Kahuna Burger said:
A much better idea that the "elves go genocidal and its all good" plan. Its a little silly that humans have entire competing pantheons and Orcs have one guy anyway.
Actually, the orc pantheon has several members - just like the elven pantheon, dwarven pantheon, drow pantheon, gnome pantheon, and halfling pantheon. I don't think a single one of them has less than ~6 or 7 members. Give me a few minutes and I'll look up the other orc deities.
That brings up an interesting point, however. If the orc and elven deities went into a battle so fierce that Cor himself died (and possibly also his queen / consort) - both of whom were great deities, then shouldn't several other members of both pantheons have died? Perhaps Gruumsh won a pyrric victory - Cor is dead, but so too is most of the orc pantheon.
Anyway, let me check and I'll be right back.
Here they are:
Bahgtru
- the leg breaker, son of gruumsh
- lesser deity
- CE
- loyalty, stupidity, brute strength
Gruumsh
- the one-eyed god, he who watches
- greater deity
- CE
- orcs, conquest, survival, strength, territory
Ilneval
- the horde leader, the war maker, leutinant of Gruumsh
- lesser deity
- NE
- war, combat, overwhelming numbers, strategy
Luthic
- the cave mother, the blood moon witch
- lesser deity
- NE
- caves, orc families, home, wisdom, fertility, healing, servitude
Shargaas
- the night lord, the stalker below
- lesser deity
- CE
- night, thieves, stealth, darkness, the Underdark
Yurtus
- white hands, rotting one, lord of maggots
- lesser deity
- NE
- death, disease
So, what if the only survivors of the orc pantheon were Gruumsh, Shargaas, and Ilneval?
According to the legends, Gruumsh's son is one of the main reasons Ilneval has not rebelled against Gruumsh. The other is Shargaas - who hates and wishes the deaths of all - including the other orc deities, but reveals Ilneval's plots to Gruumsh as a means of cementing a tenuous alliance while also using it to manipulate Gruumsh. Needless to say, Ilneval also has a hatred of Shargaas and Yurtras (who silently backs Shargaas so as to counterbalance the warrior deities with the stealthful ones) - deeming their methods cowardly.
Furthermore, it states that Gruumsh's son actually obeys Luthic - his mother - even over orders from his father, something his father only grudgingly accepts. So perhaps Luthic was about to be slain and Bahgtru rushed to her side, abandoning his position and thus allowing Yurtrus to be slain. Bahgtru was unable to save her, and in his charge he was struck several times by the elven deity of vengeance, weakened to the point that Cor was able to slay him. In an impressive rage, Gruumsh then fought Cor till the death - Cor's death, in this case. Thus did Gruumsh finally slay the lord of the elves, but at heavy cost, for half his pantheon had been slain, and those that remained could not be trusted to follow him.
Indeed, barely had they withdrawn from the battlefield when Ilneval launched an attack, thinking Gruumsh weakened enough that he might yet be slain himself. But Gruumsh was not so weak as Ilneval thought, and Ilneval had to flee to survive. Although Shargaas yet remains with Gruumsh, Gruumsh is well aware that he cannot be trusted, that his advice is often filled with half-truths and meant only to either manipulate or weaken Gruumsh. So Gruumsh remains as the now nearly singular deity of the orcs. As Ilnevals followers are nearly as numerous as his own (Indeed, I wonder why he is listed as a lesser deity, consider what the text stated about this.), his fleeing has lead to a brief civil war amongst the orcs - just when they least need it.
Ilnevals follower, perhaps as many as 30-40% of the orc population, has fled to the frontier lands most distant from the heartland of the orcs and the lands of the other races, there to seek solace, heal their wounds, and regroup for further battles that are sure to come. Gruumsh, grudgingly accepting the cunning advice of Shargaas as he knows that the death of the orc race will as negatively impact Shargaas as himself, now prepares his people for the certain to come genocidal war with the elves.
Their other long time foes - the dwarven pantheon, may possibly add some aid of their own to the elven forces - if only to have a shot at slaying one of the few orc deities remaining. Or perhaps they will seek out and harass the forces of Ilneval, to prevent any possibility of Ilneval joining forces with Gruumsh - however unlikely that seems.
So the war comes. Elven lesser deities, lead by the (now intermediate) elven deity of vengeance, battle against the weakened but still numerous forces of the orcs lead by Gruumsh and Shargaas. Dwarven deities lead their peoples into combat against distant Ilneval, seeking to cut him off from Gruumsh, unsure that he would not seek to reunite with Gruumsh if the situation looked dire and hoping that this (relatively) smaller orc force lead by but a single deity might itself be slain, thus further ridding the land of orcs. Ilneval cares only that the hated dwarves are before his not quite ready force and between he and his ultimate foe - Gruumsh himself, and he will use all his skill to attempt to destroy the dwarves and move on to destroy Gruumsh and Shargaas.
