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TheThan
2006-11-14, 03:50 PM
Orelf

Long ago a cabal of insane wizards sought to improve upon many of the existing races. While most of their experiments ended in macabre failures. They did have a few amazing successes. One of which is the creation of the Orelf.
These wizards magically crossed Elves and orcs to create the Orelf. These beings came out with a race of physically strong and quick servants. The wizards saw them as being excellent slave material. The cabal soon pressed their creations into service in building towers, dungeons and other such structures.
One particular Orelf show to be significantly more intelligent than the others. One of the wizards found him and took him as a “pet” and began teaching him, eventually this Orelf learned how to read and dived into old stories about powerful magicians and honorable heroes. Eventually this Orelf came to realize the truth of his enslavement and lead a revolt against their masters. They succeeded in overthrowing their oppressors and made their escape into the wilderness. The leader of the rebellion took with him some of the old books in his former master’s library.
Using the knowledge they gleaned from the texts they were able to their own civilization.
Personality
Many Orelf come across as dull and sullen. This is partly to do with their past as slaves. But also because of their half breed nature.
But many more come off as loud and unruly. Which is either an attempt to hid their social awkwardness, or a basic misunderstanding of the situation.
Orelfs favor the outdoors; they tend to use outdoor analogies and outdoor symbolism in their normal speech. Through extended contact with rangers they tend to fancy themselves as great hunters and warriors. They have no qualms with boasting and often exaggerate their exploits.
Orelf are fiercely independent and truly enjoy the freedom they have. Their social awkwardness has given them a reputation as rude and insular.
They are often viewed in a negative light by most beings especially elves who look upon them as a blight unto the world and an insult to true elves. Orcs also look down upon them for similar reasons. Most people from more civilized areas see Orelf the same way they see regular orcs. They treat them no differently than regular orcs. While people who live near Orelf villages realized this is not the case.
They despise slavery in all its forms and are known to attack and even murder slave owners.
Physical description
Tall and lean, half orcs are the fantastic physical specimens. They have thick corded muscles and fit physiques. They are well known for their formidable strength and quick reflexes, and pride themselves upon it.
Most Orelf have olive skin, though lighter and darker shades are not uncommon. A Orelf have a strong green tint to their skin.
They have a strongly pronounced jaw-line and a pair of small fangs that produce out of their lower jaw. They possess dark and beady eyes and usually have large flat noses. Their hair comes in as many colors as elves do, although its usually thick and knotted. Women tend to decorate their hair with beads.
They usually wear tanned hide, skins and furs as clothing. They fashion leggings for the men and simple dresses for women. Though the more adventurous women wear leggings either under their dresses or they fashion some kind of appropriate top. They prefer home made moccasins over just about any other kind of footwear. Most men prefer simple leather tunics to just about anything.
A Orelf’s life span is about half as long as an elf. They reach maturity at about the same time as humans do. Orelf are fully capable of breeding with other Orelf. It is possible but unlikely that a half orc can propagate with orcs and elves too, but this is an unlikely occurrence at best.
Alignment
Orelfs love personal freedom, hence they tend toward chaos. But their hatred of slavery and inequality brings them into a good alignment.
Relations
Orelfs get along with very few races. As a result they tend to be loners and rarely open up with others. Some from life long friendships with particular individuals but they otherwise try to stay way from others.

Religion:
Orelfs have developed a strong worship of natural spirits as a result, spirit shamans are not uncommon among Orelf adventurers, and are quite visible in Orelf comminutes.
Lands:
Orelfs live on the fringe of civilization, where they won’t be bothered. Since most races have shunned them, they have little choice but to carve their own territories out of the wilderness. Naturally this brings them into confrontation with other wild human and Demi-humans as well as all manner of monstrous humanoids.


Orelf Racial traits


+2 strength, +2 Dexterity, -2 Constitution, -2 charisma. ( Orelfs are strong and quick but lack the hardiness of their orc ancestors and the social graces of their elf lineage)
Medium: As Medium creatures, Orelfs have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.
Orelfs base land speed is 30 feet.
+2 racial saving throw bonus against enchantment spells or effects.
Darkvision out to 60 feet.
+2 racial bonus on Listen, Search, and Spot checks.
Automatic Languages: Common, Elven and orc.
Favored Class: ranger
Level adjustment: ???


I’m interested in what people think. I copy and pasted a lot of this out of something I wrote up for half orcs, but I vetoed that, so there might be a few things I missed that might need editing. However I felt it would fit well with these guys so used it. I’m not sure if I like the name I gave them, if you haven’t guessed it’s a cross between “orc” and “elf”. If you have any better ideas feel free to make a suggestion. I’m not sure if they warrant a level adjustment or not. Your thoughts?

