Player Race - Orc (L-Or-E-Kal-Uh)
La'Orykala; The Children of La'Lorna. Many shorten their name to "Orc", finding the rolling syllables of their language hard to pronounce without practice. The La'Orykala are an amphibious humanoid race, often viewed by their land dwelling cousins as barbarians and criminals. Their culture often lends to their poor image, one where the strong survive and pass on their genes and the weak are destined for their blood lines to die out. The Sea Farers are often viewed as pirates and slavers, while the Land Locked are viewed as barbarians too stupid to survive on the seas; a lesser threat.
Basic Information
Anatomy
Orcs are built similarly to Humans, showcasing their common ancestry. Orcs vary in physical build, but generally have thicker muscles than their human counterparts. Their lower jaws have a lower tooth count than humans due to two larger canine teeth. Their teeth are built stronger due to diet and a unique care regiment. Their ears are shorter than a human's, usually rounded, pointed, or webbed. Many bare gills on the side of their necks and webbing between their fingers and toes. They usually have no hair or thin, dark hair.
Orc eye colors are on the darker spectrum; usually blues, greens, browns, reds, oranges, and grays. Their skin tones tend toward greens, blues, browns, and grays with countershading patterns.
Biological Traits
Gills
Fin like membrane between fingers and toes
Protective membrane for eyes and nostrils
Genetics and Reproduction
Orcs reproduce sexually, the female carrying on average a single offspring for approximately 280 days. Orcs give birth to live young, which is assigned the sex of male or female at birth based on the genitalia. The most recorded children born to a orc woman in a single pregnancy is six.
Growth Rate & Stages
Orcs experience few distinct growth stages:
Infant Infants range from birth to one year old. During this period human offspring are vulnerable and communicate through basic cries. They are completely reliant on their parents and other adults for survival. Gills are present if child will have them. Protective membrane for eyes and nostrils functional as automatic reflex.
Toddler Toddlers range from one to three years old. Toddlers are still vulnerable, but are becoming more mobile and vocal. They are still reliant on parents and those around them for survival, but are beginning to learn crucial skills as well as growing into their bodies more. Gills are more consciously controlled when in the water. Membrane begins to develop between fingers and toes if child will have them.
Child Children range from three to ten years old. They are becoming more independent and gradually becoming individuals with their own likes and personalities. They are learning to communicate and contribute to the household. Control over protective eye and nostril membranes is learned.
Adolescence Adolescence ranges from ten to sixteen years old. They are capable of near complete independence and have their own individuality at this point. They are beginning to reach their developmental crux and soon considered adults. Biological traits are given a first evaluation for reproductive worthiness. Sterilization of certain trait bearing individuals occurs.
Adult Adults range from 16 to death. Final evaluation of reproductive worthiness is performed. Middle age is reached at 35. Old age is reached at 50. Venerable age is reached at 70. As age progresses, hair color is lost, skin elasticity and durability is lost, hair thins, muscle mass may be lost, etc.
Ecology and Habitats
Orcs thrive primarily in and on the water. Their evolutionary paths favored sea life due to evolutionary pressures. Over time, orcs shifted to adapting to life on land, giving them an amphibious lifestyle. They primarily live in seaside towns or under water cities, depending on their individual bodily structure. Regardless of where they settled, most find home on ships sailing the seas.
Despite being able to survive in water and on land, they find deserts and arid lands to be extremely difficult to survive on.
Dietary Needs and Habits
Orcs are omnivorous, eating both animal and plant. Their primary diet consists of fish, shellfish, and plant life from the sea. Orcs store their food by drying and preserving them in salt. They will trade for inland delicacies, though will not go out of their way for it. Most orcs have a biological intolerance to red meats and do not value it as anything more than an odd treat that they'd regret later.
Biological Cycle
As time goes by, orcs grow in height. Between the ages of ten and sixteen they begin to develop their sexual characteristics, though they are not as pronounced as their human cousins. They reach peak height at sixteen or seventeen years.
Additional Information
Uses, Products & Exploitation
Orc's teeth are constantly regrowing when broken or lost. They take advantage of this to use their fangs in creating personalized weaponry, such as arrows, shield spikes, etc.
Average Intelligence
Though often portrayed as stupid and barbaric, Orcs posses an average intelligence on par with humans.
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
Orcs have a lower range of hearing, from 25 decibels to 20,000 decibels. Orcs see color within the visible light spectrum. Orcs are often born with an innate ability to sense magic, often attuned to water and air. Orcs have stronger visual capabilities than their human counterparts, seeing well in low light and in the dark.
Civilization and Culture
Beauty Ideals
Long fangs in orc males and wide hips in females are seen as highly attractive and desirable.
Gender Ideals
Men and women share the societal burdens equally, except parenthood. Any orcs can be parents, though with whom they are paired depends on the traits in their bloodlines.
Mothers are almost revered in Orc culture and pampered. Once they have their children, they are given a year to recover, then get pregnant again. Mothers rarely have anything to do with child rearing, focused more on birthing.
Fathers are given all the support they need to raise the children they take into their care after they are born. Fathers often raise children that are not biologically their own.
