D&D General Handling the Orc Horde as a key setting element

[Yora]

I've been recently diving deeply into the original 1st edition box and sourcebooks of the Forgotten Realms and discovered a setting that is really quite different from what it became over the following three decades with several timeline advanced, inclusion of classes and creatures from later rulebooks, and a radical shift in visual presentation. It's of course much broader strokes with way less detail, but I think expanding on what is presented in those early sources could really be a very strong setting for a campaign. I want to take what is there on the page and elaborate on it without overwriting anything that's already established in the text.

Overall not too difficult, but the very strong presence of wild hordes of evil savages does make for a bit of a challenge.

The Uthgardt barbarian tribes are not that bad. While the raiders of the Griffon, Elk, and Blue Bear tribes are straight up murderous bandits, they make up only the dominant group of their tribes of maybe a quarter of the whole tribes at most. You can have plenty of "civilians" so to speak and warriors who follow the big bullies on raids but aren't particularly happy about it. And then there's the Thunder Beast, Tree Ghost, and Great Worm tribes who are straight up good.
With Uthgardt raiders, you can easily show that raiders are bad people. Not Uthgardt are bad people.

But then there's also the orcs.
And to a lesser extend the goblins. Those are a much tougher nut to crack. Orcs are featured quite prominently in the material as a great and regular threat to human towns and barbarian tribes. To do justice to the work of Greenwood and Jaquays and to stay in the spirit of the setting that was created, I don't want to simply shove the orcs into the backgrounds where they won't be seen and lead to any difficult questions. I really do want to salvage them. But a whole species where everyone is a burning and pillaging warrior and an evil bastard just straight up makes no sense. Believable orcs need to look like they could be a sustainable culture that has been going for thousands of years and wouldn't destroy itself within just one generation.
The easy way out would be to just make the orcs more multi-faceted as well and establish that there are peaceful orc farmers and some honorable good warriors who oppose the violence and pillaging. Or the orcs could be acting the way they do out of desperation because the mean dwarves have been pushing them into inhospitable mountains for thousands of years and nobody wants to trade with them. But I think that would be directly counter to what orcs are supposed to be. Orcs are supposed to play the role of hostile monsters, and in the specific case of The Savage Frontier, there are already the Uthgardt that fill the role of ambiguous barbarians with a complicated neighbor relationship and internal complexities.

Simply having an orc horde that is all "Waaagh! Kill and burn! Hur hur!" just isn't going to cut it. But I do want to make something out of that one-dimensional premise and have them feature prominently in the campaign that isn't pure cringe. And I admittedly have no real idea where to even start with that. So I am coming to all of you, asking for any kind of thoughts and idea you might have on that topic. Even if it's just something very simple and vague that could potentially kick off the start of a line of thought that could lead to something interesting and worthwhile.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

You will need to think like a historian.

What was orc and goblin culture like before they engaged in raiding? Without that, you cannot know who they are, what they value. There must surely have been a time when they were internally self-sufficient, even if they are not or cannot be now.

Is there some problem which is pushing them to this behavior? Sometimes, some cultures raid because it is useful to them, but other times, they do so because they are living a marginal existence and might not survive if they did not do so.

Even raiders cannot raid 24/7. What do they do in winter? What do they do in off-years? How do they treat powerful neighbors they can't afford to piss off?

A proper army requires a lot of logistical support. Even if the "horde" isn't a proper army in the usual sense...it still needs a ton of support to either carry food, gear, maintenance equipment, livestock feed, etc., or it needs a retinue of skillful and effective hunters and gatherers to acquire said resources in order to sustain itself. What are these auxiliaries and logistics types like? How does the "pure warrior" view these folks?

Religion will always be a huge factor in any civilization. Who does the Horde worship? Is it possible that there are subversive good-aligned cults trying to sway the horde toward more constructive ends? Have their religious teachings been perverted by dark influences, or perhaps blatantly misunderstood by outsiders, resulting in pointless conflicts that could have been avoided with better understanding? Etc.

What are the Horde's strengths? This will determine which part of the Horde military structure actually gets care and support. It will affect the kit they use, the tactics they employ, the wars they fight. Winning wars is almost always about minmaxing the hell out of whatever thing you're already semi-specialized into. Technology, wealth levels, infrastructure, and resources all play huge parts in determining what kind of warfare one uses, and what one does to make the best of one's materiel.

