Inventing and Reinventing Races in DnD: An Orcish Mythology
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We interrupt our regularly-scheduled programme for this late-breaking development: I spent so much time developing the infrastructure and notes apon which the next chapters of the Orcs and Elves series were to be based that I ran out of time to write the chapters themselves. Which left only one choice: To spend this blog post describing (and making available) the fruits of my labors, and describing the thought processes that went into them.
The Foundations
At the time their theology was forming, Orcs were tribal and primitive (the two do not necessarily go together). That generally implies that the strongest leader or the strongest warrior wins the mates, and that would be reflected in their theology, just as was the case with the early Greeks and Romans. So the decision was made early on that the relationships between the Orcish gods would be as tangled as those in any long-running soap opera, and that in turn was a factor in many other decisions about the pantheon.
Three Clans
I knew that I was going to have three clans that were central to the forthcoming chapters, each reflective of a different way of life within Orcish society; the Herders, the Hunters, and the Builders, and I wanted the theology to reflect that, so to some extent I was working my way backwards from the desired end result. There’ll be a lot more on these clans, their societies, and the relationships between them, in future chapters of the Orcs and Elves series.
Gender Indistinction
Another element that I wanted to incorporate was the concept that more than many other races, it is hard to discern the difference between males and females when they are in full armor. I particularly wanted gender confusion concerning the Orcish Deities on the part of humans, whose genders do dress in differing fashions and whose biological distinctions are more overt and obvious.
Monkey See, Monkey Do
Orcish society in Fumanor is somewhat similar to a cross between the early Welsh and the Norse, with elements of other cultures sneaking in here and there, and I wanted some of that to leak over into their theology as well. They practice raiding for mates, for example. And of course, there was all the established material that I had included in the precursor articles to the Orcs and Elves series, especially “Tooth And Dagger – Rationalizing Orcs”. But much of their culture has evolved by mimicking the achievements of others, sometimes without knowing the reasons for those activities, and finding their own social reasons for perpetuating those elements of the behavior that worked for them, and discarding those that did not. Still more was derived from the Ogres who conquered them, who in turn derived social and technological elements from the Drow. There is very little of their technological development that is original.
“Official” Sources
I then did a Google search for Orcish Deities but what I found was inadequate, to say the least. Only one Female deity? Only half-a-dozen deities? To a race as fecund as Orcs, that seemed improbable to the point of absurdity. I decided that there should be a dozen or more, and roughly as many females as males. The six “established” deities were most senior, that was all.
Relationships
Given the state of the society and their immunity factors (as described in “Tooth And Dagger”), it also seemed to me that there would be no incest taboo amongst the early Orcs. There certainly did not seem to be one amongst the early Greek and Roman deities, after all. (This should not be taken as condoning such behavior by anyone in real life).
The Mystery
I definitely wanted to preserve some of the mystery of the Orcish Deities (I need to keep some cards up my sleeve for later adventures/campaigns, after all). As I stated in Inventing and Reinventing Races in DnD: An Introduction to the Orcs and Elves series, part 3, it isn’t clear whether or not the Orcish Gods are, or ever were, real. The fact that Molgoth claimed to have been treated as Gruumsh by the Orcs is no proof of anything. He might have been lying. The Orcs may have been deceived by him. If so, he may or may not have been exposed. Either way, Gruumsh and the others may or may not exist, or have ever existed except as figures of mythology. Filling in some of that missing story is what the next few chapters of the Orcs and Elves series is all about, especially…. but that would be telling :)
The final foundation
Finally, I wanted to reflect some of the inversions of logic that the Orcs are built apon, and the crude sense of humor that bubbles beneath surface of “Tooth and Dagger”, simply because they are part of the unique character of Orcs in Fumanor.
Those were the foundations that this Orcish Mythology has been built on.
The Orcish Deities
I ended up with a list of 14 Orcish Deities. I have done very little work on their natures, symbols, etc. These are worshipped as a pantheon by the Orcs, though particular clans may have particular deities they look to as patrons, and selected tribes may have a deity who they favor over others (usually because they feel this favoritism is reciprocated), and individual Orcs may have a favorite or patron, they are all considered equally valid and are each worshipped at certain times and on certain occasions.
The fourteen are:
- Gruumsh: (War, Sky) Father/Creator of the world
- Luthic: (Fertility, Healing, Betrayal) Mother of the world, estranged wife of Gruumsh.
- Baghtru: (Strength) Eldest son of Gruumsh & Luthic, considered not very bright by the Orcs.
- Shargaas: (Night, Stealth, The Moon) Daughter of Gruumsh and Luthic. Her father’s favorite, and his current mate.
- Ilneval: (Hunting, Strategy) Gruumsh’s favorite Lieutenant; he thinks Ilneval is his son.
