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Title: 'Unwanted Child of Ormorek'

Revision as of 13:24, 28 November 2020 by BetaNotus (talk | contribs) (Moved Title and "lore" Added Ambox explanation.)


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Title: 'Unwanted Child of Ormorek'
Bestows a title. (This scroll was created by the player that owns this title.)
Value: 100

Stack Size:
5
Keywords:

How to Obtain

Producing with Recipes

None.

Obtaining through Bartering

Purchasing

Drops

Gathering

Quest Rewards

None.

Other Ways to Obtain

Owned by Ormorek (Whether he wants it or not).

Bestowed by player Clip (Administrative Assistant to Ormorek).

Given to Followers[1] of Ormorek.

Uses

Using in Recipes

None.

Gifting

NPC Location Preferences
Preta The Fairy Tree in Sun Vale Likes (Scrolls)

Bartering Uses

Selling

Consumption

Direct Consumption

Ability Consumption

None.

Quest Fulfillment

None.

Other Uses

Lore

The "Lore" of the Church of Ormorek

Origin of the Church of Ormorek, Reconstituted

Like most great things, the Church of Ormorek, Reconstituted, started late at night, in a tavern. It was spoken:

"So, what if gods that fell in war, but survived, are like, you know, dehydrated food? They're all shrunken and pruney, like hard kibble or raisins."

"BUT! With the right worship, continually and mercilessly inflicted on them, fallen Gods can be Reconstituted!"

"That's what a church should be, like, what about the fallen God of Beer? Ormorek was Dwarves? Yeah, see? That makes so much sense. Like he could be a whole God of Beer, if we all just, you know, worship that way!"

In the absence of any coherent counterargument, a church was founded. The Church of Ormorek, Reconstituted, is dedicated to spreading dance parties and booze to any place where his Holy Spirit may be reluctantly (or even unwillingly) bound.

“We pray. We pray that he may grow from his pruney shrunken self into a new being of Enjoying It While You Can, like one of those tiny bath eggs that grows into a big awesome dinosaur. Amen.”

— Clip’s Note: “This was overheard by Rappanele. It changes a little every time he retells it.”

The Church of Ormorek, Reconstituted: A New Deity of Respawning and Trying Again

They say, "to overreach is Human," but Humans are amateurs compared to Dwarves. The Dwarves were delving too deep before the first Humans discovered fire and burned their skinny fingers.

Ever since the First Anvil was given to us, probably by Ormorek, by the way, though he had a little different name at the time, Dwarves have faced the certain knowledge that we will dig too deep, we will build to high, and we will fall.

But we always return, stronger, and the lesson from our failures is not that we should give up, but to build again, with even more precise stonework, stronger steel, and more clever runes of magic. That's why Dwarven work is what it is. We may fail, we may die, but we will never, ever, give up, in this life or the next.

That's one reason we think Ormorek might be on his way to something greater. He's a God that has died, fallen into darkness, and returned.

All this church foolishness aside, what if Ormorek actually claims the domain of Dying, but Coming Back and Trying Again?

Look around you, at these Council lands, with that horde of fools charging the Kraken, piling up waves of their own bodies, only to rise up and do it all again. It may be Arisetsu that brings us back, with grace ‘n all, but that charging right back into the fight? That’s all Ormorek, it is.

It might be that among Gods, Ormorek is already getting the most worship of 'em all, and the other Gods don't even see it yet.

Now that, that's crafty enough to be worthy of Dwarves, it is.

— Clip’s Note: Clip’s Note: “Author unknown. Frequently attributed to Mox Warcut.”

Ormorek’s Back Door

Civet coffee is made from partially digested coffee cherries that have passed through the intestines of an Asian palm civet. In mass production, the coffee cherries are force fed to civets and the beans are gathered from their excrement. The coffee supposed to be a delicacy, but professional taste tests mostly agree it’s just bad.

Which brings us to Ormorek worship! Ormorek is the God of Bitterness and Patron of Players who Quit. This part is well known; to quit in disgust is to fall into Ormorek’s domain, into the thrall of a god that died and really only kept hanging around out of a sense of profound bitterness.

His worshippers call the act of quitting: “Falling into the Maw of Ormorek,” to be swallowed out of existence.

But this is not the end, for us, or for Ormorek. Just as a god can refuse to die, players can COME BACK. Many do, as the thrill of foraging just one more lemon or slapping one more goblin senseless grows back into the full flower of addiction.

The Church of Ormorek, Reconstituted, calls this act of emergence, “Passing Through Ormorek’s Back Door.” Though he clenches down and bitterly tries to stop it, we squeeze back into the world, and relearn to enjoy it for the gift it is.

This, no doubt, pains Ormorek greatly, but we view it as part of his holy rehabilitation. As each player plops, fresh and steaming, back into the world, Ormorek becomes the God of Starting Over, of Trying Again.

Oromorek becomes the God of Respawning, whether he wants to or not. But we really don’t need coffee made that way.

Amen.

