Orc — Stone-Born Warriors of the First Scar

Orc — Stone-Born Warriors of the First Scar

A broad, tusked warrior advances behind a hide-covered shield, its heavy spear held low and ready. Iron rings bind its dark hair, old scars cross its grey-brown skin, and a blackened fragment of dwarven metal hangs from its neck as an ancestral trophy.

Orcs are a distinct people born during the Age of Giants. They are not corrupted humans, altered elves, giant-bred soldiers or descendants of half-orcs. Their oldest traditions hold that the wounded earth shaped the first clans beneath the mountains of northern Asia after giant mining tore open the roots of the world.

The First Scar begins the orcs’ conflict with dwarves, but no single event explains the hatred that survives into 1454. Thousands of years of warfare, massacres, lost strongholds, stolen relics and inherited teaching transform the original struggle into an ancestral enmity. Most orcs need no personal grievance against a dwarf; they are raised to regard dwarves as the first and oldest enemy of their people.

The five orc types presented here cover their essential encounter roles: the Common Orc, the Orc Worg Rider, the Orc Standard-Bearer, the Orc First-Scar Seer and the Orc Fanglord.

These are cultural, military, religious and political roles rather than biological subspecies. Orc women and men may hold any of them according to ability, clan custom and political position.

Orcs at a Glance

• Creature Type: Humanoid
• People: Orc
• Typical Alignment: Chaotic Evil
• Average Height: 6 to 7 feet
• Average Weight: 200 to 320 pounds
• Typical Lifespan: 60 to 80 years
• Ancestral Homeland: The First-Scar Mountains of the Altai and Sayan ranges
• Principal Lands in 1454: The Northern Yuan heartland, Eastern Fang Khanate, Golden Horde successor states and former Ilkhanate territories
• Common Environments: Grasslands, forest-steppe, mountains, cold forests, desert margins, fortified camps, caravan roads and conquered settlements
• Primary Language: Orc
• Ancestral Enemy: Dwarves
• Ancient Enemy: Elves
• Other Ancient Enemies: Frost Giants, Fire Giants, ettins and surviving giant dynasties
• Closest Non-Orc Allies: Intelligent worg packs
• Major Historical State: The Great Steppe Empire
• Core Types: Common Orc, Orc Worg Rider, Orc Standard-Bearer, Orc First-Scar Seer and Orc Fanglord

Running Orcs in Thirty Seconds

Question	Answer
What do they want?	Pasture, food, tribute, weapons, captives, recognised passage, revenge or recovery of a clan relic.
Why have they not attacked?	They are assessing authority, retaliation, surrender value and whether the strangers possess useful information.
What makes them fight?	Resistance to a declared claim, injury to the clan, insult before witnesses, broken surrender terms or the appearance of an ancestral enemy.
What ends the fight?	Visible surrender, payment, achievement of the raid’s objective, loss of the standard, death of the leader or danger to the clan’s dependants.
What makes them distinctive?	Scar-Law, politically important standards, intelligent worg alliances, inherited racial enmities and a culture shaped by the First Scar.

Appearance

Orcs are powerfully built humanoids with dense bones, broad shoulders, deep chests and heavy jaws. Most stand between 6 and 7 feet tall, although mountain clans and some imperial lineages regularly produce larger individuals.

Their skin ranges through iron grey, brown, olive, ochre, dark green-grey and near-black. Bright grass-green skin is rare. Skin tone varies by ancestry and region rather than indicating rank, morality or intelligence.

Orcs possess prominent lower canines commonly called tusks. These range from short, blunt protrusions to long, curved teeth extending beyond the upper lip. Broken tusks may be repaired with iron caps, carved bone or bands of precious metal.

A deliberately removed tusk may mark mourning, punishment, oath-taking, defeat or renunciation of a former clan.

Orc faces are recognisably humanoid but not human. They have broad noses, pronounced brows, powerful jaw muscles and slightly tapered ears. Their eyes are commonly amber, brown, black, yellow-grey or red-brown.

Hair is usually black, dark brown, iron grey or reddish brown. Warriors often wear it braided, bound with metal rings or cut short around the helmet line. Beards occur but are generally less dense than dwarven facial hair.

Clothing and Equipment

Orc equipment reflects region, wealth, occupation and access to trade. Orcs do not universally dress in spikes, skulls and random scraps.

Steppe and imperial orcs favour quilted coats, layered hide, scale, mail and lamellar armour. Forest clans use fur-lined leather, bark reinforcement and dark wool. Mountain clans employ heavier iron plates, reinforced helmets and equipment adapted from captured mines and giant forges.

Spears, composite bows, axes, sabres, falchions, maces and heavy knives are more common than oversized ceremonial weapons. Shields are built from hide-covered wood, layered cane, iron-rimmed timber or captured foreign designs.

Orc weapons must survive hard travel, dust, cold and poor weather. Their smiths favour thick blades, replaceable handles and fittings that can be repaired beside a campfire or mobile forge.

Trophies record specific events rather than serving as arbitrary decoration. A strip of a defeated standard, a broken dwarven tool, a giant chain link or an inherited tusk cap may represent a victory, obligation, oath or family grievance.

Orc Variations and Mechanics

Each orc type is presented with its D&D 5E 2024-compatible rules followed immediately by its Pathfinder 1e statistics and D&D 3.5e conversion notes.

Orc Type	Primary Role	5E CR	PF1e CR
Orc Warrior	Hunter, herder, guard, raider or ordinary clan warrior	1/2	1/2
Orc Worg Rider	Mounted scout, messenger, flanker and pursuer	2, excluding worg	2, excluding worg
Orc Standard-Bearer	Morale officer and guardian of clan identity	2	2
Orc First-Scar Seer	Ancestor priest and wielder of earth and curse magic	5	5
Orc Fanglord	Clan chief, negotiator and battlefield commander	6	6

Encounter Groups

The following groups assume four player characters. Terrain, surprise, mounted mobility, available retreat routes and depleted party resources may alter the actual difficulty substantially.

