Of Blood and Bone: The Orcs

The Dwarven Kingdom

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A link above to the other races I have described, here I shall describe the race of Orc, dwelling little upon the "Peon" which is that Orc which drags his knuckles upon the ground and has a face more like a dog, but will focus mostly on their master race, the upright muscular and violent Orc. There is no race that has a more insatiable lust of the putrefaction of death than the Orc, in fact blood and bone are of the greatest value. Their altars are of unworked stone in a basin which is filled excitedly with the blood and bones of their victims usually after a great battle that amounts more to a slaughter of the weak by the strong, the warlock wading through this pool unable to reach the altar until the pool rises past his waist, he approaches the altar as if crossing the river into the underworld and performs rituals which may or may not hold any real magical value but certainly holds value to the morale of the Orc.

The Orc is a hunter-race, they refuse to farm, remember I speak of the upright Orc and not the lowly peon who does farm and often farms pigs. But the murderous Orc lives off the hunting of these lesser communities and raiding their pigs, raping their women, and in an almost religious born-again conversion stealing their youth to teach them the ways to stand upright. This notion is very important, for without constant attention to strength and training the Orc will revert to their dog-like hunched back ways.

Something about their musculature causes such bad posture and it is the Orc God "Gar'Umsch" who taught them how to stand upright and the ways of war. The process is imaginably painful, and the training is demanding. But generations of Orcs are captured, raised to stand upright and when ready go through their Tribe's initiation process to prove themselves "Orcs".

The very term Orc is in fact a term of manhood, applying only to those who succeed this trial.

The trials vary by Tribe and there is a sense of jurisprudence on the matter, suggesting the debate between a trial of death or of mutilation. For instance the Shattered Hand Tribe requires that the initiate lose their hand as a sacrifice to entry into their Orcish community. But the Laughing Skulls require a fight to the death between two initiates. Obviously the entry into the Shattered Hand is more favorable for numbers of Orcs in the community, but the trial of death by the Skulls is seen as more pure.

Position in the tribe that favors mutilation is achieved by the mutilation or killing of others. Where as the promotion in a trial by death is more certainly to cost members from that Tribe. Which lends to the tribe being short lived or more aggressive and successful if only in the short term.

The Orcs have a bit of a parasitic nature, they are more numerous than their own tending to nature would allow because more civilized races such as the Dwarves groom nature to provide more food, or farms and civilization provides more food than the Orc could otherwise produce. In this fashion the Orcish tribes may swell to an uncontrollable horde, like a tide they rise and conquer and destroy and leave a devastated wake and devour themselves until a balance is restore.

Orcs are purists in a way, they worship a primitive purity. They prefer stone and wooden weapons, their great strength allows them to get away with this in an age of some moderate technological advancement. Instead of the arrow, which they do have access to and their great strength allows them to use a bow with a draw of up to 200 pounds, the Orc does instead prefer to use stones off the battlefield to smash their enemies from a distance, being able to throw a good sized stone often across a battlefield.

They also may use the bodies of their enemies as weapons, and in the midst of their blood lust they break off pieces of them.

Their most sophisticated weapon is the Catapult and it is desired because in an effort to defend themselves the Peon often builds a ramparted town of half-subterranean dwellings and the Catapult is good at smashing these defenses and crude towers.

The basic Orc dwelling is a tunneled hovel of numerous dug outs in a large pit which surrounds an arena like center. The whole of which is covered by a bone structure that is skinned to provide some proofing against the rain. The bones are of great animals their legs stand like trees, their tusks are like beams of a house. This crude structure which the lower parts may also be reinforced by stone makes a sort of ring fort. The arena becomes a communal fighting area and training of the muscles to remain upright, and their muscularity is that of the best of a human.

An average height of 6'2" and a muscularity any human warrior would dream to emulate, easily reaching 300 pounds, the Orc also uses the steps of the ring pit as a ranking system, with those on the upper sides of the pit being the junior members.

A Tribe is not limited to one such pit, but comes together based on their common constitution of how a member is initiated, and their rituals which as earlier mentioned centers around blood and bones.

An Orc may prefer armor made of bone, a skull, or many skulls, the skulls for shoulders, the ribcage for the chest, and so on

Shoulder blades are especially hard.

Teeth are like jewels.

The Orc loves to make slaves, but loves to kill them more so they often are poor in anything they cannot do for themselves. And quite literally, because other than the "barn raising" of their pit, there is little they do communally outside of fighting. Mostly they just prefer to take what others have.

And they love a challenge, humbling the mighty Ogre or Dragon, reducing them to servitude and death fills their heart and soul. If indeed they have a soul, the Orc seems very unoccupied on the afterlife, which may be to everyone's benefit for a type of Necromancy would seem to be favorable among them and that would only make their horde the more strong.

Necromancy as it is known, however, is different from Wizardry, it is not the mastery of magic but a commune with the dead, it is a trait that is more born than learned. And the one who has access to this commune slowly descends into a schizophrenia or psychosis becoming less able to discern their own thoughts from those of the dead. The Orc possibly shares this trait but the ability to manifest and animate the dead has thankfully not developed.

In fact it is true to say the great philosophy of the Necromancer is that no thought is our own.

The great wars between Wizardry and Necromancers, however, often involved the use of Orcs on the side of the dark, and being that they are so good at making the living into the dead they were a natural ally.

There is a type of peaceful competition and collaboration, but it is hardly the strongest motivating factor of the Orc, and as was previously mentioned they prefer raping of their women than treating them as equals although it is known that female Orcs do train to stand upright and be somewhat more hominid than their doglike others, these tend to have far more respect and position and often are the mates of the leaders. And often survive their mate when another leader replaces him.

So it is possible that women of the Orcs form a more consistent leadership role that has truly been unexplored.