QuietBrowser
First Post
Now, on the topic of world-building... I had the Aranea and Draeg gazetteers fairly far along, but I figured you folks could all use a break from freaky beastfolk races. So, here's something a little more traditional: orks!
I also thought that maybe it'd be a good idea to present the google-doc for this project I keep mentioning exists, because I'm not sure if I ever actually linked it.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/18nFM82UlkRnSsWOjZYyWRjc-ee8RBCnT0EWlL49N9N0/edit#
Also... since several people have stated their approval for my ideas in this thread, I want to ask you: would you actually want to play in this setting? Based on the gazetteers I've got partially or wholely completed so far and the rudimentary culture note scattered through the thread, could you come up with any concepts for player characters in this setting? I'd dearly love to see what you could envision playing for this game if your DM were running it.
Orks of Malebolge Gazetteer
[sblock]Who Are They?
Bastard spawn of the elves via dwarven alchemy, orks are viewed by some as the only true victors of the Doom War, and by others as its ultimate cause. Caring only that their freedom has been attained, orks strive to find peace both with the world around them and with the bloodthirst kindled within themselves.
Physiology
As alchemy-mutated offshoots of the elven race, orks do not differ that much from their ancestors, an irony that few people can comment upon these days, when pureblood-elves are presumed extinct.
An ork is fundamentally human-like in shape, having the same bipedal structure, single head, two arms at the shoulders and two legs coming down from the hips. The most striking difference is skin color; ork skins come in various hues of gray and green, sometimes even combining the two into a luridly corpse-like pallor. Depending on its origins, family and just luck of the genetic draw, an ork's skin can be anything from a pale sleet-like gray to a dark green so deep as to be almost black. Their hair is usually a deep, inky black, although gory red and bone white hair isn't unheard of, and eyes are typically various fiery shades of red, orange and yellow.
Their face is fundamentally elvish; human-like, but with a certain sharpness to the cheeks and jawline that isn't necessarily unattractive, and with the characteristic elongated, knife-like triangular ears growing from the sides of their head. Perhaps the most unelvish fact about their faces is that an ork's canines are pronounced, with the lower ones in particular growing so large as to protrude from between closed lips. These tusks can be anything from surprisingly dainty little glimmers of white to full-fledged intimidating curves of tooth that look ready to gouge out a throat.
Adding to this appearance of natural armament, their nails grow naturally long and sharp at the tips; although they break too easily to make true claws, their oft-jagged edges and weird black coloration certainly makes them intimidating.
Orks of both sexes put on muscle readily, and even females, who tend to be rather curvaceous at the hip and bosom to better support producing their broods, are usually full of wiry strength, if not visibly strong in thigh and thew. Add in their naturally larger height range compared to humans - 6'5" to 7' - and orks are quite visually imposing compared to most races. Only certain calibans, such as the terrifying Brutes, are generally capable of physically outmatching or similarly intimidating an ork.
Personality
Although it has been generations since their torturous birth as the Uruk, the scars of their origins still haunt the ork people. It colors their psyches, creating a distinctive set of characteristics.
The first and foremost is that orks are naturally aggressive. Every ork struggles with what they call the blutga, the red haze; this is the lingering battle fury imprinted on their minds by their creators, a berserker rage that can blind them to thought and engulf them in a fire which only blood quenches. All orks struggle against the blutga, and whilst it most readily stirs itself during combat, it gnaws at them even without it. This means orks as a race are short-tempered, although culturally they subliminate this rage, expressing their feelings vocally and through posturing rather than contact - which would only stir the blutga further.
Thus, orks come off as gruff and intimidating to other races. They are often tersely spoken, and physically overbearing; they loom, they crack their knuckles, they growl and snarl, and when they talk, they bark sharp, direct questions - never "how can I help you?", always, "tell me what you want!"
This behavior rises and falls in prominence as the ork gets more irritated or calms down; culturally, orks have learned that both stoicness and submissiveness naturally calm them. An individual who remains cool and collected in the face of an ork's threat posturing will give them something to focus on positively, allowing them to better push back the blutga. Submission, meanwhile, satisfies the ork's aggressiveness, but this can lead to problems if a person repeatedly establishes themselves as the ork's inferior.
A second aspect born of their origins is that orks are both a passionate people and a live-in-the-moment people. Orks can and do plan ahead, but they prefer to focus on the immediacy of here and now, especially when it comes to pleasurable things. Orks would much rather sing, laugh, joke, feast and otherwise make merry while they can, indulging in having the freedom to do so.
Freedom is the most sarosanct of rights in the eyes of orks. Having been engineered to be slaves, orks cannot abide the thought of obeying orders. They can do things for the good of the group or out of respect, but demanding obedience will infuriate and outrage an ork - there is no greater insult in their culture than to call one a slave, or to treat one as though they are a slave.
This means respect is a huge deal to orks. Though what is respectable is a complex and many-faceted thing - control, strength, cunning, determination, these are all key aspects of respectability in their eyes - it is the cornerstone of ork society.
A third prominent aspect is that, surprising to many, orks are a very tactile species. Though their hides are tougher and less sensitive than human skin by comparison, orks still enjoy touching others and being touched in comparison. It's simply that ork touches tend to be rougher than those humans would use; orks favor backslaps, punches to the shoulder, and other acts of what humans would consider roughhousing to express solidarity, comfort and even affection.
Incidentally, this same limitation to tactile sensitivity makes orks more focused on other senses for pleasure. Taste, hearing, scent and particularly vision are their primary sources for pleasure; orks enjoy bright colors and sparkling things, which also serve as a reminder that they are no longer a slave-race.
One final aspect of orkdom is not entirely psychological, nor entirely cultural, but a combination of the two. This is the so-called "cult of pain", perhaps one of the most misunderstood of all parts of orkdom.
Psychologically, the "cult of pain" is born from a combination of ork aggression, the lesser capacity to register pain, and ork stubbornness. Orks do not back down, get scared, or otherwise change their mind readily, and when others attempt to force the issue, they just get more defiant. Even pain is subject to these same rules, which is a key reason why orks can fight on even despite taking damage that would incapacitate or outright kill a human.
Between this and their origins as slaves, orks have developed an attitude towards pain that is unique amongst the races. See Culture for more details.
