Rainy City Hacked with Cube World Beasts

 Rainy City Hacked with Cube World Beasts

“It’s the end of the world. It always rains. Rain beats against the walls. It seeps through the shutters. It pours off the mossy backs of the gargoyles. It turns streets into streams and rivers.” The opening lines of the Guide to the Rainy City, an RPG zine setting that is just …. well ...amazing! It is also soooo relevant because our little island in Southern Japan had 17 days of straight rain which can make it feel like the rain will just never end. I ran an adventure for what I`ll call Group C, which is basically some players from my Cube World, Land of the Southern Daimyos group plus a some new players that were unlucky enough to be visiting our island during rainy season. 

The session started with the players as refugees on a ship, months at sea in constant driving wind, rain and monstrous, churning waves...... when they finally spotted an apparent lighthouse on a little speck of land in the middle of the great gray ocean, but “to see it is to know it’s wrong, one knows it in their bones. The water just around it seems too rough and too deep, the shoreline too regular and rounded, the trees too stiff and bristly for such high winds. The light is right where it ought to be, but it’s just off somehow. The lamp itself looks like aspic, a ball of blue-white light propped up on a column of cloudy-clear jelly.” 

The players didn't know it, but what they stumbled across was not land at all, but the Aspic Lantern, which is a cross between a fabled aspidochelone sea creature, this one a tentacled cephalopod and a deep-sea, angler fish that hunts by dangling a false bio-luminescent light to attract prey. The unsuspecting prey in this case are the characters, what they thought was a place, was actually a beast! And a beast this large usually attracts other smaller predators looking for leftover tidbits!

 Drawn to the false light, the players made for the little island until they were too close to turn back. And that was the rub, they knew something was amiss, but they could see signs of life on the “island”; birds, movement, greenery and their supplies were so low they almost couldn't pass it up. The swells were too powerful to attempt to land the ship, so they dropped the life boats and four of the six players along with a few NPCs jumped in. A monumentally bad decision because the aspic lantern`s tentacles fell upon these tiny boats as soon as they were in range. None of the three boats remained intact and the players were thrown bloodied and bruised into the raging seas and the “gauntlet of predators” surrounding the Aspic Lantern.

 I could have used stereotypical reef sharks…. But meh! I turned to my “go-to content”, Cube World!! for some monsters with a little depth and gnarl. So I filled the waters with Cube World's Albino Lampreys and Dragon fish (See the Cube World Bestiary) I wanted monsters that cause lingering damage. And the albino lampreys converge en masse towards anything that is near them in the water @ speed of 120` a +1 to hit and do 1d6 bloodsucking damage (I used that for the entire swarm, not not per lamprey, (low level characters and all) but once they lock on they stay latched to the characters body even if killed, until removed. This may not seem like much, but imagine of the extra weight of having 4-5 lampreys 3-5 feet long each attacking or just adding literal dead weight to character in the open water. Once attached,  I had characters roll strength checks each round, if they failed I said they were pulled under the water for the succeeding round; and if they remained underwater for 3 consecutive rounds, plus a failed con check…… they drowned.

Simultaneously some characters ran up against Dragonfish… "a strange, ornate fish, 10’ long that squirm through the debris field surrounding the Aspic Lantern. +2 to hit, bite at 1d8 PLUS their needle-like teeth break off and stay in doing the victim doing 1d4 damage per round until removed. Removal requires Sleight of Hand or a Dex check at disadvantage. Failure does d4 extra damage." 

The players that remained on the ship watched all this from the deck and believed themselves safe, that was until the ship was knocked…. by something from below that was large enough to change the direction of a 60` ship. They sent an NPC below deck to check for damage and leaks, while giving an all clear call her voice was drowned out by the sound of splintering wood and rushing water because the ship was hit so hard that those on deck had to make dex checks at disadvantage of 17 or higher just to remain on their feet. And then the ship began to sink .....without life boats amoungst the large outer swells in the strange blue-white light of the Aspic Lantern. 

