Ring-nose

The Ring-nose tribe was a clan of orcs living in Vaasa as of the mid-to-late 14 century DR. They were named after their distinctive iron nose rings.

Tactics
The Ring-nose planned dangerous ambushes. They would pick an ambush site along a road, dig a series of deep pits around the edges, and then lie in wait on either side, camouflaged with mud, leaves, and sticks. When travelers came down the road, a sergeant would accost the group in broken Common as the rest of the war party emerged, surrounding their prey with twenty arrows notched and ready to fire. If the travelers refused to yield, the orcs loosed their arrows and a Ring-nose shaman would cast silence and darkness on any spellcasters in the group. If one of their victims happened to tumble into one of the pit traps, orcs would rush forward with pikes to trap the victim in the hole. "Okay, dat's far enuf! Drop yer stuff and ye won't get stuck. We's here to take ye in, uh, so ye can join us. No trouble, now! Be quick, drop stuff!"

- A Ring-nose orc, springing an ambush

Base of Operations
These orcs dwelt in the swamps of the Bottomless Bogs region of Vaasa. In the late 1360s DR, their raiding parties operated out of the ruined settlement of Moortown.

Possessions
The Ring-nose orcs wore rusted chainmail and steel helmets and used a variety of weapons, including cruel-looking black pikes, short swords, and shortbows. They carried wooden shields emblazoned with their symbol&mdash;a black circle&mdash;representing the iron rings they wore in their noses.

Relationships
In the mid-to-late 13 century DR, the Ring-nose tribe served the Cult of the Dragon.

History
In the 1360s DR, agents of the Cult of the Dragon killed the tribe's chief and intimidated their warriors with dragons, effectively taking control of the tribe and installing the half-orc cultist Malunko as their new leader. Under his watch, the tribe trained and drilled in ambush and shock tactics, and prepared to march to war across the Galena Mountains and into Thar, with the Cult offering a half-hearted promise of plunder as motivation. Maluko was impatient with the orcs, and on one occasion punished two warriors for being too slow to follow his commands by having his young black dragon mount, Zzygarn, brutally injure them.

By the, the Ring-nose orcs had been relocated to Moortown, a ruined settlement where the Cult of the Dragon had established an outpost and garrison. There, their females and injured were forced to live in a squalid, ruined stable with beds of filthy straw while their warriors were sent to patrol Dead Man's Walk in groups of a dozen. Maluko himself led a war party of twenty Ring-nose orcs in ambushes along the road, strafing travelers with his mount's acid breath. These ambushes were laid with the intent to capture prisoners to take back to Moortown to be intimidated and conscripted into the Cult. These prisoners were kept in the same wretched stables where the tribe's females lived, and their equipment was stored at the Swamphouse Inn. By this point, the Ring-nose orcs wanted nothing more than to escape the Cult back into the swamps, and to be left alone. Even so, they remained in Moortown out of fear of what the dragons would do to them if they tried to flee. However, they were willing to work with the Cult's enemies if it meant a chance to escape.

Members
Members of the Ring-nose clan spoke Orcish but little or no Common.

Appearances

 * Adventures
 * Dungeon #53: "Steelheart"