Hail O learn'd gamers!
I am running a campagin where the players play classic D&D Orcs and I have two questions for you:
A) Does anybody know where I can find adventures designed for evil characters (say, a dungeon crawl where you fight dwarves or something like that...)
B) Does anybody has any cool ideas for Orc adventures, because honestly after 14 sessions I am washed out.
The players are: an honorable but fanatic shaman apprentice (LE--> LN), a vicous but cowrdly bully (CE) and a nature-loving animalist (CN-->CG)(a person who thrives to imitate animals) and they are all siblings.
Humbly,
Uri K.
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(If they are affiliated with an orcish tribe)
The orc chieftan's stupid, brash, yet powerful son has gone missing. He was out hunting deer with his hunting buddies.
His pet dire badger shows up in camp a few days later; there's a broken arrow in his flank and he looks like he's been tussling.
A few days later, three elves show up on the border of the orc's territory. The party is sent to go see what they want, and if they want death, then to give them red slaughter.
The elves want to talk. They've caught the chief's son, and if the orc tribe will leave (migrate at least a month's journey away and stay migrated) they'll release him. They'll also hand over 2 month's rations for the tribe.
The orcs then have to relay this message to their chief. The chief tells them to go back and tell the elves to come talk to him.
So the party has to give the elves safe passage to the chief.
Other tribes of orcs attack them along the way.
The chief tells the elves it's a deal. Hand over the food and he'll get packing. He sends the party to conduct them safely to the edge of orcish territory, then don't attack them. Instead, tail them back to their village and get his son free by sculduggery.
When they free the son, he goes ape wild and orders the party to attack the elven village along with him. They have to escape somehow.
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There are a couple of second edition adventures that you might be able to use for your campaign. The first is called "The Reverse Dungeon" - it presents a few opportunities for PC's to play the badguys. The first section seems like it would be particularly good for you; the PC's play goblins defending a cave system from meddling adventurers. If your characters are orcs, it wouldn't take much modification to make that adventure work.
Another second edition adventure you might be able to use is called "The Silver Key." As written, PC's play adventurers who get polymorphed into orcs to go rescue a diplomat, if I remember correctly. You could switch it up and have your PC's play orcs in the city that have to root out the traitors, have the entire scenario reversed and have your PC's polymorphed into humans to rescue a member of their tribe, or at the least you could just take the setting of the orc village for your own use.
Hope that helps!
Fristly let me say
Za frumi!
http://www.waerloga.com/zafrumi/
So on that theme, maybe an evil drift, say a vampire wants to attract villagers to the area, and sees the orcs as an impediment to humans moving into an area, or a forgotten evil temple, inhabited by demons is discovered, and the orcs have to defeat or join them. or perhaps and orderly army of hobgoblins wants to bring the bloodwar to the orc tribes.
Use a previous campaign for inspiration but turn the tables. So think of what your players have done in older campaigns and use that as inspiration to create adventures from the bad guys perspective.
I have a suspicion that you took your Orcs out of their traditional society and now you have 4 Orc PCs that are not beholden to any chief or shaman, nor do they want to be the leaders of the slave soldiers of the evil overlord.
So maybe its time that their 'potential' was noticed. Grumaash never sleeps - Grumaash sees all. Its time his wayward children found their Orcin roots (Note you don't have to use Grumaash - any evil overlordy thing will do) and got involved in nefarious schemes in which high potential (i.e. Ones that gain levels) Orcs could play a part.
The 'God has singled you out for a quest' plot line is pretty overused - but I bet your players have never been on the receiving end of that quest when the mover and shaker was an Arch-Devil. There is no need to play on their morality here. The Arch-Devil knows they are marked - their critical to his plans and he or she is sending a very persuasive emissary to make sure they get back with the program. Arch - Demons are not subtle, well OK they are - but not with Orcs, Orcs don't usually grasp subtlety so raw displays of power, promise of loot and extremely dire threats for failure are the order of the day. Your players might try and buck the BBEGs authority but even that ought to make a pretty exciting campaign. Have them get rounded up every so often and they can plot their daring escape from the BBEGs plan.
Design the nefarious scheme of the evil mastermind and then get your Orcs involved in the plot - even if their goal is to figure a way out of this mess.
