Cult of Orcus

The Cult of Orcus, in the fictional world of Dungeons & Dragons, is a loosely organized network of worshippers of the godlike demon prince Orcus. The cult features in a large number of D&D settings, campaigns, and novels. According to the Book of Vile Darkness, the loathsome yet identifiable portfolio of Orcus is what makes him worshiped as a god more often than most of the other demon princes, making him closer to ascending to true godhood than even Demogorgon.

Common groups

The widespread cult of Orcus has a significant following among humanoids, especially orcs, half-orcs, ogres, giants, and humans. They keep his temples hidden, forming secret societies in otherwise normal communities, although some temples are strongholds full of undead. Orcus demands living sacrifice, and blood and skulls are important imagery used in his worship. Intelligent undead do not willingly serve him, although vampires, liches, and others have been forced into his service. Priests and influential followers are called Skulls, while high priests are called Skull Lords; a Skull Lord who gains enough power and influence among the followers of Orcus adopts the mantle of Skull King or Skull Queen. Followers of Orcus commonly carry black, skull-topped scepters to represent their lord's dread might, and wear skull masks and black robes with hoods, or goat-horned headdresses and silver robes.

Libris Mortis notes that worship of Orcus appeals most to demons, necromancers, and the undead. His priestly training consists of a grisly oath, the introduction to his mythology, and a strike with a skull-headed rod. Orcus tasks his worshipers to increase the level of his own worship across all lands, killing those who resist. Worshippers are typically sent on quests to attack cults of rival death god Nerull, raid churched of Pelor to destroy sacred items, and build portals from the Abyss to the Material Plane. Orcus has inspired the creation of temples all over the planes, and those that worship him gain clerical power as if worshipping a true deity. His followers rise through the ranks by bloody conflict. Orcus prefers to send a balor as his herald.

Fiendish Codex I notes that members of the cult of Orcus seek to follow in his blasphemous footsteps, moving up through the ranks of demons to become demon lords as well. Orcus urges his mortal followers to wreak subterfuge and destruction upon the Material Plane. Skull Lords often command numerous undead and servitor demons, as well as cultists from all walks of society. When a Skull Lord achieves sufficient influence on his home world, Orcus sends him an omen to beckon the champion to Thanatos to take control of undead to use as an invasion force on a Material Plane world or the home of one of the foes of Orcus. Those successful in such an invasion take the title of Skull King, returning to their world with the dark blessings of Orcus. When a mortal Skull King dies, his soul returns to Thanatos as a powerful type of tanar'ri.

The fourth edition Monster Manual notes that "since Orcus lives in the Abyss [he] cannot grant divine magic to his priests". The book explains that the deathpriest hierophants are among the most powerful worshipers of Orcus, and that the example deathpriest hierophant "is blessed with great power from his demonic master, and himself teeters on the edge between life and undeath". A cult of several hundred members is spread out over a large area, and is led by a deathpriest hierophant, who appoints lesser deathpriests to lead smaller groups within the cult. Each such group is usually tasked with a specific goal. Cults of Orcus operate in secret, gathering in hidden spots such as graveyards, mausoleums, tombs, and necropoli, although they operate freely among the most corrupt of barbarian hordes and undead legions. Each cult invents its own iconography involving skulls and bones, ram's horns, or blasphemous runes, rather than having a common symbol for all the cults. His followers spread disease by fouling wells with corpses, blocking sewers, and other criminal acts. They do not see the undead as holy, but use them as a means to accomplish goals, including Orcus's ambition to extinguish life. Worshipers of Orcus hope to one day become a powerful, intelligent undead creature such as a lich, death knight, mummy, or vampire, and gain control over lesser undead.

The "Leomund's Tiny Hut" feature by Lenard Lakofka in Dragon #76 (August 1983) features a character class called the death master. The article describes on page 17 how a death master will eventually become a demon-worshipper, who ultimately worships Orcus. A high level death master who is killed on the feast day of Orcus ("sometimes called Halloween", according to the article) becomes an undead creature under the direction of Orcus. Some death masters even commit suicide on that date so that they may better serve Orcus, and he sometimes notices this action and will animate the death master with all the character's powers intact.

The adventure Dead Gods introduces the visage, a type of undead created by Tenebrous from his dead tanar'ri servants and bound to his will. A visage appears as a wispy, translucent spirit with no legs, and a white mask where its head would be; it floats or flies through the air, and its form is solid rather than incorporeal. A visage has the power to twist a victim's mind, taking control over its perception of reality using a power called "lucidity control". The visage uses this power subtly to cause confusion and fear, mixing real experiences with false ones to enhance the illusion. A visage can also mentally dominate a target, to take complete control, but cannot use both powers on the same target at the same time. When a visage kills someone, it can take the victim's identity, taking part of his essence – preventing the victim from moving on to the afterlife or being brought back from the dead. Visages have no place among the tanar'ri, who recognize them immediately and attack them on sight.

