Nethertide Horde

The Nethertide Horde was a warband of some 4,000 orcs that sought to invade Silverymoon and Everlund in the. "A nether tide swept down the pass, In search of silver plunder. Two hundred strong the mists did cloak, Ready with waiting thunder."

- The second stanza of Mintiper's ballad Moonlight Paean, whence this tribe of orcs received their name.

Base of Operations
The Keeper of the Vault of the Sages, in annotating the bard Mintiper Moonsilver's first-person account in the poem Moonlight Paean, suggested that the word "nether" in the ballad's second stanza referred to the orcs' origin in the Nether Mountains of Luruar.

Possessions
As poetically suggested by the fourth stanze of the Moonlight Paean, the orcs of the Nethertide Horde possessed magical talismans of spell reflection, which allowed the orcs to deflect some of the spells cast upon them back at their foes. (Several decades later, witch doctors and shamans of the Thousand Fists orc tribe of the Nether Mountains still knew the secret of crafting such talismans, as did the cambion Kaanyr Vhok, who sought to teach the craft to other orc tribes in the region.)

History
In the Year of the Boot, the Nethertide Horde tried to pour through the valley of Turnstone Pass, with the goal of attacking Silverymoon and possibly Everlund. There they were ambushed by the mercenary group known as the Moonlight Men, led by Mintiper Moonsilver, in the Battle of Turnstone Pass. This "Moonlight's Triumph", as it was called, was immortalized in Mintiper's Chapbook, but it came at great cost, for while all five score of the orcs were slain, so too were all but six of the 200 Moonlight Men. The ambush had only been partly successful, because the orcs had their talismans of spell reflection, which lessened the effectiveness of the wizards on the side of the mercenaries.