Are Tolkien's Orcs Female (or Male)?

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It's how I've done my goblins, hobgoblins and bugbears for decades...just made sense as they are all goblinoids...threw in a few more and made kobolds a mutant sub variant of goblins...also my goblins are certainly not hard wired evil...any more so (or less so) than humans.

I like the idea on how the brains don't get bigger so they get dumber. For me ogres are mutant orcs.
I believe Wayfarers also takes some new approaches to the stereotypical humanoids. e.g. the hobgoblins are goblin/orc hybrids.

I like the idea, burrowed from Warhammer, that they’re all just different castes of the same species that hatch from lichens.
 
I believe Wayfarers also takes some new approaches to the stereotypical humanoids. e.g. the hobgoblins are goblin/orc hybrids.

I like the idea, burrowed from Warhammer, that they’re all just different castes of the same species that hatch from lichens.
Yeah I gotta say I do like the Warhammer approach where orcs, goblins, et al. are different castes of sentient weaponized space fungus. Once orcs make planetfall everyone is fucked.

Edit: I am too lazy to break out Rogue Trader but wasn't it implied the Warhammer world was just some obscure backwater planet in the 40k universe?
 
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This...orcs don't breed, so if there are or are not females kind of moot...which leads to the question what were they corrupted from...elves certainly spring to mind and if so are they immortal like elves...are their orcs who still remember the First Age?
I don't recall the details, but I remember that when I looked closely at the conversation between Shagrat and Gorbag that Sam overheard in Chapter Ten of Book IV ("The Choices of Master Samwise) it seemed that they must be reminiscing about conditions at least 1 040 years previous (before the Nazgûl took over Mordor) and possibly 5 460 years previous. They also allude to "The Great Siege", which could be 3 020 years, 3 200, or 7 000 years previous. It isn't absolutely clear that they remember it, though I take that as the natural reading of the passage.
 
I'm just gonna say that I think the character depicted in that photograph looks good; properly mean.
 
In my 'not' D&D but generic fantasy settings? The orcs that are fallen humans? Goblins/orcs/hobgoblins (also called ogres or bugbears depending on where you are) are all the same thing. Just differently sized. Though it is untrue that their size if based on the severity of their horrid acts that got them curse that one sage set forth.
 
In one of my settings the elves were the children of light, the ancients were essentially light elementals, purity incarnate and the orcs were the children of darkness, hungry, fecund, and hateful. There were as a result, many more generations of orcs and their essential nature became less pure and more human with each successive generation.
 
No citations or such, as this is simply recollections and my own interpretations reading the books over the years, probably influenced by other fantasy media, but here goes.

Orcs are a mortal race like humans, hobbits dwarves etc. Yeah you don't see female orcs in any of Tolkien's work, but you don't see female dwarves either. We never see things from the orc perspective so no discussion of orc women either. Orcs are much shorter lived than the others but have a faster breeding cycle and mature more quickly helping to sustain large numbers of a fighting age.

Uruk Hai are suggested to be half orcs caused by interbreeding encouraged by Saruman. I'm pretty sure somewhere it is suggested that the raids on the outlying villages are more than just attacks but also abductions to support the Uruk Hai breeding program.

Goblin vs Orc is simply local terminology, and / or changes from the Hobbit to LotR.

Orcs are inherently brutal, but not necessarily evil. The orcs / goblins in the Misty Mountains are relatively independent and more disagreeable than overtly violent. The orcs under the control of Sauron and Saruman are influenced by the wizards to bring out their more aggressive and violent tendencies.
There were large numbers of "evil" humans as well, that had fallen under Sauron's control and they seem to have been able to more or less co-exist with the orcs.



Personally I prefer my orcs to be more of a brutal and somewhat primitive race, not inherently evil but not exactly pleasant to deal with. As a simple and warlike species they can be lived with but only as long as they are receiving a benefit or feel themselves to weak to dominate a neighbor. There are plenty of mindless hordes where that is desired (zombies, skeletons etc).

I like the Warcraft Klingon-ish orcs, but they are clearly a different development from the traditional orc depiction and really fill a different niche.
 
If you want to know Tolkien's views on Orcs, the answer is, when, what and where? It depends.

Goblins from The Hobbit. - The Hobbit is always a terrible source of Canon, it's an upgunned children's book.

The Uruk-Hai made by Saruman. This is almost assuredly some Alchemical, quasi-technological process.

