Orcs

The Orks were a race that once inhabited Materia, and are now believed to be extinct.

**Biology and Appearance:** Orks had an appearance similar to humans, albeit with a few key differences. For one, they generally were taller and more broad-shouldered, and possessed higher, and more defined amounts of muscle mass. Their faces were more dominant, with longer, square-ish chins that were pushed forward, thick brow ridges and higher foreheads. Ork skulls were thicker and hardier than those of humans. Their ears were angled, and pointier than those of humans, and were able to be angled intentionally.

Ork skintones were generally green, with brown tones existing as a rarer variation. Orks also had larger, more pronounced teeth, and, as they aged, would grow tusks, which served as a symbol of status. Some tribes also had bony growths over their body, such as horns sprouting from their head, or calcified plates on their arms, but those were the exception, not the norm. Orks had about the same amount of body hair as humans do, and their usual hair colour was black, although variations were known to exist, and some shamans dyed their hair white with colours made from ash, bones and shells. Orks had a relatively strong natural odor due to their diet and limited hygiene, but hunters often covered themselves in certain dusts and salves to mask their smell.

Orks had finer senses than modern humans - they were able to hear a wider range of frequencies, had a stronger sense of smell and taste, and their eyes (which were usually yellow or red) had more cones and rods, giving them deeper color perception, as well as the ability to see during lower light, and even perceive infra-red radiation (giving them heat vision).

Most notably though, is that orks mutate at a much higher rate than humans, which means that if they move to an area with a different climate, the children born there after just one generation can already have body types notably different from their parents. This makes them very adaptable to a variety of regions.

Over their life, orks often decorated their bodies with various tattoos as well as piercings, which denote rank and status within their tribe, as well as which tribe they are from, and are even used as records of their own life history, as well as the history of their family and tribe. Orks take great pride in these body decorations, and display them where they can, especially when meeting other tribes (or other species).

Orks usually dressed in simple clothes made from furs and leathers, less commonly wool. Unless you were chieftain or a shaman, dress was seen more as something for the sake of practicality, and less related to status.

**Lifespan:** Orks could get up to 80 years old, very rarely older, as they aged faster than humans. The average lifespan of males was significantly shorter than that of females, due to hunting deaths.

**Reproduction & Courtship / Romance:** Ork reproduction is comparable to human reproduction in many aspects. Children are conceived the same way, however, the gestation period is lower (about 28 weeks) and ork children develop notably faster than human children. However, as a price for that, both mother and child require significantly higher amounts of food during pregnancy and nursing.

Mothers are given a special rank in the tribe during pregnancy and early motherhood, as it is in the best interest of the tribe to raise strong young. They receive the fattiest, sugar and protein-richest foods next to the chieftain, and those unfit for other work (usually elderly women that are experienced mothers) assist them as best they can.

Courtship before reproduction is different in ork society than it is in human society though. Romance is less important, and polygamy is prevalent. Mating is generally initiated by a female proclaiming her want to do so, which then results in a group of males competing over her in whatever way either the female or the tribe leader sees fit. The most common choice is combat or deciding by rank, but sport or hunting competitions also exist. When only one courting male remains, the pair makes a child. However, exceptions to that rule exist, and children have been made out of two orks simply liking each other and wishing to procreate. In most tribes, there was no stigma against that either - it just simply wasn't very common.

**Gender Roles:** Due to their life in hunter gatherer groups, as well as their believes in body sancticity, ork society is surprisingly egalitarian. The chieftains were traditionally male, as were the hunters, but the head shamans were female, and traditionally female positions (such as midwifes, which were often elderly females) were treated with great respect. By human standards, both male and female orks were more masculine than their human equivalent.

**Sexuality:** The vast majority of orks were heterosexual (and cis). However, homo-, bi- and transsexuality existed, just like they do in their human relatives. How accepted those were varied from tribe to tribe, but generally there wasn't much of an ill attitude, unless the tribe had an already lacking birth rate. As long as an individual was a productive member of the tribe, most orks didn't care whether they "loved" (if such a thing existed) males or females, or if they were more effeminate or masculine than the regular member of their gender.

**Language and Writing:** Orks had no uniform language on Materia, but even among different tribes, their language shared similarities. To a human, it would likely sound harsh and guttural, with deeper vowels and sonorous or clicking consonants being common. Orks were capable of reading and writing, but not all tribes practiced it. Those that did usually reserved it for laws, debts, rituals and other things that were too important to be just told by word of mouth. Far more common than (or often interlinked with) writing were picto- and ideographs (the former being images that looked like what they represented, and the latter being images that represented ideas). These were used for religious texts, tatoos, sport rules, hunting tactics and the like.

**Humor:** Like most other sapient races, orks did possess a sense of humor, which wasn't too dissimilar to that of humans. Slapstick comedy, "friendly" teasing and mocking or simple wordplay were common, and crude jokes (particularly toilet humor or jokes around their genitalia) were also present. Anti-jokes, non-obvious satire or other, more complicated forms of humor were rare, though, if not entirely unknown.

**Numbers and Math:** Orks didn't use a lot of math or numbers, but were capable of it. Small numbers were represented with lines drawn, while larger numbers (usually multiples of 1, 2 or 5) had symbols associated with them, such as hands or crosses.

**Currency and Trade:** Most trade among orks was based on bartering, however, primitive forms of currency existed, usually in the form of metal ingots, or rare animal products, such as certain horns and shells, or dyes. Some of those were valuable for the use they held, while others were valuable out of a shared belief in their value and the status that owning them represented.