Random World Redux: Orcs

This isn't the first time I've tried to rework orcs on this blog, given they are currently one of the most contentious monsters around these days. This is a remake/expansion of my original take on the Orcs for the then-random world, before it got canned and reworked into something less tied to a map.

Orcish Nature and Origins

Where do Orcs come from, anyway, and what are they really? Well, simply put orcs are a form of artificial life, roughly analogous to an homunculus albeit gifted with much greater bodies and minds (even if that mind can often come short compared to a human or elf). Their origins are shrouded in myths and tall tales and many 'crops' of orcs are very much removed from these mythical roots, being the creation of human beings. Through some of the foulest magical and alchemical process known to man, the creation of orcs is a blasphemous act of defiance against creation and any gods out there as filthy mud, blood, grime, bile and more is poured into a flesh pit and given something approximating life and a mind but not quite gifted with anything resembling a true mind and soul.

Orc Biology

Art by John Owe

Orcs are unnatural creatures, a pale and hideous imitation of life and humanity. While their bodies approximate biological process but only barely. Orcs are sexless and ageless beings, born as adult from their flesh pits identical to how they will spend the rest of their life, barring the most limited of mental changes an orc can gain. If one was to cut an orc open and examine its body before it rapidly decays into foul grime and fluids they would find mostly all organs found in a human, yet each is an unnatural counterfeit.

The resulting creature tend to be short and wiry, but a few of them are large and muscular or even fat. Every single orc is completely and utterly hideous, a mockery of men. What form this take vary from orc to orc and batch to batch but hideously ugly facial features, warty skin, unnatural skin tone and missing or malformed features are the norm. While most orcs are born functional enough to not be crippled, they all sport disgusting deformities. Some have thick bony brows while others have no nose except for a pair of slits. Fingers tend to be crooked, ending in yellow or black nails or no nails at all, teeth jagged and rotten. They can be either bald or very hairy. Their skin is often an earthy tone or a pale white, but these are not the natural and human skin tones we know that range from a pale pinkish beige to ebony. No, rather, orcs have the color of mud and shit or the pale discolored slimy colors of some monstrous slug or perhaps piebald or worse Others will have jaundiced skin or grey wrinkled, almost necrotized skin that slowly flake off yet somehow never completely peel off. Fingers and feet tend toward having four, three or six toes and not always the same amount between the feet and hands. Some orcs are a form of symbiote, with colonies of worms, insects or spiders living inside their foul skin, hair or stomach with little detriment to the orc's health. Moss and algae growing on them can sometimes create the association with fungi, but these creatures are not fungi at all.

In spite of their ugly, hunched and hideous bodies these creatures are quite spry and strong. Their smaller size belies a strong grip which, when combined with a high resistance to pain, make the creature much stronger and tougher than its thin or crooked frame would imply. Orcs are created to be minions and warriors and so these creatures are invariably gifted with the strength and endurance required. Orcish grip is a lot like getting manhandled and mauled by a crazy ape that overdosed on drugs. Not to mention simply being around orcs or covered in their foul-smelling, tar-black blood is a surefire way to catch many diseases, some of which may have never been recorded simply because they are new and fermented inside the orc's body almost like a depraved form of internal alchemy.

Orcs don't age, be it physically or mentally. Technically their lifespan is infinite but in practice most will die in combat or become crippled by wounds sustained in combat and, for lack of a better term, recycled by their comrades to be sent back into the vats and flesh-pits. Orcs are sexless and lack any reproductive organs or the associated urges and stories of orc pillage involving assault isn't done out of any sexual urges but purely because orcs can and it offend humans, as well as having a psychological toll. Beautiful women kidnapped by orcs are more likely to end as lunch or part of some communal torture game than abused. As for their biology, orcs don't have any sexual organs therefore trying to hit them in the groin has little effects, as all they have is a rudimentary hole which excrete whatever their bodies didn't process.

