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View Full Version : What would an Orc Farm look like?



stenver
2016-03-18, 08:29 PM
So my players are tripping around the frozen north in orcish lands. Their next destination is something which so far has been described to them as "A typical Orcish Farming village". They were surprised that orcs farm at all, so far seeing them only as very nomadic super brutal race that mostly hunts and raids for food, slaves and just because thats the only thing they can do.

So what would "a typical orcish farming village" in frozen north look like in your opinion?

Strigon
2016-03-18, 08:39 PM
Well, it probably wouldn't be farming in the traditional sense.
I imagine orcs wouldn't have the patience for things like trees or cows; they might breed a small, quickly reproducing and maturing species like rabbits. If they figured out selective breeding, you might end up with horrifying-looking, oversized, fat rabbits (or rodents of some description.)

They'd also most likely raise war beasts, because they're orcs.

It would probably be even less sanitary than most farming villages for the time, mostly focused on meats, and (I'm imagining) each farmer selling a different product, and each claiming theirs to be the best.

AtlasSniperman
2016-03-18, 09:06 PM
Mostly hairy boars and probably berry shrubs, as they won't need much watering and can produce food quickly for feeding the animals.

Beowulf DW
2016-03-18, 09:10 PM
I imagine an Orc farm would look very much like an arena. It would have to be very well built to withstand a barrage of fireballs as the wizard incinerates those XP packages and-Oh. Oh wait. I'm so sorry, I thought you meant...Well.:smalltongue:

2D8HP
2016-03-18, 09:11 PM
In a sort of inverted homage to Tolkien, have the farming Orcs resemble Dark Age Icelanders/Scandanavians,since it's how there were perceived by the Franks and Anglo Saxons! The Orcs the players already encountered being the ones who "went a-Viking!
You could have the Orcs have a honor based law courts and elaborate rules of outlawery (see "Mythic Iceland" or "Runequest Vikings", or a library history book for ideas). But be sure to include some property or other disputes settled by duels!
Or make it an "independent Anarcho-Syndical collective like in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" ("See the player character repressing me! That's what the warmlanders bring!). Oh man I want to play this!

Templarkommando
2016-03-18, 09:12 PM
Pigs of some kind seem likely. Wild boars of run crazy in the south in the U.S.... they basically feed themselves. They're not as tasty as domestically raised pigs because they eat all sorts of crazy things, but they are really easy to take care of, and they don't have a lot in the way of natural predators.

RedSand
2016-03-18, 09:13 PM
You could have the orcs inhabit some kind of fantastical natural garden-a place with an unusual abundance of berries, small wildlife, edible roots, etc. that they overzealously and violently protect.

Mando Knight
2016-03-18, 09:22 PM
They could be nomadic, raising a flock of animals like sheep or cattle, perhaps traveling between summer and winter grazing lands and raising some crops in one place or the other as well, or settling in one area for a year or two before moving on.

goto124
2016-03-18, 09:25 PM
What's their distance from the sea?

Lord Raziere
2016-03-18, 09:52 PM
depends, whats the orcs diet? you make farms because you want to eat. so what are they making to eat? fi your going stereotypical with meat well....its gonna be lots of pigs, cows, bulls, sheep, deer, though they might not be as picky as us and raise any kind of meat to be slaughtered and eaten. otherwise its just a normal farm with different cultural traditions and decoration man, unless they can't eat certain things but can eat certain other things....

BootStrapTommy
2016-03-18, 09:53 PM
A bunch of angry orcs violently tilling the ground...

OldTrees1
2016-03-18, 10:05 PM
Orcs tend to be pushed into less fertile lands. So their farms, when farming is possible, have to deal with rocky soil low on nutrients. They would probably focus on crops that can grow in those environments (ask someone more knowledgeable than I to identify poor soil crops). Crops that need little to no maintenance would also be more appropriate.

However given the size of orc populations, one would assume they need farming of some sort. The large population & poor land can easily explain the desire to invade other lands.

2D8HP
2016-03-18, 10:06 PM
Contrive a reason for the PC's to protect the villagers from Elvish bandits ala "Seven Samurai".

