Orcs and Beastmen, Part 1

 Note: Oddly enough, Bar Chakka was part of my very first draft of Centerra, back in 2010.  Centerra has changed a lot in the last 12 years, but two most important elements of Bar Chakka (the beastmen and the water worship) have not.

Orcs and Beastmen

I don't know how explicit I've previously been on this point, but orcs are technically a type of beastman.  

Beastmen are an all-male race that can breed with nearly any mammal to create a man-beast hybrid.  Orcs breed almost exclusively with pigs, and goat-men (druhok) breed almost exclusively goats and (less commonly) deer.  

They are incomprehensively virile (especially goatmen).  They are capable of blood-transmissible impregnation (similar to a bloodborne disease) and their seed remains viable for hundreds of years after their death.

The Church can explain how the beastmen drank the blood of Drumonia, a wild and ancient god of wine, revelry, madness, and sex, thereby corrupting their entire race.  Their features were made bestial to match their appetites, and despite their swollen libidos they would only be attracted to beasts.

The Orbital Liches can explain how beastmen are just another mutant race, created by the ancient wizards of a dying world, in an attempt to survive the Time of Fire and Madness.

The druhok of Bar Chakka will explain that they were born from natural species as the planet attempted to save itself from the depredations of unnatural magic.  Their birth was willed by the planet itself when it needed a defender.  (Orcs have lost their way, but the druhok still remember the path.)

Orcs, of course, believe that they were created to suffer.

Why Do Orcs Fuck Pigs?

Not all orcs do.  In every orcish settlement, you might fight a couple of dogmen or perhaps a minotaur.  

But those creatures are probably related to the chieftain, and are tolerated for no other reason.

Other types of beastmen are disruptive, and are typically driven out (if they do not leave of their own accord).  Minotaurs are famously aggressive and rarely function well in a team.  Dogmen are loud and stupid.  Equicephali creep everyone out.  Out of all the beastmen, orcs are one of the most intelligent ones, and are the only ones with mouths that can speak Gospeltongue.

Besides, swine herds can march alongside the armies, where they provide meat, companionship, and mounts (for pigs the size of royal swine).

Why Do Druhok Fuck Goats?

Because goatmen are smarter than pigmen, and they survive very well in the mountainous regions of Bar Chakka.  

There's also a large religious component to it.  The druhok goatmen are the inheritors of heaven.  The only other type of holy beastman is the stag-men, who tend to succumb often to respiratory diseases.

Goatmen are revered in Bar Chakka, where they are the only type of beastman able to become a priest.

probably the best beastman picture ever
by Karl Kapinsky

Why All These Herd Animals?

Because beastmen are still men (it's in the name), and really only thrive when they are part of a society.  

The only animals that function well as beastmen are social animals.  Solitary animals tend to hate living alongside other people.  So while there are a few bear-men in the world, they're perpetually uncomfortable and anxious when living alongside others.  (Minotaurs, for example, have a sort of nervous machismo that makes them extremely dangerous to their neighbors.)

Beastmen born from non-social animals are also missing a lot of the normal sympathies and considerations that we take for granted.  A tigerman will walk past a beggar and feel nothing--not the smallest glimmer of sympathy.  Likewise, if you give a tigerman a gift, they will accept with an alien lack of gratitude.  This is because things like sympathy and gratitude exist in humans (who are meant to live together in a society) but not in tigers (who are solitary). 

Essentially, tigermen and bearmen are sociopaths, and everyone knows this.  They are stereotyped in beastman society as evil (and correctly so).

Anyway, here are the three biggest orc cities I can think of at the moment.

Tangodar 

Tangodar is the only city that the orcs have ever been proud of.  Stone spires in a foggy valley, a full half of the city secreted underground.  Gauzy screens covered the streets, and smoke from sacrifices filled the sky above.  Everything to keep them hidden from heaven.

The secret to the city's longevity was its democracy, where major decisions were settled through combat of champions (typically non-lethal), one against one, for as long as there were willing champions.  The only weapon allowed was a bundle of sticks called a bashka.  Because all orcs are adept fighters, it was difficult to disenfranchise the majority, and because the duels were such a bottleneck, the orcs had days (if not weeks) to deliberate and compromise.

The city is long-destroyed, the victim of a century-long crusade.  But the victors came to regret their victory.  The city is cursed--a clotted vector of fear, paranoia, and avarice.  Anyone who spends a night within sight of its walls can feel it.  Friends seem to be enemies, and there is no true brotherhood in those walls.

