D&D General What have you done with Orcs in your games?

[DND_Reborn]

Funny thing is, that's probably the wildly original and radical take on orcs now,

Shrug Pretty much how I've always viewed them and run them, despite my love of the D&D cartoon as a kid.

 

[Voadam]

So I normally run a mashup campaign including elements of Golarion and Ptolus.

So the Holy Lothian Empire from Ptolus includes the Immortal Principality of Ustalav that borders on the Orcish Hold of Belkzen in normal Golarion.

The holy Lothian empire is theocraticatically run a lot by the Church of the martyred and ascended paladin Lothian Daybringer who has some associations with the Sun and the Lothian Church has a big history of having taken over the old bureucratic church of an sun god that was revealed by Lothian and his martyrdom to have been a front for a Demon Lord.

In Golarion the Hold includes many tribes of Orcs and they often clash with Ustalav and there are border castles defending Ustalav from Badlands orcish invaders. When I ran a Carrion Crown adventure path set in Ustalav I fleshed out the orcs a little as a theme. In addition to the PC inspired Klingon tribes I also had some worshipping Gruumsh and Co., some worshipping the Golarion Orc pantheon, and some worshipping demon lords, among other options.

So the material for the Golarion Orcs includes a tribe in Belkzen called the Black Suns. I decided they had adopted Lothianism, but in a fashion that the Holy Lothian empire does not really recognize, being closer to the Pelorian heresy of the Burning Hate where the Sun God is actually a Demon Lord who hates Orcus and became a God of the Sun out of spite so as to better fight Orcus and his undead.

 

[DammitVictor]

I run them more or less in the 3.5 style, where they are disorganized and aggressive by nature, and prone to cruelty and treachery by nurture. Traditionally, however, they do engage in trade with humans-- something the other races look down on humanity for-- and are willing to work for humans they perceive as strong and generous, and can be encountered peacefully in their own lands and within human lands.

Not always, of course, but if you talk loud and wear your weapons outside your belt, they're more likely to want to talk first.

 

[Stattick]

I run them like Klingons. I based one on Gowron (the short Klingon Chancellor with the buggy eyes). He was gloriously insane and all of my players loved him. Also, he kept hitting on the female minotaur PC in the party.