Essentially figure out what parts Orcs normally playing the heroic adventure campaign and then make that the over plot. It beats the heck out of 4 lone Orcs off doing their own thing. Orcs off doing their own thing outside of any structure can really easily loose focus. Orcs make lousy wanderers without patrons or goals as its hard to come up with ones that make sense for them individually in the same manner as it is for a human. I mean its not like they can just go to tavern and recieve the adventure and even if tehy could thats wasting their potential. If your players are playing Orcs - make them take the role.
Well, them stinkin humans are always encroaching; game is scarce and now they want to build a stinkin human keep and settlement in our orc lands; are we gonna stand for that my brothers? No, hell no, alright; some of you need to go find us some allies and maybe some of you need to infiltrate by working as labors and find out what their plan is; and maybe do some scouting and some of you need to start collecting supplies of food and weapons for this war. Somebody go raid us some villages; we need some women to make more soldiers, somebody tell me who is leadin them humans; 500 pieces of gold and my daughter for his head on a platter. yeah, and somebody plant some human evidence or hire some humans to start a full blown ruckus with some other orc tribes and stuff so they git pissed and want to help us scurge these stinking humans and kick them out of our ancestreal lands.
hehe that never gets old; course I had to keep it clean and not speak like a real orc boss, but you get the idea.
also/or, you could have a meteor fall from the sky, its a sacred sign to the shaman; bring the tribe big mojo if you can find and bring the iron/mithral core back to the tribe. Other monster or groups want it also; its a race and somebodies gonna do some bleedin.
suddenly everyone is getting sick from water taken from the river; pc have to find out what happened and fix it. This could be as simple as somebody poisoning the river; or a necromancer has moved in upstream and have widened a part of it to set up shop and lots of ghouls and dead stuff is in the water; or an underground aquifer has opened to the river and carries a lot of sulfer and uraniam; pc might need to find some dwarves to engineer and redirect the underground aquifer to save the village.
The shaman gets a vision quest as does some of the other pc's; the warrior needs to go on a quest to collect some hero type stuff to become a noble; the gods have decided; the shaman will be his spirit guide and read the signs; somebody has to carry the pc's totem and speak for him as guys on quests have a vow of silence and can only use hand signals or loose the gods blessing; +1 to everything while on the quest which also applies to his entourage; -1 for 30 days if they fail. Also, he will need a drummer or some type of musician to play as you cant travel without a drummer; signifies the orc gods beating heart. Other orcs might leave offerings in front of hte questers of food or some such; it is really bad manners to attack a quester; but it happens; a lot :) Have the pc get 3 other races to join him on his quest; find some wierd stuff like some petrified wood; an egg of a fairly rare monster or a feather (undamaged), steal one family heirloom from x enemy; kill with proof of the head or enslave some powerful tribal enemy.
sheesh, i could do this all day, but have to do some work; hope this helps some.
Well, them stinkin humans are always encroaching; game is scarce and now they want to build a stinkin human keep and settlement in our orc lands; are we gonna stand for that my brothers? No, hell no, alright; some of you need to go find us some allies and maybe some of you need to infiltrate by working as labors and find out what their plan is; and maybe do some scouting and some of you need to start collecting supplies of food and weapons for this war. Somebody go raid us some villages; we need some women to make more soldiers, somebody tell me who is leadin them humans; 500 pieces of gold and my daughter for his head on a platter. yeah, and somebody plant some human evidence or hire some humans to start a full blown ruckus with some other orc tribes and stuff so they git pissed and want to help us scurge these stinking humans and kick them out of our ancestreal lands.
hehe that never gets old; course I had to keep it clean and not speak like a real orc boss, but you get the idea.
also/or, you could have a meteor fall from the sky, its a sacred sign to the shaman; bring the tribe big mojo if you can find and bring the iron/mithral core back to the tribe. Other monster or groups want it also; its a race and somebodies gonna do some bleedin.
suddenly everyone is getting sick from water taken from the river; pc have to find out what happened and fix it. This could be as simple as somebody poisoning the river; or a necromancer has moved in upstream and have widened a part of it to set up shop and lots of ghouls and dead stuff is in the water; or an underground aquifer has opened to the river and carries a lot of sulfer and uraniam; pc might need to find some dwarves to engineer and redirect the underground aquifer to save the village.
