Yurtrus

Yurtrus (*yer*-truss) is the embodiment of life-destructive principles, an ever-present terror to be feared and dreaded by most orcs. As Shargaas represents the fear of what lurks below in the darkness, Yurtrus embodies the threat of death and disease that orcs must live with on an ongoing basis. The Lord of Maggots doesn't speak or communicate in any fashion, though he sometimes seems receptive to properly respectful prayers and sacrifices to spare a particular individual or tribe from the ravages of disease. He is depicted as an orc with rotting sore-covered flesh all over his body, with the exception of his pale clawed hands.

Aside from an order of monks, the church of Yurtrus is loosely organized, its clergy scattered throughout numerous clans and tribes. Clerics of the Rotting One are seldom tribal leaders, though the terror in which their deity is held gives them a great deal of independence. The clergy acts as intermediaries between their tribe and Yurtrus, interceding with him when the tribe is ravaged by disease or plague. Clerics of Yurtrus also dispose of the bodies of the dead, regardless of how they died. His church is also given authority over tribal food stores, determining whether meat is too rotted to eat or water is too tainted to drink. For this reason, some tribes have begun to venerate the Lord of Maggots as a deity of sustenance and health, or more precisely the opposite, and thus is to be propitiated.

Clerics and adepts of Yurtrus pray for their spells at dusk in the dying of the day. The church recognizes two major holy days. The first, the Ceremony of Contagion, is celebrated on Midsummer Night. On this day the deity's contagion is said to take root, draining the world of life in a vicious spiral that leads eventually to the winter and the death of the year. After a bloody ritual of sacrifice to spare the orcs from the ravages of plague, the clergy venture forth, spreading disease and death across the world, especially among other races. The second holy day, the Putrescent Death, is celebrated on Midwinter Night. On this night, the clergy recognize the death of the world, represented through the sacrifice of sentient beings of other races. Sacrifices are commonly made to the Rotting Lord through the deliberate infection of a victim with an especially horrible disease.

An entire monk order called the Brotherhood of the Scarlet Scourge was dedicated to him. Unlike other monks, these monks could learn clerical abilities without destroying their potential as monks. They bleached their hands and infected their own long-grown nails with red ache through a special powder made from blood to spread the disease among their enemies.

Sacrifices are generally offered to the Rotting Lord by inoculating a particularly horrible disease in victims.

## Dogma

Death is inexorable and eventually claims all life. The ravages of plague are simply death claiming victims who have yet to fall in battle, leaving all creatures to simply choose the manner in which death will most likely strike. The touch of White Hands can be forestalled only by bowing down to the Rotting Lord and begging his mercy, but, in time, plague strikes all living things. Fear him, for death lurks in the shadowed corners of Luthic's cavern and it will inexorable come again.