Gorum

The clash of sword on shield is my song. I am in your armor, your blade. Strike at your foes and I will guide your hand, for I thirst only for battle. —Gorumskagat IV
Soldiers call out prayers to Our Lord in Iron, god of battle, strength, and weapons. Gorum emphasizes strength and power, encouraging his followers to seek out war and combat as the ultimate way to worship him.

Said to have been born from the first battles between humans and orcs, Gorum appears as a suit of spiked plate armor with blazing red eyes. Though claimed by half-orcs, humans, and orcs as one of their own, the god cares nothing for these divisions except insofar as they relate to battle and strife. He believes in strength and power, the verdict of the sword, and the music of clashing iron. He does not favor good or evil, and the only right he confers upon mortals is the right to fight for their next breath. As long as people struggle against themselves and each other, Gorum’s teachings live on. The greatest moments in a Gorumite’s life are those spent locked in close combat, with every moment threatening annihilation—all else is dull and dreary.
When the dwarves drove the orcs upward out of the Darklands and onto the surface world in their legendary Quest for Sky, the savage hordes fought with primitive human tribes that were all that remained of the broken human empires. In an era of conflict and bloodshed, new pains and passions unknown in all the centuries before broke forth in mortal souls and carved themselves in broken flesh. Before this conflict, his name was not known, but as human clashed with orc, Gorum rose into prominence as the divine personification of horrible, exhilarating war. Wherever was has risen throughout the world ever since, Gorum has been there to inspire mortals to greatness on the battlefield. Under his iron gaze, the worthy find glory—and those who fall are forgotten.
Gorum’s priests believe that if the world ever became free of war, his spirit would abandon Golarion in disgust, but he would eagerly return should mortals ever take up arms again. Despite advances in magic, technology, and the tools of war, Our Lord in Iron is remarkably constant, for his focus is on battle itself, not the reasons for it or the types of weapons used. Whether a battle is between orcs and humans, goblins and dwarves, or elves and creatures from beyond the stars, Gorum is there to glory in the vital energy of conf lict.
Gorum’s entire focus is on battle and the crucible of struggle. He understands the need for archery, siege weapons, and stealth, but nothing satisfies him more than face-to-face melee combat in which sweat, blood, and fear fog the air. While Torag represents the tactical side of war, and Sarenrae its necessity as a last resort when evil cannot be stopped in any other way, Gorum is the excitement, battle-lust, and brutality of combat. He is indifferent to whether his followers are knights in plate mail, goblins wielding dogslicers, or children armed with table knives—anyone willing to put up a fight, no matter how pathetic or pointless, is worth swinging at. He does not condone the wild slaughter of innocents and invalids, for such acts are the parlance of murderers and butchers, not of warriors. Likewise, he can be merciful, giving quarter to those who surrender, but he is quick to slay any who pretend to submit in the hope of striking while the superior opponent is unaware, and those who refuse to fight at all are barely worth a scornful beheading.
It is more pleasing to Gorum to see a soldier fight a score of battles in his lifetime than die in the first, and if compromises or truces mean warriors live on to fight again, he supports diplomacy over seeing every soldier fight to a pointless death, but he doesn’t care for negotiations and quickly loses interest when tempers cool and blades are sheathed. Battles of words and wits tire him, not because he lacks the intellect for them, but because he finds them as pointless and unsatisfying as crushing ants—true challenges are those where lives are on the line and a moment’s hesitation can mean blood and pain. As good and evil have little meaning for him, he may fight demons one day and noble dragons another, just to challenge himself and test his own mettle. Among other deities, Gorum is seen as warrior with few equals, but prone to rage and destruction when he grows bored.
Artistic depictions of Gorum are uncommon, as his followers prefer mighty deeds and boastful words to quieter, more permanent works of art. Of the depictions that are created, however, his image, shape, or shadow is often drawn in blood or hammered together out of scraps of metal. A few temples with forges have molds for casting weapons, and the spillover channels in the molds lead to hand-sized receptacles shaped like spiked, armored men with Gorum’s symbol on their chests. These heavy, inadvertently created icons of the faith are used both as holy symbols and for focusing group prayers before battle.
Gorum shows his favor through iron armor or weapons that gleam or leak blood when touched. Certain legendary warriors are known for leaving a trail of blood and gore behind them even when not in battle, and sometimes a favored, lone warrior outnumbered by a superior force manages to survive because his enemies slip on the blood-slick bodies of the dead. Gorum’s anger most often manifests in sudden patches of rust that appear to completely ruin a valued weapon or piece of armor, and he has been known to punish a cowardly warrior by causing his armor to fall apart into a pile of rusty scraps just as enemies converge on him. His holy symbol is a mountaintop with an enormous sword jutting from it.

