Gods and religion for Multicultural orcs (and half-orcs)

[firelistener]

I've been creating and using a 5e setting for quite some time, and I'm starting to detail out the southern half of a continent that for my latest campaign.

The region is inhabited mostly by orc and half-orc tribes. The "tribes" are composed of tens of thousands of individuals. At this point in history, they are not fully unified and only formally convene a council together in times of crisis or war. They are very accepting to non-human races, but there's a small bit of bad blood with elves in certain areas on the eastern coast after some colonization attempts by elven nations. Humans are despised, mostly due to wars with the human nations to the north and sailors/marines from the eastern continent to a lesser extent.

What kind of gods do you think this society would mostly worship? I was thinking something either monotheistic or pantheistic since the human and elven societies all worship a polytheistic set of 4 gods. I'm looking for ideas here to get the engine rolling since I don't have much for this particular region beyond what I wrote above. Previously, all my games have been the northern human nations in this setting.

[LibraryOgre]

Conceptually, it somewhat depends on how you see deities in D&D. Are they actual individuals? Like, is there a Baghtru out there, and he wants pretty much the same things from all his followers? Or are gods more like concepts and concentrations of power that people can tap in to, and the specifics of their theology aren't of any concern? Or are they even more abstract?

If it's the first, you might take a look at the gods of your setting and decide how the orcs of different places will interact with them. I have an example here, in the first part of the character sheet (https://www.mymegaverse.org/nexx/tsr/ghoruk.html)... the orcs interacted with human gods, and developed their own mythology around them.

However, you might also have nothing resembling an orthodoxy among such a big group. You might have lots of hero-deities and mythic ancestors getting worshiped. This tribe reveres Wolf, the mythological founder of their tribe (who may or may not have been a lycanthrope warlord). This tribe tells stories of JumJum, an orc hermit shaman to whom is ascribed every good event. With an approach like this, you don't have to develop a specific mythology; every group you interact with will have their own.

[firelistener]

I prefer the gods in my setting to be actual entities with whom followers can commune. So definitely defined, but they don't necessarily need to be a "person". Like I've been thinking to use a giant eldritch whale for a sea deity of another culture, for example. It wouldn't have much to say, but it's a defined entity.

The easiest for that was a very small pantheon of only 4 gods I've mainly used. That way I could cut down on their personalities, rituals, cults, and other trappings. I'd transpose them to other nations and races that way too by just renaming them and giving a local twist on the religion. I distinctly wanted this southern region to feel very alien though, and part of that is to make a religious setting far removed from the 4 main gods I've used.


You might have lots of hero-deities and mythic ancestors getting worshiped.
Oh yeah, I hadn't even considered ancestor worship. That's actually a really great idea, and I think I'll lean into that pretty heavily. Thank you very much :smile:
Cool character sheet too.

As DM (and in writing) I really enjoy creating narrative conflicts of "Man vs Society" tied together with "Man vs Fate" within the context of religion, where people have to oppose popular thought and convention any time they face spiritual powers. I do this to provide a tangible reason for the players' characters to treat these in-game gods with fear, knowing that basically anyone they run into will think it's a seriously bad idea to oppose or get mixed up with the wrong side of a deity/religion. Because this new region is very multicultural and multiracial, I think having ancestor worship be the dominant religion would really help accomplish that. Suddenly being from a certain family/tribe/race means a lot more on a cultural level, and should promote internal loyalty.

I think I'll add in a common theological belief in karma-based reincarnation too. Where some say that they could earn the chance to be reborn as an Orc in a certain tribe by swearing a ritual allegiance to them.

[Yakk]

Klingon: "We killed our gods, they where useless and weak. We worship our heroes."
Animist: "Everything has a spirit. We make deals with them, and respect them."
Administrative: "Heaven is a place with rules, and if you follow the rules, you get in. The beings in charge are as bound as you and I by the rules."

[Mulletmanalive]

Sigh

I wrote a long post about how Celts and Norse tended to have a lot of local variation, and some guides as to why this might be, then realised that you'd already done something similar in the rest of your setting.

A similar idea could be that rather than having any contact with their gods, i.e. the beings that do anything physical in the setting, the Orcs could be interacting with ancestors as saints, so that they have to pester an ancestor to go off and bother a deity on their behalf, with the ancestors being incredibly tight lipped about the gods themselves.

You could even go further and spread this into the reincarnation thing, perhaps with the ancestors serving this purpose being ones that would be facing a terribly reincarnation and are clinging on desparately to try and avoid a turn as a demon or something.

The thing about a karma-type reincarnation system would be that your setting would have no real afterlife and your demons and angels/gods would be kicking around in the game world, albeit in a separate location, as those are reincarnation stages as well.