tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post8304839719308262238..comments2023-06-08T08:26:07.304-05:00Comments on Advanced Gaming & Theory: Chapter III: OrcsRipperXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03506064393275174920noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post-36530261217128424062009-09-22T19:08:02.935-05:002009-09-22T19:08:02.935-05:002 of 2
Having said all that, Orsc are not so much...2 of 2<br /><br />Having said all that, Orsc are not so much looking to lay down their weapons and leave peacefully, as they are looking forf a quiet place, where there is plenty to eat and you can sleep all you want. While Goblinoids descended from a small carnivore (and hence Goblisn can bite the heads off frogs and living rats, and get nourishment), Orcs are primarily omnivores, who subsist on fruits, nuts, honey, tubers, they can eat meat and larvae, but only after cooking it. An Orc in the Forest has the opposable thumb to build a good shelter and he can eat, sleep and procreate to his heart's content, provided that nobody disturbs them or threatens their young (as do wild boars, whoch can also kill a man and eat his corpse, if it's hungry). In a word, a Forest Environment with the appropriate populaton density of Orc can sustain an Orc/Svinn village. So, Orcs are not so much giving up their weapons and war-lioke nature as much as they are gaining peace of mind and food. What happens when the Orcs get torn from the Forest? They get fed a humam diet of meat, hardtack and ale! Orcs get a code of honor imposed on them that generally forbids them to act like "beasts": ie they can not go rooting for truffles under an Oak Tree, and if a Proud Elf spots an Orc digging at the tree's roots, the gentle Elf will either loose an arrow or zap that unfortunate Orc to Kingdom Come! The FOREST, or a VAGUE NOTION of what life in tghe forest is like has the same place as the thought of becomming a millionaire by hitting hte Lotto occrupies in the modern American wage slave's mind. To underscore, only an Orcish Chieftan and a Shaman might be aware of a noption that they must lead their band to settle in the woods, but they might not even be aware of HOW, WHERE and WHY. <br /><br />Why don't the Orcs just GO in the Forest? After all, they appreciate the desolate areas where their bands are left alone free from bondage. It;s not that they LIKE wasteland, but that the Wasteland is the only home where they are more or less FREE. Orcs can not just pick up and go to the Forest because their identity as Orcs was created for them by their Masters and Overlords - those Lichs, Wizards and Warlords, who would use their armies. As Orcs are turend into soldiers, whether by Hobgoblins or by Overlords, they taught to fight the beast nature within them and to be civlized - i.e. soldiers in the service of a worthy Overlord, who will PROVIDE for them. Orcs NEED and are WAITING for the TRUE LEADER to guide them to paradise, which to them is their natural habitat. Same thing that kept the Neanderthals from, going past the shrunken hads on spears into humamn hunting grounds, same kind of thing keeps the Orcs from empoowering themselves and doing for themselves, and BTW, if a missonary from out world came to an Orc Chieftan and said: "You just need to go to the Forest and live there and all will be well", that person would be nailed with a half-dozen spears, and this has nothing to do with how Orcish brains are wired, that's just the laws of our own mundane anthropology and human group dynamics.Brooser Bearhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08487438364129415650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post-63603617498241846952009-09-22T19:07:31.616-05:002009-09-22T19:07:31.616-05:00Hey Rip! (1 of 2)
Any question is welcome! As they...Hey Rip! (1 of 2)<br />Any question is welcome! As they say, Truth is born in a heated discussion!<br /><br />Why did the Orc Leave the Forest? Orc was driven out of the Forest by the Elf, along with the Goblin, Hobgoblin, the Bugbear and the like. Of the latter three, Orc was the most docile in its predispositions akin to a mid sized boar. How the Elves did it? A piece of that story is told under the Hobgoblin, but here is the real world counterpart. It is said that in our real mundane world, Neanderthals at one time co-existed with Cro-Magnon, or the Modern Human. A human anthropologist serving man once told me an interesting tale, which may or may not be true: Even though Neandethal was bigger and stronger than Man, Man prevailed by his use of Magic. You see, it wqs the dufference between the neurology of the modern man from that of neanderthal that the modern man used to rid himself of Nanderthal (and drive him to extinction). The difference was that Modern Man was capable of Symbolic Thought and to a Neanderthal the Symbol and the real thing that it stood for, was ONE AND THE SAME. So, when Neanderthal and Cro Magnon man sytarted competing for the same pasture and watering holes, same hunting grounds and same shelter, Modern Man has figured out to stake out his territory with shrunken heads and other things that one would associate with Disease and Painful Death. So, while someone would stick a graphic poster of someone dying of Ebola over a doorway, you as a modernman would find this unpelasant, but you would be able to walk through the door and punch their lights out if it needed be. Not so the Neanderthals: They thought that a picture of someone dying of Ebola was the same thing as gettingn infedcted and actually dying of Ebola. So much so, that the modern man has successfullyb used Symbolism to displace and drive out the Neanderthal. <br /><br />In tghe "fantasy" world of D&D, the Elves had taken over the best woodlands and turned it into a High Forest habitat for themselves while driving away humans, orcs, and other humanoid species, and if own witch doctors and shamas with no access to the Vancian Magic of D&D could do a JOB on Neanderthals, how much deadlier would the magic of Elves be, where they have a 1000 year head start on the other spcies and have access to aecane magics that go back to the creation of the world? So, Orcs did not leave the Forest, they were DRIVEN out, getting twisted in the process.