Still, the city is defensible, and many treasures still glitter in its depths, and of course there is no shortage of fools in this world.  And so it is that the city is ruled over by Pavorick the Stained, an exiled prince from Basharna, who still attempts to recruit people to his poisoned city while they all go mad.

Beneath the city is infested with squadrons of clever war-dead, puppeted by some necromancer still unknown.

And of course the orcs still seek to reclaim it.

Garlak

An embarassment to most orcs, Garlak is little more than a gussied-up hill fort.  There are three reasons why most orcs are embarrassed of Garlak.

First, it's shaped like a giant skull.

The orcs who live there swear that it's a titan skull, but it is obviously carved (and crudely at that).

Second, the orcs there all sing songs.  Everyone who has ever led an orc band knows that orcs need constant structure in their lives to be effective.  Without it, they fall apart.  (They're a bit like toddlers in that regard.)

And so the orcs of Garlak sing work songs.  They're a bit like sea shanties, although you can use your work tools as instruments.  When marching, this is obviously bootfalls, but can also be things like banging your knife on the trencher as you eat.  (Yes, the orcs sing songs while they eat.  It keeps the meal orderly.  It's less cute when they sing the flensing song.)

Even promotions are based on how many grunties (shanties) you have memorized.

Lastly, the orcs don't have a king.  They might, but they don't.

The orcs of Garlak will tell you that they obey the Hidden Masters--a secret group of seven orcs with the power to turn invisible, erase memories, and even vanish from existence for short periods of time.  The Hidden Masters leave them coded messages, which they can follow only once they've been inducted into the correct secret societies.  Since they are hidden, they cannot be assassinated.  And since they are everywhere, they always know the best things to do.

Outsiders will tell you that there are no Secret Masters.  The orcs of Garlak are simply mad.

A third theory is that the orcs have stumbled upon a masterful sort of self-regulation.  Nearly every orc is a member of a secret organization.  (There are over 90 secret organizations in Garlak, and probably more than 300.)  Inside each secret organization, there are secret secret organizations.  The orcs are constantly receiving coded messages (tipping with seven pennies), delivering coded messages (farting during certain words), and taking actions based on these secret messages (lowering the cost of their cheese inventory by 30%).

It might just be that these coded messages form a stable, self-regulating loop.  Something similar happens with ants who, seeking to follow the ant in front of it, sometimes form into death circles.  Except in the case of orcs, this self-regulating loop is a stabilizing form of society.

not shown: pig nose and lil pig ears
by Lestatbishop

Godai

The orcs are reluctant to call it by it's name, and so they refer to it as the City in the South.

Godai is a city founded by fascist orc supremacists.  They seek nothing less than the utter extinction of all of subhumanity.  (True humanity is already extinct, at least on Centerra.)

They are succeeding where other orcs have failed for three reasons.

First, they are utterly disciplined.  Lawbreaking is not tolerated in Godai.  An orc who cannot regulate their baser instincts is split down the middle by The Threshing Wheel (which is sort-of-a-building, sort-of-a-vehicle, that is used for the execution of unruly orcs).

Since orcs are naturally unruly, the orcs of Godai employ several methods to calm themselves and aid their focus.  A lot of these are herbal.  At least one type of lobotomy is performed.  And subtle magics are suspected (although never proven).

Second, they confront their weaknesses.  Every Black Hand Orc can recite the Forty Humiliations by heart, and list all of the times humans have broken treaties and exterminated their race.  They will tell you in the bluntest terms the ways in which humans are superior to themselves (intelligence, cooperation, innovation).

They have a list of orcish strengths, too, but that is not as relevant.  Human superiority is something that must be meditated on daily, until the shame is burnt away and only the anger remains.

The orcs of Godai are also uniquely interested in learning.  They make it a point to capture scholars and tutors, so that they can learn all the things that they lack.  And so their greatest warriors are often tutored by the same  minds that mold the minds of princes.  Orcish brains struggle with mathematics and astronomy, but they learn languages, philosophy, and construction as easily as any human.

Third, they aggressively recruit.  Their greatest warriors (with their sword hand tattooed black) are sent out to help other orcs.  They function as military advisors, mediators, and troubleshooters.  (They're a bit like jedi.)  And when all of that fails, they draw their black blades (painted so as to be unreflective).  In combat, they are commandos, employing traps, poison, surveillance, and ambush to defeat their foes.  They are very good at this.

It is rumored that some of the Black Hands have been alchemically enhanced so as to give them further advantages in combat.

