Hello everyone! I am Mat, though players within the Odyssey community may know me better as Dr. Cyrus. And I would like to welcome you back for Part 2 of our interview with Adam as we learn more about his character Grukkar and some of his adventures!

Hello Adam. I would like to once again thank you for stepping up to be interviewed and helping us get TAG Talk started. 

My pleasure. Always happy to help out the game and see it grow. 

Anyway, let’s get right to it and pick back up where you left off your interview last week. 

I’d like to hear more about your character Grukkar and where your inspiration from him arose.

The character Grukkar was first conceived in a local DnD game I play with a few of my friends including fellow Odyssey player Judah (Krune). Judah kicked off the idea within his campaign as our entire party was already into orcs and wanted to play one. So he came up with this idea of the Gol tribe which he based on a number of different material: The Qunari from the Dragon Age video game, Matt Mercer’s (Critical Role) Kryn, YouTuber Matt Colville’s Gol, and general orc culture seen in various mediums. I eventually decided to bring the Gol Tribe over to Odyssey and develop a character around them. 

Oh interesting, the Gol Orc Tribe. I have yet to interact with them in game. Can you tell us anything interesting about the Gol Tribe?

Sure! While the Gol tribe is an orc tribe, anyone that wishes to be an orc and live the life of an orc can join and be an Orc!

When you say be an orc, I’m assuming you are talking living with the orcish mindset, correct?

Not exactly. I mean you can become an orc, or at least kinda. In order to become an official member of the Gol Tribe, you have to undergo a ritual if you are not currently an orc. This ritual permanently changes your skin color to green. While you are still officially your original race, your skin color defines you as an orc in the tribe. The Gol tribe sees orcs as a culture as opposed to a heritage! I actually wrote a bit of my backstory down and you can read more about Grukkar and the Gol tribe on the Wiki.

Oh that’s great to hear. I will definitely have to read that! I hope to see even more players begin to add to the Wiki this year. I have started myself, but have a ways to go. 

You just mentioned your backstory though, when you entered the game, did you already have a well defined backstory or did you come in with a pretty blank slate. 

Just as the game is still very barebones with regards to the story of the world, I decided to make my backstory pretty barebones as well. Though as I learn more about the game, the world, its history, I have continued to add to my backstory. When I originally started the character, the only thing I had defined for him was that he loved to do Rituals and this would be a defining character concept. 

Rituals certainly do come off as a core concept of Grukkar. What about them did you find most appealing? 

You can really create some great visual storytelling with rituals, however from experience with other LARPs they either didn’t exist at all like, or they were gate kept behind experience totals making them inaccessible to newer players such as myself. Odyssey does not have this stipulation and I had the opportunity to play a ritual caster from the very onset of my character development and I was all too happy to take advantage of this!

You mention great visual storytelling that rituals afford you. Have you seen others taking after you and by attempting to create these epic moments of visual storytelling?

I guess visual storytelling is the wrong phrase. I am interested in attracting all the senses with my rituals. To that accord I have decided to add burning incense to my rituals next year. Also, after going to school for religious studies I know that music is often incorporated into rituals of various cultures. Unfortunately, I have no sense of rhythm so while music is out for me, I decided to buy a Viking War Horn to incorporate into my displays next year. I might not know how to make music, but I can blow the shit out of that thing. 

*laugh* I’m already waiting for the first time you use the Warhorn and all of camp comes running back to your ritual circle worried someone is in distress only to find it is just Grukkar on his shit again. 

*laughs*  Hope players quickly learn that if they hear the horn that it’s just me doing my thing.

Though back to your original question, yes I did see some great displays of role-playing and scenes that attracted my senses after my display. I was most impressed with the scene of Deadward (Kyle) and Braddock (Roy) coming through the portal returning from DrachenFest. The scene of everyone working together to heal Braddock’s amputated leg was one of the most memorable scenes of the year for me. The smoke and the chaos was something to behold. Their execution of that scene and both of their role-playing abilities in general is what has gotten me invested in going to DrachenFest next year to hopefully learn more from them and expand my own role-playing abilities! Expect even bigger ritual displays in the future!

And I think I speak for everyone when I say I can’t wait to see them!!

Well thank you again Adam for taking the time to sit down and talk with us all and being a bit of a guinea pig for this entirely new outreach endeavor for TAG! 

Be sure to come back next week as we next talk as Mel talks to Doug and we learn more about his extremely unique character concept, Turret! 

This interview was held over Discord. Questions and Responses, while true to their initial nature, may have been edited to best invoke the feelings of the participants and allow for better flow.

Want to learn a bit more about Adam / Grukkar? Be sure to check back in a few days for a few additional pieces of information that didn’t make the final article, but are no less interesting!