Nome Part One

THE RISE OF THE NOMAN EMPIRE - BY GRAZNIUS THE CRONIKLER.

Part the first.

We are told that it all began with a pair of orc kids ~~milenera~~ ~~milenema,~~ a long time ago. According to the many hysteries I have writ, their names were Romcedes and Remix, and finding themselves lost one day (or on the run some say) they came upon two hills, which looked to them very much like the boobies of a female. After they had exhausted themselves, what with sniggering and other things wot adolessents get up to when confronted by wimminly things like that, they was very hungry, exhausted, and like to die.

The pair of them came upon a she-wolf who fed them for nearly a whole week; in that time they built a city on the two hills. As they picked at the remaining shreds on the carcase of the she-wolf they both grasped the last piece of smelly meat simutaineusly at the same time.

“Me” cried Romcedes

“No, Me” shouted Remix

“Me” cried Romcedes

“No Me” shouted Remix

“Me” cried Romcedes

“NoMe” shouted Remix

And they did fight a fierce scrap and Remix won and so the city got called Nome.

In the early days of the City of Nome there weren’t many other Orcs come to the city and there wasn’t no buildings either, except for a shrine to the she-wolf wot fed Romcedes and Remix, which was a pile of rocks, and a customs post where people travelling past got taxed, or robbed as some tried to say.

As time went by, other Orcs in a similar situation to the city’s founders, that is to say ‘lost’ in the same way, gathered to the city and its populashun did burjon burjeun grow a lot. As the city did grow, so did the need for organizashun, as other “customs posts” got built, and by the time travellers got to Romcedes and Remix’s original Customs Post they was either dead or didn’t have no money left (or clothes, footwear, body hair or teeth.)

The Founders of Nome looked around for a solution, and found it to the north in the shape of the city of Spagbologna, where there was some fine huts and tracks you could walk along without getting lost, and even a local Tusko’s.

Romcedes, for by now Remix had died of a bout of terminal flatulence quite unexpectedly in the night, which had caused him to stuff a pillow over his face to keep out the awful stench and had suffocated or so Romcedes said, Romcedes called together the Orcs of Nome and went to visit Spagbologna. The visit went very well, at least for the Nomans (for that is what they called themselves now), as they took in the details of the buildings and thorrerfairs thurrerfears roads, and found that the city had no Watchmen. In what the dwarfs would call an “Act of Glod” a fire soon swept across the city, burning all the buildings to the ground except Tusko’s, which Romcedes claimed as his own as he’d always wanted a cowboy outfit.

When the Spagbols complained and pointed the finger of blame at the Nomans, the Nomans responded with kindliness and offered to help them rebuild their city a bit to the south, at Nome in fact. The Spagbols was so touched by this offer that, after only a minimal number of deaths, torturing and maimings, they travelled with the Nomans and built what is now the Glory that is Nome!

Well, when I say the Glory that is now Nome, it wasn’t quite the Glory what we see today, but it was better than sleeping, eating, washing, working, and other more personal ablushuns in mud all the time.

It would be a little while, and some more diplomacy before the Nome we know and love would appear.

The Tuskas up north heard about Nome, which wasn’t a good thing, and decided to pay a friendly visit to the new city, which was an even worserer thing, so they sent a delegation of their biggest Ur-Ooks to have diplomatic negoshiashuns with the city, which was the worstest thing that could be.

Romcedes knew all about the Ur-Ooks, having been about a bit, and this news sent him greener than a bileful Goblin. The Orcs from Spagbol among the population advised Romcedes to deal with the Tuskas in the traditional Spagbolognian manner; run away to the hills as fast as you can and wait until they’ve gone, then come back and rebuild the city and bury those that didn’t make it in time. Many of the Nomans agreed with them until someone pointed out that the city was built on the very hills what the Spagbols used to run away to.

Romcedes hadn’t survived all these years, and his brother, without cunning, guile, quick wits, oh and a cold-blooded ruthless streak. He went to the oracle of the she-wolf to make offerings, think a bit, and get dead drunk on Grappla; a particularly potent local spirit brewed from the waste left over during the fertilizer making process. In his blissful state the great Romcedes did have visions, but once he got past the giant green rats and the groping hands coming out of the wall he saw how he could defeat the Ur-Ooks with the help of the itinerant Skirtan sailors who were to be found in the bottom parts of the city wherever they could find them.

Romcedes filled 100 enormous barrels with all of the Grappla that could be found in the city and had them placed on the road leading to the city gates. He had a round up of the Skirtan sailors, and these he placed under guard nearby. Then he summoned all of the Spagbols what was good at drawing, provided them with parchments and crayons, and sat back to await the Ur-Ook horde.

It is recorded that some days later, Romcedes met with the Ur-Ook Captain Rockcedes and his priest Soulcedes. After some discussions, and the passing of some parchments to the Ur-Ook, he left, and took his bloodshot-eyed soldiers back North, their gait a little more bow-legged than normal.

The very next morning Romcedes, rather bewilderedly it seemed, ordered new barracks to be built, for 2000 Ur-Ooks, some housing for officers, and extensions to be built onto the Grappla distillery to enable an increase in production. He then ordered the harbour to be enlarged and summoned his diplomats to discuss giving new trade terms to the Skirtans.

Slowly, Nome’s sprawling shanty suburbs spread out into the surrounding countryside, conkering absorbing other Orcish villages and tribes.

Before his death, Romcedes instituted the Orc Kingdom of Nome, and made his self King of course, and declared that all Orcs everywhere was his subjects and Noman citizens. It is believed that Orcs have never liked Kings, and it was shortly after this that Romcedes followed his brother to the grave in strikingly similar circumstances. However, the pressident had been set, as they say, and Nome was now a Kingdom, a Kingdom with a thirst for knowledge (mainly of where other peoples kept their treasure) and land.

Upon Romcedes death the Britiii family seized the crown and power, the ancients tell us, and lasted for about ten minutes until an Ur-Ook named Marc Antandeccedes, and the late Romcedes’ son; Octavecedes, who were at the funeral booze up, heard about it and went round and had a quiet word with them. Sadly Cassius Britcedes and many others of the family did not survive the conversation…

The Ruling Nobs of Nome tried a few more determined but suicidal attempts at “Kinging” before they came up with the idea of a Caesorc; the literal meaning of which is “Not a king at all, in fact nothing like a king, but still your boss.” This seemed to work, especially as they backed the position of Caesorc up with a group of nobs known as the Senate who were there to represent and protect the common people, the ones who were Nobs at least. The role of Caesorc was definitely not hereditary or open only to the elite; it said so in very fine print on the back of the constitution of Nome.

It became a common saying that “any Orc lad could grow up to be Caesorc of Nome, just the same as any Brutish boy could grow up to be Queen Bodice.”

Peace with the Skirtans lasted for years, until the Nobs in Nome noticed that the Skirtans owned the island of Cesilly, which they thought by rights should be a Noman province. The Skirtans was having a bit of a barney with the Barker Dogmen at the time over the interlekchewal interlectial copyright of certain word-play jokes. This was known as the Punic War.

The Senate put it to Caesorc that this might be the right time to get a Noman Army into Cesilly, under the pretence of aiding the Skirtans against the Barkers. Most of the Legions was up North bringing a painful peace to the Boche at that time, the Ur-Ooks couldn’t be trusted to keep in mind what they was there for, so alternative armies was no longer an option, it had to be the Ninth (Orcrington Old Pals) Legion.