The Black Hand orc renders all of this aid for free.  But when he is done, he always calls the most promising youths to return with him to Godai, and begin training to become Black Hands themselves.  After their indoctrination into the Black Hand, they are free to return and lead their people if they wish.  Or they may carry their dim blade to more distant shores, and carry their violent proselytization a bit further.

Black Hand orcs are renowned for being lawful.  Their black-inked hand and sword are reserved to killing Dread Humans and Their Servants.  This second category is sometimes stretched a bit, but it never includes their fellow orcs.

Black Hand orcs are loathe to kill another orc.  But when they must do so, they use their non-dominant hand and a stilletto called a winnow.  A weregild is paid to the deceased's family.

The Inextricable Grace of Elves

I've written about elven psychology, linguistics, origin, military, weapons, half-elves, and their infinitely looping kingdoms at the end of time.

But one thing I haven't written about is what it's like for the PCs to actually encounter true elves, face to face.

Should I do a recap first?  I feel like I should.

Boring Elven Lore Shit

Originally, you had baseline humans.  When transhumanism resulted in True Elves, they basically started running the show.  They made slave-races for different tasks: spacers (halflings), soldiers (orcs), laborers (dwarves), while the baseline humans went extinct, only leaving various races of subhumans (bred to be fulfill different types of magical sacrifices).

Eventually, the technology slipped away and the True Elves lost the ability to create more of themselves.  Their degenerate offspring are the High Elves (who are the Low Elves) and they are the most beautiful creatures on Centerra (save nymphs and such).  The True Elves have either left the planet or jumped ahead to one of the temporal estates at time's end.

Elves have the best civilization and the best historical records because many of them were spared the Time of Fire and Madness; they were safely living on Eladras when it happened, a tree that grew downwards from the moon.

(I thought I wrote a post about Eladras, but I didn't.  It's roots are still in the moon, pieces of its trunk form some of the orbital biomes, its branches fell in the Dustwind, and its seeds were used to make grow Aglabendis.)

So the High Elves live forever, magical and powerful, isolating in the beautiful places they have claimed for themselves (often forests).  Each High Elf city is ringed by Wood Elves, the outcasts that society has deemed too ugly or too offensive to dwell among them.  (They're still extremely beautiful by pseudo-medieval standards.)  Elves claim all beautiful things, not just beautiful forests (which sometimes resemble parks) and so sometimes the wood elves are more like beach elves or mountain elves but you get the point.  They're the dirt-elves that range away from the parties plazas.

And then percolating through all elven society are their slave-races, except they'd never call them that.  They are their little brothers and little sisters, and they are enslaved by love.  They love their older siblings, and revere them even though they aren't allowed to sit at the same table as them, or even speak to them directly.  These are the half-elves (elf-men and elf-women) who are sterilized adult humans who have been created via semi-elfification of stolen infants, the alchemical orcs who have been restored to some of their original prowess as super-soldiers, the ashakka who are wooden golems powered by elven ancestors, and all manner of magical bullshit that they are capable of conjuring.

Most people think that half-elves are the true elves, since those are the ones that sometimes engage in trade.  Most scholars know of the furtive Wood Elves, and believe them to be the true elves.  And a vanishing few mortals have been to the elven cities and met the High Elves (who are the Low Elves) and believe them to be the true elves.  And everyone is wrong once again.

How Elves Talk

The thing to realize is this: unless you've been living in elven society for a few hundred years, you're going to offend someone terribly within a few seconds of walking in the door.

Remember that all of elven society is predicated on beauty and positivity.  Unpleasant things are corrected, removed, or ignored.

A smelly adventurer with blood in his mouth and shit on his boots represents an extremely significant challenge to etiquette, best avoided altogether.  An adventurer will find it nearly impossible to access an elven city, because they really don't want you in there.

But even within the elven city, all discussion of unpleasantness is avoided.  This means that they avoid discussing pretty much all of the outside world.  Talking about unpleasantness is an offense that entails punishment: shunning, resocialization classes, and in the most extreme cases, banishment to the wood elves.

If you could sum up the elven civic philosophy, it would be this: don't inconvenience others.

More specific advice on how to talk to an elf.

• Don't talk about unpleasant things, you may make someone uncomfortable.
• Don't make too much eye contact, you may seem intimidating.
• Do not ask questions about absent friends, something bad might have happened to them.
• Hell, don't ask questions at all.  That puts a burden on the other person to ask.
• Compliments are basically mandatory.  A lack of compliments is basically an insult.
• Don't talk about things that the other person might not know about.  If you don't know if the other person knows something or not, it is best to approach the topic obliquely.

