The Story Of Captain Muzgash, Warden of Redhorn Pass

This is more origin story and the telling of my roleplaying adventure.

My name is, Muzgash/KillieMiner, I am a Dunglamoth Warrior and am currently in charge of the fortress at Mount Gram.

Centuries ago, when Morgoth was under attack at Angband by the Host of the Valar, he sent some scouting parties south west to try and find a way out incase he needed to flee the battle, should it turn in the Valar's favour. And so I found myself leading a ranging party to where our lord thought there might be a pass from Beleriand to what would be later known by the man scum, Eriador. But just as we reached what is now known as Forchel, we got a rider from the north bringing news of Melkor's defeat and the utter ruination of the orcish forces. We quickly made the decision to go east and reach what was known as The Pass To The East and what would become known as High Pass, home to the great Captain of Gundabad, Sorzau. We passed through there and headed for the great river to the east. After three days of hard riding on our wargs, we reached the river but soon realised that it was too deep to cross as there was no bridge near us and so we decided to go north. We saw from a clifftop three days later, a settlement of man at what we later found out was Framsburg, the great town of the Forhawrim. We decided to attack at night and so we went a mile or so away and waited. By this point a lot of us were beginning to feel really hungry and all the sustanance we had had for about a week and a half was some deer we had chanced across earlier that week. Night came, we gathered our strength and snuck over the eastern wall and killed two guards. Over that night we killed many and only lost four of my riders. By morning we had killed over two hundred and fifty men including about seventy-five guards. We sat in the hall briging all the food there and dividing it up. We moved out quickly after, mouted our wargs, and headed north as we were sure

that we had seen a rider heading south and that meant only one thing, reinforcements.

And so we were heading north, with enough food to sustain us for months. After a week or so we reached what we assumed where the northern most region of the mountain range to the west but soon we found out it was very different. Our scouts found proof of Dwarven activity in the vicinity and so we became more cautious as we new from the battle with the Elves, Edain and dwarves almost one hundred years earlier that they were, however small, fierce fighters. We started heading west again, hoping to find refuge in the mountains but we encountered a dwarven band patrolling the area and so we attacked. There was only ten of them agaisnt our twenty-five or so plus wargs but we lost seven riders and three wargs. By the end of the battle I myself had sustained a bad injury, a crossbow bolt through the lower abdomen. Luckily as we were being chased a great war band, led by two of the biggest orcs I have ever seen, Khudhrak and Ugrug, fell upon the dwarves and slaughtered them. They took me to their base in the mountains and brought me before the healer they had with them. A Melkorian Priest, I knew I was in good hands as their skill with wounds was legend. I enquired about her name but she asked for mine first, I replied that it was Muzgash, Fell Rider of Morgoth's Elite Pathfinders. She gave me some brew and I fell unconcious for a time.

When I woke I was far underground on a stone slab obviously used for a bed. Ugrug aproached me with another orc I had never seen before. He introdced Ulfscar Perkus and asked me how I was. I replied that I was feeling a lot better and enquired about my riders. My second in command had been killed by a dwarf ax to the skull but he had been the only casualty in the second battle when we fled. Later on when I was walking about I came across three orcs, I would later find out they were Captain Sorzau, Lieutenant Burzum and Chieftain Yagush the smelly. Burzum and I have a slight disagrement that led to a brawl, while we fought all over the feasting hall Yagush and Sorzau placed wagers on who would win. Eventually because of my injuries I lost and woke up a few hours later back in the care of the melkorian priest. I later sought out Burzum to speak to him about the possiblility of him taking the second in command spot in my war band but he said no sadly but said he had his own war band and would gladly raid with me. From then on anything that was available, raiding, patrols, we did together, we became known as the deadliest hunters in the entire orcish legions due to our profficiency with both bow and pike.

From now on it will be journal excerpts from the next fifteen-hundred years.

In the year 1600 after the Lord Melkor's defeat we took gundabad from the dwarf scum, thereby getting revenge on the dwarf scum for my dead riders. We soon made it into our main base of operations and about five years later Captain Sorzau went south and founded the great Melkorian Temple at high pass, which in orchish is called Nalt Zagh.

Soon after that we began to expand more, we took Mount Carhadras from the dwarves. I went east to Mount Gram as all we had there was a small wooden fort in a ravine between two mountains, I was to fix that. I immediately began work on a massive fort there. It took nigh on five years but it was worth it, the only way to the fortress gates was via a narrow ravine, which then had vast pits filled with spikes and inbetween that a sticky resin that made it impossible to move if you fell in it as it solidified. My fellow raider Burzum came down from his own domain in Angmar to help orginize the slaves who were digging the pits.

