Orrorsh rewrite

[Stormchild]

As mentioned in another thread there is an old rewrite on the world of Gaea I did some years ago lying in some forgotten vaults of my computer. As it is very long, I will split it into different parts. I tried to use as much of the official version as possible while shaping it into a world worth playing in. It didn't get much attention on the WEG board, maybe it will be read here. Feel free to rip it apart.

Part 1
What construes Gothic Horror?
Orrorsh is supposed to be a realm of Gothic horror but is executed as a more civilized version of splatter horror. The difference is that in splatter horror creatures kill unsuspecting victims for the sheer joy of causing pain (here the victim of Jack the Ripper is the protagonist).

In Gothic horror a person is lead to destruction by his uncontrolled vices (Jack the Ripper or his hunter is the protagonist). It should be noted that the word Gothic horror has been confused a bit by Vampyre. Vampyre is often played as splatter horror but still called Gothic with some reason as the protagonists are the vampires though they kill without remorse (there is a game value for humanity but most players don’t care that much about it).

Gothic horror as I see it is in the works of Shelley, Poe or Byron. There it is uncivilized behaviour as viewed by victorians that leads to downfall. Lust, too passionate love, frustration, boredom, longing for power, knowledge, wealth or influence and denial of faith, all this can lead to eternal damnation. While the victorians in our history used these stories to keep their society in line (everyone who stepped over the line was seen as excentric and morally unstable), the victorians on Gaea know all this can literally lead into darkness.

Why the Gaunt Man did not destroy Gaea
As long as the Gaunt Man was inexperienced he destroyed cosm after cosm with hordes of creatures. Some manufactured with his knowledge of the occult, others found while plundering the cosms (e.g. werewolves, vampires) but he always felt that destruction came too quick and too much of the precious poss was lost in the effort. Before beginning the invasion on Gaea he devised a new method of conquest – the power of fear. On various occassions he had realized that even ords generated poss when put in mortal fear and this poss could be soaked away if the victim was left alive but still remained in fear.

[Stormchild]

Part 2

Why the Gaunt Man favors the victorians
On his arrival on Gaea, a world very similar to our own, the Gaunt Man looked for unsuspecting agents who could rule the world in a way that was to his liking. Beginning with the Napoleon wars he manipulated events in order to change the world into what he needed.

In the 18th century he began manipulating the britains whom he saw as ideal agents as their culture was prone to enjoyment and leisure while their protestant religion gave them compunctions when following their favourite pasttimes. He only needed to enhance that sense of guilt and show that their virtues could also be their vices and thus their downfall.

The britains valued virtues as honesty, loyalty, resolution, progress, enthusiasm, sportsmanship, bravery, detachment and self-esteem but these could easily turn into vices like naivete, blind obedience, disregard for time honoured values, lack of foresight, obsession with games, militancy, coldness and racism. Vices, the Gaunt Man planned to exploit. He orchestrated Britains rise to world power No. 1 by giving them the technical means to achieve this and pulling strings in the background.

Why the victorians rule Gaea
The industrial revolution was spurned by the Gaunt Man’s occult inventions. He brought over the combustion engine from one of the destroyed worlds but due to some faults he built into the design it is prone to malfunction, overheating and explosion. These malfunctions are often announced by strange noises, engineers have learned to fear. The fear is an extra bonus for the Gaunt Man, while the engineers and by-standers generete poss he can suck away.

But the main reason he introduced this engine too early for the natural tech development (as Gaea was lacking the necessary development in metallurgy and chemistry when it was introduced and still hasn't developed that as it wasn't neccessary) is that it gives the Britains a considerable advantage over the rest of the world and those engineers that know how to construct the engine an advantage in society. Thus he not only toppled the world order but also the order of victorian society. Another effect of this engine is that it is basically an occultech device. By spending a poss an engineer can desiderably increase the engine's effectivenes or prevent overheating. In this manner the engineers not only give away poss (that the stelae suck away) but also take the first steps on their way to corruption.