The Elves twisted by Morgoth. - I think Tolkien simply rationalized they must be able to breed, otherwise there would be like 10 orcs in the Third Age, not 10 million.

The Half-Orcs and Half-Trolls bred by Sauron. Who knows how that is done? There's no answer that isn't a place no one wants to go.
 
I'm just gonna say that I think the character depicted in that photograph looks good; properly mean.
The funny thing is, and I think this has been pointed out by other outlets, that you wouldn’t be able to tell she was female if Amazon didn’t tell you.

Which may explain why we never see any orc women in the books. They’re indistinguishable from the men! All descriptions of orcs come from outside perspectives. When Sam and Frodo overhear the orcs talking they use “he” and “boys” exclusively… but why are they speaking Westron? Does the orc language even have grammatical gender or pronouns?
 
When Sam and Frodo overhear the orcs talking they use “he” and “boys” exclusively… but why are they speaking Westron? Does the orc language even have grammatical gender or pronouns?
They are speaking Westron; Tolkien explicitly discusses this in the appendices, stating that different bands of orcs created different dialects based on the Black Speech, which were mutually unintelligible. So they used a debased version of Westron for their own communication between bands. Now, this is probably a rationalization. The real reason that orcs speak Westron is so that the hobbits can understand them and Tolkien then had to explain why they didn't speak some other tongue. But the rationalization is baked into the source.
 
I don't recall the details, but I remember that when I looked closely at the conversation between Shagrat and Gorbag that Sam overheard in Chapter Ten of Book IV ("The Choices of Master Samwise) it seemed that they must be reminiscing about conditions at least 1 040 years previous (before the Nazgûl took over Mordor) and possibly 5 460 years previous. They also allude to "The Great Siege", which could be 3 020 years, 3 200, or 7 000 years previous. It isn't absolutely clear that they remember it, though I take that as the natural reading of the passage.
Is this the passage in question? Gorbag is speaking to Shagrat:

No one, no one has ever stuck a pin in Shelob before, as you should know well enough. There’s no grief in that; but think – there’s someone loose hereabouts as is more dangerous than any other damned rebel that ever walked since the bad old times, since the Great Siege. Something has slipped.

That seems to me more a historical reference than a personal reminiscence, like saying 'he's the greatest general since Napoleon' or something. But it can be read in different ways, I suppose.

Tolkien discussed the possible immortality of orcs in material that was later published in Morgoth's Ring (History of Middle Earth, vol. 10) and nixed it, indicating they were actually not that long-lived:

They [Orcs] needed food and drink, and rest, though many were by training as tough as Dwarves in enduring hardship. They could be slain, and they were subject to disease; but apart from these ills they died and were not immortal, even according to the manner of the Quendi; indeed they appear to have been by nature short-lived compared with the span of Men of higher race, such as the Edain.

He did note that some of Morgoth's Maiar servants may have taken on the appearance of Orcs, which could give rise to ideas of very long-lived ones. Shagrat and Gorbag seem too petty for that status, though.
 
No citations or such, as this is simply recollections and my own interpretations reading the books over the years, probably influenced by other fantasy media, but here goes.

[snip]

Goblin vs Orc is simply local terminology, and / or changes from the Hobbit to LotR.

Orcs are inherently brutal, but not necessarily evil. The orcs / goblins in the Misty Mountains are relatively independent and more disagreeable than overtly violent. The orcs under the control of Sauron and Saruman are influenced by the wizards to bring out their more aggressive and violent tendencies.
There were large numbers of "evil" humans as well, that had fallen under Sauron's control and they seem to have been able to more or less co-exist with the orcs.



Personally I prefer my orcs to be more of a brutal and somewhat primitive race, not inherently evil but not exactly pleasant to deal with. As a simple and warlike species they can be lived with but only as long as they are receiving a benefit or feel themselves to weak to dominate a neighbor. There are plenty of mindless hordes where that is desired (zombies, skeletons etc).
This has pretty much been my take for a long time as well, and does seem to fit better with that old OD&D (Orcs Chaotic or Neutral) than later takes on them.
 
