Orc

To feel the thunder of orcish war drums outside the gate and to hear a chorus of voices growling, “Gruumsh!” is the nightmare of every civilized place in the world. For no matter how thick its walls, skilled its archers, or brave its knights, few settlements have ever withstood a full-scale onslaught of orcs.

Every soldier who lives through a fight with orcs tells of confronting a hulking foe that can cleave through a warrior with a single blow, part of a force that can cut down enemies as though they were trembling stalks of wheat before the scythe. Only a skilled and determined hero can hope to survive single combat with an orc.

Savage and fearless, orc tribes are ever in search of elves, dwarves, and humans to destroy. Motivated by their hatred of the civilized races of the world and their need to satisfy the demands of their deities, the orcs know that if they fight well and bring glory to their tribe, Gruumsh will call them home to the plane of Acheron. It is there in the afterlife where the chosen ones will join Gruumsh and his armies in their endless extraplanar battle for supremacy.

Gods of the Orcs

Orcs believe their gods to be invincible. They see the principles that define them and their deities at work every day in the world around them — nature rewards the strong and mercilessly eliminates the weak and the infirm. Orcs don’t revere their gods as much as they fear them; every tribe has superstitions about how to avert their wrath or bring their favor. This deep-seated uncertainty and fear comes forth in the form of savagery and relentlessness, as orcs ravage and kill to appease the gods in order to avoid their terrible retribution.

At the pinnacle of the orc pantheon is Gruumsh One-Eye, who created the orcs and continues to direct their destiny. He is aided and abetted by the other warrior deities, Bahgtru and Ilneval, who bring strength and cunning to the battlefield. The followers of all three gods are a tribe’s raiders and ravagers—often the only part of an orc tribe that its victims ever see.

Deep within the den of a tribe, far away from the war-hearth where warriors gather and celebrate, dwell the followers of Yurtrus, the god of disease and death, and Shargaas, the god of darkness and the unknown. Orcs too weak for battle (because of bodily weakness, malformation, injury, or age) often join these cults instead of facing daily humiliation, exile, or death.

Serving as the bridge between the two parts of the tribe are the priestesses of Luthic, the orc goddess who represents both life and the grave. It is her worshipers that raise young orcs to be warriors, and then, at the end of their lives, take them to Yurtrus and Shargaas to be carried into death and the great unknown.

NISHREK AND THE ETERNAL WAR

Orcs believe that if they die with honor, their spirits go to the plane of Acheron, the Infinite Battlefield — specifically the layer of Nishrek, where they join Gruumsh’s army and fight on his behalf in the endless war against the goblinoid followers of Maglubiyet. Gruumsh sees this conflict as a chance to pit his people against an eager foe and enable them to prove their worth before their deities. He relishes every short-term triumph and swears revenge for every setback. Luthic, though, takes a longer view. She understands the cosmic implications of Maglubiyet’s attacks. To prevent the goblinoids from outstripping her people in population, she urges the orcs to have many offspring and teach them the ways of battle not only for survival in the material world, but to keep Maglubiyet at bay in the conflict on the planes. Her children will remain in her care, and if need be she wouldn’t hesitate to take to the field herself and claw Maglubiyet’s beady eyes from his face to prevent him from taking them from her. The cosmic battle between the two pantheons has raged for eons without resolution, leading those who study its ebb and flow to expect the stalemate to continue. A different view is put forth by the archmage Tzunk, who notes that Maglubiyet has never faced a foe as ferocious and protective as Luthic. He predicts that the war will end with Luthic the only deity standing, as the cave mother ascends to rule her warrior children.

Life in the Tribe

Orcs survive through savagery and force of numbers. Theirs is a life that has no place for weakness, and every warrior must be strong enough to take what is needed by force. Orcs aren’t interested in treaties, trade negotiations or diplomacy. They care only for satisfying their insatiable desire for battle, to smash their foes and appease their gods.

