HISTORY OF THE FLANAESS

During 591 and 592, war broke out yet again in the Central Flanaess—this time in the south. Allied with a mysterious sect known as the Cult of the Earth Dragon, the forces of the Orcish Empire of the Pomarj, led by the warlord Turrosh Mak, launched a campaign of subterfuge and insurgency throughout Ulek, the Wild Coast and the Domain of Greyhawk. The humanoids and their allies sought to destabilize their enemies from within in anticipation of new military campaigns that would achieve total victory where Mak's earlier advances had been halted.

However, a band of heroes and mercenaries from the city of Dyvers uncovered the plot, stopping cultist takeovers in Dyvers, Hardby, and several other major cities. The newly dubbed ‘Hardby Heroes' then followed the network of insurgents, spies, and slavers back to their source in the central Pomarj. Alerted to the renewed and more subtle orcish threat, the forces of Greyhawk launched a daring land and sea assault on the occupied Wild Coast town of Cantona in late 591. Victory at Cantona was followed by a military alliance between Greyhawk and the Ulek states in the early months of 592, which produced a full-scale two-pronged assault on the Orcish Empire from the north and west.

Amidst rumors that the orcs were seeking to unearth the same doomsday weapon that the ancient Suel empire had used to call down the apocalyptic Invoked Devastation on its Bakluni enemies, Greyhawk gambled, leaving its northern frontier only lightly protected against Iuz in order to send the bulk of its military forces south to deal with the orcs once and for all. In the west, Prince Olinstaad Corond, and his old friend, Melf, Prince Brightflame of Celene, launched the armies of Ulek against the orcs once more. Where all previous efforts to liberate the occupied eastern provinces of the Principality of Ulek had failed, this time, with Greyhawk tying down orcish forces in the north and east, they succeeded, smashing orcish armies in great battles at Thunderstrike and Summer's Candle on the old Pomarj-Ulek frontier.

Disaster nearly struck on the plains of the Pomarj, when Prince Corond was cut down by an assassin, but one of the Hardby Heroes, a dwarf of the Lortmil Khazak clan, won the right to succeed Corond when he defeated the dead Prince's nephew, who had advocated withdrawal from the Pomarj, in single combat. The new Prince, Gorumph I, placed the combined Ulek military forces under the command of a Bakluni general called Kwai Chang Caine, who then led them against Turrosh Mak himself in a nighttime battle on the plains south of Kalen Lekos, the hidden capital of the Pomarj.

Although the battle of Kalen Lekos was fierce and losses heavy on both sides, the orcish ranks finally broke and Turrosh Mak was killed. With his death, and those of many of his lieutenants, the leadership structure of what remained of the Orcish Empire collapsed. Greyhawk's forces had already taken the north and east of the Empire, and once Mak fell, Greyhawk and Ulek armies quickly occupied the remaining cities of the Pomarj.

Although the vast areas of the Pomarj outside the cities remain a dangerous no-man's land, Greyhawk and the Ulek states are committed to bringing order to the untamed land in order to end the threat to their borders once and for all. Refugees began returning to the Wild Coast and the eastern provinces of the Principality of Ulek after years in exile.