Are Orcs in the Monster Manual? No and Yes.

The culture war surrounding orcs in Dungeons & Dragons continues with the release of the 2025 Monster Manual. Review copies of the Monster Manual are out in the wild, with many sites, EN World included, are giving their thoughts about the final core rulebook for the revised Fifth Edition ruleset. But while most commentators are discussing whether or not the monsters in the new Monster Manual hit harder than their 2014 equivalent, a growing number of commentators (mostly on Elon Musk's Twitter, but other places as well) are decrying the abolishment of orcs in the new rulebook.

Several months ago, would-be culture warriors complained about the depiction of orcs in the new Player's Handbook. Instead of depicting orcs as bloodthirsty marauders or creatures of evils, orcs (or more specifically, playable orcs) were depicted as a traveling species given endurance, determination, and the ability by their god Gruumsh to see in the darkness to help them "wander great plains, vast caverns, and churning seas." Keep in mind that one of the core facets of Dungeons & Dragons is that every game is defined by its players rather than an official canon, but some people were upset or annoyed about the shift in how a fictional species of humanoids were portrayed in two paragraphs of text and a piece of art in a 250+ page rulebook.

With the pending release of the Monster Manual, the orc is back in the spotlight once again. This time, it's because orcs no longer have statblocks in the Monster Manual. While the 2014 Monster Manual had a section detailing orc culture and three statblocks for various kinds of orcs, all specific mention of orcs have indeed been removed from the Monster Manual. The orcs are not the only creature to receive this treatment - drow are no longer in the Monster Manual, nor are duergar.

However, much of this is due to a deliberate design choice, meant not to sanitize Dungeons & Dragons from evil sentient species, but rather to add some versatility to a DM's toolbox. Orcs (and drow) are now covered under the expanded set of generic NPC statblocks in the Monster Manual. Instead of players being limited to only three Orc-specific statblocks (the Orc, the Orc War Chief and the Orc Eye of Gruumsh), DMs can use any of the 45 Humanoid statblocks in the book. Campaigns can now feature orc assassins, orc cultists, orc gladiators, or orc warriors instead of leaning on a handful of stats that lean into specific D&D lore.

Personally, I generally like that the D&D design ethos is leaning away from highly specific statblocks to more generalized ones. Why wouldn't an orc be an assassin or a pirate? Why should orcs (or any other species chosen to be adversaries in a D&D campaign) be limited to a handful of low CR statblocks? The design shift allows DMs more versatility, not less.

However, I do think that the D&D design team would do well to eventually provide some modularity to these generic statblocks, allowing DMs to "overlay" certain species-specific abilities over these NPC statblocks. Abilities like darkvision for orcs or the ability to cast darkness for drow or a fiendish rebuke for tieflings would be an easy way to separate the generic human assassin from the orc without impacting a statblock's CR.

As for the wider controversy surrounding orcs in D&D, the game and its lore is evolving over time, just as it has over the past 50 years. There's still a place for evil orcs, but they no longer need to be universally (or multiversally) evil within the context of the game. The idea that D&D's rulebooks must depict anything but the rules themselves a specific way is antithetical to the mutability of Dungeons & Dragons, which is supposed to be one of the game's biggest strengths.

 

[Umbran]

Which minority groups identify themselves with orcs?

Ah, that's not the right question.

Which minority groups will see the same language that has been applied to them also applied to orcs?

 

[Yaarel]

Then, just call Orcs monstrosities, and that should resolve the issue, no?

No.

The reason "Orcs" cannot be monstrosities is because the entire history of D&D, since its origins, portrays Orcs in ways that are too human. Normal humans. Humans with cultures, with religions, with families.


However, not much is said about "Ogrillon" except they are a species hybrid of Orc and Ogre. Perhaps this "hybrid" is actually a necromantic golem created from the shadowstuff of the Shadowfell, in a way that appears as if orclike, while threatening, and bigger, more ogrelike. Perhaps the Ogrillon is nonsapient.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Well, I don't think your duergar example is a necessarily good one because the 5E14 MM NPC section says that to modify the NPCs you can add 'racial traits' to them, which are found in the PHB (and in which the duergar does not appear.) And even if you look in the 5E14 DMG in the NPC Stat Blocks section in the 'Create a Monster' chapter, the chart of 'NPC Features' does not include the duergar either. The only place where the 'Enlarge' feature is mentioned relative to the duergar is the Monster Features chart previous to that and all that does is mention how it affects its Challenge Rating. So there's no place in the 5E14 game to guide someone in creating a duergar NPC specifically. A person would just have to put 2 and 2 together and figured it out themselves (not that that's such a big ask.)

