Orc

These have not had a fair press. They are fanatically brave in spite of being weaker and less practiced than most other humanoids, and must be kind to animals, since they train them so well. It is interesting that Tolkien’s characters describe them in terms very similar to those used by medieval chroniclers to describe Mongols, who in our day are considered a nice friendly people of slightly eccentric lifestyle. We might instead think of such goblins as a fantasy counterpart of the apocryphal northerner: clannish, rough spoken, given to imbibing of strong but peculiar liquor, keeping analogues of whippets and pidgeons, prone to mob violence at away fixtures and perhaps too easily influenced by radical politicians of other races.

–Phil Barker, Sue Laflin Barker & Richard Bodley Scott, Hordes of the Things

Orcs are a fantasy race that is used in a number of settings. Compare to Ork. They are generally depicted as barbaric humanoids with green skin. Typically, they are stronger than an average human, though generally less intelligent as well (except in Warhammer Fantasy, Warhammer 40,000, Lord of the Rings and the Elder Scrolls, where they are, amusingly, physically inferior to the human race that is a facsimile of the Vikings. Thus proving that beards and axes end all things and that the Vikings can rape anyone).

They enjoy molesting, eating and generally mistreating the goblins, their smaller cousins. They have longstanding relationships with trolls and ogres, their larger and stupider neighbors, whom they con into performing demeaning menial tasks and press into service in wartime. Their relations with more distant races are more variable - some may work for humans as mercenaries, for example, while others will attack humans on sight. They are also interfertile with many other races, leading to the existence of half-orcs. The long-standing exception to this is elves. All orcs hate elves, and this makes them good people.

Historically, the term was used to describe the Normans invading the Saxon occupiers of Britain in 1066. It is also an Anglo-Saxon word meaning 'demon', according to Tolkien, who lifted the word from Beowulf.

The Master Template

Tolkien

The origin of the original Orcs.

Orcs as we know them have their beginnings with Tolkien's works. The first orcs were created by Melkor shortly after the first elves awoke. Some of these elves wandered about exploring this world that they had awoken in and were captured by some of Melkor's maiar and were taken to Angband, his base of operations. There they were tortured, abused, cursed, mutated and selectively bred until you got orcs. The result was a species of ugly, bad smelling, ape like, long armed, claw handed, hairy humanoids which were brown, grey and black in coloration, had an aversion to sunlight, and ranged in size from smaller than a hobbit to as large as a man. These creatures would make up the bulk of Melkor and Sauron's armies.

For the sake of clarity, in Arda, Goblin is just another word for Orc (although in practice it refers mainly to the smaller types used most often as menial laborers). "Uruk" means orc in Black Speech. Most fantasy fiction typically distinguishes between goblins and orcs: most of Tolkein's orcs would resemble other works' goblins (Frodo and Pippin disguised themselves as Orcs, so we can assume at least some are Hobbit height), whereas what something like D&D would call an Orc would more closely resemble Tolkein's "Uruk-hai", which are basically super-orcs crossbred between "orcs and goblin-men"... whatever that means.

Tolkien's orcs are not stupid. They are capable of making weapons (bows, spears, daggers, shields and curved swords), armor (helmets and mail), good (if unpleasant) medicine and are pretty good engineers. They are almost as good at mining as Dwarves are. Nor are all orcs identical. There are variations among orcs both in terms of individual personalities and differences between groups. Orcs from the Misty Mountains are described as being fairly tribal while those of Mordor are regimented. There are also different breeds of orcs, besides the garden variety orc you also have 'snufflers' bred for following scent trails and the larger and more sun resistant Uruk-Hai bred by Sauron and Saruman, supposedly made by crossbreeding orcs with humans and specialized to act as commanders. However they are violent, sadistic, spiteful, enjoy breaking stuff, have no concern for aesthetics and are as a rule hateful and miserable. Fighting, killing, eating, drinking, looting, blowing stuff up, gaining power, bossing their subordinates, torturing and presumably raping captives can only give temporary reprieve. They hate Sauron and especially Melkor, but serve them out of fear and their psychic influence over them. They are capable of internal loyalty and do have some social taboos (being accused of eating other orcs is a considerable insult even though they are perfectly fine with eating non-orcs) which are enough to let them act together as groups, although these groups tend to collapse due to infighting after reaching a certain size in the absence of a leader who can terrify them into submission.

