orcs

The Majority of Orcs in my setting are like nomadic monks seeking physical and martial perfection.
As for how they look, they're your standard big, green, and tusked orcs.

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Bandits

Mine got fucked over by religious freak elves who follow a nature goddess which basically started as a new age religion to convert human females in their ranks that actually gained a shitton of followers but they arent really the big part of my setting the only big thing that the goddess has done was was fuck over a combined military force by turning them all into beastmen/orcs to show humanities "true face" forcing almost all of them to be depressed veterans or mercenaries trying to make it by due to their own countries abandoning them they might be scumbags to many but they have a deep brotherhood with the other mutants even if they are from different countries

>>48731673
Nice. I like it when Nature Gods or Druids are brutal fuckers, nature isn't all nice and happy like a lot of games show it off to be.

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>>48731551
I know the movie Uruk-hai aren't exactly how the books describe them, but I love them so damn much.

My orcs had their own realm who got rekt by generic human kingdom. Then they moved to not!mordor and live there scattered along the steppes. Although their god creator lives whit them and helped the last orc-king re-conquer their old land. They also are one of the three races who didint forgot the old gods.

I base my races largely on the races from Master of Magic, largely because I am creatively bankrupt and it is old/obscure enough that people usually don't know what I am copying. Because of this my orcs are purplish and brawny but develop thriving cities and are quite intelligent as opposed to the usual dimwitted brutes.

>>48731688

Well lets just say it was an idea I got from reading this book called "Company of Darkness" or something along those lines

Good guys win leaving the BBEGs minions to find new work and try to survive but the good guys are hellbent on reforming all the former minions into being well adjusted members of society.

The nature faction might look good on the outside but also have their fair share of bad apples same goes for the military faction they literally dismissed thousands of men even though they were just following orders

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Think Warhammer orcs but less retarded and much more hateful

>>48731551
Ocd barbarians who methodically butcher ,enslave and rear other sentient lifeforms as food.

Currently in the setting the have (ala warcraft) entered the setting via a northern daemon gate. Having taken the Capitol of the northern kingdom they raided the lands taking all the women and children as "hostages".

The males outside being forced to work other wise their families are executed and eaten. The men folk never enter the Capitol anymore but deliver goods to the gates.
Occasionally some are granted access to see there families and never seen again. In reality they are used as studs then eaten by the horde.

My pcs are currently on a quest to get some ingredients to close the gateway, and encountered the king, queen, and the last Ranger who survived being attacked as they fled an orchestra battalion backed by humans blackmailed into serving them.

The orcs value both intelligence cruelty, and cunning in equal measure, there current ruler is known for both, holding nightly feasts where pregnant women are forced to do acts of endurance to save their youngest child from being slaughtered before theirs eyes.

>>48731551
A race that stems from millennia of eugenics and a culture engineered to produce servants for a dark god.

>>48731551
They're basically Elves. Good with bows, live in forests, one with nature and all that. They've even got pointy ears, fair skin, fancy hair.

A legion of horribles, hundreds in number, half naked or clad in costumes attic or biblical or wardrobed out of a fevered dream with the skins of animals and silk finery and pieces of uniform still tracked with the blood of prior owners, coats of slain dragoons, frogged and braided cavalry jackets, one in a stovepipe hat and one with an umbrella and one in white stockings and a bloodstained wedding veil and some in headgear or cranefeathers or rawhide helmets that bore the horns of bull or buffalo and one in a pigeontailed coat worn backwards and otherwise naked and one in the armor of a Spanish conquistador, the breastplate and pauldrons deeply dented with old blows of mace or sabre done in another country by men whose very bones were dust and many with their braids spliced up with the hair of other beasts until they trailed upon the ground and their horses' ears and tails worked with bits of brightly colored cloth and one whose horse's whole head was painted crimson red and all the horsemen's faces gaudy and grotesque with daubings like a company of mounted clowns, death hilarious, all howling in a barbarous tongue and riding down upon them like a horde from a hell more horrible yet than the brimstone land of Christian reckoning, screeching and yammering and clothed in smoke like those vaporous beings in regions beyond right knowing where the eye wanders and the lip jerks and drools.

After being rounded up by the elves and put on a prison aisle the orcs of my land became very close as a species and managed to unify. The took over the island and the boats and started being ORC PIRATES

>>48731551
They don't exist anymore. They were systematically exterminated over 500 years ago by sentient machines. Their only descendants are half-breeds that were outcast and are accepted to varying degrees into human society.

A coastal sea faring people that either stayed home by the coasts or struck out to explore, raid or, trade along the coasts of the world.

Burly, Sea green skin, ape like, and no tusks.

Currently the nations they call home are part of the elven (place holder name for empire or state.) using them as the basis for their navy.

About a thousand odd years ago, humans had come out of the wilderness and occupied and taken over the elven city states, and a century or two after that, race relations couldn't have been worse.

Then the Orc came out of nowhere, ravaged the cities, left destruction in its wake. Not Orcs, but Orc, The Orc, The Monster, The Terror, a tide or cloud of chaos over the settlements that left a stain. Today, the remnants of that time crop up every so often in random births. These anomalies are known as half-orcs. Human half-orcs are large, brutish and violent. They make amazing mercenaries, terrible soldiers. Elven half-orc are thin, creepy things, and cruel. They make amazing assassins and negotiators, sometimes both at the same time.

