Orcs

Civilization and Culture

History

Orcs are savage raiders and pillagers with stooped postures, low foreheads, and pig-like faces with prominent lower canines that resemble a boar’s tusks.
In Barovia, orcs are relegated to The Locrud Badlands and are not well organized. Orcs gather in Tribes that exert their dominance and satisfy their bloodlust by plundering villages, devouring or driving off roaming herds, and slaying any humanoids that stand against them. After savaging a settlement, orcs pick it clean of wealth and items usable in their own lands. They set the skeletal remains of villages and camps ablaze, then retreat whence they came, their bloodlust satisfied.

Common Myths and Legends

Orcs worship Gruumsh, the mightiest of the orc deities and their creator. The orcs believe that in ancient days, the gods gathered to divide the world among their followers. When it was Gruumsh’s turn to select a home for the orcs, the other gods attempted to play a trick on him. When Gruumsh claimed the mountains, he learned they had been taken by the Dwarves. He laid claim to the forests, but those had been settled by the Elves. Each place that Gruumsh wanted had already been claimed. The other gods laughed at Gruumsh, but he responded with a furious bellow. Grasping his mighty spear, he laid waste to the mountains, set the forests aflame, and carved great furrows in the fields. Such was the role of the orcs, he proclaimed, to take and destroy all that the other races would deny them. To this day, the orcs wage an endless war on all other races.