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So I've been working on some stuff for my home campaign and after mulling over what I remember about Orcs as printed in most of paizo's fair I'm at a loss for how the hell they keep their numbers up. As it stands their mortality rate is ridiculously high when compared to other races due to their infighting and constant warring. Couple that with what I can only assume to be sub par living conditions and what is, by most biological standards, a relatively long maturity cycle (14 years assuming that Orcs are totally autonomous and self sufficient by then) I have to wonder how exactly the enough Orcs survive to hit adulthood and keep their numbers up. Anyone have an idea as to how solve this dilemma and if so how do you rationalize it?
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For my home campaign I invented a Neutral orcish Goddess, Ruika. She was a fertility goddess but also protected the weaker elements (pregnant females and children) from the more violent elements of orcish society.
How did her priestesses do this? They would offer the chance to bear children with them to the strongest, bravest warriors (they ere based on the prostitute-priestess Shamhat in Gilgamesh) that way there was a realistic interaction with the warrior classes that meant that even a chaotic evil warrior culture had an incentive to look after its young and dependants.
This came into play as one pc (a half-orc) was raised by the Priestesses and took on the role of their defender in the individual players sub-plot.
I do think you have to rationalise and invent some kind of counter-balance to the unrealistic endless waves of warrior psychopaths as a basis for orcish society. I'm sure dragon magazine will probably have done something on this in the past too.
Lol, I like the idea of an orc Goddess who basically tricks orcs into being good parents.
In my home game my usual thought process is that it's a combinations of awesome genetic memory combined with a very odd (by human standards) parenting instincts. Basically, I've always thought that orcs have a lot in common with animals like crocodiles, sea turtles, and some other animals with a lot of their complex survival training coming preprogramed into them. Basically Orcs make weapons, ally together, and strategize the way they do cause it is literally part of their DNA. They can from birth, basically look around a room and figure out how to kill and defend themselves with just about anything.
On the parenting front I see the moms as gaining this very overbearing and protective attachment to their children, seeing them as their way to further their own goals and increase their standings through growing loving and caring for strong sons and training strong, beautiful, and fecund daughters who are willing to serve their husbands. In this way Orcs end up with strong attachments to their moms and seek to keep them safe. This in turn grants their mother a measure of protection from other competitors. The fathers meanwhile don't so much rear their kids as don't actively seek to kill them. Basically until their children become old enough to actually challenge their father he basically ignores them, not actively trying to kill them but not really helping them either. They also don't care much if their children use their supplies or eat their food, so long as they know their place. Once they get old enough though this view changes. Boy who pose a threat to the father are actively run him out of the hut/household in order to avoid competition for his resources. As for daughters the fathers and mothers actively seek to sell them off for resources. Mothers also do this so as to avoid both their child's destruction at their mates hands (who quickly gets annoyed at supporting what they quickly come to see as a freeloader) and the chance that they might catch the fathers eye and become his new favorite or potential mate. Either way Orc parents will still prefer to work and ally with his sons or daughters but ardently refuses to share his spoils unless they have earned the right to take them. When splitting spoils they will give preferential treatment to their children when dividing the loot. Mates of an Orc chief (or Orcs in high standing) are also given this preferential treatment when it comes to roles in an Orc tribe and spoils of raids.
I suppose they just have a lot of children and often.
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Dotting to come back later, but:
Very much this.I do think you have to rationalise and invent some kind of counter-balance to the unrealistic endless waves of warrior psychopaths as a basis for orcish society. I'm sure dragon magazine will probably have done something on this in the past too.
Hmm... How did I know that a discussion of Orcish cultural and societal traditions would bring out the rare Mikaze?
But yeah I'm happy to see people responding and hoping to see what people come up with to answer this and what people think of the options presented.
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Hmm... How did I know that a discussion of Orcish cultural and societal traditions would bring out the rare Mikaze?
It's practically like throwing blood at sharks. :)
What kind of general flavor are you looking for out of your orcs? If pulling from Golarion orcs, the biggest issue is that they really don't have a culture to speak of that can support those numbers if taken at face value, so you're going to have to make it from the ground up.
If you're wanting to keep them as a generally CE "bad guy" race, there's still a lot of ways to add depth and range, along the lines of strayshifts CN fertility goddess and your own ideas about family dynamics.
