Gruumsh

## Description

Gruumsh normally appeared as a hulking, 10 feet (3 meters) tall orc covered in battle scars and clad in a black, gleaming suit of plate mail armor. His tough, gray hide was corded with muscle, and on his one-eyed face was a bear-like snout. In some incarnations he had only a right eye and an empty left eye socket, while in others he simply had one large, cycloptic eye that stared unwinking in the center of his forehead.

## Personality

Violent and bloodthirsty, Gruumsh was a god that exulted in battle and reveled in warfare. He was a savage deity with the rage of a berserker whose desire to wreak havoc could only be satisfied through destruction and carnage. The patron god of the orcs loved fighting for its own sake, and he needed no greater reason to create gore than to hear the pleasing sound of viscera flopping wetly to the ground. Gruumsh was also driven and aggressive, constantly pushing his people to create and engage in the pain, conflict, and strife that he relished.

Appropriately for a god with only one eye, Gruumsh had two crippling weaknesses that often undermined him: his narrow perspective and shortsighted outlook. Gruumsh had only one view of the world—his own—and could prove incapable of looking at a situation from other angles or seeing things from someone else's position. When not given what he believed to be due respect or proper notice, he immediately attacked the other party rather than asking why, and it was this "act first, think later" attitude which had negatively impacted Gruumsh's effectiveness in many tales.

For example, if Bahgtru (his son) were to stub his toe on a large rock, Gruumsh's response would likely be to curse the stone and destroy it with his son's help before declaring a victory against the forces of nature. The injuries either of them may have sustained or opponents they were planning on fighting later on were irrelevant, as the point had to be made then and there.

None of this was not to say Gruumsh was stupid, as he normally had the capacity to plan and act for the future, but it was easy to spark his wrath, and once inflamed, his judgement and foresight was inevitably clouded. He was an unreliable deity, more concerned with causing devastation than long-term plots or complex maneuvers. However, despite these chaotic traits of his being, Gruumsh also had more lawful aspects to his personality. He was a harsh and brutal patriarch of his race that ruled with an iron fist and constantly expected the best from the orcs, a core part of his philosophy being the weeding out of the weak and the necessity of strength.

Despite his severe standards and despotic reign, Gruumsh, in his own way, did care about the orcs. Part of why he waged war was for the glory for his people, and he always sought ever more territory for them to occupy. In the opinion of the One-Eyed God, nearly all territory rightfully belong to the orcs and he encouraged them to take their birthright by driving other races from their lands. It was this drive to acquire territory and living space that was Gruumsh's greatest motivation, and even with his bloodlust and creed of unending war, he would not object to simple colonization provided it could be arranged.

## Powers

Incredibly powerful even by divine standards, Gruumsh was a god of immense physical strength and impossible vitality, even before he entered a barbaric rage. Once a fight had begun, nothing could pacify him, not even enchantment magic, and spells cast by elves were only a fifth as effective against the One-Eyed God. Despite his divine nature, Gruumsh was still an orc and had the typical orcish aversion, however minor, to bright light, and supposedly grew more powerful during the night. A wide variety of spell-like abilities and clerical magic powers were at his disposal.

Gruumsh had several unique powers as the primary god of the orcs. He could sense anything that would affect orc welfare around four months before it happened, would retain that feeling for about four more months after the event, and had a similar awareness of whenever orcs fought, warred, or had a change in territory. He could also generate a cloud of acrid, black smoke from around his body, a billowing haze similar to a *cloudkill* spell around 30 ft (9.1 m) diameter and 10 ft (3 m) high. It was believed that at one point he had minor powers of prescience, allowing him to receive visions of the future.

## Possessions

Among Gruumsh's most iconic possessions was his Bloodspear, an iron weapon covered in the blood of elves. The enchanted spear could increase in length, changing from a halfspear to a longspear to strike foes that would be out of reach or too close, and those pierced by it could find themselves paralyzed. Gruumsh also had other spears he could use in combat, and on occasion he was known to fling one at a cleric of his he was annoyed with. Clerics that atoned for their transgressions and that kept the spears would find it had become a spear of retribution, able to return to its wielder when thrown and particularly dangerous against those that had recently harmed the user.

Another of Gruumsh's infamous tools was his eternal torch, that burned with a fire that could never be dimmed or quenched which was reflected in his one remaining eye. From the torch could come corrosive black clouds, and using it Gruumsh could cast both *cloudkill* and *death fog* three times per day. Along with these Gruumsh always carried either a *horn of blasting* or a glass vessel with around 2-8 doses of *dust of sneezing and coughing*, which he could light with the torch (while remaining immune to the effects) to create a 20 ft (6.1 m) radius of the foul substance.

Gruumsh was fully capable of working metal and stone to craft weapons and armor, magical or otherwise. His suit of armor was supposedly fashioned from the hides of forty slain dragons.

### Related Items

Only worshipers of Gruumsh could use the power of *Shields of the Severed Hand*, so called for the gory, dripping hand, its bloody marks and symbols always wet, emblazoned on their wooden surfaces. The shields allowed one to easily bat foes aside whether charging at them or blocking their strikes. Orcs favored the weapons for their shock value, and the first was made when an orc warrior chopped off an elf king's hand and mounted it on his shield, the shield having been found intact amongst the ashes of the same warrior's funeral pyre with the palm print still present.

Lesser gods

***Thank you to the Forgotten Realms Wiki for this info***