Orcs

Orcs are a race of monstrous humanoids who form societies (of a sort) all across Andaria. Contrary to the common understanding, orcish societies are fairly diverse, from the maritime reaver bands of the Coronet Islands to the myriad tribes of the Ashenbarrens. Although as a rule orcs do not form large, centralized societies (that last for any significant term of years, at any rate), the rise of the Black Sun Warclan in Rhom'Shar has called into question the old scholarly prejudice that the orcs' inherent rage renders them totally incapable of forming an enduring kingdom.

Physiology
As physical specimens, orcs have long fascinated those scholars who study these seemingly primitive brutes. Orcs display tremendous physical diversity across Andaria, exhibiting a number of hues in skin tone, hair and eye color, and even physical build. Typically, orcs native to the same region share specific physical traits: for example, orcs from the Coronet Islands are typically hulking, green-skinned creatures with massive, underbiting jaws and piggish nostrils, while orcs from the jungles of Krakenthorn are much more slender, with blue or purple skin, long, sharp noses, and prominent elephant-like tusks.

Remarkably, there have been reports that, if an orc breeding couple is transplanted to another region, their descendants will become more or less identical to their new orcish neighbors within three or four generations. This suggests that, in a manner not dissimilar to elves, orcs have a primal relation to their physical environment. Yet, whereas elves seem to adapt to the metaphysical energy of wild places, orcish adaptation seems to be based on the purely physical aspects of their home.

Aiding in this process is the speed at which orcs can reproduce. Orcs typically do not live past the age of thirty due to the brutality of their lifestyles; those who do survive to old age usually do not live to see their sixtieth year. To compensate, orcs are extremely fertile creatures: the gestation period for an orc is typically between four and five months, and most births result in twins or triplets.

In cases where orcs interbreed with human populations, the mother typically gives birth to a single child, regardless of the mother's race. Curiously, the resulting half-orc child tends to exhibit both an intellectual and physical superiority over its "pureblood" kin. For this reason, half-orcs are particularly prized among orcish societies (so long as they did not grow up "soft" in civilized captivity), often rising to positions of leadership within tribes and clans.

Psychology
Regardless of the physical diversity evidenced across orcish populations, one singular feature unites all orcs: unrelenting rage. Orcish mythology suggests that the causes of this phenomenon stem from their creation at the hands of their cruel gods. Whatever the origin, rage drives much of orcish life. It causes orcs to be almost universally warlike, and drives them to commit casual violence against each other. The ability of an orc to inflict pain on another is the measure of worth in orcish culture, and there is no law save what will stay the rage of a bigger orc.

For this reason, most civilized people of Andaria consider orcs to be mere monsters, mindless and completely devoid of culture. However, scholars of orcish folk report that many orcish societies are deeply religious, with their various faiths often forming the backbone of a particular tribe or culture. Orcish gods vary from region to region: the most commonly worshiped deities are Gruumsh the One-Eyed and Rovagug the Rough Beast, both of whom not only condone but demand the rampant aggression characteristic of orcs. However, these are far from the only gods that orcs worship.

Owing to this spirituality, in those rare cases where orcs exhibit spellcasting capabilities, the root of that magic is almost always divine channeling. Even more rarely, some orcs practice pact magic. The studied magic of wizardry is virtually unheard of among orcs.

Sociology
The societal structure of orcs varies tremendously depending on the region. Broadly speaking, the following are the general categories of orcish society.

Tribalism
This form of society is by far the most common. Orc tribes are dotted across all of Andaria, from the hinterlands of Althoria to the tangled jungles of Krakenthorn. The population of a tribe can range from dozens to thousands--and it is not uncommon for the population of a particular tribe to reach both extremes in its lifetime. Generally speaking, an orc tribe is dominated by a single orc (usually a male, although matriarchal orc tribes are not unheard of). This orc, variously called the "warlord," "warboss," "chief," or "clanfather," among myriad other epithets, imposes his will on the rest of the tribe through the judicious application of raw violence. His tenure lasts until another orc manages to kill or humiliate him through a more judicious application of violence. Afterwards, that orc takes the former warlord's place, and the cycle repeats. Occasionally--and inevitably--a tribe channels its aggression away from infighting towards looting and terrorizing surrounding settlements and enemy tribes.

When orcs march off to war, civilized folk weather the outbreak much the same as they would weather a ferocious storm. Shore up defenses, reinforce garrisons, and prepare for casualties, to be sure; yet the storm will pass, as the orcs usually will either run out of bodies or collapse from infighting before managing to successfully sack even a single city.

Usually, but not always. In rare cases, the orcish storm is especially fearsome. Kingdoms that have existed for centuries have been laid low by an orcish uprising the rulers were ill-prepared for.

