Why Are Orcs Green?

[Thrudd]

Tolkein had the Moriquendi, which were based off of the Dökkálfar.

Moriquendi does not refer to the color of their skin nor that they live below ground. They are those that never undertook the journey to the undying lands, so they never saw the light of the trees. Presumably they would look exactly like all other elves, and live in the same sorts of environments in middle earth.

[Wardog]

Because of how Orcs are often used in settings as "random encounters". A small group attacking, X inhabiting location Y and needing to be destroyed for the local safety. Tolkien's version of Mordor Orc is an orc nation of sorts rules by the evil overlord. The tends to be a bit out of scope for most applications. Besides most people I figure remember less of this part of the last book(s) when cheering on Sam and Frodo. Thus the Orc more generally borrows more from the Tolkien goblin in the random raider guise.

Another possible explanation (that I thought of right after posing the question) is that D&D (and other games/stories to a lesser extent) have a tendency to create highly detailed monster taxonomies, with lots and lots of different specific kinds of monsters.

Tolkien's orcs were pretty diverse. Variable in size, stature, culture, habitat, regimentation, natural abilities, etc, and sometimes refered to by different names (orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, uruks, etc) accordingly, but not consistently. But all fundamentally orcs. DnD on the other hand has split all these different styles of orcs between orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, orogs, orgrillions, bugbears, etc, treating them as as distinct "species". Tolkien orcs are probably better represented in D&D by hobgoblins rather than D&D orcs.

(On a related note, I expect this is part of the reason why dwarves tend to be so similar across different settings. Because all the concepts for "short races" have been standardised among several specific named races, you can't deviate from a standard concept much without it becoming a different standard concept. If your dwarves are rural farmers rather than miners/smiths, they're basically hobbits halflings. Other changes, and they're probably gnomes, or goblins, or some sorf of fae. Etc).

[Aedilred]

It's also obvious which of the two has greater cultural clout.

While Warhammer remains purely in the realms of deep geekdom, Warcraft has emerged as a phenomena of mainstream culture.

So which came first doesn't mean squat. Which more people are acquanted with determines the where and how concepts take traction.

Games Workshop might have come up with green orks, but it was Warhammer fans working at Blizzard in the early '90s who spread that idea to the extent it has reached.

I think this is overstating the case in both directions. World of Warcraft has made a lot more money than Warhammer but I don't think its cultural penetration has been any deeper, not in the mainstream and certainly not in geek circles, where GW provided a gateway into fantasy/sci-fi gaming and geek culture for twenty-odd years (precise period debatable depending what level of grognard has been attained). At the point Warcraft decided to make its orcs green, GW's relative influence in geek circles was rather greater than it is now, too.

People don't have to go too deep into the rabbit-hole to be influenced by something on a memetic level. On a superficial visual level Warhammer (and particularly 40K) has likely had at least as much impact on the geek-cultural mainstream as Warcraft has, especially since it appears to have provided much of the visual inspiration for Warcraft in the first place.

Trying to argue that orcs are green because of Warcraft since Warcraft has been their most successful iteration, when Warcraft piggybacked GW's visuals and popularity in the first place, seems a bit like suggesting The Lord of the Rings is the definitive fantasy story because of the New Line movies.

It might be that green orcs as a standard predate GW too, of course (and given that they nicked a lot of their stuff from elsewhere, it wouldn't surprise me).

[hamishspence]

Given that orcs are basically big goblins, maybe "Green Goblins" are what we should be looking for.

Don't know how much influence the Spiderman villain would have had on the concept, or if there were lots of media green goblins before him and that's why he took the name.

[toapat]

Very few orcs in World of Warcraft are actually green. They have a weird physiology that changes their skin color for some reason. That and they are an alien race. Don't forget they are aliens from another planet (maybe plane of existence).

No, thats just standard for demonic magic. The Felblood in SWP are every color for the same reason in the lore, but just affected more: Demonic magic burns the soul and corrupts those around it.

First Warcraft game was published at 1994 and some of them even wanted to make it a Warhammer-game.

No, Orcs and Humans was a Warhammer Fantasy Battle game until the licsencing deal fell through. And back then the tiny Blizzard Entertainment was working off of weekly withdrawls at a supermarket on Discover Cards. They didnt have the money or the economic armor to simply dump a project that was nearly so complete. So they edited the assets and got it to a point where Copyright Law wouldnt come down on them. The result is the scion of the father of the greatest RTS games ever programmed.

the dark elves of warhammer.

Are white from cave albinism

I feel the need to point out that the Dunmer in TES arent evil, a bit insular perhaps and you could probably make an argument for them being a bit snotty, but definitely not Evil. That honor falls to the Thalmor, which happens to be a High Elf faction.

Dunmer in TES are the primary slavers. The Thalmor are just blade-eared Nazis so its easy to just call them evil.

Sparkling vampires are the least of that series' problems.

I prefer to imagine that the vampires are actually burning alive in sunlight and only not dieing because of extreme localized regeneration Ala the mechanism explained for why a Zergling is so hard to kill in Wings of Liberty (localized reincarnation of cells). And that Belle is too stupid and self obsessed to realize or see that that is what is actually happening.

