Master Torrato's page

About Master Torrato

The Mystery of the Unnamed Orc

Not much is known about Torrato before he walked out of the sea in Moreb. However, that particular moment is burned into the minds of the coastal city’s populace. They witnessed the hulking grey orc emerge from the surf with a bone saw in one hand and his other bound to a chain with nine other shackled yet severed hands. Immediately he was arrested by the authorities for the grizzly display and imprisoned without trial. The placard above his cell read, “Name: Unknown Orc, Crime: Tor-Rato.” Tor-Rato was an ancient legal term designed to include crimes of mayhem, chaos, and indecency that could not be easily specified. His guilt was always assumed and accepted by the people due to his race and circumstances. So he sat quietly and without incident for eight years in the city’s prison.

Though silence prevailed behind the bars, the bards and heralds of the city wove elaborate tales of speculation and fantasy about the cities newest and most notorious prisoner. He became the culprit of all the region’s unsolved crimes for the last hundred years. Some said he rode with Stanis, the brigand warlord, though this is unlikely. Others said he was trained by Ra Loi, the elven renegade, though this is even more unlikely. The contradictory tales competed for the imagination of the city.

Stories about his origin were just as varied and rampant. One said his father was a berserker and his mother a witch. This story circulated within the prison and the other prisoners believed him to possess the second sight. They would give him dead birds to divine their future by looking at the birds’ exposed gullets. When it was revealed to the people that he was not an orc, but a half-orc, surprising love songs were sung about the love of a human maiden for an orcish outcast. These songs would always end with the cautionary truth that any human girl who went outside her people would bring doom for her child, just look at Torrato. Still other songs claimed some divine origin for the criminal. The initial transcript of his interrogation revealed that when asked about the events that brought him to Moreb, he stated, “My father is the wind and my mother the sea. I was born in the storm and I had to disarm my nine brothers to escape her womb.”

Torrato’s appearance adds to the veracity of this folklore. He stands close to seven feet tall and weights over 300 pounds. He has grey leathery skin that looks ancient, though he himself has not seen thirty winters. He has long black hair, course to the touch, flowing straight back. Yet sometimes for some unknown reason, he will emerge with his forehead to the ears shorn. While most half-orcs have an under bite that reveals their lower incisors, Torrato has no such under bite. Yet he possesses the double fangs of the oldest orcish lines, which reveal long upper and lower incisors for a most monstrous appearance. There is no way to see his face and mistake his bloodline. On his chest is a tattoo in three inch letters that reads, “I am chaos”, though it appears to be written over a previously burned off message making the new image less legible. The only feature that gives away his humanity is his dark green eyes and pensive gaze. His jailors have said he is smart for an orc though they can state no example or demonstration of high intelligence, except his willful silence and his unwillingness to break off eye contact.

And so the unnamed orc sat imprisoned for eight years, until his captive city was sacked by their long-time rivals. The invading army released the captives and conscripted them to fight further up the coast against the allies of Moreb. Torrato walked out onto the same beach from whence he had come. And while standing in the surf waiting to walk the ramp onto his transport, Torrato’s new commander handed him a greatsword and a lifeless bird to divine. The man asked him, “What do you see in the future?” Torrato looked at his greatsword and discarded the bird and said, “I see chaos.”