Half-orcs of both kinds can sometimes become the legend of their genetic ancestry in a terrifying display of mutant power and become, if only for a moment, The Orc.

I'm fascinated by the orcs in this game Burning Wheel where they are described as hateful and cowardly.

It's an angle of orcs that I feel is really underrepresented and doesn't get a lot of facetime in settings where it does exist.

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>>48732227
>an orchestra battalion
I see, I see...

>>48731551
Delicious.

>>48732483
Somebody just read Blood Meridian.

>>48731727
How does the book describe them?

>>48731727
What are Uruk-Hai like in the books? I a bit fuzzy in it and only remember that they served Saruman and Sauron out of fear or something instead of being bred for war,

>>48731551
in a homebrew setting, I have a race of amazons. Their mother is the first daughter of the god of war and a giantess. her sister is the mother of all orcs and ogres after a demon lord raped her. Ogre mages are a result of an amazon and orc breeding.

>>48731551
Depends
We met a bunch of travelling orc bards, like a german band
It was great

>>48731551
I have these fairly typical nomad orc on northern plains and one separated tribe, that conquered human empire, sat on the throne, got fat, accepted human culture and now they're just green humans with big teeth.

Orcs in my setting are inspired by mixing Tolkien's inspiration for orcs as "broken elves" and the Orks of Wicked Fantasy (not always evil, revere pain & scars as signs of one's achievements/strength).

Long story short, in the early years of the war between the dwarfin and elfin empires that ultimately wrecked the world, the dwarves tried to get payback for the elves unleashing magical plagues on one of their biggest cities by conducting alchemical experiments on captured elfin soldiers. These stripped them of their magical powers and longevity, but gave them greater strength, endurance and fecundity, birthing the first orcs. Goblins are mutant throwbacks who don't breed true (that is, they're almost as likely to have orc offspring as orcs are to have goblin offspring) and are far punier, but have regained some magical traits (using Forest Gnome stats). Also, they're not hideous, looking more like feral, green-skinned elves with the iconic tusks & black claws.

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>>48731727
>>48733308
>>48733330
Basically, just bigger, better orks. Their portrayal in Shadows of Mordor was more in-line with what the books described.

Sauce: http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Uruk-hai

>>48731551
Orcs as in the entire race or Orcs as in the ethnic group?

No, none of the "orcish" races do appreciate this generalization (I mean imagine if all white people were called 'Londoners', or worse: all humans were called 'Canadians').

But, basic gist is that Orcs (the ethnic group) are sort of Germanic tribals crossed with elements of the Amish in that they try to directly avoid using more modern tech (and especially not the rising magitech stuff) like firearms and various clockwork, they have taken though to any advances in medicine and sanitation though, but they're a rather spiritual people who feel a pure soul is forged from the fires of hardwork and toil. They also tend to avoid large-scale farming favoring to instead keep somewhat large gardens to supplement their hunter-gatherer food supplies.

They also don't believe in using any sort of beasts of burden.

Other orcish races find them weird because of this.

>>48731551
>orcs

don't exist in current setting time. they did at one point, before being put to the sword by the elves.

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This.

I kind of stole the whole "Orcs are a subsecies of elves" from Elder Scrolls. I don't have a lot of the lore in stone yet, but I'm working on it.

High elves are basically constantly shitting on all other subspecies of Elves. They tolerate the Wood Elves and Sun Elves, they basically ignore the Moon Elves and the Sea Elves. But they go out of their way to fuck with the Dark Elves and Bastard Elves (Which is the translation of the High Elven word for Orc).

So the Orcs had to find a way to survive where the High Elves couldn't get them. High Elves, while magically gifted, are physically frail, so they can't survive as well as the Orcs can in the frigid subarctic steppes they call their home. The orcs have become masters of mounted combat, typically riding Dire Boars or Wargs. Due to their entire history being comprised of either being chased away by stronger nations, or being forced to pillage and conquer weaker nations, they have a very strong cultural focus on honing ones' body to be a perfect fighting machine. Orcish monks are some of the most powerful fighters in the world, not to mention the religious leaders of their culture.

Some Orcs, (typically from the more Northern, Central and Eastern regions of their territory) frown upon Orcs that lose themselves in the throes of barbaric rage, seeing the loss of full control of their bodies as a weakness. But Orcs in the Western and Southern provinces of their culture are much more tolerant of their fellow Orcs going savage (so long as they target their rage at their enemies)

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Pretty weeaboo desu

>>48731688
>nature isn't all nice and happy like a lot of games show it off to be.
this, in my setting they druids gave life to the trees (treants) and souls who died in the froests are reanimted and their soul act as wraiths, they take dragon bones (whole skeleton) and resurect them to guard their wast forests

>>48735455
>I kind of stole the whole "Orcs are a subsecies of elves" from Elder Scrolls.
Do you mean "from the Lord of the Rings"?

>>48731551
Tribal and germanic warrior people who breed for strength and take great enjoyment in hunting giant monsters.
They are low in number for now because they are a small group who washed up like planar flotsam, but are starting to spread.
They would be spreading faster but they are currently at war with the Hobgoblins over who gets to keep the goblins as slaves. As for the goblins, they are smart enough to recognise that without someone ordering them around they inevitably end up murdering each other over petty shit.

They are somewhat unusual in that they are the only non-human race who can breed with humans (human is the collective term for humans, elves, dwarves, etc as they are all mutations of one-another), but nobody is entirely sure what allows them to do this.

