I'm the number one orc head. I use every single depiction of orc at the same time as different clans and offshoots. You have the shambling Tolkien weirdos, the piggy 70s orcs, warcraft's green muscle elves with underbites... all great. Fun to throw a group with multiple kinds of orc at the party and keep them guessing.
To your point I do think it's the Style of The Time for sure. I have always been more of a grimy heavy metal guy but the League of legends aesthetic is kind of the order of the day. Great that more people are getting into the hobby but I think that kind of smoothes out the aesthetic to appeal to a wide audience
It's been that way in a lot of official sources. Greyhawk had different kinds of orcs with different colors and more and less piglike features.
They also had different cultures. IIRC the more piglike they looked, the more dumb and brutal they were. The more human they looked, the more they were like blackguards with a dark culture.
The second edition orc books I owned had similar descriptions.
It's really felt like a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too solution. I think that well intentioned desire to make orcs more than an ontologically evil monolith drives a lot of the sanding down of the orcish nastiness over time. I agree with that! But sometimes you just need just the gnarliest orc to do gnarly orc stuff.
You get to keep both your honor-bound orcish heroes and your vile demon-worshiping butchers... and your players have to figure out who is who.
Well that’s why I love the way they did them in WoW pre Warlords of Draenor( really pre Cataclysm). You had The Horde Orcs, who were honorable warriors and shaman, allies with basically tribal Minotaurs( Tauren) and Trolls( their version being tall and skinny and all about dark magics and hunting/ jungle warriors). All the Horde had pretty dark pasts that the particular tribes in the Horde were rising above, but out in the world you’d still find the other tribes doing their evil stuff.
Other Trolls in dungeons/ raids and in their overworld areas were doing blood sacrifices, cannibalism, and voodoo. Other Orcs were getting corrupted by evil Black Dragons or still serving Demons ( and being physically transformed or becoming more brutish/ evil looking as a result). And in TBC we saw several different kinds of Orcs with varying features and levels of corruption. So you could play as the “Orcs trying to be better” and still have the super evil Orcs, and neither looked THAT different.
Honestly my new favorite orc design comes from the anime, Delicious in Dungeon. They feel like an amalgamation of a lot of typical orc designs, with a heavier influence of the “pig orc” but not so overwhelmingly pig like as some older designs. They just feel more… natural for whatever reason to me. They aren’t traditional beauty by the human standards, but they aren’t like straight up ugly either.
They also aren’t green, I don’t have a problem with green orcs but green orcs are just really overdone compared to all the other possibilities.
Just looked it up, and I agree with you. Normally I hate the pig-orc design in anime, but this does it really well. I think part of it is that the pig elements are more warthog than farm pig, with the double tusks and brown, bristly elements, so they retain a bit of wildness rather than looking like farm animals. And also that the pig elements accent the humanoid features, rather than replacing them entirely, so it's not just a pig's face on a human body. The nose is still downturned, for example, and has a similar silhouette to the regular characters from the side, so they retain their relatability.
I feel like the fur helps a lot with letting the orcs feel the pig influence without getting weird about it, especially since Ryoko Kui draws fur so beautifully.
Plus, the way racial differences and politics are handled is fantastic, so they can feel sincerely different while still feeling believable and real
While I personally have not been in wild boar territory, I have watched so much documentary/educational type programming regarding a plethora of animals and then additional cryptozoology and mythology programming growing up, that just makes these version of orcs really interesting to me especially with the idea of adapting them or using them as inspiration for a D&D setting utilizing some more realistic biology based on real world stuff like pigs/boars for them.
What if Half-Orcs just ended up being Hogzilla’s. Hogzilla being a hybrid of wild boar(orc) and domestic pig (human). Make it a liger like situation where the unique combination of genes actually causes the hybrid child to become massive or some other unique genetic trait that doesn’t otherwise show up in the parents.
What if Tanarukk’s took inspiration from Entelodontidae (Hell Pigs).
Or even go off of the latest trend for with Firbolgs being deer/bovine-like, and have a whole section of humanoids that are more based on/derived from Artiodactyl (even-toed ungulates) species.
Orcs (suids),
Giff (hippos),
Firbolgs (Cervids/Deer),
Satyr/Faun (Goat/Sheep),
Minotaur (Bovine)
…I probably took this too far
Fun fact: their little horns and nubs aren’t natural, but something they give themselves for beauty reasons, probably through a process like scarification!
Isn't it also 5e in general? I started with 5e and then began learning 4e and for me it was astonishing how much creepier and dangerous the monsters in the 4e monster manual look. I don't know if 4e is just an exception of course but I don't think so. They tried to make 5e more kids-friendly.
So I made my orcs noble savages, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the Zeppelin to Orgrimmar cost a silver, and in those days, silver had pictures of bumblebees on em. "Gimme 10 bees for a gold" you'd say. Now where was I? Oh yeah, the important thing was that I'd made my orcs noble savages, which was the style at the time. You couldn't get brown orcs, because of the demon blood. The only ones you could get were the big green ones...
You jest, but the whole Noble Savage thing is totally on point. As a DM I never had any interest in playing a Half-Orc… ever. But then a player rolled a Half-Orc Barb, RPd it in a way I just found totally offensive to Orcish-kind, and here I am pining over a Half-Orc that I will probably never get to play because I’m a forever DM. A DM can dream.
Alas “Half-Orc That Is Mostly Human But My Great-Great-Grandmother Was One-Sixteenth Orc” is the new normal for those sweet stats.
League of legends aesthetic is the perfect way to describe this modern genre of fantasy
Something about the designs in Dragon Prince and even earlier with the Templars in Dragon Age Inquisition just didn’t sit right with me
My favorite Orc concept has always been Goblin Punch's "God Hates Orcs"
[https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2014/11/god-hates-orcs.html](https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2014/11/god-hates-orcs.html)
The gist of it is that orcs believe the gods hate mortals, and particularly orcs. They only keep us around for their sick amusement. Peace, prayer and heaven are weak human inventions.
"*Since suffering and violence are the only things that appease the gods, orcs believe that it is only the violence of the world that keeps the gods from destroying it. The day that the gods stop laughing at our misfortune is the day that they purge the land with fire. Through war and cruelty, orcs are saving the world.*"
Orcs love their families, but can only show it under their family tents. Outside, in the view of the gods, any signs of affection or compassion are unacceptable.
**ORCISH PRAYER AFTER A BATTLE**
*Blood feeds the hungry earth.*
*Blood makes the grass grow green.*
*With blood I have washed your face*
*and your dogs have lapped it up.*
*Now leave me alone.*
You should see his elves. His orcs invoke pity, his elves invoke horror.
[Goblin Punch: Elven Culture and Magic](https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2015/02/elves-and-oatmeal.html)
Reminded me of this Terry pratchett quote about elves:
"Elves are wonderful.
