Half-Orc?

[TedHoes]

Are Half-Orcs coming to the game?

[Tuco]

Originally posted by Hex:

The thing with Forgotten Realms is, that some races are evil because they were created by evil gods or are controlled by an evil god.

No, they aren't anymore, because apparently having inherently cruel (or "evil") races in your lore is now considered racist and WOTC is steadily moving away from it.

[seandeven]

Originally posted by Tuco:

Originally posted by Hex:

The thing with Forgotten Realms is, that some races are evil because they were created by evil gods or are controlled by an evil god.

No, they aren't anymore, because apparently having inherently cruel (or "evil") races in your lore is now considered racist and WOTC is steadily moving away from it.

Doubtful....
Drow society is still controlled by lloths will a dark god that gives them red eye.
Dark Seledrine are dark elves that don't appreciate lloth ...easy peasy. I don't get what so hard to come up with a rebel story to an evil god. Its storytelling game for all intents and purposes, stop peeing in my cherrios people.... Nothing in the forgotten realms have screamed to me inherent evil like pathfinder so I find that particular detail... moot to put it politely. Exceptions to every ones rule



Conflating the stupid rapey orcs and the whole drow thing irks me.
There's a locked thread out there on this very thing.
Think Pumis steered it off a cliff... but I digress

Originally posted by Morsk:

You can only pick two:

1. Less rape in RPG
2. Players can play Orc (or something that looks like Orc)
3. Orcs are so inhumanly evil that kill-on-sight raises no moral issues

I would toss #2. Modern "problemizers" are tossing #3. But originally it was #1 that was tossed.

I choose ...... 1 because rape bad.
Because being raised in an evil society still will produce evil children 99.99% of the time... but that less than 1% chance if the person has a story then its always sure you can be a choatic good orc. Sheesh

[KingOfFriedChicken]

Originally posted by Freak4Leeks:

Originally posted by brynjar:

After a rape, burn and plunder of an village do you honestly believe the next thing on the Orc raiders priority list is to be a damn good parent?!

if they want the half orc to be ok, yeah. you have to feed a mother and if the mother is severely stressed during pregnancy it can lead to issues with the baby, you cant hurt her too much because that can also cause issues. Mean while the mother obviously doesn't want to be there so i imagine she is constantly yelling and scream and trying to escape. Raping the male seems like the better solution (for the orcs)


EDIT: it just occurred to me that you might be thinking about them raping for recreation
i was more talking about orcs who are raping specifically to get a half orc (which they do because half orcs are smarter then full orcs)

Uh..... i dont know the lore here specifically but in more depictions of lore they are brutal warrior people and if the baby is weak or the mother for that matter they would gladly with no loss of sleep abandon them. orc woman would be fighting until the day of birth most likely then the day after be back in the fight with baby in hand haha
They are not ones to normally to coddle or hand hold in any sense and thats just the brutal truth of most orcs in fantasy. They often go into rage easy to so i dont think they are gonna "care for and feed" they likely would do this on their own cuz the mother wouldn't wanna appear weak anyway.

Which makes sense if they are known for taking advantage of the weak in raids by raping and murdering them all, if a female orc knew this about her people she wouldn't show a moments weakness even after birth, if she appears weak then it would put the new born at risk as well cuz if she is weak they might consider the child to be born to the weak and not worth it to even train to be one of them.

[Hex]

Even in the most brutal societies in our history, there were always large numbers of people who never hurt anyone. For example, in Rome some wealthy people bought slaves, freed them, sponsored their citizenship and hired them for their household and tutors for their children, as guards or housekeepers.

That's not the problem. The problem is that they are doing it not for storytelling reasons, but real-life reasons while disregarding continuity and what was previously written and approved. What does that matter, one might ask? If the people owning the IP don't care about following their own backstory, why should anyone care about it at all.

It's just "generic fantasy number 5947640984909340" like you see in so many videogames.

[WTurazz]

Originally posted by Hex:

Originally posted by Metallicus:

Where do half-orcs come from? Who in their right mind would have sex with an orc?

Gross!

Well, back before it was "problematic", they came from Orc raiding parties killing the men and raping the women when they attacked small villages.

No idea what the politically correct explanation is nowadays.

well.... we dont actually question the political correctness of half-Elf origins.... so... why are we questioning the half-Orcs??

In earlier editions of DnD orcs where basically evil... but for the most part lately I have seen a more interesting approach into them as just being savage, not necesarilly evil....

For my part, my most beloved characters have been half-Orcs and I have to say that I cannot wait for the race to be included.... I need to play a Half-Orc Bard in BG3

[Hex]

Originally posted by WTurazz:

Originally posted by Hex:

Well, back before it was "problematic", they came from Orc raiding parties killing the men and raping the women when they attacked small villages.

No idea what the politically correct explanation is nowadays.

well.... we dont actually question the political correctness of half-Elf origins.... so... why are we questioning the half-Orcs??

In earlier editions of DnD orcs where basically evil... but for the most part lately I have seen a more interesting approach into them as just being savage, not necesarilly evil....

For my part, my most beloved characters have been half-Orcs and I have to say that I cannot wait for the race to be included.... I need to play a Half-Orc Bard in BG3

It's not interesting or new. Blizzard did it 20 years ago with Warcraft 3. Here's the thing though, they actually cared enough to make the change by an in-universe explanation that fitted with what was previously written, and they didn't do it because of political activism.

