Conflict between Orcs and Humans

## The old continent

This conflict between the two races has existed for longer than any orc remembers. The humans however, always wanting to preserve their own legacy, has many old tomes recounting the beginning of their fighting. Whether there is much truth in them is hard to say, but they tell the story as follows:

The humans arrived at the continent 1500 years ago. They arrived from the west after traveling for weeks, at the time not knowing where they were going and battling the elements in their primitive longships. At first came the discoverers who settled for simply seeing the continent and following the coastline for a while. They only stepped ashore so they could claim they were the first.

Then came the explorers. They were eager to lay claim to any valuables found inland and so explored further than any of the discoverers had. The explorers were also the first to encounter the scaled inhabitants of the continent. It is told that a ravenous pack of orcs decended upon a lone explorer, who barely made it out alive. Recent studies have been critical of the description of the event, as the orcs after this point were seen as quite docile for a while, and that the explorer most likely hurt himself while fleeing the scaled beasts.

In any case, all explorers soon left the continent. They had found nothing worth claiming, and the threat of the orcs seemed immediate. When they returned and told their fellow countrymen of this their enthusiasm dwained. The new continent had held such possibilities for the people that the news of its green inhabitants came with a sense of defeat. For two decades no further journeys to the continent were made. The people carried on, and so did the country to some degree. However, they faced strife on their own continent. Recently they had declared war on a neighbour in defence of a city-state at their border. The war was going badly, and the ferosiousness of the other country seemed unmatched. They would surely sack the capital if they reached it, and peace seemed to be out of the question as the city-state and launched a surprise attack on a civilian settlement.

Thus the leaders recalled the continent they had once discovered, and decided to send a small fleet to begin colonyzing the land. They told the people that it would bring them riches, enough to garner support from other countries or maybe even negotiate peace. In reality, they wanted an escape route themselves (even the human tomes do not hide this fact). The plan was sound, but they were out of time. As they had sent almost half of the soldiers in the capital with the small fleet they were now poorly defended, and not a year after having given the order to colonize the capital was overrun and the leaders slain. They never had time to evacuate, and so the tale of their kingdom ended and another one begun across the ocean.

## The new colonies

It took months for the news about the kingdoms demise to arrive to the colonies. When it did it hit them hard, they had family there, and moreover been counting on the continued support from back home. Without that support they were left to fend for themselves, and fend they had to. Soon enough the orcs discovered their presence. The orcs did not attack however, as the humans had thought they would. They either studied the humans quietely or shouted at them, perhaps hoping for a response. For a while their settlements continued growing even though they lived in fear that the beasts would one day attack. They had after all been seen using primitive weapons and moving in large groups. Surely they were organized enough to launch such an assualt.

At the same time the orcs had been studying them, and now some younger ones eager to make a name for themselves approached the villages. They saw it as hunting, all creatures except the orcs were regarded as animals in their eyes. So they set traps near fruit trees and succeeded in capturing a few pink skins. They were killed on the spot, though once the orcs returned to their village it is theorized that they found no use for the skin, and that the meat itself was not as tasty, nor were the humans as rich in it as many other creatures of the forests. So the orcs stopped trying to hunt the humans and instead returned to the forests.

The killings had not gone unnoticed by the villagers. Now they were afraid, but there was hope on the horizon. The country that had sacked the kingdom from which they came had no quarrel with them, but instead sought to open trade between them. While they knew from the reports they had gleamed while occupying the capital that there was nothing of value on the continent they still sought to get a foothold in the new continent. After all, they did not know much of it yet. And investing now was sure to prove fruitful in the future.

The humans settlements grew even more, now revigorated by the trade. Only problem was they needed something new to sell back to the merchants that came. Exotic fruits did not last the voyage home and all other resources already existed in plenty back in the kingdom. Together, the settlers and the merchants started looking toward the mountains. A scout returned one day and claimed that he had seen shining stones deep within a crevice. The merchants were thrilled, but an orc village lay very close to this crevice. Since they had proved to be hostile, they did not see anything wrong in chasing them off to claim the mountain's treasures for themselves.

## The conflict

They sent word home and recieved a battalion. The soldiers made their way to the orc village and set up camp nearby. They made an attempt to negotiate the orcs surrender, but they did not speak their language and chased away the courier. So the humans attacked, and faced ferocity they had never seen before. There were only about 150 orcs living there, and they were poorly armed, but they killed or wounded over 300 of the human soldier. The humans were victorious in the end but because of the losses they suffered most of the soldiers were discouraged from ever fighting the orcs again and requested to be sent back home. Their country refused, the newly found riches of the continent had sparked their enthusiasm and they now wanted to expand.

This led to rapid growth of the human settlements, and founding of many new ones. Other countries heard of the new continent, and while the kingdom tried to keep them out by using their military forces stationed there it was unseccessful, mostly because so few of them could be spared as most were needed to protect the new settlements. The humans also found that the orcs were not as organized as they first had feared. There was no backlash, no counter attacks. They did notice that any orcs spotted in the forests now were more cautious around the humans, but the attacks stopped. Instead the humans started attacking and pushed further inland.

## The stalemate

Eventually the humans would encounter other humans far to the north and south of their landing, but they had not expanded as these newcomers did and so had not encountered the orcs. In time the orcs would be pushed far back, making the humans the dominant race of the continent, but as trouble once again brewed on the old continent the colonies rebelled and formed a union. This left them without the support needed to spread their domain further, and the soldiers that had fought for their freedom were since long tired of fighting the orcs. And so, 250 years after having first established a colony on the continent, the expansion came to a halt and the stalemate that would continue for the next 1000 years began.