>>48735633
LoTR doesn't know what it wants orcs to be

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>>48735455
Does your setting really need that many god damned elf subtypes

Semi demonic plains Indian boar men. Aren't actively malicious, just very angry and wary of other people trying to control them. Oldest race, the Titans first crack at making people. Didn't turn out well.
Make great shamans due to being made prior to mortality really being a thing, and being seen as kind of kid (or in some cases older) brothers to many spirits

>>48735455
What makes all these elves different? Do tell!

>>48735684
Hey, If humans get so many variations, why not everyone else?

>>48735741
Humans only get one statblock, not infinite +2/-2 variations.

>>48731551
16 feet tall, immortal, autoevolutionary ability, stupid amounts of magic.

There's also like half a dozen remaining, and they spend most of their time sulking in the darker corners of the planet.

The Orcs in my setting were once a slave race used by the Dwarves for mining in dangerous areas (such as volcanoes). After being freed (for reasons not related to them) they wandered the world, encountering Elves for the first time. It did not go well for them, and it resulted with the Orcs being driven toward inhospitable areas, such as deserts and wastelands. Still, the Orcs endured, and became a primitive warrior race with varying castes dedicated to a specific way of combat. Their weapons, fighting style and general culture is similar to Native Americans, Maori Warriors and Aztec/Inca Societies, with items and tattoos/piercings that vary from region to region. They are savage and are borderline hostile towards outsiders.

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>>48731551
Visually, I pick Drow and whatever passes for Dark Elves these days and add fangs and other assorted beastial features and tribal tattoos. Their clothes become more robust and rough-looking, but doesn't devolve into "whatever we stole and bolted together from scraps". I also like to throw in some central asian clothing into the mix, because furry collars and fur-trimmed sleeves are pimpin'.

Culturally I love them living in the steppes and foothills, with the occasional tribe settling in the deep woods or abandoned dwarven halls. When they live as nomads, they live in yurts with potted plants hanging from the sides, and when they're settled down they basically build hobbitholes but human sized and breed pigs.

They are a highly social people with strong tribal ties, which is the reason for their constant fights with other clans and their warlike reputation. They breed a large kind of dog that is often mistaken for wolves which they use as guarddogs and warhounds.

>>48731727
I agree. Fighting Uruk-Hai are amazing, although I wish we had gotten more character out of them.

Pic related, people to this day look weird at me when I profess my love.

The later two films were shit and he became fucking retarded by the end, but god damnit was he everything I wanted in the first film.

>>48733308

The books describe common orcs as long armed and bow-legged, with broad faces and slanted features. So, basically very ape-like.

The fighting Uruk-Hai are a special breed, basically half- or quarter-humans, who could resist daylight and who had much more stamina.

Funnily enough, the books describe them not only as stronger, but also more intelligent than regular orcs, while in the books they essentially became the brawns to the orcish brains.

>>48735684

Why the hell not?

>>48735684
Why did you post a pic of demons?

>>48735684
I hate those blocky heels. Would have been much hotter if they were just wearing sandals.

>>48731551
not!achaemenid persian empire
Though thier empire has long since collapsed.

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There a several cultures of them that can differ quite a bit. But in general they are pig-orcs that were created by the new gods to be their soldiers in the war against the former rulers of this world. Pig orcs because they grow fast, eat everything and are fierece beasts. And because I like pig orcs for some reason.

Today they honor their past by fighting for the one true religion as stoic warrios, or for their holy city states. They are quite naive and easily mislead, but also loyal and passionate about their goals. Though the not!mongol orcs give everyone that mostly encounters orcs a bad impression on them. Those don't fight for their gods or for virtues, they are nothing but barbarians that want to eat and fight.

Oh and they have one specific kind of magic associated with them and that is control of weather.

>>48736261
>And because I like pig orcs for some reason.
It's because you're a degenerate

>>48736297
Why is that, anon?

>>48731551
They eat NOTHING but Maggoty bread

>>48736297

/v/ plz go

>>48736384

"It's got protein in it."

>>48736314
Pigorcs or P'orks only make appearances as rapists in hentai manga these days. It's also potentially close to the furry fandom, being an anthropomorph animal, and that fandom is known for its very own special kind of degeneracy.

Western fantasy mainstream has wholeheartedly accepted orcs as misunderstood noble savages with monkey faces and tusks, or visually the same concept but inexplicably obsessed with combat and killing.

>>48736433
>Pigorcs or P'orks only make appearances as rapists in hentai manga these days
Too bad my setting isn't a hentai.
>these days
Sometimes I like to remind me of the olden times.
>It's also potentially close to the furry fandom
As far as I can tell they don't really like pigs. And guilt of association isn't an argument for me. Especially when pig orcs have been done by western settings before furries were a thing.

>Western fantasy mainstream has wholeheartedly accepted orcs as misunderstood noble savages with monkey faces and tusks
Which I find utterly boring.
>but inexplicably obsessed with combat and killing
Not so great in my opinion.

Well, your post could have been stupider.

>>48736501
I should have specified that I'm not >>48736297 and that I am not in support of his opinion, although I do dislike P'Orks, which has to do with personal bias and none of the reasons I mentioned.

>>48736543
This is why it was less dumber than I expected from someone using the word "degenerate".

>>48736433
>>48736543

homie, don't try to argue the point of assholes for them. They might think that their behavior is justified.

>>48736577

Chill out homie, the /v/ has retreated to its hole.