Make no mistake, the only reason WoTC made the changes to Orcs and Drow is because some 70IQ mouthbreathers cried "muh racisms" and some suit who has never played DnD in his/her life decided that it was not worth the negative PR, as they experienced once already how damaging it can be.

[KingOfFriedChicken]

Originally posted by Tinball:

I just went through both the 1e PHB and Monster Manual. Nowhere does it state that half orcs are the result of rape. It just states that 'Orcs will breed with anything.'

The half-orc rape theory is just an assumption and not a decree.

There is a line stating that Orcs cannot breed with Elves. That's interesting.

So half elves - are they all the result of rape as well? Would a high elf willingly breed with a lowly human other than rape?

Strange double standard going on here.

Not really double standards that's not exactly how that would work.... elves are often not portrayed as aggressive so if a half elf was a product of rape, then in my mind it would be the human parent that did this act. Not to say an elf couldn't but that's just kinda how lots of fantasy depicts these things (not exclusively DnD for me just all fantasy generalization) so an aggressive warrior race would make sense that is how it happened.

It's not impossible half orc or half elf both are a result of consensual acts either, but that's just what happens when you depict the races so differently, one being secluded and noble usally the other a warrior race.

[Metallicus]

Originally posted by Tinball:

Originally posted by Metallicus:

Playing Pathfinder with me.

No, you and others predicted a mass exodus. The sky was falling remember?

I never predicted anything and I actually don’t care. I am free to play P.F. and you are free to play 5E so it doesn’t make any difference.

[Panic Fire]

Originally posted by Tinball:

I just went through both the 1e PHB and Monster Manual. Nowhere does it state that half orcs are the result of rape. It just states that 'Orcs will breed with anything.'

The half-orc rape theory is just an assumption and not a decree.

There is a line stating that Orcs cannot breed with Elves. That's interesting.

So half elves - are they all the result of rape as well? Would a high elf willingly breed with a lowly human other than rape?

Strange double standard going on here.

Orc's in AD&D were lawful Evil and would attack and pillage anything weaker than them.

"Orcs are cruel and hate living things in general, but they particularly hate
elves and will always attack them in preference to other creatures. They
take slaves for work, food, and entertainment (torture, etc.) but not elves
whom they kill immediately."

1e orc's were basically pig men who raped and pillaged. Human bandits also raped and pillaged.

Halfelves are only known to be of humans and elves. at least in 1e. No mention is made about elf human rape so its assumed that they had concensual couplings considering both races can be of similar non evil alighnments.

1e was a simpler time.

The fact is that Orc's are heavily inspired by the Mongolians and they are basically a race of nomadic pillagers. The sexual rape in implied but not specified due to the nature of D&D and the target audiences.

This all being said, at least in the forgotten realms most half orcs are now born from half orc parents who were born from half orc parent or parents. There are even towns of half orcs now so its just different.

[Panic Fire]

Originally posted by Tinball:

Originally posted by Panic Fire:

Orc's in AD&D were lawful Evil and would attack and pillage anything weaker than them.

"Orcs are cruel and hate living things in general, but they particularly hate
elves and will always attack them in preference to other creatures. They
take slaves for work, food, and entertainment (torture, etc.) but not elves
whom they kill immediately."

1e orc's were basically pig men who raped and pillaged. Human bandits also raped and pillaged.

Halfelves are only known to be of humans and elves. at least in 1e. No mention is made about elf human rape so its assumed that they had concensual couplings considering both races can be of similar non evil alighnments.

1e was a simpler time.

The fact is that Orc's are heavily inspired by the Mongolians and they are basically a race of nomadic pillagers. The sexual rape in implied but not specified due to the nature of D&D and the target audiences.

This all being said, at least in the forgotten realms most half orcs are now born from half orc parents who were born from half orc parent or parents. There are even towns of half orcs now so its just different.

I agree with most of this but nowhere is rape implied in a 1e source book (that I know of) or any other D&D edition. It seems to me it's an assumption, and a poor one at that.

Its implied by historical reference. Its called rape and pillage for a reason.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by thunda:

Who in their right mind would have sex with an orc?

Nobody except utter degenerates

So based on the internet that still leaves a lot of options.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by Panic Fire:

The fact is that Orc's are heavily inspired by the Mongolians and they are basically a race of nomadic pillagers.

Wait, what? The Mongolians are pretty much as far as possible from Orcs.

- Famous for an entirely different approach to combat and life (horse archery)
- Famous for a large, organized empire
- No more into pillaging than anyone else at the time, more interested in you just surrendering for tribute
- Generally pretty civilized, except for ruthless psychological warfare and being good at it
- Totally decreed a stately pleasure-dome

[Metallicus]

I do miss the more realistic edge of earlier DnD editions. Now we have the sanitized version of DnD to protect the fragile emotions of the weak minded.

[RealDealBreaker]

Originally posted by Metallicus:

I do miss the more realistic edge of earlier DnD editions. Now we have the sanitized version of DnD to protect the fragile emotions of the weak minded.

D&D never has been realistic. It's literally a game about magic and fictional creatures...

[Metallicus]

Originally posted by RealDealBreaker:

Originally posted by Metallicus:

I do miss the more realistic edge of earlier DnD editions. Now we have the sanitized version of DnD to protect the fragile emotions of the weak minded.

D&D never has been realistic. It's literally a game about magic and fictional creatures...

If you say so. Maybe we just run different styles of campaigns.