What Are Your "Orcs" (ie, Evil Minions of Choice) ?

[Leliel]

Inspired by a thread on Steve Jackson Games...

What is the generic "race" (so said because it can include things like robots, mutants, easily-summoned outsiders...) that is your "evil, seemingly-endless mook army" of choice? Are they actually completely evil and/or completely subordinate to the BBEG, and if so, why? If they aren't evil, why are you supportive of the PCs killing them left and right? If you homebrewed it, what's the basic overview?

Me, I like demons (of all sorts, not just the chaotic evil jerks that live in the D&D Abyss). Besides the fact that they're, well, demons, and thus dodge any moral questions (other than exactly why they deserve the term), they're literally endless-so long as the Big Baddie has access to the resources required, he can keep calling more reinforcements and troops.

For my personal homebrew, I like a version of GURPS Cabal Qlippoth-leftovers from the "first draft" of the universe, now imprisoned in their own Abyss (actually a deliberately-made tear in reality-the Abyss itself isn't a bad thing, and in fact most rituals to reseal Qlippoth use it's power to draw them back inside). They're varied, they're horrifying, and yet, they're oddly understandable-the world they lived in is gone forever now, and their main motivation is to bring it back by rewiring reality to suit them. It also gives a semi-rational reason to work with them-they don't mind if someone asks them to make the world to their liking, they just want concessions to their paradigm first.

[RandomNPC]

Oddly enough, Humans. They get a bonus feat in D&D and they're common enough in most games nobody ever says "Where do all these humans come from?"

That being said, most of my games history mention a great group of heroes, that happened to have a human with them, whose alignment would best be described as heroic awesome, so it does go both ways.

[nyarlathotep]

For me the evil dudes are usually some sort of condition rather than a race. They are normal races that had something happen to them like derros are gnomes and dwarves with their soul removed. Outercity dwellers are a demiplane's attempt to mimic normal races; each dweller has a normal human counterpart that it believes is the key to becoming "real". Wights are what happens to people exposed to the hideous green light of the dead planet Atropus, they desire to make all other like themselves.

[Volos]

For endless hordes I like the Kython, and for minions I usually go with demons or at the very least tieflings. I guess I like evil things that come from another plane to mess up the PC's world.

[Morty]

I don't use such enemies, so I don't need to devote a species or category of beings for this purpose.

[Rorrik]

While they were hardly fodder, I invented a race for one campaign I called the Taelvaren. They were a twilight race from another plane that had tried to invade our world before finding they lost much of their power outside their twilit plane. The abandoned first wave was vengeful and desperate and used a homebrew special magic of their own as well as superb twilight weapons to wreak havoc on the world.

I seem to often develop some homebrew beastie to be my Evil minion group.

[PhallicWarrior]

I have a very Burlew-esque tendency to make the traditional "monster" races much more sympathetic and fleshed out than usual, and make it clear that -for instance- Orcs you fight in a warband that rapes and pillages across innocent lands are exactly the same slice of the population as a bunch of humans who do that.

As a result of this tendency, players familiar with my campaign setting and general style feel guilty if they -for instance- obliterate an entire Orc encampment. So I tend to favor constructs, undead, aberrations, and other guilt-free baddies.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I have a very Burlew-esque tendency to make the traditional "monster" races much more sympathetic and fleshed out than usual, and make it clear that -for instance- Orcs you fight in a warband that rapes and pillages across innocent lands are exactly the same slice of the population as a bunch of humans who do that.

Yeah, I hate that in a world with different races where if [someone]'s family gets murdered by someone of their race, they swear revenge on that person, but if they're of a different race, they swear revenge on the entire damn race.

[Yora]

I've decided to not have one. When you want to build an evil army, humans, elves, shifters, goliaths, and lizardfolk are your first call, as well as some ogres and giants.
But except for the last two, those are the very same people you'd ask for help to oppose the evil army.

[Con_Brio1993]

Yeah, I hate that in a world with different races where if [someone]'s family gets murdered by someone of their race, they swear revenge on that person, but if they're of a different race, they swear revenge on the entire damn race.

This happens to a certain extent in real life. I'm not shocked by DND racism.

[Pokonic]

Trolls. They come in a varity, have a flexible regeneration ability, and have a nifty template that I could, say, slap on a Stone giant and make a poweful leader for a band of rocky trolls that are weak to sonic and acid.

Also, because there is some canon to suggest they live for a long time, I could have a Troll attack the party that was part of some elder warband two hundered years ago, and now he he has a entire family to back him up. Halftroll ogres? Shock troops. Halftroll Elves? Creatures that lurk in the forested parts of the world and are weak to fire and necrotic. Halftroll Gnolls? Think Fallout Deathclaws, if they could forge weapons.

