As anyone with half a brain knows, orcs are not a species -- not really. Orcishness is a religion, a way of life. An orc is only an orc if she follows the Orc Way -- if she kills. The killer part, then, is true; but monsters they are not. Furthermore, orcs aren't green, nor even exceptionally huge. Rather, orcs are pitch black and covered in thick, coarse hair. Their eyes are bright yellow and they have huge yellow fangs, although no tusks. They have wide mouths with thin, almost non-existent lips. They look like apes, but with more elongated, predatory faces.
Given their looks and their propensity for killing, one can forgive other peoples for thinking them mindless monsters. Yet orcs are intelligent, sensitive people. They care a great deal about others -- for this quality, combined with their strength, were they chosen to feed the Creator. Only one who loves the world and its creator more than his own soul could do what orcs do - kill to keep the world alive.
What is an orc?
We, orcs, serve the Creator. The Creator died - as far as God can die - by making the world. Reality is his corpse. And make no mistake, the Great Rot is coming. The Great Rot, when all is pain and disease and broken. What can stave off the Great Rot? Only life. This is why we kill. The life force of those we murder serves to feed the Creator, that his beautiful world and the vibrant life within it may exist longer. That the Great Rot may be delayed. To this we are called. To live in peace, to refrain from killing - this is the greatest selfishness, the most disgusting robbery. The un-killer is not orc. His orcishness leaves him. I have seen it happen. We, true orcs, take upon ourselves the hideous task of pruning the world - that it may flourish the more. The task of killing the innocent, the frightened, the defenseless. This crime we take upon ourselves. Never think that killing is good, child. Killing is not good. But it is necessary.
How do they live?
Orcs live in nomadic bands. They move every year or so. Hide tents they take with them for the journey, mud houses are left since new ones are easily built again. The orcish name for these villages, buqarz, derives from bur (fenced, warded) and qarzje (rest after battle). A "village", then, is not so much a place to live as it is a place to recuperate from violence outside the buqarz.
Orcish nomadic groups are part of tribes; these are mainly linguistic/ethnic sub-divisions, each of which is related to one part of the creator:
- The Ayyin trace their origin to the sun, God's eye.
- The Hezur trace their origin to the rocks, God's bones.
- The Darakh trace their origin to the seas, God's blood.
- The Sárka trace their origin to the soil, God's flesh.
Orcs know and identify with their tribe. They do not think in terms of blood relations. Clans are important to orcs, but are synonymous with group or village more than with family. If an Ayyin orc travels to and joins an Ayyin buqarz, she will without problem be accepted as part of the clan, although she has no family relations there. Orcs from other tribes will always be an other-triber, mainly due to language and culture barriers - a perfectly fine and a good walker of the Orc Way, accepted in the group, but forever a bit strange. An orc name mentions tribe before mentioning parent.
Orcs have no real social structure apart from the buqarz. Some orcs live as man and wife. Others live in polygamous or polyandrous configurations, or in polyamorous relationships. Others have no lasting relationships at all and are alone. Every adult orc has a personal domicile in the buqarz. The way these are configured mimics the social relationships. Friends or lovers place their tents facing each other or next to each other. Should there be conflict, the dwellings are moved away or built with their backsides to each other.
No leaders, no chiefs, no wars, no goals. Orcs just kill to keep the world going. Orcs are concerned with "keep going". They don't develop, invent, or have grand ambitions. Orcs don't move anywhere, they don't care about utopia's or salvation. They don't care about immortality or fame. They just live their lives the way they're supposed to, part of the bigger whole. They care about the kill, the atonement, eating, drinking, singing poetry, watching the stars.
Growing up an orc
Orcish children enjoy a sheltered childhood in the burqaz, yet they grow up fast. They have no names until they enter adulthood. Orcish play is mainly fighting and hide-and-seek. Orcs don't really have "parents"; often, one parent will be dead. Conversely, an orc child may have multiple fathers and mothers, given the prevalence of polyamory. Like everyone, they do not know about sperm and egg -- all of an orc's fathers and mothers are her true fathers and mothers.
