Sweat ran down Dgaro’s bald, tattoed scalp, the red and black, tribal designs that covered his head, arms and torso stood out on the half orcs yellow sunbaked skin. His muscled arms bulged as he gripped the blood slickened hilt of his sword, in a fighting posture. Slitted orc pupils glared unblinkingly at his orcan opponent with hatred. Dgaro hated orcs, Dgaro hated everyone and everything. He felt his entire life was preparation for this moment. A life filled with hatred and killing. His half orcan sense of smell picked up the scent of fear coming from his older, bigger adversary, and he grinned, showing his orcan canines. Drg, his latest opponent, was chieftan of the Talon tribe, the very same tribe the half breed was cast out of, after killing his father Rak, the former chieftan.

Dgaro took his first life at the tender age of six. His older brother, twice his age and nearly twice his size, decided he wanted Dgaro’s meager supper scraps, again. Something inside the half breed snapped. The brutal beatings from his father, the ridicule and hungry nights inflicted on him by his orcan siblings, all flashed through his mind, his vision began to swim, and he saw everything through a blood red haze. With a growl of pure rage, he jumped on his brother, fists,feet and teeth flying. The next thing he knew, his father was dragging him off his brothers corpse, the coppery taste of blood and flesh in his mouth from where he tore out his abusive sibling’s throat. As his father reigned blow after blow on Dgaro’s head and upper body, the last thing he remembered, before slipping into unconciousness, was a sense of satisfaction, he liked killing.

In his eighth summer, Dgaro killed again. His father, drunk on orcan spirits, grew tired of a rivals bragging about his eldest sons fighting prowess, and the offhand, veiled remarks about Raks inability to have anymore sons of “pure, proud orc blood”.
” My half dgar pup could like as not whip your coddled, pansy whelp of a boy”, challenged Rak, using the orcan slang dgar, a derogatory term for human, from whence Dgaro’s name was derived, making the challenge more insulting.

Dgaro was pulled from his sleep by his fathers rough, hairy hands, and dragged through a ring of drunken orc onlookers. Rak thrust his son into the firelit ring. “Fight boy”, growled Rak in his sons face, Dgaro recoiled from his fathers liquer laden breath, “And don’t shame your father or your tribe”.

Dgaro rubbed sleep from his eyes as he looked toward the other side of the ring. A large, already heavily muscled orc teen stalked toward him menacingly, canines exposed in an evil grin, meaty fists clenching and unclenching. From all outward appearences it looked like a mismatch, the orc youth was a full foot taller than the half breed, and twice as broad. Even though Dgaro was half orc, if he closed his eyes and mouth, covering his slitted, animal like pupils and opposing canines, only his dark yellow skin betrayed his orcan heritage. It appeared as if a monster was about to slaughter a young human child.

Dgaro retreated from the brutes clumsy advance, backing up into the wall of orc onlookers, who shoved him back into the ring, into the waiting arms of his opponent, who picked him up and slammed him to the ground, knocking the wind from his lungs. He tried to get up, gasping for air he made it to all fours, ears filled with the jeering crowd and his fathers angry, embarrassed screaming. A kick to the face from his large orcan adversary broke his nose, and sent him sprawling on his back. He stared up at the stars while his conciousness began to fade, when his orcan opponents ugly face blotted his view. ” Dgar weakling “, he grunted as he spit on the prone half breed.

Blood flowed from Dgaro’s broken nose and ran into his mouth, tasting the warm, metalic taste of his own blood, it triggered a reaction, almost an explosion in his brain. Suddenly the pain was replaced by animal rage, the screaming of the crowd and his drunken father was drowned out by the thumping of his own heart, as it pumped hot, adrenelin laced blood through his veins.

Dgaro folded his legs between himself and the orcan youth, and kicked out with both feet, both heels impacted with the orcs testicles, sending him flying ten feet and onto his back, where he crawled into the fetal position, his mouth wide open in a soundless scream of pain, as agony coursed through his abdomen and belly. Before he could recover, Dgaro was on him, growling like an animal, teeth seeking the soft flesh of the injured orcs throat. No longer did he resemble a helpless human child as he continued to hit, bite and tear at his foe, even after his life had bled away. When he was finaly dragged from the corpse he looked to his father for approval, instead he was beaten within inch of his life for initialy retreating, and embarrassing his father.

On his thirteenth birthday, his father presented him with a sword. Dgaro gripped the weapon in both hands and held it up over his head, looking up at it and admiring how the sun gleamed of its sharpened edge, and how good it felt in his hands. Standing almost as tall as his father, Dgaro looked down from the sword to his father. Rak noticed the insane gleam in his sons eyes a moment to late, as the half breed brought the sword down, and clove his fathers head to the chin.

Covered in blood and brain matter, he was driven from the tribe at Drgs insistence. “No dgar will ever lead the Talon tribe”, he said. Although the truth was he was afraid of the half breed, his insane ferociity and joy of killing was now well noted among the tribes.

Dgaro took up with a band of outlaws, consisting of outcast half orcs, a couple of escaped felon dwarves, brigand humans, one half elf and one thouroghly insane norseman. They sometimes rented their swords out as protection to unsuspecting caravans out of Rahun, but more often than not they robbed them and murdered and raped its occupants. Being a thorn in the Rahun militarys side for the better part of a decade.

One night, two months prior, he received a vision, a pale, red eyed elf visited him in his dreams and promised him wealth and power, as well as an outlet for his hostility, if he and his band of outlaws assembled the various orc tribes of the Nethrun mountains, and lead them south east, where they would join an assembled army of cannibal dwarves. From there they would burn, rape and pillage their way across Ta-Brech-A-Graume’s country side, to the gates of the Citadel of the Dragon. One by one Dgaro’s band of outlaws took over the tribes, starting with the smallest, Dgaro killed the chieftans and assumed control of the tribe, then moved on to the next, saving the Talon tribe for last.

He waited patiently for Drg to strike the first blow, scared animals always struck out desparatly, and Drg did not disapoint, swinging his stone war hammer in an overhand strike, which Dgaro paried to his right. Drg responded by swinging his hammer back across his body. Dgaro hopped back and to his right, planted his feet and slashed his sword across Drg’s exposed left side, cutting through leather armor and parting skin and muscle, deep enough to expose the white ribs beneath briefly, before the wound filled and overspilled with blood.

As Drg turned to face the half breed, Dgaro released his right fist from his sword and punched Drg in the face, spreading his broad, flat nose across his cheeks and dropping him to the ground. Dgaro stooped, and hauled Drg up by his vest, then head butted him painfuly, directly on his opponents already ruined nose. Drgs head lolled back exposing his neck, while Dgaro’s vision began to swim through a red haze. The half breed opened his mouth and tore the orcs throat out, savoring the taste of his enemy’s blood running down his neck and chest, before dropping the corpse to his feet.

Dgaro howled in victory as he gazed out over his mostly orcan army. They would openly march from the Nethrun mountains, killing any and all who stood in their way, “hell, they would kill even those who didnt stand in their way” Dgaro cheerfully thought, head pounding with blood lust.

Dgaro, the half orc who was told he would never lead the Talon tribe, now led them all, through fear. He spit a bloody gob of flesh on Drg’s corpse as he stepped over it, and took his first steps toward what he was sure was his destiny. He was satisfied, for now.