I've been googling for a while now and I can't seem to find out if Orcus is open game content. I know the name itself is from Greek mythology, but how much of the orginal d&d Orcus character is OGC?
He appeared in Tome of Horrors, so I would assume he is.
He appeared in Tome of Horrors, so I would assume he is.
Yeah, my reasoning exactly.
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The name "Orcus" is certainly no one's intellectual property. But I don't know if the traditional D&D description of Orcus is OGL -- I don't know if the ToH Orcus is essentially the same as the traditional D&D Orcus.
The name "Orcus," as I remember, comes from the notes of an unknown monk in the Early Middle Ages on a list alongside the name "Demogorgon." Nothing other than the names exist but since they're named together on that manuscript they've always been associated. The name doesn't appear again until 1660 with Milton.
Classical scholars have connected Orcus with an Etruscan Underworld god translated as "Horcus" and archaeological site, Tomb of Marini is regarded the Tomb of Horcus.
But this is all, as I recall, sketchy factual info that Classical scholars debate somewhat.
Creative Director
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Mythologically, "Orcus" is a place, not a dude. The word was used as a name for the underworld back in Roman times. The word is public domain as a result, and while we COULD go the same route as D&D and make Orcus a demon lord via this route (the Romans certainly did, after all!), the resulting demon lord would have to be different than the ram-headed necromancy-flavored deathwand-wielding Orcus we've all come to know and love.
Fortunately, as mentioned above, Necromancer Games got permission from WotC to stat up that version of Orcus in the Tome of Horrors. So in this case (as well as the case of several other D&D demon lords like Kostchtchie, Fraz-Urb'luu, Jubilex [although with a slightly differently spelled name than Juiblex, which is the WotC version], and Pazuzu) the demon lord is 100% open content. You just need to properly cite his entry if you use him in a published product.
Orcus DOES exist in Golarion, in any event. He's not a big player, since we assume he has more stuff going on on other worlds than Golarion (such as Greyhawk and the Necromancer Games implied setting and the Forgotten Realms and Planescape), but he still has a presence in Golarion.
Yeah, I'm glad Golarion has taken its own road here.
James, if you don't mind me asking, do you find the Wikipedia article on Orcus grossly inaccurate in this regard? I thought it fit some things I'd read elsewhere once upon a time, but it's so much a part of my memory stew, I've got no specifics.
‘Orkos seems to be Greek, as well.
Just checked my copy of Oxford's Companion to Classical Literature. It's an old edition, but it assumes both the personification and the Greek connection.
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Anybody out there with an advanced degree in Classical Humanities?...
Looking at the "Demogorgon" wikipedia page I see the reference to the unknown monk I mentioned in my first post who (far as I knew) is the first reference to the names "Orcus" and "Demogorgon".
I think that, in a culture that studies Milton so much (where we see Orcus and Demogorgon again right next to each other) we want to figure out more info on Orcus (it's accepted by everyone I've ever heard or read that Demogorgon (like Mephistopheles) is a completely made-up name by folks LONG after Classical times).
Thus, I posit that because we want info on the Orcus of Milton (and the monk) we connect that name with the Etruscan Horcus. Then we connect the cultural dots from Horcus to the Hellenistic Underworld god that we've named "Orcus" ONLY BECAUSE OF THE CONNECTION BETWEEN "HORCUS" AND THE NAME MILTON USED. I think it's very likely that we invented the name Orcus as the Roman god after Milton.
Does anyone know of any other reference to the name Orcus (not Etruscan Horcus) prior to the Middle Ages?
I don't have the resources to track it down further right now, but I'd sure be curious. The thing is, even if the Roman evidence was sparse, the Etruscan evidence seems pretty important: I've been to an exhibit on Etruscan religion, and those Etruscan gods tended to have close connections and close names with the later Roman deities.
If you were right, that'd be some amazingly sloppy work in the OCCL.
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If you were right, that'd be some amazingly sloppy work in the OCCL.
Not really.
Keep in mind that scholarship like this as we know it is less than a century old. And since we have so few pieces of these ancient puzzles we have to try to connect the dots where we can. I mean, face it, the Etruscan "Horcus" (assuming that translation wasn't inspired by Milton!!) isn't too far off from a name "Orcus" scribbled in the margins by a monk in the Middle Ages (that, hee hee, probably inspired Milton!).
Heck, our pronunciation of Greek and even some Roman names were only mandated in the 1920s. I correct students all the time on pronunciation of names from Homer, etc., but we only have those pronunciations because back in the day they needed to agree on a uniform pronunciation, all of which were arbitrarily decided on with little or no justification -- I seem to remember being told there was great contention on whether "Zeus" should be one syllable or two.
Don't forget, we live in a Publish or Perish world. Either you publish your work or you don't get tenure (or a raise) and end up teaching at some Junior College somewhere.
Take your Oxford Companion for what it is, a specialized encyclopedia of secondary and tertiary articles.
Gah!
Everybody knows it's Zefs.
Your reflection makes me want to slit my wrists, but I'll go back to grading the community college reading responses I'm grading, instead.
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OMG your kidding, right?
Dude, I didn't mean it like that -- there's lots of smart folks that teach at the Teir 4s. Folks that can't stand life in Publish or Perish not because they can't but cuz they don't want to.
I'm one of 'em! I left the university 2 years ago to teach at private, college prep schools and love the 11th & 12th grade kids far better than the undergrads I use to deal with.
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Creative Director
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By default I don't assume that there are any connections between Golarion and other worlds (especially those published by other companies and using other game systems) so your Orcus doesn't have any reason for slacking off. :)Orcus DOES exist in Golarion, in any event. He's not a big player, since we assume he has more stuff going on on other worlds than Golarion (such as Greyhawk and the Necromancer Games implied setting and the Forgotten Realms and Planescape), but he still has a presence in Golarion.
Well... My take is that all other game worlds are on different planets in the same multiverse, so that even though we can't say so in print, Greyhawk and Earth and Toril and Eberron and Vulcan and Hyperion and LV-426 are all out there somewhere in the universe, in areas with more or less magic.
Spelljammer's the only setting that doesn't fit well into this theory.
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Creative Director
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Yeah, I'm glad Golarion has taken its own road here.
James, if you don't mind me asking, do you find the Wikipedia article on Orcus grossly inaccurate in this regard? I thought it fit some things I'd read elsewhere once upon a time, but it's so much a part of my memory stew, I've got no specifics.
Wikipedia's a handy source, but not always 100% accurate. When I use it as a research tool I usually augment it by other forms of research to verify as I can. In this case for Orcus... all I really need to know is that it's from mythology... although Greece is indeed probably more accurate, I guess, as an Orcus source.
Since I never actually got around to writing a Demonomicon of Iggwilv entry for Orcus, I never really did a lot of in-depth research into his story back through the ages, so I'm a little rusty there, I guess.
And I just read your Profile -- it says you're working on your dissertation; so you gotta finish that before you jump into Publish or Perish.
(Assuming you would even want to deal with it)
Out of curiosity, what are you doing your dissertation on?
I've been googling for a while now and I can't seem to find out if Orcus is open game content. I know the name itself is from Greek mythology, but how much of the orginal d&d Orcus character is OGC?
Thanks for all the info guys. I love this message board.