Chapter 1: Part 3

Groblub Mouths Off, Recorded by Purple

You know, Ongorth is a true man. Some times people say that this guy is a hero, or that guy is a hero, but when it all comes down to it and those men go to sleep, Ongorth knows that he was the best he could be on any night. Every night. Can they? He knows who he is. Bet those so-called hero’s don’t. They have no conception of what they stand for, or if in the end they did what was right. Each and every day Ongorth does what he does not for himself, not for some country, but for the greater good of the world and the Gorth surrounding it. He knows that right is sometimes wrong. If each singular belief that each individual person was right, we’d all be wrong. It takes a wise man to know that he can never have wisdom.

Anyone who says Ongorth is the bane of all property obviously has too much of themselves invested in material things. Anyone who thinks Ongorth is the bane of all law probably is fearful that his own system is inadequate. One man alone should not be able to smash a government. If he can, than the system was not long for this world anyway. It is not like he raised an army to destroy it. He is not a demagogue leading peasants to revolt. He is a righteous, religious hero, standing up for his beliefs. If a government crumbles in his wake, than it was shearly coincidental.

Ongorth does smash a lot of things, that is very true. Things need to be smashed so that new and better things can take their place. That is the nature of the Gorth. Phoenixes come from ashes. Empires come from villages. When a table breaks you build a better table. That is the way of the Gorth. Ongorth is simply an avatar of it. Maybe not as unbiased as he should be, but there is already enough evil in the world. Someone needs to be righteous enough to realize that binding codes don’t help make the world a better place. Order makes society work, order gives structure, but order binds the true nature of the world. Does the wind howl according to schedule? Do the cleansing rains always fall when the land is most in need? Is there any pattern to plagues or hurricanes? We can brace for them, we can see them coming, but we cannot predict them.

Ongorth knows the Gorth well. He knows that the entire world is temporal. Concepts might last forever. Justice will always be present. So will hate. But just and hateful people die and new ones take their place. How well Ongorth understands this is ever present in his outlook on life and in the pace of his actions. His life, his chance to leave the world as a better place is limited. So he moves full throttle. He once said, "Change one ting a day, two on Thursday, three Saturday. But on Sunday and Tuesday, relax a ‘lil bit. An’ drink a bunch on Friday, wit’ da boys." He always adheres to this code, at least to the minimum. More whenever he can. He is a real follower of the Gorth. He doesn’t just do it because he was brought up that way. He does it because he cares about the world. He’s man enough to love his world and to make sure it thrives.

Would you sacrifice your house to keep your life? Me think you would.

Yes, Ongorth has broken a lot of stuff along the way, but only to fix the world. He never questions anyones morality, never judges anyone on their religion, or their race. In fact, he hasn’t really killed anyone to make the world a much better place, unlike those so-called paladins. He might have smashed some skeletons, but that’s ok, they were already dead. Maybe he even slew some gibberlings, but ravenous, genocidal monkeys are not people. They are mindless killing machines, like a great plague. Maybe they cause change, like Ongorth does, but it is caused in a cruel manner to people that do not deserve such a fate. Maybe nature has no conscience, but the Gorth is both good and evil. Some followers prize happiness for all and others for just themselves. Ongorth just shares the wealth, as he is a giving man.

Of course Ongorth is also a very flawed man. He is very compulsive, and unless properly restrained or quickly talked to, he has a habit of destroying things before it is their time. He often feels the need to smash men who appear to be brigands, though as me mentioned he never kills them. Maybe that fact is also a flaw. Does the Gorth need people to be expunged sometimes to be replaced by new people? Probably. Maybe that is one gap in the Ongorth’s devotion. Or, it is possible that he lets the other people kill, as there are other ways to spread goodness. Instead of smashing the life out of people, he works to smash the weapons, concepts, and symbols of evil.

As Ongorth goes about his ways, smashing those things that defile goodness, or simply those things that need replacement, he has been able to make a great number of enemies. Though all things will eventually break, many people wish that things they enjoy only break after they themselves have broken. Feelings are hurt, and many men care more about their property than they do their parents. Many a great threat has crossed the path of Ongorth. Luckily for him, those who are righteous gain many friends, as people who do good are loved for making the world a better place. All of these people who respect Ongorth have helped in little ways to make him the hero he is today.

One thing, though, is that Ongorth never believes he is a hero. When he is accused of that honor, he is quoted to say, "Me did what me hadda do, an me cuduna did it alone," or "No one goes troo thees tings witout help." He thinks that he is only a good man, no more worthy a note than a hard working farmer that makes sure that food is provided for the people by going out into the fields for ten hours a day. Me think that Ongorth is just really being humble because of his devotion to the Gorth. Chaos granted him the proper tools and all he did was what any true man would do: use them. If he had been blessed at working iron, Ongorth would have been the hardest working blacksmith. Instead, Ongorth was the best person one could find to smash things. The thing is, he made himself a hero. He is not the strongest orc. He became a hero not only through hard work, but also because of some fire inside that he used to drive himself to that height. If he had a lesser will, he would be dead. He is no tougher than any given dwarf, and just between us, he isn’t very smart. But he has a big sack heroism inside. Only the people can make that for themselves. Ongorth took full reign over the Gorth to become that man. He took his talents and became a legend.