Courtship
Orks are quite distinctive, if a little odd, in their approach to courtship. To put things simply, orks practice marriage, but do not practice sexual exclusivity.
When an ork reaches maturity, it is expected that he or she will seek out a gunja - a word that translates as both "family" and, more literally, "partnership". This is a union between two or more orks and is based on practicality and compatibility rather than romance; although romance is certainly desirable, gunjas are based first and foremost on the coupled orks being capable of successfully working well together and running a household together. Some gunjas actually involve no sex at all, although these are quite rare.
Gunjas can be monogamous, polygamous, polygynous or polyandrous, for this reason. At its core, a gunja is a couple or small group of orks who find they can respect, trust and care for each other sufficiently to share the same house, support each other, and look after children. For this reason, most gunjas will have at least one thurka and one dunga.
Because orks look quite carefully for gunja partners, it often takes years for an ork to find the right individual/s to do so. This is considered reasonable and even admirable; rushing into a gunja, and thus potentially having to dissolve it, is scandalous.
As stated beforehand, orks do not practice sexual exclusivity. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a gunja that only mates with its own members, and if anything it's somewhat romanticised, but there is also no shame in any member of the gunja looking elsewhere for sexual companionship. Ork culture dictates that romances can come and go, but the family remains; dalliances are simply a matter of taking pleasure elsewhere before coming back to the family-group. Abandoning a gunja is extremely rare, and it is more likely that some ork who repeatedly tempts away a gunja's member will be invited to formally join the gunja.
The only cultural complication that can occur is if a pregnancy results. If the mother is a member of a gunja and the father is not, then it is expected that the mother will take responsibility for the child, whilst in the opposite scenario, the reverse is true. If both participants belong to a gunja, then things can get complicated; it is normally expected for both gunjas to share in raising the child, which is how larger gunjas are sometimes formed, but if one gunja does not wish to claim the child, then the other gunja will have exclusive ownership of it. Disagreements over which gunja should raie a child is an issue for the tribe to help settle.
Naturally, this means that orks do not place much importance on direct blood descent. The gunja is the family, and so all that matters to an ork when it comes to lineage is the gunja that raised it. That this occasionally leads to inbreeding is something best not raised around orks.
As in many things, reputation is a key component to an ork seeking either a sexual partner or a gunja. Even then, different kinds of reputation govern sexual or gunja attractiveness. The former is more focused on physical skill, combat prowess, battle honor and might, whilst the latter is focused instead on social skills, domestic prowess, emotional control and gentleness.
For example, a female ork thurka with strong limbs and proud bearing and many honorable scars is very sexually attractive to her fellows. She will have little trouble attracting orks, male and female alike, to warm her bed, and few would refuse if she asked them to have sex with her. However, if she also has a reputation as hotheaded, impatient, brash and even cruel, then she will find that whilst dalliances are plentiful, offers to mate are sparse indeed. She is appealing, but she would not make a good family member. Her sons and daughters are taken from her, to be raised by their fathers' gunjas and to never know her as their mother.
In comparison, a quiet, gentle male ork dunga who weaves beautifully colored banners and is good with children may not be the most sexually desired male in the tribe, but he will find other orks who have come of age willing to fight in order to entice him to form a gunja with them.
Some sages have theorized that ork breeding practices may stem from the ancient mistreatment they suffered under dwarven hands, where procreation was restricted to when and how their slaver-alchemists dictated, but orks still had the freedom to form strong, personal bonds with non-breeding partners.
After the complexities of ork courtship, the actual matters of breeding are comparatively mundane. At its core, orks breed in mostly the same way humans do, although they have slightly higher fertility on average - not helped by the fact that fertility is a sexually desirable trait for orks.
It is said that orks were once even more prolific, capable of conceiving whenever they were not pregnant and coming to terms in only 6 months, whilst now they are no more breedable than human women. Of course, these stories also claim that orcs rarely lived beyond 30 to 40 years in total, suggesting that this may have been the result of alchemical "boosting" that burnt itself out over generations free from dwarven slavers.
Now, however, the only way orks really differ from human women is in sheer fecundity. Ork pregnancies are almost always litters of two to five offspring; single-births are very rare, and are seen as quite ominous. These "feth'orks" are established in ork tribal lore as unnaturally savage and vicious, to the extent they are believed to have killed or eaten their litter-mates in the womb. Such an ork will invariably grow up to be a powerful and mighty thurka, but will always be held at arm's bay, for they are reputated to be far more susceptible to the call of the blutga. It's rare for a feth'ork to find a gunja, except in the most turbulent regions, and many such orks go on to become adventurers to escape this attitude.
Pregnant ork females are hardier than human women, and so keep up most of their former habits until quite late into their terms. There are recorded cases of orks actually giving birth in the middle of a hunt or a fight, something that earns equal parts laughter and admiration from their tribe-mates.
Culture
Ork culture is a unique affair, shaped by their origins as slaves, their forcing into the mold of warriors, and the resultant scars on their psyches.
At its core, ork culture is tribal. Although a sociable people, once the Black Dawn came and went, orks lost the incentive and, really, the desire to amass in large numbers. Tribes may sometimes come together for a common purpose, but the days of the massive ork horde are long behind them. At least, for the moment.
These smaller tribal groups also better support one of the odder traits of ork culture. Perhaps because of their origin as slaves and their intense need for freedom, orks are natural anarchists. Though there are technically social elites in the form of the shamans and the vaulha, these are not the undisputed leaders of the tribe and, in fact, orks recognize no official leaders. An ork tribe consists of multiple gunjas and their half-grown or newly independent offspring who choose to share the same territory. When disputes arise, orks seek out someone they both trust and respect to mediate the matter, which is the role shamans and vaulhas usually come to play for the tribe as a whole. When a problem arises that can't be resolved by one mediator, or which confronts the entire tribe, the whole tribe comes together for the thunda - the "big talk".
With special signals, every adult member of the camp comes to a central meeting place, where the ork who called for the thunda announces why they are calling for it, puts it into terms of a Yes or No decision, and explains why they think the thunda should take place. Then, the orks present will vote on if the thunda is warranted; if the majority agree, then the thunda will take place after dinner that night - or immediately, in case of emergency.
