Half-Orcs - Superfluous?

[Ser Loras]

Is it just me, or with the addition of Orcs as playable races through VGtM, are Half-Orcs basically pointless now?

In my mind, the point of Half-Orcs was always to provide an Orc character while fluffing why they may be seen hanging out in civilised places, with the likes of Elves and Men. But now that Orcs are playable too, is there really a need for a distinct Half-Orc race?

Is this just me?

[Unoriginal]

The point of Half-Orcs is not to provide playable Orcs, it's to provide playable Half-Orcs.

The same way that Half-Elves aren't here to provide playable Elves.

Half-Orcs and Orcs are different, both in term of physical and mental traits, in term of how they interact with the world, and in term of game mechanics.

[Chugger]

No Half-Orcs are not superfluids ... they're ... oh wait...er...nevermind.

I've always had trouble with the concept of half orcs, but perhaps we've shifted from the heavily Tolkien influenced early daze of dnd to something different - and maybe I haven't shifted enough.

Tolkien never really said what orcs even are. The movie showed orcs as necromatic creations spawned in yucky vats, so that an army of 10s of thousands could be created in months. They're born with skills and personalities because they're sort of an evil creation of a warped, corrupted being.

There are places where it is suggested, maybe in Silm., that Morgoth corrupted elves into orcs because he couldn't actually create "new" beings and wanted to mock Illuvatar. But what this actually means, the mechanics of it, was never gotten into. Did he corrupt captured elves and turn them into corrupted orcs which then bred new orcs? Or did Morgorth "corrupt" the "concept" of an elf by creating a mocking and corrupted version of one through necromancy or something like it? Tolkien never, iirc, spoke of female orcs or orcs wanting to rape - but that doesn't nec. mean anything - he was toning down such things in general.

Well, what Tolkien said or didn't say may not matter to a lot of us.

A half-orc could be a necro-created being where, say, some fresh human blood and a new encantation were added, making a "uruk-hai" or a "half orc" with enough human influence to be a bit bigger, smarter and less light sensitive than the average old school orc.

Orcs are monsters and are not another race of humans. I can't see humans keeping the half orc products of orc human unions - a medieval society would probably commit infanticide. But if many beings were enslaved and babies were kept to grow up as slave labor - meh - I don't really want to think about it - but I suppose there are many vectors where a half orc as most people think of them could and would exist.

But half ogres - really? Unless magically made that's really getting silly. And I definitely don't want to think about that. Ugh. I'm gonna go take a shower.

[mephnick]

In my mind, the point of Half-Orcs was always to provide an Orc character while fluffing why they may be seen hanging out in civilised places, with the likes of Elves and Men. But now that Orcs are playable too, is there really a need for a distinct Half-Orc race?

I mean.. who says they're playable? I don't allow monstrous races in 90% of my campaigns because no one would allow an Orc or Yuan-ti a mile within city limits. Volo's Guide races are there as options but they definitely shouldn't be expected to be available in every campaign.

[Unoriginal]

No Half-Orcs are not superfluids ... they're ... oh wait...er...nevermind.

I've always had trouble with the concept of half orcs, but perhaps we've shifted from the heavily Tolkien influenced early daze of dnd to something different - and maybe I haven't shifted enough.

Tolkien never really said what orcs even are. The movie showed orcs as necromatic creations spawned in yucky vats, so that an army of 10s of thousands could be created in months. They're born with skills and personalities because they're sort of an evil creation of a warped, corrupted being.

There are places where it is suggested, maybe in Silm., that Morgoth corrupted elves into orcs because he couldn't actually create "new" beings and wanted to mock Illuvatar. But what this actually means, the mechanics of it, was never gotten into. Did he corrupt captured elves and turn them into corrupted orcs which then bred new orcs? Or did Morgorth "corrupt" the "concept" of an elf by creating a mocking and corrupted version of one through necromancy or something like it? Tolkien never, iirc, spoke of female orcs or orcs wanting to rape - but that doesn't nec. mean anything - he was toning down such things in general.

Well, what Tolkien said or didn't say may not matter to a lot of us.

A half-orc could be a necro-created being where, say, some fresh human blood and a new encantation were added, making a "uruk-hai" or a "half orc" with enough human influence to be a bit bigger, smarter and less light sensitive than the average old school orc.


Actually Tolkien gave several explanations for the orcs, but he never managed to come up with one that he liked enough.

Also, while uruk-hai (which means "orc folk) are not half-orcs (uruk-hai is just the name for the bigger kind of orc (they nearly reach human height)), there ARE half-orcs in LotR. They're mentioned among the servants of Saruman, and they're pretty distinctively-looking.



Orcs are monsters and are not another race of humans. I can't see humans keeping the half orc products of orc human unions - a medieval society would probably commit infanticide. But if many beings were enslaved and babies were kept to grow up as slave labor - meh - I don't really want to think about it - but I suppose there are many vectors where a half orc as most people think of them could and would exist.

But half ogres - really? Unless magically made that's really getting silly. And I definitely don't want to think about that. Ugh. I'm gonna go take a shower.

While Orcs are evil and violents, there are plenty of humans that wouldn't mind having kids with them, notably tribes that share the territories Orcs live in and for whom having strong, tough kids is considered important.

[Specter]

Even if Orcs were definitely better than Half-Orcs (which they aren't), that would be just the cost of being ostracized by 99% of civilizations.

[Random Sanity]

I mean.. who says they're playable? I don't allow monstrous races in 90% of my campaigns because no one would allow an Orc or Yuan-ti a mile within city limits. Volo's Guide races are there as options but they definitely shouldn't be expected to be available in every campaign.

There's also the fact that their racials are kinda crap compared to half-orcs.

[Chugger]

Actually Tolkien gave several explanations for the orcs, but he never managed to come up with one that he liked enough.

Also, while uruk-hai (which means "orc folk) are not half-orcs (uruk-hai is just the name for the bigger kind of orc (they nearly reach human height)), there ARE half-orcs in LotR. They're mentioned among the servants of Saruman, and they're pretty distinctively-looking.



While Orcs are evil and violents, there are plenty of humans that wouldn't mind having kids with them, notably tribes that share the territories Orcs live in and for whom having strong, tough kids is considered important.

Well yeah I'm lumping Urukhai in a way I shouldn't and he never said how the half orc came about. Maybe by breeding, maybe not.

I admitted there are situations where half orc offspring would be allowed to exist - but there also would be many where they'd be drowned or left somewhere to die. Think Sparta in our existence (and it's hardly the only place, zillions of babies are killed in China because they're female - it's a horror).

