Ogres. Let's make ogres fun. Let's make ogres smart, but vicious. Let's make ogres the Fallen. As I see it, an ogre is like ten times the weight and strength of a human, so he needs to eat at least ten times as much. Trouble is, he doesn't have a good way to do ten times the farming. I guess an ogre farmer could push a plow himself and cut the horse out of the picture, but I don't see that working super efficiently.
So ogres grew up somewhere with a very, very lush biome. Ogres are from a volcanic jungle region, where the ash enriches the soil and there's massive wild boar. Actually, ogres might be boar-men. I'll think about that. So the ogres grow up in this region, but they're ultimately confined to it, because they starve to death outside of it. Then they discover other demi-humans, who don't eat anything, and build these huge farms! An ogre family can trash a humanoid baron, claim leadership of the village, and then live happily off the taxes. Most races don't even mind too much about the change in leadership; the old boss is dead, long live the new boss, did you see him punch that hydra to death? To the ogres, it seems natural. The way of the world. Of course the strongest are in charge. It's their manifest destiny.
Now there's a massive ogre empire. The ogres are calling the shots for a half-dozen subspecies of human. Some of the Ogre Magi start getting into dark rituals, and it catches on espicially in the capital. There's a cultural shift away from proving supremacy to just enjoying it. For those who aren't magical, there's always lavish construction projects, gladiator arenas, and general excess.
A lot of ogres suspect there's something wrong with this. Some agitate for change, or help secretly arm their servants, but most of them commission flying carpets and fuck off into the sky to one day become cloud giants. In the midst of this exodus, the great hero Caesar emerges. A field slave, he strangles his ogrelord with his chains and then forges them into a weapon, travelling from village to village picking fights and amassing a band of faithful companions with interesting backstories. The rebellion wins, and the ogres are driven back to their homeland, once opulent and imperial, now twisted and blackened, a permanent bastion of corruption. Also it's called Zahre, so that all the Zaharan feats are still appropriately named.
The rebellious territories re-organize themselves into a new empire, called Borya, after one of Caesar's fallen companions. He himself ascends to godhood, as the Master of Chains. Chains feature heavily in Boryan iconography. His companions become the founding saints of the... religion. DAMN IT. DAMN IT I WAS SO PROUD OF NAMING THE EMPIRE AND THE MORDOR I FORGOT THAT RELIGIONS HAVE NAMES.
There. I covered ogres and established the main empire in the game as well as explaining where the big spooky volcanic wasteland comes from. I'm going home. Names. Ugh.