Forhel is a region in southern Zarhuy, comprised of numerous channels, isles and a fragmented coastline, having a temperate climate with cold winter rain.
Historically scarcely populated, much of the islands and territory was covered in a temperate rainforest.
Part of the Union of Suadabria, historically is the place of origin of the Orcs, with the earliest know orc settlements -distinctive from the Proto-orcs groups- since the 4.000 - 5.000 a.a.H.
History
Orcish Forhel
Orcish Forhel, settled by Green Orcs, was organized in several petty kingdoms in villages and dispersed farms set along the coastlines, which interacted with nomadic bands and tribes fishers, being the interior template rainforests largely unexplored. The villages had a subsistence agriculture, while the nomadic canoeist bands were fishers, hunters and gatherers. Forhel Green Orc diet was based on fish and molluscs, along with agricultural products.
Aside of the orcs on the coasts, in the interior of the isles and rainforests lurked bands of Wollumis savage elves, feared witches and orc-eaters, small in numbers but that forged the orcish legends.
High Elven Colonies of Forhel: Laurë'Malad and Telpë'Gilith.
Forhel was colonized by a mixed group of Silver and Golden High Elves of the Empire of Whide Axis during the Late Elfic Age, who will set some cities in the region, divided among the ethnic fragmentation lines of the High Elves and colonies of Ushaenor elven kingdoms, around which the elves set farms, exploiting the rainforest woods to build ships to do the intercontinental trade, subjugating the sedentary orcs, marginalizing them, while they outright hunted some of the nomadic canoeist tribes: as a result, orcish populations went to more distant channels and islands or to the largely unexplored interior of the forest-covered islands.
The most important Golden elven colony was Laurë'Malad and the silver colony of Telpë'Gilith. The Silver and Golden high elven colonies competed against each other, reproducing the tensions of Ushaenor in Forhel between the Golden and Silver elven kingdoms, being fought some minor wars and conflicts, which needed to be solved each time by Imperial Ambassadors sent from Ushaenor.
While the Elves claimed dominance over all the region, they only had effective control of the cities and near farmlands they worked, remaining most of Forhel a wilderness, scarcely populated by orcs and the feral wollumis witches.
The Age of Invasions
During the Age of Invasions, the Forhel High Elven cities will first have to face off an invasion of Gronkav Green orcs first. Each elven colony fought on their own against the orcs, sometimes repelling or paying them off, leading them to rival elven colonies, which sparked new conflicts amongst the high elves and further weakened them. Most of the Gronkav orcs were defeated, but significant numbers settled along Forhel in uninhabited lands.
While the elven cities recriminated each other how they had acted in regard of the orcish invasion, they overlooked the fact that the Gronkav orcs invaded Forhel.
It was an invasion that they were only able to partially fend off and with great cost, only to face a second, larger and better organized Kanov invasion: the Kanovs had invaded Gronkav, which had forced thousands of Gronkav orcs to seek refugee in Forhel, reason of the Gronkav Green orc invasion.
Once the Kanovs had settled in Gronkav, they continued to the south, to Forhel, attacking the already weakened elven colonies.
While attacked from the east by the Kanovs, as the elves controlled the sea they were able to receive -scarce- reinforcements from Ushaenor, having a supply and escape route. In some of the last moments, there was attempts to coordinate the defense of the colonies, but colonial rivalries of the metropolitan high elven kingdoms and local rivalries barred this.
However, the already desperate situation will turn worse as the Gronkav orcs that settled along Forhel borders and the local Forhel Orcs will raise in arms and attack from the isles and channels the elven settlements: cut from land by Kanov and sea by Orcs, without being able to receive further reinforcements, relief or to escape, the colonies will be sacked and destroyed.
The elven survivors were either enslaved, escaped to the north -to form part of some of the southern wild elven tribes-, while others escaped to the interior of the isles and rainforests, sometimes joining the wollumis witches. The most fortunate ones where the ones who were able to escape to Vanilion before the final fall of the High Elven colonies of Forhel, or the ones who escaped back to Ushaenor.
However, after the initial pity, the returnees of the failed High Elven states and colonies of Aels, Zarhuy and Hieyoks will be often socially looked down upon in Ushaenor.
Tumvar, the Kanov Kingdom of Forhel and the Orc Kingdoms of the Isles
Kanovs seized most of the elven ruins along the continental coastline, founding their own farms and cities over them, founding Tumvar, the Kanov Kingdom of Forhel. The Kanovs will come to be the hegemonic power of Forhel, but while they had a High King, in reality the Kanovs of Forhel were as fragmented as the coastline and was a very decentralized society, with a dispersed population and only a couple of small cities in the ruined husks of previous elven settlements.
The Kingdom of Forhel will come to be under the Caliphate of Blazakhov sphere of influence by the Late Human Age, as were set Blazakhov factories (trading posts) along the coastlines.
Meanwhile, the Green Orcs will control the coastline of the isles and the channels, setting a series of petty kingdoms.
The relations between the Kanovs and Orcs will be alternatively of peace and conflict, of raids and trade. The fragmented Kanov and Orc societies meant complex relations, making pacts, truces and wars between the factions:
meanwhile, deep in the reinforests, the almost mythical feral Wollumis, regarded as witches and spirits, continued to be fuel of nightmares and legends in their hostile reclusion.
Post-Cataclysm Forhel and Aelian Colonialism
During the Third War of the Power, the far southwest of Zarhuy largely remained neutral to it, and the wars that destroyed other regions of Aiers didn't raged in Forhel and Gronkav, but orcish and Kanov mercenaries took part of the war, and there were some localized conflicts, engineered by the demons between the peoples of the far southwest against the High Elves of Vanilion, but largely wasn't a scenario of the Third War of the Power.
Forhel was severely hit by The Cataclysm, but slowly recuperated. The cut-off traders of Blazakhov, made into a local elite, will set city-states while Tumvar further fragmented, remaining only in name, and the Blazik elite expanded the islam among the Kanov.
During the modern age, there will be a progressive migration from the north of Buntu humans, but this didn't upset the balance of power of the region, but raised tensions.
The arrival of Aelian human colonial powers -the Calintropian Empire and the JPM- will mean the division and colonization of Forhel, along with the settlement of a significant aelian human population, ending the Blazik-Kanov hegemony in the region.
Forhel will be divided between the two Aelian colonial powers, and part of it will come to be part of the newly independent country of Zur.
Later, Forhel will be a disputed region by Zur and the Gastronomic Empire, before its final incorporation to Suadabria, remaining the least populated region of the country.