Editing Nobledark Imperium Xenos (section)

== Da Orkz ==

=== The Beast ===

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">''''' He Who Will Bring His People Much Slaughter: '''''

Urlakk Urgg. The Beast. The big one. The lord who will bring his people much slaughter. The single greatest mortal threat ever faced by the Imperium, and the yardstick to which all other Ork warbosses are measured.

Urlakk Urg was originally the warboss of Ullanor, the center of an Ork empire that laid claim to a number of star systems. It is thought that the Imperium was lucky to have encountered Ullanor when they did, as Ullanor and similar Ork empires such as Gorro seemed to be reaching a critical mass beyond which Brain Boyz would start being produced. Already the Orks of Ullanor and Gorro were developing technology and organization beyond what orks were capable of for most of Imperial History (like proto-Attack Moons and sedentary settlements), and orks like Urlakk Urg seemed to be much smarter and of a different caste from the usual ork, though not fully Brain Boyz.

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The Ullanor Crusade was a bloody slog, made more difficult by the fact that the usual strategy of “shoot the warboss first” was untenable as Urg was smart enough to not to reveal his face in the open until his Boyz were in the thick of the fighting. The conflict only turned in the Imperium’s favor when Horus provoked Urlakk Urg into revealing himself, taunting Urlakk Urg from his flagship until Urg gave Horus the coordinates to his location, demanding that the coward face him in single combat. Horus responded by slagging Urg’s palace from orbit and decapitating most of the WAAAGH!’s leadership in one blow. Normally this sort of practice worked wonders, and indeed it did win the day in the Ullanor Crusade, but slagging the palace from orbit meant that Urg’s body was unaccounted for, which allowed him to escape unnoticed and swear bloody vengeance on the Imperium from the barren rock he ended up on. This led him to an encounter with [[Chaos Gods|four other individuals]] who also had a very vested interest in deposing the Imperium.


The Chaos Gods assisted in the Beast’s phoenix-like return to power, giving him access to Warp portals that allowed him to rapidly assert dominance over WAAAGH!s that were otherwise a galaxy apart, and giving him blessings to exploit the loophole in Ork logic of “bigger equals boss”. The Beast’s assault was basically a massive blitzkrieg that came screaming across the northern border of the Imperium, backed up by daemons, Crone Eldar, and Dark Eldar raiding in their wake like pilot fish following a big shark. Daemonic incursions and smaller WAAAGH!s erupted in other parts of the galaxy such that the Imperium was besieged on all fronts and had trouble creating a unified front against the main push of the WAAAGH! to the north. Although many smaller WAAAGH!’s split off from the Beast’s main force, the Beast’s plan was to head straight for Ullanor, convert the planet into an attack planet, and then make a beeline for Old Earth to kill the Steward and claim Isha for Chaos (Isha wasn’t on Earth at the time since this was before the alliance was formed, but that was a secondary concern). There was some stopping for lootin’ an’ pillagin’, but by Ork standards it was extremely fast. Most early battles in the War of the Beast, especially on the main front, tended to be [[Nobledark_Imperium_Primarchs#Sanguinius|pyrrhic victories]] or [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notable_People#Jenetia_Krole|heroic last stands]] for the Imperium at best, the defenders swept away by the sheer force of the green tide.

It wasn’t until the Beast’s forces entered the core territories of the Segmentum Solar, despite being harried by Horus, Kurze, and Guilliman, that his momentum began to slow. His first plan upon entering the Sol System was to ram Ullanor into Earth, sterilizing everything on the surface. Some say it’s because hitting one planet with another like billiard balls is ded orky. Some say the Beast was so obsessed with revenge he didn’t care how orky it was. Maybe it was both, and the Beast was mixing business with pleasure. However, that plan was foiled by the actions Ollanius Pius, which forced the Beast to try and take the planet using ground troops. We all know how that ended up. The death of the Beast marked the turning point of the war, as the warbosses could no longer effectively cooperate and were picked off one by one, with the most successful carving out their own petty kingdoms.


The Beast’s status and accomplishments are legendary among the orks. The most dangerous warbosses throughout history have taken up the title of Beast (specifically, Mag Uruk Thraka) in the hopes of achieving a similar level of infamy to Urlakk Urg. These Beast WAAAGH!s are some of the greatest threats to the Imperium, comparable to a major tyranids Hive Fleet (e.g., Behemoth, Kraken, or Leviathan) or one of Malys’ Black Crusades. However, until [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notes#Ghazghull|recently]], none of the successors to the title had the potential to measure up to the original.