Giant Orcs do exist and are believed to be a fluke or a deliberate attempt at orc flesh crafting. These creatures tend to be larger, stronger but also dumber and mechanically similar to Ogres, albeit with all orc traits applied. Many of the smaller orcs will enslave their larger, more deficient brethren to use as slave labor and/or battle mount.

Orc Psychology and Society

Art by Matthew Carter

Since these are not natural creatures, nothing about orc mentality make any sense to a rational human. Since they are a soulless automaton bred only for war and violence, orcs simply have no other desires beyond violence, malice and chaos. While they are capable of organizing (and indeed, many orcs crave a master as some built in programming), any society they form has little culture beyond simply a loose but functional pecking order and distribution of roles to make their army/clan function. The inhuman intellect from beyond the veil of mortality that inhabit each orc's head is devious, but primitive. The resulting creature has simply no desire or ambitions beyond its base function.

The orcs simply are poor learner because every orc is 'born' with mostly everything it need to function and the inhuman mind that inhabit their soulless body has no desires for anything outside of it. Aspirations, art, poetry, personal growth and desire are meaningless to something hat is not truly alive. Because orcs cannot truly create, they copy what they find and mimic any behavior they can learn from humans. These limited nuggets of orcish culture are especially common a generation or two removed from an orc clan having been created as minions for some would-be conqueror who can distill his ideals and military tactics to a group of leaders. The more removed from its roots an orc band is, the less coherent is become. Orcs aren't spellcasters either, but for some reason they are able to recreate the rituals which birthed them, almost as if whatever malign cosmic influence animate their husk is attempting to spread like a disease.

While animals innately dislike orcs (as they are not natural at all), they nonetheless like having war mounts and companion beasts as these make hunting and killing easier. The foulest, most hideous beasts found in the depth of caves or the deepest marshes make suitable allies for them, such as giant bats, giant bugs, giant toads or giant lamprey-worms. The bigger, the uglier and nastier the better. Orcish beastmasters are the closest the race has to beings capable of understanding a non-orcish being and, even then, it is only an understanding of how to exploit or abuse.

Thoughts on the Classes of Magic The Gathering and 5e, Part 1

Not something I originally intended to write but, hey, I was asked by a friend to write some more thoughts on ideas and concepts in relation to D&D 5e and Magic: The Gathering, specifically about "What color of mana would each class be tied to?".

This is both a simple and not-so-simple question, so instead I've decided to turn to the absurdly massive array of 3rd party supplements available to 5e. One important concept in Magic, however, is that generally non-human races are tied to one (maybe two, depending on the plane) color of Mana and this rarely changes. As a result, much of this information assume Human characters, give or take a few gifted individuals who could develop far beyond the capacities and association of their race. Of course, the Magic multiverse is vast and near-infinite so just because a thing isn't the norm doesn't mean it can't exist.

Cleric

Mikaeus the Lunarch, by Steven Belledin

In MTG, the Cleric class is heavily tied to White and Black mana, which may initially appear to be a bit odd until one dig deeper. The idea of Clerics being tied to White or Black mana may very well have root in the idea of Good/Lawful and Evil/Chaotic Clerics of early D&D. Combined with the Cleric's ability to either turn and/or command Undead as well as their ability to Heal and/or Harm and suddenly a lot of this make sense. This further plays into classical fantasy imagery, at least before Magic decided it didn't want to do that for brownie points which tend to depict good-aligned Cleric as tied to positive divine forces while the archetype of evil Clerics are those serving demons, evil gods or dark lords.

In recent years, however, with the popularity of the Theros Gods (of all Colors), the idea of tying the divine to just White or Black has somewhat faded, even if the other colors naturally fit other classes better in most cases. Still, any spellcaster whose magic is at least partially derived from faith and/or an entity which may functionally be akin to a god on any given plane could be considered fitting the Cleric class.

White Cleric Domains

Given that White is one of the two colors associated primarily with the class, it come as no surprise that there are many Cleric Domains which are well suited to the MTG color White. These Clerics tend toward the more iconic aspects of the class, namely healing, support and/or waging a holy war of some kind be it justified or not.

