Monster Campaign? How about Orcs?

[NekoJoker]

I have been reading the Exemplars of Evil supplement and suddenly became really interested in the villain Zargath Human-Bane. As a matter of fact I do not really like him as a villain as much as I like him as a potential hero to the Orcish race. You see, I like the idea of an Orc Hero, no more of an Orc conqueror that leads his people on a crusading campaign against the other races. (of course the PCs would be orcs as well)

So I am looking for more detailed information about orc ecology and environment. But not a lot of luck so far, there seems to be no "Races of the (whatever)" that deal with the greenskins. The monster manuals do not provide much information either.

So i Ask you playground for a little help, is there a Dungeon or Dragon magazine that may give me some more information on the Orc Race?

I can always rework the hobgoblins if need be (those appearing on the MM5 are quite cool) but i would like to have some "cannon" material to work with.

Ok, so I'll say again what ths whole thing was about:
-Do you know of any official splatbook that can provie me with any information about the Orc Race?
-Is there any Dungeon or Dragon magazine that carries any information about the Greenskins?

Any help will be appreciated. Thanks Playgrounders.

[LOTRfan]

I know that Dragon Magazine had a few " At War" articles. You can see if they ever published "Orcs at War." [I]Classic Monsters, Revisited dedicated five pages to Orckind, their outlooks, and their culture.

If you're okay with 4e articles, Wizards published "Creature Incarnations: Orcs," which had a wide variety of orc variants that could probably be reconstructed in 3.5e using different classes and prestige classes. The fluff was rather interesting too, if I recall. Not as interesting as the fluff in Class Monsters, Revisited though.

[CRtwenty]

Races of Destiny has a section on Half-Orcs, that gives a bit of information regarding Orcish norms and culture. Races of Faerun gives some insight into the Orcs of the Forgotten Realms and their various subspecies (Gray Orcs are probably the most interesting here, since their fluff is very different from the regular Orcs)

FR also has an entire Orcish Pantheon which is easily compatible with other settings, since Gruumsh is the main Orc god in both Core 3.5 and FR.

I'm glad to see others are taking up the Orc banner. That BBEG in Exemplars inspired me enough that I created an entire sub nation of Orcs in my game that has managed to become Lawful and create a functioning LE society. (Based heavily on non-Orc slavery of course :p)

[blelliot]

Its a 3.0 third party book, but The Slayer's Guide to Orcs from mongoose publishing is something I use quite a bit, along with many other slayers guide books.

[NekoJoker]

Excellent.

Most Excellent!

With this I have all the information I needed. Thank you very much. It is very appreciated.

[Blackhawk748]

Kingdoms of Kalamar has Fury in the Wastelands the Orcs of Tellene, now i need to warn you that orcs arnet as big of a deal in KoK as other settings and i havnet read the book, but hey its an entire book dedicated to orcs.

Edit: also remember that you will probably find the 3.0 one, im not sure if it was one of the books that got updated to 3.5 so some finagling of their stats would probably be a good idea.

[Toy Killer]

"Orc" in common D&D usage is practically as universal as troll. The number of different ways and cultures you can portray Orcs is incredibly varied as long as they have Greenskin and a warrior mentality, with a slight bent on violence.

Might I recommend filling in the campaign plot loosely, letting your players fill out their unique Orcs and picking from their back stories to fill in your culture?

For instance: Jane loves the idea of playing a monster race, and she decides she wants to play a rogue. To justify the premise of being sneaky and resourceful, she says her Orc was the only known captive to escape the Buldereen Dwarf Prison camp. She wants her character to be ostracized for not taking a more direct approach to her methods of accomplishing things, and feels bad for not being able to save others who were stuck in 'The Traditional Mindset' for Orcs. You should love it when people provide their own quest lines! And she set the pace for Orcs not liking to be sneaky and subtle.

Tom, However, wants to be a Barbarian; not to surprising, Tom's never been great at making new ideas. He says his Character went through a brutal trial of tests and basically infant bootcamp, left on his own for months in the freezing mountains, returning with the pelt of a dire wolf to everyone's shock and awe. That's a rip-off of 300! Obviously at that. But, as long as it doesn't derail everyone's story, it will pass... but this is the kind of player to 'Help' with his back story, if he can't or doesn't want to make up his own story.

