Evil Orcs aren't supposed to be stupid per se. Even in LoTR, they were dull and miserable beings, but they loved machines, which implies cunning. They could make clever things, like traps and siege engines, but not beautiful things. Orc generals in D&D are also supposed to be effective strategists and tacticians.
If you think about it, to Orcs machinery is beauty. Serves to say the beauty for some is destruction and uglyness for another. Which is why a more nuanced view of Orcs seems much more intriguing and has bigger potential in a story to me than just dumb brutes. And it's not even a modern idea.
I think my favorite type of orcs comes from Warhammer fantasy/40k universe. They are basically monsters but not mindless ones. Their physiology makes them be violent and violence is what they likes the most.
What makes them even more fun is that they act as a kind of comic relief in the often depressingly dark world of 40k. A comic relief whose sole purpose and joy is fighting and killing. 😄
I love W40k orks because they are themselves unapologetically, and that brings to the front the question people try to be "smart" about: Are they evil?
@@fellipecanal In general you are right, but this change with some orcs leaders and shamans. Also you have black orcs. But of course a goblin leader like Skarnisk is the peak of cunning.
it's worth mentioning that even in 40k, there ARE Orks who will hire themselves out to other species. if it means getting a good fight out of it. (Blood Axes in particular) Heck, in the War of The Beast, the Ork WAUUGH field actually evolved ot the point that Ork DIPLOMATS were spawned, and presented terms of surrender to the Lords of terra in impeccable High Gothic., explaining that if they wanted to live, THIS was how they could do it. Of course, we find out later in the novel that it would have basicly led to humans being turned into cows.
The debate is an example of why having clear and open discussions with players up front at the beginning of games is so important. If one player assumes that orcs are manifestations of evil and another assumes they are just one of many different cultures deserving of respect in the campaign world, it's going to lead to problems in game. Decide as a group what works for you.
Manifestations of evil, or inherently evil should look like the part from the get go. Ambiguous creatures should look ambiguous and even empathetic from the get go. That's how you twist a black dragon.
Orcus, one eye giant Italian god of the underworld granting wealth through dangerous hard mining, punisher of oath breakers and betrayers. Kill your neighbor over a pig, goat or bag of dope, or a noble ruler pledging to defend his neighbor's lands but raided them for cattle and causing mass starvation during winter. Orcs come up from the root cellars and basements of buildings and drag their victims back down into the mythical underworld.
Or, a devious GM could decide for himself which they are, but never tell the players in certain terms, and let them decide amongst themselves which is true as they go. Mistakes would be made.
Isn't that the point though of having different perspective and playing a character in a role-playing setting? Why should two characters from completely different backgrounds share the same views on a race? Especially in terms of character alignments and personalities? Your more talking about just talking about the world setting instead of asking the players what they think since your using this world you came up with as a DM to play out.
@@underfire987 Orcus, god that punish oath breakers & betrayers ... When orcs show up and come out of the root cellar or basement, you know someone really f-cked up. Unlike vengeful ghosts, at lest you have a normal fighting chance in defending yourself from orcs. Roll 1d10 to determine the level of betrayal on one's mining partner. Roll 2d6, double 1s you get snake eyes, and wait for the bite.
Other material after Lord of the Rings tended to make orcs more like the Uruk-hai than Tolkien’s orcs. They made goblins, separate from orcs, more like Tolkien’s orcs. The orcs drifted towards being larger, goblins towards smaller, until neither of them were Tolkien’s orcs.
Think (the Hobbit) the Goblins from the misty mountains we're smaller then typical Orcs..? Orcs should be big Bruisers and Goblins should be little green assassins/thieves , thank goodness DnD, WH , WoW and other Sci Fi fantasy improved Orcs.. nowadays people been creating Orcs too look like *Giga Chad's & Stacey's* , guess we got Blizzard too thank for that , it takes away the Orcs intimidation factor they once had ..
@@joezar33 The Goblins *were* Orcs, though likely primitive and small "mongrel-stock" in comparison to other lineages like Gundabad orcs, Morgul orcs, or especially Uruk-Hai. I think Bilbo himself even refers to the strongest "goblins" as "Goblin Orcs", seeming to imply a degenerate or diminutive nature of the majority of Goblintown.
In my understanding, Warcraft and later World of Warcraft was planned to be a video game based on Warhammer (the Games Workshop tabletop game), they just could not sort out licensing and thus Blizzard made its own thing.
I like both Eberron orcs (who saved the world once), and Games Workshop orcs (who are physiologically predisposed to violence, given their odd reproductive cycle). I might use one in one setting, and another in another.
Warhammer is a miniature wargame, it was usually set at the frontlines where everyone is fighting everything. WFRP orks you meet outside the huge once-a-generation wars are still gits who like to kick people and take their stuff.
@@SusCalvin 40k orks don't have to be on the front line to fight everything. If they've got nobody else to fight they just split off and fight each other for a laugh.
I like the Elder Scrolls orcs the best. These elves, yes elves, were once called Orsimer. ( Mer means elf ) These Orsimer used to be beautiful creatures, but when their god, Trinimac, got horribly disfigured and transformed into a new version called Malacath, the Orsimer were likewise transformed into the Orcs. They are now basically green Klingons.
In Daggerfall you could learn the languages. I still remember the moment I learned enough Orcish to understand that the orcs I was fighting were telling the women to grab the children and run and they would stop "the monster." It was a real I Am Legend moment.
Since the old D&D boxed sets didn't have artwork for most monsters, including orcs, I treated orcs and goblins together as Tolkien's orcs, three size-differentiated races of the same species, with hobgoblins as oruk hai. I've seen this change in real time, with Warcraft and The Elder Scrolls mutating orcs to the point I'm amazed how often young gamers call something that looks like an ogre to me an "orc."
I've been working on a scifi setting that puts goblins, orcs, and trolls as parts of a life cycle, and added in a mix of hags and some fey or elves to it as well. The females tend to look closer to "human" there, but are rarer and tend to be the leaders with mass birthing situations where goblins tend to be nasty and basically culled by being tossed into battle, the few that survive long enough eventually grow up to be orcs, and with various things, a few orcs have their already there regeneration (albeit a slow one) accelerated to crazy by some of the hags to the point where you have things like armor plates implanted under their skin and become larger brutes that are prone to berserker rages when injured...the females also tend to be psionic.
When it comes to Tolkien, I refer to Goblin Slayer: "There might be if you looked hard enough, but the only good ones are the ones that never come out of their holes." it is extremely important to note that they had first Morgoth, then Sauron looming over them the entire time. Same problem for most other monstrous races in D&D..when you remember that Orcs,(Grumish) Gnolls(Yeenoghu or Lamashtu) , Goblins(Maglubiyet or lamashtu again..she's quite fecund), etc all have Gods(sometimes entire pantheons) or demon lords that might as well be as powerful as dieties whispering in thier ear from birth..."good" isn't really a possibility. It is literally in thier patron's best intrests to stamp that sort of thing out to prevent thier power from diminishing. Same goes for the Warcraft Orcs...removed from Fel influence, yes good orcs were possible, and indeed happened. but with active Fel influence? not a freaking chance.
Tolkien did mention that they wished they did more with their orcs, maybe a what next? After the fall of sauron, what did they do? What did they become? Now free, what did they decide?
Technically in Warcraft all orcs with green skin were fel influenced. It's probably more accurate to say most orcs that weren't warlocks were more like junkies than actually evil people, as most older orcs had PTSD from what they did to the draenei and humans.
@@joelrobinson5457 they were driven away from humans into the mountains where they never again posed an organized threat to humanity, and eventually it the passage of ages integrated into human society, with their descendents being commonly involved in the creation of machinery that aids in the slaughter of a great number of people. So people like Kalashnikov or Oppenheimer were orc-spawn in Tolkien's eyes.
@@alexsolomon7991 its both. First injection of fel. Turned Them green, gave Them red eyes and made Them slaves. Those who drank more demon juice became even more demonic, turned red, grew spiked etc. The playable green orcs are still green because fel is a stain on the dna, and it passes on to the next generation.
In the homebrew setting I made, Orcs were created by an evil Deity that wanted them to be a monstrous race that would wipe out all other sentient life. The Deity tried to achieve this by making it so that the Orcs were less intelligent, prone to anger, and that they will go insane if they don't get in a fight once a week. However, despite all these factors, there are still Orcs who actively try to fight against this nature of theirs and live alongside the other races of the world. Because of this, many nations will have small pockets of Orcs living within them that live and work alongside them, usually working as mercenaries, but not always. These kinds of Orcs insist on calling themselves the 'True' Orcs, while their cousins who try to stick to what their Deity intended are the 'Savage' Orcs. Meanwhile, the 'Savage' Orcs, who behave like the traditional D&D Orc, call themselves the 'Real' Orcs, while their more peaceful cousins are the 'Spineless' Orcs. There is even an entire nation of the 'True' Orcs whose primary means of trade is war. They provide mock wars for other nations to engage in in order to provide the other nations a ready means of training their troops, while the Orcs give their own people a constant option for relieving their battle itch.
That's a nice way to use them, nature vs nurture. I would also like to add the conflict between ignorance vs truth. Some orcs have lived all their lives by following their god and have never been presented any other way. So, when an opposition is presented, it is preposterous. But, can you really say he/she is evil? Ignorant of the truth, sure, but does that makes it trully evil? What about an orc that knows really tries to understand others, an orc that searches for the truth, but only for his own personally gains?
Grumnsh is pretty much the god of Rape and Pillage on Torill. He wants all other life subjugated or destroyed. He especially wants a certain elf gods head over a poked out eye.
Maybe fighting their own nature could be considered weekly battle too. It reminds me of Startreck klingons considered fighting with your own fears and phobias to be great battle that deserves respect.
@@belisarian6429 multiple forgotten realms novels included orcs or goblins who went against the grain. Not unlike Drizzt of the Drow. These are exceptions, not the norm. This is the stupidity of modern media. There is no compelling story if we remove the evil nature. Not unlike Fn from the “sequel trilogy” the reluctant storm trooper who would not be a murderer is compelling. If there is no mental programming and mindless killer to overcome there is no story. If there is no demonic taint, and influence if a spider demon goddess to overcome Drizzt’s story is banal and pointless. Modern writers and Hollywood in particular seem to have forgotten, hero’s are only as good as their nemesis and only as strong as what they overcome. Anakin and Luke both jump in before they are ready and lose limbs in the process. MaReySu is powning Darth Emo like 3 hours after she leans light sabers are a thing.
@@mikewaterfield3599 In this case I would not see it as strictly going against grain, but rather taking different perspective, battle does not have to include arms, it can be battle of minds. It is not going against definition OP orcs who have to fight every week, but rather taking alternate route. As for Hollywood and modern writers, I dont care about them, there are alternatives.
My personal favorite Orc incarnations are the Orsimer of the Elder Scrolls Universe. They’re a barbaric warrior culture but not necessarily evil. In fact, they have a code of honor which makes for an interesting player character should Orsimer be the player’s chosen race 🪓
Strong agree with a lot of what you put down and appreciate your comment at the end of avoiding watering down the orc. I think there are many exciting storylines to be explored with other intetpretations of orcs, but I don't want them to feel watered down. I want them to feel like a distinct creature with their looks and moral code.
Orsimer from elder scrolls really do green people/distinct creatures pretty well, if you look into their culture, and the biological effects of their berserker rage, in rp I really try to maximize their adrenal system overworking itself to the point a raging orc can crush a metal helmet with their bare hands, this overworking adrenal system leads to a quickness to anger, to fall into depressive states more easily etc
The relationship to nature when it comes to orcs is almost never covered. I also think it would be cool to have orcs or a subrace/variant be nomadic/transhumant pastoralists. When I think about Orcs, I think about the Ancient Mongols: Masters of tactics and strategy and living in harmony with nature while being tolerant or even curious of other beliefs and cultures. Fantasy should also be more about the conflict between nature and civilization. Orcs tend to be the harsher side of nature while wood elves tend to be the gentler side.
Orcs are whatever they are in the setting that you play, there are several different interpretations of them and all are valid within their realm. As a German I thought the representation of kobolds in DnD to be odd (they are little to nothing like they are in my countries fables) but it works in DnD, it would be as weird for me to protest their interpretations in DnD as it would be for a DnD player to say that the German folktales represent them wrongly. The same goes for virtually all races
Kobold is a great analogy. I did a video on them a couple years ago and indeed discovered that it was only in recent times (3e D&D) that they were reinterpreted as reptilian things and associated with dragons.
What are kobolds like in German fables, Jonas? Because how they are now is not how they always were. Years ago I think they were basically the orc family but even smaller than goblins.
@@edpistemic kobolds in German folklore are more akin to gnomes in DnD nowadays actually, as it’s their craftiness and intelligence/dedication that is the talk of most tales. They could be generalised as crafty, helpful, but also capricious and easily vexed. That may sound like an oxymoron but it becomes clearer what I mean through tales: one is of the “Heinzelmännchen”, kobolds who were said to have built the city of Cologne, till one day a lady devisees a rouse to see one, and when she did the kobolds all left in spite. Generally speaking, all kobolds follows this trope: spirits that would be benevolent to house and home but spiteful if they were ever discovered. A variant of this is the “Klabautermann”, a Kobold that is said to reside on ships and help the sailors, but also bring upon great misfortune to those that try to set eyes upon him (or in other tales he is the bad omen: those that see him are onboard a doomed vessel). This is of course very reductive and a very abridged version of the tales, there are more to be said about them but this is already a long enough post.
It’s also fun when different cultures interpret them. For example in the anime “That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime”, they are depicted as literal Pig people, and not even green skinned, they were literal large bipedal pig people. And in the start of the anime they were seen as a race that weren’t that intelligent but were still a race with a culture and life. They only became a evil horde when a demon lord took advantage of them when they were suffering from a severe famine and pretty much brainwashed them into a horde to take advantage of. But after the demon that brainwashed them had died as well as there corrupted brainwashed orc lord, they charged back to there normal selves and eventually became respected across the nation the slime character created as builders and tough warriors, now seen as equal among the other races in the nation.
Curiously enough that "Pig people" thing is something they got from DnD. Where their version had Orcs mistranslated as pig people, in the part that usually describes that Orc have some pig-like features.
Years ago, the last time I ever played D&D. The GM let me play a lizardman, the story behind it was a group of adventures come upon the nest and took an egg. Some elves hatched and raised it as a joke, but imprinting the lizardman grew up thinking it was one of the group becoming fiercely loyal to the elf that raised it. The party used the lizardman as a threat to stubborn npc, "Now tells what we want to know, and we won't feed you to our scaly friend here." Lizardman flicks his tongue out and smiles.
I fall somewhere in the middle of that dichotomy, I like orcs as brutal, aggressive warriors, but I also like the opportunity to play against type. You need to have a type to play off against first, however. The go to method is as you said, make them green humans with tusks, which isn’t the worst option, but it definitely ignores their more monstrous origins, which I believe is important to the orc archetype.
Tell you what would go toward what your speaking of... half orcs... wait! Not just a PC half orc half orcs that have interbread and started giviing birth to a slightly divergent race of Orc . Because of interbreeding they now have lets say 10 to 15% human blood intermixed. And this was just enough to cause a slightly different worldview. They're still orcs just human influenced orc. And it's the orcs fault! All that pillaging behavior and creating intermixed children has started catching up with them.. lol
@@lloydgush Its a small part of the homebrew Champaign im building. I saw a half orc image that inspired me. wrathofzombie.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/half-orc.jpg?w=768&h=614 Half-Orcs) are growing and forming their own towns and communities away from the Ancient evil Orc communities. Just enough to the point that they have started coming to Grummsh's attention. 2-4% of the entire orc population 20 to 40 or 50,000 spread out across a continent or two. Now they have to fight for their survival. Maybe Grummshs sons rebels and becomes their hidden patron. or Ilneval.. i like this diety for their main god... Or even Corellon just to antagonize his enemy protects a CN Ork to be a chosen and backs them to start a resistance/Civil war that gathers them into one place to establish themselves. It has several ways it could play itself out. In my homebrew it has greater implication with the gods but hey!
To me the Orc is kind of what you need as an antagonist in a setting. In DnD they represent Chaos, disorder, primal savagery. To Tolkien, they were authoritarianism and industrialism, or what man becomes under those conditions, hence his quote, "We were all Orcs in the Great War." To me, the Orc is ultimately used to represent mankind's most powerful but destructive tendencies. Nihilism given form. If might makes right, if will to power is all there is, then Orcs are what man becomes.
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9:27 actually they were freed by the first orc who drank Mannoroth's blood by slaying the demon Mannoroth and sacrificing himself. Grommash Hellscream, Thrall was there to help but it was Grom who killed the demon. In WoD you see him do this again where he's fate was almost completely the same if not for Garrosh to save him.
When I ran a D&D game as a GM I didn't allow for any kind of monster races to be chosen by the players. This was because I wanted my setting to be one that had monsters in it. I feel that orcs have a great place in that environment as do many of the other monsters that people have have picked had I allowed it. On the other hand in the current campaign I'm playing in, the game master has different goals and has decided to portray orcs as good, it's not an issue for me, I'm simply playing a character in their world, and the facts of the setting are just the facts of life for my character. Injecting my own world building bias into my character would of course be meta and disruptive. The exception to this is of course during the character creation and backstory aspect of my character where I worked with the dm to include some of my ideas into the world and it's history.
Whatever kind of orcs you run, just have fun with it. Don't let anyone shame you for how you use them in your games. It is your choice alone, no one else's. There's no inherently *bad* way to use any race/creature in this game.
I will leave a neat idea: I once used orcs as "law-protectors". Not lawyers or police, more like a police in charge of making sure that the constitution is respected. The constitution, in this case, the agreed terms of proper conduct among all the sentient races in the continent. The Law of the Sentients. Now try conquering a city knowing that, if you hurt a single child of any sentient race, an army of orc lawyers in suits will use their briefcases to sue you BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.
That is a lot of wrong things you sure said. Group agreement is necessary for everyone to have fun, and there's absolutely very wrong ways to portray an entire race, especially if one of your players is playing as that race.
@@witchBoi_ConnorThere is no wrong way to play a race of alien minded monsters except by assuming their motives are going to by default be similar to ours. I'm creating a setting where the current Orc King cleared out the madness of his insane creator god. He's doing the same thing for his people but he's not helping the world, he's in fact making it more dangerous. They're still almost all evil to the person, just now it's focused and motivated. The humans and dwarves call him a villain, the orcs and goblins call him a hero. Why? Not because he's evil with a sympathetic viewpoint or background. No, he believes in might makes right, if you can't protect what you have then you deserve to lose it. He's seen a hero by his goblin and orcish subjects because they're alien minded. They're simply not humans, their psychology does not work the same. There are good orcish NPCs, he doesn't even order their deaths because while they're good by human terms, each of them are still savage, deadly, violent and unrepentant. They're not traitors, just doing their thing. The mistake in portraying them is by actually making them acting like green humans the norm. Traditionally, they're not even humanoid, why should they have anything close to our morality? Portraying them as anything not human is how they should be portrayed.