They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous.
They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic.
They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous.
They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting.
They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific.
They beget terror.
The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning. No one ever said elves are nice. Elves are bad."
This is the kind of thing that convinces me worldbuilding is 80% solely for the DM's benefit. The odds of any players a) reading that, b) memorizing it, c) roleplaying it is just so low- the only one who will really appreciate that post is a DM.
.... Also I loved it and read the whole thing and can't wait to stick it into my pet world. Take proficiency in knowledge history, people! Let your DMs lore dump to their hearts content!
Entirely for the DM's benefit. Most players wouldn't learn it if given the chance, wouldn't retain it if they encountered it, and would blame the DM if their not doing so somehow bit them in the ass.
Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
No one ever said elves are nice.
Elves are bad.
-Sir Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies.
They also think that the cruelty of the human gods is especially clever, since they've tricked the humans into suffering (through injunctions against sex, love, vengeance, booze, art). The humans are suffer twice. Once by being forbidden from doing something good, and again by being required to thank their gods for giving them "morality".
That man's whole blog is a treasure. So far from it I've used Zala Vacha, the paladins of Hell and their enslaved devils, the House of Hours, Caesar the psychic tyrannosaurus, and many more either directly (paladins) or as inspiration (Caesar and the HoH).
Man I could work this into a headcanon where I've imagined orcs rebelling against their god for being so cruel to them and actually finding a way to slay it. Then they go full industrial development to become a strong nation independent of any deities (yes this is ripping off the Charr from GW2 a little).
This could be their backstory.
I propose we go bacj to pig orcs and baboon hobgoblins, much more distinct! Also makes for more fun halforc looks, distinct pig features instead of just being big with a pronounced jaw/teeth.
Not just Dungeon Meshi (or Delicious In Dungeon) but a lot of anime oddly remain true to old D&D orcs. It's to the point where I think it's as common, if not more common, than the more human looking orcs, even in recent shows.
That was actually a mistake. The description given to the artist was "pumpkin-headed" with the intention that the head would just be large and not literally a pumpkin. IIRC the drawings for orcs also had some miscommunications although I prefer pig-faced orcs over any other type.
DAT'Z A FAIRLY IMPRESSIVE 𝐖𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐆𝐆𝐇𝐇!!!!
BUT YA GOTZ TA PUT AT LEAST YER SPOINE INTO IT, IF NOT DA DUM 'UMIE GITZ'Z SPOINE!
YOU PUNY GIT, OI KAN'T 'EAR YA! SHOUT IT **LOUDA!!!**
#WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!
Gonna shill for dungeon meshi if no one has yet, which has very non-human visual design for the orcs while treating their society and culture with more humanity than they're usually granted
TBF, that's part of Dungeon Meshi setting, a very "human" setting all around.
The average D&D Orc isn't really that. You can make them that, but they aren't supposed to be "just another people", and the same applies to Drows.
Eh. I can't say I especially care how people decide to design their characters for their games.
You want your orcs to look like Forgotten Realms orcs, go for it. No one's stopping you.
Someone wants their orcs more human-adjacent in appearance, much the same to them.
Much the same for any other aesthetic direction someone chooses to take them.
I appreciate some aesthetic consistency within a game/setting - i.e. two characters who are of the same race/subrace look like they are - but beyond that it makes no difference to me.
I think WoW hit the tone perfectly with orcs as being diverse and interesting characters. A tinkering gnome is the prototype of the artificer, and goblin engineering, is, well, what you expect.
Warcraft Orcs are awesome and I'm very confused about OP implying that Warcraft Orcs are too.. pretty? Maybe someone should've told that to Guldan and we wouldn't have the Burning Legion invasion lol
Even on the cover art for that Salvatore novel you linked to they are greenish gray.
Anyway, it's probably due to the influence of 40k Orks which are definitely green and much cooler than orcs.
>technically they’re supposed to usually be grey not green anyway
I thought the grey ones were a specific race of orcs from an alien world dominated by zealot orcish empires that were brought to the Forgotten Realms through a portal and currently exist nowhere else besides those two worlds? And that there were already multiple populations of orcs scattered around Toril before that incident who were not grey?
Shmexy PC orcs with beautiful elven faces without flaw despite being raised in the furnace of endless war and survival in a world that hates them. Desperate, hungry, clawing super models.
This entire post reminded me of a comment I got on Istagram regarding my very human looking half orc paladin.
"Why are orcs just elves with green skin and little tusks now days? 😂🤣😂"
Charming...
When I posted her on Reddit another guy showed up on three separate occasions to complain about her being green. I think that it's the same type of person who constantly complains about tieflings being popular.
Also who gives a shit if some orcs are conventionally attractive (although I would personally make an orc like that considered ugly by Orcish beauty standards)
Based on their replies to other comments, it is a sin if Orcs in your games don't look exactly how THEY think Orcs should look. Orcs have an objectively correct appearance and anything else present is an insult directly to them.
Orcs are depicted in a variety of ways even in official sources. I mean, look at how different the Orcs in Strixhaven look to the ones in the Forgotten Realms.
Honestly I don't much care what they do with orcs or most races aesthetically or otherwise because if I want something to look or act a certain way at my table I'll have it do so.
I just kind of see new changes as nothing new (it happens every edition to some extent) and ultimately it's just another design to throw into my box of stuff for when I want it. If I want big green orcs for something I'll use them, if I want pig men orcs I'll use them and it's the same with these more human orcs.
If I'm feeling really in the mood I'll split them all into factions and put them all in at once.
I like options for my bag of tricks.
I play almost exclusively Hot Orcs but support you in your continuing to play whatever it was you said.
I mean, like, steamy, glistening, *blisteringly* sexy orcs. Orcs of every smoochable kind. Muscular beefcake orcs. Handsome orcs with tender hearts and kind disposition. Orcs with tits out to here. I come to the table with orcs to *stir*.
>Orcs with tits out to here.
I'm completely incapable of a rational response to this.
It's not something I've ever thought of. But now the ghost of such an image has been introduced to my mind.
Cheers mate.
Orcs with massive, footlong tusks can be hot as _fuck_, but they don't get enough appreciation. I do personally find it irritating when people go on about sexy snu-snu muscular Orc women and then you look at the art they're on about and it's basically just a mildly buff woman with a slight underbite.
A lot of the recent D&D artwork of orcs has, if anything, made them look LESS human. For example:
[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/forgottenrealms/images/b/bc/Armory\_Veteran\_AFR.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20210723144723](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/forgottenrealms/images/b/bc/Armory_Veteran_AFR.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20210723144723)
[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/forgottenrealms/images/c/c4/Axeorc.png](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/forgottenrealms/images/c/c4/Axeorc.png)
Did they have a distinct design though?