Despite this, little is said by Tolkien about how orcs live their lives on a day to day basis as their role in the story is as a force which threatens the heroes and those around them. It can be extrapolated, however that it is usually nasty, brutish and short. Some of the interactions between different groups of orcs frequently results in back-stabbing and violent power struggles, so we can assume that they operate on a grimdark version of Klingon politics. The question of whether they are intrinsically evil is never brought up, and several of Tolkien's unpublished works suggest that this was due to his own misgivings with the concept of a wholly evil race; Melkor had no power to create other beings himself, but the fact that elves could be corrupted would also imply Eru had either made the souls of some elves either inherently evil or easily corrupted to become evil. This in turn contradicted his own views on the nature of Eru as a wholly good deity while also opening up some thorny questions of faith for Tolkien himself, and even in his last writings it appears he could not come up with a satisfactory explanation for how they could be universally evil by nature.

In any case these guys served as the inspiration of a whole lot of spin offs that to various degrees A: took the idea and ran with it and expanded on it filling in the blanks, B: took the basic idea a gave it a few tweaks or C: deliberately subverted what people expected from orcs, making it possible for them to be the good guys.

Dungeons & Dragons

The first D&D Orcs, now commonly referred to by some variation of "P'Orcs" by fans.

In the first edition of Dungeons & Dragons, Orcs were among the first monsters inspired by folklore and fantasy literature added to the game in a reissue set. They became the primary antagonists out of the many enemies in the game due primarily to their statline rather than their iconic nature, since they were the best "always an enemy" humanoid to accompany a BBEG. Early DnD Orcs were pig-like monsters resulting from savage tribals that bred with all other races they warred with (so reproducing via rape) with no unified culture or language, but interestingly were also described as having a "reputation for cruelty that is deserved, but humans are just as capable of evil as orcs" which suggests they weren't anything extraordinary to the setting. Half a decade after their introduction, they were given a more neanderthal appearance as well as being given a size-increase to that of a gorilla, were made able to breed with humans resulting in the Half-Orc playable race, and given their own mythology (which in most D&D settings is the explanation for why a race behaves the way it does). The leader god is named Gruumsh, who was screwed over in inheritance of the world by the gods of the fairer races causing him to be a bitter asshole and make his race into entitled "might makes right" pricks like a father passing on their shitty life to their kids. Gruumsh's family are below him in importance and include his wife Luthic, goddess of the submission of Orc females as the inferior gender, who goes barefoot and never wields a weapon and just serves to run the home and make babby, and their son Bahgtru who's pretty much the god of "stupid, but strong", along with Gruumsh's second in command Ilneval who is the Orc god of war that directly guides mortal Orcs, with the four together representing the Neutral and "Lawful" (as in they are willing to take orders and respect their place in society) side of the pantheon. Also added were Shargaas the god of general bad magic and spooky things, and Yurtrus the god of ruin and death, neither of whom have any loyalty to Gruumsh's side of the pantheon and represent the truly Chaotic "for the evulz" aspect of Orcs.

An article for Dragon Magazine later gave the option of making the traditionally evil races like Orcs and Kobolds player characters of any alignment. This lead to the Forgotten Realms setting having two races of Orcs that are capable of any alignment, the pacifistic Ondonti who culturally are closer to Hobbit than Orruk, and the Gray Orcs who are treated as another among the fair races. All other D&D Orcs remained stupid-evil.

Dungeons & Dragons became the standard for most fantasy that came after, but ultimately for Orcs the only purpose was to move forward to the next step in the master template.