The shaman gets a vision quest as does some of the other pc's; the warrior needs to go on a quest to collect some hero type stuff to become a noble; the gods have decided; the shaman will be his spirit guide and read the signs; somebody has to carry the pc's totem and...
Wow! Simply wow!
Fristly let me say
Za frumi!
http://www.waerloga.com/zafrumi/
So on that theme, maybe an evil drift, say a vampire wants to attract villagers to the area, and sees the orcs as an impediment to humans moving into an area, or a forgotten evil temple, inhabited by demons is discovered, and the orcs have to defeat or join them. or perhaps and orderly army of hobgoblins wants to bring the bloodwar to the orc tribes.
Orc music?!
B) Does anybody has any cool ideas for Orc adventures, because honestly after 14 sessions I am washed out.
The players are: an honorable but fanatic shaman apprentice (LE--> LN), a vicous but cowrdly bully (CE) and a nature-loving animalist (CN-->CG)(a person who thrives to imitate animals) and they are all siblings.
There is a series of novels by Stan Nicholls that are written from the orc's perspective (Bodyguard of Lightning, Legion of Thunder, and Warriors of the Tempest). The protangonist is a character named Stryke, who is the leader of a renegade warband. These might be useful sources of inspiration.
There is a series of novels by Stan Nicholls that are written from the orc's perspective (Bodyguard of Lightning, Legion of Thunder, and Warriors of the Tempest). The protangonist is a character named Stryke, who is the leader of a renegade warband. These might be useful sources of inspiration.
B) Does anybody has any cool ideas for Orc adventures, because honestly after 14 sessions I am washed out.
The players are: an honorable but fanatic shaman apprentice (LE--> LN), a vicous but cowrdly bully (CE) and a nature-loving animalist (CN-->CG)(a person who thrives to imitate animals) and they are all siblings.
I heard about these books, are the Orcs evil there? Because I don't buy all this "peaceful warrior" Warcraft nonesense, my Orcs aren't "noble savages" but merely savages, like in the MM.
BTW, did you hear about a novel called "the killing spirit"? Is it good?
Have a local tribe round them up... make it clear that they have the numbers, but that your trio are among the most powerful members. Whatever they do from there is interesting: they can challenge for control of the tribe, the shaman can reveal that the tribe's shaman is a fake, etc.
Have a local Orc tribe come for help-- they'll pay with gold, alliances, honorary membership, whatever. See, a hobgoblin tribe has an army of goblins on the way...
Put in an entrance to the underdark. They can explore it like adventurers (loot & slay), diplomats, or just make sure that they have a safe bolt hole.
A drow raiding is sent for slaves. Orcs make good slaves... either the 3 PCs (they're alone, so of course they'll be easy to take) or the 3 PCs can see them marching a conquered tribe off into the underdark. (Wicked variant: they hire the Orks, especially the bully, to help them round up their fellows.)
They hear about a powerful leader who is uniting the tribes. Can the PCs get in on it? Perhaps the shaman has a vision of the animalist slaying (an Ork, described now, but later revealed to be this leader).
Winter strikes early; your Orkish breathern aren't ready... they'll starve before winter's end if they don't get some more food. Fortunately there's an elvish village just inside the forest...
Hope some of these sound good.
-- Scott
They hear about a powerful leader who is uniting the tribes. Can the PCs get in on it? Perhaps the shaman has a vision of the animalist slaying (an Ork, described now, but later revealed to be this leader).
Didn't exactly get this one; what do you mean "a vision of the animalist slaying..."
Winter strikes early; your Orkish breathern aren't ready... they'll starve before winter's end if they don't get some more food. Fortunately there's an elvish village just inside the forest...
Liked this one, very orklike. However my campgin takes place in the mountains (called "the orcish tusks" by the manlings) so it's better to use a dwarf village, but cool idea nevertheless -I'm defently going to use this one.
Didn't exactly get this one; what do you mean "a vision of the animalist slaying..."
Breaking it down:
* The Shaman PC has a vision.* In the vision, the Shaman sees the animalist PC (let's call him Bob).
