More on Orcs', my solution!

I spent slightly more than 24 hours getting round to writing this, basically once again my world sped up and I had to drop things to keep up!

In my last post I basically had a negative rant about Warhammer Orcs' nad found that they were at best simply a copy of human raiders, complete with a few nasty overtones. Why bother with Orcs' when you have the more interesting chaos raiders? Or Beastmen from the forests? Or Skaven from below?

Does the idea that they rape and pillage make them different from many historical armies and the perception of most raiding forces? Why not focus on the nastier and more mysterious Fimir than the neanderthal turned green skin Orcs? At least the Fimir have an air of mystery mixed with real horror and revulsion, a left over factor of their source material from Celtic mythology.

Orcs going into third editon had no real culture and were just a brutish bad guy who the best that could be offered was some comic writing. Yet the solution to this came from Games Workshops development of Orcs, starting with 40K.

Around 1991 games workshop developed the concept of the orc for 40K, basically making it the Ork. I think the same problems pervaded with the orc being a bad guy with a gun but little else. The big developments were the idea that Orc society was something that was inherent in the minds of the orcs, not some constantly changing political society that humans live in. Culture amongst the orcs did not develop, it was programmed into them, they just knew how to develop weapons, technology and so on. Hierarchy was simply the largest at the top and war was simply an instinct, not a means to achieve something (although this instinct did allow them to plan and implement grand ideas such as conquest and enslaving so that they could build for more conquest and enslaving.)

With this the concept of the Ork changed too. Language was not taught, it was known, Orks didn't have family  unit, they grew from fungus and then joined tribes, conveniently getting rid of the long standing sore point of Ork wifes waiting and bringing up little Orks in a family unit based society. The reproduction of Orks was done by spores with the spores being released when Orks were happiest, basically when they were violent and at war.

Now returning to Orcs, the Warhammer equivalent. fourth edition hinted that these things occurred and introduced a more unified idea of Orcs. I can't see why it doesn't serve the Old World that was presented in WFRP better to have this idea of Orcs. Basically do away with the idea that Orcs (and goblins) are like some kind of raiding barbarians with a tribe based on family bringing up their young. Replace it with the simple facts that Orcs occur like fungus and war is their instinct. Tribes are built around this and can occur almost out of no where. While orc settlements can be found, caves can be infested with goblins and so on, there is no such thing as an orc kingdom or goblin kingdom, just large groups who from alliances behind the biggest and strongest leaders.

Orcs' in my Warhammer world are like this and this is the background I will base my games on, giving them a different purpose to other races. So:

Orcs and Goblins

The Myth

Consisting of tribes of brutal raiders from the badlands, intent on pillage and destruction. The abomination of the Half Orc shows their intentions. They will plunder and at times invade for territory. They are followers of dark gods' and pure evil. It is only the fighting amongst themselves that prevents them form completely over running the Old World.

The Reality

Although goblins often have malign intent, the Orcs main aim is simply violence and as much of it as possible. The Orcs are produced from spawns, like fungus, which grows more orcs, goblins, squigs or snotlings where ever it falls. They have similar intelligence levels to humans but rarely study, with most of their skills coming from instinct and the only learning done is learning better ways to be violent. They gather in tribes which are little more than collections of warriors behind the strongest leader who then takes the orcs to war. The stronger leaders tend to unite several tribes although  this rarely lasts long due to infighting. The more violence the Orcs experience, the more spores they release, resulting in the more Orcs. The Darklands to the east are over run by Orcs as a result. hHowever their inherent disorganisation has also meant other factions have been able to enslave and dominate large numbers of Orcs.

One of the horrors of fighting Orcs is the notion of half Orcs. Although rare, they tend to live longer than most Orcs due to possession of a judgement that is not based on simply finding the best way to commit acts of violence. A half Orc occurs when Orc spores infect a dying human or recently deceased corpse If the human was living he soon dies of a raging infection. Basically this corpse nourishes the Orc which as it grows absorbs some of it's DNA. Normal Orcs are asexual, while half Orcs can be make, female or neither. Some can even reproduce and legend has it that some noble families have Orc blood in them. This last factor has been exploited by the Chaos Dwarfs in their experiments with breeding different strains of Orc.