Orcish Lands

This document was composed by "HeavenShallBurn" from ENWorld as a response to a question on my part about what an orcish region should be like.

This land is located far to the west of the area known as the Lands of the Plainsfolk. The terrain is rugged, even mountainous. The climate is dry and hot, bordering on desert. Maps will come later, if needed.

At the time the PCs stumble across this land, they have no idea of its true geographic location. They know it is about 3 hours west of their time, and obviously further south, but that is all.

Society & Organization:

Orcs are a quarrelsome and disagreeable race. They don't naturally want to form large groups or stable long-term kingdoms. The largest permanent group they can stand before fissioning off into subgroups is the clan.

Each clan consists of approximately a village worth of orcs, somewhere between 150 and 300 per clan. These clans prefer to remain isolated from other clans most of the time, subsisting on limited crops and the game and wild plants collected by hunting parties. Female orcs are considered property of males. Much of the violence and discontent within a clan is over the distribution of females. The strongest and most prestigious orcs have small harems while many younger or less respected orc males lack any and must fight for the females of other orcs. This is how most social turnover in positions of power happen as young orcs kill failing elders to take their property and position in the community.

Interaction and trade between orc clans takes place as a form of ceremonial gift-giving using the trading of females as a pretense. Once a season during a traditionally mandated pause in the constant skirmishing of clans, groups of prospective traders gather less valuable (but not insultingly so) females and their goods. The females carry the goods while the male clan-members guard and guide them along the way. At each community the traders will gather in a cleared area below the walls of the clan-home and the females will sit upon a hide with the goods they carried spread out before them on the hide. Orcs from the clan-home will then come down to the trading ground with their own females carrying goods. The goods are a ceremonial prize-stake and haggling takes the form of bargaining over the equity of which females are to change hands though they're really haggling over the parcels carried by the females.

Several related clans will form a Great Clan. While they dwell separately any Great Clan worth the name will have a ceremonial center. These temple-cities are watched over only by wandering hermit mystics most of the year. They are visited only by orcs in search of divine wisdom either via torturous spirit journey rituals involving self-scarification, blood rites, and pain transcendence. Or if a mystic present at the center accepts their offerings or believes their search has special value he will make a spirit journey himself on behalf of the orc. This has greater prestige and significance as their closeness to the gods of the orcs means they're more likely to get a favorable, or at least comprehensible, answer. During certain times of the year great processions will set forth from the clan-homes to the ceremonial centers. These processions are full of shamans, seekers, warriors, and offerings (including living sacrifices) for the gods. When they get there the hermit mystics will have congregated to oversee and manage the great ceremonies to follow.

Perishable offerings, including sacrifices for the gods are left on the massive altar stones until the weather destroys them. Non-perishable offerings are paraded on litters into the city and up to the temple. Then at the conclusion of the ceremony they are buried behind the temple in the sight of the gods. None would dare attempt to dig these up as ceremonial offerings are distinct and a curse is believed to fall on those who take what belongs to the gods.

Structures & Settlements

These clans occupy defensible positions near a water source in the badlands. Normally such clan-holds are built of hardened bricks made from adobe and asphalt gathered from natural seeps and baked in ovens with the lightest seep oil. These clan-holds are normally built into high ledges in the cliffs of river valleys carved across the landscape by moving water for defensibility. Where these are not available they are built on the highest overlooking point possible, atop bluffs and kopjes.

At the heart of every clan-home is a great wind-drum. Made from the hide of large beasts stretched over wooden barrels these enormous drums are beaten by a wind-driven mallets and play a large part in the territorial displays of orc society.

Ceremonial centers are always very ancient because they take so long to build. They are constructed entirely from great cyclopean blocks of stone quarried from the cliffs at the edge of river valleys nearby and hauled to the holy site of the temple complex at great effort. Temple cities have no homes or storehouses or even walls because none live there save the ever-watchful eyes of the gods. Normally they are constructed around a circular courtyard arena for ceremonial combat with the temples of the various gods raised above on high stepped stone platforms around it. The temples are megalithic post and lintel constructions around the central altar. Only the hermit mystics are allowed on the temple itself. Chiefs stand on the first step below the temple with their clansmen behind on lower steps as ceremonies are performed. All structures in temple cities, and there generally aren't that many, are built without roofs, to invite the gaze of the gods and prove that those who seek their favor hide nothing from them in the attempt to gain it. At the center of each arena is a windmill made from a single massive treetrunk carried all the way from the green-lands, driving the mallet of a huge gong made from the armor of slain warriors beaten into a single plate by brute muscle power and polished to a sheen by blowing grit in the wind. Its sound and flash are deemed pleasing to the gods and a testament of orc bravery in combat which the gods favor above all else.

Territory & Warfare

The resources of the land are few and widely distributed. Each one is vital to the continuance of a clan. But orcs are innately disagreeable and violent sorts. As such they defend their territories with rabid ferocity and constantly seek to expand upon the holdings of their clan. Orcs drum much as wolves howl, in a form of territorial display. The constantly sounding drum of a clan-home gives warning to every listener for miles that the land they walk is claimed already and they should leave immediately unless traveling one of the traditional paths during truce season.

