Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition (AD&D5E) The Orc This product contains optional variant rules for the Orc race in the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition game, and is considered official for use in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition game. Sample file AD&D5E Game Terms The following are some terms and acronyms used and what they mean. Ability Score Adjustment (ASA). Raises the maximum an ability score can be increased to. Ability Score Improvement (ASI). Increases an ability score by the stated amount, but does not raise the maximum the ability score can be increased to. Ability Score Maximum (ASM). The maximum an ability score can be increased naturally. All player character's ability scores have a natural maximum of 20. Racial Ability Score Adjustment (RASA). The ability score adjustment your character receives for being a member of a certain race, subrace, and/or variant options. Racial Ability Score Improvement (RASI). Increases the chosen ability score by the amount given, but does not raise the maximum the ability score can be increased to. Racial Ability Score Maximum (RASM). The maximum an ability score can be increased naturally beyond 20 as a result of your race, subrace, and/or variant options. Customizing Your Race You can use your RASI's to customize your ability scores outside of your race's norm, but your RASM does not deviate from your RASA. Alternative Game Terms While some players may have particular sensitivities or triggers in regards to the term "race" and "subrace", the following alternatives can be used to mean the same thing: Origin = Race, and Lineage = Subrace. Origin Ability Score Adjustment (OASA). The ability score adjustment your character receives for being a member of a certain origin, lineage, and/or variant options. Origin Ability Score Improvement (OASI). Increases the chosen ability score by the amount given, but does not raise the maximum the ability score can be increased to. Origin Ability Score Maximum (OASM). The maximum an ability score can be increased naturally beyond 20 as a result of your origin, lineage, and/or variant options. Customizing Your Origin You can use your OASI's to customize your ability scores outside of your origin's norm, but your OASM does not deviate from your OASA. Sample file Orc Orcs are savage raiders and pillagers with stooped postures, low foreheads, and piggish faces with prominent lower Ranging Scavengers canines that resemble tusks. Their lust for slaughter demands that orcs dwell always To the common folk of the world, an orc is an orc. They within striking distance of new targets. As such, they seldom know that any one of these savages can tear an ordinary settle permanently, instead converting ruins, cavern person to pieces, so no further distinction is necessary. complexes, and defeated foes' villages into fortified camps Orcs know better. Different groups of orcs exist within a and strongholds. Orcs build only for defense, making no tribe, the actions of each dictated by the deity they pay innovation or improvement to their lairs beyond mounting homage to. To complement the various kinds of warriors that the severed body parts of their victims on spiked stockade spill forth to ravage the countryside, each tribe has members walls or pikes jutting up from moats and trenches. that remain deep inside the lair, seldom if ever seeing what When an existing territory is depleted of food, an orc tribe lies outside the darkness of their den. divides into roving bands that scout for choice hunting In addition, orcs have special relationships with two grounds. When each party returns, it brings back trophies creatures that are sometimes found in their company: the and news of targets ripe for attack, the richest of which is aurochs, a great bull that serves as a mount for warriors that chosen. The tribe then sets out en masse to carve a bloody revere Bahgtru, and the tanarukk, a demon-orc crossbreed path to its new territory. that is so depraved and destructive that even orcs seek to kill On rare occasions, a tribe's leader chooses to hold onto a it. particularly defensible lair for decades. The orcs of such a tribe must range far across the countryside to sate their Gruumsh One-Eye appetites. Orcs worship Gruumsh, the mightiest of the orc deities and their creator. The orcs believe that in ancient days, the gods Leadership and Might gathered to divide the world among their followers. When Orc tribes are mostly patriarchal, flaunting such vivid or Gruumsh claimed the mountains, he learned they had been grotesque titles as Many-Arrows, Screaming Eye, and Elf taken by the dwarves. He laid claim to the forests, but those Ripper. Occasionally, a powerful war chief unites