 

[humble minion]

D&D orcs have never interested me much, and if was ever forced to run them I'd steal Warhammer orcs - their fungal biology and belief-creating-reality aspects in particular - wholesale.

But...

What if orcs were migratory. Not just nomadic or opportunistically vagrant, but actually migratory like a seabird or swallow. Just masses of them tromping across the landscape at certain times of year. They could potentially migrate with the seasons, but perhaps a yearly cycle might make them too predictable (thought the whole concept of locals hunkering down behind their barricades, bringing their livestock in to wait out Orc Season, has some potential). But we're talking fantasy worlds here, probably with multiple moons and additional natural cycles of waning/waxing background magic and who knows what else - there's room for all sorts of other natural rhythms they could align with. Perhaps they migrate according to some sort of complex interaction of the three moons, or perhaps they subconsciously feel and react to the rumblings beneath their feet as the tarrasque stirs in its slumber. Maybe they worship gods of the moon and stars, maybe some of them become noted astronomers, navigators, or sailors. A great migration of orcs, no doubt heavily living off the land, could certainly be functionally horde-like to anyone in their way, without just being a mob of cartoon villains.

 

[Yora]

Okay. Let's see what we actually have as exiting information:

The Goblin Races were involved in race-killing wars with dwarves over their mountain peaks, and with men over the lowlands. Usually the Goblin Races have been repulsed or crushed, but there are many dwarven halls in Orcish hands.
The Goblin Races are generally under-organized and under-equipped, and would have been wiped out several times over were it not for a rapid breeding cycle and a high self-preservation instinct. Faced with overwhelming odds, most Goblin Races will waver and retreat, and for this the tag "cowardly" is usually added to their other names.
- Forgotten Realms Campaign Set: "The Goblin Races"

For ages the Dwarves have engaged in wars bordering on the genocidal, fighting against other races, such as orcs
and goblins, who sought out the same caverns and mines the dwarves considered their homes. In those ancient days a live orc was competition both for treasure and for living space, and dwarven armies fought and died to protect and expand their realms.
- Forgotten Realms Campaign Set: "Dwarves and the Shards of the Dwarven Kingdoms"

Whatever the truth, the wizards no longer dwelt in Netheril and to the north, once-majestic dwarven Delzoun had fallen upon hard days. Then the orcs struck. Orcs had always been foes in the North, surging out of their holes every few tens of generations when their normal haunts could no longer support their burgeoning numbers. This time they charged out of their caverns in the Spine of the World, poured out of abandoned mines in the Graypeaks, screamed out of lost dwarfholds in the Ice Mountains, raged forth from crypt complexes in the Nether Mountains and stormed upward from the bowels of the High Moon Mountains. Never before or since had there been such an outpouring of orcish power.
Before this onslaught Delzoun crumbled and was driven in on itself. Netheril, without its wizards, was wiped from the face of history. The elves of Eaerlann alone withstood the onslaught and, with the aid of the treants of Turlang and other unnamed allies, were able to stave off the final days of their land for yet a few centuries more.
- The Savage Frontier: "History of the North"

The orcs in the North wage a constant war of raid and retreat on frontier outposts. Small wandering bands constantly harry farms and villages, stealing livestock and brutally killing people. Just as often, they take slaves. Attempts to negotiate or control them for any length of time end in failure. Bounties placed on orcish heads only seem to encourage the beasts to attack for sport.
[...]
This is a holy war. Its roots date back to the formation of the Uthgardt as a people. The barbarians and the orcs compete directly with one another for the same resources. Savage humans and bloodthirsty orcs fight to the death upon meeting. Adventurers in the North could do worse than to aid the Uthgardt in such a conflict.
- The Savage Frontier: "Common Themes & Conflicts"

The third major race in the North is not human at all: orcs dominate the wilds and may be the true, though disunified power in the North.
- The Savage Frontier: "The People of the North"

It really is very simplistic and one-dimensional. This is gonna take some real work.

What I see is that the history of the orcs is directly tied to the history of the dwarves. The dwarves and orcs have been fighting for thousands of years. And the dwarves know they have lost. In this version of the realms, the only two remaining dwarven cities in the North are Adbar and Ironmaster. Other dwarves live in various human cities like Mirabar and Sunabar, and there's hint of small secret dwarf holds scattered through the mountains that are too small and insignificant to get individual descriptions or marked on the maps.

