Editing Half-Orc (section)

==Warhammer Fantasy==
Those more familiar with D&D who stumble onto [[Warhammer Fantasy]] sometimes ask if there are half-orcs in this game too. Typically, they will be met with a resounding bellow of "NO!", because the [[Orcs & Goblins]] of Warhammer have undergone convergent evolution to the [[Ork]]s of [[Warhammer 40,000]], and as a result the idea of them doing anything that isn't fighting is seen as "unorky".

Except... that's not the '''whole''' story. The truth is, Warhammer '''did''' have half-orcs once upon a time - it started as a bootleg [[Dark Fantasy]] setting mixing elements of [[Dungeons & Dragons]] with [[Glorantha]] and a buttload of British 70s pop culture, after all! Half-Orcs were around in the first edition of the game - in fact, the very first appearance of [[Nuln]] was in the backstory for a [[Regiments of Renown]] made up of half-orc mercenaries; Mudat's Mercenary Half-Orc Maniacs! Lead by Mudat Brokenbone, they were formed of the exiled Half-Orc population of Nuln to sack the city as revenge for their oppression and exile by the Empire of Man. They then became flip-flopping mercenaries until Grom the Paunch himself had enough of Mudat's B.S. and crushed him, whereafter the mercenary half-orc tribe scattered into the wilderness under the command of their paymaster, Earwangle. They were never very fleshed out, though, and ultimately were simply dropped from the game. Their last major appearances were in 3rd Edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battles, where they could be taken as Mercenaries or in small units in an Orcs & Goblins army, and in [[Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay]] 1st edition. Come 4th edition of the wargame, and 2nd edition of the RPG, and they were gone, simply dropped without any explanation.

Another Warhammer Fantasy Half-Orc character of renown was White Dwarf personality "Agaroth the Unwashed", an unpleasant individual who had a sense of hygiene comparable to a Nurgle Cultist and was known to cannibalize infants (without washing his hands afterwards!). Armed with a giant filthy meat cleaver complemented by a magic ring of surecutting, and wearing leather armor decked out with shrunken heads, the armor so encrusted in filth and dried gore that if anyone besides him tried to wear it they would suffer the effects of being poisoned! His original White Dwarf description, for use as a character in AD&D: 

[[File:Agaroth.png]]

Agaroth the Unwashed (AD&D) 10th level half-orc fighter; Age 37; AC5; STR: 18/80(+2/+4), INT 4, WIS: 6 DEX: 11, CON: 18, CHA 6 (ugly put persuasive).

Equipment: Filthy Leather Armour, Blood Caked Cleaver (treated as Scimitar) Mis-shapen shield, Ring of Sure Cutting (see below)

Agaroth the Unwashed is nasty. We mean really foul. Think of the nastiest person you know, double it, add bad manners, and Agaroth is still much worse. If we told you the nices thing Agaroth has done in the last year, you wouldn't want to eat for a week. Urrghh! Just thinking about ut makes us feel ill. Agaroth not only eats babies, he doesn't wash his hands afterwards.

Agaroth wears leather armour so caked in unspeakable filth that it improves his Amrour Class by one. Anyone else trying to use it would have to save vs. poison every round or pass out from the fumes. It's probably magical, but who wantsto know? He also wears a ring he once stole from an old man that allows any weapon he carries to hit any creature that can only be affected by +3 weapons.

Lorewise, Warhammer's half-orcs were fairly close to the D&D model. The term was actually not entirely accurate; "Half-[[Goblinoid]]" would have been closer to the mark, as half-orcs, half-goblins and half-hobgoblins all exist and are fundamentally identical. They are distrusted and disliked by both sides of their heritage, and often forced to make their way in the world as mercenaries, thieves and marauders.

In the original [[Path to Glory]] game, a [[Chaos Champion]] could potentially pick up a band of d6 half-orc followers, although the odds were pretty low - you needed to get the "Exceptional Follower" result (a 100 on the Slaves to Darkness table, a 94+ on the Lost & The Damned table), then throw a 2 and an 8 in that order.

Because 1d4chan is awesome, here's a transcript of the entire "ORC, Half-Castes" entry from the Warhammer RPG 1st Edition bestiary section, page 125:
::Half-Orcs are the spawned of mixed races, chiefly Humans and goblinoids. All such creatures are commonly called Half-Orcs, although in fact they may have Hobgoblin or Goblin blood. Outcasts from both Human and goblinoid society, they generally group together as brigands and mercenaries, and may appear in goblinoid armies on rare occasions, They have been used both as slaves and mercenaries by Human society, but are now generally regarded as too dangerous to be kept near Human communities. Several states have embarked on campaigns of extermination, which may have driven them closer to the Orcs and other goblinoids. They speak the common Goblin tongue, and some individuals speak a debased form of local Human languages.
::Physique: These creatures look like a cross between Humans and Goblinoids, just as you would expect. Some have characteristically Orcish heads, whilst others resemble Humans more closely, but maybe have slightly ape-like arms of crooked legs. Appearance is very variable. Skin and hair color usually approximate to those of the creature's progenitors.
::Alignment: Neutral or Evil. Most are Evil.
::Psychological Traits: Half-Orcs are ''Subject to Animosity'' towards other Humanoids. Because they are outcastes, tests are made with a 10% penalty. (Note: in the actual book, this is miswritten as "subject to Animosity towards humans other goblinoid races"; errata cleared it up that it means Humanoids in general.)
::Basic Profile: Movement 4, Weapon Skill 33, Ballistic Skill 25, Strength 3, Toughness 3, Wounds 7, Initiative 30, Attacks 1, Dexterity 29, Leadership 29, Intelligence 24, Cool 29, Willpower 29, Fellowship 18

For the curious, compared to a standard Orc of the same game, the half-orc loses the 10 Yard Night Vision trait and swaps 1 Toughness (dropping from T4 to T3) for +10 Initiative and +6 Intelligence. If compared to the Black Orc, the half-orc again loses out on 10 Yards of Night Vision, drops 1 Strength and 1 Toughness (Black Orcs being S4 and T4), but gains +11 Dexterity, +6 Intelligence, and +4 Fellowship. They're flat worse than the average Human in that game, however, suffering -5 Intelligence and -11 Fellowship.

They may actually still exist, as although Greenskins reproduce by spores nowadays, gene splicing via dark magic is something the Skaven and Chaos Dwarfs are noted as having done to create all sorts of hybrids and enhanced creatures, like Rat Ogres and Black Orcs. The Half-Orcs were mentioned in a recent Warhammer Community post as being rumored to exist with Centaurs, Hobhounds, and Hobgoblins in the Eastern Steppes, not too far from the Dark Lands. Maybe Half-Orcs are another attempt at a Greenskin slave race by the Chorfs after Hobgoblins and Black Orcs proved too shitty?

Turns out they actually do exist as revealed in prequel game [[Warhammer: The Old World]], theorized as a form of magical gene splicing but only seem to be found around the [[Chaos Wastes]] the infection of normal human cells with greenskin spores makes them act strange. Orcs think they're a joke like the idea of [[Grom_the_Paunch|a big goblin]] or [[digganobz| dumb humies that wanna be orky]] while civilized humans don't know of them outside of fairy tale myths told to scare children.