The morality of Orcs

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I doubt it.

The Aztec's cruelty was the cruelty of the ruling class, of people who could order death without having to fight to inflict it. The 'soldiers' were not used to wars, having long ago conquered all neighbours and reduced combat to a ceremonial affair.

Orcs, regardless of their other flaws, are usually portrayed as vigorous and hearty warriors. When pitted against a largely complacent and decandent empire like that of the Aztecs, they would seem like a race of supernaturally tough supersoldiers.

So the Spanish were orcs? Rock on, Orctez!

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

So the Spanish were orcs? Rock on, Orctez!

Not as popularly presented in fiction, no.

Their individual combat prowess wasn't what distinguished them. Group tactics and familiarity with real warfare was. Call them hobgoblins in D&D terms.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Not as popularly presented in fiction, no.

Their individual combat prowess wasn't what distinguished them. Group tactics and familiarity with real warfare was. Call them hobgoblins in D&D terms.

Cortez and his Spaniards were actually more like ruthless, organized, smart, and ultimately succesful D&D adventurers. Think about it: gold, glory, and God! Treasure, XP, and alignment? :)
Loot the evil temple of the heart-rippers. Kill them and take all their stuff. Get rich or die trying!

[Apache]

When you think about it, the Conqistadores were amazingly similiar to your Classic D&D Adventuring Group....

Replete with large amounts of cannon-fodder...er....hirelings.

:)

[Sword-dancer]

combine Warrior race a la Klingon with a spartan or janissarie upbringing and a sense of art that is more on the rugged side?

[Phil Masters]

Personally, I find the ST:tNG "honourable warrior race" thing a bit of a cop-out. You can have an antagonist warrior race with coherent motivations without them turning into a bunch of self-obsessed samurai idiots.

The orcs in Banestorm were a bit of a stab at something different (borrowing a bit from C.J.Cherryh's kif, to be honest). A race much concerned with social position and dominance, to whom the ability to destroy something (or someone) is the simplest proof of power over that thing. So advancement is mostly based on the ability to destroy. But cooperation always defeats pure selfish destruction, and controlling without destroying is of course a better route to more reliable power - so the more confident or ambitious leader will gamble on not destroying what he conquers. But he'd better be able to prove his dominance in other ways.

[raven_walker]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

Here's how I figure orcs:

Step 1) Proclivity and reproduction cycle. Orcs(in my opinion) should mature faster than humans. A 15 year old orc should be physically on par with a 20ish human, though their mental development will be lessened. Orc women also bear litters of children, babies who rapidly mature, but require a very protein rich diet. Only two mammaries mean that Orc children, from the outset, are in competition with each other for access to mommies attentions and her Milk.

I see high levels of infant mortality, but with the hardiness of the species and the large litter sizes, enough Orcs make it to maturity to reproduce.

Next, I set Orc tendencies towards aggression, intimidation and violence. Orc bosses rule because they can brow-beat and kill opposition to their policies, not from a sense of loyalty or duty. Orc tribal leaders are basically brutal dictators who rule as far as their personal authority will extend. Each Orc boss will have an inner circle of companions, those he bullies into acting as his proxies. In fighting is common and endemic.

Violent, Fecund and hardy, Orcs are expansionistic, but have almost no capability to organize themselves in anything larger than a warband. Hence they are frequently defeated by their opponents and forced into less desirable living areas. This in turn causes overcrowding and tensions, with circles of violent pyschopaths as leaders, with the weaker and cowardly hanging around on the fringes. When overpopulation finally pushes them past the limit, the outliers will migrate en masse and become hordes which invade neighboring lands.

These hordes arn't particularly dangerous, but after their defeat, it's relatively easy for the survivors to disappear into tangled woods and hills, where the form brigand bands that plague farmers and travelers, and even breeding populations.

All these, plus add worship of a god who was trapped deep in the earth - and the only way to free their god is by acts of destruction. (As far as the humans are concerned in my Banestrom-inspired game, the (wild) orcs all worship the Devil (though some individuals can be/have been "saved") and as far as the orcs are concerned, the humans worship the god who (unjustly) trapped theirs in his prison.

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Not as popularly presented in fiction, no.

Their individual combat prowess wasn't what distinguished them. Group tactics and familiarity with real warfare was. Call them hobgoblins in D&D terms.

Hobgoblins and orcs weren't all that different in D&D, before 3e came along and the designers decided "crap, we need more to differentiate them than 1HP."

More to the point, though, I've heard that Spaniards were perceived as magical when first encountered by Americans: white skin, horses, metal armor, guns, more like demons than orcs.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Think nazi. Horribly "inhuman" toward their "enemies" but paradoxically caring toward their friends and family.
Make an orc refuse to kill a child, and care for him and maybe try to leave him with a nearby monastery.

I always wanted to have orcs be just an ethnic human but with really bad PR.

At some point, though, you're not really talking about orcs anymore, you're got something quite different by the same name.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Kuzma

Having recently read the Lord of the Rings for the third time (not that your orcs need to be like his), Tolkien had a couple good patches of orc dialog in which they were not utterly inhuman or evil or savage. They were really not unlike some of the more coarse and brutal people I've met.

Exactly. The Orcs in Tolkien's world (and they are the prototype of what we mean by the modern use of the word 'orc') actually believed in more-or-less the same basic morality as the other races. They just were far, far less likely to behave in accordance with it, and more likely to fail to recognize the contradiction. But none of the other races were perfect, either, the difference was one of degree, except that the civilized members of the other races recognized the contradiction in themselves and fought it.