Orcs

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Orcs are savage raiders and pillagers with stooped postures, low foreheads, and piggish faces with prominent lower canines that resemble tusks.

***Gruumsh One-Eye.*** Orcs worship Gruumsh, the mightiest of the orc deities and their creator. The orcs believe that in ancient days, the gods gathered to divide the world among their followers. When Gruumsh claimed the mountains, he learned they had been taken by the Dwarves. He laid claim to the forests, but those had been settled by the elves. Each place that Gruumsh wanted had already been claimed. The other gods laughed at Gruumsh, but he responded with a furious bellow. Grasping his mighty spear, he laid waste to the mountains, set the forests aflame, and carved great furrows in the fields. Such was the role of the orcs, he proclaimed, to take and destroy all that the other races would deny them. To this day, the orcs wage an endless war on humans, elves, Dwarves, and other folk.

Orcs hold a particular Hatred for elves. The elven god Corellon Larethian half-blinded Gruumsh with a well-placed arrow to the orc god’s eye. Since then, the orcs have taken particular joy in slaughtering elves. Turning his injury into a baleful gift, Gruumsh grants divine might to any Champion who willingly plucks out one of its eyes in his honor.

***Tribes like Plagues.*** Orcs gather in tribes that exert their dominance and satisfy their bloodlust by plundering villages, devouring or driving off roaming herds, and slaying any humanoids that stand against them. After savaging a settlement, orcs pick it clean of Wealth and items usable in their own lands. They set the remains of villages and camps ablaze, then retreat whence they came, their bloodlust satisfied.

***Ranging Scavengers.*** Their lust for slaughter demands that orcs dwell always within striking distance of new Targets. As such, they seldom settle permanently, instead converting ruins, cavern complexes, and defeated foes’ villages into fortified camps and strongholds. Orcs build only for defense, making no innovation or improvement to their lairs beyond mounting the severed body parts of their victims on spiked stockade walls or pikes jutting up from moats and trenches.

When an existing territory is depleted of food, an orc tribe divides into roving bands that scout for choice hunting grounds. When each party returns, it brings back trophies and news of Targets ripe for Attack, the richest of which is chosen. The tribe then sets out en masse to carve a bloody path to its new territory.

On rare occasions, a tribe’s leader chooses to hold onto a particularly defensible lair for decades. The orcs of such a tribe must range far across the countryside to sate their appetites.

***Leadership and Might.*** Orc tribes are mostly patriarchal, flaunting such vivid or grotesque titles as Many-Arrows, Screaming Eye, and Elf Ripper. Occasionally, a powerful war chief unites scattered orc tribes into a single rampaging horde, which runs roughshod over other orc tribes and humanoid settlements from a position of overwhelming Strength.

Strength and power are the greatest of orcish virtues, and orcs embrace all manner of mighty creatures in their tribes. Rejecting notions of racial purity, they proudly welcome ogres, Trolls, Half-Orcs, and orogs into their ranks. As well, orcs respect and fear the size and power of evil Giants, and often serve them as guards and soldiers.

***Orc Crossbreeds.*** Luthic, the orc goddess of fertility and wife of Gruumsh, demands that orcs procreate often and indiscriminately so that orc hordes swell generation after generation. The orcs’ drive to reproduce runs stronger than any other humanoid race, and they readily crossbreed with other races. When an orc procreates with a non-orc humanoid of similar size and stature (such as a human or a dwarf), the resulting child is either an orc or a Half-Orc. When an orc produces young with an ogre, the child is a Half-Ogre of intimidating Strength and brutish features called an ogrillon.

## Orc Blade of Ilneval

> *An orc life is a god-ridden life. Luthic’s at birth, Luthic’s at death, and striving to prove themselves to Gruumsh in between.*
>
> —Elminster
>
>

To the Common folk of the world, an orc is an orc. They know that any one of these savages can tear an ordinary person to pieces, so no further distinction is necessary.