D&D 5E 2024 Encounter Groups

Level Band	Encounter	Base XP	Complication
1	Two Common Orcs	200 XP	They demand food or passage rights before attacking.
1–2	Three Common Orcs	300 XP	One carries surrender terms from a nearby Fanglord.
2–3	Three Common Orcs and one Standard-Bearer	750 XP	The standard is an ancestral relic whose capture begins a feud.
3–4	Two Common Orcs, one Worg Rider and one ordinary worg	1,100 XP	The rider circles the party while the infantry blocks the road.
4–5	Three Common Orcs and one First-Scar Seer	2,100 XP	The group is investigating a ruined Fire Giant mine rather than seeking battle.
5–6	One Fanglord and four Common Orcs	2,700 XP	The Fanglord offers harsh surrender terms before committing to battle.
7–8	One Fanglord, one First-Scar Seer, one Standard-Bearer and four Common Orcs	4,950 XP	The warband is transporting a captured dwarven relic.

Pathfinder 1e Encounter Groups

Suggested APL	Encounter	Approximate EL	Complication
1	Two Common Orcs	EL 1	The orcs guard a disputed well rather than hunting travellers.
2	Four Common Orcs	EL 2	The patrol withdraws if its messenger escapes.
3	One Standard-Bearer and two Common Orcs	EL 3	The standard grants the patrol unusual morale.
3–4	One Worg Rider and one worg	EL 4	The pair repeatedly disengages rather than accepting a static fight.
5	One First-Scar Seer and two Common Orcs	EL 5	The Seer reshapes the battlefield while the warriors protect it.
6	One Fanglord and four Common Orcs	EL 6	The Fanglord’s aura increases the entire group’s damage.
7	One Fanglord, one Standard-Bearer, one Worg Rider and one worg	EL 7	The mounted pair attacks the rear while the infantry holds the centre.

Do not construct every encounter from identical Common Orcs. Choose one specialist whose abilities express the group’s purpose: pursuit, morale, magic or command.

The First Scar — Origin of the Orcs

Orc history begins during the Age of Giants, when northern Asia lies beneath the rule of the Crown of the Nine Mountains.

Frost Giant khans control the surface dominion. Their halls overlook glacial valleys, high passes, Siberian forests and northern grasslands. They command mammoth herds, ogre soldiers, troll hunters, ettin wardens and enslaved lesser peoples.

Fire Giant forge lords control the mines, furnaces and underground strongholds. They produce weapons and armour for the Frost Giant rulers and compete to discover deeper deposits of iron, copper and supernatural metal.

The giants enslave dwarven clans to excavate their mines, construct underground roads, maintain furnaces and forge weapons. Some dwarves become guards, foremen or favoured slaves because cooperation protects their families or improves their position. They remain subject to giant rule.

Ettins guard passes, drive work gangs, collect tribute and protect approaches to the Fire Giant mines. Their two heads make them difficult to surprise and allow one head to watch while the other sleeps.

The catastrophe begins when a Frost Giant ruler demands a weapon greater than any possessed by his rivals.

Fire Giant miners discover star-iron buried beneath the roots of the Altai. Dwarven seers warn that the metal lies inside a living foundation of the world. Removing it will not merely collapse a mine; it will wound the earth itself.

The giant lords ignore them.

Dwarven work gangs are driven deeper. Underground rivers are diverted, sealed caverns opened and enormous wedges hammered into the roots of the mountain.

The final excavation pierces the living power beneath the earth.

The mountains split.

Black smoke pours from the peaks. Rivers run red with iron. Furnaces burst, tunnels fold and giant fortresses disappear into the depths.

Orcs remember this catastrophe as the First Scar.

Within the broken caverns, the wounded earth shapes a new people from stone, blood, marrow, iron and subterranean fire. These are the first orcs: broad-boned, tusked, night-sighted and able to endure darkness, cold, hunger and injury.

Some clans describe the living power beneath the mountain as the Deep Mother. Others call it the Wounded Earth, the First Forge or the Stone beneath All Blood. These are regional interpretations rather than the worship of one universal creator god.

The first orcs awaken among collapsed tunnels, broken chains and the bodies of giants and dwarves.

The First War with the Dwarves

The first living people encountered by the orcs are dwarves.

Some are terrified slaves attempting to escape the ruined mines. Others are armed foremen, forge guards or work gangs trying to prevent further collapse. Many believe that the newly emerged orcs are dangerous creatures released by the catastrophe and attempt to bar them from the remaining passages.

The first orcs do not understand the divisions among the dwarves. They see dwarven tools beside the wound, dwarven hands upon the gates and dwarven weapons blocking the road to the surface.

The first war between orcs and dwarves begins in the collapsing tunnels.

Orcs tear down the gates, capture forge halls and kill those who stand against them. Dwarves remember the attacks as slaughter committed against an enslaved people already suffering beneath giant rule. Orcs remember dwarven blades waiting at the moment of their birth.

The giants cause the First Scar. The dwarves are their captives. Yet dwarves become the first people to oppose the orcs and the first enemy the orcs know.

When giant rule weakens, both peoples claim the abandoned mines, roads, forge halls and mountain strongholds.

Freed dwarven clans argue that their ancestors constructed the halls through generations of slavery and death. Orcs answer that the mines are instruments of the crime that wounded the earth and that the caverns belong to the people born within them.

This conflict begins the enmity. It does not, by itself, explain the hatred that exists in 1454.

Inherited Hatred

The First Scar begins the orc–dwarf conflict. Generations of war transform it into racial hatred.