Booming Birth Rate

In order to replenish the casualties of their endless warring, orcs breed prodigiously (and they aren’t choosy about what they breed with, which is why such creatures as half-orcs and ogrillons are found in the world). Females that are about to give birth are relieved of their other roles and taken to the lair’s whelping pens, where they are tended to by Luthic’s followers.

Orcs don’t take mates, and no pair-bonding occurs in a tribe other than at the moment when coupling takes place. At other times, males and females are more or less indifferent toward one another. All orcs consider mating to be a mundane necessity of life, and no special significance beyond that is imparted to it.

At 4 years old an orc is considered a juvenile, and by age 12 it is a fully functioning adult. Most orcs don’t live past the age of 25 due to battle or illness, but an orc can live to about 40, remaining healthy almost up until the end. Luthic’s divine blessing can further extend an orc’s life, though Gruumsh is never happy when she uses this power and tends to frown upon the one so “blessed.”

Future Warriors

Young orcs must mature quickly in order to survive their perilous upbringing. Their early years are fraught with tests of strength, fierce competition and nothing in the way of maternal or paternal love. From the time a child can wield a stick or a crude knife, it asserts itself and defends itself while learning to fight, to survive in the wild, and to fear the gods.

The children that can’t endure the rigors of a life of combat are culled from the main body of the tribe, taken into the depths of the lair, and left for the followers of Yurtrus or Shargaas to accept or reject. A fully grown orc warrior is well prepared for a lifetime of combat.

Not all orc weaklings are taken by those who serve Yurtrus and Shargaas. Some are sent forth into the cities dominated by humans, on dark missions. Beware them.

— Elminster

Search, Destroy, Repeat

When a tribe is on the move, orc warriors are commanded to scour the surrounding landscape for any opportunity to spill blood and bring glory to their gods. Often, bands of warriors work on a rotation, with one group heading out on a raid just as another group returns, laden with severed heads, sacks of loot, and armfuls of food. Warriors also serve as scouts, bringing back detailed reports about the surrounding area so that the chief can plan where to send raiders next.

The territory that orc war parties cover can extend for many miles around the lair, and any encampment or settlement of elves, dwarves, or humans in that area is at risk. If orcs come upon a target that is too large to assault directly, they will lurk along supply routes, taking out their frustration on caravans and travelers. Left unchecked, a tribe can subsist on this sort of prey and booty for quite some time.

War Wagons

Orcs pillage and scavenge wherever they go — everything is loot, and loot is always something to be proud of. In order to haul as much food and booty as possible back to the tribe’s den, every tribe has a sturdy war wagon. Since orcs are poor crafters, most of their wagons are stolen from human or dwarven strongholds, and then decorated with uniquely orcish accessories.

A war wagon is a source of great pride for a war chief, comparable to a human army’s banner or flag. Many are clad in armor and festooned with garish trinkets and grisly trophies that hang from hooks and spikes. A war wagon makes a good shield against arrows when orcs besiege an elven fortress, and a heavily modified wagon could serve as a battering ram if a settlement dares to close its gates, blocking the way to the treasures and tasty food that lie within.

A heavily laden wagon that requires the strongest orcs to return it to the lair is a sign of great success. One that can be moved by the runts of the tribe is proof of a shameful performance.

The loss of a tribe’s war wagon can undermine the chieftain’s authority and cause the tribe to collapse into chaos, with the survivors scattering either to join new tribes or to strike out on their own. At the other extreme, warriors that return home with a heavily laden wagon or after heroically defending it from thieves gain great respect and advance higher in the tribe’s pecking order.

All Are Fighters

Most of the orcs that stay behind when the warriors go on their raids are weaker than their tribe mates or otherwise not suited for a life of battle. Worshipers of Luthic fall into this category, as do some of those that revere Yurtrus or Shargaas. But even these orcs are trained in combat, and all of them are expected to act like warriors if the lair is attacked or threatened. Their numbers are augmented by any orogs in the tribe, which are primarily responsible for making sure that the lair is protected from intruders.

