Candlekeep Forum
Candlekeep Forum
Home | Profile | Register | Active Topics | Active Polls | Members | Private Messages | Search | FAQ
Username:
Password:
Save Password
Forgot your Password?

 All Forums
 Forgotten Realms Journals
 General Forgotten Realms Chat
 Giant-sized Orcs
 New Topic  New Poll New Poll
 Reply to Topic
 Printer Friendly
Author Previous Topic Topic Next Topic  

Icelander
Master of Realmslore

1864 Posts

Posted - 27 Oct 2019 :  01:04:19  Show Profile  Visit Icelander's Homepage Send Icelander a Private Message  Reply with Quote  Delete Topic
According to lore from Ed Greenwood, 12'+ tall orc hukrym ('boldtusks', i.e. chiefs and champions) exist in the Realms.

If true giants meet such orcs, what will they assume about them?

That they are just freakish orcs?

Or could they suspect that the orcs might have ogre blood?

What about giant blood?

If the huge orcs can speak Jotun, would giants believe they were half-giants, with the blood of hill giants in them?

Do any giants or giant-kin resemble 12'-14' tall orcs?

Asking for PCs with access to long duration Enlarge and Tongues spells (but not necessarily Illusion or other Transmutation spells*), plus a plan that might involve humans and dwarves pretending to be firbolgs, but would need to account for representatives of their orc allies who'd also want to be involved.

What kind of giants should huge orcs try to impersonate?

*Sir Sebastian Silverlocke is an Abjurer and cannot cast Transmutation magic, although he can manage Tongues and a variety of knowledge-based magic. Enlarge spells can be cast by Yuraurgh Farseer, an orcish warpriest of Ilneval Hordemaster, but he doesn't have any spells that transmute people into different races or provide them with illusionary disguises. Finally, Huthraug Skinwalker, an orcish druid, can transmute people into all sorts of animals, but can't make them look like a specific type of giant. Hence, disguising some people as giants can be done, but only if there are types of giants that look like that person scaled up to twice their height using Enlarge.

Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!

Forgotten Realms fans, please sign a petition to re-release the FR Interactive Atlas

Edited by - Icelander on 31 Oct 2019 02:03:44

Icelander
Master of Realmslore

1864 Posts

Posted - 27 Oct 2019 :  01:11:27  Show Profile  Visit Icelander's Homepage Send Icelander a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by ericlboyd

whats the original reference?


Ed mentions such hukrym in his replies in in the 2009 'Questions for Ed Greenwood' scroll, quoted and discussed in
this scroll.

Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!

Forgotten Realms fans, please sign a petition to re-release the FR Interactive Atlas
Go to Top of Page

ericlboyd
Forgotten Realms Designer

USA
2065 Posts

Posted - 27 Oct 2019 :  01:43:34  Show Profile  Visit ericlboyd's Homepage Send ericlboyd a Private Message  Reply with Quote
whats the original reference?

--
http://www.ericlboyd.com/dnd/
Go to Top of Page

Baltas
Senior Scribe

Poland
955 Posts

Posted - 27 Oct 2019 :  01:47:19  Show Profile Send Baltas a Private Message  Reply with Quote
This reminds me how huge Neo-Orogs were presented in Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale games (To be clear though, I think many, and pretty surely the ones in Icewind Dale to be Orogs):
https://youtu.be/SHXrXKII0cw?t=406

With giants, Ettin resemble orcs, to the point 5E suggests they might have started as them...but I guess one couldn't mistake them for just giant orcs, because of their two heads.

I think though giant orcs could be confused for Maur:
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Maur

Edited by - Baltas on 27 Oct 2019 09:51:02
Go to Top of Page

George Krashos
Master of Realmslore

Australia
6638 Posts

Posted - 27 Oct 2019 :  03:10:05  Show Profile Send George Krashos a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by ericlboyd

whats the original reference?