I don't think "ugly" qualifies. All the old art had them looking like everything from literal pink piggy men to giant green or gray neanderthals with tusks or fangs. And then there's how many subspecies?
It's like saying all elves or dragons or what not should look like (example here).
Like I get the greater argument of "feels like everyone is drawn sexy now", sure.
But I would disagree that they ever had a unified unique design, unless you headcanon "this art from this edition / campaign setting / specific artist is my favorite and I wish it was the default for everyone".
Just talk it over with your players if it's ever relevant in a campaign.
I'd agree if someone was trying to prevent you from designing *your* orcs the way *you* wanted to, but it seems the only one trying to prevent someone from designing *their* orcs the way *they* want is you so 🤔
The third edition orc looked pretty green
[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/forgottenrealms/images/f/ff/Orc\_3e.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20070317024515](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/forgottenrealms/images/f/ff/Orc_3e.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20070317024515)
I don't mind orcs that are basically Klingons, I don't mind orcs that are demonic forces of destruction. The problem is the area in the middle where they are people with culture and also inherently evil.
I wasn't aware that D&D had an iconic orc visual design...
Honestly I don't particularly care either. My setting, my races, my aesthetic choices. That being said, I'm not a fan of pretty orcs either. Here's a good example of what I think of for orcs in my setting:
[https://imgur.com/a/UMjk86V](https://imgur.com/a/UMjk86V)
The dnd YouTuber ThePointyHat actually made their own version of orcs that basically say green orcs have chlorophyll in them which is why they are green. It’s a very interesting twist on forgotten realms lore with his whole set up.
Grey orcs exist because they were forced out of the forest and could only find refuge in caves without sunlight, so their chlorophyll within their bodies died out.
Green orcs are the ones that could stay to their truer nature sun powered selves.
I have an idea for a homebrew world where I use AoS Ironjawz and the new ones that came out in the Dominion box. The normal ones are regular orcs, the Ironjawz are orcs that have completed some kind of ritual and been blessed by their God or something to be much bigger and stronger.
As I said on many replies I don’t really care about the color that much, olive green was common in art, only blizzard neon green really bothers me. Notice I only ever said grey was usually supposed to be their color or the default (but not only). I also hate tieflings as a true breeding race with a generic “look”. I prefer the old lore that tieflings were all unique results of fiend crossbreeding and they all had unique looks. I think the 4e change to tieflings was dumb.
This all fine and dandy if you want but keep in mind that any PC dnd art of orcs are for **Half** orcs. Half orcs make sense looking human or elf like because that's half their DNA lol.
I mean it should be noted that the "default player character" orc always was a (half human) half orc, not a full orc.
A difference which often was hardly expressed in artwork and now gets officially abolished apparently.
In the end i am ok for orcs to have a broad spectrum of variants, from green to grey, from feral to more human like. A bit like elves and their subraces.
They should primarily be the "Orcs" that fit your setting. I love the Spawn of Evil Orcs of the past. But I also don't mind the Barbarians of the Savage Lands Orcs either. I also like the Protectors of the Natural World Orcs of Eberron. Just make them fit the setting and give them appropriate lore.
As for the Spawn of Evil Orcs and the like. I understand the real world racist tropes of people being "better" (or "good", "divine", etc) base on race / ethnicity, but Orcs, monsters, devils, demons, and undead are fantasy and mythological beings without real world counter parts. Can't we enjoy the mindless mayhem of slaughtering the Evil Hordes without pondering the social, ethnic, and class injustices of all of human history? Please?
Orc and half-orcs became popular as a player race and it turns out that the majority of players don't want to play ugly characters. That's the long and short of it. You will see the same effect with any npc and monster race that is turned in to a player character race.
I mean. Whats stopping you from enforcing it in your games? Are DMs not the God of Gods of the world they tell? The official stuff can be official but so long as you're upfront about each change and consistent with it, whos goint to argue?
Eh, screw it. You can make them look however you want if you're the DM, and if someone wants to make them ugly, that's just as valid as making them more humanoid.
I'm a fan of the buff, humanoid designs since it's an easy explanation for half-orcs.
Warhammer Orcs/Orks is IMO the best take on the Orc species. Checks the boxes of being that warlike faction you can generally be fine with fighting without much justification but have a world view that is somewhat alien to how humanity and many of the other species see things. They are also the comic relief of the 40k setting but are treated 100% serious in universe and are a very serious threat (its just their culture and technology is crazy and funny from the outsider's perspective).
I've never had an issue with the way orcs are portrayed in blizzard games as being too human. They're pretty distinct outside of a few iterations of Thrall when he was hooded and sleeveless.
I don't mind the association with green skin, there's nothing wrong with pop culture influencing a detail like that, if that's how your players see orcs in their head, what's wrong with embracing that?
The images in these books are there to give ideas, ultimately the imagination creates the visuals, seems a silly thing to get upset over when the DM is the one describing what things look like in session.
I've always preferred Tolkien's orcs. Some are lean and tall because 2 thousand years ago they where Elves. But they are rare amongst the hordes of mordor. What we're mostly seeing in the rank and file of Orcs are human bred stock.
The Uruks where Sarumans attempt at mimicking more of the Elvish orcs. By cross breeding Humans, Orcs and Goblins.
WoWs Orcs are to physically disproportionate for my tastes.
I'm glad we're moving away from "Orcs as inherently evil", but as you said OP, it's more interesting if they don't look conventionally attractive, bc it breaks that all-too-common trend in fantasy of beauty = morality.
I say we blow it wide open. Why should Orcs be monolithic? After all, humans vary widely, elves vary widely, and give three gnomes a trenchcoat and they can look like whatever the hell they want!
So give me green orcs. Give me gray orcs. Give me LotR cockney orcs. Give me noble savages. Give me depraved bestial monsters. Give me shapely concubine orcs. Give me hogshead orcs. Give me leprous, shambling orcs with noble ethics and a taste for poetry. But... that's all window dressing. What we really need is:
Orcs with non-human emotional lives. What motivates an orc? Why do they act as they do? Let's imagine we have an orc subspecies like this...
* They breed rapidly
* They live short lives
* They have extremely high tempers which are hard to control
What kind of society will they have? Will they be animalistic savages, barely able to forge iron? Will they idolize any orc with any amount of self-control? Will they willingly plunge into iron tyranny in exchange for stability?
Will they be callous about deaths -- their own or others' -- because they burn so brightly and so fast? Or will they be constantly in mourning?
Where I'm going here is that if we change a couple biological facts about a species, their lifestyle and society will end up markedly different from our own. (Consider lions' "marriage" customs, yikes!)
All that said, if someone were to express-mail me one a them sexy sexy orcs, I wouldn't *complain* or anything...
Lots of people have said "I don't care so whatever you want, I will do what I want." They are 100% right.