[Hiro Protagonest]

This happens to a certain extent in real life. I'm not shocked by DND racism.

Yeah, I thought it might. I still don't get the logic at all. It's like if you're a human, and your family gets murdered by a human wearing a red shirt, so now you try to kill everybody you see wearing a red shirt.

Belkar put it nicely in the second panel.

[theMycon]

Yeah, I thought it might. I still don't get the logic at all. It's like if you're a human, and your family gets murdered by a human wearing a red shirt, so now you try to kill everybody you see wearing a red shirt.

Not precisely the same, but if you saw someone with a red shirt with a blonde a crew cut murder your family in front of you, you'd definitely be jumpy the next hundred or so times you saw someone with a red shirt with a blond crewcut.

Add in how most heroes in DnD are rich murderous hobos anyway; and it's just "a bit of an over-reaction"

[hydroplatypus]

In my (relatively short lived[stupid scheduling issues]) campaigns I usually use whatever seems appropriate. Given the campaign world I use (homebrew) this generally falls into 3 main types. Type 1: humans. Basically as the area that I run my campaigns in is ruled by human city-states, who are constantly killing each other, humans (theoretically [curse you scheduling]) end up opposing the PCs alot. If the bad guy isn't working with a city state, then he generally hires a few mercenary bands to help (decent level too, constant warfare breeds good soldiers [at least the ones not dead]).

Type 2: Monsterous humanoids. I generaly play that they are not evil per say, however given that the monsterous humanoids constantly get the short end of the stick from the humans they are pretty pissed. If I am using this there is a good chance they are just pissed off enough to rebel, or help the BBEG out of spite.

Type 3: city-appropriate mooks:
one city officially uses necromancy to reinforce it's armies, so undead are common around that area
one city is ruled by mages, so golems might be purchased by an influential BBEG (higher level campaigns of course)
wild animals: one city is allied with druids, and as such wild animals will attack the players if they piss them off.
half-dragon etc. stuff: one city is ruled by a dragon, and as such lots of half dragons, young dragons, sorcerors and such will appear if that dragon is pissed off.

[Morithias]

Changlings. I use changlings a ton. They're sly, they're slick and they can be anything.

This changling has already breached your defenses. You've seen what she's done to your men! And the worst part, she could be any one of you!

I also like adding on the dark template for hide in plain sight at nighttime. Or when you're in a dungeon and there's no light.

[Conners]

Eh. Not sure I'd devote a whole species to just being mooks. Certainly, a lot of species CAN act as mooks. Humans, goblins, demons, orcs, undead... Just a matter of circumstances.

[Diskhotep]

Trolls. They come in a varity, have a flexible regeneration ability, and have a nifty template that I could, say, slap on a Stone giant and make a poweful leader for a band of rocky trolls that are weak to sonic and acid.

Plus when you kill one you can cut a strip off, scorch all but one end, and dine forever on your neverending stick of troll jerky...

[Shyftir]

Robot Ninjas. Fullstop.

[Pokonic]

Plus when you kill one you can cut a strip off, scorch all but one end, and dine forever on your neverending stick of troll jerky...

Fun fact: there was one time where are (now defunct) DM overrided a Trolls regenerative abilitys: We were fighting in a mine, and a player pushed the troll overseeing the operation into a rock crusher. Head first. The resulting pulp than landed squarely into the varying oozes in the area below (placed there to dissolve the rock but leave behined the pretty gems).

The DM decided that, because the whole body was killed in that "attack", nothing could regenerate.

[Dr.Epic]

Giant Spiders

Because why not.

[GenericGuy]

I’m not a fan of always chaotic evil sapient races; so I homebrewed a mook “race,” the Sah’El, for my personal setting.

They are insect like creatures that come in all humanoid sizes, but they’re not a race with a culture, history, emotion, etc. They’re the decayed remains of the “dead” Elven god that humans “killed,” in order to suck the magic out of it and give humans the ability to use magic. They’re totally mindless killing machines, which are a curse on the world as punishment for the great sin of “killing” a god.

[Kane0]

Just by reading this I am tempted to make a homebrew race literally called Mooks ...

Make em reasonably flexible and make them follow any capable leader and there you go, everybody uses the same resource equally, no racism!
Actually there could be a plot hook or two in that...

He who controls the mooks, controls the universe.

[Dr.Epic]

Do gnomes count if I make them all insane and make them think lesser of all other races?

[Oracle_Hunter]

Oddly enough, gnolls.

I say oddly because I didn't intend for them to work that way, but I'll be damned if my last two homebrew worlds didn't include hordes of gnolls rampaging all over the place. Orcs are overdone (and Half-Orcs as PC races mandate that Orcs be more than mooks) and Gnolls have a lot going for them:

- Demon-friendly
- Fight in packs
- Terrifying visage
- Pure savages

Plus, unlike greenskins they don't have a host of sub-species (just Flinds) that make building their relationship to the world complicated.