• Life is one of the quintessential Cleric domains, with healing being both iconic to the Cleric class as a whole as well as healers often being of the Cleric class in MTG anyway. This is assumed to be among the 'default' option for White-aligned Clerics across the multiverse and represent the abilities of that color very well.
• Light is an another obvious contender for being a mainline White Cleric domain and part of the common/innate abilities of the mana type. There are multiple MTG spells depicting White magic as being some sort of holy light including the incredibly deadly Wrath of God.
• Order (Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica/Tasha's Cauldron of stupid ideas Everything) represent Clerics which are more aligned to the Lawful side of White mana than some of its kinder and holier aspects, although this need not be entirely the case. White mana has strong association with order and social cohesion nonetheless, sometimes going quite far.
• Peace (Tasha's Cauldron of Everything) is also within the purview of White, since fundamentally the color is about harmony and lack of conflict. A Cleric of Peace represent the kinder, more merciful side of the color as well as its political side all trying to negate conflict where possible.
• Solidarity (Planeshift Amonkhet) is very much a White cleric domain as it gets, since the deity it is associated with is mono-white. The domain is well suited to the typical holy cleric with a reliable weapon in hand, some armor and a holy symbol going around being a beacon to its fellow soldiers and adventurers.

Black Cleric Domains

The Clerics using Black mana are (or rather, were) the archetypal 'evil priests' of pulp and fantasy, indebted to dark gods, eldritch entities and more of than not to demons. They are very much schemers and minions, those who serve a dark power for an equally dark reward or those who simply serve it out of fear. While one could certainly image a plane where Black mana-aligned Clerics aren't evil, its difficult to imagine one where they aren't simply neutral at best.

• Ambition (Planeshift Amonkhet) is perhaps the least 'completely evil' Domain for a Black Cleric and that isn't saying much. The Black color has always been one to focus on ambition, power and achievement at all cost.
• Abyssal is a domain well suited to demon worshipping and/or summoning Clerics which use Black Mana for their end. Demons are the Iconic Creature of Black mana and so this Domain is well suited to those Cleric who wish to unleash the power of Demons.
• Pestilence and plagues are a recurring theme for Black spells so it come to no surprise that a Domain of Pestilence would befit a vile and cruel Cleric which use Black mana, using its power to spread death and decay all around.
• Famine is the twin brother to Pestilence and unsurprisingly, Black can draw upon it too. In turn, Black instill in those who wield it a sense of hunger for more which they can use to spread death, decay and more.
• The vile concept of the Ur Priest is well suited to a Cleric of Black, especially since few of any of them ever truly display anything resembling faith or any positive qualities. The themes of Black draining and parasitism are well on display in that faux-Domain as well.

Other Colors

Generally speaking, the Cleric class is mostly only found in White and Black. For example, Blue Spellcasters tend to be the intellect-driven Wizards, while Red has the emotion-powered Shaman and Green has the nature-connected Druids. As a result, Clerics of the other three color tend to be a bit more rare. Should they exist, they would likely be tied to Planes which place a strong importance on specific Gods or similar divine entities where an established priesthood could exist.

• Red Clerics would be well-suited to any Domain tied to violence and conflict, such as War as well as any Domain which give Fire or Ice damage spells. White/Red Clerics overlap greatly with the White Clerics but tend to increase the martial bent of White even more.
• Blue Clerics are quite rare and mostly tied to Deities associated with Knowledge. To a lesser extent, any Domain that give Ice or Illusion spells can be tied to blue. White/Blue Clerics tend to increase the traits of orderliness found in White, preferring to combine strict law with logic. 
• Green Clerics are well suited to the Nature Domain or any Domain which ties into natural forces. Anything more would make them overlap far too much with the Druid class, which is very emblematic of Green overall.
• Black/Blue Clerics have a few domains that suit their (admittedly rare) niche, namely the Madness domain. These would be mad hierophants and cultists worshipping mind-breaking horrors.