…and the locals were scandalized
The Doclopedia #60
Strongholds: Murkhold
When the King Of All Orcs decided that the Orc Nation needed an impregnable fortress, he set his people to work building it in the middle of the Murkwaste Swamp. It took 22 years, the lives of 2,785 orcs, a couple of dozen wagon loads of gold and the combined efforts of 33 orcish shamans, but it finally got built.
Murkhold is a medium sized castle sitting at the center of a walled island that measures a mile across. Within those walls is a fully populated town surrounding the castle. The tops of the are constantly patrolled by orc warriors, but it’s really just a formality, because the swamp is the real deterrent to attack. Any enemy would have to pass through a dozen miles of disease ridden, creature infested, booby trapped and magically protected muck & mire. Additionally, the skies above are constantly alive with everything from piranha birds to deathbats to Bluzortivax, the resident adult red dragon.
Even if some aggressor made to to Murkhold, he would find the 8 foot thick stone walls magically hardened, the orcish archers dead shots and the ballistas mounted every 30 feet throwing deadly sharp masses of rock. Inside the walls, there would be several thousand pissed off and heavily armed orcs, plus a fair number of troll mercenaries. Inside the castle proper are the elite Royal Guard, a dozen Combat Shamans, trained scorpion wolves and a spell that slowly saps the strength of any non-orc who enters it.
Upon finding out the hard way how well defended the orcs are, the Five Kingdoms did the only thing they could do: They cleared the land for a mile around the swamp and put out large patrols that have orders to kill any humanoid that emerges from the swamp. The orcs still manage to get in and out, but only in very small groups moving very fast. The King Of All Orcs has plans to someday mount a large attack, but at the present time, most of his subjects are ok with just staying put.
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