A thunda only commences if the majority of orks present vote "yes"; if a "no" vote is the majority, then no thunda will take place. Orks grow quite dismissive of members of their tribe who call for too many failed thundas, which keeps the tribe from abusing this law; to earn a reputation for being spurious can seriously harm an ork's prospects, especially if they have yet to acquire a gunja.
When it commences, the thunda consists of all the orks of the tribe speaking in turn, voicing their opinion on the matter. Once every ork has spoken, they are given a day to consider their decision - only in emergencies will an immediate vote be called for. Once the majority vote is counted, the decision is final. Recasting a thunda only happens in the most exceptional circumstances, and demanding one be held can potentially shatter an ork's reputation permanently.
As one might expect, orks hold reputation very seriously. It is literally the definition of their value and worth amongst the tribe, and it is why the vaulhas are so respected.
Although anarchistic in their social structure, orks do technically have a caste system. All orks, male and female, are trained to fight, cook, hunt, weave and track during their childhood. By the time they have reached adulthood, they will be defined as either thurka - a warrior, or as dunga - a housemate, depending on whether they are more skilled at combat or at domestic tasks.
The words derive from dwarven, and translate as "weapon" and "armor" respectively. It must be emphasized that there is no social stigma; both roles are considered absolutely necessary to the functioning of the gunja and the tribe as a whole.
After all, without the thurka, there would be nobody to bring back the kills or to fend off the beasts of the wild, but without the dunga, there would be nobody to cook hearty food, weave warm clothing, or forge the weapons for the thurka to use.
Perhaps helping is that, as mentioned earlier, orks may have somewhat lower tactile senses, but deeply appreciate other stimulants. Orks love good good, good music, bright colors and intricate designs. A great chef or a skilled weaver or talented painter is as respectable as a mighty warrior - perhaps more so. A warrior simply kills, which any ork can do. An artist creates, which is far harder to do.
The most inherently respectable members of an ork tribe are the Shaman and the Vaulha.
The Shaman is any individual with dedicated arcane talents, which are extremely rare amongst orks - a curse they blame on the dwarves. Most frequently, shamans are warlocks or, more rarely, wizards; sorcerers are the rarest of all. A shaman can be a healer, a battle mage, or even fill both roles, but is always held slightly apart, regarded with awe due to having reclaimed a lost birthright.
The Vaulha, on the other hand, is what other races might call a bard. To ork tribes, the vaulha is more than a mere entertainer, however; they are a lorekeeper, and a guardian of honor. With their stories, and their songs, they can grant an ork honor or they can take it away, destroying all the reputation that an ork may have labored so hard to build. This gives them a great deal of power in an ork tribe, but it is a power they must wield lightly; orks will bow to no tyrant, and as respected and feared as the vaulhas are, one who is ousted as corrupt will be forced to flee, lest their own kin tear the manipulator apart in rage at having been taken advantage of by one so trusted.
As touched upon under Psychology, orks have a unique viewpoint in regards to pain, a partly mental, partly cultural phenomena that is often misunderstood by other races.
In short, the orks believe that pain serves two purposes.
The first purpose is to indicate injury - pain lets you know how close to death you are.
The second purpose, however, is to help you survive. Not just by warning away from danger, but by pushing you to your limits to overcome it.
Thusly, to orks, pain is a positive force, supportive, but also testing. An ork who can endure pain and harness it to overcome its source is a strong ork, an ork who commands respect.
This doesn't make orks suicidal. Pain is a teacher, but to constantly need its lessons is the mark of the foolish. It is exceptionally rare for orks to self-mutilate themselves in order to prove a point; most orks would consider somebody who does so to be a braggart and a show-off, somebody not to take seriously.
That's not to say that deliberate mutilative gestures are unheard of, just that it's extremely rare and only happens in certain circumstances.
As one side-effect of this "cult of pain", orks prize stoicness in regards to pain. An ork will not admit their suffering, to show how strong they are, but other orks will comment upon and point out an ork's wounds as a matter of respect, an acknowledgement of the ork's strength and worth.
The second side effect is that orks place a great deal of respect upon scars. In the ork viewpoint, scars are the physical legacy of pain, stories of great deeds written into an ork's flesh. To an ork, a great deed is something accomplished with sacrifice - achieving something effortlessly has no honor in it, it is not worth speaking about. This doesn't mean orks are incapable of guile or stealth, but that deeds commited that way are unlikely to win accolades amongst orks.
However, orks recognize emotional or mental scars as well as physical ones, and if anything regard the former with greater respect than the latter. A tale in which an ork must choose between the lives of his closest loved one and the lives of his oldest friend is as tragic, honorable and glorious to ork eyes as the tale of an ork warrior walking into an enemy village, challenging all of its warriors to duel her, and killing them all whilst almost dying in the process.
This, incidentally, means that the orks have a saying; "no scars". This can be an insult, an expression of disappointment, or even a dismissal, depending on the context it is used in. To say someone has no scars is to insult them as weak. To say one has earned no scars is to express disappointment in the task one has just completed, for it wasn't challenging. And to say there are no scars here is to dismiss a task or challenge as being unworthy of their attention.
It may go without saying that orks do not get on with all races. The remember their history well, and it colors their perception of others.
Orks feel a mixture of shame and rage about their elven heritage, and so this makes them rather stand-offish towards shadar-kai and aranea, at least initially. In truth, they can see something of themselves in the shadar-kai's desperate need to anchor themselves against the fading, although they are a little perturbed by how the shadar-kai use self-mutilation to provide that anchor. Some even see it as almost blasphemous. Aranea, meanwhile, attract envy for their effortless affinity for magic.
Dwarves, meanwhile, are utterly hated. An ork can, grudgingly, work with a gnome or one of the "reforged" forgeborn, but it would take an extraordinary outside influence for a pureblood Sonnlinor and an ork to find common cause as opposed to killing each other on the spot. Many orks will take any opportunity to disparage or denigrate dwarves and dwarven work, especially if they can remind others of how the orks broke free of their creators' control in the process.
Warforged elicit a feeling of kinship that honestly surprises many orks. Like them, warforged were created by another race to fight that race's battles, but unlike orks, they don't seem to have truly grasped their freedom. Given the chance, many orks would nobly seek to guide warforged in breaking the last of their chains.