Gruumsh seeks to finally slay the elves, but he knows that he cannot do it without the occasional aid and advice from the more cunning Shargaas now that his chief leutinant and advisor (Ilneval) has turned on him. Yet he knows that Shargaas seeks the destruction of all life, and if there were a way to arrange things such that each side was weakened and yet so enraged that they entered a final no-survivors battle against each other, Shargaas would certainly suggest the path that lead to it - even while seeking to arrange the facts such that the final result was not be apparant immediately to Gruumsh. So Gruumsh must consider carefully every bit of advice, to be certain that it will not lead to doom for his own forces as well as those of his foe.
Then there is the matter of morale.
He slew the elven deity, granted, but his son died while disobeying his orders. Furthermore, the orc females have long looked to Luthic as a reason for their lot of servitude in life. Not only is this role model dead, her son died trying to save her - something quite different from the typical view of females not being worth anything except procreation and menial labor.
Gruumsh's son was popular amongst many of the younger warriors for his strength - and his last acts were to disobey his father and die striving to protect his mother. How do they feel about this from a deity they have perhaps admired all their lives? What about the priests of Bahgtru? Do they tell their followers that their deity was wrong or do they stand up for what their deity did - likely risking death from the followers of Gruumsh?
Then there is the fact that the second most popular deity in the pantheon has just attacked Gruumsh, fleeing when he could not succeed in slaying him - and taking over a third of the entire orc host with him (or, at least, those of about a third that managed to survive the fleeing, so perhaps more like a fifth - but with another fifth perhaps slain in the battle that separated the host into two parts).
Gruumsh cannot follow him, as he needs to reconsolidate his people under his (and, as much has he may dislike it, Shargaas) banner and prepare them for the war with the elves that is sure to come. Splitting his forces to send a troop after Ilneval will surely fail. He cannot entrust it to Shargaas, because he knows that Shargaas would use them for his own purposes, perhaps even taking his own people in that force and thus permanently dissolving the orc pantheon into three contentious religions ever at war with each other. He cannot go himself or his people may falter and even fall under the onslaught to come. And a force sent without a deity is sure to fall under the power of a lesser deity (Ilneval), even if it were superior in number to the troops Ilneval has at his command.
And so Gruumsh is tied to where he is, in a situation where he must prepare for combat while ignoring a snake at his back (Ilneval) and tolerating the dangerous snake by his ear (Shargaas), all the while preparing for a war against a force perhaps now equal to his own, supported by more (albeit mostly lesser) deities, who have the greater morale (thirst for vengeance) now that their deity is slain, while his own people are in disarray due to the slaying and the recent actions of the various other deities in the orc pantheon (alive and deceased).
It makes for a good story, a good set up for a battle that could last for generations. And note, an orc lives a shorter life than a human (~35-50 years, I think), while the elves live for hundreds of years. Likely several orc generations will pass before the war ends, but maybe only a single generation or two will pass for the elves.
A precarious yet interesting time is now upon the world of orcs, elves, and even the dwarves.
As a final note, I would like to point out that an interesting comparison might be made between the blood war and the orc-ish conflict.
On the one side you have the stategic (ie: almost lawful) evil Ilneval and his orcs. On the other side you have the CE hordes of Gruumsh. Between them you have Shargaas, but instead of trying to keep them in an indefinite balance as the Yugoloths tend to do, he instead seeks to arrange their combats so that they are certain to annihilate each other - and perhaps all their foes as well. So, whenever Gruush gets a lead, I imagine that he would suggest caution or give advice that sends Gruumsh's troops to their deaths, and whenever Ilneval gets a lead, I can see him giving far better advice to Gruumsh. And all the while he will be seeking to undercut both sides, perhaps using poisons and such so that their growth in numbers each generation is not as great as it was before, until eventually there are barely enough on each side for a single titanic battle - carefully orchestrated by Shargaas such that both sides are reduced to a pittance and Gruumsh and Ilneval slay each other, leaving the few orcs left to either be slain by Shargaas or forcefully recruited to his banner - becoming the seed stock for a force intended to truly (eventually) destroy everything.
It's just a thought I had. The situation is a bit more complicated than that, of course, due to the elves, dwarves, and humans - which unlike their blood war equivalents (CG, LG, and NG celestials) are actually bringing the fight to the enemy (well, the elves and to a lesser extent the dwarves are).
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as a result of the deaths of Corellon and those other goddesses. Launching a genocidal anti-orc war sounds nice. But try something unique rather than making it one sided.
