The Orcs Of Angband

The orcs of Angband

Orcish society summed up in one word would be complicated.

It’s a system based on honour- honour of your ancestors, honour you bring upon your family with your productivity and the quality of your service, honour bestowed upon you by The Lieutenant and His Highness. 

But it’s also a system heavily divided by blood. How closely are you related to the progenitors? is it in your direct bloodline or is it so distant to be inconsequential? How long has it been since His Highness touched your blood?

There is not an emphasis on war per se, more an emphasis on productivity. His Highness and The Lieutenant have given your family and your blood a function, a duty to perform; whether that be to serve as warriors or making shoes. It is glorious to die in battle, of course it is. But it is also glorious to say you were the smith behind the sword that smote hundreds of elves, that you were the one to train the wargs that made men weep and wail in fear, that you made the shoes that enabled the troops to walk hundreds of miles to give aid to the front lines.

A war cannot be fought with soldiers alone. A mantra they are taught from youth. You can insult another for disobedience, for being to slow in training, for complaining about food. But you do not insult an orc’s craft, you do not call their line of work redundant, and you do not insinuate that one is lesser for not being a warrior. To do so is to bring dishonour on your own blood for His Highness and The Lieutenant have deemed that craft necessary and who are you to disagree with them?

Elves are considered lesser. Well, of course they are. They have not had His Highness’ gifts, they fight him when he attempts to improve them, and they dare to fight him over his rightful property. Some pity them, for they are obviously ignorant and deceived. They wouldn’t help slaves, of course they wouldn’t, they still fought His Highness. Others despise elves- have lost family, lovers, battalions, and have no sympathy left for the crawling cringing things when they return. They deserve everything and more besides.

Men are worse. They die quicker than both Orcs and Elves, and are less fun besides. Worse, there are more of them in Angband, scuttling too and fro akin to so many cockroaches. They breed fast at least. If ever someone gets angry it is entirely acceptable to take it out on man-slaves. They are not permitted to kill the elves because they cannot be easily replaced. Men breed like rats. A dead one is easily replaced. 

Eonwe! Eonwe had immense trouble making a physical form because as a maia of Manwe he has problems being confined in any way, so when he finally managed to take an Eldar form he took great pride in it (even though he sometimes twists his head around like an owl and often forgets to blink).

So I was going through my computer and found one of my old mairon designs and I thought I’d share it because I have nothing better to do with it at all.

Amrod and Amras as the elvish equivalents of Gordon Ramsay

He has his own secrets

He has his own secrets.

It’s not as if he enjoys it, like he relishes the idea of having to hide things from his brother, but Elrond has always felt just a bit too deeply and there’s no telling what he’d do if he knew.

(it wouldn’t even be on purpose, he knows, but Elrond would bottle it up and up until he burst, and he is far to close to the Lieutenant, either by way of Maglor or his job, and there is no way Elros could ever lie to either of them. They’ve done too much for him, he couldn’t stand it.)

There’s a small hollow just behind his room. The crack to reach it is only about a finger’s width wide, but he can sing himself into it easily enough. It’s maybe three steps wide and he has to hunch over because the ceiling is just too low, but it’s all his. All his and no-one else knows about it and no-one else can bother him in it. 

Because the Lieutenant may dote on him and his brother, and Maglor may cosset them far more than they really need, but sometimes he just can’t stand it. He knows Elrond enjoys it, his brother has always been horribly scared that he would be left behind alone and unloved, and he can’t begrudge his brother anything, so he smiles and puts up with it.

(He wants to blame their mother, their mother who was far too young, who still carried the horror of seeing her mother and father die, and could not help it if she called them the wrong names when she felt so alone, who thought the Feanorions mad enough to follow her and dash themselves on the cliffs below and spare her sons. He can’t bring himself too.)

In his room he hides things away. The rags of a co-worker who fell victim to necrosis, the lucky necklace of one of the men who helped till the fields until his body collapsed under him. An old blanket he thinks came from the havens. Nothing awful, nothing seditious, just... things he would rather remember. Because he loves Elrond, and Maglor, and Maedhros, and the Lieutenant, and His Highness, but he knows deep down he is not quite like them, that he may Sing as sweetly as his brother, but they are inherently not the same and there are some times he just wants to be alone and sink into his thoughts. And if all the things he’s collected help him, well, it’s not exactly like anyone was using them.

(And if sometimes he sits in his hollow and dreams of a future without the Lieutenant and His Highness, a future where he has grown old and grey and his twin looks over him still gleaming with youth and he smiles as tears steam down Elrond’s face as he takes one long laborious breath and bids him a a final farewell, well. That’s his private dream. If he wishes beyond anything to experience the vibrancy of life without becoming worn down and world weary as time becomes meaningless, he doesn’t have to tell anyone. It would only upset them anyway to know. They would be happier in ignorance.)

He has his own secrets.

If anyone wants Tolkien music listen to literally anything by Oonagh- she’s a really good German singer and she does songs in German, Quenya, and Sindarin based on Tolkien’s work. They’re all really good!