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Orcish hero/heroine in a lead role that is.You know, it would be nice to get a novel about an orcish hero/heroine. Hint hint. ;)There's a half-orc bimbo chick in one of R.A. Salvatore's Artemis/Jarlaxle spinoff books... big meh though...
A Half-orc rogue would be a great lead character... with his hot inquisitor love-interest.
Until they tear your face apart when you kiss her (and this can get worse, but let's keep this discussion USK 6)You've clearly never made out with a chick with a lip piercing or a tongue stud.
Nope. Absolutely not. At least not with a piercing or stud two inches big, pointy at the end, and jutting out like that.
Actually I'm all for the dwarf chicks. +2 Con means not having to break out the CLW stick every 15 minutes. Don't even get me started on how quick elves break...
You seem to have misunderstood something very, very much:
It's hit ON them. The on is an important part, and it is just as important to understand that the hitting is not literal.
I support the growing acceptance of attractive orcy types.Ooh, that huntress is totally inappropriately dressed for her line of work! :)
As for the Imrijka, "Nobody expects the Orcish Inquisition!"
Our main weapon is surprise. Surprise and tusks. Our TWO main weapons are surprise and tusks, and greataxes. Our THREE...
....
BRING THE COMFY CHAIR!
You know, it would be nice to get a novel about an orcish hero/heroine. Hint hint. ;)There's a half-orc bimbo chick in one of R.A. Salvatore's Artemis/Jarlaxle spinoff books... big meh though...
I have one of those two in something I'm working on. A minor character, not a bimbo, though she certainly isn't bright.
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If she should ever be standing over an evildoer with a heavy crossbow in one hand and mutter "vaya con dios" in that husky half-orc voice of hers before delivering the coup de grace, I will follow her to the ends of the earth.And NOW she sounds like Vasquez to me.
Valeros to Imrijka - "Have you ever been mistaken for a man?"
Imrijka - "No. Have you?"
Valeros to Imrijka - "Have you ever been mistaken for a man?"
Imrijka - "No. Have you?"
HAH!
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HAH!Valeros to Imrijka - "Have you ever been mistaken for a man?"
Imrijka - "No. Have you?"
Yeah, but now Valeros sounds like Bill Paxton and it's stuck that way.
Wait a sec...
"hides such sentiments under a jaded and crass demeanor"
Oh crap, it works... Valeros is Bill Paxton wearing a Val Kilmer suit...
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HAH!Valeros to Imrijka - "Have you ever been mistaken for a man?"
Imrijka - "No. Have you?"Yeah, but now Valeros sounds like Bill Paxton and it's stuck that way.
Wait a sec...
"hides such sentiments under a jaded and crass demeanor"
Oh crap, it works... Valeros is Bill Paxton wearing a Val Kilmer suit...
Game over man, Game over!
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In regards to the "Oh God WHY?" crowd ... some of us are jaded. Some of us are sick to death of the 'Pretty so it must be Good' crowd bashing anything not immediately humpable with the 'Evil' stick. A lot of us are fed to the back teeth with Elves and 'Pretty' races being crammed down our throats by dim-witted executives who wouldn't know a good Fantasy setting if you opened a Gate in front of them and kicked their backsides through and into a real Fantasy World!
So when Paizo throws us the occasional bone in the form of an attractive but not bimbo-like Half-Orc Woman, there is a goddamn madi-gras in the threads. If they fleshed out the Half-Orc Assassin there would likely be just as much "SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!"-ing from the ladies. I don't know about you but the 'hour-glass' shape annoys me with women in fantasy the same as the 'V' shaped men. Give us all the weird and wonderful bodyshapes to go with the wild and wundahbah mentalities. Also, society has moved on in the past few decades from when a Half-Orc or other 'monstrous' race was just that, a monster, to the point where the Gaming Community is reaching out to that otherwise-lootable race as something new to explore after wading through oceans of generic LoTR bullshit.