 As they prepared to jump into the water from the highest remaining part of the ship, they saw a shadow about 50` long in the trough of giant swell, What they didn't know was the boat had been hit by a Gargantuan Black Lantern Shark which is known to bite the hull out of a ship ….and then eat the passengers. After seeing what happened to their comrades trying to get to shore, these two successfully climbed on to floating pieces of their recent ship. I let them jointly roll a d8 (one side per each 45 degrees compass segment) to see which way the currents were driving… unfortunately for them they didn't roll on to the direction of the Aspic Lantern and were drifting away, so they lowered their legs into the water and began kicking toward shore, which immediately attracted the attention of the Black Lantern Shark who bore down on their position with incredible speed and attacked…..miserably! I handled the 1 on the attack roll by describing how the gargantuan shark opened its gigantic, megladon-sized maw for a devastating attack, but was lifted out of the water at the last moment by one the giant tentacles of the aspic lantern and had the life and guts squeezed out of it just above the character's heads. These two characters ultimately made to the “shore” albeit with a few dragonfish teeth in them.

 In the end, all characters had 6hp or less, no food or water and no way off this strange little island. (The players know this place is strange but I don't believe any of them have put the pieces together that this is not an island, but an aspidochelone.) They climbed the small mound of on island and perceived 3 things: 

    a) a line of boats ( in an apparent shipping lane heading to some intermittently visible lights on a far mist obscured horizon) ...but all these ships seem to be staying well away from this little is place…hmmm.

     b) what appears to be a giant, calcified 5' -blow hole next to the gelatinous stalk that anchors the false light high in the air at the apex of this island mound. It has enough ledges and footholds extending downward into the darkness of the mound that a descent is not out of the question. (Also provides a nice little conundrum, if the players pick up on it…if the blow hole is calcified and no air coming in or out, is the creature to which it is apart still alive? But if its dead, what is powering the bioluminescent light atop the gelatinous stalk providing the luminosity of small sun for miles around in the darkness of rainy nights.)

     c) Occasionally on the wind driven rain, can be heard what appears to be singing or whistling carrying up from an area of shrubbery at the bottom of one of the island slopes . 

Unfortunately, with character creation, session zero crap and brand new player learning curve this is as far as we got. My characters are still in the Outer Swells and havent even made it into The Rainy City-proper, but we had such a good time that it doesnt even come close to mattering!

 I cant recommend Beasts of the Outer Swells and The Guide to the Rainy City enough. Ive read the entire initial zine and its progeny cover to cover, and love the setting, the quirkiness, the beautiful writing (I think the author is an English prof), the cast of characters, monsters, oozes, locations, wizards, gangs and factions, I hope to get immersed in this world for many, many sessions. All the materials are relatively inexpensive and available on DriveThru.  

The CubeWorld Bestiary comes with each edition of CubeWorld and is updated as new content is released. I think all the monsters that I used here are a part of the core bestiary so should be in there no matter what version you might pick up. All the monsters are alphabetized and you can do word searches if you are looking for monsters on specific theme or type as I was for this encounter. No matter what Im running I always seem to find an original or interesting monster in the Cube World content. 

In fact, CubeWorld has become my core content all around, it covers everything from classic medieval tropes, Japanese themes, swamps, mountains, desert, dungeons, hex crawls, factions, mysteries, jousting tournaments, naval ships, royalty etc etc. It has an entire world atlas, and when paired with his blog posts on character generation, kung fu fighting styles, combat mechanics, scores of tables, magical items, not to mention creative, original art etc,  I actually dont need WotC or anything else to have immersive, unpredictable, deadly-fun sessions. I run and hack other OSR material to maintain a quiver of ideas, philosophy, perspectives and bad-assery. But at the core its CubeWorld that Im running over  and over. Again highly recommended, especially for the price! 

Currently, Im playing around and designing an augmented PirateBorg! beta setting with Cube World hacks and the Aspic Lantern from the Beasts of the Outer Swells. Due to the demands of work and mismatching schedules Im unable to run or play in my A group (Dark Sun), and our B group, (the ones currently running in the Cube World,  Lands of the Southern Daimyo) has been unable to meet. So, the grand finale of Forest of 500 Shadows and Serene Temple of the White Octopus Maiden is currently on pause! But one of our players has been prototyping some T-shirts based on an original Zak S design for when we play again!

