Orcs

At home, orcs are much like everybody else. They have families. They have farms. They like to drink horns of mead with their friends. They make crafts to sell at their religious festivals. They worry about their sick goats. Few people see this side of the orcs, though. Most people only see the raiders.

Orcs are famous raiders and traders. They travel all over the Wide World and are the most accomplished seafarers. In the summer months, when the icy straits melt between their lands and the kingdoms of men, parties of orc raiders come plundering. They take gold and royalty.

It's said that orcs have a fire in their guts that is only quenched by the presence of gold. Without gold, orcs really are crazy. Why do they take royalty? Well, nobody knows. Sometimes they ransom them to their noble houses for larger sums of gold. Sometimes they don't, though.

Slavery is against the Orc-Law (an oral collection of laws and traditions), so royals that become permanent residents of orcish lands are usually integrated. Sometimes they spend the rest of their lives in the frozen north. Sometimes they're rescued by crusaders. About a hundred years ago, three major campaigns (and several minor ones) were mounted by various noble houses to win back some of these captives from the orcs. These campaigns are very much in the mind of both humans and orcs in the modern era.

Orcs are mostly matrilineal. This is because some orcs don't have fathers. Orcs can reproduce asexually through parthenogenesis. This type of reproduction (curiously enough) produces both male and female orcs; each orc is a half-clone of their mother.

A baby orc is called a goblin. Unlike human children, who take years to learn to walk and talk, goblins learn these skills incredibly quickly. Within a few days, a baby goblin is up on its feet, walking and talking and fighting and picking locks. Really, the little guys are remarkable.

Not that they're cruel, but orcs have a somewhat blasé concern for their offspring's health. Few goblins get to grow up to be orcs. It's a rough world. It's better for an orc parent to survive long enough to make another clutch of goblin babies than it is for a single goblin (or even an entire clutch) to survive. Prioritize the elders.

A myth of the orcs

We do not worship Rng out of devotion. We worship Rng out of fear.

Their voice is the sound of the falling rain that will water your crops and flood your fields.

Their breath is the wind that carries the scent of roses and fuels the forest fire.

They once heard the cries of a starving people and sent to them a beast who would give meat eternal. The tarasque soon destroyed the town.

Another time, they heard the prayers of those who had lost their way in the woods, and guided them safely to the nearest camp. The lost were soon put to the axe by the enemy soldiers.

They are Rng, Helper and Harmer. They are Rng, the Lord of Chaos.

Orcs

A myth of the orcs

Orcish names

Orc male names:

Orc female names:

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