>>48731688
Nature isn't nice but it's not nice in a way that is opposite of that example.
In nature there is no such thing as morality, the strong devour the weak and existence is defined by struggle, the nature goddess revealing her enemies' "true face" is if anything too much moral posturing, she takes the role of a judge, something that doesn't exist in nature.

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>>48736735
That's not the first time today that someone blames /v/ for something that has nothing to do with video games.

>>48736758

I don't even...what?

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I have replaced them with beastmen. Evil, rapey beastmen.

>>48735113
>>48735597

Though sometimes I consider creating a semi-unique race and calling them something like orcs, maybe a bit more honorabu since my setting has some asian influences but I like to keep my playable races really low for some reason.

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>>48731551
Enemies. Don't count as a playable race.

>savage ape-men that eat iron
>iron becomes part of their bones
>don't know how to make fire neither use tools
>only want iron and food
>deserted village has no people, no foodstuffs, no tools, but valuables remain untouched.
>every wound is covered by ossified scabs
>armored ones becomes alphas
>old ones are sometimes mistaken by rusty golems
>countless orcs migrate from their volcanic homeland every year
>no one knows how they spawn so many out from arid land
>some think they are the maggots of the dead gods' corpses, given shape and hate by their diet.
>no females, every corpse becomes a womb for a litter
>you destroyed the corpses, didn't you?

>>48737696
Sounds pretty fucking metal anon.

No actual orcs, but I've got people whose god is dead and is rotting. This drives them homidically mad, let them use evil magic and makes them deformed. They destroyed an empire they were vassals to but before they could move on, they reached the point when they can't get organized anymore.

So now there is a vast land populated with homicidal madmen.

>>48737696
that's badass. i'll be stealing that. maybe.

>>48737848

I really like this idea of a people having a close connection to their god to the point where if the god is going through shit it fucks them up

>>48737940
This is major part of global religious conflict in my setting now. After seeing what might happen when you worship a real god, people started shunning pagans and flocking to the church that worship god that allegedly created all the lesser gods and was never heard from again. They promise that once they stomp all the worship of lesser gods and spirits, he'd return and take everyone back into heaven.

>>48737988

huh definitely a cool set up for a larger campaign

>>48731551
I haven't decided yet. They all live in the south in not!Rome in a pseudo-historical fantasy dark age setting. They've been mentioned as a massive threat the southern nobility are warring against, but none have appeared yet.

They might be Germanic conquerers not too different to the human not!Saxons that my players are running, or they might be something else entirely.

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>>48736297
>he's never ran a game about highly industrialized but individually inept pig-orcs invading an idyllic fantasy kingdom

It's like you hate fun.

>>48731551

Bipedal predators. They may look like any sort of depiction of orcs/hoblins/stock evil brutish humanoids, because they are extremely prone to mutations due to being souped up on supernatural taint and the fact that mating of orcs with any other humanoid produces what is functionally orcs with some traits of the other parent's appearance. Above-mentioned taint makes them much physically stronger and more resilient than humans (although pained by the sun) but largely kills their empathy and gives them very short temper. Unless press-ganged by some sort of overlord who needs strong brutes, they exist as countless small gangs and tribes that constantly raid their neighbors, including other orcs - their sociopathy and tendency to resort to violence whenever they want something usually prevents orcs from forming more complicated societies. Orcs have almost no culture of their own and generally loathe hard work as suitable only for slaves.

>>48731551
>What are orcs like in your setting
they don't exist.
Frankly there are plenty of other terrible things out there for peasants to fear.

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>>48731551
>What are orcs like in your setting

>>48738370
>not having merry orcs

In my setting's lore they are at a constant turf war with the Dwarves in the mountains, though that's on a separate continent. The party originally started there, until one of them was committing themselves to Orc genocide, burning down their villages and killing the women and children as well as the men.

>>48735684
What subtypes are these THICC, soft, warm and cuddly elves? They're my subtype

>>48738872
They are demons, such elves don't exist.

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>>48736261
I love me some pig-orcs. I always fluff them as the degenerate result of mad wizardry and/or demonic creation. Their numbers are kept up by breeding sows, huge porcine female monstrosities that pump out litter after litter of fast growing fodder. The tainted blood of their unholy lineage insures that each orc, regardless of personality, is still twisted and hateful at the core. Makes for some great mooks that PC's can kill without worrying to much about the ethical complications of orc babies and the like.

I do also run more "normal" orcs who were the indigenous people that got slowly pushed out of their land by the other encroaching races. At first they lived in caves, but the Dwarfs came up from the Deep Realms and pushed them out into the great forests of the upper worlds. This was at least a livable situation, since the great trees provided some protection from the sun. Then the elves came from across the ocean, took one look at the orcs and scoured them from the forests in a racial holy war. The only place the orcs had left was the vast plains and fields. Agonizingly bright, but at least food was plentiful and the orcs could construct bone and hide shelters to hide from the sun in until night fell and they could go hunting. But the nascent kingdoms of humanity, who had managed to get their hot little hands on some horses and invented cavalry tactics in the meantime, slaughtered them and pushed the fleeing survivors past the mountains and into the deserts and wastelands beyond, which do to the unrelenting sunlight, heat, and scarcity, is basically orc Hell. But after centuries, the other races are in decline and the orcs have begun moving across the mountains en masse. Years of exile has made them meaner, stronger, tougher, and really, really fucking pissed.

