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For the sake of the question, let's assume that there are some rare tribes of entirely/mostly non-evil orcs out there. Where would they most likely be found in the Inner Sea region?
Belkzen is certainly the best place to go to find orcs, but the entire area doesn't seem particularly conducive to the development of a non-killcrazy culture amongst a race already deeply entrenched in a killcrazy culture.
Mwangi Expanse/Sargava, maybe? Maybe one of the outlying islands on the other side of the Eye of Abendego?
Basically looking for the most logical place for such a culture to be found for anyone that prefers their orcs non-Always Chaotic Evil, particularly fans of Blizzard-style orcs(which I'll admit, my personal favorite take on orcs cleaves pretty close to those as they're currently portrayed in WC3 and WoW).
Creative Director
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We have an Orcs of Golarion product in development/editing right now. I've not had a chance to look through it yet, so I'm not sure if it answers your question...
But overall, on Golarion, orcs are pretty universally bad guys. Non-evil orcs are almost ALWAYS either actually half-orcs or really unusual and unique individuals. At this point, there are no official non-evil orc tribes out there.
And Warcraft is actually a big reason why we're going this route with orcs; tribes of not-technically evil orcs are a pretty major part of Azeroth's lore... a KEY part of it, in fact. And I'd rather not step on their toes, simply because having actual evil orc tribes helps to separate our orcs from Warcraft's orcs.
Which is a way to say, if you want to put a tribe of non-evil orcs on Golarion... anywhere that feels cool to you is the right place to put them! :)
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We have an Orcs of Golarion product in development/editing right now. I've not had a chance to look through it yet, so I'm not sure if it answers your question...
But overall, on Golarion, orcs are pretty universally bad guys. Non-evil orcs are almost ALWAYS either actually half-orcs or really unusual and unique individuals. At this point, there are no official non-evil orc tribes out there.
And Warcraft is actually a big reason why we're going this route with orcs; tribes of not-technically evil orcs are a pretty major part of Azeroth's lore... a KEY part of it, in fact. And I'd rather not step on their toes, simply because having actual evil orc tribes helps to separate our orcs from Warcraft's orcs.
Which is a way to say, if you want to put a tribe of non-evil orcs on Golarion... anywhere that feels cool to you is the right place to put them! :)
That's understandable; different folks have different expectations from their orcs. And I'm definitely sympathetic to the hesitation to do anything even remotely resembling anything in Warcraft given the quickness of far too many to jump up and yell "OMG WoW RIPOFF" these days.
I've just never been a fan of mortal races being universally any alignment. I don't begrudge those that do, it's just never worked for me. Here, I'm just trying to figure out the most reasonable place for such a tribe to exist on Golarion. It seems isolation from most of their own kind would be an absolute necessity, and possibly distance from other races that might push them into frequent warfare and increased aggression spiralling down into, well...killcraziness.
p.s. hurry up and release Orcs of Golarion pl0x pl0x pl0x pl0x
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I'd throw them off the map, to the east of Brevoy, Galt and Taldor. Perhaps the Pit of Gormuz (falling place of Rovagug) is surrounded by wastelands filled with nomadic tribes of non-evil Orcs, who consider it their sacred duty to repel whatever evils crawl up from the Pit? (Sort of like Eberron's gate-watcher sect.) Naturally, they can't win (since the Spawn of Rovagug, when they do arise, devastate them), but they may weaken the beasts enough that other lands can deal with them more easily.
If I wanted to put them on the map, I'd replace a current culture. My own tweak to Golarion has been to replace the Ullfen entirely with Dwarves, to give the Dwarves an actual place on the map other than 'in the mountains bordering the orc and human countries,' but you could as easily replace the Ullfen with non-evil Orcs. The Linnorm Kings would all be Orcs, respecting only strength and trial by combat, and following the lead only of those who have proven themselves by defeating a legendary linnorm.
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So, I replied to this, and the thread listed the last post as 'Set, 17 seconds ago,' and then it completely vanished. Yeesh.
Anywho.
You could throw them off the map to the east of Brevoy, Galt and Taldor, or further south, to the east of Qadira, as part of Casmaron (of which we know little). Non-evil nomadic orcish tribes could live in the wastelands surrounding the Pit of Gormuz (where Rovagug fell) and consider it their duty to fight the corrupted creatures that rise into the surface world from that dark place (echoing the role of the Orcish Druids of the Eberron setting, protecting the world from unnatural horrors and 'watching the gates').
Alternately, you could pick a culture on the map that doesn't 'do it for you' and replace the humans of that area with Orcs. Perhaps the individualistic woodsman of Nirmathas are Orcs. I've already replaced the Ullfen of the Linnorm Kings lands with Dwarves, since I've always found it annoying that the 'demihuman' races never seemed to have actual countries of their own, but were shoe-horned into mountains and forests in otherwise human-dominated lands. Replacing the Linnorm Kings with Orcs, but retaining all of the other flavor of that land, leads to longhouses under the rulership of the strongest Orcs, who have proven their might by defeating one of the legendary Linnorms, as befits their warrior-culture, where only the most powerful are seen as worthy of leadership, offering the protection of their strength to those who follow their rule.
Other lands that totally fit the 'warrior-culture' of even a non-evil Orcish group could include;
Mendev (with the Orcs perhaps being representative of the oppressed native population, being ill-regarded by the visiting crusaders from many lands, despite their having been there, fighting the demons, long before these fancy-talking 'tourists' showed up to fight until it gets inconvenient and then scurry home to their safe countries far from the Worldwound...).
Numeria (the Steel Soverien who rules is Orcish, and while he's not a nice fellow, the average Numerian Orc is no more or less evil than the average human of the region).
River Kingdoms (somewhat anarchic, with a heavy 'might makes right' philosophy).
Razmiran (Razmir himself was an *Orcish* sorcerer, and his followers, masked orcs and half-orcs, mostly, repudiate anyone who claims that he's a false pretender, accusing them in turn of prejudice and being unwilling to accept that an Orc could pass the Test of the Starstone).
Druma, Nirmathas, Molthune, etc. also are possible.
I'd avoid changing the race of countries that seem more closely aligned with real-world cultures, no matter how amusing it might be to make Andoran the seat of liberty, freed from the rule of noble castes by freedom-loving Orcs, eager to tear down the old heirarchies that kept them down and 'second-class citizens' for so long, and replace them with the loud shouting matches and sometimes aggressive displays that they call democracy (and more 'civilized' nations like Cheliax and Taldor refer to as 'letting the inmates run the asylum'). :)
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Alternately, you could pick a culture on the map that doesn't 'do it for you' and replace the humans of that area with Orcs. Perhaps the individualistic woodsman of Nirmathas are Orcs.
