Orcs

=Lifespan= Forty to fifty years.

=Physical Description= Orcs are, above any other characteristic, large. Standing at eight feet tall and weighing around three hundred and fifty pounds, they are the second-largest of the mortal speaking peoples (after the krolgashi). Their hands are clawed and well padded on the palm and fingertips, robbing some dexterity but giving them unrivalled fighting force. Their skin is dry and tough, reminiscent of dwarven hide but with more flexibility. Hair grows thickly from their head and face, a “ropy” black hair that is often woven into long braids. Their eyes are dull reddish-grey, deep-set in the skull and overhung by incredibly bushy eyebrows. Their nose is very far back in the skull compared to that of humans, the nostrils seeming little more than holes in the face. Their jaws are four times stronger than those of humans are, and their teeth are proportionately larger. As the majority of the orcish diet is meat, their teeth are mostly incisors and canines, and they only have four molars. The jaw extends forward, creating a small muzzle with thin lips. Their skin has a range of colours from a dull, muddy green to greenish grey, dark and efficient camouflage in the forest. Their natural posture is straight like a human’s, but they tend to hunch instinctively when hunting or fighting, leading to a common perception of orcs by humans as hunched, crouching monsters. Their feet are broad, more awkward but tougher and less apt to sink in mud than those of humans. Their ribcage is barrel-shaped. Their legs are heavily developed, with fat depositing in the calves rather than thighs.

=Mental Description= One of the shortest-lived speaking peoples, the orcs do not follow the elven and dwarven “long view.” In a way, they are most similar to stupid dragons: they act on a well of instinct rather than discursive thought, but their instinct is usually violent. Centuries of cultural conditioning by the Tara-iz Maga have encouraged egoism and individualism in the orcish mind as preferable means, and their clannish ferocity is something of a shadow of elven thought. Orcs do not lust for power, but strength: the difference being that power is a civilised abstraction of strength, which is the raw impulse towards growth and survival. Their trust only is given to other orcs, and the rest they treat with savage contempt. If any half-orcs were born of affection rather than rape, such stories have not come to the attention of scholars. The complex human emotions of pride, condescension, self-esteem, and so forth hold little sway in the orcish mind. The world of the orc is simple: when he is angry, he fights; those in his clan are always friends, those outside usually enemies unless allied with him against non-orcs (“the vermin races”). Orcs have little preference for guile or deceit. An orc is honest not because it is a moral virtue to be so, but because he finds dishonesty to be overcomplicated. Though often depicted as cold-hearted monsters with no patience for art, the orcs have a rich, rarely seen tradition of music and leatherworking. Orcs are easily seduced by rage, and those who embrace the internal beast become the terrible destroyers of human folklore. The orcs, like the other mortal races, are violently disgusted by sexual deviants, but tend to react far more brutally than most.

=Alignment= For all but their own kind, the orcs show fiery contempt (with the exception of dragons, whom they dread, and the krolgashi, whom they regard with a certain measure of hateful envy for their natural armour). An orcish raider is not armed merely with crushing axe and piercing arrows, but with all the hatred and cruelty of five generations of war. Orcish torture may not be sickeningly inventive, but they enjoy the buckle of breaking vermin bones and the dance of agonised muscles. The scene of an orcish raid is truly hellish: dazed men collapse in the street, soaked in their own blood, while infants howl as the raiders toss them into burning buildings. Women too young or old to bear children are torn to pieces, while those that are fertile are systematically violated. Those that resist their rapists are mutilated in their womb to such an extent that death is near certain. Those that do not resist are chased away afterwards, to the barking laughter of the orcs. They wipe their rears with temple scrolls and cut the priest’s throat over the altar. If a cleric of the Tara-iz Maga rides with the raiders, he will violently prevent the rapes, disgusted at the possible “pollution” of their race by the creation of half-orcs. Though they have some loyalty to clan and family, their politics are based on a constant struggle, with the aim to prove to one another that they, alone, are the strongest. The clerics of the Tara-iz Maga are somewhat more disciplined, but are not rigid in their obedience to the clerical code. Thus, the orcs are almost universally Chaotic Evil, while the clerics of the Tara-iz Maga are Neutral Evil. There are, however, orcish druids who are most often Neutral Evil or Chaotic Neutral. There are also stories of Ṫarselk, a possibly legendary orc who secretly converted to Sahullam while raiding in Idroslekh. According to the tale, the ta’Ullami orc was turned during the dying moments of a nameless ahuspa, and was consumed with remorse for the cruelty he had shown before. Ṫarselk, aware that his raiding party would soon attack the city of Kemret, home to over four thousand ta’Ullami souls, was compelled to act. Ṫarselk wrested control of the party by killing the leader, then deceived the rest of the orcs into entering an ambush by the soldiers of Kemret. Ṫarselk was saved by reciting the Terokitega, the holiest of ta’Ullami prayers, while the other orcs died by sword and spear. Ṫarselk was forgiven his past cruelties, accepted as a ta’Ullami and, under his military advice and leadership, Kemret never fell before the orcish invasions. Ṫarselk later journeyed into the west as an ahuspa, and was never heard of again. He was likely Neutral Good.