[Chugger]

I'm also not saying I'm married to Tolkien cannon. Don't think I am. And yeah I'm not an expert on it either - I just have a sense of it - I have a life thank you and have dabbled in this - not gotten a master's degree in it.

With that said, there's a lot of wiggle room here <--- that's really all I mean.

If you wanna go a different way, that's fine. Go for it with my blessings. I'm trying to give choice by saying what some interpretations are, right or wrong - I'm not trying to say what you can or can't do in your game. That's wrong and I really try never to do that.

[PeteNutButter]

I agree somewhat with the OP, at least the underlying point. On the surface, Half-Orc was the bridge to monstrous races. Now you can go full orc (Never go full Orc!). While it may not be in every campaign, they are among playable races for AL.

I personally find it odd that full Orcs are no stronger or tougher than their half breed kin. It seems like they were really worried about not making the race overpowered. The result is a bad race that sucks for both players and DMs. That and you get -2 Int.

I think the Orc race should stop breeding with their own and resort to breeding with only humans. They only get stronger...

[War_lord]

In D&D terms a Half-Orc has all the strength and physical endurance of the Orc parent, while retaining the cunning of the human parents. To quote Volo's guide:

"The lore of humans depicts orcs as rapacious Fiends, intent on coupling with other humanoids to spread their seed far and wide. In truth, orcs mate with non-orcs only when they think such a match will strengthen the tribe. When orcs encounter human who match them in prowess and ferocity, they sometimes strike an alliance that is sealed by mingling the bloodlines of the two groups.

A Half-Orc in an orc tribe is often just as strong as a full-blooded orc and also displays superior cunning. Thus, half-orcs are capable of gaining status in the tribe more quickly than their fellows, and it isn’t unusual for a Half-Orc to rise to leadership of a tribe."

I would assume the reason Orcs don't just breed entire hordes of Half Orcs is twofold, first that most Humans wouldn't meet Orc standards of breeding stock, and second that any Orc Chief worth his salt would see Half-Orcs as a threat to his power.

[Safety Sword]

I mean.. who says they're playable? I don't allow monstrous races in 90% of my campaigns because no one would allow an Orc or Yuan-ti a mile within city limits. Volo's Guide races are there as options but they definitely shouldn't be expected to be available in every campaign.

This is my favorite thing to do with Drow PCs too.

Being arrested and interrogated as a spy is rather inconvenient.

[SaurOps]

No Half-Orcs are not superfluids ... they're ... oh wait...er...nevermind.

I've always had trouble with the concept of half orcs, but perhaps we've shifted from the heavily Tolkien influenced early daze of dnd to something different - and maybe I haven't shifted enough.

Tolkien never really said what orcs even are. The movie showed orcs as necromatic creations spawned in yucky vats, so that an army of 10s of thousands could be created in months. They're born with skills and personalities because they're sort of an evil creation of a warped, corrupted being.

There are places where it is suggested, maybe in Silm., that Morgoth corrupted elves into orcs because he couldn't actually create "new" beings and wanted to mock Illuvatar. But what this actually means, the mechanics of it, was never gotten into. Did he corrupt captured elves and turn them into corrupted orcs which then bred new orcs? Or did Morgorth "corrupt" the "concept" of an elf by creating a mocking and corrupted version of one through necromancy or something like it? Tolkien never, iirc, spoke of female orcs or orcs wanting to rape - but that doesn't nec. mean anything - he was toning down such things in general.

Well, what Tolkien said or didn't say may not matter to a lot of us.

A half-orc could be a necro-created being where, say, some fresh human blood and a new encantation were added, making a "uruk-hai" or a "half orc" with enough human influence to be a bit bigger, smarter and less light sensitive than the average old school orc.

Where does this side trip come from? The game basically treats them as smaller, smarter ogres, in keeping with the name that Tolkien picked up from folklore, which apparently has the same root.



Orcs are monsters and are not another race of humans.

Meh. FR and its ilk go out of their way to try and make it not seem terrible when you go about killing, but there's nothing that says you need to stay beholden to it.




I can't see humans keeping the half orc products of orc human unions - a medieval society would probably commit infanticide.

I doubt that and D&D isn't anywhere close to being an accurate recreation of medieval settings.



But if many beings were enslaved and babies were kept to grow up as slave labor - meh - I don't really want to think about it - but I suppose there are many vectors where a half orc as most people think of them could and would exist.

But half ogres - really? Unless magically made that's really getting silly. And I definitely don't want to think about that. Ugh. I'm gonna go take a shower.

The book already thought about it and stated it had a high rate of mortality for the non-ogre partner. Where the orcs are presented as engaging in Klingon flings, the ogres are presented as being way more rapey, no doubt to go along with their anthropophagous streak.

[Smitty Wesson]

It's not that they're superfluous, so much as the culture around the game and its related genres has changed in a way that's left the half-orc behind.

I'd say that in general, there was a long, slow backlash against the idea of an always-evil monster race. Even aside from the existence of Drizz't, the later Star Trek series brought Klingons and, later, Ferengi and Cardassians and Borg into the main cast; Discworld explicitly drew parallels between the treatment of trolls as monsters and racial profiling; Harry Potter had major subplots about the social injustices done to werewolves, centaurs, giants, and goblins; and much later, the Warcraft franchise laid the groundwork for sympathetic interpretations of orcs in particular. D&D caters to the fandoms of fantasy and science fiction, and those fandoms have changed a lot since D&D's lore was cobbled together from the works of Tolkienn, Moorcock, Vance, Lovecraft, Lieber, and Howard. Works that target the subculture even more specifically - webcomics like Order of the Stick and Goblins - do even more to put fans on the side of the "always evil" races.

So there really isn't as much space in D&D playerdom for the half-orc as there was. The race feels like a remnant from a time when playing as a straight-up heroic orc was assumed to be impossible - where opacity between player races and monster races was in any way the default. That's a heck of a contrast to the current environment where the classic monster races topped Wizard's poll for races players most wanted to see (prior to the Volo's release), and so many gaming groups use elves as a Nazi metaphor that it's become a cliche.

Also, my favorite version of half-orcs? Eberron half-orcs who are just the result of quaint mixed human-and-orc communities out in the country. (They go along well with the half-elves who resulted from elves realizing they could get super rich by marrying wealthy humans and just waiting for the inheritance to kick in.)

[thereaper]

Half-orcs carry implications that full-blooded orc don't. You should be ashamed of not remembering that strip with Therkla (which I can't link because I'm on my phone right now).