Ok. I assumed being able to put 2 and 2 together. Also duergars are in the MM 2014. Now Duergars are straight out. No monster entry. No abilities. No guidelines at all. So duergars stopped existing in 2024 D&D. Same for deep gnomes.

But be that as it may... even if we were to assume the 5E14 DMGs 'NPC Features' chart should have appeared in 5E24 somewhere (over and beyond the info in the 5E24 DMG's 'Create A Creature' section)... I for one don't even think the features that actually appear in that table are all that great or distinguishing that it would be so important to call those out to beginning players. Like if a new DM used a handful of NPC statblocks and called them halflings but didn't reduce their speed down to 25' that it would be some sort of huge deal. But true enough that's just my opinion on the importance (or lack thereof) of these minor features, and I acknowledge that other people feel like highlighting a change in Move speed, a range of darkvision, or gaining Advantage on attacks when next to an ally is very important to them to distinguish creatures from each other, or that it's a huge deal if new players aren't given specific instruction on how to do it (assuming they'd be incapable of figuring it out how to do it themselves.)

I is not about those features being great. It is about those features being flavourful and setting a good example of how to flavour your monsters.

The "reskinning" of 4e without altering the stat blocks was one of my most hated features (as were monsters stats and equippment having no connection whatsoever).
This is close to that. And I hate that. Ok. Take an orc that should have superior darkvision. Make it a tough. And no, nothing to help them see in darkness. Should you rule that they can? Of course. Maybe also adding relentless endurance? Maybe a bit too much. Maybe not.
The PHB is explicit that those traits are specifically for adventurers of those species.
So what are the traits for non-adventurers?
At least darkvision for orcs and drows.

 

[Bedrockgames]

You seem to be invoking a majority rule.

That's backwards. Majority rule generally means the minorities get stomped on. This is a case where minority would need protection from the majority.

Also, those who are not the target or discrimination often have trouble seeing discriminatory practices, because it doesn't target them, personally.

I don’t agree with this set of assumptions. Both majority and minority can be wrong, overreact or interpret through a faulty lens. But how most reasonable people would read something matters. I think seeing orcs as problematic isn’t his way, is a faulty lens of interpretation. I also think fixing orca does nothing to address any of the problems critics of them are concerned about in society

 

[Bedrockgames]

Which minority groups identify themselves with orcs?

I’m orcish in my mothers side

 

[MonsterEnvy]

None of the PHB species are in the book, I think we just have to live with that. Maybe in the future we will get some expanded details. But for now just give a Tough Aggressive and you have an orc.

The 2024 DMG has a bunch of traits that can be added to a monster.

 

[aco175]

I see several people saying to just take the basic statblock and modify it or just say it is and be good enough. There is no difference between an orc bandit, an elf bandit, or a halfling bandit. Just use it as it is and have all of them deal crossbow and shortsword damage and be cool. But that is not how I picture the difference between them, so now I need to spend the time and make the orc bandit stronger and swing a big axe. Maybe give them and aggressive trait and have them stand in the road demanding payment.

This is a big swing from my halfling bandits who have more dexterity and use slings. They hide better and ambush people over standing in the road. Maybe my elf bandits hide in the trees.

Once I made all these changes, the standard bandit is nothing like each of the others, but I had to do it. It should not be that hard to have the halfling slinger stats and the orc warrior stats and the elf sniper stats to fill in for the generic ones.

 

[aco175]

I wonder if there is something tied to the online DDBeyond accounts. Maybe there is a npc statblock and you drag the race type onto it to produce a new statblock to use.

 

[Weiley31]

Please tell me hobgoblins are still horrid. Let me have it that gnolls are the CE you can 100% punch in the face and hobgoblins are the LE equivalent

Well, 5E Gnolls still are horrific demon fiend monsters. They've been that way since the start of 5E. And from a number of posts on here, that never changed.

Hobgoblins can still, far as I'm aware of as I barely hear anything about it, be Lawful evil conquerors or Klingon Samurai/Ninja.

The ONLY new addition with Hobgoblins is the fact now you are getting ones with more Fey blood in em.

 

[Chaltab]

Ok. I assumed being able to put 2 and 2 together. Also duergars are in the MM 2014. Now Duergars are straight out. No monster entry. No abilities. No guidelines at all. So duergars stopped existing in 2024 D&D. Same for deep gnomes.

I mean Monsters of the Multiverse isn't legacy content. That's where all the good Duergar statblocks are anyway.