scattered had been settled by the elves. Each place that Gruumsh orc tribes into a single rampaging horde, which runs wanted had already been claimed. The other gods laughed at roughshod over other orc tribes and humanoid settlements Gruumsh, but he responded with a furious bellow. Grasping from a position of overwhelming strength. his mighty spear, he laid waste to the mountains, set the Strength and power are the greatest of orcish virtues, and forests aflame, and carved great furrows in the fields. Such orcs embrace all manner of mighty creatures in their tribes. was the role of the orcs, he proclaimed, to take and destroy all Rejecting notions of racial purity, they proudly welcome that the other races would deny them. To this day, the orcs ogres, trolls, half-orcs, and orogs into their ranks. As well, wage an endless war on humans, elves, dwarves, and other orcs respect and fear the size and power of evil giants, and folk. often serve them as guards and soldiers. Orcs hold a particular hatred for elves. The elven god Corellon Larethian half-blinded Gruumsh with a well-placed Orc Crossbreeds arrow to the orc god's eye. Since then, the orcs have taken Luthic, the orc goddess of fertility and wife of Gruumsh, particular joy in slaughtering elves. Turning his injury into a demands that orcs procreate often and indiscriminately so baleful gift, Gruumsh grants divine might to any champion that orc hordes swell generation after generation. The orcs' who willingly plucks out one of its eyes in his honor. drive to reproduce runs stronger than any other humanoid race, and they readily crossbreed with other races. When an Tribes like Plagues orc procreates with a non-orc humanoid of similar size and Orcs gather in tribes that exert their dominance and satisfy stature (such as a human or a dwarf), the resulting child is their bloodlust by plundering villages, devouring or driving off either an orc or a half-orc. When an orc produces young with roaming herds, and slaying any humanoids that stand against an ogre, the child is a half-ogre of intimidating strength and them. After savaging a settlement, orcs pick it clean of wealth brutish features called an ogrillon. and items usable in their own lands. They set the remains of villages and camps ablaze, then retreat whence they came, their bSampleloodlust satisfied. file Orc War Chief Orog The war chief of an orc tribe is its strongest and most Orogs are orcs blessed with a surprisingly keen intellect that cunning member. The reign of a war chief lasts only as long ordinary orcs believe is a gift from the orc goddess Luthic. as it commands the fear and respect of other tribe members, Like Luthic, orogs prefer to live underground, although the whose bloodlust must be regularly satisfied lest the chief scarcity of food often brings them to the surface to hunt. Orcs appear weak. Scions of Slaughter. Gruumsh bestows special respect an orog's strength and cunning, and a lone orog blessings upon war chiefs who prove themselves in battle might command an orc war band. time and again, imbuing them with slivers of his savagery. A war chief so blessed finds that his weapons cut deeper into Stronger and Smarter his enemies, allowing him to inflict more carnage. An orog uses its strength to bully other orcs and its intelligence to surprise enemies on the battlefield. Many an overconfident elf, human, or dwarf commander has watched a "simple" orc warlord execute a clever maneuver to outflank King Obould Many-Arrows and destroy an opposing force, not realizing the orc is an orog. King Obould of the Many-Arrows tribe is a legend among the orc war chiefs of the Forgotten Realms, When encountered in great numbers, orogs form their own and he is the most famous orc chief in the history detachments within much larger orc hordes, and they are of the D&D game. always at the forefront of any attack, relying on their superior Smarter and more intuitive than most of his strength and tactical insight to overcome anything that stands kind, Obould slew his chieftain to take control of in their way. his tribe. Skilled in the arts of war and renowned for Few orc tribes actively seek out orogs to bolster their his violent temper, Obould proved himself a fierce ranks. The orogs' superiority makes them ideal leaders, and opponent in battle time and again. Over the years, thus deadly rivals to orc war chiefs, who must be wary of he subsumed other orc tribes into his own, until he orog treachery. commanded a horde of thousands. Obould leveraged his strength and influence to Detached Killers carve out a kingdom for himself in the Spine of the Wanting nothing more than to hack their enemies to pieces, World, a mountain range overlooking numerous orogs are a terrifying presence on the battlefield.