Lies Your Players Will Hear About Orcs

Orcs as savage brutes are cool, whatever. I think there's a dimension of complexity to that portrayal that goes unnoticed. They’re the classical fear of mankind... that we're just some decent architecture and a few fancy machines from being violent and superstitious boogeymen that expand our territory over everything and reject outsiders. The orcs barbarism makes them effective as stormtroopers, and perhaps a sort of "how different are you, really?" angle if you want to take your game in that direction. If you think your players would like that angle, go for it.

A common argument against this portrayal is that it closely resembles imperial propaganda about Africans, Vietnamese, Muslims, etc. I would say that if your players aren't already evil racist fucks, your D&D game won't change their mind, but I digress.

If you're looking for a way to put your orcs in a more classically Romantic setting, here are some lies about orcs your players will hear, and may have to unlearn. But perhaps not before blood is on their hands, and they must seek redemption. Now there's a goddamn campaign.

So what is an orc?

Orcs did not name themselves that, they do not actually have a name for themselves. Or they didn't, until they were assigned the orc name.

“Orc” is an ugly word for an ugly creature. Or at least, Castles and Temples insist that the orc is ugly. What the orc looks like changes depending on the duchy, the island, or the forest you're in. And anybody who resembles an orc is ugly. It's the clearest possible way of defining attractiveness.

While humans are compared to primates -- the intelligent and crafty mammals, and elves are compared to something flowery or odd in nature -- something you can love but never resemble, the orc is always compared to the gruntiest, nastiest, toughest, and dumbest animals on the farm. Pigs and cows. Anything fleshy, big, dirty, or coarse-haired. Comparing an orc to a pig is helpful for the Castles and Temples. It makes it easier when they try to justify an orcs enslavement or slaughter.

An orc may be beautiful. But you probably shouldn’t tell anybody that you think an orc is beautiful. “Orcs do not have intercourse,” says the old bishop, scrunching his nose at the idea and handing you your payment -- 10 gold for 10 dead orcs. “Are they not born from mud and manure?”

(So orcs become a possibility for player romance, the forbidden love of something hated and scorned by society.)

An elf is naturally magical. An orc would never know magic. It's not like them. They are snorting, disinterested in any religion not defined by barbarism or sacrifice. They celebrate under the stars, dancing around fires, nothing like the respectable worship in temples, seated in pews. If you call an orc out on their religious hypocrisy, they would kill you. The temples in the city would at least put you on trial first.

When the adventuring party rolls into town, the Castles and Temples send them to slaughter orcs. Slaughter the pigs, your reward will come. The Castles and Temples know that the lowlives who search for treasure in the grim and abandoned curios around the wilderness will eventually turn their gaze on them. All adventurers get ideas eventually. Better to send them to the slaughter, and make use of them before they turn on you. Perhaps they will conveniently never return.

The adventurers may become the Castles and Temples, in time. They may never question the lies, and leave orc children without parents. They may never question why the orcs don’t attack first, retreat early, and never let a fallen comrade remain in the dirt. They may never question why there are no castles, kings, taxation, or disease in an orc's village, or why orcs raid caravans for grain and tools but never gold.

But they may recognize this convenient lie for what it is, and marry an orc, live as an orc, defend an orc in court.

If you’re like me, cynical and romantic all at once, you will find both possibilities are satisfying to see play out. You either get a pack of murder-machines, the pawns of greater powers, or Romantic heroes that reject the in-place power structures and change the lives of a precious few. 

And, most importantly, your players will have fun either way. 

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