* The Bob in his vision is killing "a dark, scarred Ork, with a lightning tattoo on his left arm"
* Later, when the PCs investigate/get captured by/encounter the mighty Orc leader and the army he's gathered, the shaman will recognize the Ork leader. He's the guy that he saw Bob killing in his vision.
I hope that's clear-- if not, let me know.
Didn't exactly get this one; what do you mean "a vision of the animalist slaying..."Breaking it down:
* The Shaman PC has a vision.
* In the vision, the Shaman sees the animalist PC (let's call him Bob).
* The Bob in his vision is killing "a dark, scarred Ork, with a lightning tattoo on his left arm"
* Later, when the PCs investigate/get captured by/encounter the mighty Orc leader and the army he's gathered, the shaman will recognize the Ork leader. He's the guy that he saw Bob killing in his vision.I hope that's clear-- if not, let me know.
As clear as the morning sky. The animalist is her, BTW.
You and your clan live in a castle. The evil boss expects trouble in the form of 5 teenagers with magic weapons. You stand guard at the entrance all night.
They have to guard a 10' by 10' dungeon room with a chest.
hehe my head is so full of adventures to be written sometimes it feels like it will explode; read some of my other posts about where people have asked for ideas and gaming ideas; hehe sometimes I feel like I will explode if I dont write an adventure; those were just made up on the spot; if you need ideas of a different flavor or something just give me a little background on your pc's and what goals they seem to have a bit about the land your adventure takes place in; I just tried to give some generic stuff you could put in any campaign; I more or less think of orcs like the native american tribes during the time of the vikings and stuff; very tribal, proud, and aggressive, but also very orc like in not a conservational bone in their body; very Tolkein meets the last of the mohicans
What's in the chest?
An applicator shaped like Jodie Foster's knuckles.
Family Pie? No?
Why don't they eat the pie?
If I wus an orc I'd eat it.
Orcs eating -- brings back memories.
The time we played a party of orcs, the group woke up to find one PC gnawing on the bones of another. That was a no-holds-barred game :)
if you need ideas of a different flavor or something just give me a little background on your pc's and what goals they seem to have a bit about the land your adventure takes place in;
You'll be able to find a full (but typo-ridden) description of my campaing in the following site
More ideas will be very welcome!
What type of campaign world are we dealing with here? Something rather permanent that you'd rather not change, or just a kind of wolrd thrown together for this game? If it's the later, then maybe it's time for Grumsh's armies to take back what they've always felt was their's, and the PCs are the perfect orcs to become (anti)heroes in this war. Maybe even generals to the warchief, or leaders of their own tribe after a while. "Allies" (fodder) need to be "made" (conquered). All kinds fo stuff. A war campaign, but you're fighting from the evil army's side.
What type of campaign world are we dealing with here? Something rather permanent that you'd rather not change, or just a kind of wolrd thrown together for this game? If it's the later, then maybe it's time for Grumsh's armies to take back what they've always felt was their's, and the PCs are the perfect orcs to become (anti)heroes in this war. Maybe even generals to the warchief, or leaders of their own tribe after a while. "Allies" (fodder) need to be "made" (conquered). All kinds fo stuff. A war campaign, but you're fighting from the evil army's side.
At the moment they are are 4 HD (with the avarage adult being 6 HD) so I think leading an army is way over their heads. So far the main motive of the campagin was that most Orcs are extremly passive and lazy while the PCs are active and curious (and have exceptional skills). So that everyone say "X should be done" and doesn't do anything about it while the PCs hear it think "hmmm... it's important for the clan/family/reputation/etc...) and go and do it.
Okay. I didn't meant right away, but eventually they could perform enough deeds to get into such a lofty position. But, if everyone else is so lazy, I guess that typically precludes any chance of actual orcish initiatives, likes wars. :) Never ending quests, though.
"You, Gog Gog, get me my spoon!"
"But, Zug Nob, it's right he-"
"Now, Gog Gog!"
If you want to use a module, Sons of Gruumsh may work. I ran it with a party that include a couple of orcs from rival tribes. They acted like they were coming to pay tribute to the new warlord, but they were actually trying to steal the main item of the module (want to avoid spoilers here). Makes for some fun role playing and a good dungeon crawl. Be careful though - while the party was mostly 4th and 5th level, it was a TPK once they got to the Gray Citadel...