>>48739371
Pig and normal Orc alliance when?

>>48731551
They are to humans what humans are to elves.
Yes, this means orcs have technology that other races don't, most notably firearms and steam engines (shootas and chuggas) in a medieval setting. This is balanced because they suck at magic.

Normal orcs, I guess.

Gelded slaves with no culture of their own. Males (thus eunuchs) may enjoy equal rights as propers citizen after paying off their slavery or set free, while females are kept closely guarded and are usually limited to house-slavery, or any other task that does not involve interacting with virile males from any race. And like eunuchs historically, such as Rome or China, they're really comfy with bureaucratic positions.

Why gelded, you may ask? Because a union between an orc and something else always and certainly produces an orc. Also tend to be aggressive and difficult to control otherwise.

I guess the females have started creating their own exclusive culture to differentiate themselves from their masters and the defanged males (who have zero incentive of helping them, because of the privileges that being gelded allows them). Said culture is not at all related to their lost old culture since no one ever remembers what it was like, but basically tries to be opposite of everything host culture, while selling it as authentic "old orcish".

>>48731551
orky.

They aren't. I don't see any point in a race whose sole purpose in life is to be insufferably belligerent.

The Tolkien concept of elves versus orcs is just another one-dimensional rehash of moral absolutes / good versus evil. The bad guys are bad for no other reason than it's their nature to be bad. Such compelling writing.

My orcs are a split-off species created by a host of Old Gods that were since killed off. They were essentially half-brothers to the humans, who are the offspring of yet another god and a mortal. However, when then human daddy-god fucked off, the orcs and humans split apart. The orcs and humans both inherited half of this vast divine empire. The humans have since lost the unity and splintered it into a dozen smaller states in varying stages of technological decay or advancement, with the most eastern part starting to get their 18th century Imperialism game on, and the most western parts essentially being mud-farmers.

The orcs, meanwhile, have become an isolationist nation over the last thousands and a few years, and built a big fuck-you wall along the border with the humans. They stay inside their mostly intact divine empire, living according to strict religious and martial values, developing their own strains of advanced technology, such as cannons and rapid-fire muskets running on some unobtanium magical element I conceived for them.

There are strong religious and territorial tensions between the orcs and the humans, who like to fight little wars. Mostly this translates to human supremacy at sea, while the orcs shoot down at anything that tries to walk up to their Great Wall of China, forcing even more isolation.

Now, the sneaky part that my party doesn't know is that the orcs actually swore to their daddy-god that they would maintain and arms themselves so that, one day, they could save humanity from the impending return of the big bad evil Old Gods. The condition, however, is that the emperor of the human empire has to call them into the war.

The issue is that the human empire has long since sunk because #Gavelkind succession, and none of the human scholars remember or know this.

On fire.

Not any kind of magic fire that doesn't burn them. They just keep getting set alight by all sorts of things.

>>48735633

He does, but he's a filthy fucking casual

>>48735113
I own multiple number 1s, 1-7 in individual issues and 1-5 trade. Stolke needs to hurry the fuck up. I buy every issue I come across, I love orc stain that much

>>48735660

>Tolkienian Orcs
>Subspecies of elves
>Pick two

Seems pretty clear to me.

>>48740448
This is just one explanation that kinda got canon because his son decided to take it into the Silmarillion. But Tolkien himself could never really make sense where orcs came from.

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A legitimately classless Utopian society.

Most lived in small farming villages and and were communal with no leaders. Those that didn't like this became hunters and occasionally trade with the villages when not in the boonies. They literally had no wars, crime, or even concept of lieing.

Then the Not!Roman Elves came.

>>48731551
Humans corrupted and twisted by the Chaos God,with providing himself with a steady source of belief (the "food" of the gods in my setting,from which they obtain the power to enact divine intervention,miracles,etc.),but said god was so concerned with his the other,lesser gods conspired agaisnt him and took him down,taking him apart until there was left only a teeny tiny piece of his essence,which was subsequently encased in a rune engraved sarcophagus in Hell.
Physically humanoid,slightly taller than average human males,with greyish skin,generally bald (though females and some males can grow hair) and with no tusks,but with elongated canines. Both sexes look practically the same,the only way to make male apart from female is usually hair (orc women only have breasts during gestation). Half-orcs are a thing,but only with humans; all the other races can't mix with orcs due to their different origins.Anyway,half-orcs aren't common;they usually die young(they are weaker than true orcs) or,due to their higher mental abilities,become spellcasters.
They live in subterranean complexes in the rim of the world's North Pole,in caverns and ancient giant ruins buried millenia ago by an Ice Age (ice giants live in the surface above the orcish caverns). Orcs have a partially sedentarian "civilization",though during spring and summer they raid the southern lands for prisoners (for interrogation,ritual sacrifice and food) and other valuables like weapons or crafting materials.
Their society is tribal and based on "might makes right",but considering both male and female orcs can be equally strong,a significant number of tribes are run by matriarchal warchiefs.Religion is centered around the worship of nature spirits and lesser evil gods,though a small remmant of the Chaos God cult is still present in the deepest settlements,and demonic cults are a thing.

>>48740237
You do not understand Tolkein, or this is weak, contrarian bait to one of the great authors of the 20th century.

Why would you disrespect such a gentleman?

>>48736168
> the books describe them not only as stronger, but also more intelligent than regular orcs, while in the books they essentially became the brawns to the orcish brains.
What?