Images and quotations courtesy of:

-The Beasts of the Outer Swells, A Visitors  Guide to the Rainy City by Superhero Necromancer Press, LLC

-Cube World Bestiary, Vol. 47 

Cube World 41 -The Forest of 500 Shadows in the Lands of the Southern Daimyos, Play Report /Review

The Forest of 500 Shadows (2nd adventure in the Lands of the Southern Daimyos)

· 3 page adventure including Hex map,  Encounter key, Monster art and full bestiary, and D1000 Treasure table
· Written for LOFP but can be used with most old school game systems.
· Played about one-half of the forest in a single, 3 hour session

At the end of the last adventure session, in one of the highest rooms of Sleeping Crane Castle in the chambers of Lady White Crane, herself,  one of the party members found a treasure of immense value. The coolness of said treasure was that it:

1. Came from a D-1000 (yes, one thousand!) table. 

2. It was awesome to see the excitement of new players get something slightly beyond their levels and for lack of better words just effin sick!! Kudos to the author for creativity on this table, and;

3. The treasure provides a link (via its name) to another, yet unknown area in the Cube World which granted me the flexibility to come up with some gruesome details for a future adventure hook.

In the Lady White Plain’s chamber locked in a cloisonne box the players found written whispers to  another potentially grand treasure.  But the next piece of the puzzle is somewhere in the Forest of 500 Shadows, which is known to be the former home of clan that mysteriously vanished long ago. (This player also availed herself to a number of Lady White Plain’s finest kimonos; not in the printed adventure, but I thought, what the hell, why not??  let her roll a d4 as to amount and I may come up with some special properties for the kimonos before next session…or not, lol, haven’t decided, but I digress….)

So with new formal kimonos, Lord White Plain’s captured black panther, Kasha; and two ex-samurai, the party set off. (I allowed the players that died last session to roll back into the game as disgraced, surrendered samurai from the  battle…. Since they surrendered they can no longer be considered samurai, but they get to live, and as such can choose a new character class, or try to regain their honor, if they want to remain of “fighter/samurai” class.) 

The Forest of 500 Shadows is the second adventure in this edition of Cube World and is a hex crawl,  which is cool because it’s a completely different format than the first adventure which was a political game of evil options (with enough drama to make Telemundo novella producers shed a tear) And, the third (yet unplayed) adventure appears to be completely different as well... a dungeon/temple crawl with battles, traps, puzzles and the like, but more about that later. As a fledgling DM, I really appreciate the change of pace offered by the differing formats, yet still having these varied adventures all contained within a single Cube World installment.   The 500 shadows adventure comes with a color, hand drawn map linked to a full page, easy-to-read encounter key and artwork for some of the more formidable foes.  

I wont bore you with a blow by blow of our session progression through each hex, but the map includes all sorts of scenic and haunted terrain which comprise the forest of 500 shadows from bamboo thickets, eerie Japanese gazebos ruined and in disrepair, silent graveyards, lakes; streams of varied widths and depths which the characters must figure-out how to cross to continue on "the path"; ancient haunted battlefields, Japanese arch-bridges, waterfalls and an Japanese-style keep, centuries abandoned.

I used the encounters to slowly drop hints to the characters’ ultimate destination within the wood, a decrepit stone keep rumored to be haunted by the shadow warrior, Kagemusha.  But the party has to get there first, and to do that they will have to beat the Dry Widows!  (one of my fav monsters ever in my short DM career!)    Spoiler Alert!!! Skip the next section if you want to keep the suspense blinders on…..   

The dry widow is deceptively two monsters in one; they approach and engage as undead zombies ----a little concerning but no need for party panic-- until …..they are defeated and unleash whats inside their hollow forms, a swarm of needle spiders that have consumed the viscous, wet previous lives of their victims and left them as dry, eaten-out zombies roaming the forest of 500 shadows! (My new players tend to ask why?  How come? a lot ….in any event, I created a little history that the dry widows in these woods were originally the wives and girlfriends of long-since forgotten samurai that came to the forest to find their lost lovers who never returned from battle… but you can embellish your own narrative) So with the release of a spider swarm by all foes the enemy count is very effectively and immediately doubled before your players eyes, and without revealing too much... the needle spider swarm packs a stronger punch than the zombie cadaver on an already weakened party.... the worst case scenario being that any character overcome by a spider swarm becomes a dry widow themself! 