2D8HP
2016-03-18, 10:13 PM
Have a couple of villagers continual romantically proposition the lowest CHA PC while guessing the PC is the other sex (possibly have the Orcs argue which it is), "Krog bring you flowers" (presents brambles and onions), "Hey good looking, I see a little half-orc in future", "You no talk to handsome/pretty like that!" (slaps other Orc).

2D8HP
2016-03-18, 10:22 PM
Have the Orcs be more technoligically advanced smokestack style ala the Morlocks compared to the Eloi in "The Time Machine".

Gnorman
2016-03-18, 10:56 PM
I think the key modifier here is "Frozen," not necessarily "Orc."

As far as livestock: Boar, caribou, reindeer, and aurochs would be my guess. Large enclosures or allowed to roam free entirely, but guarded by worgs or wolves.

For crops: Cruciferous vegetables, root vegetables, and the allium family tolerate cold the best, and so are the likeliest choices. Cabbages, turnips, potatoes, onions, and the like. Perhaps barley and oats during the summer. As orcs generally prefer meat, these are mostly fed to the livestock.

They might also depend on a diet similar to that of the Inuits - fish, sea-going mammals, and berries. Certainly, the lack of arable land would encourage them to raid the southerly lands.

2D8HP
2016-03-18, 11:11 PM
I think the key modifier here is "Frozen," not necessarily "Orc."

As far as livestock: Boar, caribou, reindeer, and aurochs would be my guess.

They might also depend on a diet similar to that of the Inuits - fish, sea-going mammals, and berries. Certainly, the lack of arable land would encourage them to raid the southerly lands.

Eskimo Orcs! Genius! Maybe similar to the water tribe of "Avatar The last Airbender".Awesome. I want to steal er um "homage" this!

Toofey
2016-03-18, 11:49 PM
An alternative, since it's placed in a frozen area, and orcs are known to be subterranean as well, it could be a large cave used to farm mushrooms close to a surface hunting settlement.

warty goblin
2016-03-18, 11:57 PM
It seems to me that the best fitting form of food production is pastoralism. Humans in Fantasy-Land tend to be pretty strict agriculturalists. Since good farmland is often good pastureland, but animals may be pastured on land that cannot be farmed, this creates a fairly easy to understand rivalry between the two groups. It also, if you're one of those people who are bothered by this sort of thing, explains why the orcs haven't been eradicated. The human kingdoms cannot support themselves on orcish lands. So you don't really have an orcish farming village, you've got an orcish herding village, possibly somewhere where caravan trails cross, or at the ford of a major river or something. Then you just need to choose your favorite herdable animal, and you're good. Reindeer are a sensible choice for the north

As a bonus, then you get to connect up to Ibn Khaldun's theory of history; which goes something like this. City living is comfortable, so people want to live in cities. However cities tend to undermine both martial skills and the sort of tight tribal/communal bonds - a concept Khaldun called "aṣabiyyah" - that make for really first rate armies and motivated societies. So you have group A in a city, and group B living a semi-nomadic life out in the hills somewhere, running goats. Then group B gets a really charismatic and effective leader who unites the assorted bands. The united group B, possessing both a strong collective spirit, and the really top-notch military skills that group A has neglected, beats the crap out of group A and takes over the cities. Eventually the cultures become more or less indistinguishable in the cities, and everybody starts getting all decadent, so they in turn get conquered by the hard livin' group C. And so on for all time.

Orcs make a really great group B. Every couple hundred years or so, the humans have gotten soft and start to value things like 'culture' and 'comfort' and 'not dying of puncture wounds.' Your average orc, still running goats on some blasted hellscape of a moor, thinks that if your life goal isn't to die full of holes you're a total wimp who deserves to be vigorously stomped. And he's spent every afternoon since he could walk working on his stomping routine, so he's all rehearsed and ready for a big performance. Eventually the orcs get a leader with a functioning brain, who whips them into shape through sheer force of orcish will. Everyorc celebrates by going on a giant kegger/lootfest and building that most traditional of orc monuments: the Severed Head Pyramid. The final cultural osmosis of Khaldun's theory doesn't necessarily work here, since orcs are not humans, but all you need is some grand alliance of the remaining humans, the elves, and the dwarves to push the orcs back into the hills again. The elves and dwarves, being long lived, understand this pattern perfectly, and so prefer to maintain a nice human buffer zone between their territory and good pasture for orc herds. Takes the edge off of the marauding hordes that show up every coupla centuries, helps keep the kids alive.