Conversation is best limited to safe topics.  Pretty things like the clothing that the other elf is wearing.  Local music.  Delicious food.  Art.  Culture.  Weather.  Reminiscing about other happy times.  Inside jokes.  

You might think this sounds boring, but elves are brilliant and clever and pretty.  They're always alluding to other things, connecting different areas.  They're hilarious.  If they were talking to a human they liked, they'd be careful to only refer to areas of culture and history that the human was likely to know about, in order to avoid making them self-conscious of their ignorance.  Humans love hanging out with elves; they're like humans who have learned how to avoid offending people.

An elf who was interrogating you might stand at the other end of the room, look out the window, and wonder aloud "I wonder where my kinkajou is?  It's almost time for his massage."

That's remarkably direct, for an elf.  That's bad news.  You're about to be slowly lowered into a vat of acid over a 36 hour period.  You better tell her where her kinkajou is, dude.

You might think the inability to ask questions is a bit limiting.  You'd be correct.

Books are the exception.  When an elf is alone with a book, the pretense is dropped.  After all, there is still a need to learn about the actual world.  And if an elf wishes to learn about unpleasant things in the privacy of their own home, they are certainly allowed to do so, as long as they don't inconvenience others.

Written and spoken words have very different purposes in elven society.

Another workaround is the use of intermediates.  A servant hears a politely coded message, conveys it to a subservant in a less polite form, and then the subservant will meet with another elf's subservant, and the two of them will have a plainly spoken discussion.  Then the resolution will make its way back up to the elf, who is then informed of what he has decided.

Sometimes the elf is her own subservant, in a different guise and identity.  This is actually pretty common in elven society--compartmentalizing their identity into polite and impolite forms.  While wood elves might use masks to accomplish the same thing, high elves use glamours and actual transformations.

This is an advantage in fighting a high elf.  If you surprise them with combat, they'll usually refuse to fight until they can assume their "war face" (combat identity).  They're very good at running away, but try to make that first combat count.

Pretense is as important as air.

Unpleasant things are usually disguised as something else.  Combat is often referred to as dancing, but even that euphemism is becoming worn and distasteful.  Combat is now often referred to as "music appreciation" or "physical listening" or something similar.

The distaste is now even rubbing off onto actual dancing, which was beginning to have a more negative connotation due to its association with combat.  So dancing is now referred to as "joyful warfare" or "imitating the wind".

How Elves Live

Usually alone or in romantic pairs/trios/quartets.  Except not alone alone.  Each elf has a large estate consisting of their "family" of non-elves (half-elves, alchemical orcs, human sycophants), servants, playthings, protectors, and fashion statements.

Like if an elven household was a dungeon, it might be a redwood with a pavilion at the top and a branching complex in the roots.  It would have a romantic pair of elves as the "bosses".  One room might have 3d6 "little brothers" (alchemical orcs armed with crush gauntlets and jump jets) and a ziggurat made of hot tubs.  Another room might have Sir Hembriss the Curator, a charmed rakshasa who does hair and makeup.

Elven households are very diverse, because fashion.  No elf wants to show up to the gala with the same color rakshasa as their rival.

I've painted a pretty negative picture of elves, but there are plenty that take good care of their adopted families.  Many of them are effective mentors, and a few are even friends with members of their household.

Children aren't common because (a) some elven cultures practice population control, and (b) raising an elven child is risky and unpleasant.  Too much messy biology, too much disappointment and death.  It's also incredibly expensive: the same magical manipulation that improved human stock into elves also made them dependent on magical technology that is absent, faulty, and/or poorly understood.

For example, the elven fetus was never meant to be grown to parturition inside a uterus.  They were designed to be grown in a vat.  And since those vats no longer exist, the elves have had to invent some pretty drastic workarounds.  Expensive, unpleasant, and especially risky.

This is true for all stages of an elf's development, not just pregnancy.  Elven procreation requires a lot of infrastructure and technology.  It's not an exaggeration to say that an elven hospital is the third parent, since mom, dad, and magic all make tremendous and necessary contributions to the final product.

This restriction means that you'll hardly ever see elves living in the slums.  An elf will have wealthy parents, or they'll never make it past the first trimester.

How Elves Fight

Some cultures of elves will just run away, in order to don their war identity.

Other cultures of elves will fight you directly, but under the pretense of "dancing with you".  This requires having a bard nearby, who will strike up music during the combat.  If the bard stops playing, the pretense drops, and the elf will be forced to fight you directly.  (This makes the combat worse, not easier.)