Another possibility to add to the mix that could help ramp up values-dissonance between them and other races and work with orcs ranging all the way across CE-CN-shadyCG might be to give them a spin on strength-based morality: The strong can claim the weak as their own, but they also have to be strong enough to keep and support them. This could be played in different ways, but generally there would be expectations that the "strong" in each case would have to live up to. An orc with a bunch of mates and children but is unable to keep them loyal and safe is going to be seen as a weak, unfit fool at best. And if an orc is too weak to take care of his or her own, another will take that as a sign to take it from them.
I'll need to stat Mikaze up as an Empyreal Lord that looks like a Celestial Dire Shark now...
Anyway, I'd say that the instinct theory the grey had given works fine, considering Orcs are considered "primitive" and more tied to primal forces.
This is how I run Orc society.... I like my monsters to be monsters..
Orc society is CE the Strongest gets the most females. Male Orcs will steal and fight other male orcs for the best breeding females. Being able to sire a vast brood is a sign of power. Not being able to protect that brood from others is a sign of weakness and females will leave for stronger males.
Females gain status by being associated with the strong males and birthing powerful orcs.
A female may introduce herself as Grushrag favourite of Borshak the Slaughterer, mother of Grushak the flayer of elves.
Being female one among many creates a harem atmosphere where the females will compete with each other to have their spawn become favoured of their male. This leads to factions and murders within the Harem... A strong male will tolerate this to an extent because the smartest and toughest will come out on top.
Orcs arent stupid and if the Harem gets out of control a male is not worried about killing or kicking out trouble makers.
Females Orcs are constantly pregnant and drop litters of 3-4 young.
Full physical maturity may be 14 years (humans its about 20 years) but mental and social maturity is 5 years. Being able to fend for yourself and know your place is essential survival trait.
Killing another orcs spawn or female will cause the other orc loss of face unless there is an appropriate response i.e killing the orc that broke your property and taking his females and using his spawn as slaves/sacrifices/target practice.
Thus the incentive to kill other orcs is not high but it does happen.
This is how I run Orc society...
...one society or all of them? You should give Orcs the Evil Sub-Type if you want the latter.
No, seriously. There are alignment rules for keeping all things as monsters. You shouldn't ignore them.
This is how I run Orc society......one society or all of them? You should give Orcs the Evil Sub-Type if you want the latter.
No, seriously. There are alignment rules for keeping all things as monsters. You shouldn't ignore them.
All of them, they are CE read the PRD description, nothing I have written changes that description.
Why complicate it any further by adding sub types.
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All of them, they are CE read the PRD description, nothing I have written changes that description.
Before we go derailing Doc's thread with absolutes, the PRD also says:
Alignment, Size, and Type: While a monster’s size and type remain constant (unless changed by the application of templates or other unusual modifiers), alignment is far more fluid. The alignments listed for each monster in this book represent the norm for those monsters—they can vary as you require them to in order to serve the needs of your campaign. Only in the case of relatively unintelligent monsters (creatures with an Intelligence of 2 or lower are almost never anything other than neutral) and planar monsters (outsiders with alignments other than those listed are unusual and typically outcasts from their kind) is the listed alignment relatively unchangeable.
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Hmm... How did I know that a discussion of Orcish cultural and societal traditions would bring out the rare Mikaze?
It's practically like throwing blood at sharks. :)
What kind of general flavor are you looking for out of your orcs? If pulling from Golarion orcs, the biggest issue is that they really don't have a culture to speak of that can support those numbers if taken at face value, so you're going to have to make it from the ground up.
If you're wanting to keep them as a generally CE "bad guy" race, there's still a lot of ways to add depth and range, along the lines of strayshifts CN fertility goddess and your own ideas about family dynamics.
Another possibility to add to the mix that could help ramp up values-dissonance between them and other races and work with orcs ranging all the way across CE-CN-shadyCG might be to give them a spin on strength-based morality: The strong can claim the weak as their own, but they also have to be strong enough to keep and support them. This could be played in different ways, but generally there would be expectations that the "strong" in each case would have to live up to. An orc with a bunch of mates and children but is unable to keep them loyal and safe is going to be seen as a weak, unfit fool at best. And if an orc is too weak to take care of his or her own, another will take that as a sign to take it from them.
