Orc

Orcs are adherents to a warrior culture focused around ancestors and strength, they constantly are testing each other in combat within planned fighting rings or rewards given to the strongest warriors in war and battle. They are the largest and most warlike of the Rogataan inhabitants, whose large size and raw physical strength easily allows them to dominate much of their society. As a tendency of their race, the Orcs are an extremely violent and brutish species in both mind, body and soul. They are brutes and louts of the first degree, insensitive to pain and higher thought, and are singularly geared towards constant and ever escalating warfare. In a more practical term, the Orcs simply live to fight.

Orcs are known for producing large, brutal armies of difficult-to-kill troops, usually supported by a variety or sub-groupings of other Pyrinians. Such are their skills on the battlefield that the majority of the most destructive campaigns ignited by the Pyri are more often led by an Orcish Warlord of great strength, wit, and brutality. Goblins are the more prolific, but it is the Orcs that do the bulk of the bloody work in most battles. They are an overly pugnacious lot and if the Orcs find themselves without an enemy, they will often pummel each other just to keep their spirits up. Orcs naturally take their robust physique for granted and regard everyone else as weak, puny or squishy.

## You Might...

* Eagerly meet any chance to prove your strength in a physical contest.
* Believe that lies and treachery are for those who lack the strength to seize what they want.
* View dying in glorious combat as preferable to a mundane death from old age or illness.

## Others Probably...

* See you as violent or lacking in discipline.
* Underestimate your intellect, cunning, and knowledge.
* Admire your forthrightness and blunt honesty.

## Physical Description

Orcs are tall and powerfully built, with long arms and stocky legs. Many orcs top 7 feet in height, though they tend to adopt broad, almost bow-legged stances and slouch forward at the shoulders. The combination makes for a seeming contradiction, sharing an eye level with most humanoids while simultaneously towering over them. Orcs have rough skin, thick bones, and rock-hard muscles, making them suited to war and other physically demanding tasks. Despite the roughness of their skin, orcs scar easily, and most orcs take great pride in the scars they have accumulated. Orc skin color is typically green and occasionally gray, though some orcs have other skin colors that reflect adaptations to their environments.

Orcs consider powerful builds and heavily scarred skin attractive, regardless of gender. A powerful orc makes the hold stronger, and scars are signs of victories won or hardships survived. Similarly, many orcs consider large, jutting tusks to be more attractive than smaller tusks, since the former make more effective weapons. Many orcs also find tattoos to be attractive, particularly large or painful ones that cover a significant amount of skin.

## Society

Many orcs have a general fear of magic due to their power hierarchy, people born with magical gifts or who learn to use magic in orc culture are put at the top enforcing rules and making decisions, anyone that attempts to challenge a spell caster due to a disagreement on the matter will often be met with swift death--but those that don't are hailed as incredibly powerful typically rising to become warlords or leaders of tribes.

Within most of the known world, the Orcs are the most dominate force within much of Rogataan. Most tribes are usually a mixture of both Goblins and Orcs, with the Orcs often possessing the highest position within the tribe's violent hierarchy. Due to their strength yet lazy attitude, the Orcs occupy the "Warrior Caste" of Pyri society, while the Goblins occupy the "Worker Caste". In this union, the Orcs are given a large and plentiful source of "workers" that do many of the things Orcs find boring or too hard to understand such as creation of weapons, mechanisms, defenses, and dreaded paperwork. In return, the Goblins receive an incredibly strong and hardy workforce to supply them with all the resources a goblin may need for the endless mistakes they make in the creation process of new inventions as well as lucrative capitalization.

However, there are times when a tribe can consist almost entirely of Orcs. The composition of these Orc-dominated Tribes is both wide-ranging and diverse. Regardless of their composition, however, most Orc tribes are formed around a hard-fighting core of Orcish warriors. These tribes are often incredibly brutal and savage beyond the norm for orcs--these orcs will revert to more primal traditions of life commonly communing with their ancestors and creating ritual and ceremonial mask to use at times of war and reverence alike.

## Alignment and Religion

A common orc saying is, “You are the scars that shape you.” Violent, chaotic lives in violent, chaotic lands mean that most orcs tend heavily toward chaotic alignments. Aev is worshiped among orc communities, though more violent holds worship nature deities like Crescentmaw or gods like Jazub.

Orcs however are not commonly religious, they neither have the time nor patience to truly worship a god and are more likely to put ancestor worship before a deity.

## Adventurers

An orc's drive to overcome challenges and prove themself spurs many orcs to become adventurers, though orcs are more likely to set out on their own or with other orcs than alongside adventurers of other ancestries.

Common orc backgrounds include gladiator, hunter, martial disciple, nomad, and warrior from the *Core Rulebook*, plus bandit, outrider, and refugee from this book. Orcs thrive in martial classes like barbarian and fighter.

## Names

Orcs have a harsh, guttural language, and their naming conventions are no exception. Many orc names are simply the Orcish word for a particularly desirable trait, such as great strength, height, or ferocity. Orcs commonly use either their hold name or a name referencing a particularly memorable accomplishment as their surname.

### Sample Names

Arkus, Ausk, Durra, Grask, Grillgiss, Krugga, Mahja, Murdut, Ollak, Onyat, Thurk, Uirch, Unach