Korovia - The Free License Fantasy World

Molloch
Population: 27,000 (half-dragon orcs, orcs + slaves)
Terrain: Mountains and Caves
Economy: War-Metropolis, economy based on spoils of war and slavery.
Military: City Guard 0, but the entire population is warriors of some sort.
Leadership: King.

Officially Molloch isn’t a Korovian city, but the dwarves of Korovia would like to change that. This ancient dwarven city is now officially part of Loqland and sits directly on the border between the two. The orcs who now control Molloch are a major nuisance to the dwarves who lives mere miles away in Roknar. Daily raids into dwarven controlled territory and the occasional war every so many years has shown that Molloch can certainly pump out warriors (and the dwarves can certainly kill them, but not without some losses).

The key to why the dwarves as yet have not re-taken Molloch is due to the sheer number of orcs that infest the ancient city. The fact that many of the orcs now have half-dragon blood in their veins doesn’t help either.

Architecturally, Molloch is a huge tiered-tower of a city that looks like a mountain built out of the side of a mountain. Think the tower of babel and you’ll get the idea. Beneath that are caves that travel deep beneath the mountain. Slaves occupy the lowest regions of the city and continually dig for whatever the orcs need: iron ore, gold, etc. Mushrooms grow in many of the slave tunnels and this is what makes up most of the slave diet.

Knowing that they have to keep a lid of crafty slaves, the orcs rotate which slaves go where so that the same slaves never use the same tunnel twice and thus are prevented from trying to build any long-term escape route. There have been a couple successful raids to free slaves, but they were only successful because of magical aid.

Raids into or near Molloch never fare very well however. There has been the odd time when they have managed to rescue dwarves trapped in the slave pits, but usually the raids have ended in whole parties of dwarves being killed or captured and never returning. Those that have been successful have had magical aid and used a “teleport out” retreat strategy. It would take a full out assault for an attack to even stand a chance of success.

The problem of Molloch deeply troubles Queen Kasiya and she fears it is only a matter of time before the dwarves are overrun by an orcish horde. She therefore is working to craft a plan to retake Molloch and restore it to dwarven control (and rename it to its original name “Rokbar”). One possibility would be to build a temporary portal for hordes of slaves to escape through, but such a portal would be tricky to build with orcish patrols looking for signs of slaves trying to escape. An alternative portal idea is still being looked into according to some sages. Finding a group of adventurers capable of installing the portal is another matter.

Rokbar’s architecture dates back to 144 ADW when a group of human and dwarvish nobles decided there should be a city built in the pass between Loqland and Korovia. The place would be a trade city between Korovia, Loqland and Stilornvia.