Beliefs of the Great Forest

The orcs of the Great Forest believe that it once stretched across the whole of what is now the Empire and the Mallum.

Introduction

During the Autumn Equinox 385YE, the Assembly of Pride took advantage of an opportunity to send missionaries and wayfarers to other nations that did not share their understanding of the Way - not to convert them, but to increase the Empire's understanding of their beliefs. Their mandate was enacted by Neala Blackhawk, who encouraged priests versed in Pride to visit the Great Forest Orcs. The timing seems propitious, given the Navarr and the orcs were working together to recover their homes in the Eaves of Peytaht. Unfortunately, events quickly spiralled out of control when news of what had happened at Hope's Rest, and later among the Black Wind reached them.

The priests visiting the Great Forest Orcs were able to increase their understanding of the Great Forest Orcs spiritual beliefs before events overtook them and what began in celebration ended in anger and fear. Apparently Chief Vallack has instructed his people to have no more discussion of spiritual matters for fear that the Empire use their beliefs and traditions as justification to declare them heretics.

Then in Summer 388YE following Bloodcrow Knott's declaration of his highest calling, the Unshackled Assembly asked Skywise Rykana to lead a delegation of mystagogues and shamans to discover more of the ancestors of the Great Forest Orcs. The major obstacle to learning more about the ancestors of the sept was that so much was known already about them. Still the Unshackled had an advantage that the earlier visitors did not - with the help of the Illarawm mystagogues, they can hear the words of the Great Forest ancestors, something no human could ever manage. As a result the Imperial Orcs are able to discover a few things about the philosophy of the Great Forest Orcs, which is all that was left to learn.

The first part of this report, From the Pride Assembly comes from the (primarily Navarr) priests of Pride who accompanied the Great Forest Orcs back to their homes in the Barrens, with a few notes from priests who have spoken to orcs settling in Therunin, and later Miaren and Hercynia. The second part, beginning with From the Illarawm covers more recent information learned by the Unshackled.

From the Pride Assembly

Virtues

It's clear that the orcs of the Great Forest have been discussing the Way with our people – both their neighbours in Therunin and with people from many other nations while walking the trods. Their general consensus is that it has little to interest them, being primarily concerned with the souls of humans. Interestingly, however, they don't deny the value of the virtues although they don't enumerate and distinguish between them the way Imperial citizens do. Rather they have a small number of teachings that lay out a route by which they might seek to avoid the Howling Abyss - although their conception of it is different to that of the Imperial Orcs. These teachings are very close that what the Empire would consider Wisdom, Vigilance, and Loyalty in particular.

Spirits and Trees

When the Great Forest Orcs first came to the Empire as refugees, there was a belief that they believed in “invisible spirits” that live in the forest and protect them from the Howling Abyss. The main breakthrough in recent discussions was regarding the nature of these spirits.

Unlike the Imperial Orcs, and many of the other septs the Empire is familiar with, the Great Forest Orcs do not believe that their ancestors “cross” the Howling Abyss. They do not believe in the concept of a world beyond this one; for the orcs of the Great Forest only the material world exists. They do believe that the world has spiritual aspects that cannot be understood by any living mortal, however. Speaking with some of their shaman can apparently be a challenging experience because they employ a great deal of metaphor and symbolism. One of the priests involved in discussion, a mystic from distant Wintermark, apparently had some success teasing out these symbols and did good work exploring their parables and proverbs.

It is reasonably well know that the Great Forest Orcs conceive of the "Great Forest" as being an immense primeval woodland that once stretched across all of what is today the Empire and the Mallum. They've spoken of this before, and part of their reason for travelling the trods was to "reconnect" with pockets of this ancient woodland they say still exists especially in the wild woods of Varushka. The "Great Forest" is also apparently manifest in any number of weirwood groves, and the orcs have several times demonstrated a particular facility for working with the towering trees.

The belief in the Great Forest leads them to believe that the Howling Abyss is a consequence of the destruction of that forest; that it lies in the gaps between the remaining woodlands and as they widen the Abyss becomes more potent. After death, the Howling Abyss will seek to consume their spirits. Those who are strong enough to resist will remain in the world, and become part of the spirit of the Great Forest. They conceive of this state as being part of a grand gestalt of every Great Forest Orc ancestor. Unlike many other orcs, those of the Great Forest don't usually differentiate the voices they hear as belonging to one ancestor or another. Rather they think of them all as being the voice of the Great Forest. A chorus of voices, made up of all who have gone before who had the willpower and “silence of the soul” to resist the Howling Abyss.

