IrdyaCanonSecretLore
WARNING: The following page contains game secrets intended for campaign designers. We cannot stop anyone from reading it, but if you are a player you should consider hitting your back button now, as you will probably enjoy learning these things more if you do it through the hints dropped at various places in the mainline campaigns.
This is a work-in-progress discussing the Irdya Canon, the revised lore that will be in Wesnoth 1.16 onwards. Things on here might not be secret, but for a work-in-progress it's easier to write first and then decide whether it should be secret or not.
Resources
Forum threads:
The main lore starts in the A grand design for singleplayer mainline lore thread.
Relevant IRC discussions:
Necromancy and secrets of the undead
High-level undead are much rarer than in the Classic Canon. Liches are much rarer, as having too many dilutes the storytelling. The Wesfolks' Lich Lords are still in the Irdya Canon, but not of the Wesfolk anymore.
Some races can't use black magic at all. These are elves, woses, trolls, drakes, and dwarves. Races that are, in theory, able to use necromancy are humans, orcs, saurians, and merfolk.
Any necromancers or liches of those races are automatically non-canon, even if they were in a 1.14 mainline campaign. Even if the alternative is torture (Mal M'Brin in 1.14's TSG), they just can't use it, the black magic rots them inside first (citation needed, it was said sometime on IRC).
Story of the orcs
The orcs start out as a race created by the Lich Lords to be slaves. Over time, they free themselves from that status and develop their own culture. For a long time, they are still seen by the other races as the savage, murderous hordes of destruction they were once created as. This is reinforced by a long tradition of raiding and feuds.