Can you feel it?
It is in your bones, rumbling, shaking, a hum almost on the edge of audibility, reverberating through you.
The earth is shaking. This is the trumpet that hails the beginning of the end.
This is no storm, no volcano, no hurricane. No. Nothing so innocent and empty of intent. Nothing so easy to prepare for, so simple to escape. If a storm strikes, you can gather supplies, hunker down in your home, and wait, and pray. But the ground-shakers that come today want to find you, want to expose you, and want to destroy you. What they want is not your money, not your property, not your servitude. This is not a force you can surrender to. The only thing it seeks is your destruction.
Not simple death, but absolute destruction. It wants to obliterate every defense you can erect against it. It will shatter your walls, kill your soldiers, burn your village, despoil your crops, maim your children, kill your spouse, and as you beg it for mercy, slowly break every bone in your body before leaving you to die, terrified and alone, certain in the knowledge that you are helpless. It will take joy from the obliteration of everything that you have put in front of it, that it has brushed aside like cobwebs.
The earth is shaking. The orcs are coming. It is too late to run.
KM’s Orcs
The word I associate the most with orcs is the word that is at the beginning of one of the oldest written works that still survive.
RAGE.
Achilles was driven by this emotion. It caused him to abandon the Greeks and then to obliterate the Trojan army. The paean to the great godling knew something of anger and fury and wrath, and that is that it cannot be controlled, and it will not bend to the will of others. It has its own desires, its own needs, and it insists upon them.
Each orc is as selfish, as mercurial, as powerful as the enraged Achilles. As an antagonist, they are creatures with an eternal chip on their shoulder, a deep and abiding and all-consuming rage, defined by that which they hate.
And that which they hate is everything. Most anger has a cause, a reason it exists, a purpose for it to find and be used for. Most people, when they are angry, are angry at something. Orcs are not. Orcs are angry at everything. Anything. They experience a constant and existential wrath, and they have the strength and endurance to nurse that wrath, to always seek an opportunity to spend it.
Of course, it's never fully spent, not a rage so artfully cultivated and defining. An orc may unleash a whirlwind of gore upon an enemy army and pause for a moment, their body brought to their limit...but after a few moments, the same orc will launch into a fury again. The anger is never quenched, never satiated, no matter how much blood attempts to drown it. When victims fall to it, it simply seeks another outlet. It is forever. It is in the dreams. It is part of the soul.
The rage explains their Chaos, and their Evil. The anger is always personal, always bubbling, not unthinking but spontaneous, and unique to the particular orc. It cannot be controlled or tamed, it exists entirely in the present moment, a powerful agent of change in the time that it flares into existence. They nurture this proclivity, enmesh and marinate themselves in this emotional state. It is a source of power for them. They are not interested in being at peace or at ease – such concepts are fairly alien to them, and even understood, they are unwelcome. Joy and comfort are unknown emotions. Orcs live day to day with jaws clenched, brows furrowed, and muscles clenched, ready to lash out at any offense. It is not that orcs see happiness and pleasure as weak per se, simply that they have little capacity to experience these things, as consumed as they are with a constant fury. There is no pleasure in peace, no happiness in a lack of violence. It is only when great violence is being wrought that an orc approaches an emotion akin to happiness: a great relief, a catharsis that leaves them spent, heaving, and grim for a few moments, before possessing them again. They like wrath. It fees good.
Thus, orcs are barbaric, with crude arts and simple designs. Though the language of their anger is likely quite advanced and multifaceted, the other elements of their society are not strong. Angry even at themselves and others, orc "friendships" largely consist of periods of time laying waste to things in close proximity to each other. Each orc's rage is personal, and so they view the world as independent entities, relying on no other orc or other being for anything. An orc makes his own axe (generally by shoving a rock onto a stick, or even better, by beating a dwarf to a bloody pulp and taking theirs). An orc makes his own clothing (by tearing hides into wearable strips or, even better, by stripping fine clothes off the corpses of those they murder). An orc makes her own shelter (by beating stone and wood and hide into a serviceable shape, or, even better, by camping in the remains of whatever buildings withstood their assault).
Of course, occasionally, swarm-like, orcs come together in a great horde. In fact, this is very swarm-like behavior, each orc simply doing what comes naturally to them, pursuing their rage at their own personal pace, which happens to overlap with the personal pace of several thousand other orcs at the same time. Directionless and leaderless, this could almost be akin to a natural disaster, if natural disasters had an active desire to destroy, kill, and cause suffering, to maximize the pain they would cause.