[hamishspence]

Well yeah I'm lumping Urukhai in a way I shouldn't and he never said how the half orc came about. Maybe by breeding, maybe not.


There are implications in LoTR (from Treebeard) that the ability to endure sunlight in Saruman's Orcs, comes from human heritage. Add in Morgoth's Ring and the implications are even stronger. If Saruman's Ruffians are half-orcs, then Saruman's Uruk'hai are probably mostly orc with a little human.


Treebeard: "It is a mark of evil things that came in the Great Darkness that they cannot abide the Sun, but Saruman's Orcs can endure it, even if they hate it. I wonder what he has done? Are they Men he has ruined, or has he blended the races of Orcs and Men? That would be a black evil!"

Gamling: "But these creatures of Isengard, these half-orcs and goblin-men that the foul craft of Saruman has bred, they will not quail at the sun."

Merry: "But there were others that were horrible: man-high, but with goblin-faces, sallow, leering, squint-eyed. Do you know, they reminded me at once of that Southerner at Bree, only he was not so obviously orc-like as most of these were."
Aragorn: "I thought of him too. We had many of these half-orcs to deal with at Helm's Deep."

They were disturbed to see half a dozen large ill-favored Men lounging against the inn-wall; they were squint-eyed and sallow-faced.
"Like that friend of Bill Ferny's at Bree," said Sam.
"Like many that I saw at Isengard," muttered Merry.




It became clear in time that undoubted Men could under the domination of Morgoth or his agents in a few generations be reduced almost to the Orc-level of mind and habits; and then they would or could be made to mate with Orcs, producing new breeds, often larger and more cunning. There is no doubt that long afterwards, in the Third Age, Saruman rediscovered this, or learned of it in lore, and in his lust for mastery committed this, his wickedest deed: the interbreeding of Orcs and Men, producing both Men-orcs large and cunning, and Orc-men treacherous and vile.

[Ser Loras]

I'd say that in general, there was a long, slow backlash against the idea of an always-evil monster race. Even aside from the existence of Drizz't, the later Star Trek series brought Klingons and, later, Ferengi and Cardassians and Borg into the main cast; Discworld explicitly drew parallels between the treatment of trolls as monsters and racial profiling; Harry Potter had major subplots about the social injustices done to werewolves, centaurs, giants, and goblins; and much later, the Warcraft franchise laid the groundwork for sympathetic interpretations of orcs in particular. D&D caters to the fandoms of fantasy and science fiction, and those fandoms have changed a lot since D&D's lore was cobbled together from the works of Tolkienn, Moorcock, Vance, Lovecraft, Lieber, and Howard. Works that target the subculture even more specifically - webcomics like Order of the Stick and Goblins - do even more to put fans on the side of the "always evil" races.

Yeah, this brings up a whole slew of interesting points that could fill another whole thread. In my campaigns I set out as DM I almost never treat Orcs and Hobgoblins as simply evil; marauding and rapacious and at odds with what we consider the "civilised" races, sure, but not truly evil per se. My favourite as-yet-unused idea for a Hobgoblin enemy involves a massive war host led by a legendary warlord named Tamerlane (har har) who, after subjugating half the world, will hopefully shock the Hell out of my players when they meet him and find out how intelligent and honourable he is. Probably the only things in D&D that truly deserve the stamp "Evil" are those that consort with Fiends, like the Drow (also because, spiders).

Oh and Illithids. Because **** Illithids.

[Unoriginal]

Yeah, this brings up a whole slew of interesting points that could fill another whole thread. In my campaigns I set out as DM I almost never treat Orcs and Hobgoblins as simply evil; marauding and rapacious and at odds with what we consider the "civilised" races, sure, but not truly evil per se. .

Being rapacious marauders make them evil, though, no?

In standard D&D, the Orcs were created by Gruumsh to be violent and ruthless. Most of them are incredibly sadistic and love to brutalize anyone weaker than themselves so as to show how stronger they are. This is why they do evil things.



My favourite as-yet-unused idea for a Hobgoblin enemy involves a massive war host led by a legendary warlord named Tamerlane (har har) who, after subjugating half the world, will hopefully shock the Hell out of my players when they meet him and find out how intelligent and honourable he is.

If you're basing him on Tamburlaine from the eponymous play, then he also needs to be evil as **** and shows it, even if charismatic and with great oratory skills.

I'm not sure why having an intelligent conqueror would shock your players, though.


Probably the only things in D&D that truly deserve the stamp "Evil" are those that consort with Fiends, like the Drow (also because, spiders).

Oh and Illithids. Because **** Illithids.

...no?

There are a lot of beings in D&D that deserve the stamp "evil" without dealing with Fiends, be they the bandits down the forest road, the goblin raiders, the Fire Giants who want to enslave the neighboring country, or the Wood Elf Warlock who decides to sacrifice kids to his GOO patron.

Also, Orcs do consort with fiends or evil Gods that live in the lower Planes, so I'm not sure what your argument is.

[Dankus Memakus]

Being rapacious marauders make them evil, though, no?

In standard D&D, the Orcs were created by Gruumsh to be violent and ruthless. Most of them are incredibly sadistic and love to brutalize anyone weaker than themselves so as to show how stronger they are. This is why they do evil things.



If you're basing him on Tamburlaine from the eponymous play, then he also needs to be evil as **** and shows it, even if charismatic and with great oratory skills.

I'm not sure why having an intelligent conqueror would shock your players, though.



...no?

There are a lot of beings in D&D that deserve the stamp "evil" without dealing with Fiends, be they the bandits down the forest road, the goblin raiders, the Fire Giants who want to enslave the neighboring country, or the Wood Elf Warlock who decides to sacrifice kids to his GOO patron.

Also, Orcs do consort with fiends or evil Gods that live in the lower Planes, so I'm not sure what your argument is.
Most Orcs follow Gruumsh who lost his eye to the elves and then was tricked MANY times by the elves making him semi pitiable. Also a fiend and an evil god are very VERY different. Evil gods were created by Ao to keep some form of balance in the world. Fiends are just evil jerks who murder for fun because they are deep down to the core are evil at least orcs have principles of some kind.

Edit: Orcs are also pretty stupid with an oppressive pantheon of gods and since they follow strength they just follow that god, I'd be willing to argue that orcs would follow a good god if he bested their god in a feat of strength and try to become a patron of orcs. Or orcs may follow a good chief if hes strong and does whats good for the tribe. If you cant tell I also don't include orcs as evil

Back to the half orc topic though. I don't think Half-Orcs are Superfluous and i think they should be mechanically superior to orcs since they have the mental ability of humans and the physical ability of orcs making a superior race. Therefore I think half-Orcs are important and can be used in colorful ways in a setting (As NPCs or PCs). Same with full orcs.