*hats off to Paizo for bucking the trend to copy World of Warcraft while still being a 'traditional' Fantasy Game in which the 'Evil' Races have valid reasons to oppose the PC Races. Orcs were forced to the surface in a genocidal war fueled by the Dwarves religious fevour and were in turn driven into the beastial society they are today after generations of being hunted down and driven from their own lands, Drow are the abandoned children of the Elves left to be corrupted by sinister powers under the earth, Goblins .... I've yet to find anything other than 'representing the Three Evils', bah, Giants and Dragons are the once and future rulers of the world, we Mortal Races are rampaging across their once pristine and lush world.*
You seem to have misunderstood something very, very much:I don't know what *you* do when you get back from the taverns, but what *I* do is aided by a high Con.
Physically abusing your wife when you're drunk - That's disgusting. :P(After all, cure light wounds treats physical injuries, so you have to do something harmful to her).
In regards to the "Oh God WHY?" crowd ... some of us are jaded. Some of us are sick to death of the 'Pretty so it must be Good' crowd bashing anything not immediately humpable with the 'Evil' stick.
Never said she was evil. She probably isn't. More's the pity. Evil chicks are more fun.
I'm in the 'Pretty so it must be pretty' crowd buashing anything not immediately humpable with the 'Ugly' stick. Beauty might not be truth, but it definitely is beauty.
Orcs were forced to the surface in a genocidal war fueled by the Dwarves religious fevour and were in turn driven into the beastial society they are today after generations of being hunted down and driven from their own lands
Actually, as much as I want to bash dwarves, the orcs were probably evil to begin with.
Not that it matters: Today's orcs are brutal, killing, destroying, raping, maiming, murdering. Whether "misunderstood", "having had a hard childhood" or just "evil and liking it", they're evil. And ugly. They actually want to be ugly. They put on ugly masks. They know it terrorises.
Drow are the abandoned children of the Elves left to be corrupted by sinister powers under the earth
Actually, they went their all by their own. And, again, they're Evil. With a capital E. They eat babies, they worship demon lords. Evil. Evil. Evil.
And beautiful.
But that has always been the case, as long as drow have been in the game.
I don't know how we got to the presentation of evil races, but since we're at Paizo now: Paizo does the same things D&D always did: There have creatures that are Good and beautiful. They have creatures that are Evil and ugly. They have ugly do-gooders and beautiful villains. They have so la la neutrals.
It's not easy being green.
Greenhorn! You're just green with envy!
Yes, even language hates you.
How do you call it when orcs team up? Gang green!
Greenhorn! You're just green with envy!
Yes, even language hates you.
How do you call it when orcs team up? Gang green!
So does that mean an orc rogue sneaking around with a cockney accent is "Soylent green"?
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So how's about we steer this back to positive feelings for orcish folks in general...
I will say this, as much as some might cringe at WoW influencing pop-fantasy culture, their (current) take on orcs is my all time favorite for the race. Hell, it's the closest I've seen to how they exist in my homebrew.
One of my all time favorite PCs was a half-orc barbarian that was essentially a nicer, CG Jayne. Good guy, total bro, but not much of a filter on him.
Come to think of it, every male half-orc/orc I've ever voiced has channeled Adam Baldwin....
Or Francis.
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I will say this, as much as some might cringe at WoW influencing pop-fantasy culture, their (current) take on orcs is my all time favorite for the race. Hell, it's the closest I've seen to how they exist in my homebrew.
I'm actually a big fan of the orcs from Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire. They're green and piggish because they're porcine the same way humans are primates; that is, they have a similar relationship with boars and wild pigs as humans do with apes and monkeys. They're savannah-dwelling herbivores with a strong tribal culture, slightly poor vision, good scent, and serious bad attitudes.
Someone once said to me, "Deegan orcs are herbivores? Lame." My response: "Boars are herbivores. Elephants are herbivores. Rhinos are herbivores. They are also all quite capable of messing you up something fierce." The idea of orcs as blood-drunk Tolkien monsters is pretty done to death for me. Golarion does it better, but I think more could have been done.
Jeremy Puckett
In my homebrew Orcs are perhaps the best put-together of the gods' rejects, having a might-makes-right culture that disdains intellectual pursuits but also openly maligns the duplicity of the gods and roundly mocks the "history" their favorite children claim as gospel. They yearn not to destroy everything around them but to rebuild the civilization they had only started to create alongside their goblin(which includes goblins, hobgoblins and bugbears as a single race), troll, giant and ogre allies, who are all now something less than they once were; orcs alone retain the bulk of their mental faculties.