- Yurtrus: (Decay, Disease, Destruction) Ilneval won Luthic as mate by defeating Gruumsh at dice.
- Krassig: (Walls, Defense) Son of Baghtru and Yurtrus, the first lasting relationship amongst the Orcish Gods.
- Garsh: (Sun, Fire) When Gruumsh lost Luthic (the two were already estranged), he fathered Garsh apon his daughter Shargaas.
- Nessai: (Wind, Rain) First “official” child from Baghtru and Luthic, second actual child.
- Ghorrid: (Storms, Lightning) Gruumsh thinks he is the father of Ghorrid, but the actual father is Gruumsh’s son Baghtru. Gruumsh dotes on the hot-tempered Master Of Tempests.
- Ishlee: (Winter, Cold, Ice, & Snow) First of two daughters born of Ghorrid and Nessai.
- Pharn: (Sea, Fish) Second of two daughters born of Ghorrid and Nessai.
- Darshus: (Food, Crops) Ghorrid thinks he is the father of Nassai’s third child. He isn’t.
- Braath: (Law, Justice, Judgment) Some people simply cannot be faithful. Braath is the youngest of the Orcish Gods. Ilneval thinks he is the father of Luthic’s fifth child, but in reality the child is the product of a relationship between Luthic and Krassig.
The Relationships
This tangle of relationships may become clearer on inspection of this chart of the actual genealogy:
Click to view/download a larger image
The Tales Of The Sky: The First Story
Gruumsh made the world and claimed the Sky as his domain and War as his Domain (note the capitalization). Other Gods contaminated his creation with their own creatures, who despoiled perfection with their wastes. Gruumsh created the Orcs from Clay and breathed life into them to thrive on the wastes of these creatures, to inherit the world when the others chocked on their own filth and restore it to perfection. The most perfect of the females he took to be his mate, and named her Luthic.
In due course, Luthic bore a son to Gruumsh, a tower of strength and muscle. On the day that Baghtru first defeated his father at Arm-wrestling, Gruumsh left the Orcs in his charge and became entangled in a number of conflicts with beings from beyond the skies who wished to claim his domain for themselves. Baghtru was stern, brutal, and progressive, always getting strange ideas into his head about making the Orcs more human.
With Gruumsh frequently away fighting these wars in the place beyond, Luthic grew lonely, and began to admire the physical qualities of her son, the only piece of her husband available to satisfy her needs. The two began a clandestine affair, which resulted in the birth of a son, Ilneval. Fortunately, Gruumsh was always a little vague on dates and Luthic was able to convince him that he was the father without difficulty.
Where Baghtru was able to outmatch his father in physical strength, Ilneval was his superior in tactical acumen and quickness of wit, but without the strange notions about civilization that Baghtru seem to love. So pleased was Gruumsh with this ‘son’ that he mated with Luthic again as soon as she permitted it, and Shargaas was conceived.
Gruumsh delighted in the precocious young cub, and began to return more frequently. on one of those visits, he decided to sneak in to surprise young Shargaas rather than lighting up the sky with his sword of light. As it happened, he was the one surprised, as he caught his firstborn in the act of courting his mate. Gruumsh was furious, and banished Baghtru from the household immediately. He would have similarly banished Luthic, but the obligations of fidelity that he himself had decreed forced him to stay his hand.
Ilneval disliked seeing his mother miserable, so even though he was more sympathetic to his father’s position, he engaged Gruumsh in a contest with dice for the right and responsibility of taking Luthic as mate. Gruumsh was legitimately relieved when Ilneval won the contest. The precocious Shargaas was immediately installed as Gruumsh’s new mate, and life in the household returned to something akin to normal.
Gruumsh never did remember that it was Ilneval who had suggested the idea of surprising Shargaas to him. Tbe crafty Lieutenant had been very wary of the potential for Luthic to support Baghtru over himself as Fist Lieutenant to his father, and wanted to break the coupling up to protect his own position.
Of course, Baghtru was now a potential threat of a different sort, and that needed to be eliminated, too. He thus found an excuse to visit his exiled brother and promised to speak in his behalf to their father when the time was right, eventually convincing his brother that Ilneval had always been on his side. Ilneval even made him a sub-lieutenant in The Army Of The Eye.
In time, Gruumsh was successful in his wars, conquering that part of the world beyond the sky that he demanded as his own, to prepare a place of paradise for those Orcs deemed worthy. Along the way, he encountered Baghtru serving in his army and was sio pleased that he forgave him – at least a little. Thereafter he intended to divide his time between the realm of the sky and the realm beyond the sky, but it was not long before inactivity began to chafe, and he was soon off in search of new conquests.
It was after the reconciliation between Gruumsh and Baghtru that Luthic revealed the truth about his parentage to Ilneval, and by then it had ceased to matter. Ilneval was now happy with Luthic, and Gruumsh with Shargaas. Baghtru had no mate, but was content – for now.