I am trying to find a middle ground in my setting. My orcs used to be footsoldiers for an evil god until they saw that it brought them nothing but misery...so they killed their lord. There are still orcs who are loyal to the dark god but they are shunned by the other tribes. Orcs are warlike but not malicious. They enjoy all sorts of competition, from games to mage duels to battle. They also have the curious tradition of adopting the children of valiant opponents, raising them as their own. This has led to quite a few tribes to have traces of human blood. Thus, orcs can appear more or less human-like, from adopted humans over half-orcs to large, bullish creatures looking more like the bigger orcs from Lord of the Rings. I just love all flavors of orc!
That is a pretty interesting take. Have you worked out how Orcs in your setting tend to sustain themselves? Are they nomadic hunter gatherers? Have they developed agriculture or raising livestock for food? Is raiding other communities something that some of them do with any regularity? I'm working on a setting that currently has four major factions. One of the factions is Dragons, who built they power base by taking certain races under their protection or forcing into servitude, in the process also experimenting on or breeding some of them for desirable traits, meaning they have dragonborn, orcs, half orcs and humans under their influence. Dragons essentially live as rulers or Gods, depending on the individual dragon chooses to rule their personal holdings. I'm currently unsure if I may want Orcs and Humans to perhaps be some sort divergent evolutionary branch from a common ancestor, possibly to explain why the two could breed.
@@josephperez2004 Orcs, Neanderthal. Half orc, cramaguim. Then you have humans. On one hand humans are mutations in the stander orc being weaker in strength but on average a bit smarter, along with normal humans being skinny but having high density in muscle strength. Although you have to explain the low jaw tusks. Well in real life some humans are born with extra fingers and small tails so each human culture deals with tusks coming in as wisdom teeth or teenage tooth growth their own bias way. .
@kris palermo That sounds promising. Thinking on the matter, another aspect I'd been considering were mild restrictions on subclass options from certain classes. Specifically Wizard, as I liked the idea that while spells can be learned by most anyone, certain special tricks (the abilities you'd get from being an Abjurer or Transmuter specifically) might be more closely guarded and even require special training. In the case of the Dragon Faction, I'd considered giving them the Abjurer, Evoker, and Order of the Scribe specialties. Perhaps Humans were an attempt at a sort of logistical servant race, bred for perception to detail, manual dexterity, and general ability to focus on a single task. While Dragonborn would have reliable breeds with natural strains of magic in their blood (Sorcerers), the Humans (and even some half orcs and the occasional orc) might develop the skill to coax magic out of their surroundings through focus and training.
@@josephperez2004 I spent years studying world religions and rituals along with paganism, shamanism, and witchcraft. Religious items such as the cross & rosery beads or beads used in other cultures for prayer. It in bases a magic fetish item such as a wand or staff. Who to say a sorcerer wand firing cantrips is really enchanted or not or just a spell focus component. In WotC3e there is a magic item creation feat called, Craft Wonderous Item, required caster level 3rd. This feat is required in the DMG under : Creating Magic Trap Items. Long story short after a month killing vermin for dinner a 3rd-level wizard/druid will had 1,500xp to 3,000xp and can create two 2nd-level spell items each month. So any low develop cultural level, of orcs, native Americans, the nomadic Mongols rooted in a shamanic cultural will be regarded as druids. With a bit reading it is not difficult to create a Hindu Buddhist yoga kick boxing monk. Traded out the druid every third level feat for hand to hand combat, take a few levels of fighter for bonus feats, switch out the druid nature abilities to Astral travel. Mind out of Body spell chain would be Unseen Servant, Blink, Demi Shadow Monster for sending out one's soul to attack someone. AD&D2nd spell Wraith Form later renamed Gaseous Form, along with Dimensional Door. 2.) My gaming shop played Whitewolf/World of Darkness (WoD) Mage the Awakening and Werewolf with both systems had rules on creating spirit sites to draw down and storge mana magical energy. We even carry that over into our Star Wars campaigns along with DC/Marvel games. a.) Styles of play and themes in campaign, .. i.) rogue that is good at social skills of con people or begging not to get beat up by the local street gang. Role playing and charisma roll to adjust social reactions & attitudes. There are five levels from hostile to helpful. Point being you don't have to be a Bard to raise the moral of your adventuring team or field troops. People are superstitious and even if they don't Know that they receive god's blessing or not, they just know someone gave a good prayer speech and they are still alive after wards. So god must have favor them. History of the German Protestant Wars, along with England's. So you could have a fighter/rogue with good social skills acting as a lay cleric. Look how religious people explain their god's actions in real life. Sorry to sound atheist. Run a game where Everything is magic but unflashy. ii.) Create Food & Water, PCs cast spell and then they find a pack mule with water, they can eat the mule. Or it rains and they have to drink water from a mud puddle and eat earth worms that came up in the rain. Druid spell Good Berries, you just find enough nuts & berries to keep you alive for a few more days. Most magic is kept at or below 3rd-level. Cleric casting Cure Disease is legendary, but Granny is a 2nd-level druid or Catholic nun being accused of witchcraft by other German protestants, clay cooking pot for chicken soup has spells of Bull's Strength and Endurance to raise Fort saves to deal with the flu. Keep magic simple enough it can be logical dismissed. Closer to reality, it was herbalism and proper nutrition by growing the herbs and vegetables in the correct compost. Cure light wounds grants a stamina boost of temporary hp, or recovers bonus hp through bed rest. Only Cure Critical Wounds has a PC heal like Marvel comics Wolverine. iii.) Orc or any other nomadic tribe person could have a 3rd-level druid with the feat Craft Wounder Item could create a rock/large stone alter that has Cure Wounds 2d8+3hp. It heals wounded N/PCs over a few days. In AD&D the Greater Mummy had an unholy symbol which could heal them each round for 2d8 hp dmg. AD&D didn't have the rules to create such and item without charges. Like a " wand " of cure light wounds holding 40 charges. Then WotC came out with 3e. Leading to a bunch of 3rd-level clerics or bards creating rings or neckless of cure light wounds of 1d6+3hp each round. omg we had a bunch of Wolverine want a bes. So as war power gamers we develop over kill to new levels.
@@josephperez2004 Magic, .. Instead of rolling d20, roll 4d6. Reroll any 6 that comes up for higher skill rank check out come. 3e to learn a new spell is Spellcraft DC:15 + spell level minus - ability modifier. a starting rogue at first level for the most skill points then follow up with sorcerer or bard. For the rogue it is 4points to buy 2ranks in Spellcraft and Knowledge( arcane lore/ old wives tales or what old men think they know.) So starting PC is rogue1/sorcerer1/bard1 follow with sorcerer2. Spellcraft could be with 12+1 int bonus at 11ranks. So to pop off a 1st-level spellcraft DC: rolling 5 or more on d20. My DM had charts on wild magic random results, she really just loved the Wish spell along with Limited Wish. So a 6th-level wizard or sorcerer can cast a 3rd-level spell, total all spell slots if they equal 9 slot levels they can roll for a 9th-level spell such as Wish or Gate. Spellcraft DC:15+9 for spell level + 12 caster level difference in separation required to cast a 9th level spell.= 36. WotC Star Wars had Rebel Era campaign source book and had multiclassing set up to explain N/PC growth. Such as star system governor, crime lord to company chair owner. A single class Jedi consular at 7th-level could have 10 ranks in Diplomacy, and they could over train their padawan 4th-level Jedi to multiclass in Noble class to get a rapid advancement in the skill Diplomacy up to a higher rank. So in D&D 3e the DMG N/PC class Expert gaining a +2 Will save and 6skill points with extra 1d6hp. Power gaming multi classing cleric or druid at 1 level, bard maybe after finding someone with more training or a wild talent maverick. So a " fire dancer" cleric2/bard2/sorcerer2/rogue1 would have a base Spellcraft: +17ranks. So if a player could roll a 19 with 4d6 and reroll 6s they could cast a 9th-level spell. God help you if you roll four 1s. Action rolls. 1st. roll initiative to call/ invoke magic energy to your shape to be shaped. 2nd. roll init again to shape the energy. 3rd. roll init again to cast said energy at given target. In AD&D spell level adds +1 for each level of spell to modify initiative rolls. So you really needed a shield wall in front of your caster. 2.) Other magic spell like abilities, .. i.) AD&D action were argue to be at 1 minute or 6seconds long due to what purist gate keeper you were dealing with during the 1990's. ( what the H3LL ?! the book doesn't say it take 3 f-cking minutes to cast Fire Ball ! ) Needless to say we had more than our fare share of plastic baseball fights and foam weapons. ii.) TMNT and Rifts time was 6seconds. iii.) Whitewolf/World of Darkness(WoD) base on modifiers stander melee or firearms, or vampire Charm it was 3 seconds long. For mages casting a extended action of spells from 3seconds to hours. iv.) WotC 3e D&D/Star Wars came out. 6seconds melee and force powers activation. 15minute Short Rest came out cause Jedi power their force abilities with their Vp vitality which are treated more as temporary hit points. So we looked at D&D spells as if they were force power skill check roll. AD&D2ndE didn't have mana or spell points, other game systems did. So if you want to cast Fire Ball it will cost your caster 5hp at 5th-level and 10hp at 10th-level. Very limiting a wizard spells per day, some DM d-ck head gate keepers really hated spellcasters they are not controlling as an N/PC in their gaming. Open game shop 25 + years ago, you played with who could know the rules enough to DM and tell a good action survival horror story. I been in games where one person ran the story and two other players had to run combat for everyone. v.) Star Wars, we ran force cultist where instead of using their force Jedi powers within a 6second melee round. it took them minutes of meditation, chanting, throat singing, and sometimes Needed props such as drums. Needless to say they are worthless in mass combat for Palpatine to make use of, but useful enough where Palpatine or Darth Vader will stand/ sit though Hours of chanting to get effects they needed. WEG west end games d6 system Star Wars RPG, now just refer to as Open D6 Space Fantasy. Which my gaming group played before WotC took the wheel. In short any Star Wars N/PC can make a constitution DC:15 after an hour of meditation and gain a Force Point. Background backing is a Knowledge check for Theology and Meditation of oneness or stillness. Difficulty is modify with WEG number of Force feat Control dice you have in your dice pool. Or WotC3e skill ranks Knowledge(Control) the character has. A force user like Jedi can have unlimited Force Pts to modify action out comes. A stander PC can hold a given number equal to their class level or Wisdom/Constitution average. " sound mind/sound body." So other than telling you game master storyteller you are just " using the Force," you roll your Knowledge(religion/mediation) against your wisdom. Like any other stander action. Any PC can roll for bonus Luck Dice/Force points each day as long as you treat using them as a skill action. In one regard you could have people that knew how to call on the Force in all their action but still not outshine the Jedi. On the given person their meditation could be sitting and breathing. Cursing and kicking the wall. Cleaning their weapon or making comfort food. Have a one hour pre game warm up by chanting your schools/city sports slogan. Listen to death metal music. vi.) ...To cast given spells, the spellcaster takes temporary damage to their constitution/wisdom due to the strain of the casting at low levels. At higher levels they take damage as paying cost then roll a save at their current ability score stat or lose the spell. At more difficult level they must make multiple save rolls. vii.) Orc horse step grassland raider, Mongols or the Huns. Ranger2/druid3 CR:5 can cast 2nd-level spells and has Craft Wonderous item feat. The orc rider can set up small to large stone alters for healing and gaining strength from. Instead of a few seconds of melee style spellcasting. Cure Light Wounds takes minutes or hours to chant through.
My first introduction to ORCS is warcraft II in 1995, it's been my go-to RPG identity since I was 8. It's also safe to say I would have fallen to the dark side of the force day 2 of training as a JEDI.
"I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history - true or feigned- with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author." -J.R.R Tolkien
people don't follows orders without thought, that can we see with all the russians soldier fleigning. No people follows orders if they think they are doing the right thing
@@LordNithilus Good for him, I don't dislike Allegory though. I believe some concepts in a story shouldn't be free for the reader to decide, otherwise the reader can control and pervert the story. And then sell the corrupted version as true.
I think parallels can be seen between the treatment of orcs in some fantasy gaming and the treatment of Klingons in the Star Trek franchise: from aggressive, evil adversaries to an aggressive, honor-bound culture.
I've been critical of some of your videos and their tone. But this must be said: This was beautiful. Eloquent. Historical/lore accurate. Perfect. Every word. I bow to you, sir.
I like the dnd orcs, but because of my high fantasy leaning they felt a bit lack luster, as a fantasy race. In my world, they were created by the first necromancer(an elf), who wanted to fix the problem of elven bodies growing weaker, after they settled on the material plane. So, he utilized his necromantic expertise to weave the perfect physical body. Strong, healthy, and able to reproduce in a more stable manner than the panda-like elves. The two species were supposed to interbreed to create this species of both perfect body and mind, but the other elves did not like the idea. They killed the creator, making the first collective memory of the infant orcs the death of their father at the hands of elves. Because of that they rampaged and forced the elves to escape from their own homeland, jumpstarting the division of the elves into different subraces depending on where they sought refuge. This caused the many, large scale, elven spells to haywire and change the land into a dangerous, and unexplored, expanse, prowled by different creatures, escaped from elven laboratories. The orcs, surprisingly, thrived there. They began worshipping their father as a god, and learned necromancy from him, which became an important part of their culture. Bone became their material of choice, for both weapons and armor, and to offer a skeleton of a rare species to their god was a great achievement. Even their bodies are able to produce various bone plates or blades if trained and prepared in a specific way. They can end up looking as if covered in armor or carapace with horns and other such stuff differing between tribes or clans. They live in nomadic tribal societies, focused around gigantic tortoise skeletons turned into moving tents, and herd entire forests of orcwort trees(3e monster producing orc shaped moving fruit which fits just perfectly) along their way to have a source of food with them. To the rest of the world, they are a very mysterious people. To elves they are the boogeyman. Dwarves absolutely love them for their hunting skills and often invite entire clans to aid in an extermination of a dangerous monster, in exchange for resources. Others, might find them odd or unsettling, because of their harsh child rearing methods or the custom of eating a fallen orcs heart so that their strength will stay with the tribe. But it all depends on how the relationship has been shaped in the past. I really like what I ended up with.
That sounds like a great idea for a book series. If that isn't what your project currently is, it certainly could be turned to such. Very clever way you're using the whole association with the Underworld, while still making your Orcs sympathetic.
@@Typanoid @Typanoid Thank you, but to tell you the truth, it is a mess for now. I want to write a book once but got discouraged by my own lack of skill. Then upon discovering rpg's and dnd specifically I aimed to create my own setting in which I could run games. My aim was for it to feel somewhat familiar to someone familiar with fantasy or the game, but different enough so it could be unmistakably mine. One of my main goals was to make the "races" of dnd into "species" but not in the way wotc did, in name only. And that's how this idea came to be, with no small help from my love for necromancy which I feel is strongly underused. And now after some years, with little to no opportunities to play, I've been learning and trying to write again. So maybe one day, this will become something more. Thank you for your kind words once again.
That's cool. In my setting, the Elves were a species created by the Sphinxes to serve as footsoldiers in their war against the Dragons and their human allies. The original elves were a combination of humans, beasts, and demons. They betrayed the Sphinx, brought their empire down, and then stole all their magic. They wanted to purify themselves and make themselves beautiful and immortal, so they performed this massive ritual that would purge the demonic and beastial elements from themselves. It worked...kind of. To the elves surprise, their dark halves didn't just vanish, they became a literal curse on the earth. Now anywhere that blood spills on the earth and the sun does not shine, the ground turns black and corrupted. Eventually, fist-sized maggots spontaneously form, growing into massive 4' long worms that undergo metamorphosis and emerge as fully adult orcs. The orcs have taken root deep in the mountains, in the long-abandoned cities of the dwarves, where they strike out to capture humans, dwarves, and elves to bring back to their breeding caverns where they sacrifice victims to their dark gods, spilling their blood on the black earth and breeding new generations of orcs. Goblins are much the same, but they spawn from untended trash piles (and are a plague on cities with poor sanitation). They're a result of a human mage trying to break the orc curse. He failed, only modifying it and changing its nature.
I've read a lot of books with all sorts of Orcs. Most tend to be more Tribal Barbarian types, so they are not necessarily evil, just bloodthirsty....literally if they eat people. They don't all have to be the same in your role-playing world either, you can have multiple versions existing like you do for all the other races. There are many differences in their looks as well. Warhammer Orks, Tolkien Orcs, Bright (movie) Orcs, D&D furry Orcs, Grey Orcs, etc...
Note: Though elves and dwarfs for sure had some inspirations from faeries, they were also inspired by the Norse myths. Dökkálfar and Ljósálfar, Dark elves and Light elves. Even the name Alf -> Elf The Light elves are pretty similar to the tolkienesque elves in fact. The dark elves however were short in stature, lived in the earth and were known for great metal works and other crafts. They could be evil and greedy though. This may sound familiar... It was a Dark Elf/Dwarf pair named Sindre and Brokk that made Mjølnir, Thors hammer. Loki had to trick them to get it done though. Here is a wikipedia page (Norwegian, sorry) with an image from that legend drawn in 1901, more than 50 years before Tolkien penned LoTR. It depicts a dwarf in a forge, and he does not seem to be a spirit, but much more akin to modern fantasy. no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fil:Once_again_the_buzzing_fly_came_in_at_the_window_(1901)_by_Arthur_Rackham.jpg There is a lot more that Tolkien got from Norse and Finnish myths and legends that he put in his world. He was well read, and took things from all over.
I think the more monstrous options are a good thing, I like playing nonhumans. For your monstrous heroes book I have a suggestion for you to make two serpentine races; one small sized venomous race and one medium sized constrictor race. For inspiration for the venomous race, I would suggest you look at hognose snakes, and/or false water cobra’s, these are some venomous snakes that make good pets. For the constrictor race, I would suggest you look at reticulated pythons, and Burmese pythons, I think that because these snakes are roughly in the mass of a human you could actually consider them medium size in real life. I love snakes, and I have created my own homebrew serpent races for myself and while I don’t make very much money, I intend to support the Patreon when it comes up!
Orcs were not given a land on Faerun, Grumsh got pissed, and commanded the orcs to pillage what they need. I think generally, orcs would be considered bad. Obold many arrows changed that for some. So, outside Obolds influence probably leaning more toward evil.
what orcs are entirely depends on what orcs you're talking about. I tend to prefer the ones which have their own culture and are not neccesarily evil, just different enough to be easily misunderstood. Like Elder Scrolls Orsimer for instance.
It really depends on the setting. Orcs can be the good guys, the bad guys, player races, or even heroes depending on the setting/lore. Context matters.
