PDA

View Full Version : I need some help figuring out Orc culture for my campaign world.



NecroDancer
2018-03-07, 09:58 AM
So I'm creating my own homebrew world and I have plans to post a "guide" to DM's Guild for free. I'm also running of 5e rules.

I'm a big Orc fan. If I can I usually make all my characters orcs if possible. It's something about the "heavy metal" vibe that orcs give off. While I'm a big fan of orcs I'm not a huge fan of their standard lore and portrayal (Bright for example). The lore of Volo's guide to monsters helped give orcs some personality but I'm still not satisfied with what we are given.

The concept I have for the orcs in my world is to give them a hivemind system of sorts. Basically most orcs are just a sack of meat and organs that follows the mental commands of more advanced orcs (the advanced orcs would use the Orog, Orc Chief, Blade of Ilneval, Hand of Yurtus, and Claw of Luthic stats). This is why most orcs seem "primitive", because the majority of orcs are little more than drones. The advanced orcs are the ones that reproduce and have families, cities, and a government, the drone orcs are grown from special trees.The reason most orcs look green is because they have actual chlorophyll running through their veins.

The orcs don't actually worship any gods but instead pay fealty to a powerful archfey that originally taught them how to grow the drone orcs (and may have created the orc race from the beginning). The archfey originally was the sister of the god of the elves but was exiled because of her unnatural experiments, she then fled to the feywild and became an archfey as time progressed but never forgave the god of the elves. This is why the orcs hate the elves.


So is this idea good? Bad? Anything for I should change or expand? Please let me know your thoughts.

LibraryOgre
2018-03-07, 11:13 AM
It's definitely a neat take on them, and can somewhat allow for the typical murderhobo "kill all the orcs" approach... most of them are just extensions of a hive mind, rather than truly independent life. I would, however, look at some other consequences of this.

1) What does this mean for half-orcs?
2) How do orcs "ascend" from meat-sacks to "true orcs"? Is it a maturation process? Is it diet? Is it just an occasional fluke?
3) How do spells that affect plants affect orcs? Can I use "Plant Growth" to increase the size of an orc? Will Anti-Plant Shell keep orcs at bay? Will Entangle make orcs wrap around each other?
4) Since you are removing Gruumsh from his position of primacy, how does this affect "real orc" society? Orcish societal organization owes a lot to Gruumsh and his "Female orcs are slaves to the male orcs, and happy to be so", and its reinforcement by Luthic and other members of the pantheon. While Baghtru would fit right in to this scenario (being the prototypical drone orc), what else goes on with this?

A refinement I might make, with that in mind: Your archfey is Luthic. Gruumsh is out of the picture. All other deities, save Baghtru, are also female. All of those advanced orcs? Every one is female, with "male" drones. To actually produce more female orcs, they must reproduce with something other than a drone. Sometimes, it produces half-orcs, who are useful to orcish society in their own right, though usually male. I'd also lean towards orcs being fungal, rather than herbal, which would explain their propensity for living in caves... the orc-stalks need the moist darkness to thrive, and maybe even the bodies of dead creatures.

NecroDancer
2018-03-07, 12:26 PM
Making orcs more fungal is actually a neat idea (since fungus has more in common with animals than plants). Also if I make them fungus i wouldn't need to worry about plant controlling spells. However the advanced orcs are flesh and blood not fungus.

As for the advanced orcs they are created via a ritual where a drone orc was is grown from the corpse of a magic user who isn't an orc, the magic gives the drone orc free will, the ability to control other drone orcs, and makes them into a being of flesh and blood instead of a fungi.

A half-orc is when an advanced orc has a kid with a human (although there are more than enough half-orcs to be considered a separate species). Half-Orcs are not born with the ability to control drone orcs.

Sometimes advanced orcs are outcasts from their cities and magically stripped of their abilities to control drone orcs, these are PC orcs.

I like the idea of making the archfey Luthic as she is my favorite orc deity. I'll probably make the orc pantheon consist of these Archfeys.

1. Luthic, the All-Mother
2. Yurtus, the Gentle Decay
3. Ilneval, Lady of War
4. Shargass, the Unseen Sibling
5. Grummush, the Drone Patron
6. Bagthru, the Unthinking

Luthic is the leader of the pantheon while her children are ilneval (who taught the orcs to fight), Yurtus (who taught the orcs the cycle of life and death), Shargass (who is more of an urban legend/campfire story among the orcs), Bagthru (a mass of life force that helps grow the drone orcs), and Grummush (who is a non-sentient primal force that allows the advanced orcs to control the drone orcs).

redwizard007
2018-03-09, 07:54 PM
This is a really cool concept, but I would suggest just calling these guys a new name rather than making them orcs. Your fluff is so far from the norm, that they deserve their own MM entry. I could see these guys fitting any number of campaigns in addition to classic orcs.

Pleh
2018-03-10, 06:01 AM
This is a really cool concept, but I would suggest just calling these guys a new name rather than making them orcs. Your fluff is so far from the norm, that they deserve their own MM entry. I could see these guys fitting any number of campaigns in addition to classic orcs.

Maybe for metagame purposes, but in a setting specific campaign, there might not be any "vanilla orcs" to compare with.

If you're basing their physiology off of fungi, I'd recommend exploring their relationship with Myconids

Pugwampy
2018-03-10, 08:26 AM
I am a mega orc fan and spent half my DM life figuring out Orcs/halforcs and their culture even started making a language and i did steal a bit of warhammer for that. eg. Choppa is weapon and Clang is armour etc . Boyz is orc warriors .