Special Enemies

When orcs attack a settlement of humans or halflings, they will kill anyone who presents a threat, but they are more interested in grabbing plunder and food rather than in wanton slaughter. The elderly, children, and any who seem weak or meek enough might escape death. If they leave the population more or less intact, the orcs leave themselves the option of returning to raid the community over and over.

When orcs fight elves, all of that changes. The enmity between the two races cuts to the core, and no orc will leave an elf alive. Orcs become so frenzied in combat against elves that they forget all about taking loot and valuables back to the tribe — the only trophies of any worth are the heads of their enemies.

Orcs treat dwarves somewhat differently from other foes, because they covet the homes that dwarves fashion for themselves. If a tribe succeeds in fighting its way into a dwarfhold, the orcs will butcher any dwarf that stands against them, but it’s really all about the property—they would be just as happy if all the dwarves ran away.

Strength Respects Strength

Orcs appreciate physical prowess and formidable combat ability in any form. As such, they might accept other creatures into their ranks from time to time. Orcs have been known to associate with wereboars and ettins, both creatures that can markedly improve a tribe’s murderous efficiency. For a promise of sufficient food and loot, a troll might accompany a tribe temporarily.

A group of orcs can be dominated by evil creatures of immense power, and they accept this subservient role either because they are forced to or because it offers them a measure of security while they engage in their savagery. Green dragons, for instance, sometimes use orcs as sentinels or shock troops. Orcs are sometimes attracted to the service of frost giants or fire giants, who then “reward” their loyalty by turning them into slaves.

If a tribe is defeated and driven from its lair, the survivors might come under the sway of a strong but dimwitted creature, such as a hill giant or an ogre. It is also not unheard of for an exceptionally strong and charismatic evil human to lead stray orcs that no longer have a tribe to call their own.

When Tribes Team Up

An orc tribe typically has no more than a few hundred members, because a larger group would need a prohibitive amount of resources to remain strong. As a rule, a tribe is violently hostile toward any other tribe it meets, seeing the rival orcs first and foremost as competitors for food and victims.

On some occasions, though, tribes that have a common concern band together. The result is an orc horde — a sea of slavering killers that washes over the countryside and leaves vast tracts of devastation in its wake. Such an event is rare in the extreme, but its consequences can lay low entire nations that are unable to stand against the wave.

Orc Culture and Beliefs

Orcs live in constant fear of their gods, and their behavior is rooted in that mentality. They believe that they can see the influence of the gods everywhere in the world around them, and the priests of a tribe are entrusted with the responsibility of identifying these signs and omens — both good and bad — and deciding how the tribe should react to them.

As a race, orcs have no noteworthy universal social traits, but some commonality does exist in the crude written communication that all orcs employ and in the way that they use pigments to decorate and distinguish themselves and their lairs.

Omens and Superstitions

Orcs believe that any seemingly unimportant discovery or event — a bear’s claw marks on a tree, a flock of crows, or a sudden gust of wind — might be a communication from the gods. If the tribe has encountered a similar omen before, the priests understand how to interpret it, but if a sign from the gods has no clear explanation, the priests might have to meditate for hours or days to get a vision of its meaning.

Every group of orcs has particular superstitions and recognizes certain omens. These tenets vary from tribe to tribe, and are often based in events that the tribe has experienced. Here are a few examples:

• If a dwarf or a human invokes its god upon dying, you must carry the corpse’s ears for three days to ward off any retribution, and then bury or burn them.
• Three ravens is always a good sign.
• It is good luck to spit where you are about to sleep.
• Gnome bones can ward off diseases if they are worn.
• Don’t stand inside a ring of stones, mushrooms, or any other kind of circle.
• Seeing a shooting star before a battle is bad luck. To ward it off, you must swallow a stone.
• A tribute of elf ears brings favor from Gruumsh.
• If you bury five stones at dawn before a long journey, you will always find your way back to the war hearth.
• Stomping your foot three times and uttering “Gruumsh” wards off bad magic.

