SEVENFOLD SWORD question: the ghost orcs?

A reader emailed to ask if the ghost orcs that Ridmark encounters in the novella SHIELD KNIGHT: GHOST ORCS appeared anywhere else in the FROSTBORN/SEVENFOLD SWORD series.

They do! Ridmark previously encounters them in FROSTBORN: THE DWARVEN PRINCE as he travels past the Shaluuskan Forest, and the men of Andomhaim call them either “ghost orcs” or “Shaluuskan orcs.”

Of course, there are many different nations and kinds of orcs in FROSTBORN/SEVENFOLD SWORD, all with their own history, and the ghost orcs are no different.

Most orcs are green-skinned, but the Shaluuskan orcs are gray-skinned, and can turn invisible for short periods of time. They were originally created by the dark elven lord called the Sculptor, but eventually they rebelled against him and settled in the Shaluuskan Forest and claimed it for their own. The ghost orcs worship the orcish blood goddess Shalask, the goddess of mysteries and secrets and illusions, and the priestesses and priests of Shalask dominate their society. Consequently, the Shaluuskan orcs tend not to war among themselves the way that the Qazaluuskan orcs or the Vhaluuskan orcs do. They are intensely xenophobic, but this is balanced out by the fact that they are extremely isolationist, and usually keep to themselves in the Shaluuskan Forest unless provoked.

The one exception is if one of the priests or priestesses of Shalask receives a vision, in which case the priest or priestess will raise a warband and venture out of the forest to fulfill it. They are not as superstitious as the orcs of the Qazaluuskan Forest, who see omens of Qazalask in everything, but they still believe their visions.

But in terms of storytelling, in FROSTBORN/SEVENFOLD SWORD the ghost orcs are part of the background worldbuilding and don’t turn up too much. From a writer’s perspective, the danger of telling a really long story is that you get lost in your own worldbuilding and minor characters and forget to advance the main plot. (I won’t cite any examples here, but I’m sure you can think of a few.) So there are lots of background details in FROSTBORN/SEVENFOLD SWORD that get mentioned a few times but don’t get explored further because they wouldn’t contribute to the main plot.

I do regret that we never got to the dvargir city of Khaldurmar in the books, since several dvargir characters were important villains. Khaldurmar would be a fascinating place to write about, because by it’s run by the dvargir, who follow the letter of their laws scrupulously while actively abusing the spirit. (The dvargir love lawsuits, and some of the lawsuits between the dvargir Great Houses have been going on for thousands of years.) But there was never a good reason for the main plot to go to Khaldurmar.

Maybe I can fix that in a future book or story… 🙂

-JM