So yeah, gnolls.

[osyluth]

The lower orders of evil outsiders work well.

[Dimers]

Do gnomes count if I make them all insane and make them think lesser of all other races?

You mean that's not the standard gnome fluff? Funny, I seem to run into it a lot.

What is the generic "race" that is your evil, seemingly-endless mook army of choice? Are they actually completely evil and/or completely subordinate to the BBEG, and if so, why? If they aren't evil, why are you supportive of the PCs killing them left and right? If you homebrewed it, what's the basic overview?

I've got giant bugs and bugmen, lots of varieties of each. They're unthinking, fearless in attack, aggressive in defense of what they've claimed, easy to direct for demons used to hiveminds but hard for PCs to dominate. Different bugs' special abilities can lead to a hundred weird situations and real-world insects provide plenty of inspiration for those. They reproduce like mad, so running out is never a concern. They're simple to characterize while still being totally different from sentients. And they're not very morally relative, lacking any of the ethereal qualities that players consider important.

They don't make a great "army" in the sense of being organized under the control of one or a few leaders, though. Individual colonies are, but not an entire species. Evil and adversary-ness in my gameworld is distributed, not held by one overarching BBEG.

Edited to add: Oh, and "skeletal" (exoskeletal) bugs are good too.

[Starscream]

I don't have a go-to race for this, but in one campaign I used Formians.

Had one of the gears that makes up Mechanus get damaged in a cosmic battle. This caused all the Law in the universe to go a little bit out of whack. The party, who were a gang of thieves and definitely not lawful, had to fix this. Most people were not noticeably affected, but those who particularly exemplified the concept of Law (devils, paladins, inevitables, law officers, etc) started to go nuts in varied and interesting ways.

This included the formians, who turned lawful evil and started basically colonizing everywhere in an attempt to bring order to the cosmos. They worked well as mooks because they came in several varieties, could have classes to make them more varied, and their Hive Mind meant that they had an actual, in character justification for needlessly sacrificing themselves; very little individuality to begin with.

Goblins may not be the smartest creatures in the world, but after seeing 50 of their friends slaughtered, you kind of have to wonder why goblin 51 isn't accelerating over the horizon. No such issue with formians.

Also, who the heck sympathizes with giant killer ants?

[Dienekes]

I try to play games that are a bit more morally ambiguous than that. But oddly enough the closest to a race like that I've made have been elves, in one of my earlier campaigns. Mostly because I find the ancient, arrogant race of hippy/vegetarians, who loathe violence, but could ultimately kick your arse, and are always right incredibly dull. So in my mind, the Elves are the old kingdom whose territory and power is constantly being usurped by the humans. Like Tolkien's and every other cliched world says their time is passed and the age of men is about to begin. And they are frankly pissed off about that. Now in the campaign in question they weren't all evil, but they did start a war with the humans, who the heroes sided with. So they ended up being the army of mooks.

[Yukitsu]

In my setting, everything is clearly segregated into political sides, which were taken as a hold over from the old cosmology (which still exists). They fey in general oppose the divine (in this one, arcane and divine magic) which is represented on earth by the wars between the dwarves, the orcs and the elves. Humans being solidly based on the world as it was fight off everything around them, as they are caught in the center. The dwarves who were created as celestial wardens fight the orcs, who are created by the devils as a servitor species, and the winter and summer fey fight, which in turn causes wars between the grey and wild elves. There are sub factions between each faction that will draw up alliances in a less binary fashion, but for the most part, who your designated bad guy is, depends highly on who you are playing as.

The big mixer is the humans, who being caught in the middle can create temporary alliances between races, bring them all together to fight the big bad races or evil overlords of what have you.

Not all fights lead to wars. For example, the grey elves and the true dwarves (those who guard the mountain gates to celestia) quarrel politically more often than physically, while the mountain dwarves and the grey elves are more inclined to compete economically (the mithral, silver, iron, lead, tin mines being elven, the adamantium, gem, gold, copper, salt, sulfur mines being dwarven)

[Grac]

I have a fondness for creating worlds with few races. Usually the only intelligent races are Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Hobgoblins (when I fist saw the hobgoblin pic in the Monster Manual they became my favourite monster race) usually corresponding to a cultural equivalent of renaissance Northern Italy, for humans, China/east Asia for elves, Bismarkian Germany for dwarves, and a hyper militant Roman Republic for Hobgoblins. Usually this results in the Humans being squashed between the Dwarves and Hobgoblins while the elves sit on the other side of the world.