Orcs in d&d vs LOTR

[Ulrick]

I actually kinda find it interesting how orcs of 1st ed. look different than those of 2nd and 3rd ed. What happened to their piggish-like snouts?

Personally, I like the orcs and goblins in the movie and books better than I like the D&D orcs. When I watched the movie, I thought "WOW! So that's what its like to fight orcs and goblins!"

I think in Middle-Earth there wear different "breeds" of orc. Some were stronger than others. I wish I had my MERP books here so I could look it up. Saruman created the "Uruk-Hai" which were a hybrid of troll and Human(?) so that they could be effective in daylight and have high stamina.

Then there was the Olog-hai, which I think was a combination of Troll and Orc. Very tough. But couldn't stand the sun.

Finally, there was the regular goblins of the Misty Mountains.

(Some one correct me if I'm wrong).

But all of these breeds were called "orcs" the wasn't any distinction of them except by breed. In D&D, it would be saying goblinkin to mean "goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears."

Ulrick

 

[Gez]

It seems to me uruk-hai are orc/human hybrids. Troll blood won't give you resistance to sunlight, and uruk means orc.

The D&D standard orc don't get +2, but +4 to Str. Of course, you could make some changes. Myself, I have Steppe orcs. Like standard orcs, except no vulnerability to sunlight, +2 Con bonus, free Endurance feat, and 40 ft. base speed. Given than most are barbarian (+10 ft. speed) that makes orcs that run at 200 ft./round for hours without tiring. Or even 250 with the Run feat.

 

[Stegger]

Thanks for all the replies.

Klaus: The high gods created each a race that best reflected their view of "ideal": Moradin created the dwarves, Corellon created the elves, Garl created the gnomes, Yondalla created the halflings, someone created the humans (they can't agree on which god created them) and Gruumsh created the orcs.

That cleared things up a bit, thank you.
Stegger

 

[Henry]

It depends entirely on the campaign setting. In one, orcs might be corrupted elves, in another they're mutated hob-goblins, and in another they're peaceful farmers who enjoy Earl Grey tea.

That's correct, because Gar no like Green Tea. Green Tea is for Foreigner, not Gentlemen.

 

[ydirbut]

That's correct, because Gar no like Green Tea. Green Tea is for Foreigner, not Gentlemen.

DAMNIT. I was about to post that.

EDIT-Sorry about ressurecting this thread.

 

[kanithardm]

The high gods created each a race that best reflected their view of "ideal": Moradin created the dwarves, Corellon created the elves, Garl created the gnomes, Yondalla created the halflings, someone created the humans (they can't agree on which god created them) and Gruumsh created the orcs.

You see, no one INTENTIONALLY made us. when all the clay used to shape the other races was used up, a halfling came and shaped us to what he wished he looked like.

 

[Tonguez]

I actually kinda find it interesting how orcs of 1st ed. look different than those of 2nd and 3rd ed. What happened to their piggish-like snouts?

Personally, I like the orcs and goblins in the movie and books better than I like the D&D orcs. When I watched the movie, I thought "WOW! So that's what its like to fight orcs and goblins!"

I think in Middle-Earth there wear different "breeds" of orc. Some were stronger than others. I wish I had my MERP books here so I could look it up. Saruman created the "Uruk-Hai" which were a hybrid of troll and Human(?) so that they could be effective in daylight and have high stamina.

Then there was the Olog-hai, which I think was a combination of Troll and Orc. Very tough. But couldn't stand the sun.

Finally, there was the regular goblins of the Misty Mountains.

(Some one correct me if I'm wrong).

But all of these breeds were called "orcs" the wasn't any distinction of them except by breed. In D&D, it would be saying goblinkin to mean "goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears."

Ulrick

Tolkien explains that in the MiddleEarth setting Orc is the Hobbit word for Hob-goblin ergo anyone wanting LOTR Orcs should look at the DnD Hobgoblin for stats rather than the DnD Orc (which is not the same thing)

Uruk-Hai etc are magically breed Hob-goblins (ie Orc) based hybrids (and in DnD could use a template)

 

[William Ronald]

It's truly whatever you and your group wish it to be. If you would prefer them to be corrupted elves, then you work that in. If you want orcs that branched off from the rest of the humanoids and went down their own evolutionary path, then you work that in. If you want something different, well, guess what? You work that in!

However, if you mean to ask about the origin of orcs in the "standard" campaign setting, Greyhawk, then I am not sure. There are many who are more familiar with the topic of Greyhawk than I, but I would guess that they were developed seperately from elves. I would hesitate to use evolution though, because the races were probably creations of gods.

I think each DM has to decide how each race of humanoids fits into the campaign world. In some, orcs may be corrupted elves. (This is from Tolkien's The Silmarillion. However, as I recall from Unfinished Tales and other works, Tolkien eventually decided that they were corrupt men -- probably akin to the Druadan, the Wood Woses, in the Lord of the Rings.) In others, they may be the children of Gruumsh -- and have very different origins in other worlds entirely. For example, the orcs of Eberron seem to have little to do with the standard orcs of the Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk, having some influences of an ancient druidical tradition on their culture.

