The Blood Plagues were a supernatural weather event caused by the wrath of the orcish god Yurtrus that led to widespread disease and death in the Sword Mountains during the Year of the Red Rain, 927 DR.[1][2]
Description[]
Beginning on Uktar 30, red thunderclouds amassed above the Sword Mountains. For three days—Uktar 30, the Feast of the Moon, and Nightal 1—blood rained down on the mountains, leaving the slopes red and reeking of decay and rot. Once the rains ceased, diseases and plagues swept through the bloody mountains.[1]
While many died in the following days, the hardest hit were the orcs. The survivors believed that they had proven their strength and worthiness merely by surviving the ordeal imposed upon them by their god Yurtrus.[1][2]
History[]
Before the blood rains began, an orc shaman called Wund rose to prominence and prophesied the exact time and nature of the coming storms. When the Blood Plagues struck, every orcish chieftain in the Sword Mountains died, and Wund took advantage of this power vacuum to found the Brotherhood of the Scarlet Scourge and to unite the orcs of the Sword Mountains into a single kingdom called Uruth Ukrypt.[1][2] Yurtrus's holy symbol—two white hands[3]—was adopted as a symbol of this new kingdom.[2]
Appendix[]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Eric L. Boyd (June 2005). City of Splendors: Waterdeep. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 8. ISBN 0-7869-3693-2.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Brian R. James, Ed Greenwood (September 2007). The Grand History of the Realms. Edited by Kim Mohan, Penny Williams. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 111. ISBN 978-0-7869-4731-7.
- ↑ Eric L. Boyd, Erik Mona (May 2002). Faiths and Pantheons. Edited by Gwendolyn F.M. Kestrel, et al. (Wizards of the Coast), p. 151. ISBN 0-7869-2759-3.