How do you shoot an arrow at someone indirectly?  You shoot it very high, so that it takes a high, arcing path.  That makes it easier to pretend that you were shot by accident, so as not to upset the elf.

Couldn't you just hold your shield over your head and be safe from elven arrows?  Well, no, because high elven arrows don't fly in a straight line.  They're curved so that they fly in spirals.  Elves do other tricks with the fletching, such as ablative rachides and clockwork oscillators, that make the arrows fly in even more complex patterns.

Then they spend a few decades mastering it.

This means that elvish arrows are essentially useless in human hands.  (The inverse is not true.)

<sidebar>Elves really hate to see anyone else using their toys.  There are various ways to accomplish this, such as covering them in diseases that only affect humans to remaining inert unless surrounded by elven DNA (which is easily bypassed by anyone wearing elfskin gloves).</sidebar>

Elves are capable of producing pretty much every entry in the monster manual, but they prefer bodyguards who don't leave a mess.  Stranglers (such as a lesser wind) and devourers (such as an ooze) are ideal.  Elves really hate it when their bespoke stuff gets broke.

They also aren't above simply paying you to go away.  Giving an adventuring party a large ruby works fine: they have plenty more gems.  Besides, a large ruby in the hands of mercenaries is likely to bring nothing but turmoil to human lands, without making the humans any wiser, more numerous, or more powerful (all things that elves seek to prevent).

The elves would find it hilarious if it wasn't already so eye-rollingly banal at this point.

How Elves Die

The pretense persists until their dying breaths.  It is an inextricable part of their souls.

Consider the words of Milasham vin Valtir, an elf who was stabbed in the aorta by adventurers while attempting to recover her stolen kinkajou.

"Look," she said, reaching into her breast pocket and pulling out a bloody hand.  "I have found rubies."

Void Monks

Void monks seek to embody nothingness.  The tradition originally came from the orcs, who sought a way to escape the cruel world by vanishing it like the rude dream that it is.  Nihilism is the only comfort, because by embracing it, comfort is no longer needed.

Annihilation isn't destruction.  It is the return to nothingness.

Everything is an illusion.  Only the mind is real.

Even the mind is an illusion.  Nothing exists.

The world is a lie, and you can prove it.

Class Abilities

Autolobotomy

In this initiation ritual, you scoop out a chunk of your own brain.

Lose half of your Charisma.  Nothing can lower your Charisma further.  Your mind cannot be read.  You get +4 to save vs charms (including domination) and all emotions (good and bad), including pain, fear, anger, and sadness.  When you are scryed upon, you appear fuzzy and indistinct.

Reveal the Void

A creature you touch must save or lose one of its senses (your choice) for 1d6 rounds.  This includes extraordinary senses.  You can channel this ability through a melee weapon (usually a black steel quarterstaff) but doing so incurs a -2 penalty to the attack roll.

Void monks can also use this ability on themselves, and use it to meditate in perfect sensory deprivation.

Prepared for the Void

You no longer need to breathe.  In zero gravity, you can accelerate yourself telekinetically.  You are immune to radiation.  In theory, you would have no trouble existing in outer space.

Void Gaze

When you lock eyes with someone, they fall under the effect of a hold person spell (and get a save each round to escape).  However, while they are under the effects of hold person, so are you.  You can end the effect at any time.  This functions as a gaze attack.

Denucleation

You remove your eyes with leaden ritual-spoons crafted specifically for this purpose.  They boil off into the void.  You are blind, but have such excellent hearing that it doesn't matter for most things within 30', since you can hear creature's heartbeats and the echoes of your footsteps off the floor.  The only things that give you trouble are things that are truly silent.  Obviously, you cannot read books.  This ability is constant.

You can become locally omniscient for 10 minutes.  This is not true omniscience--you only understand physical things.  Anything that you could learn from taking things apart and looking at them, you know know.  You know all of the contents of books (despite not being able to read while blind) and the contents of people's pockets.  You cannot read minds or learn people's histories.  Invisibility is no barrier to this ability.  You can use this ability 1/day.

Total Removal of the Brain

You no longer have a Charisma score.  You must burn a hole in your character sheet so that no mention of Charisma remains (the self-concept is a lie).  You have a Charisma modifier of +0.  You automatically fail social-based Charisma checks and succeed on willpower-based Charisma checks.