I personally think that the idea of Orcs in the D&D world that try to find a new place in the world breaking away from their traditional society is interesting even if they're rare within the setting. Eberron is also interesting with it's Orcs that aren't inherently evil.
I say it just depends on the setting. If it's the canon D&D setting, perhaps they're evil monsters. In my, personal, favourite setting (Terrinoth), they can be any alignment.
Elder Scrolls has Orcs and Dark Elves who are not necessary evil (and by the time of Skyrim could be considered far less of a threat than the high elves and in fact a potential ally for humanity against that threat) and do it very well imo, it just connects some of the tropes that existed about them into the races' culture and mythology - e.g. the orcs were elves (and technically still are) but their god, Trinimac became the "demon god" (i.e. Daedra) Malacath, and they changed with him, but Daedra are not necessarily evil and neither are Orcs. Also by degraded I mean literally eaten and pooped out by another god if you believe some myths.
Orcs, Tieflings, hobgoblins, and bugbears. All of these are considered monstrous races for a reason. At my table, players are free to play monstrous races with the knowledge that if they do they will be treated as such. This doesn’t mean that characters cannot prove themselves but you cannot expect an orc to walk into a small village that has been periodically pillaged by orcs and not expect to be treated like a monster.
Actually, I was going to run a scenario in which the local cleric got kidnapped by orcs that wanted to force him to heal their warriors. This was kind of the idea I had for how the half-orc PC ended up with the rest of them to start with - he'd actually been living in town for a while but the townsfolk thought he had something to do with the kidnapping. He was actually from another tribe but wanted to help get the cleric back so the townspeople would stop blaming him. I gave him a bit of incidental knowledge of that orc tribe, so he actually was an important party member when it came to seeking them out.
I would agree with all of those races except tieflings. Tieflings are basically just humans with demonic curse/lineage, but they're basically as diverse as humans in views.
@@couchgrouches7667 that doesn't change the fact that people would treat them differently because of how they look, as much as we don't like to admit it people are visual creatures, so similar to how people act differently on deformities they will treat tiefling as not human
My view is that there can be evil or good cultures of any of the races, just that orcs, goblinoids, and the underdark races are just more inclined to it because of their pantheons manipulating them. For the rest, if assumed to be that way, they can say: "You call us evil? look at how many twisted human bandits and cultists there are." Also a new viewpoint that I am going to start trying to explore comes from a comment on SuperGeekMike's video on this topic, where the Orcish pantheon in D&D is like a dark mirror of the Aesir nordic gods, which will lean more into the honorable warrior side of orcs.
Esper, this is the time to shine. You are the OG DND youtuber. We want to hear your opinions and thoughts on wizard of the coast, the OGL, and DND in general.
Theirs no future with wotc, what they make isn't even really dnd, one does not need to ogl, and cannot be sued for game mechanics. Go OSR and worry not about wotc.
I lean a bit more towards the new school, I think the Elder Scrolls did a pretty decent job making the transition from monster to playable race feel believable, in the first 2 games they were considered monsters but the events of the second explored them in more depth and by the end secured their personhood within the world. Not only that, they kept a lot of those original elements after that - Brutal might-makes-right tribal nomadic reaver society loosely inspired by the Mongols created from a corruption of elves by a powerful evil being.
I find it strange how Orcs and Tribalism have become so intrinsically linked in pop-culture. People think "Orcs are Dumb, so the can't be building things with complexity like civilized people", and then you get a dynamic of seeing Civilized as good and Wild as bad. The "Civilized" People are rational thinkers and pursuing philosophy and ideals while the "Wild" people are superstitious as opposed to rational, and oppose progress for the sake of brutish power and savage revelry, which is very close to the way a lot of Colonial powers saw native populations around the world: "Look at these backward savage people, they are not smart like us. We should make them act right and if they don't obey we need to put them down." And then you look at these supposed "Civilized" people and they are not as good and not as rational as they think they are, they can be Greedy, have a sense of superiority to others, xenophobia, etc... and the people who were marked in this dynamic as "Wild and Uncivilized" you find a lot of complexity within. My favorite example is the Aztec Empire, they were infamous for their practice of human sacrafice and pop-culture tends to exoticize some of these unfavorable aspects about them for shock and making them seem alien and brutal, but while that was one aspect of the Aztecs there was more to them than just ritualistically pulling out people's beating heart at the top of a temple. The Aztecs were also incredible problem solvers. The Capital of the Aztec Empire Tenochtitlan was built in the middle of a lake on a swampy island so in order to make this island fit for building a city they drove long poles into the mud to keep buildings stable, sectioned off parts of the lake that had more brackish water that were bad for crops and had contingencies in case of floods, built farms on rafts covered in mud from the lake so they had plenty of space for Agriculture on the lake, and had an Aqueduct from the Mountains to deliver constant drinkable freshwater into the city! On the other hand look at Victorian England. They certainly thought of themselves as the most civilized civilization in the world, but their cities were filthy and overcrowded, crime was on the rise as people became desperate, quality of life was a lot worse as food and products were made more cheap and with less regard for health risks, and my favorite example of victorian hypocrisy was rich people having parties where they thought it would be fun to EAT A MUMMY! You idiots are committing Cannibalism but you still think you are "Rational, Morally Correct, Civilized People" So what if we took some of these ideas and applied them to Orcs. In Lord of the Rings the Orcs and Uruk-Hai were very industrial building massive forges and factories, destroying nature for the sake of progress and war with no regard for consequences, so what if instead of associating enemy orcs with groups who have historically been oppressed, we were to depict enemy Orcs as the Colonist, the Oppressors, the Industrialists who see life as meaningless to the machine of war, expansion, and progress not realizing they are also harming themselves. Let's make more Orcs British!
I kept thinking about this, and making Orcs inspired off of Colonial England not only makes them collectively more monstrous but also can make individual orcs more relatable! On one hand you have the fear of this Military industrial superpower and well organized soldiers invading your medieval fantasy kingdom, destroying the landscape for its resources, committing atrocities and war crimes, and then acting stuck up and superior can really make your players feel like underdogs and hate them. On the other hand you can explore the human side of individuals and how they are hurting themselves as much as they are hurting other races. Show a Soldier questioning orders when they think their superiors are going too far and getting punished. Show lower class Orcs who are being preyed on by organized crime because their leaders don't care about helping them. Show Orcs who don't fit in to the rigid industrial society and try to find somewhere else they belong.
My idea of traditional is this, it's not concrete foundation, but it is a brick and mortar building. If you want to make alterations, then adding furniture is one thing but you better make sure you know what you're doing if your going to stark breaking down wall and building more rooms.
I also love the more traditional Orc concept. I'm currently playing one in an AD&D campaign. The nuance you can explore with a race that is considered by many to be evil, and carries around that baggage but has more depth to them is crucial. I don't play them as if they are some new-age "just misunderstood" Orc. My character knows that they have an instinctive bias towards brutality, greed, and malevolence, and yet they manage to push that urge down in order to accomplish larger goals. Every now and then however my character reminds the world that they don't actually care in the same way other people might. I also think we often forget to align humans with orcs in a serious way in fantasy. Humans in fantasy worlds are often far more savage than humans of the actual medieval period, and certainly much more so than humans of a contemporary period. When you compare a fantasy orc to any fantasy human living in similar circumstances, in a world filled with monsters, magic, and true evil, you simply have to become more cruel to survive. An Orc, even a traditional pig nosed, hairy monster isn't that different from some human barbarian living in a tribal society on the edge of civilization.
Grew up with WoW and WH orcs and I love them both to bits. I also especially love how simple the explanation behind the green skin is ^^ doesn't have to be political, it just has to make sense
What I personally do, is I throw out modern lore, entirely, everything post-Tolkien, then I go back, far back, to the old myths and legends, look at the roots, and build from scratch, just as Tolkien and others did, everyone will build differently, but if you keep yourself in the modern mold, old enough to have foundation, but too new to properly innovate off of, you end up making the same things as everyone else without exploring many new things, so looking at what they did and *directly* innovating off of that is a great way to think of new ideas
Warcraft had a best of both worlds approach - the orcs were raging brutes and servants to demonic influence being all hopped up on demon blood and demon energy (fel) but over time, that influence weakened and they eventually regained their "humanity" so to speak - the culture beyond warfare. Whether they were traditional orcs or novelty orcs depends on circumstances within the story.
"Restrictions breed creativity" In a setting where orc are the traditional brutal and evil monsters what can it push one of them to become a hero? Is the character the experiment of some wizard or other creature who was trying to find a way to solve the orcs problem? Is it a child that was found and grew up with humans or some other group? Is it the intervention of some good deity at war with the one who created orcs? Is the character someone from another world where maybe orcs won and eventually evolved into a civilized society over millenia? I like the idea of monster races because it create an interesting dinamic to evolve that archetype while being bound by and at the dame time pay respect to tradition
Ikr? Orc wizard becomes much more boring if they dont come from a society of "dumb brutes". What made them pursuit magic instead of traditional big axe smash approach. Perhaps a high charisma orc was just the runt of the litter, kept alive in the brutal society they grew up in because they were a cute novelty, same way most of us keep pets now. Perhaps as they grew older they learned to be social manipulators, playing into what people would expect of them. Noine expects an honor bound society member to backstab you or slip a poison into your drink. Etc.
My favorite orcs are the ones from lineage 2. Where they have a perfect balance between ferocity and elegance. They maintain a well-defined aesthetic and many of the wild elements applied to their weapons, armor and abilities with animal grace. Just epic !
I am torn with my own creative endeavors that I it's good to just have a foot-soldier for the embodiment of evil that can be killed to guilt-free, but then also it's always fun to have a story about prejudices and orcs make for a good fantasy warrior culture like Klingons. I agree with the assertion that basically whatever works best for your story is what to go with.
@@nicolaezenoaga9756 well I would ask what's the point of having the evil side of the spectrum if no one's actually evil For example what's the point of having chaotic evil if no one wants to actually be that alignment might as well just go from good good to lawful and just skip the evil alignments what's the point of having them if nobody wants to be evil. I'm not saying that orcs have to be genetically coded to be evil that's not what I am arguing for I'm just arguing for it's nice to have an evil option if I want to go that route. I mean I can understand misunderstood and cultural differences, when I hear the sad back stories of demons OC and how they are misunderstood it's funny to me ha XD
@@aaronrowell6943 Hahah!! They should know that they're not embarking on the ,,edgy sad kid'' boat if they're playing a demon! Like I sorry but they're just not for that
Personally I think if "orcs as green" is a problem for you, you have a much deeper DM problem. After all bandits are also a common dnd enemy and they're typically human. My general rule as a DM: The goal is never to "trick" my players into evil. So if someone attacks them they should *generally* be ok to kill, otherwise the *moral grey area* must be made clear to the party before initiative is rolled.
Also I don't like having pure evil orcs because I don't like the rape element of the half-orc. Rape is one of the few things that's purely off the table in my campaigns.
It's interesting you picked up on the underworld connection originally orcs had very little to do with any European folklore and were actually minions of Orcus the Greek god of jailers because he's struggling to keep Erebus in line we got to remember that a lot of Titans are bigger than they appear it's as if everybody was looking in a rear view mirror but originally they were depicted in odments of roman armor I was actually debating doing a video on this very subject today I'm very interested to see the rest of your perspective
Orcus was NOT the Greek god of jailors. I'm not sure what source you are drawing from but whatever it is it is incorrect. Orcus was an Etruscan god of the dead and ruler of the underworld akin to the Greek Hades.
In my defense however many cultures make great gods from prior cultures subordinate to their own I apologize for being hazy on proto-Italian horse raiders
As someone who grew up with Tolkien and the Warcraft series. I kinda fell in love with the idea of Orcs as an Honerable Warrior Race, led into corruption by dark forces. Leaving me to really want to see a kind of perfect merger of Tolkien's Orcs and the Warcraft Orcs. Maybe at one time they where Humans or Elves. Let's say a race of men who where known for their valor and strength of arms, but where led astray by an evil god, or arch demon, opr megalomaniac wizard with promises of power and conquest. Thus leading to their corruption and the birth of the Orc race, but vestiges of their once proud and noble culture remain, and some members of the race would seek to presurve or even rekindle the old ways. Especially once whatever dark power led them onto this path had been slain. Thus causing the Orcs to splinter off into different factions, some still loyal to the dark power that birthed them, other's seeking to reclaim their old traditions, and other's still seeking a new path entirely. This would allow the orcs to retain much of the nuances of both the old and new interpretation. Though it certainly more clearly resembles the Warcraft version, just with a greater lean into the idea that Orc's are creatures birthed from evil (as much as anything can be, sense evil cannot create, only pervert that which is already created). You'd also be able to keep your old Tolkien inspired Orcs around, while having player character Orcs be a thing as well. In kind of an inversion of Elves and Drow. Where the mainline culture is evil, but there is one or two off shoot cultures that are good. In fact in this example you get Evil Loyalists (Basically Tolkien Orcs), Neutral Traditionalists (Think Klingons), & Good Neo-Traditionalists (More or less Warcraft Orcs).
17:07 That's why I always draw my orcs as more pig-like (even if I'm making them a hot anime character lol) They look a lot cooler when you go at least 50/50 with monster traits and humanoid traits instead of mostly human with like one or two quirks.
If anything making orcs pig like is more anime like. Like... Look at the slime isekai or moonlit fantasy. Orcs are totally pigs. Well meaning powerlifter pig bros, but in slime isekai especially they were really strong and monstrous towards their enemies
@@TankHunter678 I'm more so going for WoW Orcs mixed with Jabba the Hut's pig Gaurds from Star Wars 😅 But yes, I do draw them with a hint of anime flair
Love this type of content, first video I've watched of yours. I'm a indie game developer and I love watching videos that provoke me to think about fantasy in a historic and cultural way. I subscribed!
I know perhaps it's not the angle you were going for. But I find the question of "at what point are they no longer orcs" extremely validating for my stance on orc designs. I'm really not a fan of the orc design that games like WoW popularized. The Orcs of Peter Jackson's LOTR movies are the definitive visual interpretation to me. And even then, there was a lot of variety between each individual specimen. These 7-8 foot tall ripped dudes with tusks we see in video games, and modern D&D feel more like ogres to me than orcs. I don't mind tall orcs, or orcs that are stronger than the average human. I mean, frankly my favorites of the Jackson movies were his interpretation of the Uruk Hai. But the orcs we see in things like WoW, RSL, and Warhammer feel like they've outright ditched orcs being...orcs, and are just calling what to me are clearly ogres, orcs, or just green buff people with tusks. The ones that still feel like monsters, feel like an entirely separate monster from an orc, and I find myself just shaking my head at the ones that barely even qualify as monsters, and are just green people.
@@GreenBlueWalkthrough Like I said, to me warhammer orcs don't feel like orcs either. They're monsters sure, but if anything they're more like ogres than orcs.
Orcs in widespread pop culture have been modelled after the Uruk Hai, creatures of superhuman strength stature and ability, with a tendency for violence and cruelty, but also iron discipline and unquestionable loyalty. The other type of orc, the cowardly smaller than human creatures called in the tolkien books as 'snaga' have become colloquially known as goblins. So.yeas, wow orks are still very much in line with tolkien, they are just the big ones. Ogre doesnt factor into this at all. Ogres are the eastern mythological equivalent of a troll. Gigantic, supernatural, dumb, and often onthologically evil.
In the 3.5 book Races of Destiny , the Shaeakim were introduced. Thes Orc like beings in the lore were actually descended from cursed human. They were known for their organized nature and love of magic.
You should do one of these on Kobolds. There's a shitton of folkore and even some older mythological stuff on them before DND flanderized them into short draconic creatures
I was first introduced to orcs via Shadowrun where they get a very sympathetic portrayal (and also the best game stats out of all the PC races imo) and for a long time that style of orc was my head canon true orc. I then got into WoW and the noble warrior orc became another favorite fantasy race. I then got into Warhammer and fell in love with the comedy relief style ork. I've also grown to like orcs from nearly every fantasy setting I've engaged with. Orcs as a broad concept have so many possible variations and I tend to love them all. So long as a property sets standards for what its orcs are and how they fit in the world, I'm ok with however they are portrayed for the most part. What I'm not ok with is changing how orcs (or any fantasy creature) is portrayed in a world to the displeasure of those who have enjoyed and supported that property based on external factors and political agendas, as seems the case with modern D&D.
Honestly, original warcraft made amazing progress on making orcs both monstrous beings and noble savages at once. I think it kept the perfect balance of creatures capable of great destruction while also being deep and complex and most importantly distinct, not being just "green human with tusks."
I kinda like both the monstrous orcs and the more "human" orcs equally. Same can be said about humans, there is no such thing as a purely good human many can be monstrous and even have monstrous features.
I like to split the difference when it comes to orcs. They're brutish raiders who can be dangerous to the more "civilized" races. However, they also have their own cultural nuances and can be reasoned with in the right circumstances.
Thanks Esper for a new lore video. Big fan of your earlier raking videos on monster types and it’s nice to see a deep dive into orcs. Any chance we could see one on goblins (given the recent Fey rebranding in MoTM) or gnolls (always a perennial favorite)
The Forgotten Realms actually have both monster orcs and more civilized orcs, the mountain orcs are more brutish and monstrous, more dumb as well, and are raiders and barbarians and pillagers overall. And then there is the gray orc, orcs that are less monstrous and more humanoid, smarter and more sophisticated, but still barbarians in the eyes of other races. They are more reasonable though and pose a greater threat by being smarter than their cousind while still being very strong. Also, the orcs, as well as other races in the Forgotten Realms, are shaped after their gods, the orc phanteon is very focused on war and brute strength, therefore the orcs are like this as well.
"you can't make orcs evil anymore" is what people try and say, that I take issue with. If you want to personify them that's all good, but the authoritarian stance that it's not ok to use them as they were created is ridiculous.
In terms of DnD and other RPGs, I usually play orc characters as those who live in ways that seem "primitive" to others, but actually have a really rich culture. In particular a couple of my characters come from the "Northern Orc Clans", who have long been characterized as brutish mountain-dwelling savages that don't know how to read or write and thus have no culture or history. In reality, they do have a rich culture and history, but consider it improper to write down. They share their history and their stories through bards called "Aurots", because they consider the theatrics to be a vital part of the story, and someone who isn't an Aurot telling a story of the Northern Orcs is seen as mockery their history and culture.
This video was very informative. I wish I had more time and money to support you more. We so need more channels and people like you in the community. Keep up the good work bro!
Personally I find the newer orcs more interesting. I think the idea of a group of people with different appearance and culture who are treated like monsters can be very powerful, and in some senses more applicable to real life than old orcs.
One way I used Orcs in a setting to make them more personable or "goodify" them as we called it was making them something of a refugee race. The set-up (in deep summary) was that they were in a fortified frontier city like Minas Tirith. War and disease had cut the city off from most of civilization. Orcs that were once used as fodder settled and started trading with the humans of the city since it seemed the wars had ended. I had reasons for them staying as most of them were transported there by spells from the big-bad-boss, and didn't know the way back.