This has pretty much been my take for a long time as well, and does seem to fit better with that old OD&D (Orcs Chaotic or Neutral) than later takes on them.
AD&D had them as Lawful Evil, which befits a species that seems to spend a lot of its time being in armies for various evil overlords. D&D3 made them CE, and hulking muscle-bound things (as seen a little later in World of Warcraft), probably best suited to being barbarians, and put Hobgoblins in the 'regimented evil' slot (and gave Hobgoblins stats that when combined with their supposed high birthrate raised the question of how come humans still seemed to dominate 3e settings).
 
In one of my settings the elves were the children of light, the ancients were essentially light elementals, purity incarnate and the orcs were the children of darkness, hungry, fecund, and hateful. There were as a result, many more generations of orcs and their essential nature became less pure and more human with each successive generation.
Darkness: "Damn humans, they spoil everything! Hmm, what if we sic them on the elves? Would they become more human as well?"

The funny thing is, and I think this has been pointed out by other outlets, that you wouldn’t be able to tell she was female if Amazon didn’t tell you.

Which may explain why we never see any orc women in the books. They’re indistinguishable from the men!
In RLS' "Black Arrow" (set during the War of the Roses) the main character doesn't recognize that the heroine that he later falls in love with is female for quite a while, because she'd dressed as a man in order to escape. So, given roughly-medieval style clothing...I'd say that's quite possible, actually.

Of course, as specified in the thread, the orcs are speaking Westron, for whatever reason:thumbsup:.
 
AD&D had them as Lawful Evil, which befits a species that seems to spend a lot of its time being in armies for various evil overlords. D&D3 made them CE, and hulking muscle-bound things (as seen a little later in World of Warcraft), probably best suited to being barbarians, and put Hobgoblins in the 'regimented evil' slot (and gave Hobgoblins stats that when combined with their supposed high birthrate raised the question of how come humans still seemed to dominate 3e settings).
Pretty much exactly why I like the earlier take on them better.
 
I wonder if the real issue is that the black speech is a fairly limited and primitive language and it is being supplanted by the superior and more evolved Westron. I wonder if Tolkien took the view that classical languages like Greek and Latin were more powerful and pure or if, as a linguist, he was well aware of the power of evolving languages.
 
No citations or such, as this is simply recollections and my own interpretations reading the books over the years, probably influenced by other fantasy media, but here goes.

Orcs are a mortal race like humans, hobbits dwarves etc. Yeah you don't see female orcs in any of Tolkien's work, but you don't see female dwarves either. We never see things from the orc perspective so no discussion of orc women either. Orcs are much shorter lived than the others but have a faster breeding cycle and mature more quickly helping to sustain large numbers of a fighting age.

Uruk Hai are suggested to be half orcs caused by interbreeding encouraged by Saruman. I'm pretty sure somewhere it is suggested that the raids on the outlying villages are more than just attacks but also abductions to support the Uruk Hai breeding program.

Goblin vs Orc is simply local terminology, and / or changes from the Hobbit to LotR.

Orcs are inherently brutal, but not necessarily evil. The orcs / goblins in the Misty Mountains are relatively independent and more disagreeable than overtly violent. The orcs under the control of Sauron and Saruman are influenced by the wizards to bring out their more aggressive and violent tendencies.
There were large numbers of "evil" humans as well, that had fallen under Sauron's control and they seem to have been able to more or less co-exist with the orcs.



Personally I prefer my orcs to be more of a brutal and somewhat primitive race, not inherently evil but not exactly pleasant to deal with. As a simple and warlike species they can be lived with but only as long as they are receiving a benefit or feel themselves to weak to dominate a neighbor. There are plenty of mindless hordes where that is desired (zombies, skeletons etc).

I like the Warcraft Klingon-ish orcs, but they are clearly a different development from the traditional orc depiction and really fill a different niche.
I think the "Orcs in their Natural Environment" in the Third Age would be the Orcs of Gundabad and the Goblins of the Misty Mountains (which I consider separate races of Orc).

Angmar and Mirkwood Orcs have been somewhat corrupted by exposure to Nazgul over the centuries.

Mordor Orcs are thoroughly corrupted Orcs that exhibit nothing but Petty and Evil schemes against enemies and each other.

Uruk-Hai have the typical Orc nature of brutality, but have been bred specifically to hate humans and follow orders. This is the most militant "Lawful/Evil" type of Orc.
 
Is this the passage in question? Gorbag is speaking to Shagrat:

The WYSIWYG editor for comments makes a complete pig's breakfast out of quotes within quotes:
No one, no one has ever stuck a pin in Shelob before, as you should know well enough. There’s no grief in that; but think – there’s someone loose hereabouts as is more dangerous than any other damned rebel that ever walked since the bad old times, since the Great Siege. Something has slipped.