Divine Domains

confidence, destruction, might, zeal

Holy Books & Codes

Gorum has no sacred text, but a collection of seven heroic poems called the Gorumskagat explains the church’s creed. Young priests quickly learn to recite these poems perfectly, as elders beat them every time they make a mistake. The poems may be spoken or sung, and each has a distinct rhythm so a familiar listener can easily recognize them when played on a drum. Though individual translations have slightly different meanings, all translations of a poem use the same rhythm (meaning that in some languages, particularly Elven and Osirian, the phrasing is awkward).

Tenets of Faith

Edicts attain victory in fair combat, push your limits, wear armor in combat
Anathema kill prisoners or surrendering foes, prevent conflict through negotiation, win a battle through underhanded tactics or indirect magic

Holidays

Unlike other martial faiths, such as Iomedae’s church, which records the dates of great victories and celebrates them as holy days, Gorum’s church has little interest in keeping track of old battles beyond creating the occasional shrine at a battle’s end. The faithful celebrate battles won today and look forward to victories in the future. Unless a war or battle’s anniversary is strongly associated with a particular date, such as the first of the year or a prominent holiday, the church may forget about the specific date within a year or two, only mentioning it when it comes to mind or serves as an example to extol.
Of course, any number of events may provoke such a memory and an impromptu celebration. For example, a change in the weather may cause a twinge in the old battle scars on a priestess’s knee, causing her to reminisce about that battle in a speech a few days later; likewise, as a priest repels the orcs trying to sack his town, he may exhort the town guard to be brave, drawing from memories of his first battle against orc hordes. Thus, a particular month may have no “holy days” one year and several the next.

Social

Contacts & Relations

Relations with Other Religions

Traditionally, Gorum has little interest in the affairs of other gods, considering politics a waste of time. He has battled with most other deities, with demon lords, and with other beings of power when their interests happened to conflict with his or they opposed him directly. As such, other gods lay plans against the day when Gorum might cross their paths again. The craftier deities, knowing he is always willing to enter a battle and cares little for its purpose or the goals of either side, find ways to get him on their side of a fight, promising him the chance to leap into the most heated waves of combat, allies at his back. Many divine conflicts have been decided based on whom Gorum chose to fight beside—and that allegiance may have changed over the course of the conflict.
Gorum is generally on friendly terms with Asmodeus, not out of any common philosophy but because the Prince of Darkness often supplies his divine minions with new and more effective weapons of war. He respects Besmara for her strength and devotion to battle—both deities are more interested in the excitement of the struggle than the spoils of war or the reason for fighting. Gorum is unimpressed by and a bit contemptuous of Nethys’s reliance on magic over physical might, but still feels a kinship with the other god in their mutual love of warlike power and indifference to its ethics. He even feels some admiration for Nethys’s strategic prowess. There is no nuance or mitigating factor, however, for the contempt he feels for Norgorber, as assassination and murder are for cowards. He acknowledges commonalities with Szuriel, Horseman of War, as both encourage battle in general, but primarily, he sees the Horseman as a rival: Gorum’s role is to stoke the hearts of mortals so they embrace the glory of war with enthusiasm and bloodlust, whereas the Horseman wants mortals to accept oblivion and cold, murderous intent.
In recent years, a conflict has gradually built between Gorum and Urgathoa. The Lord in Iron encourages his mortal champions to wage war and become more skilled at martial endeavors, making them more difficult to kill. He believes a valorous death in battle is the proper reward for a life of devotion to such pursuits, and becomes indignant at the idea of seeing his favorite worshipers humiliated by the debilitating effects of disease. Urgathoa takes particularly keen pleasure in bringing ruin to the mightiest physique with lingering illness, or tempting the most disciplined paragon of bodily health into gluttony, and sees no reason that Gorum’s faithful should be exempt from her efforts. Her interest has been piqued by the Lord in Iron’s implication that his faithful should be reserved for death in battle, and a number of new Urgathoan cults have sprung up in recent years. They pose as warrior sects and challenge other fighters to contests of skill, but infect their weapons with both mundane and magical diseases. Even the lightest scratch may contaminate a fighter with a stealthy pestilence that will lie dormant for months before beginning to slowly, inexorably wither his limbs and sap his strength, until he is left too helpless to feed himself, let alone lift a blade. Gorum’s frustration grows, and he may soon choose to escalate the tension between them—whether by striking at her directly or encouraging his followers to focus on seeking out and slaying her followers.
Gorum’s worshipers have no particular enmity or friendship with the followers of other religions. If the others accept the superiority of Gorum’s teachings, they see no need to fight them, but otherwise, they’re happy to engage them at the end of a blade. Because their god has fought almost all other deities at times, and has allied with all of them at others, his faithful see no need to declare themselves for one side or another for any real duration. They admire the physical might of many of Irori’s worshipers, but see the effort invested in such discipline as wasted when it is not applied to martial pursuits.
A few Gorumite sects have friendly annual competitions with followers of Falayna, the empyreal lord of martial training; though their philosophies differ, they’re willing to swap techniques. They respect the tactical skill of Torag’s followers and the passionate charges of Iomedaean or Sarenite crusaders, yet disdain their fundamental restrictions on where and when to fight.

