Orcish Directorate

The **Orcish Directorate** is a totalitarian, post-theistic state dominated by Orcs and Half-Orcs, bordering the Serene Duchy of Aeldrum and the Thalranese Marches.

## History

### Creation

Urlek Thaar (a distant descendant of Rurik Thaar, the celebrated Orcish adventurer) began as a successful warchief on a single world, his ambition limited to sacking the civilized cities; from the earliest days of his conquests, however, he had been advised by Karlock, a half-orc scholar who had once spent considerable time on a different world as an aide to a Human physician who dedicated himself to the health of the Orcish tribes. Karlock was rescued as an child by physician, who spared him from the zealot's sword during a campaign with the Knights of Adarnum. The physician took in Karlock and found him a child of surprising intelligence — he aimed to educate the boy, and as the horrors of the knights' campaign against the orcs mounted, he resolved to atone for his part in it by serving as a doctor in an Orcish clan. However, Karlock's time with "civilized" people had taught him their fear of the Orc. He was only spared that fear as a well-spoken half orc of relatively small size and closer-to-human appearance, and fear was instead contempt. When the physician helped an Orcish woman deliver an Ogre-child (always rare, and usually killed by complications from birth), it became clear that the tribe would take its birth as an omen, and likely conquer its neighbors until the ogre and its tribe became large enough to threaten the walled cities of men.

The Directorate was founded by Karlock, a half-orc strategist and adviser to the Orcish conqueror Urlek Thaar in the aftermath of the 3rd century A.U.'s Great Orcish-Fialta War (also known as Urlek's War), an unusually successful orcish invasion of Fialta space (which also triggered the formation of the Thalranese Marches)

Karlock seized power from the orcish warlords and used the pressures of war to depopulate the old orcish cultural leadership and shamanic warrior class. He and his inner circle set about building a new type of orcish society, one which was post-theistic (rejecting favored orc gods such as Korbog and other “savage deities”) and racially revisionist (at a time when most orcs either lived on the fringes of known space or as slaves and second-class citizens under the great powers) – a state built by orcs, for orcs and to be ruled by orcs.

### Pre Coalition War

By the mid-4th century A.U., the Orcish Directorate controlled a dozen worlds directly and held fifteen more in thrall. Its first century of existence was one of, at best, cold war with the Fialta States, often exploding into violence. In the Fialta-Shantine War, the Orcish Directorate made a historic alliance with the Shantine Empire and intervened on the Shantine side. Orcish shock regiments and even auxiliary companies of elves, dwarves and men were seconded to Shantine commanders.

### Post Coalition War

During the First Coalition War, Aeldrum won the Directorate’s involvement in the conflict by promising membership in an equal fellowship of nations: the Directorate spent millions of lives on that promise, and was rewarded with colonial concessions, Aeldman technological and industrial investment and a terrifying new reputation as an appendage of the Aeldrum-led Coalition order. To protect its considerable investments, however, Aeldrum adopted a highly successful strategy of co-opting the Directorate leadership: young Directorate officers were often given Aeldman military training and academic education, and vast swathes of the Orcish economy were entangled with the largest Aeldman companies.

Two centuries after its founding, the Directorate was a qualified success: its borders were safe, its population relatively educated and well provided for (comparably to Alusian subjects), and its status enlarged by colonial ventures of its own.

## Society

Directorate society is highly militarized: it is ruled by a Director-General and a General Staff, and orcish citizens are expected to earn their status through military service (some liberalization of orcish society has allowed civil service as a lower status alternative). Orcish society prizes strength and discipline, and has adapted to improvements in material wealth and national security in the post-Coalition War international order with some growing pains: complaints of “soft” new orcs are common, and reactionary movements within the Directorate emphasize ascetic living and intensive military-style exercise in contradiction with a richer, more leisurely orcish population that critics hold is becoming indistinguishable from the non-orcish subjects of the Directorate.

### Race

As part of its colonial enterprises, the Directorate has a national narrative of “civilizing those history left behind” – Orcs or not, many colonial subjects of the Directorate have found the reeducation programs of the state easily as brutal as the familiar Aeldrum Trade Company extraction model.

In an ironic mirror of Aeldman attitudes of the 4th century A.U., non-orcs are not permitted to hold citizenship or official postings, unless they are declared “honorary” orcs: those of “partial” orcish heritage (ironically, like the Directorate’s founder) are usually born in a complex legal limbo, becoming full orcs in the eyes of the state only after a term of national service. Wild elves in particular have often joined the Directorate's military caste, as have, in more recent years, a number of Gnoll emigres.

The Directorate is dominated by Orcs and Half-Orcs, but also includes sizable populations of Dwarves, Humans, Savage Elves, and others. The orcish emphasis on martial prowess endures, and Halflings, Goblins, and most humans are given short thrift. dwarves are accorded some privilege for their technical knowledge, and a handful of dwarves and humans have become respected "gunners," mostly owing to their ability to operate more sophisticated equipment. The Directorate's government is primarily orcish or half-orcish, but it includes a strong contingent of advisers, especially dwarves whose clans have made favorable arrangements with the orcs.

### Slavery

Historically, the Directorate has practiced war-slavery, meaning that prisoners taken in battle could be enslaved by their captors, whether orcish or otherwise. The state, however, reserved the right to appropriate "slave-scholars" whose knowledge was of use to the Directorate. Gunsmiths, artisans, engineers, even trained sailors have all been seized in this fashion and pressed into service. They were usually well treated compared to the unskilled slave labor, and some settled into their new lives and achieved high station – others, of course, resisted their servitude and often sabotaged the Directorate's war efforts.

## International Relations

The Directorate has the technology, manpower and colonial apparatus to perhaps operate as a secondary power, except for its near total administrative capture by the Serene Duchy of Aeldrum and its reliance on an Aeldman alliance for navigational access to other lanes.

## Notes

1. ↑ The half-orcish Karlock was educated by the Knights of Adarnum and quite probably the bastard son of an Adarnan Knight-Captain. Ironically, the Directorate and the Shantine were close allies in the Fialta-Shantine wars, until Shantine capitulation led the Directorate, in apparent disgust, to look for more resilient allies.
2. ↑ Orcish shock troops outnumbered the Aeldrum Dragoons in several nominally “Aeldman” engagements against the Thalranese Marches during the Gunboat Wars.
3. ↑ Orcish soldiers ritually file down their canines as a symbol of their loyalty to the state.