Honestly when I envision Orcs I see something that is like the mongol horde and the krogans from mass effect, mixed with a ton of primitive survival instinct.
In my mind Orcs believe that there is nothing they can't beat with the right amount of force and the proper timing. How do you beat a great wall? Knock it over. Made an enemy of the local wizard? Crush his skull when he's asleep. Sun burn your eyes? Stare at it until it doesn't bother you anymore. Got a round hole and a square peg? Break the hole cause it's obviously defective. I feel like that mentality has to kind of radiate through most of their culture and helps explain why they have more martial bent characters and a focus on physical stats since even their caster (the scarred witch) uses a physical stat. I also think that magic would probably be something that only really works in their culture if its mysterious or involves fire with them not wanting to harm a mage if they don't understand their powers or just having sheer respect for the control over fire.
Second like I've said before in my mind the biggest difference between Orcs and humans in my mind is just how much knowledge that they are just born with with most Orcs knowing how to hunt, kill, rage, and survive immediately out of the womb and just get more adept at it as their body grows more powerful. It would be like being born with the training of a special forces agent and the education of a kindergartener. It's probably why they think humans are so weak since in their minds children who can't kill their own food by the age of 2-3 would probably be dead or dead weight in their society.
Finally I liked the idea of this harem having more say then might be overtly noticeable. I can totally see an Orc chieftain being dethroned due to perceived weakness by his harem or slight and having some or all of them assist a rival in assassinating him to ascend his throne. And with the idea of multiple mates being important to Orc society it really helps create this dynamic living economy where the value of a chief is directly related to his harem which in turn can walk out on him at any moment should he not keep them safe.
All of them, they are CE read the PRD description, nothing I have written changes that description.Before we go derailing Doc's thread with absolutes, the PRD also says:
Alignment, Size, and Type: While a monster’s size and type remain constant (unless changed by the application of templates or other unusual modifiers), alignment is far more fluid. The alignments listed for each monster in this book represent the norm for those monsters—they can vary as you require them to in order to serve the needs of your campaign. Only in the case of relatively unintelligent monsters (creatures with an Intelligence of 2 or lower are almost never anything other than neutral) and planar monsters (outsiders with alignments other than those listed are unusual and typically outcasts from their kind) is the listed alignment relatively unchangeable.
The norm and your campaign being the operative words. Both subjective descriptions leaving the whole way a person runs their games open for the style that suits them.
I explianed how I run run orcs not how you should run orcs or doc should run orcs...
I understand your views on race alignment and grey areas, while I may tinker around the edges of such things I prefer not to make games more complex than need be. I have no problem with how you run your games and I probably would enjoy your DMing.
What I do not enjoy is being made to feel the way I game is inferior to the way you game, or the fun that the people I play with is bad/wrong because it's not up to your standards... It is elitist.
I offered doc my reasoning behind the large numbers of orcs considering their self destructive natures to share ideas and did not dismiss your ideas.
I just used some material from Dragon Age (Brood Mothers), and made up/stole some lore to go with it.
During times of need, war, and so on, the orc priests/shamans/clerics select a suitable females. Using closely guarded blood rites, those that survive are transformed into brood mothers. Broodmothers will give birth to a large litter at once, between twenty and fifty children. They emerge from her womb as toddlers, often already able to walk, and grow rapidly in their first few weeks of life. A broodmother will birth thousands of young in her lifetime.
Goblins in my setting, for example, spawn differently as well. When they mate, between 1-6 pustules form on their backs and their hunger increases 10 fold. When ready, these burst and much like the orcs above, grow rapidly into goblins.
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There's a very rare What's New strip (available in the 2nd print collection, but not available as far as I know at Studio Foglio's website) which touches on this subject in a manner most droll.
Narrator: Very little is known about the mating habits of orcs, and that is just fine with me, thank you very much.
She-Orc: Hey!! Is that a bloody axe in your hand or are you just happy to see me?
He-Orc: It's a bloody axe!
She-Orc: Rowwwr!! C'mere, you smooth-talkin' rascal!
...