MagFlare
2006-11-14, 07:14 PM
I don't think any level adjustment is necessary. While a STR bonus is considered (by Wizards of the Coast, at least) twice as valuable as a bonus to any other stat, I think it's adequately offset by the CON penalty.

Regardless, the flavor is pretty good. The hatred of slavery makes them more than just a fusion of the elf and half-orc races.

averagejoe
2006-11-14, 07:48 PM
Mmmm... I'm a little bothered by the stat adjustments, but con is probably important enough to whatever roll they're filling as to balance it out. I'd maybe soften up the more "minor" abilities, just for that reason. Maybe increase the cha penalty.

The writer in me finds "orelf" to be a bit uninspired, and the linguist in me finds it akward. Note that "orlef" sounds almost the same, but as a word it's much less akward. "Florc" also has a (somewhat) nice sound to it. Perhaps you could stray away entirely from mixtures of "elf" and "orc." Perhaps "orclings", "high orcs", or "mud elves."

TheThan
2006-11-14, 07:59 PM
Yeah, the name is a bit unenspired. I'll probably think up somthing else or smash keys on my keyboard untill i find somthing that looks like a real word.
edit
Ultimately we're looking at total of a +0 bonus to abilites. if you add them up...

twerk_face
2006-11-14, 08:10 PM
Mmmm... I'm a little bothered by the stat adjustments, but con is probably important enough to whatever roll they're filling as to balance it out. I'd maybe soften up the more "minor" abilities, just for that reason. Maybe increase the cha penalty.

The writer in me finds "orelf" to be a bit uninspired, and the linguist in me finds it akward. Note that "orlef" sounds almost the same, but as a word it's much less akward. "Florc" also has a (somewhat) nice sound to it. Perhaps you could stray away entirely from mixtures of "elf" and "orc." Perhaps "orclings", "high orcs", or "mud elves."

i like mud elf : )

Coffee_Cream
2006-11-16, 05:14 AM
I like this alot actually, i dont think its really in need of a LA and if you were to give it one you would need to up the power of it a little or no one would ever pick it. Nice simple idea though that works well.

Khantalas
2006-11-16, 06:56 AM
Yeah, the name is a bit unenspired. I'll probably think up somthing else or smash keys on my keyboard untill i find somthing that looks like a real word.
edit
Ultimately we're looking at total of a +0 bonus to abilites. if you add them up...

Well, total of +0 bonus is not always balanced. For example, my gnomes have +2 Int and -2 Cha, instead of the usual modifications (2nd Edition, anyone?). Unfortunately, since Cha checks or skills rarely come into play with Wizards, anyone who wanted to play one would have been gnome. Despite their magic alignment being lower than that of aelfans. (Most aelfans had +2 Dex, +2 Wis, -2 Con)

I don't think it's in need of LA, because Con penalty is important no matter what you play. Though I suck at balancing things.

BlueWizard
2006-11-16, 07:38 AM
Yah! For the mix, but ugly!

Jarl
2006-11-18, 08:55 PM
Try finding an old word associated with elves or orcs (or, more likely, goblins).
F'rinstance, in my homebrew half elves are called Tamlin, named after a character in an old Scottish ballad.

-Other suggestions: Seek out Pratchett books, specifically Lords and Ladies. He crams so many Elf myths into it, you can just reach in and yank out a whole mythology and concept for any elf variant, it's not even funny.

Beta
2006-11-19, 04:18 PM
Also, is the name given to them by made up by there enslavers, or by themselfs? The cabal wizards would've come up with something short and degrading, like "Mudlings" or some fancy translation for slave or servant, while they would've named themself something with a wink to words like freedom or escape, or perhaps anything in that context, like sunfolk, woodroamers or plainstriders.

personally, I like Mud elf as well, or Fair Orc :smallsmile:

TheThan
2006-11-20, 07:12 PM
thanks for all the insight into nameing these guys. I've been a bit busy here and haven't had the time to sit down and come up with somthing I like.

Ing
2006-11-20, 10:36 PM
some name sugestions

Oberons (after the king of the sometimes goblin like Celtic Elves)
Erls (After the germanic Earl King)
Pukkas, Puks, (after Puck)
Hobelves (hob refereing to demonic or monsterous and elf cause of duh)
Olves: diffrent mix of the term
Dusk Elves
Higher Orcs

Altair_the_Vexed
2006-11-23, 06:01 AM
I've played one of these - an individual result of an orcish raid on an elven settlement. Between the DM and I, we decided there was a Con bonus and a Cha penalty, darkvision, and the bonuses to Spot, Listen, spells saves etc as the OP has listed. The OP's stats may be better, but I'm not sure about the Str bonus and Con penalty - it feels like you might be able to throw both of those out... just a suggestion.

