Tuarakh, the Verdant Maw
"Strength is not in the hand that kills the wolf, but in the one that guards the flock."
— Saying of the Uuthraali Shepherd-Priests
Titles: The Verdant Maw, Rootfather, Split-Tusk, Twin-Breath of the Wild, The Horn of the Herd
Alignment: Neutral
Domains: Nature, Life, Death, War, Peace
Symbol: A tusked skull entwined with thorned vine and horn, split clean down the center
Favored Weapon: Shepherd’s crook that becomes a greataxe of living wood
Worshipers: Druids, shepherd-priests, wardens, battle-seers, orcish elders, deathspeakers
Overview
Tuarakh, the Verdant Maw, is the ancient Orcish god of balance and guardianship—overseer of life and death, peace and war, strength and restraint. He is the god not just of natural cycles, but of care: the strength it takes to protect rather than dominate, to kill only when needed, and to guide one’s people with both patience and power. His roots lie deep in the traditions of the Uuthraali shepherds, whose watch over their herds taught the first orcs the sacred rhythm of life, loss, and return.
To the orcs of the plains, Tuarakh is not just a god of the wild—he is the guardian of the living, the one who walks ahead of the herd, behind it, and within it.
Mythology
Long ago, before steel and siege, the orcs of Uuthraal were nomadic keepers of great horned beasts—the karnuun—across the endless steppe. It is said that Tuarakh was born from the breath of a dying karnuun bull, slain not by fang or war, but to feed a hungry village in winter. From that sacred act—a life taken in sorrow, not rage—rose the god who embodied both necessity and mercy.
Tuarakh taught the shepherds how to walk with their beasts, how to defend without conquering, and how to know when to raise the axe and when to lower it. He taught that strength is the hand that holds the line, not the one that breaks it, and that the shepherd's crook and the warrior's blade are but two halves of the same truth.
He became known as the Twin-Breath of the Wild: both the warm wind of summer that grows the grass, and the cutting gale that prunes the herd.
Worship and Decline
In early orcish culture, especially among the plainsfolk of Uuthraal, Tuarakh's worship was as much lived as it was prayed. His priesthood arose from the shepherd clans—warriors who guided herds by day and performed sacred funerals by moonlight. To these priest-shepherds, each birth was a promise, each death a seed.
But as orcish lands were overtaken by empires, and the plains broken into provinces, the role of the shepherd faded into stereotype. Colonizing gods brought ideas of dominion and conquest, fragmenting orcish spirituality. Meanwhile, ancestor worship, once a branch of Tuarakh’s doctrine, began to overshadow his teachings entirely.
Though his name is now whispered more than spoken, hidden shepherd-priests still carry his rites across the windblown grasslands, walking between herd and horizon.
Modern Role
Now considered a minor idol of the Ammondell pantheon, Tuarakh survives in scattered rites of harvest, herd-blessing, and sacred battle. He is invoked by those who must protect without losing themselves to fury, who live at the border between civilization and wilderness.
His image sometimes appears as a cloaked orcish figure with horns braided into their hair, a crook in one hand and a branch-wrapped axe in the other, standing watch over a grazing field or funeral pyre.
Tenets of Tuarakh
- Strength lies in restraint, as much as in rage.
- The axe and the crook serve the same master: the need of the people.
- Protect the herd, and in doing so, protect the land.
- Do not strike in anger, but never flinch from the strike that must be made.
- Let no death go unhonored, and no birth go unwatched.
- Balance is not peace—it is the walk between shadow and sun.
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