Orcs

Boar-headed Raiders of Shinano

Orcs are savage raiders, slavers, and plunderers. Their stooped postures and wide frames belie a strength and agility rare amongst sapient races, and their considerable prowess in battle coupled with their vast numbers and zealous pursuit of plunder and war, make them among the foremost threats to the safety of the people of Shinano.

Orcs are the most social and organized of the monsters, and tend to go raiding in large groups lead by a warchief. An Orc raiding party can number anywhere from 10 to over 100 orcs, with the only upper limit being how many that an individual warchief can corral to follow him on a raid.
Raiding parties tend to be detached from larger formations of orcs, sometimes called a "tribe". These tribes consist of hundreds, or even thousands of orcs, and anywhere their migrations take them is sure to suffer from their pillaging, and their ravenous need for plunder and battle. Wherever an Orc tribe moves, they take the resources in the area, even burning fields that they may need in the future to feed their strange and inhuman lust for destruction.
Orcs are often on the move, but when they create permanent settlements they do so partially underground, in mountains or in rocky areas. It is unknown why they do this, as they struggle to survive in such environments, but they do not seem to value comfort and ease of living to the same extent that other races (and even other monsters) do.

The origins of the Orcs, like with many monsters, is unknown. Some have speculated that they are spawned from Jigoku, due to their similarities to the club-wielding Oni of legend, while others say that they are the offspring of a boar Kami and a human. Regardless of their origins, once they arrived in Shinano they proved impossible to eradicate, as they breed at a rate that no other sapient race seems capable of.
Unlike most monsters, Orcs are capable of interbreeding with sapient races, lending credence to the theory that they are not, themselves, monstrous. That theory has been unable to answer why they lead the charge during the incursion of monsters into Shinano.

Orcish culture is based around violence, but for orcs violence is not always hostile. Orcish children's games involve a lot of "playful hitting", and a son defeating his father in a duel is a sacred rite of passage. Open handed slaps across the chest is a common sign of affection between allied orcs, and exchanging headbutts is one of the most intimate signals of friendship they have.
While both male and female orcs are formidable warriors, and orcs are not particularly dimorphic as a species, most orcs that join raiding parties are male. It is not entirely known why this is so; some hypothesize that the female orcs stay home to protect the young as well as the tribe's communal loot haul, while others believe that orcish society is patriarchal and female orcs aren't respected as warriors. Still others believe the opposite - that the males need to prove themselves to the females to earn true acceptance into the tribe, and thus the right to breed.

Additional Information

Social Structure

Orcs respect strength, and tend to be easily cowed by those who prove themselves to be strong - and therefore worthy in the eyes of the Orcs. To an Orc, however, strength also equates with cruelty, and one who shows mercy and protects the weak, no matter their prowess in battle, is ridiculed as a weakling himself, and thus unworthy to lead the Orcs. This is not emblematic of a personal love of cruelty - in fact individual orcs have been recorded showing great kindness and mercy on many occasions - but rather of the nature of the Orcish tribe itself, whose organization seems almost designed to enshrine fear as the basis for loyalty.

Average Intelligence

Orcs are not renowned for being intelligent, and are one of the most easily fooled and superstitious breeds of monster in existence. Nevertheless some orcs have shown a shockingly complete grasp of siege engineering and military strategy, and men dread the day when a true genius of the Orcs rises up to lead them.

An Orc warrior

Origin/Ancestry

Unknown

Lifespan

40-60 Years

Average Height

6'5"

Average Weight

340 lbs

Average Physique

Orcs are tall and wide, enormous mountains of fat and muscle. Their strength and durability are rare amongst sapients, and their sense of smell is the equal of even the most bestial races.

An Orc Warlord