While I doubt I'll be lobbying other GM's for something that big(or making such huge changes myself in the games I run), I have to admit that this one right here holds a lot of appeal to me, especially with the implications of their back-to-back badasses relationship with Lastwall. Orcish Nirmathas against the expansionist Molthrune, which itself uses "monstrous" soldiers, and mostly-human Laswall against the orcs of Belkzen.
That just seems ripe for mining, right there.
Damn, now I'm really falling in love with the idea.
I'd avoid changing the race of countries that seem more closely aligned with real-world cultures, no matter how amusing it might be to make Andoran the seat of liberty, freed from the rule of noble castes by freedom-loving Orcs, eager to tear down the old heirarchies that kept them down and 'second-class citizens' for so long, and replace them with the loud shouting matches and sometimes aggressive displays that they call democracy (and more 'civilized' nations like Cheliax and Taldor refer to as 'letting the inmates run the asylum'). :)
Well I wasn't thinking about it, but now that you put that image in my head it's not eager to leave. >:(
;)
You could throw them off the map to the east of Brevoy, Galt and Taldor, or further south, to the east of Qadira, as part of Casmaron (of which we know little). Non-evil nomadic orcish tribes could live in the wastelands surrounding the Pit of Gormuz (where Rovagug fell) and consider it their duty to fight the corrupted creatures that rise into the surface world from that dark place...
This is definitely an option... I might even go so far as to say the majority of this general area (those who while mostly-adherent to Sarenrae and allegiant to Kelesh recall the return of an ancient God) is now Half-Orcish, including a substantial number of full Orcs (perhaps full-blood Orcs could even be born to 2 half-Orcs) as well as some native Humans, and even though they are looked down on by the cosmopolitan (city) Keleshites they take pride in their own ethics and see themselves as equals amongst other demi-humans. If you're familiar with al-Qadim, this wouldn't be a stretch.
Within Avistan itself, I'm somewhat inclined to see the Orcs and nomadic Kellid tribes as mostly equivalent - perhaps Orcs predominantly being more Evil, but plenty of Evil humans exist as well, as seen by Numeria. It would be easy enough to delineate which areas see the most war and predations by Orcs, and have other tribes apart from that area having a more Good-focused outlook on things, as well as better relations with other peoples. Perhaps Orcs in the area between Irrissen and the Linnorn King lands could have reason to ally with their fellow humanoids against evil Fey and their ilk. Or Orcs settled on the East shore of the Lake of Mists, who make out better trading their farm and cattle with settlements across the lake and channeling trade from further East in Casmaron, instead of going on the war-path.
I could also see some Orcs in "Godless Rahadoum", perhaps even descendants of mercenary armies involved in Rahadoum's civil war, but who were crucially involved in the end of the civil war and rejection of religion... Perhaps now any militant-minded Orcs would find a place in the Pure Legion, but most of the species has found a place in society at peace and are especially proud of that fact, and Rahadoum at large for making it possible.
Another place I thought you could 'place' your non-Evil Orcs would be the Crown of the World - "Ice Orcs" that ended up developing separately from the warring clans and empires further South, perhaps spurred to a more ethical cultural norm by the harshness of their very environment, i.e. where fighting amongst one's own tribe would lead to it's extinction and there's not many other humanoids to rob/conquer/pillage in the first place. Throw in ice-sailing ships skating between sheltered valley 'oases' with volcanic-heated springs, etc.
Ah, but if you're making orks all evil, now you're stepping on Warhammer's toes...WAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!
Which of course Warcraft ripped off the look of their orcs directly from Warhammer...even the original warcraft series the orcs were much more Warhammer orks like with their war machines.
WoW didn't invent ANYTHING, stole, yes, invent...hell no!
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Almost certainly stealing your Ice Orcs just in case, Quandary. :D
Ah, but if you're making orks all evil, now you're stepping on Warhammer's toes...WAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!
Which of course Warcraft ripped off the look of their orcs directly from Warhammer...even the original warcraft series the orcs were much more Warhammer orks like with their war machines.
WoW didn't invent ANYTHING, stole, yes, invent...hell no!
While Blizzard orcs did start off as Warhammerish orcs, they've long since evolved past that phase. They're made their orcs their own now, and that's what people generally think of when they say "Blizzard/WoW orcs". Honestly, at this point Warhammer and Warcraft orcs are as different as night and day.
Almost certainly stealing your Ice Orcs just in case, Quandary. :D
While Blizzard orcs did start off as Warhammerish orcs, they've long since evolved past that phase. They're made their orcs their own now, and that's what people generally think of when they say "Blizzard/WoW orcs". Honestly, at this point Warhammer and Warcraft orcs are as different as night and day.Ah, but if you're making orks all evil, now you're stepping on Warhammer's toes...WAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!
Which of course Warcraft ripped off the look of their orcs directly from Warhammer...even the original warcraft series the orcs were much more Warhammer orks like with their war machines.
WoW didn't invent ANYTHING, stole, yes, invent...hell no!
Which is why I referenced it the way I did...and joked about Paizo ripping off WH orks, since Golarion is all evil orks...
Luckily they're not made of fungus...
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If you're familiar with al-Qadim, this wouldn't be a stretch.
Definitely one of my inspirations, along with the 'Gatekeeper' orcs of Eberron.
That stuff about Ice Orcs on the Crown of the World with ice-rigger ships skating across the icy plains? Hawt! Or cool. Or just all-temperature *awesome.* :)
One of the cooler bits of the Scarred Lands was a nation of predominantly half-orcish blood, with the average half-orc being the child of two half-orcs, with no recollection of any time when one of their ancestors was full blooded orc or human. Many generations ago, they served as the armies of an ancient empire, but it's long gone, and the setting, for all it's obsession with blood-this and shadow-that, had an entire country full of half-orcs with no more rape in their backstory than the average human or dwarven nation, making something from White Wolf that was, pleasantly surprisingly, less dark than the default D&D assumption.
Putting a large half-orc population of 'Mamelukes' or former mercenaries (long since settled down) in a place like Rahadoum, or in Casmaron proper, would be a cool way to produce an actual half-orc *culture,* instead of having most of them be singular entities.
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I invented orcs.
Evil ones,
Good ones,
All of 'em.
...........
I think the best place to put a CG/NG/N Orc community is the northwestern mountains above Cheliax, close to the ocean, west of Nidal, north of Cheliax.
Make a "bad" person live next to an "evil" person and the bad person may reform, maybe without realizing it, just by seeing evil for what it is. Cheliax doctrine could scare even an orc tribe into becoming good. Or Nidal, either one. Actually, Cheliax would intimidate them; Nidal would scare them.
