Zog the Eldest

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> We are all orcs! No matter who birthed us, or who created us, we are all orcs! And we will be free!
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> — Zog The Liberator
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**Zog the Eldest** (also known as **Zog The Liberator**, or **Zog The Lich Lord**) is considered the discoverer of necromancy and led the rebellion against the Dusk Lord to free the orcs from his tyrannical rule. He is in command of an undead sun elf assassin named Tiri.

## Biography

### Early years

Zog was born as the runt of his family, a trait for which his peers called him a weakling and bullied him relentlessly. Because of his diminutive size as a child he was unable to participate in army training as other children his age would. He also discovered that he did not have the gift of pyromancy, being unable to even cast a mere fireball. Like most Orcs of his time, Zog was raised in a society that worship the Dusk Lord as the only righteous god and it was for this god alone that Zog survived the trails of orcish life. Once Zog came of age he was made to become the logistics manager of the war-camp by his warchief. His job was to oversee the supply lines and the smithies, making sure enough weapons were crafted and enough food was brought in to fuel the great orc war machine. It was a job Zog hated as working behind the scenes meant he couldn't die a glorious dead for the Dusk Lord as his fellow orcs could.

It was nine years after the Event Horizon that Zog started to discovered that something new had taken hold in him. It was a new type of mana called Necrotic mana. He was eating goat for lunch and one of his workers disturbed him with an unimportant question. When he tried to wave the worker away he accidentally cast a spell on the goat's head and raised it into an undead creature. This newfound abilities amazed Zog, for he had never seen such a thing and he became determined to improve his craft, for the glory of the Dusk Lord. He trained for years on the animals and slaves that his fellow orcs had worked to death, until he managed to master the art of necromancy. He then displayed these newfound powers to the warchief, who saw the power in this new magic and gave him his own small division to train. As Zog's Necromancers won battle after battle their fame grew and they quickly came under the attention of their mighty god. The Dusk Lord was impressed by this results this small band of mages had achieved and gave them their own regiment inside of his personal army, with Zog as the warchief.

### Disillusion

Zog's necromancer regiment quickly turned into something more akin to a cult of personality for Zog. This wasn't something particularly unusual for an orc regiment however and it was something the Dusk Lord did not only allowed but actively encouraged for it created better fighter. As long as a regiment performed well in battle and was first and foremost loyal to the Dusk Lord he would allow it. And so Zog spread the knowledge of the art of necromancy to more and more of orcs until eventually the Dusk Lord decided to turn the tide of the war.

In the year 31 Zog received a very special assignment from his god. He and his necromancer were to raise and bind a mighty creature made out of tar and bones from a tar ravine known as Scaull. A great elemental beast, who was to become the centrepiece of the Dusk Lord's army. Zog's noble steed, a majestic grey Terror Bird named Greytuy, was constantly acting nervously while they were travelling to the scar, which Zog just credited to the stillness of the dead forest. This forest was recently scorched to the ground by the orc war machine to get rid of some pesky elven guerrillas hiding there. Little did Zog know that they were stalked by an sun elven ranger named Tiri, who was out for orc blood after they forest fire had slain most of her kin. The necromancer regiment was initially successful in setting up the ritual that would raise the behemoth from his slumber. They quickly moved on and began casting the spell, with Zog standing in the centre on a lower platform overlooking the bubbling tar pit as his acolytes strengthened his powers. The creature began to rise and Zog felt his moment of triumph approaching. But just seconds before he could finish the binding spell he was jumped on, and his neck was slashed unceremoniously with a dagger by the Tiri the ranger.

