sort of good orcs?

[punterke]

Hello everybody,

I was watching a couple of 9/11 conspiracy theory documentaries on the internet (no, I don't want to start about that in here, it's just what lead me to the idea). And I got an idea of a fantasy world where there's a huge tower in a city during some festival. The PC's come by and see a half-orc runs like he's possessed through the crowd in the direction of that tower. He enters the building and a couple seconds later the building just collapses. The local ruler uses it to proclaim war against (and here it comes) orcs.

So this would lead to a problem of how orcs are. In my little story they would be sort of good orcs. I tried to build up a story of an old total war that almost had exterminated both the orc and human societies. Orc women stood up against orc generals who had lost their credibility because of the huge losses. Centuries of rapes among humans and other tribes also might have given the orc tribe more intelligent beings than their ancestors. This might help to explain why orcs changed their evil ways into peaceful ones.

But yesterday evening I watched Return of the King for the 454535th time perhaps and I saw how uncomprimisingly evil orcs are. So can they be good? It's probably simpler to replace orcs with barbarian tribes or so as one can imagine more credible. Then again, orcs not being the real evil might be interesting as the PC's (especially if there are Paladins or half-orcs among them for instance) would have to decide who to help (or stay out of trouble as they might consider it to risky, which I can counter with a "you're either with or against us" retorical speech by an NPC).

What do you think about it? Let me know!

Greets,

Gunter

 

[Krel]

Hello everybody,

I was watching a couple of 9/11 conspiracy theory documentaries on the internet (no, I don't want to start about that in here, it's just what lead me to the idea). And I got an idea of a fantasy world where there's a huge tower in a city during some festival. The PC's come by and see a half-orc runs like he's possessed through the crowd in the direction of that tower. He enters the building and a couple seconds later the building just collapses. The local ruler uses it to proclaim war against (and here it comes) orcs.

So this would lead to a problem of how orcs are. In my little story they would be sort of good orcs. I tried to build up a story of an old total war that almost had exterminated both the orc and human societies. Orc women stood up against orc generals who had lost their credibility because of the huge losses. Centuries of rapes among humans and other tribes also might have given the orc tribe more intelligent beings than their ancestors. This might help to explain why orcs changed their evil ways into peaceful ones.

But yesterday evening I watched Return of the King for the 454535th time perhaps and I saw how uncomprimisingly evil orcs are. So can they be good? It's probably simpler to replace orcs with barbarian tribes or so as one can imagine more credible. Then again, orcs not being the real evil might be interesting as the PC's (especially if there are Paladins or half-orcs among them for instance) would have to decide who to help (or stay out of trouble as they might consider it to risky, which I can counter with a "you're either with or against us" retorical speech by an NPC).

What do you think about it? Let me know!

Greets,

Gunter

Possibly belongs in a different thread? Just maybe?

 

[punterke]

possibly, I'm new and unknowing of all the supposed things to do

I saw this was a subforum for tweaking characters and the orcs are NPC's with the C standing for Character. So where else should I have put this thread?

 

[Drowbane]

good orcs?

Sure, I guess. You are the DM, correct? Orcs (in your campaign) are whatever you make of them.

IMC, Orcs are a playable race (replacing the pathetic "half-orc"...).

 

[Fieari]

For evil orcs, see Tolkien. For orcs that could go either way by your point of view or whether they happen to be actively worshipping demons at the time, see the Warcraft series. For good orcs, see Dominic Deegan.

You're the DM. Take your pick. In Tolkien, orcs are inherantly evil because they're twisted elves. There's no good left in them. In Warcraft, orcs are a race like any other, but have as a culture made some pretty evil decisions. Individual orcs may be good or evil, of course. In Dominic Deegan, orcs are a race like any other, but are expressly portrayed as a "noble savage" sort of thing, kinda brutal sometimes, but VERY human regardless, and even forewards thinking (modern) in many ways.

It depends on what you want to do.

 

[MarkB]

There's already at least one official campaign setting that features 'sort-of good' orcs.

In Eberron, orcs are basically "Alignment: Any". There are good orc tribes, bad orc tribes, and neutral orc tribes. There are tribes with roughly equal mixes of humans, orcs and half-orcs, and of those tribes some have banded together and joined civilisation as a major trading house. Orcs were the first druids, and have literally saved the planet at least once.

 

[Nonlethal Force]

If you are the DM and you have a homebrew, make some good orcs. If it isa world that the party is intimately familiar with, then you have to watch that you don't violate "traditional wisdom."

But really, I've always found people who force all orcs (or goblins, bugbears, gnolls, etc) to be evil to be about as unfounded as people who racially or nationally stereotype in the real world. They need to wake up and realize that something is rarely ever "Always."

On an aside, this is also why I typically look the other way when a player asks me to ignore a class alignment restriction. To think that you couldn't come up with a legitimate reason to have an LG warlock is ... narrow.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Instead of "evil" you could make them "highly xenophobic". As for me, I tend to make my orcs into evil klingons. The players seem to like it.

 

[punterke]

Thank you all for the sound advice. I'll try to build up that world and keep it consistent for all the characters in it.