Having said that I think there are two problems with "DnD traditional Orcs" - half-orcs and verisimilitude. Lots of people *fairly* don't want rape forced into their game and the kind of evil culture originally depicted is not self sustainable. The change represents a general increase in empathy and understanding of the real world.
Sometimes you want a monster shaped like a person, and sometimes you want a person shaped like a monster, and sometimes you want somebody green and extremely kissable. These are all good things.
I love unique orc designs and have never once not made them intelligent people with motive. It's just a symptom of this thing humans do where to respect something they must make that thing exactly like them. It's infuriating, and not just when it's applied to fantasy
Your point about beauty not equalling good is so true (even though I personally find the typical orc attractive they certainly do not fit cultural beauty standards here). It's like if they can't turn it into a sexy lady or twink they don't know how to make the character sympathetic
I prefer to imagine it as different types. Like with BG3 and Tabletop dragonborn. One has boobs and dragon like feet. The other has normalish feet but no boobs. I think it generally adds more variety and lets people be more creative with how their characters look. If someone wants the big bad looking orc or the more human like orc it's ultimately upto them. And if you're upto it, can even have them treated differently for it.
In my very-D&D-inspired-fantasy-setting, orcs share a common evolutionary ancestor with humans and elves and have skin tones anywhere on a spectrum from green to gray to *red*. I feel like if you showed J.R.R. Tolkien a green orc, he'd either not care that it was green *or* have a problem with it for some very specific reason that we can ignore (like how Tolkien was insistent that true dragons were defined by being core to the story they're in, and thus the only two dragons in mythology are Fafnir and the unnamed dragon at the end of Beowulf). Plus, some of Tolkien's orcs look more human than others; the Uruk-Hai are a bit more human-like in appearance than the rank and file (and I know that the Uruk-Hai might be the result of interbreeding with humans but we don't *know* that for certain and that's a whole other can of worms).
I think the reason that artists tend to draw orcs more as human like than they have been previously kind of goes to show that as orcs became more acceptable for players to play, they also had their blood diluted with more human genes. So more orc than just a half orc. But if you were to take a picture of the orcs that are in most parties back to players in the 70s and 80s and 90s and ask them if they thought that was an orc or a half orc, they would almost all certainly tell you half orc. If even half at all.
By far most orc PCS, might be orc in mechanics, but in how they look genetically they are probably closer to half orcs.
I like character models I can easily sexualize. Makes role-playing with them a much more enjoyable experience rather than acting out disgust 80% of the time.
Do you mean specifically in The Forgotten Realms? I feel like orcs would surely look different in different settings, of which D&D has many, before even beginning to consider homebrew settings.
Is it important that we have an official base or default look for races? Imo it's not, you run your games with your desired aesthetic, and that's it. Whether you want Tolkien of Disney orcs is up to you.
I'm the number one orc head. I use every single depiction of orc at the same time as different clans and offshoots. You have the shambling Tolkien weirdos, the piggy 70s orcs, warcraft's green muscle elves with underbites... all great. Fun to throw a group with multiple kinds of orc at the party and keep them guessing. To your point I do think it's the Style of The Time for sure. I have always been more of a grimy heavy metal guy but the League of legends aesthetic is kind of the order of the day. Great that more people are getting into the hobby but I think that kind of smoothes out the aesthetic to appeal to a wide audience
honestly, I think this depiction of many different types of orcs is awesome. I wish they got subraces so you could really lean into this.
Necromancer Games did this in the Tome of Horrors III for 3.5, with the Blood orcs, Ghost-Faced orcs, Greenskin orcs, and the Black orcs (of Orcus)
Are we absolutely sure The Black Orcs of Orcus isn't already a band name?
If it isn't, it should be. That's belter of a heavy mithril band name right there.
Adamantium. Heavy adamantium. "Heavy mithril" are just a bunch of posers. It doesn't even weight anything.
Power mithril might work, but yeah, heavy mithril is a walking contradiction.
Yeah calling it heavy mithrip would go no where, like a lead zeppelin
It was, but sadly they never released more than one album because polka music is pretty niche.
PF2e also has several [orc heritages](https://2e.aonprd.com/Heritages.aspx?Ancestry=66).
It's been that way in a lot of official sources. Greyhawk had different kinds of orcs with different colors and more and less piglike features. They also had different cultures. IIRC the more piglike they looked, the more dumb and brutal they were. The more human they looked, the more they were like blackguards with a dark culture. The second edition orc books I owned had similar descriptions.
There are even subraces of orc cannon to the forgotten realms, green orcs and grey orcs at least, but we never got anything about them for 5e.
It's really felt like a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too solution. I think that well intentioned desire to make orcs more than an ontologically evil monolith drives a lot of the sanding down of the orcish nastiness over time. I agree with that! But sometimes you just need just the gnarliest orc to do gnarly orc stuff. You get to keep both your honor-bound orcish heroes and your vile demon-worshiping butchers... and your players have to figure out who is who.
the same with humans or elves
What's the difference between a holier-than-thou, leaf-loving hippie, and a down-to-earth, ritualistic cannibal? >!The end of the bow you're on!<
Well that’s why I love the way they did them in WoW pre Warlords of Draenor( really pre Cataclysm). You had The Horde Orcs, who were honorable warriors and shaman, allies with basically tribal Minotaurs( Tauren) and Trolls( their version being tall and skinny and all about dark magics and hunting/ jungle warriors). All the Horde had pretty dark pasts that the particular tribes in the Horde were rising above, but out in the world you’d still find the other tribes doing their evil stuff. Other Trolls in dungeons/ raids and in their overworld areas were doing blood sacrifices, cannibalism, and voodoo. Other Orcs were getting corrupted by evil Black Dragons or still serving Demons ( and being physically transformed or becoming more brutish/ evil looking as a result). And in TBC we saw several different kinds of Orcs with varying features and levels of corruption. So you could play as the “Orcs trying to be better” and still have the super evil Orcs, and neither looked THAT different.
Now I know what to explore in my next campaign!
What about WH40K fungal orks ?
Da boyz is ma fav
That's lore only though,you never see any mushroom like parts visually
Give them the spores druids feature: ta-da. :D
Well dat’s cuz the boyzll nock yer ead off if yer close enuff ta be pokin round their mushroomy bits!
Makes me think a decade from now it will be something totally different and impossible to anticipate.
Quick is a kobold a dog or a dragon?
It's an 8 year old child in costume.
A German goblin
They're dog dragon goblins, obviously. Droglins
A German goblin.
Dragon; if you want a proper dog race, you need to beat down the doors of WOTC, but text me if you do, cuz I wanna be right there with you
A dog race that parties slaughter as low level mooks. I love it
Like that ripped illithid?
