What Are Orcs?

I role an orc on D&D roles. The my character is gross, big, but it doesn't represent the stereotypical orc. Or better he likes to fight, and tend to be rude in some occasions or tends to be involountary destructive, some time intimidation, but it's not "evil". He comes from a multiracial country, the Republic of Tripatze, neptehw of the rebel general of the breakup of southern provices of the tyrannical orchish empire, and after the war the seceded provinces joined the Republic of Düpatze, becoming the Republic of Tripatze. Now after 50 years, the considerable part of military of Tripatze is composed by orcs, but you can find orcs also in other sectors of the Tripatze society. The orcs fit sometimes in some of stereotypes, but not at all. In any case orcs in the Republic of tripatze are know to be proud, free, maintain everytime his word and every-time themselves in all occasions independently by the others say. So the my orcs are not the Tolkiens orc, they are not corrupted, by a population with their culture and their differences within, and sometime "victims" of stereotypes, and kept away indiscriminately (this makes the culture of Orcs of Tripatze resilient of the opinion of the others especially who comes outside of Tripatze where comes all the "critics", and act without considering the others opinion on them), only in few places Orcs can live in peace, or can have a "free" life, the most known is Tripatze, to lesser extent also to the Orchish tribes federation (the remnant of the old Orchish empire), but the old totalitarian/authoritarian tendencies often returns, so there is a huge problem on lack of freedoms .

Tripatze, is an anormal country, the lone that is multi-species or multi-racial, communities of Humans, Elves and Orcs, lives at par gerarcically, in the repubblic lives minorities of other speiceis like goblins, dwarfes, also. The relations can be conflictual especially from between some members of these communities, but despite all, all Tripatzean feel to belong to something above all the differncies, the thing is being a Tripatzean.

40k orks are so cool. They've a biological weapon thats part mushroom and needs brutality and combat like we need food and water. They also have the ability to collectively warp reality though belief. If they paint something red it will go faster. Why? Because they think it will so it does.

If another sentient species other than homosapiens lived here on planet Earth. The social divide would be a very wide chasm. Its easy to believe otherwise, because it doesn't exist. The mere threat of it becoming a reality has people sounding the alarm bells.

I prefer more humanized Orcs

My favorite fantasy race, and I'm not sure why. The savagery, the ugliness, even Tolkien's version of irredeemable monsters, it just makes them more interesting to me

I like them as violent brutes, with a hint on warcraft on top. Society build around war and politics are useless, because best fighter is the boss

So, I've been at this for a long time, and I have to say I overall prefer tradition, in this case. Maybe its not "good"; maybe it doesn't say anything good about me, but I like having some mean, evil, convenient monsters in my fantasy, but also ones whose motivation can be paralleled to our own. I don't want Drow, or Orcs, to get reconceptulized, and have half their number cracked off the whole so a handful of players can make one, or wage their SJW battle. Does that mean l don't want Orc, or Drow, characters? Certainly not. These are some of the best elements to use to compile your backstory, as every character should have to answer "why are you here?" WHT aren't you with your family? Your people? Doing what they'd do? It's also great opportunity for RP, as you may have to deal with some small-minded, or traumatized, NPCs, who won't be as happy to see you. You just need a reason why you are "different". A chance to interact with NPCs that isn't "wonk and smile, make a purchase, have a drink." One of my personal joys of playing the Drow I have is them deciding how they want to treat the world, and then getting to act out proving the naysayers wrong, or even having a little bit more of an excuse than "my character would do it". Again, that's me, and I have my own preferences; my own shortcomings.

Green people is boring and just stronk green human. Making them closer to a eusocial society is way more interesting to me. Goblins, Hobgoblins, Orcs, Ogres are all just different castes in the hive. Not naturally evil, but just fundamentally different than us.

Orcs are my favorite fantasy race, especially when I create my own version of them in Dungeons and Dragons 🐉 and Pathfinder!

Waaggghhhh

An amazing overview :)
As for Tolkien, he later clarified that Orcs were created from Men (although he still debated many questions). Since Elves' spirits wouldn't survive such mutilation: Elves can "die" of sorrow, and their spirits will leave their bodies, to the Halls of Mandos.
Those Orcs are not as loyal, as they are fearful of the "higher ups", and both hate and obey them. They actually show a lot of humane qualities, like comradery and some codes of morality among themselves. But they don't have free choice: thus, they cannot escape the enslavement of evil, and they often blame others in the things they do themselves (like, blaming Elves and Men for torture, cruelty, etc').

The Uruk-Hai were breed by Saruman, after he copied Sauron's Uruks. In the very late Third Age, Sauron was able to create a new breed, the Uruks, probably from Orcs and men (who he "degenerated" for many generations, until they were able to mate with Orcs). He also breeded the Olog-Hai, the war trolls. And he put a great deal of his mind into them, making them more cunning and clever.

Overall, his Orcs are very intelligent, especially the captains. But this intelligence comes from Sauron's direct influence and active thought: when he is wholly focused on something else (like Frodo and Sam at his forge) they are left with doubt. That's why when his body was destroyed and his spirit greatly diminished without repair, all of them lost their minds.