Absolutely first-rate breakdown of the history of Orcs in the genre, and the inherent conflict between the two conceptions of what they aught to be. Well done. You hit the nail on the head with the modern trend of portraying Orcs as merely green-skinned, pointy-eared Humans with cutesy bottom canines. At that point they're simply another Fortnite-esque skin applied onto a standard human cultural archetype. One could easily swap out the classic 'Viking' trope for 'Orc' in a lot of these portrayals without changing a single thing other than their appearance, and no one would even notice - a robust warrior culture that esteems strength, ferocity , courage, and robust simplicity over sophisticated ambiguity. Something that's so easily interchangeable with another classic trope is a sure sign that it's purely a cosmetic distinction, and thus boring AF, in my humble opinion.
Had to double check to be sure, but orcs were playable as early as 2e. They were explorable well before now and it didn't take some sort of humanizing (or rather, delinking from evil) to make it so. I like "traditional orcs." I like chaotic green orks. The one orc I dislike are from those who've watered them down to be basically human because they were too obsessed with the idea that they can't be evil. As for people "identifying with them," you're nuts. If you want to try out their perspective, that's fine. But unless theirs clear inspiration that they're football hooligans or something and you're a football hooligan, whatever you're identifying with is probably your headcanon. You want to make a game with your headcanon? That's awesome. But don't demand others play by it.
nice video. maybe a video about what are goblins would be interesting. i'm personally curious about the origin of the greenskin, big nose, big eared, short design we all commonly know (as far as i know warhammer fantasy has used the design but i would not be surprised if it came from dnd artwork)
Thanks for the video, I enjoy the deep dive. I have a fondness for Orcs as a Dungeon Master. To me, the Orcs are *evil* based on the D&D source material: Gruumsh makes them evil. Evil species like Orcs allow for drama to exist in the game. Orcs as player characters are just making special one offs. Like a certain Drow Ranger, they exist in opposition to the established culture. Stripping the Orc of the evil as default culture makes the game bland. Well, not bland per se, but devoid of trope which is *required* as a shorthand for games to be based on. Games falter when players (and the DM is a player) can't rely on anything.
I agree with you with tradition. But I usually do both ways of thinking in my world that I build. So I like using both monstrous Clans and Noble Clans.
My view on tradition, like most things in life, is that it depends based on wich part of the world it came from, the time period and case to case basis
Excellent video! Nicely informative and I love your take on the playable race concept. Also really curious on that potential video discussing Alignment and how it shouldn't be downplayed. :D
While researching a campaign I was about to run that was going to be Elf-centered (Where Orcs would be one of the antagonistic factions) I read through an interesting conversation somewhere online. It gave me an idea that I adapted for Orcs in my game world. It explains Orcs' warlike behavior without making them essentially evil at the root. Goes like this. Contrast with Elves. Let's say an elf has a lifespan of 1000 years, and becomes an adult at 100. Humans can live about 100 years, and become an adult at 18. Here's my twist with Orcs: Physically, Orcs mature extremely quickly, having a grownup size and shape at the age of 5. But emotionally and mentally, Orcs mature at the same rate as humans. For an upper life span limit, Orcs can live thousands of years like Elves. But almost none live this long. So a five-year old Orc has the strength of a full grown Orc but the maturity and emotions of a 5 year old child. Parents will know what comes next. Many Orc parents are killed by their own children, when the child has a temper tantrum spasm of rage. The one reliable output of this is the military, which gives these young Orcs a direction for their newfound strength with a lack of restraint. The few Orcs that live to the age of 10, 20, or even 40 are as mellow and wise as any human of the same age. But very few live that long because of the explosive violence of the youngsters. Using the military as an outlet caused no end of grief to Orc neighbors, which is why they have such bad reputations with neighboring Humans, Elves and Dwarves. It also makes Orc generations very close together, as they might be separated by only 5 to 10 years. An elf wails that every 50 years there's another war with the Orcs, and sees this as evidence of the Orcs' violent natures. But to the Orcs, 50 years could be as many as 10 generations of their people, an extraordinarily long time of peace. But the elves never forget a slight, which causes the Orcs to think poorly of them in turn. Not saying this will work for everyone's campaign, but it makes mine very interesting.
The orcs in Warcraft were originally industrialized and heavily use dark magic. Them being reverent to nature is to show what they used to be before demon corruption and what they strive to be now.
Where in Norse Mythology do you find the term "orc"? I have multiple translations of the myths that include many notes regarding the Old Norse words that formed the original myths. Nowhere is there a single mention of the term "orc". The Old Norse term you are thinking of I believe is "thurs" which does indeed carry the meaning you give to the word orc..
@@KingZealotTactics Beowulf while relevant to the study of Norse Mythology is NOT Norse Mythology. It's Old English Literature. That being said the term used in Beowulf is "orcneas" a plural noun which is thought to roughly mean "evil spirits" and this is the word Tolkien adapted for his fictional race.
„what are orcs“ is a really important question imo, one in a long line of „what even is […]“ questions that are asked far too rarely in the dnd community. i am primarily a storyteller; a game designer second and a player only third. when the question came up in the community about the removal of alignement, i was distraught to see that all the sentiments that came up were always about orcs or drow „as a people“; they are viewed almost as a real race, rather than a fictional concept. people said things like „if you want an objectively evil enemy, just use undead“. that kind of attitude treats the alignement attached to a fictional being as the most important thing; it completely ignores the storytelling side of things. if i want to tell a story with an intelligent, unrelenting enemy; that cannot be bartered with, and who‘s very existence is antithetical to the wellbeing of the heroes, then i need something to fill that role. each monster type in dnd is fit to a specific role. orcs are an unrelenting horde. they are not „one of the fantasy people“. what orcs are to me, and drow and mindflayers and everything else, are story archetypes. the reason they are written as „evil“ in the monster books, is as a helpful tool for DMs in their storytelling. goblins and kobolds are both small and cunning; but were goblins are mean and only care for themselves, kobolds work together and have a penchant for traps. orcs and gnolls are both savage hordes; but where gnolls stride through the land in a warband that eventually grinds everything and itself into dust, orcs are raiders and pillagers that want to take over the land and often have a place to return to. drow and mindflayers are both underdark-dwelling psychopaths; but mindflayers will eat your brain during the fight, while drow are the DM going easy and being like „TPK? no, its time for a bondage dungeon“. i dont care what they look like beyond that it fits their attributes to create a rich atmosphere. „orcs“, like „vikings“, are a group of raiders. what differentiates orcs is that rather than using ships, they live in caves, can see in the dark, and have a monstrous appearance in place of armor. in my own setting you cant play an orc. orcs are humans in my setting; humans that couldnt be freed from the darkness (that is their own heart). they are subject to their instincts, wild and feral, and hate all other species. the humans had their will separated and freed from their instincts by a god, and decided to live with the other races. this difference is shown in appearance, with humans having the full range of irl people, and orcs being a lot less colorful, with dark browns and blacks for hair, and light greys and bleached green as skin. their purpose in my world isnt as a people; its a reflection of the beast in each of us, and the few orcs that escape the hold of their instincts through divine light show how constant restraint is necessary to function in society. each fantasy or science fiction species is a small slice of human nature brought to the extreme. if all the difference would be „normal human, but different biology“, then you really dont need any race other than human.
For my own personal campaign there's 2 kinds of orcs and goblins natives and refugees, however they migrated to this dimension so long ago that most civilizations weren't even around to catalog their arrival and very few people know this lore. The refugees evolved into their own civilization like every other sentient race and the locals to them were like how humans would see a neanderthal and instead evolved to be more physically strong and brutal in order to compete with the smarter dimensional travelers. Essentially the orcs and goblins escaped a great cataclysm on their home dimension (that may or may not happen again in this dimension.) However the dimension they traveled too was having it's own crisis, the era of low magic (my setting has this instead of the spell plague, essentially the setting became like Conan the Barberian, magic became the rarest and most precious resource in the world and no one could cast spells above 5th level.) So while the elves and dwarves were hold up in their grand cities hoarding all the magic they could, and the humans were fighting amongst themselves over land and resources portals began to randomly open up and introduce the remnants of an incredibly advanced magical sociability into a world ware magic could barely be used. Wars between humans and orcs started with the humans usually winning, the last of the outsider orcs arrived just as magic started to flow back into the world, more advanced civilizations began forming, and modern orcs still have to deal with the negative association of their local primal counterparts. That's the fluff, the crunch is I wanted to split the difference and have both monstrous orcs and player orcs. So I made two types of orcs. To be fair i kept it consistent and make monstrous feral elves and dwarves as well as neanderthals be their own monstrous race. I even made a mechanic for de-evolution take a point out of any mental stat and put it in any physical stat.
My last gaming shop from 15 years ago Conan the Barbarian setting .. Neanderthals are orcs. Cro-magnon, half orcs. Then humans evolved or are mutated from them as random births. Even in .. civilized .. lands or most back wood farm hamlet it was Normal to cut sprouting tusks from a teenager's jaw line. Some children are just born ugly, others turn into square jaw slop head idiots, with luck they grow into jar heads. The system we played was 3.5e and everything was built around multiclassing in that system. And since that system had a CR/Xp from rats, ravens, and catching toads/ frog leg dinner. In five to seven years of just killing vermin on the farm, the average 24 year old peasant farmer would be a N/PC class 7th-level-Commoner with a child of their own. Then throw in a few years worth of Militia training. Average mid 20 year old is common4 "farmer,"/soldier2 " militia training,"/rogue1 " flanking for extra dmg, along with social or trade craft skill boost." CR: 5 about. Dwarves in human lands never really fit in within their own people so they roam among humans. They have to flee towns a lot after a given time if superstitious humans try to torture the secret of long life out of them. Due to the dwarves long life span and cultural set up. Smart dwarves start off as rogue1 for the most skill points but still take a level or two in Expert and Warrior before they take a level in Fighter. Growing up in rigorous militia drills and mine work gives them higher Fort and Will saves and extra level in craft work. Otherwise just start low level encounter with dwarves being rogue3/fighter4 CR:7. maybe add another 3 to 4 spellcaster levels bring them up to CR:11 or 12 due to equipment. Or their write up will be Expert2/warrior2/rogue3/cleric or sorcerer4 sometimes wizard/fighter4, CR: 13 to 16 base on their magic equipment. Dwarven outcasts taught humans to make good steel. Even honest dwarves with no magic ability lie and pass themselves off as lay clerics of the forge and give wedding blessings to file a cup of beer. Goblins are wand spell casting Fae. a.) Mites, hob in old English meant smaller than average. Conan is traveling as a wagon train guard and asks a dwarf why they are bypassing the fast road through the forest valley. The dwarf replies .. b.) stander D&D goblin, rogue3/sorcerer4/driud3 CR: 10 and they burn gp value into xp value in self creating magic items that they trade as currency. They have flashy, load, booming insulting spell battles with forest gnomes. Great entertainment, unless you are caught up in it or Both the goblins and the gnomes decide to both rob you at the same time. Conan laughs it off, late into the night he is loudly awaken to a raging thunderstorm within the forest trees shining like multiple colored noon day suns. Conan in awe whispers, " Crom .." c.) Hob * ble as in hobble goblin, the ones that are mis form limbs left at human homes as changelings. Sorcerer4, treat cantrips like once per day charms or whatever fits your fairy tale theme. d.) D&D hobgoblin are called hob cause of the hob nail boots they kick with in combat. Remember they have a +4 physical bonus to Move Silently, and elf only gets a +2 listen/spot checks. So ranger2/rogue3/fighter2, CR: 7 could have a Stealth skill of 11 ranks and a total modifier of +15 to +17 with dex. e.) Bugbears are not goblins, bugbears hunt and eat goblins. Elf, " eye rolling .. deep sigh, thunderous foul language cursed elves .. " a.) Teenager, wild 15year old human listed as rogue3/wizard3/fighter2, CR: 8 level, turn gp value of magic item into full Xp burn. They have a lot self-created magic items pushing their CR to 15. b.) Late teen or early twenties age, .. ranger2/expert3 +4 or 5 CR. Alertness: spot/listen at +17 ranks along with Stealth. Sub total CR: 13. c. Adult elf, 10th-level spellcaster creating lairs and forest shaping. CR: 20+ F-ckers Teleport away before you can get a killing hit on them. You can defeat an elf but never really get the chance to even kill a young elf. Hence the trackers young elves tattoo on them gives the elves a reputation of never standing and going down with their allies in battle. Cowards .. then again there are tales of elves but there is never any real proof of them. In a lot of cases of Teleporting home before they fall in combat, their limbs or head still falls off of them as soon as them land on the teleporter disk. 2.) My last gaming shop also played Wihtewolf/World of Darkness (WoD): vampire, mage, and changeling and that system had a One Hit Kill Rule system. Which we worked into D&D. a.) My shop didn't care for price looking gp value magic items, so we xp burn to create. For a low pace game, we did more than a few stone age campaigns, then later have those items show up a few thousand years later in setting, a few months later in real time. i.) Flint spear, spells Magic Weapon +1 on command, cantrip such as Burning Hands or any 2nd-level spell. ii.) Find a fur blanket with Mend to keep itself in good shape, Endure Elements: cold. In an ancient grave site haunted by Shadows or fairies. Created by the players a year ago in an earlier mini campaign. iii.) Granny's clay cooking pot. Granny is a 6th-level or 8th-level druid so the clay cooking pot has multiple enchantments on it. Such as Create Food and Magic Weapon to club someone up over the head, along with Cure Disease or stat boost to roll Fort saves to get past the flu. And the goblins just stool granny's cooking pot. You try running a game for junior high school kids that want a Harry Potter game. b.) Granny is a Green Hag, ... she turns naughty grade school children into goblins, dumb bully high school football players into bugbears. Hope you have a good weekend.
Your use of “humanness” intrigues me, because I have often pondered why inhuman monsters have become more human. My head cannon it that the present form of said monsters are literally more human, on a physiological level. The presents of half orcs allows for interbreeding and eventually after years and decades and perhaps centuries enough humanness has been introduced into the bloodline that the present orcs have inherited some other aspects of the human condition. I actually first thought of this theory when thinking about mermaids, who were an all female race who historically raped and drowned sailors, whose present depiction is vastly more human than it used to be.
I disagree that having a race playable makes them seem as less of a threat. I don't see the logic in that. Otherwise great history video, i was wondering where tolkien got his orcs from. I prefer my orcs to be very similar to the wow orcs, savage, brutal, warrior-like, but very community oriented and proud race. With wow specifically, as many flaws it may have (and boy there are flaws), i do believe they have done their orcs very well where you have your cake and can eat it too, since you have more than one type of orc.
If they are playable they are clearly rational and willing to work with others. Instantly less of an existential threat. The *possibility* of peace exists. That is just how that goes.
I once played an orc who was injured and abandoned by his raiding party, then nursed back to health by some Amish villagers. He adopted their ways and even got married and started a family. His son, however, went on his rumspringa and was pressed into service by the local army, so Jeremiah Skullsmasher took his carriage and trusty draft horse, Big John, out to find and rescue his son. Most people are terrified of Jeremiah, despite his pacifism, and he is equally perplexed by their hatred of him, which is nothing like the acceptance he experienced among the Amish. It was an interesting and fun character to play.
Evil Orcs aren't supposed to be stupid per se. Even in LoTR, they were dull and miserable beings, but they loved machines, which implies cunning. They could make clever things, like traps and siege engines, but not beautiful things. Orc generals in D&D are also supposed to be effective strategists and tacticians.
Mee watching Warhammer orks.
But they are in DnD, like most hostile npcs, otherwise it's a tpk.
Gosh, if you play kobolts like they are supposed to, it's usually a tpk, lol!
If you think about it, to Orcs machinery is beauty. Serves to say the beauty for some is destruction and uglyness for another.
Which is why a more nuanced view of Orcs seems much more intriguing and has bigger potential in a story to me than just dumb brutes. And it's not even a modern idea.
Well Orcs in LoTR like most of Mordor can be think of as WW1 Germany given Tolkien's experiences in the war.
@@xslashsdas Tolkien disliked technology, especially industrial warfare. The Orcs in LOTR are really his criticism of that.
I think my favorite type of orcs comes from Warhammer fantasy/40k universe. They are basically monsters but not mindless ones. Their physiology makes them be violent and violence is what they likes the most.
What makes them even more fun is that they act as a kind of comic relief in the often depressingly dark world of 40k. A comic relief whose sole purpose and joy is fighting and killing. 😄
I love W40k orks because they are themselves unapologetically, and that brings to the front the question people try to be "smart" about: Are they evil?
In warhammer fantasy (not age of sigmar), the orcs are dumb, but the globins are very intelligent
@@fellipecanal In general you are right, but this change with some orcs leaders and shamans. Also you have black orcs. But of course a goblin leader like Skarnisk is the peak of cunning.
it's worth mentioning that even in 40k, there ARE Orks who will hire themselves out to other species. if it means getting a good fight out of it. (Blood Axes in particular) Heck, in the War of The Beast, the Ork WAUUGH field actually evolved ot the point that Ork DIPLOMATS were spawned, and presented terms of surrender to the Lords of terra in impeccable High Gothic., explaining that if they wanted to live, THIS was how they could do it. Of course, we find out later in the novel that it would have basicly led to humans being turned into cows.
The debate is an example of why having clear and open discussions with players up front at the beginning of games is so important. If one player assumes that orcs are manifestations of evil and another assumes they are just one of many different cultures deserving of respect in the campaign world, it's going to lead to problems in game. Decide as a group what works for you.
Manifestations of evil, or inherently evil should look like the part from the get go.
Ambiguous creatures should look ambiguous and even empathetic from the get go.
That's how you twist a black dragon.
Orcus, one eye giant Italian god of the underworld granting wealth through dangerous hard mining, punisher of oath breakers and betrayers.
Kill your neighbor over a pig, goat or bag of dope, or a noble ruler pledging to defend his neighbor's lands but raided them for cattle and causing mass starvation during winter. Orcs come up from the root cellars and basements of buildings and drag their victims back down into the mythical underworld.
Or, a devious GM could decide for himself which they are, but never tell the players in certain terms, and let them decide amongst themselves which is true as they go. Mistakes would be made.
@@timogul Average players can't handle kobold tactics, because they are there to relax. And that's in 5e.
Isn't that the point though of having different perspective and playing a character in a role-playing setting? Why should two characters from completely different backgrounds share the same views on a race? Especially in terms of character alignments and personalities?
Your more talking about just talking about the world setting instead of asking the players what they think since your using this world you came up with as a DM to play out.
If I recall correctly, "Orcus" actually originates from an underworld god of the same name from Etruscan and Roman mythology.
Yes indeed, great on you knowing such history :)!
Evil pluto.
