Being north of Illyria, and slightly west of the Stormspike is a large patch of land that is dry and with little vegetation. It is a land covered in course, grey pebbles as the mountains that surround it on the west and south erode and break down. This land is the Greiflands, the Giant’s Grave, the Sorrow-place. It is where a very specific race lives - the Ogres.
Whilst very little vegetation grows here many creatures that prefer mountainous climates do live here - goats are a prime example. It is partly due to this, but also to do with their strange relationship with the Fae, that the Ogres have had to develop a very odd diet. It is said by other races that Ogres can eat stone - and for a very few this might actually be true - certainly the stomach acid of many Ogres easily match that of many Trolls. Whatever rumours say, an Ogre’s diet is certainly more carnivorous than omnivorous, had the massive quantities that they ingest does seem very odd to the other races. This is not all unsurprising when one considers what could be eaten in the plains between the Mountains of Mourn Their strange diet has lead Ogres to be big and very strong, and they tend to treat the other races as prey - unless they a strength of skill the Ogres cannot match. Thus far, no Human has matched the strongest Ogre, though the devious tricks of the White Foxes and Disaer have impressed them very much. The Ogres believe that they were born from the mountains; that they are in children of the Mountains of Mourn themselves.
Like their diet, it is not surprising to see where this might have developed from. The Mountains of Mourn are imposing and a shade of grey similar to that of Ogre skin. They do not break but only rot once they are old. Though the Mountains of Mourn are so high, very few are covered in snow - it appears that the mountains and the land can conduct a certain amount of heat from the fault line that lies underneath the mountains. Though Ogres do not have the ability to channel Fae they cannot cast magicks as a mage or even use faith as a priest. However, with the desolate land and its strange ability to conduct heat one can see how the Ogres developed their ability to manipulate Fae through objects they can touch - and thus their highly developed sense of Alchemy. Ogres love new inventions and new things - they love surprises and are always on the look for new wonders. However, their slow minds and the Mountains themselves mean that the Ogres are isolationist and very much behind the times.
The lands of the Ogre realms have gained names like ‘The Greiflands’ and the ‘Sorrow-place’, partly because they are translations for White Foxes but also because of their utter desolation. A great part of the grey stone plains is given over to a kind of graveyard, where old Ogres go to die. Apparently they simply sit down when they feel they are going to die - and then just die. The Ogres have a deep respect and understanding of death because of this - and their religion, despite being about food and the ‘Star Gods’, is based more around death and anything else. But also there is just so much land that is just untouched. Unspoilt, dead, empty. The Mountains of Mourn are not exactly full of subtlety - there are no places to hide, no over-towering plant life, not restrictions. There is very little in the way of buildings, for the Ogres do not build big, grand houses. No, instead Ogres tend to spread whatever materials they find that is thin enough (skins, hides) to make a cover, and then spread the cover as a kind of blanket over a massive area, propped up by tied together poles (for this you might as well read ‘spines’) and large rocks, creating tents of sorts.
Ogre live in tribes, but are not all that nomadic and highly territorial. Ogres prefer to keep to their birth-tribe, but the odd few do wander apart. Such individuals become loners, devoid of tribes, though a few do manage to become skilled hunters or beast tamers, which in turn can drive herds of animals towards a tribe for food - and are generally rewarded by a share of the food thus attained. Because of this lifestyle, it is not unusual to find a tent-tribe of Ogres that is no longer there - a tent, but no Ogres. This is commonly where a neighbouring tribe has used up the resources in the area for the season (instead of hoarding like any other sensible animal) and instead of waiting until the next feeding season, they attack and slaughter other tribes in their area. For, unlike many other animals, Ogres do not suffer when eating their own. They are not cannibals, for they do not eat they own out of choice - but are merely equipped to cope should it become a necessity - which it does more often than many Ogres are willing to admit to. Ogre tribes are lead by their chieftains, and are guided by their ‘Butchers’ or ‘Slaughterers’.
The term ‘Butcher’ is a name given by outside races, and is quite an appropriate term. Of all the races on Erna, Ogres are perhaps the most skilled at ‘Blood magicks’, for their whole lives is spend in the viscera of their food. Blood and red are common amongst the Ogre kind, but even more so amongst those strange Ogres that almost literally bathe themselves in living fluid. Weird even to other Ogres, these Butchers are said to be able to interpret the will of the ‘Sky Gods’ that the Ogre tribes worship. The Butchers deal in blood and flesh (sometimes of other Ogres) for much of their magicks, for they believe that life comes from within - what better way to make yourself strong but in the power of life itself? It is in this way that Butchers are a cross, somewhere between tribal wise-man and priest, guiding the Ogre tribe through the power of their bloody craft
