Great Gorrf Empire

The **Gorrf Empire** was an ancient empire of the Gorrf dev-human species that existed in Gorrf Space, the Girshi Strait, and the Transverse from the early Imperium Period to its decay into the cartel in the mid-First Galactic Era. The Gorrfs conquered much of coreward Edgespace, enslaving countless primitive extra-intellectual species and spelling the end of the Telminese Hegemony that had prospered under the reign of the despot Eusedes XIII. The Empire expanded into one of the largest galactic empires during the Imperium Period, rivalled in sheer size only by the Galite and Abiosian Empires, prospering through its slave trade and commerce with the Hu Gani League from its entrepots, Naratel and Zeltorcesh.

## History

### Foundation

The Gorrfs were early conquerors in the Vindel Cluster, departing their first colonised world, Stelfest, several hundred years after they had mutated from their original human forms. Throughout their early slower-than-light travels, they ran many primitive alien natives of the abundant Vindel worlds into the ground, enslaving them or bringing them beneath the disorganised Gorrf ‘empire’ as clients. The Gorrfs worked their slave species (possibly billions of aliens - at least a hundred species, per some sources) relentlessly, growing staggeringly rich in raw minerals and agriculture, thus improving their technological capability. There is no trustworthy evidence, but Gorrf mythology floated the idea that this material wealth saw them as the first human/dev-human developers of lightspeed-capable spacecraft. The Gorrfs rapidly became a galactic superpower, long before other humans, the entire Vindel Cluster and surrounding space unchallenged and under the banners of the fat and dangerous Gorrf despot. The empire’s isolation from the Interior and other humans in the galaxy gave rise to many centuries without war - the Tsenic empire completely missed the Gorrfs, completely unaware of its existence save for rare passing ships in the waning days of the Khast - encounters which were quickly disregarded when more pressing matters were at hand. The Gorrfs eluded the rest of the galaxy until around -4300 pregalactic, a time in which humanity was embroiled in the imperial wars of the Imperium Period.

### Eusedic War

The Gorrfs encountered their first rival, Eusedes XIII. Eusedes had built up an impressive empire in the Transverse - in his early years as despot he had relentlessly expanded from the meagre individual homeworld, Telmin, his forefathers had ruled. His empire encompassed numerous species - aliens and devs - but Eusedes himself was human. Thus the Gorrfs branded him a weakling; he had not the eternal obesity of the Gorrfs nor the riches of their slave empire; his kingdom, the Telminese Hegemony, held together through his persistent will and frightening drive for expansion and imperialism. In his quest for expansion, he halted at the borders of the Gorrfs, but the interaction between them was not resolved with war. Both wanted to hegemonise the other, and a ritual fight was seen as the prime solution. Thrice he duelled Tsebe I, Gorrf emperor, and thrice he fled after the first blood drawn on his fragile human skin. *A shaking, pox-ridden weakling and a worthy thrall to serve the exalted Tsebe.* A description, provided in the Blackest Pelagic Scrolls. With the Gorrf Empire laughing in his face, Eusedes foolishly accepted a final, to the death challenge, in the high-walled colosseum of Naratel. Backed by a force of Notsolic soldiers, if things went awry, he fought Tsebe a final time, but lost swiftly and when he called for his guards they were routed by a Gorrf army. The result of this was the leaderless vulnerability of the Telminese Hegemony, ripe for the taking. Despite their victory, the Gorrfs were troubled. The Telminese did not collapse as quickly as the Gorrfs expected; it was soon discovered they had allies in the Interior, where no Gorrf had been since they were still humans. The Gorrfs, who had hitherto remained untroubled in Edgespace, were unaware that multiple respectable empires had emerged in the inner galaxy, after recovering from the Tsenic invasion, and the Telminese were their allies. In an attempt to eliminate any threat, the Gorrfs destroyed any Telminese holdouts within a thousand light years of the Vindel Cluster and blockaded the Transverse Tunnel, an ancient and important trade route connecting Telmin and Notsolic space with the Interior. As the Gorrfs relentlessly seized their systems, the Telminese called for the Galite Empire of Nikrontri, but to no avail, for Nikrontri was busy with the pressing issue of the Abiosians elsewhere in the galaxy. The Telminese Hegemony was reduced to little more than a planet, as it had been before the rise of Eusedes XIII, having enjoyed a short few decades of vastness, so suddenly gone.

