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Post by Bob on Apr 15, 2014 10:14:11 GMT -5
So it dawned on me as I was driving around yesterday that half-orc backstories are always "Well the orc warband invaded my mother's village and there was a rape and..." It's like they're all written by this guy I mean, we get it. Orcs are the bad guys. But surely there are backstories that get you to half-orcdom without all the forced intercourse. Sounds like a challenge. Marcus the Farmer lives in a secluded village in the woods. One day whilst hunting mushrooms, like he does, he happens upon a female orc dead under a fallen log, or in the river, or wherever. Doesn't really matter. But what DOES matter is that the dead lady orc had strapped to her back an orc baby. Now, while most humans would kill the orc infant outright (or worse), Marcus was a good and kindly man who felt this creature had done no ill to the world. It was an innocent, insofar as anyone can be an innocent in this day and age. So he returned to the village with the orc infant, and decided to raise the child as his own. There's almost certainly a dramatic "don't kill the baby" scene, where he convinces the other villagers to let him raise the kid instead of burning his house down and salting his fields, but I'm at work. Maybe Marcus has a particularly high charisma score, or he's persuasive, or he calls in a couple favors, or they decide to let him have this one because he's always going off about this sort of thing and what harm could a baby do (but the second he gets outta line, it's infanticide time!). There's a montage where Marcus raises the orc kid to young adulthood. Changing diapers, teaching him how to ride a bike, throwing a baseball around in the yard, etcetera. Maybe there's a scene where the orc saves Old Lady From there, we can go any sort of way: - Orc kid and the simple farmer's daughter fool around behind the barn, like kids do, insta-half-orc
- Nurture takes the edge off Nature, the orc baby becomes an adult, marries or doesn't (hey, people are in to all sorts of things, who's to say Brenda the Low-Charisma Farmer's Daughter doesn't fine twue wove), has a kid.
Maybe the villagers/grandparents approve and raise the new half-orc as one of their own. Maybe they disapprove mightily and ship the half-orc off to the local monastery. Maybe there's a baby-in-a-basket-in-the-river scene. Who's to say? The important thing is we now have a half-orc PC who wasn't the product of a rape. Granted, none of this gets our Half-Orc hero to the "I want to kill all the orcs," but we haven't even started talking about his own life yet.
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Post by mike on Apr 15, 2014 11:41:38 GMT -5
Sure, there are any number of stories for the production of half-orcs. But with the whole "orcs have been united and are over running the continent" thing, the Occam's razor of origin stories is likely the product of rape.
Now, like your story, that doesn't get into the actual life of the half-Orc. Maybe the mother tried to raise it for a while, but at like age 6: the townspeople ran it off into the wilderness or someone convinced it that it wasn't wanted so it ran into the wilderness, or it was abandoned in the wilderness by the mom's new bf or or or. Pow, low charisma barbarian.
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Post by Bob on Apr 15, 2014 11:47:31 GMT -5
Sure, there are any number of stories for the production of half-orcs. But with the whole "orcs have been united and are over running the continent" thing, the Occam's razor of origin stories is likely the product of rape. True, but I'm not talking specifically about this campaign. Every half orc we've ever encountered has been of the "well my mother was raped by the orc" variety. That's not to knock Cheryle or Dan's stories. Like you said, Occam's Razor suggests that the vast, vast majority of half-orcs in this environment are the byproduct of a non-mutual coupling. Hell, at the table even I was like "oh okay, Cheryle's character's mom got raped by the Orc warlord who's hammer we're trying to recover, and Dan's half-orc's mother was raped by the same warlord, tying those characters together, badda bing, badda boom." It's the go-to for half-orc character histories. Like I said, this doesn't have to be Cheryle's half-orc, zero charisma barbarian's backstory. Or Dan's half-orc-wilderness, chaotic evil because dice said so shaman's backstory. It's just a mental exercise on a rainy Monday Tuesday.