Symbolic Communication

Orcs have a written language adapted from that of the dwarves, but they aren’t a literate culture and rarely keep records or write down their thoughts. When orcs need to communicate in writing, they use crude symbols to convey basic information, such as “food stored here,” “danger close,” or “go this way.” A orc raiding party might leave such a sign in its wake, as an aid to other warriors that travel through the same area later on. Mountain guides, druids, and rangers might be familiar with many of these symbols, enabling them to keep their charges from inadvertently stumbling into a tribe’s territory.

Colors of Conquest

Three colors have special meaning to all orcs, and they adorn their bodies, possessions, and lairs with pigments that produce those hues. Red ochre is used to represent blood, grayish-white ash to represent death, and charcoal to represent darkness.

The unwritten laws that govern the status of individual orcs within a tribe are manifested to a degree in how each orc uses these colors on itself and its personal items. For instance, the chief of one tribe might be the only one that has the right to stain its tusks with red ochre, while the warriors of another tribe rub streaks of ash into their garments to signify their safe return from a raid.

The gaze of the One Eye brings madness to many an orc.

— Elminster

Roleplaying an Orc

When you’re roleplaying an orc, the following tables contain possible inspiration. They suggest characteristics that an orc might possess.

Orc Personality Traits

Orc Ideals

Orc Bonds

Orc Flaws

Orc Names

Orc names don’t always have meaning in the Orc language, and most noteworthy orcs are given epithets by their tribe mates.

Orc Names

Orc Traits

Your orc character has the following racial traits.

Ability Score Increase

Your Strength score increases by 2 and your Constitution score increases by 1.

Age

Orcs reach adulthood at age 12 and live up to 50 years.

Size

Orcs are usually over 6 feet tall and weigh between 230 and 280 pounds. Your size is Medium.

Speed

Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Darkvision

You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Aggressive

As a bonus action, you can move up to your speed toward an enemy of your choice that you can see or hear. You must end this move closer to the enemy than you started.

Primal Intuition

You have proficiency in two of the following skills of your choice: Animal Handling, Insight, Intimidation, Medicine, Nature, Perception, and Survival.

Powerful Build

You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift.

Languages

You can speak, read, and write Common and Orc.

Orcs of Eberron

Thousands of years before humans came to Khorvaire, the land was dominated by wild orcs and goblinoids of the Dhakaani Empire. The goblin empire scattered the orc tribes and forced them into harsh and unwanted lands: the swamps of the Shadow Marches, the Demon Wastes, and the depths of the Ironroot Mountains. But in the Shadow Marches, the orcs learned the secrets of druidic magic from the dragon Vvaraak, becoming the first of the Gatekeepers. With the invasion of the alien daelkyr from Xoriat, the Gatekeepers put the dragon’s teaching to the test, creating magical seals that bound the daelkyr in the depths of Khyber and protected Eberron against further incursion from the plane of madness.

Three prominent groups of orcs have survived into the present age:

• The Ghaash’kala are servants of the Silver Flame (which they call Kalok Shash, the “binding flame”), who devote their lives to battling the fiends of the Demon Wastes. Humans from the Carrion Tribes of the wastes sometimes hear the call of Kalok Shash and join the Ghaash’kala, leading to a significant population of half-orcs there.
• The Jhorash’tar orcs are a perpetual threat in and around the Ironroot Mountains, shaped by their resentment of the Mror dwarves who drove them underground. These orcs are isolated from humans, so half-orcs here are rare.
• The Shadow Marches holds the largest numbers of orcs and the most significant population of half-orcs.

