Orcs in the green age were a people of seafarers and farmers; they were reputedly estingueshed by future Aballach-Re. In 4 ed official lore Aballach-Re appears as being all but meticolous; so, what if she was as uncaring as a genocidal as she is as a monarch? A signifant population of orcs survives in the Sea of Silt, their islands and floating villages protected by a strong fleet some of them are traders and fishers, others are pirates and raiders.
Honestly, I don’t see the appeal. A major part of dark sun is the removal of many of the traditional races, and those that remain were given some sort of twist.
While I have no objection for including those extinct races if you have a good story or a player who really wants to play one, it would and should be an anomaly, an exception rather than the rule.
And I honestly don’t see any need for bringing orcs back just for them to fill the same traditional roles of savages and brutish antagonists when there are so many athasian races that fill those niches, like the tareks.
It just dilute the uniqueness of world, and turns it into yet another vanilla setting, so one might as well just play forgotten realms in the desert…
I would be much more interested in expanding on tareks and hej kins.
(Sorry if this sounds like a rant, I just think there are better races in need of love in the setting to put our efforts in)
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For Secrets of the Dead Lands we envisioned orcs as a bit more physically human-looking (more analogous to half-orcs, but stronger on the “orc” half, conversely athasian half orcs were rare but seen as downright attractive), or rather, halfling-looking, to reflect the shared rhulisti ancestry, and they lived in various life-patterns, the orcs of Ghaash-Naarg were raiders and mercenaries, but more as a result of economics and tradition, while the ones in Biga-Fe-Tye were wealthy merchants who acted basically like stereotypical 1980s american businessperson (loud and aggressive mercantilism).
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I have never said they are savege or brutish. On the opposite I envision them as a people with a rich oral tradition and a trade oriented mentality.
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Indeed! (also yes we kind of went with Abalach-Re being a jackass even back then too :P)
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She is lazy and unscrupolous fullstop.
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Like with the Gnomes, for me, extant orcs are unnecessary and unwanted in FY 10, but i can’t wait to slide @Goodmaster’s sailor/merchant orcs into the Green Age.
Keep it up.
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While I always appreciate creativity, I have to agree with ouroboros’a statement.
The original Dark Sun setting was written with many of the traditional fantasy-troupe creatures having had been eradicated (for a good reason, as stated by both original designers Timothy Brown and Troy Denning - see: Bone, Stone & Obsidan podcast, episodes 8, 9, and 10). During these Cleansing Wars, Abalach-Re, the Queen of Raam (formerly Uyness of Waverly), exterminated the race of orcs under Rajaat’s command.
Regardless of how 4ed depicts her (less than meticulous) Rajaat was merciless, neither lenient nor tolerant, and I imagine he would not have allowed Abalach-Re to be anything but successful in the orders he had instructed her to carry out (which may have been part of the reason she decided to join Bory’s in his revolt against Rajaat?).
Regardless, IMO orcs have no place in Dark Sun, and as ouroboros stated, “It just dilutes the uniqueness of world, and turns it into yet another vanilla setting, so one might as well just play forgotten realms in the desert…” and there really are plenty of other existing creatures you could expand upon. But, if you really need/want to have orcs in your DS campaign, maybe you can just reskin an existing creature to meet your needs? Tareks are a great alternative that already have an established presence on Athas.
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Abalach-Re in my hopinion, is and was all but scrupolous. So, she is one of the more likely to have failed. I respect the authors intentions; but as I have stated many times, this is not Canon Athas, thus is not their Athas, it is MY Athas; in my Athas there are Gnomes, Orcs and Half-Orcs, because I like it this way; Furtherly I think that adding old races to Athas with a new vest, is not diluting anything but enriching the setting. Thanks for your feedback.
You are free to do what you want on your Athas, but don’t post something up and expect everyone else to agree with it. I personally think the idea is good, but not for me. If I have a player that wants a race not alive on Athas I make them play an Elan that has survived hiding from the SKs. Otherwise, I provide a large list of playable races that are acceptable on Athas. In my opinion adding these races does go against lore because if they managed to survive this long they must have grown largely between now and the end of the Cleansing Wars. It’s your Athas so feel free to do what you want so keep at it.
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I never asked anyone to agree with me, thought, I only explained my point of view. In my lore, Gnomes survived hiding in the Land before the Wind, and Orcs hided inside the Sea of Silt, for example. That said thanks for the review.
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It definitely wouldn’t hurt to mention that you’re specifically dealing wirh non-canon homebrew at the start of each new thread (extant Orcs in this case).
It’ll save time explaining that fact in the long run. …
So, after reading heavily on Tolkien’s works on Orcs, I am biased that Orcs are failed or corrupted Elves. But, perhaps, Athasian-Orcs are a totally different species that just happens to be called, “Orcs”.
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if using the Revised Edition Rebirth and Rhulisti, they were presumably one of the peoples derived from Halflings, given Rajaat wanted them dead.
Very interesting idea. But I went with the Halflig-derived idea of Canon Athas.
With the Rebirth Races being Halfling-derived, that does make Elves & Orcs sibling races. Just saying…
If you read my Half-Orc entry in Goodmaster’s Athas’ races. you will notice that I pratically switched their classical roles with Half-Elves. In classic D&D Half Elves are bridges between two worlds, and Half-Orcs are rejected by both. In Athas, Half-Elves are shunned by both words, thus I made Half-Orcs the bridges between the two societies.
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