Plus, it creates a perfect job for adventurers. The prudent human ruler will have some knowledge of history, and understand the substantial threat posed by the orcs. Ergo orc leader assassination is really a very sound policy, lest the head that wears the crown itself crowns that head pyramid.

TheThan
2016-03-19, 01:09 AM
concept Khaldun called "aṣabiyyah”

Please tell me that’s either a foreign word or one that he made up.

Anyway clearly you guys have forgotten warcraft. In Warcraft I and II they raise pigs in pig Farms just do a google image search and you’ll find plenty of pictures. By warcraft III they evolved into burrows which are one part fortification and one part food production; I have no idea how that actually works though.

AtlasSniperman
2016-03-19, 02:16 AM
Actually, on the idea of feeding their boars/main food. I can see Ocs being one of the first races(compared to time since they staryed agriculture) to use greenhouses, escpecially where cold wind/storms would kill most crops. And given their ability to make at least crude weapons, glass shouldn't be too hard.

goto124
2016-03-19, 02:21 AM
Isn't glass very difficult to make?

Mud shelters though...

AtlasSniperman
2016-03-19, 02:56 AM
Isn't glass very difficult to make?

Mud shelters though...

Coloured glass at least is very common in medieval europe, and if we were to assume that since orcs can make weapons and armour at least of the quality of average human settlements, glass would be possible. Making clear glass might be very difficult but through trial and error, "architectural farmers" may determine a colour of glass that crops grow well under. Smaller pieces of glass would be common, probably green or teal. These could be assembled in a framework not dissimilar to chickenwire, but obviously stronger. An added benefit I can see with this happening is that the light in buildings made from such glass structures would be both useful for crops and diffuse enough to not bother orc light sensitivity. But that's just a train of thought I can see.

goto124
2016-03-19, 03:11 AM
I can't help but imagine the orcs, bring rather strong but clumsy, would keep breaking the glass :smalltongue:

AtlasSniperman
2016-03-19, 04:01 AM
I can't help but imagine the orcs, bring rather strong but clumsy, would keep breaking the glass :smalltongue:

Sorry about almost hijacking thread.

Orcs have +0 Dexterity, making them as clumsy as humans. They aren't super smart, but even given that, they could mangle together glass walls from glass stolen on raids if need be.in addition, glass, especially smaller denser glass can be harder than you'd expect.

As for other farming things; setup along a river known for salmon runs, setting nets out for a couple hours a day to catch fish.
If the rivers/lakes arw frozen, I agree that inuit methods of fishing would make sense.
If your orcs are magically proficient, a daylight spell can make caves good places for growing crops. If not, mushrooms are pretty diverse in dnd worlds and could be farmed in large numbers for a large volume of food.
There are also berry bushes that thrive in the tundra, they can make a reasonable food source if your village isn't near a flowing or iced water source.

Mastikator
2016-03-19, 04:39 AM
http://www.blacklight.net/~reed/warcraft/wallin.gif

Sort of like this?

stenver
2016-03-19, 04:49 AM
Thank you everybody for ideas!

I will not need to go and meditate on all the posts to find out my dream orc farm.

I am currently leaning towards a truly important place for the tribe, since the fact that orcs settled an area is already a significant sign. The farm village is important as this is where on top of food production the weapon production happens. It has a lot of slaves who do the farming work, grow lots of roots, herd animals, create weapons(Orcs wouldnt even know how!). The main thing orcs are farming there are the slaves.

The descriptions you guys offered for structures were great and I am definitely using them.

ericgrau
2016-03-19, 07:06 AM
From what I googled they eat meat and live in settlements much like other races.

I don't see slavery working well without a major cash crop that's simple to produce, but whatever this is a fantasy game. I mean slaves were 1/3 to 1/2 of the population in the old South, so if you only use slaves for food and have to feed them too then it cuts into the yield. Plus the orcs need something to do since they aren't fighting 24/7. Besides slave-masters I suppose there could be butchers and what not. Also works well for switching over during wartime.




Sort of like this?
I like how the player is using the farms to block off and protect the tower. I did that. Because Warcraft soldiers will never walk over farmland without destroying it first. Too polite I guess.