@@underfire987 Orcus, god that punish oath breakers & betrayers ...
When orcs show up and come out of the root cellar or basement, you know someone really f-cked up.
Unlike vengeful ghosts, at lest you have a normal fighting chance in defending yourself from orcs.
Roll 1d10 to determine the level of betrayal on one's mining partner.
Roll 2d6, double 1s you get snake eyes, and wait for the bite.
Yup, correct. That bugged me as well.
Or in D&D Orccus is one of the greatest demon lords of the abyss. A great lord of death and necromancy.
Other material after Lord of the Rings tended to make orcs more like the Uruk-hai than Tolkien’s orcs. They made goblins, separate from orcs, more like Tolkien’s orcs. The orcs drifted towards being larger, goblins towards smaller, until neither of them were Tolkien’s orcs.
It's kind of amazing how different things came from different interpretations
Think (the Hobbit) the Goblins from the misty mountains we're smaller then typical Orcs..? Orcs should be big Bruisers and Goblins should be little green assassins/thieves , thank goodness DnD, WH , WoW and other Sci Fi fantasy improved Orcs.. nowadays people been creating Orcs too look like *Giga Chad's & Stacey's* , guess we got Blizzard too thank for that , it takes away the Orcs intimidation factor they once had ..
@@joezar33 The Goblins *were* Orcs, though likely primitive and small "mongrel-stock" in comparison to other lineages like Gundabad orcs, Morgul orcs, or especially Uruk-Hai. I think Bilbo himself even refers to the strongest "goblins" as "Goblin Orcs", seeming to imply a degenerate or diminutive nature of the majority of Goblintown.
@@userequaltoNull Orcs is a general term. Goblins, Uruk Kai are subfactions of Orcs. Simple.
In my understanding, Warcraft and later World of Warcraft was planned to be a video game based on Warhammer (the Games Workshop tabletop game), they just could not sort out licensing and thus Blizzard made its own thing.
Thankfully
@@joelrobinson5457 why
@@DonKrieg-382 games workshop nuked creators
@@joelrobinson5457 and blizzard abused its workers
@@joelrobinson5457 *looks at current Blizzard
You sure Blizzard also didn't nuke themselves?
I like both Eberron orcs (who saved the world once), and Games Workshop orcs (who are physiologically predisposed to violence, given their odd reproductive cycle). I might use one in one setting, and another in another.
Warhammer is a miniature wargame, it was usually set at the frontlines where everyone is fighting everything.
WFRP orks you meet outside the huge once-a-generation wars are still gits who like to kick people and take their stuff.
@@SusCalvin 40k orks don't have to be on the front line to fight everything. If they've got nobody else to fight they just split off and fight each other for a laugh.
I like the Elder Scrolls orcs the best.
These elves, yes elves, were once called Orsimer. ( Mer means elf )
These Orsimer used to be beautiful creatures, but when their god, Trinimac, got horribly disfigured and transformed into a new version called Malacath, the Orsimer were likewise transformed into the Orcs.
They are now basically green Klingons.
In Daggerfall you could learn the languages. I still remember the moment I learned enough Orcish to understand that the orcs I was fighting were telling the women to grab the children and run and they would stop "the monster." It was a real I Am Legend moment.
Weren't orcs in Tolkien's legendarium originally a race of elves that were corrupted by the dark god(s)?
@@georgeoldsterd8994 Yes, something like that.
Since the old D&D boxed sets didn't have artwork for most monsters, including orcs, I treated orcs and goblins together as Tolkien's orcs, three size-differentiated races of the same species, with hobgoblins as oruk hai. I've seen this change in real time, with Warcraft and The Elder Scrolls mutating orcs to the point I'm amazed how often young gamers call something that looks like an ogre to me an "orc."
I've been working on a scifi setting that puts goblins, orcs, and trolls as parts of a life cycle, and added in a mix of hags and some fey or elves to it as well. The females tend to look closer to "human" there, but are rarer and tend to be the leaders with mass birthing situations where goblins tend to be nasty and basically culled by being tossed into battle, the few that survive long enough eventually grow up to be orcs, and with various things, a few orcs have their already there regeneration (albeit a slow one) accelerated to crazy by some of the hags to the point where you have things like armor plates implanted under their skin and become larger brutes that are prone to berserker rages when injured...the females also tend to be psionic.
yeah exactly ogre and orcs are two separate species imo
When it comes to Tolkien, I refer to Goblin Slayer: "There might be if you looked hard enough, but the only good ones are the ones that never come out of their holes." it is extremely important to note that they had first Morgoth, then Sauron looming over them the entire time. Same problem for most other monstrous races in D&D..when you remember that Orcs,(Grumish) Gnolls(Yeenoghu or Lamashtu) , Goblins(Maglubiyet or lamashtu again..she's quite fecund), etc all have Gods(sometimes entire pantheons) or demon lords that might as well be as powerful as dieties whispering in thier ear from birth..."good" isn't really a possibility. It is literally in thier patron's best intrests to stamp that sort of thing out to prevent thier power from diminishing. Same goes for the Warcraft Orcs...removed from Fel influence, yes good orcs were possible, and indeed happened. but with active Fel influence? not a freaking chance.
Tolkien did mention that they wished they did more with their orcs, maybe a what next? After the fall of sauron, what did they do? What did they become? Now free, what did they decide?
Technically in Warcraft all orcs with green skin were fel influenced. It's probably more accurate to say most orcs that weren't warlocks were more like junkies than actually evil people, as most older orcs had PTSD from what they did to the draenei and humans.
@@couchgrouches7667 i thought it was the red ones that were Fel
@@joelrobinson5457 they were driven away from humans into the mountains where they never again posed an organized threat to humanity, and eventually it the passage of ages integrated into human society, with their descendents being commonly involved in the creation of machinery that aids in the slaughter of a great number of people. So people like Kalashnikov or Oppenheimer were orc-spawn in Tolkien's eyes.
@@alexsolomon7991 its both.
First injection of fel. Turned Them green, gave Them red eyes and made Them slaves.
Those who drank more demon juice became even more demonic, turned red, grew spiked etc.
The playable green orcs are still green because fel is a stain on the dna, and it passes on to the next generation.
In the homebrew setting I made, Orcs were created by an evil Deity that wanted them to be a monstrous race that would wipe out all other sentient life. The Deity tried to achieve this by making it so that the Orcs were less intelligent, prone to anger, and that they will go insane if they don't get in a fight once a week.
However, despite all these factors, there are still Orcs who actively try to fight against this nature of theirs and live alongside the other races of the world. Because of this, many nations will have small pockets of Orcs living within them that live and work alongside them, usually working as mercenaries, but not always.
These kinds of Orcs insist on calling themselves the 'True' Orcs, while their cousins who try to stick to what their Deity intended are the 'Savage' Orcs.
Meanwhile, the 'Savage' Orcs, who behave like the traditional D&D Orc, call themselves the 'Real' Orcs, while their more peaceful cousins are the 'Spineless' Orcs.
There is even an entire nation of the 'True' Orcs whose primary means of trade is war. They provide mock wars for other nations to engage in in order to provide the other nations a ready means of training their troops, while the Orcs give their own people a constant option for relieving their battle itch.
That's a nice way to use them, nature vs nurture.
I would also like to add the conflict between ignorance vs truth.
Some orcs have lived all their lives by following their god and have never been presented any other way. So, when an opposition is presented, it is preposterous. But, can you really say he/she is evil? Ignorant of the truth, sure, but does that makes it trully evil? What about an orc that knows really tries to understand others, an orc that searches for the truth, but only for his own personally gains?
Grumnsh is pretty much the god of Rape and Pillage on Torill. He wants all other life subjugated or destroyed. He especially wants a certain elf gods head over a poked out eye.
Maybe fighting their own nature could be considered weekly battle too. It reminds me of Startreck klingons considered fighting with your own fears and phobias to be great battle that deserves respect.
@@belisarian6429 multiple forgotten realms novels included orcs or goblins who went against the grain. Not unlike Drizzt of the Drow. These are exceptions, not the norm. This is the stupidity of modern media. There is no compelling story if we remove the evil nature. Not unlike Fn from the “sequel trilogy” the reluctant storm trooper who would not be a murderer is compelling. If there is no mental programming and mindless killer to overcome there is no story. If there is no demonic taint, and influence if a spider demon goddess to overcome Drizzt’s story is banal and pointless. Modern writers and Hollywood in particular seem to have forgotten, hero’s are only as good as their nemesis and only as strong as what they overcome. Anakin and Luke both jump in before they are ready and lose limbs in the process. MaReySu is powning Darth Emo like 3 hours after she leans light sabers are a thing.
@@mikewaterfield3599 In this case I would not see it as strictly going against grain, but rather taking different perspective, battle does not have to include arms, it can be battle of minds. It is not going against definition OP orcs who have to fight every week, but rather taking alternate route.
As for Hollywood and modern writers, I dont care about them, there are alternatives.
My personal favorite Orc incarnations are the Orsimer of the Elder Scrolls Universe. They’re a barbaric warrior culture but not necessarily evil. In fact, they have a code of honor which makes for an interesting player character should Orsimer be the player’s chosen race 🪓
Strong agree with a lot of what you put down and appreciate your comment at the end of avoiding watering down the orc. I think there are many exciting storylines to be explored with other intetpretations of orcs, but I don't want them to feel watered down. I want them to feel like a distinct creature with their looks and moral code.
What do you think about orcs with a primate look to them?
@@nicolaezenoaga9756 what about it??
Orsimer from elder scrolls really do green people/distinct creatures pretty well, if you look into their culture, and the biological effects of their berserker rage, in rp I really try to maximize their adrenal system overworking itself to the point a raging orc can crush a metal helmet with their bare hands, this overworking adrenal system leads to a quickness to anger, to fall into depressive states more easily etc
@@rexaxis3450 Pretty interesting
The relationship to nature when it comes to orcs is almost never covered. I also think it would be cool to have orcs or a subrace/variant be nomadic/transhumant pastoralists. When I think about Orcs, I think about the Ancient Mongols: Masters of tactics and strategy and living in harmony with nature while being tolerant or even curious of other beliefs and cultures. Fantasy should also be more about the conflict between nature and civilization. Orcs tend to be the harsher side of nature while wood elves tend to be the gentler side.
Orcs are whatever they are in the setting that you play, there are several different interpretations of them and all are valid within their realm.
As a German I thought the representation of kobolds in DnD to be odd (they are little to nothing like they are in my countries fables) but it works in DnD, it would be as weird for me to protest their interpretations in DnD as it would be for a DnD player to say that the German folktales represent them wrongly. The same goes for virtually all races
Kobold is a great analogy. I did a video on them a couple years ago and indeed discovered that it was only in recent times (3e D&D) that they were reinterpreted as reptilian things and associated with dragons.
@@esperthebard I do dearly miss the second edition fuzzy kobolds.
What are kobolds like in German fables, Jonas? Because how they are now is not how they always were. Years ago I think they were basically the orc family but even smaller than goblins.
Very good to read your comment because I ended up commenting on something similar and you ended up confirming my questions
@@edpistemic kobolds in German folklore are more akin to gnomes in DnD nowadays actually, as it’s their craftiness and intelligence/dedication that is the talk of most tales. They could be generalised as crafty, helpful, but also capricious and easily vexed. That may sound like an oxymoron but it becomes clearer what I mean through tales: one is of the “Heinzelmännchen”, kobolds who were said to have built the city of Cologne, till one day a lady devisees a rouse to see one, and when she did the kobolds all left in spite. Generally speaking, all kobolds follows this trope: spirits that would be benevolent to house and home but spiteful if they were ever discovered.
A variant of this is the “Klabautermann”, a Kobold that is said to reside on ships and help the sailors, but also bring upon great misfortune to those that try to set eyes upon him (or in other tales he is the bad omen: those that see him are onboard a doomed vessel).
This is of course very reductive and a very abridged version of the tales, there are more to be said about them but this is already a long enough post.
It’s also fun when different cultures interpret them. For example in the anime “That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime”, they are depicted as literal Pig people, and not even green skinned, they were literal large bipedal pig people.
And in the start of the anime they were seen as a race that weren’t that intelligent but were still a race with a culture and life. They only became a evil horde when a demon lord took advantage of them when they were suffering from a severe famine and pretty much brainwashed them into a horde to take advantage of.
But after the demon that brainwashed them had died as well as there corrupted brainwashed orc lord, they charged back to there normal selves and eventually became respected across the nation the slime character created as builders and tough warriors, now seen as equal among the other races in the nation.
Curiously enough that "Pig people" thing is something they got from DnD. Where their version had Orcs mistranslated as pig people, in the part that usually describes that Orc have some pig-like features.
Years ago, the last time I ever played D&D. The GM let me play a lizardman, the story behind it was a group of adventures come upon the nest and took an egg. Some elves hatched and raised it as a joke, but imprinting the lizardman grew up thinking it was one of the group becoming fiercely loyal to the elf that raised it. The party used the lizardman as a threat to stubborn npc, "Now tells what we want to know, and we won't feed you to our scaly friend here." Lizardman flicks his tongue out and smiles.
I fall somewhere in the middle of that dichotomy, I like orcs as brutal, aggressive warriors, but I also like the opportunity to play against type. You need to have a type to play off against first, however. The go to method is as you said, make them green humans with tusks, which isn’t the worst option, but it definitely ignores their more monstrous origins, which I believe is important to the orc archetype.
That's a great take
That's what backgrounds are for.
I'm not against throwing ability scores modifiers out the window for a good backstory.
Tell you what would go toward what your speaking of... half orcs... wait! Not just a PC half orc half orcs that have interbread and started giviing birth to a slightly divergent race of Orc . Because of interbreeding they now have lets say 10 to 15% human blood intermixed. And this was just enough to cause a slightly different worldview. They're still orcs just human influenced orc. And it's the orcs fault! All that pillaging behavior and creating intermixed children has started catching up with them.. lol
@@crownprince76 That's actually a good idea.
@@lloydgush Its a small part of the homebrew Champaign im building. I saw a half orc image that inspired me.
wrathofzombie.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/half-orc.jpg?w=768&h=614
Half-Orcs) are growing and forming their own towns and communities away from the Ancient evil Orc communities. Just enough to the point that they have started coming to Grummsh's attention. 2-4% of the entire orc population 20 to 40 or 50,000 spread out across a continent or two. Now they have to fight for their survival. Maybe Grummshs sons rebels and becomes their hidden patron. or Ilneval.. i like this diety for their main god... Or even Corellon just to antagonize his enemy protects a CN Ork to be a chosen and backs them to start a resistance/Civil war that gathers them into one place to establish themselves. It has several ways it could play itself out. In my homebrew it has greater implication with the gods but hey!
To me the Orc is kind of what you need as an antagonist in a setting. In DnD they represent Chaos, disorder, primal savagery. To Tolkien, they were authoritarianism and industrialism, or what man becomes under those conditions, hence his quote, "We were all Orcs in the Great War." To me, the Orc is ultimately used to represent mankind's most powerful but destructive tendencies. Nihilism given form. If might makes right, if will to power is all there is, then Orcs are what man becomes.
A moment of everyone's time, if you will: Please make sure to share Esper's videos with your friends on whatever social media you're using. There's a little share button on this page right next to the thumbs up button, which you should also click! Esper is great, let's make this year his best one yet.
Sadly I have no friends to share it with
thanks esper's mom/sister/gf!
9:27 actually they were freed by the first orc who drank Mannoroth's blood by slaying the demon Mannoroth and sacrificing himself. Grommash Hellscream, Thrall was there to help but it was Grom who killed the demon. In WoD you see him do this again where he's fate was almost completely the same if not for Garrosh to save him.
When I ran a D&D game as a GM I didn't allow for any kind of monster races to be chosen by the players. This was because I wanted my setting to be one that had monsters in it. I feel that orcs have a great place in that environment as do many of the other monsters that people have have picked had I allowed it. On the other hand in the current campaign I'm playing in, the game master has different goals and has decided to portray orcs as good, it's not an issue for me, I'm simply playing a character in their world, and the facts of the setting are just the facts of life for my character. Injecting my own world building bias into my character would of course be meta and disruptive. The exception to this is of course during the character creation and backstory aspect of my character where I worked with the dm to include some of my ideas into the world and it's history.
Whatever kind of orcs you run, just have fun with it. Don't let anyone shame you for how you use them in your games. It is your choice alone, no one else's. There's no inherently *bad* way to use any race/creature in this game.
I will leave a neat idea:
I once used orcs as "law-protectors".
Not lawyers or police, more like a police in charge of making sure that the constitution is respected.
The constitution, in this case, the agreed terms of proper conduct among all the sentient races in the continent.
The Law of the Sentients.
Now try conquering a city knowing that, if you hurt a single child of any sentient race, an army of orc lawyers in suits will use their briefcases to sue you BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.
All orkz are equal but some orkz arent less equal than others, just look at the weird boyz, they are sooo weird.
That is a lot of wrong things you sure said. Group agreement is necessary for everyone to have fun, and there's absolutely very wrong ways to portray an entire race, especially if one of your players is playing as that race.
@@witchBoi_Connor Don't apply real world standards to fiction unless you hate fun.
@@witchBoi_ConnorThere is no wrong way to play a race of alien minded monsters except by assuming their motives are going to by default be similar to ours.
I'm creating a setting where the current Orc King cleared out the madness of his insane creator god. He's doing the same thing for his people but he's not helping the world, he's in fact making it more dangerous. They're still almost all evil to the person, just now it's focused and motivated.
The humans and dwarves call him a villain, the orcs and goblins call him a hero. Why? Not because he's evil with a sympathetic viewpoint or background. No, he believes in might makes right, if you can't protect what you have then you deserve to lose it. He's seen a hero by his goblin and orcish subjects because they're alien minded. They're simply not humans, their psychology does not work the same.
There are good orcish NPCs, he doesn't even order their deaths because while they're good by human terms, each of them are still savage, deadly, violent and unrepentant. They're not traitors, just doing their thing.
The mistake in portraying them is by actually making them acting like green humans the norm. Traditionally, they're not even humanoid, why should they have anything close to our morality? Portraying them as anything not human is how they should be portrayed.
I am trying to find a middle ground in my setting. My orcs used to be footsoldiers for an evil god until they saw that it brought them nothing but misery...so they killed their lord. There are still orcs who are loyal to the dark god but they are shunned by the other tribes. Orcs are warlike but not malicious. They enjoy all sorts of competition, from games to mage duels to battle. They also have the curious tradition of adopting the children of valiant opponents, raising them as their own. This has led to quite a few tribes to have traces of human blood. Thus, orcs can appear more or less human-like, from adopted humans over half-orcs to large, bullish creatures looking more like the bigger orcs from Lord of the Rings. I just love all flavors of orc!
That is a pretty interesting take. Have you worked out how Orcs in your setting tend to sustain themselves? Are they nomadic hunter gatherers? Have they developed agriculture or raising livestock for food? Is raiding other communities something that some of them do with any regularity?
