Gul Spell-Speaker

Gul Spell-Speaker is an ascended Orc diety, revered in the Orcish Pantheon as a patron to the warlocks and others who want to uncover secret or forbidden knowledge. Orcs hold that he has the domain of all arcane arts and all those who would use them. He is known as the Bloodscribe for having created his body of work. Through him, divine spellcasters gain access to the Air, Earth, Fire, and Water domains, and through his church much of arcane lore is revealed. His sacred weapon, the use of which he was famous for in life, is the club. His symbol is an orcish geometric pattern considered instructive in his teachings.

History

Gul Spell-Speaker has kept much of his personal legend hidden, and it is mostly known obliquely from where he entered into the legends of others. He is held as a contemporary (and perhaps rival) to Buggug Angel-Slayer, and contradictorily as having lived several centuries later during the early forrays of Bastonia into the Lordless Lands. Some legends assert that he became a god through discovery of the secrets of divinity similar to Xuthakug Three-Eyes, whereas others say he struck bargains with various other gods for the same divinity. If anything, it is his ability to have created a contradictory legend within the otherwise reliable Orcish Oral Tradition that is responsible for his godhood, with some even going so far as to claim the orcs themselves willed him into being.

In keeping with his usual habits, he rarely corrects any of these contradictions and refuses to clarify whether any or all of them are misconcieved.

Relationships

Gul is the loquacious among the orc pantheon, paying homage to the Fire-Keeper and often appearing unlooked-for in the courts of any or all of his fellow dieties, with the noted exceptions of those of the evil primordials, Ogharod the Conqueror and Kodo the Devourer. As a native, or at least settled resident of Pandemonium, he is occasionally also present in Elysium (particularly at the Schola Sylvestri or Lum's Hollow) or the Abyss and deals politely with the gods and beings in those realms.

Appearance

Gul appears as a relatively pale older orc male, with prominant lower tusks and a bald head marked heavily in blue tattooing. He wears rich robes of fine materials, the like of which are rarely seen all together with mortal Orcs within the nation, nearly in keeping with Bastonia's style of courtly wizard dress, save for the fact that they are, as with all orcish clothing, decorated heavily with orc pictographs.

Realm

Gul's nature means he is unable to maintain a fixed holding in either Elysium or the Abyss as might otherwise be expected, and instead occupies a realm in Pandemonium which is relatively stable, known as the Plains of the Thaumaturge. The realm, held in relative stability by his own magic, is occasionally sought out by pilgrims, who must be powerful indeed as spellcasters to even reach him.

Providence

Unlooked for or hopeless insights into desired knowledge are usually a mark of his providence. While he tries to guide his followers through dreams and hallucinatory visions, such visits are often so cryptic as to leave them with more questions than answers.

Servants

Gul is served by, and according to some the creator of, an orcish-appearing caste of Lillends.

Unique Servants

The Beast of Dreams

For a divine herald, Gul calls upon the capabilities of a huge owl-bear shaman known only by the epithet of the Beast of Dreams. A powerful thaumaturge in his own right, the Beast of Dreams is said to have attempted to betray a deal with Gul and now serves Gul with all the powers the Beast had sought, but with no mind to use them.

Church

Gul's church, though not densely populated, is common throughout the Orcish Nation, as all who would use arcane magic do so supposedly through his benevolence, or at least would do well to learn from his example and take advantage of the knowledge he left in his wake. Therefore, evidence of his church can be found anywhere where arcane spellcasters can within the Orcish Nation.

Worshippers

Sorcerers and Wizards, and those who would aspire to be either, fill out the ranks of Gul's believers, as do a great many aspiring to other kinds of secret knowledge, such as some spies, most scholars, and many adventurers. Gul's church places few strictures on its followers, and for those who follow Gul even some aspects of the Fire-Keeper's law are not as rigid.

Clergy

Gul's clergy are often summoners and thaumaturges, following in his example by calling up outsiders of all kinds to bind or make deals with. Their clergy dress in a manner consistent with his example, favouring, as many arcane orders do the world over, the colour blue in their dress. They share his mark of a ritually-tattooed skull cap as their most reliable identifier, and unlike many other clerical orders within the Orcish Nation, hold themselves apart from the common rabble, busy with their research.

Temples & Shrines

The orcs are semi-nomadic. Therefore it is a great truism that almost all shrines and temples need to be able to be moved once every few years, which is difficult for a church centered on arcane lore. As a result, most shrines to Gul Spell-Speaker are personal, and so as varied as the wealth and taste of his various worshippers.

Like many other orc dieties, he does have some permanent sacred sites. Summoner Rock, in the northeast of the Orcish Nation's territory, is home to a permanent temple to Gul and is known to be a place where planar crossings are peculiarly easy.

Holy Texts

Unlike most of the orcish dieties, Gul supposedly left behind a body of work, known as the Baghar Testaments, named for the city in which they were originally found, well after his apparent death. The work, if scribed exactingly from the original, comprises 42 volumes of arcane formulae, essays, commentaries on the teachings of the Fire-Keeper, observations of various outsiders and aberrations, communicated findings supposedly from the Confederacy of Sages, astrological and astronomical observations, and other trivia.

There is no rhyme or reason to the order in which material is presented in these 42 volumes, and in many cases the same observation exists in multiple volumes or writings on a given topic can be found in all 42, each a separate piece of a collective whole. It is believed that these books were originally Gul's working notes, and that he either was never able to curate them, or else never intended to. They are written in orc pictograms as much as possible though some passages are written in various elemental scripts. In order to fully consume all 42 volumes, you would require fluency in orcish, ignan, aquan, celestial, terran, and infernal. Why the language of the wind is not represented in the writing is unclear.

Church History

Though his followers are common, the church erected to follow Gul Spell-Speaker is too informal to have a solidified heirarchy, and so rarely acts as a single monolithic entity, or even a general trend, in orcish politics.

Holidays

Rare magical goods are often sacrificed on festival days by Gul's followers, in private ceremonies, in hopes that the gifts will earn the petitioner his favour.