That seems to me more a historical reference than a personal reminiscence, like saying 'he's the greatest general since Napoleon' or something.
I agree about that passage. It's an remarkable feat of oral history to preserve such a tradition for at least a thousand years, but thousand-year-old orcs are even more remarkable. However, that's not the exact bit I was thinking of. A couple of pages earlier you have this:

‘You should try being up here with Shelob for company,’ said Shagrat.
‘I’d like to try somewhere where there’s none of ’em. But the War's on now, and when that’s over things may be easier.’
‘It’s going well, they say.’
‘They would,’ grunted Gorbag. ‘We’ll see. But anyway, if it does go well, there should be a lot more room. What d’you say?—if we get a chance, you and me'll slip off somewhere where there’s good loot nice and handy, and no big bosses.’
‘Ah!’ said Shagrat. ‘Like old times.’
‘Yes,’ said Gorbag. ‘But don't count on it. I'm not easy in my mind. As I said, the Big Bosses, ay’ his voice sank almost to a whisper, ‘ay, even the Biggest, can make mistakes. …’

Other interpretations are certainly possible, but I think the straightforward reading is that "the Biggest" is Sauron and the other Big Bosses are the ringwraiths and his other great lieutenants, so that "Like old times" is a reference to a time before the Nazgûl re-established control of Mordor and conquered Minas Ithil. Those things happened in 1980 and 2002 respectively. The War of the Ring was in 3019, so by that time Mordor and Morgul Vale had been under big bosses continuously for over a thousand years.

"Like old times" could be an historical reference, I suppose. But to me it sounds more like a reminiscence. Otherwise it would be like me saying "Like the good old days" when referring to the Norman conquest of England. Which I wouldn't. These orcs aren't Oxford men.
 
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I agree about that passage. It's an remarkable feat of oral history to preserve such a tradition for at least a thousand years, but thousand-year-old orcs are even more remarkable. However, that's not the exact bit I was thinking of. A couple of pages earlier you have this:

‘You should try being up here with Shelob for company,’ said Shagrat.
‘I’d like to try somewhere where there’s none of ’em. But the War's on now, and when that’s over things may be easier.’
‘It’s going well, they say.’
‘They would,’ grunted Gorbag. ‘We’ll see. But anyway, if it does go well, there should be a lot more room. What d’you say?—if we get a chance, you and me'll slip off somewhere where there’s good loot nice and handy, and no big bosses.’
‘Ah!’ said Shagrat. ‘Like old times.’
‘Yes,’ said Gorbag. ‘But don't count on it. I'm not easy in my mind. As I said, the Big Bosses, ay’ his voice sank almost to a whisper, ‘ay, even the Biggest, can make mistakes. …’

Other interpretations are certainly possible, but I think the straightforward reading is that "the Biggest" is Sauron and the other Big Bosses are the ringwraiths and his other great lieutenants, so that "Like old times" is a reference to a time before the Nazgûl re-established control of Mordor and conquered Minas Ithil. Those things happened in 1980 and 2002 respectively. The War of the Ring was in 3019, so by that time Mordor and Morgul Vale had been under big bosses continuously for over a thousand years.

"Like old times" could be an historical reference, I suppose. But to me it sounds more like a reminiscence. Otherwise it would be like me saying "Like the good old days" when referring to the Norman conquest of England. Which I wouldn't. These orcs aren't Oxford men.
I was thought that they were referring to before the war and the build-up to it. So maybe a century or so, and in living memory even for people with lifespans similar to that of normal Men.
 
I was thought that they were referring to before the war and the build-up to it. So maybe a century or so, and in living memory even for people with lifespans similar to that of normal Men.
Also, Sauron was busy in Dol Guldur for quite some time, which may have left the Mordor orcs under a more lax regime.
 
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I'd take a line like "most dangerous intruder since the Great Siege" about as literally as calling something the best thing since sliced bread.
I wonder if Tolkien took the view that classical languages like Greek and Latin were more powerful and pure or if, as a linguist, he was well aware of the power of evolving languages.
Tolkien definitely depicted Elven languages as the sort of things that would develop over time, even when they're assumed to be spoken by the same people for ages. Quenya as used by the Exiles eventually became more like classical Latin when circumstances meant it stopped being a day-to-day language, but I think one can get enough out of references to how Elves in Aman kept wanting to develop many and varied ways of expressing themselves in speech. Diverging linguistic evolution is the sort of thing behind why the name Sauron in Quenya is rendered as Gurthaur in Sindarin.
 