The cause for this rage may vary with the campaign. In some games, perhaps the orcs have been aggrieved in some ancient divine war or recent conquest. In others, orcs may simply be anger made manifest, creatures of fury born spontaneously in the wilderness out of the anger that people feel for each other, pooling and given form. The biological or magical nature of the creatures is kind of irrelevant. What is important to me is that, in every session with the creatures, their implacable, endless fury is highlighted. That’s what makes orcs orcs to me.
Green Skin and Large Hams
Orcs have a reputation in much fantasy media as being doofy big guys with a sort of jovial, childlike love of destruction. Lured away from the battlefield, an orc becomes a Proud Warrior Race Guy, a Vulcan in hide armor. On the battlefield, the orc becomes an engine of reckless destruction and unthinking, free-wheeling obliteration. Most modern orcs lie somewhere between “Lok’tar” and “more dakka,” occasionally with a sprinkling of light, nascent anticolonialism. We've drifted quite away from the massive armies of nameless but roiling evil that Tolkien gave us.
While these archetypes can be fun in their own way, for me, I think they sort of miss what’s interesting about an orc. A proud warrior race can make an interesting PC, and a complex antagonist, but it’s a little dull at this point, and it’s not enough to get a good feel in-play for the thing. An omnicidal maniac can be hilariously fun, but it’s a little shallow for more than a session or two.
So my orcs focus on being a fantasy antagonist, and on being a threatening menace to be fought and overcome, with a reason to be the aggressors. They aren't made to be sympathetic or righteous. They have a powerful defining trait, and this runs through everything they do.
News You Can Use
Here’s a few ideas, if you’d like to get closer to the orc as presented in this article:
It is in your bones, rumbling, shaking, a hum almost on the edge of audibility, reverberating through you.
The earth is shaking. This is the trumpet that hails the beginning of the end.
This is no storm, no volcano, no hurricane. No. Nothing so innocent and empty of intent. Nothing so easy to prepare for, so simple to escape. If a storm strikes, you can gather supplies, hunker down in your home, and wait, and pray. But the ground-shakers that come today want to find you, want to expose you, and want to destroy you. What they want is not your money, not your property, not your servitude. This is not a force you can surrender to. The only thing it seeks is your destruction.
Not simple death, but absolute destruction. It wants to obliterate every defense you can erect against it. It will shatter your walls, kill your soldiers, burn your village, despoil your crops, maim your children, kill your spouse, and as you beg it for mercy, slowly break every bone in your body before leaving you to die, terrified and alone, certain in the knowledge that you are helpless. It will take joy from the obliteration of everything that you have put in front of it, that it has brushed aside like cobwebs.
The earth is shaking. The orcs are coming. It is too late to run.
KM’s Orcs
The word I associate the most with orcs is the word that is at the beginning of one of the oldest written works that still survive.
RAGE.
Achilles was driven by this emotion. It caused him to abandon the Greeks and then to obliterate the Trojan army. The paean to the great godling knew something of anger and fury and wrath, and that is that it cannot be controlled, and it will not bend to the will of others. It has its own desires, its own needs, and it insists upon them.
Each orc is as selfish, as mercurial, as powerful as the enraged Achilles. As an antagonist, they are creatures with an eternal chip on their shoulder, a deep and abiding and all-consuming rage, defined by that which they hate.
And that which they hate is everything. Most anger has a cause, a reason it exists, a purpose for it to find and be used for. Most people, when they are angry, are angry at something. Orcs are not. Orcs are angry at everything. Anything. They experience a constant and existential wrath, and they have the strength and endurance to nurse that wrath, to always seek an opportunity to spend it.
Of course, it's never fully spent, not a rage so artfully cultivated and defining. An orc may unleash a whirlwind of gore upon an enemy army and pause for a moment, their body brought to their limit...but after a few moments, the same orc will launch into a fury again. The anger is never quenched, never satiated, no matter how much blood attempts to drown it. When victims fall to it, it simply seeks another outlet. It is forever. It is in the dreams. It is part of the soul.
The rage explains their Chaos, and their Evil. The anger is always personal, always bubbling, not unthinking but spontaneous, and unique to the particular orc. It cannot be controlled or tamed, it exists entirely in the present moment, a powerful agent of change in the time that it flares into existence. They nurture this proclivity, enmesh and marinate themselves in this emotional state. It is a source of power for them. They are not interested in being at peace or at ease – such concepts are fairly alien to them, and even understood, they are unwelcome. Joy and comfort are unknown emotions. Orcs live day to day with jaws clenched, brows furrowed, and muscles clenched, ready to lash out at any offense. It is not that orcs see happiness and pleasure as weak per se, simply that they have little capacity to experience these things, as consumed as they are with a constant fury. There is no pleasure in peace, no happiness in a lack of violence. It is only when great violence is being wrought that an orc approaches an emotion akin to happiness: a great relief, a catharsis that leaves them spent, heaving, and grim for a few moments, before possessing them again. They like wrath. It fees good.
