Never DM'ed Greyhawk before. Where might a half-orc character hail from? The Backdrop in #124 mentions orc lands far to the southwest. Does anyone have anything more specific?
Oh! Geography! And here I was going to suggest that the character's human father have a love of big women and big drinks.
GGG
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Greyhawk is 3 days west from Diamond Lake.
As a city with more than 50,000 people living in it, you have half-orcs (mostly human like).
Your half-orc could be a rough guy hired for caravans to Diamond Lake, wandering around for the next shipment of ore, and meeting other unemployed adventurers.
As mentioned before, the Pomarj (about a week south from Greyhawk), a kingdom led by an half-orc named Turrosh Mak and composed mostly of orcs, goblins, bugbears and the like, has invaded south of a former state called "the Wild Coast", where you could find all kind of breeds and races (that state was CN / TN mostly) : the character's parents could have fled the wars in 582 common year when he was a child (the AoW takes place in 595 or 596 CY, I can't remember) thirteen-fourteen years ago, and settled down in Greyhawk (or even Diamond Lake). And since the northern part of that former state has been glad to become part of the lands of Greyhawk, that's no problem.
I think I would really shoot to keep the backgrounds of the characters as being from Diamond Lake and wanting nothing more in life than to get out (setting them up to want to adventure to make the profit to move on). To that end I would suggest that there are likely a large number of half-orcs involved in the mining operations. The player could easily be one of these, either born there or perhaps working of an indentured servitude.
Another fun idea would be to make the player related to Kullen, but not necessarily on good terms. Would make things fun.
Sean Mahoney
The orc lands to the southwest would probably be the Wild Coast area....
Oh! Geography! And here I was going to suggest that the character's human father have a love of big women and big drinks.
GGG
Been there...done...(oh nevermind)....
Hardby is several days to the south (not a distant land), and has a huge half-orc population -- possibly 20%, if I remember correctly.
And it was even detailed in a recent Dungeon :)
Jack
Background information is in From the Ashes for the northern half of the Wild Coast, Slavers has some info on the southern half and the Pomarj. A little bit is also contained in Fate of Istus , although it is just one city (can´t remember which one right now) shortly described in its pre-war status, so it is not that important.
If you want to make the background of the half-orc even grittier, then make his human mother a refugee of the wild coast with an unwanted child (the character), ending up in diamond lake and being forced to do just about anything to stay alive. IMO, this would reflect the war and its consequences well, and play into the "grey" tone of greyhawk.
I know it is not a nice picture I´m sketching here, but the aftermath of a war is seldom pleasant. It might just be too gritty for some tastes, however.
Stefan
I found a website that had information about various orc tribes on the continent and it mentioned that the Evil Eye orc tribe made its home in and around the Cairn Hills.
I told my player this and he's developing an origin - probably the whole standard half-orc "unwanted child" syndrome...
as you mention that, there was an article on the humanoid tribes of the pomarj in dragon 167 (I think). It gave the locations for the various tribes, but not much more. It still is worth tracking down for that, IMO.
Stefan