Without Ongorth, what would have happened to Port Enoch? It would have been taken over by pirates. What would have happened in Pinston? Me would rather not have found out. What would have happened to our village? It’d be gone.

Ongorth allowed our village to survive. We are jackers, not warriors, so only through his careful planning were we able to survive. Setting up caltrops in key areas was ingenious, as it not only cut their footspeed, but it made them scream really loud so we heard them when they attacked us coming. Why ever they attacked us me am not really sure. They weren’t using the lumber or the farmland, so it caused them no pain. Me less sophisticated brothers tend to be territorial, even with things they have no use for. That is probably the reason for them attempting to crush us, but we lived. It must have been predetermined to be that way.

Finding new farmland and starting up again is difficult, so our settlement decided to take a risk and hunt for food until we could sell our wares for profit. It turned out to be a bad move for us, as there were elves in the forest that attacked us. Obviously, they had no interest in our furniture, and hunting for a village is some difficult. Losing two of our numbers hurt, though, as less hands to hunt meant less jacking, and less jacking meant that we might not be able to make enough money when we found a buyer. Me and Ongorth were confident, though, as the Gorth favored our exodus. All we had to do was bend it a bit further for our encampment to thrive.

Maybe it might seem surprising, but Ongorth did not save our village the second time. He was simply jacking trees and keeping us with a supply of lumber to make houses for us. We asked him if he knew a way to stop the elves, and he said, "No." Being peaceful folk, we had no weapons with us, and the caltrops we had used were few in number and of little use against elves who attack from trees. A severe language gap prevented communications, as me was still learning Dwearl, being a native speaker the Gorthian tongue used by orcs in these parts. The elves, being elves, spoke whatever elves speak. We had no idea why they attacked us, but assumed it was a territorial thing, just like when the orcs pounced on us.

Some people came to us. We were hoping that they could help us. They were motley group of folks. One was a knight, and he was really shiny. Me had only heard of knights in stories and was very afraid, as they always seem to kill us orcs. He was a lot bigger and brighter than me had dreamed, all that metal must cost a fortune, which made me think that there could be a sale here. With him was an elf and that was a good sign since maybe she could speak in that elf language. She had really big melons too, so that was nice. Her hair was a funny color, kinda yellow like, and me had never seen it before and it was real pretty. The clothing she wore was real nice, too. There was a mut-elf guy. He was dirty, me think he lived in the forest. Nothing too special. Than there was a dwarf. He was kinda overwhemingly smelly, even for a dwarf, and that’s some bad. Me had seen lots of dwarves in the past and he didn’t seem very special.

They asked why we were in the forest and deep down inside me was offended. Why shouldn’t we be in the forest, whose forest is it anyway? Nobody’s. Everyone shares the forest that’s the way it is. We weren’t doing anything bad. Me told him that we lived here and that’s why we were here. They didn’t seemed satisfied, and we had a little conversation that went something like this:

"What do you guys do here in this forest?" The mut-elf asked the questions. He seemed nervous.

"We are jackers."

They gasp at this.

"No we’re jackers, like trees." Me pointed to the house we had recently built.

They still seemed confused. Me made an axe cutting motion vertically and said, "Not jackers," as in a murder swing. Then me make the same motion horizontally and said, "Jackers," while nodding.

They laughed, so me guessed they understood what me was saying. As we talked, me told them how the elves were shooting us and they were so nice, they said they’d help. Later, they come back and said that we have to stop cutting down trees. Me said that’s our lively hood. They said that we have to replace the trees after we cut them down. Me said that we have no idea how to do that.

They leave again. We continued our harvesting. One day they come back with a smart looking elf. They said he’ll show us how to replant trees. And, they made the elves promise to stop shooting us. We were very grateful, as we found out that they had to kill a troll to make the elves do this. We swore that if they ever needed shelter, or furniture, that they we would provide for them. The elf woman, whose name was Rayn, wanted a house. No one could say no to a lady of such beauty, so we promised her a one once she found a place to put it.

And so they left. Ongorth left us too, soon after, as that elf also taught us better farming techniques and we were soon self sufficient enough that we didn’t require his jacking skills. I’ll never forget the words he spoke as he left, not because they were profound or even great, but because they were his. Here they are, translated from the Gorthian tongue:

"Me off now. The Gorth never stays still, so me can’t either. Me gonna go help those people that helped us, and me gonna help the world. No one has to, but me guesses it’ll be best if someone does and me is bored so it might as well be me."

Even though he may just have been bored at the time, the journey that made him a hero began. He was following the Gorth to do good, so that’s really all that matters. He did manage to save our village again, as we could not find any buyers for our furniture. That’s a story to save for later, though.