When is a group of marauding orcs, not just a group of...

[Tilla the Hun (work)]

Wotc had an interesting idea with an orcish bard - it's in the NPC's under DnD.

I've run orcs in several different ways. Just recently, I ran the standard orc raiding tribe encounter for my group - only thing was, the orcs had been training owl bears from birth... It proved to be quite a surprise when the party was nearly out of resources to have these two great lumbering beasts waddle up to them

However, it's also the first time in my campaign that they've encountered hostile orcs. What they don't realize is that the next tribe they encounter will have been fueding with another tribe and is actually a chaotic good group of orcs.


As far as unique ideas for encounters:

1) Ogres that are attacking a farm house... Because the half-orc farmer man is highly attractive to the ogress leading the attack (she's half in-love with him) and is getting beaten nearly to death by his human wife.

2) A single Ogre-Mage was raised by an elven druid/sorc and has decided that a life of good is for her. She approaches the party for help, but is pursued/preceded by several evil Ogres looking for her, as well as her mentor, looking to apprentice her intio druidism.

3) A group of goblins near a small town have been approached by disciples of an appropriate deity - they have cast off their evil trappings and embraced a monastic lifestyle. After two generations, they no longer recall their evil roots, and are lawful nuetral. The town is startled when goblin monks come walking in trade, and runs them out of town. Townspeople beg the party to 'rid' them of the goblin nuisance...

4) Add unexpected classes to monsters buried amongst their kin. Bugbears with levels in Rogue and Ranger are startling to most parties. Add in a bugbear druid, and make it an assassin team...

5) Advance a humanoid monster (orc or ogre) by the advancement rules in the PHB until it's one size category larger. Make it the leader of a group of similar humanoids. Enage with the smaller ones first, then with the big one when the party starts wearing down.

6) Create two such groups, each led by a larger representative, and make them competing groups. The party tips the balance of power, and the two groups try to get the party to side with them.

Need more?

 

[Chasmodai]

Well, I didn't think this one up, but I suppose its worth noting.

The party I was in was a motley crew of adventurers (LN fighter, NG rogue/bard, TN illusionist [yes, a gnome], NG druid and CN ranger [myself]).

We were awoken in the middle of the night by sounds of horses hooves pounding, and something bellowing. My character, being elven, was on watch at the time and his keen elven eyes (I got lucky - rolled a 20 for Spot), managed to catch a glimpse of a very... unusual sight.

A band of humans on horseback was chasing what looked to be an adolescent stone giant, firing at it, hounding it down. (It might be useful to note, right about now, that my character had Favored Enemy: Giants.) Therefore, he sat back down to watch the spectacle.

Unfortunately, the rogue/bard (also the party leader), managed to see this going on. He realized that the humans were slavers and were attempting to capture this giant for slave labor. He called on the rest of the party and bade them charge forth to smite the slavers.

My character could only gape in horror. (He is an elf from the Vesve Forest - one of those xenophobic types - and he hated Giants to the core.)

So while the party rushed forth to kill the slavers, my character sat by the fire, looking depressed. I got flack for it later, though I roleplayed it as if the rest of the party were in the wrong. Made for some very nice tension for a while.

Sweet.

 

[d4]

i once had a tribe of orcs and ogres allied to a red dragon. the tribe lived in the dragon's lair and protected its treasure while it was out flying around.

the tribe had quite a few orcs with class levels, mainly ranger and fighter. the tribe's rangers had trained a bunch of hawks to use as messengers and spotters. the leaders of the tribe were an orc cleric/wizard, a high-level orc fighter, and a half-dragon ogre barbarian.

luckily for the PCs, the dragon wasn't around when they assaulted the tribe's lair. however, they earned its enmity after it returned and found its followers slaughtered...

 

[Dunjin]

I have an interesting situation brewing, I think. A small village pays an annual tithe to a white dragon whom they believe (thanks to a long-lived custom) brings them a short winter in return. The PCs come to find out that things aren't exactly as they seem.