Your mind cannot be read (because you have no mind-concept that they can comprehend) and anyone that attempts to read your mind must make a save or either fall catatonic for 1d6 days or have their mind read by you (as ESP), your choice.  Neither your image nor your sounds appear when scryed upon.

Lock Time

You designate a length of time (of any duration, including infinite).  For that length of time, your body becomes frozen in time, rigid and utterly unmoving.  While in this state, you cannot be altered--you are effectively harder than adamantine.  The only things that can affect you are spells that affect all matter (like disintegrate) or time spells.  If the time spell is cast on you, your stasis lock is dispelled and you are stunned for 1d6 rounds.  This ability is usable 1/day.

It takes an action to go into stasis lock; you cannot activate it fast enough when falling, unless the fall is more than 200'.

In your hands, an immovable rod turns into an immovable quarterstaff.  If you have an immovable quarterstaff in your hands when you use this ability, you can have the option to also lock Space as well as Time.  If you choose this, the effects of the immovable rod apply to your entire body while you are in stasis.  If other people are holding the immovable rod, you have the option to bring them (willingly) into stasis with you.

Once you gain this ability, you must resist the temptation to immediately use it on yourself with a duration of 'infinite'.  Make a Wis check with a +1 bonus for every reason you can name for staying on this mortal plane a while longer.  (Why postpone annihilation?  It is what you truly seek.  On the other hand, what's a few years in the face of infinity?)

Nothingness

Your most valuable possession immediately boils off into the void.  This makes you happy--or it would if you felt any emotions at all.  It is, at least, a desirable thing.

If you don't possess anything especially valuable (DM's discretion) this ability will be postponed until you own something nice (DM's discretion).  DM's should strive to avoid egregious metagaming with regards to this ability--the character wants to see their most previous item vanish, since it symbolizes non-attachment.

Once this has happened, it signifies that you have finally shed your soul.  From now on, you are soulless, and are immune to level drain.  When you die, you vanish utterly from all existence.  Your corpse and equipment vanish, and you fade from the memories of everyone.

Annihilation of False Self

You destroy yourself, and then recreate yourself 3 rounds later.  During this interim, you are a shapeless, massless, volumeless force similar to an unseen servant.  You still occupy a point in space, however, or at least a probability cloud.

The only things that affect you are things that affect an area.  Spells that see invisibility don't see you (since you are incoherent, not invisible) but AoE effects that reveal you (such as faerie fire) work on you (since they instantly collapse your wave-partical duality) and additionally dispel this effect.

While annihilated, you can still affect the world as if you were present.  You can make (unarmed) attacks, pull levers as normal.  (Basically, it's as if you are running around naked, but no one else can see, hear, feel, or touch you unless it is with an AoE effect.)

This ability is usable 1/day.

Annihilation of the Lie of Reality

You touch a target with both hands.  If the target fails a save, it vanishes.  This can be a single creature or object not larger than an ogre.  This ability only works on discrete things, within the size limit and capable of being described with a single noun.  This ability only works on things potentially affected by a disintegration spell.

So it would work on a door, but not on a wall (unless the entire wall was smaller than an ogre).  It would work on a canoe, but not a galleon.  It would work on a mind flayer, but not a dragon.

Erased creatures get a second save after 1d6 rounds.  If they succeed on this save, they return from the dimensionless, timeless void.  If they fail it, they are utterly gone forever.

This ability is usable 1/day.

My Homebrew

Void Monk A - Reveal the Void, Autolobotomy
Void Monk B - Prepared for the Void, Void Gaze OR Denucleation, +1 Initiative
Void Monk C - Lock Time, Total Removal of the Brain
Void Monk D - Nothingness, Annihilation of the False Self OR Annihilation of the Lie of Reality, +1 Initiative

Starting Skills

Meditate

Bonus XP

Obtain the  Sphere of Annihilation: +1000xp.

Destiny

• Go into outer space.  Ride the stars.  Feel the void on your teeth.
• Get the Sphere of Annihilation.  Wreck shit.
• Erase the Universe.

Your Homebrew, Probably

Everything as Cleric, but subtract Turn Undead + spellcasting, then add: 

Level 1 - Reveal the Void

Level 2 - Autolobotomy

Level 3 - Prepared for the Void

Level 4 - Void Gaze OR Denucleation

Level 5 - Lock Time

Level 6 - Total Removal of the Brain

Level 7 - Annihilation of the False Self OR Annihilation of the Lie of Reality

Level 8 - Nothingness

Level 9 - Establish monastery, attract 2d6 followers, learn the location of the Sphere of Annihilation

If you want to make them extra-monkish, give them no armor proficiencies but increase their unarmored AC over time, in classic monk fashion.