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Post by John on Apr 15, 2014 12:20:12 GMT -5
Other options:
Magically created Humans / elves etc. cursed to orcish form use half orc stats but are actually some other race
I am in an all day meeting today and it sucks.
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Post by Bob on Apr 15, 2014 12:53:01 GMT -5
Other options: Magically created Humans / elves etc. cursed to orcish form Variations on a theme that both suggest a Sauron-like bad guy somewhere out there. I like it! If you're looking at character race as "collection of stats, benefits, and drawbacks," then this is a good option to get around the "your PCs would get massacred in every village for being part Supremely Evil Being That We All Hate." If half-orcness is integral to the character, then a little less so. Suppose you could always get Evolutional about it and say that Half-Orcs/Elves are the common ancestor of Orcs/Elves and Humans, and that they're just sort of around.
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Post by mike on Apr 15, 2014 13:51:35 GMT -5
Other options: Magically created Humans / elves etc. cursed to orcish form use half orc stats but are actually some other race. These are perfectly fine explanations. I wouldn't be expecting a player to be producing them though ("Hey DM, I don't know much about your world or your plan, but I'm declaring "Half-orcs" to actually be a new race entirely and not the product of human-orc coupling. Mmm-kay?"). I know, from past experience, we might actually have that kind of liberty. But still as a habit I don't usually entertain world changing decisions during character creation.
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Post by mike on Apr 15, 2014 13:54:04 GMT -5
Of course there's always the half-orc with half-orc coupling scenario.
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Post by mike on Apr 15, 2014 13:57:13 GMT -5
Also let's not ignore the ironic and amusing fact that the only people discussing half-orc origins are not in fact playing half-orcs ....Unless your trying to suggest that I play a half-orc...hmmm. I think I could swing that.
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Post by Bob on Apr 15, 2014 14:50:40 GMT -5
Also let's not ignore the ironic and amusing fact that the only people discussing half-orc origins are not in fact playing half-orcs ....Unless your trying to suggest that I play a half-orc...hmmm. I think I could swing that. We're the only three people on the board.
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Post by Dan on Apr 16, 2014 7:38:07 GMT -5
I'd normally go with 'My mother was an Orc Prostitute, and my father was so hard-up he had to buy the cheapest lay he could find", But with orcs so hated in John's World she would have been run out of town before she could get her business established.
'Mom' Race: Orc Class: 3rd level Courtasan
'Dad' Race: Elf Class: Cleary doesn't have any Str: 10 Con: 18 Dex: 9 Int: 9 Wis: 3 Chr: 8 Armor Proficiency: Hide Weapon Proficiency: Simple Feats: Weapon Finesse: Natural Weapons, Diligent, Great Fortitude Skills: Ride: 20
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Post by Dan on Apr 16, 2014 7:43:25 GMT -5
I'd normally go with 'My mother was an Orc Prostitute, and my father was so hard-up he had to buy the cheapest lay he could find", But with orcs so hated in John's World she would have been run out of town before she could get her business established.
'Mom' Race: Orc Class: 3rd level Courtasan Str: 11 Con: 15 Dex: 18 Int: 9 Wis: 9 Chr: 6 Armor Proficiency: Leather Weapon Proficiency: Whip, Sap Feats: Deft Hands, Improved Grapple, Weapon Finesse: *CENSORED* ,Weapon Specialization: BlackKnobbed Violator Skills: Rope Use: 12, Tumble: 15, Handle Animal: 10, Ride: 20
'Dad' Race: Elf Class: Cleary doesn't have any Str: 10 Con: 18 Dex: 9 Int: 9 Wis: 3 Chr: 8 Armor Proficiency: Hide Weapon Proficiency: Simple Feats: Weapon Finesse: Natural Weapons, Diligent, Great Fortitude Skills: Ride: 20
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Post by John on Apr 16, 2014 10:32:47 GMT -5
Not as many meetings today. I can type something for a bit.
