Orcs

Since the works of Tolkien (circa 1954), orcs have been classic "fantasy bad guys". Their popularity crystallized with each successive appearance in tabletop fantasy games (and the later Tolkien films), and are now one of the icons of the fantasy genre.
== In General ==
In general, Orcs are usually depicted as a sort of combination of various "barbarian" tropes--they're often written as being highly-mobile, war-loving raiders, who sweep in from the hills (or deep underground) to take whatever they want. 
To a lesser degree, orcs are often depicted on a sliding scale of "pig-ness", with some having small underbite fangs but otherwise very human-like features,Such as some orcs and half-orcs in D&D or Pathfinder and others being humanoid pig-men, with snouts and boar-like, bristley hair.Seen in some anime, such as That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime, which has very piglike orcs.
=== I'm The Bad Guy (Duh) ===
Generally speaking, the more supernatural or artificial your orcs are, the less sense they have to make in their setting. If they are cultivated in the ground via dark magic, like warriors grown from dragons' teeth, orcs need little introduction. However, if your orcs are in a fully-functioning society, with generations of individuals, all with their own ambitions and circumstances, it may be harder to justify why all (or even most) of them are baddies. For the latter, look for inspiration among the sources of old barbarian tropes.This is a hefty simplification!
=== Historic Inspirations to Draw Upon ===
* Vikings (late 700s to late 1000s) were a job or occupation of medieval Scandinavian society. Piracy and raiding brought goods, food, and money (in metals) back home, and even in peacetime a viking could find work just transporting goods as a trader. Vikings had a relatively high "return on investment" since they could plunder the relatively wealthy coastal towns and monasteries.
* The Goths, particularly the Visigoths, known for the Sack of Rome (410 AD). Oddly enough, their main push to raiding inland (towards Rome) was economic, both from taxes from Rome and from being displaced from another trope-defining faction, the Huns.
* The Huns, nomads from Central Asia, Caucasus and Eastern Europe, and real-life inspiration to many fantastical "apocalyptic barbarian" tropes (even appearing as antagonists in old Christian tales of saints). If you were a commoner in 450 AD, you may have believed that "all of Christendom" was about to fall under the thundering hooves of the East... at least until 453, when Attila died.
=== Conclusions ===
Based on these notes, perhaps orcs got into the habit of raiding merely because it became "rather easy" to raid from adjacent lands. In GURPS, Orcs tend to have high HT, Rapid Healing, and occasionally Tough Skin, which means the average orc is much more likely to survive minor injuries, and have a lot less of a personal (or societal) hangup about getting into fights. It is, on a personal level, less dangerous to get into a scrap, as an Orc... as long as one protects their vulnerable bits, like the vitals and head!
=== The Great Boom ===
Another potential source of huge orc raids: The Great Boom. Legend says that every once in a while (perhaps every few years, perhaps once a generation), there's a great population boom in the Orc Lands (possibly magical shenanigans, if your orcs are summoned-up) and the resulting great migration in all directions causes some... political friction (similar to the Goths escaping the Huns, above).
===GURPS Repository Variants===
These are all statblocks
* Orc Hunter (Worthy)
* Orc Warrior v2 (Worthy)
* Orc Warrior (Worthy)
==References==
Category:Racial Templates