I agree about that passage. It's an remarkable feat of oral history to preserve such a tradition for at least a thousand years, but thousand-year-old orcs are even more remarkable. However, that's not the exact bit I was thinking of. A couple of pages earlier you have this:

‘You should try being up here with Shelob for company,’ said Shagrat.
‘I’d like to try somewhere where there’s none of ’em. But the War's on now, and when that’s over things may be easier.’
‘It’s going well, they say.’
‘They would,’ grunted Gorbag. ‘We’ll see. But anyway, if it does go well, there should be a lot more room. What d’you say?—if we get a chance, you and me'll slip off somewhere where there’s good loot nice and handy, and no big bosses.’
‘Ah!’ said Shagrat. ‘Like old times.’
‘Yes,’ said Gorbag. ‘But don't count on it. I'm not easy in my mind. As I said, the Big Bosses, ay’ his voice sank almost to a whisper, ‘ay, even the Biggest, can make mistakes. …’

Other interpretations are certainly possible, but I think the straightforward reading is that "the Biggest" is Sauron and the other Big Bosses are the ringwraiths and his other great lieutenants, so that "Like old times" is a reference to a time before the Nazgûl re-established control of Mordor and conquered Minas Ithil. Those things happened in 1980 and 2002 respectively. The War of the Ring was in 3019, so by that time Mordor and Morgul Vale had been under big bosses continuously for over a thousand years.

"Like old times" could be an historical reference, I suppose. But to me it sounds more like a reminiscence. Otherwise it would be like me saying "Like the good old days" when referring to the Norman conquest of England. Which I wouldn't. These orcs aren't Oxford men.

My thought is that Gorbag and Shagrat are Orcs from bands that were, in their youth, not under Sauron's control--perhaps in the Misty Mountains, maybe elsewhere in the main empty lands of Northwest Middle Earth. We can be pretty sure that there were such Orcs; certainly so at the time of the Hobbit and somewhat later, since Saruman recruited some for his own purposes, maybe around 2990 T.A. So the two are just reminiscing about the freebooting life they enjoyed as tikes, before some bigger, badder Orc pushed into the cave one day and said "Right! You're all joining the Dark Lord's army!"

I wonder if the real issue is that the black speech is a fairly limited and primitive language and it is being supplanted by the superior and more evolved Westron. I wonder if Tolkien took the view that classical languages like Greek and Latin were more powerful and pure or if, as a linguist, he was well aware of the power of evolving languages.

Actually, no--the Black Speech was a deliberately created language, made by Sauron (I think I mistakenly wrote Morgoth upthread) for his minions to speak. So it wasn't necessarily primitive; since we have very few excerpts from it, it's hard to say much about it. Tolkien was certainly cognizant of linguistic evolution--if Tolkien in the Great War is correct, it was actually this which helped interest him in language in the first place.
 
But if we look at it from the perspective of George Orwell's 1984 the absence of a concept in a language makes it hard to express that concept. One has to , for instance, say Sauron is "ungood" if the word evil doesn't exist.
 
Also, Sauron was busy in Dol Guldur for quite some time, which may have left the Mordor orcs under a more lax regime.
The historical timeline in the appenices describes Mordor and Morgol Vale as being under the Witchking and the Ringwraiths for a thousand years of continual war against Gondor, slowly grinding it down and capturing or devastating Ithilien, Minas Ithil, Osgiliath, etc.

My explanation is that the conversation of Shagrat and Gorbag was written before the history was designed, and not revised.
 
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One thing I'll say is that while I think it can be okay to have antagonists in the form of a kind of minion creature, I think it's a worthwhile challenge to oneself to make them at least half as interesting as the Jem'hadar from Deep Space Nine are.

Also that I honestly think the whole "we want totally irredeemable monsters to be able to fight and kill opponents in large numbers without remorse" to be kind of dumb, because it seems to me that most works of fiction and people observing them don't really have any problems with that thing being done to human people. I think most subscribe to some form of morality that makes it okay enough for people to employ lethal force against opponents who pose a deliberate danger to themselves or others. Hell, I think even when somebody does come at something like, say, A Song of Ice and Fire with a perspective of "oh the poor Lannister levies", that seems to exist in a space of distant critical analysis rather than the immediate emotional experience of the work.