Humans, ironically, aren't as hated as many humans would believe. In fact, the orks are fairly neutral about them; they recognize that humans fought them, but then, humans fought with elves and dwarves too, and they weren't involved in the orks' creation. As far as orks are concerned, humans are taken on individual merit, and surprisingly tight bonds have ensued in some cases.
By extension, orks don't really care much about calibans one way or the other. They will happily make peace when they can, but often fight to preserve their own territory against caliban intruders.
The rodushi have no preexisting enmity for orks, but they are still rather wary of them. Orks have a deep abiding hatred for tyrants, and they are leery of the potential for the "greater good" the palatines seek to turn into a mission of conquest and enslavement.
Kobolds... honestly, rather annoy orks. They have no particular grudge against them, but they find the race's constant harping on about what they have lost to be backwards, and sneer at how traditionalist tribes tend to be tyrannies under cruel, mad witch-kings - all too similar to how the orks themselves were brought into being. They can make peace with them, but orks often can't resist needling kobolds about their cultural mores.
Settlements
Orks are one of the most widely spread of all races in Malebolge. With no ancestral homelands to be emotionally tied to, and with the hardiness to survive in some of the harshest environments, orks will go anywhere that they can to set up shelter and food.
In truth, many ork clans are nomadic, living a simple life as hunter-gatherers. They may have camps they migrate between, used to house permanent structures such as forges, but they move between the camps in response to changes in the available resources.
Permanent ork settlements occur where the orks find resources worth exploiting. A permanent supply of drinkable water and a steady supply of food are essentials for them to consider a place worth keeping. That said, once they settle down, orks dig in; they don't move on until they decide to, and they will protect their territory.
Orks have a fundamentally practical viewpoint when it comes to their homes. They do not seek war anymore, but they still build with an eye towards defense first. They are not master trapcrafters, however, and focus more on physical barriers like walls, guard towers and barricades to keep out predators and hostiles. Beyond this, they have no particular architectural style, mostly just trying to assemble something that will keep out the elements.
If there is a sense of order to ork holdings, it is that there are no distinct "leader's huts" or similar status-based divisions. Even the shamans and the vaulhas, valuable as they are, command only slightly larger living spaces due to their needs. Lone orks live in small spaces, whilst gunjas live in larger ones. The biggest spaces go towards practical concerns, such as storehouses or forges.
Adventurers
In truth, many orks go on to become adventurers. Most are thurka youngsters, seeking to acquire glory-scars, but there are many other reasons besides. Some old thurkas, feeling their fire going out, choose to fall in a blaze of glory. Some simply wish to explore, whilst others are out to help their tribe. To say nothing of such things as feth'orks hoping to find a new life away from their old tribe, or the survivors of massacred tribes, or even exiles.
It should be noted that, due to their origins, orks with levels in caster classes are rare. A player with such a character should give some thought into how they came into their power and why they chose to adventure after it.
DM's Note: To represent Malebolge Orks, use the official Half-Orc PC race from the core 5th edition Player's Handbook.
Barbarians: Although the most stereotypically orkish of all classes, the truth is that ork barbarians are exceedingly rare. The focus of this class on bloodcrazed fury is too alarming for orks, who consider it to be a submission to the blutga. Usually only exiles or feth'orks take this class, and they are almost always berserkers or battleragers, with a pronounced minority of Ancestral Heralds - these are regarded with a particular pity by other orks, who see them as cursed to be vessels for the rage of the mad ancients of the past - and Zealots.
Bards: As the respected vaulhas of orkish society, bards are common, but rarely become adventurers. It takes special circumstances for a vaulha to leave their tribe. Lorekeepers and Jesters are the most common of vaulhas; the former exemplify the vaulha's role as keeper of the histories, whilst the latter exemplify both the ork's earthy taste for bawdy humor and the ability of vaulhas to utterly ruin an ork's reputation. Aside from those, Blades and Skalds make up the majority of the remainder, combining bardic training with their natural combat skills. Glamourweavers are the rarest, but most esteemed of all, as orks feel they have truly recaptured their long-lost elven essence. Whispermongers, however, are unheard of amongst orks, being the antithesis of everything a vaulha stands for.
Fighters: These, in comparison to barbarians, are the true "orky class". Every single style of fighter can be found amongst ork clans, though Eldritch Knights are particularly rare and esteemed.
Monks: Orks who take up the path of the monk are extremely rare, and seen as a little odd by their fellows. Still, the class's focus on self-discipline and mental control attracts a constant trickle of supplicants. Native-trained orks are normally analogous to the Open Palm style; orks with more exotic fighting styles usually sought tutelage under masters of other races.
Rangers: Next to fighters, these are the most common form of ork adventurers, as their talents build upon the natural inclination for orks to become skilled hunters. There are no particular biases towards any of the Conclaves.
Rogues: Few orks take the path of the rogue, for although they can appreciate guile, the class's focus on killing enemies without risk to one's self is opposed to the ork concept of honor and worthy fights. With little need for material goods in their own culture, few orks become Thieves unless they spend a great deal of time around other races. Most ork rogues are therefor Assassins, sacrificing honor for the good of their tribe, though the few Arcane Tricksters are more respectable than other rogues. Masterminds are unheard of; orks don't react well to the idea of authority, and have little interest in being hypocrites about it.
Sorcerers: Rarest of the rare, and the most esteemed of all arcanists, ork sorcerers are held up as the paragons of their race for having regained their long-lost arcane birthright. Ork sorcerers are usually Shadowsouls or elementalists of the Firebreath, Greenblood and Rotheart varieties, though Favored Souls of Life or Nature and Wild Mages are also common enough to be worth mentioning.
Warlocks: Most common of the orky arcanists, warlocks are rare mostly because orks are reluctant to swear pacts, seeing them as coming dangerous close to servitude. They have no particular bias when it comes to selecting patrons, although they are somewhat more likely to take the Dark Mother or Undying patrons.
Wizards: Rarer than warlocks but more respectable, ork wizards are typically evokers, bladesingers, divinists or elementalists. Necromancy and theurgy are considered somewaht dishonorable, but acceptable. They are never transmuters, enchanters or conjurers - at least, not if they don't want to be kicked out of their tribe and forbidden from joining any other.