[Jophiel]

"...When orcs encounter human who match them in prowess and ferocity, they sometimes strike an alliance that is sealed by mingling the bloodlines of the two groups..."
"Congratulations, human warrior for your skills at battle match our own. Which of these lovely orc ladies would you like to 'seal the alliance' with, if you know what I mean?"

I think I'd just throw the fight. "Ah man, hangnail. Guess you guys win the prowess thing."

[Dankus Memakus]

"Congratulations, human warrior for your skills at battle match our own. Which of these lovely orc ladies would you like to 'seal the alliance' with, if you know what I mean?"

I think I'd just throw the fight. "Ah man, hangnail. Guess you guys win the prowess thing."

Well....Most of the men who ally with orcs are massive angry barbarians who probably don't care who....or what... they "seal the alliance with"

[Ravinsild]

"Congratulations, human warrior for your skills at battle match our own. Which of these lovely orc ladies would you like to 'seal the alliance' with, if you know what I mean?"

I think I'd just throw the fight. "Ah man, hangnail. Guess you guys win the prowess thing."

I mean...if they look like female Orcs in Warcraft then....

[Unoriginal]

Most Orcs follow Gruumsh who lost his eye to the elves and then was tricked MANY times by the elves making him semi pitiable.

He lost his eye because he tried to ambush Corellon and got rekt.


Also a fiend and an evil god are very VERY different. Evil gods were created by Ao to keep some form of balance in the world. Fiends are just evil jerks who murder for fun because they are deep down to the core are evil.

Depends on the edition and the setting, it's never said so in 5e. Also, several evil gods are Fiends.


at least orcs have principles of some kind.

...what kind of principles?



Edit: Orcs are also pretty stupid with an oppressive pantheon of gods and since they follow strength they just follow that god, I'd be willing to argue that orcs would follow a good god if he bested their god in a feat of strength and try to become a patron of orcs. Or orcs may follow a good chief if hes strong and does whats good for the tribe. If you cant tell I also don't include orcs as evil

Several gods can best Gruumsh, some did, and the orcs still follow him mostly.

I'm not saying that orcs can't be good, just that most don't want to and see no point to it.


Therefore I think half-Orcs are important and can be used in colorful ways in a setting (As NPCs or PCs). Same with full orcs.

This I agree with. The species shouldn't be all what there is to a character, but it does open opportunities.

Though to be fair, they're as important as any species, aka a DM could just remove them for their settings without any troubles.

[War_lord]

A monster race can have a coherent culture and motivations and still be Evil. D&D Orcs are, as a whole Evil, can there be individual Orcs that overcome their background and Gruumsh bestowed temperament? Yes, but they're rare. That's one of the reasons everyone's tired of Drizzt clones, because a Good Drow was a cool concept when it was new and original, until every Drow became a Drizzt, and tainted the entire Dark Elf concept as a result.

Out of the Abyss has a neutral Mind Flayer, that's doesn't, and shouldn't, mean that Mind Flayers are now Alignment: any.

[Willie the Duck]

Honestly, the idea that the game books/game system should have a single, consistent position on how evil monster races are is something I have always found perplexing. Orcs and hobgoblins and kobolds and ogres exist predominantly to be antagonists to the party so that the DM can populate their dungeons with them. Whatever level of detail and justification the group needs to satisfy their own verisimilitude to arrive at the point that they should feel okay about dispatching the orcs the DM is using as antagonists, use that! If that's "all orcs are irredeemably evil," use that. If it's "orcs are actually relatively morally neutral, and shaped by their circumstances, just like people, but by nature of their employment, you can tell that these individual orcs are murderous brigands, if nothing else," use that. Every time the books (and most online discussions thereof) try to back-justify their own morale frameworks, it ends up sounding like the "deep" philosophical discussions the stoner crowd had with each other in high school.

As to the OP topic--even if Orcs become playable races (and actually playable, and filling the same role as the half-orc instead of something like 'character who always has to wait outside of town and hide while the rest of the party stocks up on supplies and plot hooks'), that does not take away the half-orc's RP position as interracial love-child, rape-child, mistreated minority, or other such thing. They are the 'tolerated outsider' role, as opposed to the 'intolerable outsider' role that the full orc has, and those are frankly quite different characters to play.

[SaurOps]

Honestly, the idea that the game books/game system should have a single, consistent position on how evil monster races are is something I have always found perplexing. Orcs and hobgoblins and kobolds and ogres exist predominantly to be antagonists to the party so that the DM can populate their dungeons with them. Whatever level of detail and justification the group needs to satisfy their own verisimilitude to arrive at the point that they should feel okay about dispatching the orcs the DM is using as antagonists, use that! If that's "all orcs are irredeemably evil," use that. If it's "orcs are actually relatively morally neutral, and shaped by their circumstances, just like people, but by nature of their employment, you can tell that these individual orcs are murderous brigands, if nothing else," use that. Every time the books (and most online discussions thereof) try to back-justify their own morale frameworks, it ends up sounding like the "deep" philosophical discussions the stoner crowd had with each other in high school.

As to the OP topic--even if Orcs become playable races (and actually playable, and filling the same role as the half-orc instead of something like 'character who always has to wait outside of town and hide while the rest of the party stocks up on supplies and plot hooks'), that does not take away the half-orc's RP position as interracial love-child, rape-child, mistreated minority, or other such thing. They are the 'tolerated outsider' role, as opposed to the 'intolerable outsider' role that the full orc has, and those are frankly quite different characters to play.

The essential problem with whole swaths of beings existing to be antagonists is that there isn't really a need for that. Anything and everything could be an antagonist, and there hasn't exactly been a dearth of source material to go in this direction. Thieves, assassins, brigands, fanatics, and anyone that has a different opinion and is stubborn and not willing to cut others slack are all people that you can run into ages before you get to orcs, goblins and what have you. Even big huge monsters only tend to last until a sufficiently large and organized group decides to kill them. Then, you had better hope that you dreamt further than Conan did when he took over Aquilonia (much as Conan himself later wished that he had), because everyone around you is now jockeying for position and wants to be in the top seat. At this point, monsters become a means to an end rather than an existential threat, and this is likely something that might have happened more often than not in any conceivable setting.

[Willie the Duck]

The essential problem with whole swaths of beings existing to be antagonists is that there isn't really a need for that. Anything and everything could be an antagonist, and there hasn't exactly been a dearth of source material to go in this direction.

So... we don't need monster races because there are other options? Is there a reason to use these options instead of the monster races?