For thousands of years, orc clans and dwarven holds fight over mountain roads, mines, forge halls, river valleys, sacred caverns and giant ruins. Each war creates new massacres, stolen relics, broken treaties and unburied dead.

Orc Seers and elders teach a simplified ancestral account:

• dwarven hands opened the First Scar;
• dwarves barred the first road to the surface;
• dwarves claimed the caverns where orcs were born;
• dwarves continue to cut into the wounded earth;
• dwarven kingdoms have opposed orc expansion ever since.

This account is incomplete and unfair, but it gives every later conflict a sacred meaning. A border raid becomes another battle in the First War. A disputed mine becomes part of the birthplace of the orcs. A dead warrior becomes another victim of the enemy that greeted the first clans with weapons.

Dwarven histories preserve their own inherited hatred. They describe orcs as scar-spawn that slaughtered enslaved survivors, seized halls built by dwarven captives and continued attacking newly liberated holds.

Neither people needs to remember the original events accurately. Each generation inherits graves, ruined settlements and family losses that appear to prove the stories taught by the previous generation.

By 1454, most orcs require no personal injury before hating dwarves. Dwarves are the ancestral enemy because they have always been the ancestral enemy.

Orc leaders and Seers preserve the hatred because it strengthens unity, directs violence outward and gives rival clans a common foe. A Fanglord may restrain warriors for military or political reasons, but openly defending dwarves risks appearing weak, corrupted or disloyal to the First Scar.

Hatred of Elves

Elves are the orcs’ other great inherited enemy.

The hatred begins after the first orc expansion into forest-steppe, river valleys and lands protected by elven successor realms. Elves resist orc settlement, shelter escaped captives, defend woodland routes and repeatedly support dwarven holds.

Orcs remember elven armies as the force that closes fertile lands to their clans and denies them access to forests, rivers and Fey crossings. Elves remember orcs as raiders, slavers and destroyers who repeatedly burn protected settlements.

Generations of warfare make the hatred self-sustaining. Orcs may kill elves or dwarves on sight unless restrained by a Fanglord, hostage agreement, recognised truce or immediate military necessity.

Dwarves remain the primary ancestral enemy because their conflict begins at the First Scar. Elves are the ancient enemy encountered during the orcs’ expansion into the open world.

Expansion into the Open Lands

As giant rule weakens and the great ice retreats, orc clans spread from the northern mountains into forests, grasslands, river basins and desert margins.

They occupy abandoned giant forts, defend wells, claim seasonal hunting grounds and control passes leading from the Altai and Sayan Mountains. Some follow migrating herds. Others remain near the First Scar and fight for the old giant forges.

By the Rooting Age, orcs possess established territories, permanent winter camps, burial grounds, shrines, mining settlements and inherited migration routes.

Orcs are not wandering intruders in an otherwise human world. Many of their claims to roads, mountains and sacred places are older than the neighbouring kingdoms.

Temüjin and the Great Steppe Empire

Temüjin arises thousands of years after the First Scar. He does not create the orcs or begin their wars with dwarves and elves.

His achievement is political.

In 1206 CE, assembled orc chiefs proclaim Temüjin Chinggis Khan, a title commonly translated within the campaign as the Universal Ruler.

Temüjin suppresses clan feuds, reorganises military households, establishes protected imperial roads and founds the Great Steppe Empire.

The Yuan dynasty, Golden Horde, Chagatai Khanate and Ilkhanate are orc-led successor states descended from this imperial tradition. Their subject populations vary by region, but their ruling dynasties and imperial identity are orcish.

Hobgoblins are a separate people. They do not form part of Temüjin’s ruling clans, the Great Steppe imperial people or its successor khanates.

Major Orc Lands in 1454

The Great Steppe Empire no longer exists as one united realm. Its successor states, dynastic claimants and surviving military households stretch across Eurasia.

The Lands of the First Clans

The Lands of the First Clans, called Orcia by many foreigners, form the principal Northern Yuan heartland. They include the Mongolian Plateau, northern Gobi, Orkhon Valley and approaches to the Altai and Sayan Mountains.

The region is politically unstable in 1454. Chinggisid claimants, Oirat warlords and rival clan coalitions dispute who may speak for the Northern Yuan inheritance.

Karakorum remains a place of immense historical and ritual importance even though the active royal court frequently travels between seasonal camps.

The First-Scar Mountains

The First-Scar Mountains contain the oldest orc shrines, giant ruins, contested dwarf holds and cavern systems associated with the creation of the orcs.

First-Scar Seers, forge clans and dwarf-hunting warbands are particularly common here. Ettins still occupy abandoned giant forts and mountain roads.

The Eastern Fang Khanate

The Eastern Fang Khanate, called Orcistan by foreigners, descends from the eastern Chagatai territories.

Its rulers contest the Ili Valley, Tian Shan roads, Kashgar, Aksu, Turfan and neighbouring caravan routes. Open-steppe clans, fortified mountain communities and wealthy oasis settlements all lie beneath its uneven authority.

The Great Horde and Western Successors

The western orc world includes the Great Horde, Crimean Khanate, Kazan Khanate, Nogai domains and lesser claimants descended from the Golden Horde.

These powers control or contest portions of the lower Volga, middle Volga, Caspian steppe, Crimea, Don country and tribute roads leading towards the Rus principalities.

Astrakhan has not yet emerged as a fully independent khanate in 1454, although the lower Volga already contains the rival households from which it will arise.

The Former Ilkhanate

The Ilkhanate no longer exists as a united state, but its former territories contain orc military households, displaced nobles, frontier clans and rulers claiming the right to restore the khanate.

Many now live beneath, beside or in resistance to the Timurid order in Persia, Transoxiana and Afghanistan. These communities are substantial, but they do not form one secure orc kingdom.

The Ming Frontier

Orc clans, Northern Yuan forces and restoration movements remain active north of the Great Wall.