Orcs know better. Different groups of orcs exist within a tribe, the Actions of each dictated by the deity they pay homage to. To complement the various kinds of warriors that spill forth to ravage the countryside, each tribe has members that remain deep inside the lair, seldom if ever seeing what lies outside the Darkness of their den.

In addition, orcs have Special relationships with two creatures that are sometimes found in their company: the Aurochs, a great bull that serves as a mount for warriors that revere Bahgtru, and the Tanarukk, a demon-orc crossbreed that is so depraved and destructive that even orcs seek to kill it.

Ilneval is Gruumsh’s battle captain, a devious strategist who directs Gruumsh’s soldiers with boldness. Among orcs, warriors that venerate Ilneval emulate their deity. Such orcs learn to Command their fellows in ways that are unpredictable but help to ensure victory.

The wisest among these leaders gain Ilneval’s favor and rise to become known as blades, tactical experts who advise their chief in matters of war. Blades lead from the front, wading into Combat fearlessly while barking orders at lesser soldiers. A blade knows how to use orcish ferocity to best advantage, and helps the ordinary warriors to work together against their adversaries.

## Orc Claw of Luthic

Luthic is Gruumsh’s wife and the paragon of maternity to all orcs. She is the Cave Mother, a fierce dweller in the Darkness who raises new broods of orcs to be Vicious and strong. Her Symbol is the Cave Bear, and orc females raise such bears alongside orc whelps. Females particularly attracted to Luthic grow long nails and lacquer them, learning to use these claws as Weapons much as Luthic uses her own.

Orc females devoted to Luthic are in charge of fortifying and maintaining an orc stronghold. They help to guarantee the Survival of the tribe, and most are Skilled in the Healing arts. The most powerful among Luthic’s disciples are the claws of Luthic, which can use the Cave Mother’s magic to heal, protect, and curse.

## Orc Eye of Gruumsh

When an orc slays an elf in Gruumsh’s name and offers the corpse of its foe as a sacrifice to the god of slaughter, an aspect of the god might appear. This aspect demands an additional sacrifice: one of the orc’s eyes, symbolizing the loss Gruumsh suffered at the hands of his greatest enemy, Corellon Larethian.

If the orc plucks out one of its eyes, Gruumsh might grant the orc Spellcasting Ability and Special favor, along with the right to call itself an Eye of Gruumsh. When not using their auguries to advise their war chiefs, these savage devotees of the god of slaughter hurl themselves into battle, their Weapons stained with blood.

## Orc Hand of Yurtrus

Orc Priests that oversee the line between life and death are known by the others in the tribe as hands of Yurtrus. They dwell on the fringes of an orc lair, usually communing with other orcs through the auspices of those who follow Luthic. The hands of Yurtrus wear pale gloves made of the bleached skin of other humanoids (preferably elves), symbolizing their connection with Yurtrus, and are sometimes called “white hands” as a result.

Every orc knows that the hands of Yurtrus are the tribe’s gateway to the ancestors. Orcs who die having served the tribe well go on to Rituals meant to send them to Gruumsh’s realm.

As befits followers of a god who doesn’t speak, hands of Yurtrus remove their Tongues to emulate their deity, for a reason similar to why an eye of Gruumsh puts out one of its eyes.

## Orc Nurtured One of Yurtrus

> *An orc life is a god-ridden life. Luthic’s at birth, Luthic’s at death, and striving to prove themselves to Gruumsh in between.*
>
> —Elminster
>
>

When plague strikes a tribe, the hands of Yurtrus isolate the sick. The Priests then minister to those who can be saved but not healed. The hands cultivate the sickness of these nurtured ones, turning them into instruments of defense and Weapons of war. When orcs go to battle, a band of nurtured ones might charge in first—to give themselves up while softening up the enemy by spreading Yurtrus’s vile blessing in its ranks.