It is stated in several places that many of the major orc strongholds are old dwarven cities that they conquered, and there is even one case of orcs running a mithril mine and selling to an evil wizard.

The idea of seasonal migration is actually quite interesting. The orcs live in underground dwarven cities in the mountains, but raid villages of both barbarians and the civilized peoples in the valleys. Which they probably do in the summer. This already implies that orcs spend the winter underground in their caves in the mountains and then travel considerable distances south once the snow in the mountain passes melts.
But who is actually participating in that seasonal migration? The raiders. That would be an explanation for why there is never any mention of women and children. They would be staying in the cities in the mountains during the summer while some of them men are out on campaign to raid. We really only do see a subset of the orc population in the human lands. Orc society could be a lot more complex in the mountain cities, but that would still be entirely in line with the information established about the interactions of orcs with humans and dwarves. It wouldn't make the raiding any less evil, but there could be more going on than mindless killing machines.

Parallels with viking raids immediately come to mind. "From the fury of the Northmen, O Lord, deliver us." Or the Huns. "The Scourge of God." Raiding warriors being seen by their opponents and demons in human guise does have plenty of precedent.
What are they doing with all the plunder anyway? Maybe Brug the Orc has a wife back at home who complains that she has nothing fancy to wear?

 

[aco175]

You are going to do a lot of work unless you can find a way to invest the players. They might only care as far as to know that orcs are evil raiders who deserve to be killed. That is the adventure- cool. Maybe start smaller with a tribe that raids, but also farms and trades with a lonely inn along the trade route. The tribe does not destroy the inn since they can get merchants and such to bring goods they desire. Sending the Pcs on a trade mission may open their eyes to their first assumptions.

Not getting the players to care means you may just skip all that work and go with the default.

 

[J-H]

You are going to do a lot of work unless you can find a way to invest the players. They might only care as far as to know that orcs are evil raiders who deserve to be killed. That is the adventure- cool. Maybe start smaller with a tribe that raids, but also farms and trades with a lonely inn along the trade route. The tribe does not destroy the inn since they can get merchants and such to bring goods they desire. Sending the Pcs on a trade mission may open their eyes to their first assumptions.

Not getting the players to care means you may just skip all that work and go with the default.

+1 to this.

Your setting doesn't have to have tons of nuance and pass review by 5 sensitivity readers and 3 editors for professional publishing. You don't risk a Twitter mob for your home or FLGS game.

But you want to dig into it anyway, because you're someone who starts at least 6 threads a year on game settings. For that - what makes history in D&D different from history in real life?
1) Magic.
Especially in first edition, where there are no sorcerers, you are stuck with a few caster options.

#1, especially for making magic items, flying cities, and wiping out enemies en masse, are wizards. Wizards require literacy, written education, and special supplies to function. How likely is a typical barbarian tribe (any species) to have this available enough that their supply of education + wizardly instruction + scribing components actually gets matched up with the members of the various tribes who actually have the talents to become a wizard? They don't have the SAT or IQ test or whatever to determine that the Urbag son of Gorbag the Latrine-Digger is the only one in the tribe who will ever be able to cast 5th level wizard spells.

#2 is druid magic. I think in 1e you had to multiclass to get this, and it's hard to be a druid. There's also instruction from existing druids needed, and again, if you're not part of civilized society, you don't have an in to get this.

#3 is clerical magic of various sorts. This, they have. But the city of Xdale has 3 temples with a high priest, lesser clerics, and acolytes, and can call on other temples/chapters for more students or replacements. A tribe of 500 may have one head priest with two or three apprentices... but it's rare to find more than that in any depiction.
So the Barbarians end up inferior in access to battle and non-battle magic, a differentiator that does not exist in RL.

2) the gods
Remember how drow society should collapse based on infighting? LOLth keeps it alive and in more or less stasis?
Go look at Gruumsh and his teaching. Or Maglubiyet.
Like the orcs in Warcraft, they're invading partly because their deific patrons encourage this specific behavior. There's active encouragement of organized war, and active discouragement of settling down and being a peaceful, self-sustaining farming people.

Settling down and having agriculture is part of how you support cities, which is part of how you get more specialized clerisy, blacksmithing, intellectuals, etc.... so if you want to blame any one factor or person, blame the orcish gods the most.
Want nuance in your orcs? Have a religious split behind the difference in cultural values.

