Shagrat

Shagrat of Gundabad,

In the broken remnants of the Howling Scar, where the land still stinks of blood and smoke, Shagrat was born to obscurity. No one knows who sired him, and his mother—an aging camp healer with half a tongue and no love for the warbands—died giving birth. He was raised by the tribe, but never truly of it.

Even by orc standards, life in the Scar was pitiless. The old chieftains, obsessed with ancient glories and meaningless raids, ruled with iron and ignorance. They mocked Shagrat for his quiet nature, his small size, and his strange habit of watching the stars instead of sharpening his axe. He endured every blow, every lash, and every cruel lesson not with rage—but with memory.

When the winter came hard one year, and the food stores were raided by rival clans, Shagrat saw his chance. Not through brute strength, but with cunning. He rallied the outcasts, the crippled warriors, the unwanted half-bloods—those like him. They struck not with honor, but with efficiency. Poisoned mead. Collapsed tents. A fire set at midnight when the wind was cruelest.

By spring, the war camp was his. But he didn’t stay.

He left the Scar behind—its traditions, its endless feuds, its hollow cries for war. He wandered for years, a sword on his back and no banner overhead. Some say he sought redemption. Others say he feared what he might become if he stayed. He passed through human towns that eyed him with hatred, elven glades that turned their backs, and dwarven holds that muttered of curses. He did not speak much. But he watched. And he remembered.

It was in the Windlost plains—a wild and open land with no masters—that Shagrat finally stopped walking. There, among tall grass and quiet winds, he built his camp. He named it Gundabad—a word from the old tongue meaning “stone that endures.” It began as a ring of tents, then a few wooden huts, then a wall of bone and timber. He welcomed the rootless, the war-weary, and the tired. Orc, human, goblin—it mattered not. If they could work, if they had nowhere else to go, they were welcome.

He does not seek conquest. He does not boast of battles. He honors the orcish way—rituals of blood, trials of strength—but tempers them with discipline. Some orcs call him weak for that. A coward. A thinker. Shagrat simply nods and lets them leave. And if they return, broken and hungry, he feeds them.

Still, Gundabad grows—slow and careful, like its master. No great alliances back it. No armies answer its call. But those who pass through Windlost whisper of it: a town where an orc holds court not with a whip, but with quiet strength. They call him the Quiet Warlord—half insult, half reverence.

And though he speaks little of his past, when asked why he chose this place, this life, he simply says:

"The world forgot what Orcs were. We are here to remind them."