Gnorman
2016-03-19, 09:23 AM
Ah. So it's technically a Human Farm, then.

sktarq
2016-03-19, 10:53 AM
One thing that may define orc agriculture (vs say orc herding cultures) would pulse work schedules. By which I mean some crops need more work/upkeep than other during different parts of the growth cycle. Root vegetables (like sweet potatoes) often require a significant labor investment at planting and harvest but rather little in between.
This allows more farmers in the comunity to focus on the midsummer raiding season, and do so for a longer period. The Musket Wars on New Zealand were in no small part driven by this if you want historical examples.

So year I come up with a similar list of root veggies, goats and pigs (the tending of which may be a training school for young warriors), barley (for its short growing season iconic if "foreign" black bread tendencies and grog potential) with the cabbage/broccoli complex for greens (have fun describing Brussel sprouts with naming as most people don't know how they grow) some nettles for soup, and some thistle relative that grows mustard greens for bitterness.

Also feral hog (the wild roving decendents of escaped pigs that are not wild boar) are to some people far more tasty than their barn raised genetic brothers. An orc would likely share this preference.

Belac93
2016-03-19, 12:50 PM
I would say probably things that do not need much caring, so the orcs are free to do what they want.

Then, the orcs decide to learn to read! They invent the wagon! They write books on everything they know about! From now on, orcs in this campaign setting have +1 intelligence.

noob
2016-03-19, 03:00 PM
Instead of the malus?
Well it fix a great problem with orcs: lack of skill-points.
Lacking skillpoints is not a problem for inhabitants of a civilization since in a civilization everybody is specializing.
It does not gives trouble in farming but having few intelligence obligate higher specialization and thus for orc farms to function you need more orcs but it does not reduce efficiency since the tool-making orc will be working all day for building tools and in fact you end up with a farm where each orc does only one or two things all the day instead of doing a lot of varied tasks.

Gnorman
2016-03-19, 03:12 PM
One thing that may define orc agriculture (vs say orc herding cultures) would pulse work schedules. By which I mean some crops need more work/upkeep than other during different parts of the growth cycle. Root vegetables (like sweet potatoes) often require a significant labor investment at planting and harvest but rather little in between.
This allows more farmers in the comunity to focus on the midsummer raiding season, and do so for a longer period. The Musket Wars on New Zealand were in no small part driven by this if you want historical examples.

So year I come up with a similar list of root veggies, goats and pigs (the tending of which may be a training school for young warriors), barley (for its short growing season iconic if "foreign" black bread tendencies and grog potential) with the cabbage/broccoli complex for greens (have fun describing Brussel sprouts with naming as most people don't know how they grow) some nettles for soup, and some thistle relative that grows mustard greens for bitterness.

Also feral hog (the wild roving decendents of escaped pigs that are not wild boar) are to some people far more tasty than their barn raised genetic brothers. An orc would likely share this preference.

100% on board for orcs eating black bread and drinking rye or barley beer. They'd probably make a lot of hearty pork, mutton, and beef stews, chock full of potatoes, turnips, and carrots.

Given the short growing season, preservative methods would be crucial. Pickling and perhaps smoking (depending on timber supply) would be popular. Maybe not cucumbers, but certainly mushrooms, cabbage, fish, etc. Sausages too. Dairy-based products would also be popular, made from cattle or goats' milk. Cheese, thick cream, butter - Siberia in particular was once the center of a vast butter-producing industry.

Fruits would be a bit rarer, but you'd probably see a lot of berries, apples, currants, cherries, and a good supply of nuts.

Honestly, I'd bet that it would be very similar to a combination of Irish and Russian peasant cuisines. Thick stews and porridges, a form of kvass or low alcohol beer as the primary beverage, lots of hearty black bread slathered in butter and honey, sausages with pickled vegetables, lots of crispy bacon, and the occasional farm slave roasted over an open fire (that last one may not necessarily be a signature dish of Irish or Russian cuisine).

Sign me up, honestly. Except for the cannibalism part.

kraftcheese
2016-03-19, 10:52 PM
Please tell me that’s either a foreign word or one that he made up.
Well I don't think it was a foreign word to him considering he spoke Arabic; I guess whether it's a "foreign word" depends on where you're from.

Fri
2016-03-20, 01:40 AM
Please tell me that’s either a foreign word or one that he made up.

I'm not even sure what you're asking for, but, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asabiyyah