Warhammer

The modern interpretation of Orcs.

Games Workshop was originally a company that produced quality boards for games like Chess, but after two out of three of the original team fell in love with Dungeons & Dragons after Gary Gygax sent them a copy (believing they were a legitimate company based on their name, rather than three guys in an apartment sending out stuff through the mail) they began distributing licensed games and later producing miniatures for use in these games under the brand Citadel Miniatures.

As time went on, they had a surplus of unsold miniatures and had trouble retaining the rights to sell their products, so they began to have members of their team create new games owned by Games Workshop to use the models they produced (which unfortunately made many of the early Warhammer designs that survive extreme ripoffs). The most successful of these was Warhammer Fantasy, then just Warhammer, which was a wargame version of Dungeons & Dragons that existed mostly just to sell models. Warhammer didn't get its own setting and story until 3rd edition, where its Orcs were described as having green skin and red eyes with tusks in their mouths as well as being savage brutes that gathered in hordes and attacked civilization, or just about anything capable of fighting, every so often. Although later on this lore became more complex with Warhammer greenskins becoming genderless mushroom-apes with the creation of Warhammer 40000 which was ported back into Fantasy, the prototype Warhammer Orc still had females and Half-Orcs.

With this, the master template of Orcs was completed. Almost every fantasy setting to use Orcs after Warhammer made them green and sometimes gave them red eyes with tusks, which eventually migrated back into Dungeons & Dragons and even the Lord Of The Rings movies. However, one thing was missing. Orcs were still Always Chaotic Evil which greatly limited their use, and non-evil Orcs were a footnote that didn't even have a Drizzt to be their posterboy example.

Warcraft

The importance of Warcraft isn't actually in a major evolution in any fiction master template. In fact, what it mostly did is combine concepts from previous obscure fantasy settings into a unified setting, which was thrust into mainstream public perception and made Orcs "cool" causing a boom of fantasy gaming both on the tabletop and in video games, as well as the movie screen.

Warcraft: Orcs & Humans was released in 1994, and featured generic knights VS generic Orcs in the Warhammer style (indeed, rumors persist that Warcraft was a canceled Warhammer game as Games Workshop had been experimenting at the time with video games). Orcs were controlled by Demons from some obscure Satanic force, and used Ogres as their minions. The only real innovation was Orcs coming from another planet through a portal, although the theme of Satanic forces invading from portals was largely dropped and instead lived on in the Diablo franchise. The game was a surprising success, being low budget from a minor studio.

It was followed by Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness in 1996, which sold RIDICULOUSLY well and sparked a boom in the entire Real Time Strategy genre which quickly became a staple of PC gaming. The setting was expanded a great deal, although Orcs remained mostly the same but were joined by Goblins (who coincidentally looked similar but were a different race), Trolls, their persisting Ogre slaves, the undead (created by the Orcs from their own dead Warlocks), and enslaved dragons. The most diverse change to be found here was Goblins being a race of money-obsessed mad scientists, and Trolls being intelligent. An expansion pack was released that involved the humans invading the Orc homeworld to end the war.

Setting their eyes on the horizon, Blizzard planned an explosion of lore with a book series beginning with Of Blood And Honor which went into the friendship between a human Paladin and an aged Orc ex-Shaman who hated what his race had become which created complexity in what had previously been just a generic "kill it all and loot/eat then march again" race. The second book was Day Of The Dragon, expanding a minor plot involving Dragons into the war between good and evil which had used the Horde and Alliance as a proxy for their own machinations. Lord Of The Clans delved deeper into Orc lore, explaining that they were a race with souls naturally attuned to other sources of energy that had communed with the forces of nature itself until they were tricked into a Daemonic curse that affected them like meth, giving them fanatical boosts of power until it diminished their body and soul into a husk; the main character of the book, named Thrall by humans who used him as a pit fighter, learned natural magic and freed the defeated Orcs to lead them to a peaceful natural existence again. Finally the book The Last Guardian detailed the madness of the human supreme wizard Medivh who had summoned the Orcs into the world in the first place and gave context on the Burning Legion, transforming them from a vaguely satanic demon army into a varied force of cosmic enemies that would fit right into Doctor Who. Here finally Warcraft added new flavor to their Orcs although unlike previous versions of non-evil Orcs the Warcraft version had identical culture only without malice. The true innovation was making them neutral race that actually got to be in the spotlight, as all previous non-evil Orcs were minor races left mostly undescribed beyond the basics, never starring in a work and always just being an option alongside their evil kin; Warcraft was the first setting to make them a core race in the starring role with equal importance to humans in the first person narrative which catapulted Orcs across fiction in importance.