At any other time this would have been it for poor old Zog. Assassinated in a barren wasteland with his name quickly forgotten, only to be a footnote in history if he was lucky. And this was what the Dusk Lord had assumed his fate was to be when he hastily had promote a new warchief to lead Zog's old necromancer regiment. For the Dusk Lord had used some of his remaining divine powers to keep an eye on Zog, seeing the entire event unfold. Zog was slipping into the Dream as he fell something pulling him back, it where seven of his most devout acolytes calling for their mentor to return. Their combined effort gave Zog enough time to channel his remaining mana and cast the greatest spell he would ever cast. He raised himself back from the the brink of death, becoming the first Lich. As the spark of life came back to his eyes, he saw that the great Scaull went back to his ancient slumber, with an exhausted Tiri riding its back. She had jumped the foul tar beast and stabbed it with her daggers until it became tired. The newly raised Zog, quick in his vengeance, shot the High Elf down with a bolt of arcane mana. The bolt found her target ever true, and the sun elf lost her grip on her daggers. Tiri fell back first into the tar pit, and the last thing she saw as she slowly sunk into the tar was Zog's snarl. But her dead was not to last as the master necromancer raised her into undead as his personal assassin. He forced her corpse to swim back to the surface. Tiri barely resembled an elf as she resurfaced covered in tar and protruding bones.

Defeated but unashamed he returned to his god to explain the cause of his failure. When he arrived at the gates of the moon wall he was told by the guards to go away and get a better disguise as the "real" Zog was officially declared dead weeks ago and his old Necromancer regiment had gotten a new warchief. Zog demanded that the guards would bring the news of his revival to the mighty Dusk Lord, only for the guards to return with a message. Zog was called an abomination and a disgrace by his own god. His acolytes were allowed to return to the regiment but Zog was forever banished. Most of the acolytes enter the city but a handful of loyalists stayed with Zog as they left the fortress wall. Zog felt betrayed and abandoned by the one he had always called "God". Then Zog began to brood, and came on the conclusion that surely someone who had mastery over life and dead was more powerful than someone who didn't. And it was so that Zog abandoned his fate, and began the revolution against the Dusk Lord.

### Revolution

Zog's acolytes swore vengeance for the disgrace of their master. They infiltrated all parts the Dusk Lord army, and established secret anti-theistic cabals under the guise of necromancy schools. In these cabals they slowly recruited more and more members into the rebellion. It was almost three years after the banishment of their master that the rebellion went into open revolt. Their first act was to free the half-breeds from their imprisonment in the war-camp of Catraz. These half-orcs were the children of mixed orc and none-orc parentage. Because of their impure blood they were treated as nothing more than abominations and used as guinea pigs for the new spells that the Dusk Lord's pyromancers created. Zog's rebellious followers on the other hand saw them as a their fellow orcs who had to be rescued from the cruel tyranny of the pathetic god. The followers slowly got their grasp on more and more members of the prison. The rebels wanted to slowly convert the entire staff and avoid open bloodshed, but one of the younger guards accidentally revealed the plot to a loyalist officer. The loyalist officer quickly raised the alarm bells, which could be heard through the entire city and the prison itself quickly descended into agony. Guards began to throw each other from balconies and fighting broke out between staff members. The rest of the rebel mob quickly made its way to the prison where the door was thrown open for them by one of their converted members. The rebels broke the chains that for so long had bound the half-orcs in bondage, and the half-orcs joined Zog's rebellion as its most loyal members in respond. The city fell not long after the prison to the rebel forces. The Dusk Lord tried to sent the first pyromancy regiment to stop them, but they were slaughtered to the last man by these ungrateful orcs. The victory of the rebellion in Falev had sent a dangerous message to the rest of Orc-kind: "*We will be free!*".

The followers were invigorated by the momentum they had gained from their victory in Falev and the cabals quickly grew in size. Steadily the cabals took over control from more and more war-camps until they Dusk Lord himself had to come down. He marched upon the recently converted war-camp of Ermen with an army of pyromancers and necromancers, There the Dusk Lord gave the orcs of Ermen an ultimatum: those who would swear themselves to him would be rewarded with gold and allowed the die in glorious battle for their god, while those who denied him were to be put down. A quarter of the orcs claimed to remain true to the rebellion, no longer afraid of such a weak god, and were put down on the spot. Then another quarter of the orcs from the camp were slain, as the Dusk lord suspected them to be secretly rebels and felt that their oaths were not genuine enough. He then had the necromancers raise the executed orcs as undead thralls. They were to be used as meat shields and labourers for the mighty army. The Dusk Lord had hopped that this would instil fear into his orcs, but those present could feel nothing but disgust. Their god had always promised them that he would guide spirits of the brave to the dream to join with their ancestors, but here he was raising orcs as if they were mere animals. That day the Dusk Lord had unknowingly lost the faith of his chosen people, and had become just another king.