Non-orcs are seen as game more than anything else unless blatantly powerful enough to command respect from the orcs who respect only raw force. Even if traveling a path during truce season non-orcs will probably be set upon if they aren't both visibly strong and capable of invoking rites of safe passage or trade.

The limited nature of orc agriculture and animal husbandry means much of their meat is from wild game. As such any clan always has at least one hunting party ranging out from the clanhold. Usually consisting of 6-12 warriors they are as much warband as hunting party. And take care to patrol the borders and most convenient routes toward the clanhold well, ambushing any outsiders they find who cannot invoke safe passage during the appropriate traditional season. Any game they catch will be immediately dressed out and preserved to keep it from spoiling. The spoils of each kill are marked by the one who took the game and when they return to the village the meat is distributed by the orcs who caught it individually. This is the source of most intra-clan trading as various goods change hands in exchange for meat from one or another hunter. Similarly power-plays often revolve around providing or denying access to meat to various members of a clan.

Orc warfare is comprised mainly of lightening raids. The goal being not to destroy another clan but to kill their warriors for status or push the boundaries of territory out and gain access to more resources. Females are the target of much raiding, and parties of young orc warriors will attempt to sneak deep inside the territory of another clan in order to capture their females as they work around the fields and clan-homes.

An individual Clan

Known as the Fangbreakers, this clan numbers about 150 adult individuals, with perhaps 1/2 as many immature children (ie under the age of 12 and unable to fight effectively). They live in a cluster of cliff-face mud/adobe homes in a narrow canyon. There is a spring at the far end of the canyon, and a small waterfall where it tumbles to the bottom. The stream meanders about 2 miles before seeping into the ground and vanishing. In hot summers, it vanishes even sooner. At the base of the waterfall is a pool where the orc children sometimes play. The village's small garden plots are here, where they raise squash and beans, and medicinal herbs. From the cliff dwellings down to the canyon floor are two narrow paths, each one at one or more points reverting to wooden ladders for access. Access to the top of the canyon is by a secret tunnel with a carefully hidden entrance. This tunnel is rigged so that it can collapse if needed. A guard is constantly kept on the entrance to the canyon, some mile or mile and a half from the village itself. These guards have a warning drum to alert the village of trouble coming.

The fangbreaker clan is small and isolated enough that they rarely receive visiting clans. Once a year they set out on a trading expedition and visit 2-3 other clans each 1-3 days travel away. The temple-city they worship at is 5 days travel to the west. The whole clan travels there once every two years, but the shaman takes small groups of warriors and the occasional gifted female there 2-3 times a year for rituals involving elevation to manhood, ceremonies for the dead, and other occasions.

The clan has 150 adult members, of whom 65 are adult males, and the rest females. Males tend to die younger than females, even with the dangers of childbirth. There are two leaders of this clan; the Chief - Bou'akie - a L7 Barbarian, and Kochs, the tribe's Shaman. He's an (Adept?) of L10. Bou'akie and Kochs are fairly well in tune with each other, and have few quarrels. Bou'akie leaves most questions of long-term clan activities to Kochs, and focuses on his two prime areas of responsibility: guarding the clan and hunting for food. At any time, he has nearly half the adult males out in the form of hunting parties; he breaks them into groups of 3-5, depending on whether they go to hunt birds and small game, or the bison or mountain sheep or other larger game that are sometimes found nearby. Kochs is responsible for longer term decisions about such things as when to make the trips to their religious site, how many females the clan can support, where to go to trade, etc... Most of these decisions are rooted in tradition, and Kochs rarely finds reason to vary his decisions from those paths.

However, Bou'akie is getting old for an orc leader - perhaps as much as 40. There are three younger males in the village pushing for a chance to become the next clan leader. They are Kzerh, Shalm and Zujoy. Kzerh is Bou'akie's nephew and a tough fighter (L6 Barbarian). He has fought and defeated at least three other encroaching males, and is his uncle's closest advisor. However, he is a hot-head and dislikes Kochs. If he were to become clan leader he would soon try to have his picked man succeed the shaman. Shalm is a ranger L6 and known for his superb hunting skills. He has defeated mountain lions and once even a wyvern in single-combat. But he is a silent, moody type, and Bou'akie fears he would not pay close attention to the clan's needs. Lastly, Zujoy is a fighter/rogue, split L3/3. While the least powerful physically, he is the cleverest, slyest and most treacherous of the three. His mother is the village herbalist/midwife and this gives him a source of power most other males ignore - the women. Aklaty is the village midwife - L5 adept. She can brew poisons as well as simple cures, and is fully behind her son's wish to seek power.

The other woman with a small amount of authority in the village is Varka. She is a spirit-dancer. She dances under the moon to bring good luck to the clan. Note that she is outside the normal city-temple-god chain, and is thus despised by Kochs. No male would consult her for spiritual advice, but she is very beautiful (for an orc) and both Shalm and Kzerh have expressed an interest in taking her as one of their wives. Her father, however, with Bou'akie's backing, is thinking of trading her next year to another clan for a more docile and less troublesome wench.