Many-Arrows tribe

The Many-Arrows tribe, also written as the Many Arrows tribe, was the most powerful mountain orc tribe in the North and one of the most successful and notorious orc tribes in all of Faerûn during the 14 and 15 centuries DR. It was not a single tribe, but an amalgam of tribes subsumed by force into the tribe of Obould Many-Arrows or which dwelt within the Kingdom of Many-Arrows.
==Organization==
The Many-Arrows tribe comprised several tribes of orcs, and following the creation of the Kingdom of Many-Arrows, half-orcs as well. One such orc tribe was the Broken Arrow tribe, to which the Obould dynasty belonged.
The Many-Arrows' symbol was a crudely rendered humanoid skull that was pierced by three arrows.
==Activities==
===Torture===
Prior to the founding of the Kingdom of Many-Arrows, the Many Arrows orcs were renowned for their cruelty. Non-orc prisoners were branded as slaves and either put to work in mines—where they quickly died of injury or starvation—or were shackled and forced to serve an orc master, who was liable to torture or kill them on a whim. The exception to this was elves, who were typically killed brutally. Children, halflings, and gnomes, were tormented as a form of entertainment, while and anyone the orcs regarded as exotic was caged and pressed for information about treasure. Torture was generally seen as a fun pastime, and extracting information from a torture victim was an afterthought. If a victim claimed to know of a secret cache of treasure, they might be freed from immediate captivity to be allowed to guide the orcs to the location, with human mercenaries sometimes being employed to follow the person into cities or other places where orcs dared not go. Inevitably, the orcs' plan was to claim the treasure and then kill whoever had led them to it.
===Feasts and Festivals===
Celebrations of orcish holidays and gods were marked by great feasts at which all could gorge themselves on food and drink as well as enjoy the killing of elves. Such festivities were used by King Obould to placate his followers and prevent uprisings, but required a large amount of money, which in turn led him both to open trade with humans and to order his guards to steal from his own orc raiders.
===Trade===
The Many-Arrows tribe was long known for manufacturing orcish weapons and armor, which they traded with other orc tribes and beyond. While they occupied the Citadel of Many Arrows prior to the mid-to-late 14 century DR, they also were known to trade in illicit or stolen goods as well as slaves. Their own slave labor force was predominantly humans and goblins.
==Tactics==
The tribe used scouts and skirmishers to observe and test enemy defenses and to map the terrain of future battles in order to secure strategic advantages. When preparing for war against the cities of the North, they constructed great siege engine.
==Base of Operations==
Prior to the mid-to-late 14 century DR, the tribe was based in the Citadel of Many Arrows. After being driven from this fortress-city, they retreated to Dark Arrow Keep, which would go on to become the capital of their Kingdom of Many Arrows through the late 15 century DR.
==Possessions==
They favored black scimitars and their fiercest warriors wore distinctive belts decorated with the traditional totems of the tribe. Some were known to carry—and sometimes to give as gifts—orc stones, which could summon the spirits of orcish warriors in combat.
==Relationships==
The tribe had many enemies. Prior to their ouster from the Citadel of Many Arrows, their foes included all of the human and dwarven realms of the North, and any non-orc who arrived in the Citadel without Obould's protection would end up dead: only a select few human and half-orc merchants and mercenaries tended to be allowed inside. They maintained spies in most human communities of the North, although they notably struggled to infiltrate Everlund, Neverwinter, and Silverymoon. They were also opposed to the forces of Hellgate Keep, and came to regard other orcs with suspicion as their shamans predicted that the Citadel would fall to orcish treachery.
After they were driven from the Citadel, they became the most feared orcs in the North within just a few years. The folk of the Silver Marches were constantly on-guard for what they knew was an inevitable attack from Many-Arrows. They were also no friends to the tanarukks of the North. During this time, the tribe grew by consolidating other tribes, and so internal restlessness and treachery remained a large concern, causing the orcs to spy on each other.
After the signing of the Treaty of Garumn's Gorge in the mid-to-late 14 century DR, they entered into a tenuous peace with the realms of the North. While they remained enemies, they traded and even worked together on occasion, which was sufficient to earn the Kingdom of Many-Arrows a reputation as a realm of orcs who valued civilization. As of the 1470s DR, tensions had risen with neighboring Luruar and Mithral Hall, they were warring with the Uthgardt barbarians, and they had come into conflict with Neverwinter following an incursion by their raiders into the ruins of the north of that city. Their only notable ally at that time was Netheril.
==History==
===Citadel of Many Arrows===
The Many-Arrows tribe had its roots in Dead Orc Pass in the Rauvin Mountains. The tribe took its name from the Citadel of Many Arrows, which was in turn named for the Battle of Many Arrows in which the orcs overran and claimed the Citadel from Silverymoon in the . They ruled the Citadel for centuries, during which time they fended off numerous attacks from Silverymoon and Sundabar. By the mid-to-late 14 century DR, and their numbers had swelled to 40,000, leaving them living in cramped and impoverished conditions. The threat of starvation drove many of them to beg, steal, or take up arms to raid caravans and capture slaves. Their raiders harried traffic on the roads between Silverymoon and Sundabar, and occasionally tested the defenses of the cities themselves. The ill-gotten goods from these raids were sold to evil human merchants (with many of these products finding their ways to Everlund). They also traded in orcish weapons and armor, which were produced in the Citadel using metal seized in raids or dug up by slaves.