<br /><br />With regards to the second question, would the Orcs want to give up arms and become peaceful, you are losing sight of one thing: Just because we in the West have a culture and traditon of self-contemplation, people in Peshawar, Pakistan Madrassas and in the native villages in the Amazon Rainforest are a lot less self-aware, not to mention your average person living in Ancient Rome or Ancient Egypt. With the exception of the Pharaohs, High Prists and Philosophers, illiteracy also came with the burden of not being able to contemplate one's motives or to think about the meaning of life. As late as ancient Egypt, when peole heard their own stream of consciousness (your own inner voice) they grew terrified and tried to silence it, because they believed that their own iner voice was the demons and gods speaking to them. And this is just varieties of HUMAN experience in our own mundane world without direct divine intevention and without being able to cast Wish or Resurrection spells. How different would the thinking of Elves, Goblins and Orcs be in a D&D world, where we are not just dealing wiyht varieties of Human experience but the DIFERENT sentient two-legged species competing for the limited resources of the same world? For that reason PCs in my game can only be human characters.Brooser Bearhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08487438364129415650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post-53183765444155758732009-09-22T14:04:54.229-05:002009-09-22T14:04:54.229-05:00Wow Brooze! That is some beautiful stuff there, I ...Wow Brooze! That is some beautiful stuff there, I really like it. What would keep the orcs out of the forest though? They really don't have a hard time traveling over country, or at least I never thought that they did. Plus, would an orc really want to go back to peaceful ways? There must had been a reason why it left in the first place. Not knocking it, just interested. It is answering questions like that which makes a game playable, and you did it excellently! Thank you :)RipperXhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03506064393275174920noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post-64775561480395066502009-09-22T08:02:10.871-05:002009-09-22T08:02:10.871-05:00There is a saying among the undead warlocks, slave...There is a saying among the undead warlocks, slave takers, and other demonspawn, who make use of the Orc armies. They say that to set an Orc free in the Forest is to lose the Ord forever. That is correct, for if a band of Orcs is left alone in the Forest, they will cease to be Orcs in three generations and will revert back to Svinn, a little known woodland being that lives exclusively by foraging and gathering, and does not till the soil or build large villages.<br /><br />Orc is descended fro Boar the way some claim that Human is descended from a Primate. Every Orc lomngs to return to the Green, the way a sailor pines for sea or the maid for her bethrothed. Band of Orcs have been put to ill use by many an unscrupulous would be King by promising them a homeland in the Forest if they just bring the would be warlord to power and prominence. It is indicative of the Orc mind-set that they do not just become mercenaries, loot enough gold and buy their way back to the Forest, instead the Orc bands languish in whatver desolate keep they last found their solitude after the latest in the line of False Sayers has promised them the Home and led them to defeat and ruin, an they wait for the next Miracle Promiser to come along and lead them into the Forest. It is another indicator of the Orcish thinking that they do not just pick up and go back in the woods, so convinced they are of their ineptitude to realize their own ambitions. Some scholars think that Orcs are simply too afraid to go back in the Forest and face the battle with Elves, but then again, Orcs have faced many a battle with Elves and other opponents and typically fight bravely until they relize that their Leader will not lead them to their Homeland, at which point they lose all interest in the battle and flee. <br /><br />It is said, that the longer Orcs are kept in the caves, the meaner they become and the easier it gets to promsie them Homeland. For that reason many evil overlords keep the Orc underground when they can easily the Orc live in the Forest. <br /><br />It is not clear, why the Elves would not simple let the Orcs be re-absorbed into the High Forest and return to their natural state as the peaceful Svinn. The Druids re-settle Orcs, they do so secretly, and are known by Orcs as the Givers Of Sleep. An Orc will never knowingly harm a Druid, but will not show the captive Druid any favoravle treatment to make Druod stand out among other prisoners, and in the end Orcs inevitable let the Druid make their escape. Druids have gained a mythological stature of Demi-Gods with the Orc bands, and if a Druid makes a visit to the Orc band, than the Homeland is in sight, if not for the Orcs, then for their children. Few know of this, and neither Elves, nor Overlords. Gary Gygax has referred to this obliquely in his texts, when he writes that Druids are "Neutral", sometimes helping the humans and sometimes helping the Monsters to preserve the Forest. Druids view Elven magics as alien and unnatural, after all, name a single living thing that can live for 1000 years except for vampires and liches? Unbeknownst to all, Druids are the only ones who can call Svinn to arms and get them to fight as Orcs again. Not even the warlocks with all their powerful mind-bending lore and necromancy are capable of transforming Svinn villagers into a band of Orcs. Orc was created by Elf when Svinn was ejected from the Forest.Brooser Bearhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08487438364129415650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7370162161693557709.post-82295219557829750412009-09-12T11:25:28.246-05:002009-09-12T11:25:28.246-05:00Enjoying this whole series a great deal! Awesome s...Enjoying this whole series a great deal! Awesome stuff.Chris McDowallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11717684225248546716noreply@blogger.com