, who had long ago established kingdoms in the Bladed Mountains. The greatest gnoll kingdom was Haska, and its rulers rallied the gnoll clans to battle, clashing with the ogres. In turn, the ogres once more began to breed prolifically, seeking to overwhelm the gnolls with hogboons. The first gnoll kingdom to fall was Tumbala, which was conquered by Shem Gu-Kish in 354 IR. About four decades later, the first great hogboon horde swept into Orestes, beginning a pattern that would repeat every few generations. As the gnolls lost ground to the ever-growing mass of hogboons, more and more of the mutants escaped the bounds of the Seiyufs and spread their corruption further afield. Ogres followed in the wake of their progeny, and once again they began to infiltrate Flesh Men society. Without a mighty empire to protect them, ogres had to use subterfuge to weaken and confuse their foes. In 431 IR, the Locian despot of Lykis was discovered to be an ogre, with a brood of hogboon hidden in the city’s catacombs. Soon after, anti-ogre hysteria swept Locia, spreading north into Praesia and then Gallia. The purges claimed many lives, and it is impossible to say how many of the victims were truly ogres. Whatever the case, fear of ‘skin-thieves’ became a fixture of many realms, which held periodic inquisitions to root out the ogres blamed for everything from famines to defeats in battle. For surely there was a vast and intricate conspiracy against the human race, orchestrated by the hateful ogres and enacted by their monstrous, rapacious spawn. Fear of ogres only increased at the end of the First Age, when the exhausted kingdom of Haska finally collapsed, claimed by the ogre lord Drush I-Lek. Though scattered gnoll tribes continued to resist for several generations afterwards, the Bladed Mountains were essentially the domain of the ogres. But as each ogre lord considered himself without equal, and heir to lost Barut, there was little chance of the scattered, petty kingdoms uniting into a new Irkala. This was fortunate for the rest of Altea, for even a small hogboon horde, availed of sufficient breeding stock, can quickly swell to immense size. Nations and tribes neighboring the Seiyufs soon came to despise and dread the ogres.
Still, the essentially fractious nature of the ogres meant that their kingdoms spent more time battling each other than conquering beyond the mountains. Any kingdom that grew too large was soon set upon by jealous rivals. Rarely did any one king come to dominate all rivals and extend his reach to neighboring lands. In 1342 IR, the ogre matriarch Gesh Ka-Ga ‘the Thousand Teeth,’ overtook the Herding Plains and waged a protracted war with Locia until her ‘stone legs were hacked off by six orichalc-clad myrmidons.’ Later, in 2788 IR, Malk Shi-Gu led his armies down from the mountains and clashed with Afara, precipitating that kingdom’s fall. These examples, while dramatic, are exceptions. For much of history, the ogre kings have remained in their mountains, more concerned with destroying each. Hogboons, in fact, are far more commonly encountered than ogres. Roving bands of felkin, breeding with anything they can find, can quickly become a threat, and unless totally exterminated will simply flee and replenish their numbers elsewhere. Indeed, hogboons raid and ravish lands across Altea, while the presence of ogres is often much more difficult to detect. Beyond the mountains, ogres are generally lone exiles, or upstarts seeking to grow their power. Many ogres leave the Seiyufs in search of their promised, needing an heir to continue their legacy and entrench their rule. Inevitably, these wandering ogres leave hogboons in their wake, sparking panics and purges that leave many dead. The influence of ogres on history is no doubt more extensive than what is known, for who can say how many nobles, prelates, generals or even kings were really ogres in disguise, manipulating the Flesh Men like pieces on a game board? It is a chilling thought, and one which breeds much paranoia. But is such paranoia unjustified? The ogres, really, might be anywhere, and these misbegotten beings, bereft of divine guidance, mothers and fathers of monsters, uneasily share the world with their better-formed kin.
=== Society ===
Ogres do not have great cities or nations, simply because there are not enough of them. The ‘kingdoms’ in the Bladed Mountains are really strongholds surrounded by breeding pens and farms where slaves toil away to feed the rapacious hogboons. There are many more hogboons than ogres, and it is only the instinctive fealty that all hogboons feel for their ogre parents that prevents the creatures from rebelling. If ever the hogboons grow too numerous, the ogres send them off to raid and capture slaves. Many hobgoons never return, distracted by the great opportunity for rapine and slaughter found beyond the Seiyufs.
Like hogboons, ogres can breed with anything, male or female. Some mad stories even claim ogres can ‘impregnate’ trees and rocks, creating truly abominable felkin. Only sapient beings can birth new ogres though, and so ogres must walk among the Flesh Men in disguise, seeking their ‘promised.’ Once an ogre has secured heirs, he returns to the Bladed Mountains to carve out his own fief and subdue and destroy his rivals. Capturing more breeding stock is a major concern, and the endless competition for slaves and resources occupies the bulk of any ogre king’s time. Of course, some ogres tire of this endless, futile struggle and wander far from the mountains, seeking a different way of life. Few communities would ever accept an ogre, and so these exiles must disguise themselves, living precarious lives. If an ogre is ever discovered, fear and hysteria will follow. Much of the fear ogres inspire is likely the result of ogrish diets. Ogres do not consider it unacceptable to eat sapient beings, and many folk are convinced that ogres secretly move into a town in order to acquire tender flesh, particularly that of children. In fact, ogres do not have any particular hunger for flesh, but they certainly do not hold the Flesh Men in any esteem. Even exiles who wish to live peacefully alongside Flesh Men will forever be distinct from them. And not all exiles are benign. While some simply want to escape the violence of the ogre kingdoms, but others seek to manipulate and secretly rule the Flesh Men, using their shapeshifting powers to sinister effect. These ogres are the cause of many panics and purges, but despite centuries of persecution, ogres continue their masquerade, no doubt enjoying the challenge of deceiving their hated ‘cousins.’ 
Ogres are idiosyncratic in their beliefs, following whatever god they consider most beneficial to their aims. In the Ogre Kingdoms, many of the lords call on violent and chaotic powers such as Thule, Neradu or Amon Shar. Those ogres that walk secretly among the Flesh Men prefer more subtle patrons, like Mora Fal or Nethrym. The Scions are nevertheless always attractive to ogres, for the Scions exult the individual, and each ogre considers him or herself a worthy heir of Barut, greatest of all ogres. Indeed, Barut is perhaps the only universally revered being, though he was not a true god. Some ogres seek to free Barut from his prison, believing that the ogre father will unite the scattered kingdoms into a new Irkala and send it against the Flesh Men. Then, at last, ogres will rule as the supreme race, revenged against their persecutors. Mortus, as the ‘creator’ of ogres, is also given at least passing acknowledgment, though the brooding Worm God is rarely called on to bestow power and blessings. Perhaps the ogres still resent Mortus turning from them when he realized he could not give the Stone Men fixed shape. In any case, ogres are not generally a devout people, trusting more in their hogboon hordes than the whim of deities. Still, rival kingdoms will clash in the name of their divine patrons, and great is the sacrifice and destruction when adherents of rival Chaos God meet in battle. It is no doubt beneficial that many ogre lords are occupied in destroying ‘heretical’ neighbors, as this distracts them from conquering further afield.
Category:Races