Whats your orc home base ? I made a mega underground city called Palaschuk that has one tavern and shacks above ground seeming like its . Palaschuk motto was "We dont stop for NOBODY ". My orc king was Warboss Orcarion . He had a stroke so his speech was incomprehensible and he was very very old . A godfather figurehead
He had 800 wives and as such claims to be father of all the people of Palaschuk . He calls all his citizens his Bastard princes or Evil Sunz even the girls are his evil sunz and princes . my orcs were Not evil but the evil is cool to them .

Goddess Luthic is the cave mother so her temple in palaschuk is a huge big cave with few decorations perfect centre piece for an underground city . .


I also created orc family bloodlines/caste system that had certain attributes using animal symbols and they were tattooed as such

Spider for orcs that were cunning and practised divine and arcane magic .
Vampire Bat for orcs that were merchants and leaders .
Dire Boar for the big dumb and tough and strong warrior caste
Dire Wolf for vicious / primitive warrior caste .
Was toying with a thief / spy lesser caste using a rat symbol .

My mounts were Dire wolves , Boars and Dire Bats . Vampire bats were message carriers . Horsemeat was a favorite food of both orcs and mounts .


As to your ideas

I dont mind orcs being dumb and strong but , I dont like fungus and drones orc .
For me Luthic is the closest thing a non evil orc would worship so i would only use her for non evil orcs .

comk59
2018-03-10, 08:41 AM
This js incredibly similiar to Warhammer Orks, who are also made out of fungus and have a gestalt Hivemind. Maybe take a look at them for some inspiration?

jhonny
2018-03-10, 09:27 AM
Sorry but I'm not a big Orc fan. But Orcs should be fearfull and terrible, even one alone should be an awesome oponent.

Most of them should be brute and brainless, like wounded wild animals, But some of them should be able to escape that prison of the mind and become intelligent ones, and these ones would take the chain of command.

You can think of a way they would escape from the prison of ignorance, evolving into thinking beings, not an easy task for them, and with that they should become more like any society with cities, castles and other things.

I do not particularly like the idea, of an animal born from a tree or a fungus,
except it being mystical, unique or legendary. Unless they are cousin of dryads :P.

Otherwise I think that I agree with the opinion of redwizard007 and you should change the name of their race to another one.

Nettlekid
2018-03-10, 10:07 AM
Are you familiar with Orcwort? It's like a bloodthirsty tree that grows pods that drop into shambling Orc-like creatures that hunt for the tree's sake. It sounds like it might be a useful existing reference point.

Berenger
2018-03-10, 10:41 AM
Just to be sure, you are aware that this "actually a fungus" and "orcs are connected by a psychic field" will be compared against Warhammer 40.000 Orks if you publish this?

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Orkoid_physiology

No brains
2018-03-10, 11:09 AM
Your idea for orc infection sounds pretty close to how Slaad work, with them pillaging and raising idiots from felled normies and occasionally growing advanced specimens from spellcasters. Would Orcs and Slaad share anything in your setting? Might your orcs regard a Slaad as a human may regard an angel or aasimar?

Nifft
2018-03-10, 01:08 PM
If you're using orcs as people (not just monsters), then it's a bit odd to do the thing where race == culture. If they're people, presumably they could thrive in many different cultures, just like human people do.


Alternately, if orcs are intended to be a monster (a 'designated target' for combat XP and not for social encounters), then I'd think about orcs as horribly Tainted former members of some other race, and they'd carry their former culture with them.

S@tanicoaldo
2018-03-10, 02:25 PM
I normally don't use standard fantasy races in my games but when I do I try to get away from J. R. R. Tolkien.

Orc coems from Orcus who was a god of the was a god of the underworld, punisher of broken oaths in Italic and Roman mythology. As with Hades, the name of the god was also used for the underworld itself. In the later tradition, he was conflated with Dis Pater.

Because of that I make Orcs a race who lives in the subterranean who take oaths very seriously, he was also a god of riches, minerals and precious gems, so I make my orcs goldsmiths,silversmiths, whitesmiths and jewelers, they are miners who make beautiful artistic works of metal and trade with humans, they seek good food(Since they live beneath the earth they can't grow crops and must feed on mushrooms and other fungi that have terrible tastes), prostitutes(Both male and female), wine, art, horses and donkeys.

That makes them monstruous but human at the same time, they don't have this kind of luxuries but they can buy such things form the surface.

They are fat, ugly and hairy, but also gentle, artistic and clever.

Dispite their bestial apparence they are quite charming and cunning.

So that's how I do orcs, I think it makes them original, closer to the roots and quite unique.

I was partially inspired by this cartoon as a kid:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuVRi9XzNpk

LibraryOgre
2018-03-12, 12:09 PM
If you're using orcs as people (not just monsters), then it's a bit odd to do the thing where race == culture. If they're people, presumably they could thrive in many different cultures, just like human people do.


Alternately, if orcs are intended to be a monster (a 'designated target' for combat XP and not for social encounters), then I'd think about orcs as horribly Tainted former members of some other race, and they'd carry their former culture with them.

Not necessarily.

The orcs he's laid out are going to have a strong biological tie to their culture... the basic orcs are pretty much meat sacs, and the more advanced orcs have to be specific creations, many of which might have a supernatural tie to a deity or deity-like creature (their archfey, Luthic). That transcendant connection could lead to a lot of cultural homogeny.

Even if it does not, on a global scale, you can also have the fact that LOCAL orcs are all of a single culture, or close enough so you wouldn't be able to tell without being closely involved in orcish society. Local art styles and customs may vary, but even if the orcish diaspora was a few thousand years ago, language might remain very close, especially if there's a conservative force like immortal communications (i.e. Luthic speaks High Orc, so High Orc keeps the various low Orc tongues from separating too far from High Orc.