Luthic

“	An orc life is a god-ridden life. Luthic's at birth, Luthic's at death, and striving to prove themselves to Gruumsh in between.	„
	~ Elminster's notes on orcs in Volo's Guide to Monsters

Luthic, also known as The Cave Mother, is a major antagonist of The Forgotten Realms, a setting in the Fantasy tabletop roleplaying game Dungeons and Dragons.

She is the orc goddess of healing and fertility who serves as the driving force behind her followers' survival. It's thanks to her that the orcs are the conquering force of destruction that they are instead of tiny gangs of bandits. This is because Luthic is fiercely protective of her orcish children, so she instills lessons of survival into their heads and grants some of them powers to protect the tribe. She also bends the ears of the other more reckless orc gods such as her husband Gruumsh and her son Bahgtru, manipulating them to follow her will.

What makes her Magnificent?[]

In general, while she is just as savage as any other orc, she is also the most logical and pragmatic of the orc deities. She often serves of the pantheon's voice of reason, preventing the others from doing anything needlessly reckless or destructive.
She is unique amongst evil deities because she genuinely cares for her followers. While other evil gods would sacrifice their faithful followers without batting an eye to proceed with their schemes, Luthic's main goal is to make sure her orcish children survive and thrive. She does everything she can to make sure each tribe survives and takes bloody vengeance on anyone who harms them. Her genuine if brutal love for the orcs is what has allowed them to become the world-conquering force that they are today and not simple marauders barely making by which they would most likely be if they only followed Gruumsh.
Because of how frequently orcs engage in war, they face heavy losses all the time. To curb this loss, Luthic encourages the orcs to mate as much as possible to boost their population. This allows orcs to bounce back after major defeats and take their revenge on their enemies surprisingly quickly.
- Luthic also encourages orcs to mate with non-orcs to produce offspring that can enhance the tribe's chances of survival. This has led to the creation of half-orcs which are usually smarter and strong than regular orcs and can become powerful warlords, as well as brutish orc/ogre hybrids known as ogrillons.
  - While orcs have a strong desire to mate indiscriminately cultivated by Luthic, this does not mean that she encourages rape. Orcs only mate with non-orcs out of pragmatism. Such couplings only occur when orcs encounter other humanoids who are just as strong and savage as they are, so they form consensual alliances with them by mingling their bloodlines.
Luthic understands the value of allying with other deities, the most prominent being Hecate, the Witch Queen, and Grumbar, the god of Elemental Earth. Long ago, Corellon Larethian, the head god of the elves, shot out Gruumsh's eye with a well-aimed arrow, leaving the orc god permanently half-blind. However, the eye was not destroyed, merely lost somewhere. Luthic knew that if Gruumsh got his other eye back, he would become even more powerful and therefore more of a threat to the orcs. She allied with Hecate who gave her clues to where the Eye of Gruumsh is and eventually found it. Instead of giving it to her husband, she gave it to Grumbar with whom she was having a romantic affair with. Because of his love for her, Grumbar accepted the eye to keep it hidden from Gruumsh. While Gruumsh did find out about the affair, the consequences are unknown so it's possible Luthic manipulated him into not punishing her.
- Luthic's affair with Grumbar doesn't diminish her magnificence because she most likely did that to 1) make sure Gruumsh doesn't get his second eye back and 2) to get some relief from her dangerously reckless and oppressive husband.

To offset her husband's reckless and suicidal lessons, Luthic created two types of orcs that ensure a tribe's survival: Orogs and Claws of Luthic.
- Orogs are orcs blessed with enhanced strength and intelligence, both qualities given to them by Luthic. They most often serve as guardians of orcish lairs, but also make excellent field commanders and chieftains if need be. Those who're unfamiliar with the types of orcs tend to underestimate the orogs, viewing them as dumb brutes like the rest of their kin. These fools will meet their doom when an orog unexpectantly pulls of clever maneuvers to defeat them.
- Claws of Luthic are priestesses who embody the Cave Mother's ferocity and protectiveness. They learn healing magic and sharpen their claws to rip apart intruders. They also heal warriors' wounds so that they will be empowered to fight their enemies the next day. Because of the orcs' high death and birth rates, protecting the next generation of warriors is very important. The Claws protect the younglings until they're able to defend themselves, including baby orogs which chieftains tend to view as competition for leadership of the tribe. Additionally, they're capable of training cave bears, which they associate with Luthic, to serve as guard beasts.
Despite officially being the lowest-ranking orc deity, she is skilled at manipulating her comrades, especially Gruumsh and Bahgtru. Luthic is one of the only beings in the universe that are capable to persuading Gruumsh to do her bidding. Even if her husband doesn't always do what she says, she still has much more of a hold on their son, Bahgtru. For example, Bahgtru has the ability to send his avatar to the Material Plane to aid orcs in battle, but he's too stupid to know when to do so. Luthic is able to analyze a situation to know when the strategic time to send the avatar would be and gives her son a push to make him do it. Her manipulation has caused Bahgtru to become more loyal to his mother than his father.
The orc pantheon is at war with the goblinoid pantheon and its leader, Maglubiyet. The leader of the orc pantheon, Gruumsh, massively underestimates Maglubiyet and his goblinoid hordes, seeing them as merely a worthy challenge for his orcish warriors to test their mettle on. Luthic, on the other hand, understands the greater cosmic implications of this conflict. She knows that if Maglubiyet wins the war, the orcs will be taken away from her and forced to serve him for all eternity. Even further, they will be absorbed into the goblinoid host as the hobgoblins and bugbears were long ago. Armed with this insight, she does whatever she can to turn the tide in the orcs' favor from manipulating her husband to charging into battle herself and clawing through her enemies.
- Because of her protective ferocity combined with the wisdom of how dangerous Maglubiyet is, the archmage Tzunk came up with a theory for what the outcome of the orc vs. goblinoid war will be. He suspects that Luthic will be the only deity standing and rise up as the one deity of the orcs. If this happens, Luthic will most likely lead her people on conquests that Gruumsh could only dream about.

What makes her a Baddie?[]

She ultimately desires for the orcs to take over the world and force all other peoples to bend the knee to them. She has no problem with them slaughtering soldiers who only desire to protect their nations and peoples. She makes sure that the orcs survive each day, ensuring that her people's hegemonic goals are possible.
While she is enemies with the evil god Maglubiyet, she also desires to kill the gods of primarily good-aligned pantheons such as the Seldarine and the Mordinsamman (the elvish and dwarven pantheons respectively).
She has no loyalty towards her husband Gruumsh as she cheats on him with Grumbar and gives her lover his missing eye, leaving him permanently impaired.

External Links[]

Luthic on the Forgotten Realms Wiki