In Warcraft III: Reign Of Chaos, released in 2002, Blizzard took the mantle of villains entirely away from the Horde and rendered the judgement of gray morality into all factions. The Alliance were racist arrogant bastards that hated each other, were ineffective, and easy to corrupt. The Horde was full of the same assholes from Warcraft I and II that were missing "the good old days" and jumped at a chance to suckle Daemon teat for power again (although the curse was broken during the game). Undead took the mantle of villains, lead by a human merged with the ghost of the Orc who made the Horde evil in the first place but were entirely dominated by the soul-sucking powers of the Burning Legion and were only really under the control of the one personality. Also, there was forest Elves who wanted everyone to get the fuck out of their forest. Warcraft III became THE game on the PC at the time, and Warcraft mania had made the image of Orcs something the average person could identify. Green skin, tusks, gigantic frame with large shoulders, and sometimes red eyes (which just meant "evil Orc") became THE Orc as a result of Warcraft, which very little since then has drifted away from. Very few fictional works with Orcs that came after left out these details.

Next came World Of Warcraft, THE MMO since it was released in 2004 which destroyed or outlasted every competitor, surviving for 12 full years and still going on. While most of the changes added in WoW remain only important to Warcraft continuity as they haven't migrated into the mainstream yet, non-evil (or at least neutral) Orcs put upon both by their evil kin and the hateful humanity became a staple of fantasy fiction moving forwards.

So while Warcraft didn't pioneer the idea of non-evil Orcs, greenskins with tusks, or Orcs being in control of their own destiny rather than being pawns in the schemes of a greater power, it did make the Master Template a staple of fantasy fiction.

Mold-Breakers

As the above suggests, orcs are typically your generic barbarian rapine-horde of bad-guys in most fantasy settings. However, there are a couple of notable exceptions.

Al-Qadim is notable for being probably the first full-on retooling of the orcs from "rampaging barbarian tribes" to "just one more fantasy race that mostly gets along with the others." This is mostly because, rather than having all the races living in their own corners of the world with their own cultures, the deserts of Al-Qadim saw lots of racial mixing around the few oases, and thus a single unified culture comprised of multiple races formed. The only enemies who are always evil are explicitly supernatural, like the YAKMEN! Also, the most likely setting ever for elf-orc crossbreeding.

Eberron gave its orcs a status as a relatively peaceful race who were once responsible for combating the threat of aberration hordes from beyond the stars, as well as founders of the tradition of druidism in-setting. Even in the present, they tend to live in the swamp-regions and do no harm; they freely mingle with humans and adopt them into their tribes, so half-orcs are not only common, but have an expectation of being born from consensual relationships, rather than the "orc man raping a human woman" expectation of most other D&D settings. The Demon Wastes are even full of human, orc, and half-orc barbarian clans all living and fighting and drinking together for the glory of Kalok Shash, an incarnation of the Silver Flame, in an endless war to make sure nothing else in the Demon Wastes ever gets out. And winning.

