Grummsh "One-Eye"

Orc God (King of the orc gods)
-


"Old One Eye" is the primary Orcish deity, although he has a family of other appalling gods under him. His name is forbidden to be spoken except by his priests, and he’s referred to by euphemisms (Old One Eye, The Eye, The Unsleeping, etc). His enmity for the elven gods is undying and never-ending, particularly for Nodonn who he has fought once and swears one day to crush. The orcs revere him, but they fear him more, and they sacrifice and pray primarily to keep him away. The power of the priesthood depends primarily on the wits and cunning of the individual priests; if things go wrong for an Orc group and the priest is not clever, they will often blame him and slaughter him as unworthy of One Eye; if he’s clever, he will shift blame to the "sinful weakness" of the community and induce them to sacrifice heavily to reverse their recent bad fortune.

Since the alliance with the Empire and his election as Overking, each successive Garkaur took care to link the improved fortunes of the orc race with himself, and thence through to One Eye. While not himself a priest, he has a battery of Royal Priests who make sure the word of Gruumsh agrees nicely with the word of Garkaur. Gruumsh himself is apparently not unpleased at this development, as Garkaur remained in the saddle and the fortunes of the orcs remained, on the whole, good.

While orcs were allowed to join some Erlyid churches, One Eye's cult remained closed to all but those with at least some orcish blood. This was regularly pointed up as a sinister sign by the church of Pelor, though it is also true that very few humans would have any desire to join Grummsh's cult in any case.

After the repatriation of the orc race to the Erean Mountains, Grummsh's cult dwindled in the face of the popularity of Hektis. However, with the collapse of the Gorfangach, the "state faith" of the empire has lost much of its' appeal, and most orcs have returned to the worship of Grummsh and his fellow gods. With the short lives of orcs, many have now forgotten that things were ever otherwise.


Click here to return to index