And really, I think either a comprehensive critical faculty or sophisticated emotional take on something like orcs would also still end up feeling that there's something tragic about their deaths in warfare, compounded rather than detracted by their inability to be anything else.

Which wraps around to the point about the Jem'hadar, in which our Starfleet characters are very effectively conveyed as being able to recognise some of the dimensions to their opposing mass-produced monsters and make attempts where possible to try and get through to them (even when largely knowing it's futile), but do not hesitate in actually fighting them.
 
Of course it's dumb. That's what makes it fun and escapism. Not everyone needs a full dissertation on the horrors of fighting. We game to get away from the horrors or doldrums of our lives. Sure, some depth from time to time is good and even I daresay unnecessary, but sometimes, villains need to just be villainous.
 
I don't see an issue with either approach.

It's really not a question that matters much if all you are dong is having an evening's dungeon delve - "oh there might be some redeemable, good orcs somewhere in the world" is like the stupidest thing anyone could be thinking about when they are face to face wth a pack of vicious, armed goblinoids looking to spill their blood.

On the other hand, if someone ran a deeply political campaign about creating alliances between competing humanoid species and overcoming alien perspectives to forge alliances and find common ground in a quest for peace, that sounds fun too.
 
Of course it's dumb. That's what makes it fun and escapism.
Okay, as... everything else in that paragraph I wrote should have made clear, I meant dumb in the sense of "unnecessary and poorly argued". You can have fun escapism playing John Wick without the assassins he fights needing to be orcs. I've see people make the whole "I need this to be something remorseless" from the end of justifying orcs a lot, I hardly ever or never see it from the end of being critical of John Wick shooting down humans, of saying "I'd enjoy this, but I just can't help but think about poor Steve Harmon's wife and stepson after Austin flattened him".
 
One thing I'll say is that while I think it can be okay to have antagonists in the form of a kind of minion creature, I think it's a worthwhile challenge to oneself to make them at least half as interesting as the Jem'hadar from Deep Space Nine are.

Also that I honestly think the whole "we want totally irredeemable monsters to be able to fight and kill opponents in large numbers without remorse" to be kind of dumb, because it seems to me that most works of fiction and people observing them don't really have any problems with that thing being done to human people. I think most subscribe to some form of morality that makes it okay enough for people to employ lethal force against opponents who pose a deliberate danger to themselves or others. Hell, I think even when somebody does come at something like, say, A Song of Ice and Fire with a perspective of "oh the poor Lannister levies", that seems to exist in a space of distant critical analysis rather than the immediate emotional experience of the work.

And really, I think either a comprehensive critical faculty or sophisticated emotional take on something like orcs would also still end up feeling that there's something tragic about their deaths in warfare, compounded rather than detracted by their inability to be anything else.

Which wraps around to the point about the Jem'hadar, in which our Starfleet characters are very effectively conveyed as being able to recognise some of the dimensions to their opposing mass-produced monsters and make attempts where possible to try and get through to them (even when largely knowing it's futile), but do not hesitate in actually fighting them.

Agree, nobody seems to have issues mowing down hordes of Nazis even when recognizing that some are not truly evil, just followers taking the path of least resistance.
 
Agree, nobody seems to have issues mowing down hordes of Nazis even when recognizing that some are not truly evil, just followers taking the path of least resistance.
I haven’t been much into mowing down anybody since the late mid eighties. My taste runs more to intrigue than to the traditional stealth and slaughter.
 
If it makes you feel any better, early D&D was as likely to have Berserkers in the dungeon as orcs.

I suspect the morality of violence in roleplaying games is probably too hot and political a topic for this forum.
 
I suspect the morality of violence in roleplaying games is probably too hot and political a topic for this forum.

Meh, just so long as people stay away from judging others or trying to tie fantasies to real life behaviour, it seems at least an eminently viable topic regarding the hobby. The problem might just be in that term "morality" - if we talk about the morality of player characters, or the morality of a fantasy world, that's vastly diferent than discusing the morality of the players themselves.
 