Thus, orcs are barbaric, with crude arts and simple designs. Though the language of their anger is likely quite advanced and multifaceted, the other elements of their society are not strong. Angry even at themselves and others, orc "friendships" largely consist of periods of time laying waste to things in close proximity to each other. Each orc's rage is personal, and so they view the world as independent entities, relying on no other orc or other being for anything. An orc makes his own axe (generally by shoving a rock onto a stick, or even better, by beating a dwarf to a bloody pulp and taking theirs). An orc makes his own clothing (by tearing hides into wearable strips or, even better, by stripping fine clothes off the corpses of those they murder). An orc makes her own shelter (by beating stone and wood and hide into a serviceable shape, or, even better, by camping in the remains of whatever buildings withstood their assault).
Of course, occasionally, swarm-like, orcs come together in a great horde. In fact, this is very swarm-like behavior, each orc simply doing what comes naturally to them, pursuing their rage at their own personal pace, which happens to overlap with the personal pace of several thousand other orcs at the same time. Directionless and leaderless, this could almost be akin to a natural disaster, if natural disasters had an active desire to destroy, kill, and cause suffering, to maximize the pain they would cause.
The cause for this rage may vary with the campaign. In some games, perhaps the orcs have been aggrieved in some ancient divine war or recent conquest. In others, orcs may simply be anger made manifest, creatures of fury born spontaneously in the wilderness out of the anger that people feel for each other, pooling and given form. The biological or magical nature of the creatures is kind of irrelevant. What is important to me is that, in every session with the creatures, their implacable, endless fury is highlighted. That’s what makes orcs orcs to me.
Green Skin and Large Hams
Orcs have a reputation in much fantasy media as being doofy big guys with a sort of jovial, childlike love of destruction. Lured away from the battlefield, an orc becomes a Proud Warrior Race Guy, a Vulcan in hide armor. On the battlefield, the orc becomes an engine of reckless destruction and unthinking, free-wheeling obliteration. Most modern orcs lie somewhere between “Lok’tar” and “more dakka,” occasionally with a sprinkling of light, nascent anticolonialism. We've drifted quite away from the massive armies of nameless but roiling evil that Tolkien gave us.
While these archetypes can be fun in their own way, for me, I think they sort of miss what’s interesting about an orc. A proud warrior race can make an interesting PC, and a complex antagonist, but it’s a little dull at this point, and it’s not enough to get a good feel in-play for the thing. An omnicidal maniac can be hilariously fun, but it’s a little shallow for more than a session or two.
So my orcs focus on being a fantasy antagonist, and on being a threatening menace to be fought and overcome, with a reason to be the aggressors. They aren't made to be sympathetic or righteous. They have a powerful defining trait, and this runs through everything they do.
News You Can Use
Here’s a few ideas, if you’d like to get closer to the orc as presented in this article:
- One Corpse Is Never Enough (Ability): After the orc drops a target unconscious, they instantly get another attack with a melee or thrown weapon.
- Break Everything (Strategy): An orc combat can be set in an environment with cover. The orcs may then destroy the cover as it gets used by the party, removing it with a single round's attacks.
- I Only Need To Outrun You (Hook): Orcs will not be made peaceful. The concepts of mutuality and nonviolence are distinctly alien to them. However, they can be persuaded to take out their violence on others. The PC's may be put in a difficult position when they are asked to go to a kingdom on the other side of the orc horde, to weaken it and make it more vulnerable, so that the orcs become attracted to it rather than to the PC's homeland. The orcs must destroy something, the only question is if it'll be something the PC's value, or something some distant NPC's value. Alternately, the party could be from a kingdom that this is happening to, being forced to choose between abandoning a neighbor in need, or taking the hit themselves.
- Orc's Charge (Ability): If the orc charges a character and hits, the character is also knocked prone, and the orc can complete their movement through the square of the prone character.
- Fed By Violence (Ability): In a given group of orcs, the longer a battle rages, the more powerful the creatures become. Each round, the orcs gain +1 to attacks and damage, and heal 5 hp. The longer this goes on, the more difficult the encounter is going to become.
To delight in another thing's suffering is what every predator learns to do to varying degrees (see: cats playing with their prey). Humans have expanded their empathy to include a vast array of other creatures, but I'm not sure this is a necessary component of human(oid) evolution. Orcs, as I see them, adopted the standpoint that every other creature is something that is worthy of tormenting and destroying and rendering helpless, as a child does to an anthill.