Btw, some of the "captains", as least in the First Age, may have been evil Maiar (like Balrogs) who took the bodies of great Orcs, to lead the armies of Melkor.

You are forgetting Earthdawn, long before WoW, FASA gave us orcs as a downtrodden species enslaved by a powerful magical empire. And only recently were trying to re-establish their culture and self-identity. In many ways I think that they were the roadmap for the wow orc.

An orc is a russian but green

I've always liked to see Orcs as the dark side of the coin to the Gondorians Humans, or in real terms the Orcs are what the enemies/victims of the British Empire see vs the Gondorians to whom the Empire liked to see it's self. So capable of good, but that's not very important when they are destroying your civilisation at the time.

An Orc Redcoat might not look very dignified when compared to anyone local.

Get woke go broke Orcs or Warcrap.

Humans tend to see human traits in non human things. Sometimes orcs, elves and aliens what have you are warped reflections of ourselves. The best intelligent non human creatures in my opinion are ones that are strange but can be relatable if you look closer.

They inhabit modern day Africa, and certain parts of the United States.

The worst Orcs so far are from The Forbidden Lands RPG by Free League.
They are the most pathetic attempt at deconstruction of Fantasy tropes you could imagine. The author thinks to make Orcs into multifaceted beings is a new innovative idea.
Love the rules of that game, hate the setting.

Most people miss that the black Uruks of Mordor are not Uruk-Hai. Uruk means Ork, Uruk Hai means Orc people as in Orc humans, since they were crossed with men.
Orcs in Tolkien are chaotic evil like Morgoth. Uruk Hai and Black Uruks could be lawful evil like Saruman and Sauron.
Morgoth was the genius flaky CEO while Sauron was the control freak COO.

Part of the reason why I liked TES so much is that it doesn't treat Orcs as generic baddies like most fantasy does (Arena did, but starting with Daggerfall they were fleshed out as a proper people with culture, good and bad, etc.).

I have to admit if I do "good" and "evil" manifested as a race in my DnD settings, I tend to go very otherworldly, eldritch, or just generally very "not of this world."
That being said, orcs are typically a race of intelligent creatures that had to survive in very harsh environments, and as such, developed a very bloodthirsty, war mongering lifestyle. The turning point for orcs is when they get introduced to agriculture. In my settings orcs never really had a way to make permanent settlements, and as such could never really make "civilization" or a "society", all that mattered was strength and tools of war. When they started learning how to make crops a culture began to form, but the powers that be saw this as dangerous. If the orcs build a society, they won't be fighting each other. They may even band together to attack more "civil" cultures.
So in a nutshell I made orcs a strong species that made that turn from hunter and gatherer to agrarian way later than others, and that is a central part of their fiction with other cultures at large.
Also my orcs tend to be cooks, barkeepers, and bakers when I need a fun npc.

Dang, seeing that Xanth cover was a throwback.

Who's here because of russian orcs?

This video was very informative. I wish I had more time and money to support you more. We so need more channels and people like you in the community. Keep up the good work bro!

Fun Fact: In German, we referred to the Outhouse not just as "Der Lokus", but also jokingly as "Der Orkus", as in "auf den Orkus setzen / Ich bin mall auf dem Orkus" - meaning "to sit on the underworld / I'll be on the Orkus"

If you know how an Outhouse works, it's a very apt metaphor.

In my campaign world, I do have the tyipcal player orcs which are sptritual yet also a bit more burtal in some aspects, but I do also have the much more monstrous orcs which look more like the pig-like orcs of older edditions. This has made orcs much more infomus to the common people who are not noligable to orc cultures to see them as monsters(Kinda similar on how the Drow are still mostly treated with their long track record of being worshipers of Lolth).
Does it feel like a mish mash, maybe. Does it touch on tender subjucts, probably, but I feel like I am doing my best to incorperate the best of the old school and the new school while also bring in conflicts.
While most orcs will more likely be seen as people with a bad reputation branded on to them, mean while you have the more monstrous swine-orcs who are the ones truly responaible, heck, an orc or half-orc player can even fight off agenst these swine-orcs, these repistentations of bad stereotypes, to show to others that they are more then they seem and they are not monsters, but proud, spiritual, religous, and strong people...and I feel like a lot of players who feel like outcasts, who feel like nothing but monsters can relate to that.
Also, very small side note, I am pumped for this new book, I can remeber so many instenses of players asking "can I play a dragon?" and now I can smerk, bring in this tome of hidden potential and simply state "What kind of dragon?" I feel like that could make any players day seeing that 😊

I am glad you made the point about some orcs just being humans with some cosmetic differences. In some settings that could be the point, that our appearance doesn’t define us or we all have something fundamental in common. Other settings could have people who are much more alien in mind, body, and maybe even in spirit (like how Gandalf is similar to an angel). In these worlds, overly anthropomorphizing other sentients is human centric at best and dangerous at worst. Exploring these worlds can also be just as rewarding and fun as the first kind.