Thieves, assassins, brigands, fanatics, and anyone that has a different opinion and is stubborn and not willing to cut others slack are all people that you can run into ages before you get to orcs, goblins and what have you.

But then what is the difference? Orcs, goblins, thieves, assassins, the evil duke's evil henchmen... The entire point is that they are designated villains to populate your adventure with that the PCs don't have to feel too bad about killing. As I said, if it breaks verisimilitude to have an evil race, then you have the orcs or goblins be the brigands and assassins.


Even big huge monsters only tend to last until a sufficiently large and organized group decides to kill them. Then, you had better hope that you dreamt further than Conan did when he took over Aquilonia (much as Conan himself later wished that he had), because everyone around you is now jockeying for position and wants to be in the top seat. At this point, monsters become a means to an end rather than an existential threat, and this is likely something that might have happened more often than not in any conceivable setting.

I am genuinely not following the path here. I get the concept of 'don't kill the big-bad, because then you become the big-bad,' but I do not see how it flows from the rest of the conversation. Can you clarify? Thx!

[War_lord]

The essential problem with whole swaths of beings existing to be antagonists is that there isn't really a need for that. Anything and everything could be an antagonist, and there hasn't exactly been a dearth of source material to go in this direction. Thieves, assassins, brigands, fanatics, and anyone that has a different opinion and is stubborn and not willing to cut others slack are all people that you can run into ages before you get to orcs, goblins and what have you.

Goblins are thieves, Bugbears are assassins, Hobgoblins are professional soldiers "only following orders", Orcs are rampaging barbarians, Ogres are big dumb brutes, Yuan-ti are fanatical snake cultists. The most iconic of the humanoid D&D monsters are actually antagonist henchmen archetypes, but exaggerated. Orcs aren't just Barbarians, they're the Barbarian traits of superb strength, hardy constitution and great brutality, physically manifested as an enemy of all humanity. Human antagonists in fantasy are best used sparingly, not as minor dungeon fodder. Generic Human antagonists do not make for interesting Monster Manual entries.

[GlenSmash!]

If i wanted playable Orcs in my campaign I would use the Half-Orc mechanics and toss out the playable Orcs from VGtM because that's the one that's superfluous.

[Lord Raziere]

I wouldn't feel bad about killing the generic human enemies, I feel more bad about killing orcs, they aren't evil out of choice. people who choose evil however, they get what they deserve. demons of course, are people who chose evil so hard that they became the very embodiment of it, so orcs are opposite of demons in that respect to me. that and if they humans enemies are so generic, I don't why I should care whether they should live or die regardless. I'd rather play these races and face generic enemies.

[War_lord]

I wouldn't feel bad about killing the generic human enemies, I feel more bad about killing orcs, they aren't evil out of choice. people who choose evil however

Actually you could make the argument that plenty of evil people didn't have a choice. The assassin who killed the prince might have been shaped into a killer by growing up in an abusive household. The cultist trying to summon a pit fiend might have turned to the worship of Evil due to a disfigurement making society reject him. No one chooses to be bad. But that doesn't mean fighting the Orc tribe that are trying to sack the village makes you as bad as them.

[Ravinsild]

I like mixed race enemy organizations. For example: The Twilight's Hammer Clan in Warcraft has members of all races, and the same can be said for the Scourge, both the living and the dead.

It may have a majority backbone of X race, but they're very much "anyone who believes in the cause is welcome" type organizations. For the Twilight Cultists that's doomsday/blowing up the world. For the Scourge that's world domination, power, and enslaving/killing everyone.

[Lord Raziere]

Actually you could make the argument that plenty of evil people didn't have a choice. The assassin who killed the prince might have been shaped into a killer by growing up in an abusive household. The cultist trying to summon a pit fiend might have turned to the worship of Evil due to a disfigurement making society reject him. No one chooses to be bad. But that doesn't mean fighting the Orc tribe that are trying to sack the village makes you as bad as them.

No, there is always a choice. That is the point of morality.

It doesn't make me as bad as them, I'll kill them just the same, but I'd still prefer not to. I don't like always evil races being a thing.

[War_lord]

No, there is always a choice. That is the point of morality.

There's not always a meaningful choice. It's easy for a noble's son to say "stealing is wrong", much harder for a street urchin. An Orc growing in a cave with his clan doesn't get to say raiding is wrong, he's not in an environment that gives him that chance.

Orcs are not "always evil", they're just rarely good, which is to be expected given the Orcish environment.

[CaptainSarathai]

I'd say that in general, there was a long, slow backlash against the idea of an always-evil monster race. Even aside from the existence of Drizz't, the later Star Trek series brought Klingons and, later, Ferengi and Cardassians and Borg into the main cast; Discworld explicitly drew parallels between the treatment of trolls as monsters and racial profiling; Harry Potter had major subplots about the social injustices done to werewolves, centaurs, giants, and goblins; and much later, the Warcraft franchise laid the groundwork for sympathetic interpretations of orcs in particular. D&D caters to the fandoms of fantasy and science fiction, and those fandoms have changed a lot since D&D's lore was cobbled together from the works of Tolkienn, Moorcock, Vance, Lovecraft, Lieber, and Howard. Works that target the subculture even more specifically - webcomics like Order of the Stick and Goblins - do even more to put fans on the side of the "always evil" races.

Also, my favorite version of half-orcs? Eberron half-orcs who are just the result of quaint mixed human-and-orc communities out in the country. (They go along well with the half-elves who resulted from elves realizing they could get super rich by marrying wealthy humans and just waiting for the inheritance to kick in.)
Eberron is a good example for why we have Orcs as a player race in VGtM; there are good Orcs in Eberron. Or at least, "not bad" Orcs.



I wouldn't feel bad about killing the generic human enemies, I feel more bad about killing orcs, they aren't evil out of choice. people who choose evil however, they get what they deserve. demons of course, are people who chose evil so hard that they became the very embodiment of it, so orcs are opposite of demons in that respect to me. that and if they humans enemies are so generic, I don't why I should care whether they should live or die regardless. I'd rather play these races and face generic enemies.


Actually you could make the argument that plenty of evil people didn't have a choice. The assassin who killed the prince might have been shaped into a killer by growing up in an abusive household. The cultist trying to summon a pit fiend might have turned to the worship of Evil due to a disfigurement making society reject him. No one chooses to be bad. But that doesn't mean fighting the Orc tribe that are trying to sack the village makes you as bad as them.


No, there is always a choice. That is the point of morality.

