Gorum
The clash of steel, the cry of victory, the gasping
denial of death: these are the sound of prayers
to Our Lord in Iron, for to follow Gorum is
to fight. Gorum does not care the reason for
battle—a village’s desperate stand against
raiders is no less worthwhile to him than a
crusader army marching against demons in the
Sarkoris Scar—nor does he choose sides in such
clashes. Good or evil, law or chaos, the reason for
the fight is irrelevant. It is the thrill of battle that
finds his favor, the crucible of struggle in which
victory is there for the taking.
Gorum recognizes the value of strategic warfare and
the need for archery, siege weapons, and stealth, but those hold little
allure for him compared to hand-to-hand combat, the contest of raw,
brute strength against honed, deadly skill. Gorum takes no pleasure in
one-sided fights or the slaughter of innocents; an armored knight drawing
a sword in his name against a helpless peasant might find his blade rust
away. Far more delightful would be the peasant’s seemingly pointless swing
of an iron pot, which might be answered as if it were a spoken prayer and
transformed into a deadly blow.
The god’s followers hold that one is either brave or a coward,
with battle the threshing floor that separates the wheat from the
chaff. Death in battle is an honor. While tactical retreats or even
breaks in fighting to negotiate are tolerable, no greater shame
can befall a person than to flee from combat. Murder and
assassination similarly offer no honor, and Gorum feels
nothing but contempt for those practices, as well as
for Achaekek and Norgorber, who condone them. The
god and his followers likewise look on Urgathoa
with disdain, as her diseases steal lives in the sickbed
while the gluttony she promotes destroys warriors’ fitness
for meaningful battle.
Gorum’s followers are innumerable: soldiers,
mercenaries, knights, and raiders
His priests are hard to differentiate from his other followers. They
commonly wear armor (or heavy robes that incorporate metal) as their
vestments and are adorned with all manner of weapons, making them
walking arsenals ready to draw steel at the slightest opportunity. Though
Gorum has no sacred text, his followers learn the church’s creed from a
collection of seven heroic poems called the Gorumskagat. Each verse keeps
to a rhythm that remains the same across all translations, which warriors
learn to recognize and chant while on the march. These chants harmonize
into the haunting sound of a roaring battle, and Gorumite warbands take
great pride in chants that suggest great conflicts. Battle is the true
language of Gorum, acting as the great unifier, and it
differs little whether fought by those speaking Shoanti
or Dwarven.
His most holy sites are
battlefields, consecrated by the struggles, blood, and
lives of those fighting on them. His temples resemble
fortresses, complete with armories and forges—even those
in the midst of peaceful cities. They contain images of the
god, often pictured as a suit of spiked plate armor with
burning red eyes. Shrines to him are simple: a pile of stones capped
with a metal helm or a blade jammed into a crevice.
DIVINE INTERCESSION
Gorum views things very simply: one either fights and earns his favor, or one is a coward and receives only scorn. Minor Boon: Gorum grants you a weapon whenever you need one. You can use an Interact action to draw a 0-level non-magical iron weapon, even if you have no weapons on your person. Such a weapon lasts only as long as you continue using it to attack, and it can’t be sold, given away, melted for scrap iron, or the like. Moderate Boon: Your blows become unstoppable, carrying the momentum of Gorum’s thrill for battle. Your greatsword Strikes gain the forceful trait. Major Boon: Gorum feeds you the zeal of his undying warriors, allowing you to draw upon your own life force to fight on and on without falling. Whenever you would be reduced to 0 Hit Points, you are instead healed to half your maximum Hit Points and become doomed 1 (or increase your doomed condition by 1). Minor Curse: Gorum rewards cowardice with frailty. Any armor you wear and shield you wield reduces its item bonus to AC by 2 (minimum 0) and its Hardness, Hit Points, and Break Threshold by half. Moderate Curse: You’ve lost the glory of slaying a worthy opponent. All of your weapon and unarmed attacks decrease their damage dice by one step, and all your attacks are nonlethal. Major Curse: You are unable to keep up with the rigors of combat. The moment a combat breaks out, you become fatigued and slowed 1. At the end of each of your turns, your slowed condition increases by 1. These conditions end only when you are no longer in combat.
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