Orcs: How Important Are They?

[GreatLemur]

What other ways can orcs develop their own sense of identity?

In the game I'm running now, the closest thing to orcs are a type of degenerate humans called (by various sources), raveners, hungrymen, eaters, or broken clan. They actually owe a lot more to Cthulhu mythos ghouls and the "Sense and Antisense" episode of Millennium, though: They're not the creation of some Tolkienesque dark god, but a natural mode of humanity activated by deprivation, exposure to brutality, and--most importantly--cannibalism. They crop up among the survivors of especially long and destructive wars; people who've had to live like animals, who've had civilization beaten out of them, can start to change physically, to better survive their new conditions. Their fingerbones extend through the skin to become claws, their senses become sharper (and carrion of all sorts starts to smell appetizing), their bodies reshape to accomodate both bipedal and quadrupedal movement, and the external cartilage of their noses and ears atrophy (just 'cause I want 'em to look ugly).

They're a hell of a lot more animalistic than orcs, really, and therefore a lot less dangerous. These guys aren't packing falchions and studded leather, they're bare-ass naked and throwing rocks (and possibly excrement) at you. They're very much a goblin-level cannon-fodder enemy.

However, assuming that their living conditions don't change, the second generation of raveners is even more bestial and dangerous than the first, being born for savagery, rather than just retrofitted. On the other hand, if a pack of raveners actually manages to find a decent food supply and live in safety for a while, they'll start birthing completely normal human infants (who are sure to have an interesting childhood).

A couple nights ago, my players tore through a whole pack of these things, including the extremely pregnant one. I'd actually come up with a Heal check DC to safely cut the maybe-human-maybe-not infant out of its mother's corpse, but unfortunately I hadn't gotten a chance to even tell the party that the thing could be human . . . so the Cloisetered Cleric of the patron saint of birth, death, and midwives promptly knifed the mother in the belly after coup de gracing her (which wasn't out of character, really, midwives often serving as abortionists and all). Fortunately (for my entertainment, anyway), the Druid had the morbid curiosity to dissect the thing a little, so she got to see that the creature's offspring would have been completely normal . . . and decided not to tell anybody about it.

 

[Particle_Man]

The other thing you can do is keep building up these rumours of orcs building up on the borders, the dangers of orcs, etc., and wherever the PCs go, they find evidence of something that has killed all the orcs they come across.

Then you introduce the *real* nasties.

 

[Moggthegob]

As my name suggests I am more of a goblinoid guy, but orcs are still very cool. I like what theeberron campaign settign has done with orcs and goblins giving them a place where they are not necessarily,(in fact the orcs(gatekeepers) are largely the good guys of the setting,which is interesting considering how evil most people are)