Mystics: As rare as sorcerers ad just as valuable, ork mystics have no particularly great bias in which order they fall under.[/sblock]
I also thought that maybe it'd be a good idea to present the google-doc for this project I keep mentioning exists, because I'm not sure if I ever actually linked it.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/18nFM82UlkRnSsWOjZYyWRjc-ee8RBCnT0EWlL49N9N0/edit#
Also... since several people have stated their approval for my ideas in this thread, I want to ask you: would you actually want to play in this setting? Based on the gazetteers I've got partially or wholely completed so far and the rudimentary culture note scattered through the thread, could you come up with any concepts for player characters in this setting? I'd dearly love to see what you could envision playing for this game if your DM were running it.
Orks of Malebolge Gazetteer
[sblock]Who Are They?
Bastard spawn of the elves via dwarven alchemy, orks are viewed by some as the only true victors of the Doom War, and by others as its ultimate cause. Caring only that their freedom has been attained, orks strive to find peace both with the world around them and with the bloodthirst kindled within themselves.
Physiology
As alchemy-mutated offshoots of the elven race, orks do not differ that much from their ancestors, an irony that few people can comment upon these days, when pureblood-elves are presumed extinct.
An ork is fundamentally human-like in shape, having the same bipedal structure, single head, two arms at the shoulders and two legs coming down from the hips. The most striking difference is skin color; ork skins come in various hues of gray and green, sometimes even combining the two into a luridly corpse-like pallor. Depending on its origins, family and just luck of the genetic draw, an ork's skin can be anything from a pale sleet-like gray to a dark green so deep as to be almost black. Their hair is usually a deep, inky black, although gory red and bone white hair isn't unheard of, and eyes are typically various fiery shades of red, orange and yellow.
Their face is fundamentally elvish; human-like, but with a certain sharpness to the cheeks and jawline that isn't necessarily unattractive, and with the characteristic elongated, knife-like triangular ears growing from the sides of their head. Perhaps the most unelvish fact about their faces is that an ork's canines are pronounced, with the lower ones in particular growing so large as to protrude from between closed lips. These tusks can be anything from surprisingly dainty little glimmers of white to full-fledged intimidating curves of tooth that look ready to gouge out a throat.
Adding to this appearance of natural armament, their nails grow naturally long and sharp at the tips; although they break too easily to make true claws, their oft-jagged edges and weird black coloration certainly makes them intimidating.
Orks of both sexes put on muscle readily, and even females, who tend to be rather curvaceous at the hip and bosom to better support producing their broods, are usually full of wiry strength, if not visibly strong in thigh and thew. Add in their naturally larger height range compared to humans - 6'5" to 7' - and orks are quite visually imposing compared to most races. Only certain calibans, such as the terrifying Brutes, are generally capable of physically outmatching or similarly intimidating an ork.
Personality
Although it has been generations since their torturous birth as the Uruk, the scars of their origins still haunt the ork people. It colors their psyches, creating a distinctive set of characteristics.
The first and foremost is that orks are naturally aggressive. Every ork struggles with what they call the blutga, the red haze; this is the lingering battle fury imprinted on their minds by their creators, a berserker rage that can blind them to thought and engulf them in a fire which only blood quenches. All orks struggle against the blutga, and whilst it most readily stirs itself during combat, it gnaws at them even without it. This means orks as a race are short-tempered, although culturally they subliminate this rage, expressing their feelings vocally and through posturing rather than contact - which would only stir the blutga further.
Thus, orks come off as gruff and intimidating to other races. They are often tersely spoken, and physically overbearing; they loom, they crack their knuckles, they growl and snarl, and when they talk, they bark sharp, direct questions - never "how can I help you?", always, "tell me what you want!"
This behavior rises and falls in prominence as the ork gets more irritated or calms down; culturally, orks have learned that both stoicness and submissiveness naturally calm them. An individual who remains cool and collected in the face of an ork's threat posturing will give them something to focus on positively, allowing them to better push back the blutga. Submission, meanwhile, satisfies the ork's aggressiveness, but this can lead to problems if a person repeatedly establishes themselves as the ork's inferior.
A second aspect born of their origins is that orks are both a passionate people and a live-in-the-moment people. Orks can and do plan ahead, but they prefer to focus on the immediacy of here and now, especially when it comes to pleasurable things. Orks would much rather sing, laugh, joke, feast and otherwise make merry while they can, indulging in having the freedom to do so.
Freedom is the most sarosanct of rights in the eyes of orks. Having been engineered to be slaves, orks cannot abide the thought of obeying orders. They can do things for the good of the group or out of respect, but demanding obedience will infuriate and outrage an ork - there is no greater insult in their culture than to call one a slave, or to treat one as though they are a slave.
This means respect is a huge deal to orks. Though what is respectable is a complex and many-faceted thing - control, strength, cunning, determination, these are all key aspects of respectability in their eyes - it is the cornerstone of ork society.
A third prominent aspect is that, surprising to many, orks are a very tactile species. Though their hides are tougher and less sensitive than human skin by comparison, orks still enjoy touching others and being touched in comparison. It's simply that ork touches tend to be rougher than those humans would use; orks favor backslaps, punches to the shoulder, and other acts of what humans would consider roughhousing to express solidarity, comfort and even affection.
Incidentally, this same limitation to tactile sensitivity makes orks more focused on other senses for pleasure. Taste, hearing, scent and particularly vision are their primary sources for pleasure; orks enjoy bright colors and sparkling things, which also serve as a reminder that they are no longer a slave-race.
One final aspect of orkdom is not entirely psychological, nor entirely cultural, but a combination of the two. This is the so-called "cult of pain", perhaps one of the most misunderstood of all parts of orkdom.
Psychologically, the "cult of pain" is born from a combination of ork aggression, the lesser capacity to register pain, and ork stubbornness. Orks do not back down, get scared, or otherwise change their mind readily, and when others attempt to force the issue, they just get more defiant. Even pain is subject to these same rules, which is a key reason why orks can fight on even despite taking damage that would incapacitate or outright kill a human.
Between this and their origins as slaves, orks have developed an attitude towards pain that is unique amongst the races. See Culture for more details.
Courtship
Orks are quite distinctive, if a little odd, in their approach to courtship. To put things simply, orks practice marriage, but do not practice sexual exclusivity.