It doesn't make me as bad as them, I'll kill them just the same, but I'd still prefer not to. I don't like always evil races being a thing.
If there's always a choice, then shouldn't Orcs also have a choice?

There are three reasons I can see, why they would put Orcs in as playable races.
1. The first, most overlooked reason (in this thread) is that there can be a lot of fun in playing an "evil" campaign. That could mean evil characters fighting against the forces of good, or it could mean a 'Suicide Squad' type arrangement of prisoners and outcasts being forced to go on some insane quest that no "good guy" would dare touch.

2. The second reason, is that you can often have an evil character in a "good" party. There are right and wrong ways to do this, and most players tend to think that you have to go with the cackling maniac who murders fellow party-members for the giggles. Not the right way to do it.

3. If Drizzt exists, you can have "good" Orcs as well. I mean, after that filthy knife-ear, nothing is sacred.

--As for evil races. I always like to mess about with my players a little. Yeah, go burn the Orc village. Oh, those? Nothing, just baby Orcs crying in the freezing cold. Your move, "Good Guy."
Of course, with the recent group, this has caused issues and I had to give them "an obvious Big Good Virtuous Guy" (the BGVG) to follow, or else they were likely to go full-on murderhobo and just start stabbing everything they came into contact with on accounts that "nobody here is a nice person"

[War_lord]

If there's always a choice, then shouldn't Orcs also have a choice?

Quoth Volo's guide: "Most orcs have been indoctrinated into a life of destruction and slaughter. But unlike creatures who by their very nature are evil, such as Gnolls, it’s possible that an orc, if raised outside its culture, could develop a limited capacity for empathy, love, and compassion.

No matter how domesticated an orc might seem, its blood lust flows just beneath the surface. With its instinctive love of battle and its desire to prove its Strength, an orc trying to live within the confines of civilization is faced with a difficult task."

They've accounted for this, in 5e at least, Orc evilness is a combination of nature and nurture, which they can overcome. But it's rare and mostly an answer to the Orc babies question.

[Unoriginal]

Orcs do have the choice, even the PHB mentions it.

It's just that culture aside, the good gods created their mortals to choose without any interference, while the evil gods created their mortals with built-in tendencies toward certain behaviors so as to not lose too much of their their slaves due to pesky things like "free will".

So while orcs do have free will, they have the deck stacked against them due to the violent tendencies Gruumsh put into them (does not mean always evil, but simply that their urges often lead toward CE behavior) combined with being raised in a culture that encourage being evil.

[JackPhoenix]

I like mixed race enemy organizations. For example: The Twilight's Hammer Clan in Warcraft has members of all races, and the same can be said for the Scourge, both the living and the dead.

It may have a majority backbone of X race, but they're very much "anyone who believes in the cause is welcome" type organizations. For the Twilight Cultists that's doomsday/blowing up the world. For the Scourge that's world domination, power, and enslaving/killing everyone.

I always found funny that villainous organizations in Warcraft were less racist than "good guys". You may add Shadow Council and servants of the Burning Legion in general to the list, Defias Brotherhood started with humans, but had goblins, ogres, tauren, undead, gnolls and murlock working for them. Syndicate was willing to work with orcs (see Burning Legion).

For the good organizations, you've got Argent Dawn/Crusade and... that's it. While other organizations don't discriminate on race, they are focused on single class (Earthen Ring, Cenarion Circle), so it's not that different.

[Lord Raziere]

If there's always a choice, then shouldn't Orcs also have a choice?


I do not think your arguing in good faith. there is a time and place for redemption and kindness. Within the heat of battle is not that place, for anyone.

[Anonymouswizard]

Short answer, kind of.

I suspect that before VGtM most people were just taking the half-orc stats and dropping the half part to play their good orcs. Orcs who aren't evil are interesting characters, I've seen several variations (one game I like is set in fantasy 1856, and treats orcs as 'people from not round here' who happen to be really good mechanics). Sometimes there's that rage just below the surface, sometimes it's a lack of respect for manners, sometimes it's just customs clash, and sometimes orcs are just another race. They also have the bonus that, as they aren't the designated 'evil version' of a race like drow are the idea of there being a lot of neutral orcs wandering about just doing stuff isn't that strange.

Now you could argue that orcs are supposed to be 'evil humans', but as the races which get 'evil' versions tend towards good, that just sounds like an argument that orcs shouldn't be as extremely evil to me.

Because the half-orc mainly exists to allow a playable 'orc', it loses it's requirement (at least fluff wise) in any setting where there are civilised orcs. Although I will note that half-elves are much more superfluous, seeing as playable elves are right there, in the corebook, and seem to have gone through at least two variations to give them some sort of identity ('stuck between two cultures' and 'natural diplomats'). I'll note that Fantasy AGE leaves half-breeds as an optional rule that amounts to 'you're mainly one race, but have benefits from another race', which sounds like a better way to do it.

Do note that non-D&D fantasy seems to have been moving away from the idea of 'half races', while also moving towards 'all humanoids are human subspecies' in several cases. I'd argue half-orcs are largely a holdover from when you wouldn't put orcs into the Players' Handbook.

[War_lord]

Half-Elves and Half-Orcs are two different solutions to the problem of "half" races. Half-Elves have a unique identity as the diplomancer race that doesn't really match up with the skill sets of the parent races. A Half-Orc does retain the traits of the parent, but struggle with separating themselves from Orcs when both are PC races. The only thing saving the Half-Orc in 5e beyond fluff is that they deliberately made the full Orc underwhelming.

[Anonymouswizard]

Half-Elves and Half-Orcs are two different solutions to the problem of "half" races. Half-Elves have a unique identity as the diplomancer race that doesn't really match up with the skill sets of the parent races. A Half-Orc does retain the traits of the parent, but struggle with separating themselves from Orcs when both are PC races. The only thing saving the Half-Orc in 5e beyond fluff is that they deliberately made the full Orc underwhelming.

True, although I find the identity rather forced. If I was going to give any of the core races a diplomancer identity in my own game (which I am not making, at least not one with separate races and classes) it would be halflings, and I'd play up the hospitable aspects. I will say I find Pathfinder Half Orcs, who trade in the old natural brute strength for a human's natural stat bonus do a good job of feeling like a 'flexible yet savagish' race, compared to the standard human's flexible civilised.

If half-orcs are going to stick around they probably need an identity of their own, or orcs are going to have to be a nonplayer race again. I'm not entirely sure what that can be, although I can see some sort of 'physical scoundrel' idea coming to my mind. If we say that halflings are the pickpockets and conmen maybe half-orcs are the brutes and the safecrackers. I can actually see a half-orc crime boss in my mind, it fits the race really well. I think my next character will be Alfonz Kapon*, half-orc criminal mastermind.