>>48736577
>less dumber
kys

>>48740690

>Why

Shock value, muh contrarianism

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Please forgive me... but they're so fun to role play for a noob group who are looking to have as much fun as possible. The 40k orks as they are now (in the vidya mostly) just work for what I need.

>>48731782
Black Company?

Orcs are essentially cavemen while Elves are so fucking magical they don't identify with any life on the planet anymore and humans are reaching the Middle Ages
They just wear fur skins, they're on the move a lot with easy to build huts and mostly just kill with spears made from sticks and rocks and bows and arrows. To people they seem stupid and rudimentary but they're fantastic trackers and hunters and are strong and fast as hell with good senses
Even though they have such simple lives and simple minds, they're among the happiest race in the setting with the Dwarves not heard from in a while, Elves trying to comprehend things beyond their understanding(and failing to do so) and Humans warring with each other so much, Orcs are just kinda there with their tribes and families living.

They aren't that fleshed out and just serve as enemies if they find you in the wild and they judge you'd be good prey

>>48740976
I like this. Nice concept,anon.

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In mine orcs, elves and goblins are related and are split off from the same ancient race.

Orcs are tall and physically strong and while not exactly stupid they are very rigid in mindset and not terribly creative. They make great paladins, police, judges and so on though. While orc cultures vary a lot from swamp dwelling folk to basically Spartans, I design it all on the mindset of having a race where Inspector Javert or Stannis Baratheon would be the ideal person.

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Ancient Egyptian/Ottoman Empire religious weirdos. One in every seven adults is a paladin, and one in every five paladins worships a crocodile god of hunger.

I wrote up a custom setting where they were basically Polynesian-like sea reavers divided into thousands of tribes spread across the middle sea of the world.

Orcs used primitive watercraft alongside anomalously advanced navigational acumen to spread themselves across the known world in antiquity; their original homeland is long since lost, but every tribe keeps a highly fictionalized story of their great ancestor's personal exodus from a kingdom that was swallowed by the sea.

Culturally they are warlike, family oriented, pre-literate and emphasize the importance of oral histories, individual skill and bravery.

The closest thing they have to a formal religion is a system of ancestor worship common to Orc tribes which haven't been culturally dominated by other races; the chief "diety" of a tribe is usually their legendary ancestor, supported by his immediate family group as members of a sort of associated pantheon; these pantheons are highly variable, and religious customs differ greatly between Orc tribes, as do the values and norms established by their ancestor cult - which models their society on the roles of their ancestor-gods.

Orc society is outwardly partiarchal; the largest Bull Orc leads the clan in war and diplomacy but the older women of the clan run things at home.

Tribes are divided into clans; tribes usually share a common ancestor pantheon, but a clan will have it's own records of which ancestor they derive their lineage from.

Marriage may occur between different clans to avoid inbreeding, and sometimes orcs leave their tribe entirely to look for a mate when too many children are born with "Bad Blood".

Due to multiple isolated gene pools Orc appearances can be highly variable, with flesh-tones ranging from green through grey and brown to dull red; some have tusks, others have snouts, some have bat-ears, some are huge and strong, some are sickly and frail; most Orcs can identify close kin on sight due to these highly idiosyncratic traits.

>>48733031
They beg for sound!

>>48736384
Usually inv3 day stretches, right?

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>>48735684
Hey, I'm the guy you replied to. I have so many elven subtypes because why the fuck not? I'm not making a setting for the sake of impressing people. I'm building my setting with the "Rule of Cool" in mind first. And humans have many subtypes and cultures, so why not elves?

>>48735722
Thanks for the interest. High elves are widely considered the "original" or "pure" elves, and have powerful magic ability, and a strong natural affinity. I, more or less, copy and pasted Tokein elves for them. All other variations of elves are suited to a particular climate/region. Sun Elves are tall, dark skinned and hardy, living in the harsh desert lands. They're inspired partially by the Persian Empire. Moon Elves are shorter, and their hair and skin are nearly white. They are also fairly stocky compared to other elves, as they live in the frigid tundra. I'm taking inspiration from them from Saami culture. Wood elves are roughly human height, and have tanned skin and brownish hair. They live in the jungles to the South, their culture is kind of a blend of Incans, Aztecs and Mayan culture (Pic related). Sea Elves are taller and stronger than most elves, and have darker skin, and black hair. They're centered around a tropical archipeligo to the Southeast, and I'm taking inspiration from Maoi, Hawaiian and Indonesian culture. And Dark Elves live to the East, on an isolated island with heavy overcast. They have a very honor based culture, and are xenophobic as hell, and have a massive superiority complex. I'm drawing inspiration from Japanese and Korean culture for them.

Used to have a big empire spanning the Not!Mongolian Steppes in the west, Not!Arabia and Not!Egypt. Then they got kicked out by the Not!Arabians and Not!Egyptians. Most of them are still back in their homeland, but there are a couple warbands and settlements scattered around.

>>48742865
>I, more or less, copy and pasted Tokein elves for them
So they love water more than anything else, are good with the bow but if they actually get serious clad themselves in heavy armor and wield swords and spears? Have some of the most badass warrios? They are great craftsmen, innovators of science, build great cities? Magic is so natural to them that's actually a loanword and no one of them considers himself a mage?

>>48743120
Yeah, pretty much.