— From the Scripture of The Church of Ormorek, Reconstituted:

Holy Scripture: Why Arisetsu and Ormorek are BFFs

Clip’s Note: “Frequently, stories about the Gods of Alharth are highly conjectural and apocryphal. However, in this case the story comes from an unusually well-placed source, and might be given more credence.”

Arisetsu and the Puzzle Box of Ormorek, Part 1

Deep in a cave, lit just enough to emphasize the lack of lighting, Ormorek, God of Bitterness, formerly God of Dwarves, grudgingly worked at his task of creating undead monstrosities. “Why do these dwarves keep coming?” he muttered to himself. “At this rate, it’ll take days to replace the mummies they destroy.”

As he finished wrapping a corpse in dried and brittle bandages, he reached again for the power gleaned from Zek’s chalice and intoned “Arise, slave, and serve me.” Immediately, the newly created mummy gasped and sat up.

“Auugaahhh,” coughed the mummy and looked directly at his God and master. “Sure. Fine. Whatever.”

“Yes, my slave, remember your mortal life and despair! Remember your mortal name and your lost existence. What was your name, slave?”

The mummy stared blearily at Ormorek before croaking, “Phil.”

“Well... Phil. Some dwarves are coming. Go kill them before they try to lecture me about making undead. Things are bad and getting worse.”

Worse, from Ormorek’s perspective, was that dwarves killed by his mummies had developed an obnoxious tendency to come back from the dead, healthy and whole, and charge back into the fight, requiring even more mummified effort to kill again. He continued to grumble, “since when do mortals decide to not stay dead? Whose bright idea was that?”

At that moment, warmth and light suddenly flooded the dingy cave. Ormorek turned, squinting resentfully at the glowing form that had appeared.

“Oh. Of course. Who else? That’s just great.” Ormorek moaned.

Arisetsu, Goddess of Hope, Light, Warmth, and Setting Undead on Fire, had arrived.

Phil, the newly made mummy, fidgeted nervously with his dry wrappings.

Arisetsu and the Puzzle Box of Ormorek, Part 2

In a cave that would otherwise have been dreary and dark, Arisetsu, Goddess of Hope and Warmth, faced Ormorek, once God of Dwarves, now God of Bitterness and Giving Up. Phil, newly minted mummy and highly flammable abomination, continued to slowly edge away from a goddess renowned for her fiery dislike of undead.

Arisetsu swept her hand toward the cave wall and spoke sternly, “Watch! Watch and see what befalls these undead perversions.” Ormorek wearily obeyed, knowing what would come next.

The wall of the cave flickered and became a view of a mummy, hurriedly shambling through a similarly dreary section of cave, midway through an angry moan “-ill all die! There, I said it.”

An instant later, an amber bottle shattered on the mummy’s head, dousing it in liquid. The view shifted to a reveal a dwarf, rapidly backing away from the mummy and throwing another bottle of liquor, laughing and yelling, “Ha! That’ll do it!”

The dwarf’s retreat brought him nearly abreast with two wolves, one of whom gave a coughing bark that somehow sounded like two words. “Flame Strike.” In an blinding instant, the mummy vanished in a gout of fire and the picture faded back to a featureless cave wall.

Slightly farther away, Phil the mummy continued to do his best to look non-threatening.

Arisetsu turned the searing light of her eyes back to Ormorek and advanced. Ormorek, for his part, slumped against a rock. “See?” she continued, “See how little that dark power avails you? Give up the-” She paused as her foot bumped a small object, almost completely hidden in the dust.

Arisetsu leaned down and lifted the object, revealing it to be a perfect cube. “What is this?”

“Don’t touch tha- …. oh never mind.” said Ormorek from his morose slouching position.

Arisetsu gently blew the dust off the cube, revealing deep incisions on all sides, and that each side of the cube had been painted in a grid of brightly colored squares. She held it in both hands, and was startled to see that the cube was made of smaller stone cubes, ingeniously held together by some hidden pivoting mechanism.

“This is fascinating. It seem so …. different than mummies and death. What is it?” Arisetsu said, fiddling with the cube, twisting it so the pattern of colored squares changed.

“Nothing. Just a stupid puzzle box. The dwarves make them. It’s worthless.” muttered Ormorek, still glowering at the wall.

“It’s wonderful! How does it work?”

“I don’t know!” Ormorek shouted. “I don’t know! I taught them how to make the damn things and I can’t remember how to solve them anymore.”

Aristestu paused, regarding the broken God before her and the intact toy in her hands, simply listening.

Ormorek turned back to the wall. “Feh. Keep it. I don’t remember anything about it.”

From not far away came the sound of breaking glass, a loud, dull foomp, and a gleeful cackle.

Phil the mummy was nowhere to be seen.

Arisetsu looked at Ormorek thoughtfully. “Some dwarves are coming now. It sounds like they haven’t forgotten you. Maybe you should ask them.”

— Clip’s Note: “Truly obsessed scholars of Dwarven lore will note the connection between the puzzle box and the profession of cheesemaking. Could this history have something to do with why cheesemaking is so powerful a skill in Alharth?”

  1. Anyone may self-identify as a "Follower". There is no evidence of actual acceptance criteria.