Orcs usually have two teachers, often a parent - one teaches killing, the other tracking. During puberty, an orc will start to join on raids. Here, a kill marks the end of childhood. The orc, now, is in liminal space - neither child nor adult - and must sleep outside the burqaz. They will join again the next raid, until they "take their head" after managing a "good kill". A "good kill", in orcish parlance, is a quick kill: usually it involves head, neck, or heart trauma by way of spear, arrow, axe, in rare cases sword. The victim is then decapitated. The best kill is a sudden decapitation - almost impossible in battle, but the true act of killing that all orcs aspire to. This head-taking at the entrance into adulthood reminds orcs of this most pure and painless act of killing. Orcs keep their First Heads with them during all raids. For practical reasons, this often becomes just the jawbone.
Only after the head-taking is an orc an adult, and receives he a name from the Unblooded. This name is usually something degrading, like Guilty One, Cancer, Murderer, Poisoning, Killer, Monster, Leech. This is so that the new adult may never come to relish killing for its own sake. An orc is a wretch, taking upon himself the unspeakable crime of murdering frightened innocents, sacrificing his own soul and conscience to the world.
No leaders, no chiefs, no wars, no goals. Orcs just kill to keep the world going. Orcs are concerned with "keep going". They don't develop, invent, or have grand ambitions. Orcs don't move anywhere, they don't care about utopia's or salvation. They don't care about immortality or fame. They just live their lives the way they're supposed to, part of the bigger whole. They care about the kill, the atonement, eating, drinking, singing poetry, watching the stars.
Growing up an orc
Orcish children enjoy a sheltered childhood in the burqaz, yet they grow up fast. They have no names until they enter adulthood. Orcish play is mainly fighting and hide-and-seek. Orcs don't really have "parents"; often, one parent will be dead. Conversely, an orc child may have multiple fathers and mothers, given the prevalence of polyamory. Like everyone, they do not know about sperm and egg -- all of an orc's fathers and mothers are her true fathers and mothers.
Orcs usually have two teachers, often a parent - one teaches killing, the other tracking. During puberty, an orc will start to join on raids. Here, a kill marks the end of childhood. The orc, now, is in liminal space - neither child nor adult - and must sleep outside the burqaz. They will join again the next raid, until they "take their head" after managing a "good kill". A "good kill", in orcish parlance, is a quick kill: usually it involves head, neck, or heart trauma by way of spear, arrow, axe, in rare cases sword. The victim is then decapitated. The best kill is a sudden decapitation - almost impossible in battle, but the true act of killing that all orcs aspire to. This head-taking at the entrance into adulthood reminds orcs of this most pure and painless act of killing. Orcs keep their First Heads with them during all raids. For practical reasons, this often becomes just the jawbone.
Only after the head-taking is an orc an adult, and receives he a name from the Unblooded. This name is usually something degrading, like Guilty One, Cancer, Murderer, Poisoning, Killer, Monster, Leech. This is so that the new adult may never come to relish killing for its own sake. An orc is a wretch, taking upon himself the unspeakable crime of murdering frightened innocents, sacrificing his own soul and conscience to the world.
The Unblooded
Most large bands contain an Unblooded, sort of madmen-saints. The Unblooded are orcs who have never, and never will, kill. They are the only orcs who do not kill yet remain orcs. Orcs have a bizarre, contradictory relationship with their Unblooded. They hate, love, despise, pity, and envy them.
In orcish society, the good kill and the head-taking marks adulthood. Unblooded, never killing, are in a way children, yet wise and dangerous; outside of normal ways of being. Unpredictable and strange. Who knows what an Unblooded thinks? Why is he laughing like that? Pale and gross, with their ugly pale-blue eyes and white matted hair. Are they born or created? This is a secret known only to other Unblooded.