Come to think of it, every male half-orc/orc I've ever voiced has channeled Adam Baldwin....
Or Francis.
How about we move this conversation in a "not Jayne's fault" direction....
Red with Anger blues.
Those are known as Violet Rages.
The idea of orcs as blood-drunk Tolkien monsters is pretty done to death for me.
Uhm, no. Golarion's orcs are as bad as Tolkien's. At least with Tolkien, the half-orc breeding through rape was implied at best. In Golarion, that's how half-orcs are created.
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Those are known as Violet Rages.
I think mine are Ultraviolet. But I'm no shrieking violet!
Hida_jiremi? Boars and pigs are not herbivores, any more than primates are. Or ursine creatures. They are most definitely omnivores, and they will eat people if they get the chance. In fact, murderers in our world have used this fact to dispose of bodies very, very quickly.
Wild boar are usually crepuscular, foraging from dusk until dawn but with resting periods during both night and day. They are omnivorous scavengers, eating almost anything they come across, including grass, nuts, berries, carrion, roots, tubers, refuse, insects and small reptiles. Wild boar are also known predators of young deer and lambs, reported in Australia.
Emphasis added by me.
Hida_jiremi? Boars and pigs are not herbivores, any more than primates are. Or ursine creatures. They are most definitely omnivores, and they will eat people if they get the chance. In fact, murderers in our world have used this fact to dispose of bodies very, very quickly.Brick Top: You're always gonna have problems lifting a body in one piece. Apparently the best thing to do is cut up a corpse into six pieces and pile it all together.
Sol: Would someone mind telling me, who are you?
Brick Top: And when you got your six pieces, you gotta get rid of them, because it's no good leaving it in the deep freeze for your mum to discover, now is it? Then I hear the best thing to do is feed them to pigs. You got to starve the pigs for a few days, then the sight of a chopped-up body will look like curry to a [slang]. You gotta shave the heads of your victims, and pull the teeth out for the sake of the piggies' digestion. You could do this afterwards, of course, but you don't want to go sievin' through pig [excrement], now do you? They will go through bone like butter. You need at least sixteen pigs to finish the job in one sitting, so be wary of any man who keeps a pig farm. They will go through a body that weighs 200 pounds in about eight minutes. That means that a single pig can consume two pounds of uncooked flesh every minute. Hence the expression, "as greedy as a pig".
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Uhm, no. Golarion's orcs are as bad as Tolkien's. At least with Tolkien, the half-orc breeding through rape was implied at best. In Golarion, that's how half-orcs are created.
Not always. It's even mentioned in some of the adventures that half-orcs are sometimes the product of (relatively) peaceful interactions between human barbarians and orc tribes. And I did say that Golarion was barely better. Overall, I think that half-orcs got the least touch-ups on their Pathfinder makeover, and they're the race that really could have benefited from it the most.
Also, as I believe I've mentioned in other posts, I dislike the "half-" races anyway. I'd be fine with elves being "high elves" and half-elves being "low elves," and half-orcs just being "orcs." I like the way half-orcs look and their whole "deep seated aggression" shtick, not particularly their origin or anything.
Jeremy Puckett
Hida_jiremi? Boars and pigs are not herbivores, any more than primates are. Or ursine creatures. They are most definitely omnivores, and they will eat people if they get the chance. In fact, murderers in our world have used this fact to dispose of bodies very, very quickly."Snatch":[i]
Ah, I see someone already brought it up. Good. Because I was about to.
Hida_jiremi? Boars and pigs are not herbivores, any more than primates are.*shrug* My overall point still stands. You don't need to be a pure carnivore or a crazy cannibal to be scary and aggressive.
Yeah, but it always adds that special something. Especially anthropophagy! It's not about the fear of violence. It's the fear of the totally insane and alien.
Orcs *should* be totally like Reavers.
"If they catch us, they'll rape us to death, eat our flesh and sew our skin to their clothes. And if we're really, really lucky, they'll do it in that order."
That's fear you can't just buy in the store. People who will go up against impossible odds and fight fights they know are hopeless, always with a smile on the face, will wet themselves when someone like that comes along. It's the terror of something so similar to you and yet so very different. No dragon or nether demon can hope to achieve that level of terror.