The party lost nearly half their number to these wicked widows and they aren’t even half way through the adventure!  The best part and the rub is, if a character becomes a dry widow it behaves and attacks the remaining party like a zombie, so the living party members at a minimum are forced to defend themselves and their dwindling hit points, or run.  Should they mistakenly slay the new dry widows and release the swarm, the situation becomes that much more dire for their own prospects for living, let alone the possibility of returning their recently slain friends to life. (they don’t even know how to do a resurrection, but they are pretty sure they need an intact dead body)   What to do!? What to fucking do!??   

Due to schedules, we had to call the session at this point, half the party defending itself from the undead needle spider swarming other half of the party!    Despite the living characters not having a plan of attack for this newly-developed dilemma;  and the players that are now dry widows pleading  out -of -game for the living characters not to destroy their former character's carcasses ………all  are clamoring for another session……. Mission accomplished!  

 I love this Cube World!!!! full stop. Highly Recommended.   Its just pure, off-kilter, feudal Japan bad-assery!!!  And my players are invested hook, line and sinker….. asking questions, wanting more and more details and backstory, having little meetings amongst themselves for strategy, coming up with their own ideas (the kimonos), etc.  Cant really ask for more as a DM! 

PS In honor of E.T.’s 40th anniversary, Japanese television played the movie in primetime over the weekend and I completely forgot there was a D&D scene in that movie until one of the couples in our group excitedly called me up to say that "our game" (D&D) was on tv! Had to remind myself that many new players (especially in Japan) don’t know the history or how far back the game goes…..but just another example of the excitement level these adventures are generating!

The obligatory pre-game, ramen stand planning session and Japanese E.T. 

Stacking my favorite Content Makers

One of the things that bugs me in traditional D&D is that when playing with long time players they often know the monsters, the traps the tropes.  I can change-up a monster's predation a la The Monsters Know What They are Doing,   or adjust their hit points, but that doesn’t change the fact that the old players know this monster, there is no Shock and Awe factor when presented, et cetera with dungeons, taverns, towns, pit traps, mimics and so on.   

Finding a solution to this issue is one of the many things that lead me to OSR.  There are some really creative folks out there putting out brilliant content that I wouldn’t have come up with on my own in a hundred years.  I also really admire the philosophical and/or dreamy, beautiful, dark edge that many OSR creators provide to settings and encounters.  Its one thing to brute force attack a monster, but it’s a completely different battle if there is a moral or ethical cost to the fight that dooms the soul or the souls of others. You OSR fuckers are really good at making encounters and creatures more than one dimensional, literally and figuratively… and I at least, appreciate it!    To that end, I have subconsciously  (and now consciously, I guess) divided my favorite content makers into tiers:

UPDATE 2/3/24:  I have become aware that some of the creators that I previously admired have (by their own words) engaged in hate-mobbing, as such I am reticent to promote their works.  While I still think their content was/is good, I wont promote them nor this type of behavior until they've apologized to the subjects of their harassment at a minimum.  I don't condone cancelling them or anybody without just cause, but personally I will strip their material from my personal games until they make amends.   I'll go ahead and just say it, any call to cancel somebody is immediately sus.  If you are going to cancel someone's livelihood and life, you damn sure better be able to back it up with evidence. I will leave their names here for a snapshot of my gaming history, but will remove the promotion of their blogs/websites. I have also removed non-OSR creators

Top Tier. I’ll pick up these folks’ content immediately sight unseen on general principle based upon their past work concerning philosophical dilemmas, unique creativity in mechanics or monsters, setting, or just quirky, immersive world building.  I`ll backfill my coiffures with their old stuff join their kickstarters, patreons, blogs, youtube channels etc. and generally support them however they choose to avail themselves socially.  In no particular order within the tiers:

-False Machine- cant wait for Demon Bone Sarcophagus! 

Zak Sabbath- cant wait for more Cube World!!!   

https://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/ 

-Noisms cant wait for Hall of the Third Blue Wizard!

- A Thousand, Thousand Islands

https://athousandthousandislands.com

-Scrap Princess

 

And my most recent find … the crew behind  A Visitors Guide to the Rainy City, cant wait for the Beasts of the Outer Swell!   

http://www.superheronecromancer.com

Im sure there are others out there of the same caliber that I have yet to discover, but that’s my list so far!