While it was long thought that the orcs were too numerous to dislodge from their Citadel, this changed in the . In late summer of that year, an orc horde of 150,000 led by King Greneire arrived at the Citadel, and King Obould and his shamans—believing that Greneire had come to usurp the Citadel—declared the horde to be full of traitors who were to be slaughtered "like elves during a festival." This incited a siege that lasted for four months, during which the Many-Arrows orcs began to die off from increasingly poor living conditions despite inflicting greater losses on their foes. Finally, in the first tenday of Uktar, King Greneire threw his full might against the Citadel and broke through the gates, and the Citadel was set alight. In the ensuring battle, Obould and Greneire faced each other in a legendary duel that ended with Obould badly injured and Greneire dead. During this climactic battle, a force of dwarves and humans led by Emerus Warcrown arrived and routed the exhausted orcs, driving them from the Citadel.
===Dark Arrow Keep===
Reduced to only about 4,500 survivors, the orcs fled to the Spine of the World, and for a short time, it was unknown whether King Obould had survived his injuries. In fact he had, and he led a few hundred of his best warriors to capture Dark Arrow Keep—an old orcish castle that had been claimed by giants—and established this fortress as his new base. About half of the tribe moved into the fortress, while the rest settled in caves in the nearby mountains.
With his new citadel secured, Obould plotted to reclaim his old home from the dwarves. To this end, he began probing for weak points in the Silver Marches alliance while absorbing rival tribes and gathering the orcs of the mountains into a massive horde. Exactly how he managed to bend so many wild orc tribes to his will was a mystery, but he managed the seemingly impossible feat of inspiring loyalty in them akin to that seen in the monarchies of the south (even a century later, scholars remained unsure of how he had accomplished this). Soon, rumors of Obould's new horde had made him into a boogeyman for the people of the Silver Marches and elevated his tribe to new levels of infamy. Guided by the advice of the drow Ad'non Kareese, he navigated a tense alliance with Gerti Orelsdottr, leader of the frost giants of Shining White, and their joint forces began conducting raids against travelers around the Spine of the World. Soon, Obould's aspirations turned to the establishment of an orc empire large enough to be divided among his eight sons. 
===Kingdom of Many-Arrows===
As the people of a kingdom, the Many-Arrows orcs managed to coexist relatively peacefully with the humans of the North, although they continued to fight amongst each other and it was clear that peace was only tenuous at best. A century after the realm's founding, they had faced civil wars and ongoing conflicts with the Uthgardt barbarians, and it was primarily the kings (all descendants of Obould, and who assumed his name once they became king) who were interested in peace. Nevertheless, the orcs of Many-Arrows gained renowned as the rare example of "civilized" orcs.
In the late 1470s DR, King Obould XVII sent a contingent of orcs led by Vansi Bloodscar to scout the ruins of Neverwinter, which had been destroyed by a cataclysm decades prior. However, Bloodscar defied her orders and instead led her troops to occupy parts of the northern half of the city. By the , these orcs—including Bloodscar herself—had fallen under the sway of the Abolethic Sovereignty, and were effectively in open rebellion against Many-Arrows as they pursued their own interests.
The experiment with peace ended in the , when the orcs marched on Luruar in the War of the Silver Marches. This conflict came about when the rightful heir to the throne, Lorgru, was usurped by a warmonger called Hartusk. The war ended in the summer of the , when Bruenor Battlehammer led an alliance of dwarves against Dark Arrow Keep, killing Chief Hartusk and capturing the city. Meanwhile, Lorgru was restored as the leader of Many-Arrows, and the kingdom's surviving forces rallied behind him. Although Lorgru desired to continue the legacy of living in relative peace with the realms to the south, Bruenor had lost faith in the ability for the orcs to coexist with the Silver Marches. He thus banished Lorgru and his followers into the mountains and completely leveled Dark Arrow Keep, thus ending the Kingdom of Many-Arrows. 
Nevertheless, the Many-Arrows tribe was still by far the most powerful orc tribe in the Spine of the World, and remained famous for their legacies of both peace and war. As of the , a Many-Arrows hunting party might still be willing to parlay rather than fight, especially if greeted in the Orc language or offered a gift that could not be easily taken by force. Such hunting parties were known to range as far as Icewind Dale.
==Members==
Some tribes comprising the Many-Arrows tribe included:
* The Bloodblade tribe
* The Broken Arrow tribe
* The Dust-Treader tribe
* The Green Moss tribe
==Appendix==
===Appearances===
===References===
Category:Orc clans and tribes
Category:Orcish organizations
Category:Organizations in Many-Arrows
Category:Organizations in Dark Arrow Keep
Category:Organizations in the Spine of the World
Category:Organizations in Northwest Faerûn
Category:Organizations in Faerûn
Category:Organizations on Toril