It was a decade after his banishment that the rebellion had become big enough for Zog to reveal himself and to come out of hiding from his hermit camp in the mountains of the Dwarven Imperium. Zog set of to the rebellion on his trusty mount Greytuy, who had to be raised in their years in exile. No longer covered in with his beautiful plumage, the dead bird was now mostly skin and bones, and its eyes were brimming with as much necrotic mana as those of his master. The master necromancer rode into the war-camp of Catraz to the thunderous cheering of his followers. They titled him **Zog the Liberator** and showered him in praises. The half-orcs welcomed their new lord by displaying magics they that had taught themselves with the knowledge gained from their time living with other races and as test subjects. Zog's heart sunk as for the first time in his life he felt like he received the love and respect he deserve. In response he turned to the crowd, promising them that for now and for ever, the orcs would be their own masters, free from the tyranny of any so called gods!

Zog and his rebels kept on travelled through the orc lands, converting tribes and war-camps to their cause. Everything was going well until they reached the camp of the Mezar tribe. The Mezar were devout followers of the Dusk Lord who had build their encampment in the cranny of a canyon. The Mezars saw the traitors approach from miles away and began to reign down arrows from behind the safety of their own palisades once the rebel horde came within reach. Their walls were though but the half-orc geomancers of Zog's army kept throwing giant boulders upon the enemy's defences until a breach was formed. The anti-theistic orcs began to rushed in, with the sound of fell and blessed swords clashing upon each other filling the canyon. Then a roar filled the canyon and the leader of the Mezars challenged Zog to a duel. Zog was about to accept him when a young half-breed named Ishtarr volunteered as Zog's champion. Zog reluctantly accepted and Ishtarr's scimitars began to meet blow for blow with the chief's mace. The fight was though but eventually Ishtarr made a fatal slip, and the Mezar chief disarmed him. Then the chief proceeded to break every bone in Ishtarr's body and gloat in his victory. The chief had little time to celebrate however when Zog the arch necromancer felled him with a single blast of dark magic. Poor Ishtarr had put up a good fight, and Zog was impressed that the half-orc was somehow still alive despite his injuries. Zog used his necromancy to painfully knit every bone and sinew in Ishtarr's body back together, and then made him his new champion named Ishtarr the Sufferer. Eventually Zog and Ishtarr grew to become close friends as the campaign went on and the young half-orc grew older and wiser. Together they travelled the plains around the Crescent mountains until eventually they had either converted or conquered all nearby orcs.

### Assault on the Dusk lord

Zogs troops had finally reached the gates of the moon wall. Here several armies of the false god stood waiting for them, supported by a hoard of enslaved undead orc thralls and the old necromancer regiment which Zog had founded 36 years ago. The battle was fierce but Zog noticed that the spells that the necromancers were casting were not as powerful as those Zog had thought them. The combined magics from the necromancers and the half-orcs on Zog's side were enough to overwhelm the armies of the Dusk Lord and the necromancers surrender fairly quickly to Zog's surprise. The current leader of the necromancer division was one of the acolytes who had helped raise Zog into lichdom after Tiri's assassination attempt. The master necromancer, named Gruksmash, asked Zog for forgiveness for his slight, and begged him to be allowed to serve by his old teacher's side. Zog was thankful that his old student held back his forces during the battle, but was disgusted by his use of Orc thralls. So the arch necromancer ordered his tar assassin to stab Gruksmash right between his ribs. Then Zog went on to berate him for his shameful behaviour until Gruksmash begged for forgiveness on his deathbed. This was what Zog wanted to hear and he raised him as a fellow lich, hoping that he had forever learned his lesson.