Experienced occult engineers can also give special properties to their engines (from increasing a vehicle’s speed to giving life to a dead body with electrical currents from the engine). Dabbling with the engine is like dabbling with the occult: the first steps are easy and don’t look dangerous but in order to achieve his (often overall good) goals the person has to use more and more corrupt means. This was as far as I remember the only aspect discussed on the WEG forum

Another aspect of victorian society that the Gaunt Man exploited was the mercantile factor inherent in calvinism. Calvin stated that it is not evil to be rich as long as the wealth is rightfully gained and some of it is used for good deeds. How wealth was gained soon became irrelevant as more and more riches became available. People tended to think that former evil deeds may be washed away by donations to the poor. This, after all, is an aspect of victorian thinking the Gaunt Man did his best to encourage, that as long as the goal is good the means to reach it are irrelevant. While this was also true for victorians on Core Earth, on Gaea it led to fatal consequences furthered by the Gaunt Man, people who committed evil acts to gain riches and then put up the public face of helping the poor and still feeling righteous about it until they realize that they are already deep in corruption.

[Stormchild]

Part 3

How the world changed
The Gaunt Man?s minions are behind many upheavals in Africa and Asia against Victorian rule, they encourage social upheavels on Britannia itself and her first colonies Eire, Scotia and Avalon (Ireland, Scotland and Wales). He also gave the secrets of his engine to Preussen (Northern Germany), Polske (Poland) and Habsburg (Austria-Hungary) albeit later than it was introduced in Britannia. This led to some interesting changes in the world power game.

Allied with Preussen, Polske grew strong and managed to grab some lands from the agrarian society of Roskya (Russia), Preussen aggressively snatched some of the smaller German countries until its boundaries stretched over the Rhein-Donau area. Habsburg crippled the Osman Empire (Turkey) and extended its borders far to the south becoming a sea-power, while a bit to the north gaining Bavaria by marriage and the Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft (Switzerland) by force.

How the Osman Empire fell
Habsburg won some decisive victories against the Osman Empire (Turkey) and managed to grab Bosnia, Albania and half of Serbskia driving the Osman Empire back to where it was before the Mongol war of 1402. Afterward Habsburg built a fleet of impressive steel battleships that destroyed the Osman fleet and paved the way for an invasion of Cypres, Crete, Greece (Livadia with Athens and the Pellepones) and all the small Ionian and Aegean islands. Habsburg now rules the eastern mediterraneum and is looking for new gains.

In the aftermath of these victories the kingdom of Rumostria formed out of the former Osman satellite states in Europe: Molawia (main city Jassy), Walachy (main city Bukarest), Bulgary (the new kingdom?s capitol Sofia), Rumelia (main city Adrianopel), the eastern part of Albany, Thessalia (main city Saloniki) and about half of Serbskia.

At the same time a british fleet attacked Cyrenaika (eastern Lybia) and Egypt and helped an Egyptian marionette regime on the throne of both provinces while arab movements in Tunisia, Algeria and Tripolitania (Libya) threw out the osman beis (rulers) and installed their own deis (puppet rulers). On the north Roskya took advantage of the weakened Osman Empire and marched into the region north of the black sea.

So the new situation of the former empire is: a very weak Osman Empire consisting of Turkey, Armenia (with a disbuted border to the north somewhere near Batum and to the east not far from Kars), Kurdistan (with the Urmia sea as eastern border), Mesopotamia (with a border to small arab Sheikh-doms near Mossul) and Syria (the border is Jerusalem which has been invaded by joined egypt-british forces), the Kaukasus consists of lots of small fiefdoms (the tribal states of Tscherkessia, Mingrelia, Dagestan, Asserbaidschan, Ardelian, Luristan, Tadschikistan and a not very stable Georgian empire), on the north bench of the black sea lie the Khanat of Krim-tatars that is still holding itself against the Roskyan empire, the Kosaks of Saporoger allied to Roskya, the Khanats of Asow and Taurien that are fighting a guerilla war against Roskyan invaders and the Roskyan satellite state of Bessarabia while Victorian troops gather in the west, Habsburg controls the sea in the west and Rumostria holds the North-West.

[Stormchild]

Part 4

What the world does not know
Rumostria is a country recovering from war so nobody takes notice of what is really going on there. The borders are closed even to its ally Habsburg while people disappear on a regular basis. Some are said to be called in to join the armed forces while others just disappear without a trace. The reason is that on the throne of Sofia sits a vampire who installed other vampires as counts and barons in the provinces of his kingdom.

While king Wladimir Orlow I. is the official ruler, the real power behind the throne since the founding of Rumostria is prince Miloslav Beastro. Beastro is one of the Gaunt Man’s most trusted lieutenants and, being an undead ghoul, he is never seen in public. On various diplomatic visits Wladimir I. managed to create vampires in foreign countries. Up to now his agents are in positions of power in nearly all nations all over the world. The throne of Rumostrias closest ally Habsburg is even occupied by a vampire, Kaiser Rudolph II, a nephew of Wladimir I. While Britain, Habsburg, Preussen and Polske geared up their industry, Rumostria remains an agrarian nation where the peasants still live as in the middle ages.

