The uruk are known to many play sports—dire boar racing, javelin throwing, wrestling—but corpse-dragging, or hoqloik, is among the sports that are the strangest to the eyes of human civilization.

To begin with, the hoqloik field has no real boundaries. Each end of the field has a circle drawn into the earth and spear planted point-up in the middle of the circle. These spears are quite far away from each other, and serve as goal markers. This game is interesting because it is played on the back of dire boars.

This game is usually played in teams, but a training variant is played in a free-form style, wherein every player competes individually. This form is commonly played as a form of warrior training for young uruk.

The object of the game is to carry a corpse around the opposing team’s spear, across the field, and impale the corpse on the point of your team’s spear. During play however, the corpse often falls into pieces, and the game gets quite chaotic. Each part of the corpse is counted in play, and the team with the greatest portion of the corpse impaled on their spear, wins. Thus, while one team’s spear may have 2 arms impaled on it, if the other team has 2 legs, the torso, and the head impaled on their spear, then that team wins.

The “corpse” in the uruk game of corpse-dragging is most often a calf’s or goat’s corpse, but the sport is traditionally played with the corpse of a coward.

Hoqloik is played with 10 players, called “raiders” or sulmogal on each team. Only 4 of the raiders may be on the field at any given time until the corpse breaks into pieces. When the corpse breaks, an uruk war horn is blown, and all of the players may enter the playing field. No substitutions may be made until the corpse breaks apart.

The raiders wear hide armor, boots, gloves, and head protection because competition is fierce and violent. Deaths or severe injury are not uncommon. It should be noted that, if an uruk warrior were to die during a game of hoqloik, their corpse could not be used to score points, as that would be sacrilege. Only the frûm-less corpse of a coward or livestock may be used in a game of hoqloik.

Each player also carries a whip to fend off opposing dire boars and riders. This whip is typically held between the teeth when the raider has the corpse.

Before the match, teams perform a war song to embolden themselves, to intimidate the enemy, and to consecrate the playing field. They also swear a frûm oath that they will play justly (though there are so few rules to this game that I am not entirely sure how an unjust game differs from a just one).

Hoqloik is typically played between clans within the same tribe, though once a year in the summer, clans of all different dire boar riding tribes in the greater Garmadh region compete in an inter-tribal sporting event. The winner of this match gets a prize and bragging rights for the year. Currently, a clan from another tribe holds the title.

The Many Lashes Clan’s best hoqloik player is either Borklob “She-Beast,” or Hornkrâk “Five-Beasts.” Apparently, Borklob once threw the headless torso of a coward like a discus onto the point of a spear from the back of a dire boar, all from some distance away. Uruk excitedly told me about her amazing shot. Hornkrâk is the best rider in the clan, and famously makes a point to hijack direboars from opposing teams during play! Regardless, while there may be a bit of friendly rivalry between them, they clearly take the greatest amount of joy in working together to best an enemy team.