Courtship Ideals
Courting is primarily achieved through a matchmaker reviewing the genetic lineage of each eligible individual and pair them based on previous matings and offspring.
For those not courting for the purpose of reproducing, courting can be as simple as spending time together and bonding. Many males chosen to be fathers will form paternal groups and bond romantically.
Relationship Ideals
Relationships among Orcs are simplistic in nature. There is no solid concept of marriage and relationships are often polyamorous. This can be attributed to their bloodline centric reproductive and alloparenting practices. Courting is fairly unrestrictive, so long as societal rules are observed. While many males are given approval for breeding, there is a limited number of females approved, based upon hip size and torso length to minimize health risks.
Homosexual couplings are the more dominant pairings in Orcish society. Males who have taken on a role as a father often end up in relationships with other men or non-breeding women. These groupings are often built more out of love than convenience and contribute to better raised children. It is rare to see a breeding woman to be in a relationship outside of her citadel. Usually, they will take to same sex relationships with fellow mothers or develop loving relationships their attendants.
Among the working class, it is not uncommon for romantic relationships to form between ship mates or clan mates.
Average Technological Level
Orc technology revolves around ship building and sailing. The best ships on the sea are built by orc minds and hands. They have developed methods to navigate and sail the oceans, as well as Oryk Fire, the equivalant of Greek Fire in real life.
Common Etiquette Rules
Discussing the state of one's fangs is considered a taboo among Orc society. It is rude to bring attention to breaks and cracks, similar to pointing out acne on a human. It is merely a Faux Pass. Typical response is physical retribution from the offended party.
Common Dress Code
When among non Orc settlements, the bear minimum of dress is human standards. When on their own territory, thin garments made of shark skin or Seaspider silk, which does not inhibit their ability to swim. Orcs often wear their swim garments, which are often dull colored, under their land clothes. Orcs favor bright colors as well as easily shed jewelry.
Common Taboos
Due to the careful and meticulous care put into tracking orc bloodlines, it is taboo for an orc to have relations with another orc that is related by blood within five generations. It is considered bad luck, evident by recorded abnormalities in offspring from previous inbreeding experimentation. Breaking this taboo is punishable by being shipped out of the village to another to separate the pair.
Exile is seen as good as death to the Orcs, as they are forbidden from entering the water ever again, punishable by the wrath of La'Lorna.
Women who have not been designated for breeding getting pregnant and/or giving birth by choice or accident is forbidden. Often, mother and child will be exiled for this infraction.
Men who force themselves upon a woman are castrated and exiled. It is a grievous offense to their culture.
Murder and execution are highly frowned upon. Murderers are exiled, criminals are rarely put to death.
History
Orcs are the third oldest sapient species on the planet. When the Dragon War broke out, La'Lorna took it upon herself to save as many of the human species as she could. She appeared to the wild tribes and offered them a gift to live safely beneath the waves. Those who accepted were blessed with the ability to breathe underwater, manipulate the water around them, and thrive with the promise to one day return to the land. Those who denied her blessings had these gifts forced upon them, condemning them to life beneath the waves for eternity.
During their time beneath the sea, Orcs lived with their merfolk brethren. They created underwater villages that expanded into thriving cities. Time passed, Orcs began to reclaim their ability to live above the waves through selective breeding. Human seaside dwellings became targets. Captured villages and cities became fuel for the Orc's seafaring advances. They began to take weaker civilizations as slaves, putting them to work to build bigger and bigger ships.
Before long, the Orc Navy was tested by the combined efforts of Elf and Dwarf to retrieve those in servitude. The war cut short once Magmus swept the land, their burning forms destroying the land and poisoning the sea. Orcs agreed to a cease fire to drive the Magmus back to their calderon, then returned to their own territories with a grudging agreement to halt their seizures.
Orcs continue to live on both land and sea, the underwater kingdoms now nestled in the hands of the merfolk. They have found their place in the world with other races, though some pirates still hold fast to the old ideas of the strong conquering the weak.
Interspecies Relations and Assumptions
Orcs view other species as inferior, enslaved to the lands. As such, they embrace an air of superiority in most cases. Landlocked Orcs have been humbled by their exile and are more likely to fit in within the rest of land dwelling species. Half Orcs are often born of Landlocked Orcs mating with cousin species or the rare Sea Faring Orc falling in love with an Elf or Human on their ship.
Genetic Ancestor(s)
Lifespan
60-70 years
Conservation Status
Orcs are an offshoot of the humans La'Lorna took under her wing during the events of the Dragon War. They were willingly changed to survive the deeps of her domain to a lesser degree than their Merfolk cousins. Over time, they began to evolve to an amphibious state. To ensure the species remains amphibious, breeding is carefully selective with extensive family tree tracking to ensure orcs who are not Land Locked keep passing on their aquatic traits.
Average Height
5'4'' - 6'9''
Average Weight
160lb female, 200 lb male
Average Physique
Orcs posses a thicker and more muscular build than their human counterparts, owed to their work on ships as well as their aquatic lifestyles.
Related Ethnicities
Comments