To speak of Mor‑Gara is to name a wound upon the world that will not heal. On common charts it is rendered as naught but peril—a den to be skirted by any caravan that cherishes its breath—yet the few chroniclers who have braved the choking fumes of the Ashen Clearing know it for what it is: a vast cenotaph.
Here, amid the butchered stumps of a slain forest, rises the last redoubt of the Unquenched, clinging like barnacles to the granite ribs of an empire long since ground to dust. They do not build as we build; they haunt the bones of elder halls, shoring broken stone with hide, with hammered iron, with sheer defiance.
At the heart of Mor‑Gara roars the Eternal Pyre—a flame fed not solely by timber, but by the unyielding creed of a people who hold that to cool is to perish. They are no mindless fiends: a warrior caste who look upon our safe, stone keeps and see only tombs, while they alone tend the living fire of an age the rest of us have forgotten.
— From the journals of a traveler, from Drachenburg "Reflections on the Wedge"
Deep within the southern reaches of the @Vinster Walt lies @Mor-Gara, a scar in the forest canopy that marks the stronghold of The Unquenched, an isolationist faction of orcs.
The Unquenched are defined by their rejection of the @Verdant Pact. While the "cooled" orcs of the west chose to ally with the forest elves and retreat to the high plateaus of @Starfall Ridge to temper their souls through discipline, the orcs of @Mor-Gara viewed this as a spiritual death. They believe that orcish existence is a raging fire that must be constantly stoked through dominance, struggle, and the rejection of outside influence. The Unquenched seek to burn brightly enough to defy it. The Unquenched look upon their Verdant kin with the deep pity one reserves for the dead.
The Night of Severance — Centuries ago, in nearby Syl-Varis, a meeting was held under the flourishing Elven settlement anchored by a young Mother Tree. A great migration away from human encroachment was discussed. The Elves, who had lately themselves moved into Mor-Gara, and the "Cooled" Orcs (who would become the Verdant Pact) decided to move west together. The orcs to their origins in @Starfall Ridge and its plateaus, and the elves to @Silver Moon Glade and its deep woods, urging the Mor-Gara tribe to join them and abandon the dangerous lowlands.
The Mor-Gara chieftains refused. To prove they would never leave—and to ensure the Elves could not stay—they did the unthinkable. In a single night of violence known as The Night of Severance, they besieged Syl-Varis. They cut it down and uprooted it, as if to say "go ahead and leave". It is said that the wood of that Mother Tree fueled @The Eternal Pyre for ten years.
Mor-Gara itself is a living anachronism. The settlement is built upon the ruins of a pre-human empire, featuring cyclopean stone roundhouses and granite defensive walls that modern orcs could not replicate. These ancient cores are overlaid with a sprawling, defensive shell of charred timber, iron, and beast-hide. At the center burns the Eternal Pyre, a massive bonfire that has been tended for centuries. It serves as forge, temple, and heart for the community; as long as it roars, the Unquenched believe their claim to the land is absolute.
Strategically, Mor-Gara acts as a perilous wedge between the human kingdom of Thelidor to the west, mountain city-state of Drachenburg to the north, and the Hesan Empire to the east.
Thelidor (to Mor-Gara's west): The kingdom of Thelidor, particularly the expansionist nobles like House Halebrandt of @Thelidor: Halebrandt and @Northeast Thelidor view Mor-Gara as a festering threat to their eastern logging efforts. Skirmishes along the tree line are constant, and The Unquenched decorate their palisades with the rusted plate armor of Thelidorian chevaliers who ventured too deep into the smoke.
Drachenburg (to Mor-Gara's north): The Lugals of Drachenburg view this stalemate with cynical relief. They know that if the Hesan Empire were to bypass the orcs and conquer Thelidor, their own independent city-state would be the next target. Furthermore, by making the southern forest route impassable for trade, Mor-Gara forces all wealthy merchants to take the toll-heavy @Drachenburg Pass. Thus, the city quietly benefits from the monster in the woods.
The Hesan Empire (To Mor-Gara's east): To the east looms the massive Hesan Empire, currently under the rule of a new, expansionist Emperor hungry for western territory. However, the @Vinster Walt and the entrenched ferocity of Mor-Gara act as a formidable natural fortification. An imperial army cannot march through without suffering attrition that would leave them vulnerable to Thelidorian counter-attacks. Mor-Gara effectively blocks the Empire from easily annexing the west.