Eldred's Tale

[Lanval]

Thank you for more detailed look into my story and details. I'm presently buried under other priorities so it will likely be a week or so before new installments fall into place.

I'll make the corrections first chance I get. Some of these are simple typographical errors made a lot more apparent in with the style of writing used for this while with others might need a line or two changed in order to make them readable. There are few of the stylistic issues I might differ with you on but I'll wait until I actually have time to correct them [and in some cases look stuff up to make sure I have the right information] before going into detail with a response.

orc offers peace with human invaders? I hope this is going to be an orc shaman and not a warlord...

This was intended as a brief interlude and a bit of foreshadowing, I think this ambiguity means that it's worth my time to retouch things and expand on this. In all honesty I think a lot of it is because this was a bit of a last minute add on because after writing the dialogue with the Knaglans when I realized that they pretty clearly stated Lionel left alive and it would be uncharacteristic to just return. The original plan was for Eldred to simply be led to assume that the bandits killed him, due to them possessing his sword and a communication break down ending in battle but without a body or at least a more substantial collection of Lionel's things than I could justify, I couldn't really give Eldred enough evidence to turn back and conclude that Lionel was definitely dead.

Here then, what I was hoping to convey was that this was a hastily assembled militia of the Goblins and Orcs left behind, with even more of them dead after having fought with Lionel and what was left of his soldiers previously. I didn't have overly specific plans for who the leader would be unitwise, but "Shaman" would certainly suit what I had in mind for him personalitywise more than Warlord. I picture him as a more aged figure who was never strong enough to really take a typical Orcish pride in battle, probably still represented by an Orcish Warlord unit but supported mostly by Goblins. I will do a rewrite with the other edits in order to make this more clear.

On the other hand, Eldred's alliance with the Orcs is a major plot point both in this and in the original HttT story which should take the better part of Act III establishing. I am a little nervous about my ability to do this well, so if you are interested, I have a rough outline of my plans below;

Spoilers follow:

Spoiler:

Here I intend for him to face up against a younger more ambitious leader for the two of them to eventually conclude some sort of pact born of mutual self interest. I'm a little nervous about developing this all told, since I do have to show two people slowly gaining respect for each other in spite of their primary interaction being trying to murder each other, on the other hand, I feel that this interaction is possible while keeping the Orcs as a proud people. This time Eldred might be the one pleading for peace but if he makes the case that there are better targets who only benefit from the Loyalists and Orcs killing each other, then I feel some arrangement might be reached. I do feel like it is necessary in this to humanize the Orcs a little for Eldred to be sympathetic; I want him offering peace to a proud people with a long grudge who feel slighted by outsiders rather than Tolkien style inherently corrupted creatures. I feel like the encounter with a tired and weak Orc militia that mostly just want to be left alone does a great deal for that. On the other hand, I feel like I didn't clarify this interaction enough to explain that in story and clarify that they weren't just a warband of Orcs who for some reason didn't like fighting humans.

I don't want to make Orcs secretly good all along but I do want to make them proud and wise enough to know when a grudge is pointless/misled. I'd welcome advice on the subject since it is a rather risky one, especially in this format

[Sapient]

I had just assumed they would have equal strength in forces or it wouldn't be a very challenging fight.
I suppose there could be some other factor(s) to make the battle challenging though.

Aside from that, orcs just don't make it to "Warlord" without some bravado, some machismo and swagger (if not cruelty). The dialogue sounded a bit unrepresentative of that rank.

If you want to subvert the trope, then I would at least expect one of Eldred's advisers to remark on how unusual it is, probably a trap, etc.