### Tsebian House Period

The roughly century-long period of conquests following their troubles with the Telminese resulted in the Gorrfs hegemonising a number of nascent empires that had made feeble attempts at carving out territories in the Transverse, hugging the Inner Territories. They were primarily human, with scattered pockets of peculiar alien polities, and thus the Gorrfs deemed them to crafty to be good thralls, so instead forced their governments to relinquish their power and the societies were left to their squabbles as they collapsed into anarchy. *A bigger empire’s all that matters.* Tsebe’s alleged opinion on this hegemony, as mentioned in the Scrolls. The Transverse now theirs, the Gorrf Empire had nearly doubled in size during the reign of Tsebe, and directly bordered the dangerously powerful Inner Territories. The Interior never openly reacted to the destruction of the Telminese Hegemony, however, and the Hu Gani League, a large confederation in the Inner Territories adjacent to the Transverse, even offered open commerce with the Gorrfs. Bold traders and explorers carved out a new route through the Transverse directly to Naratel, known as the Tsebian Way while many small migrant merchant-empires followed the old Telminese routes that branched from the Alradian in Trans-Alradia. Zeltorcesh quickly became a favourite world of the Gorrfs and an entrepot of the Transverse Tunnel, whilst Telmin was quickly forgotten, whatever remained of its empire left to rot in the cold rains of the bleak world. The Interior polities did not all befriend the Gorrfs as the League had; the Nikrontreens kept tabs on the shipments of valuable unrefined crysgas that went to and fro unabashed in Gorrf space, where the laws of the Interior didn’t apply. The Galite Empire, for public appreciation, raised a furore of public disgust for the Gorrfs on the matter of their aggressive policies of slavery. Not so flagrant, out of the public eye, were the ships that charted the Nikrontreen Run through the vast, dense, and radiating Girshi Labyrinth to Naratel, shipping slaves to Galite worlds. More for reputation than actual gain, the Nikrontreens led a series of short campaigns into the innermost borderlands of Gorrf Space, making small attempts to liberate enslaved alien worlds. Their efforts were swiftly quelled with the Gorrf’s threat of war; wars on two fronts was too much even for the Nikrontreen Galites, with the Abiosians invading from the other side of the Rim. Despite the Galites pressing, the Hu Gani League continued trade with the Gorrf Empire; it seemed almost desperate to retain the Gorrfs’ favour, optimates from Hu Gani Prime picked up the scraps left behind by the Gorrfs - expanding into small, insignificant territories on the Inner/Transverse border and offering up the profits to the Empire. By -3800 pregalactic, the Gorrf Empire was well-established as a galactic superpower and was almost respectable; its loose legislation was a magnet for slave traders, smugglers, and other no-good riffraff that would have otherwise plagued the trade routes of the Galites, the Tolzes Empire and Trans-Alradia. Legitimate investors even utilised the reliable Nikrontreen Run to prosper on Naratel and Therypinae, though less than savoury business flourished with more success on the Epsilon Run, the smuggler’s route unknown by official standards that permitted direct shipments to Nikrontri, Galachai and beyond without checkpoints or scans.

### Haasteric House Period

The Gorrf’s new black market was the downfall of the Epsilon Commonwealth, a small empire that had carved out territory between the Girshi Labyrinth and Trans-Alradia, as a result of numerous Alradian sanctions to prevent smuggling. The Gorrfs did not hide their intention to expand into the Commonwealth during its economic crisis, and the Emperor at the time, Haasteres II, received threats from the Galite ruler Gala Stevchan that Naratese-Nikrontreen trade would be cut off. The Gorrfs were surprised by the Galite Empire’s defence of the Epsilon Commonwealth and Haasteres, for his own enjoyment, sundered the Nikrontreen Run himself and organised Therypinae, a Gorrf world bordering the Inner Territories, into a fortress world. In -3657 pregalactic, Trans-Alradia invaded the Hu Gani League and occupied it, until the League’s oligarchy surrendered, and thus the Gorrfs were further isolated from the Inner Territories. The Tsebian Way and old Telminese routes were blockaded, and most legitimate business on Zeltorcesh and Naratel dissipated. The galactic trade centre gradually shifted from the Interior and the Transverse to the Tributaries, with the extension of the Senevareen and Nikrontreen Runs into the region, practically ending large-scale lawful trade in Gorrf Space. The Gorrf Empire’s colonies and citizens certainly suffered economically, but the slave trade prospered, without the disruptions of Nikrontri.