"These lands need a caretaker, someone to watch over them and protect them. I am that person," spoke Ursik, forth eldest of the eight.
It's unclear whether Elves, Orcs or Goblins appeared first, but it is agreed upon that they are neither the youngest or oldest of the races. The Orc deity, Ursik, is known as the god of patience, protection, and the hunt. His associated element is nature.
Bonuses
Characteristic Bonus: +1 to Strength or Wisdom
Skill Bonus: +1 to Animal Ken and Arcana
Power: Bear With Me : At the beginning of combat, heal hit points equal to your level.
Size: 5
Biology
Orcs are without a doubt, the largest and strongest of the eight. They stand an easy 6 and a half feet at the shortest, and around 8 at the tallest. They are large, burly, strong armed. They are, from an outsider's perspective, basically bipedal bears. Being a fey race, born from nature as a natural occurrence, Orcs are asexual. They are omnivores, both gathering from the land and practicing common agriculture practices, and hunters of fish and wildlife.
Temperament wise, Orcs are usually quite calm and composed. However, they do take safeguarding the wilds very seriously, and if someone is deemed to be a threat, turn extremely feral and aggressive. This aggressiveness tapers off if they leave the forest as their home, and settle down in more developed cities of other races. They are extremely wise, and said to have almost limitless memory spans. Their life cycles are quite extended, living to be between 200 and 250.
Despite their large sides, Orcs are surprisingly deft inside the forest, being able to move through the canopy of trees without a sound. They are expert hunters and archers, with great tracking senses.
Society
Orcs are tribe based forest dwellers, and their tribe leaders are always the elders. Conflicts among Orcs themselves are extremely rare, since each tribe lives fairly far apart, and they naturally are not aggressive toward one another. Their main political issues is tend to be based on what plants to grow, what animals are fair game for hunting or need to be culled, and what to do regarding outsiders. Their religious views are extremely druidic and shamanistic, and the abilities to commune with both spirits and nature itself are quite common among their priesthood; Orc shamans are the only ones in the world capable of communicating with the dead, and it is against their beliefs to ask these spirits about the nature of death.
It's a pretty well established belief among every race that entering a large forest is a dangerous thing to do, because Orcs can track and locate outsiders extremely quickly. What to do with outsiders is up to the discretion of the tribe, but usually they are either confronted immediately and escorted to their destination (or out of the forest), captured and brought to the tribe elders for questioning, warned not to harm the land, simply stalked and observed, or in some extreme cases, killed on sight. Orcs take safeguarding the land very seriously, and outsiders concern them. They are also extremely aggressive about the concept of expanding the forest's reach, and are known to rampantly expand a forest's boundaries in an odd, slow acquisition of land. When someone does harm their lands, Orcs hold their entire town, city or race responsible, and are very quick to go to war.
However, not all Orcs are forest dwellers. When an Orc reaches about 30 years of age, they go on a journey to a city of another race, and live with them a decade. After this time, they either decide to live outside the forests, or return home. Orcs who live outside the forest lose their aggressive, militaristic tendencies to protect nature, leading many scholars to believe this a pheromone related effect caused by trees and other plants within the forest. Shamans and druids who opt to stay in more urban areas lose some of their intimacy with their homeland's plants and spirits, but not with nature as a whole.
Nifty Contributions
- Orcs taught most the other races how to cultivate the land, and are the world leaders in agricultural sciences.
- Orc shamans are the best resource available to deal with hauntings and spirits, since they are the only ones who can truly commune with them.
- Orcish bows are considered the finest in the world, and sought by adventures, collectors and nobles alike.
Relations with other Races
- Orcs are on pretty good standings with Dwarves and Trolls, more so than the other races.
- Orcs and Elves have a mutual respect for each other, but don't get along that well on a political scale. Elves want their land, Orcs aren't having any of that nonsense. However Terminus is a very common place for Orcs to travel to for study and trade.
- While Orcs don't trust Humans as much as they do Dwarves and Trolls, they do permit those interested in learning their ways to live with them.
- Orcs don't like Goblins very much. They find their need for wood for their instruments and puppets to be wasteful of nature's bounty, and are much less tolerable of them then Humans, Dwarves and Trolls.
- Orcs are fairly neutral to Lithians, considering they haven't had many confrontations with one another.
- Many Orc tribes around the Kitsune empire practice very aggressive forest expanding, to the point where confrontation with the Kitsunes is inevitable. Orcs themselves are fairly neutral toward the Kitsunes, but the Kitsunes themselves fear and loath the Orcs.