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That's fear you can't just buy in the store. People who will go up against impossible odds and fight fights they know are hopeless, always with a smile on the face, will wet themselves when someone like that comes along. It's the terror of something so similar to you and yet so very different. No dragon or nether demon can hope to achieve that level of terror.
Maybe, but I dislike that kind of assumed insane evil from a major race in a setting, particularly one that is the contributor of half of a standard PC race's DNA. Reavers are cool because they're a threat of unknown origin, unknown motivation, and vicious disposition. (Unknown until the movie, anyway.) Orcs have villages and tribes and recognizable social constructs. I'm happier with my orcs as aggressive Neanderthals, technological primitives who tend to respond with anger and violence, but who can be reasoned with and bargained with given the right circumstances, and who can learn to stop being primitive when given the opportunity and impetus to do so.
I just generally disapprove of the D&D-style morality that paints certain species as on the "okay to kill" list and others on the "this man is your friend!" list for arbitrary and nonsensical reasons. Orcs can speak, they have families, they build things--but it's okay to murder them wholesale because they're green, ugly savages. The whole thing speaks to an ugly pseudo-Victorian system of morality where "the Other" has to be met with prayer and sword for no better reason than physical appearance and difference of culture.
Jeremy Puckett
Maybe, but I dislike that kind of assumed insane evil from a major race in a setting
Well, it's a major monster race. Their role is to be to be insane evil. That's what orcs are for. They're not a race players are encouraged to play (or they would be in the core rules as core race). They're old-school orcs. New-fang(l)ed orcs might be all the rage for some, but some things just need to be classics.
I don't want civilised orcs and more than I want vampires that walk around in broad daylight and glow.
particularly one that is the contributor of half of a standard PC race's DNA.
Note that you're talking about the feral outcast standard PC race here. They are despised and mistrusted by the other standard races.
And you said it yourself: Half the DNA. Half-orcs are caught between worlds, often shunned and mistreated in both worlds they don't quite belong into.
I just generally disapprove of the D&D-style morality that paints certain species as on the "okay to kill" list and others on the "this man is your friend!" list for arbitrary and nonsensical reasons. Orcs can speak, they have families, they build things--but it's okay to murder them wholesale because they're green, ugly savages.
Orcs can speak - they will shout hideous things while murdering you.
Orcs have families - if mistreated females used for breeding and all kinds of demeaning tasks is your idea of familyOrcs build things - mostly ever-greater war machines.
It's okay to murder them wholesale because they will do the same to you. They have a "culture" millennia old and dominated by violence and cruelty.
And note that the usual way you meet orcs is when their horde comes flooding from their territory to drown your nation in its own blood. It's quite hard to make them sit down and talk when that happens.
The whole thing speaks to an ugly pseudo-Victorian system of morality where "the Other" has to be met with prayer and sword for no better reason than physical appearance and difference of culture.
That's simply false. Their physical appearance only plays a partial role - if it were a main reason, dwarves would have been eradicated, too, because they're ugly, too - and that part is where they actively strive to look horrifying and ferocious when going to war. It's hard not to fault someone for his look when he looks like a blood-thirsty demon - especially when he's acting the part, too.
And the difference of culture you speak of is a problem because that culture is one of anthropophagy, violence, destruction and rape. Again, other races (dwarves, elves, and the like) have different cultures, too (and humans don't have a "human culture" at all), and that's rarely the cause for wholesale slaughter - except when there are long histories of war and bloodshed between these cultures.
Tell me why it's not so bad when Chelaxians kill Andorans on sight because of their "One Man One Vote" culture (and vice versa, for the Andorans don't like the "Dominus Diaboli" culture, either), or elves and humans fighting over how you treat a forest, or anything like that, but when bloodthirsty orcs are opposed because of their "culture", it's badwrong?
Frankly, any girl with Darkwing Duck's fashion sense is ahead of the game in my book of sexy-cool chicks, whether or not she has tusks.
