Quote from: VisionStorm;1125765Unless we're talking about WOW-style cool looking noble savage orcs there's little chance that a half-orc would be the product of anything other than rape. You can't have accidental prostitute babies when orcs aren't even allowed in civilized lands. But I suppose it depends on how orcs are portrayed in your campaign.

I have no issue with noble savage "beastmen" orcs if that's how they're established in the campaign (and I've portrayed them as such sometimes), but that's not how they're traditionally portrayed in the game or literature. Tolkien's orcs were not even natural creatures, but the product of dark magic that twisted and deformed them into monsters bred for killing--I'm not even sure they could reproduce.

The Eberron setting has spent over a decade with their gray-skinned "noble savage" orcs. It works for that setting, and IMO, that setting is more D&D (at least 5e D&D) now than just about any other.

Before one can ask where half-orcs come from, one must first ask where orcs come from.

In Tolkien, orcs are slaves to sin. The Ring represents sin, and the Lord of the Rings is the Master of sin -- Sauron = Satan.

The distinction between evil humans and orcs is that humans still have free will, they have not yet sold their souls. Deviating from that ruins the fundamental truth in the narrative.

Orcs with free will = you can live as a slave to sin and still have free will. It is a mutilation of the narrative and doesn't make any sense.


The biggest threat to primitive humans once they survive infancy is homicide. It is the major cause of death among primitive cultures. Before humans can live in groups larger than 200 or so, they must first solve the problem of human nature, which Christians refer to as our "fallen nature". That is the major objective of mythology and religion, which is to ruminate over human nature and find solutions; when you look at a culture's mythology, it reflects what is on their collective minds as they struggle with their daily lives, and usually it is other humans that are the major stumbling blocks that threaten their safety and prosperity.

The biggest threat to women is rape and homicide. Fighting over females is the major preoccupation of tribal peoples. Mother Nature seems to think that it is really important that we reproduce, so much so that men will murder each other fighting over females. Most tribal wars are either started or perpetuated by fighting over females. It is common for them to kidnap females back and forth. Islamic cultures don't cover their women in public because they hate women -- they never would have survived if they hated women -- it is to protect them from other males.

The Iliad, one of the oldest stories of our culture, begins with the men fighting over the girls that they have captured in battle. They are literally fighting over who gets to rape a particular female, the daughter of a priest of Apollo. Enraged that the men wouldn't give back the girl in exchange for a ransom, Apollo slaughters many of the men of the army with arrows of disease. The Trojan War itself began with a fight over a woman, "the face that launched a thousand ships".

For primitive man, God is between a woman's legs.

Orcs are humans who are slaves to sin.

Connect the dots.

Liberals distort our stories and disconnect them from reality. It is why their movies fail at the box office or their TV shows fail in the ratings. Star Wars, Doctor Who, Star Trek, Marvel comics, and so on. It's because the stories they tell are false and don't resonate with the culture. Because they hate "organized" religion they are disconnected from the ancestral wisdom of our culture.

Thus we get orcs as stand-ins for blacks and Latinos and immigrants as well as nonsensical arguments about irredeemable evil.

As to the stereotype of orc males raping female humans, most rapists in the real world would rather rape a virgin than a whore. Also, Russian women raping German men wasn't a thing in WWII. Hence the stereotype stands.

Evil humans will of course willingly breed with orcs, but that is a reflection of their wretchedness as many such humans will also engage in unsavory acts with animals. No such acts can be equated with normal consensual unions.

In my own game I assume that orcs do not have free will and do not have immortal souls. They are the tools of evil. Like animals, their souls cease to exist when they die. Orcs are evil, meaning they are sadistic and predatory psychopaths. Half-orc PCs are those few half-orcs who do have free will and immortal souls due to the unusual nature of their human parent, although as with all demi-humans (I assume that elves, dwarfs, and the like are humans with faerie blood) their free will is tempered by their non-human ancestry, hence level limits.

Quote from: Cloyer Bulse;1125772Before one can ask where half-orcs come from, one must first ask where orcs come from.

I have played many games with orcs & half-orc in it and never had my mind come up with the strangeness you just posted.

Quote from: Cloyer Bulse;1125772Before one can ask where half-orcs come from, one must first ask where orcs come from.

In Tolkien, orcs are slaves to sin. The Ring represents sin, and the Lord of the Rings is the Master of sin -- Sauron = Satan.

The distinction between evil humans and orcs is that humans still have free will, they have not yet sold their souls. Deviating from that ruins the fundamental truth in the narrative.

Orcs with free will = you can live as a slave to sin and still have free will. It is a mutilation of the narrative and doesn't make any sense.


