Amalia Dillin is back with us this year to celebrate and has decided to talk about the differences in the clans featured in her Orcs Saga books.

The Orc Clans of the Orc Saga

In my Orc Saga, there are two major clans of orc – the mountain orcs, called the
Hrimthursar for the rime that coats their skin and protects them from the winter winds; and the forest orcs, called Vidthursar, who are named for the trees in which they live. But simply being born on the Mountain or beneath it in the trees isn’t the only factor in determining an orc’s clan, either. It’s not really about geography at all so much as it’s about culture, perception, and the influence of outside forces on the clans themselves. Among all orcs, to be of mixed race is a blessing, hearkening back to the earliest days after their creation and subsequent rescue from the sorceress, Sinmarra, who had stolen them away as elves and twisted them into beasts. Because it wasn’t until the immortal elf Vanadis came to the orcs, who had been barred from returning to Elvish lands for fear they would do injury and harm to the Elvish people and because their hard won freedom had cost the elves their king, that they remembered how to live as people again after their ordeal, to build relationships with one another of friendship and family and love. It wasn’t until Vanadis retaught them the values that Sinmarra had worked so hard to strip from them, that the clans were born at all.

The more physically powerful orcs, the orcs who preferred the cold and the isolation of
the mountain, separated then, taking upon themselves the duty of guarding the boundary between Elf and Human lands. It was a service they could perform easily enough, a task which gave their shattered lives purpose, and kept them from the sight of the majority of the elves, who found their appearance and their monstrous existence too painful, under the best of circumstances, and too distasteful at worst.

The orcs who were not quite so ruined, who perhaps had not suffered the same torturous treatments before they were freed, remained in the forest just outside the Elvish lands. Led by Vanadis, whose husband had been stolen and turned orc, and for whom she had given up her place among the elves, they prospered, too – but living so near to the elves, always, in everything, still striving and yearning to become elf once more. To return home again, and be made welcome by the elves who had rejected them so completely.

For the Hrimthursar, it was different. Isolated for months during the year when the winter storms and the endless night made movement up and down the steep stone cliffs treacherous and all but impossible, the mountain became their home. Even those rare few born with Elvish blood from illicit love affairs did not often seek to leave it. Some, less suited to the winter cold, or less adept at climbing the rock and ice, migrated south to live among the Vidthursar, instead, but by Bolthorn’s time, there were not many who did not take pride in being Hrimthursar–or in being orc.

Ultimately, more than anything else, the fundamental acceptance of themselves as orc,
became the greatest cultural division between the two clans. Those who wished still, after generations of orc children born, that they might one day still become elf enough to return home most often joined the Vidthursar in the forest; and those who simply wished to live as they were, who found their lives no less fulfilling than that of any elf’s, or who had resigned themselves to the fate the ancestors had thrust upon them and their offspring, lived upon the mountain, becoming Hrimthursar.

But it was not until Bolthorn, clan chieftain of the Hrimthursar, brought Arianna, a
human princess, across the mountain, that the ties that bound the two clans were truly tested, and the Vidthursar forced to decide where their loyalties truly lie: With their fellow orcs on the mountain, or with the elves?

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Amalia Dillin is the author of the ongoing Orc Saga, the completed Fate of the Gods
trilogy, and as Amalia Carosella, also writes Bronze Age Greek and Viking Age historical
fiction. Once upon a time, she dreamed of being a zookeeper, but she’s settled for two house cats and a husband instead. You can learn more about her and her work at www.amaliadillin.com, follow her on twitter at @AmaliaTd, or subscribe to her newsletter, The Amaliad, to stay up to date on her authorish adventures!