If you want to use a module, Sons of Gruumsh may work. I ran it with a party that include a couple of orcs from rival tribes. They acted like they were coming to pay tribute to the new warlord, but they were actually trying to steal the main item of the module (want to avoid spoilers here). Makes for some fun role playing and a good dungeon crawl. Be careful though - while the party was mostly 4th and 5th level, it was a TPK once they got to the Gray Citadel...
Found it. I think I have the ultimate quest -
<Spoiler alert>
the PCs have to kidnap a group of humans as a sacrifce for their elder brother's "crowning" (he has a good chance of becoming war chief of the right people die...)
The kidnapping, the escort, the protection of the victims until the cermony will be prepared, fending of good heroes... I think it can make a mean adventure!
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There is a series of novels by Stan Nicholls that are written from the orc's perspective (Bodyguard of Lightning, Legion of Thunder, and Warriors of the Tempest). The protangonist is a character named Stryke, who is the leader of a renegade warband. These might be useful sources of inspiration.I heard about these books, are the Orcs evil there? Because I don't buy all this "peaceful warrior" Warcraft nonesense, my Orcs aren't "noble savages" but merely savages, like in the MM.
I read "Bodyguard of lightning" some time ago, but it was so bad that I honestly cannot tell you if they were evil or not. They were very violent, though.
As for ideas, how 'bout the old "escape from prison" classic? Except that the prison wardens are ogres who force their captive to fight fierce beasts in an arena, or simply beat their heads in with rocks just for fun. Have the ogres eat an orc or three every so often to add some urgency to the scenario - sooner or later, it'll be the PCs turn. This setup will encourage lots of roleplaying, as the PCs will need to organise the other captives and lead them in an attempt to overthrow their captors. Finally something to use all those Craft skills (improvised weapons), interpersonal skills and stealth abilities on!
I'm just starting a campain in which some of the party are orcs. I've made some minor adjustments to the orc rules(i lost the wisdom penalty and gave a +2 to intimidate) and thing are shaping up well. The campain is taking place just up from the currantly know area of the world and orcs are no more evil than humans but are more pirmitive. The campian will probly involve the Ranger/Barbarian/Orc warlord uniting the orcs and sweeping through a humman nation thats currantly attacking a differant group of PCs homeland and then attacking said homeland.
My own attempt at an all Orc group went like this:
The Orcs have been fighting The Elves for generations. Recently The Orcs have pushed The Elves back from the front line and captured much new land. At side of a mighty river stands a now abandoned Elven Castle. An Orc Captain has been assigned to the castle. The river will allow the Orcs to navigate to previously unheard regions. The PCs were young orcs assigned to the castle. The name of the Captain was Boon Disco, the name of the castle Deep River Noon.
Unfortunately I did not get to run that campaign to fully exploit the DS9 style setting.
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I read "Bodyguard of lightning" some time ago, but it was so bad that I honestly cannot tell you if they were evil or not. They were very violent, though.
As books go, they are OK but hardly great literature. They are violent, but the orcs are essentially OK - some are good, some are less good. The orcs are made up to be noble warriors rather than savages.
To be fair, the books are puffed slightly by the late, great David Gemmell, but they are not brilliant. OK if you like a bit of mindless stuff - about the same level as an average D&D novel.
My own attempt at an all Orc group went like this:
The Orcs have been fighting The Elves for generations. Recently The Orcs have pushed The Elves back from the front line and captured much new land. At side of a mighty river stands a now abandoned Elven Castle. An Orc Captain has been assigned to the castle. The river will allow the Orcs to navigate to previously unheard regions. The PCs were young orcs assigned to the castle. The name of the Captain was Boon Disco, the name of the castle Deep River Noon.
Unfortunately I did not get to run that campaign to fully exploit the DS9 style setting.
Nice. Ever since warcraft everything having to do with Orcs always dealt with wars and great battles. But if we look at similar peoples in the real world (Native Amricans, Vikings or even Neandethals) we'll ses their annals full of personal quests and glorius adventures (just look at what Haiwatha, Thor and the guys in The Quest for Fire went through...)
In fact, Orcs being savages, should rarely, if ever, be able to muster an army.
Which brings me to the conclusion that modern Orcs are in fact Mongols.