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And note that the usual way you meet orcs is when their horde comes flooding from their territory to drown your nation in its own blood. It's quite hard to make them sit down and talk when that happens.(snipped some other stuff)
And once again, you miss the whole point of my post. I think that's a bad way to write a fictional race. It's shallow, leads to a setting-justified "us and them" mentality, and it's representative of all the worst parts of the older game material. While I think Golarion took a step in the right direction, it really needed five or six more big ones right behind that.
It's not right for Chelaxians to murder Andorans over their political beliefs... from the Andoran point of view. The Chelaxians feel entirely justified, and there's a philosophical argument that could be made to paint them as the heroes of the story--as stalwart defenders of a proud culture being threatened by anarchy and selfishness. I personally disagree with that viewpoint, but I can acknowledge the fact that it's more complex than "Andorans are green and tusky, so it's okay to butcher them!" I don't like a setting putting an "acceptable target" sign on any of the common humanoid groups, and you can't deny that orcs are about as common as it gets.
Saying "everything about orc culture is evil and mindless slaughter and they can't ever be any different" is dull. Demons and devils are evil because they're basically concentrated evil given a shape and a will to perpetuate themselves. Orcs are humanoids; if you take an orc baby and raise him outside of orc culture, would he be evil? Even Orcs of Golarion (which I still think needed some more progressive stuff in it) says "no." Their attitudes are a product of their culture, and partly an increased aggression from their biology. If orcs can be good, ever, then the wholesale slaughter of orcs just for being orcs is unjustified.
I'm not saying "If an orc comes screaming for your blood, axe in hand, you shouldn't defend yourself." Of course you should defend yourself in that situation. And I'm not saying that orcs aren't written just the way you describe in Pathfinder sometimes. But they're not always written that way, and that's the direction I want to see them go in--toward being another race instead of mobile archery practice.
Jeremy Puckett
PS: I also think you're wrong about dwarves being ugly. Dwarven women are hot. =P
PS: I also think you're wrong about dwarves being ugly. Dwarven women are hot. =P
+1!
As for Imrijka, I think she's hot, too.
I think that's a bad way to write a fictional race. It's shallow, leads to a setting-justified "us and them" mentality, and it's representative of all the worst parts of the older game material. While I think Golarion took a step in the right direction, it really needed five or six more big ones right behind that.
Sometimes, I like a bit of black-and-white in my shades of grey. Orcs are that black. Green. Blackgreen? Whatever. They're that.
Makes situations where one goes off the beaten path even more interesting.
There are plenty of critters you can be ambiguous about. Orcs don't want any of that. Half-orcs do, but they're not asked. They're the outcasts whether they want it or not (that's the whole point of that racial choice).
I personally disagree with that viewpoint, but I can acknowledge the fact that it's more complex than "Andorans are green and tusky, so it's okay to butcher them!"
Note that the orc argument isn't "Orcs are green and tusky, so it's okay to butcher them!", either. It's "They're violent and destructive,..."
I don't like a setting putting an "acceptable target" sign on any of the common humanoid groups, and you can't deny that orcs are about as common as it gets.
What's so special about humanoids? Just because they're similar to humans in shape?
Saying "everything about orc culture is evil and mindless slaughter and they can't ever be any different" is dull.
Not every wheel needs to be reinvented. Plus, there's no "they can't ever be any different" part to this.
I'd give them even a (slightly) better chance to survive despite not being like the rest of their race than I'd give drow, but the cultural preferences and peer pressure are there.
They're strong enough that every instance of someone breaking out of these limits will be extraordinary.
Orcs are humanoids; if you take an orc baby and raise him outside of orc culture, would he be evil? Even Orcs of Golarion (which I still think needed some more progressive stuff in it) says "no."
Their attitudes are a product of their culture, and partly an increased aggression from their biology.
I never denied that. But the fact is that very, very few orcs are taken as babies and raised outside of orc culture. And you said it yourself: Even then they have innate anger management issues that will make things harder for them.
If orcs can be good, ever, then the wholesale slaughter of orcs just for being orcs is unjustified.
It's a numbers game. How many of these orcs we attack in retaliation of their razing of Duskville are not evil? How many have that potential? How can we find out who they are without taking great risks?
Is it worth it?
Most people, in that case, will simply go and kill them all (potential innocents included) rather than risk their lives - and that of their loved ones by staying their hand.