I've put some thought into orcs in our world. I know in some campaigns they are misunderstood, honor-bound warriors (fantasy Klingons essentially) but I prefer the irredeemably evil version. Orcs are monstrous. Cruel. Vicious. "But what about baby orcs? Are they born evil? How can a baby be evil even if it's an orc? What about the orcish females and non-combatants? Are you just going to slaughter them after defeating tribe's warriors?"
Well yeah, you'll want to. I've never had a party encounter orc young or females because I always wanted to spring an orc matron on them. We're getting into orc reproductive habits, so I feel I should share my thoughts instead of keeping this a surprise. Now, none of this is set in stone. I am totally cool with changing this, or having one offshoot of orcs be more human-like or whatever, but this is what I've had in mind for the problem of non-warrior orcs:
Orc Matron Orc matrons stand 8 to 12 feet tall. Stringy matted hair infested with insects droops despondently over the matron's pig-like eyes and slobbering, tusked mouth. Their bulbous forms are nearly always pregnant with a clutch of orc spawn which emerge on a roughly monthly basis, the horrific beasts clawing their way up the matron's engorged and fleshy body to attach to one of her twelve teats. An orc matron is fantastically strong, and barely seems to notice the dozen orclings writhing and clawing at her torso. The grunting pig-like spawn are occasionally plucked from the matron's body and devoured when the orc tribe's food sources run low, often by the matron herself.
When the orclings are roughly goblin sized the matron peels them off and discards them, forcing the orclings to fend for themselves. She may also do so while in battle, hurling the tusked orclings as living missiles at her enemies (1 per round, range 20 feet, Reflex save DC 15 or knocked prone. Treat orcling as a goblin that attacks until all non orcs in line of sight are dead).
How an orc matron becomes pregnant, what percentage of orclings are born female or if matrons are created by some unnatural means are all questions no sage has yet been willing to pursue.
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Post by Bob on Apr 16, 2014 10:55:50 GMT -5
Not as many meetings today. I can type something for a bit. I've put some thought into orcs in our world. I know in some campaigns they are misunderstood, honor-bound warriors (fantasy Klingons essentially) but I prefer the irredeemably evil version. Orcs are monstrous. Cruel. Vicious. "But what about baby orcs? Are they born evil? How can a baby be evil even if it's an orc? What about the orcish females and non-combatants? Are you just going to slaughter them after defeating tribe's warriors?" Well yeah, you'll want to. I've never had a party encounter orc young or females because I always wanted to spring an orc matron on them. We're getting into orc reproductive habits, so I feel I should share my thoughts instead of keeping this a surprise. Right, and again for the record, I just made my initial post because it dawned on me that all the Half Orc character histories we've had in any of our games have been "my mother, the most beautiful, saintly woman in my pristine farming village, was raped by an orc" and I wanted to indulge in the mental exercise of taking it in a different direction. In this particular campaign, where Orcs are (a) wholly cruel, foul, netherworldly beasts, evil made flesh and (b) everywhere, sure, it makes sense that the two Half-Orc PCs sprung from that background. All of that is fantastic, if a bit heavy-handed in the description of their foulness. I imagine these creatures are the top prize for orc hunters and the like, and that killing one would make you famous. There's an idea for a character in there, but I'm off to lunch with Jill at the Panera. Also the thought of using Deflect Arrows (and, later, Snatch Arrows) to deal with thrown Orclings is hilarious :-).
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Post by John on Apr 16, 2014 11:13:00 GMT -5
All of that is fantastic, if a bit heavy-handed in the description of their foulness. I wanted certain parties to be able to kill baby orcs without reservation. One man's heavy handedness is another's "tough call. It's not entirely clear that this still isn't a question of nature vs. nurture." Also the thought of using Deflect Arrows (and, later, Snatch Arrows) to deal with thrown Orclings is hilarious :-). Ha yes!
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Post by mike on Apr 16, 2014 14:02:43 GMT -5
Wow! Maybe starting a new thread on D&D ethics...
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