I prefer the Kohan 1-2 interpretation of Orcs but in that game series all the races have different names but their origins are refers to the classic interpretations. I like the smart humanoid orc/ork idea when you play as one of it. Sure they honor battle (like klingons) and have physical advantages on most cases but they can be something else aswell. In masters of magic you can control orcs as a faction with your choosen wizard with no problems, on strategy games if orcs included they can be like other races, they have literacy, architecture, complex cultural perks and traits.

For the last part of the video, well dungeon keeper did that and you play as an underlord who manage a dungeon full of monsters and play as evil. Monster or not is not necessary mean these creatures are incapable of being played as heroes. I still want for example Naga's as a playable race-faction in wow because they basically were elves which turned into these sea monsters by dark magic.

Greetings all.... Allow me to introduce myself... I am the Tolkienesque novelist D L Lindeman. In my realms, crafted for my series of novels, Orcs play the antithetical race to humans, being of similar size and mental acumen. Readers will find that my Orcs share many human traits. Primarily, though they are introduced initially as a slave warrior race, they long for independence. Readers meet a general and one of his primary commanders early on, later we meet their king. The first two, mostly in book #5, get a deeper look. They struggle with their servitude, and actually rebel against their enslavers. This eventually leads to a revolutionary war in their own novel. Readers get a glimpse into an Orc capital city and family life therein, adding to that more "human" side of their lives. My description of them is as having porcine facial features, including in some cases protruding lower tusks, and greenish skin (due to prolonged exposure to Pseudomonas bacteria, over centuries of evolution underground).

I think Tolkien admitted to the possibility that orcs are redeemable. Warcraft took that possibility and ran with it.
About orcs being stronger than dwarfs? That really doesn't fit in with the picture I think. Dwarf's spend their lives hauling boulders around and breaking rock. Being strong is probably a pretty good adaptation to that. I think later interpretations of them are better. I guess the Dwarf's in Tolkien are closer to the gnomes in Warcraft. The orcs in Warhammer are interesting because they're not motivated by hate (that would be the beastmen) as they are motivated by a sense of fun. They love violence and they don't get why everyone else isn't into it. They can even accept getting beaten by other races as part of the game. That doesn't go for the goblins though. They have a mentality closer to the classic Tolkien orcs. Mean and spiteful but cowardly. A good goblin survive on being clever and resourceful and not just charging headlong into combat.

Showed the orsimers and pigs, but not the orcs from Warhammer...

Orcs are men.
What humans would be without women.
Not completely stupid, not wholly evil; but dangerous and appalling.

This is the meat of the matter:

If we can't play EVIL ORCS, why can we play EVIL CHARACTERS? Should the Evil Alignment get removed? If you say "no" to Orcs, you say "no" to Evil Alignment and, thus, you say "no" to Asmodeus, Baphomet, Cyric etc. That's the underlying logic.

These things should be playable. But they should also be antagonists, like everything from the "Evil Spectrum". Evil Alignment often creates quite good playthroughs, memorable to the max. And it brings profit to the company ... everyone is happy! Morality? ...give me a break.

Personally I am all for multitude of playable races. Ideally, it should be roguelike-like o_O where every creature abides the same rules and essentially can be playable. So, yes yo playable orcs, goblins, gnolls, beholders, whatever!

But. But, if you'll start all this "can't make orcs bad, because orcs are black people", I'll politely ask you to leave, preferably to leave this plane of existence. This some american sort of brain cancer and it have to be cured.

Orca aren’t ever mentioned in mythology before Tolkien. I have no idea what you’re talking about when you say they’ve been apart of fiction for centuries. They haven’t. There are mentions of creatures that can be compared to orcs but they’re never called orcs or ever given specific names really except in rare cases.

Great video! I really enjoyed it and am happy it randomly showed up

Yeah the warcraft orcs are originally based on the games workshop orks, only they lost the rights to make a warhammer game, so it got reworked. And personally it was good that it happened, since nowadays I would say the warcraft orks being how they are was a good development

I fall in with the keep it the way it was crowd. However, I see some value in the as long as the story is good mentally too.

Now datz eazy orkz are da biggest da greenest un meanest of em all!!! WAAAAAAAAAAAGHHH!!!

In the west, orcs are fictional race (either corrupted elves like lotr or something similar to skyrim)
In Japan, they're literal pigs.

I like 40k orcs that's the brutal yet cheerful sentient fungus I love to read about

Orks are monsters. Making them just some green guys takes away any fantasy from them and makes them uninteresting.

LEAVE THE WISECRACKING GITS TO 40K AND SIGHAMMER FANTASY.....KEEP THE ORIGINAL D&D ORCS AS THE INGLORIOUS LITTLE DUNGEON
MURDERING BASTARDS THAT THEY ARE...EASY PEASY

Imo the Warhammer universe has the best orcs. Not just that, but Warhammer has the best fantasy universe all together.

Edit: When it comes to orcs being just green humans, I prefer if they weren't called orcs anymore. Like the Orion in Star Trek.

Lucifer is technically an angel.
Contrary to for example cthulhu, who is an entity, but he just bring chaos naturally.
Cthulhu is not evil, but Lucifer is evil.

Now who do you think is more evil, orcs being green people, or orcs being beasts?