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.