Void Monks in Centerra

It freaks a lot of people out, the way that they scoop out their brains without much effect.  In the old days, when the Void Monks were closer to the orcish metal, removing your brain meant sawing off the top of your head and scooping out your own brains while reciting the chants.  Those who removed all of their brains were revered as Masters of Emptiness.  Those who pitched forward, had a seizure, and died were quietly buried under the turnip beds.

Lobotomy has a tremendously beneficial effect on orcs.  It inhibits their aggression, their ambition, their restless distrust.  Lobotomized orcs are strikingly similar to lobotomized humans.

They fight with black steel quarterstaffs, katars, or khopeshes.

They build monasteries in remote parts of the world.

These monasteries are filled with time-stopped monks, masters of Nihilum.  These time-stopped monks sit like mummies, except that they're invulnerable.

The monastery of Granat is said to have walls made from time-stopped monks, who simply climb into the wall, lock limbs, and then stop time permanently for themselves.

The monastery of Zhul is said to float in the air, supported by a trio of Time and Space Locked monks (each possessing an immovable rod).

Their monasteries are great empty places.  They hire dwarves to build them true hives.  Just thousands of identical square rooms piled together in a grid, or in a hexagon pattern.  Nearly all of these are empty.

People sometimes come to them to be lobotomized.  They are very good at it.  If you make a sizable donation, or promise to serve the monastery for a year, they might lobotomize you, too.  These lobotomies can cure insanity, restore lost levels, and even erase painful memories.  It only costs a point of Cha for these minor lobotomies.

Some monasteries do ritualized memory purges every year, wiping themselves of all memories that distract them from their meditations.  PCs might return to a monastery several months later to find that none of the monks remember them.

The monks revere the Annihilated Ones, who grew so wise that they were even able to escape history.  The monks do not know who the Annihilated Ones are (since they erased all traces of their passage) but they know that there must have been some, and so they invent their own names and histories for the Annihilated Ones.

These invented histories are then treated as fact, and believed utterly.

It makes no difference to them.  In the end, all reality is contrived.  Why should one illusion be believed over another?

Pictures of Void Monks

God Hates Orcs

This is a direct continuation of a previous post about orcish prayers.

This post has been translated into Portuguese by Eric Ellison here.

Haruspex (n) - a diviner who bases their predictions on the inspection of spilled entrails.

Sacred Violence 

Orcs believe that the gods hate the world, and they hate orcs most of all.  So it is no wonder that the gods speak through violence.

The gods speak through pain, in different body parts.  A shooting pain in the leg is an omen for cowardice.  A dull ache between the shoulderblades foretells the betrayal of a close friend.

The gods speak through blood.  After a battle, you can see the orcish haruspices moving through the battlefield, reading the future in spilled claret.  They crawl through the grass on all fours, like dogs, their faces pressed to the ground, nostrils flaring.

The gods speak through scars.  Examine the edges of the scar.  Are they clean?  Are they mottled?  Is the scar raised?  Discolored?  Does it follow the curve of the body, or does the flesh struggle against it?  Orcs do not trust a person without visible scars, just as humans might not trust someone who refuses to reveal their name.

Orcish haruspices are not clerics or priests.  They do not worship, nor do they preside over the appeasement ceremonies (designed to keep the gods from sundering the earth).  Rather, a haruspex is an orc that hates themselves so much--such divine levels of self-loathing--that they have completely severed themselves from the universe.  (Human saints pray for unity with the cosmos, orcish haruspices hate themselves into living oblivion.)

And since they are no longer part of the universe, the gods do not see the haruspex anymore.

When a haruspex dies, they cease to exist.  Their eternal reward is nothing.  Utter oblivion.  They are pleased with this.

Everyone else goes to hell when they die.  Heaven is a lie humans tell themselves because they are weak and servile.

Haruspices are covered with wounds that never heal.  You can tell how powerful an orcish haruspex is by how injured they appear to be.  Some even appear to be undead, since they are so emaciated and disfigured.  During their trances, the wounds grin like mouths and speak prophecies.  From the torn lips slip mutterings, madness, and prophecy--the sleep talk of the gods.

Love Requires Sacrifice

Since suffering and violence are the only things that appease the gods, orcs believe that it is only the violence of the world that keeps the gods from destroying it.  The day that the gods stop laughing at our misfortune is the day that they purge the land with fire.  Through war and cruelty, orcs are saving the world.