While this description is broadly accurate for most orcish tribes, there are significant variations between tribes as well. Primarily, this variation manifests itself through the worship of different gods, with different social institutions resulting from the faith. For example, those tribes that include a fertility goddess among its pantheon often alternate between the domination of a clanfather--the priest of a war god--and a clanmother, the priestess of the fertility goddess. The clanfather rallies his tribe to war; when the tribe's numbers are inevitably depleted, the clanmother takes over, leading the orcs in a season of breeding and healing. Once a new generation of orcs has matured, the clanfather resumes rulership, and the tribe marches to war once more.

In some rare cases, the orcish instinct of spiritualism even overcomes the orcish inclination towards violence. At least one scholar has reported that there exists a tribe of orcs in the Ashenbarrens who have turned towards elementalism as a way of seeking to control their inherent rage.

Variations outside of the spiritual exist as well. As has been mentioned, some orc tribes are entirely patriarchal, while others are entirely matriarchal. Some tribes are nomadic, some at least attempt establishing settlements. Some are willing to deal with more civilized folk through means other than violence, some are not.

Coronet Islands Orcs
The orcish tribes of the Coronet Islands exhibit an unusual combination of barbarism and civilization. From permanent settlements that bear a crude resemblance to Synari and Lordsleague citystates, warships set sail, captained and crewed by reckless but competent sailors. By and large, these ships and their captains are free agents, engaging in piracy and reaving out of their own greed for gold and thirst for blood. After sufficient time at sea satisfying these cravings, the orc warship returns to an orcish port, where the captain and crew trade goods and squander coin on base pleasures. A few days later, the warship sets sail once more.

An orcish crew is typically comprised of orcs from all across the Coronet islands, and as such a given orcish warship will hold no special loyalty for a particular orcish port town. These circumstances give the Coronet orcs a bizarrely cosmopolitan culture: grudge matches between captains and ships are as frequent as the sunrise, yet naval campaigns between orcish port towns are surprisingly rare. When orcs raid an orc port, it is far more likely that the aggressors are a coalition of aggrieved orc captains than another port.

That is not to say that the rulers of these orcish ports are at all peaceful; rather, the ports simply lack the organized government necessary to sustain a naval conflict. Indeed, to speak of the ports as having a government at all is something of a misnomer. The orcish ports of the Coronet Islands have as their origins those island sites where orc captains would land to trade goods with other captains and "civilized" outsiders dishonest enough to do business with orcs. Over time, these sites developed into more permanent settlements, as outside traders built sturdier storefronts and orc captains, with the aid of a personal fortune, retired to a particular port to feast, drink, and brawl 'til death. Like flies, the dregs and outcasts of other societies flocked to these fetid hives of scum and villainy. The resulting port towns, then, are best understood not as political units, but a bizarre and unfortunate historical experiment in anarchy.

In the end, the best lesson for those who wish to deal with Coronet Islands orcs is that the base unit of their society is the captain and his crew, not the port town. Orc captains are all too eager to take jobs as mercenaries, privateers, and slavers in exchange for gold; and, if they cannot find suitable work, they'll simply plunder the gold and slaves. For this reason, rulers of coastal settlements on the Sapphire Sea have a strong incentive to find work for their orcish neighbors.

Indeed, many coastal lords and governors take frequent advantage of this ready supply of bloody labor. Usually, these transactions are conducted in private and in secrecy, though some rulers who lack the scruples of their more honest peers might abandon these pretenses. As a result, in more lawless coastal city-states, the sight of an orc crew reveling in a dockside tavern is not uncommon, although they are expected to cause no more trouble than the usual clientele.

The Black Sun Warclan
The learned theorized for centuries that an enduring, united orc kingdom was an impossibility. Conventional wisdom held that orcs inherent tendency towards conflict would inevitably lead to collapse through infighting of any tribe that grew too large and successful in its conquests.

This theory died with the rise of the Black Sun.

In the deserts of Rhom'Shar, an enigmatic orc known only as the Kharn--an orcish word that roughly translates to "supreme warlord"--banded together the disparate orc tribes of the desert, uniting them into a fearsome war machine that continues to threaten even the mighty Holy Empire of Rhom'Shar to this day. The Kharn turned his people towards the worship of Rovagug, a god of destruction who is said to slumber in the heart of the world. Thus was forged the closest to an orcish empire that orcishkind has ever come.

The Black Sun Warclan continues to control a vast swath of territory, despite the repeated attempts by the Holy Empire to reclaim their lost lands. More worryingly, the Warclan has also come to encompass an unlikely coalition of all manner of savage races: goblinoids, reptilefolk, even trolls, ogres, and worse march under the Black Sun banner. How the Kharn has managed to hold such an unruly mob together--much less utilize them to establish a veritable empire--defies explanation. By rights, the Kharn should have died half a century ago--yet the Black Sun endures, rising ever higher in the deserts of Rhom'Shar.