>>48740748
>>48740237
>>48740752

/v/ please leave

>>48731551
A little combination between Tolkiens 30 years war orphan orcs, mushroom orks, star wars clones, and some modern world examples of veteran psychology.

farmed soldiers for precursors, they where built to have discipline trained into them easily, but unlike their golem opponents, they could more easilly improvise when needed.

after a few decades of life they plant a seed from the back of their neck into the ground. after a month plant that appears to be a stout tree, but it's closer to a squash grows, after 3 months six orcs are continuously growing and birthing at one every week.

If not conditioned in the first 6 months of their life properly, they will become brutish and near impossible to discipline, and eternally unhappy.

They often serve as mercs and boxers, they have an internal need to go to war, it is the only thing that keeps them going, living without the regimented life stile feels horrible to them. Even out of war camp lifestyle, they keep themselves on self imposed regimented lifestyles.

but before and after a fight, they always tell jokes, no matter if they lost limbs doing so. this leads to them developing personalities of their own after a year or so of combat.

>>48736168
>The later two films were shit and he became fucking retarded by the end, but god damnit was he everything I wanted in the first film.
That's because the first film wasn't "my own Hobbit with blackjack and hookers" yet.

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>>48731551
They are beautiful.

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>>48744375

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>>48744394

Overly noble "savages". They live in small city-sates along the coast. They believe in reincarnation and that the only way to transcend is to dedicate yourself to public service, often military service. Orc immigrants are welcome to become servants but generally thought to make poor leaders.

>>48731850
pretty much this

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Orcs had their own little chill island nation, didn't raid much, kept to their own, til a volcano eruption fucked over their little civilization. Hobgoblins showed up, enslaved the remaining orcs who hadn't fled, and have been working their way towards starting a military campaign along the coast of the main continent. Orcs in slavery are slowly growing bigger and more aggressive (in line with the traditional orc) than those who lived on/fled to the mainland, as the hobgoblins use them as attack dogs.

Still undecided on their origins as a species.

>>48744375
>>48744394
>>48744407
wtf

>>48744759
http://oglaf.com/

Generic honorable warrior tribe.

>>48741475
Welp now I feel terribly unoriginal; this sounds almost exactly like mine, except the religion is centered around sky-father/sea mother worship

>>48731551
pretty much this desu.

Maybe mongols if I'm going for a pulp-fantasy feel over Tokien

green bump

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>>48731551

Some tidbits:

The original orcs were elves tortured so terribly that their spirits fled their bodies before they died. Only male bodies survived this process and became orcs. This left a soulless but still living husk. This lack of soul causes orcs' sociopathic tendencies.

Appearance and general behavior are basically identical to Jackson's portrayals of goblins, orcs, and uruk-hai, depending on the lineage of the orc.

Having no souls, orcs are incapable of having any mana and thus cannot use any sort of magic. As a result, they focus on making some of the best weapons and armor, and they train vigorously in the martial arts.

Like elves, orcs are biologically immortal, though few orcs live past 100 due to their violent lifestyles.

All orcs are male, and so they can only reproduce through the use of other humanoids' females. This is often done by taking slave "wives" in raids or even demanding a tribute of women from surrounding territories. Their offspring are obviously always orcs and always male.

Orcs don't usually ride wolves (unless the wolf is a dire mutation and capable of sustaining the weight), but they're known for using wolf driven chariots in battle.

Changelings are a mutant subrace of orc that are born with the exact appearance of their mother's race. They're still mechanically orcs, but they tend to be more psychopathic than sociopathic. They're often used to infiltrate humanoid settlements and prepare them for orcish attacks.

>>48755533
>more psychopathic than sociopathic
There is no technical difference between the two

>>48731673
try using punctuation

>>48755533
Does one parent not having a soul always mean the child is soulless? Seems like a wasted opportunity there

>>48756424
, . :: ,. ' --- , ,, .

>>48731551
Essentially Celt Vikings mix. Secularly ruled by Kings who hold tribute over their vassals but have very little direct control over them. Famous and richer nobles can have just as much ability to summon large numbers on raids as the King himself. A highly successful Raid can often result in this army supporting the raid leaders claim to kingship. So there are many hero kings in Orc history. Religiously ruled by a nebulous coven of matriarchs, many of which are taken when young girls display a gift for foresight. They lead worship of an Orc God of Battle, Fertility, and the Ocean, and along with an Orc Goddess of Marriage, Fertility, and the Wind.

They are completely bald both male and female and decorate themselves with intricate body paints. Color depicts your family, pattern depicts your larger clan, and small symbols within the pattern depict occupation and notable achievements. They have large webbed hands and feet with sharp black nails. Females who lose their husbands and have no desire to remarry (Very few do) in battle will go to the matriarchs to take a peculiar bath that turns their body paints pitch black and their skin a ghostly white. These wailing women are suicidal in battle and will either dedicate themselves to the protection of the Matriarchs, join a raid, or perform an adventurous task to die in combat and join their husband in the afterlife.

>>48755533
Are these orc undead?

Pretty similar to your standard D&D orcs. Wherever and whenever they form settlements they are constantly, violently expansionistic. They're substantially stronger than humans, but brutish and direct, lacking any cunning. They don't torture or rape (well, some of them might, but that's true of any species); they make war for land and resources, not because they all love to be evil.

