Many orcish communities keep old agreements with local dungeon systems. These agreements govern practical activities: a clan may wait until a species has finished breeding before hunting it, leave particular remains, or undertake a prescribed expedition when a dungeon bloom occurs. The dungeon is a dangerous neighbour, and either side may punish a breach. Outsiders often dismiss these arrangements as monster worship.
Orcish societies vary widely. In many, ancestry and territory help define whom people have obligations to, while oaths, rhythm, and reciprocal duties help organize those relationships. Agreements with dungeons are part of this wider social life.
Broken obligations
Industrial contracts and maps leave out agreements that expansion may disrupt. A disturbance underground can drive a protected species into ancestral hunting land, leaving a clan unable to fulfil its side of a treaty.
Many orcs hold Greathold institutions responsible for these breaches. They regard the obligations as binding on surface peoples whether or not dwarven surveyors knew their terms. From that position, an institution cannot escape responsibility simply because its records contain no agreement.
Clans respond in different ways. Some demand reparations or renewed treaty councils. Others raid, sabotage, or ally with awakened cores. Some resistance commits atrocities.
Dwarven papers portray independent clans as a single body of terrorists directed by elven interests. That account obscures the separate treaties each clan says were broken.