The Gate of Urkhorn — Print

"Though the tale of Borhos has long since ended, it began thousands of years ago with the foul creations of Mikoraza, the Mistress of Horrors. When she planted her seed of vile magic in the dark swamps of Hagzissa, the mythical Tree of Horrors sprouted shortly after. Five fruits it bore, sweet and juicy, but filled with the arcane foulness of Mikoraza. The first was eaten by a great lizard, which climbed the tree to feast. Thus, Dragashu, the Father of Dragons, was born. Then, a hairy spider climbed the branches to feed on the second fruit, which birthed Unalaki, the Broodmother, Mother of Abominations. The third to feast on fruit from the Tree was a hungry warrior, which birthed Yddras, the Father of Giants. A curious witch had heard of a strange Tree at the heart of the bog, she picked the fourth fruit and brewed a mighty potion, which she proceeded to drink. Asha-Hamut, the Mother of Abberations was born. But the fifth fruit was not picked. It fell to the ground, and when the flesh of the fruit was rotten and riddled with mold, a great boar came to feast upon the remains of the cursed fruit. Borhos, the Father of Beasts, was created.

The Great Boar, whose flesh rotted, with mold and spores instead of fur, grew larger by the day. It devoured plant and animal, trampled hut and tree. The animals of those lands were infected, their flesh turned to poison, their offspring monstrous. The clansmen living in the hills south of the swamp gathered to slay the beast, to stop the destruction it caused to their land. A great battle was fought, and many lives were lost. The beast was the size of a great house, but with sword and spear and fire the battle seemed won. On the hilly banks of the river the boar was slashed and thrown into the water. But the Beast survived.

Its blood mingled with the water of the river now known as the Blutstroom. All the people living beside that stream drank from the cursed water, not knowing that they drank the blood of the Father of Beasts, the vile blood of Mikoraza herself even. And so, sickness and death soon followed. Those who survived the plague would be the last of their kind. Their children were born with the tusks of that great boar that had infected them, and they were monstrous to say the least. Strong warriors, but with a dark heart more often than not. The mothers and fathers called them Borhoki, Cursed by the Boar. Many of those first babes were abandoned, laid to rest in the river, to follow the stream that cursed them. To die.

The Great Boar had survived the battle, and when the wounded beast awoke on the riverbed, it was hungrier and angrier than ever before. The Father of Beasts grew ever larger, until all of Sestiun knew his name, and feared it. Some of the small Borhoki, the strongest, managed to survive long enough on the river to be found by kinder folk downstream. Those who did, grew to be tremendous warriors with only a single goal: to slay the Monstrosity that had cursed them, and save the lands from his wrath.

In mere decades, the Father of Beasts had grown to truly monstrous proportions, and laid waste to all the lands in the valley around the Blutstroom. It is said the Monstrosity rivaled even Yddras, Father of Giants, in size. Its tusks could uproot mountains, its hooves trampled entire towns. The Valley of the Beast became known as a desolate land, with only the strongest warriors daring to enter that realm. One Borhoki man, of the name of Uryk, would unite the greatest warriors, and be responsible for the Boar's death.

The tale of the Slaying of the Beast has been told many times throughout these wild lands, and it has changed just as often. Most say Uryk and his fellow warriors devised a great plan to rid the valley where Borhos dwelled of any and all water. They prayed to their gods for an unending drought, and blocked all of the streams in the canyons in the north with rock and dam. Dry winds cracked the already wasted lands, and all that still grew there turned to grey and brown. The mighty beast's thirst and hunger grew, and that is when the fires started. All along the edges of the canyons and the valley, Uryk and his men lit fires to all that would burn. They burned and burned, laying further waste to the territory of the Great Boar. Countless things the Boar did not fear, but fire was not one of them. He ran to the streams but found them dry, and in his thirst and in his fear, the legend tells, he ran to sea. When the fire and smoke and the shouts of warriors closed in about him, in his desperate panic he drank the salty waters of the Bay to quench his thirst. But it was not quenched, thus he drank more, and more, until the brine filled his stomach and poisoned his body. In that moment of vulnerability a group of warriors, on rafts out at sea, shot all of their arrows and threw all of their spears at the eyes of the Father of Beasts, blinding him. Fire at his back, a stomach full of salt water, and a hundred screaming archers out at sea. The beast panicked, and there he was finished, with one great leap of Uryk the commander, and a fell swoop of his greataxe through the neck of the beast that cursed his ancestors. Justice had been done.

Other versions of the tale include powerful druidic spells, where the Borhoki shamans cursed the beast, causing him to rot from within, with the beast drinking salt water in an attempt to expel the poison. Some even say a darker magic was used, where Uryk commanded great Serpents of the Sea, the spawn of Ta'ta'ta'ki, to drown the Beast as it drank from the sea. While others tell of a more explosive ending for the beast, where all the blackpowder in the whole of Sestiun was gathered in the canyon beside the bay, and when it was driven there, the warriors lit the fires and blasted it to pieces. Either way, the warriors were triumphant, and in the years after the Slaying, the carcass of the beast became a gathering place for the Borhoki. On the shores of the sea, near where Blutstroom meets the Bay, the bones of Borhos still lie. There, Uryk founded Urkhorn, within that gigantic mess of sand and rock, bone and tusk, a place where all Borhoki, and all others without home, were welcome.

Sadly, in more recent years, the lawless town has become a breeding ground for ill willed folk, the roving kind. The bay to the south has become known as the Bay of Rovers, with many other ports and villages on the coast offering food and drink to pirates and other such scum. In the skull of the Beast is hidden a bustling lawless marketplace where any exotic material, spice, creature, or other such things can be found. Beyond the markets of Skulltown, deeper into the city, the Borhoki live in primitive dwellings in the shade of huge ribs and other bones, sticking out from the sand that has covered them throughout the ages. The line of Uryk has not ended, and his descendants still rule the city. You can still look upon Uryk's axe, the Boarkiller, with the dried blood of the beast still on it. And of course, see for yourself the scale of the horror that once terrorized these lands."

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