Since we're basically talking about war most of the time, it's hard to fault them for that. In war, things are done that might not be too nice (starting with killing others)
I'm not saying "If an orc comes screaming for your blood, axe in hand, you shouldn't defend yourself." Of course you should defend yourself in that situation. And I'm not saying that orcs aren't written just the way you describe in Pathfinder sometimes. But they're not always written that way, and that's the direction I want to see them go in--toward being another race instead of mobile archery practice.
But if they're another race, they're no longer orcs.
If you want another race, take dwarves. Also ugly, violent, racist and brutish, and not killed on sight.
How adventurers react to orcs will depend on the situation. What are the orcs doing when they meet them? I have no problem with adventurers not immediately attacking when they meed a few orcs. I also have no problem with orcs not always immediately attacking when they see humans.
But most of the time, when you meet an orc in your country, he's likely engaging in banditry or hording. And then you kill them.
Orcs calmly wandering through the gates of Korvosa to trade for foodstuffs and simple tools should be the exception rather than the rule.
PS: I also think you're wrong about dwarves being ugly. Dwarven women are hot. =P
Excuse me while I go throw up.
Nothing in "charisma penalty" and "several feet shorter than humans, but just as heavy" registers to me as hot. There might be some freaks that are actually okay to look upon, but they're the orc traders of their race and gender.
Hida_jiremi? Boars and pigs are not herbivores, any more than primates are. Or ursine creatures. They are most definitely omnivores, and they will eat people if they get the chance. In fact, murderers in our world have used this fact to dispose of bodies very, very quickly.Brick Top: You're always gonna have problems lifting a body in one piece. Apparently the best thing to do is cut up a corpse into six pieces and pile it all together.
Sol: Would someone mind telling me, who are you?
Brick Top: And when you got your six pieces, you gotta get rid of them, because it's no good leaving it in the deep freeze for your mum to discover, now is it? Then I hear the best thing to do is feed them to pigs. You got to starve the pigs for a few days, then the sight of a chopped-up body will look like curry to a [slang]. You gotta shave the heads of your victims, and pull the teeth out for the sake of the piggies' digestion. You could do this afterwards, of course, but you don't want to go sievin' through pig [excrement], now do you? They will go through bone like butter. You need at least sixteen pigs to finish the job in one sitting, so be wary of any man who keeps a pig farm. They will go through a body that weighs 200 pounds in about eight minutes. That means that a single pig can consume two pounds of uncooked flesh every minute. Hence the expression, "as greedy as a pig".
One of the greatest dialogues from one of the greatest movies ever.
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PS: I also think you're wrong about dwarves being ugly. Dwarven women are hot. =P
Excuse me while I go throw up.
Nothing in "charisma penalty" and "several feet shorter than humans, but just as heavy" registers to me as hot. There might be some freaks that are actually okay to look upon, but they're the orc traders of their race and gender.
I'm going to have to agree with you here. I nearly threw up the first time I saw the picture of the Dwarf in the Races chapter in the Core Rulebook. Seriously. That thing is more horrifying than Cthulhu.
Charisma is not apearance or squid heads are hot.Seriously, what has a higher averege cha than a mind flayer?
mmm...squid.
Charisma is not apearance or squid heads are hot.Seriously, what has a higher averege cha than a mind flayer?
You are just trapped in your small-minded, humanoid brain with its preconceptions of beauty. Real beauty can only be achieved if you ignore all barriers.
We are the pinnacle of beauty.
sexy half orcs, what next pretty ogres, seductive trolls. I don't get this new generation of rpgers.
For what it's worth I think the femae werewolf from Classic Horrors Revisited is easy on the eyes. And I've got to say the same for the sexy Lady Vimanda Arkona. So she's a vixenish Rakshasa. So what?
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I just want to point out that there are numerous elf-love threads that don't get hounded, but you have one orc <3 thread and the elves start littering on the lawn.
Just sayin'. :P
Also, orc paladins referred to in Orcs of Golarion said hi!
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All that said, I was hoping for more range in Orcs of Golarion. Mayhap that should be taken as a challenge to the community to flesh out some orc cultural variants for Golarion?