Forgotten Realms, although certainly playing it straight, had an exception too, in the form of the AD&D-only orc subspecies known as the Ondonti. A Lawful Good race of peaceful, quiet, contemplative, gentle orcs who devote themselves to Eldath (a minor Goddess of Peace and Quiet Places) and live a humble life as farmers in a hidden valley. They have several Priestly spell-like abilities (Sanctuary (Self) and Purify Food & Water 3/day, Barkskin 1/day and Tree 1/week), are resistant to poison and immune to Charm spells. The general belief of their origin is that they are an example of option 3 in the infamous The Orc Baby Dilemma, with a bunch of Eldathi priests taking orphaned orc infants into seclusion and bringing them up into their cult, causing them to forsake their ancestral barbarity and embrace peace, quiet and advanced hygiene. You can check out their AD&D stats here.

There was also a brief but interesting period in which Gruumush experimented with building an orcish civilization, the Kingdom of Many Arrows, Mongol-style. It was fun while it lasted, but was inevitably swept away to restore the infinite status quo.

Spelljammer is an unusual entry on this list, because its unique orcs, or Scro, are still bad guys. It's just that, in an era where orcs were defined as being chaotic, anarchic, disorganized hordes scro were defined by being cultured, intelligent, disciplined and well-organized soldierly regiments. They are even bigger than normal orcs, pimp out their teeth with much bling, and wear black leather uniforms when not in battle armor. You can check out their AD&D stats here.

Warcraft may be the iconic example of a mold-breaker when it comes to orcs. After making them fairly bog-standard bad guy invaders in the first two games (if a little unusual in that they were also invaders from another planet), the third game offered the revelation that orcs had once been a noblebright culture of shamans and honorable warriors, but were corrupted into savage, bloodthirsty conquerors by an evil shaman and the setting's demonic BBEG. As a result, the third game focused on their drive to draw their beaten clans out of human territory and found a new nation for themselves where they could try and rediscover their past. This led to the formation of the Horde faction in World of Warcraft, which took off hugely in popularity because of its then-novel idea of traditionally brutal monster races (orcs, trolls, undead, and minotaurs) as an ordinary, viably civilized (relatively speaking) faction in its own right. There was even a short-lived tabletop RPG (first a D&D 3.5 spin off, then a more "customized" but still fundamentally D&D-cloned WoW version) as a result. They still fight, bicker, and war with the "good" races, but now it's because of Blizzard's refusal to give up the "dual faction" mechanic and let the story progress along with long-standing prejudices between both the Alliance and the Horde rather than because they're the bad guys.

Elder Scrolls Orcs (or Orsimer, if you wish to use their proper name) are very intelligent and generally known to be the best smiths in the setting besides the long-extinct Dwarves, as well as crazy good soldiers next to the Nords and Redguards. Their skill in fighting with heavy armor has lent them a place as heavy shock legionaries in the Imperial Legions. One Orc even became the continent's best chef. Technically, they're a subspecies of Elf which were transformed into their current state after the Daedric Prince Boethiah ate (and shat out) their greatest champion, who was himself turned into the Daedric Prince Malacath.

Wicked Fantasy Orks were originally the standard Always Chaotic Evil raider types, having been created by malevolent gods for the purpose of fighting for their amusement. And then, one day, thirteen great orkish heroes realized that their race had always been nothing more than slaves, and chose to take a new path. They fought their gods and slew them, and though they still struggle with the lingering blood-rage they were created with, they are now a comparatively peaceful race. They're still a dark race, but not an evil one. For example, they worship pain as a sacred concept... because, by their understanding of it, pain is ultimately on the side of life and it is the giver of strength. Pain warns you when you are hurt, when you are about to die, but it also pushes you to fight harder, to try and survive. Orks prize battle scars as near-sacred objects; nothing comes without sacrifice, and without a scar, the physical symbol of pain, for reference, a victory is ultimately meaningless.

It's not very common, as one can see, but some DMs have been known to revamp orcs for their own homebrew settings as well.