The biggest threat to primitive humans once they survive infancy is homicide. It is the major cause of death among primitive cultures. Before humans can live in groups larger than 200 or so, they must first solve the problem of human nature, which Christians refer to as our "fallen nature". That is the major objective of mythology and religion, which is to ruminate over human nature and find solutions; when you look at a culture's mythology, it reflects what is on their collective minds as they struggle with their daily lives, and usually it is other humans that are the major stumbling blocks that threaten their safety and prosperity.

The biggest threat to women is rape and homicide. Fighting over females is the major preoccupation of tribal peoples. Mother Nature seems to think that it is really important that we reproduce, so much so that men will murder each other fighting over females. Most tribal wars are either started or perpetuated by fighting over females. It is common for them to kidnap females back and forth. Islamic cultures don't cover their women in public because they hate women -- they never would have survived if they hated women -- it is to protect them from other males.

The Iliad, one of the oldest stories of our culture, begins with the men fighting over the girls that they have captured in battle. They are literally fighting over who gets to rape a particular female, the daughter of a priest of Apollo. Enraged that the men wouldn't give back the girl in exchange for a ransom, Apollo slaughters many of the men of the army with arrows of disease. The Trojan War itself began with a fight over a woman, "the face that launched a thousand ships".

For primitive man, God is between a woman's legs.

Orcs are humans who are slaves to sin.

Connect the dots.

Liberals distort our stories and disconnect them from reality. It is why their movies fail at the box office or their TV shows fail in the ratings. Star Wars, Doctor Who, Star Trek, Marvel comics, and so on. It's because the stories they tell are false and don't resonate with the culture. Because they hate "organized" religion they are disconnected from the ancestral wisdom of our culture.

Thus we get orcs as stand-ins for blacks and Latinos and immigrants as well as nonsensical arguments about irredeemable evil.

As to the stereotype of orc males raping female humans, most rapists in the real world would rather rape a virgin than a whore. Also, Russian women raping German men wasn't a thing in WWII. Hence the stereotype stands.

Evil humans will of course willingly breed with orcs, but that is a reflection of their wretchedness as many such humans will also engage in unsavory acts with animals. No such acts can be equated with normal consensual unions.

In my own game I assume that orcs do not have free will and do not have immortal souls. They are the tools of evil. Like animals, their souls cease to exist when they die. Orcs are evil, meaning they are sadistic and predatory psychopaths. Half-orc PCs are those few half-orcs who do have free will and immortal souls due to the unusual nature of their human parent, although as with all demi-humans (I assume that elves, dwarfs, and the like are humans with faerie blood) their free will is tempered by their non-human ancestry, hence level limits.

Not that I agree with everything or most of what you say but it does have a grain of truth and logical consistency.

Quote from: Melan;1125731I find it interesting that "half-orcs-by-rape" have become such a default assumption of D&D worlds, so much so that it is often specifically mentioned as their usual origin story. It is also one of the D&D elements which are typically found to be "problematic" by critics; that you have a whole player subrace of, basically, rape babies. Quit correct that it would be tasteless.

The reason this comes out of left field is because it didn't seem to be that way at all when we started playing (early 1990s). The assumption was simply that some people just have seriously low standards - not unlike real life - and there would certainly be many more people like this than rapists. Half-orcs would mostly result from drunken flings at the tavern, prostitution, or just a particularly bad taste that was looked down on, but nevertheless happened.

In my experience of traditional D&D material, you don't find orcs and humans hanging out together in a tavern with opportunities to date. Orcs are monster opponents, not date-able NPCs or prostitutes. There's no reason to go into explicit detail about rape, but given no portrayal of cross-socialization, it does seem implied.

Quote from: S'mon;1125740I thought they originated in the breeding pits of the Dark Lord, certainly in Tolkien. Made sense when orcs were Faceless Minions of Evil. 'Mummy Orc and Daddy Human loved each other Very Much' works better for World of Warcraft type orcs.

Tolkien was quite uninterested in saying anything about reproduction, even among his main characters. Logically, the "breeding pits" would involve a lot of rape, but he doesn't portray orc women or children -- so I think it fits better to imagine them as being magically created as full-grown monsters, like how it was portrayed in the movie adaptation. In D&D, though, it's explicit that there are orc women and children.

From yo momma!  

Rape per se makes very little sense. Orcs getting women from conquered territories or tributaries (or even allies, since history has many examples of people making alliances with savages and heathens)? That makes more sense.

And if the setting has barbarian humans, they probably wouldn't have the same cultural divide with orcs and would probably intermarry with them. There's also plenty of examples of civilized men "going native." There could be stereotypes about how orc women aren't as prudish as human or elven women, and at least a few horny adventurers out there looking for an orc wife (This was a real motivation for adventurers in real life).