In France, Napoleon has issued printing of the compendium horribiles, a massive treatise about horrors and the occult. Many horrors are listed with their true death. Though the printing and copying is done very secretly, the Gaunt Man has learned of it and destroyed most copies, but some are still around.

In Salem a kind of resistance community against the horrors has formed. An indian shaman blessed with true sight helped them root out all corrupted there and now they collect knowledge about horrors. One of the Gaunt Man's Lieutenants has been dispatched to Salem to destroy them before they can get their wisdom out into the world. The first incursion of a horde of undead creatures was repulsed by the Salem vigilantes.

[Stormchild]

Part 5

How these changes began
The world of Gaea was in most aspects very similar to our earth but this changed with the coming of the Gaunt Man. When Napoleon began his march over Russia and was surprised by an early winter, he decided to move back to his sternest ally, the kingdom of Kiew. There he planned to regroup his army and wait for spring when he heard about uprising in Preussen. This was orchestrated by the Gaunt Man, whose Horrors ambushed the Grande Armee.

It was a dreadfull moonless night when the Gaunt Man’s hordes crept out of the shadows and overran the camp. The slaughter was over in a few minutes, Napoleon’s best Mareshals and his most trusted advisors were found slaughtered by horrified members of La Grande Armee. Napoleon himself was maimed horribly, he had lost his arms, his legs and one eye but was still alive though partly insane. Many of his soldiers fled that night, spreading the tale all over Europe while Napoleon was transported back to Paris in a sedan by what was left of his once proud army. As it was obvious that Napoleon had become insane, Minister Talleyrand ruled in his name. Being a politician, not a general, Talleyrand tried to stabilize the gains Napoleon made but had to give up a lot. This was exactly what the Gaunt Man had planned.

Up to today, in the year 1865, France is still the greatest land power in the world but too terrified to go out on military adventures. It holds on to the east of Espana and the north of Italia, Marocco and parts of Tunesia but these colonies are in a destabilized situation with muslim warlords and Horrors ruling portions of these lands. Napoleon himself is still alive to the horror of the french people. He lives in the dome des invalides in Paris and is visited once per week by the current ruler and some advisors. Though the French dread the “ruling corpse” as he is nicknamed (or Bone-apart as the Victorians say), he is too much a hero for them to take measures against him. In fact the ever restless Napoleon has become one of the foremost occult experts who knows exactly how far to go in order not to get corrupted. Probably no one on Gaea knows more about the nature of Horrors and the Gaunt Man than him but as he is prone to fits of insanity only a few believe him. The Gaunt Man keeps Napoleon alive as he is very useful in spreading fear by his tales and his very existence.

While the rest of Europe was busy fighting each other to gain as much as they could from Napoleon’s empire and the beaten Osman empire the Britains took off to conquer their colonies.
Today Victoria (as the Britain call their nation after many victories, in reverence of Queen Victoria) controls almost all of coastal Africa, the most parts of India, parts of Indonesia, Australia and some coastal areas of Asia. But in Asia the Victorians are held at bay by the Japanese whom the Gaunt Man sees as nearly as useful as the Victorians.

The Japanese are a traditional and fearful people with strong obedience to authorities. This makes them ideal material for the Gaunt Man. He replaced the Tenno and his most trusted advisors with shapeshifters and let loose some of his most vicious Horrors. Those Horrors resembled ancestor spirits of legend that are reverred in Ch’in (China). Thus he spread fear and rage resulting in something like a holy war against the Ch’in. As those Horrors also rampaged through Ch’in many Ch’in even cooperated with the Japanese. In only 10 years from 1814 to 1824 the coastal area of Ch’in was conquered by Japan – another potential enemy of the Gaunt Man eliminated – while the Japanese until today have to fight against rebels there.

The Japanese believe firmly in the righteousness of this war as the Horror-incidents dramatically decreased after the conquest. They even found evidence that Ch’in wise men were conjuring those ancestor spirits. What Japan lacks in machines today it makes up in enthusiasm and sheer manpower. So Japan and Victoria are two forces that cancel each other out. Without actually conquering Gaea, the Gaunt Man had set the world powers against each other in a way that none could challenge his hidden rule.
Today the world is at an uneasy peace with many people oppressed by self-righteous Victorians or Japanese and the continental european powers besieging each other.