Orcs of the Shadow Marches

The orc Gatekeepers played a crucial role in defeating the daelkyr and binding their evil in Khyber, and their descendants continue to maintain the ancient seals and fight aberrations spawned by the daelkyr’s corruption. However, many orcs succumbed to that same corruption and embraced the madness of the cults of the Dragon Below. Orcs who follow both of these paths continue to live in the Shadow Marches, and centuries of battles between them have diminished both sides.

Humans settled in the Shadow Marches long ago, and the first half-orcs helped to cement the bond between these outsiders and the native orcs. Certain Marcher clans contain humans, orcs, and half-orcs in roughly equal numbers.

When playing an orc or half-orc character from the Shadow Marches, consider what circumstances brought you into the wider world. The Leaving the Shadow Marches table offers some inspiration.

Leaving the Shadow Marches

Orc of Eberron Traits

An orc character has the following racial traits.

Ability Score Increase

Your Strength score increases by 2, and your Constitution score increases by 1.

Age

Orcs reach adulthood at age 12 and live up to 50 years.

Alignment

The orcs of Eberron are a passionate people, given to powerful emotion and deep faith. They are generally chaotic, but can be any alignment.

Size

Your size is Medium. To set your height and weight randomly, start with rolling a size modifier:

Size modifier = 2d8

Height = 5 feet + 4 inches + your size modifier in inches

Weight in pounds = 175 + (2d6 × your size modifier)

Speed

Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Darkvision

You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Aggressive

As a bonus action, you can move up to your speed toward an enemy of your choice that you can see or hear. You must end this move closer to the enemy than you started.

Powerful Build

You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift.

Primal Intuition

You have proficiency in two of the following skills of your choice: Animal Handling, Insight, Intimidation, Medicine, Nature, Perception, and Survival.

Languages

You can speak, read, and write Common and Orc.

Orcs of Exandria

The first half-orcs in Wildemount were born of a union between human warriors and orc traitors in the final days of the Calamity. Orcs are one of Exandria’s youngest races, and are said to have been born from elves seared by the blood of Gruumsh, the Ruiner, when Corellon pierced the orc god’s eye on the field of battle. For long years, orcs were feared as mindless abominations, drawn to slaughter like moths to flame.

Stories tell of how the blood of the Ruiner flows in the veins of all orcs, driving them to commit acts of terrible violence and anger. Orcs call this fury hgar’Gruum, or the curse of ruin, and use it to refer to everything from battle rage to a bad temper. Half-orcs are said to have inherited the blood of the Ruiner, and to carry the same bloodlust and fury that orcs do.

Orcs and half-orcs do feel a certain pull toward violence and anger. But the simple truth is that there is no curse of ruin. No supernatural power drives orcs to kill. Rather, they are simply victims of the same selfish, violent impulses that corrupt all mortal beings.

Orc of Exandria Traits

Exandrian orcs are not bound to commit acts of evil by nature. An orc character has the following racial traits.

Ability Score Increase

Your Strength score increases by 2, and your Constitution score increases by 1.

Age

Orcs reach adulthood at age 16 and live up to 80 years.

Alignment

Orcs fear the curse of ruin that is said to plague their race, and tend strongly toward either chaos (accepting their fate), or toward law (rejecting it).

Size

Orcs stand easily 8 feet tall and corded with powerful muscles, weighing up to 280 pounds. Your size is Medium. Here’s how to determine your height and weight randomly, starting with rolling a size modifier:

Size modifier = 2d8

Height = 5 feet + 4 inches + your size modifier in inches

Weight in pounds = 175 + (2d6 × your size modifier)

Speed

Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Darkvision

You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Aggressive

As a bonus action, you can move up to your speed toward an enemy of your choice that you can see or hear. You must end this move closer to the enemy than you started.

Powerful Build

You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift.

Primal Intuition

You have proficiency in two of the following skills of your choice: Animal Handling, Insight, Intimidation, Medicine, Perception, and Survival.

Languages

You can speak, read, and write Common and Orc.