Kalkin Gol

Kalkin Gol, is a large orcish city located on a rocky promontory of the same name in the eastern Lordless Lands, in the south, near the foothills of the Atlas Mountains. It is most famous for being the site of a battle where an orcish horde under the leadership of Borba Wise-Eyes ambushed and routed a column of dwarves under the banner of Khaz Dallar. The city is therefore strongly associated with her worship and is among few permanent orcish cities, maintained and garrisoned to prevent a repeated dwarven campaign. It is ruled by the orcish nation's oldest stable horde, the Kalkin Gol Horde. The territory Kalkin Gol holds control over is part of a disputed region of land under active conflict between Bastonia and the Orcish Nation.

Geography

The city's Hold, a central administrative and military quarter, is heavily fortified and exists on the gentler southwestern slope of the promontory, thereby approachable only from that direction. The slope, and indeed much the restof the surround, is filled with buildings of all kinds - housing, shrines and temples, storehouses, armories, and centers of industry. Additionally, the city is something of a patchwork of fortification, being continually re-fortified once a certain density of construction outside the existing walls is reached. Most of this fortification is stone, but on the outermost areas wooden pallisades are used extensively as a stopgap.

The city is home to temple known as the War-Lodge of Borba, dedicated to Borba Wise-Eyes. The temple is said to be established around the grounds of her command tent during the Battle of Kalkin Gol. The city is also home to the only formal cavalry school in all of the Orcish Nation, the Saddlehouse, where Longriders train in mounted combat and animal husbandry.

Economy

As one of only a handful of permanent cities in the Orcish Nation, Kalkin Gol is a prime economic mover for the nation. The city has always been a military enterprise as much as a place of residence, and generates enormous quantities of war materiel in the form of weapons, armour, trained beasts of war, and trained combatants. Members of other tribes and even other hordes frequently trade with the city for these goods, supplementing its stores in agricultural goods.

Politics

Since its establishment as a garrison town of the horde of Borba Wise-Eyes, Kalkin Gol has been under the rulership of the horde which is currently known as the Kalkin Gol Horde, who, as one might expect, now rule from the city, the horde's core leadership having given up the nomadic ways of their bretheren as a heroic sacrifice toward military readiness. The city is therefore often an influence on the politics of other parts of the Nation, lobbying for support against a dwarven invasion that never quite appears to materialize.

The collapse of the Orcish Nation's holdings in what is now the Frontier Counties of Bastonia lead to the tribes of the Mighty Northern Horde flooding into the area around Kalkin Gol. As a result there is occasional conflict between the Kalkin Gol Horde and the Mighty Northern Horde.