I'm working on a setting that currently has four major factions. One of the factions is Dragons, who built they power base by taking certain races under their protection or forcing into servitude, in the process also experimenting on or breeding some of them for desirable traits, meaning they have dragonborn, orcs, half orcs and humans under their influence. Dragons essentially live as rulers or Gods, depending on the individual dragon chooses to rule their personal holdings. I'm currently unsure if I may want Orcs and Humans to perhaps be some sort divergent evolutionary branch from a common ancestor, possibly to explain why the two could breed.
@@josephperez2004 Orcs, Neanderthal.
Half orc, cramaguim.
Then you have humans.
On one hand humans are mutations in the stander orc being weaker in strength but on average a bit smarter, along with normal humans being skinny but having high density in muscle strength. Although you have to explain the low jaw tusks. Well in real life some humans are born with extra fingers and small tails so each human culture deals with tusks coming in as wisdom teeth or teenage tooth growth their own bias way. .
@kris palermo That sounds promising. Thinking on the matter, another aspect I'd been considering were mild restrictions on subclass options from certain classes. Specifically Wizard, as I liked the idea that while spells can be learned by most anyone, certain special tricks (the abilities you'd get from being an Abjurer or Transmuter specifically) might be more closely guarded and even require special training.
In the case of the Dragon Faction, I'd considered giving them the Abjurer, Evoker, and Order of the Scribe specialties. Perhaps Humans were an attempt at a sort of logistical servant race, bred for perception to detail, manual dexterity, and general ability to focus on a single task. While Dragonborn would have reliable breeds with natural strains of magic in their blood (Sorcerers), the Humans (and even some half orcs and the occasional orc) might develop the skill to coax magic out of their surroundings through focus and training.
@@josephperez2004 I spent years studying world religions and rituals along with paganism, shamanism, and witchcraft. Religious items such as the cross & rosery beads or beads used in other cultures for prayer. It in bases a magic fetish item such as a wand or staff. Who to say a sorcerer wand firing cantrips is really enchanted or not or just a spell focus component.
In WotC3e there is a magic item creation feat called, Craft Wonderous Item, required caster level 3rd.
This feat is required in the DMG under : Creating Magic Trap Items.
Long story short after a month killing vermin for dinner a 3rd-level wizard/druid will had 1,500xp to 3,000xp and can create two 2nd-level spell items each month.
So any low develop cultural level, of orcs, native Americans, the nomadic Mongols rooted in a shamanic cultural will be regarded as druids.
With a bit reading it is not difficult to create a Hindu Buddhist yoga kick boxing monk. Traded out the druid every third level feat for hand to hand combat, take a few levels of fighter for bonus feats, switch out the druid nature abilities to Astral travel. Mind out of Body spell chain would be Unseen Servant, Blink, Demi Shadow Monster for sending out one's soul to attack someone. AD&D2nd spell Wraith Form later renamed Gaseous Form, along with Dimensional Door.
2.) My gaming shop played Whitewolf/World of Darkness (WoD) Mage the Awakening and Werewolf with both systems had rules on creating spirit sites to draw down and storge mana magical energy. We even carry that over into our Star Wars campaigns along with DC/Marvel games.
a.) Styles of play and themes in campaign, ..
i.) rogue that is good at social skills of con people or begging not to get beat up by the local street gang. Role playing and charisma roll to adjust social reactions & attitudes. There are five levels from hostile to helpful. Point being you don't have to be a Bard to raise the moral of your adventuring team or field troops. People are superstitious and even if they don't Know that they receive god's blessing or not, they just know someone gave a good prayer speech and they are still alive after wards.
So god must have favor them. History of the German Protestant Wars, along with England's.
So you could have a fighter/rogue with good social skills acting as a lay cleric. Look how religious people explain their god's actions in real life. Sorry to sound atheist.
Run a game where Everything is magic but unflashy.
ii.) Create Food & Water, PCs cast spell and then they find a pack mule with water, they can eat the mule. Or it rains and they have to drink water from a mud puddle and eat earth worms that came up in the rain. Druid spell Good Berries, you just find enough nuts & berries to keep you alive for a few more days.
Most magic is kept at or below 3rd-level. Cleric casting Cure Disease is legendary, but Granny is a 2nd-level druid or Catholic nun being accused of witchcraft by other German protestants, clay cooking pot for chicken soup has spells of Bull's Strength and Endurance to raise Fort saves to deal with the flu. Keep magic simple enough it can be logical dismissed. Closer to reality, it was herbalism and proper nutrition by growing the herbs and vegetables in the correct compost.
Cure light wounds grants a stamina boost of temporary hp, or recovers bonus hp through bed rest. Only Cure Critical Wounds has a PC heal like Marvel comics Wolverine.
iii.) Orc or any other nomadic tribe person could have a 3rd-level druid with the feat Craft Wounder Item could create a rock/large stone alter that has Cure Wounds 2d8+3hp. It heals wounded N/PCs over a few days.
In AD&D the Greater Mummy had an unholy symbol which could heal them each round for 2d8 hp dmg. AD&D didn't have the rules to create such and item without charges. Like a " wand " of cure light wounds holding 40 charges. Then WotC came out with 3e. Leading to a bunch of 3rd-level clerics or bards creating rings or neckless of cure light wounds of 1d6+3hp each round. omg we had a bunch of Wolverine want a bes. So as war power gamers we develop over kill to new levels.
@@josephperez2004 Magic, ..
Instead of rolling d20, roll 4d6. Reroll any 6 that comes up for higher skill rank check out come.
3e to learn a new spell is Spellcraft DC:15 + spell level minus - ability modifier.
a starting rogue at first level for the most skill points then follow up with sorcerer or bard. For the rogue it is 4points to buy 2ranks in Spellcraft and Knowledge( arcane lore/ old wives tales or what old men think they know.) So starting PC is rogue1/sorcerer1/bard1 follow with sorcerer2. Spellcraft could be with 12+1 int bonus at 11ranks. So to pop off a 1st-level spellcraft DC: rolling 5 or more on d20.
My DM had charts on wild magic random results, she really just loved the Wish spell along with Limited Wish.
So a 6th-level wizard or sorcerer can cast a 3rd-level spell, total all spell slots if they equal 9 slot levels they can roll for a 9th-level spell such as Wish or Gate.
Spellcraft DC:15+9 for spell level + 12 caster level difference in separation required to cast a 9th level spell.= 36.
WotC Star Wars had Rebel Era campaign source book and had multiclassing set up to explain N/PC growth. Such as star system governor, crime lord to company chair owner. A single class Jedi consular at 7th-level could have 10 ranks in Diplomacy, and they could over train their padawan 4th-level Jedi to multiclass in Noble class to get a rapid advancement in the skill Diplomacy up to a higher rank.
So in D&D 3e the DMG N/PC class Expert gaining a +2 Will save and 6skill points with extra 1d6hp.
Power gaming multi classing cleric or druid at 1 level, bard maybe after finding someone with more training or a wild talent maverick.
So a " fire dancer" cleric2/bard2/sorcerer2/rogue1 would have a base Spellcraft: +17ranks. So if a player could roll a 19 with 4d6 and reroll 6s they could cast a 9th-level spell. God help you if you roll four 1s.
Action rolls.
1st. roll initiative to call/ invoke magic energy to your shape to be shaped.
2nd. roll init again to shape the energy.
3rd. roll init again to cast said energy at given target.
In AD&D spell level adds +1 for each level of spell to modify initiative rolls. So you really needed a shield wall in front of your caster.
2.) Other magic spell like abilities, ..
i.) AD&D action were argue to be at 1 minute or 6seconds long due to what purist gate keeper you were dealing with during the 1990's. ( what the H3LL ?! the book doesn't say it take 3 f-cking minutes to cast Fire Ball ! ) Needless to say we had more than our fare share of plastic baseball fights and foam weapons.
ii.) TMNT and Rifts time was 6seconds.
iii.) Whitewolf/World of Darkness(WoD) base on modifiers stander melee or firearms, or vampire Charm it was 3 seconds long. For mages casting a extended action of spells from 3seconds to hours.
iv.) WotC 3e D&D/Star Wars came out. 6seconds melee and force powers activation. 15minute Short Rest came out cause Jedi power their force abilities with their Vp vitality which are treated more as temporary hit points.
So we looked at D&D spells as if they were force power skill check roll.
AD&D2ndE didn't have mana or spell points, other game systems did. So if you want to cast Fire Ball it will cost your caster 5hp at 5th-level and 10hp at 10th-level. Very limiting a wizard spells per day, some DM d-ck head gate keepers really hated spellcasters they are not controlling as an N/PC in their gaming. Open game shop 25 + years ago, you played with who could know the rules enough to DM and tell a good action survival horror story. I been in games where one person ran the story and two other players had to run combat for everyone.
v.) Star Wars, we ran force cultist where instead of using their force Jedi powers within a 6second melee round. it took them minutes of meditation, chanting, throat singing, and sometimes Needed props such as drums. Needless to say they are worthless in mass combat for Palpatine to make use of, but useful enough where Palpatine or Darth Vader will stand/ sit though Hours of chanting to get effects they needed.
WEG west end games d6 system Star Wars RPG, now just refer to as Open D6 Space Fantasy. Which my gaming group played before WotC took the wheel. In short any Star Wars N/PC can make a constitution DC:15 after an hour of meditation and gain a Force Point. Background backing is a Knowledge check for Theology and Meditation of oneness or stillness. Difficulty is modify with WEG number of Force feat Control dice you have in your dice pool. Or WotC3e skill ranks Knowledge(Control) the character has. A force user like Jedi can have unlimited Force Pts to modify action out comes. A stander PC can hold a given number equal to their class level or Wisdom/Constitution average. " sound mind/sound body." So other than telling you game master storyteller you are just " using the Force," you roll your Knowledge(religion/mediation) against your wisdom. Like any other stander action. Any PC can roll for bonus Luck Dice/Force points each day as long as you treat using them as a skill action.
In one regard you could have people that knew how to call on the Force in all their action but still not outshine the Jedi.
On the given person their meditation could be sitting and breathing. Cursing and kicking the wall. Cleaning their weapon or making comfort food. Have a one hour pre game warm up by chanting your schools/city sports slogan. Listen to death metal music.
vi.) ...To cast given spells, the spellcaster takes temporary damage to their constitution/wisdom due to the strain of the casting at low levels. At higher levels they take damage as paying cost then roll a save at their current ability score stat or lose the spell. At more difficult level they must make multiple save rolls.
vii.) Orc horse step grassland raider, Mongols or the Huns. Ranger2/druid3 CR:5 can cast 2nd-level spells and has Craft Wonderous item feat. The orc rider can set up small to large stone alters for healing and gaining strength from. Instead of a few seconds of melee style spellcasting. Cure Light Wounds takes minutes or hours to chant through.
My first introduction to ORCS is warcraft II in 1995,
it's been my go-to RPG identity since I was 8.
It's also safe to say I would have fallen to the dark side of the force day 2 of training as a JEDI.
Tolkiens orcs seem to me to clearly be the "soldier who follows orders without thought".
"I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history - true or feigned- with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author." -J.R.R Tolkien
@@LordNithilus I think you're the one confusing applicability with allegory lol did you even read the quote before you posted? Haha
people don't follows orders without thought, that can we see with all the russians soldier fleigning. No people follows orders if they think they are doing the right thing
@@LordNithilus Good for him, I don't dislike Allegory though. I believe some concepts in a story shouldn't be free for the reader to decide, otherwise the reader can control and pervert the story. And then sell the corrupted version as true.
@@LordNithilus Germans and now Russians have also followed orders without question.
I think parallels can be seen between the treatment of orcs in some fantasy gaming and the treatment of Klingons in the Star Trek franchise: from aggressive, evil adversaries to an aggressive, honor-bound culture.
klingons were based off orcs
@@alexeisenhauer5874 klingons were based on asians
@@Liethen orcs were based on asians /s
@@EmberBright2077 mongols and huns specifically
Ah yes, Star Trek. The universe where aliens are strictly divided by the shape of their rubber foreheads and ears.
I've been critical of some of your videos and their tone. But this must be said:
This was beautiful. Eloquent. Historical/lore accurate. Perfect. Every word.
I bow to you, sir.
I like the dnd orcs, but because of my high fantasy leaning they felt a bit lack luster, as a fantasy race.
In my world, they were created by the first necromancer(an elf), who wanted to fix the problem of elven bodies growing weaker, after they settled on the material plane. So, he utilized his necromantic expertise to weave the perfect physical body. Strong, healthy, and able to reproduce in a more stable manner than the panda-like elves. The two species were supposed to interbreed to create this species of both perfect body and mind, but the other elves did not like the idea. They killed the creator, making the first collective memory of the infant orcs the death of their father at the hands of elves. Because of that they rampaged and forced the elves to escape from their own homeland, jumpstarting the division of the elves into different subraces depending on where they sought refuge.
This caused the many, large scale, elven spells to haywire and change the land into a dangerous, and unexplored, expanse, prowled by different creatures, escaped from elven laboratories.
The orcs, surprisingly, thrived there. They began worshipping their father as a god, and learned necromancy from him, which became an important part of their culture. Bone became their material of choice, for both weapons and armor, and to offer a skeleton of a rare species to their god was a great achievement. Even their bodies are able to produce various bone plates or blades if trained and prepared in a specific way. They can end up looking as if covered in armor or carapace with horns and other such stuff differing between tribes or clans.
They live in nomadic tribal societies, focused around gigantic tortoise skeletons turned into moving tents, and herd entire forests of orcwort trees(3e monster producing orc shaped moving fruit which fits just perfectly) along their way to have a source of food with them.
To the rest of the world, they are a very mysterious people. To elves they are the boogeyman. Dwarves absolutely love them for their hunting skills and often invite entire clans to aid in an extermination of a dangerous monster, in exchange for resources. Others, might find them odd or unsettling, because of their harsh child rearing methods or the custom of eating a fallen orcs heart so that their strength will stay with the tribe. But it all depends on how the relationship has been shaped in the past.
I really like what I ended up with.
That's really unique! Love the creativity and worldbuilding you put into your version of orcs!
That sounds like a great idea for a book series. If that isn't what your project currently is, it certainly could be turned to such. Very clever way you're using the whole association with the Underworld, while still making your Orcs sympathetic.
@@Typanoid @Typanoid Thank you, but to tell you the truth, it is a mess for now.
I want to write a book once but got discouraged by my own lack of skill. Then upon discovering rpg's and dnd specifically I aimed to create my own setting in which I could run games. My aim was for it to feel somewhat familiar to someone familiar with fantasy or the game, but different enough so it could be unmistakably mine. One of my main goals was to make the "races" of dnd into "species" but not in the way wotc did, in name only. And that's how this idea came to be, with no small help from my love for necromancy which I feel is strongly underused.
And now after some years, with little to no opportunities to play, I've been learning and trying to write again. So maybe one day, this will become something more. Thank you for your kind words once again.
That's cool. In my setting, the Elves were a species created by the Sphinxes to serve as footsoldiers in their war against the Dragons and their human allies. The original elves were a combination of humans, beasts, and demons. They betrayed the Sphinx, brought their empire down, and then stole all their magic. They wanted to purify themselves and make themselves beautiful and immortal, so they performed this massive ritual that would purge the demonic and beastial elements from themselves. It worked...kind of. To the elves surprise, their dark halves didn't just vanish, they became a literal curse on the earth. Now anywhere that blood spills on the earth and the sun does not shine, the ground turns black and corrupted. Eventually, fist-sized maggots spontaneously form, growing into massive 4' long worms that undergo metamorphosis and emerge as fully adult orcs. The orcs have taken root deep in the mountains, in the long-abandoned cities of the dwarves, where they strike out to capture humans, dwarves, and elves to bring back to their breeding caverns where they sacrifice victims to their dark gods, spilling their blood on the black earth and breeding new generations of orcs.
Goblins are much the same, but they spawn from untended trash piles (and are a plague on cities with poor sanitation). They're a result of a human mage trying to break the orc curse. He failed, only modifying it and changing its nature.
Let me just steal this ( well not everything but at least the core ideas ).
I've read a lot of books with all sorts of Orcs. Most tend to be more Tribal Barbarian types, so they are not necessarily evil, just bloodthirsty....literally if they eat people.
They don't all have to be the same in your role-playing world either, you can have multiple versions existing like you do for all the other races. There are many differences in their looks as well. Warhammer Orks, Tolkien Orcs, Bright (movie) Orcs, D&D furry Orcs, Grey Orcs, etc...
Note:
Though elves and dwarfs for sure had some inspirations from faeries, they were also inspired by the Norse myths.
Dökkálfar and Ljósálfar, Dark elves and Light elves. Even the name Alf -> Elf
The Light elves are pretty similar to the tolkienesque elves in fact. The dark elves however were short in stature, lived in the earth and were known for great metal works and other crafts. They could be evil and greedy though. This may sound familiar...
It was a Dark Elf/Dwarf pair named Sindre and Brokk that made Mjølnir, Thors hammer. Loki had to trick them to get it done though.
Here is a wikipedia page (Norwegian, sorry) with an image from that legend drawn in 1901, more than 50 years before Tolkien penned LoTR. It depicts a dwarf in a forge, and he does not seem to be a spirit, but much more akin to modern fantasy.
no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fil:Once_again_the_buzzing_fly_came_in_at_the_window_(1901)_by_Arthur_Rackham.jpg
There is a lot more that Tolkien got from Norse and Finnish myths and legends that he put in his world. He was well read, and took things from all over.
I think the more monstrous options are a good thing, I like playing nonhumans. For your monstrous heroes book I have a suggestion for you to make two serpentine races; one small sized venomous race and one medium sized constrictor race. For inspiration for the venomous race, I would suggest you look at hognose snakes, and/or false water cobra’s, these are some venomous snakes that make good pets. For the constrictor race, I would suggest you look at reticulated pythons, and Burmese pythons, I think that because these snakes are roughly in the mass of a human you could actually consider them medium size in real life.
I love snakes, and I have created my own homebrew serpent races for myself and while I don’t make very much money, I intend to support the Patreon when it comes up!
Orcs were not given a land on Faerun, Grumsh got pissed, and commanded the orcs to pillage what they need. I think generally, orcs would be considered bad. Obold many arrows changed that for some. So, outside Obolds influence probably leaning more toward evil.
what orcs are entirely depends on what orcs you're talking about. I tend to prefer the ones which have their own culture and are not neccesarily evil, just different enough to be easily misunderstood. Like Elder Scrolls Orsimer for instance.
My generation that grew up with Warcraft 3 and WoW see orcs as more than monsters but honorable and proud giga chads.
It really depends on the setting. Orcs can be the good guys, the bad guys, player races, or even heroes depending on the setting/lore. Context matters.