Weirwood Groves

This is one of the reasons they are drawn to weirwood groves. They believe that the groves are the hearts of the ancient forest, or the most profound expression of its original expanse. They use rhythmic music and dance, as well as the more traditional bouts of physical prowess, to increase the volume of the ancestors' words but they believe that being in living groves of weirwood makes those voices clearer. They consider their prowess with weirwood, both in harvesting it and shaping it, to be a consequence of their connection to their ancestral spirits.

Doctrine

The priests of the Pride assembly who spoke with the Great Forest Orcs have tentatively proposed that their beliefs don't seem to contradict either the Doctrine of the Howling Abyss or the Doctrine of the Ancestors.

They don't quite agree that an orc must be "known for their deeds" - rather there are several routes to becoming strong enough to resist destruction in the Howling Abyss, and their conception of the Howling Abyss and what it means to cross it is certainly different to that of most Imperial Orcs, but the fundamentals appear similar. In some ways there is similarity with the beliefs of the Yerende sect, but where the Ossian sept values "diligence" the Great Forest Orcs focus seems to be more around concepts of clarity, awareness of the world around them, self-knowledge, and commitment.

Obviously, these emissaries are not doctrinal scholars, and the decision is not theirs to make. Several have expressed the hope that recent developments in the Synod - the commitment of the Navarr to stand by their allies in the Great Forest in particular - will mean there is further opportunity to increase Imperial understanding of these allied orcs.

From the Illarawm

This Place

• The Great Forest sept believe their spirits literally join with the Great Forest rather than passing over to an imagined afterlife

The Great Forest Orcs believe one thing the Unshackled do - they believe that when you die, the Howling Abyss awaits, and that only the strongest survive. However, they regard the idea that you pass "over" the Abyss as a quaint and foolish notion with absolutely no basis in reality. They take pains to avoid offending their guests, but they can't fully conceal that they think Imperial Orcs beliefs are somewhat primitive and simplistic.

Instead, the Great Forest Orcs believe that those spirits (they also scorn the mention of souls) that survive contact with the Howling Abyss go on to reside in the Great Forest. As far as they are concerned, the evidence for this is very clear - orcs can still hear their ancestors. How could one hear them if they were somewhere else? You go to the Great Forest - and then you can hear the ancestors because that's where the ancestors are. They are very clear on this point. It is not an allegory to them: they believe as literal fact that their ancestors' spirits dwell in the Great Forest.

What is more, they believe that their ancestors become part of the Great Forest. Here they do use an allegory - pointing out that a forest is composed of thousands of individual trees. Each tree is unique but it is the forest that is important. Each Great Forest Orc who survives the Howling Abyss becomes part of one Great Forest - in the same way that each tree is part of one forest.

According to the spiritual thinkers of the sept, the existence of the Howling Abyss is due to the destruction of the Great Forest. Millennia ago, the Great Forest covered all the lands of the modern Empire, stretching from one coast to the other. In those times, there was no Howling Abyss - every orc who died became part of the Great Forest. Wherever the trees were cut down, the Great Forest was diminished and the Howling Abyss emerged in the gaps torn open by the destruction.

A handful of Great Forest Orcs are driven by the idea that what was lost could be reversed. They believe that the Great Forest could be restored, and that doing so would close up the Howling Abyss. Most members of the sept, particularly the older ones, take a more fatalistic view, believing that the loss of the Great Forest is irreversible and that the best they can do is to arrest the decline. But they fear the day will eventually come when the last of the Great Forest is cut down and then there will be no more ancestors - every single orc who dies will fall into the Howling Abyss and be destroyed, and all the spirits of those who went before will be consumed.

Urge for Going

• The Great Forest sept is broadly disinterested in other spiritual beliefs
• They believe that all orc spirits that resist the Howling Abyss remain in the world

The Great Forest Orcs don't spend a lot of time wondering about the religious beliefs of other orcs. They know the Druj believe that if they die outside their ancestral lands then their souls are destroyed by the Howling Abyss. But they only know about this because the need to reclaim their ancient lands is what drives them to constant war with the Empire and led them to conquer the Barrens. They don't know what the Karass or the Rahvin believe or that the Vendarri believed. Such things are just not important to them.

When pushed, some Great Forest Orcs will express the view that orcs of other septs become part of the Great Forest when they die. They are very clear that those orcs don't "pass over" the Abyss, they simply don't believe that notion bears any fruit at all. If other septs can hear their ancestors, it is because those ancestors are still here with them. So those ancestors may also be part of the Great Forest.

Wiser members of the sept suspect that might not be true. They can hear the voices that make up the Great Forest - but they don't hear any voices they recognise as being Druj or Karass or Unshackled. That could be because they don't have a connection to those ancestors. "You can't see every tree in the forest, even from the tallest mountain" as one of them puts it. But it could also be because their ancestors are elsewhere.

