D&D General Ideas for other Orcish religions/cultures that are alternatives to the Gruumshite religion

[bulletmeat]

In a C&C campaign, the greatest orc warrior Gornulf (or something similar; they were Britain's idea of vikings) challenged their blood god to a battle for souls and freedom. If the orcs won, the blood god would have to release them from their place as his slaves and find peace away from battle & slaughter. If the blood god's avatar won, all orcs would never question the commands of the god again.
The orc warrior won, but was permentantly scarred and maimed. As the orcs gave up their arms and armor, Gornulf taught them to take insight into themselves, to find strength within. Hence, the order of the Sanctim Brothers & Sisters was born. They are the origin of the monk class. And they have begun to teach those villagers outside their blood-folk who have sought refuge in their monestaries from the aberration plagues that are spreading accross the land.

 

[Quickleaf]

Unfortunately, that is invisible in Dark Mode. Could you make the text not-black?

I don't know how in the new forum setup.

This was a copy paste from my personal homebrew document. Short of deleting and re-typing the whole thing (not really up for that), I don't know how.

In the old forum there was a button to switch between BBCode and then a rich text editor. Now, however, it seems to default to a rich text editor without that option to go back and view text in BBCode.

If I could view & edit it as BBCode, then I could simply change whatever it's doing with the text color to make it impossible to read in Dark Mode. Alas...

I went back to my post to edit, searched every damn place including the "More Options" ... and no sign of any "view as BBCode" option or something similar.

So I'm fresh out of ideas.

Maybe you know a trick for how the new forum works that I do not?

 

[MarkB]

I don't know how in the new forum setup.

This was a copy paste from my personal homebrew document. Short of deleting and re-typing the whole thing (not really up for that), I don't know how.

In the old forum there was a button to switch between BBCode and then a rich text editor. Now, however, it seems to default to a rich text editor without that option to go back and view text in BBCode.

If I could view & edit it as BBCode, then I could simply change whatever it's doing with the text color to make it impossible to read in Dark Mode. Alas...

I went back to my post to edit, searched every damn place including the "More Options" ... and no sign of any "view as BBCode" option or something similar.

So I'm fresh out of ideas.

Maybe you know a trick for how the new forum works that I do not?

One that probably still works is to drop your text into a plaintext editor like Notepad and then copy it from there, but that will also strip out formatting such as bold and italics.

 

[Coroc]

With the ideas behind that there is more nuance to Orcs, I'm going to establish that the Gruumshite religion (the pantheon of Gruumsh) is as evil and patriarchal as it's been previously described as. However other Orchish religions do exist and they tend to lean more towards neutral and good alignments. Eberron Orcs generally have 3 religions with the Druidic traditions, the Dragon Below and the Silver Flame, so following that general pattern I'm thinking of something similar outside that setting.

So much like the Druidic traditions, my first idea is the Animist religion. That's a religion very much about spirits of nature, Fey, the elements and ancestors. The religion might have a few Great Spirits who could be deities in themselves, but most of the focus should be on the lesser spirits everywhere. Perhaps as a contrast to the Gruumshite religion, the female Orcs are typically warriors while the male Orcs are more likely Shamans, spellcasters and sages. In many ways might still makes right for the Animist Orcs, but they're more isolationists instead of expansive marauders. As for dealings with the Fey, I see many of them becoming the wardens and enforcers of certain powerful Fey.

The next idea would be another Orcish pantheon but this one being more of a mix-and-match pantheon religion. It's possibly a newer one and came into existence through the interactions with other humanoid races. Many of their Gods are deities in other pantheons including Human, Elven and Dwarven pantheons but without the heads of those pantheon like Corellon or Moradin. For example they might worship Hreyr, who is Frey of the Vanir but in an Orish guise, and Sehanine Moonbow of the Elven Pantheon might have an Orcish guise as N'havala Luna in this pantheon. It's possible that one of the Gruumshite pantheon who's looking to escape the shadow of Gruumsh might be part of this pantheon too.

In my greyhawk campaign Iuz is the god of the orcs. I do not use other goblinoids for his horde though.
Being present on prime Oerth makes him especially attractive for power hungry evil marauding orc hordes.
Sorry, no de-villainized orcs in my campaigns, except when i would run Eberron. I simply love the classic stereotypes for my game and i do see no need to change this, it is only a RPG and not my RL where i heavily object against stereotyping.

 

[Samloyal23]

Any love for Vershnat, the Prolific Mother?

 

[Scott Christian]

Not sure if it was mentioned, but the Klingon culture is a slight variant that could be used as a template.
I think the animism and forefathers ideas are a good road to explore.
As for something original, I think a subgroup that has devoted their livelihood to Pelor, or even something more sacrosanct, like an elven god, would be fun to create.

 

[Voadam]

Any love for Vershnat, the Prolific Mother?

I had to do a search to even know what the reference is from. Apparently a 3rd party goblin procreation deity.

 

[Horwath]

Atheism. They've been screwed over by enough gods that they no longer have any use for them. They tolerate a certain degree of druidism, but their practitioners tend more towards the practical than the mystical.

They have strong bardic traditions in the form of skalds and similar oral historians, who provide the closest thing to a spiritual framework for them. They're insular more than hostile, except to missionaries, for whom they have zero tolerance.

Sounds like Klingon religion, hahaha!

 

[MarkB]

Sounds like Klingon religion, hahaha!

Nah, this version don't want to kill the gods, they've just taken enough of their crap.

 

[Eltab]

I don't know how in the new forum setup.

This was a copy paste from my personal homebrew document. Short of deleting and re-typing the whole thing (not really up for that), I don't know how.

In the old forum there was a button to switch between BBCode and then a rich text editor. Now, however, it seems to default to a rich text editor without that option to go back and view text in BBCode.

If I could view & edit it as BBCode, then I could simply change whatever it's doing with the text color to make it impossible to read in Dark Mode. Alas...

I went back to my post to edit, searched every damn place including the "More Options" ... and no sign of any "view as BBCode" option or something similar.

So I'm fresh out of ideas.

Maybe you know a trick for how the new forum works that I do not?

Well, I can break down and switch to Light Mode and just listen to my battery complain. ☺

When I quoted your original post I noticed a format tag near the beginning COLOR=000000, which might be involved. If that is "Color=Black", then removing it would let the forum use its default text colors. I haven't ever tried to remove formatting from a post so I can't offer guidance (sorry).