Editing Obould Many-Arrows

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[[File:King Obould Many-Arrows.jpg|thumb|right|300px|An orc this deep in thought is a bad sign, if you're not an orc.]]

'''Obould Many-Arrows''', also known as ''Obould-Who-Is-[[Gruumsh]]'' and ''King Obould Many-Arrows the First'', is a revolutionary [[orc]] warlord of unprecedented charisma, intelligence and foresight from the [[Forgotten Realms]], one who sought not merely to battle the traditional enemies of his people, but to also raise his people up from their traditional squalor.

First appearing in the [[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition]] version of the setting, Obould is an orc warlord of incredible strength and cunning, who begins amassing a vast horde in the Frozen North region of Faerun, when we are introduced to him in the 3e Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book and in the 3e videogame [[Neverwinter Nights]]. He later appears during two serials of the [[Drizzt]] novels, which covers his ultimate plan and goal; amassing the greatest horde ever seen on Faerun, Obould leads his forces to many victories, even successfully defeating Drizzt on two occasions, and successfully petitions his patron god, [[Gruumsh]], to bless him with even greater power, promising to lead the orcs to a position of unparalleled power and respect, achieving a victory that would never be undone.

[[Gruumsh]] decides this sounds too good to pass up, and makes Obould a Chosen - a sort of demigod champion. And then he finds out that Obould has basically suckered him.

See, Obould meant everything he said about attaining the ultimate [[orc]]ish victory. But he had no intention of pursuing it by annihilating all non-orc empires on Faerun, as [[Gruumsh]] had been expecting. No, Obould was so smart he had realized that the traditional orcish lifestyle was ultimately destroying them; every generation, the orcs amassed and poured out of the mountains in a great tide of frenzied bodies, killing their way across Faerun until ultimately they overextended themselves and were destroyed. But the other races were only growing stronger, as their settlements enabled them to develop better magic, better gear, healthier people, stronger militaries, new tactics... they were leaving the orcs behind, reducing them to little more than vermin, struggling desperately to maintain their existence after being repeatedly beaten back to the brink of extinction. So, Obould deduced that the only way to change this was to forcibly end the cycle; give the orcs a homeland, make the other races treat them as equals and not bloodthirsty vermin to be butchered, and then the orcs would grow stronger.

So that's exactly what he did. After conquering a sizable chunk of the Northlands, stretching from Mithral Hall in the west to the Moonwood in the east and to the Evermoors in the south, instead of continuing to fight until his forces were exhausted and overextended like all the warlords before him, he drew back, consolidated his forces in the lands he had conquered, and offered the other nations of the Frozen North a deal; accept the legitimacy of the Kingdom of Many-Arrows and earn a peace treaty, or refuse and continue to fight a long and costly war that had already caused great suffering. Reluctantly, the other nations chose peace, and King Obould was formally recognized as the ruler of the [[Orc]]s of Many-Arrows.

Obould was as good as his word, and whilst it was not easy fighting off the [[Gruumsh]]ite traditionalists who railed against Obould's "unnatural" decision to take this step, the kingdom of Many-Arrows prospered for over 100 years, surviving even the [[Spellplague]] to become a respected (if not fully trusted) nation-state during the turbulent decades beyond. It was even believed by the orcs that Gruumsh ultimately accepted Obould's wisdom and made him an Exarch, a lesser god of the orcs, for his role in giving them a brighter future.

Some have speculated that Obould may have been a mountain [[orc]]/[[orog]] hybrid, retaining the superior size and physical prowess of the mountain orcs with the sharper mind of the orogs. It is worth noting that the orogs, of all the orcish races of Faerun, best understand the idea that the point of conquering something is to enjoy what you took, not to keep reaching greedily for more until you lose everything, which matches well with Obould's revolutionary idea of "conquer and establish your own kingdom rather than just get killed rampaging through somebody else's". They are also the smartest of the orc breeds, which again meshes well with how bright Obould is shown to be.

Obould was actually a pretty decent neighbor to the rest of Luruar, with the possible exception of the elves on his direct border.  He died peacefully in his bed in 1409, and his heirs continued his diplomatic legacy.  The Citadel of Many-Arrows received attention in Dragon Magazine 429.

Sadly, the Kingdom of Many-Arrows would be basically wiped out with little more than a handwave as part of the first update of the [[Forgotten Realms]] to [[Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition]], thus making Obould's efforts all come to naught.

[[Category: Dungeons & Dragons]]
[[Category: Forgotten Realms]]