Orcs in D&D

From 3rd edition on, Orcs have been a playable race in the vast list for Dungeons & Dragons, though their stats and standard portrayal have usually been bad enough to keep most people from ever bothering. Even in 4e, most would probably recommend using half-orc or goliath stats and "reskinning" them into orcs. The Players Handbook in 5e outright states that it's not impossible for an orc to not be chaotic evil, but that Gruumsh, the god that created them, didn't give them as much free will as the normal races, making it more difficult for orcs to avoid being evil. (Half-orcs feel it too, but not as strongly, and it primarily manifests as extremely passionate emotions.)

AD&D Orc:

• +1 Strength
• -2 Charisma
• Strength: Minimum 6, Maximum 18
• Dexterity: Minimum 3, Maximum 17
• Constitution: Minimum 8, Maximum 18
• Intelligence: Minimum 3, Maximum 16
• Wisdom: Minimum 3, Maximum 16
• Charisma: Minimum 3, Maximum 12
• Available Classes & Max Levels: Fighter 10, Cleric 9, Shaman 6, Witch Doctor 6, Thief 11
• 35% chance to spot new and unusual constructions
• 25% chance to spot sloping passages
• Infravision 60 feet
• -1 penalty to attack rolls and morale when in direct sunlight
• Weapon Proficiencies: Battle axe, crossbow, flail, hand axe, spear, any bow, any pole arm, any sword.
• Nonweapon Proficiencies: Alertness, armorer, blacksmithing, bowyer/fletcher, carpentry, chanting, close-quarter fighting, hunting, intimidation, looting, religion, set snares, spellcraft, tracking, weaponsmithing.

3.x Orc:

• +4 Strength
• -2 Intelligence
• -2 Wisdom
• -2 Charisma
• Medium size
• Base land speed 30 feet
• Darkvision out to 60 feet
• Light Sensitivity (automatically suffer Dazzled condition in daylight)
• Favored Class: Barbarian

3.5 Scro

• +4 Strength
• +2 Dexterity
• +2 Constitution
• Medium size
• Base land speed 30 feet
• Darkvision out to 60 feet
• Orc Blood (count as orcs for all effect related to race)
• +1 racial bonus to attack rolls vs. Elves of all kinds
• Favored Class: Monk
• Level Adjustment: +2

Warcraft the RPG Orc

• +2 Constitution
• -2 Intelligence
• Medium size
• Base land speed 30 feet
• Low-Light Vison
• Battle Rage: Can Rage once per day as per a Barbarian, or adds +1 to rages per day if a Barbarian
• Weapon Familiarity: Orc Claws are a Martial Weapon rather than an Exotic Weapon
• Weapon Proficiency: Automatically receive Martial Weapon Proficiency (Battleaxe) as a bonus feat
• +2 racial bonus to Handle Animal (Wolf) checks and Intimidate checks. Handle Animal (Wolf) and Intimidate are always Class Skills for orcs.
• +1 racial bonus to attack rolls against humans
• Favored Class: Fighter

World of Warcraft the RPG Orc

• +2 Stamina
• -2 Intellect
• Medium size
• Base land speed 30 feet
• Low-Light Vison
• Battle Rage: Can Rage once per day as per a Barbarian, or adds +1 to rages per day if a Barbarian
• Weapon Familiarity: Orc Claws are a Martial Weapon rather than an Exotic Weapon
• Weapon Proficiency: Automatically receive Martial Weapon Proficiency (Battleaxe) as a bonus feat
• +2 racial bonus to Handle Animal (Wolf) checks and Intimidate checks. Intimidate is always a Class Skill for orcs.
• +1 racial bonus to attack rolls against humans
• Favored Class: Barbarian

4e Orc

• +2 Strength
• +2 Constitution
• Size: Medium
• Speed: 6 squares
• Vision: Low-light
• Running Charge (+2 to Speed when charging)
• Warrior's Surge (racial encounter power; make a 1[W] + Strength modifier attack with a melee weapon against an opponent's AC and get to spend a healing surge)

Pathfinder Orc

• +4 Strength
• -2 Intelligence
• -2 Wisdom
• -2 Charisma
• Medium size
• Base land speed 30 feet
• Darkvision out to 60 feet
• Ferocity (can keep fighting at zero HP, but is Staggered and loses 1 HP each round automatically)
• Light Sensitivity (automatically suffer Dazzled condition in daylight)
• Weapon Familiarity: Automatically proficient with Greataxe and Falchion, treat any weapon with "Orc" in its name as a Martial weapon.