Tier 2. I will purchase most works by these folks, perhaps not in the opening kickstarter, but at some indeterminate time. I check their sites bi-weekly for new developments and cherry pick their past offerings and work for what I like.

-Elf Maids and Octopi. 

https://elfmaidsandoctopi.blogspot.com

-Old School Essentials.  Cant wait for new Post apocalypse setting /currently waiting for kickstarter core books. 

https://necroticgnome.com/products/old-school-essentials-basic-rules

-Mork Borg-  Cant wait for Pirate Borg!  The beta pdf was awesome!

https://morkborg.com

-The Merry Mushmen-  Waiting for Knock 3 to be released beyond the kickstarter crowd!

https://www.themerrymushmen.com

-Lamentations of the Flame Princess = I’ll ride the storm and see if they can re-ignite and continue putting out some quality stuff of old!

https://www.lotfp.com/RPG/

-Questing Beast- I like this muthafucka  despite some of his reviews of less than stellar offerings, his biggest likes actually tend to lean toward the esoteric and bizarre, so we are eating from the same plate.  

http://questingblog.com

 

Tier 3. I will acquire and view this category of content in order to forever keep an open mind. On the rare chance that I come across something decent, useful and that I can actually harvest for my games, I'll go back and purchase the material.  But other than that, I have no intention of ever giving WoTC another dime as they continue their campaign of slashing old material;  seem to be whole-heartedly committed to putting out uninspired drivel in a transparent marketing attempt to take over the world with computer generated artwork, cute avatars and pre-pubescent storylines.

Right now Im using the core rules, settings, mechanics, and monsters at a rate of about: 80% Tier 1, 15% Tier 2 and 5% Tier 3. just to keep my worlds weird, fun and dark .......

 

Cube World 41 -A Fistful of Silver in the Lands of the Southern Daimyos

 

 A Fistful of Silver  

· 3 page adventure with maps, NPC descriptions/stats/spells/weapons proficiencies etc, and abestiary

· Written for LOFP but can be used with most old school game systems.

· Played in a single, 4.5 hour session

Human stories driving a grand political narrative, create enough verisimilitude that you can layer the most fantastically wretched, whimsical, magical and evil elements atop them, and still walk away with a dark and gritty, real-feel game night. Hell, GRR Martin made a whole career out the same formula. Such is the case with A Fistful of Silver, which at its essence can be boiled down to the distinct pulls of Gold, Politics and Love upon human desire….. but damn… thats a serious understatement as to how fun this adventure was. 

Loosely set in a mythical archipelago of feudal Japan, it brings cool old school Japanese weapons like the naginata, wakizashi, and katana back to the forefront of the D&D battle …..and even cooler, they are wielded by samurai, ninja, clan lords, and high-born ladies rockin the finest kimonos. I live in Japan and I ran this session for my game wife and a few of our Japanese friends (first time players) and they ate it up……..the twisted Japanese folklore, western archetypes of Asia, magic, monsters, all of it ...just all of it!!! The set -up is simple, but the devil is in the details (literally … and he goes by the name of either Lady Nine Island or Red Iron, take your pick!) But there are:

3 different Clan Lords of differing demeanor and loyalty; 

2 different Clan Wives (one magic, one shrewd); 

2 Clan sons (one traitorous, one stupid) and; 

1 Badass Clan daughter: loyal to family, martially-trained, brutal, bloodlusty and beautiful,

1 retinue of ninja; 

1 host of samurai; 

…….and your party, which is wrapped up with all of them in individual covert negotiations. All parties, schemes, truths and lies will ultimately collide at a beautiful Japanese castle, (Sleeping Crane Castle) in a few days time at a meeting of the Clans.  And if your session goes anything like ours, all hell will break loose! Oh and did I mention! one of the clan wives is a futakuchi-onna / has two mouths, and a Clan Lord has a panther on a chain just to let folks know he means business!?! 

 The party is enticed via coin and/or morality to make decisions and take certain courses of action, but there are no totally right answers here, and therein lies the rub. This will push the players to make the “better” decision either financially, politically or for their souls. And if they cant decide as a group, each player can exercise their player agency and set an individual course for glory or death …..their own or the entire party.