Planar Allies

Gorum’s divine servants are all clad in spiked armor or actually made of metal; even servitors of other gods who come to serve him experience a transformation to match his other minions. In addition to his servitor race, the zentragts, the following are well-known servitors of Gorum, suitable for conjuring with planar ally or similar calling spells.
Bloody Hands (unique outsider): A red-skinned, hezrou-like creature, Bloody Hands wears intricate scale mail that fits like a second skin. He enjoys the taste of potions and elixirs, especially those that augment his already formidable physical prowess. Though he cannot fly, he enjoys leaping upon opponents from high places and charging through their ranks like a slashing wheel of death.
First Blade: This giant, armor-clad creature serves as Gorum’s herald. While the heralds of most deities go forth to bear the words of their divine patrons or answer the desperate summons of their gods’ most pious servants, the First Blade marches endlessly to battle. Uninterested in diplomacy or subtlety, Gorum has little need for a messenger with capabilities beyond communicating in the language of the battlefield: while legends abound of the First Blade answering the call of Gorum’s faithful to aid them in appropriately glorious battle, no accounts exist of the Lord in Iron’s herald responding to any summons for noncombat tasks. Most accounts of the herald tell of the gory swaths it cuts through battlefields of heroes, in clashes between titanic armies, or in weeks-long battles between history’s greatest warlords.
Although it is a living creature, the First Blade is little more than a weapon of Gorum. It knows almost nothing beyond its lord’s commands, and goes where he instructs. In many respects, the First Blade is similar to a golem, and the herald leaves but scant traces upon the lands it passes through between battles, eating little and having no need even to breathe. In war, however, its presence and passage are obvious, marked by rent bodies and bloodsoaked earth.
Saint Fang (unique silver dragon): An unusual creature resembling a silver dragon covered in spikes, Saint Fang is the dark gray of tempered iron rather than the bright silver hue common to that type of dragon. Patches of his scales appear to be rusted, but the blemishes are actually old stains from Silver Fang’s habit of painting his hide with the blood of his fallen enemies.
Temperbrand (unique fire elemental): This large fire elemental is made of molten metal and is in a near-constant battle rage. She enjoys taking her enemy’s weapons and melting them within her fiery form, which heals her and temporarily lends the weapon’s magic to her attacks.

Edicts attain victory in fair combat, push your limits, wear armor in combat
Anathema kill prisoners or surrendering foes, prevent conflict through negotiation, win a battle through underhanded tactics or indirect magic
Follower Alignments CN, CE

Devotee Benefits

• Divine Font harm or heal

• Divine Skill Athletics

• Favored Weapon greatsword

• Domains confidence, destruction, might, zeal

• Cleric Spells 1st: true strike, 2nd: enlarge, 4th: weapon storm

Centers of Worship: Brevoy, Lastwall, Lands of the Linnorm Kings, Nirmathas, Numeria, Realm of the Mammoth Lords, River Kingdoms

Aphorisms

Gorumites don’t have time for fancy speeches, so most of their sayings are short and to the point.
Better to Die a Warrior Than Live a Coward: While Gorum doesn’t believe his followers should recklessly throw away their lives in battles they cannot win, agreeing to a fight and then fleeing a battle is the act of an unworthy cur. Surrender is honorable, for those who surrender may have a chance to redeem themselves in a later battle, but those who f lee are best cut down before they shame themselves again.
Cowards Flee, Warriors Retreat: The subtle difference between these two ideas is lost on many who do not fully understand the nature of battle. Warriors retreat from battle because they want to win the next battle; cowards flee a battle because they fear death and wish to avoid the next battle. The Lord in Iron doesn’t expect his followers to be fearless, but he does expect them to swallow their fear long enough to get the job done.
Will You Fight?: This simple phrase sums up almost the entirety of Gorum’s philosophy. If a spindly youth wants to join an army, the priest of Gorum asks this question. If an injured orc struggles with a wound, his chieftain asks this question. Before a particularly bloody battle, the army commander asks this question. Those who will fight are the blessed, no matter how feeble their sword arms. Note that the question is not “Can you fight?” but “Will you fight?”—a crucial distinction.

Religions

• Church of Gorum

Realm

Elysium

Church/Cult

Church of Gorum