When an ork reaches maturity, it is expected that he or she will seek out a gunja - a word that translates as both "family" and, more literally, "partnership". This is a union between two or more orks and is based on practicality and compatibility rather than romance; although romance is certainly desirable, gunjas are based first and foremost on the coupled orks being capable of successfully working well together and running a household together. Some gunjas actually involve no sex at all, although these are quite rare.
Gunjas can be monogamous, polygamous, polygynous or polyandrous, for this reason. At its core, a gunja is a couple or small group of orks who find they can respect, trust and care for each other sufficiently to share the same house, support each other, and look after children. For this reason, most gunjas will have at least one thurka and one dunga.
Because orks look quite carefully for gunja partners, it often takes years for an ork to find the right individual/s to do so. This is considered reasonable and even admirable; rushing into a gunja, and thus potentially having to dissolve it, is scandalous.
As stated beforehand, orks do not practice sexual exclusivity. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a gunja that only mates with its own members, and if anything it's somewhat romanticised, but there is also no shame in any member of the gunja looking elsewhere for sexual companionship. Ork culture dictates that romances can come and go, but the family remains; dalliances are simply a matter of taking pleasure elsewhere before coming back to the family-group. Abandoning a gunja is extremely rare, and it is more likely that some ork who repeatedly tempts away a gunja's member will be invited to formally join the gunja.
The only cultural complication that can occur is if a pregnancy results. If the mother is a member of a gunja and the father is not, then it is expected that the mother will take responsibility for the child, whilst in the opposite scenario, the reverse is true. If both participants belong to a gunja, then things can get complicated; it is normally expected for both gunjas to share in raising the child, which is how larger gunjas are sometimes formed, but if one gunja does not wish to claim the child, then the other gunja will have exclusive ownership of it. Disagreements over which gunja should raie a child is an issue for the tribe to help settle.
Naturally, this means that orks do not place much importance on direct blood descent. The gunja is the family, and so all that matters to an ork when it comes to lineage is the gunja that raised it. That this occasionally leads to inbreeding is something best not raised around orks.
As in many things, reputation is a key component to an ork seeking either a sexual partner or a gunja. Even then, different kinds of reputation govern sexual or gunja attractiveness. The former is more focused on physical skill, combat prowess, battle honor and might, whilst the latter is focused instead on social skills, domestic prowess, emotional control and gentleness.
For example, a female ork thurka with strong limbs and proud bearing and many honorable scars is very sexually attractive to her fellows. She will have little trouble attracting orks, male and female alike, to warm her bed, and few would refuse if she asked them to have sex with her. However, if she also has a reputation as hotheaded, impatient, brash and even cruel, then she will find that whilst dalliances are plentiful, offers to mate are sparse indeed. She is appealing, but she would not make a good family member. Her sons and daughters are taken from her, to be raised by their fathers' gunjas and to never know her as their mother.
In comparison, a quiet, gentle male ork dunga who weaves beautifully colored banners and is good with children may not be the most sexually desired male in the tribe, but he will find other orks who have come of age willing to fight in order to entice him to form a gunja with them.
Some sages have theorized that ork breeding practices may stem from the ancient mistreatment they suffered under dwarven hands, where procreation was restricted to when and how their slaver-alchemists dictated, but orks still had the freedom to form strong, personal bonds with non-breeding partners.
After the complexities of ork courtship, the actual matters of breeding are comparatively mundane. At its core, orks breed in mostly the same way humans do, although they have slightly higher fertility on average - not helped by the fact that fertility is a sexually desirable trait for orks.
It is said that orks were once even more prolific, capable of conceiving whenever they were not pregnant and coming to terms in only 6 months, whilst now they are no more breedable than human women. Of course, these stories also claim that orcs rarely lived beyond 30 to 40 years in total, suggesting that this may have been the result of alchemical "boosting" that burnt itself out over generations free from dwarven slavers.
Now, however, the only way orks really differ from human women is in sheer fecundity. Ork pregnancies are almost always litters of two to five offspring; single-births are very rare, and are seen as quite ominous. These "feth'orks" are established in ork tribal lore as unnaturally savage and vicious, to the extent they are believed to have killed or eaten their litter-mates in the womb. Such an ork will invariably grow up to be a powerful and mighty thurka, but will always be held at arm's bay, for they are reputated to be far more susceptible to the call of the blutga. It's rare for a feth'ork to find a gunja, except in the most turbulent regions, and many such orks go on to become adventurers to escape this attitude.
Pregnant ork females are hardier than human women, and so keep up most of their former habits until quite late into their terms. There are recorded cases of orks actually giving birth in the middle of a hunt or a fight, something that earns equal parts laughter and admiration from their tribe-mates.
Culture
Ork culture is a unique affair, shaped by their origins as slaves, their forcing into the mold of warriors, and the resultant scars on their psyches.
At its core, ork culture is tribal. Although a sociable people, once the Black Dawn came and went, orks lost the incentive and, really, the desire to amass in large numbers. Tribes may sometimes come together for a common purpose, but the days of the massive ork horde are long behind them. At least, for the moment.
These smaller tribal groups also better support one of the odder traits of ork culture. Perhaps because of their origin as slaves and their intense need for freedom, orks are natural anarchists. Though there are technically social elites in the form of the shamans and the vaulha, these are not the undisputed leaders of the tribe and, in fact, orks recognize no official leaders. An ork tribe consists of multiple gunjas and their half-grown or newly independent offspring who choose to share the same territory. When disputes arise, orks seek out someone they both trust and respect to mediate the matter, which is the role shamans and vaulhas usually come to play for the tribe as a whole. When a problem arises that can't be resolved by one mediator, or which confronts the entire tribe, the whole tribe comes together for the thunda - the "big talk".
With special signals, every adult member of the camp comes to a central meeting place, where the ork who called for the thunda announces why they are calling for it, puts it into terms of a Yes or No decision, and explains why they think the thunda should take place. Then, the orks present will vote on if the thunda is warranted; if the majority agree, then the thunda will take place after dinner that night - or immediately, in case of emergency.
