Ruawi Genocide

The **Ruawi Genocide** was a systematic mass murder of Orcs within Roulonne carried out mostly by Humans in the late 70s to 83 AD. The genocide saw over half of the Ruawi Orcish population in Roulonne murdered, with most of the survivors fleeing to Keloruela. Several months after the genocide's end, Keloruela was threatened with total destruction by the Dragons to return the Orcish refugees, almost all of which returned to being slaves.

The Ruawi Genocide was not a single planned event; contrary to what many Ruawi Orcs believed at the time (and sometimes continue to believe to this day), the Draconic state in Roulonne did not desire the total extermination of the Orcs. Though some Dragons took part in the massacres, the vast majority of the violence was perpetrated by Humans who were largely acting of their own accord and not directed by the state. However, the Draconic state also took essentially no action to restrain the bloodshed until the critical need for stability amidst the War for the World - combined with heavy pressure from the Nesarian Empire, with Emperor Athdus III sending veiled threats of war - forced the Dragons to restore order and end the slaughter.

## Causes and Intent

Although Orcs were considered the lowest of intelligent mortal beings under the Draconic caste system, there were no Dragons calling for their extermination. Orcs still had usefulness as slaves, and most Dragons believed that they still had a fundamental right to life, even if they lived only as tools for others to exploit. Some Humans were more extreme, but even anti-Orcish radicals did not call for a genocide; they typically wanted to maintain the Ruawi Orcs as slaves, and their calls for extermination were in fact directed towards the Kuahis, who were regarded as uncontrollable savages. The Ruawi Genocide was therefore not planned to be a systematic mass murder of the Ruawi population, unlike the Mortian Genocide that did seek to eradicate the Mortani Orcs as a people and free up their valuable lands for Human settlement.

The killings were originally envisioned as collective punishment, in reaction to a series of violent rebellions in the last few decades - or, as the Dragons called it, "a recent pattern of disloyalty". The most notable of these was the Ségnous Slave Revolt of 61, when the enslaved Orcs of Ségnous rose up against their masters and massacred every Human they could find. The Dragons and their Human aristocratic collaborators believed that merely torturing and executing the rebellious slaves was no longer enough; a message had to be sent to the entire race showing what the consequences of defiance would be, warning any potential rebels that further revolts would result in the deaths of innocent, unrelated Orcs.

To this end, a managed culling of state-owned slaves was planned. Expendable slaves were to be torturously killed and have their bodies displayed for all to see - most importantly for other Orcish slaves to see. The state also considered offering rewards to masters who gave up privately-owned slaves to be included in the killings, but this would not be adopted until later. The intent was clearly not to exterminate the Orcish slaves, and the state stressed to its slave-managers that the culling should not impact the productivity of slave-run operations.

The Goldscale, Redscale and Greyscale castes were in near-unanimous agreement over the course of action, and much of the Human aristocracy was also on board. The only serious objections came from the Pinkscale caste, though how much of them disagreed remains disputed as no contemporary source gives a clear indication, and mainstream historians regard later narratives of the event as heavily exaggerating the Pinkscale resistance to the genocide in an effort to clean up their image. The Pinkscale caste was the caste that made contact with *Kiisana* (non-Dragons) most frequently, and as a result they generally understood *Kiisana* society much better and had greater sympathy for the issues they faced. Some Pinkscales may have been genuinely horrified at the prospect of murdering innocent slaves, but their main argument was that organising mass killings of Orcs would just convince more of them to revolt rather than terrifying them into obedience. Their prediction, in the event, turned out to be completely accurate.

## Early Stages

The Ruawi Genocide began on a small scale. The first massacre related to the policy of collective punishment was the Gallebuere Massacre in 77. The Gallebuere Massacre set the tone for most of the early killings; it was directed against state-owned labourers who were mostly past their prime and had already either outlived their maximum usefulness or were close to reaching that point. Young, healthy and fit slaves were deliberately not harmed - as they were the most valuable - and neither were children or breastfeeding mothers. Their corpses were displayed publicly, allowed to be picked clean by scavenging animals, only removed when their bones could no longer hold themselves together.

Culling elderly slaves was not a new practice; both amongst state-owned and privately owned slaves, those who could not work were sometimes put to death, as the masters did not want to support a slave that could not serve them. However, this practice was ultimately infrequent; the one singular legal protection Orcish slaves had was that murdering them was illegal, and masters had to invent bogus charges to justify executing elderly slaves. If the master was brought to court over the matter - which was rare, but did happen - the court usually recognised that the charges were farcical and levied heavy fines upon the master. Most masters instead either simply accepted the lower productivity of elderly slaves - recognising that the cost of supporting them was lesser than the cost of being caught making a fraudulent execution - or, if the slave was in a labour-intensive role, the slave was deliberately worked to death.

Where the culling of older slaves differed in 77 was both the more widespread scale and the open, unveiled nature of it. Neither Dragon nor Human disguised the fact that they were executing the slaves, justifying it on the grounds that it was collective punishment for rebellion amongst the general Orcish race. Contemporary sources differed on whether or not this was actually legal under the laws the Dragons themselves made, but the legality of the killings would not be challenged until after the War for the World - long after the genocide had already ended.

