Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cor Azer" data-source="post: 5562342" data-attributes="member: 870">The one time I really changed the backstory for orcs, I used something akin to the Uruk-hai method (I think it was Uruk-hai) - Orcs weren't brought into the world by gods, they were created by several evil sorcerors would used the corrupted bodies of dead and living elves.The massive breeding pits were manned by captive dwarf slaves in the deeper recesses of the wild, and for a long time, the world thought they were just a rumor. The breeding pits could work faster than their womb-born foes, and so an eventual swarming was always a possibility.This set up a few things - it still allowed the natural enmity of elves and dwarves towards the orcs; half-orcs could work because half-elves could work; no "orc children" to muddy moral dilemma; and the orcs got an interesting internal civil war-ish thing when some of the orcs became non-sterile outside of the breeding pits - "truebirth" orcs vs "pitbred" orcs.I also tacked on a few other things - since they had only came into being a few years earlier than the campaign began, they weren't called "orcs". The PCs were the first to encounter them, and called them "bhenbiir" - an elven name translating as "ugly men". I also had the "truebirth" orcs become more lawful evil, civilized, and even establish a sort of knighthood, while the "pitbred" orcs remained more savage and rampantly destructive.</blockquote>