Rashak Mani -- I think that the Orcs in the Two Towers had a head start of at least an hour as Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli had to commit Boromir's body to the water, look for signs of Sam and Frodo, and begin their pursuit. Plus add to the fact that Aragorn had to track the orcs, and they could gain some distance on three people. Plus, Aragorn and company had to stop a few times when it was too dark to track the orcs.

On page 127 of the DMG, the Orc adjustments ate +4 Strength, and -2 to Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. You also maight want to check out the DMing Advice link in my sig and find the links for The SHARK Orc and the SHARK Ogre.

This is from Monster Mythology (as far as I can remember):

The high gods created each a race that best reflected their view of "ideal": Moradin created the dwarves, Corellon created the elves, Garl created the gnomes, Yondalla created the halflings, someone created the humans (they can't agree on which god created them) and Gruumsh created the orcs.

Then they divided the world among their races. Mountains went to dwarves, forests to elves, hills went to gnomes, halflings chose wandering and humans would hook up wherever they could make a living. As the orcs tell, the other gods laughed at Gruumsh, saying there was no room left for orcs. But Gruumsh hefted his spear and said: "My children have a place! There!" and he struck the mountains, creating vast canyons. "There!" and he struck the forests, creating barren wastes. "There!" and he struck the hills, creating swamps. From the orcs' point-of-view, they're always fighting to get back what was wrongly taken away from them.

Here's where Gruumsh declared war on the other gods and their races, and then Corellon struck out his eye.

Paranoid little buggers, aren't they?

I seem to recall this first appearing in a Roger E. Moore article on Orcs..

 

[The Sigil]

IIRC, it has been noted in Tolkien's works that only the "Good" races were originally created. The Dwarves were actually first to be created (though one of the Valar created them "prematurely" and they were forced to "sleep" until after the Elves had awoken). The Elves were the first to explore the world, and they in turn met the Ents. Later, Humans, dwarves, and halflings appeared on the scene.

This is notable because evil, in Tolkien's mythos, cannot create; it can only imitate and twist. Orcs are twisted from the elves. Trolls are twisted from Ents. Evil humans are twisted from... um... humans (and so are the ringwraiths). Not sure off the top of my head what "twisted dwarves" and "twisted halflings" would correspond to (I'm surely setting myself up for some jokes here, but you get the idea).

In D&D, by contrast, divine powers of evil generally have the power to create. So Tolkien, as has been mentioned, is not necessarily a perfect D&D analogue.

--The Sigil

 

[Talmun]

I actually kinda find it interesting how orcs of 1st ed. look different than those of 2nd and 3rd ed. What happened to their piggish-like snouts?

Personally, I like the orcs and goblins in the movie and books better than I like the D&D orcs. When I watched the movie, I thought "WOW! So that's what its like to fight orcs and goblins!"

I think in Middle-Earth there wear different "breeds" of orc. Some were stronger than others. I wish I had my MERP books here so I could look it up. Saruman created the "Uruk-Hai" which were a hybrid of troll and Human(?) so that they could be effective in daylight and have high stamina.

Then there was the Olog-hai, which I think was a combination of Troll and Orc. Very tough. But couldn't stand the sun.

Finally, there was the regular goblins of the Misty Mountains.

(Some one correct me if I'm wrong).

But all of these breeds were called "orcs" the wasn't any distinction of them except by breed. In D&D, it would be saying goblinkin to mean "goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears."

Ulrick

There seem to be several different species and sub-species in Middle-earth

The standard orc, seems to be roughly (very roughly) the equivalent of a D&D orc, although arguments could be made about strengths and weaknesses. It appears, for instance, that LotR orcs are more affected by sunlight than the minor inconvenience that D&D orcs suffer.

The Uruk-Hai first appear about 500 years before the War of the Ring during the final sack of Osgiliath (the ruins bisected by a river in the Return of the King movie). In the book, Sauron, not Saruman, created them, although the latter used them quite effectively. The Uruk-Hai seem to be a superior strain of orc (selective breeding?), not half-bred or crossed with anything.

The Half-orc may appear in LotR, although not named as such. Sharkey's men and the spies of Saurman in Bree and elsewhere may have been half-man, half-orc. These seem to be separate and different from the Uruk-Hai, because they can pass as human.

There also seem to be variations in orcs as well. An example would be the tracking-orc that Sam and Frodo see in Mordor, who seems to have been bred as a bloodhound-type scent-tracker.

The Hobbit uses the word 'goblin', but not 'orc' (save for a couple of times, IIRC), and the word seems to be used interchangeably with 'orc' in LotR a few times and it doesn't appear at all in the Sillmarillion. This would seem to indicate that goblin and orc are two words for the same thing.

Naturally, Tolkein was much more concerned with storytelling than with providing concise info for RPG's, so much of the info on orcs is rather vague. This includes the idea that Morgoth made orcs by twisting and changing elves, which, when it appears in the stories, always seems to be in the form of a tale or opinion and not an absolute truth.

As much as I like LotR and it's orcs, orcs IMC tend to be less like Tolkeins and more in line with the standard D&D flavor for them.