The Tales Of The Sky: The Second Story
In time, Ilneval and Luthic conceived a cub, who was named Yurtrus. From the beginning, Yurtrus was utterly unlike all the other Orcs that had ever been – thin, almost to the point of emaciation; tall, and with a somewhat pinched expression. Her parents were not especially taken with her, and ignored her as much as possible.
Her uncle Baghtru was a different story. In Yurtrus, Baghtru found a kindred spirit; the two were inseparable, and it was no surprise to any of the family when Baghtru announced his intention to mate with the young Yurtrus. The offspring of this union was Krassig, and he carried the romantic urban notions of his parents to extremes with which even they were uncomfortable.
Not long after, Gruumsh fathered Garsh with his second mate, Shargaas. From the very beginning, Garsh was hot-tempered and impatient, and Shargaas in particular could not tolerate his presence. To keep the peace, Gruumsh gave Garsh control of part of his sky-domain at an early age and left him to play with it as much as he wanted. On rare occasions, Shargaas would interrupt his play to check on him, but this was a duty and not a happy occasion; she would leave as quickly as she came. More frequently, Garsh would tire of his toy and visit his mother, bringing her Lunar aspect out into the daylight she hated.
Baghtru, in the meantime, had decided to pay back his brother, satisfy his own urges, and gather intelligence on exactly what Ilneval was scheming this time (he was always plotting something, sometimes for no better reason than to stay in practice) by renewing his clandestine affair with Luthic. In due course, this manifested in a sister for Ilneval, but the pair kept the God of Hunting and Strategy in the dark and permitted Luthic to pretend that Ilneval was the father of Nessai.
To deflect attention from his relationship with Nessai, Baghtru connived to seduce Shargaas with Luthic’s aid. The covert nature of this secret dalliance appealed to Shargaas, who was also beginning to tire of Gruumsh’s perpetual absences. Fully matured and no longer the precocious youngster who had captured her father’s eye and heart, their relationship was beginning to stagnate; it was her hope that a daughter might rekindle his interest.
The best-layed plans can founder when the gender of an unborn child is of critical importance, however, and the fruit of this clandestine union was another son, which Shargaas named Ghorrid. Once again, Gruumsh had been cuckolded in blithe and total ignorance due to his infatuation with the violence of conquest. Like his older brother Garsh, Ghorrid was a neglected child, unlike his brother, he did not respond by being continually obnoxious until he got his own way, but remained meek and mild and barely noticeable until enough frustration built up to produce an explosion of extremely impressive vehemence.
Only one person was ever able to calm Ghorrid’s fury, and that was Nessai – unbeknownst to either, his older half-sister. This was clearly another of those predestined matches that crop up from time to time in any family history. In short order, the couple were gifted with twin girls, Ishlee and Pharn.
Ishlee was the most ruthless and unfeeling of the entire Divine Orc brood. She cared about no-one and nothing except her own gratification. Pharn was almost as frigid save when roused by her father, when she proved to have a temper to match his own; most of the time, though, she simply hid from him, and from anyone else she didn’t care to interact with.
Nessai was convinced that Ishlee and Garsh would work as a couple if she could only match-make the pair onto some common ground. She would be able to dampen his fiery disposition, and he would be able to rouse her deeply-buried passion. Taking a leaf from the exploits of her Mother, legends of which alternated between titillating and scandalizing the rest of the family, she determined that the first step would be to interest Garsh in taking a mate, any mate. Knowing that a wrong match would, in time, dissolve itself, she began an orchestrated programme designed to impassion Garsh about something beyond his toys. She would tease him with gentle winds that inflamed and aroused him, then dampen his spirits with drenching rains. When she reckoned he had reached the correct pitch of desperation for relief, she would suggest a coupling with Ishlee, then sit back and await the results.
She made only one mistake; she judged Garsh by the standards of his brother, Ghorrid. Garsh was far less restrained, more willful, and more inclined to rash action; his passion overpowered him and he satisfied the passion roused by Nessai’s teasing with force. When his head cleared, he returned to his solitary games in the sky as though nothing had changed.
In due course, as a result of that joining, Nessai delivered a daughter, Darshus. Following the pattern learned from her mother, she deceived Ghorrid as to the paternity, and decided to pretend that the whole misadventure had never taken place; and yet, at the same time, she found herself strangely excited by the memory. Her breath would catch, her pulse would race; the violence was at once thrilling and yet abhorrent to her usually placid nature. Time and again she would yield to the need for that thrill, exciting Garsh to the point that he lost what little self-control he possessed; following each such incident with bouts of deep remorse and self-promises of renewed fidelity to her unsuspecting husband.