## Orc Red Fang of Shargaas

Shargaas is the orc deity of deep Darkness and sneakiness, a murderous god who hates anything that lives that isn’t an orc. Orcs consider Shargaas to be a divinity suited to pariahs and weaklings, all of them unfit for true roles in tribal life. These outsiders live in the most remote, deepest parts of the tribe’s domain.

The elite among Shargaas’s followers are the assassins and thieves that follow the cult of the Red Fang. They perform assassinations, stealthy raids, and other covert operations on the tribe’s behalf. They rely on a mix of intense Training and magic granted to them by Shargaas.

Most Red Fang enclaves keep and nurture giant bats, creatures that are sacred to Shargaas. Red Fangs ride these bats into battle or on Secret raids and assassination missions into enemy territory.

## Orc War Chief

The war chief of an orc tribe is its strongest and most cunning member. The reign of a war chief lasts only as long as it commands the fear and respect of other tribe members, whose bloodlust must be regularly satisfied lest the chief appear weak.

***Scions of Slaughter.*** Gruumsh bestows Special blessings upon war chiefs who prove themselves in battle time and again, imbuing them with slivers of his savagery. A war chief so blessed finds that his Weapons cut deeper into his enemies, allowing him to inflict more carnage.

### King Obould Many-Arrows

King Obould of the Many-Arrows tribe is a legend among the orc war chiefs of The Forgotten Realms, and he is the most famous orc chief in the History of the D&D game.

Smarter and more intuitive than most of his kind, Obould slew his Chieftain to take control of his tribe. Skilled in the arts of war and renowned for his violent temper, Obould proved himself a fierce opponent in battle time and again. Over the years, he subsumed other orc tribes into his own, until he commanded a horde of thousands.

Obould leveraged his Strength and influence to carve out a kingdom for himself in the Spine of the World, a Mountain range overlooking numerous dwarven, human, and elven strongholds.

After years of bloody Conflict with his more civilized neighbors, Obould did the unthinkable and brokered a peace treaty with his enemies. This treaty confused many of the orcs under Obould’s Command. It was either a clever ploy by Obould to buy time while he strengthened his army for a final, decisive sweep across the Savage Frontier, or it was a troubling sign that Obould had forsaken the ways of Gruumsh and needed to be destroyed.

## Orog

Orogs are orcs blessed with a surprisingly keen intellect that ordinary orcs believe is a gift from the orc goddess Luthic. Like Luthic, orogs prefer to live Underground, although the scarcity of food often brings them to the surface to hunt. Orcs respect an orog’s Strength and cunning, and a lone orog might Command an orc war band.

***Stronger and Smarter.*** An orog uses its Strength to bully other orcs and its Intelligence to Surprise enemies on the battlefield. Many an overconfident elf, human, or dwarf commander has watched a “simple” orc Warlord execute a clever maneuver to outflank and destroy an opposing force, not realizing the orc is an orog.

When encountered in great numbers, orogs form their own detachments within much larger orc hordes, and they are always at the forefront of any Attack, relying on their superior Strength and tactical Insight to overcome anything that stands in their way.

Few orc tribes actively seek out orogs to bolster their ranks. The orogs’ superiority makes them ideal leaders, and thus deadly Rivals to orc war chiefs, who must be wary of orog treachery.

***Detached Killers.*** Wanting nothing more than to hack their enemies to pieces, orogs are a terrifying presence on the battlefield. They form no attachments, even to their Parents and Siblings, and have no concept of love or dedication. They worship the orc pantheon of gods—Gruumsh and Luthic foremost—because they believe that the gods have Strength beyond reason, and physical might is all they respect.

***Servants of Darkness.*** Mistrusted by orcs, some orogs form independent Mercenary war bands that sell themselves to the highest bidder. As long as they are rewarded, orog mercenaries gladly serve as elite warriors and shock troops for evil wizards, depraved Giants, and other villains.