However and thankfully, Vampires are still primarily based off of Dracula

Trying to argue that orcs are green because of Warcraft since Warcraft has been their most successful iteration, when Warcraft piggybacked GW's visuals and popularity in the first place, seems a bit like suggesting The Lord of the Rings is the definitive fantasy story because of the New Line movies.

Id never claim that blizzard took inspiration for character design from WHFB beyond what survived the long transformation that took place from Orcs and Humans to Vanilla. And once we got to Vanilla basically everything WH styled with gear that wasnt the Steam Tonk (which we only ever see ruined) and the Orcish Grunt's armor survived to WoW. ANd honestly the barbaric gear takes alot of inspiration from television and Conan

[Blackhawk748]

Dunmer in TES are the primary slavers. The Thalmor are just blade-eared Nazis so its easy to just call them evil.

See, i didnt know that. Then again i have most of my knowledge from Oblivion and Skyrim, and i dont recall either game mentioning that. And honestly i just REALLY want to punch the Thalmor.

Thalmor-We are obviously better than you. We live longer and are better at magic.
Nord- *slams greataxe into Thalmor's face* I disagree.
Thalmor- *gurgle*

[Solaris]

Thalmor-We are obviously better than you. We live longer and are better at magic.
Nord- *slams greataxe into Thalmor's face* I disagree.
Thalmor- *gurgle*

That one gave me a good laugh.

[hamishspence]

Are white from cave albinism

Warhammer Dark Elves don't live in caves. They live in big cities on the surface, normally.

[Jayabalard]

Moriquendi does not refer to the color of their skin nor that they live below ground. They are those that never undertook the journey to the undying lands, so they never saw the light of the trees. Presumably they would look exactly like all other elves, and live in the same sorts of environments in middle earth.

Shippey is considered pretty much the top authority on Tolkein, and he suggests that they're inspired by the Dökkálfar... which were described as black (not just brown or dark skinned) back in the early 13th century.

I'm pretty sure that the 13th century predates D&D.

[Blackhawk748]

That one gave me a good laugh.

Then my work here is done. Good day citizen. *flies off in ridiculous looking costume*

[Illogictree]

Shippey is considered pretty much the top authority on Tolkein, and he suggests that they're inspired by the Dökkálfar... which were described as black (not just brown or dark skinned) back in the early 13th century.

I'm pretty sure that the 13th century predates D&D.

...You are aware that the wood elves are one of the groups of Moriquendi, right? 'Inspired by' doesn't mean 'exactly equivalent to'.

Does this mean... Legolas is the LotR equivalent of Drizz't?

[Thrudd]

Shippey is considered pretty much the top authority on Tolkein, and he suggests that they're inspired by the Dökkálfar... which were described as black (not just brown or dark skinned) back in the early 13th century.

I'm pretty sure that the 13th century predates D&D.

The only inspiration that Tolkien seems to have drawn is the fact that there are two general groupings of elves, and one group calls the others "dark". Otherwise, his "dark elves" have no commonality with the mythology. Legolas and his people are Moriquendi.
Drow in D&D do appear to be more directly inspired by the myths, at least in their physical description and living environment. Which means drow are not inspired by Tolkien, at all.

Subsequent representations of dark elves may or may not be influenced by D&D's depiction of them, in place of or in addition to the mythology. It is hard to say. Though my feeling is that they probably are more likely than not, in most cases.

[tarlison2k1]

I think it's green to make them look sleazy

[Kaptin Keen]

Well - the real answer is: So no one can claim that orcs are racist. So they're a color humans are not. Conversely with elves, of course.

[Mordaedil]

I am reminded of the story of the Incredible Hulk and how printing comics caused the character to go from being grey to being printed green.

[DeTess]

Orcs are green so that undead orcs can be easily distinguished from living orcs. Likewise, undead threads can be easily distinguished from living threads by checking the dates of some of the earlier posts.

[Malphegor]

Heck, for all anyone knows it could have started with Spider-Man in the 1960s reinforcing a connection between Green+Goblin...

There's also this 1970s picture of LOTR orcs by Tim Kirk...



and then D&D called them as greenish in the Monster Manual, 1977

Description: Orcs appear particularly disgusting because their coloration — brown or brownish green with a bluish sheen — highlights their pinkish snouts and ears. Their bristly hair is dark brown or black,

There's probably a lot of other sources, but they're the oldest I know of thanks to this stackexchange answer:

I suppose the Hulk is orc-adjacent enough what with barbarians raging, and he's been green for a while. 1962 creation, though I believe he was originally grey. So probably a 1970s change without doing more googling.

What's always surprised me about orcs is that in asian media, like Japanese manga, they've somehow retained for years the pig faces of 70s-80s D&D. So many doujins I can't link here due to, um, being elf/orc porn, have pig headed orcs being terrified of elves being worse than the orcs- the orcs will just hurt you, the elves will make you love them for hurting you.

[Segev]

It's the Fell. It turns them green.

[Imbalance]

Compound ancestral jealousy.

[LibraryOgre]

The Mod Wonder: They are green because they are covered with moss from lack of movement... like this thread.