The thing that makes them different from the usual orcs is that they are, under certain circumstances, a mild mannered, peaceful, industrious race. In the distant past orcs had no nations, no societies, not even clans. They lived in mated pairs, and aside from their children they would very rarely if ever see other orcs. Orcish males would maintain a large territory to be its exclusive hunting ground, and spend their time in a simple existence of hunting, gathering, building primitive shelters, and occasionally defending their territory from those who would encroach upon it.

However, when an orcish female is with child, she naturally releases certain hormones that tell the males nearby that another hungry mouth is on the way, and so his territory needs to expand immediately. This causes a physiological and psychological shift toward a more aggressive, imposing, and greedy set of behaviors in the male orcs.

Now normally, in the ancestral condition, this change would last for as long as the female was pregnant and then a few months to a year after that. But after a number of orcs helped the elves to defend their forests in an ancient war, the elves granted them the gift of civilization. This backfired terribly, for as long as a single female orc was pregnant, every male in an entire orcish city would be affected by her pheremones and feel the need to embark on a campaign of conquest as violent as necessary to secure a future for the orcish race.

>>48731551
Imperialist dragon riders lead by a God-King. They find strength and unity in worship. They mostly Elvish invaders and barbaric Hobgoblin armies from the other side of their mountain boarder.

>>48731551
They mostly do hard labor for the dwarves. A fair bit get into private security or law enforcement. Almost every mercenary company mostly formed of goblins and kobolds will have a few orcs to handle the heavy artillery.

Anyone have any good orc stories?
encounters, characters, whatever.

>>48731551
-Typical nomadic pastoralists, with a long tradition of hunting and warfare.

-Typically divided into clans which are under the protection of a warlord. Groups are never more than a few dozen families unless called to defend or raid.

-Strong connection to animal husbandry as their major source of wealth and affluence are their herds and most military prowess is determined by how many mounts they have and how man warriors to ride them. Every male and most females are taught to fight in a saddle. Favored classes are fighter, barbarian and ranger.

-Arcane magic is seen as the work of devils and one of the greatest evils, most casters are usually female and are usually druids or shamans.

-Religion is largely based around filial piety and a creator god of the great sky from which wealth, prosperity and joy rains down from

-technologically considered backward using largely wood and hide armors and fortifications but they are capable of making steel weapons and making mobile forges. As well as powerful composite short bows from glue produced from cow horn and a variety of wood.

-seen as a scourge by most sedentary peoples like humans and elves because they have been known to prey on isolated farmlands and hunt in settled forests when means are otherwise scarce. Also hard to attack because they are constantly moving.

TLDR Green Mongols with nature magic

>>48756294
True enough. They both just fall under the antisocial personality disorder now, but there was a time when they were considered separate with the sociopath being "impulsive evil" and psychopath being "calculating evil."

>>48756999
Yea. I like it like that. Soullessness is a corruption. What did you have in mind?

>>48758075
No, they're distinct from undead. Orcs are soulless. Undead have demonic souls.

My Orcs are basically Elder Scrolls Orcs by looks, but culturally they are not!spanish. They have their stone castles, heavy destriers and knightly virtues. Even then they do have those orcy feels on them.

>>48740250
Sounds like a bountiful lore

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Three words.

Neanderthal. Predation. Theory.

In humanity/other sentient species early history they were a serious menace. Physically more powerful, and adapted for nocturnal activity, they heavily predated other races. As time goes on though, and all the other races develop technologically the orcs are left behind. They can't figure much out more than basic firekeeping and sharpening rocks. Eventually, they're pushed to the edge of civilization, with only farmers and other agrarian types having anything to worry about. Even then, they're really more like pests. Preying on livestock at night, breaking into houses to steal food, and occasionally ambushing lonely travelers. They remain a strong cultural force though, and are the archetypal boogieman the world over. A remnant of the terror they once struck in bygone eras.

They can occasionally figure out scavenging tools and even abandoned homes, but inter tribe/troop fighting and high mortality means that developments are rarely stick and even then only within families.

However, since the disappearance of most major bodies of water and the flow of magic being strangled, agrarian communities are suffering more and more. As the populations become weaker and more desperate, the orcs are slowly creeping their way back into their former evolutionary niche. There are even rumors of whole weakened and weary towns wiped out in a night, and worse still that some of the fiends have taken to occupying abandoned villages and using more scavenged weapons/technology.

>>48741337
>Elder Scrolls

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>>48761853

Neanderthals actually looked closer to pic related, mind you.

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>>48764003
Obviously, but this crackpot theory is just such good fantasy fodder. Especially for the kind of setting I'm cooking.

>>48731551

Religious fanatics. They were generic Tolkien-ish orcs who kept getting organized into armies by evil lords, and subsequently wiped out when it went tits up. During the aftermath of one of these battles one of the sub-commanders found himself fleeing up a mountain abandoning arms and armor to run away from pursuit, and got trapped on one of the peaks of the mountain during a nasty storm and subsequent bright day.

Lashed by rain and wind, blasted at by thunder, burned by the sun, he came back carrying a rough wooden staff wearing some tattered scraps of cloth, proceeded to announce god had clued him in on a bit of their history, and he was here to bring truth and law to the orcish people. Which he wound up beating into most of his followers with said wooden staff.

It's a few generations on from that and people are kind of nervous at how unified and disciplined these orcs seem to be now. But they also notice they spend most of their time hunting down other orc bands and attempting to persuade them of their fallen nature and the path to salvation. The fact that this typically results in a lot of dead orcs is enough for most other peoples to decide that having orcs who behave like particularly militant Puritans is on balance a good thing.