=Relations= The orcs came to Taresani during the height of the Federation’s power and bliss. Fifteen years later, Marnoz lay in ruins, Hentölla was a solitude, and seven saighes had been utterly destroyed. Scholars are unsure of the bloodshed in terms of numbers: the census system of the Federation was lost. However, in FY 87, the Drecitoun wizard Tornell Sianned estimated that the orcs were, directly or indirectly, responsible for the loss of at least 40% of the population of Kerlonna. No humans remember this slaughter, but for the longevous races such as elves and gnomes, elders and even adults can recall the crushing despair that seemed to overwhelm mankind when Marnoz fell. The orcs were less a people and more a curse upon all of Kerlonna. They are fiercely hated by the other races, to which they return their wild fury. The orcs even scorn those that they father by human women, regarding them as a corruption of orcish blood. The Tara-iz Maga has only further encouraged the brutality of its followers by ordering that the orcs “carve the testament of their glory upon the shattered palaces of the vermin races.”

=Social Structure= An orc’s first loyalty is to himself. This must never be forgotten when studying their interaction. The clannish barbarism that governs their curious society grows from their vicious selfishness, encouraged by the centuries of the Tara-iz Maga. Though the orcs feel a certain preference for their clan over those of other orcs, they are always searching for ways to prove their dominance over others. The orcish women are marginalised and sneered at by the physically tougher males, and the Tara-iz Maga encourages that females focus on bearing and rearing young. Childhood is swift, with orcs reaching sexual maturity around age eight. There are no strict protocols concerning clan hierarchy: the strong rule, and the weak are ruled. Clerics (droknul) are feared and respected by other orcs in equal degree for the violently ascetic and hedonistic practices which they enforce upon their bodies. The orcs have not the patience to keep and feed slaves, and the concept of servants is alien in a society without currency or class. Young males are trained in hunting and war, and both sexes are taught medicine and stories of the orcish oral tradition. It is unknown how orcish society functioned before the Exile which drove them from their homeland two centuries past. The unstable nature of their society is not only normal but axiomatic to orcish thought. Civilisation was no match for the howling raiders as the Federation crashed into ruin. Why would the orcs ever desire such crippling frailty? Marriage is unknown to the orcs. Rather, their society is similar to that of beasts, where a few dominant males are given exclusive breeding rights with all females, thus further fuelling the constant struggle for dominance. Heterosexual love is utterly foreign to the orcish mind. However, homosexual relationships between males are encouraged to make raiders more loyal, and (although records on the topic are thin) the females partake in similar activity as well. Orcs that abandon the typical orcish way and join the Coven Dyarisvesh bewilder and awe the rest of their kind. When the droknul attempted to execute the orcish archdruid Isvesh on the charge of racial corruption, he bayed and called a hundred wolves while he took the shape of a gigantic bear, and together they slew and devoured the fifteen would-be executioners. The orcs give the druids a wide berth, and even the droknul regard the non-orcish druids as being a purer strain of their kind. The droknul act as judges in cases requiring their counsel, usually regarding racial purity. Senior clan-members form a jury, and the judge is also the executioner, should the law demand it.

