Who carries it
Horn-Called is the half-orc custom, one of ten kindred traits added in 2.1.9. Only half-orcs roll it, and the sheet marks it “Half-orcs only”.
Recruits draw two or three traits by weight: common 100, uncommon 45, rare 14, legendary 3. A custom has a fixed weight of 150 for its own people and 0 for everyone else, so about one half-orc recruit in eighteen (roughly 5.5%) carries it. It is excluded from the founding term that gives every delver one shared trait.
At a war: +3 to the contingent
When your guild answers a war, the delvers you send are weighed as a contingent. Each one contributes their level, plus 0.4 for every point their hidden big-game rating sits above 10, plus trait bonuses. The total turns into a strength between 0.35 and 0.88 at 0.012 per point, minus 0.05 if nobody in the contingent is a tank.
Horn-Called adds 3 points, worth +0.036 strength, or about three and a half percentage points before placement scales it. Old Soldier adds 5. Half-orcs roll Old Soldier two and a half times as often as other kindreds, so a half-orc with both is a real possibility: +8 points, almost a tenth of a contingent’s strength.
Where you place them matters as much as the trait. The vanguard magnifies a contingent’s effect on the war by half again (and carries the highest death risk); the reserve shrinks it. The Old Soldier page has the full placement table.
At home: the horn they did not answer
The cost comes when a war is fought. If you sent fewer than five delvers (or fewer than everyone you had available, when that is under five), every Horn-Called delver who was in the hall and not sent loses 25 morale. Sitting the war out entirely counts as sending none. In a campaign of several battles, the check is made once, at the first battle. The news line says they heard the horn and were kept home.
The rule has two easy outs:
- Send them. A Horn-Called delver who marched is never penalised.
- Send the full share. If five go (or all you have, in a small hall), the ones left behind take nothing.
Delvers who are away on a quest, a delve or leave are not counted as kept home.
25 morale is a lot. It is three times what a failed quest costs most heroes, and morale only comes back through good results and events. A Horn-Called hero below 25 morale can start refusing work.
What to do with one
Treat a Horn-Called delver as a standing member of your war contingent. If you plan to sit wars out, or regularly send a thin contingent, the trait is a drawback and the hero is better placed elsewhere in the league. If you march to every war, it is a free bonus.
As a leader at a fork
As party leader, a Horn-Called hero leans +1 toward the Lair with its named foe, taking it about two times in three. Sealed Doors and treasure rooms get no lean.
The half-orc lean
Half-orcs roll Old Soldier, Vigilant and Light Sleeper more often (×2.5), and Crowd-Pleaser and Fair-Weather less often (×0.4). See the half-orc page.
What it does not do
No combat coefficient; the Bravery link on the sheet is descriptive. It does not change a hero’s death risk at war.