The Unblooded are not chiefs -- there is only one Chief, and he is dead. Orc life is mainly anarchist. No orc owes allegiance to any chief, warlord, or king. Only the Creator commands an orc. Btw, this means that if you're a minor human chiefdom or bird-men aviary or whatever, your organized attempts to fight off or even kill the local murder-band of orcs will most likely be successful. Orcs don't organize wars, because orcs don't organize.
Unblooded are seen as societal trash, since they do not feed the Creator, yet at the same time they are revered, envied, and seen with guilt and grief, since they are the only orcs not stained by hundreds of murders. Unblooded possess an innocence that orcs cannot afford to have. Unblooded usually wear rags or nothing at all and live on trash heaps and dung piles, their white hair filthy and matted.
The Unblooded is one of the rare orcs who actually might die of old age. Dying of old age is a disgustingly selfish action -- you have used up all your life yourself, giving nothing to the Creator, who so sorely needs it. Orcs look suspiciously on old people and spit on those who die of old age.
Unblooded are thus a reversal of everything orc. As such, they break social taboos continuously. They adress men as women and women as men; they masturbate in public; they smear themselves in shit; they may even be vegetarians or - ugh - keep pets and not kill them. And yet if an Unblooded suggests an opinion or a course of action, it is done.
That's because the Unblooded are wise beyond their mortality. Their insanity is just a way of seeing and acting that transcends the affairs of petty mortals. The Unblooded tastes the reality of the Dead Creator. It is the Unblooded who decides the next pastures; the Unblooded who decides the next raid; the Unblooded who decides the next sacrifice.
Everyone listens to them, everyone spits on them, everyone reveres them.
What do orcs eat?
Orcs are carnivores. Not biologically -- biologically they are omnivores. But an orc knows that consuming vegetables and fruits furthers the life of the plant rather than ends it. Life must end, lest it devolve into the squirming of the Great Rot. Thus, an orc eats meat. They hunt, they herd. Typical orcish cattle includes wildebeast, oxen, aurochs, mountain goats. Anything that's around, really, preferably with red blood.
Orcs are also cannibals. The failure to eat a fresh dead body is seen as offensive and disgusting - especially to the spirit of the deceased himself. The only exception are the Unblooded, who are thrown on the trash heap to rot.
How do they fight?
Orcs want you to die as quickly as possible and with as little pain as possible. During combat they might thank you, cry for you, or advise you to submit to a quick death. Orcs want to insta-kill - a decapitation, nigh-impossible as it is, is most admired. As such, orcs are not even aggressive fighters. They are content to wait. Think samurai -- frozen like a statue, waiting for that opening, that one perfect strike that brings death at once.
They are also archers - again trained to kill quickly, through the heart or throat.
How to interact with orcs.
Honestly, don't. If you want to talk with orcs, make sure to take their minds of the kill-mission. One way to do this is to take something with you and kill this yourself in front of them, as a token of your understanding and your value as a bringer of death. A rabbit might do. A cow is better. The larger, the more life, the more likely an orc will be to spare your own. If you bring more death alive, an orc will leave you alive. But you must convince them that you are a bringer of death.
Of course, most adventurers are bringers of death, and perhaps an orc will come to those conclusions himself -- to the dismay of your noble heroes. That's interesting right there. For a travelling adventurer, orcs may not even be in that much of a rush to kill you.
Orc Racial Traits
Despised - If you want to travel with or play as an orc, nigh everyone will try to murder you on sight.
First Head - Your First Head, covered in a linen rag. Where did you get it? Who does it belong to? The First Head is enchanted and can, in horrifying choking whispers, answer any question once a day with the great knowledge of the dead. However, there is a fifty-fifty chance that it will tell a lie in an attempt to kill you.
Kill for God - You must kill something once a day. Plant, bug, cow, person - anything. If you fail to uphold this, your First Head will not speak that day. If you persist in your disgusting pacifism, orcishness will leave you. Your teeth will shrink, your yellow eyes will fade and change colour, your hair will vanish and your pitch-black skin will be afflicted by discolouration and diseases. You are no longer orc. You look human, or goblin - but make no mistake. You are not goblin or human. You are nothing. You are worse than nothing.