Anyway, my main point to make is the reaction of other races. The reaction of elves ran from disgust and violent revulsion to pity. My character had very early on learned to avoid elves at all costs, or to hide his nature.
Humans and halflings were incredulous, and just acted like the character was another half-orc.
Dwarves sometimes laughed at him, and sometimes were openly hostile.
In short, he was hated and demonised, or at best pitied and patronised. I played him as a Chaotic Evil character who strove to do good - but was just
incapable at times: he might cold-bloodedly kill a person to take a powerful weapon from them so that he might be better equipped to fight evil, for example.
Orcs found his kind useful, less obviously orcish than half-orcs - but they still despised the weakness of the elven blood.
Half-orc-humans are the only race a half-orc-elf could hope to have.

Of course, this character was based on a mating result, not a foul genetic splicing - but I think the reactions might be similar.

Magi_Ring_O
2006-11-25, 02:41 PM
Am I the first one to think of doing somthing along these lines for abilities?
+1 dex
+2 str
-1 con,
-2 int, cha

Would a half-elf, half-orc actually be smarter than a half-human, half-orc? I would expect it to be less dexterous than a true elf.

Gyrfalcon
2006-11-25, 03:30 PM
At least in 3rd edition, WoTC tends to shy away from +1/-1 modifiers, so people tend to follow suite. This is possible because it leads to an imbalance - let's say the NPC has all stats set to 10. +1 to one stat brings it to 11, but provides no beneficial modifier bonus. -1 to one stat brings it to 9, and a -1 to all actions that use that stat.

Otherwise, I tend to agree this is pretty balanced - varient races beyond the half-orc show that WoTC doesn't care quite as much about strength as they did at first - I believe the wood elf is +2 Str, +2 Dex, -2 Con, -2 Int if I remember right.

Triaxx
2006-11-25, 07:37 PM
My unfortunate thought on the name is: Elc's.

TheThan
2006-11-26, 12:57 AM
Sorry about not keeping up with this thread as much as I should, you know the holidays and all…

Anyway, I like Oberons the most, most of the other names sound like something that already exist:
Olves sounds like olives to me, Erls sound like plural for the name Earl, Elc's sounds like Elks to me, and so forth. The others don’t really fit what I imagine these guys to be like.

Gryndle
2006-11-26, 10:38 AM
This is an interesting concept, which I will likely steal.

As far as naming goes, I think waht the rest of the world would likely call them would be, "Abominations."

As for waht they'd call themselves, who knows. They might not even have enough of a racial/social/cultural identity to have a name for their kind.

Triaxx
2006-11-26, 10:48 AM
It was intended to sound like it. It could be a rather funny nickname, in a 'Who's on first.' style scenario.

averagejoe
2006-11-27, 03:49 PM
Anyway, I like Oberons the most, most of the other names sound like something that already exist:

Oberon is the king of the faries. I don't know whether he was fetured in actual myth, but he was in Shakespear. And Gargoyles.

Yakk
2006-11-27, 04:25 PM
1/2 Orc: +2 Strength, -2 Intelligence, -2 Charisma.
Elf: +2 Dexterity, -2 Constitution

So +2 str +2 dex -2 con -2 int -2 cha would be the sum of their stats.

Colorblind: Can see in red and green only.
Low-light vision
+1 racial bonus against enchantment spells or effects
Arcane Nature: +1 spell power for arcane spells (partially makes up for -2 on int/cha)
30 base speed
+1 racial bonus on listen, search and spot checks
Favored Class: ?

John Longarrow
2006-11-28, 07:33 PM
For an interesting name, how about Ghulam (Singular Ghilman)?

IIUC, Its a Persian word for slave.

Cybren
2006-11-28, 07:43 PM
If they can only see in red and green call them christmas orcs

TheThan
2006-11-29, 06:23 PM
Wait a minute, who said they could only see in red and green?

Yakk
2006-11-29, 08:10 PM
The red and green idea was an attempt to balance'm. Darksight is colourblind, and orcs are blinded by bright light -- so giving them some kind of visual imparement makes some sense.

Takayama
2006-12-07, 07:20 PM
Yeah, but red and green make up pretty much everything anyways, besides, elves have better than normal vision so it could make up for the orcs lack of vision. But yeah, i like em, Finally a balanced half race.
EDIT
I looked at this further and realized something.

you wouldnt be using half orc or half elf stats because they don't come from 2 half breeds. that would make a 1/2 human 1/4 elf 1/4 orc abomination

Yakk used a half orc and an elf but that still would not be right cause it would still have human blood. its an honest mistake though

I would personally give +1 STR, +2 DEX -2 INT and -2 CHA for attributes. they could still be divine casters because that goes off wisdom and they would make great rangers and whatnots but this way you dont have half orc half elves being a wizard.
give them low light vision and +1 to search, spot, and listen checks and the +2 to enchantment spells and effects

Chavik
2007-02-14, 02:24 PM
Nicely done... it would make a good fodder race to set PCs up against or possibly with... *yoinked*