The Geld

The Hinterlands were once owned by a nightmarish people known as the Geld, or the Beasts of Geld. A huge confederation of tribes, called an empire solely due to their sheer number. A force of nature that plundered and sacrificed victims all over the old Wurld and the new. A living blight that lasted centuries before their horrid reign was finally stamped out by plague and internal strife.

The Geld were expert riders and the premier military geniuses of their day. Able to turn their enemies against one another with shocking ease and transform even the most resolute of foes into cowering victims. The Geld made an art of slaughter and taught the world as much about strategy as they did about terror.

The Geld were primarily a blend of tribalistic orcs and vicious humans, but mistaking them as simple brutes and savages was a catastrophically unwise decision, one that was proven time and again with each new adversary they defeated. The Geld made siege-weapons that could level Stone Dwarf citadels and employed an arsenal of deadly weaponry that literally put the civilized armies of their day to shame.

Geld himself, was a war-mage of no small power and ruled for almost six centuries over his vicious people. One of the first documented half-orcs, he forged a bond between his two rivalling families and solidified them into an unstoppable force of destruction.

Consorting with demons and promoting blood rituals to Wargagug, Geld linked his soul to not one, but two Leystones and upon his eventual death on the battlefield he was reborn as an undying monster of shadow and decay.

As a newly arisen Lich, Geld turned from procuring wealth and status to filling the world with his hand-crafted monstrosities and undead nightmares. Spreading fear, misery and conflict as far and as wide as possible.

Eventually his foul experiments and unbridled hatred for all life led him to release a swarm of disease that would eventually devastate his own people. Combining that with the continuous infighting amongst his descendants his legacy was soon turned into ruin.

As for Geld himself, historians would say that he eventually displeased Wargagug in some obscure manner and was obliterated by his own patron.

Whatever the outcome, the Geld empire eventually ended. Leaving only roaming monsters and cursed ruins to mark their welcome passing