Wanah Targah

> *"He speaks through my eyes, you hear?! His word is a mouthful of smoke and his body is a crevasse! OHAENUM KATAL AEI!"* - Sargan, after his attempt at mantling Wanah Targah
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**Wanah Targah** (WAH-nuh TAR-guh), also known as Wagrash, Wurgon, Warmon, Shalwar, or Washtu, is a significant figure that appears constantly throughout the Orcish cultural, historical, and religious tradition. Though very little is known about him in absolute terms, his widespread worship and fear throughout the Orcish cultures for thousands of years solidifies him as a very real and volatile entity. Much of the knowledge that is spread about him paints him in entirely different lights; and peoples' opinions of Wanah Targah and his actions remain entirely personal. Either he was maniacal murderer, or a liberator and philosopher. Either he has returned several times throughout Orcish history, or he is dead and lost.

There are no written records of Wanah Targah, as decreed by the Yakta. Due to this, and the mythical nature of Wanah Targah, combined with the short lifespan of the Orcs, most information concerning Wanah Targah is contradictory, exaggerated, or entirely falsified. This article will try to address as many of these conflicting viewpoints as possible, within reason.

## Description

### Appearance

Though Wanah Targah is usually described as male, there are no official records of his birth or death, and the official gender that Wanah Targah went by is lost to history. It's commonly agreed he was male, though, and so that's how he will be referenced.

Wanah Targah is most commonly interpreted a looking similar to an Orc, though several sources from elsewhere on the continent try to describe his magical aspects by attributing him under conditions. Wanah Targah was possibly a lich, according to various studies done by the Mages' Guild, due to his paradoxical relationship with life and death. Those who fall under the religious family of Sarocism have argued that Wanah Targah is a Qa'ainach, or another angry, undead spirit. He has often been called a demigod to a god of war and death, or an avatar of a deity, or an angry spirit. Often in Orcish religious doctrine, he's described as a body without a soul, or the personification of anguish or rage. According to a previous priest of the Yakta, Sargan, Wanah Targah was a collection of spirits, angered by the weakness of the Xanang.

Wanah Targah has been described as unusually tall, some people claiming him to be a giant or a half-giant due to his size. He's been said to have multiple sets of arms, usually four or six total, though some have claimed it has gone into the hundreds. Others have said that he was born with a thick layer of green or red scales along his back, and a few swear that he had, at one point, a lizard-like tail. He has been described as headless or six-eyed, or wearing his head on a belt in front of his legs. His tongue was forked, according to most interpretations, and he had Elvish ears with Orcish ears within them. He has associations with fire, either by carrying it, being engulfed in it, bleeding it, or having it for a head and/or hands. He is almost always covered in blood.

For items, some say that he did not wear clothes, as his aura of fear ensured that nobody would make things in his size. That, or he wore a belt or necklace made of heads, along with a loincloth and cape. He's been said to wield spears, long blades, or axes.

### Personality

The most consistent personality trait attributed to Wanah Targah would be his lack of fear when it comes to violence, blood, or death. Though it's unknown whether or not he reveled in pain, it's usually agreed that he did not outwardly exhibit remorse for the people he killed during his time on the continent. Aside from that, the rest is disputed. Either Wanah Targah was an unintelligent brutish killer, or a highly sophisticated philosopher who firmly believed in spreading his cause. Either Wanah Targah was respectful to everyone he spoke to, even in combat, or he scorned them all and wished curses upon them after they died. According to Sargan, Wanah Targah "...spoke only in the words of the dead. Every letter that came from his mouth was that of a wail of pain from a god."

## Mythology

### Origin and Departure

It is said by the Yakta that, on the night that Wanah Targah was conceived, the sky was choked black, devoid of the moon and without any stars, and candles flickered and were snuffed out even without the aid of the wind. Though its contested who Wanah Targah was born to, whether he was born to those with wealth or those without, a year is known for certain: 4233 NY, or 0 DWT when using the traditional Sorung calendar of the Orcs. It is also known that Wanah Targah's mother, Vokkara, was locked into the slave level of the Kulupo, and died when giving birth to him, but was nearly immediately resurrected by the infant. The Yakta member Sorgog Gramnan made the argument that, during his youth, he was raised by the rest of the slaves of Xanang, though there was no evidence to support this. During his youth, Wanah Targah was said to have killed a snake that attacked his mother, slamming it so hard against the ground that its flesh fell off and all that remained was its spine. Vokkara then used the vertebrae and tied them together with string, creating a whip made from the bones.

