The Orcish Arena

A Simple Affair

The Talbar is an intrinsic part of the orcish culture. There are a variety of Talbars that can be found offering differing types of bloodsport and entertainment.

The Takhainy Talbar

The Takhainy Talbar, or Tak-Bar, is a popular and common entertainment that can be found in almost any orcish village or encampment. Inside the stone circle, fenced in with a wall made of branches and sticks, the orcs pitch their fighting takhains into bloody fights with each other. The takhain is distantly related to the ptarmigan and chicken, but suiting the orcish lifestyle, they are somewhat larger, definitely more aggressive, and display colorful plumage that meat bred animals lack. In a human or mixed race marketplace, takhains are used as guard animals to protect weaker birds, or even as harem guards, given their bright color and nasty disposition.

If the takhain isn't mean enough to draw blood when you pick it up for the first time, it isn't strong enough to fight. Those you eat.

The Chono Talbar

The Chono Talbar is also known as a wolf-pit and is well known and fearing among humans who live near orcish lands. The main use for these larger wood walled arenas is the fighting of orcish bred warhounds and hunting cats. This is the main use of the Chono-bar, the more infamous use is where the orcs will throw human or demi-human captives inside the ring where they have to face the same warhounds or blood thirsty felines with nothing to defend themselves. The spectacle of unarmed humans being ripped apart by the animals is a spectre that haunts residents along orcish borders.

Humans, so afraid of blood. They make such bad sport in the chono-bar. They think it sport, maybe? It is comedy, we laugh at their softness, their weakness. It is good practive for the urah, let the young ones get their fangs wet, yeah, Ha!

Sukh Talbar

The Sukh Talbar is a sparring arena used by young orcs looking to prove themselves, and to demonstrate to the raider band and warband leaders that their skills with the ax, spear, and sword are good enough to merit them a place in a war party. The Sukh Talbar is also a venue for orcs to settle their disagreements among themselves, without splitting tribes or clans into civil wars. Sukh Talbars are rather small, as the fighters are expected to fight, not dance around each other, ducking, dodging, and evading.

The Ukhel Talbar, Ondor Talbar

The Ukhel Talbar is the Arena of Death, where orcs go to fight unto the death. This can be execution, with the orcs being criminals, disgraced, or otherwise deserving of death in the eyes of the tribe, or it is the culmination of a blood feud, where the feud dies with the loser, and everyone moves on. Or else. Rare humans and demi-humans make it to the Ukhel Talbar, where they fight not just for their lives, but for other things. There have been rare instances where a human or demi-human will challenge a orc warlord to a duel to the death over the fate of a city, region, or nation. Should the human win (unlikely), the orcs are bound to leave the challenger in peace, as well as what he was defending. Should they fail, their life, and their claims are all forfeit.

The Ondor Talbar is the High Arena, and is held in the Ukhel Talbar facility. The Ondor Talbar is a great spectacle, and will draw in tribes and clans from across the continent. Within the circle, there will be crowned a new War King of the orcs. The challengers heads will decorate the arena, and the victor will be crowned as the warlord of warlords, and will command all orcs, regardless of clan or tribe. The Ondor Talbar is rarely invoked, as it demands that the leaders of all the clans attend, and must cast their lot into the arena, either being killed, submitting in shame (then ritually committing suicide) submitting and swearing fealty to the orc that defeated them (being executed later if said orc is slain) or winning. It usually only happens once every few hundred years. Afterwards, the orcs are typically united, and will launch terrible raids out of the orcish lands, decimating human and demi-human kingdoms alike.