Narrator: All that is known is that they breed like rats.
She-Orc: Tough day at work today, dear?
He-Orc: I'll say! Adventurers wiped out 300 of our war party!
She-Orc: Hey kids! You're all goin' to work with Daddy tomorrow!
Horrible Orc Young: Yaaaay!!!
The fact that this exists makes me laugh because in my games Orcs are basically Jaeger tribes. Yes, with all that implies.
What I do not enjoy is being made to feel the way I game is inferior to the way you game, or the fun that the people I play with is bad/wrong because it's not up to your standards... It is elitist.
I think you're reading too much into Mikaze's post. I didn't interpret what Mikaze stated in the same fashion.
Isn't there the Orcs of Golarion book? I know I have it :P
This is all from the book:
For starters it more or less states all orc tribes outside Belkzen suffer a slow decline.
In addition it states a full third of all Orcs die during childhood, from illnees or violence (parents and siblings being the most common aggressors).
Orcs are very fecund, gestation being 6 months, short for humanoids. It also says mature female orcs are almost constantly pregnant, except when orc females share a mate, then they alternate and share the care for the children, this is done through manipulating their mate.
Orcs are born in litters of 2 to 5 at a time. Singular births are rare and considered auspicious as orcs believe that a single child killed and devoured it's siblings in the womb.
Isn't there the Orcs of Golarion book? I know I have it :P
I've never read it but I've gotten the very strong impression that a LOT of people don't like OoG.
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What I do not enjoy is being made to feel the way I game is inferior to the way you game, or the fun that the people I play with is bad/wrong because it's not up to your standards... It is elitist.I think you're reading too much into Mikaze's post. I didn't interpret what Mikaze stated in the same fashion.
Yep, what was intended was to show that PRD supports both your approach and Icyshadow's and to keep the focus on Doc's topic.
Believe me, I've had more than my fill of others dumping One True Wayism regarding that matter on my plate and I'm not about to start intentionally doing it to others.
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Isn't there the Orcs of Golarion book? I know I have it :PI've never read it but I've gotten the very strong impression that a LOT of people don't like OoG.
Good God where do I start?
If you're looking for range or nuance or advice on how to get by playing an orc in Golarion...you're actually better off in some ways by not bothering with the book.
Okay, there are a total of two lines in the book that hint at something more in terms of range.
Beyond that, there IS one detail that could play into some of the male-oriented social structures suggested above: The Crossed-Soul concept. Basically, Golarion orc culture, being sexist to the core, deals with strong females by considering them reincarnations of male orc heroes. Basically any orc woman tough enough to hold her own is viewed as a guy and expected to take on male roles. Seems like that could play into adding an extra layer of defense and safety for some family groups combined with ideas like that fertility goddess and those genetic memories.
Isn't there the Orcs of Golarion book? I know I have it :PI've never read it but I've gotten the very strong impression that a LOT of people don't like OoG.Good God where do I start?
If you're looking for range or nuance or advice on how to get by playing an orc in Golarion...you're actually better off in some ways by not bothering with the book.
Oh I completely agree that for a PC it absolutely isn't any use, except for parts that are strictly mechanical in nature.
The question here concerned Orcs in general though, not specifically PC's, so I think it does quite ok for those kind of questions. Things like their extremely sexist society (including a deep fear of magic wielding females), their large "litter" size and enormous fecundity might not be relevant or even interesting for PC's, but for the Orc species in general it's just fine. Just like the descriptions on the various clans in Belkzen is quite ok.
IMO it isn't a good book, but certainly not the worst of the "Races of Golarion" books.
But that's all a bit off-topic.
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Ohh I totally like the idea of a brood mother orc. I can totally see this massive orc mother/queen ant looking monster that's created through foul rites to a heathen god like lamashtu or another godess or demon of vile fecundity. That being said though I could see them either as something of a genetic offshoot or creation through ritual rather then the norm since it feels like it takes away if you turn all of them into brood mothers.
HOLY S&~&! I now have another answer for where oronci come from. Ohh the beautiful horror...
Now my other question is what would a trait titled "Brood Mother Born" give you?