[Stormchild]

Part 6

How the Victorians are kept from conquering Europe
First of all there is more to be gained economically than by conquest. Conquest is not the way of gentlemen, at least over other civilized – meaning european – nations. And, together France, Preussen, Bayern, Habsburg and Roskya could destroy Victoria but as long as they skirmish against each other the island is safe. This has lead to a civilized gentlemen agreement. No one would dare touch a Victorian (at least no gentleman) while distinguished continentals (meaning they are rich) are welcomed guests in the empire.

With the Ni’ponese this is another case. Ni’ponese have a healthy fear of gaijin (foreign devils) and are traditionally xenophobic. They believe every foreigner has to be in league with the devil though some hardened missionaries, diplomats and merchants are tolerated, with the proper documents of course.

How the Americas fared
When the Gaunt Man first met american indians, he was in for a surprise. They knew about him. For centuries his arrival had been anounced by their ghosts. Immediately he sent his Horrors marching against the indians in force but with only mixed success. The indians took full advantage of Gaea’s spirit axiom and fought Horrors with miracles. Here was no point in subtlety, the Gaunt Man let loose his most vicious Horrors. But these Horrors are not easily controlled so he had to personally give attention to many fronts at once.

The Gaunt Man soon realized that, in order not to endanger his plan of leaving the world basically intact, he had to stop his Horrors again. When the Gaunt Man ordered these Horrors back to the Waiting Village, some escaped and still roam the Americas. It could not be helped that the european settlers in America witnessed some of the Horrors and now have a deeper understanding of what is going on than people in Europe. So in the Americas, in the south more frequently than in the north, can be found records and even the occassional eye-witness that tell about Horrors.

The indian nations barely survived this outlash of Horrors but soon fell to european settlers. Still there are some indians out there who know a lot about Horrors and how to fight them. In order to keep the european settlers who might know too much at bay, the Gaunt Man set up the french and spanish settlers in North-America against the british, german and polish settlers which led to Gaea’s own version of an american civil war. Officially it was a religious war between the mostly protestants british-german settlers and the mostly catholic french-spanish but it is more a power struggle of the industrialized north-east against the agrarian south-west.

While the protestants have access to more modern equipment, the catholics have more knowledge of miracles and magic. In the end the protestants would have won had not Canada sided with the protestants and some spanish countries in South and Middle America declared war on the protestants. This led to peace talks and an uneasy truce that holds till now. It is doubtful if those South-American countries could have played a real part in the war as there the Horrors still abound. The Porto (Portugese) exile court is well established in Brazeo (Brazil) while the spanish exile court is faced with a rebellion in Mexico where it resides while other South-American countries are deep in the middle of civil war and a struggle against Horrors.

Despite all these problems many settlers are hard or foolish enough to settle in indian territory. The recently found gold in the small mexican town of San Francisco inspired a gold rush to the west coast. Corrupt mexican officials allow prospectors to cross the border for a small bribe and sell claims (some more than once) in the sparsely populated northern part of Mexico (California, Arizona, New-Mexico, Texas). The way over Mexico is also the less dangerous way for settlers and they come in force, especially from the agrarian european nations.

[skeloric]

Holy crap, you have neatly and quite alarmingly achieved an amazing thing, you had me wishing for a moment that you were part of a team rewriting Orrorsh.

I have to reread this a few more times and perhaps print it out and peruse it off and on until I can tell you more as this is truly more than what I can digest in one sitting.

Good work though, this could revolutionize Orrorsh, or perhaps become at least a creditable variant.

[skeloric]

Gothic horror as I see it is in the works of Shelley, Poe or Byron. There it is uncivilized behavior as viewed by Victorians that leads to downfall. Lust, too passionate love, frustration, boredom, longing for power, knowledge, wealth or influence and denial of faith, all this can lead to eternal damnation.

Not JUST uncivilized behavior.
The very trappings of society itself can be the stone that one stumbles over.
Defense of one's honor, upholding one's "station" (as part of the Upper Class") and even strong Piety can lead to damnation if the right circumstances are met.
The question is often "How?" but it really involves in engaging the player in the role of the character.
A devout Catholic Monarch decides that the Protestants in her kingdom should re-embrace "Mother Church" on pain of death if need be -- and seeds of corruption grow.
An Inquisitor seeks out heresy and firmly believes that his god will excuse his actions in defense of the Faith.
A just and good nobleman wrongly accused and imprisoned , escapes too seek redress for the wrong done to him. Along the way, he causes harm to a bystander and feels insufficient remorse because they were "in the way" on his path to vengeance (or as he deems it, "JUSTICE".)

