Page 245 - D&D Bestiary

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Orcs are savage raiders and pillagers with stooped
post~res, low foreheads, and piggish faces with
prominent lower canines that resemble tusks.
Gruumsh One-Eye. Orcs worship Gruumsh, the
mightiest of the ore deities and their creator. The orcs
believe that in ancient days, the gods gathered to divide
the world among their followers. 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 humans, elves, dwarves, and other folk.
Orcs hold a particular hatred for elves. The elven god
Corellon Larethian half-blinded Gruumsh with a well-
placed arrow to the ore god's eye. Since then, the orcs
have taken particular joy in slaughtering elves. Turning
his injury into a baleful gift, Gruumsh grants divine
might to any champion who willingly plucks out one of
its eyes in his honor.
Tribes like Plagues. 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 remains of villages and camps ablaze, then retreat
whence they came, their bloodlust satisfied.
Ranging Scavengers. Their lust for slaughter
demands that orcs dwell always within striking
distance of new targets. As such, they seldom settle
permanently, instead converting ruins, cavern
complexes, and defeated foes' villages into fortified
camps and strongholds. Orcs build only for defense,
making no innovation or improvement to their lairs
beyond mounting the severed body parts of their victims
on spiked stockade walls or pikes jutting up from moats
arid trenches.
When an existing territory is depleted of food, an ore
tribe divides into roving bands that scout for choice
hunting grounds. When each party returns, it brings
back trophies and news of targets ripe for attack, the
richest of which is chosen. The tribe then sets out en
masse to carve a bloody path to its new territory.
On rare occasions, a tribe's leader chooses to hold
onto a particularly defensible lair for decades. The orcs
of such a tribe must range far across the countryside to
sate their appetites.
Leadership and Might. Ore tribes are mostly
patriarchal, flaunting such vivid or grotesque titles
as Many-Arrows, Screaming Eye, and Elf Ripper.
Occasionally, a powerful war chief unites scattered
ore tribes into a single rampaging horde, which
runs roughshod over other ore tribes and humanoid
settlements from a position of overwhelming strength.