D&D 3.5 Orcs: back to Tolkien?

[LoneWolf23]

Been watching my Two Towers DVD, and I suddenly realized, looking at the Battle of Helm's deep: The Uruk-Hai and other Orcs reminded me of recent Orc-depicting art in Wizards of the Coast products.

The most flagrant exemple is the full-page battle illustration on page 125 of The Complete Warrior, showing a horde of orcs rushing a phalanx of dwarves. I couldn't help but note how much those orcs reminded me of the hordes of Helm's Deep's invaders.

And then there's the cover for "The Thousand Orcs"... If that's not a LOTR movie Rip, I don't know what is.

...I can only assume this means Wizards is pushing it's Orcs back to the Tolkien "Dark Hordes of Vicious Minions" Model, rather then the "Green Skinned Badasses" of things like Warhammer and Warcraft...

 

[Tinker Gnome]

...I can only assume this means Wizards is pushing it's Orcs back to the Tolkien "Dark Hordes of Vicious Minions" Model, rather then the "Green Skinned Badasses" of things like Warhammer and Warcraft..

I still play 3.0, so is the Orc art different in the 3.5 MM? I hope they are not moving back to Tolkien, D&D should get as far away from Tolkien and LOTR as possible.

 

[MarauderX]

Hmmm... I guess I prefer the 'green-skinned bad@$$es', and brought back goblins and hobgoblins in relation to the LOTR beasties. Goblins would be the smaller, pesky types and naturally the Uru-kai would be the larger hobgoblin types. Throw in orcs as 'green-skinned bad@$$es' in a separate kingdom/region of the world, and you have all sorts of differences.

One thing I did note when I saw FOTR, Legolas refers to the baddies as goblins when they get to the mines, then calls them orcs right before the crypt battle scene. Strange?

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

In LoTR, the terms "goblin" and "orc" are interchangeable.

 

[Umbran]

And then there's the cover for "The Thousand Orcs"... If that's not a LOTR movie Rip, I don't know what is.

Well, the hardcover edition of "The Tousand Orcs" came out in October of 2002. It takes time to write the novel - meaning that the book was probably concieved before "Fellowship of the Ring" hit the big screen. Can't rip off what hasn't happened yet, you know...

 

[WayneLigon]

Good. I always thought the 'we aren't using Tolkien, see our orcs have huge pig snouts and are green' model was silly and really didn't fool anyone. I've always pictured and depicted orcs in my games as the 'fallen beast man' type, much as they are used in 3.0/3.5.

 

[Imperialus]

In LoTR, the terms "goblin" and "orc" are interchangeable.

IIRC Goblin is Dwarven and Orc is elvish. It is important to realize however that though they are all called Orcs there are numerous castes, sub mutations and other such things that make them vary widely. Gobins had come to mean the orcs that had taken to dwelling underground in places such as Moria and the tunnels Bilbo finds himself in. They evolved to be shorter, more agile and with larger eyes. They are typically found by the Dwarves which is why the dwarven name for Orc is most commonly used. Orcs on the other hand typically dwell above ground in places such as Mordor. They are more commonly encountered by Elves and humans who typically use the elven word though it is often interchanged with dwarven.[/LOTR geek]

 

[Black Omega]

Well, the hardcover edition of "The Tousand Orcs" came out in October of 2002. It takes time to write the novel - meaning that the book was probably concieved before "Fellowship of the Ring" hit the big screen. Can't rip off what hasn't happened yet, you know...

But unless I'm mis understanding he's not saying the novel borrowed from LotR. He's saying the cover did. Typically, the cover for a hardcover won't be done until well after the book is conceived of and usually is pretty far along in being written. Plenty of time for LotR inspiration.

Besides, what's wrong with DnD returning to it's Tolkien roots.

 

[Piratecat]

In LoTR, the terms "goblin" and "orc" are interchangeable.

You sure on that, Rob? In FotR, Gandalf tells Elrond that Saruman is breeding orcs and goblin-men to make uruk-hai. I'm well aware that this doesn't match the books, but I still thought there was a difference.

 

[Desdichado]

IIRC Goblin is Dwarven and Orc is elvish.

You don't remember correctly. Goblin is Latin in derivation and Orc is Anglo-saxon. Tolkien did create an Elvish etymology for orc as a cognate of uruk, but he did nothing of the type for goblin and dwarvish, and never once tried to hint that it was a dwarvish derived name. And, as pointed out earlier, Tolkien does use the terms interchangeably; most notably he uses goblin much more commonly in the hobbit, and only Sam as a character uses that term regularly in the Lord of the Rings. He's on record as saying he didn't really like the use of the word goblin, but he a had already somewhat committed to it, the hobbit being in print and all, so he tried to somewhat retcon by having goblin be an interchangebly word typically used by the common and somewhat uneducated to mean orc, which was the real word. At the end of his life, he regretted not using ork, actually, because the word 'orcish' doesn't quite work.

To me, it's fairly clear that orcs in D&D nowadays are more to represent the Warhammer/Warcraft breed of orc, both from the way the rules treat them and the way they are typically illustrated. However, I'd like a more Tolkienien -- even if it's the movie version -- style of humanoid antagonist. I'm not sure what ruleset would be portray them; you do need at least three varieties, but I'm not entirely sure you need three sets of rules; two would probably do just fine.

And to whomever it was that said D&D should move as far away from Tolkien as possible, I find that comment the most interesting in the thread, given that D&D has pretty much always been a relatively transparent rip-off of Tolkien. If it moves any farther away from Tolkien, it'd hardly be D&D anymore.