They are not sad about this fact, just as the shepherd is not saddened that he must thin his flock to feed himself.  Except that the orcs see themselves as both shepherd and sheep.

(Even the 'good' gods of the humans desire our suffering.  Why else would they saddle their believers with fasts and cruel injunctions against their own nature?  Why do they prohibit wine, sex, and crude songs?)

In private, orcs can be kind and loving.  Orcs love their children, trust their close friends, and would sacrifice for their spouses.  Just like elves.  Just like dwarves.  Just like humans.

However, orcs must keep it confined to the interiors of their houses, where the gods cannot see.  The gods reside in heaven, and so anything performed within view of the sky will be judged.  And since the gods can hear all things, love must never be spoken aloud.

Orcs believe that every time a husband and wife kiss within view of heaven, somewhere a child is stricken with a killing disease.  Every time a warchief publicly shows mercy, an innocent is torn apart by wolves.

Most humans erroneously conclude that orcs are without compassion and gentleness.  They believe that believe that orcs do not even have a word for 'love'.  This is half-true.  While a word for 'love' exists, it is both blasphemous and rarely used.  Orcs couch their affection for each other in dysphemisms.  Only the bravest orcish lovers will whisper promises of affection into each other's ears when they are alone in their tent (and during high noon, when the gods are most likely to be sleeping).

Death and Taxes

Some gods can be bargained with.  They might trade some venal miracle in exchange for a small mountain of skulls.

"If my clan survives this battle," the warchief says, "I will sacrifice ten of their number atop the Red Tree.  Grant me this covenant, O Lord of Teeth, O Cracker of Bones, and I will fulfill my vow."

And sometimes the warchief's clan does, in fact, survive the battle.  And then then this creates a debt, not between the god and the chief, but between the god and the tribe.  After a battle, each orc might owe their chieftain 1 kill.

So each orc has a divine blood-debt.  These could be traded.  If Blargun kills 2 humans in one battle, and Thachloch doesn't kill any, Thachloch can give his debt to Blargun, who then fulfills it.  But since Thachloch is giving his debt to Blargun, he has to make it equitable by giving Blargun something else, like a cow.

It's important to note that orcs trade the debt, not the kill.  They have a negative currency.

Most clans are small, and so the orcs have an easy time remembering who owes how many skulls.  (See also: rai stones).  Clans even trade these among themselves.  Humans trade a valuable thing for a valuable thing.  Orcs only give, or they only take.

They might give a fertile valley and 300 dead children.  A cache of steel weapons and 200 dead elves who must all be killed via beheading.  A herd of cattle and 32 orcish suicides through disembowelment.  A tally is kept, both among the clansmen and in heaven, where the gods look down and laugh.

Orcish bankers store these blood debts.  Except the orcs don't call them bankers.  The actual word translates to 'skullcrusher', because the debts are usually paid in fresh skulls, which are then crushed underfoot.  The only currency among the orcs is death.

Here are some examples of orcish prayers.

An Orcish Prayer

Orcs are dystheists. They believe that gods are apathetic at best, and blatantly hateful at worst.

Orcs are the great iconoclasts. The soft, human gods are either powerless or great destroyers of the orcish race. After a warband conquers a city, each orc will relieve themselves in the largest temple.

The gods of orcs are either ignored or hated. (Orcs aren't big on fear, even when they should be.) They aren't worshipped. They are appeased. Or they are bargained with, like merchants in the marketplace.

This is why orcs portray their gods as ugly as possible.

When you see a group of orcs chanting in one of their temples, they are not scared or reverent. They are angry, because gods are the only opponents that cannot be cut with an axe.

Temples make orcs angry, and anger makes orcs want to kill something. And even the apathetic gods, who can sometimes be reasoned with, are only ever asked for prowess in combat, because nothing else is worth praying for. Nothing else is worth making the promises that gods demand. Blood for the blood god. Skulls for the skull god.

And so all orcish gods loo like war gods to outsiders.

ORCISH PRAYER TO BE IGNORED

This one is small.
His bones creak in his sleep
and his marrow is sour
and full of hatred.
He is wretched
and not worthy of anything.

ORCISH PRAYER AFTER A BATTLE

Blood feeds the hungry earth.
Blood makes the grass grow green.
With blood I have washed your face
and your dogs have lapped it up.
Now leave me alone.

Notes

Orcs hate their gods almost as much as they hate themselves. This is because the gods hate them. They believe themselves to be cursed: with stupidity, with ugliness, and misfortune. How else could they continually lose wars to those who are so much weaker than them?