note: I do recognize this has potential to become a silly way to blast orcs, but I'm going through with it anyway..
Chan is a gray orc living in Phsant, a big, barrel-chested orc that works for a mercenary company in employ to the suzerain of Thesk, a female orc. He is quiet most of the time but is known to have an explosive temper.
He was born and raised on a farm in Thesk. What most people don't know is that as a child he was terrified by storms. Once, however, he got caught in a storm while out in the field and he froze, terrified. THen he began to haplessly pray for help and his prayers were answered. The poor young boy made a minor pact (Pact initiate..) with some form of lightning/storm primordial trying to break out of the elemental chaos. He has since always felt alone except for the voice in his head. He accidentally killed his father by calling down a lightning bolt (Dire Radiance, except lightning instead of radiant...) when in an argument and losing his temper. His mother was killed by bandits. He has tried to fight his feeling of being alone by surrounding himself with his 'friends'...But occasionally the storm rages out of control...
Perhaps even use a frontier like setting and introduce a half orc ranger who's an outcast from the terrible brutality that entails the community he left. Rangers are always good for writen stories. :P
Actually, the description for running the realms states that it deals with FR game mechanics and that Realmslore deals with characters, places, events, etc. This appeared to be the best place.
A good point, but since you are creating new material for use in the Realms, rather than discussing previous lore, it fits better with the work being done over on that side. Of course LK will be the final arbiter, so I may be wrong...
If they would refrain from writing for ages 13 and up I would like to read a story of a single orc warrior who through luck and cunning survives several horde wars. Orc hordes make good story material, so why not embrace that and focus on a view of a rampaging horde through several perspectives, i.e. multiple warriors in differing warrior squads.
Perhaps even use a frontier like setting and introduce a half orc ranger who's an outcast from the terrible brutality that entails the community he left. Rangers are always good for writen stories. :P
Perhaps an orc scout, from Silver Marches campaign guide. While on a mission, he gets hurt and nursed back to health by some poor, but good, family. I can picture some 3 year old wilde eyed girl handing the bedridden orc flowers out of sheer 3 year old loveableness and him being confused and not knowing what to do. later as the horde rolls in he helps evacuate the family. Happy ending? Sad? Both? He could die saving the poor little waif or perhaps return to his tribe to later find the house wrecked and the waif dead. Moral dilemmas. Good fiction...
THis goes back to late 3rd ed.
Chandos Tiberias was a half-orc born of an orog who bedded an Illuskan ***** in Baldur's Gate. She later lied about his age and sold him as an indentured servant to a caravan guard company. Then one day he tried to sneak a look at the books of an Oghma priest who had hired the company. The priest took this as a sign he should teach Chandos and purchased his servantship. He became the one and only half-orc to study in Candlekeep where he learned the art of storytelling and became a priest of Oghma until he left for Baldur's Gate to begin teaching orcs who worked the docks. There he had a dream where he was approached by Ilneval, the orc god of war. As a result he became a heretic of faith: The Gambit of the Clever Arm and the self-proclaimed chosen of Ilneval, running a mercenary company that allied itself with the followers of Selune in the war against the ogres in Amn.
If we can provide enough ideas maybe we can convince them to pay an author to write a book....
If they would refrain from writing for ages 13 and up I would like to read a story of a single orc warrior who through luck and cunning survives several horde wars. Orc hordes make good story material, so why not embrace that and focus on a view of a rampaging horde through several perspectives, i.e. multiple warriors in differing warrior squads.
Perhaps even use a frontier like setting and introduce a half orc ranger who's an outcast from the terrible brutality that entails the community he left. Rangers are always good for writen stories. :P
What do orc warriors think and talk about while in a horde? Eat. Drink. Sleep. Kill. ****. Perhaps there are ways to make that more complex and interesting. For instance, the orc who intends on chickening out and surviving. Why? Because if he makes it back, with all the dead from the war, he will have his choice from among countless orc women. Perhaps a section about orc women. Who do they blame for the death's of all their children?
Another thought, in the patriarchal orc world, an orc male deliberately kills a brand new newborn. The next time all sleep, the women gang up and murder him. You can push them around all you want and beat the children into submission, but if you lay a hand on the youngest and most fragile before the mother releases him or her, there will be hell to pay....