Dwayne, the classic Lit. major, wants a ranger who is starting to open his eyes to the hypocrisies to the Orcish ways of life. He presents a 20 page back story, in Courier, Single spaced and follows a classic hero cycle. He talks about the crazy shaman that lived out in the wilderness who predicted he would be a great warrior who brought his people to the light of a new era for their kind. His back story has Meat to it, a real weight of insight that makes you connect to the player he wants to be, but he specifically mentions that he was not of a warrior caste and learned his way by necessity of being out and hunting on his own.

Now you have conflict. Jane doesn't conflict with Tom's story, because her character was imprisoned, and she doesn't give any mention for or against the baby bootcamp mentioned by Tom. Either she did go through it, or she didn't. Her character is neutral to it. Tom didn't mention anything besides this bootcamp, so if you take it out, you essentially rip out his backstory. Dwayne specifically states he didn't do any warrior training and that he was just skilled with a bow because he practiced it often, implying it was a choice to go through this bootcamp if both characters are to be taken literally, but knowing where tom pulled his story from, you know it wasn't a choice. So, you can't give way to one or the other, they both conflict with orc society. Tom doesn't want to create anything unique, and Dwayne put a lot of work into his, who do you side on? This is when you step back and find a way to make both their stories work together weather they like it or not.

Maybe, Tom came from a different tribe where it was required, but Dwayne's doesn't. Or Tom is part of the warrior caste where it was required, but Dwayne is not of the warrior caste. Find the similarities and iron out the wrinkles from there, not the other way around.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Toy Killer
So, you can't give way to one or the other, they both conflict with orc society.... Maybe, Tom came from a different tribe where it was required, but Dwayne's doesn't. Or Tom is part of the warrior caste where it was required, but Dwayne is not of the warrior caste.

I agree completely with the approach of different tribes and/or castes. I've never been too impressed with notions of "dwarven society," "elven society," or any other approach that treats an entire race as culturally homogeneous--despite those races being spread across the length and breadth of continents.

You can almost get away with it for elves, given their extremely long lives; but for a race as short-lived and volatile as orcs, I'd expect them to have as much regional diversity as humans, with a variety of social structures in different settings and circumstances.

In my first 3.5 game, I was pretty much Dwayne--to an eerie extent, actually. I wrote some hefty background on a half-orc ranger who had seen the shallow limits of his tribe's perspective on the world, and who went in search of something more. Along the way I developed some fairly detailed cultures for a variety of orc tribes, some of which had radically different customs and attitudes from the typical, bog-standard "orc." I was drawing on my coursework in anthropology, and ended up having a lot of fun with it. My DM was suitably impressed.

[Grayson01]

Try out Son's of Gruumsh that might have some stuff to help you out.

[Toy Killer]

I agree completely with the approach of different tribes and/or castes. I've never been too impressed with notions of "dwarven society," "elven society," or any other approach that treats an entire race as culturally homogeneous--despite those races being spread across the length and breadth of continents.

You can almost get away with it for elves, given their extremely long lives; but for a race as short-lived and volatile as orcs, I'd expect them to have as much regional diversity as humans, with a variety of social structures in different settings and circumstances.

In my first 3.5 game, I was pretty much Dwayne--to an eerie extent, actually. I wrote some hefty background on a half-orc ranger who had seen the shallow limits of his tribe's perspective on the world, and who went in search of something more. Along the way I developed some fairly detailed cultures for a variety of orc tribes, some of which had radically different customs and attitudes from the typical, bog-standard "orc." I was drawing on my coursework in anthropology, and ended up having a lot of fun with it. My DM was suitably impressed.

Nice! Over my years of experience, I've noticed trends in players that many have pointed out in a wide variety of analogies. It's kinda eerie to plunk in such similar conditions given the narrow breadth of chance.

I think it's easy for DM's (Being the ones who have to hold cards away from the players) get caught up in the fact that they are controlling the game rather then playing the game with their players. In doing so, it gets easy to do things like create entire cultures or concepts for a huge mythos, only to find the players have no room to participate. I think that's what railroading really is, feeling as though your world around you can't flex for what you thought you were providing within the story and on the forums, I hear so many horror stories of people dealing with problematic DM's and players, it's nice to hear about a positive reaction to a good contribution.