In that northwestern area they have plenty of resources from which to develop, thus they don't have to fight each other. In fact they have to work together.
Plus, they have easily defendable positions, essential with two evil nations close.
....
Another thing, this puts them a good distance from other orcs, Gruumsh (or Rovagug) worshiping orcs. Evil orcs could influence them back to "evil."
If you put them out in Belzken or the Storval Plateau or another wild, monster filled region -- where only the strong survive and only the strongest and ruthless thrive, the orcs will likely stay evil.
Humans are the same way in real life:
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Cheliax doctrine could scare even an orc tribe into becoming good. Or Nidal, either one. Actually, Cheliax would intimidate them; Nidal would scare them.
I dunno, I think that a race with natural darkvision would scoff heartily at a community of people whose religion and dominant cultural trait is 'scared of the dark.' :)
Putting a large half-orc population of 'Mamelukes' or former mercenaries (long since settled down)
I had a similar idea for a character in a 3.5 game. Imagine the wounded remenants and supply train of a human/orcish army surrounded by LG elves who couldn't bring themselves to slaughter the noncombatants and instead trapped them in a fertile valley. Over time an order of elvish paladins started converting the survivors and in three or four generations had a city of half-orcs who worshipped Elvish gods and provided military units as a tribute to the Elvish kingdom.
Personally I just rather liked the idea of a half orc dressed in elven chain and armor, wielding a elvish double axe and screaming curses at orcs in elvish. But to be honest from an elven perspective it makes a lot of sense: half orcs reproduce fast, they're tough, and there's a certain irony in using a former enemy to defend your homeland instead of sending your children to die. They'd also make excellent spies for the elves in orc lands.
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That's understandable; different folks have different expectations from their orcs.
I expect orcish tribes to keep a large harem of elven slave women. It needs to be large because the orcs often rip the ones they are using.
Thrak: Grith! Bring me a new elf! I ripped this one!
Define evil...Blood thirsty, greedy, cruel, crushing anyone you dares to oppose you and your righteous quest???
Sound familiar? They sit at the table with you. Evil is as evil does.
Mr. Fishy wrote up a race of high lawful Romanesque orcs. Mr. Fishy called them high orcs and the savage low orcs or Gacath; High orc for "the lost." High orcs were still a warrior race but they had developed culture and war.
So if you want "nonevil" orcs do it. Mr. Fishy had a paladin as a villain. You don't have to only kill the evil, kill em all.
One more thing, TOLKEN WAS A RACIST!!! That's right Mr. Fishy said what we were all thinking "Tolken was an orc hater."
Something you might want to consider is having the Dwarves discover a race of Orcs from deep underground that survived the ancient purge. Use the Sharakim Race from Races of Destiny, a favourite of mine as they're a 'Good but Ugly' race, something that is really, really, really rare in Fantasy these days. It must be fappable or it's fodder seems to be the recuring trait .... bleh!
Give them the Humanoid (Orc) subtype instead of the (Human) one, lose the natural armor bonus, lose the racial bonus to attack on Orcs, the penalty to Dexterity and the Level Adjustment, give them a Racial Bonus to skils that would benefit their life underground, such as Knowledge (Dungeonering) and perhaps a Racial Bonus to social skills. This makes the Sharakim balanced in regards to the PC races and fits to make them an underground race of reclusive mystics that, freed from fighting against the Dwarves and competing against other Orcs for food and territory, thrived and expanded their minds while regaining their strength in the ruins of the old underground Dwarven citadels.
Where they crop-up could be interesting, given that Dwarves are nominally acting under Kill-On-Sight orders in regards to Orcs, and being hailed by an well-dressed Orc with Horns in the ancient Dwarven Tongue could possibly be the start of an adventure for the PCs as they are sent by equal-parts horrified, intriqued and enraged Dwarven Kings to verify if these 'Sharakim' are truly not allied with the Surface Orcs and if the Sharakim would fight the Dwarves if the Kings sent parties down to the ancient kingdoms to retrieve relics from their past.
Alternatively, the Sharakim could live in other, remote locations, trading their Racial Bonuses for traits more suitable for their new homeland. Perhaps they are a branch-line of research from the island-nation of Hermea, as the Gold Dragon Mengkare turns to one of his own children to try and provide the same 'benefits' to the Orcish race that he himself is trying to give to the Humans, or perhaps to preserve a 'perfect' strain of Orcs before he unleashes a terrible plague upon the Orcs of Belkzen to cleanse the land for his own brood-stock to colonise.
Other ways to introduce 'Neutral' Orcs or Sharakim could be the experiments of that rarest of all creatures, the Non-Evil Lich, Orcs that killed a Solar and whom were infused with the divine being's innate goodness, granting their children a divine 'curse' that gave them horns but also gave them a greater inclination towards Good than Evil and Neutrality than Chaos, they could be the descendants of a Tribe of Orcs who fled 'sideways' from the Great Dwarven Migration, remaining underground but coming across a series of caverns that were thick with magical irradiation, causing great numbers of Orcs to grow sick and die, but those that survived bred true, forming a new race with an unusually high natural intelligence that could crop up anywhere in any given Kingdom as a secretive mystery-cult that trades prophecies and magical aid for their continued protection from the outside world and supplies they might not be able to craft themselves.
I wish the Campaign Setting manual had a g@@**&n map of Golarion. The Group has not, as of yet, managed to get through our backlog of games to start buying the Pathfinder Modules. Bleh.
Ummm the PFCS should have had a foldout map in the back over man
Ummm the PFCS should have had a foldout map in the back over man
Nada, I bought mine from a store in Australia. Thank you for telling me that, but I fear me they've ripped it out before they sold it, which would be typical for the retailers in my state. FFFFFFFFFFFF.
Thought that might be the case. It had it lightly glued in the back. I do wish the book had one in it.
Have you checked out the wiki? Helps for online map anyhow
Thought that might be the case. It had it lightly glued in the back. I do wish the book had one in it.
Yeah I'm looking at the back of the book, and I can see a thin green outline which I am thinking is where they have prised the map off the back. Well..... looks like I'm ordering off Paizo from here on out, that's the last $60 I'll spend on those bastards.
I did find this map online if it's any help, it is the same one in back of the book. Not a printed one but a lest a whole map ya can use for reference
Oh, that is fantastic! I can zoom in and get the the names still! Thank you so much!
I'll also go and see if I can buy the 'real deal' off Paizo. I'm much interested in a big-ass map that I can lay out and pour over in detail.
Again, thank you so much and apologies for thread-derailment!
