Ink and watercolour plate of an orc shaman: a hunched, grey-skinned old brute under a wolf-pelt hood, with red ritual paint, bone and skull trinkets and a ragged loincloth.

Creature

Orc Shamans

Orcs long dismissed as a myth, who held open the portal in the Healand Mines through which the goblin horde entered Meliora.

  • The Goblin Invasion

Description

Orc shamans were believed to be no more than a myth, even by a scholar as curious as Aurelius. They proved real: working as a circle of three behind protective barriers, they kept open the portal through which the invaders came.

Historical context

The stranger found them beyond the Rift Gate of the Healand Mines. Their barriers were held up by anchor runes and returned each time a shaman fell, so the stranger had to break through three times; once the last of them was slain, the portal collapsed. On first seeing them, Aurelius cursed them for siding with his evil counterpart.

"Orc shamans? I always thought they were but a myth..." — Aurelius