 I cant overstate how exquisite the dilemmas in the adventure are orchestrated, these new players got so involved in strategizing with in- and out- of game discussions, when the appointed clan-meeting time came, they all took a shot of alcohol! Obligation and Honor are on full allegorical display, because the whole adventure is pretty much based upon the decisions made, coin accepted, promises exchanged and how well the players role play their characters towards those ends, and of course the luck of the die. Needless to say, nothing went as planned, former allies became formidable enemies and that was before the master of the naginata showed up! In total 2 of 5 characters died, and 1 of the remaining characters has the dead characters' blood on her hands! ….the snowball effect of dishonor. And one character found a valuable secret set deep within Sleeping Crane Castle. 

Good times, Good stuff!!!

One of the new players asked if this was Dungeons and Dragons all the time?? (I wish it was, but didn’t want to lie to him) I told him no, this level of intrigue, fighting, plot immersion, and character involvement is hard to create and maintain every session. But the good news is there are 2 more adventures already available In the Lands of the Southern Daimyos.…… all the players are returning at the end of Golden Week in Japan when I run Forest of 500 Shadows in same setting!

         Mandatory, pre-session adventure review at the ramen stand!

Of course there is no remorse in the orc discourse.........

 

As a person of color DMing and playing D&D, I wholeheartedly endorse this analysis, assessment and solution by Lucille L. Blumire!  Orcs cannot simultaneously be a "playable race" and a D&D definition "monster"..... and therein lies the rub. (A small bone to pick with traditional treatment of how the 'orc as a  monster' is portrayed.  But a quick Google search of Orc images demonstrated that not many of those racist stereotypes persist among contemporary artists.)

By Lucille L Blumire.

The current discourse, and a discourse that has been around for a while, has been on the topic of "Evil Races".

The discourse has been long talked about, and I'm not going to give a full or in-depth summary here. The crux of the discussion is: "should an entire race be evil in D&D", one side believes "yes Orcs, and Goblins, and Devils, and Demons, and many other monsters can be entirely evil, so I can use them as monsters" and the other side believes somewhere on the spectrum of "let me play my cool orc character they aren't all evil" to "those very ideas are rooted in racist rhetoric at the core of the origins of the hobby".

So here's my completely unrequested take on the topic. Hopefully this article doesn't get me cancelled.

I'm going to lead by giving my high level take, and then dive into the details of why that's my take.

It is okay to say that for your setting, and in your games, you wish to give a gravitas of sapience and free-choice to all, and to have evil be a choice that is made by many of the traditionally "monstrous" races, then it is your right to do so. Many, and myself, wish for a more simplistic world in their game: a world where there are monsters, which are strange and unexplainable to the players; monsters that cannot be reasoned with, or debate moral philosophy. Evil monsters.

That out of the way, lets go into the details of why I think that.

What is a monster?

Monsters are a concept straight out of fairy tales. They are the supernatural beings of malice that inhabit a world. They go bump in the night. A wolf is a beast, fearesome and a great threat to a traveller. A dire wolf is something far more sinister entirely—A wolf kills to survive, a dire wolf kills for fun. A bandit gang may be made of people down on their luck and trying to steal to get by, but a Goblin gang wants to eat your ears just because they think it would be fun. A foreign army wishes to invade your land for new fertile soil and profit for their king, an Orc army wishes to invade your land to kill your people, burn your crops, and leave the land inarable for decades to come.

The motives of monsters are inscrutable, they are inhuman, and they fundamentally do not obey the logic of a normal person. You could bribe a bandit gang attacking your party on the road. No bribery will save you from Goblins that hunger for fresh ears. You could negotiate with a foreign army. No words will quell an Orcish bloodlust.

You could not dissuade a direwolf from its hunt, anymore than little red riding hood could convince the wolf not to eat her.

This, is the space I intend Orcs to exist within. As a group they represent a kind of fairy-tale-monster-army. An infestation of hatred and death to be rooted out by chivalrous heroes. An individual Orc is like a starved and aggressive boar, given humanoid form and an imitation of sapience. It is not truly sapient, not in the way a demi human might be, it is still a starved and hateful wild boar, but made to look like a man to deceive you.

The Roots of the Hobby, Racism

A commonly brought up fact is the way Orcs are presented at the root of the hobby. I'm going to address both in turn.

