King Rhobar II's War Against the Orcs
Juga dikenal sebagai: Orc War, War against the Orcs, Myrtana-Orc War
Myrtana Under Siege
The war between humanity and the Orcs is the political engine behind every event in Gothic. King Rhobar II rules Myrtana, a kingdom that has managed many threats over time through military strength. The Orcs, however, are an opponent that conventional strategy cannot easily break. They lack the political sophistication of human kingdoms but compensate with raw physical power, endurance, and numbers that grind Myrtana’s armies down in sustained campaigns. Human soldiers equipped with conventional steel find their weapons inadequate against Orcish hides and armor at the scale the war demands. The solution identified by the kingdom’s smiths and mages: weapons forged from magic ore can penetrate Orcish defenses in ways ordinary steel cannot.
The Need for Magic Ore
Magic ore is found in significant quantities only in the mountains of the island of Khorinis. This discovery transforms Khorinis from a peripheral outpost into the most strategically critical territory in the kingdom. Rhobar II does not merely want ore production to continue — the entire war effort depends on a continuous supply reaching his mainland foundries. Interrupting that supply would leave his armies fighting Orcs with weapons that cannot reliably kill them, which is tantamount to losing the war. Every political and logistical decision the King makes regarding the island flows directly from this dependency.
The Penal Colony Solution
Extracting ore in sufficient quantities requires a large labor force. Rather than divert soldiers from the front lines or pay free workers, the King solves two problems simultaneously: convicted criminals from across Myrtana are sentenced to labor in the Valley of Mines rather than facing execution or conventional imprisonment. To prevent escape and maintain production, he orders twelve magicians to raise a Barrier around the mine complex. The ritual’s catastrophic overreach — sealing the entire valley including the mages and soldiers — is an unintended consequence the King must then manage through the ore trade arrangement struck with the self-proclaimed Ore Barons who take control of the colony.
The Sleeper’s Hidden Connection
What neither Rhobar II nor most of his advisors realize is that the valley being mined sits above the ruins of an ancient Orc city, and beneath that city lies an arch-demon the Orcs summoned centuries ago. The Sleeper’s influence seeping upward through the rock may explain why the Orcs prove such a relentless enemy — they are connected to a divine instrument of Beliar, god of darkness, in ways that go beyond simple military aggression. The ore war thus sets in motion the penal colony, the Barrier, the three-camp political structure, and the confrontation with the Sleeper that determines the fate of everyone inside the valley.
The War Beyond Gothic
The Orc conflict does not end with the events of Gothic. Banishing the Sleeper removes a supernatural edge from the Orcish assault, but the war continues on the mainland. Gothic II and later entries in the series develop the aftermath, revealing how Myrtana copes with the consequences and what the long-term effects of the Colony’s events mean for the kingdom and its king.