I personally think that the idea of Orcs in the D&D world that try to find a new place in the world breaking away from their traditional society is interesting even if they're rare within the setting. Eberron is also interesting with it's Orcs that aren't inherently evil.
One of the best D&D characters I ever made was a quarter-orc, who was half human and half half-orc. She was awesome. Wild Soul barbarian.
Everytime I delve deeper into fantasy as a genre, it always seems somewhat humorous to me that the fantasy genre is essentially LOTR fanfiction.
I say it just depends on the setting.
If it's the canon D&D setting, perhaps they're evil monsters.
In my, personal, favourite setting (Terrinoth), they can be any alignment.
Elder Scrolls has Orcs and Dark Elves who are not necessary evil (and by the time of Skyrim could be considered far less of a threat than the high elves and in fact a potential ally for humanity against that threat) and do it very well imo, it just connects some of the tropes that existed about them into the races' culture and mythology - e.g. the orcs were elves (and technically still are) but their god, Trinimac became the "demon god" (i.e. Daedra) Malacath, and they changed with him, but Daedra are not necessarily evil and neither are Orcs. Also by degraded I mean literally eaten and pooped out by another god if you believe some myths.
Love Elder Scrolls! Also love playing as an Orsimer 💚
Orcs, Tieflings, hobgoblins, and bugbears. All of these are considered monstrous races for a reason.
At my table, players are free to play monstrous races with the knowledge that if they do they will be treated as such.
This doesn’t mean that characters cannot prove themselves but you cannot expect an orc to walk into a small village that has been periodically pillaged by orcs and not expect to be treated like a monster.
all depends on the setting bb
Actually, I was going to run a scenario in which the local cleric got kidnapped by orcs that wanted to force him to heal their warriors. This was kind of the idea I had for how the half-orc PC ended up with the rest of them to start with - he'd actually been living in town for a while but the townsfolk thought he had something to do with the kidnapping. He was actually from another tribe but wanted to help get the cleric back so the townspeople would stop blaming him. I gave him a bit of incidental knowledge of that orc tribe, so he actually was an important party member when it came to seeking them out.
I would agree with all of those races except tieflings. Tieflings are basically just humans with demonic curse/lineage, but they're basically as diverse as humans in views.
@@couchgrouches7667 that doesn't change the fact that people would treat them differently because of how they look, as much as we don't like to admit it people are visual creatures, so similar to how people act differently on deformities they will treat tiefling as not human
Tieflings as a monster race feels odd to me. How are they any more monster than the Aasimar
Orks are a type of fungus duh. “Idn’t dat roight boiz?!”
“Waaagh!!!”
Green is best!
My view is that there can be evil or good cultures of any of the races, just that orcs, goblinoids, and the underdark races are just more inclined to it because of their pantheons manipulating them.
For the rest, if assumed to be that way, they can say: "You call us evil? look at how many twisted human bandits and cultists there are."
Also a new viewpoint that I am going to start trying to explore comes from a comment on SuperGeekMike's video on this topic, where the Orcish pantheon in D&D is like a dark mirror of the Aesir nordic gods, which will lean more into the honorable warrior side of orcs.
Esper, this is the time to shine. You are the OG DND youtuber. We want to hear your opinions and thoughts on wizard of the coast, the OGL, and DND in general.
Theirs no future with wotc, what they make isn't even really dnd, one does not need to ogl, and cannot be sued for game mechanics. Go OSR and worry not about wotc.
Looking forward to your kickstarter. I always enjoy playing the monster or creature as itself and not trying to fit it into the "humanoid" mold.
I lean a bit more towards the new school, I think the Elder Scrolls did a pretty decent job making the transition from monster to playable race feel believable, in the first 2 games they were considered monsters but the events of the second explored them in more depth and by the end secured their personhood within the world. Not only that, they kept a lot of those original elements after that - Brutal might-makes-right tribal nomadic reaver society loosely inspired by the Mongols created from a corruption of elves by a powerful evil being.
I find it strange how Orcs and Tribalism have become so intrinsically linked in pop-culture.
People think "Orcs are Dumb, so the can't be building things with complexity like civilized people", and then you get a dynamic of seeing Civilized as good and Wild as bad. The "Civilized" People are rational thinkers and pursuing philosophy and ideals while the "Wild" people are superstitious as opposed to rational, and oppose progress for the sake of brutish power and savage revelry, which is very close to the way a lot of Colonial powers saw native populations around the world: "Look at these backward savage people, they are not smart like us. We should make them act right and if they don't obey we need to put them down." And then you look at these supposed "Civilized" people and they are not as good and not as rational as they think they are, they can be Greedy, have a sense of superiority to others, xenophobia, etc... and the people who were marked in this dynamic as "Wild and Uncivilized" you find a lot of complexity within.
My favorite example is the Aztec Empire, they were infamous for their practice of human sacrafice and pop-culture tends to exoticize some of these unfavorable aspects about them for shock and making them seem alien and brutal, but while that was one aspect of the Aztecs there was more to them than just ritualistically pulling out people's beating heart at the top of a temple. The Aztecs were also incredible problem solvers. The Capital of the Aztec Empire Tenochtitlan was built in the middle of a lake on a swampy island so in order to make this island fit for building a city they drove long poles into the mud to keep buildings stable, sectioned off parts of the lake that had more brackish water that were bad for crops and had contingencies in case of floods, built farms on rafts covered in mud from the lake so they had plenty of space for Agriculture on the lake, and had an Aqueduct from the Mountains to deliver constant drinkable freshwater into the city!
On the other hand look at Victorian England. They certainly thought of themselves as the most civilized civilization in the world, but their cities were filthy and overcrowded, crime was on the rise as people became desperate, quality of life was a lot worse as food and products were made more cheap and with less regard for health risks, and my favorite example of victorian hypocrisy was rich people having parties where they thought it would be fun to EAT A MUMMY! You idiots are committing Cannibalism but you still think you are "Rational, Morally Correct, Civilized People"
So what if we took some of these ideas and applied them to Orcs. In Lord of the Rings the Orcs and Uruk-Hai were very industrial building massive forges and factories, destroying nature for the sake of progress and war with no regard for consequences, so what if instead of associating enemy orcs with groups who have historically been oppressed, we were to depict enemy Orcs as the Colonist, the Oppressors, the Industrialists who see life as meaningless to the machine of war, expansion, and progress not realizing they are also harming themselves.
Let's make more Orcs British!
I kept thinking about this, and making Orcs inspired off of Colonial England not only makes them collectively more monstrous but also can make individual orcs more relatable!
On one hand you have the fear of this Military industrial superpower and well organized soldiers invading your medieval fantasy kingdom, destroying the landscape for its resources, committing atrocities and war crimes, and then acting stuck up and superior can really make your players feel like underdogs and hate them.
On the other hand you can explore the human side of individuals and how they are hurting themselves as much as they are hurting other races. Show a Soldier questioning orders when they think their superiors are going too far and getting punished. Show lower class Orcs who are being preyed on by organized crime because their leaders don't care about helping them. Show Orcs who don't fit in to the rigid industrial society and try to find somewhere else they belong.
My idea of traditional is this, it's not concrete foundation, but it is a brick and mortar building. If you want to make alterations, then adding furniture is one thing but you better make sure you know what you're doing if your going to stark breaking down wall and building more rooms.
I also love the more traditional Orc concept. I'm currently playing one in an AD&D campaign. The nuance you can explore with a race that is considered by many to be evil, and carries around that baggage but has more depth to them is crucial. I don't play them as if they are some new-age "just misunderstood" Orc. My character knows that they have an instinctive bias towards brutality, greed, and malevolence, and yet they manage to push that urge down in order to accomplish larger goals. Every now and then however my character reminds the world that they don't actually care in the same way other people might.
I also think we often forget to align humans with orcs in a serious way in fantasy. Humans in fantasy worlds are often far more savage than humans of the actual medieval period, and certainly much more so than humans of a contemporary period. When you compare a fantasy orc to any fantasy human living in similar circumstances, in a world filled with monsters, magic, and true evil, you simply have to become more cruel to survive. An Orc, even a traditional pig nosed, hairy monster isn't that different from some human barbarian living in a tribal society on the edge of civilization.
As Parthanax asks in Skyrim: "which is better, to be born good, or to overcome one's evil nature with great effort?"
Esper the first video on my channel covers this topic if you want more details on this subject
Grew up with WoW and WH orcs and I love them both to bits.
I also especially love how simple the explanation behind the green skin is ^^ doesn't have to be political, it just has to make sense
What I personally do, is I throw out modern lore, entirely, everything post-Tolkien, then I go back, far back, to the old myths and legends, look at the roots, and build from scratch, just as Tolkien and others did, everyone will build differently, but if you keep yourself in the modern mold, old enough to have foundation, but too new to properly innovate off of, you end up making the same things as everyone else without exploring many new things, so looking at what they did and *directly* innovating off of that is a great way to think of new ideas
I learned a lot from the historical dive! Thank you for being so thorough, Esper!
Warcraft had a best of both worlds approach - the orcs were raging brutes and servants to demonic influence being all hopped up on demon blood and demon energy (fel) but over time, that influence weakened and they eventually regained their "humanity" so to speak - the culture beyond warfare. Whether they were traditional orcs or novelty orcs depends on circumstances within the story.
"Restrictions breed creativity"
In a setting where orc are the traditional brutal and evil monsters what can it push one of them to become a hero? Is the character the experiment of some wizard or other creature who was trying to find a way to solve the orcs problem? Is it a child that was found and grew up with humans or some other group? Is it the intervention of some good deity at war with the one who created orcs? Is the character someone from another world where maybe orcs won and eventually evolved into a civilized society over millenia?
I like the idea of monster races because it create an interesting dinamic to evolve that archetype while being bound by and at the dame time pay respect to tradition
Ikr? Orc wizard becomes much more boring if they dont come from a society of "dumb brutes".
What made them pursuit magic instead of traditional big axe smash approach.
Perhaps a high charisma orc was just the runt of the litter, kept alive in the brutal society they grew up in because they were a cute novelty, same way most of us keep pets now.
Perhaps as they grew older they learned to be social manipulators, playing into what people would expect of them.
Noine expects an honor bound society member to backstab you or slip a poison into your drink. Etc.
@@The_Yukki sorry if I ask, what does ikr stand for? English not my first language
@@davidecolucci6260 ikr is an abbreviation of "I know right?"
@@The_Yukki thank you
@@davidecolucci6260 You're welcome ^^
My favorite orcs are the ones from lineage 2.
Where they have a perfect balance between ferocity and elegance. They maintain a well-defined aesthetic and many of the wild elements applied to their weapons, armor and abilities with animal grace. Just epic !
I am torn with my own creative endeavors that I it's good to just have a foot-soldier for the embodiment of evil that can be killed to guilt-free, but then also it's always fun to have a story about prejudices and orcs make for a good fantasy warrior culture like Klingons. I agree with the assertion that basically whatever works best for your story is what to go with.
DnD should always have evil races because geopolitics very very very hard and evil just cuz easy
@@nicolaezenoaga9756 well I would ask what's the point of having the evil side of the spectrum if no one's actually evil
For example what's the point of having chaotic evil if no one wants to actually be that alignment might as well just go from good good to lawful and just skip the evil alignments what's the point of having them if nobody wants to be evil.
I'm not saying that orcs have to be genetically coded to be evil that's not what I am arguing for I'm just arguing for it's nice to have an evil option if I want to go that route. I mean I can understand misunderstood and cultural differences, when I hear the sad back stories of demons OC and how they are misunderstood it's funny to me ha XD
@@aaronrowell6943 Hahah!!
They should know that they're not embarking on the ,,edgy sad kid'' boat if they're playing a demon! Like I sorry but they're just not for that
Personally I think if "orcs as green" is a problem for you, you have a much deeper DM problem.
After all bandits are also a common dnd enemy and they're typically human.
My general rule as a DM: The goal is never to "trick" my players into evil.
So if someone attacks them they should *generally* be ok to kill, otherwise the *moral grey area* must be made clear to the party before initiative is rolled.
Also I don't like having pure evil orcs because I don't like the rape element of the half-orc.
Rape is one of the few things that's purely off the table in my campaigns.
It's interesting you picked up on the underworld connection originally orcs had very little to do with any European folklore and were actually minions of Orcus the Greek god of jailers because he's struggling to keep Erebus in line we got to remember that a lot of Titans are bigger than they appear it's as if everybody was looking in a rear view mirror but originally they were depicted in odments of roman armor I was actually debating doing a video on this very subject today I'm very interested to see the rest of your perspective
Orcus was NOT the Greek god of jailors. I'm not sure what source you are drawing from but whatever it is it is incorrect. Orcus was an Etruscan god of the dead and ruler of the underworld akin to the Greek Hades.
@@michaelmorrissey8983 consider me enlightened makes a good deal of sense
In my defense however many cultures make great gods from prior cultures subordinate to their own I apologize for being hazy on proto-Italian horse raiders
As someone who grew up with Tolkien and the Warcraft series. I kinda fell in love with the idea of Orcs as an Honerable Warrior Race, led into corruption by dark forces. Leaving me to really want to see a kind of perfect merger of Tolkien's Orcs and the Warcraft Orcs.
Maybe at one time they where Humans or Elves. Let's say a race of men who where known for their valor and strength of arms, but where led astray by an evil god, or arch demon, opr megalomaniac wizard with promises of power and conquest. Thus leading to their corruption and the birth of the Orc race, but vestiges of their once proud and noble culture remain, and some members of the race would seek to presurve or even rekindle the old ways. Especially once whatever dark power led them onto this path had been slain. Thus causing the Orcs to splinter off into different factions, some still loyal to the dark power that birthed them, other's seeking to reclaim their old traditions, and other's still seeking a new path entirely. This would allow the orcs to retain much of the nuances of both the old and new interpretation. Though it certainly more clearly resembles the Warcraft version, just with a greater lean into the idea that Orc's are creatures birthed from evil (as much as anything can be, sense evil cannot create, only pervert that which is already created).
You'd also be able to keep your old Tolkien inspired Orcs around, while having player character Orcs be a thing as well. In kind of an inversion of Elves and Drow. Where the mainline culture is evil, but there is one or two off shoot cultures that are good. In fact in this example you get Evil Loyalists (Basically Tolkien Orcs), Neutral Traditionalists (Think Klingons), & Good Neo-Traditionalists (More or less Warcraft Orcs).
17:07 That's why I always draw my orcs as more pig-like (even if I'm making them a hot anime character lol) They look a lot cooler when you go at least 50/50 with monster traits and humanoid traits instead of mostly human with like one or two quirks.
If anything making orcs pig like is more anime like. Like... Look at the slime isekai or moonlit fantasy. Orcs are totally pigs. Well meaning powerlifter pig bros, but in slime isekai especially they were really strong and monstrous towards their enemies
@aleksis gabliks lol Exactly! I like orcs to be equally likely to be honor-focused firce warriors and absolutely jacked himbos 😅
That is basically just making them Japanese Orcs.
@@TankHunter678 I'm more so going for WoW Orcs mixed with Jabba the Hut's pig Gaurds from Star Wars 😅
But yes, I do draw them with a hint of anime flair
@@cosmicsymbols4225 No I am not talking anime, I mean literally in Japanese Mythology Orcs are pigmen.
I prefer the Warcaft orcs. They are strongs, badass, intelligent, and they like vikings, or Huns. They are warlike, but humane at the same time.
Love this type of content, first video I've watched of yours. I'm a indie game developer and I love watching videos that provoke me to think about fantasy in a historic and cultural way. I subscribed!
Welcome Darrian!
Gork is brutal but cunning, while Mork is cunning but brutal
I know perhaps it's not the angle you were going for. But I find the question of "at what point are they no longer orcs" extremely validating for my stance on orc designs. I'm really not a fan of the orc design that games like WoW popularized. The Orcs of Peter Jackson's LOTR movies are the definitive visual interpretation to me. And even then, there was a lot of variety between each individual specimen.
These 7-8 foot tall ripped dudes with tusks we see in video games, and modern D&D feel more like ogres to me than orcs. I don't mind tall orcs, or orcs that are stronger than the average human. I mean, frankly my favorites of the Jackson movies were his interpretation of the Uruk Hai. But the orcs we see in things like WoW, RSL, and Warhammer feel like they've outright ditched orcs being...orcs, and are just calling what to me are clearly ogres, orcs, or just green buff people with tusks.
The ones that still feel like monsters, feel like an entirely separate monster from an orc, and I find myself just shaking my head at the ones that barely even qualify as monsters, and are just green people.
I mean Warhammer has both and it works for them.
@@GreenBlueWalkthrough Like I said, to me warhammer orcs don't feel like orcs either. They're monsters sure, but if anything they're more like ogres than orcs.
Orcs in widespread pop culture have been modelled after the Uruk Hai, creatures of superhuman strength stature and ability, with a tendency for violence and cruelty, but also iron discipline and unquestionable loyalty.
The other type of orc, the cowardly smaller than human creatures called in the tolkien books as 'snaga' have become colloquially known as goblins.
So.yeas, wow orks are still very much in line with tolkien, they are just the big ones. Ogre doesnt factor into this at all. Ogres are the eastern mythological equivalent of a troll. Gigantic, supernatural, dumb, and often onthologically evil.
@@egoalter1276 the level of height and muscle WoW Orcs have is WAY more extreme than the Uruk Hai. This isn't about them being scrawny vs buff at all.
In the 3.5 book Races of Destiny , the Shaeakim were introduced. Thes Orc like beings in the lore were actually descended from cursed human. They were known for their organized nature and love of magic.
You should do one of these on Kobolds. There's a shitton of folkore and even some older mythological stuff on them before DND flanderized them into short draconic creatures
I was first introduced to orcs via Shadowrun where they get a very sympathetic portrayal (and also the best game stats out of all the PC races imo) and for a long time that style of orc was my head canon true orc. I then got into WoW and the noble warrior orc became another favorite fantasy race. I then got into Warhammer and fell in love with the comedy relief style ork. I've also grown to like orcs from nearly every fantasy setting I've engaged with. Orcs as a broad concept have so many possible variations and I tend to love them all. So long as a property sets standards for what its orcs are and how they fit in the world, I'm ok with however they are portrayed for the most part. What I'm not ok with is changing how orcs (or any fantasy creature) is portrayed in a world to the displeasure of those who have enjoyed and supported that property based on external factors and political agendas, as seems the case with modern D&D.
Honestly, original warcraft made amazing progress on making orcs both monstrous beings and noble savages at once. I think it kept the perfect balance of creatures capable of great destruction while also being deep and complex and most importantly distinct, not being just "green human with tusks."
I kinda like both the monstrous orcs and the more "human" orcs equally. Same can be said about humans, there is no such thing as a purely good human many can be monstrous and even have monstrous features.
Glad to see that kind of videos back ! Very interesting.
I like to split the difference when it comes to orcs. They're brutish raiders who can be dangerous to the more "civilized" races. However, they also have their own cultural nuances and can be reasoned with in the right circumstances.
