Cult of Yurtrus

Structure

In many respects, Yurtrus was not so much worshiped as he was dreaded and appeased, given fealty by the orcs only because they were afraid of angering him and sought to propitiate him. Some tribes had begun to worship him as a god of food and health (given the priests' duty of looking over the food supply), but he was moreso being propitiated as the reverse. Yurtrus followers were the outcasts of an orc tribe, those that, due to frailty, deformity, injury, age, or some other infirmity, were too weak to be part of the main body. Rather than face a life of daily ridicule or be exiled or killed, such orcs joined the cult of Yurtrus (or were deemed unsuitable and given over to the cult of Shargaas). Rarely were his priests leaders of their clans, but they were found in all tribes and had a kind of protected status.

Public Agenda

The clergy of Yurtrus were the intermediaries between their tribe and the Rotting Lord, pleading with him when the community was the victim of a disease or an epidemic. They determined if the food and water in tribal stores was too rotted or tainted for consumption, preventing sickness from taking root and when plague did strike orc tribes it was the clergy that was responsible for quarantining the sick. Those suffering from abhorrent diseases that could be saved but not healed were brought into the fold of the cult and tended to like prized cattle, because they had been chosen for a special divine purpose. At night, during a heavy fog, at the front of an army or in defense of the tribe, these orcs given Yurtrus's vile blessing were sent (often through a hail of arrows) to spread the message of death and disease to the enemy. Upon death (which they themselves could immediately induce) they exploded in a shower of toxic corruption, softening the enemy in a suicidal burst of sickness.