* Yeah, I know Capone wasn't a criminal mastermind, but give me a break.

[SaurOps]

So... we don't need monster races because there are other options? Is there a reason to use these options instead of the monster races?

There are probably more of them, and you encounter them more often. I'm firmly in the camp of "humans are among the greatest danger to humans", here. It probably comes from a steady diet of pulp fantasy revival, which has no demihumans or monstrous humanoids as such that aren't counted as also being humans with features that don't occur in the real world, and Dark Sun, where cities are deadly centers of intrigue and templars are among your worst enemies. Also, all of the orcs, goblins, etc. got killed because a genocidal human who invented defiling magic told a bunch of people he empowered with an evil artifact that it would bring back the good old days if there weren't any of those around. Their broken remnants exist as undead constantly re-enacting the battles that killed them off thousands of years beforehand.



But then what is the difference? Orcs, goblins, thieves, assassins, the evil duke's evil henchmen... The entire point is that they are designated villains to populate your adventure with that the PCs don't have to feel too bad about killing. As I said, if it breaks verisimilitude to have an evil race, then you have the orcs or goblins be the brigands and assassins.

There are still more humans living around humans. I don't see why they'd all get along.



I am genuinely not following the path here. I get the concept of 'don't kill the big-bad, because then you become the big-bad,' but I do not see how it flows from the rest of the conversation. Can you clarify? Thx!

No, absolutely kill the big bad, because they probably have something to do with driving monsters toward you or otherwise inciting a dangerous but ultimately diversionary threat toward you to cover up their tracks. As I said, human evil is common place. You'll probably encounter it before you encounter much else. You will want to have a backup plan to deal with consequences before they happen, though.


Goblins are thieves, Bugbears are assassins, Hobgoblins are professional soldiers "only following orders", Orcs are rampaging barbarians, Ogres are big dumb brutes, Yuan-ti are fanatical snake cultists. The most iconic of the humanoid D&D monsters are actually antagonist henchmen archetypes, but exaggerated. Orcs aren't just Barbarians, they're the Barbarian traits of superb strength, hardy constitution and great brutality, physically manifested as an enemy of all humanity. Human antagonists in fantasy are best used sparingly, not as minor dungeon fodder. Generic Human antagonists do not make for interesting Monster Manual entries.

I reject your fantasy and substitute Al-Qadim. Or, at least, something more in that direction.

[War_lord]

If you want nothing but Al-Qadim, good on you, play nothing but Al-Qadim. If every world defies the tropes, it becomes the new trope.

HUMANS ARE THE REAL MONSTERS is an utterly trite trope.

[ShikomeKidoMi]

Tolkien never really said what orcs even are. The movie showed orcs as necromatic creations spawned in yucky vats, so that an army of 10s of thousands could be created in months. They're born with skills and personalities because they're sort of an evil creation of a warped, corrupted being..

I'm pretty sure those were Saruman's 'improved' Uruk-Hai and thus not necessarily standard procedure for orcs.

[SaurOps]

If you want nothing but Al-Qadim, good on you, play nothing but Al-Qadim. If every world defies the tropes, it becomes the new trope.

Not if they avoid, subvert, or deconstruct it in different ways.



HUMANS ARE THE REAL MONSTERS is an utterly trite trope.

That's also a misrepresentation of my point, though. Conflict doesn't need rubber forehead folks to happen. And in most cases, the rubber forehead brigade is not really distinguishable from something that's basically just human with features that don't normally occur in real life humans. The game has taken great strides to make elves feel more like fey, but ultimately, they're still not quite there. Everyone else, they still feel more or less like humans with prosthetic features. Even the kreen empire in Dark Sun still doesn't really feel all that alien; they're chauvinistic and don't think that mammals are worth their time. This is pretty much just a straight flip of how lots of people don't care for insects, and ultimately very human, because whatever you choose to call human behavior, they can do a pretty good job of keeping something they don't like away from whatever cares they have. The Kreen Empire is not alien; it's just an empire like any other. The mantis warriors are just humans in an insect form.

(And wow, empires can sure encourage people to be monsters. Peer pressure and indoctrination will have you performing atrocities you never imagined, even if you didn't start out wanting to coat people in rubber to use as torches and chop off their hands.)

[Willie the Duck]

So, you don't really consider orcs or half-orcs superfluous, so much as the overall concept of the humanoid/demi-human creature type? Is that a fair summation?

[NecroDancer]

Why do people keep assuming that half-Orc means human and Orc parent? If half-orcs are a race I assume that means that more half-orcs are born from two half-orc parents (that's the lore of my world at least). Doesn't it make more sense that the majority of half-orcs grow up in healthy families that consist of other half-orcs? If the majority of half-orcs were children of rape then I doubt there would be enough to be declared a race.

[Lord Raziere]

HUMANS ARE THE REAL MONSTERS is an utterly trite trope.

So is Always Chaotic Evil.

This has been Stating Facts Theater!

[Ravinsild]

Why do people keep assuming that half-Orc means human and Orc parent? If half-orcs are a race I assume that means that more half-orcs are born from two half-orc parents (that's the lore of my world at least). Doesn't it make more sense that the majority of half-orcs grow up in healthy families that consist of other half-orcs? If the majority of half-orcs were children of rape then I doubt there would be enough to be declared a race.

Taking it a step further I was thinking why only human. Why not Half-Elf Half-Orc or Half-Dwarf Half-Orc, or even Half-Ogre Half-Orc (Rexxar!)

[NecroDancer]

Taking it a step further I was thinking why only human. Why not Half-Elf Half-Orc or Half-Dwarf Half-Orc, or even Half-Ogre Half-Orc (Rexxar!)

Dwarves and Elves don't have the correct amount of chromosomes.

[Ravinsild]

Dwarves and Elves don't have the correct amount of chromosomes.

Says who? /10char

[Jophiel]

The old Monster Manual from the ancient days explicitly stated that orcs and elves could not interbreed. But if you want orc-elves then go for it, I guess. The same also mentioned that what are commonly considered "half-orcs" only make up a slim percentage of human/orc pairings that result in offspring with noticeable human qualities -- most are pretty much just orcs.

In any world I was running, most half-orcs would come from mixed parent pairings because they're fairly rare so they don't bump into one another that often, much less hook up. Plus half-orcs who take after their orcish side would probably breed with other orcs thus diminishing the pool further. Although a community of refugee half-orcs would be kind of interesting. You could say the same for half-elves; they usually have that "trapped between two worlds" thing going on rather than Human Town A + Elf Town B = Half Elf Town C.