What really doesn't make sense is that orc tribes are always shown as either being racially homogeneous, or only having things like goblinoids or ogres around. Orc tribes should have tons of other demihumans recruited or enslaved from conquered lands. Most half-orcs should be part of orc tribes, not tragic outcasts living in human lands.

I've somewhat accidentally done away with half-orcs, as orcs are a playable race in my setting. While there is some lore regarding the existence of half-orcs, I don't actually call them out as an option on my race list, and no one has ever asked to play one.

Same goes for half-elves, as well. I think this came about as an intention to do some kind of template for the half-races, instead of a standalone race, and I guess I just... never got around to writing the templates.

Quote from: jhkim;1125779Tolkien was quite uninterested in saying anything about reproduction, even among his main characters. Logically, the "breeding pits" would involve a lot of rape, but he doesn't portray orc women or children -- so I think it fits better to imagine them as being magically created as full-grown monsters, like how it was portrayed in the movie adaptation. In D&D, though, it's explicit that there are orc women and children.

"the Orcs had life and multiplied after the manner of the Children of Ilúvatar" (The Silmarillion p. 50)

I find the magical pod orcs to be a cop-out. Tolkien was circumspect about writing about orc reproduction because it is heavily implied that Morgoth "made" orcs by corrupting elves. And Saruman bred the Uruk-Hai by crossbreeding humans and orcs. And describing that stuff is better left for writers like GRR Martin, and not the treatise for a high fantasy story like Lord of the Rings. Like how the Empire in Star Wars probably did some horrible things, but Star Wars: Dachau probably wouldn't fit the tone of the films.

The tragedy of the orcs in middle earth underscores how terrible Morgoth, Sauron and Saruman were. The orcs probably could be saved, but just try while an army of them are slaughtering your villagers.

Stupid people claiming stupid things about games. News at 11.

No. Really. These morons just parrot/cut-n-paste the same tired old spiel because they have no brain cells to rub together.

Orcs = Rape
Orcs = Black People

sooooo. That must mean Orcs = Black rapists?

Thats what these nuts are obviously claiming then.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1125784"the Orcs had life and multiplied after the manner of the Children of Ilúvatar" (The Silmarillion p. 50)

From what I recall LOTR does imply in several places that orcs and half-orcs (as you say) breed naturally. There is speculation of near-human man-orcs living in Bree, as well as the Uruk-Hai. I remember in the Silmarillion orcs capturing elven females with at least implied nefarious intent. It certainly felt weird to me when I saw Jackson's Saruman growing orcs in pods. That also seems to go against the idea that evil can't create life, only corrupt existing life.

When I play games with Orcs, Half-Orcs can be the offspring of Orc invasions, they can also be the result of normal Orc/Human liaisons and they can be the result of Half-Orcs breeding with other Half-Orcs.

I have nothing wrong with a PC having a story of their Half-Orc being brought up in shame because it reminded everyone of what had happened. I equally have no issue with a Half-Orc PC being just one of a number of Half-Orcs in a village of Half-Orcs.

Quote from: Omega;1125791Orcs = Rape

Maybe, sometimes.

Quote from: Omega;1125791Orcs = Black People

Personally, I have never thought this and don't know anyone, as far as I know, who thinks this.

I am well aware of the worst topics of real life, such as rape and pedophilia, but I don't want them in my gaming. I know the history of war and what happens to the conquered, but emulating that savagery isn't why I game. I'm very much about gaming as escapist fantasy.

Our crew discovered Palladium Fantasy 1e during our AD&D 1e days and Palladium's embrace of Monsters as PC Races was a big deal back then (yes, I know Tunnels & Trolls did it first, but Palladium did it better). Much of our crew pretty much dumped the Half-Orc and just made Orc the race option. For me, I like the half-human aspect so I went with the Curse Bloodline idea.

If I have half-orcs in a game, they're born from human parents, but something went terribly wrong and their cursed blood dominates. Perhaps it the sins of the parents, perhaps its being conceived in an evil place, perhaps its just being born under the wrong moon. Either way, they are neither Human nor Orc, and greatly reviled by humans, and especially elves and dwarves. Nonetheless, nothing stops one of the Cursed from becoming legendary heroes of good.

Quote from: soltakss;1125798Personally, I have never thought this and don't know anyone, as far as I know, who thinks this.

I believe that it was "orks=black people" with the spelling indicating that the orks in question are those of Shadowrun. In that setting, orks (and other metahumans, to varying degrees) were racial minorities that took the place of those based on ethnicity and skin colors.