Ohh I totally like the idea of a brood mother orc. I can totally see this massive orc mother/queen ant looking monster that's created through foul rites to a heathen god like lamashtu or another godess or demon of vile fecundity. That being said though I could see them either as something of a genetic offshoot or creation through ritual rather then the norm since it feels like it takes away if you turn all of them into brood mothers.
HOLY S++!! I now have another answer for where oronci come from. Ohh the beautiful horror...
Now my other question is what would a trait titled "Brood Mother Born" give you?
I refer to them as "brood-born", generally.
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Hnn. In my homebrew, orcs give birth to litters of children. Both mothers and fathers gain glory as a result, although the society is less evil than contemporary orcish society.
Ohh I totally like the idea of a brood mother orc. I can totally see this massive orc mother/queen ant looking monster that's created through foul rites to a heathen god like lamashtu or another godess or demon of vile fecundity. That being said though I could see them either as something of a genetic offshoot or creation through ritual rather then the norm since it feels like it takes away if you turn all of them into brood mothers.
HOLY S#*!! I now have another answer for where oronci come from. Ohh the beautiful horror...
Now my other question is what would a trait titled "Brood Mother Born" give you?
I misunderstood what you were asking in my last post. Reading comprehension for the win.
I didn't give any of the brood born orcs anything special ability-wise. It gave me a new monster for the PCs to discover and a means of keeping higher than possible orc numbers without much effort.
However, if you have "special" orcs in addition to standard, they could easily fill the niche (like your mentioned oronci).
I would probably make all brood-spawned/born orcs inherit whatever alternate racial trait the mother had or you could create a system by which what she ate determined the alternate racial traits. Eating a steady diet of dwarves, for example, might give her offspring the cavewight trait; steady diet of elven flesh might grant her offspring the forest walker racial trait, and so on and so forth.
I think I've mentioned this elsewhere, but if I start running more games, I'm going to have a cultural difference between green and grey Orcs. With Orcs being more tribal like Indians, more chaotic neutral but still 100% brutal and largely apathetic toward the concerns and problems of anyone else. They also largely use magic, and bows, and their own martial prowess.
The greys, on the other hand, are basically vikings, more prone to using things like crossbows and alchemist weapons, and using deceptive tactics to get what they want. I really like that, personally.
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If you look at Orcs of Golarion it states
1) Orc gestation is only 6 months
2) They give birth to two to five young at a time
3) A mature female orc is almost always pregnant, that means about two births a year.
4) Orcs are mature and ready to breed at 12
So, say a female starts breeding and lives to her full age (about 30ish) and gives birth to an average number of young each time.
So let's put it at 3 young a litter.
She would give a birth to about 108 young in her lifetime, though about 1/3 of the die before adulthood, however the survivors are stronger than their siblings, and mature at 12 and the females capable of producing many young, like their mother.
Because Orc females don't go into fighting very much it means that they're less likely to die violently than their male counterparts. However the fact that more males die young isn't a problem because Orcs are Harem breeders. So the most cunning, toughest and most nasty male breeds with the most females.
If you are already going for the Evil shtick how about making use of that big pregnant variety of kyton(the name escapes me at the moment)? simply put, each orc clan forms a pact with these beings and uses them as breeding machines in exchange for reverence and protection. The kyton gives birth after six months of pregnancy to a litter of twenty or so orcs, who are then handed off to the adult females of the tribe to take care of. Any Kyton spawn tieflings that result from this are always raised to become personal protectors and "priests" of their mother, due to their greater than normal connection to her. While Orc females getting pregnant will not be unheard of, the general practice is looked down upon and the children resulting from these pregnancies will be put under greater than normal pressure to perform form the tribe. Those children could be called the "untouched". This just me spitballing ideas of course.
When I played a half-orc my GM and I spent some time talking about how orc society worked. We decided on two big ideas for orcs:
1. They bicker internally, but band together if presented with an outside threat. Brothers fight, but protect the family. Families feud, but protect the tribe. Tribes raid each other, but join together to fight other races. Orcs don't have a lot of morality, but they do feel the "us vs them" instinct, and have the ability to work together as long as presented with an outside "them".