=Culture= Non-orcs typically regard the Orkalṡṅul as barely sentient monsters with no sense of beauty or art. Though the scholars here are appalled by the savagery of the orcs, it is inaccurate and foolish to ignore the rich artistic heritage of that same people. The art of the orcs to which non-orcs have the most exposure is their singing (igtharuṡ), as orcs sing after a victorious battle. Often, a leader calls a primary theme, to which the followers answer with their variations on that theme. Imitation of natural sounds is a common practice in igtharuṡ, and seems to be used most often during story telling. The orcs sing descriptive passages when reciting stories, and speak dialogue normally. The orcs have no real form of writing, the orthography of their speech developed separately by the scholars of Taresani. In areas where the orcs have eradicated all other races, a curious form of art may be observed. There, the orcs paint what seem to be the skeletons of their kind, engaged in ritual activity. It is speculated that these paintings are all that survive of the indigenous orcish religion, which they abandoned during the Exile. Why the droknul would permit such “weak” attention to the past is unknown. The orcs appear to have no count of the years nor any sort of calendar, as would be expected from such a primitive people. The orcs eat what they hunt or gather, much as wild humans in southwestern Kerlonna still do, and the krolgashi of the Great Western Dakylsthas have always done. Even those rare orcs that abandon the evil ways of their kin and join human society retain a taste for raw meats and organs over the tamer fare of non-orcs. The orcs do not produce alcohol themselves, and find the taste repellent, but consumption of certain mind-altering plants is common among them. Indeed, it is believed that some raiders who exhibit violently deranged behaviour (such as gnawing on the hilts of their axes, pulling their own hair, or inane babbling) are highly intoxicated in order to fight the more ferociously. There is a poetic tradition among the orcs that, though mostly unseen by non-orcs, is a vibrant and ancient tradition that certainly predates their crossing of the eastern sea. What orcish poetry that outsiders know of has been mainly recounted by solitary orcs who, in the vein of Ṫarselk, have taken up the cause of their former foes. There is said to be an orcish poetic epic, the Gorsathuṅṙo, but none of the poets who have memorised it have ever had cause to speak with outsiders. The Gorsathuṅṙo is said to recount the history of the orcs from the time of their creation by the Gorsatul (their gods) until the death of the Gorsatul and the beginning of the orcish Exile. Gorsathuṅṙo means, in the orcish tongue, “The Elegy for the Gods.”

=Location= The orcish fatherland, Ṡalvarag, lies far across the eastern sea, where the trees and beasts are strange. From the testaments of the first orcs to roam Kerlonna and Taresani, Ṡalvarag was a chill, rainy land of vast trees and dread beasts of horn and ivory. The orcs, however, were driven out by a great cataclysm involving the deaths of the Gorsatul. They crossed the vastness of the eastern sea and landed upon the Sotanjes, north of Hentölla, which were only sparsely inhabited by humans surviving off fishing and hunting. During their invasion of Hentölla, the orcs found it deeply reminiscent of Ṡalvarag and settled thickly there. Then they swept along the coasts of Kerlonna, to the west and south, spreading far across the breadth of the Marnic Federation. Today, orcs are the exclusive inhabitants of Hentölla, and have settled marginal, wild areas of Kerlonna, where they are isolated enough that driving them out would be more trouble than it is worth.

=Religion= The term “religion” is problematic when speaking about the orcs. In the classical definition of “revering powers beyond the self, of earth or the other planes,” orcs are irreligious. More precisely, their gods are dead. As the orcs hold, the Gorsatul were deceived into ruin by the lone god of dusk and dawn, Hrokḋai. The orcish priests then destroyed Hrokḋai, but before he was vanquished, he laid a mighty curse upon the orcs and smote Ṡalvarag, ruining it. The surviving orcs fled across the Last Seas until they reached Hentölla. During their exilic voyage west, some of the orcs took heed of one who spoke strange words, named Kerṡuṅ. He declared that although they had lost their fatherland, the orcs were ultimately fortunate. They had been imprisoned by the will of their gods, and had bowed like weak prey before ritual and reverence. Kerṡuṅ posited that with their gods dead, the orcs could worship their true masters: themselves. Holiness resided in the individual and the orcish race, and declaring their strength over non-orcs was their worship. The orcs had shared their isles with elves, and had feared their hidden power, thinking them wood-spirits; but when the ruin came to Ṡalvarag, Kerṡuṅ had seen the elves flee in screaming terror as their forests burned, and he realised that they were mortal. Kerṡuṅ named his teachings and ideas the Tara-iz Maga: “the Great Will.” The orcs whole-heartedly came to adopt the Tara-iz Maga, for they were a godless, lost people. Kerṡuṅ developed a training for those who wished to devote their lives to the Tara-iz Maga: they partook in excesses of lust and gluttony, then struck themselves with blades, fasted, and deprived themselves of sleep. Through this exhausting practice, they came to understand the emptiness of both pleasure and pain and became indifferent to both. They thus became the first droknul: “those who are indifferent.” The droknul are grim, sworn to sobriety and chastity, and they work dark miracles in the name of the Tara-iz Maga. The orcs are as aware of the existence of alternate planes as any other races, but they do not believe that their souls go beyond the material plane after death. Once, the Gorsatul reigned over a great realm of glory and wilderness, a heaven for their true followers, but it was undone and lost when its creators were destroyed, and all the orcish souls upon it are believed to have been destroyed as well. The orcs hold now that the Tara-iz Maga binds their souls to Maelris, and that they are reborn after deaths in new orcish forms. Because the soul is not connected to the body, after death the body is treated as no sacred thing by orcs. They typically bury the body in a shallow grave and celebrate the dead orc with a feast. When a drokne dies, the occasion is far more solemn. The body is ritually butchered and the meat consumed, that the orcs may have contact with the remnant of the cleric’s terrible strength.