Some suspect that the ancestors of a sept like the Druj are somewhere else in the world - linked to places or sites that are important to the Druj. They point out that the Illarawm build great ossuaries of bones that help them to hear their ancestors. Perhaps the Illarawm have found a way to tie their ancestors to the place where they house the bones? Maybe these places have worth, someone suggests. It's an intriguing idea and one on which the Great Forest spiritual scholars are divided.

Ironically when the Illarawm demonstrate the techniques associated with the Living Bridge, allowing orcs to hear the ancestors of other septs, that only reinforces their beliefs that all ancestors probably reside in the Great Forest. In their view it demonstrates that all orc ancestors are in some fundamental way communal. There might be different septs, but ultimately all orcs are part of the same species and their ancestors are the collective ancestors of all orcs. So it is no great leap to understand that they all dwell together in the Great Forest.

A few even suggest that maybe the human ancestors reside in the Great Forest as well. What if their idea of a big maze is really just a metaphor for the Great Forest? They brush aside the argument that humans can't hear their ancestors - they are pretty sure that humans must have ancestors, they just don't know how to listen to them. What if centuries of relying on liao for awareness has left humans so spiritually stunted that they can no longer hear their ancestors? It is clear they have views that are very similar to those of the Illarawm - they regard humans as "broken" in some way; that there is something "wrong" with humans and that is why they can't hear their ancestors. That if the orcs could just find a way to "fix" them, then they might no longer be reliant on hallucinogenic drugs to commune with their ancestors.

Lessons on the Path

• Great Forest Orcs have seven adages that they encourage each other to live by
• They believe that embracing these seven principles ensures that an orc joins the Great Forest after death

Ultimately the Great Forest Orcs don't really care that much about the spiritual beliefs of other orc septs and even less for the religious beliefs of humans. They know what happens to them when they die and they're happy to share that insight with others, especially with other orcs.

All of this contributes to the fact that the Great Forest Orcs have no particular interest in the Way. They see it as something by humans, for humans. In place of the Virtues, the Great Forest Orcs have a small number of teachings or adages that they believe allow them to avoid the Howling Abyss. Collectively, the teachings seem close to what the Empire might consider individual virtues like Wisdom, Vigilance, and Loyalty, but the Great Forest Orcs regard that as a deeply foolish way to look at it, comparing it to a wheelwright trying to identify and separate different spokes of the same wheel.

There are seven adages of the Great Forest Orcs, four of which are in opposition to each other, while the other three are complimentary, all of which is considered spiritually important. They believe that by embracing the seven adages, by simultaneously pursuing these teachings, an orc has the best chance of enduring or avoiding the Howling Abyss and becoming part of the Great Forest.

To the Great Forest sept, the adages are not simply spiritually important - they are deeply practical life lessons that they believe help an orc to achieve success in life, and in death.

Forget To Doubt

A belief in the self is essential for an orc to pass over the Abyss. The Great Forest sept teach their children to proactively solve problems by themselves. The young are encouraged to take on as much responsibility as they can manage. As they grow older, Great Forest Orcs practice "learning how to forget to doubt" which is a technique in which they try to view the world around them as something that is fundamentally under their control. The goal is to foster a sense of self-belief that any outcome is possible and thereby abandon fear of failure, helplessness and self-doubt.

Make Your Pack Heavy

Hunters of the Great Forest will often be away from home for days or weeks at a time. When they prepare for a trip, they encourage each other to make their pack heavy. At the simplest level it means making sure you are ready for the trip ahead, that you have everything you need. But what it really expresses is the idea that you should embrace adversity now, while you are well-fed and rested, so that you will can endure adversity when it comes. "Make your pack heavy" is considered to be in opposition to the adage to "forget to doubt".

Start With Your Death

All life is arguably a journey towards death, but the Great Forest Orcs don't fear death, because they know that when they die they can become part of the Great Forest. But they can only achieve this if they focus on that goal. Great Forest shamans teach their fellows to imagine how they want others to remember them. To think about the way they will be seen by others, the notable achievements they will accomplish, the virtues that they will demonstrate (with virtue here having a different meaning to that the pilgrims of the Way ascribe to it). Each day should be directed to becoming the person you want others to admire - to achieving the deeds you want others to remember.

Break Fast Then Fight

This words of this adage are an encouragement to have a hearty breakfast every day. The deeper spiritual truth is about avoiding the pitfalls of the world that distract you from what is important. The idea is that warriors preparing for battle become obsessed with the fight to the point that they overlook breaking their fast. This is a mistake - the fight is important, but it is not urgent. The point is that there is a time and a place for everything - that you must focus on what is important in the moment. "Break fast then fight" is considered to be in opposition to the adage to "start with your death".