The sheep-lord of Xanang, Kodal, ordered his bloodguard to kill the young Wanah Targah, though it is contested on why this was done. Either the sheep-lord's servants had been killed by the young hero, or he heard the whispers of his ancestors warning him about the child, or he had wanted to terrify the slaves by killing one of their own. Regardless, the six-year-old Wanah Targah confronted the sheep-lord's bloodguard, and tore their hearts from their chests while they lived, and drank their blood when they died. He then approached the sheep-lord and whipped him until he died, claiming the seat of the village of Xanang. Calling on the sheep-lord's council, he asked each of them to dissect a sheep as according to the old rules of the now-defunct Yakta. When no member could do it, he killed each of them, and cut their faces from their heads, wearing them as a sash. Afterwards, he called upon the criers and the horse-riders and told them that he would depart and, in twenty years' time, he would lay waste to the realms of the sheep-lords, if they didn't know how to stop him. And so he left.

### Travels

Not much is known about Wanah Targah during his disappearance, but according to various records in other nations, there was an Orcish visitor who called himself "Wagrash" or "Washtu," who carried a whip made of bone. Confusingly, though, these records will sometimes insinuate that Wanah Targah visited two different places at the same time.

Wanah Targah is said to have spoken with Vyrsingrex, traveled to the Well of Souls, feasted in the Dwarven halls, and made love to members of the ex-Druid prostitute-slaves in Lyre. During his time in the west, he became close friends (and possibly lovers) with a male centaur by the name of Kalam Ish-Kaul, and the two were said to have successfully mantled each other, linking their minds and becoming one being in two bodies. When visiting the Dwarven city-state of Gresgaal, he killed the queen Tirothe Gresgaal after she insulted his painting, throwing the region into a civil war that would last two hundred years. He later gave birth to Brolle, the first of the Lorgrunn, though the other parent is unknown.

Using sacred candles made from the fat and flesh of a "fish folk," Wanah Targah spoke with the dejected spirits of the old Yakta, who mourned and wept on the sunken island of Sedebeh. He swam to the depths to find this island and tried intimidating the spirits to return and be in flesh once more. When they refused, his anger caused him to whip them and tie them to his whip, where he pulled them out of the sea and onto the shore. From there he gave them the severed faces on his sash. They gave him the title "Kormron," meaning "one who defiles with cause." From the tears they wept he made a legendary weapon: Aldash. Ish-Kaul bore the weapon during their journey.

### Boar-Queen's Attack

The Boar-Queen was an Orcish ruler of a tribe in Sibhi, though the exact domain of her rule is unknown. When she heard of the creation of Aldash, she decided to strike Wanah Targah first, years before he was supposed to arrive to fight the other tribes. With the tusked helmet of her patron Kulongi, she left to meet Wanah Targah on the battlefield of Shgala. The fight was short when the two met, but the Boar-Queen's poison-tipped horns managed to strike Ish-Kaul, killing the centaur. Upon seeing this Wanah Targah was put into a mindless rage.

Wanah Targah slew the Boar-Queen, cutting her into eighteen pieces with her own tusks and eating the pieces when he had finished carving her. Unsatisfied, his bloodlust led him to the city that the Boar-Queen once ruled. He grabbed every adult in the city and carved them much like he did the queen, consuming them each. Before he would do this, though, he skinned their faces. and removed their heads. He then used dark magic on the children and the boars, molding them together like clay to form the rest of the Lorgrunn, all sent to deliver messages to all the sheep-lords of the Orcs: he would soon bring ruin onto them. After the Lorgrunn children delivered their messages, it is said that they turned to mud. With the heads Wanah Targah had severed, he built a palace of skulls on top of the ruined down, where he would count each day leading to his invasion.

### Return

Wanah Targah began his onslaught on the anniversary of Kodal's death. It is said that, when he attacked, he wore a cape of wooden masks, each adorned with a severed face of one of his victims; and that his whip of snakespine had been extended by the spines of the fallen. The resistance he was first met with was trivial, as the sheep-lords had wanted to capture and torture him for his crimes. One warlock inflicted a curse upon Wanah Targah that he could not set his feet on the earth. So, Wanah Targah walked on his hands until he could grab the warlock, and promptly crushed him to death in one hand. As Wanah Targah advanced, he burned the towns he passed through, cutting faces so that he could add them to his cape. He burnt homes and fields and forests alike, setting the south of Lerania in a furious fiery blaze.

### Death

It is unknown the extent of Wanah Targah's destruction, but the Orcs were quick to learn how to counter his onslaught. After slaughtering their pastures, the Orcs went into hiding and engaged with Wanah Targah in frequent guerilla raids, slowly weakening the being and, eventually, drawing blood. It would take more than a decade for Wanah Targah to be defeated, in a battle against several slave-warriors of the sheep-lord Zalgorun, though it is not known who landed the final blow. He had been pinned to the ground by spears, and his legs and arms had been cut to sever the muscles, the cuts being lined with a salt-poison to prevent the wounds from closing. Finally, his heart was drawn out from his chest, and set aflame.

With his strength leaving him, Wanah Targah use his whip to grab stars from the sky, bringing them down in a crystal rain. The rain resurrected the Yakta, and so they came to serve the Orcs again. Wanah Targah then turned into mud, and his clothes and tools (aside from Aldash) turned into grass.

He may have promised a return.