Orc
Orcs are savage raiders and pillagers with stooped postures, low foreheads, and piggish faces with prominent lower canines that resemble tusks.
The One-Eyed God
Orcs worship Gruumsh, the mightiest of the orc deities and their creator. The orcs believe that in ancient days, the gods gathered to divide the world among their followers. When Gruumsh claimed the mountains, he learned that they had been taken by the dwarves. He laid claim to the forests, but those had been settled by the elves. Each place that Gruumsh wanted had already been claimed. The other gods laughed at Gruumsh, but he responded with a furious bellow. Grasping his mighty spear, he laid waste to the mountains, set the forests aflame, and carved great furrows in the fields. Such was the role of the orcs, he proclaimed, to take and destroy all that the other races would deny them. To this day, the orcs wage and endless war on humans, elves, dwarves, and other folk.
Tribes like Plagues
Orcs gather in tribes that exert their dominance and satisfy their bloodlust by plundering villages, devouring or driving off roaming hers, and slaying any humanoids that stand against them. After savaging a settlement, orcs pick it clean of wealth and items usable in their own lands. They set the remains of villages and camps ablaze, then retreat whence they came, their bloodlust satisfied.
Leadership and Might
Orc tribes are mostly patriarchal, flaunting such vivid or grotesque titles as Many-Arrows, Screaming Eye, and Elf Ripper. There are instances where female orcs have risen to lead their tribes with as much ferocity and strength as their male counterparts, if not more. Occasionally, a powerful war chief unites scattered orc tribes into a single rampaging horde, which runs roughshod over other orc tribes and humanoid settlements from a position of overwhelming strength.
Strength and power are the greatest of orcish virtues, and orcs embrace all manner of might creatures in their tribes. Rejecting notions of racial purity, they proudly welcome ogres, trolls, half-orcs, and orogs into their ranks. As well, orcs respect and fear the size and power of evil giants, and often serve them as guards and soldiers.
Orc War Chief
The war chief of an orc tribe is its strongest and most cunning member. The reign of a war chief lasts only as long as it commands the fear and respect of other tribe members, whose bloodlust must be regularly satisfied lest the chief appear weak.
Scions of Slaughter
Gruumsh bestows special blessings upon war chiefs who prove themselves in battle time and again, imbuing them with slivers of his savagery. A war chief so blessed finds that his weapons cut deeper into his enemies, allowing him to inflict more carnage.
Orc Eye of Gruumsh
When an orc slays an elf in Gruumsh's name and offers the corpse of its foe as a sacrifice to the god of slaughter, an aspect of the god might appear. This aspect demands an additional sacrifice: one of the orc's eyes, symbolizing the loss Gruumsh suffered at the hands of his greatest enemy, Corellon Larethian.
If the orc plucks out one of its eyes, Gruumsh might grant the orc spellcasting ability and special favor, along with the right to call itself an Eye of Gruumsh. When not using their auguries to advise their war chiefs, these savage devotees of the god of slaughter hurl themselves into battle, their weapons stained with blood.
Orog
Orogs are orcs blessed with a surprisingly keen intellect that ordinary orcs believe is a gift from the orc goddess Luthic. Like Luthic, orogs prefer to live underground, although the scarcity of food often brings them to the surface to hunt. Orcs respect and orog's strength and cunning, and a long orog might command an orc war band.
Stronger and Smarter
An orog uses its strength to bully other orcs and its intelligence to surprise enemies on the battlefield. Many an overconfident elf, human, or dwarf commander has watched a "simple" orc warlord execute a clever maneuver to outflank and destroy an opposing force, not realizing the orc is an orog.
When encountered in great numbers, orogs form their own detachments within much larger orc hordes, and they are always at the forefront of any attacj, relying on their superior strength and tactical insight to overcome anything that stands in their way.
Few orc tribes actively seek out orogs to bolster their ranks. The orogs' superiority makes them ideal leaders, and thus deadly rivals to orc war chiefs, who must be wary of orog treachery.
Detached Killers
Wanting nothing more than to hack their enemies to pieces, orogs are a terrifying presence on the battlefield. They form no attachments, even to their parents and siblings, and have no concept of love or dedication. They worship the orc pantheon of gods - Gruumsh foremost - because they believe that the gods have strength beyond reason, and physical might is all they respect.
Servants of Darkness
Mistrusted by orcs, some orogs for independent mercenary war bands that sell themselves to the highest bidder. As long as they are rewarded, orog mercenaries gladly serve as elite warriors and shock troops for evil wizards, depraved giants, and other villians.
Basic Information
Genetics and Reproduction
Orc Crossbreeds
Luthic, the orc goddess of fertility and wife of Gruumsh, demands that orcs procreate often and indiscriminately so that orc hordes swell generation after generation. The orcs' drive to reproduce runs stronger than any other humanoid race, and they readily crossbreed with other races. When an orc procreates with a non-orc humanoid of similar size and stature (such as a human or dwarf), the resulting child is either an orc or a half-orc. When an orc produces young with an ogre, the child is a half-ogre of intimidating strength and brutish features called an ogrillon.
Ecology and Habitats
Ranging Scavengers
Their lust for slaughter demands that orcs dwell always within striking distance of new targets. As such, they seldom settle permanently, instead converting ruins, cavern complexes, and defeated foes' villages into fortified camps and strongholds. Orcs build only for defense, making no innovation or improvement to their lairs beyond mounting the severed body parts of their victims on spiked stockade walls or pike jutting up from moats and trenches.
When an existing territory is depleted of food, an orc tribe divides into roving bands that scout for choice hunting grounds. When each party returns, it brings back trophies and news of targets ripe for attack, the richest of which is chosen. The tribe then sets out en masse to carve a bloody path to its new territory.
On rare occasions, a tribe's leader chooses to hold onto a particularly defensible lair for decades. The orcs of such a tribe must range far across the countryside to sate their appetites. Such is the case for the stronghold of Khogheg in northern Ogresh, where a mighty stone fortress is constantly fortified and expanded as a symbol of orc ferocity and superiority.
Civilization and Culture
Naming Traditions
Interspecies Relations and Assumptions
Orcs hold a particular hatred for elves. The elven god Corellon Larethian half-blinded Gruumsh with a blow of his sword to the orc god's eye. Since then, the orcs have taken particular joy in slaughtering elves. Turning his injury into a baleful gift, Gruumsh grants divine might to any champion who willingly plucks out one of its eyes in his honor.
RPG Datasheet
Your orc character has the following racial traits.
Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 2, your Constitution score increases by 1, and your intelligence score is reduced by 2.
Age. Orcs reach adulthood at age 12 and live up to 50 years.
Alignment. Orcs are vicious raiders, who believe that the world should be theirs. They also respect strength above all else and believe the strong must bully the weak to ensure that weakness does not spread like a disease. They are usually chaotic evil.
Size. Orcs are usually over 6 feet tall and weigh between 230 and 280 pounds. Your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Aggressive. As a bonus action, you can move up to your speed toward an enemy of your choice that you can see or hear. You must end this move closer to the enemy than you started.
Menacing. You are trained in the Intimidation skill.
Powerful Build. You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Orc.
He worked his serrated long knife savagely, tearing out the King's throat to the howls of approval from his legions. The ferocious orc didn't stop there, digging and ripping the blade back and forth unrelentingly until he took the head off the dwarf King's shoulders.
Genetic Descendants
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