2. Males and females are mostly separate, and don't interact all that often unless they're family. Unmarried males are semi-nomadic, acting like wandering gangs of thugs that raid nearby towns/villages/other tribes (or, for more civilized orcs, act as wandering day-laborers). They come back to the tribe occasionally, and at that point there's a huge debaucherous party when they dropped off all the stuff they had raided. Females (both married and unmarried) are responsible for food and child-care for the tribe. Males that get too old to be part of the gangs or that want to settle down get married to some number of females of the tribe (how many depends on how strong he is), and settle down to a life of hunting, crafting work, or leading the tribe, though as you'd imagine, not that many males survive that long.
Most marriages are arranged by the elderly females of the tribe, they act as matchmakers and are usually the wives of the chieftain (the oldest/strongest elderly male). In that game they were usually druids or witches - magic not used for war was seen as a female thing among that society.
There's also the idea of lodges - honorary "tribes" that a orc is a part of based on what he does or what training he's been given. My orc magus was a member of two lodges, the Lodge of the Burning Brand (a lodge of elemental magi, opposed to the rival lodge of necromantic magi) and the Dead Brothers, a lodge of people whose tribe had been killed. If your tribe was killed, you could join the Dead Brother lodge, and you had to get revenge before you'd ever be accepted into another tribe. The Dead Brothers helped with that - once you were a member, you were a member for life, so you were obligated to help other orcs get revenge for their tribe.
What I do not enjoy is being made to feel the way I game is inferior to the way you game, or the fun that the people I play with is bad/wrong because it's not up to your standards... It is elitist.I think you're reading too much into Mikaze's post. I didn't interpret what Mikaze stated in the same fashion.Yep, what was intended was to show that PRD supports both your approach and Icyshadow's and to keep the focus on Doc's topic.
Believe me, I've had more than my fill of others dumping One True Wayism regarding that matter on my plate and I'm not about to start intentionally doing it to others.
Then please do not infer that I am derailing the thread with absolutism.
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Then please do not infer that I am derailing the thread with absolutism.What I do not enjoy is being made to feel the way I game is inferior to the way you game, or the fun that the people I play with is bad/wrong because it's not up to your standards... It is elitist.I think you're reading too much into Mikaze's post. I didn't interpret what Mikaze stated in the same fashion.Yep, what was intended was to show that PRD supports both your approach and Icyshadow's and to keep the focus on Doc's topic.
Believe me, I've had more than my fill of others dumping One True Wayism regarding that matter on my plate and I'm not about to start intentionally doing it to others.
Then I do apologize.
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Ohh I totally like the idea of a brood mother orc. I can totally see this massive orc mother/queen ant looking monster that's created through foul rites to a heathen god like lamashtu or another godess or demon of vile fecundity. That being said though I could see them either as something of a genetic offshoot or creation through ritual rather then the norm since it feels like it takes away if you turn all of them into brood mothers.
HOLY S#*!! I now have another answer for where oronci come from. Ohh the beautiful horror...
Now my other question is what would a trait titled "Brood Mother Born" give you?
I misunderstood what you were asking in my last post. Reading comprehension for the win.
I didn't give any of the brood born orcs anything special ability-wise. It gave me a new monster for the PCs to discover and a means of keeping higher than possible orc numbers without much effort.
However, if you have "special" orcs in addition to standard, they could easily fill the niche (like your mentioned oronci).
I would probably make all brood-spawned/born orcs inherit whatever alternate racial trait the mother had or you could create a system by which what she ate determined the alternate racial traits. Eating a steady diet of dwarves, for example, might give her offspring the cavewight trait; steady diet of elven flesh might grant her offspring the forest walker racial trait, and so on and so forth.
Nahh dude, I mean like a trait that you can select as part of character creation like campaign traits. I feel like a really cool race trait option is waiting to come out of that. That being said there could also be a cool race replace option for brood born Orcs floating around in their too though I have no clue what it would replace.
I had an idea that the different tribes of Orcs were slightly different.
The Bloody Nose tribe for instance might have the carrier trait, like rats.
The War Boars can fight past zero hits, like a wild boar, and they have snouts like pigs too.
The males go out and fight all their enemies(Dwarves and Elves first). Any that survive come back and father lots of kids. The females have and raise lots of kids. They teach their young to hate and blame all their woes on non Orcs. They have an inborn tendency to hate, but momma gives them focus and direction.