Ed's orc comments begin here and on following pages from his 2009 thread:

http://forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=12023&whichpage=18

-- George Krashos

"Because only we, contrary to the barbarians, never count the enemy in battle." -- Aeschylus
Go to Top of Page

sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist

USA
11686 Posts

Posted - 27 Oct 2019 :  12:02:21  Show Profile Send sleyvas a Private Message  Reply with Quote
My assumptions would be that one night long ago, Gruumsh showed up at Othea's place with a bottle of cheap grog, some honey dipped candied fruit in a dragon's heart, and a magical recording of the great dwarven bard, Maerveen Gray, singing "Let us getteth it on". Thus were born a race of extremely tall orcs.

Alavairthae, may your skill prevail

Phillip aka Sleyvas
Go to Top of Page

Icelander
Master of Realmslore

1864 Posts

Posted - 27 Oct 2019 :  13:47:11  Show Profile  Visit Icelander's Homepage Send Icelander a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas

My assumptions would be that one night long ago, Gruumsh showed up at Othea's place with a bottle of cheap grog, some honey dipped candied fruit in a dragon's heart, and a magical recording of the great dwarven bard, Maerveen Gray, singing "Let us getteth it on". Thus were born a race of extremely tall orcs.


That's one possibility.

I feel that Ed presents the huge orcs as living among other orcs, however, and being born to orc parents. In his example orcish chant of tribal chiefs and champions, orcs with four arms or orcs tall as mountains follow other orcish chiefs where no mention is made of unusual size or shape and in some cases are even explicitly noted as being the son of another orcish chief. Basically, from reading Ed's Realmslore on orcs from the 2009 scroll, I got the feeling that some orcs were two or three times taller than other orcs (or had many arms, prehensible tails or some other oddities), but orcs still just considered them 'orcs', and never mentioned ogre or giant blood in context with them.

Given that avatars of orcish deities are generally presented as being of much larger stature than mortal orcs, my personal theory is that such orcs are throwbacks to divine blood from their deities who walked Toril in the Orcgate Wars.

That being said, while the question of the ultimate origin of huge orcs is fascinating from a purely scholarly Realmslore perspective, what I was specifically wondering for the situation in-game is more what giants (frost giants, in this case) might think of 12'+ tall characters who looked like orcs scaled up.

Giants living close to the Vast and Thar presumably have heard of legendary orcish hukrym of vast size (like Gloroundoun, currently very active in the area and over 15' tall), but what do they imagine these creatures are?

Are there giant legends about orcs of giant size?

Do the giants themselves see such giant orcs in a similar light as various giant-kin or the ettin?

Regardless of what the orcs believe, do giants imagine that huge orcs have an origin in yet another of Othea's divine dalliances?

Or do they perhaps imagine a more mundane dalliance is more likely to be responsible, between an enterprising orc and a giantess, for example?

How would frost giants respond to one or two orcs of 12'+ height arriving at their steading in the company of some giant-kin, addressing them in Jotun, bringing a guest gift and asking for hospitality?

Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!

Forgotten Realms fans, please sign a petition to re-release the FR Interactive Atlas
Go to Top of Page

Icelander
Master of Realmslore

1864 Posts

Posted - 31 Oct 2019 :  02:03:00  Show Profile  Visit Icelander's Homepage Send Icelander a Private Message  Reply with Quote
If normal orcs affected by Enlarge (in order to stand 12'+ tall) and Tongues (so they can speak Jotun) mean to convince ogre and cyclopskin shepherds, verbeeg overseer and a tribe of frost giants that they are, at least, giant-kin and thus shouldn't be killed or enslaved out of hand, what do they need in order to sell their disguise and deception?

I'm not using D&D rules, but GURPS, to emulate the Forgotten Realms setting, so I'll try to have spells work the way they are portrayed in Realms fiction rather than stick to any one D&D edition version. Enlarge will thus affect normal clothing, but neither armour or weapons (though obviously, other spells exist that can alter the size of inanimate objects).