In the year 1612 after our Lord Melkor's defeat we waged war on the Red Mountains dwarves In the far east and the Dwarves of Khazad-dum. Warchief Ugrug and Captain Sorzau had led a horde of Dunglamor Uruks and Berserkers on wargs and on foot into the east to meet with the Rubagoth orcs from the east of Mordor earlier that year and now in winter Khudhrak led Burzum, Perkus, Chieftain Yagush and I south to Khazad-dum to take it from the dwarf scum before their alliance with the pointy ears in Eregion could take hold and the dwarves began to supply them with Mithril and other valuable metals. We had aid from the south as Mordor, Harad and even the fabled Half-trolls of the far south answered our call to war. Eregion of course aided them but to no avail. For some reason none of us could fathom, they decided to attack us head on. Our legions swarmed over them, many dwarves were slain but Durin III managed to escape back through Khazad-dum with Celebrimbor and Elrond Half Elven and took refuge in Ost en-Edhil, the capital of the elves of Eregion. We were going to attack it but we heard of a potential threat from the east. The Forhawrim were coming to Mount Gundabad apparently. We left Khazad dum in the hands of an Uruk captain with two battaltions of battle hardened uruks to hold the old dwarven kingdom. Rushing north we found Warchief Ugrug at high pass with Captain Sorzau, readying their forces, expecting a fight at Mount Gundabad. We rode for three whole days and when we arrived at Mount Gundabad we found no invading armies, it had been an elaborate hoax to goad us north. We assumed Eregion was going to retake Khazad dum from us with the help of the Lainechil, the elves of Las Galen and the Forhawrim, while from the west the blue dwarves and the elves of the grey havens would come to help restore the Heir of Durin to the throne.

In the year 1615 after our Lord Melkor's defeat I was travelling north with Atallah El-Amin and his personal guard, whom I had ventured south to escort to Mount Gundabad as he wanted to speak with the Warchiefs to discuss a possible alliance in the wake of their helping us take Khazad-dum three years earlier. But as we were passing through an ancient forest just south of Khazad-dum we heard voices from amongst the trees, all of a sudden we saw a giant tree start to move towards us. Atallah shouted a war cry and drew his sword and struck the tree and broke at the hilt. We saw an opening in the trees and fled. He told me to tell my superiors that we could meet at the black gate in Mordor as he would never return north as there were evil spirits there.

(Here I would like to point out that there were about 20 ents in a small clearing and that I got killed by them pretty quickly and Glawaron saved my stuff by bringing me to his base, so thanks Glawaron/Ninlathal)

It was after this encounter that I ventured back north to speak with Captain Sorzau at the Temple of Melkor about an old legend I had heard about a great tree that could walk, talk and was supposed to have slain many orcs during the first age. He confirmed this and told me of Willowblossom, The Great Ent of the Woods of Belierand who he believed was now living just south of Khazad-dum.

And so I went south with a friend I had known for years, Gimbul and after weeks of riding through plains, forests and grasslands we came to an ancient wood. Here we found an ancient track leading west to the mountains. We followed it for two days and eventually came to an ancient place. On the walls in ancient black speech was the ritual to summon Willowblossom. We needed gulduril and a mallorn sapling. And so we rode forth, going first to the elven realm south west from Khazad-dum and then north to angmar, which was the only place I knew that had gulduril. A year and two months later we found ourselves at the same ancient place. But now there was a trail leading south heading into the forest. Having left our wargs in the ancient cave to rest after our ardous journey, we came to a massive clearing and saw a strange altar In the centre with some dirt on it, we assumed we must put the sapling there. We placed it in the ground and then with an ancient incantation found in the cave we merged the gulduril with the sapling and within moments we saw ents begin to appear around the edges of the clearing. But we had come prepared, at Mount Gundabad we had purchased some sort of bombs that set things afire and so when the first three came at us we simply hurled them at the giant trees and hacked at them with our battleaxes. One by one they fell, wave by wave they came until it seemed there was no end to them. But just as our resolve began to weaken we saw their numbers lessen and refilled with vigor at seeing their end coming, we killed the last few. But when the last one died we felt some ancient magic begin to muster its power in the clearing and suddenly, just two hundred metres infront of us stood the ancient Willowblossom. We ran at it but it simply jumped and with its impact of hitting the ground, we were sent flying backwards. As it ran at us we silently agreed to flank it as it couldnt attack both of us we thought. We managed to get in a few hits and its arm came off at the elbow on its right side. But just as we thought it was getting tired, it turned a bright green and its eyes blazed red. We threw our fire bombs and charged. We managed to do some damage but our battleaxes didnt really do anything. The fire soon burnt out and it charged us. Out of nowhere our wargs came from behind ripping and tearing at it, we knew this was our chance and we stood either side of it and started hacking at its neck. After what seemed an eternity of fighting it was finally over, we had beheaded the ancient creature of the wood. Then I saw underneath it was an ancient mace, from the first age, carved out of the ancient tree, Dolgu-Amar, that was only found in the north in the great plain next to Angband. I hauled it out and looked at it, it still had the ancient runes of power on it that proved it was the symbol of power for the Great Orc chieftain and second in commad of Glaurung when he took Nargothrond, Golfimbul the cruel. (Rp item) With this victory we tied his head between our wargs and rode back to Mount Gundabad. When we got there it appeared we had been thought dead we had been gone that long but they were over joyed to find we were alive and holding both the head of Willowblossom and the Ancient Dolgu-Zagar.

And here the tale ends, who knows what could happen next, he could rise to be a Lieutenant of the Hordes of Dunglamoth or he may die in a battle agaisnt the Elves, Dwarves or Men but that seems unlikely given how many of those little buggers he has killed so far.