"Alternate" half orc backstories.

[Aeolius]

22) Galley-Oh-Hoop-Hoop (more info on the GOHH here )

 

[prosfilaes]

"Depending on the world" is saying something on the matter.

All I'm saying is that if it's never asked and never comes up during the game, the default shouldn't be "rape", if we want to broaden up the scope, but rather "unlikely couple got together".

If it doesn't come up in the game, then it doesn't matter. Why do we need a default at all, especially one that doesn't depend on the world?

 

[kenobi65]

I've always hated the phrase "women and children" and would prefer to hear about "children and elderly" or at least "mothers and children" implying the non combatant females are pregnant or nursing at the time.

Fair enough. I'd only note that the group of which I spoke (who'd played together for many years before I joined) was all-male, and definitely had a "guy's-club-no-girls-allowed" vibe to it. Despite it being around 2001 or so at that time, they mostly had attitudes that would have fit in far better in the 1960s or 1970s, when it came to that sort of thing.

The first thing I did to rock their world when I joined was to play a butt-kicking female PC (none of them would even *consider* doing something like that).

 

[orsal]

One possibility for half-races that I think is underused in D&D is that of a metis society. Several generations ago circumstances brought together populations of two different races; the result is that a single tribe was formed in which their gene pools mixed. Members of that tribe therefore have the biological characteristics of half-breeds, and may even be recognized as half-breeds in other societies, but not in the context of their own tribe.

 

[SlagMortar]

But could you not imagine a human woman saying, "You know what? He's ugly, he smells, he's unreliable, he's got the interpersonal skills of a well-hefted housebrick, and he's inherently evil... but I really think I can change him!" ?

I believe you've just written the plot of The Simpsons or nearly every family sitcom for the last 10 (20? 30?) years, except maybe for the "inherently evil" part.

 

[haakon1]

For my two half-orc PC's:
-- Orphan raised by a religious order in the capital city. Became a cleric/fighter of a lawful good god, always wanted to be a paladin, but "never had what it took" to get that particular calling.

-- Son of an orc female and an allied human bandit, raised as an orcish infiltrator scout, and master of the orcish martial arts. That is, an assassin in 1e.

In general, I've played half-orcs as being marginalized folk who live in the slums outside the city walls, in their own self-sustaining community. Basically, I play them as a put upon minority. New ones are minted in different scenarios, including the frontier rape idea, and they are generally frowned open in small towns, but in the slums of big cities, they can find hard labor and make a living.

I like the metis idea. That puts into words they way I view them as a self-sustaining community.

It's also interesting that a meti community could act as go-betweens between the two different societies -- if there is trade or a truce between humans and orcs, half-orcs would be the ones to broker it. And if either side needs spies . . .

 

[Piratecat]

To take a real-life example, I would suspect that very few of the interracial children in antebellum South were romantic meetings; I suspect the most common thing was that one partner accepted because it wasn't in their best interest to object.

This board isn't the place to discuss real-life incidents of rape. Please keep discussion on the basis of fantasy, not the real world.

Thank you.

 

[Desdichado]

Maybe I'm unusual, but I always thought the depiction of orcs in 3e was much more brutish and gorilla-like than I imagined. I imagine orcs as being sufficiently different and exotic yet sufficiently similar that theoretically physical attraction across the species isn't so hard to imagine.

More like greenish and tusked Neanderthals, I guess. Klaus' default orc and half-orc artwork is pretty close to what I pictured too.

 

[S'mon]

I guess it's because my vision of 'orc' is irrevocably the pig-headed guy in the 1e Monster Manual that I have trouble envisioning romantic attraction to the critters.

BTW slightly OT, the 1983 movie Deathstalker has a warrior orc (not referred to as such, but the spitting image of the 1e orc) who takes part in an evil wizard's tournament and attempts to rape a captive princess.

 

[Desdichado]

I guess it's because my vision of 'orc' is irrevocably the pig-headed guy in the 1e Monster Manual that I have trouble envisioning romantic attraction to the critters.

My vision of orcs came from Tolkien and (perhaps not surprisingly) I think Peter Jackson's outfit came a lot closer than Erol Otis, or whomever it was who did the old 1e MM illustration. I always kinda ignored the 'pig-headed' description.

So; imagine Jackons LotR orcs, give them a little variety beyond merely slavering barbarian horde for culture, and you have a race that potentially could have some very handsome devils and exotic beautiful sirens. And when you've got slavering barbarian horde human cultures, you don't even need to give the orcs variety; they can think they're sexy already.