=Language= Orcs are a preliterate people, and have neither utility for nor interest in writing systems. Runners carry messages verbally. Dialects are numerous but similar, descended from the “Ship-Speech” that developed during the Exile. Orcs prefer not to learn the languages of the vermin races, but some among them pick up such languages in order to better demand plunder from the weak. Orcish languages are highly difficult for non-orcs to learn, and orcs have a similarly difficult time picking up the native tongues of Kerlonna, owing to alien grammar as well as an utter lack of cognate vocabulary. Indeed, contemporary historians of the orc wars assumed that the orcs lacked a language entirely, and were but mute beasts. After contact with imprisoned orcs and those few that abandoned the tenets of the Tara-iz Maga, human scholars developed an orthography for the sounds of the orcish language, and recorded the orcish autonym “Orkalṡṅul,” meaning “those who see afar” (a reference to both the imposing statue and keen eyes of the orcs). Due to their ferocious xenophobia, the orcs have experienced no linguistic exchange with other races. The sound of orcish dialects is queer to any non-orcish listener: retroflex consonants, foreign to native Kerlonnic languages, are heavily used, and there are often “slides” from a retroflex fricative to a dental, or vice versa. The orcish sentence structure is also foreign to Kerlonna, being precisely the opposite of Marnic word order (the word order in Marnic being SOV, and in orcish dialects VOS).

=Classes= Barbarians could, in the traditional sense, constitute the entire orcish race. More accurately, a significant minority of orcs fight with wild rage, but most keep at least a modicum of self-control during combat. An orc is only truly a bard if he has memorised the Gorsathuṅṙo, for which he receives great respect from the rest of his kind. Musically, the bards (sadhvul) are singers only, disdaining any other instrument than the voice. Clerics, the frightening droknul, are heavily scarred by their training, and are identified by the ritual scars that they cut across their forearms when they complete their training, forming wave-like patterns that symbolise the exile and freedom from the Gorsatul. They are few, dreadful in their anger, and utterly implacable, viewing themselves as the champions of their race’s purity. Druids are rare among their kind, and all belong to a single coven, Dyarisvesh, the Glade of the coven’s archdruid lying somewhere in western Hentölla. Most orcs know nearly nothing of the druids, and one hundred and fifty years after the foundation of Coven Dyarisvesh, the droknul are still unsure of how to behave towards them. Those orcs that do know of the druids prefer not to discuss them. Fighters are typically among the orcish ranks, as with all races, and though they have no real system of military professions, some orcs do indeed become great warriors, devoting their lives to setting the sword against the vermin races. Paladins are unknown among the orcs, and they would scorn such a life: utter devotion to obedience and mercy strikes them as laughable, a degenerate ideal fit only for the vermin races. There are some legends of repentant orcs who abandoned the Tara-iz Maga and embraced the paladin’s calling, but there have been no such penitents in living memory. Rangers are those who prefer the aspect of hunter to that of warrior. Among the raiders, they map out the territory of their prey and kill with a silent slit of the throat. Rogues are grudgingly admitted among the orcs; mostly due to the declarations of the droknul that cunning is but another manifestation of strength. Most orcs, however, regard rogues as untrustworthy and furtive (not without justification). Warlocks are rare but highly respected among the Orkalṡṅul, as the warlocks grasp the power of the Dark Realms without being beholden to them. Warlords are those orcs with the power to rally and inspire, and typically serve as the leaders of a raiding party, calling their brethren to ever more terrible atrocities against the vermin races. There are no, nor have there ever been, any orcish wizards: they are not even mentioned in the Gorsathuṅṙo.