Orc stronghold
Orc Lairs
An orc tribe needs a home base of sorts — a place where warriors can reconnoiter after a raid, and ideally also a site that can be easily defended to ensure the safety of the tribe’s noncombatants. Orcs establish their encampments mainly in mountainous areas, around and within deep caves or large crevasses in the rock. Although they prefer such terrain for strategic purposes, they can adapt and thrive in almost any environment.
Every encampment is divided along lines of worship. Those who revere Gruumsh, Ilneval, Bahgtru, and Luthic are given the best parts of the lair, while the followers of Yurtrus and Shargaas are relegated to the deep, dark recesses of the site, away from the rest of the tribe.
At the center of the camp is the tribe’s war hearth. Once a war hearth is lit, the priests of Gruumsh keep it continually burning, for it represents the rage within Gruumsh’s unblinking eye. The orcs converge on the hearth to celebrate victory and to feast after a kill. If a tribe moves its camp, coals from the hearth are kept glowing within shells and pots so they can be used to start the war hearth at the new encampment.
Given a choice between occupying a site on the surface and one that is wholly or partly underground, an orc chieftain typically opts for the latter. If the surface location happens to be a ruin left behind by another race, orcs are more likely to use it as a temporary campsite. The ruins of elven settlements are the exception to this rule. If orcs come across such a place, they desecrate it and leave it unfit for any sort of habitation.
A tribe uses its home base for as long as the resources in the surrounding area hold out — enough food for the foragers and hunters, and enough victims for the warriors. The orcs might have to range farther and farther from their lair as prey becomes more scarce, and after a few months or a year or two, the tribe will be forced to move on and find more fertile hunting grounds.
On occasion, a tribe finds itself in a best-of-both-worlds situation, able to take over occupancy of an underground space voluminous enough to accommodate all the factions in the tribe and within raiding distance of a steady supply of prey.
The orc stronghold depicted and described here is an example of such a place, which could suit the needs of a tribe for several years or even decades. It has several subterranean chambers, conveniently configured to provide every group of worshipers with appropriate quarters, and it is accessible from the surface through only one well-guarded passageway.
Main Chamber
The warriors that worship Gruumsh and Ilneval occupy the main area of the complex, a large cavern that has the war hearth at its center and a shrine to Ilneval along the perimeter. The focal point of the shrine is a blood-covered sword mounted on the wall.
The area also includes a pile of broken femurs that represents a shrine to Bahgtru. The worshipers of Bahgtru are mostly young, brash orc warriors, eager to prove their strength and bravery to the elders of the tribe. Even if space is available in the stronghold, they often live outside the entrance in crude bivouacs and roughshod fortifications, protecting their elders by guarding the stronghold’s vulnerable spot.
Off to one side of the chamber, away from where the warriors are quartered, is the fighting pit, a sunken and fenced-off area where orcs settle their differences or engage in contests of strength.
War Chief’s Quarters
Adjacent to the main chamber is the room where the war chief resides, holds council, and hands out blessings or punishments from Gruumsh. The best loot and trophies of triumph are piled in this room and considered to be the property of the chief. A fire, not as large as the war hearth, burns in its center.
Next to the chief’s enclosed sleeping area is a shrine to Gruumsh consisting of a crude stone effigy of He Who Watches, surrounded by bloody offerings.
Caves for Followers of Luthic
Orcs who worship Luthic are sequestered in a cavern off the main chamber, where they protect the young and supervise food stores. These orcs take control of prisoners brought back from raids, using them as slave labor to dig out new living space and do other menial tasks.
Most of Luthic’s faithful reside in this area, close to the whelping pens where young orcs are kept until they grow old enough to contribute to the tribe. When they’re not being worked, slaves are housed in a small adjoining chamber and watched over by a group of cave bears that Luthic’s worshipers keep as pets.
Many of Luthic’s priestesses have their quarters in a nearby cavern that holds the tribe’s shrine to Luthic. She is represented by a crude stone statue with claws covered in charcoal and a body smeared with red ochre.
Caves for Followers of Yurtrus
Followers of Yurtrus reside on the threshold of where the deep area of the cavern system begins. They are the keepers of the dead, and the entrance to their realm is festooned with piles of bones and skulls. An altar to Yurtrus, made of stone with a hand painted in ash and tallow on it, stands in a cramped chamber apart from the main living area that is lined with skulls and bones.
Caves for Followers of Shargaas
Followers of Shargaas dwell within the most remote area of the stronghold, immersed in darkness and feared by the rest of the tribe. The tribe’s altar to Shargaas is a bloodstained rock.
The stronghold depicted in the map features a number of small passages that lead away from the depths of the lair and eventually provide egress to the surface. The members of the tribe’s Shargaas cult, which call themselves the Red Fang of Shargaas, take advantage of these secret tunnels to raid the outside world and bring back prisoners.
The members of the Red Fang use giant, carnivorous bats as mounts, that allow them to gain silent access to any location. Those who think they can hide under cover of darkness or escape invisibly are easy marks for the Red Fang’s bats, which locate their prey with high-pitched clicks and shrieks, then swoop down and snatch up their prey with razor sharp claws.
Bat riders of the Red Fang return from their raids the same way they exited — through a crack in the cliff face far away from their lair. A tunnel leads through layers of damp stone and crystallized minerals before eventually opening out into their subterranean domain. Captives are used as food for the brood of giant bats that roost in the rookery or are kept as slaves to be worked or used for barter.
Treasure
Orcs are consummate raiders. When they attack and overwhelm, they claim as booty anything of value that they can carry — and an orc’s definition of “value” can be very loose indeed.
The strongest or most dominant orcs will always claim the best loot after a successful raid, and since the pecking order in the group is almost always firmly established, there are usually no squabbles over who gets what. If the tribe’s war wagon is available, it is used to transport large or especially treasured items.
Each orc warrior carries its personal loot from the raid in a sack. These are the trophies of victory that orcs brandish and boast about when they return to the den. A loot sack might contain something of demonstrable worth or usefulness, something that’s edible (or used to be), or something that was acquired at great risk. In any case, once the bragging is over, the loot is eaten, put to use, or otherwise disposed of.
The Orc Trophies table provides a selection of items that might be found in an orc’s loot sack.
Orc Trophies
d10 Trophy
1 1d12 elf ears
2 1d4 dwarf beards
3 1d6 human heads
4 Skulls and bones
5 Cave bear paw
6 1d20 severed fingers
7 1d8 eyeballs
8 Flayed elf skin
9 Dire wolf hide
10 Random trinket*
* Roll on the Trinkets table in chapter 5 of the Player’s Handbook.
Джерело: <https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/vgtm/monster-lore#OrcsTheGodsworn>
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