Share The Hunt

Groups of Great Forest Orcs are highly communitarian - most of what they have is shared with the community. The importance of sharing the meat from a hunt is taught to every youngster, both as an important lesson in survival but as a way to grow as an orc. The lesson is ultimately not about hunting, but about seeking solutions to problems that try to share the burden and the benefits collectively. The sept chooses leaders they believe are best able to share the hunt, orcs who seek mutually beneficial outcomes in all their interactions with others.

Think Before You Think

This idea has some resonance of the Urizeni principles of poise. They believe that those who are spiritually awakened have to learn how to step outside their feelings and act without being directed by their emotions. Although they don't call them emotions, they call them "pre-thoughts" - the idea mixes together the idea of emotions and assumptions and prejudices. To practice thinking before you think, you have to try to approach every problem with an open mind and not assume you know the answer. You have to listen to people and hear what they say before you tell them your own thoughts.

A Little Of Everything

The Great Forest is an important metaphor for the sept's view of the world. A forest teems with life, hundreds of different species of plants, trees, insects, animals. It takes a little of everything to create a forest. To become part of the Great Forest you need to take a little of everything with you. This adage encourages Great Forest Orcs to accept other viewpoints and try to find ways to involve other members of the sept who disagree with them or who they disagree with. The goal is to find outcomes that are better than any one individual could achieve by themselves.

The Way It Is

• The Illarawm attempt to hear the voices of the Great Forest Orc ancestors is a mixed success

When the Illarawm explain they would like to form a bridge to the Great Forest Orc ancestor, it spurs much discussion among their hosts, but eventually agreement is forthcoming to let them try. The group travel together to the Eaves of Peytaht the huge weirwood grove that is part of the much larger Great Forest of Peytaht. It is often said that the Heart of Peytaht is cursed in some manner - possessed by some dark spirit that watches from between the trees and pressed on the unwelcome traveller. The Illarawm inquire about this, but the Great Forest Orcs won't be drawn on the details. They say only that is is not only orcs who are entwined with the Great Forest as they are. They confirm that there is a will somewhere within Peytaht, something they refer to only as the Presence. It will not harm those who are the guests of the Great Forest Orcs, they say - as a result of ancient bargains and understanding between the Presence and the Great Forest orcs - but to come here as an invader would be exceedingly dangerous. Luckily, they are clear that they trust the Imperial Orcs, even if they don't fully trust the rest of the Empire.

The weirwood groves here are especially important to the Great Forest Orcs, and it is notable that the feeling of being intensely watched falls away here - this unseen Presence seems to be unable to penetrate these ancient boughs. Their own shamans can often hear their ancestors, even outside the Great Forest, but here, at the beating heart of Peytaht is where the voices of the ancestors are loudest. If the Illarawm have a hope to hear their ancestors then it should be here. At the request of the Illarawm mystagogues, Chief Vallack, the leader of the Great Forest Orcs has given the mystagogue the name of one of his ancestors, his great grandfather, Chief Horbin. According to Vallack, his forebear speaks to him often, offering advice and encouragement especially when things are at their most difficult.

Despite his experiences, Vallack doesn't believe he has a particularly personal connection with his predecessor. As far as the Chief is concerned, his connection is with the Great Forest itself. When he hears the voice of Horbin, the ancestor speaks to him as part of the Great Forest, the great communal spiritual force of all those who have gone before. Horbin was killed by Dawnish knights long before Vallack was even born and so he never met the ancient chief, but his grandfather told him stories of his father when he was growing up. Candidly he's not even certain that the voice he hears is even Horbin - that is simply the name he uses, because the sort of things that the Great Forest says to him are the sort of things that his grandfather told him Horbin used to say.

To the surprise of many, the attempt is easy. Effortless almost. The Illarawm accompanying their mystagogue play music on their strange instruments to help rouse the blood, while the orcs of the Great Forest sept create a loud and insistent rhythmic drumming by beating the trunks of the nearby trees with sticks. Within moments the mystagogue is overwhelmed by the voices of the Great Forest Orcs. Whether she hears Horbin or not is impossible to say - afterwards she says it was like hearing the voice of a thousand different ancestors. She was aware of voices offering patient advice and supportive encouragement, urging her on. Each voice was distinct, but somehow their voices were together, like a choir of singers in harmony, even though they were saying different things.

The experience produces no great insight - the Great Forest and the ancestors the mystagogue hears have little to say that their hosts have not already shared. Still it is a numinous experience, and somewhat awe-inspiring for a member of the Illarawm who seek to "hear" as many ancestors as possible.

Further Reading

• Great Forest Orcs

• All I ask of you - 388YE Summer wind of fortune detailing the Unshackled approach to the Great Forest Orcs