Importantly, unlike most of his successors, who either consider Chaos an ally of convenience or just pay lip service to its ideals at best, and Ghazghull, who hates Chaos, the Beast was the only major warboss to actively embrace Chaos and reject the Gorkamorka to pledge his devotion to, quote, “gods who actually do something for their worshippers”. As a result, he got a shitload of blessing including marks from all four Chaos Gods and the mark of Chaos Ascendant, which turned him into an absolute nightmare the size of a hab-block that tore through a number of the Imperium’s greatest heroes and took the Steward and Eldrad (with some softening up from Sanguinius) to finally bring him down.

Ironically, the Beast’s greatest flaw was wrath of all things. Orks love fighting. They love fighting and winning even more. The Beast wasn’t angry that the Imperium declared war on him. He was angry that they took his empire from him. Not only that, but they did so in one of the most underhanded methods possible, by tricking him and then nuking him from orbit rather than defeating him in face-to-face combat. The danger of this flaw could already be seen in Ullanor Crusade, Urg was a kunnin’ ork and knew Horus was trying to trick him but eventually his anger got the better of him. Anger can be a powerful motivator, as well a deadly flaw. The Beast’s anger gave him the motivation to unite most of the Ork race within a few years, but it also led him to making a lot of short-sighted, kneejerk decisions without thinking of the consequences like allying with the Chaos gods and [[Nobledark_Imperium_Writing#Ork_Diplomacy|tactical errors due to trying to make a statement rather than just krumpin’ da gitz]]. Ironically, this would have probably gotten him killed by his followers once the rush of battle wore off and the orks started looking to their long-term future, but the Beast’s lust for revenge did the job for him and accidentally [[Nobledark_Imperium_Xenos#Brain_Boyz|set the Orks back millennia]].

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=== Brain Boyz ===

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">''''' The Menace in Green: '''''

''“It’s no good. Bloody greenskins set a trap for us. Send a few trigger-happy Boyz our way, knowing that we’d think that’s all they got and advance. So we get cocky and march our way through the mountain pass. Then once we get too far in to retreat the Orks show they’re not as dead as we all thought and cut off the mountain pass. Only way out of the beartrap is to go deeper into ork territory. Don’t you see, Commissar? It’s an ambush.”''<br>
''“Ambush? What do you mean ambush? Orks don’t set am–”''<br>
-- Last words of the Hekaton 234th, right before being attacked by an Ork ambush

Brain Boyz are perhaps the greatest threat to the Imperium to come out of the Orkish menace in recent years. The greenskins have produced numerous threats over the millennia, including the numerous Beast WAAAGH!s, Armageddon Wars, the Wyrd War that decimated the legion Terra’s Sons, or the Black Croosade [sic] called by the Chaos Ork Rotfang Badgut, but these were often sector or segmentum-scale threats, none of which could compare to sheer destruction wrought by the War of the Beast. Some, particularly in areas that saw relatively little fighting during the War of the Beast, were foolish enough to say that the Orks were no longer capable of posing any organized threat to the Imperium, despite the Orks being responsible for the most brutal conflict in Imperial history. Orks were often seen as little more than cannon fodder, little more than mercenaries or catspaws of greater powers like Chaos or marauding distractions from more threatening adversaries like the Necrons or tyranids, not to be underestimated but not capable of being a significant threat on their own (no matter what the ravings of the inhabitants of the Sol system and its nearby territories had to say). All of which had to be reassessed when Brain Boyz made their reappearance on the galactic stage. 