A thunda only commences if the majority of orks present vote "yes"; if a "no" vote is the majority, then no thunda will take place. Orks grow quite dismissive of members of their tribe who call for too many failed thundas, which keeps the tribe from abusing this law; to earn a reputation for being spurious can seriously harm an ork's prospects, especially if they have yet to acquire a gunja.
When it commences, the thunda consists of all the orks of the tribe speaking in turn, voicing their opinion on the matter. Once every ork has spoken, they are given a day to consider their decision - only in emergencies will an immediate vote be called for. Once the majority vote is counted, the decision is final. Recasting a thunda only happens in the most exceptional circumstances, and demanding one be held can potentially shatter an ork's reputation permanently.
As one might expect, orks hold reputation very seriously. It is literally the definition of their value and worth amongst the tribe, and it is why the vaulhas are so respected.
Although anarchistic in their social structure, orks do technically have a caste system. All orks, male and female, are trained to fight, cook, hunt, weave and track during their childhood. By the time they have reached adulthood, they will be defined as either thurka - a warrior, or as dunga - a housemate, depending on whether they are more skilled at combat or at domestic tasks.
The words derive from dwarven, and translate as "weapon" and "armor" respectively. It must be emphasized that there is no social stigma; both roles are considered absolutely necessary to the functioning of the gunja and the tribe as a whole.
After all, without the thurka, there would be nobody to bring back the kills or to fend off the beasts of the wild, but without the dunga, there would be nobody to cook hearty food, weave warm clothing, or forge the weapons for the thurka to use.
Perhaps helping is that, as mentioned earlier, orks may have somewhat lower tactile senses, but deeply appreciate other stimulants. Orks love good good, good music, bright colors and intricate designs. A great chef or a skilled weaver or talented painter is as respectable as a mighty warrior - perhaps more so. A warrior simply kills, which any ork can do. An artist creates, which is far harder to do.
The most inherently respectable members of an ork tribe are the Shaman and the Vaulha.
The Shaman is any individual with dedicated arcane talents, which are extremely rare amongst orks - a curse they blame on the dwarves. Most frequently, shamans are warlocks or, more rarely, wizards; sorcerers are the rarest of all. A shaman can be a healer, a battle mage, or even fill both roles, but is always held slightly apart, regarded with awe due to having reclaimed a lost birthright.
The Vaulha, on the other hand, is what other races might call a bard. To ork tribes, the vaulha is more than a mere entertainer, however; they are a lorekeeper, and a guardian of honor. With their stories, and their songs, they can grant an ork honor or they can take it away, destroying all the reputation that an ork may have labored so hard to build. This gives them a great deal of power in an ork tribe, but it is a power they must wield lightly; orks will bow to no tyrant, and as respected and feared as the vaulhas are, one who is ousted as corrupt will be forced to flee, lest their own kin tear the manipulator apart in rage at having been taken advantage of by one so trusted.
As touched upon under Psychology, orks have a unique viewpoint in regards to pain, a partly mental, partly cultural phenomena that is often misunderstood by other races.
In short, the orks believe that pain serves two purposes.
The first purpose is to indicate injury - pain lets you know how close to death you are.
The second purpose, however, is to help you survive. Not just by warning away from danger, but by pushing you to your limits to overcome it.
Thusly, to orks, pain is a positive force, supportive, but also testing. An ork who can endure pain and harness it to overcome its source is a strong ork, an ork who commands respect.
This doesn't make orks suicidal. Pain is a teacher, but to constantly need its lessons is the mark of the foolish. It is exceptionally rare for orks to self-mutilate themselves in order to prove a point; most orks would consider somebody who does so to be a braggart and a show-off, somebody not to take seriously.
That's not to say that deliberate mutilative gestures are unheard of, just that it's extremely rare and only happens in certain circumstances.
As one side-effect of this "cult of pain", orks prize stoicness in regards to pain. An ork will not admit their suffering, to show how strong they are, but other orks will comment upon and point out an ork's wounds as a matter of respect, an acknowledgement of the ork's strength and worth.
The second side effect is that orks place a great deal of respect upon scars. In the ork viewpoint, scars are the physical legacy of pain, stories of great deeds written into an ork's flesh. To an ork, a great deed is something accomplished with sacrifice - achieving something effortlessly has no honor in it, it is not worth speaking about. This doesn't mean orks are incapable of guile or stealth, but that deeds commited that way are unlikely to win accolades amongst orks.
However, orks recognize emotional or mental scars as well as physical ones, and if anything regard the former with greater respect than the latter. A tale in which an ork must choose between the lives of his closest loved one and the lives of his oldest friend is as tragic, honorable and glorious to ork eyes as the tale of an ork warrior walking into an enemy village, challenging all of its warriors to duel her, and killing them all whilst almost dying in the process.
This, incidentally, means that the orks have a saying; "no scars". This can be an insult, an expression of disappointment, or even a dismissal, depending on the context it is used in. To say someone has no scars is to insult them as weak. To say one has earned no scars is to express disappointment in the task one has just completed, for it wasn't challenging. And to say there are no scars here is to dismiss a task or challenge as being unworthy of their attention.
It may go without saying that orks do not get on with all races. The remember their history well, and it colors their perception of others.
Orks feel a mixture of shame and rage about their elven heritage, and so this makes them rather stand-offish towards shadar-kai and aranea, at least initially. In truth, they can see something of themselves in the shadar-kai's desperate need to anchor themselves against the fading, although they are a little perturbed by how the shadar-kai use self-mutilation to provide that anchor. Some even see it as almost blasphemous. Aranea, meanwhile, attract envy for their effortless affinity for magic.
Dwarves, meanwhile, are utterly hated. An ork can, grudgingly, work with a gnome or one of the "reforged" forgeborn, but it would take an extraordinary outside influence for a pureblood Sonnlinor and an ork to find common cause as opposed to killing each other on the spot. Many orks will take any opportunity to disparage or denigrate dwarves and dwarven work, especially if they can remind others of how the orks broke free of their creators' control in the process.
Warforged elicit a feeling of kinship that honestly surprises many orks. Like them, warforged were created by another race to fight that race's battles, but unlike orks, they don't seem to have truly grasped their freedom. Given the chance, many orks would nobly seek to guide warforged in breaking the last of their chains.
