Curse of ruin

The curse of ruin (sometimes capitalized Curse of Ruin), or hgar'Gruum in the Orc language, is the supposed supernatural inheritance of orcs and half-orcs from Gruumsh, the Ruiner that drives those of orcish heritage to acts of violence and rage. This is a common but mistaken belief.

Consequences

Orcs themselves fear the curse of ruin, which causes them to polarize either toward chaos (accepting their fate) or toward law (rejecting that fate). On the Menagerie Coast, the city of Othe has long attracted orcs and half-orcs who believe the curse of ruin caused them to lash out at loved ones; in Othe they seek peace. Some orcs blame the curse for their own mistakes.

The union of orcs and goblinkin is still strictly taboo among Xhorhasian nomads because the elders fear the madness that would afflict a soul with both the curse of ruin and the goblinkins' real Curse of Strife. As a result, despite many orcs in Xhorhas living in mixed bands with bugbears, most half-orcs in Xhorhas have human or drow blood. Also in Xhorhas, there are those who believe that the curse of ruin is actually just a tale created by the Kryn Dynasty, to cause fear and make people more willing to go through consecution, since this is known to protect against the goblinoids' own curse. Some Xhorhasians of orcish lineage unaffected by the curse of ruin still believe in it, and try to help those affected by its tendencies.

Across Exandria, when superstitious people accuse orcs of being under the influence of the curse, any kind of annoyed reaction reinforces the stereotype. Moreover, in Tal'Dorei, the shunning of orcs by "fairer folk" was a self-fulfilling fear, creating resentment among some of those orcs that drove them toward lives of chaotic destruction.

Many folk in the Dwendalian Empire still fear the ancient legends of the curse of ruin despite orcs having become some of the Empire's most accomplished soldiers.

Behind the scenes

In the original Critical Role: Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting sourcebook, the inherited blood of Gruumsh was generally treated as one of the real influences driving orcs and half-orcs to violence. The creation myth of the orcs, treated as potentially inaccurate, held that orcs were created when Corellon spilled Gruumsh's blood in the Calamity, and the blood corrupted the elves and possibly the humans who served in Corellon's armies at that battle. The blood was said to continue searing the minds of orcs several centuries later, depriving them of rational thought. According to this lore, what remained of their elvish and human ancestry still longed to treat others with love and tenderness.

In the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount sourcebook, this inherited tendency was called the "curse of ruin" and stated outright to be a false belief. In the "Explorer's Guide to Wildemount Q&A and Fireside Chat with Matthew Mercer" (Sx53), Matthew Mercer discussed the process that led to the reconsideration of the universality and causes of orcs' behavior:

“

I've been in a discussion for a while amongst a lot of creators in this space that orcs were-- always got the shaft, even though where they were born from, and really came to prominence in the Lord of the Rings as this kind of-- this idea of industrialization and the evil of, in many ways, of an exploitive capitalist society. A lot of that also lent to orcs being an unnecessarily lambasted and evil-touted entity in a lot of media. I fell into that as well. I grew up reading Lord of the Rings, and in all the media I consumed the orcs were just bad, and it isn't until you begin to expand your horizons and see other people's perspectives that there's a lot of inherent cultural coding in them that makes it important to ensure that you don't continue to-- and as best as you can, to continue to enforce those unnecessary elements, and so that was something that we had discussed not wanting to do anyway, especially a part of the way I built this world intentionally was to bring our world away from the idea that there is good and evil inherently within people.

And while the first game was much more black-and-white, that was more from a narrative base, and finding creatures that were more classically monstrous and easy to fit into that space. With Wildemount I wanted to explore the aspect of evil as-- morality is relative, but evil is born from experience and intent, not from bloodline. Not from lineage. So when we came around to making this book, it was very important that we've managed to steer away from that classic idea of the orcs. Even the marauders that we had situated in Tal'Dorei's campaign guide, which was meant to be just one facet, but even then, there were facets of that book that were lazy, looking back on it. I'm not necessarily very proud of that. And so, that's part of the learning process as well. [...] So it was-- yeah, it was not necessarily challenging, because I think we were all excited to do that. It was just finding the right way to do it from a lore standpoint. And since the mechanics have already been toyed with on the Wizards of the Coast side, it made it an easier fit for us to find something we were happy with and put in the book.

”

– 

Matthew Mercer

[!h]

Actual influence of Gruumsh

Gruumsh's blood did grant orcs endurance and strength, but didn't convey his evil. However, those who actually 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. The Commandments of the Ruiner instruct his followers to conquer and destroy, and to feel nothing but fury or joy. Following Gruumsh's banishment, some of the aimless Odakar orcs of Wildemount, despite being separated from the god's direct sway, were still seduced by the Ruiner into savagery and broke off to form the Jez-Araz.