By this time, Gruumsh was finally beginning to slow down, as was Luthic. Both were growing old, and tired, and ready to pass on the mantle of disjointed rulership to another. But while Ilneval was the perfect choice to succeed his supposed father on the battlefield, just as Garsh and Ghorrid would make passable Lieutenants to Ilneval with more experience, none of the females of the family were really suitable to succeed to the position of All-mother, save Darshus, and she was too young and inexperienced. Nor were any of the members ready to become the patriarch of the family and ultimate responsibility for the Orcs.
It was Luthic who realized that something was missing from the family, something that would bring structure to the family. There was no successor to the leadership of the family because he had not yet been born yet; only now, that her eventual successor, Darshus, had been born was the time right for the birth of the child who would eventually become Darshus’ mate, the bedrock apon which the family would rest when she and Gruumsh had left to make room for future generations.
The qualities that the child would need left only one possible father – the only male family member who had never taken a mate. Unknown to the rest of the family, her role as Goddess of Fertility made her aware of the true parentage of every member and child within it; indeed, it was her responsibility to choose those couplings which were fruitful, and those not, in response to some inner wisdom that she could never explain. The missing element must come from the shy, withdrawn, and yet radical Krassig, who would rather hide behind a fence than stride across one into someone else’s domain. The blending of that sense of orderliness with an appropriate sense of adventure would complete the family.
With equal care, she considered the available female progeny, and came to the conclusion that none were quite right. Yurtrus was too contrary to her son’s nature; Nessai was too placid, Ishlee too unfeeling, and Pharn too prone to distancing herself. Shargaas was too manipulative and subtle; sometimes, one needed to use a club just to get the attention of a male at the right time.
As she had done twice before, when it was needful, she realized that she would have to perform this task, this final birthing, herself, though she was unsure she was not too old to do so. But there was no other choice; and so the elderly matriarch set about the seduction of her grandson when next she came into season. Baghtru could raise one more cub believing it to be his own.
It took longer than she expected before the circumstances aligned; but eventually the time was right, and three months later, Luthic whelped for the last time, and passed into the world beyond the sky to her eternal rest in the process. In that instant, though she knew it not, young Darshus became the new All-mother and Goddess of Fertility and Fecundity; these traits would only emerge when she herself became of whelping age. She was a wise girl, if a simple one, much as the young Luthic had been; she would figure it out. Until then, there would be no more children amongst the Orc-Gods.
The child was named Braath, and in many ways, he blended the best of his true father, his supposed father, and his true grandfathers. For he believed in rules, and laws; and yet was wise enough to set those laws and rules aside when they were imperfect, and do what was needful. He was indeed exactly what one would wish in a patriarch. Or at least, he would be; he remains but an infant, awaiting the time to blossom into his full growth. Until that should transpire, his aged grandfather would continue his ever-weakening rule by the principles of Custom and Instinct.
Will the advent of Darshus and Braath signal the emergence of the Orcs as inheritors of the World and the ultimate fulfillment of the destiny promised by Gruumsh? Or simply the beginning of another chapter in the history of the Sky? Must the younger children of the Gods – Krassig, Garsh, Ghorrid, Nessai, Ishlee, Pharn, and, of course, Darshus and Braath themselves, await the passing of their forebears? Must they drive them out to assume command of the World? None know, for the ages of the Gods are not as the Ages of mortals.
The Tales Of The Sky
These are but two of the Tales Of The Sky, the mythology that frames Orcish Theology. There are many others that remain untold, held secret by a single tribe of the Faithful; it is said that the full tale will be told only when all the Orcish Clans gather as equals under one banner with a single purpose, a day that has not yet, and may never, dawn. Until then, scholars can merely speculate…
- Inventing and Reinventing Races in DnD: An Introduction to the Orcs and Elves series part 1
- Inventing and Reinventing Races in DnD: An Introduction to the Orcs and Elves series part 2
- Inventing and Reinventing Races in DnD: An Introduction to the Orcs and Elves series part 3
- Inventing and Reinventing Races in DnD: An Introduction to the Orcs and Elves series part 4
- Inventing and Reinventing Races in DnD: An Introduction to the Orcs and Elves series part 5
- On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 1-4
- On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 5-10
- On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 11-14
- On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 15-17
- On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 18-20
- On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 21-23
- On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 24-26
- On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 27-28
- On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 29-31
- On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 32-36
- On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 37-40
- On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 41-43
- On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 44-46
- On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 47-51
- Inventing and Reinventing Races in DnD: An Orcish Mythology
- On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 52-54
- On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 55-58
- On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 59-62
- On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 63-65
- On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 66-68
- On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 69-70
- On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 71-73
- Who Is “The Hidden Dragon”? – Behind the curtain of the Orcs and Elves Series
- On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapter 74
- On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 75-77
- On The Origins Of Orcs, Chapters 78-85
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