Green Skin

One usually wonders where the green coloration of Orcish skin came from, in the old myths (i.e., Lord of the Rings) the orcs were established as barbaric, crude brutes, true; but the approximate skin color was never truly established, the Orcs were generally described as filthy and mucky, with darkened skin and bestial countenances. (Similarly, in the films their skin shades are in varying shades of ash-black and dirty-brown, the occasional bit of face-painting notwithstanding.) It wasn't until the advent of the Hulk comics, and GW deciding to make their orcs different, that the common skin of the orc became green. Because Warhammer's orcs became so memorable, thousands of copycats have followed suit.

This of course may not truly explain why some orcs in DnD have green skin as well, DnD being around before Warhammer, but the a more precise green coloration in its orcs may have come later. Indeed, earlier DnD art shows a variety of skin colors, some of them sallow yellow and earthy reds. Green may have come about because all the other possible colors simply have clashing connotations, such as a calming blue, or offensive real world racial connotations (black, red, brown, and yellow are right out for a barbaric and evil race of XP bags.) Another theory is that Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson, the 2 co-founders of Games Workshop, also had a lot of communication with Brian Blume, the developer of D&D, especially in the early days of these 2 companies, so it is entirely possible that certain ideas were mentioned and then copied.

Piggish Looks

On occasions, a person may find orcs depicted as pig-men, despite the general acception of orcs as being (usually green-skinned) Frazetta Man style cavemen fellows. This goes back to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, where orcs were described as having a fundamentally "piggish snout" for a face and depicted as more or less a boar's head on a hunched, ugly, green-skinned chimpanzee. Some depictions of orcs thusly refer back to this. It's most common in Japan, where AD&D neckbeards grew up to have a huge impact on art, manga and videogames.

Monstergirl Depictions

Orcs are not the most commonly seen of monstergirls, as many of the individuals inclined to make monstergirls aren't inclined to find them attractive. Those rare orc MGs seen tend to be, basically, green-skinned amazons; musclegirls of a particularly dumb "fight 'em an' fuck 'em" mentality with a penchant for either raping men or gathering in harems around particularly strong, tough warriors (who may or may not be made to submit).

In the Monster Girl Encyclopedia, the Orc is a chubby pink girl with pig ears on her head and a pig's tail (see above about how "pigmen orcs" are popular in Japan). She's a vanilla demihuman-type mamono who goes around in large groups by preference. They're femdommy by nature, but happily submit to maledom if a potential spouse can overpower them in a fight, and also enjoy sharing a spouse between them. Hilariously, this is pretty square with what official sources have established about D&D orc sexual mores.

Daily Life with Monstergirl combines the above two having male Orcs be ugly green pig dudes who lust for human (and human-like) women. Thus far we haven't seen female Orcs yet, but like the centaurs in the series they will likely be a lot more attractive than their male counterparts. As a matter of fact, a female orc named Ruka actually shows up in the tie-in online game as one of your potential haremettes; if taken as canon, then female orcs in this setting are indeed cute green-skinned pig-girls - unlike the MGE version, they have a pig's tail and trotters for feet, with elf-like ears, as the Daily Life verse tends to avoid more animalistic ears for its beast-girls in general.

See Also

• Goblins
• Ork
• Orcs & Goblins

Gallery

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  Ork made Exotic weapons.
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  Ork make more Exotic weapons.
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  gb2kitchen
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  What happens when the DM lets him take a homebrew feat to use his Strength score for Perform (Dance) checks.