A tribe of kobolds has been perpetuating this belief because they find that having this treasure appear in a lump sum once a year is preferable to actually raiding the village. The leader of the kobolds is a draconic kobold with silver dragon blood who, while getting up there in age, still manages to keep a leash on his increasingly docile tribe. Basically, rather than staging bloody raids, the kobolds prey on the beliefs of the humans.

Once a year, the village sends up a cart full of treasure of all kinds and leave it there overnight. That night, a dragon appears and the treasure disappears, leaving behind a stone tablet with a single draconic word on it. That word has always been "ACCEPTABLE", but this year it reads, "MORE."

The dragon is an illusion cast by the kobold tribe's adept. The kobolds take away the treasure and live off it for the year. Meanwhile, there are no dragon attacks, and winter doesn't last all that long in the area, considering that the village is in the foot hills of a large mountain range.

This year, though, the kobolds have been beset by a gang of bugbears who've caught on to their plan, and the goblinoids are demanding "protection money" from them. The kobolds can't pay this and survive on the treasure, so they either have to ask for more or begin to conduct raids that will no doubt end in their destruction.

The twist? There is actually a dragon in the mountains, a white dragon who couldn't care less about the piddly gold offering of a small village of humans. The dragon has a deal with the large nearby city of Geniir, which provides her with slaves and other food in return for her pledge not to destroy the city.

Anyway, that's a twist on the old "dragon ransom," "thieving kobolds," and "city in peril" plots, I think.

 

[Tonguez]

IMC Merrow (including a few Merrow-Magi) are generally NG-NE and act as guardians to 'their islands' - some as Tyrants demanding sacrifice, some as benevolent protectors.

Now imagine a situation wherein the PCs attack the monster only to have all the human locals come to the monsters aid!

 

[babomb]

Click the link in my sig. (Blatant plug)

 

[mythusmage]

My orcs are humans. With a bit of wolf. It has to do with the kikihehj and their method of 'converting' other sophonts into kikihehj. And with immune systems that proved to be better than the kikihehj expected.

So picture folks who look human until you get a closer look. The orcs of Ki look like people with a touch of wolf. In addition, their behavior is very wolf-life. They form packs, only the alpha pair breed, and they are territorial, though the last can take different forms.

Most are pastoralists, herding sheep and cattle. A few are agriculturalists, the crops they grow going to feed the herds they live off of.

The most advanced sociologically are the Unicorn Orcs. Their base social unit is the pack. Packs come together into bands, bands into tribes, tribes into nations, and the five nations into the Confederacy. They control an area of around 2 million square miles known as the Unicorn Plains, traveling with their herds and trading with the human towns and villages that dot the waterways of the plains. With the exception of scattered villages the rest of Ki's orcs live in packs on marginal land and wilderness. Unlike the Unicorn orcs they can't seem to get organized enough to form bands, much less tribes and nations. As most any Ki orc will tell you, the Unicorn Orcs weren't orcs to begin with, but humans from another world cursed because of a great betrayal on their part. Which explains a lot about them.

Halflings, on the other hand, are bonobos with a touch of human. All things considered most of Ki's inhabitants would sooner deal with an orc than with a halfling. It's not that Ki halflings are mean or anything like that, it's just that they're so distractable.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

A situation from a game I ran back in the early '80s...

On the way to a new area of the frontier the party encountered a lone orc walking along the road.
Unarmed.
Not trying to hide.
Just ambling along, not a care in the world.

So they killed him, chopped his head off, and carried it into town.

Of course it turned out that the local baron had a peace treaty with the orcs, there was a speedy trial and all the PCs were hanged for murder. (My favorite scene was the orc widow explaining to her young son that 'daddy isn't coming home dear...')

So the baron got to show the orcs that he would stand by the agreement with no cost to his locals, and he split the party's possessions with the tribe, a happy ending for all except the murderous adventurers, who got what they deserved.

Had they thought to find out why the orc was so brazenly going about his business things would have gone far differently...

The Auld Grump