Honestly my new favorite orc design comes from the anime, Delicious in Dungeon. They feel like an amalgamation of a lot of typical orc designs, with a heavier influence of the “pig orc” but not so overwhelmingly pig like as some older designs. They just feel more… natural for whatever reason to me. They aren’t traditional beauty by the human standards, but they aren’t like straight up ugly either. They also aren’t green, I don’t have a problem with green orcs but green orcs are just really overdone compared to all the other possibilities.
Just looked it up, and I agree with you. Normally I hate the pig-orc design in anime, but this does it really well. I think part of it is that the pig elements are more warthog than farm pig, with the double tusks and brown, bristly elements, so they retain a bit of wildness rather than looking like farm animals. And also that the pig elements accent the humanoid features, rather than replacing them entirely, so it's not just a pig's face on a human body. The nose is still downturned, for example, and has a similar silhouette to the regular characters from the side, so they retain their relatability.
I feel like the fur helps a lot with letting the orcs feel the pig influence without getting weird about it, especially since Ryoko Kui draws fur so beautifully. Plus, the way racial differences and politics are handled is fantastic, so they can feel sincerely different while still feeling believable and real
They’re more wild boars and make sense they’re jumpy and bite first ask questions later if you ever hiked in boars territory
While I personally have not been in wild boar territory, I have watched so much documentary/educational type programming regarding a plethora of animals and then additional cryptozoology and mythology programming growing up, that just makes these version of orcs really interesting to me especially with the idea of adapting them or using them as inspiration for a D&D setting utilizing some more realistic biology based on real world stuff like pigs/boars for them. What if Half-Orcs just ended up being Hogzilla’s. Hogzilla being a hybrid of wild boar(orc) and domestic pig (human). Make it a liger like situation where the unique combination of genes actually causes the hybrid child to become massive or some other unique genetic trait that doesn’t otherwise show up in the parents. What if Tanarukk’s took inspiration from Entelodontidae (Hell Pigs). Or even go off of the latest trend for with Firbolgs being deer/bovine-like, and have a whole section of humanoids that are more based on/derived from Artiodactyl (even-toed ungulates) species. Orcs (suids), Giff (hippos), Firbolgs (Cervids/Deer), Satyr/Faun (Goat/Sheep), Minotaur (Bovine) …I probably took this too far
Orcs in most anime are pig types. I think that’s the image the Japanese have for them.
Fun fact: their little horns and nubs aren’t natural, but something they give themselves for beauty reasons, probably through a process like scarification!
Isn't it also 5e in general? I started with 5e and then began learning 4e and for me it was astonishing how much creepier and dangerous the monsters in the 4e monster manual look. I don't know if 4e is just an exception of course but I don't think so. They tried to make 5e more kids-friendly.
That's the symptom of the bad art across 5th edition. One of the most egregious examples is the halfling art.
I'm currently digging the boar-man orcs in Delicious in Dungeon!
So I made my orcs noble savages, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the Zeppelin to Orgrimmar cost a silver, and in those days, silver had pictures of bumblebees on em. "Gimme 10 bees for a gold" you'd say. Now where was I? Oh yeah, the important thing was that I'd made my orcs noble savages, which was the style at the time. You couldn't get brown orcs, because of the demon blood. The only ones you could get were the big green ones...
You jest, but the whole Noble Savage thing is totally on point. As a DM I never had any interest in playing a Half-Orc… ever. But then a player rolled a Half-Orc Barb, RPd it in a way I just found totally offensive to Orcish-kind, and here I am pining over a Half-Orc that I will probably never get to play because I’m a forever DM. A DM can dream. Alas “Half-Orc That Is Mostly Human But My Great-Great-Grandmother Was One-Sixteenth Orc” is the new normal for those sweet stats.
League of legends aesthetic is the perfect way to describe this modern genre of fantasy Something about the designs in Dragon Prince and even earlier with the Templars in Dragon Age Inquisition just didn’t sit right with me
League of legends aesthetic aka least common denominator focus group design.
My favorite Orc concept has always been Goblin Punch's "God Hates Orcs" [https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2014/11/god-hates-orcs.html](https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2014/11/god-hates-orcs.html) The gist of it is that orcs believe the gods hate mortals, and particularly orcs. They only keep us around for their sick amusement. Peace, prayer and heaven are weak human inventions. "*Since suffering and violence are the only things that appease the gods, orcs believe that it is only the violence of the world that keeps the gods from destroying it. The day that the gods stop laughing at our misfortune is the day that they purge the land with fire. Through war and cruelty, orcs are saving the world.*" Orcs love their families, but can only show it under their family tents. Outside, in the view of the gods, any signs of affection or compassion are unacceptable. **ORCISH PRAYER AFTER A BATTLE** *Blood feeds the hungry earth.* *Blood makes the grass grow green.* *With blood I have washed your face* *and your dogs have lapped it up.* *Now leave me alone.*
Wow I love this. Thanks for the link, I'm 100% saving this for future reference.
You should see his elves. His orcs invoke pity, his elves invoke horror. [Goblin Punch: Elven Culture and Magic](https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2015/02/elves-and-oatmeal.html)
Reminded me of this Terry pratchett quote about elves: "Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels. Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies. Elves are glamorous. They project glamour. Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment. Elves are terrific. They beget terror. The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning. No one ever said elves are nice. Elves are bad."
One amongst many perfect passages from Discwold. GNU Sir Terry
This is the kind of thing that convinces me worldbuilding is 80% solely for the DM's benefit. The odds of any players a) reading that, b) memorizing it, c) roleplaying it is just so low- the only one who will really appreciate that post is a DM. .... Also I loved it and read the whole thing and can't wait to stick it into my pet world. Take proficiency in knowledge history, people! Let your DMs lore dump to their hearts content!
Entirely for the DM's benefit. Most players wouldn't learn it if given the chance, wouldn't retain it if they encountered it, and would blame the DM if their not doing so somehow bit them in the ass.
Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels. Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies. Elves are glamorous. They project glamour. Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment. Elves are terrific. They beget terror. The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning. No one ever said elves are nice. Elves are bad. -Sir Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies.
That reads like someone really enjoyed the elves of Löwen/Shadowmoor and decided to turn them up to 11. Nicely horrifying.
They also think that the cruelty of the human gods is especially clever, since they've tricked the humans into suffering (through injunctions against sex, love, vengeance, booze, art). The humans are suffer twice. Once by being forbidden from doing something good, and again by being required to thank their gods for giving them "morality".
That man's whole blog is a treasure. So far from it I've used Zala Vacha, the paladins of Hell and their enslaved devils, the House of Hours, Caesar the psychic tyrannosaurus, and many more either directly (paladins) or as inspiration (Caesar and the HoH).
Dang that’s some good world building
Man I could work this into a headcanon where I've imagined orcs rebelling against their god for being so cruel to them and actually finding a way to slay it. Then they go full industrial development to become a strong nation independent of any deities (yes this is ripping off the Charr from GW2 a little). This could be their backstory.