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Most inhabitants of the Milky Way, or at least those who have any idea of how the greater galaxy works beyond their own little world, have a general understanding of the Ork life cycle. Ork spores gradually orkiform the world, a single spore capable of germinating into a variety of different morphotypes depending on the availability of nutrients and the strength of the WAAAGH! field, producing first mushrooms, then more complex orkoid organisms such as squigs. Then snotlings appear, followed by gretchins, followed by orks. A complete self-sustaining ecosystem and war machine. What most don’t know, however, is that there is an additional stage to the Ork life cycle. Eventually, the Ork population reaches a “critorkal mass”, which prompts the development of a new Ork caste: the Brain Boyz. Orks become more intelligent the more of them there are, but Brain Boyz produce a quantum leap in Ork functionality, increasing the intellect of all orkoid lifeforms around them just by their sheer presence. The appearance of Brain Boyz in an Ork WAAAGH! is often heralded by an increase in the sophistication of Ork technology, including the appearance of more advanced Ork devices such as reliable tellyportas, attack moons, and gravity whips as the WAAAGH! field becomes strong enough to unlock the knowledge hidden in their genetic code. Indeed, many Great Crusade-era Warbosses, including Urlakk Urg of Ullanor (a.k.a. The Beast), the Mekboy Warboss of Gorro, and Gharkul Blackfang of Gyros-Thravian, all of whom ruled over Ork empires even more advanced than Charadon, Bork, or Octarius are today, could be seen as proto-Brain Boyz in a sense. Although the presence of Brain Boyz does not preclude the creation of these devices, their production certainly increases following their appearance.

In the past, the appearance of Brain Boyz was a cyclical thing, like a tidal cycle. Over the course of thousands of years, the Ork population would grow, the WAAAGH! field would hit a critical mass, and then Brain Boyz would appear. The Orks would then mostly unite under a single banner to wage WAAAGH! on the rest of the galaxy before being beaten back and the Brain Boys hunted down and destroyed (typically at great cost), returning the Orks to square one. Typically this was done by the Old Eldar Empire or in later years the Interstellar League of humans and their allies during Dark Age of Technology (for which Brain Boy WAAAGH!s were one of the reasons the League formed in the first place). And so the cycle would repeat itself. However, after the Fall of the Eldar and the Age of Strife, there was no longer any eldar empire or league of species to prune back the Orkoid menace. It is estimated that had the Great Crusade not set out when it did, in half a millennium or less Brain Boyz would have re-emerged with no checks on their power. This estimate might have been even lower if the WAAAGH! forged by the Beast had managed to hold. The great Beast ironically did the galaxy a favor, setting Ork back several thousand years by rushing headlong into war with the Imperium.

What the rest of the galaxy also don’t realize is that Brain Boyz are not just Orks with added kunnin’. Brain Boyz occur when the WAAAGH! field is high enough that a single Ork spore divides into twin zygotes. This isn’t exactly uncommon, Ork spores twin all the time, but typically these are chance occurrences whose products grow into two orks or two gretchin. Brain Boy spores are produced by induced twinning and grow into two different Orkoid lifeforms, an ork and a gretchin reflecting the duality of orkiness: brutal cunning and cunning brutality. Often, the ork will start out runty and the gretchin will come out particularly large, due to the gretchin twin taking up nutrients that would otherwise go to the Ork (though in the case of Ghazghull and Makari both came out particularly runty, likely due to the circumstances of their birth). Typically, this twinning is not immediately noticed, Orks typically don’t make it a point to record where a particular boy or grot is born after all, but the two Brain Boyz know each other on sight and are in constant psychic contact with one another (similar phenomena have been noted in eldar and human psyker twins). That said, most Orks instinctively recognize Brain Boyz once they reach some level of prominence. This ork-gretchin duality is just as practical as symbolic. Few would suspect a gretchin of being capable of altering the behavior of a WAAAGH! If the ork Brain Boy is killed, the WAAAGH! doesn’t instantly collapse from in-fighting and the sudden loss of brainpower. If a foe knows about the gretchin Brain Boy, they are often too paranoid about the gretchin Brain Boy to notice the ork one putting a choppa in their face.

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=== Ork Empires of Charadon, Octarius, and Bork ===

Contrary to popular belief, when the Beast was slain on Old Earth, the remainder of the Orkish army did not miraculously disperse into a puff of spore and WAAAGH!-flavored smoke. True, the Orks were thrown into disarray at the loss of their leader, but Orks are more used to radical changes in leadership than humans, and there were still plenty of Orks on Old Earth. Once the Orks were driven from the Sol System, the long and costly Reclamation of Old Earth began. Any spot on which an ork has shed blood is guaranteed to produce more Orks, unless the body is burned or more drastic measures are taken. However, this was Old Earth, the cradle of humanity, and its stubborn people would (literally) move mountains in order to ensure their planet was Ork-free. The intensity of the campaign to ensure that the planet was never Orkiformed was nearly as destructive to Old Earth’s ecosystem as the wrought by the forces of the Beast themselves.