The frontier contains fortified markets, abandoned Yuan stations, burned grazing grounds, defended river crossings and seasonal war-camps. Trade and raiding often occur within days of one another.

The Ming holds China. Orc power survives north of the frontier, in old garrison families and among hidden Yuan loyalists, but orcs do not rule Beijing or the Chinese interior in 1454.

The Moving Throne

The Moving Throne is not one fixed city. It is the travelling court, treasury, hostage camp and war council of an imperial claimant.

Its position changes with pasture, season, tribute and military need. At its greatest it contains thousands of warriors, craftspeople, slaves, merchants, animals, allied worg packs and the standards of subordinate clans.

Orc Names and Place-Names

Orcs possess their own personal, clan and territorial names. English names used on this page are usually translations, foreign exonyms or established historical names.

An orc’s full identity may contain three elements:

• Personal name: an untranslated birth or childhood name;
• Clan identity: the household, lineage or standard to which the orc belongs;
• Earned title: a name gained through conquest, injury, office, disgrace or witnessed achievement.

Temüjin remains Temüjin because that is his personal name. Chinggis Khan is his imperial title.

Later rulers may carry translated titles such as One-Tusk, Iron-Hand, Gate-Breaker, Red Standard, Broken-Chain or Keeper of the Western Road.

Historical and cosmopolitan cities such as Karakorum, Sarai, Almaliq, Kashgar, Tabriz and Herat retain their recognised names. Orc rulers may possess ceremonial titles for these places, but the cities are not automatically renamed when an orc dynasty occupies them.

Common Translated Naming Elements

Element	Usual Meaning
Scar	Origin, sacred wound, inherited grievance or dangerous knowledge.
Fang or Tusk	Authority, lineage, aggression, legal claim or leadership.
Chain	Giant oppression, captivity, liberation or an oath that cannot be escaped.
Road	Protected passage, tribute route, imperial authority or office.
Rein	Mounted household, cavalry tradition or control of migration.
Salt	Desert territory, wells, trade, exile or endurance.
Stone	Ancestry, death, permanence or connection to the First Scar.
Wolf or Worg	Pack alliance, northern territory, pursuit or inherited pact.

Translated compound names create a coherent naming tradition without reducing every orc name to an unrelated collection of harsh-sounding syllables.

Language and Speech

Orc is a complete language with extensive vocabularies for kinship, rank, routes, pasture, tribute, surrender, witness, retaliation and obligation.

Orcs who speak another language should not automatically use broken grammar. Imperial officers, caravan guards, merchants, hostages and urban orcs may speak Chinese, Persian, Turkic languages, Russian, German or other regional languages fluently.

Orc speech is often direct because speakers are expected to identify:

• who possesses authority;
• who witnessed the statement;
• what is being offered;
• what obligation is created;
• what consequence follows refusal or betrayal.

An orc insult commonly attacks courage, ancestry, oath-keeping or the ability to protect dependants. Calling an orc earthless implies that the individual has abandoned clan, ancestry and every obligation that gives their word value.

Alignment

The overwhelming alignment of orcs is Chaotic Evil.

Orc societies value personal strength, clan loyalty, vengeance, conquest and freedom from outside restraint. They accept raiding, slavery, collective punishment and the violent seizure of territory as legitimate means of advancing the clan.

Scar-Law and obedience to a khan do not make them lawful. Orc authority is personal, competitive and conditional. A ruler is obeyed while strong enough to reward loyalty, enforce judgements and punish defiance. A weak ruler is challenged, deserted or killed.

Orc evil is deliberate rather than mindless. Orcs are fully intelligent people capable of planning, negotiation, affection, courage and restraint, but their societies commonly direct those qualities towards conquest and the interests of recognised insiders at the expense of outsiders.

Inherited hatred of dwarves and elves is part of the ordinary orc worldview. It does not need to arise from a personal wrong or a carefully reasoned historical judgement.

Exceptional individuals may possess another alignment, but such cases are rare departures from the normal character of the people.

Physiology

Orcs possess dense musculature and heavy bones. Even an untrained orc is normally stronger than an average human of comparable age.

Their broad ribcages and efficient lungs support sustained exertion in thin mountain air, cold weather and long marches. Orcs can still become exhausted, dehydrated, frostbitten or starved.

Orc blood is dark red. Their body temperature is slightly higher than that of humans, and they tolerate cold better than prolonged extreme heat.

Their darkvision is inherited from the first underground clans. Complete darkness appears in shades and contrast; colour and fine surface detail still require light.

Orcs recover from minor injuries well when adequately fed, but they do not possess supernatural regeneration. Infection, internal wounds and broken bones kill them when untreated.

Life Cycle and Family

Orcs reach physical maturity between fourteen and sixteen years of age.

An orc protected from warfare, famine and disease may live for approximately seventy years. Elders beyond eighty are uncommon but possible.

Age is respected when it preserves useful memory, political judgement, ritual authority or knowledge of boundaries, debts and surrender terms.

Orcs reproduce among themselves and maintain families, households and extended clans. Half-orcs are not required for orc reproduction and are not a founding branch of the orc people.

Children belong first to a household and clan rather than solely to their biological parents. Fosterage, adoption, hostage upbringing and the incorporation of surviving dependants are all recognised practices.

Orc children learn the names of ancestral enemies alongside the names of their clan, its standards and its dead. Dwarves and elves appear in stories as enemies long before most young orcs encounter either people.

Orc women and men may serve as warriors, hunters, smiths, riders, Standard-Bearers, Seers and Fanglords. Local clan custom affects opportunity, but no role requires a separate gender-based monster type.

Clan and Household

The clan is the most enduring orc institution. It connects ancestry, territory, mutual defence, marriage, blood debt, burial and responsibility for dependants.