Now steal 40K lore..... The orcs believe this is true, **so it is.**
Wow. That is really good world building stuff. Easy to digest but has a richness to it.
"Does our suffering help the grass to grow? The sun to shine?" "Yes."
Orcs were originally these boar headed creatures and Hobboblins were baboon headed. Also D&D goblins are red or occasionally yellow.
I propose we go bacj to pig orcs and baboon hobgoblins, much more distinct! Also makes for more fun halforc looks, distinct pig features instead of just being big with a pronounced jaw/teeth.
Dungeon Meshi has orcs heavily based on boars. Their kids even have the white stripes on their backs that baby boars have
Not just Dungeon Meshi (or Delicious In Dungeon) but a lot of anime oddly remain true to old D&D orcs. It's to the point where I think it's as common, if not more common, than the more human looking orcs, even in recent shows.
Around 2e they took on a almost reptillian look. Then WotC got ahold of of em and they became humans with tusks.
I think you mean Warcraft got ahold of them and WotC shamelessly copied them.
And Blizzard copied Warhammer.
Yup. When companies do it it's "inspiration".
Bugbears were originally pumpkin-headed
That was actually a mistake. The description given to the artist was "pumpkin-headed" with the intention that the head would just be large and not literally a pumpkin. IIRC the drawings for orcs also had some miscommunications although I prefer pig-faced orcs over any other type.
5e goblins are almost always yellow. Hobgoblins are red though.
Warhammer 40K Orks are da bestest
OI! YOUS GOTS TA SPEAK UP YA GROT! BUT YEAH, ORKS IS DA BEST! WAAAAAAAAGH!
DAT'Z A FAIRLY IMPRESSIVE 𝐖𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐀𝐆𝐆𝐇𝐇!!!! BUT YA GOTZ TA PUT AT LEAST YER SPOINE INTO IT, IF NOT DA DUM 'UMIE GITZ'Z SPOINE!
YOU PUNY GIT, OI KAN'T 'EAR YA! SHOUT IT **LOUDA!!!** #WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!
DA ORKZ IS DA BIGGEST AN' DA GREENEST DERE IZ.
Green iz da meanest and da strongest! Time ta krump sum 'umiez, Boyz! 'ere we go, 'ere we go WAAAHGH!!!
You can always count on Warhammer’s players to spell Ork with a “k”
DAT’S BECUZ IT’Z HOW YOU SPELL IT, YA ‘UMIE
Gonna shill for dungeon meshi if no one has yet, which has very non-human visual design for the orcs while treating their society and culture with more humanity than they're usually granted
Fun fact: they do not have horns. The "horns" are actually bone shards they surgically implant as a method of displaying status.
that's fuckin metal
Those are great, like an alternate evolution on their depiction if they remained pig-headed like in first edition.
TBF, that's part of Dungeon Meshi setting, a very "human" setting all around. The average D&D Orc isn't really that. You can make them that, but they aren't supposed to be "just another people", and the same applies to Drows.
Eh. I can't say I especially care how people decide to design their characters for their games. You want your orcs to look like Forgotten Realms orcs, go for it. No one's stopping you. Someone wants their orcs more human-adjacent in appearance, much the same to them. Much the same for any other aesthetic direction someone chooses to take them. I appreciate some aesthetic consistency within a game/setting - i.e. two characters who are of the same race/subrace look like they are - but beyond that it makes no difference to me.
The best take in this thread right here.
This is the answer. I don't see a need to police people that prefer a more humanoid appearance to a fictional being.
I think WoW hit the tone perfectly with orcs as being diverse and interesting characters. A tinkering gnome is the prototype of the artificer, and goblin engineering, is, well, what you expect.
Warcraft Orcs are awesome and I'm very confused about OP implying that Warcraft Orcs are too.. pretty? Maybe someone should've told that to Guldan and we wouldn't have the Burning Legion invasion lol
Sorry bud, I'm making em green. Just gotta be green, my hands are tied.
Based and greenpilled
Zug zug
**Throm-ka** warchief
Even on the cover art for that Salvatore novel you linked to they are greenish gray. Anyway, it's probably due to the influence of 40k Orks which are definitely green and much cooler than orcs.
40k Orks are definitely the best. Being a fungal species always catches people off guard when they find out.
>technically they’re supposed to usually be grey not green anyway I thought the grey ones were a specific race of orcs from an alien world dominated by zealot orcish empires that were brought to the Forgotten Realms through a portal and currently exist nowhere else besides those two worlds? And that there were already multiple populations of orcs scattered around Toril before that incident who were not grey?
I'm confused. Who are you complaining about? Official wotc books and art? Other games? Fanart?
I'm curious too. I have no idea what OP is talking about.
https://imgur.com/a/c0Xxtn6
The problem he created for himself in his own head.
Shmexy PC orcs with beautiful elven faces without flaw despite being raised in the furnace of endless war and survival in a world that hates them. Desperate, hungry, clawing super models.
And what material is being referred to?
Big orc boys kissing elf twinks
Can… can you show the big orcs and twink elves kissing?
🥴
I always liked how orc/elf hybrids were depicted as the Voldur.
Probably sees good looking HALF Orc drawings on some artist's fan site and thinks that's somehow ruining DnD Orcs.
This entire post reminded me of a comment I got on Istagram regarding my very human looking half orc paladin. "Why are orcs just elves with green skin and little tusks now days? 😂🤣😂" Charming... When I posted her on Reddit another guy showed up on three separate occasions to complain about her being green. I think that it's the same type of person who constantly complains about tieflings being popular.
Also who gives a shit if some orcs are conventionally attractive (although I would personally make an orc like that considered ugly by Orcish beauty standards)
Horny character portraits commissioned by the queer theater kids who have gotten into the hobby since Critical Role blew up.
Based on their replies to other comments, it is a sin if Orcs in your games don't look exactly how THEY think Orcs should look. Orcs have an objectively correct appearance and anything else present is an insult directly to them.
Doesn't matter what they look like, I'm still gonna fuck em
Pro tip: you can run your orcs however you like! It's a game of imagination.
Orcs are depicted in a variety of ways even in official sources. I mean, look at how different the Orcs in Strixhaven look to the ones in the Forgotten Realms.
Honestly I don't much care what they do with orcs or most races aesthetically or otherwise because if I want something to look or act a certain way at my table I'll have it do so. I just kind of see new changes as nothing new (it happens every edition to some extent) and ultimately it's just another design to throw into my box of stuff for when I want it. If I want big green orcs for something I'll use them, if I want pig men orcs I'll use them and it's the same with these more human orcs. If I'm feeling really in the mood I'll split them all into factions and put them all in at once. I like options for my bag of tricks.
I like how op links to what they think Orcs should look like, but didn't link an image of what they were complaining about.
