Orcish Haruspexy: Daily Actions and Teachings

[Panashea 2644]

DAILY ACTIONS

 

 

The daily of a haruspex is intertwined with all aspects of orcish society. They spend their lives analyzing the viscera and gore of offerings to understand the nature of their arduous lives. Their words cut through the clotted daze of endless violence and bloodshed many orcs endure.  To spend a lifetime analyzing viscera, orating great legends and preserving the fallen has grafted a culture of superstition and lucid reality onto a people able to endure the weight of the world. 

 

WARRIORS

Warriors head to Haruspex in hopes to gain insight on their bloodshed. To find the depths and channels of their bloodlust, so that they may understand the violence they enact. For a warrior, a haruspex takes the blind and bloodied nature of their existence and offers insight on who they are, and who they will become. 

 

Haruspex are adept at pulling the strands of future from the viscera. They guide and instruct warriors so that they may find themselves within the Stargush'Stroh once they pass on to the next life. Every warrior cares about their place among the Ancestrals, and so they encounter at least one in their lives.   

 

 

 

HUNTERS

Hunters head to the haruspex to read the omens of the sky, air and sea. In trancelike visions, flesh and bone take new life as beasts and birds. Haruspex lay out migration paths and game trails, dreaming of birds that soar across the sky and herds of prey that scatter themselves around the raw wilderness of orcish lands.    

 

 

CRAFTSMEN

The Craftsmen call upon the Haruspex to sense the future or discern the past of objects. All tools and crafts come into contact with flesh, and the future and past of everything, even inanimate objects, is deeply intertwined with the living. Through rituals of blood and bone, the future of objects may be determined. A dagger heated in a fire with three bones that crack may be  a tool of deception, while a hammer which can kill a boar in a single blow is bound to forge mighty tools. 

 

 

SHAMANS

Shamans and haruspex are often seen in tandem, despite their divergences in practices. The two serve the spirits, but while a shaman may speak and act directly on the word of the spirits, a haruspex pulls their whispers from the corpses within the mortal realm. The flesh grants them the wisdom to continue in a world blind to their work. A cleric would respect a doctor, and so too the shaman respects the haruspex.

 

 

HOW TO LEARN

A haruspex awash in knowledge, surrounded by their council.

 

Devout orcs practice anthropomancy. In offering the remains to the spirits, they acknowledge the strength blood and bone has in tethering us to reality. Haruspex are unaware of the true nature of the spirits, or the Old Tongue, but still act as if drawn and guided by the same forces.

 

OOC:A haruspex develops when their stories touch the minds of its listeners. When on the battlefield and painted in the lives of their enemies. In studying anatomy and pursuing herbalism. The broad nature of their work means they simply need to experience.  Peering into claret, studying the bones and learning the fundamental aspects of a violent world allow them to indulge in the knowledge of the spirits, and share it with their kin.

 

 

PRESERVATION OF ORCISH HISTORY

 

Orcs revel in stories and the stories borne from the haruspex are recorded not just in the minds, but on the bodies of every orc. Each scar is a story, an opportunity to link the past and present, and the bones and skulls of the fallen become a legacy which lives on long after the owners have expired. The body of a living orc thus becomes a tapestry of their life, woven in their scars. The skeleton of orcish ancestors offers direct contact with those who have passed, an archive of their battles and accomplishments.

 

Orcs record some stories within books, though pride themselves on their oral tradition. Much like veins within tissue, there is deeper meaning in the way a story is told. A haruspex may draw a thousand points from a single story, only dismiss them all.

Edited June 25, 2021 by Panashea