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Something you might want to consider is having the Dwarves discover a race of Orcs from deep underground that survived the ancient purge.
I dig this idea. It would be interesting to make some "good" dwarfs come to the realization that if they had left the orcs alone in their quest for sky, they would just be tiny, neutral or neutral good underground communities. Some interesting possibilities there.
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I'm gonna go in a different direction, although I really do like a lot of the suggestions.
I would put them on the fringe of the Hold of Belzken. I think that history would show (although certainly not exclusively, please don't assume that I'm speaking in absolutes) that areas of intense conflict also breed pockets of strong resistance. I can envision small pockets of orcs that for whatever reason, did not hold to the ways of their tribes.
Perhaps they didn't pass a test of manhood, or they saw too many of their own die in pointless conflict, but it lead them to seek a better life.
Such tribes would possibly gravitate towards the borders of the hold of Belzken, perhaps with Varisia, where they might be able to make a new impression of their new group with some of the humans that live beyond their own land.
I could see such orcs doing as much as possible to distinguish themselves from their brethren, while constantly trying to gain acceptance.
It could also put the PC's in such an area into very engaging situations. A good ranger might find himself the champion of a favored enemy. A paladin might find himself defending members of a race that killed a comrade,etc.
I digress, but I think that making a good tribe one of the possible consequences of the sheer concentration of orc-kind in the Hold of Belzken a fertile ground for adventure.
-QGJ
* Realm of the Mammoth Lords: This reasoning might not work for everyone, but I like the idea that having to survive in a place like this kind of drives the evil out of people. There's just too much dangerous stuff for evil to be a great survival strategy (for one thing you might want allies to fight off the demons of the Worldwound, who want to kill everyone). Or maybe some orcs in remote valleys (so they can ride dinosaurs) have been living without anyone else around and as a result stopped being evil because there was no one to be evil against.
I'd go for this one, too. If you're spending all of your time fighting the environment, you have less time to fight each other.
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Just added to my Golarion:
Sodden Lands - A large tribe of neutral orcs from the Mwangi Expanse has recently been pushing into the eastern edge of the Sodden Lands. Worshippers of Shimye-Magalla, they've been clearing out any aberrations they find nesting in the ruins and jungles of the Sodden Lands, cleansing the stormwracked land and claiming it as their own. This crusade has become a religous calling for the entire tribe, as they are not only driving out abominations against nature, they are also claiming a homeland few of the other races would be willing to fight over. If they are successful, they will have a relationship with their home much like the Shoanti have with the Cinderlands: Their home is both their greatest enemy and protector.
While "primitive" technologically, their culture will no doubt begin to be shaped by the recovered remains of Lirgen and Yamasa as they continue their push into both of these lost nations.
This is a very similar situation we are having in the campaign our DM started up. We are all playing races that are ‘viewed’ as evil. (Orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, kobolds, ogres) but are more neutral. We are starting a community after our tribes have been in a large fight. There are only about 40 of us or so, but almost half are children, where they haven’t had the opportunity yet to ‘become evil’.
So this is very relevant to our campaign on finding a location, as our DM is strongly thinking about using Golarian as his world.
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This is a very similar situation we are having in the campaign our DM started up. We are all playing races that are ‘viewed’ as evil. (Orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, kobolds, ogres) but are more neutral. We are starting a community after our tribes have been in a large fight. There are only about 40 of us or so, but almost half are children, where they haven’t had the opportunity yet to ‘become evil’.
So this is very relevant to our campaign on finding a location, as our DM is strongly thinking about using Golarian as his world.
Avistan is probably the most likely place something like this could start(where all of those races are more commonly found), but Garund provides better places for it to survive. By canon only, at least.
Is the DM shopping for a location at the moment or it pretty much set?
Personally I'm interested in hearing how all the disparate races play out as a society. :)
This is a very similar situation we are having in the campaign our DM started up. We are all playing races that are ‘viewed’ as evil. (Orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, kobolds, ogres) but are more neutral. We are starting a community after our tribes have been in a large fight. There are only about 40 of us or so, but almost half are children, where they haven’t had the opportunity yet to ‘become evil’.
So this is very relevant to our campaign on finding a location, as our DM is strongly thinking about using Golarian as his world.
Avistan is probably the most likely place something like this could start(where all of those races are more commonly found), but Garund provides better places for it to survive. By canon only, at least.
Is the DM shopping for a location at the moment or it pretty much set?
Personally I'm interested in hearing how all the disparate races play out as a society. :)
Actually, non-evil orc tribes are happening right now, by Belkzin's boarder of Lastwall. As Half-Orcs have come to dominate these tribes they are also moving them away from the worship of Ravogug to Gorum.
(Check out the Vigil (Lastwall) entry in City's of Golarion)
This is a very similar situation we are having in the campaign our DM started up. We are all playing races that are ‘viewed’ as evil. (Orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, kobolds, ogres) but are more neutral. We are starting a community after our tribes have been in a large fight. There are only about 40 of us or so, but almost half are children, where they haven’t had the opportunity yet to ‘become evil’.
So this is very relevant to our campaign on finding a location, as our DM is strongly thinking about using Golarian as his world.
Avistan is probably the most likely place something like this could start(where all of those races are more commonly found), but Garund provides better places for it to survive. By canon only, at least.
Is the DM shopping for a location at the moment or it pretty much set?
Personally I'm interested in hearing how all the disparate races play out as a society. :)
Ok, I will let my DM know on your suggestions. He's not shopping for a location right now, no. I am not even sure if he’s decided to go with Golarian yet. He usually has always built his own worlds, but he was looking over the Campaign Setting and really liked it, so he said he is thinking about using it. I did tell him there is a revision coming in February for it.
I can see one of the problems in using Golarian is the information out there is going to be for ‘standard’ racial parties (and understandably so), not our oddball monster races. So not sure how much of it will be worthwhile, with the exception of just the world being built and having predesigned cities/locations. But I mean a lot of the feats, PrC, achetypes will probably not be available to us. Although I guess I could be wrong. I haven’t looked at the Campaign Setting book, myself.
But will keep you apprised on how our society plays out. :)
Actually, non-evil orc tribes are happening right now, by Belkzin's boarder of Lastwall. As Half-Orcs have come to dominate these tribes they are also moving them away from the worship of Ravogug to Gorum.(Check out the Vigil (Lastwall) entry in City's of Golarion)
Ok, will have to keep that in mind if our DM decides to go with Golarian. Thanks. :)
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Actually, non-evil orc tribes are happening right now, by Belkzin's boarder of Lastwall. As Half-Orcs have come to dominate these tribes they are also moving them away from the worship of Ravogug to Gorum.
