Terquans

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A sub-race of Orcs hailing from the northern continent, specifically a chain on mountains on the western coast known for their jagged heights and inhospitable climate. Terquans are a hardy and stocky race, known for their ability to survive harsh weather with ease and create vast networks of tunnels and stone cut cities.

## Ecology

Terquans are a somewhat stocky race of Orc offshoots, they stand around 5'2" to 6' tall, with males and females being around the same heights. They tend to have wide builds that favor a muscled look.

Terquans tend to have dark skin tones, ranging through most earth tones, though most are a dark clay in tone. Terquan eye colors tend to range between greens and amber shades, giving them striking eyes. Due to their propensity to live underground, they also possess a darkvision quality allowing them to live unimpeded in subterranean climates.

Terquans tend to have somewhat large eyes for their heads, giving them a striking and interesting appearance that many other races find enviable. This is due to their adaptation to living underground. When a light source is cast upon them at night their eyes tend to reflect this light, owing to the membrane in their eye that allows them to catch and focus light to make night-vision possible, not unlike many nocturnal animals with similar adaptations.

Terquans have long pointed ears, nearly the length of high elves, though not as sensitive. Their hair tends to range in dark colors as well, mostly in the black to dark brown hues.

Terquans, like most of the Orc sub-races, tend to have large tusk-like canines on their bottom jaw, giving them a strong square jawline.

Terquans are able to live comfortably in extreme temperatures, whether hot or cold. This has allowed them to spread through the mountains and deserts near their homeland.

Terquans typically pair bond and tend to have many children, giving them a relatively fast population growth (1.3% annually compared to humans 0.85%).

Terquans tend to live shorter lifespans than humans, in the seventy year life span range.

## History

In the days of the great wars of Dis, when Dwarves and Orcs clashed bitterly to control the great underground realm, a group of Orcs decided that the war was foolish and decided to abandon the coalition of orc clans, and seek prosperity by traveling far away.

These Orcs tunneled their way far to the north, avoiding the conflict and seeking a new, peaceful life, wishing only to craft and grow in peace and solitude. Eventually, they found their way to a network of tunnels leading them up and out of Dis, in the area now known as the Terq Mountains.

Over countless generations separated from their cousins, they changed and adapted to their new climate becoming as they are today.

## Society

Terquans tend to be a peaceful, and slow to anger race of crafters and builders. They venerate Voska and tend to feel a sense of obligation to him, as many believe it was Voska that protected their ancestors as they fled the war.

Their culture and society are egalitarian and quite peaceful. They favor creating items from stone, metal, and clay, though they tend to enjoy learning new trades and arts.

Terquans are by no means strangers to war, though, and tend to have a fair bit of martial training baked into their early lives. Training with certain weapons is obligatory for self defense, and there is a respected martial tradition leading to a small, but elite, standing army under the control of their government.

Punishment in Terquan society is non-violent, and involves locking an individual away while denying them any kind of artistry or tools, leaving them unable to fulfill their desire to create.

## Territory

Currently they occupy a number of great cities and citadels throughout the Terq mountains, and a number of colony-cities beyond, spanning into the Orange Hills and the Endless Sands.

## Governance

Leadership in Terquan society is a reformed monarchy, where the current King is limited in his authority by several charters signed over the generations to check his power and cede that to a citizens assembly of elected representatives from among the various cities of their nation.

The current king is Balogog the IV, a king who is as comfortable with a poets pen, as he is with a crafters hammer.

## Cousins

Kothans - Their jungle-dwelling cousins are typically looked down on, as the least advanced culture of all the orcs in the modern world. Terquans tend to pity them, though contact is nearly nil, as the Terquans are content to live in isolation.

Oni - Terquans have essentially no contact with their more magical cousins from the east, and most would scarcely believe they bare any relation to the horned red skinned race.