[Willie the Duck]

Why do people keep assuming that half-Orc means human and Orc parent? If half-orcs are a race I assume that means that more half-orcs are born from two half-orc parents (that's the lore of my world at least). Doesn't it make more sense that the majority of half-orcs grow up in healthy families that consist of other half-orcs? If the majority of half-orcs were children of rape then I doubt there would be enough to be declared a race.

Well, are they considered a race? I mean, I'm sure the PHB says something and I'm sure your home campaign says something slightly different, as does mine. But overall, kind of the collective conception of half-orc that has percolated through the gaming community since half-orcs were put into the 1e PHB, are half-orcs the kind of thing that form their own communities that routinely grow up, marry each other, and breed true? Or are the vast majority of half-orcs the creation of a union (consensual or otherwise) between orc and human, and if there's a significant number of them, it is because that union happens quite frequently?


Dwarves and Elves don't have the correct amount of chromosomes.

Do elves and dwarves even have chromosomes? In a world where dragons can fly, who's to say that DNA is even a thing?

[hamishspence]

Well, are they considered a race? I mean, I'm sure the PHB says something and I'm sure your home campaign says something slightly different, as does mine. But overall, kind of the collective conception of half-orc that has percolated through the gaming community since half-orcs were put into the 1e PHB, are half-orcs the kind of thing that form their own communities that routinely grow up, marry each other, and breed true? Or are the vast majority of half-orcs the creation of a union (consensual or otherwise) between orc and human, and if there's a significant number of them, it is because that union happens quite frequently?

In Faerun, some cities (Thesk?) were heading in the direction of becoming "where half-orcs congregate and tend to pair up" - so, even if "half-orc offspring of full orc and human" was the norm, "half-orc offspring of two half-orcs" was on the rise in frequency.

[Vorok]

Dwarves and Elves don't have the correct amount of chromosomes.

If dwarves and elves don't have the correct amount of chromosomes to mate with an orc, how do they have the correct amount of chromosomes to mate with a human?

[dgnslyr]

Taking it a step further I was thinking why only human. Why not Half-Elf Half-Orc or Half-Dwarf Half-Orc, or even Half-Ogre Half-Orc (Rexxar!)

In biology, there's the idea of the ring species (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species). Imagine an animal, Homo sapiens fantastica, living on a gigantic, continent-sized ring. Any given subset of "humans" can breed with ones that live near them, but not with the ones on opposite side, because they're mostly genetically similar to their neighbors but significantly different from their physically distant kin.

To me, this seems like a good analogy for why humans can breed with both elves and dwarves, but orcs can breed with neither.

[GlenSmash!]

Why not Half-Elf Half-Orc Humans


Half-Dwarf Half-Orc Also humans



or even Half-Ogre Half-Orc (Rexxar!) I think Ogrilons are in the MM, but not a player race yet.

[Anonymouswizard]

Why do people keep assuming that half-Orc means human and Orc parent? If half-orcs are a race I assume that means that more half-orcs are born from two half-orc parents (that's the lore of my world at least). Doesn't it make more sense that the majority of half-orcs grow up in healthy families that consist of other half-orcs? If the majority of half-orcs were children of rape then I doubt there would be enough to be declared a race.

I mean, I kind of use this? But that's more a setting I'm designing (primarily for AGE, although I might do a 5e version) where 'half-orc' is a derogatory term for orcs who live in civilised society. Full orcs say 'they're not orcy enough', other races say 'even if it tries not to be, it's still a savage orc'. Most civilised orcs do have some human blood, but they also have some elven and gnomish and even halfling blood, everybody in 'civilised society' in that setting is the child of cross breeding to some degree, although the exact amount varies.

Orcs in that setting are very much lower class, honest to a fault, and a bit too wild. This leads to problems and a lack of tact that leads to very few orcs having options for upwards mobility, but that actually suits most orcs fine. So while some will be doing white tunic work (it's a magitech setting) most will be working with their hands with plants or machinery. An orc acused of rape would be shocked, as if they had to stoop to crime for something like that, they've been part of a group marriage for four years, thank you very much, and they'd rather you let the get back to work. At the same time they won't deny it if you asked them if they were the one who started a brawl in the street.

[JackPhoenix]

Why do people keep assuming that half-Orc means human and Orc parent? If half-orcs are a race I assume that means that more half-orcs are born from two half-orc parents (that's the lore of my world at least). Doesn't it make more sense that the majority of half-orcs grow up in healthy families that consist of other half-orcs? If the majority of half-orcs were children of rape then I doubt there would be enough to be declared a race.

Half-orcs are rare enough that one of them finding half-orc partner may be unlikely. You need a certain population density before you can get stable population. And it's not clear if half-orcs even *can* reproduce: look at half-breeds in our own world, mules, hinneys, ligers and tigons are all sterile. Muls in Dark Sun are also sterile

In Eberron, half-orcs and half-elves are separate species that breed true, that's not necessarily the case in other settings.

[hamishspence]

Most settings though, do suggest that half-orcs are not sterile, with characters that are human with only a little bit of orc heritage, or characters that are orc with only a little bit of human heritage.

Given that in the real world, to contrast with the "sterile hybrids" there are hybrids of different genera that are not sterile - the idea of non-sterile hybrids in D&D has precedent to support it too.

[War_lord]

Well, Half-Orcs are already a rare race, seeing as it's hardly common for Orcs and humans to breed. Even then not all children of a human-Orc union are Half-Orcs, many of them are just Orcs. Doesn't seem like there'd be enough of them congregating in one place to sustain Half-Orc as a race. Either they're breeding with a Human and producing a Human with only traces of Orcyness or breeding with Orcs and producing Orcs with only a hint of human blood. Which is now a backstory I'm stealing for a Blade of Ilneval.

[Anonymouswizard]

Well, Half-Orcs are already a rare race, seeing as it's hardly common for Orcs and humans to breed. Even then not all children of a human-Orc union are Half-Orcs, many of them are just Orcs. Doesn't seem like there'd be enough of them congregating in one place to sustain Half-Orc as a race. Either they're breeding with a Human and producing a Human with only traces of Orcyness or breeding with Orcs and producing Orcs with only a hint of human blood. Which is now a backstory I'm stealing for a Blade of Ilneval.

Or breeding with half elves and producing humans :smallwink:

[The Shadowdove]

In the Adventure's league quest "Murder at the Stop" there is a half-orc, half-dwarf.

Forgotten Realms Orcs take whatever they can get their...ahem.. into.