The Banner of Banners

Quest · Chapter 4 · Other stories

Route

  • Ask Ur-Shak about the Ulu-Mulu. He sends you to Tarrok in the Free Mine and marks the enclave meeting point on your map.
  • Bring Tarrok a great shadowbeast horn, great troll tusk, great fire-lizard tongue, and swampshark-mother teeth. He will craft the Ulu-Mulu once you have all four trophies.
  • Tarrok then demands an honorable fight to the death for the final blood rite. Afterward, wear the Ulu-Mulu to approach the orc enclave and meet Ur-Shak.

Quest Parts

  • The Banner of Banners:
  • I should gather the ingredients for the Ulu-Mulu.:
  • I should find Tarrok.:
  • I need the tongue of a fire lizard.:
  • I need the horn of a great shadowbeast.:
  • I need the teeth of a swampshark mother.:
  • I need the tusks of a troll.:
  • I need zarr ...:

Outcome

The Ulu-Mulu identifies you as a proven warrior to the orcs.

A banner that cannot be bought

Ur-Shak makes clear that the Ulu-Mulu is not an object a human can simply find or purchase. It is made by a shar-ulû, and the maker he trusts is Tarrok, an old blood-bonded friend now held as a slave in the Free Mine. Ur-Shak's name is the hero's first introduction, but it is not enough by itself; Tarrok needs to see whether the human understands the weight of what he is asking.

The materials are a catalogue of dangerous victories: a great shadowbeast horn, a troll tusk, a fire-lizard tongue, and the teeth of a swampshark mother. Each trophy represents a creature that could kill an unprepared hunter. Bringing all four together proves not only strength but the persistence required to complete a task no ordinary camp would even attempt.

Tarrok's last claim to honor

Tarrok will craft the Ulu-Mulu, but he says it is incomplete without zarr—the life, death, and change released by an honorable fight. His demand is a duel to the death. If Tarrok wins, he can return to his people with the Ulu-Mulu; if he dies, his death still restores the honor stripped from him when the humans put him in chains.

The fight is not a random final obstacle. Tarrok has spent many winters as a slave and believes he failed the first time the red humans came because he ran instead of fighting. The blood rite gives him one chance to decide how that story ends, while forcing the hero to enter the orc world through its own idea of dignity.

A human allowed among the orcs

When the Ulu-Mulu is complete, it marks the hero as a proven warrior rather than an intruder. Gorn sees only a strange banner, but the orcs read the trophies, the rite, and the connection to Ur-Shak as a language of trust. The weapon opens a path into the enclave and turns the hero's cross-species alliance into something the wider orc community can recognize.

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