First, Tolkien's Orcs. Those who would decry this as a racist depiction will usually point to this quote:

Squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types

In which Tolkien describes how Orcs looked. I'll concede, it certainly doesn't hold up to todays standards of political correctness. You can argue semantics about this one for days, and the exact bracketing intended, but it's not a good look. It would be easy to see how one could conclude that Orcs as an allegory would be of a negative depiction of brown skinned peoples from the middle east and north Africa.

He gives, I would say, a far more nuanced take in a later letter to his Son.

Yes, I think the orcs as real a creation as anything in 'realistic' fiction ... only in real life they are on both sides, of course. For 'romance' has grown out of 'allegory', and its wars are still derived from the 'inner war' of allegory in which good is on one side and various modes of badness on the other. In real (exterior) life men are on both sides: which means a motley alliance of orcs, beasts, demons, plain naturally honest men, and angels.

In this, I think it is clear that his perception of Orcs as an allegory is not of any once race or peoples, but of evil. Orcs to him, are in their very conception, a representation of evil.

From a theological perspective, the legendarium has its roots in Christian mythology, and in the later verisons of this Orcs were a corruption of Men away from the vision of Eru (God) by Morgoth (Satan). In earlier versions, and in the legends of the elves as known in the third age, they were the same but of Elves. In this regard, he see's them as not any one race, though they are presented as this, but instead a consequence of the corruption of evil. The Orcs do not come from one group of men, but from many men, taken and corrupted by a supernatural being throughout history.

Tolkien battled with his conception of Orcs for many years. Writing often on their nature, and debating if their soul (be it from the men or elves they were originally derived from) was something that could be redeemed and saved by god. If there could be a good Orc? He reached no satisfying conclusion on this topic.

Gygax, however, in his original conception of Orcs in OD&D, gives us basically four useful facts on them:

1. They are hirable as mercenaries (though possible difficult to find), and cheaper than men in upkeep cost.
2. Orcs live in tribes, these tribes do not get along
3. Orcs live in caves or villages
4. Orcs will fight until outnumbered 3-1, then begin making morale checks

This doesn't tell us much about Orcs, they are certainly more personable as they are hirable, and may live in villages, and have some form of internal tribal structure. They are certainly more than mere beasts. Jumping forward a bit into AD&D, we get the following:

Pig Headed Orcs

Orcs appear particularly disgusting because their coloration—brown or brownish green with a bluish sheen-highlights their pinkish snouts and ears. Their bristly hair is dark brown or black, sometimes with tan patches. Even their armor tends to be unattractive-dirty and often a bit rusty. Orcs favor unpleasant colors in general. Their garments are in tribal colors, as are shield devices or trim. Typical colors are blood red, rust red, mustard yellow, yellow green, moss green, greenish purple, and blackish brown. They live for 40 years.

Alongside similar commentary on the competitiveness of Orc tribes. While presenting them as intelligent and tribal, they are aligned as "lawful evil", in his depiction he uses a far more beast like form than Tolkien would. Taking the form of pig-headed men. In addition, we are given one further commentary on their views.

Orcs are cruel and hate living things in general, but they particularly hate

elves and will always attack them in preference to other creatures. They

take slaves for work, food, and entertainment (torture, etc.) but not elves

whom they kill immediately.

And lastly,As orcs will breed with anything, there are any number of unsavory mongrels with orcish blood, particularly orc-goblins, orc-hobgoblins, and orc-humans. Orcs cannot cross-breed with elves. Half-orcs tend to favor the orcish strain heavily, so such sorts are basically orcs although they can sometimes (10%) pass themselves off as true creatures of their other stock (goblins, hobgoblins, humans, etc.).

I'm not going to defend Gygax here. A lot of this is a bad read. It doesn't look good. It doesn't hold up to modern sensibilities. I wouldn't fault anyone for taking great issue with it.

I

 think the key conflict that both Tolkien, and Gygax battle with here, is one of wanting to grant the Orcs intelligence, will, and sapience. Community and the ability to have independent desires. To be truly people. Then to have them serve as a core antagonist and an acceptable target. Both have solved this dissonance with various degrees of appropriateness.