I'lljust vacate the premises and occasionally drop in a new one or enter more data on the one' that I barely mentioned.
Please, if you have ideas, please post.
I want Wizards to write a FR orc book. Anyone else? (Sigh....)
FR is pretty much an elf-centric setting. For example the novels seem pretty close to 50% or more having elven protagonists. Winged elves, wood elves, sun elves, green elves, other dimensional elves, elves, elves, elves... (I'm surprised they never came up with "Storm Elves" from the frozen north...)
And then there are drow.
I can't remember a novel where there was a dwarven, halfling, or gnome lead character. In the 90's there were two novels I think with half-orcs (Faces of Deception and Escape from Undermountain), none since. The Bouldershoulder brothers were in the Cleric Quintet, otherwise I'm drawing a blank on dwarves.
Since the WOTC takeover, for whatever reason, the variety has gone down further.
It's just the way this setting is. Presumably WOTC knows what the FR fanbase wants and they are giving it to them. And they want elves.
There are some other options if you want some variety. The abandoned settings like Spelljammer and others have a fanbase that likes a little more spice. Here is one to the message boards for Mystara: http://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/index.php. If you do a google you can find the Spelljammer and Planescape ones as well, they are interesting though they may not be your cup of tea. There is always Greyhawk too.
There are other companies besides WOTC and the old TSR settings as well, though I don't know much as much about them. Midnight is very interesting, the individual worlds for True20, Goodman Games Known World, etc. Paizo is out there now too.
Of course none of these have fiction published for them.
Anyway I don't have the new FRCG memorized, but the only places I can remember orcs being mentioned are in Many Arrows, Luruar (I think), and Thesk. Might be others, but I can't remember.
If you aren't limiting yourself to 4e, I was always toying with the idea of a half-orc from Chessenta. I would have made him a duskblade, a master of Chessentan swordplay and magic from Unther and Mulhorand, in a way first practiced in long fallen Imaskar.
Proud, strong, intelligent (the spells stop at level 5, I wouldn't need a 34 intelligence or whatever), able to sever the torsos of bladesingers with a single swipe of his greatsword.
A just man (or orc; he has no problem thinking of himself as such). A friend to all, but woe betide any member of a race notoriously lacking vigor that addresses him with arrogance. Gods! They actually treat half-orcs as second class citizens? The appalling arrogance and ignorance of these Northmen! These silly elves wouldn't last an hour in a gymnasium in Chessenta, let alone in a contest of arms.
Proud. Strong. Virile. No angst. A chiseled physique, a noble brow, gleaming tusks; a man covered in oil, ready to tread the jeweled tiaras of elfdom beneath his sandalled feet.
You can feel his steely eyes boring into yours from beneath his helm with the greek style horsehair plume. Blade and magic ready to carve a destiny from the very heart of Faerun...
Okay I'm done. It will never be a book. There are just too many stories about elves from Evereska or Myth Drannor that need to be told. Or about the people who love those elves. And that must come after telling all the stories about drow...
But it should be.
If we can provide enough ideas maybe we can convince them to pay an author to write a book....
-Hell, if they give me money, I'll do whatever they want (within reason).
(I'm surprised they never came up with "Storm Elves" from the frozen north...)
-Snow Elves.
Perhaps even use a frontier like setting and introduce a half orc ranger who's an outcast from the terrible brutality that entails the community he left. Rangers are always good for writen stories. :P
And he can weild a pair of scimitars and have a figuring of wonderous power of a....giant boar. Call him Drissit Orc' Duren or something
I would personaly liked to have seen a story about the Ordonti(sp?). Orcs raised in the ways of Eldath...
My character development involved her forming the Two Stars Mercenary Company in Thesk and then going to fight in Unther....
A third edition half-orc character idea of mine was a fighter/barbarian/bear warrior who was a follower of Selune. Since her dogma believed in treating all races with respect and she was the deity of good lycranthropes, it seemed the perfect match. Of course that doesn't leave a lot of development for a story...
-One of my players has mentioned that, should one of his characters die, he was going to create a new character very much like that. A Barbarian/Ranger/Bear Warrior, minus the ties to Selûne.
:P Anyone else out there with any orc creativity? (sigh...)