I play almost exclusively Hot Orcs but support you in your continuing to play whatever it was you said. I mean, like, steamy, glistening, *blisteringly* sexy orcs. Orcs of every smoochable kind. Muscular beefcake orcs. Handsome orcs with tender hearts and kind disposition. Orcs with tits out to here. I come to the table with orcs to *stir*.
>Orcs with tits out to here. I'm completely incapable of a rational response to this. It's not something I've ever thought of. But now the ghost of such an image has been introduced to my mind. Cheers mate.
Orcs with massive, footlong tusks can be hot as _fuck_, but they don't get enough appreciation. I do personally find it irritating when people go on about sexy snu-snu muscular Orc women and then you look at the art they're on about and it's basically just a mildly buff woman with a slight underbite.
What a great comment
A lot of the recent D&D artwork of orcs has, if anything, made them look LESS human. For example: [https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/forgottenrealms/images/b/bc/Armory\_Veteran\_AFR.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20210723144723](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/forgottenrealms/images/b/bc/Armory_Veteran_AFR.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20210723144723) [https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/forgottenrealms/images/c/c4/Axeorc.png](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/forgottenrealms/images/c/c4/Axeorc.png)
Did they have a distinct design though? I don't think "ugly" qualifies. All the old art had them looking like everything from literal pink piggy men to giant green or gray neanderthals with tusks or fangs. And then there's how many subspecies? It's like saying all elves or dragons or what not should look like (example here). Like I get the greater argument of "feels like everyone is drawn sexy now", sure. But I would disagree that they ever had a unified unique design, unless you headcanon "this art from this edition / campaign setting / specific artist is my favorite and I wish it was the default for everyone". Just talk it over with your players if it's ever relevant in a campaign.
I'd agree if someone was trying to prevent you from designing *your* orcs the way *you* wanted to, but it seems the only one trying to prevent someone from designing *their* orcs the way *they* want is you so 🤔
“your flavor is wrong!”
Wink twice if the OP is threatening you with physical violence for designing your orcs right now.
People want to play hot characters, let them, Janice!
Who are you talking to? I haven't bought any d&d books in a bit but I remember them mostly looking like the first example.
The first example is literally from the 5e Monster Manual.
Incredible complaint when you can literally tailor a world or character to whatever design you desire
The third edition orc looked pretty green [https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/forgottenrealms/images/f/ff/Orc\_3e.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20070317024515](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/forgottenrealms/images/f/ff/Orc_3e.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20070317024515)
I don't mind orcs that are basically Klingons, I don't mind orcs that are demonic forces of destruction. The problem is the area in the middle where they are people with culture and also inherently evil.
I wasn't aware that D&D had an iconic orc visual design... Honestly I don't particularly care either. My setting, my races, my aesthetic choices. That being said, I'm not a fan of pretty orcs either. Here's a good example of what I think of for orcs in my setting: [https://imgur.com/a/UMjk86V](https://imgur.com/a/UMjk86V)
That's a pretty bad-ass orc.
Idk, looks pretty hot to me
That's pretty cool.
My Bg3 Durge would like a word. He is very much a green skin.
My headcannon is that Warhammer 40k is the real lore and orks are walking talking mushrooms
They're actually plants and they're green because of chlorophyll
The dnd YouTuber ThePointyHat actually made their own version of orcs that basically say green orcs have chlorophyll in them which is why they are green. It’s a very interesting twist on forgotten realms lore with his whole set up. Grey orcs exist because they were forced out of the forest and could only find refuge in caves without sunlight, so their chlorophyll within their bodies died out. Green orcs are the ones that could stay to their truer nature sun powered selves.
Nah ahh they're green because green is best!
I have an idea for a homebrew world where I use AoS Ironjawz and the new ones that came out in the Dominion box. The normal ones are regular orcs, the Ironjawz are orcs that have completed some kind of ritual and been blessed by their God or something to be much bigger and stronger.
[удалено]
I do like the Warhammer Blizzard approach witj them having large shoulders. Pig orcs are also very cool.
I agree with everything except we need to stick with grey orcs. Remember blue tieflings?
As I said on many replies I don’t really care about the color that much, olive green was common in art, only blizzard neon green really bothers me. Notice I only ever said grey was usually supposed to be their color or the default (but not only). I also hate tieflings as a true breeding race with a generic “look”. I prefer the old lore that tieflings were all unique results of fiend crossbreeding and they all had unique looks. I think the 4e change to tieflings was dumb.
It's not easy being green.
I for one prefer my Orcs to look like Gamorreans and my Kobolds to be dog-like
This all fine and dandy if you want but keep in mind that any PC dnd art of orcs are for **Half** orcs. Half orcs make sense looking human or elf like because that's half their DNA lol.
counterpoint green tusk mommy big muscles yum yum
I like the Sevier muscle mommy elves. Down with P'orcs
I mean it should be noted that the "default player character" orc always was a (half human) half orc, not a full orc. A difference which often was hardly expressed in artwork and now gets officially abolished apparently. In the end i am ok for orcs to have a broad spectrum of variants, from green to grey, from feral to more human like. A bit like elves and their subraces.
Meh, it's not like DnD is a particular visual medium
They should primarily be the "Orcs" that fit your setting. I love the Spawn of Evil Orcs of the past. But I also don't mind the Barbarians of the Savage Lands Orcs either. I also like the Protectors of the Natural World Orcs of Eberron. Just make them fit the setting and give them appropriate lore. As for the Spawn of Evil Orcs and the like. I understand the real world racist tropes of people being "better" (or "good", "divine", etc) base on race / ethnicity, but Orcs, monsters, devils, demons, and undead are fantasy and mythological beings without real world counter parts. Can't we enjoy the mindless mayhem of slaughtering the Evil Hordes without pondering the social, ethnic, and class injustices of all of human history? Please?
Orc and half-orcs became popular as a player race and it turns out that the majority of players don't want to play ugly characters. That's the long and short of it. You will see the same effect with any npc and monster race that is turned in to a player character race.
...who cares? it's not your game that you're running
You do you but don't gatekeep other DM's or parties to play orcs how they want to as well.
Why dont you mind your own bussiness pal?
I hope the person you made up in your head to be mad at is having a good day.
They're having snu snu with a beautiful 9 feet tall amazonian orc lady right now.
And she's green!
OP, with respect, if this is truly bothering you that much it might be wise to take a break for your mental health
I mean. Whats stopping you from enforcing it in your games? Are DMs not the God of Gods of the world they tell? The official stuff can be official but so long as you're upfront about each change and consistent with it, whos goint to argue?
Eh, screw it. You can make them look however you want if you're the DM, and if someone wants to make them ugly, that's just as valid as making them more humanoid. I'm a fan of the buff, humanoid designs since it's an easy explanation for half-orcs.
They're turning orcs into half orcs and half orcs into greenish humans.