A clan includes children, elders, hunters, craftspeople, animal keepers, healers, priests, slaves, adopted outsiders and those unable to fight.

Several households form a travelling camp or permanent settlement. Several camps may recognise one Fanglord, sacred standard or ancestral gathering place.

A successful leader must:

• feed followers through winter;
• distribute captured wealth without causing rebellion;
• avenge recognised injuries;
• judge disputes between households;
• negotiate pasture, passage and tribute;
• select battles the clan can survive;
• maintain support among warriors, elders and Seers.

A physically powerful bully may dominate a small band for a time. Sustained authority requires alliances, judgement, memory and visible results.

Settlements

Orcs are not exclusively nomadic. Their settlements reflect terrain, season, military pressure and access to subject labour.

Settlement	Description	Adventure Use
Moving Camp	Wagons, tents, herds, temporary corrals, portable forges and a central standard ground.	The camp can relocate within hours, taking prisoners or evidence with it.
Winter Hold	A permanent stone, timber or earthwork settlement containing stores, workshops and protected animal enclosures.	Food reserves and dependants make the orcs more willing to negotiate—and more dangerous when threatened.
Road Station	A fortified toll, messenger and remount post controlling an imperial or caravan route.	Travel tokens, hostages and tribute records reveal wider political networks.
First-Scar Fortress	A captured mine, giant ruin or mountain redoubt guarding sacred caverns and old machinery.	Dwarven claims, giant relics and unstable earth magic collide in one location.
Urban Orc Quarter	A garrison, military household or ruling district inside a conquered or successor-state city.	Orcs interact with merchants, subject officials, rival ethnic communities and imperial courts.

Food, Herds and Economy

Orcs are omnivorous. Regional diets include meat, fermented milk, hard cheese, roots, grain, marrow, blood dishes, onions, preserved vegetables and dried fruit obtained through trade or tribute.

They do not require human flesh and are not natural cannibals.

Open-steppe clans depend on horses, cattle, sheep and goats. Forest-steppe clans add hunting, trapping, timber and river travel. Desert clans control wells, salt and caravan routes. Mountain clans mine, smelt metal and occupy old giant workshops.

Major sources of wealth include:

• livestock and remounts;
• salt, hides, felt and preserved food;
• iron, captured weapons and mobile forge-work;
• tribute paid by subject settlements;
• tolls collected from roads and river crossings;
• ransoms, hostages and enslaved labour;
• military service and caravan protection;
• plunder taken in raids and conquest.

Large orc armies depend upon grain, fodder and replacement animals obtained from subject communities. Destroying those supplies can stop an army that cannot be defeated in open battle.

Scar-Law

Orc law is preserved through witnessed speech, physical tokens, scars, standards and remembered precedent.

A scar does not automatically prove honour. Its location, witnesses and story determine its meaning. False scars and invented victories are serious offences because they falsify political memory.

Scar-Law recognises chiefs, envoys, oath-bound warriors, hostages, surrendered rulers, protected traders and clan dependants as distinct legal statuses.

Recognition as a person does not guarantee freedom or humane treatment. Orc law permits slavery, hostage-taking and severe collective punishment.

Envoys

A recognised envoy carries a marked token, weapon, cord or piece of a ruler’s standard. Harming the envoy is treated as an attack upon the authority that issued the protection.

Orcs may threaten, detain or reject an envoy without killing them. Murdering a recognised messenger can justify feud or war.

Surrender

Surrender must be visible, witnessed and offered by someone capable of binding the group concerned.

A settlement may lower its standard, open its gates, extinguish its war fire or deliver recognised hostages.

Terms may demand livestock, weapons, labour, captives, tribute or military service. These terms may be extremely harsh.

A Fanglord who repeatedly massacres enemies after accepting surrender weakens their own authority. Future opponents will fight to the death rather than trust the Fanglord’s word.

Feud

A recognised injury creates a debt of blood, compensation or service. Feuds may survive for generations.

Imperial rulers suspend private feuds during major campaigns. Resuming a forbidden feud while the army is at war may be treated as rebellion.

Truces with Ancestral Enemies

A truce with dwarves or elves must be explicit, witnessed and limited by purpose, place or time.

An orc may obey such a truce without abandoning inherited hatred. Once the stated terms expire, ordinary hostility resumes unless a new agreement is made.

Killing a protected dwarf or elf during a recognised truce is an offence against the authority that guaranteed the agreement, not necessarily an offence against the victim.

Ettin Oaths

Orc law treats an ettin as one creature possessing two independently responsible voices.

Both heads must hear, understand and accept an oath before it becomes binding. An agreement accepted by only one head is incomplete.

If both heads accept and either later breaks the agreement, the entire ettin is considered an oath-breaker.

Religion and Magic

Orcs do not possess one universal creator god.

Older traditions venerate the Wounded Earth, ancestors of the First Scar, mountain powers, storm beings, herd guardians, forge spirits and the dead of particular clans.

Some clans call the power that shaped the first orcs the Deep Mother. Others understand the First Scar as the earth defending itself without conscious divine intention.

Temüjin later becomes the centre of an imperial ancestor cult. As Chinggis Khan—the Universal Ruler—he represents sovereignty, conquest, protected roads, envoys, witnessed oaths and unity among rival clans.

Temüjin is not the creator of the orcs. He is the mortal conqueror who unites their greatest historical empire.

Magic is uncommon enough to command respect but not so rare that orcs mistake every spellcaster for a god. First-Scar Seers dominate the oldest religious tradition, while regional clans may also produce storm-callers, bone-diviners, forge-workers and war-singers.

First-Scar Seers preserve and intensify hatred of dwarves by interpreting every renewed conflict as a continuation of the first battle beneath the mountains.

Magic that alters memory, identity or oath testimony is particularly feared because it attacks the foundations of Scar-Law.

