PDA

View Full Version : High Orc ((Race for my campaign world of Sarthas))



Brom
2007-12-18, 12:40 PM
I would like to start off by saying that Orunai is simply the High Orc word for themselves. They see the idea of ''high Orcs'' as rather dumb, and Orunai IS their ancestral name. By the way, Orunai cannot use the intelligence heavy classes and don't really have Clerics. If someone could direct me to a nice homebrewed shaman class..?


High Orcs

High Orcs are renowned for their warlike civilizations, spiritual natures, and masterful craftsmanship. There is an entire grouping of masterwork weapons and armor simply known as Orcforge, for the High Orcs have made themselves well deserving of that title. Orcs are masterful smiths, wise beyond all measure in years, strong in combative arts, and skillful in the dealings of spirits.
Personality:
High Orcs, or Orunai, as they call themselves, are capable of building houses out of stone, steel, marble, quartz, and other city building materials, but choose not to. They are by the measures of all human races goodly and capable of peaceful, agricultural and civilized life, but instead build wooden and thatch villages in the middle of harsh environments where not a hundred meters away from home could lead you to a beasts lair. They can do many things, but choose to live a lifestyle no more intricate and entitled than suits their immediate desires. Orunai value others by their strength or by their wisdom; if they repeatedly show that they have the ability to lead others on a beneficial course through steady words, than they are considered wise and are respected as such. If they have the ability to defeat malign entities through strength of arms, they are respected for such. There is little gender, class, social, or monetary divide among Orcs, because your value is simply what you make of it.
Despite this enlightened personality, they are still warlike, aggressive, and ready to challenge what is there to be challenged. They eagerly go into danger to test their mettle, although they often bring a sharp sword with them – unless more honor can be gained in hand to hand combat. Still, Orcs have no desire for death, and while undergoing pain to ones self is respectable, the dead are credited with little in Orc society.
Physical Description:
The Orunai are large, powerfully built creatures. They have thick, green hides, barrel like chests, and deep throaty voices. They tower over humans, and are usually at least six feet tall; older Orcs are up to seven, sometimes. Their eyes are usually a simple brown color, small and dark. They have hair, but not very much of it. Orunai are renowned for having peculiarly geared sideburn styles and beards. Orunai typically live to be about 200 years of age, but reproduce slowly, almost at the same rate as certain kinds of Elves, such as the Death Elves, do; some speculate this is why their warriors are so well armed and trained.
Relations:
Orunai are neutral with most all of the races. They find races that make heavy use of Wizards magic to be strange, and tend to politely if bluntly disregard and shy away from them. Undead make them turn in disgust, although they respect undead Necromar who take up the path of the sword or bow, seeing in them courage to continue fighting for honor beyond death. Tiscern humans are too noble for them, but they find something to relate to in the coordinate militarism of the Eryine Island folk. They also relate to the Stonevault Dwarves, who, like them, are very traditional and can be clannish and warlike, in many of the same fashions as the Orunai. The Khajiit of the Continental east are strange, and the Orcs avoid them for the most part. Certain Elves they find something to in common to respect with, although Elves in general are seen as too dainty and soft to be wise in the world.
Alignment:
Orunai are typically Lawful Neutral; very traditional and honor-duty-clan based, but still willing to judge in the moment what is good and evil rather than codifying it into a solid category.
High Orc Lands:
The Orunai live in harsh desert, desert highlands, overgrown forests and jungles, and in the northern artics. They have intentionally migrated their people there, looking to every day test themselves against nature. Despite their warlike natures, High Orcs are rarely invaded by other people due to the fact that they rarely live in temperate, easily traversed areas, and it’s a general pain to try to invade a country where the breastplates your soldiers wear are frozen to their chest after they sweat in exhaustion trying to chase a lightly armored Orc cavalry band through the knee-high snow. They do have a small country, however, where they gather en masse, although these places are fortified to the best of Orcish ability, usually meaning they are considered impenetrable to all but the Undermountain Dwarves, who have invented cannons to solve the issues involving knocking down structures.
Religion:
Every Orunai knows to worship his ancestor spirit – they do not look kindly on their kinsman or their friends speaking of or praying to anything but these ancestor spirits. More than one crusade has been launched against the Orcs by the Tiscern Paladins over the fact that Orunai will rudely dismiss missionaries sent there. Ancestor worship is passed down through families; although some High Orcs have been raised, by foul chance, in human societies.
Language:
Orunai speak a tongue called Orupaan, or simply ‘Orc-speak.’ Their words are deep, throaty, and often bespeak of aspirations to honor, defense of honor, or are otherwise in relation to honor or ancestor or family.
Adventurers:
Orunai travel, usually alone, but sometimes with small groups of adventurers that they feel have proven themselves, simply to see the world, and to do ‘good’ in it, based on their relative views. Many Orunai are mercenaries, as well, and freely higher themselves out to whatever people; they are disciplined soldiers who rarely worry about what is right and wrong, and are thus eagerly paid for by various governments looking to launch small scale campaigns for a few years.



Game Rule Information:
• +2 Strength, +1 Wisdom, -2 Dexterity, -1 Charisma: Orunai are strong physically and very perceptive, but they lack social grace due to their tendency to speak their minds and their culture emphasizes on taking the blows as you need to; that, and Orcs aren’t the most swift or coordinated.
• Tough Hides: +1 Natural Armor bonus at 1 HD and another for every 4 HD after that (+1 at 1st level, +2 at 5th, +3 at 9th, +4 at 13th, +5 at 17th.)
• Fair Judge: The perceptive natures and evaluation skills of Orunai lead them to be good judges of character, giving them +4 to Sense Motive.
• For Honor: Orunai can declare a battle for honor and glory 1/encounter against a single opponent; the opponent must have the most maximum hit points out of any other enemy in the crowd. If the creature the Orunai fights does more damage than the Orunai in a turn, the Orunai takes a -1 morale penalty to attack rolls, saves, and damage rolls. If he does more damage in a given round, he gains a +2 to damage rolls, saves, and attack rolls Once an Orunai selects an opponent, he can attack that opponent and that opponent only
• Favored Class: Fighter; Orunai are combative, but prefer the trained, battle hardened approach of a Fighter rather than the berzerking natures of the Barbarians..
• Restriction: Cannot be a Wizard, Duskblade, Beguiler, Rogue, or Cleric.

RandomFellow
2007-12-18, 01:01 PM
Seems fine.



For Honor: Orunai can declare a battle for honor and glory 1/encounter against a single opponent; the opponent must have the most maximum hit points out of any other enemy in the crowd.


Probably should read

"must have the most hit points"
or
"must have the highest hit point maximum"

They way you wrote it is unclear to me at any rate whether you mean highest maximum HP total or highest current HP.

----
As for Shaman class I don't know of any atm...however I'll be putting one together sometime today once I finish off the Imperial Classes for Erth.

AmadeusWindfall
2007-12-18, 01:03 PM
Looks good overall, but you should change the +1/-1 stats to even numbers. Odd numbers aren't used as players can place their scores so that, after racial modifiers are added, they can get a bonus to their modifier for the score that is increased, but no reduction in the modifier for the score that is increased: for example, by putting a 17 in Wisdom and a 15 in Charisma, an Orunai could have a +4 modifier in Wisdom as their score went up to 18, but still have a +2 modifier in Charisma because their Charisma score only went down to 14. By using even numbers, you're making sure that increases always improve the modifier and decreases always worsen it. Change that and the race seems good to me.