(Check out the Vigil (Lastwall) entry in City's of Golarion)
Ha! I completely overlooked that.
I love that notion, that the orcs Vigilants are scrapping with are becoming more dangerous opponents even as they move towards being actual Worthy Opponents and sharing the same religion with some of them. :D
A lot of fun to be had with that there.
I am not even sure if he’s decided to go with Golarian yet.
Ah, well sky's the limit then! ;)
Actually, non-evil orc tribes are happening right now, by Belkzin's boarder of Lastwall. As Half-Orcs have come to dominate these tribes they are also moving them away from the worship of Ravogug to Gorum.
(Check out the Vigil (Lastwall) entry in City's of Golarion)
Ha! I completely overlooked that.
I love that notion, that the orcs Vigilants are scrapping with are becoming more dangerous opponents even as they move towards being actual Worthy Opponents and sharing the same religion with some of them. :D
Of course, since that religion is Gorum, it will be difficult to progress to a more peaceful relationship.
Actually, non-evil orc tribes are happening right now, by Belkzin's boarder of Lastwall. As Half-Orcs have come to dominate these tribes they are also moving them away from the worship of Ravogug to Gorum.
(Check out the Vigil (Lastwall) entry in City's of Golarion)
Ha! I completely overlooked that.
I love that notion, that the orcs Vigilants are scrapping with are becoming more dangerous opponents even as they move towards being actual Worthy Opponents and sharing the same religion with some of them. :D
A lot of fun to be had with that there.
I am not even sure if he’s decided to go with Golarian yet.Ah, well sky's the limit then! ;)
After speaking with my DM last night, it sounds like he is going to go with his own world. Just for the fact that the world of Golarion is geared towards having standard PCs on it's surface. He said he loves the detail put into the World Book (although he did have an issue with some of the cities, didn't have enough detail on the power structure of the cities), however it just wouldn't work with our orc campaign as he wouldn't be able to use a lot of the city material for us.
However, that being said, he added there is no reason why we can't have a second campaign up and going, this one in Golarion. lol
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Dear God please yesThe green men of Mars in Edgar Rice Burroughs's planetary romances are called "Tharks."...based on the green skin and apparent "tharkness" of orcs...Tharkness?Ah. I haven't read much of Burrough's stuff(although I have read quite a bit of Ray Bradbury).
The idea of orcs being native to Akiton is very interesting. I've made some homebrew good-aligned orcs but was having trouble putting them into empty areas in Golarion.
Interesting idea, but I'm not sure how it meshed with the existing history of Orcs as residents of the Darklands driven out by the Dwarves' Quest for Sky.
OTOH, there's no reason Golarion would be the only planet with Darklands...That said, the obvious place on Golarion for good-aligned Orcs would be left behind in hidden pockets of the Darklands. It would make a nice contrast too: A race with the evil sub-race on the surface and the good ones living in the darkness.
Oooh, good Orc aligned aberration hunters!
How about a tribe of Saranae worshipers, pledged to never see her face (the sun) in their lives but to guard the ways to Rovarug's prison.
"We tried to keep the elfs out of the darkness, but they would not listen to our words of peace. Our open hearts were pierced by their arrows, our tongues tore out by their curved blades. What they unleashed in their fear has shadowed their souls, and those of their kin, whether they know it or not."
There is a lot to play with here. :)
It's funny, but as little help as Orcs of Golarion was for non-evil orc material, there are hints that could tie into these ideas quite nicely:
It's noted that orcs were extremely primitive and little threat until encountering dwarven civilization.
During the fighting near the surface during the Quest for Sky, it's noted that orcs were sending their children and elderly ahead while the warriors held back their dwarven pursuers. This flies in the face of how they're portrayed the other 99.5% of that book. So maybe orc culture wasn't completely awful before going all kinds of wrong on the surface.
There's another tidbit that supports that, but also throws a potential hurdle at the idea of anti-Rovagugi orc tribes remaining underground: Apparently orcs didn't even learn about Rovagug until making it to the surface and encountering humans, IIRC.
Maybe knowledge of Rovagug was carried back into the Darklands? Then again there are plenty of other ways to learn of him, be it by different names or simply through other channels of information, especially if anti-Rovagug tribes are following a divine mandate. (which has me wondering about the ways these particular tribes could have been introduced to Sarenrae...)
The big question that leaps out at me here is when did they break off from surface orc culture, and from there it could be easier to get an idea of how those cultures would diverge and develop.
By all means. Here's a ponder. what if the "quest for sky" is propaganda? Say the orcs and dwarves were running from something?
And there's plenty of things you'd want to distance yourself from down in the Darklands, especially in those Orvian vaults! Or possibly even a subterranean Spawn of Rovagug bursting into dwarf-inhabited areas?
Propaganda regarding the Quest for Sky has definitely been bouncing around in my head for a while. :)
Pet theory: Orcs were little threat before encountering orc culture. So what went wrong? Droskar.
Droskari dwarves saw a malleable race possessed of great strength and little in the way of civilization, and had bright idea of making a slave race that could serve as unskilled labor and as a subservient warrior caste(similar to what the Thassilonians did to the native peoples of Varisia during their reign). Given that he's the god of toil, this would be right up Droskar's alley. So they got their magical bioengineering and tampering on.
One of two(or both) things likely happened afterwards. Mainstream dwarf culture rejected this atrocity being committed by the Droskari, either out of moral outrage or ethical rejection(like seeing it as compromising dwarven works by propping it up on the backs of non-dwarves and such). OR Droskari manipulation of the orc race went horrifically wrong(or too right), resulting in the chemical imbalancees and berserkotron nature that Orcs of Golarion cheerfully tauted as the reason we can't have non-evil orcs.
The fallout from this would probably include the beginning of fullblown war between dwarves and orcs, Droskari dwarves being driven out to eventually become the duergar(who it should be noted love slavery), and the mainstream dwarves wound up fighting either an overzealous war to ensure their survival or a horrifying attempt to erase the shame they percieved on their race embodied in the orcs.
Fastforward to now, and neither orcs or dwarves have a total understanding of what exactly caused the war or why it was fought. It's too easy for them to simply dwell on past wrongs rather than tracing it back to the very origin. And both races would react poorly to the truth: What the orcs became was owed to the dwarves.
Both races would consider it an outrageous lie, and thanks to the distortion of history it's unlikely the full truth of what went wrong will come out any time soon. Though there might be some ancient dwarven texts hidden away....maybe in a Sky Citadel somewhere...maybe in a lost duergar library. And people would be willing to kill to keep it from coming into the light.