Death, Burial and Memory

Orcs believe that the dead must be returned to earth without allowing the earth to swallow their identity.

The dead warrior’s primary weapon is commonly broken before burial. One part enters the grave; another remains with the household or standard as proof that the dead belonged to the clan.

Burial customs vary:

• steppe clans raise low stone-and-earth mounds;
• mountain clans seal the dead in natural chambers rather than active mines;
• urban orcs maintain walled burial grounds or family crypts;
• warbands far from home carry a stone from the death site back to the clan.

A Seer or elder recites the dead orc’s witnessed scars, debts and surviving obligations. The purpose is not praise. It is to prevent false claims after death.

When dwarves or elves kill an orc, the identity of the ancestral enemy becomes part of the burial account. Such deaths reinforce hatred long after the immediate battle is forgotten.

Worg allies receive their own pack rites. They are not buried as mounts or possessions of their riders.

Relations with Other Peoples and Creatures

Other Orcs

Other orcs are a clan’s closest potential allies and its most frequent political rivals.

A witnessed oath, marriage agreement, shared standard or recognised khan can unite clans into armies capable of sustained conquest. Without such authority, disputes over pasture, wells, captives, tribute and inherited insults can rapidly lead to violence.

Dwarves

Dwarves are the ancestral enemy.

Most orcs are taught that dwarven hands opened the First Scar and dwarven weapons barred the first road to the surface. Later wars over mountain halls, mines and forge roads repeatedly confirm this inherited account.

Orcs may trade with dwarves through intermediaries, exchange prisoners or fight beside them against a greater enemy. Such cooperation requires strict terms and rarely survives once the immediate need ends.

Many orcs attack dwarves on sight when no recognised authority restrains them.

Elves

Elves are an ancient racial enemy encountered during the orcs’ expansion into forests, river valleys and western mountain approaches.

Elven support for dwarven holds strengthens the orc belief that the two peoples are natural allies against them.

Regional treaties and temporary alliances occur, but most orc clans expect eventual conflict with nearby elven settlements.

Worgs

Worgs are the orcs’ closest non-orc allies.

Orc Fanglords negotiate with pack leaders for military service, hunting rights, denning territory, meat and a share of livestock or plunder.

A recognised worg pack may fight beside the same clan for generations. A leader who starves the pack, mistreats its cubs or treats its members as ordinary animals may be abandoned or killed.

Wolves

Ordinary wolves serve as hunting animals, trackers and camp guardians. They are animals rather than political allies and are not normally large enough to carry orc riders.

Ogres

Ogres sometimes serve Fanglords as gate-breakers, wagon haulers and heavy assault troops.

The relationship is transactional. Ogres follow rulers who provide food, weapons and opportunities for violence but may desert or change sides when defeat appears likely.

Centaurs

Some centaur clans form temporary alliances with orc khans. Both peoples value mobility, knowledge of open country and the division of captured wealth.

The same clans may fight over pasture, river crossings and stolen livestock. Centaurs remain independent allies or enemies rather than automatic members of an orc army.

Ettins

Ettins are two-headed giant-kin whose ancestors serve the Crown of the Nine Mountains as fortress guards, slave-drivers, tribute collectors and wardens of mountain passes.

Orcs remember ettins as servants of the giant oppressors who guarded mines, hunted escaped captives and attempted to block the first clans from reaching the surface.

After the giant empire falls, many ettins become petty rulers of ruined forts, bridges, caves and mountain roads. Some still demand tribute in the names of giant masters dead for thousands of years.

Orcs generally hate and distrust ettins, but the hostility is less absolute than their hatred of dwarves. A Fanglord may bribe an ettin, hire it as a siege warrior or force a defeated ettin into temporary service.

Ettins make unstable auxiliaries. Their two heads may disagree about payment, allegiance, retreat or whether an oath remains advantageous.

Hobgoblins

Orcs and hobgoblins are separate peoples with different histories, gods, laws and military traditions.

Hobgoblin states do not form part of the Great Steppe Empire or its successor khanates. They compete with orc rulers for frontier cities, caravan roads, tribute and former imperial territory.

Hobgoblin armies favour permanent military institutions, codified rank and written chains of command. Orc armies remain more dependent upon clan obligations, dynastic households, personal followings and witnessed oaths.

Humans

Human contact with orcs includes trade, frontier coexistence, tribute, warfare, enslavement and imperial conquest.

Human settlements may remain within orc-ruled territories as conquered or tributary communities. Their treatment depends upon local law, status and the power capable of defending that status.

Half-Orcs

Content note: This section refers non-graphically to sexual violence.

Most half-orcs known along the SpiralWorlds frontiers arise through sexual violence committed against human captives during raids, slavery and conquest.

They are not a comfortable symbol of harmonious orc–human relations or a recognised partner people within the Great Steppe imperial order.

Some half-orcs are raised within orc clans as dependants, slaves or soldiers. Others escape, remain with human relatives or grow up among communities that distrust them because of their appearance.

Individual half-orcs may serve orc rulers, resist them, collaborate to survive, seek revenge or reject both sides of their ancestry. The crime of a parent does not determine the moral character of the child.

Regional Orc Cultures

First-Scar Clans

First-Scar clans remain near the Altai, Sayan Mountains and ancient giant mining territories. They preserve the strongest dwarf hatred and the greatest number of origin traditions.

Their settlements occupy cave mouths, abandoned giant roads, defensible valleys and captured forge complexes.

Forest-Steppe Clans

Forest-steppe orcs are hunters, trappers, timber workers and worg-pact keepers. They travel in smaller groups than open-steppe armies and use rivers or frozen waterways as seasonal routes.

These clans fight frequent wars with elves over woodland boundaries, river crossings and hidden settlements.

Open-Steppe Clans

Open-steppe orcs raise horses, cattle, sheep and goats. Their political power depends upon pasture, wells, mobile households and the ability to gather warriors quickly.