Spin it and look for deviations from the path.
Everyone strays a little at least and this should not be acted upon.
Instead, let them get cozy with skirting the edges until they skirt them a little too close and fall headlong into the yawning abyss ready to receive them.

Overall though...
Yeah.
You got the right of it.
Right enough at least.

[skeloric]

Part 4

What the world does not know
Rumostria is a country recovering from war so nobody takes notice of what is really going on there. The borders are closed even to its ally Habsburg while people disappear on a regular basis. Some are said to be called in to join the armed forces while others just disappear without a trace. The reason is that on the throne of Sofia sits a vampire who installed other vampires as counts and barons in the provinces of his kingdom.

While king Wladimir Orlow I. is the official ruler, the real power behind the throne since the founding of Rumostria is prince Miloslav Beastro. Beastro is one of the Gaunt Man’s most trusted lieutenants and, being an undead ghoul, he is never seen in public. On various diplomatic visits Wladimir I. managed to create vampires in foreign countries. Up to now his agents are in positions of power in nearly all nations all over the world. The throne of Rumostria's closest ally Habsburg is even occupied by a vampire, Kaiser Rudolph II, a nephew of Wladimir I. While Britain, Habsburg, Preussen and Polske geared up their industry, Rumostria remains an agrarian nation where the peasants still live as in the middle ages.

In France, Napoleon has issued printing of the compendium horribles, a massive treatise about horrors and the occult. Many horrors are listed with their true death. Though the printing and copying is done very secretly, the Gaunt Man has learned of it and destroyed most copies, but some are still around.

In Salem a kind of resistance community against the horrors has formed. An Indian shaman blessed with true sight helped them root out all corrupted there and now they collect knowledge about horrors. One of the Gaunt Man's Lieutenants has been dispatched to Salem to destroy them before they can get their wisdom out into the world. The first incursion of a horde of undead creatures was repulsed by the Salem vigilantes.
I really like your spin on Rumostria.
Its still the nation of vampires in the close analogue to fictional Transylvania (really just part of the mountainous range of Carpathia/Romania) but it fits inside a living Europe.
Kudos.

[skeloric]

Part 6
While the protestants have access to more modern equipment, the catholics have more knowledge of miracles and magic. In the end the protestants would have won had not Canada sided with the protestants[I THINK YOU MEAN CATHOLICS] and some Spanish countries in South and Middle America declared war on the protestants. This led to peace talks and an uneasy truce that holds till now. It is doubtful if those South-American countries could have played a real part in the war as there the Horrors still abound. The Porto (Portuguese) exile court is well established in Brazeo (Brazil) while the Spanish exile court is faced with a rebellion in Mexico where it resides while other South-American countries are deep in the middle of civil war and a struggle against Horrors.

To be honest, with the breaking of North and South America, I rather like the idea of an unexplored South America where all attempts to enter the interior fail and only a few meagre port town exist on the North Eastern edge.
With the presentation of South America as the "Dark Continent" (versus that of Rhodesland) -- which would make an lost Lord Greystoke more like to have been washed ashore on South America -- having it never growing into a world power would seem more fitting.

[skeloric]

Back to Gothic Horror, if you ever find it buy the GURPS book "SCREAMPUNK" which is a $6.95 mini-book adding Gothic Horror tropes to the GURPS Steampunk book.
A large portion is just examining the tropes and themes of Gothic Horror.
To a certain degree, one theme is the degradation of nobility.
Noble family trees rotting away as the sins of the father are visited upon the son. ("Fall of the House of Usher", perchance?)
There are more, I'll have to write a digest version and offer it here.
"Sins of the Father are Visited Upon the Son" makes a nice World Law... essentially it means that certain families start with some minimal Corruption value -- say 5 perhaps, making them all one (or maybe 2) step(s) closer to damned.

[Stormchild]

Not JUST uncivilized behavior.
The very trappings of society itself can be the stone that one stumbles over.
Defense of one's honor, upholding one's "station" (as part of the Upper Class") and even strong Piety can lead to damnation if the right circumstances are met...Spin it and look for deviations from the path.
Everyone strays a little at least and this should not be acted upon.
Instead, let them get cozy with skirting the edges until they skirt them a little too close and fall headlong into the yawning abyss ready to receive them.