Maybe. I'm thinking about keeping it as a rumor amongst both races instead. Among dwarves it could be a sort of conspiracy theory, among orcs with a non-horrible culture, it could be an attempt to scrape out a piece of positive history from multiple ages of nothing but pain and madness.
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Speaking of Sarenraen orcs(and TOTALLY spinning out of Set's suggestion of Nirmathas that I completely fell in love with):
The (slim) majority population of Nirmathas are orcs comprising mostly CN/CG-leaning tribes, descended from tribes that crossed the mountains out of Belkzen during the reign of Kazavon. These people are a big motivator behind Nirmathas' fierce independence, which leads them to greater conflict with Molthrune, a land that promises their race security in exchange for freedom. These tribes are also entangled, for better or worse, with the fey courts of Nirmathas' forests, which are somehow larger on the inside than the outside due to First World shenanigans. The orcs get on well enough with their human countrymen, and this place provides ample opportunity for half-orcs to have backstories that aren't rooted in tragedy. They have a grudging mutual respect with Lastwall, though it took a while to get there.
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Long story short is that Sarenrae had long been sickened by the idea of an entire race ensnared by a culture that revered Rovagug. She managed to wrangle a "chosen one", Maja Firehair(a female orc possessed of remarkable empathy, which is usually an unhealthy thing to have in Belkzen), to lead her people towards the light. Said chosen one was more CN than anything, interpreted her visions as a call to conquest, and basically forced her way into the leadership position of her tribe and handed out beatdowns and annexations to other tribes. She did make some changes in orc culture(curbing brutality and sexual inequality, defying and defiling Rovagug's works,) but she was more about getting vengeance on her oppressors than anything else. She was closer to a Gorumite than a Sarenraean.
In Orcs of Golarion, the Crossed Soul concept holds that those female orcs that do manage to rise above the abuse of males and hold their own against them apparently must not actually have female souls. To them, they clearly must be reincarnations of mighty orc champions. These "crossed souls" are generally considered male by their kin and allowed to take wives of their own.
Maja most likely would have been considered one of those individuals by her tribe at the time. And given her empathy, she would have been genuinely protective of those she claimed, whether she was claiming them as actual wives or simply to protect them from abuse. Basically, this led to her falling into the dual role of conqueror and protector, as she extended that protection to the children of her tribe and adult males that weren't completely monstrous in nature. She was certainly pushy about it, but that's orcs for you.
But it wasn't just her alone. Those females that she claimed and those that were drawn to her banner, she drove to stand up, reclaim their pride, and be able to defend themselves rather than perpetuating their own abused position in Belkzen orc society(another element from Orcs of Golarion describing the dysfunctional way life in Belkzen works) For a while, the core part of her tribe was mostly a badass "Amazon brigade" until Maja conquered and absorbed more tribes to even out that demographic. Children raised within these tribes grew up with a much more equalized point of view on male and female capability, and the Crossed Soul concept would eventually fade out of use within those tribes, or it would come to mean something else entirely(that is something I'm still trying to figure out for a society where males and females are treated and expected to function as equals on the battlefield).
Sarenrae was enraged that her chosen one was missing the point and decided the best way to get through to an orc was to speak the same language. She then metaphysically and physically kicked Maja's ass and made her see that there was no future at all for the orcs if they stayed on their current path. A bit of a "Moses and the Burning Bush" vibe, if the Burning Bush was handing out beatings. Finally fully spiritually awakened, Maja started edging more and more into CG and led a change in culture along the way, while continuing her, now far more idealistic, tribal conquest.
And things actually started to come together. Maja had managed to win over the hearts, minds, and souls of four great tribes that had gathered under her banner in southern Belkzen. They had also made a number of enemies that wanted nothing less than to see them wiped out, mainly rival orc tribes, particularly those truly faithful to Rovagug. But more dangerous than that was Kazavon, who had consolidated power in Belkzen at that time.
Maja was hellbent on leading her people against Kazavon in a holy, frenzied crusade before Sarenrae gave her one final vision. Her mission wasn't to conquer in her goddess' name, but to preserve and safeguard the people she had managed to save. If they stayed in Belkzen, they would be wiped out and all of their work would come to nothing, and the orc race would face its eventual self-inflicted extinction. Maja's task was to lead her people to a new land where they could chart their own destiny.
Hounded by rival tribes and the servants of Kazavon, Maja's went south through the mountains of Nirmathas, around Lastwall. After weathering a rough winter and ogre attacks, they finally made their way in to Nirmathas, at that time still mostly unpopulated save for the outlying dwarven settlements that were paying more attention to what was inside the ground than on it. Maja passed when they finally arrived, and the tribes spread out.
They came into conflict with the dwarves from time to time, with the usual racial motivations, but that came mostly to a stop once "this is our side/this is your side" lines were drawn and that the orcs now greatly outnumbered the dwarves(and that the orcs were basically going "don't start none, won't be none" at that point).
The native fey courts of Nirmathas reacted differently. They and the land itself adopted these tribes in their own way. The general outlook of these fey was that they were the nobility, the superstitious orcs were the common folk. Depending on the nature of the individual fey or court, these orcs were sources of entertainment, champions, pawns in their inter-court feuds and games, etc. The orcs in turn generally see the fey as capricious nature spirits, to alternately be revered or avoided, but always approached with a healthy wary respect.
Lastwall was naturally highly suspicious(and alarmed) when orcs settled Nirmathas, and there was conflict before it became clear that most on both sides did not truly have a fight with each other. A mostly chilly, wary truce was kept after that, with Lastwall spending too much of their forces on their southern border to make certain nothing was afoot. True peace and trust between the two nations finally came when Lastwall extradited a band of war criminals that had fled into the country after wiping out a number of Nirmathi orc villages. After these criminals were hanged at the border, old wounds finally started to heal.
Human settlers started rolling into the Nirmathas area from Molthrune(and thus the Chelish Empire), which didn't really recognize the coverignty of a bunch of orcs, who were hardly organized into any sort of nation anyway. The expected conflicts did occur, but when Cheliax crumbled and House Thrune rose, the game really changed. Irgal Nirmath had established healthy relationships with the orc tribes and had earned their respect(and even had a half-orc wife who may have had a child, leading to all sorts of rumors and whispers that speak of that scion as some sort of "royalty", if Nirmathas held to such structures).
Humans and orcs are currently highly integrated in most places in Nirmathas. There are still some regions that are mostly orc and mostly human, but they're all Nirmathi. There, peaceful unions between humans and orcs are the norm rather than the exception, which means the region boasts probably the largest half-orc population in Avistan.
