So it was that Hamur declared the altar to be for the memory of the departed orcs of his tribe. He invited the community to come and inscribe their loved ones’ names and deeds upon the stone, offering the services of his allies who could read and carve stone for those who could not.

This first Memory Hall was not explicitly such, for it remained a shrine devoted to the false gods of the tribe. But the tribesmen, Hamur’s friends and relations, responded with enthusiasm. Soon the great deeds of their departed ancestors were write large upon the stone, and began to overtake the false gods’ possession of the place.

Hamur soon led the first memory services there, during which he counseled the people not to pray to the dead. Whether there was an afterlife or not was beyond their power to know, and immaterial; far better to learn from an ancestor’s noble and memorable deeds than to pray to their insensate remains.

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