Small massacres of middle-aged or elderly state-owned slaves continued throughout 77 and 78, but it was not until early 79 that the violence became truly widespread and fell out of the control of the state. For this reason, some historians consider the Ruawi Genocide to have started in 79, regarding the state-directed massacres of earlier years to be a prelude rather than the beginning of the real event. The difference of opinion mostly comes down to semantics, and exactly how one defines a genocide.

## Widespread Violence

The general sentiment had already turned against the Orcs before the killings began, as the violent slave rebellions were widely publicised and had generated a widespread feeling of unease about the Orcish populace. The notion of culling the Orcs to terrify them into obedience gained popular approval, and some of the most hardline radical Humans began forming groups to join in the violence, some of which were welcomed by Dragon officials who directed them in the organised massacres.

The anti-Orcish groups soon fell outside of the control of the state in 79 with the adoption of the policy of offering rewards for masters who gave up their slaves to be killed. Miscommunication, false rumours and poorly-worded translations led to many Humans incorrectly believing that the state was offering a reward to anyone who killed a slave, leading to a massive wave of Orcish murders. The anti-Orcish groups soon found out that there was no real reward, and many of them were in fact fined for damaging property - though, tellingly, none were actually charged with murder.

Though the rumour of rewards for killing slaves soon dispelled, the violence only increased. Many Orcish slaves had - understandably - come to believe that their existence was under threat, no longer entitled to live even as downtrodden and humiliated slaves. Rather than encouraging obedience, the uncontrolled massacres of 79 had convinced many Orcs that obedience would only lead them to death, and the number of rebellions sharply increased. A morbid spirit of resistance rapidly spread throughout the race, which has often been compared to the general attitude of mortals in the War for the World; since the Orcs believed they would die either way, they decided that to die on their own terms in the pursuit of freedom was better than dying as a slave, with less dignity than an animal.

Orcish rebellions erupted over the country, with slaves murdering their masters - and, often, their master's family as well - and fleeing either into the wilds to form hidden communities, or making their way to Keloruela to seek aid from their kin there. Ewa Kaluna, who operated in her home region of Ribalouse, became famous for guiding and protecting Orcish refugees seeking safety in Keloruela. As a consequence, the state sharply increased the number of massacres, and gave permission to Human elites to cull slaves "as they saw fit" in order to dissuade resistance. The bloody cycle was self-perpetuating; murders of slaves encouraged open revolt, which in turn encouraged more murders of slaves.

Some Humans fought in defence of the Orcs, though almost none did so out of a spirit of compassion; defence of slaves was instead motivated by masters who wanted to protect their property from rogue gangs. Masters often had to pay extortionate prices to convince mercenaries to guard their slaves, as even the masters believed that it was humiliating for a Human to risk their life defending an Orc. Human-on-Human violence became more common from 81, as Human elites realised that they could use the excuse of culling Orcs to weaken their rivals by targeting their slaves.

## End

A combination of factors pressured the Dragons to put an end to the killings. First and foremost was the realisation that the situation had gone completely out of control; what was envisioned as an organised culling to inspire terror had turned into indiscriminate bloodshed which only made the situation worse. As mentioned previously, the Dragons had no desire to actually exterminate a useful caste of slaves; they wanted to protect and keep alive the slaves who still survived, and wanted to return the escaped slaves to service.

Secondly, the rapidly advancing threat of the Cosmovores forced the Dragons to concentrate their efforts on fighting the monsters who sought to devour the world. They could not afford to spend resources on internal conflict, and they required the country to be stable, orderly, united and productive. The Orcish slave caste was critically necessary to the war effort, not only to produce the arms and armour for the soldiers but also to fill in the gaps left by Humans who were levied to serve in the army; the Orcs therefore not only had to be obedient, but had to be alive in the first place.

Thirdly, the Nesarian Empire - specifically, Emperor Athdus III - was utterly outraged at the treatment of the Orcs and demanded an immediate halt to their slaughter. Though Draconica and the Empire had yet to properly unite against the Cosmovores, the Dragons still knew that it would be disastrous to have to face any other mortal realm at the same time as the Cosmovores, even if they heavily doubted Athdus's ability to actually militarily enforce his demand to stop the genocide. Athdus, for his part, had no intention of actually invading Draconica if they refused his demand; though he lamented the fate of the Ruawi Orcs, his priority was protecting the lands he actually ruled over from the Cosmovores, and mustering enough force to invade Draconica would mean condemning his own subjects to death.

Fourthly - and, some historians have argued, most importantly - was the rapidly mounting discontent of the Pinkscale caste. Many Pinkscales objected to the plan of a mass culling in the first place, correctly predicting that it would only cause further rebellion and perhaps having some degree of empathy for the victims. The Pinkscales were frustrated that they had been ignored, and there was a growing sentiment amongst the Pinkscales that the Goldscales were not as wise as they claimed to be. Though the Pinkscales were grateful that the genocide was ended and order was restored, they were angered by the total lack of any kind of acknowledgement that they had been correct all along. The Goldscales knew that the Pinkscale caste was growing restless, but also knew that to concede to them would in turn make them appear weak before the more numerous Redscales and Greyscales. Though Pinkscale unrest had been simmering for some time, most historians point to the Ruawi Genocide as being the most major cause of the eventual mass defection of the Pinkscale caste to King Royard III in his Glorious Rebellion.