Okay, as... everything else in that paragraph I wrote should have made clear, I meant dumb in the sense of "unnecessary and poorly argued". You can have fun escapism playing John Wick without the assassins he fights needing to be orcs. I've see people make the whole "I need this to be something remorseless" from the end of justifying orcs a lot, I hardly ever or never see it from the end of being critical of John Wick shooting down humans, of saying "I'd enjoy this, but I just can't help but think about poor Steve Harmon's wife and stepson after Austin flattened him".

Drifting OT, sorry: a book series that has been really inspirational to how I think about "evil humanoids" is David Moody's "Hater" series. Basically, it's a pseudo-zombie thing, in the style of 28 Days Later, in which the zombies are 'alive' and fast-moving... and also totally intelligent! And the twist is that the 'zombies' don't *think* they're being hostile, instead they're possessed by an all-consuming paranoid FEAR that they HAVE to kill 'normal' people or the normal people will kill *them*! (It's not infectious zombie-ism; the premise is that suddenly around the world all these people's switches start getting flipped, basically, and previously normal people become these paranoid killers. You either have it or you don't.) And their fear/hate is totally immune to reason or emotion or argument etc., and we see inside their minds frequently, their murderous anxiety to kill 'normal' people and their relief when they're around other 'zombies' with whom they can be friendly and scheme how to gang up to kill 'normals' etc.

As a zombie fan, I found this super compelling and scary. Likewise with something like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", which again has intelligent creatures which are sorta like 'zombies', even though they're not scared/angry like the creatures in "Hater", they're just dispassionately dedicated to eliminating and replacing humanity.

Anyway you can probably see where this is going... both of these are my go-to examples for how to reskin "orcs" and all the various evil humanoids. Their appearance doesn't really matter: the idea that they're 'primitive' or 'savage' can be easily ditched; the scary/cool thing is envisioning them as having some mental block that makes them otherwise rational but completely unswerving in their hostility to 'humans'. Left by themselves, they seem perfectly normal, but when they encounter humans, the insanity-trigger is pulled. That's what makes them an Existential Threat etc.

It's really more of a horror-genre feel than a fantasy feel at this point... and it's pretty non-Tolkien-ish.... but that's fine with me! That's how I've been writing up the 'evil humanoids' in my Dreamland roleplaying game, anyway.
 
Drifting OT, sorry: a book series that has been really inspirational to how I think about "evil humanoids" is David Moody's "Hater" series. Basically, it's a pseudo-zombie thing, in the style of 28 Days Later, in which the zombies are 'alive' and fast-moving... and also totally intelligent! And the twist is that the 'zombies' don't *think* they're being hostile, instead they're possessed by an all-consuming paranoid FEAR that they HAVE to kill 'normal' people or the normal people will kill *them*! (It's not infectious zombie-ism; the premise is that suddenly around the world all these people's switches start getting flipped, basically, and previously normal people become these paranoid killers. You either have it or you don't.) And their fear/hate is totally immune to reason or emotion or argument etc., and we see inside their minds frequently, their murderous anxiety to kill 'normal' people and their relief when they're around other 'zombies' with whom they can be friendly and scheme how to gang up to kill 'normals' etc.
That is really cool and really creepy. I should read this "Hater" series. It sounds like David Moody is basing these creatures off the behavior of online mobs.

As far as Goblins and Orcs, this should come to no surprise but I am a big fan of dark fantasy manga like Berserk or Goblin Slayer!. I do think in GS! that Kumo Kagyu missed an opportunity to make the Goblins really nasty. Take some notes from the Broo of Runequest fame. Why should they limit themselves to just humanoid women? Go full xenomorph. Have a storyline where some unfortunate farmer goes out to milk his prize-winning goat only to find that some infant goblins chewed their way out of her in the night.
 
One thing that the this thread has reminded me of is that Tolkien’s Orcs, though a thoroughly nasty bunch, are not simply sword-fodder who always want to fight the heroes. They have their own factions; you can cut deals with them (or try, as Merry and Pippin did). And some like Shagrat and Gorbag don’t seem all that keen on being Sauron’s servants.
 
One thing that the this thread has reminded me of is that Tolkien’s Orcs, though a thoroughly nasty bunch, are not simply sword-fodder who always want to fight the heroes. They have their own factions; you can cut deals with them (or try, as Merry and Pippin did). And some like Shagrat and Gorbag don’t seem all that keen on being Sauron’s servants.
This is true. Something the Peter Jackson films kind of get wrong is that a great many Men joined Sauron's ranks and not just the Easterlings.
 
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