So, my disguised orcs would have clothes in their Enlarged state, but would need weapons suitable for their size. Perhaps there exists a clerical spell usable by priests of Ilneval that can create a temporary weapon to specifications, which could be used to make suitable axes, swords or spears of the right length for giant-sized orcs. And/or a druid spell might grow a branch to a large enough size to make a giant club.

They also need a cover identity. Giants meeting other giants, even giant-kin, will recite their lineages. So the Enlarged orcs would need to decide exactly what giant race they should claim to be of and invent a suitable line of descent.

They could claim to be ettin crossbreeds of some sort, assuming ettin that breed with orcs, ogres or hill giants have offspring that may not necessarily have two heads.

They could also claim descent from gigantic orcish hukrym like Gloroundoun, claiming that their mother was a giant, in order to qualify as giant-kin. Frankly, I'd expect that if orcs that stand up to 14' tall at the shoulders exist in the Vast, some of these orcs really must have mated with ogresses and giantesses, given that they are the same size as hill giants already and hill giants are no uglier than orcs.

Which is these is most plausible and most likely to get them at least limited acceptance; claiming to be ettin/ogre crossbreeeds, ettin/hill giant crossbreeds or giant-sized orc/hill giant crossbreeds?

Or perhaps a possibility I haven't thought of?

What else do the orcs need to carry off their deception?

Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!

Forgotten Realms fans, please sign a petition to re-release the FR Interactive Atlas

Edited by - Icelander on 31 Oct 2019 02:04:02
Go to Top of Page

Ayrik
Great Reader

Canada
7966 Posts

Posted - 31 Oct 2019 :  03:25:33  Show Profile Send Ayrik a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Giant-sized orcs are kinda meh. And they can hardly be bona-fide fide orcs considering that Mighty Gruumsh One-Eye (He Who Watches And Never Sleeps And Exudes Savagely Bestial Manly Awesomeness) stands a paltry 10' tall.

But giant-sized minotaurs... now that offers some possibilities. Assuming a giant-sized labyrinth.

[/Ayrik]
Go to Top of Page

Icelander
Master of Realmslore

1864 Posts

Posted - 31 Oct 2019 :  08:55:52  Show Profile  Visit Icelander's Homepage Send Icelander a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Ayrik

Giant-sized orcs are kinda meh. And they can hardly be bona-fide fide orcs considering that Mighty Gruumsh One-Eye (He Who Watches And Never Sleeps And Exudes Savagely Bestial Manly Awesomeness) stands a paltry 10' tall.

That's the size of the most common form of his avatar, originally appearing in a supplement meant for orcs in general, not specifically Realmsian orcs and even less especially gray orcs from Vastar.

Ed's reply doesn't make it explicit whether these gigantic orcs exist among both gray orcs and mountain orcs on Toril, but the one named orc who stands 15'+ tall is from the Vast and presumably of gray orc origin.

Until I discover otherwise, I'll assume that such gigantic orcs are only found among the blood of old Vastar.

As for the size of actual orcs deities, I don't see any reason to assume that the size of their avatars reflect anything but one popular image of them that their worshipers expect to see and presumably, He Who Watches is fully capable of manifesting a taller avatar if visiting a tribe in the Vast.

And the incarnations of the orc deities who came with the gray orc host through the Orcgate might have been any size, really, given that while they were the same gods, this was a different culture and plenty of deities in Realmslore have different avatars for different cultures.

In their fully divine forms, He Who Watches and his fellow orc gods are, of course, not entirely physical, but given that dead gods on the Astral can be many miles long, any physical form for Gruumsh and company would, in my mind, be far bigger than any natural being.

quote:
Originally posted by Ayrik

But giant-sized minotaurs... now that offers some possibilities. Assuming a giant-sized labyrinth.


The minotaurs of Grong-Haap might have ranged considerably in size, with chieftains, leaders and heroes being much bigger than the ordinary folk. This has some support in that the monuments left behind by that race are often misidentified as giant ruins and/or the minotaurs seem to have used some structures originally built by giants.

Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!