I just want to point out that there are numerous elf-love threads that don't get hounded, but you have one orc <3 thread and the elves start littering on the lawn.
The half-orc lovers don't need the constant emotional support and ego inflation that the elfy folk do. Elves are so emo, ;-)
I always explained Orcish anthrophagy as follows:
1) Eating the fallen dead can give you a measure of their virility and power. When an Orc warrior falls, we smoke his corpse and serve the cutlets at the wake. Plus, see point 3, below.
2) Eating the flesh of your enemies means nothing goes to waste. Plus, see point 3, below. It can even be seen as a sign of respect, if the enemy was particularly strong, cunning or ferocious.
3) Burying your dead, in high population cities, is just a blazing bright invitation to any necromancers out there: "Zombie Apocolypse! Just Add Spells!"
Orcs raiding cities in hordes are doing preemptive culling to prevent a Zombie Apocalypse. For as supposedly bright as the humans, elves and dwarves are, they are amazingly ignorant about the threats their mode of life leads to.
"If you were bright enough to live as hunter gatherers, and to eat your OWN dead, we wouldn't have to do this to you, now would we?"
In regards to the "Oh God WHY?" crowd ... some of us are jaded. Some of us are sick to death of the 'Pretty so it must be Good' crowd bashing anything not immediately humpable with the 'Evil' stick. A lot of us are fed to the back teeth with Elves and 'Pretty' races being crammed down our throats by dim-witted executives who wouldn't know a good Fantasy setting if you opened a Gate in front of them and kicked their backsides through and into a real Fantasy World!
So when Paizo throws us the occasional bone in the form of an attractive but not bimbo-like Half-Orc Woman, there is a goddamn madi-gras in the threads. If they fleshed out the Half-Orc Assassin there would likely be just as much "SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!"-ing from the ladies. I don't know about you but the 'hour-glass' shape annoys me with women in fantasy the same as the 'V' shaped men. Give us all the weird and wonderful bodyshapes to go with the wild and wundahbah mentalities. Also, society has moved on in the past few decades from when a Half-Orc or other 'monstrous' race was just that, a monster, to the point where the Gaming Community is reaching out to that otherwise-lootable race as something new to explore after wading through oceans of generic LoTR b~**#*##.
*hats off to Paizo for bucking the trend to copy World of Warcraft while still being a 'traditional' Fantasy Game in which the 'Evil' Races have valid reasons to oppose the PC Races. Orcs were forced to the surface in a genocidal war fueled by the Dwarves religious fevour and were in turn driven into the beastial society they are today after generations of being hunted down and driven from their own lands, Drow are the abandoned children of the Elves left to be corrupted by sinister powers under the earth, Goblins .... I've yet to find anything other than 'representing the Three Evils', bah, Giants and Dragons are the once and future rulers of the world, we Mortal Races are rampaging across their once pristine and lush world.*
Amen to that brother.
I am always happy to see more diversity in my fantasy. Loving the new looks of the characters out there. I for one was always against the move from AD&D to change the alignment of orcs to CE from LE. But that is my own hang up I will not inflict on the others here. I never really like races being inherently good nor evil. I have actually created a world where orcs are LG and elves grey elves are CE. I like to throw wrenches into preconcieved notions. Anyways I digress good stuff.
In my homebrew campaign, orcs aren't evil, but they are highly aggressive due to not having very hospital land. They also had their whole rampage across the continent in a previous Age, so they're none too liked. Worst, since said rampage was blunted and then destroyed, the great warband have fallen into several quarreling, bickering tribes, too busy fighting each other for scraps to front another great assault.
Half-orcs aren't outcasts either. Hell, the biggest empire is run by a mix of humans, half-elves, and half-orcs. I mean, come on. If you're staring down at crazed bloodthirsty elves and rampaging orc warbands, and your half-blood cousins are hated by them, are you going to say "No, perfect foot solders and incredibly potent archers! No! You may not join our army that's desperately in need against the foes you hate with a passion!"
Edit: Then again, drow are traveling nomads who go from city to city to peddle their wares and don't have any centralized home after the Underdark collapsed, and I don't have ANY "always _____" races at all (One of the main movers/shakers in my setting is a distinctly non-good gold dragon), so things are different overall.