Thanks Esper for a new lore video. Big fan of your earlier raking videos on monster types and it’s nice to see a deep dive into orcs. Any chance we could see one on goblins (given the recent Fey rebranding in MoTM) or gnolls (always a perennial favorite)
The Forgotten Realms actually have both monster orcs and more civilized orcs, the mountain orcs are more brutish and monstrous, more dumb as well, and are raiders and barbarians and pillagers overall. And then there is the gray orc, orcs that are less monstrous and more humanoid, smarter and more sophisticated, but still barbarians in the eyes of other races. They are more reasonable though and pose a greater threat by being smarter than their cousind while still being very strong.
Also, the orcs, as well as other races in the Forgotten Realms, are shaped after their gods, the orc phanteon is very focused on war and brute strength, therefore the orcs are like this as well.
Another great analysis Esper. Keep up the good work.
Thanks for crediting the music you used. Feedback - Omniman is awesome.
"you can't make orcs evil anymore" is what people try and say, that I take issue with. If you want to personify them that's all good, but the authoritarian stance that it's not ok to use them as they were created is ridiculous.
Yes but they were smart evil it's weird they became brutes which is how most use them. U can use them that way but Tolkien's orcs weren't that .
In terms of DnD and other RPGs, I usually play orc characters as those who live in ways that seem "primitive" to others, but actually have a really rich culture. In particular a couple of my characters come from the "Northern Orc Clans", who have long been characterized as brutish mountain-dwelling savages that don't know how to read or write and thus have no culture or history. In reality, they do have a rich culture and history, but consider it improper to write down. They share their history and their stories through bards called "Aurots", because they consider the theatrics to be a vital part of the story, and someone who isn't an Aurot telling a story of the Northern Orcs is seen as mockery their history and culture.
I just LOVE this kind of analytic content and despite my dislike of orcs in general (I always was bored by them ;) ), this was just perfect.
This video was very informative. I wish I had more time and money to support you more. We so need more channels and people like you in the community. Keep up the good work bro!
Personally I find the newer orcs more interesting. I think the idea of a group of people with different appearance and culture who are treated like monsters can be very powerful, and in some senses more applicable to real life than old orcs.
One way I used Orcs in a setting to make them more personable or "goodify" them as we called it was making them something of a refugee race. The set-up (in deep summary) was that they were in a fortified frontier city like Minas Tirith. War and disease had cut the city off from most of civilization. Orcs that were once used as fodder settled and started trading with the humans of the city since it seemed the wars had ended. I had reasons for them staying as most of them were transported there by spells from the big-bad-boss, and didn't know the way back.
Absolutely first-rate breakdown of the history of Orcs in the genre, and the inherent conflict between the two conceptions of what they aught to be. Well done.
You hit the nail on the head with the modern trend of portraying Orcs as merely green-skinned, pointy-eared Humans with cutesy bottom canines. At that point they're simply another Fortnite-esque skin applied onto a standard human cultural archetype. One could easily swap out the classic 'Viking' trope for 'Orc' in a lot of these portrayals without changing a single thing other than their appearance, and no one would even notice - a robust warrior culture that esteems strength, ferocity , courage, and robust simplicity over sophisticated ambiguity.
Something that's so easily interchangeable with another classic trope is a sure sign that it's purely a cosmetic distinction, and thus boring AF, in my humble opinion.
Had to double check to be sure, but orcs were playable as early as 2e. They were explorable well before now and it didn't take some sort of humanizing (or rather, delinking from evil) to make it so.
I like "traditional orcs." I like chaotic green orks. The one orc I dislike are from those who've watered them down to be basically human because they were too obsessed with the idea that they can't be evil. As for people "identifying with them," you're nuts. If you want to try out their perspective, that's fine. But unless theirs clear inspiration that they're football hooligans or something and you're a football hooligan, whatever you're identifying with is probably your headcanon. You want to make a game with your headcanon? That's awesome. But don't demand others play by it.
nice video. maybe a video about what are goblins would be interesting. i'm personally curious about the origin of the greenskin, big nose, big eared, short design we all commonly know (as far as i know warhammer fantasy has used the design but i would not be surprised if it came from dnd artwork)
correction for 9:30 they were freed by Grom Hellscream not Thrall
Thanks for the video, I enjoy the deep dive. I have a fondness for Orcs as a Dungeon Master. To me, the Orcs are *evil* based on the D&D source material: Gruumsh makes them evil. Evil species like Orcs allow for drama to exist in the game. Orcs as player characters are just making special one offs. Like a certain Drow Ranger, they exist in opposition to the established culture. Stripping the Orc of the evil as default culture makes the game bland. Well, not bland per se, but devoid of trope which is *required* as a shorthand for games to be based on. Games falter when players (and the DM is a player) can't rely on anything.
Well said!
@@esperthebard Thanks
I agree with you with tradition. But I usually do both ways of thinking in my world that I build. So I like using both monstrous Clans and Noble Clans.
My view on tradition, like most things in life, is that it depends based on wich part of the world it came from, the time period and case to case basis
@@nicolaezenoaga9756 yes my point exactly that's great👍
Excellent video! Nicely informative and I love your take on the playable race concept.
Also really curious on that potential video discussing Alignment and how it shouldn't be downplayed. :D
If Orcs no longer serve the villain's purpose then the villain will simply find ruthless henchmen elsewhere.
orcs are in the eye of the beholder.
While researching a campaign I was about to run that was going to be Elf-centered (Where Orcs would be one of the antagonistic factions) I read through an interesting conversation somewhere online. It gave me an idea that I adapted for Orcs in my game world. It explains Orcs' warlike behavior without making them essentially evil at the root.
Goes like this.
Contrast with Elves. Let's say an elf has a lifespan of 1000 years, and becomes an adult at 100.
Humans can live about 100 years, and become an adult at 18.
Here's my twist with Orcs: Physically, Orcs mature extremely quickly, having a grownup size and shape at the age of 5.
But emotionally and mentally, Orcs mature at the same rate as humans.
For an upper life span limit, Orcs can live thousands of years like Elves. But almost none live this long.
So a five-year old Orc has the strength of a full grown Orc but the maturity and emotions of a 5 year old child.
Parents will know what comes next.
Many Orc parents are killed by their own children, when the child has a temper tantrum spasm of rage.
The one reliable output of this is the military, which gives these young Orcs a direction for their newfound strength with a lack of restraint.
The few Orcs that live to the age of 10, 20, or even 40 are as mellow and wise as any human of the same age. But very few live that long because of the explosive violence of the youngsters.
Using the military as an outlet caused no end of grief to Orc neighbors, which is why they have such bad reputations with neighboring Humans, Elves and Dwarves.
It also makes Orc generations very close together, as they might be separated by only 5 to 10 years. An elf wails that every 50 years there's another war with the Orcs, and sees this as evidence of the Orcs' violent natures. But to the Orcs, 50 years could be as many as 10 generations of their people, an extraordinarily long time of peace. But the elves never forget a slight, which causes the Orcs to think poorly of them in turn.
Not saying this will work for everyone's campaign, but it makes mine very interesting.
I grew up with WoW, but I like the idea of a large brutal chaotic antagonist
9:14 the idea of Orcs being reverent to nature is so weird, considering Tolkien envisioned Orcs as industrial enemies.
The orcs in Warcraft were originally industrialized and heavily use dark magic. Them being reverent to nature is to show what they used to be before demon corruption and what they strive to be now.
In Norse mythology the term "orc" is referred to demons or trolls, perhaps a sort of blanket term used for malevolent creatures/spirits.
And Thats what i stick close too...
Where in Norse Mythology do you find the term "orc"? I have multiple translations of the myths that include many notes regarding the Old Norse words that formed the original myths. Nowhere is there a single mention of the term "orc". The Old Norse term you are thinking of I believe is "thurs" which does indeed carry the meaning you give to the word orc..
@@michaelmorrissey8983 Pretty sure the term "orc" was used in the beowulf epic. (Edit) to describe the troll.
@@KingZealotTactics Beowulf while relevant to the study of Norse Mythology is NOT Norse Mythology. It's Old English Literature. That being said the term used in Beowulf is "orcneas" a plural noun which is thought to roughly mean "evil spirits" and this is the word Tolkien adapted for his fictional race.
@@michaelmorrissey8983Isn't Beowulf also part of the Germanic oral traditions?
„what are orcs“ is a really important question imo, one in a long line of „what even is […]“ questions that are asked far too rarely in the dnd community.
i am primarily a storyteller; a game designer second and a player only third.
when the question came up in the community about the removal of alignement, i was distraught to see that all the sentiments that came up were always about orcs or drow „as a people“; they are viewed almost as a real race, rather than a fictional concept.
people said things like „if you want an objectively evil enemy, just use undead“. that kind of attitude treats the alignement attached to a fictional being as the most important thing; it completely ignores the storytelling side of things.
if i want to tell a story with an intelligent, unrelenting enemy; that cannot be bartered with, and who‘s very existence is antithetical to the wellbeing of the heroes, then i need something to fill that role.
each monster type in dnd is fit to a specific role. orcs are an unrelenting horde. they are not „one of the fantasy people“.
what orcs are to me, and drow and mindflayers and everything else, are story archetypes. the reason they are written as „evil“ in the monster books, is as a helpful tool for DMs in their storytelling.
goblins and kobolds are both small and cunning; but were goblins are mean and only care for themselves, kobolds work together and have a penchant for traps. orcs and gnolls are both savage hordes; but where gnolls stride through the land in a warband that eventually grinds everything and itself into dust, orcs are raiders and pillagers that want to take over the land and often have a place to return to. drow and mindflayers are both underdark-dwelling psychopaths; but mindflayers will eat your brain during the fight, while drow are the DM going easy and being like „TPK? no, its time for a bondage dungeon“.
i dont care what they look like beyond that it fits their attributes to create a rich atmosphere. „orcs“, like „vikings“, are a group of raiders. what differentiates orcs is that rather than using ships, they live in caves, can see in the dark, and have a monstrous appearance in place of armor.
in my own setting you cant play an orc. orcs are humans in my setting; humans that couldnt be freed from the darkness (that is their own heart). they are subject to their instincts, wild and feral, and hate all other species. the humans had their will separated and freed from their instincts by a god, and decided to live with the other races. this difference is shown in appearance, with humans having the full range of irl people, and orcs being a lot less colorful, with dark browns and blacks for hair, and light greys and bleached green as skin. their purpose in my world isnt as a people; its a reflection of the beast in each of us, and the few orcs that escape the hold of their instincts through divine light show how constant restraint is necessary to function in society.
each fantasy or science fiction species is a small slice of human nature brought to the extreme. if all the difference would be „normal human, but different biology“, then you really dont need any race other than human.
For my own personal campaign there's 2 kinds of orcs and goblins natives and refugees, however they migrated to this dimension so long ago that most civilizations weren't even around to catalog their arrival and very few people know this lore. The refugees evolved into their own civilization like every other sentient race and the locals to them were like how humans would see a neanderthal and instead evolved to be more physically strong and brutal in order to compete with the smarter dimensional travelers. Essentially the orcs and goblins escaped a great cataclysm on their home dimension (that may or may not happen again in this dimension.) However the dimension they traveled too was having it's own crisis, the era of low magic (my setting has this instead of the spell plague, essentially the setting became like Conan the Barberian, magic became the rarest and most precious resource in the world and no one could cast spells above 5th level.) So while the elves and dwarves were hold up in their grand cities hoarding all the magic they could, and the humans were fighting amongst themselves over land and resources portals began to randomly open up and introduce the remnants of an incredibly advanced magical sociability into a world ware magic could barely be used. Wars between humans and orcs started with the humans usually winning, the last of the outsider orcs arrived just as magic started to flow back into the world, more advanced civilizations began forming, and modern orcs still have to deal with the negative association of their local primal counterparts.
That's the fluff, the crunch is I wanted to split the difference and have both monstrous orcs and player orcs. So I made two types of orcs. To be fair i kept it consistent and make monstrous feral elves and dwarves as well as neanderthals be their own monstrous race. I even made a mechanic for de-evolution take a point out of any mental stat and put it in any physical stat.
My last gaming shop from 15 years ago Conan the Barbarian setting ..
Neanderthals are orcs.
Cro-magnon, half orcs.
Then humans evolved or are mutated from them as random births. Even in .. civilized .. lands or most back wood farm hamlet it was Normal to cut sprouting tusks from a teenager's jaw line. Some children are just born ugly, others turn into square jaw slop head idiots, with luck they grow into jar heads.
The system we played was 3.5e and everything was built around multiclassing in that system. And since that system had a CR/Xp from rats, ravens, and catching toads/ frog leg dinner. In five to seven years of just killing vermin on the farm, the average 24 year old peasant farmer would be a N/PC class 7th-level-Commoner with a child of their own. Then throw in a few years worth of Militia training. Average mid 20 year old is common4 "farmer,"/soldier2 " militia training,"/rogue1 " flanking for extra dmg, along with social or trade craft skill boost." CR: 5 about.
Dwarves in human lands never really fit in within their own people so they roam among humans. They have to flee towns a lot after a given time if superstitious humans try to torture the secret of long life out of them. Due to the dwarves long life span and cultural set up. Smart dwarves start off as rogue1 for the most skill points but still take a level or two in Expert and Warrior before they take a level in Fighter. Growing up in rigorous militia drills and mine work gives them higher Fort and Will saves and extra level in craft work. Otherwise just start low level encounter with dwarves being rogue3/fighter4 CR:7. maybe add another 3 to 4 spellcaster levels bring them up to CR:11 or 12 due to equipment. Or their write up will be Expert2/warrior2/rogue3/cleric or sorcerer4 sometimes wizard/fighter4, CR: 13 to 16 base on their magic equipment.
Dwarven outcasts taught humans to make good steel. Even honest dwarves with no magic ability lie and pass themselves off as lay clerics of the forge and give wedding blessings to file a cup of beer.
Goblins are wand spell casting Fae.
a.) Mites, hob in old English meant smaller than average.
Conan is traveling as a wagon train guard and asks a dwarf why they are bypassing the fast road through the forest valley. The dwarf replies ..
b.) stander D&D goblin, rogue3/sorcerer4/driud3 CR: 10 and they burn gp value into xp value in self creating magic items that they trade as currency. They have flashy, load, booming insulting spell battles with forest gnomes. Great entertainment, unless you are caught up in it or Both the goblins and the gnomes decide to both rob you at the same time.
Conan laughs it off, late into the night he is loudly awaken to a raging thunderstorm within the forest trees shining like multiple colored noon day suns. Conan in awe whispers, " Crom .."
c.) Hob * ble as in hobble goblin, the ones that are mis form limbs left at human homes as changelings. Sorcerer4, treat cantrips like once per day charms or whatever fits your fairy tale theme.
d.) D&D hobgoblin are called hob cause of the hob nail boots they kick with in combat. Remember they have a +4 physical bonus to Move Silently, and elf only gets a +2 listen/spot checks. So ranger2/rogue3/fighter2, CR: 7 could have a Stealth skill of 11 ranks and a total modifier of +15 to +17 with dex.
e.) Bugbears are not goblins, bugbears hunt and eat goblins.
Elf, " eye rolling .. deep sigh, thunderous foul language cursed elves .. "
a.) Teenager, wild 15year old human listed as rogue3/wizard3/fighter2, CR: 8 level, turn gp value of magic item into full Xp burn. They have a lot self-created magic items pushing their CR to 15.
b.) Late teen or early twenties age, .. ranger2/expert3 +4 or 5 CR. Alertness: spot/listen at +17 ranks along with Stealth. Sub total CR: 13.
c. Adult elf, 10th-level spellcaster creating lairs and forest shaping. CR: 20+
F-ckers Teleport away before you can get a killing hit on them. You can defeat an elf but never really get the chance to even kill a young elf. Hence the trackers young elves tattoo on them gives the elves a reputation of never standing and going down with their allies in battle. Cowards .. then again there are tales of elves but there is never any real proof of them. In a lot of cases of Teleporting home before they fall in combat, their limbs or head still falls off of them as soon as them land on the teleporter disk.
2.) My last gaming shop also played Wihtewolf/World of Darkness (WoD): vampire, mage, and changeling and that system had a One Hit Kill Rule system. Which we worked into D&D.
a.) My shop didn't care for price looking gp value magic items, so we xp burn to create. For a low pace game, we did more than a few stone age campaigns, then later have those items show up a few thousand years later in setting, a few months later in real time.
i.) Flint spear, spells Magic Weapon +1 on command, cantrip such as Burning Hands or any 2nd-level spell.
ii.) Find a fur blanket with Mend to keep itself in good shape, Endure Elements: cold. In an ancient grave site haunted by Shadows or fairies. Created by the players a year ago in an earlier mini campaign.
iii.) Granny's clay cooking pot. Granny is a 6th-level or 8th-level druid so the clay cooking pot has multiple enchantments on it. Such as Create Food and Magic Weapon to club someone up over the head, along with Cure Disease or stat boost to roll Fort saves to get past the flu. And the goblins just stool granny's cooking pot.
You try running a game for junior high school kids that want a Harry Potter game.
b.) Granny is a Green Hag, ... she turns naughty grade school children into goblins, dumb bully high school football players into bugbears.
Hope you have a good weekend.
Your use of “humanness” intrigues me, because I have often pondered why inhuman monsters have become more human. My head cannon it that the present form of said monsters are literally more human, on a physiological level. The presents of half orcs allows for interbreeding and eventually after years and decades and perhaps centuries enough humanness has been introduced into the bloodline that the present orcs have inherited some other aspects of the human condition.
I actually first thought of this theory when thinking about mermaids, who were an all female race who historically raped and drowned sailors, whose present depiction is vastly more human than it used to be.
I disagree that having a race playable makes them seem as less of a threat. I don't see the logic in that. Otherwise great history video, i was wondering where tolkien got his orcs from. I prefer my orcs to be very similar to the wow orcs, savage, brutal, warrior-like, but very community oriented and proud race. With wow specifically, as many flaws it may have (and boy there are flaws), i do believe they have done their orcs very well where you have your cake and can eat it too, since you have more than one type of orc.
If they are playable they are clearly rational and willing to work with others. Instantly less of an existential threat. The *possibility* of peace exists. That is just how that goes.
@@Michael-bn1oi Just because the possibility of peace exists that dosen't mean one or both sides are willing or can afford to take it.
Also human enemies exists.
I once played an orc who was injured and abandoned by his raiding party, then nursed back to health by some Amish villagers. He adopted their ways and even got married and started a family. His son, however, went on his rumspringa and was pressed into service by the local army, so Jeremiah Skullsmasher took his carriage and trusty draft horse, Big John, out to find and rescue his son. Most people are terrified of Jeremiah, despite his pacifism, and he is equally perplexed by their hatred of him, which is nothing like the acceptance he experienced among the Amish. It was an interesting and fun character to play.