Forgotten Realms fans, please sign a petition to re-release the FR Interactive Atlas
Go to Top of Page

ericlboyd
Forgotten Realms Designer

USA
2065 Posts

Posted - 31 Oct 2019 :  12:21:58  Show Profile  Visit ericlboyd's Homepage Send ericlboyd a Private Message  Reply with Quote
I think a simple way to address it in 3.5e would be to say that orcs, like dragons and trolls, have fairly mutable genetics, allowing them to cross-breed with almost anything. This would explain the four-armed orcs.

For the MM 3.5e write-up, I would change the Advancement line to:

Advancement: 2-4 (Medium); 5-8 (Large); 9-12 (Huge) and/or by character class

That would allow for advanced 12 HD orc with 8 levels of barbarian, for example.

--Eric

--
http://www.ericlboyd.com/dnd/
Go to Top of Page

Icelander
Master of Realmslore

1864 Posts

Posted - 31 Oct 2019 :  12:36:33  Show Profile  Visit Icelander's Homepage Send Icelander a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by ericlboyd

I think a simple way to address it in 3.5e would be to say that orcs, like dragons and trolls, have fairly mutable genetics, allowing them to cross-breed with almost anything. This would explain the four-armed orcs.

I agree with the mutable genetics, but what are they breeding with that introduces the four-armed genes?

Mutated sahuagin? Mariliths?

Or do orcs simply have the potential for a similar mutation as sahuagin, as well as the mutation that causes gigantic orcs?

I think that I like the latter better, especially if those 'mutations' are actually throwbacks to the blood of orcish deities which fought alongside their followers in the Orcgate Wars.

After all, it's plausible that there might have been any number of regional demigods who came over from the Orc World, many of whom might have been slain in the wars against the Old Empires god-kings or fallen out of favor since then (likely because of the encroachment of the major orcish and/or native Realmsian deities on their portfolios).

Garagos/Targus could have subsumed an orcish berserker deity with multiple arms between the Orcgate Wars and the fall of Netheril. Or he could originally have been an orcish interloper deity from the Orc World, who appealed to wild barbarian humans as well as orcs.

quote:
Originally posted by ericlboyd

For the MM 3.5e write-up, I would change the Advancement line to:

Advancement: 2-4 (Medium); 5-8 (Large); 9-12 (Huge) and/or by character class

That would allow for advanced 12 HD orc with 8 levels of barbarian, for example.

--Eric


That sounds fine for those looking for D&D mechanical ways to represent this Realmslore from Ed.

I'm more interested in what human sages, the orcs themselves and, of course, the giants, believe about these gigantic orcish specimens in-setting.

Do giants consider them some kind of half-breed giant-kin? Or just very big orcs, not in any way related to giants?

Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!

Forgotten Realms fans, please sign a petition to re-release the FR Interactive Atlas
Go to Top of Page

ericlboyd
Forgotten Realms Designer

USA
2065 Posts

Posted - 31 Oct 2019 :  13:45:59  Show Profile  Visit ericlboyd's Homepage Send ericlboyd a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Icelander

I'm more interested in what human sages, the orcs themselves and, of course, the giants, believe about these gigantic orcish specimens in-setting.

Do giants consider them some kind of half-breed giant-kin? Or just very big orcs, not in any way related to giants?



I would vote for very big orcs, not in any way related to giants. While they may have giant or ogre blood (think ogrillons from 1e), I think orcs and people who think about orcs tend to view them inclusively. In other words, if you have a drop or more of orc blood and you behave like an orc, that makes you an orc.

--Eric

--
http://www.ericlboyd.com/dnd/
Go to Top of Page

Icelander
Master of Realmslore

1864 Posts

Posted - 01 Nov 2019 :  02:12:09  Show Profile  Visit Icelander's Homepage Send Icelander a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by ericlboyd

I would vote for very big orcs, not in any way related to giants. While they may have giant or ogre blood (think ogrillons from 1e), I think orcs and people who think about orcs tend to view them inclusively. In other words, if you have a drop or more of orc blood and you behave like an orc, that makes you an orc.

--Eric


That's a good point.