The Molthrune conflict is particularly vicious and painful, because there aren't (m)any real "bad guys" on either side. Molthrune does have a large population of humanoids and "monsters" that have sworn loyalty to that nation, and they've been given acceptance, honor, and station for it. The same offer has been made repeatedly to the orcs, but they remain as fiercely independant as their human countrymen.
Some particularly zealous orcs do make raids into Belkzen from time to time, but these small crusades are most often a drop in the bucket that is the ongoing Belkzen/Lastwall conflict.
Orcs may be getting on well with their neighbors, but there are still aspects of their culture that frighten or disturb others. Many of the tribes do "sky funerals", where the bodies of their dead are left on elevated platforms for carrion birds to pick clean. Some of the traditionalist tribes still have some form of ritualized cannibalism going on, where a new chief eats the heart of the old one to inherit thier strengh and wisdom. Cannibalism period doesn't hold much of a taboo in times of great need, such as during the original exodus from Belkzen. That is only performed with the willing however, and carried out with the utmost respect. (it's been noted with curiosity that there are no reports of orc ghouls in Nirmathas...)
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Interesting how tribal nature worshiping/fey influenced culture, and antagonism to aberrations crop up, a bit similar to Eberrons orcs.
I like how the history of enslavement resonates with the now chaotic and fiercely free and wild orcs.
Looking at the ARG Orc race's optional traits, maybe they would develop to having mostly Dayrunner and perhaps Smeller replacing light sensitivity , ferocity and weapon familiarity. Or maybe they substitute half Orc alternate racial traits like beast master, city dweller, or even forestwalker or rock climber.
I would definitely give orcs access to many of the half Orc alternate racial traits. Interestingly the half Orc deepkin variant has acute darkvision and cavewight replacing ferocity and intimidating. (Meaning these two traits were picked up later when fleeing/being driven to the surface) The deepkin are noted to be descended from deep dwelling orcs who are also a bit smaller. So there should probably also be a true orc deep kin variant.
Many (alt) racial traits make orcs even more bestial/primitive which could lend to the theory that the original orc race has somehow been tempered with resulting in archaic genetic features resurfacing. It reminds me of a story by P.K. Dick where genetic uplifting of cognitive features is a process which can be bought it sometimes it fails and a regression into more bestial features results. For orcs this could also have been an admixture or boar genes (or maybe they are descended from boars?) taking a page from old editions pigfaced orcs.
This could also work well with the more scifi Akiton origin story.
Just for fun:
Maja Firehair should totally be a mystic variant race (half-?) orc barbarian/oracle/rage prophet.
Flame mystery of course, and maybe Spirit Totem? Not sure which curse or archetype but probably the Fire Gods blessing feat.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Hmm, Gods and monsters...
From Gods and Magic
When the primal forces created Golarion,
Asmodeus planted a malignant evil in the world under cover of perpetual darkness. The doctrine of Sarenrae’s faith tells how the Dawnflower brought light to the world, and with it came truth and honesty. Those
who had turned to evil saw their wickedness and were forgiven by the light of Sarenrae.
Now imagine that's literal. The evil was planted in the world. Saranae appears to an orc tribe and they are forgiven/redeemed. They pledge to protect it.
If you really want to have fun, all the orcs were forgiven. They lived a primitive existance, wanting to keep the evil contained. The dwarves, under the influence of Droskar or maybe Angradd, come across the 'primitives' and enslave most, resulting in the orcs that parties across Golarion slaughter today.
Earthfall happens and these enslaved orcs, working from incomplete fragments, head upwards to see their gods. The Dwarves give chase, with the Quest for Sky being propaganda. Only those deepkin orcs who remained free remember correctly Saranae's commandments.
Right forgot about those. Good find. Deep Tolguth has a sun btw and a temple/ziggurat which in the novel is used by an oracle of Rovagug, though the temple is originally something more Lovecraftian.
The orcs there are as the humans savage barbarians.
I would not say that the Deep Tolguth orcs are good though btw, neutral at most and that's by the end of the book.
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During the fighting near the surface during the Quest for Sky, it's noted that orcs were sending their children and elderly ahead while the warriors held back their dwarven pursuers. This flies in the face of how they're portrayed the other 99.5% of that book. So maybe orc culture wasn't completely awful before going all kinds of wrong on the surface.
There's another tidbit that supports that, but also throws a potential hurdle at the idea of anti-Rovagugi orc tribes remaining underground: Apparently orcs didn't even learn about Rovagug until making it to the surface and encountering humans, IIRC.
...
And there's plenty of things you'd want to distance yourself from down in the Darklands, especially in those Orvian vaults! Or possibly even a subterranean Spawn of Rovagug bursting into dwarf-inhabited areas?
Propaganda regarding the Quest for Sky has definitely been bouncing around in my head for a while. :)
Pet theory: Orcs were little threat before encountering orc culture. So what went wrong? Droskar.
The rest of this post omitted for space, but interestingly, I had the exact opposite impression, which also adds a little more moral ambiguity to the dwarves and duergar. If you read between the lines, orcs and duergar coexist a lot better than either of them do with dwarves. When I was looking into Hagegraf for my Wayfinder article, I noticed that the city was 5% half-orc: more importantly, 5% FREE half-orc, making them the largest non-dark-folk free minority in the city. Similarly, although the duergar city of Fellstrok borders the orcish capital of Urgir, and although the books mention that the duergar fear an attack by the orcs or dwarves from the surface, the slave population in Fellstrok contains exactly zero orcs. If they're not on friendly terms, the worshipers of Droskar and the orcs are at least at a standstill with some cultural overlap.
I postulate that the dwarves drove the orcs to the surface, but the war was a lot more morally ambiguous, and has been oversimplified in media thereafter. Sure, the primitive orcs may have struck first, but they were essentially little more than neanderthals at the time, whereas the deeper-dwelling dwarves were a fully mobilized bronze age civilization already on edge from the nasty beasties dwelling below them in the vaults of Orv (if we assume they were spread out over northern Avistan, that puts them over the Land of Black Blood, Deep Tolguth, and the Crystal Womb, of which only the latter is even remotely not bad news). For better or for worse, the dwarves saw this as the impetus to begin fighting their way upwards, and the orcs were an easy "enemy," both to fight and to keep their population motivated. On the surface, the incredibly harsh environment of Belkzen (given that Varisia is a mild, boggy chaparral environment equivalent to California, I've always pictured Belkzen as the Mojave), drove the orcs to desperation and violence over the course of tens, if not hundreds of thousands of years. This, of course, is where Rovagug comes in, and warps the species over time to better fit his image, feeding off their collective nihilism and despair and giving them hate and anger in return.