The rebel army then proceeded to marched through the industrial wasteland, fighting small skirmishes with loyalist forces between the mines and forges dotted around the landscape. Eventually they reached the centre of the Crescent mountains on which the fortress of the Dusk lord stood. The walls were defended by the fallen god's most sacred regiment of arch pyromancers. They rained might storms of fire and brimstone down from their towers upon the deserters marching upon the fortress. That day the half-breeds once and for all squashed any doubt some orcs might had about their use as they protected their allies from the flames with giant shields of water and levitating rock. But despite their best efforts many rebel soldier still fell. They were given one more chance for glory by Zog's necromancers and eventually his army overwhelmed the fortress with cheer numbers. The rebels met with hard resistance as they entered the fortress, and they had to fight for every centimetre of ground against the Dusk Lord's most elite soldiers. Every hallway became a skirmish and every room a battlefield, but eventually they reached the sacred throne room.

Zog walking into the room with a smug but dark smile on his face and he dared to challenge his former god's greatest champion into one-on-one combat with his own champion: Ishtarr the Sufferer, the young half-orc that he had trained since his fight in the Mezar camp. The Dusk Lord sent fort an orc bound in flaming armour and the two champions began to fight. The god's champion shot balls of fire at the Ishtarr, but the young orc dodged them and replied with his own volley of arrows which melted with a curtain of flames. Ishtarr then closed the gap but felt his scimitar strikes blocked by the great scythe of the enemy champion. The two champions battled for hours as every attack one champion makes would be avoided or blocked by the other champion. Eventually both fighters began to tire, and the fireballs shot by the Dusk Lord's champion The god's champion became slower and slower. Ishtarr reflected one of the slowed down fireballs with his scimitar back at the flaming warrior, and the stave of his scythe burned to a crisp. Ishtarr then rushed his opponent before he could cast another spell but the enemy champion already began to shot a yet of flames at him. Ishtarr dropped himself to the ground, gliding on his knees under the flames. Then with one fell swoop of his double blades he slashed his opponent in two and came out on top. Zog demanded the surrender of the Dusk Lord, as ancient tradition established by the the fallen god himself. But then he showed his true colours and shot a beam of pure radiant energy at the lich which burned with the heat of his hate. Ishtarr jumped in front of the beam to save his master but was reduced to ashes himself. Zog was enraged by this final betrayal and rushed to false god to chop his head off. The orcs believed that they were forever free from his oppression. But Zog knew when he decapitated him that the god would survive and locked him inside of a feretory, turning his fortress into a prison.

### Aftermath

After his victory Zog led his followers out of the wastes, which he renamed to the Wastes of Ishtarr in honour of his fallen champion. The orcs who once had laboured in the industrial heartland for generations would find new lands to call their home, in the plains beyond the Crescent mountains. Once outside they began to slowly join and mingle with the orc tribes that lived outside of the moon wall. Together they began to build up a new kingdom, which they named Hilal. They founded many new towns and cities in a land that had once only known barracks, mines, and war-camps.

Now the orcs had earned their freedom, but life hadn't become easier. For one they had to learn how to become a society with goals other than conquest now that their warmongering leader was gone. And then there was the question of the Dragon-kin. They felt that they had been robbed of a glorious victory that would forever showcase the power of good over evil by Zog's act of regicide. And so the dragon-kin continued to attack the orc tribes long after their enemies death.

Zog would lead the orcs of the newly formed Hilal for many generation. Many advances were made in the new orc society and one of these was the founding of the first orc academy. It was Gruksmash, the master necromancer who had been turned into a lich by Zog, who founded the Hilalian school of Necrotic Powers. A school which would spread the art of necromancy to the rest of the world and teach the morals that Zog had taught his students. Eventually as generations of orc died around him Zog would earn himself the title of Eldest, and it was then that he decided to step down from his position of leader to give a new generation of leaders the chance to guide their people into the future. Zog and a handful of his most trusted liches then retreated into wastes of Ishtarr to stand forever guard over the feretory of the fallen tyrant as to prevent any fanatics from bringing him back to life. And it is here where they can be found to this very day.