History

Like most Greenskins, the young Orc known as Urzahk was not alive when Clan Sprawn ruled the forests that Berphaunt so greedily coveted, nor was he there to see the long and genocidal campaign of extermination that followed. He was, however, raised by many who were. His Elders, the ancient Orcs of Clan Blackthorn kept to the inspiring tales, seeking to instill a sense of community and shared history in the next generation, as many within the Amaranthine Legion had previously only had a rather tenuous connection to one another before its founding. By tying their history together with Clan Sprawn, these clan elders sought to erase the boundaries between clans, and to give these young Orcs cultural heroes that would inspire them to greatness. Urzahk devoured these tales, imagining himself as the hero who would save his clan from the treacherous pinkskins, and sought to craft himself into the kind of savage warrior that could fulfill these childish fantasies.

Urzahk had been a man for nearly two years when the Conclave attacked the Legion and enslaved the Gargylen once again, but unlike most of his kin he secretly welcomed this turn of events. The young Urzahk expected to be unleashed upon the pinkskins in response, to take bloody vengeance upon them for all the pain and humiliation the greenskins had suffered at the Empire’s hands. When that order never came, and the High Warlord instead counseled patience and wisdom, Urzahk felt betrayed. The fury and rage within his heart demanded to be released, and when it was not, his resentment and anger turned inward towards the Legion itself. Who were these cowards? These doddering old fools that played at being Human politicians instead of the fearsome reavers their kind was meant to be? Clearly they had lost their way, and it would be up to him to rescue his clan from mediocrity.

On January 12, 2268, Urzahk challenged Azar’Gauf Gaunttooth, Warlord of Clan Blackthorn, for his title. Urzahk was young, confident, and both fiercely strong and battle-tested against some of the fiercest foes the Amaranthian jungle had to offer. Gaunttooth on the other hand, was an old man in a game where most men die young, and his axes had sown terror across a hundred battlefields. While Urzahk fought well, the outcome was never really in doubt. But instead of the warrior’s death Urzahk thought was coming, Gaunttooth stayed his blades. He admired this youngling’s spirit, and decided that his valour had earned a reprieve of sorts. Forgiveness itself was impossible, for such a challenge of a Warlord’s position could not be ignored. Instead he exiled young Urzahk, stripping him of his position with Clan Blackthorn, and indeed even the Legion itself.

Exile was formative for Urzahk. Where most would have broken by the experience or have died some ignoble death in the jungle, Urzahk was instead forged into something stronger still. He did not think he was wrong, not as such, but he realized that he had been thinking too small. The entire Legion was rotten to the core, riddled with cowards and weak-willed leaders that had replaced their fury with fear. The corrupted, teetering edifice that Gigoliath had built would need to be torn down in its entirety, and replaced with something that channeled and amplified the spirits of true greenskins, instead of attempting to turn them into green-tinted Humans. For that Urzahk looked to his past, the stories that had inspired him as a youngling, and decided that they needn’t be mere stories any longer.

Slowly, and over time Urzahk has been spreading his message, and while most are still loyal to the High Warlord and his vision for the greenskin peoples, Urzahk’s iconoclastic word found adherents amongst the young folk of Voynak. They gather deep within the jungles of Amaranthia, stockpiling food and weapons while training for the battles to come.

Current Events

March 2268

Urzahk departed the Amaranthian continent upon a small fleet of stolen ships, intending to make war upon Berphaunt and to build his legend, brick by bloody brick. He was joined not only by several thousand young greenskins like himself, but also by a significant force of Gnomish warrior-engineers from Terror Mountain. Previously declared to be off limits by High Warlord Gigoliath, Urzahk had ignored this prohibition and purchased their loyalty through means yet unknown. It is suspected that the odd and rapid movement of his forces is owed in large part to these strange allies.

June 2268

Having raided the frontier towns and border forts of the Berphauntian Empire for months, Urzahk and his forces had managed to evade reprisals, before finally being seemingly trapped between the walls of Fort Imperatus, and the unfeeling Gargylen automatons of the XIII Legion. If the imperial commander had taken the time to consider why the Orcs arrayed before her were so few, she might have redeployed in time to save some of her soldiers. Instead, as her troops engaged with the foe that she could see, her army in turn was surprised as several thousand more greenskins erupted from the ground, catching her legion in a brutal pincer maneuver. None were spared, and as the battle concluded Urzahk and his forces entered the fort, razed it to the ground, and left the flag of Clan Sprawn impaled within the body of the imperial commander, before departing for parts unknown.