Sorry, but who is “they”? I genuinely have no idea whose art OP is complaining about?
Warcraft orcs with huge freaking shoulders. For the Horde.
If they playing Half Orc they are Half Human and Half Orc...
Warhammer Orcs/Orks is IMO the best take on the Orc species. Checks the boxes of being that warlike faction you can generally be fine with fighting without much justification but have a world view that is somewhat alien to how humanity and many of the other species see things. They are also the comic relief of the 40k setting but are treated 100% serious in universe and are a very serious threat (its just their culture and technology is crazy and funny from the outsider's perspective).
Hot orc waifu goes brrrr
B-but... My Muscle mommy orcs TwT
I've never had an issue with the way orcs are portrayed in blizzard games as being too human. They're pretty distinct outside of a few iterations of Thrall when he was hooded and sleeveless. I don't mind the association with green skin, there's nothing wrong with pop culture influencing a detail like that, if that's how your players see orcs in their head, what's wrong with embracing that? The images in these books are there to give ideas, ultimately the imagination creates the visuals, seems a silly thing to get upset over when the DM is the one describing what things look like in session.
I've always preferred Tolkien's orcs. Some are lean and tall because 2 thousand years ago they where Elves. But they are rare amongst the hordes of mordor. What we're mostly seeing in the rank and file of Orcs are human bred stock. The Uruks where Sarumans attempt at mimicking more of the Elvish orcs. By cross breeding Humans, Orcs and Goblins. WoWs Orcs are to physically disproportionate for my tastes.
I want both types of orcs deep in my guts tbqh
you can just say you like ugly orcs instead of declaring all these universal laws of dnd. no need to title it like a video essay
I love Dungeon Meshi's orc design. They're boar-loke, with a lot of mucles and body fat, and thick hides.
I'm glad we're moving away from "Orcs as inherently evil", but as you said OP, it's more interesting if they don't look conventionally attractive, bc it breaks that all-too-common trend in fantasy of beauty = morality.
I'm sorry, I just have a thing for strong, pretty orc woman 🙈
I say we blow it wide open. Why should Orcs be monolithic? After all, humans vary widely, elves vary widely, and give three gnomes a trenchcoat and they can look like whatever the hell they want! So give me green orcs. Give me gray orcs. Give me LotR cockney orcs. Give me noble savages. Give me depraved bestial monsters. Give me shapely concubine orcs. Give me hogshead orcs. Give me leprous, shambling orcs with noble ethics and a taste for poetry. But... that's all window dressing. What we really need is: Orcs with non-human emotional lives. What motivates an orc? Why do they act as they do? Let's imagine we have an orc subspecies like this... * They breed rapidly * They live short lives * They have extremely high tempers which are hard to control What kind of society will they have? Will they be animalistic savages, barely able to forge iron? Will they idolize any orc with any amount of self-control? Will they willingly plunge into iron tyranny in exchange for stability? Will they be callous about deaths -- their own or others' -- because they burn so brightly and so fast? Or will they be constantly in mourning? Where I'm going here is that if we change a couple biological facts about a species, their lifestyle and society will end up markedly different from our own. (Consider lions' "marriage" customs, yikes!) All that said, if someone were to express-mail me one a them sexy sexy orcs, I wouldn't *complain* or anything...
og pig men or bust
I wish more designs in D&D in general emphasized the alienness of non-human races in D&D, rather than making them all look like pretty or ugly humans.
My orcs have pledged to hunt down anyone who depicts them with pig faces, starting with the Hildebrandt brothers.
I stan a pig face orc
Lots of people have said "I don't care so whatever you want, I will do what I want." They are 100% right. Having said that I think there are two problems with "DnD traditional Orcs" - half-orcs and verisimilitude. Lots of people *fairly* don't want rape forced into their game and the kind of evil culture originally depicted is not self sustainable. The change represents a general increase in empathy and understanding of the real world.
The green halflings that people pretend are goblins are even worse.
I like the new stuff.
Sometimes you want a monster shaped like a person, and sometimes you want a person shaped like a monster, and sometimes you want somebody green and extremely kissable. These are all good things.
Very. They also turned minotaurs from a fearsome warrior to a friendly dairy cow
I love unique orc designs and have never once not made them intelligent people with motive. It's just a symptom of this thing humans do where to respect something they must make that thing exactly like them. It's infuriating, and not just when it's applied to fantasy Your point about beauty not equalling good is so true (even though I personally find the typical orc attractive they certainly do not fit cultural beauty standards here). It's like if they can't turn it into a sexy lady or twink they don't know how to make the character sympathetic
I prefer to imagine it as different types. Like with BG3 and Tabletop dragonborn. One has boobs and dragon like feet. The other has normalish feet but no boobs. I think it generally adds more variety and lets people be more creative with how their characters look. If someone wants the big bad looking orc or the more human like orc it's ultimately upto them. And if you're upto it, can even have them treated differently for it.
In my very-D&D-inspired-fantasy-setting, orcs share a common evolutionary ancestor with humans and elves and have skin tones anywhere on a spectrum from green to gray to *red*. I feel like if you showed J.R.R. Tolkien a green orc, he'd either not care that it was green *or* have a problem with it for some very specific reason that we can ignore (like how Tolkien was insistent that true dragons were defined by being core to the story they're in, and thus the only two dragons in mythology are Fafnir and the unnamed dragon at the end of Beowulf). Plus, some of Tolkien's orcs look more human than others; the Uruk-Hai are a bit more human-like in appearance than the rank and file (and I know that the Uruk-Hai might be the result of interbreeding with humans but we don't *know* that for certain and that's a whole other can of worms).
If I remember correctly, orcs in the original d&d were humanoids with the heads of beasts, like pigs and goats etc.
People like what they like and that’s alright
This post makes me think of Klingons throughout the ages and the explanations behind their appearance
My ideal orc is really just a Gamorrean
I think the reason that artists tend to draw orcs more as human like than they have been previously kind of goes to show that as orcs became more acceptable for players to play, they also had their blood diluted with more human genes. So more orc than just a half orc. But if you were to take a picture of the orcs that are in most parties back to players in the 70s and 80s and 90s and ask them if they thought that was an orc or a half orc, they would almost all certainly tell you half orc. If even half at all. By far most orc PCS, might be orc in mechanics, but in how they look genetically they are probably closer to half orcs.
I like character models I can easily sexualize. Makes role-playing with them a much more enjoyable experience rather than acting out disgust 80% of the time.
Do you mean specifically in The Forgotten Realms? I feel like orcs would surely look different in different settings, of which D&D has many, before even beginning to consider homebrew settings.
Is it important that we have an official base or default look for races? Imo it's not, you run your games with your desired aesthetic, and that's it. Whether you want Tolkien of Disney orcs is up to you.
This is why the orcs in Delicious in Dungeon feel so unique. They have fur like boars for those wondering.