Now is where we go back to the duergar. The duergar are the dwarves who, for whatever reason, didn't buy in to the Quest for the Sky. To a certain extent, that also means that they're the dwarves who thought that fighting the orcs was wrong. This takes on an especially morally interesting angle if you consider that the duergar might have seen the orcs for what they were at the time; essentially harmless primitives. We know for a fact that the duergar only turned to Droskar in desperation later, when more and more horrible underground dwellers (drow, derro, ghouls, et al) encroached upon their civilization, and they needed Droskar's help to mobilize into the fascist model that was required to survive.
Is it possible that the duergar were orc-sympathizers? Is that why there are over one and a half thousand half-orcs in Hagegraf, the crux of duergar civilization, which is so geographically far away from any modern orc tribes? Were it not for the public worship of Droskar, would the orcs in duergar society be upstanding and sympathetic, now that they've had millennia to culturally adapt?
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I've long had a town of Evil, non-warlike Orcs in my campaigns. It's name is Ha'aven (though non-Orcs call it Haven)
Its a very Lawful/Neutral Evil place. The leader and his 'Enforcer's run a tight ship. The Leader...imagine Jabba The Hut meets The Godfather. ;)
I located it in Belkzen near the storval plateau and The Shoanti.
Some Shoanti go their to trade...heck in fact some enterprising dwarves from Janderhoff go their too.
Its a nasty frontier town, where dueling is allowed; but never ever ever cross the Mayor of Ha'aven :D
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Just recalled something: The Belkzen article in Skeletons of Scarwall mentions a gateway between Belkzen and Akiton IIRC. So a crossover orc population might be nearly canon...
Interesting how tribal nature worshiping/fey influenced culture, and antagonism to aberrations crop up, a bit similar to Eberrons orcs.
I like how the history of enslavement resonates with the now chaotic and fiercely free and wild orcs.
Looking at the ARG Orc race's optional traits, maybe they would develop to having mostly Dayrunner and perhaps Smeller replacing light sensitivity , ferocity and weapon familiarity. Or maybe they substitute half Orc alternate racial traits like beast master, city dweller, or even forestwalker or rock climber.
I'm definitely hitting those options for the Nirmathi tribes. They're totally going to be mining the half-orc variant options too where approprite.
I'm still strongly leaning towards a different ability score array entirely though, not just for flavor but also to make them more palatable for both players and other GMs as a player race. +2 STR, +2 WIS, -2 INT, with the Dayrunner elements built in.
Interestingly the half Orc deepkin variant has acute darkvision and cavewight replacing ferocity and intimidating. (Meaning these two traits were picked up later when fleeing/being driven to the surface) The deepkin are noted to be descended from deep dwelling orcs who are also a bit smaller. So there should probably also be a true orc deep kin variant.
Wow, this is a very nice catch, especially if it's played with thejeff's and Matthew Morris's underground tribe notions. :)
Combined with what's been said about Called to Darkness, really wondering if there's something there. Planted hints and such...
Just for fun:
Maja Firehair should totally be a mystic variant race (half-?) orc barbarian/oracle/rage prophet.
Flame mystery of course, and maybe Spirit Totem? Not sure which curse or archetype but probably the Fire Gods blessing feat.
Barbarian/oracle/rage prophet is absolutely going to be a sure thing, as well as the Flame mystery. :D I'm really tempted to give her the holy variant of the Spirit Totems my GM fixed up for me to use in his Jade Regent campaign too, though the upcoming celestial totems in Champions of Purity could be a perfect fit too...
Hmm, Gods and monsters...
From Gods and Magic
When the primal forces created Golarion,
Asmodeus planted a malignant evil in the world under cover of perpetual darkness. The doctrine of Sarenrae’s faith tells how the Dawnflower brought light to the world, and with it came truth and honesty. Those
who had turned to evil saw their wickedness and were forgiven by the light of Sarenrae.Now imagine that's literal. The evil was planted in the world. Saranae appears to an orc tribe and they are forgiven/redeemed. They pledge to protect it.
If you really want to have fun, all the orcs were forgiven. They lived a primitive existance, wanting to keep the evil contained. The dwarves, under the influence of Droskar or maybe Angradd, come across the 'primitives' and enslave most, resulting in the orcs that parties across Golarion slaughter today.
Earthfall happens and these enslaved orcs, working from incomplete fragments, head upwards to see their gods. The Dwarves give chase, with the Quest for Sky being propaganda. Only those deepkin orcs who remained free remember correctly Saranae's commandments.
Gonna have to sit down and have a long think about all the places this could go.
If there's truth to it, then the breaking/weakening of their underground civilization could be seen as a factor leading to some of the Spawn of Rovagug breaking loose. Like whatever it was they were supposed to be doing down there, it either isn't being done or there aren't enough of them to do it properly. And so we get things popping out of the Pit of Gormuz every now and then.
edit-Looking back upthread, Set had a similar suggestion along those lines, placing them around the Pit itself. Hmmm...
In Richard Lee Byers' Pathfinder Tales novel Called to Darkness there are primitive orcs living in the Orvian vault of Deep Tolguth who might be seen as non-evil (at least by the end of the book).
You just bumped that book to the top of my reading list. Thanks! :D
The rest of this post omitted for space, but interestingly, I had the exact opposite impression, which also adds a little more moral ambiguity to the dwarves and duergar. If you read between the lines, orcs and duergar coexist a lot better than either of them do with dwarves. When I was looking into Hagegraf for my Wayfinder article, I noticed that the city was 5% half-orc: more importantly, 5% FREE half-orc, making them the largest non-dark-folk free minority in the city. Similarly, although the duergar city of Fellstrok borders the orcish capital of Urgir, and although the books mention that the duergar fear an attack by the orcs or dwarves from the surface, the slave population in Fellstrok contains exactly zero orcs. If they're not on friendly terms, the worshipers of Droskar and the orcs are at least at a standstill with some cultural overlap.
I postulate that the dwarves drove the orcs to the surface, but the war was a lot more morally ambiguous, and has...
This is a very interesting catch. I have to admit I never imagined half-orcs comprising any signifigant portion of a free population in Duergar Town. Seeing just how half-orcs fit into that society is something that just begs to be explored now.
There would be a very dark irony too if the warmongering dwarves wound up becoming the "goodly" dwarves of the surface while those that objected to slaughter fell to such lows. Imagine all the twisting turns history must have taken, and how distorted history became for those looking back now.
I've long had a town of Evil, non-warlike Orcs in my campaigns. It's name is Ha'aven (though non-Orcs call it Haven)
Kind of like a Shoanti/dwarf neutral version of Urglin?
(I've said it before and I'll say it again, the Shoanti are exactly the kind of culture I would have loved to have for non-evil orcs)