A mass crossing from the Northern Reaches that began as flight from the White Hunger and became generations of war, settlement and revised memory.
Overview
Southern schoolbooks present a sudden orc invasion. The older frontier record shows families, herds and sacred objects moving beside armed clans—evidence of a people fleeing as well as conquering.
The phrase White Hunger may describe famine, a creature, a winter or a religious command. Northern oral histories refuse to separate these possibilities.
History
Several orc nations crossed the Crownspines after routes behind them became impassable. Elarian border lords attacked the first columns, turning a negotiable migration into open war.
Fighting lasted a generation. It ended through mixed treaties: some clans returned north, some received frontier land and others entered royal service. Later kings suppressed these agreements to support a cleaner heroic history.
The present record
Fortified roads and hybrid northern communities descend from the Incursion. Renewed movement in the far Reaches has revived the old question of what the White Hunger actually was.
A recently found treaty bears the seals of both King Aeren's grandson and an orc queen omitted from every royal genealogy.
Notes and record
This article combines campaign record, spoken lore and the mythic account preserved in the Earin archive.