However, from the giant point of view, 'giant' (or at least 'giant-kin') is also an inclusive label. If you can trace your ancestry to Annam, you are a 'giant' (see the royal family of Hartsvale, by D&D rules they count as human, but by giant law, at least for a significant majority, they are at the head of the Ordnung). And if you descend from Othea, you generally rate at least 'giant-kin', with ogres and trolls coming with something of an asterix.

So, if my orcs with Enlarge and Tongues (Jotun) spells active want giants to accept them as any kind of kin, they should be able to convincingly trace their descent from true giants, which in their case, of course, means they need a well-prepared lie.

Basically, they'll have to make up (or make use of an existing figure) an ettin or hill giant parent who mated with their gigantic orc parent.

Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!

Forgotten Realms fans, please sign a petition to re-release the FR Interactive Atlas
Go to Top of Page

Ayrik
Great Reader

Canada
7966 Posts

Posted - 01 Nov 2019 :  02:49:26  Show Profile Send Ayrik a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Humanoids/Goblinoids seem to always get dumber and meaner when they get larger.

We already have orog and ogrillon, some kind of orc-giant (or orog-giant or ogrillon-giant) hybrid doesn't seem entire implausible.

And the Realms being what they are, a tribe of giant-sized orcs could always be descended from some long ago wizard's private army, divine meddling, or extraplanar crossbreeding. Planescape mentions extraordinarily large armies of extraordinarily large orcs on some layers of Acheron.

[/Ayrik]
Go to Top of Page

Baltas
Senior Scribe

Poland
955 Posts

Posted - 01 Nov 2019 :  13:07:43  Show Profile Send Baltas a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Actually, there is at least one exception - Orogs including Neo-Orogs are noted to be smarter than the average orcs.
Go to Top of Page

Icelander
Master of Realmslore

1864 Posts

Posted - 01 Nov 2019 :  13:16:36  Show Profile  Visit Icelander's Homepage Send Icelander a Private Message  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Ayrik

Humanoids/Goblinoids seem to always get dumber and meaner when they get larger.

Glorundoun, the largest orc described in any Realms source of which I'm aware, is also the smartest and most far-sighted orc I can recall.

He's bigger than almost all giant-kin, the size of a true giant, and he's better at scheming than the entire published Zhentarim, Red Wizards and Shadovar put together.

quote:
Originally posted by Ayrik

We already have orog and ogrillon, some kind of orc-giant (or orog-giant or ogrillon-giant) hybrid doesn't seem entire implausible.

I agree, it's plausible that any and all humanoid species sometimes interbreed, if they are at all capable of doing so. And if ogres and giants can interbreed with humans and orcs can interbreed with humans as well, I'm prepared to believe that orcs can breed with ogres and giants. Especially if the orcs who do so are already the same size as the ogres and giants.

quote:
Originally posted by Ayrik

And the Realms being what they are, a tribe of giant-sized orcs could always be descended from some long ago wizard's private army, divine meddling, or extraplanar crossbreeding. Planescape mentions extraordinarily large armies of extraordinarily large orcs on some layers of Acheron.


Certainly gigantic orcs might be descended from extra-planar orcs, especially as the only examples we are aware of are descended from gray orcs, who are extraplanar orcs.

However, it does not seem that these orcs come in tribes, the gigantic specimen seem simply to be born within tribes of orcs of sizes varying from slightly below human size and up to 15'+.

Now that I think about it, we also have canon examples of goblins that are 10' tall, which is about three times the size of regular goblins, the same ratio as Glorundoun is to regular orcs.

Maybe orcs and goblinoids simply vary much more in size in the Realms than D&D stats have led us to believe.

Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!

Forgotten Realms fans, please sign a petition to re-release the FR Interactive Atlas
Go to Top of Page
  Previous Topic Topic Next Topic  
 New Topic  New Poll New Poll
 Reply to Topic
 Printer Friendly
Jump To:
Candlekeep Forum © 1999-2024 Candlekeep.com Go To Top Of Page
Snitz Forums 2000