The adventure Dead Gods introduced the world of Ranais, and Moil, the City that Waits. Ranais was once populated with death worshipers, with each city devoted to a particular god of death, and many cities worshipping Orcus. When the great city of Moil turned away from Orcus, it was cast into a demiplane and the rest of the world suffered a cataclysm. Anyone who could not escape perished, leaving Ranais a dead world haunted by the malevolent spirits of those who died there. When Orcus was later reborn as Tenebrous, he commanded his visages to make the world their lair. A portal to the fortress of Tcian Sumere is found in an abandoned temple of Orcus. Ranais is connected to the planar town of Crux by way of a two-way portal; many people fled to Crux at the time of the calamity on Ranais, and most human residents of Crux are their descendents. The Demiplane of Moil is further described on pages 46–47 of A Guide to the Ethereal Plane (1988) by Bruce R. Cordell. This book reveals that Orcus cursed the people of Moil to slumber until the dawning of the sun, but pushed the city into a pocket demiplane of the Ethereal Plane, which has no dawn, noon, or sunset. With no sun to rise, the citizens of moil slept until they perished. The combined nightmare dream of Moil's citizens formed the powerful creature known as the Vestige, which is known to engulf and completely destroy any victim it chooses to "vent its malice upon". Moil's architecture was warped when Orcus moved it, and now its thin towers rise from the depths of an almost endless pit, resting upon the writhing black fog which bounds the sides and bottom of the pit and defines the boundary between the demiplane and the Negative Energy Plane. Centuries later, Moil was discovered by an evil being "called the Devourer by some", who transformed its dead citizens into a workforce of undead that the Devourer used to build a fortress near the demiplane of Moil, which destroyed most of these undead citizens in the process. This information is recounted in the boxed set adventure Return to the Tomb of Horrors (1998), also by Cordell, on page 56. The adventure reveals that "the Devourer" is another name for the lich, Acererak. Acererak had discovered the city while he was still a mortal man, and claimed it as his own after the death of Orcus to use it for his evil plans. The city plays an important part in the adventure, and is described in detail on pages 56–115. According to the fourth edition Manual of the Planes, the citizens of Moil gained the favor of Orcus through mortal sacrifices and ceremonies involving the dead, but eventually grew sickened. They tore down the temples of Orcus and shattered the statues in his honor, and turned to Pelor in hopes of purifying their souls, but Orcus flung the city into the depths of the Shadowfell. The article "Legacy of Acererak" by Robert J. Schwalb in Dragon #371 (January 2009) reveals that although Orcus intended to reclaim the citizens of Moil as undead under his service, "his attentions were drawn elsewhere with dire upheavals in the Abyss". Due to the curse Orcus laid upon these undead citizens of Moil, if left alone they collapse to resemble the corpses they should be.

The thrall of Orcus is a third edition prestige class appearing in the Book of Vile Darkness. The book describes a thrall of Orcus as someone devoted to the demon prince of undeath, becoming "a tool of misery, murder, and revenge", revelling in the company of undead and "preferring their decaying touch to that of living flesh". Clerics, wizards, and sorcerers progress best to this class. Thralls of Orcus work in small groups of necromancers and necrophiliacs, consorting with undead and demons to form small cells of depraved evil that hide among cities and villages. They hate the thralls of both Demogorgon and Graz'zt, and war against them.

A group of Orcus worshipers known as the Ashen Covernant are first described for fourth edition in the article "The Ashen Covenant" by Ari Marmell on pages 36–47 of Dragon #364 (June 2008). These cultists are led by Elder Arantham, and consist of a movement growing throughout the cults of Orcus, dedicated to the goal of aiding the ascension of Orcus to the throne of the Raven Queen, and to help him become sovereign over all dead souls. They seek to make undeath a natural part of the cycle of life, so that everyone who dies will rise as an undead. The Ashen Covenant created the creature known as the ashgaunt, which they use as soldiers and assassins. The ashgaunt is a type of wight which not only hungers to drain life, but is also able to raise destroyed undead. The Ashen Covenant appear as opponents in the module E1 Death's Reach, in which Elder Arantham is revealed in "Adventure Book One" to have breached Death's Reach in the Shadowfell to unearth secrets and power at the will of Orcus.

Dogma

Promise your soul to Orcus, eat of his flesh and drink of his blood, and through him you will gain life everlasting. Mercy is a luxury that none are worthy of; suffering and torment are the fuel that will empower Orcus' ascent. The worshippers of Orcus will overwhelm the world in a tide of undeath and even the gods will perish.

Clergy

Clerics of Orcus are in charge of promoting necromancy, pain, torture, undeath, and the destruction of all that is good. They pray for spells at midnight. Their colors are red and black, although bone white is often used as decoration. Most of his faithful are called Skulls.

Holy days and rituals

The holy days of Orcus are the nights of the new moons and Sunsebb 28, the last day of the year. When a moon is at its darkest, worshipers of Orcus are required to either create an undead creature or to bring a corpse to other Orcus cultists so that an undead creature can be made. The vilest ritual in Orcus's already vile faith is the Unhallowing. This ceremony has no set date, but involves sacrificing a paladin to Orcus and creating a self-loathing undead creature from the remains.

References

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