Orcs

Orcs are a species of humanoids that are neighbors to the Cidel empire, the Dwarves, and Uderon itself.

# Biology and Appearance

Standing between 6ft and 7ft tall, Orcs are normally grey-skinned humanoids with short tusks protruding from their lower jaws and poking through their lips which gives them a characteristic slur to their speech as the Tusks make speaking Trade difficult for Orcs.

Orcs tend to have more "brutalist" facial features with strong eyebrow ridges and chins making them seem cruder than most other humanoids. Their other defining features include their slightly pointed ears with tufts of hair on the ends while instead of the feet of most other humanoids, they have split hooves.

In addition, Orcs can live 60 to a century to age and they come of age when they are 15 and begin going senile around the age of 50 however some can last longer before their body starts to age.

Rusk: one in five Orcish Youths have the chance to enter rusk, caused by a type of fungus native to the Orc isles it turns their skin a vibrant green, causes them to grow massively, and dulls their intelligence whilst increasing their anger as they fungus feeds off the hormones produced by an angry orc. Amongst Half-Orcs only those with an Orcish mother are susceptible to the rusk.

# Culture & Customs

## Government

The Orcish islands are covered in dozens of small villages consisting of 50-1000 Orcs and each of whom is ruled by a council of Elders however the council members of the various villages meet in the old ruins of the former capital city of the Orcs where together they form a great Parliament which rules over the Orcish people.

## Clothing:

Male Orcs will traditionally wear fur-lined cloaks over felt shirts and long pants and with leather boots covering their hooves, their Female counterparts keep the cloaks and boots but replace the shirt and pants with ankle-length dresses that are often brightly dyed using various vegetation and herbs with greens, yellows, and browns being common hues.

## Diet:

A large part of their diet is the goats they raise and which are vital to orcish culture from the humble goat they get meat which they roast and turn into sausages, the milk they drink as is, fermented to get an alcoholic beverage, and course, turn into cheese, bones which they eat the marrows of and use for other roles, hair they turn into felt for their clothing, or tan and use as leather, or use the hides of for their blankets.

However, Goats are not the only part of the diet as protein wise their fisherman catch fish they smoke and salt cure and their farmers grow fields of rye bread which is used to make a distinctive style of bread cooked by placing it in a clay pot and burying it near hot springs so the heat would bake the bread producing the final bread.

## Weaponry

For Melee weapons most Orcish warriors wear steel hatchets and round shields made of wooden planks with a steel rim and boss in the middle. However, they also wear harpoons made from bone with added steel blades, and traditional craftsorcs have made longbows made from goat horns when range is needed.

## Architecture:

Orcish villages consist of low Longhouses partially built into the terrain and with sod or thatch roofs. Each Family in a village lives in their own longhouse with many generations living in the same house and in fact, many longhouses are centuries old if not older as their inhabitants will just continue to repair their home as needed instead of building a new one.

The interior of the longhouses consists of a single large room with a large hearth running the length and holes in the roof to allow smoke to escape while the sides are lined by sleeping benches with chests below them to house individual’s personal belongings, during the day these benches are used as seats. To relax and eat on.

All villages are built at the site of a hot spring and nearby is built a large structure to serve as a community building while the hot spring itself becomes a communal bath with a nearby sauna both are commonly used to relax by the people when their chores have been accomplished.

## Transportation:

Most Orc ships are known as Knorrs, they are small wooden ships with two to six oars per side and a square sail on a single mast and are wide for their size however despite their size they are decent trading ships or personal ships for adventurers they are also commonly used by Orcish fishermen.

Although their Knorrs are their main ships, occasionally their shipwrights will make Longships, long narrow ships with a dozen or more oars a side, a single sail in the middle, a monsterous figure carved into their figurehead and a steering oar at the stern, unlike Knorrs these Longships are used for war, most famously during the second Lver War but also for use against Uderon Raiders.

When traveling by land Orcs would rather walk than ride a beast and when they need to carry belongings or who can’t walk they will tow a Handcart alongside them.

## Naming trends.

Most Orcs have singular names but when a surname is needed they use the name of their home village.

Common Male names: Boar, Oak, Root, Bark, Tusk, Tigen

Common Female names: Rose, Lily, Stream, Tigia,

## Folklore & Religion:

The Chief deity of the Orcish people is the minor god Tigen, God of the hearth, who despite not being overly fond of his chief worshippers still has taken his followers with open arms and whenever a new home is built a stone statuette is carved to represent Tigen and is buried within the hearth. It is said that for so long as that statuette remains unharmed no harm shall befall that home.

# History.

Long ago the Deity known as the Forsaken One (They had another name long ago but it was purged from the written record generations ago) created the Orcs from Humani stock to serve as their army, and for generations, they were brutes rampaging, and warring with one another across their islands but in time, some three and a half thousand years ago,  their mages decided they could have a better life, and so, they used spells long lost to break their patron god’s control over their kind and imprisoned their god within a celestial bronze Armring with which they crowned one of their own as their first high king.

Using the power of the bound god the first High King and his descendants united the Orcish People under their banner but that took centuries before the last holdouts of Orcish Petty-Kings were wiped out.

By 1800 B.E. A thriving network of trade had emerged as the bronze age reigned however due to a series of poor harvests the Orcs took to raiding the other islands for food and other resources But when that didn’t work and their victims fought back, the then High King used the arm ring to flood several islands killing thousands in the process and forcing other civilizations to move and change, However a band known as the Heroi formed and killed the High King, however, he was the last High King of the Era as soon after he died a sudden invasion from Uderon occurred and the Capital City was looted taking the Armring with them where it disappeared from many other things as the formerly robust trade network collapsed and forming a five hundred year long dark age.

By the end of the Dark age, The Bronze age was over and the Iron age had begun, but the Peace of the High Kings was over and now the Orcish Lands were divided between some fifteen Petty-Kings who fought and warred with one another.

Eventually, around zero B.E. two kingdoms formed one on Mezgal and the other on Nazga which warred back and forth with one another for centuries

But in 10344 A.E. representatives from across the two islands, tired of the constant war, met in secret in the ruins of the old capital city of the long-gone High Kings, and together they formed a revolution that ended the rule of the two kings and replaced them with a Parliament comprised of representatives from all orcs.

During the Lver wars, the Parliament voted against them joining the first war but during the second war, a change of views with the new generation caused Orcish warriors to sail to war for the first official time since the Parliament had formed.