Bear Rangers

The Bear Rangers are a group of orcs dedicated to preserving the forest and holy sites to the Bear King. They are most well known for wearing bearskin cloaks. They're not native to Dutan and arrived so far north only within the past 150 years. There are several groups of rangers each dedicated to a different site. They live in harmony with nature and the mountains believing that to be the best way to serve both Dione and the Bear King. A big factor contributing towards the easy uptake of worshipping the Bear King for the orcs was that they already associated bears with Dione. In their own myths, they believe that the mother bear was Dione herself come to dwell in the north.
They are separated into groups of a few dozen individuals calls "sleuths". They guard the den where the Bear King was born, the cave where he used to slumber before waking, and they guard the forests outside of Praetan. In Dutan, the Bear Rangers are given special privileges in Praetan where the Bear King lived during his human life. They are the only group permitted to approach the king without appointment, and they can go freely in the city despite not being citizens.
Historically, the Bear Rangers were restricted to orcs. At the last sleuth moot, dwindling numbers with no viable way to increase them naturally led to a vote to allow non orcs to join their ranks. Any who wished to join would still have to live like an orc and leave their old way of life behind. Both men and women are allowed to join, but it requires a special devotion to the Bear King to want to live out in the woods.
Due to their close affiliation with nature, they often have wild animals living among them. They raise orphaned bear cubs, and the cloaks they wear can only be harvested from bears that died naturally. They are also the only group left to consume raw meat while the practice has fallen out favor in the rest of the country.

Type

Paramilitary