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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yora" data-source="post: 8831248" data-attributes="member: 6670763">Okay. Let's see what we actually have as exiting information:It really is very simplistic and one-dimensional. This is gonna take some real work.What I see is that the history of the orcs is directly tied to the history of the dwarves. The dwarves and orcs have been fighting for thousands of years. And the dwarves know they have lost. In this version of the realms, the only two remaining dwarven cities in the North are Adbar and Ironmaster. Other dwarves live in various human cities like Mirabar and Sunabar, and there's hint of small secret dwarf holds scattered through the mountains that are too small and insignificant to get individual descriptions or marked on the maps.It is stated in several places that many of the major orc strongholds are old dwarven cities that they conquered, and there is even one case of orcs running a mithril mine and selling to an evil wizard.The idea of seasonal migration is actually quite interesting. The orcs live in underground dwarven cities in the mountains, but raid villages of both barbarians and the civilized peoples in the valleys. Which they probably do in the summer. This already implies that orcs spend the winter underground in their caves in the mountains and then travel considerable distances south once the snow in the mountain passes melts.But who is actually participating in that seasonal migration? The raiders. That would be an explanation for why there is never any mention of women and children. They would be staying in the cities in the mountains during the summer while some of them men are out on campaign to raid. We really only do see a subset of the orc population in the human lands. Orc society could be a lot more complex in the mountain cities, but that would still be entirely in line with the information established about the interactions of orcs with humans and dwarves. It wouldn't make the raiding any less evil, but there could be more going on than mindless killing machines.Parallels with viking raids immediately come to mind. "From the fury of the Northmen, O Lord, deliver us." Or the Huns. "The Scourge of God." Raiding warriors being seen by their opponents and demons in human guise does have plenty of precedent.What are they doing with all the plunder anyway? Maybe Brug the Orc has a wife back at home who complains that she has nothing fancy to wear?</blockquote>

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