The threat of the Beast’s hordes extended far beyond the Sol system. Through violence, cunning, brutality, promises of a good fight, and copious use of Chaos-sponsored Warp portals to cut down on travel time, the Beast had managed to suborn every major Warboss and unite virtually all WAAAGH!s worth noting in the Milky Way in little more than six standard years. It is estimated that at the time of the War of the Beast, nearly eighty percent of the Ork population was under Urlakk Urg’s control in some fashion. Upon hearing news of the Beast’s death, many of the more ambitious Warbosses attempted to break off and form WAAAGH! of their own, rather than follow “that Urlakk git’s” orders. Some of these Warbosses were more successful than others.

The most successful were the Arch-Arsonist of Charadon, the Overfiend of Octarius, and the Arch-Mangler of Mork. These three Warbosses carved out massive areas of space, forming the basis for what would become the modern Octarius, Charadon, and Bork sectors. The Octarius, Charadon, and Bork sectors are less sectors in the traditional Imperial sense, and more designations for the massive amounts of space that these three Orkish empires control. Although many later Ork enclaves have sprung up due to the increasingly strained nature of Imperial resources, these three empires can trace their roots all the way back to the War of the Beast. The Arch-Arsonist, Overfiend, and Arch-Mangler are even still around, after a fashion, even though the original Orks that carved out these dominions are now long dead. The identity of these rulers has changed regularly, as is typical of a kratocracy, but each Ork that takes control of each of these empires takes on the identity and in some cases the mannerisms of the previous rulers, even adopting the oversized gorget that has become a symbol of Ork power since it was used by Urlakk Urg during the War of the Beast. Sometimes by chance a Chaos Ork has even risen to the throne. Of course, these Chaos Orks typically fail in their goal to convert these empires to the worship of the Chaos Gods, and few stay in power for long, especially if they make the mistake of badmouthing the Gorkamorka.

The Imperium was unable to do much to stop these Warbosses at the time as they were still recovering from the War of the Beast and were still trying to scrape together a semblance of an empire in their own space. By the time the Imperium had recovered enough to retaliate, the Orks had already dug in too deep to effectively without a massive waste of manpower and materiel. Even during the Imperial Reconquista, when several smaller Orkish empires were crushed underfoot by Machairius and his forces, these three managed to stubbornly resist any efforts at conquest. Furthermore, as much as the Imperium is loath to admit it, the empires also serve a useful purpose in acting as buffer states against outside xenos threats, particularly Charadon which shares a border with the Necron Star Empire.

That is not to say the Imperium is content to sit and do nothing. The Imperium knows full well what happens when one leaves Orks to their own devices, as seen by the Empires on Gorro and Ullanor during the Great Crusade. The Imperium regularly sends assassins into Ork-held territories, especially the Empires of Octarius, Charadon, and Bork, in order to take out any kunnin’ or charismatic Warboss in the hopes of keeping an Ork like the Beast from ever arising again. Chaos appears to have a similar idea, sending their own assassins after any promising warboss, in order to keep the Orks stupid and easily manipulated. Unfortunately, this means that the few Orks who do survive this gauntlet of assassins tend to be the smartest and most kunnin’ of the lot, meaning that all this action may have done is lower the threshold for Brain Boyz to emerge.

=== Empires of Gathrog and Dregruk ===

To the galactic northeast of Cadia and the Eye of Terror lie two great Ork Empires, the Empire of Gathrog and the Empire of Dregruk. These Ork empires are so large that if the two WAAAGH!s were to combine forces, it is likely that they could easily overrun Cadia and the Cadian Gate before the Imperium could do much of anything about it. Fortunately for the Imperium, these two empires hate each other with a passion, and would much rather fight each other than team up against the Imperium.

This is due in large part to the two empire’s choice of patrons. Gathrog is one of the few Ork WAAAGH!s to be composed almost entirely of Chaos Orks (likely because of its close proximity to the Eye), with the current Arch-Dictator of Gathrog being a Khornate. The Great Despot of Dregruk and his forces, on the other hand, are staunch followers of the Gorkamorka, and in recent years have sworn fealty to Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka as part of his efforts to consolidate forces in preparation for the 5th War of Armageddon.

===The Proto-Orks and the Krork ===

See [[Nobledark_Imperium_Xenos#The_Proto-Orks_and_the_Krork|The Proto-Orks and the Krork]]