Humans, ironically, aren't as hated as many humans would believe. In fact, the orks are fairly neutral about them; they recognize that humans fought them, but then, humans fought with elves and dwarves too, and they weren't involved in the orks' creation. As far as orks are concerned, humans are taken on individual merit, and surprisingly tight bonds have ensued in some cases.
By extension, orks don't really care much about calibans one way or the other. They will happily make peace when they can, but often fight to preserve their own territory against caliban intruders.
The rodushi have no preexisting enmity for orks, but they are still rather wary of them. Orks have a deep abiding hatred for tyrants, and they are leery of the potential for the "greater good" the palatines seek to turn into a mission of conquest and enslavement.
Kobolds... honestly, rather annoy orks. They have no particular grudge against them, but they find the race's constant harping on about what they have lost to be backwards, and sneer at how traditionalist tribes tend to be tyrannies under cruel, mad witch-kings - all too similar to how the orks themselves were brought into being. They can make peace with them, but orks often can't resist needling kobolds about their cultural mores.
Settlements
Orks are one of the most widely spread of all races in Malebolge. With no ancestral homelands to be emotionally tied to, and with the hardiness to survive in some of the harshest environments, orks will go anywhere that they can to set up shelter and food.
In truth, many ork clans are nomadic, living a simple life as hunter-gatherers. They may have camps they migrate between, used to house permanent structures such as forges, but they move between the camps in response to changes in the available resources.
Permanent ork settlements occur where the orks find resources worth exploiting. A permanent supply of drinkable water and a steady supply of food are essentials for them to consider a place worth keeping. That said, once they settle down, orks dig in; they don't move on until they decide to, and they will protect their territory.
Orks have a fundamentally practical viewpoint when it comes to their homes. They do not seek war anymore, but they still build with an eye towards defense first. They are not master trapcrafters, however, and focus more on physical barriers like walls, guard towers and barricades to keep out predators and hostiles. Beyond this, they have no particular architectural style, mostly just trying to assemble something that will keep out the elements.
If there is a sense of order to ork holdings, it is that there are no distinct "leader's huts" or similar status-based divisions. Even the shamans and the vaulhas, valuable as they are, command only slightly larger living spaces due to their needs. Lone orks live in small spaces, whilst gunjas live in larger ones. The biggest spaces go towards practical concerns, such as storehouses or forges.
Adventurers
In truth, many orks go on to become adventurers. Most are thurka youngsters, seeking to acquire glory-scars, but there are many other reasons besides. Some old thurkas, feeling their fire going out, choose to fall in a blaze of glory. Some simply wish to explore, whilst others are out to help their tribe. To say nothing of such things as feth'orks hoping to find a new life away from their old tribe, or the survivors of massacred tribes, or even exiles.
It should be noted that, due to their origins, orks with levels in caster classes are rare. A player with such a character should give some thought into how they came into their power and why they chose to adventure after it.
DM's Note: To represent Malebolge Orks, use the official Half-Orc PC race from the core 5th edition Player's Handbook.
Barbarians: Although the most stereotypically orkish of all classes, the truth is that ork barbarians are exceedingly rare. The focus of this class on bloodcrazed fury is too alarming for orks, who consider it to be a submission to the blutga. Usually only exiles or feth'orks take this class, and they are almost always berserkers or battleragers, with a pronounced minority of Ancestral Heralds - these are regarded with a particular pity by other orks, who see them as cursed to be vessels for the rage of the mad ancients of the past - and Zealots.
Bards: As the respected vaulhas of orkish society, bards are common, but rarely become adventurers. It takes special circumstances for a vaulha to leave their tribe. Lorekeepers and Jesters are the most common of vaulhas; the former exemplify the vaulha's role as keeper of the histories, whilst the latter exemplify both the ork's earthy taste for bawdy humor and the ability of vaulhas to utterly ruin an ork's reputation. Aside from those, Blades and Skalds make up the majority of the remainder, combining bardic training with their natural combat skills. Glamourweavers are the rarest, but most esteemed of all, as orks feel they have truly recaptured their long-lost elven essence. Whispermongers, however, are unheard of amongst orks, being the antithesis of everything a vaulha stands for.
Fighters: These, in comparison to barbarians, are the true "orky class". Every single style of fighter can be found amongst ork clans, though Eldritch Knights are particularly rare and esteemed.
Monks: Orks who take up the path of the monk are extremely rare, and seen as a little odd by their fellows. Still, the class's focus on self-discipline and mental control attracts a constant trickle of supplicants. Native-trained orks are normally analogous to the Open Palm style; orks with more exotic fighting styles usually sought tutelage under masters of other races.
Rangers: Next to fighters, these are the most common form of ork adventurers, as their talents build upon the natural inclination for orks to become skilled hunters. There are no particular biases towards any of the Conclaves.
Rogues: Few orks take the path of the rogue, for although they can appreciate guile, the class's focus on killing enemies without risk to one's self is opposed to the ork concept of honor and worthy fights. With little need for material goods in their own culture, few orks become Thieves unless they spend a great deal of time around other races. Most ork rogues are therefor Assassins, sacrificing honor for the good of their tribe, though the few Arcane Tricksters are more respectable than other rogues. Masterminds are unheard of; orks don't react well to the idea of authority, and have little interest in being hypocrites about it.
Sorcerers: Rarest of the rare, and the most esteemed of all arcanists, ork sorcerers are held up as the paragons of their race for having regained their long-lost arcane birthright. Ork sorcerers are usually Shadowsouls or elementalists of the Firebreath, Greenblood and Rotheart varieties, though Favored Souls of Life or Nature and Wild Mages are also common enough to be worth mentioning.
Warlocks: Most common of the orky arcanists, warlocks are rare mostly because orks are reluctant to swear pacts, seeing them as coming dangerous close to servitude. They have no particular bias when it comes to selecting patrons, although they are somewhat more likely to take the Dark Mother or Undying patrons.
Wizards: Rarer than warlocks but more respectable, ork wizards are typically evokers, bladesingers, divinists or elementalists. Necromancy and theurgy are considered somewaht dishonorable, but acceptable. They are never transmuters, enchanters or conjurers - at least, not if they don't want to be kicked out of their tribe and forbidden from joining any other.
Mystics: As rare as sorcerers ad just as valuable, ork mystics have no particularly great bias in which order they fall under.[/sblock]
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