These clans form the historical core of Temüjin’s Great Steppe Empire, but they do not represent every orc culture.

Desert-Margin Clans

Orcs of the Gobi and Central Asian drylands control wells, salt routes and sheltered valleys. They maintain hidden stores against drought, siege and death-worm attacks.

Western Horde Clans

Western orcs live among the Volga, Don, Crimean and Caspian successor states. Their armies incorporate river crossings, fortified towns, tribute networks and extensive contact with Rus, Turkic, Caucasian and Black Sea communities.

Imperial and Urban Orcs

The Great Steppe conquests establish orc garrisons, military households and ruling families within cities from China to Persia and the western steppe.

Urban orcs serve as guards, armourers, tribute enforcers, caravan officers, nobles and professional soldiers. They remain orcs without reproducing every custom of a mobile clan camp.

Warfare

An orc army is not simply a mass of screaming infantry.

Depending upon region and wealth, it may include:

• mounted archers and horse scouts;
• Common Orc infantry with shields and spears;
• Worg Riders used for pursuit and night reconnaissance;
• Standard-Bearers maintaining clan cohesion;
• First-Scar Seers disrupting fortifications and enemy formations;
• subject archers, labourers and siege crews;
• ogre or ettin auxiliaries used against gates and narrow passes;
• engineers trained in captured Chinese, Persian, dwarven or giant techniques.

Orcs prefer campaigns that secure pasture, roads, tribute and political submission. They do not need to occupy every field or destroy every settlement.

Successful commanders use scouts, feigned withdrawals, night marches, dust, bad weather and attacks against supply lines.

Inherited hatred can strengthen an army facing dwarves or elves, but it can also destroy discipline. Enemies may display ancestral relics, release false reports or expose dwarven troops to draw orc warriors away from their assigned position.

The word horde should describe a recognised political or military host, not every group of orcs encountered together.

Negotiating with Orcs

Successful negotiation begins by establishing identity and authority.

An orc wants to know who speaks for the group, whose protection they carry and what consequences follow if an agreement is broken.

Useful offerings include:

• food and livestock;
• iron and practical tools;
• information about enemies or roads;
• the return of recognised captives;
• weapons taken from dwarves or giants;
• access to a protected market;
• a witnessed promise backed by a known ruler.

Empty flattery is less valuable than a precise offer. Open fear invites pressure, while careless insults may transform bargaining into feud.

An orc negotiator does not need to like the party. The agreement works when both sides understand the price of breaking it.

Dwarven or elven negotiators require stronger protection than other envoys. A recognised Fanglord, Seer or Standard-Bearer must make it clear that the ancestral enemy is temporarily protected by Scar-Law.

Weaknesses and Fractures

Weakness	How It Affects the Orcs	How Characters Can Use It
Clan Rivalry	Competing standards, claims and blood debts divide larger armies.	Expose unequal plunder, support a rival claimant or force leaders to choose between campaign and feud.
Inherited Hatred	Warriors may abandon discipline when dwarves, elves or First-Scar relics appear.	Use genuine or forged evidence to redirect a patrol—at the risk of beginning a larger war.
Pasture and Water	Large mobile forces require grazing, wells and replacement animals.	Deny routes, evacuate herds or defend the few reliable water sources.
Standards	A standard carries authority, morale and clan identity.	Capture, hide or bargain over it rather than fighting every warrior.
Worg Pacts	Mounted forces depend upon negotiated pack alliances.	Reveal mistreatment, protect cubs or negotiate separately with the pack leader.
Subject Resentment	Tributary settlements may conceal supplies, intelligence and rebels.	Build a resistance network or offer protection against retaliation.
Succession	A ruler’s death can divide an empire into rival households.	Determine who inherits the standard, hostages, treasury and loyalty of the worg packs.

Signs of Orc Presence

• tusk-shaped marks cut into boundary stones or trees;
• old giant chain links displayed beside a camp entrance;
• deep wagon ruts leading towards seasonal pasture;
• hide-wrapped poles carrying strips of clan colours;
• carefully guarded wells marked with a Fanglord’s token;
• worg tracks travelling beside booted humanoid prints;
• burial mounds containing deliberately broken weapons;
• dwarven mine signs defaced with iron-red pigment;
• elven boundary stones deliberately overturned;
• scouts observing travellers without immediately attacking;
• messengers demanding the name of the traveller’s protector or ruler.

These signs do not automatically indicate an imminent attack. They may mark recognised territory, a migration route, an active military camp or a permanent settlement.

What Characters Know

Check	Information
DC 10 History or Knowledge (local)	Orcs are intelligent, speak their own language and understand surrender, tribute and negotiation.
DC 12 Nature or Knowledge (nature)	Worgs are intelligent allies rather than ordinary mounts. A rider and worg may have separate motives.
DC 12 History or Knowledge (local)	Most orcs inherit intense hatred of dwarves and elves, even without a personal grievance.
DC 15 History or Knowledge (history)	The Great Steppe Empire has fractured into several successor states. No single khan commands every orc.
DC 15 Religion or Knowledge (religion)	First-Scar Seers revere ancestors and the wounded earth rather than one universal orc creator god.
DC 18 History or Knowledge (history)	The dwarves were enslaved by giants when the First Scar opened. The original conflict alone does not explain the current hatred; thousands of years of later warfare do.
DC 20 Investigation or Knowledge (local)	The markings on a standard identify the clan, current Fanglord, inherited feuds and authorities empowered to accept surrender.

