Orgrimmar

Faction: Horde · Ruler: Warchief Thrall

The Horde capital, raised in Durotar by a people who spent a generation in internment camps and will not be caged again.

It is raw. Nothing here is old. Nothing is decorative. Thrall holds court in Grommash Hold, named for Grom Hellscream, who died freeing the orcs from the blood curse.

Also: Ragefire Chasm opens directly beneath the city. The Cleft's own people stay out of the lower passages, and the reasons they give do not agree with each other.

What It Feels Like

Under construction, everywhere. Scaffolding, fresh timber, half-finished walls. The city is being built while you stand in it, and orcs are visibly proud of that rather than embarrassed.

Hot and dry. Durotar is red rock and dust. The canyon holds the heat. Water is rationed in a way no other capital rations anything, and wasting it is a serious offence.

Loud, direct, and easier than it looks. Newcomers expect hostility and get bluntness instead. An orc who dislikes you says so, which visitors from Stormwind find alarming and then restful.

Drums. Not constant — but the Valley of Honor keeps a rhythm going during training hours, and you feel it through the ground.

Districts and Sites

Walking It

The Valley of Strength is the front door and the marketplace, and the zeppelin tower dominates it. Everything arrives here.

The Drag is a covered road cut between the valleys — shaded, cool, and the only comfortable place to stand at midday, so it is where deals actually get done.

The Valley of Honor is where the city is loudest: the forge, the arena, and open training grounds where anyone can be challenged and often is.

The Valley of Spirits is the Darkspear quarter and feels like a different city — stilted huts, different cooking smells, drums in a different rhythm.

The Cleft of Shadow is dark, low, and everybody knows what happens there. Nobody says it out loud.

Who You Meet

• Grunts on the gate, bored and observant
• Smiths and armourers, working in the open because there is nowhere to work indoors
• Shaman, more visible here than any priest is in Stormwind, and consulted on practical matters
• Darkspear everywhere, in a quarter they were given and still call temporary
• Kor'kron — Thrall's own guard, newer than the walls, very serious about it
• Tauren visitors from Thunder Bluff, usually on Cenarion or diplomatic business
• Goblins running freight through the zeppelin tower, neutral and charging accordingly

Customs and Manners

• Say what you mean. Orcish conversation is direct to a degree other peoples read as rudeness. Softening a request makes it unclear, and unclear is worse than blunt.
• Strength is greeted, not boasted about. Claiming a deed you cannot back is the fastest way to be challenged.
• Challenges are real and usually not lethal. In the Valley of Honor a challenge is training. Elsewhere it is serious.
• Do not waste water. The single strongest taboo in the city.
• Never mock the camps. A generation was born behind a fence. Jokes about it end conversations and sometimes friendships.
• Honour the dead by name. Grommash Hold is named for a man who died four years ago. Say his name properly.
• Fel magic is banned and practised. Everyone knows. Saying so loudly in the Valley of Wisdom is a political act.

Food and Drink

Orcish cooking is fire, meat, and not much else — a cuisine built by people who were recently nomadic and are now learning to farm hard ground.

• Roasted boar, raptor and scorpid, spiced heavily, cooked over open flame
• Hard flatbread, cooked on stones, and the staple everyone eats
• Dried and salted meat, still the backbone of the diet — a camp habit that stuck
• Cactus apple, sour, plentiful, and the only fresh thing that grows well in Durotar
• Thunder ale and grog, strong and rough
• Troll cooking in the Valley of Spirits — fish, jungle spice, and much better than the orcish food, which orcs will admit after a drink

Taverns. The inn in the Valley of Strength is functional. The Broken Tusk is where you actually go — mercenaries, caravan crews, and goblins looking for hands.

What You Can Buy

Practical goods, excellent leather and metal, and no arcane market to speak of.

See Professions and Crafting.

Groups Worth Knowing

• The Kor'kron — Thrall's guard. Small, new, and increasingly the instrument of his authority.
• The shaman circles — rebuilt from near-nothing in four years, and consulted on water, weather and war
• The Warsong — Grom's old clan, mostly in Ashenvale, and their veterans in the city are unrepentant
• Darkspear Tribe — Vol'jin's people in the Valley of Spirits, and the sharpest political operators in the Horde
• Steamwheedle Cartel goblins — neutral freight and information, at a price
• Burning Blade — a fel cult, present, denied, and recruiting

Downtime Here

Orgrimmar is the Horde's training hub and the best place on either continent to find work. See Travel and Downtime.

Things To Do In A Session

• Fight in the Valley of Honor — a challenge, not a death match, and the fastest way to be taken seriously
• Watch Thrall hold court at Grommash Hold and see a young warchief manage people twice his age
• Take a goblin freight contract at the zeppelin tower and find out what you have agreed to carry
• Eat in the Valley of Spirits and let a Darkspear explain, kindly, why orcish cooking is bad
• Stand at the mouth of Ragefire Chasm and notice how little anyone wants to discuss it

Connected to

ThrallCharacterOrcsLoreDurotarZoneThe HordeFactionVol'jinCharacterDarkspear TrollsLoreBurning BladeFactionGrom HellscreamCharacterTTravel and DowntimeRules