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« on: May 21, 2009, 12:57:56 AM »
The Path of Spirit
Young and old orcs alike must know today that we were not always a tribe living our days in Orgrimmar, not even ones chasing some humans at times. No, our history goes much further in time, before orcs coming to Kalimdor, before them coming on Azeroth even, for many generations of orcs lived in the days before the corruption.
However, after so many years of wars, with orcs lost and traditions forgotten, it is not easy to say today how the Old Clan of the RedBlades looked like, during their time on Draenor. I have been trying to uncover those things that made it a clan to be known, respected and even feared, among friends and foes alike, but the work is not easy and may still be missing things. However, I will try to write down now what I have come to understand about how orcs lived those days, how they acted and interacted with each other, what they did and how they did it. As this work belongs to you, and it should not be lost, no matter what happens.
For starters, I will focus on those orcs that had chosen to follow the Path of Spirit.
I hope it be a lesson for us all, as the past always is. A lesson in what we as a tribe really are, deep inside, and how we can go about making it true again.
Let us close our eyes and imagine we be entering their camp, the Old Clan Redblades camp, several generations ago, and let me explain to you who we be meeting:
The Seers.
One cannot be too much mistaken when seeing one. Those orcs were usually wearing long robes, caring books or strange artefacts, always mumbling something in their beards. Every once in a while, a worried parent came to one of them Seers, asking him about his child gone for a hunt, and not yet returned home. For if anyone was able to see in the past as well as predict the future, they were the ones. Perhaps they did make a ritual of sorts, or perhaps they simply told the worried parent a number of wise words. For they were the sages, able to give a good advice, as well as be the mediators, in case conflicts arose. And sometimes, when conflicts could not be stopped, them be the healers, as, well, conflicts between orcs were not exactly limited to words alone.
They were always in a search for knowledge that may give them great experiences and feed their wisdom; but also may lead them to insanity, as be the case more than once...
The Storytellers or Lorekeepers
Perhaps we should not look much around in the village of our imagination, searching for too many. They never were too many, even, at times, there only one, the Storyteller of the Clan. So rare and respected, that the title itself became their second name. The Storyteller was the one to keep the records of the clan, and to fill the nights around a campfire with ... a story, of course. A story of lost heroes of the clan, that orcs needed to hear, to fuel their will for betterment, or perhaps a story that would serve as example, inspiring some orcs to think twice before making a mistake. He is the one who will ask orcs about their hunt, their battle, their skirmish, making it, perhaps, a testimony for the times to come. Every once in a while, an orc may deserve even more, a true song for his deeds, a Lok'Vadnod, and it is usually the Storyteller that writes it down and tells it to the orc's memorial.
However, do not think these orcs are all virtues and no faults, no orc is. The Storytellers were usually told to be easily carried away by them words they be speaking, and keep at it until a story becomes a ramble or an explanation a rant. But as I said, no orc is perfect, or he would not be an orc.
The Spirit Talkers
Deeply connected with the spirits, perhaps even more than some of those we named Seers were, these orcs were the ones the tribe went to, when needing a ritual to help them in battle, to tell the omens, or to solve some problem of their own. They were asking the spirits for answers needed by orcs. They made ceremonies to honor the clan's ancestors.
But even their work, perhaps the closest to the spirits of all, had its dangers. As it is them who risked more than others to lose themselves while walking among the spirits, to be even taken over by one or more of them spirits, at times. So, if in our little imaginary journey, you see an orc, carefully watched by others all around him, respected usually, but still, at times, taken care of like a child, do not make hasty judgments. Stop and listen, you may find it all makes sense... for some other spirit paying a visit to the clan, with a purpose of its own.
... There may be more to say, but for now, you have my thanks for joining in.
Let us stop now our imaginary journey to the Old Clan for a little while. And let us remember the present. These days, the Tribe we have become, the Tribe of the Red Blades, needs his orcs to step up and walk the Path of Spirit, like them orcs did in the past. Make it alive and striving, bring it your deeds, your own ways of walking the Path.
For no orc is truly alike, and any can bring valor to the tribe in their own ways.
Norviskrall.
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