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Message: <blockquote data-quote="steeldragons" data-source="post: 6407214" data-attributes="member: 92511">Orcs were not always the creatures you know today. In their original state, they were pig/swine headed evil soldiers. They were human-sized, sunlight sensitive, armored soldier guys to work off of the smaller, less organized or advanced Goblins...yet not quite as tough and organized as Hobgoblins (D&D's original Uruk-hai who were not sensitive to sunlight). Also, as in Tolkien, as others have already said, Orcs were EVIL. It was a part of their nature and fiber. One's alignment was not just applicable to it's society, it was in the creature. Early [pre-3e] editions of D&D were not filled happy-feel-good-exceptions-to-the-rules individuals. As the original D&D playable races were all Human or DEMI-human, PC races were meant to be the 'pretty people." The "folks like us [humans]." The swine-headed orcs were simply too "monstrous" (for lack of a better term) to be a PC race...and were indisputably Evil by their very nature. Not exactly PC "hero" material.   The "Half-orc" was specifically called out as that [I think it was] 10% of half-orc crossbreeds, presumably with human partners, who could possibly pass [disguise themselves] as human in settled lands. They did not have the sun sensitivity and, I submit more important for early D&D, they weren't bestial/didn't have pig snouts. Non-human[ish] stuff was the stuff you fought and killed. So, these Half-orcs were 'human enough" to make into a PC race....and, while there was no such [explicit] thing in those days of racial/preferred classes, the half-orc also gave an automatic pc race [reason] to the 1e assassin class.</blockquote>

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