Kindling of the Orcs

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The Kindling of the Orcs was a moment in orcish history when the prehistoric "Princes of Beasts" were given fully-sapient minds and souls by the Firekeeper. Orcish tradition maintains that the Firekeeper did this in response to the expansion of humans into the Lordless Lands. This is part of the Orcish Long Count of History and is considered the beginning of history by their scholars, with the time before that being known as the Time of the Princes of Beasts. The exact date of this event is unknown as the period of history best aligns with the Bastonian histories of the Age of Bitter Darkness, much of which is heavily mythologized.

The historicity of this event is disputed: the Star-Counters make no record of the change in their long history, the Dwarves similarly keep no record, and the Bastonian scholars disagree among themselves as to the origins of the orcs at all, though neither major faction of Bastonian Scholarship gives any creedence to the existence of the Firekeeper, believing her to instead be a manifestation of the Enemy or, sometimes, a misinterpretation of the Almighty, depending on whether the scholar in question believes in the Apocrypha of the Green League.