Then it's "Orcs who worship Gruumsh are bad, but the guys flying the Red Hand of Ilneval are okay as long as you don't mess with them, and they keep their deals and don't raid over the border."

 

[Dausuul]

I wanted an orc horde, mounted on dire wolves yet; but this presented the question, "How do you feed a giant army of carnivores riding bigger carnivores?" I was willing to resort to magic, but it had to feel appropriate to the concept, not just a handwave.

What I came up with was a horde whose shamans call forth a vast swarm of locusts. The locusts fly ahead of the horde, devouring all plant life, and die; then the horde comes behind, eating the dead locusts each night. The locusts are just enough to sustain the horde, but they hunger for more and richer meat. And, of course, they must stay constantly on the move. If they ever stop in one place, they starve.

 

[Stormonu]

Looking back, I've always seen orcs as a sort of locust swarm. In small numbers, they hunt and raid the wilderness. In these tiny groups, they're simply living off the land, and they may raid a settlement or two if its easy pickings. Otherwise, they hunt, fish and otherwise live off the land. Just don't get into their way - humanoids are just as viable a food source as a deer or rabbit in orc eyes, if they can catch you and they're hungry enough.

The problem comes when they start to grow large in numbers. They become capable of taking on larger prey, and the wilderness can no longer sustain them. Instead of occasional raids on a lone settlement, they start to become dependent on raiding larger communities and their stockpiles. They're literally feeding an army on the march.

Humans generally only encounter orcs when they come a'raiding, so, of course they huddle behind their city walls and fear the next orc attack. Same for dwarves, who only have interactions when orcs come to raid and despoil underground dwarven fortresses. Elves have a longer view - they share the woods and wilderness with orcs and know they're only dangerous when they grow in number. The elves "prune" what they can, but otherwise watch the orcs from a distance - though orcs are not overtly dangerous in small groups, there's no reason for the elves to openly subject themselves to retaliation for past "pruning" or make themselves an easy target for a hungry orc.

 

[Yora]

If the orcs spend the whole winter locked in underground, they will have to do a lot of hunting in the spring and again before the start of winter. Those hunting expedition might in fact be the primary reason for why they regularly descend into the lowlands in large numbers. While you're already there, you can also go cattle rustling. Raiding farms and villages to make off with gold, bags of flour, rolls of cloths, and barrels of wine might be more targets of opportunity.

In the case of the orcs of the Spine of the World mountains, they can not only go south to hunt for deer and steal cattle, they also have the option to go north to the arctic sea and go hunting for seals and whales.
I could also see orcs keeping herds of goats and yaks up in the mountains. Instead of driving them down to the lowlands for winter, they take them inside into their underground strongholds. They could even slaughter all the ones they don't need for breeding next year and keep the meat in cold, dry caves for the winter, reducing the amount of hay they need to feed the herds through winter.

Human townsfolk would not really see any of that. They only see burned farms and people getting killed or taken as slaves.

Another interesting thing I remembered is that in AD&D, orcs are lawful, not chaotic. And their intelligence is listed as "average (low)". So instead of being dumb savages who kill purely for their own amusement as they are believed to be by humans and dwarves, they might actually much more organized kingdoms and armies. Of the six orc gods, only one is a big dumb brute. Ilneval is a god of generals and conquest. Shargass is a god of stealth and assassination with 19 Intelligence. And as a goddess of caves, Luthic would also be a goddess of orc mountain strongholds in general.

All that considered, they are still evil. But they are an evil society, not evil because they are sub-human and controlled by bestial instincts.

 

[Umbran]

Simply having an orc horde that is all "Waaagh! Kill and burn! Hur hur!" just isn't going to cut it. But I do want to make something out of that one-dimensional premise and have them feature prominently in the campaign that isn't pure cringe.

Sounds like a great situation to tell a story not about "barbarian raiders" but about culture clash, encroachment, and colonization. The "barbarian" culture is slowly losing ground to "civilized" peoples. You could, for instance, say raids are not about being "evil" but about trying to get by and adapt to stresses placed on them from the encroaching nations - old trade routes have been lost, and hunting grounds diminished, and so on.

And you don't have to paint this as "civilization" being evil, or the "barbarians" being noble, or something. They can all be people, who come into conflict, with their good and bad qualities, trying to look after their own interests when resources and lands are contested.