Hiridia Total War was being developed while I was writing the book. But when I changed to MaB I also made some drastic changes on the book. One of this changes was changing 'orcs' for 'kalids'.
KALIDS INSTEAD OF ORCS
When I started writing the series of books based on Hiridia I tried to make really cool factions, which would become mythic with time, and iconic once there were videogames and such. I included humans, and several types of elves. Also some special races like aurlions, fernrisseans and vampires (the hiridian vampire is a different concept to the one seen on other fantasy worlds). But the time came for me to decide if I was going to include orcs or not.
Previously I studied the escence of Warhammer, LOTR and others, and ended up thinking that having orcs was a musthave. In fact there are orcs in the previews of Hiridia Total War, but shortly after I passed to MaB I decided to elliminate that race. I thought that my 'orc' concept was too simillar to the one on The Elder Scrolls, and decided to be more original.
Instead of orcs y added the kalids, which in fact was my early concept for the Kemetrals. At the beginning I found it very difficult to decide which design to use for my Kemetrals, so I was happy to reuse the other concept for the 'orc slot'.
KALIDS, A PARTICULAR RACE
Kalids are basicly blue skinned humanoids, with black or red hair. They are fit by nature, grow (become mature) quickly, and both men and women are known for their beauty. Other important stuff: kalid males have no beard, and kalids don't age past their 30s. They don't become older. However, unlike elves, they aren't inmortal and last just like a human.
I worked an interesting culture for these guys when they were still orcs, and made it less barbaric as usual. They love fighting and going to taverns, but also have important philosophers. And though they like axes like Teutanians do, also love mazes and picks, and are well known for their longbowmen.
