Gruumsh

Gruumsh, the Ruiner is the chaotic evil god who commands hordes of barbaric marauders across Exandria to destroy, pillage, and slaughter.

Appearance
The Ruiner's primitive, usually clay, representations can be found in his worshipers' communities. They depict him as a hulking behemoth of an orc. His missing eye has shifted; the single prominent eye is now central to the face like a cyclops. Some zealous hill giants ritualistically tear out one eye in worship to Gruumsh; others simply wear an eyepatch.

Influence
Gruumsh's creeds push many barbaric orcs and other savage creatures to shrug off the oppressive chains of civilisation and free the true primal nature, devouring the world around. Those who serve the Ruiner, including many orcs, are sometimes hypnotized by their god's gaze from beyond the Divine Gate and fall into a strange bloodlust.

Tal'Dorei
His most devout servants in Tal'Dorei are the Ravagers, a roving death cult who slaughter innocents across the Dividing Plains. Through Gruumsh's blessings, the Ravager Slaughter Lords can cast several spells.

Gruumsh is also worshiped by some in the Stormcrest Mountains, including the Shivergut tribe living in the Frostweald. Their annual coming-of-age ritual involves a pilgrimage to the Shrine of the Ruiner in the Dreamseep Marshlands.

As of 812 PD, a small number of orcs worshiped Gruumsh at the "Empty Socket", the smallest temple in Westruun's Temple Ward.

Wildemount
In the Iothia Moorland of Xhorhas, the Koshtask clan of orcs and other folk of the wastes worships Gruumsh.

The Jez-Araz are a Gruumsh-worshiping set of nomadic orcs who roam the Rime Plains and the base of the Flotket Alps.

Known worshipers

 * Arakki, chosen of Gruumsh among the Koshtask clan
 * Garthok, a member of the Clasp
 * Kalydria Darkeye, one of the slaughter lords of the Ravagers located in a fort within the Bramblewood Forest.

History
During the Age of Arcanum, Archmage Vespin Chloras released the Betrayer Gods from their prisons. From their new capital of Ghor Dranas in Wildemount, which Gruumsh largely created, the Betrayer Gods spread their influence and eventually made an assault on the bastion of Vasselheim. The battle lasted twenty days and nights but, with the divine aid of the Prime Deities, Vasselheim and its inhabitants stood triumphant, if battered, at the end.

The gods prepared for war. The Betrayer Gods each forged a sentient weapon with the life force of a greater fiend: the Arms of the Betrayers. Gruumsh, for his part, crafted Ruin's Wake from the bone of an ancient gold dragon, instilling in it the life force of a bloodthirsty balor named Yarrowish.

In the war that followed, called the Calamity, in one famous battle said to occur on the hill that would be named the Throne of the Archeart, Corellon battled Gruumsh, stabbing out his eye. One creation myth holds that when Corellon stabbed Gruumsh, the fallen blood of Gruumsh mutated a number of elves (and possibly humans as well) into the first orcs. The orcs still call this hill the Fist of the Ruiner.

When the orcs' creator Gruumsh was finally banished, many of his now-leaderless armies scattered and fled.

Centuries after the Calamity, a feud between the Gruumsh-worshiping goblinkin and Ki'Nau people of the Lushgut Forest led to the desecration of a shrine to Melora.

A few centuries later, as of 836 PD, many still believe that orcs and half-orcs inherit a supernatural "curse of ruin" (or hgar'Gruum in the Orc language) with the influence of Gruumsh driving them to acts of rage and violence. This is a common but mistaken belief.

Corellon
Gruumsh maintains a fiery hatred for Corellon long after losing an eye to the elf-god. Lolth, the Spider Queen, who also detests Corellon, often manipulates Gruumsh's followers into attacking her enemies, so as to spare her drow followers.

Trivia

 * The adventure hook Storm Celebration in the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, set in 836 PD, involves orcs and an orog among the Boroftkrah tribe secretly having begun to worship Gruumsh, and an orc "eye of Gruumsh" leads them to attack their Kord-worshiping brethren.