Have We Seen Half-Orcs Yet?

[dmccoy1693]

"Orcs as Klingons", though? That sounds pretty good to me.

I've never thought of orcs as having a "warrior code." In the homebrew that rests in my mind, orcs were once a graceful and peaceful etheral race until the war between the titans (that appears to be in just about every single campaign world) where the etheral race titan died and drove the its created beings mad. Orcs are the end result of that madness.

 

[sckeener]

Indeed.

Getting lost in the Wikipedia is bad enough, but now you show me a wiki full of media tropes?! I'm never gonna get anything productive done again! Curse you, Nifft!

agreed! site was quickly bookmarked! Thanks Nifft even though you cost me some time.

Sterling

 

[Wormwood]

I've never thought of orcs as having a "warrior code." In the homebrew that rests in my mind, orcs were once a graceful and peaceful etheral race until the war between the titans (that appears to be in just about every single campaign world) where the etheral race titan died and drove the its created beings mad. Orcs are the end result of that madness.

Honestly, that's one of the reasons I love Orcs so much---they are essentially a blank canvas.

"Savage humanoids" is broad enough a concept to encompass everything from your twisted madmen to my boar-faced Vikings, from Reynard's engineered super-soldiers to Eberron's Ur-Druids, from John Wick's Orkworld to Blizzard's Horde.

 

[The Ubbergeek]

It may be cliché, but halfbreeds are still cool in the fluff, roleplaying sense, they bring opportunities...

Not every half-elves is born of love, nor every half-orcs born of hate. Why shouldn't they be viable as pc options?

On a related note.... I considers for a future somewhat videogame-anime-influenced (but still potentialy quite dark) campaign to have two cultures or groups of orcs - 'greys', the LOTR-esque dark destroyers, and 'greens', WoW/Eberron-inspired, more neutral and all than ravagers. maybe one group descended from the others - the greens from 'blessed' ones, 'freed' from Gruumsh, or maybe the greys as 'corrupted' orcs by gruumsh, dunno.

 

[WhatGravitas]

Yep, although in the original series, they were a lot more sneaky, Evil Empire style enemies. The whole violent, honor-obsessed stuff didn't really start to set in until novels well after the original series, as I recall.

The reason for that was also partially, that the Romulans stole the Evil Empire role from the Klingons and took their stuff.

For the record: No qualms to see the Half-Orc gone. The new "horny" tiefling seems to fill the partially-humanoid race from EVIL LAND pretty well. And half-orcs... Why get the half, if you can get full? Just put some racial info on orcs into the MM.

Cheers, LT.

 

[The Ubbergeek]

The reason for that was also partially, that the Romulans stole the Evil Empire role from the Klingons and took their stuff.

For the record: No qualms to see the Half-Orc gone. The new "horny" tiefling seems to fill the partially-humanoid race from EVIL LAND pretty well. And half-orcs... Why get the half, if you can get full? Just put some racial info on orcs into the MM.

Cheers, LT.

You forget the fact that they are HALF-orcs. Which bring the roleplaying factor of someone bertween two worlds.

 

[GSHamster]

See Eberron and pretty much any other setting that makes the orc a PC race. I find it an interesting comment on the human condition that the surest way to make a vioolent, brutal, and/or stupid group acceptable is to slap on a "warrior's code" -- the Pope did it with knights (armored thugs), the emperor did it with the Samurai in medieval Japan, we do it now with the American Indian and Vikings, and D&D does it with orcs, gnolls and any other humanoid group.

I thought Eberron orcs were the first druids, who fought and sealed away a lot of the bad guys before the humans and elves came over.

That seemed to be an interesting aspect for the orcs, I thought.

 

[Mad Mac]

The new "horny" tiefling seems to fill the partially-humanoid race from EVIL LAND pretty well.

They'd be a good replacement for the 1st edition "creepy assassin" race. But the 3rd edition Half-Orc also had a sort of Savage Brute (Which could be turned into the Noble Savage, the Dumb Fighter, or other related concepts) flavor that you don't get from the other PHB races. Tieflings seem to be more...urban and magical, for lack of a better way to put it. All dark rituals and poisoned daggers as opposed to greataxes and animal companions.

 

[GreatLemur]

Unless I'm missing one, I believe we've heard seven races discussed and all but confirmed for the PH1: Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, Half-Elf, Tiefling, and Eladrin. We're also mostly convinced there'll be eight classes: Fighter, Rogue, Ranger, Warlord, Cleric, Paladin, Wizard, and Warlock. This makes me think the Half-Orc might not be completely out of the running yet, since an equal number of races and classes would let them cover both with eight iconic characters quite elegantly. (Anyone care to make guesses on which combinations we'll see? No points for guessing "Tiefling Warlock".)

I love me some half-orcs, but I'd cheerfully see them vanish in favor of actual orcs in the PHB.

Yeah, no kidding. The whole "Orcs can't be PCs because they'd be killed on sight in any civilized town!" bit always struck me as absurd in the extreme.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

On a related note.... I considers for a future somewhat videogame-anime-influenced (but still potentialy quite dark) campaign to have two cultures or groups of orcs - 'greys', the LOTR-esque dark destroyers, and 'greens', WoW/Eberron-inspired, more neutral and all than ravagers. maybe one group descended from the others - the greens from 'blessed' ones, 'freed' from Gruumsh, or maybe the greys as 'corrupted' orcs by gruumsh, dunno.

Ptolus actually has three races of orcs. In addition to the eeeeevil and noble savage varieties, there's also a creepy smaller one that practices necromancy and evil magics.