By bringing along several of our childhood friends, I was able to entice my brother to come play with us. The troupe, who all know him well, mostly thought he should play an Orc, and after reading all the playbooks, he decided that that was a good idea.
I’d call Vrashek something of an oricsh battle mage. He took both of the orcish invoke the unreal moves and the move that lets him use Brutish instead of Effulgent to do magic (when he’s engaging in violence, anyway). Vrashek’s original clan was called the BLOODY EYE! (it is officially all-caps, as you’ll see below), a group that showed their dedication to war by taking out one eye. Now he’s become a member of Gorgon’s clan, the egotistically-named “Gorgon’s Horde.” He thinks poorly of her leadership; according to him, she’s not honorable and just looking to get rich.
Here’s Jay’s introductory paragraph for Vrashek he sent me in email:
Vrakesh was a member of a particularly troublesome clan of orcs known as the BLOODY EYE! They were well known for their equal parts effectiveness and arrogance. They were a constant pain in the ass, and ultimately a distraction to the war effort. The decision was made to have the BLOODY EYE! take on a clan of ogres that were not really a threat to the war host but weren’t helping either. The clan were almost entirely wiped out in their destruction of the ogres. In the culmination of the carnage, during a battle with the ogre clan’s ogre magus and chieftain, Vrakesh and the ogre magus both attempted to use the blood to show them a way to victory. Their magics intertwined and both were given a vision of the fall of man. They came to the realization together that mankind would turn on itself and be destroyed.
The magus and Vrakesh looked at each other as realization dawned. The path to victory was laid before them. Then Vrakesh stabbed the ogre through the eye and into its brain. He made an axe from its pelvic bones and ate its brain to be sure that he was the only one with the information. He can be found arguing with his axe occasionally.
Now Vrakesh looks to help turn man on itself and thereby draw attention away from his people. He works hard to make himself available to kill humans for other humans. He makes sure that the humans he kills know who sent him and Vrakesh always tries to let an enemy escape in order to tell the tale.
So his whole schtick is killing as many humans as possible, while turning humans against each other in retribution. Fucking badass. More notes I have on him, and on orcs:
- Humans poisoned the orcish breeding pits that Vashrek came from; cratering their birth rate was how the humans turned the tide on the war. Fecundity is slowly returning to orcs.
- There’s no outwardly-visible sexual dimorphism between male and female orcs, and non-orcs usually can’t tell them apart.
- Orcs were better at magic than humans but beaten by human technology (see the poisoning, above).
- Vrashek is disgusted by the clan, Bagish, that has taken him in
- Orcs act as mercenaries in the enclave for the most part; Vrashek chooses mercenary jobs that will cause the most discord
- There’s a faction of orcs called Warsworn who refuse to accede to the end of the war. I believe Vrashek is close to them or one of them.
- From Gnosis and Legacy
- Orcs act as SWAT for Shiriff Nob the Halfling‘s family of cops
- Vrashek’s original clan (the BLOODY EYE!) slaughtered Shalan the Elf‘s kin in the war, but he hasn’t told him (which comes out in Vrashek’s first tale)
- Vrashek’s blood is made to boil by Bloor the Troll because Bloor is so strange and hard to understand
- Shalan has not made restitution for the way he hurt the Bagish clan when he undertook a major magical working that changed the enclave
- Nob is hiding someone marked for death by the humans for Vrashek in his home. Vrashek was good enough to tell Nob why (if I remember correctly, he was a Warsworn orc).
- Bloor destroyed something Vrashek valued, and Vrashek was brave enough to tell Bloor about his feelings.
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