To be Orc is to belong to the tribe. The individual is a branch; the clan is the root. Strength is responsibility. Memory is survival.
Taller and broader than humans. Powerful builds hardened by labor, ritual, and war. Skin dusky gray to deep green, often with ritual scars, tattooed glyphs, or sacred ochre streaks. Eyes dark or shimmering with ancestral hues (earth brown, storm-silver, sky-blue). Wear leathers, hides, bonework, and talismans of clan or patron god.
Height: 183–200 cm (men), 180–195 cm (women). Skintones: Green, Brown, Dark Red.
Tight-knit communities in woodland settlements, highland encampments, or near sacred stones and rivers. Hunting, crafting, raising young, training for conflict. Children learn the chants, the names of gods, how to fight, heal, and listen to the land.
Shamans channel spirits, nature, and memory. Magic is not separate from life — it is a gift of the land, as natural as thunder. The weak shaman is more dangerous than a weak warrior.
Once per generation, an Orc may be chosen by the gods of the Sacred Cry to become more than Orc — a living conduit of sky, stone, beast, and song. Their bodies shift dramatically. They are not rulers, but omens, teachers, and vessels of destiny. Honored champions touched by beast and spirit alike.
They walk between worlds. Their presence is both blessing and warning.
Once feral scavengers who raided orc territory, goblins were bound by the Dust-Oath after the war-chieftain Gruk Stonesnout offered captured bands a choice: the stake or service. Those who swore became “Quick-Hands” — scouts, sappers, snare-setters, and battlefield strippers confined to cliffside warrens.
Today every major stronghold keeps a Quick-Hand Warren. Goblins eat behind the warrior fires, answer to an orc overseer, and may carry only short blades — but they are owed bread, protection, and the right to petition the shaman each new moon. Killing a ring-kin without cause demands repayment in hides or blood.
Uneasy but mutually beneficial. Goblins need a fortress roof; orcs need eyes that see where shadows crouch and fingers that fit where orc shoulders cannot. They grumble about the whip hand yet guard their wiry auxiliaries jealously.
Pragmatic and matter-of-fact. Sex is survival, comfort, and pleasure — no Imperial shame or Orc ritual weight. Flexible pairings, community-raised children, open to cross-race unions. Bodies are bodies. Only corruption is taboo.
They weave encounters across racial lines into their worldview without scandal.
Other races see them as sneaky, useful, or scandalous. Orcs see them as Clan-Kin of the Lowest Ring — not equals, but protected, and sometimes even valued.