You formulated it better than me. What I meant by uncivilized behavior is what a gentleman would call that as in "Sir, killing that heretic outright can in no way be called civilized behavior."

[Stormchild]

Back to Gothic Horror, if you ever find it buy the GURPS book "SCREAMPUNK" which is a $6.95 mini-book adding Gothic Horror tropes to the GURPS Steampunk book.
A large portion is just examining the tropes and themes of Gothic Horror.
To a certain degree, one theme is the degradation of nobility.
Noble family trees rotting away as the sins of the father are visited upon the son. ("Fall of the House of Usher", perchance?)
There are more, I'll have to write a digest version and offer it here.
"Sins of the Father are Visited Upon the Son" makes a nice World Law... essentially it means that certain families start with some minimal Corruption value -- say 5 perhaps, making them all one (or maybe 2) step(s) closer to damned.

I like the idea of sins of the fathers. I don't have Screampunk but will look for it. A good source too is Midgard 1880, a german RPG, though I don't know if it has been published in english.

[Stormchild]

To be honest, with the breaking of North and South America, I rather like the idea of an unexplored South America where all attempts to enter the interior fail and only a few meagre port town exist on the North Eastern edge.
With the presentation of South America as the "Dark Continent" (versus that of Rhodesland) -- which would make an lost Lord Greystoke more like to have been washed ashore on South America -- having it never growing into a world power would seem more fitting.

I didn't explore on that one but there is no reason why it couldn't be as you describe it. Even today with a quite well developed South America, big parts of the Amazonas and other jungle areas in South America are pretty unexplored. Just some weeks ago a new tribe was discovered. I hadn't put much thought into South America but basically, I think it could be this Dark Continent with some big port towns (big port towns, I think are better suited than meagre port towns, giving South America some power and people a reason to go there).


In the end the protestants would have won had not Canada sided with the protestants[I THINK YOU MEAN CATHOLICS] and some Spanish countries in South and Middle America declared war on the protestants.

I did mean protestants. I wrote catholics in my first version than changed it for Canada to side with the protestants. Why? Because in war affiliation does not mean much, military and political issues are more important. That is the reason the catholic France did not side with the catholic league against the Turks, but instead waited for the Turks to conquer Vienna. Back to issue, it is a coin toss for Canada which side they could choose, and I thought it would be better for them to join sides with the stronger neighbour who is about to win than against him but on the conditions that peace talks are started.

[skeloric]

I didn't explore on that one but there is no reason why it couldn't be as you describe it. Even today with a quite well developed South America, big parts of the Amazonas and other jungle areas in South America are pretty unexplored. Just some weeks ago a new tribe was discovered. I hadn't put much thought into South America but basically, I think it could be this Dark Continent with some big port towns (big port towns, I think are better suited than meagre port towns, giving South America some power and people a reason to go there).

I think they'd never be much more than colonies as they'd require too much to be brought in.



I did mean protestants.
Then it should have read, "Catholics would won if not for..."
One of the two uses of Protestant in the sample was wrong, I could hear it as I read it.

[Stormchild]

I think they'd never be much more than colonies as they'd require too much to be brought in.


Then it should have read, "Catholics would won if not for..."
One of the two uses of Protestant in the sample was wrong, I could hear it as I read it.

Yes, it should be "as protestants where about to win Canada and South-American countries insisted on a truce or they would join the fight."

[skeloric]

As I look back on this, I wonder if some of the feel would be lost if the world were too populated.
If Africa and South America and perhaps Australia/New Zealand were such that if it were less than hospitable to such a degree that coastal walled cities were the only means of claiming a toehold on such property might not be all that bad an idea.
I look also to the interior of Asia such as Tibet and Northern "Finda" (My personal preference, named for the "Findaru" and replacing India, particularly with the Thuggee cult being very Horror dominated) as well as the hinterlands of Russian territory such as Siberia as being territory that no man could hold despite claiming it as theirs.

I guess I look to Marl as a partial evolution of Orrorsh and wonder if there might be something to that.
A lot of walled cities separated by a wilderness that could be the stuff of nightmares.
Men living their lives of quiet desperate terror, knowing that they are not at the top of the food chain.
Not being able to determine when they lost their rightful place.
Equally uncertain when, how or even IF they will ever regain that place.
Marl may in fact be exactly what Orrorsh needs conflated into itself.
(While remaining Tech 19, naturally)