Common Falsehoods

Claim	Truth
All orcs obey one Great Khan.	The empire has fractured. Orc clans and successor states frequently fight one another.
All orcs are nomads.	Many live in winter holds, mines, road stations, fortified towns and imperial cities.
Orcs never honour surrender.	They recognise surrender, but the terms may involve tribute, hostages, labour or enslavement.
Worgs are trained war animals.	Worgs are intelligent allies whose cooperation depends upon a continuing pact.
Orcs are corrupted elves.	SpiralWorlds orcs are a separate people born from the First Scar.
Dwarves freely created the First Scar.	Frost and Fire Giants ordered the excavation; enslaved dwarves performed much of the work.
The First Scar alone explains orc hatred of dwarves.	The First Scar begins the conflict. Thousands of years of repeated war create the inherited hatred.
Orcs are too stupid for strategy.	Their empires, protected roads, siege warfare and coordinated mounted armies prove otherwise.

Treasure

Common orcs carry practical wealth:

• weapons and repair tools;
• food, salt and preserved meat;
• hide armour and spare leather;
• horse tack or worg-pact tokens;
• tusk-seals and recognised travel tokens;
• strips of captured standards;
• iron rings recording clan membership;
• dwarven or elven relics with political significance;
• giant artefacts and chain links;
• letters or tribute records in regional languages.

Much of an orc’s property belongs partly to a household or clan. Looting a fallen warrior may create accusations of theft, demands for restitution or a blood debt centred on one apparently worthless object.

Adventure Hooks

The Gate of the First War

An earthquake exposes an ancient mine gate beneath the Altai. Orc and dwarf expeditions arrive simultaneously, each claiming the structure as proof of its people’s account of the First Scar.

An ettin occupies the outer gate and insists that both peoples still owe tribute to its long-dead Frost Giant master.

The Captured Standard

A frontier ruler displays an orc clan standard as a trophy. The clan offers compensation for its return before declaring a blood feud.

The standard was not captured in battle. It was sold by an orc rival who wants the feud to destroy both sides.

The Broken Worg Pact

An orc clan accuses a settlement of killing three members of an allied worg pack. The settlement insists that the worgs attacked first.

The surviving pack leader demands blood payment while the clan’s Worg Riders prepare to enforce the pact. Tracks at the scene suggest that a winter wolf or shapechanger provoked the attack.

Common Questions

Are SpiralWorlds orcs corrupted humans or elves?

No. They are a distinct nonhuman people born from the wounded earth during the First Scar.

Why do orcs hate dwarves?

The first conflict begins when dwarven survivors block the newly born orcs inside the collapsing giant mines. Thousands of years of later wars over mines, roads, forge halls and mountain territory turn that first battle into inherited racial hatred.

Did dwarves cause the First Scar?

Frost Giant rulers demand the star-iron and Fire Giant forge lords direct the excavation. Enslaved dwarves perform much of the mining. Orc tradition reduces this complicated history to the claim that dwarven hands opened the wound.

Why do orcs hate elves?

Elves repeatedly resist orc expansion, protect forests and river valleys, shelter escaped captives and support dwarven holds. Generations of warfare transform these conflicts into another inherited racial enmity.

Are worgs orc mounts?

Some worgs carry trained orc riders, but they are intelligent allies rather than domesticated animals. The pack may abandon or kill a Fanglord who breaks the pact.

Where are the major orc lands in 1454?

The principal concentrations are the Northern Yuan heartland, First-Scar Mountains, Eastern Fang Khanate, Great Horde, Crimea, Kazan, Nogai territories, former Ilkhanate lands and the Ming frontier.

Are all orcs Chaotic Evil?

Chaotic Evil is the overwhelming cultural and mechanical default. Exceptional individuals may differ, but they are rare.

Historical and Mythic Context

The English word orc has a history older than modern fantasy. Related forms appear in Old English material, including the difficult term orcneas in Beowulf. The Bosworth–Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary provides a major reference for surviving Old English vocabulary.

Modern fantasy orcs owe much of their familiar form to J. R. R. Tolkien, although Tolkien considered several incompatible explanations for their origin. The Tolkien Gateway summary of the Orc origin texts provides an overview of those changing theories.

Earlier tabletop roleplaying descriptions commonly present orc hatred of elves and dwarves as an established ancestral enmity rather than a grievance requiring complete moral justification. SpiralWorlds follows that model while embedding the hatred within its own history.

The First Scar supplies the oldest remembered conflict. Later generations of warfare, political teaching, revenge and reciprocal killing make the hatred self-sustaining. Orcs do not need an objectively sufficient reason to preserve it.

SpiralWorlds joins five elements into one orc history:

• giant imperial exploitation;
• enslaved dwarven miners;
• the physical wounding of the earth;
• the birth of the first orcs inside the collapse;
• ancestral enmities strengthened by thousands of years of later warfare.

The 1454 political geography draws upon the historical fragmentation of the Mongol successor states while changing their ruling people and supernatural history. The UNESCO Orkhon Valley Cultural Landscape provides historical context for Karakorum and the Orkhon Valley’s role in Central Asian imperial and pastoral history.

The word ettin derives from old Germanic terms for a giant or monstrous being. SpiralWorlds treats the familiar two-headed ettin as a lesser giant-kin people that served the Frost and Fire Giant rulers of northern Asia.

This entry does not rely upon Gruumsh or other proprietary Dungeons & Dragons orc deities. Temüjin is the historical mortal founder of the Great Steppe Empire. Chinggis Khan is his title, commonly translated within the campaign as the Universal Ruler.

Rules and Licensing Note

The D&D 5E 2024-compatible monster rules in this entry are original adaptations designed using the terminology and structure of the current System Reference Document.

This work includes material from the System Reference Document 5.2.1 by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The Pathfinder 1e statistics are original variants written for this entry using the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game rules framework. The Archives of Nethys Orc entry and Pathfinder Monster Codex Orc reference provide external rules references.

D&D 3.5e conversion notes are supplied as concise adjustments to the Pathfinder 1e blocks rather than being presented as mechanically identical systems.