While both use wording to describe them that is clear to look upon unfavorably, describing them as brown skinned and ugly for it. They both have different takes on the other aspects of this problem. For Tolkien, in them being corrupted by the will of Morgoth, it does not matter if they are redeemable, for those encountering them do not have time to redeem them. In stories of war and battle, no time can be given to question the moral integrity of the enemy. Simply to hold on in an often losing battle against the powers of darkness. For gygax, he chose to make them full of hatred and a distaste for other living beings without giving a full explanation of why. One might believe this is similar to the Daleks from doctor who, that Orcs themselves are simply incredibly racist towards non-Orcs. I do not think that from these texts and my limited understanding of who Gygax was as a person I can give a full representation of what his views may have been however.

Within Modern D&D

Within Modern D&D, there is another problem thrown into this. Orcs as a playable race. This grants them unquestionable human-like sapience and morality, and forces the person running to justify their player Orcish player character, and the differences between them and other Orcs, within the setting. There are many in lore reasons for many settings that have been written to explain why Orcs are bloodthirsty, and what curses from which gods a player character Orc will have to fight against. But the problem this creates is actually a much simpler one: Orcs aren't monsters anymore. You can't be a Dire Wolf, you can't be a Vampire, you can't be a Witch. These are monsters. You can be an Orc. You can experience the world of the game through the eyes of an Orc. For this, they cannot be wholly monstrous.

Orcs are vicious raiders, who believe that the world should be theirs. They also respect strength above all else and believe the strong must bully the weak to ensure that weakness does not spread like a disease. They are usually chaotic evil.

Most orcs have been indoctrinated into a life of destruction and slaughter. But unlike creatures who by their very nature are evil, such as gnolls, it's possible that an orc, if raised outside its culture, could develop a limited capacity for empathy, love, and compassion. No matter how domesticated an orc might seem, its blood lust flows just beneath the surface. With its instinctive love of battle and its desire to prove its strength, an orc trying to live within the confines of civilization is faced with a difficult task.

Yikes. If that doesn't' read like "the savage Indians in need of civilizing by the white man" I don't know what does. That's from 5e by the way, published in 2016, about a week after the US elected trump to put it into historical context.

So yeah, I get where the argument about needing to redefine the Evil of Orcs comes from. But here's the thing

My Solution

To solve the problem of Orcs having sapience and intelligence, and being creatures of their own philosophy and morals. And having them be a monster. I'm choosing to not do the former. They are just monsters. No different to a dire wolf. They are given an illusion of intelligence by forces unknown, they probably pass a Turing test if you were simply observing them interacting with each other, but cut off from other Orcs or asked to debate with men an Orc has no more going on behind its eyes than a pig. They cannot be civilized or saved. They are not playable. They are monsters that go bump in the night. They act without reason or thought. In form they are humanoid wild boards with flattened snouts and largened tusks.  They want to burn your farm just because the massive field fire is pretty. They want to kill you because your dying screams are music to their ears. They want to fight others and each other to the death because the visceral unrestrained violence is fun to them. They are not creatures that can be reasoned with or understood. They are monsters from a fairy tale.

My hope, is that this creates a clean solution to a messy problem. It removes the more racially tone-deaf descriptions of Orcs using stereotypes from real world human races and places them firmly within the realm of the bestial. It removes the cultural 'white savior' narrative by making that an entirely impossible occurrence. It creates Orcs that can serve in their purpose as low-level acceptable-target fodder-monsters. It sacrifices, willingly, their ability to be anything more than that, to be player characters, or to hold important roles as NPCs.

This is a trade off I chose to make.

Post Publishing Discussions

What follows are thoughts from conversations provoked by the publishing of this article.

What about baby orcs? Where do orcs come from?

Orcs are actually much more like wild boars in the juvenile part of their lifecylce. You'll never find a room full of helpless child Orcs, just 1 HP orclets. Something happens in their life that causes them to stand on their hind legs and gain humanoid form, but nobody has ever witnessed this process as Orcs do it deep underground in caves, and the process will not happen unless total privacy from non-Orc-kind is achieved.

Goblins, and many goblinoids, are a kind of fungus. They grow from spores until near fully formed. They have a life cycle, but no part of it is particularly "juvenile".

Similar approaches can be taken for most any "monsterous" race. Witches are not born, they are taught (by other witches). Dire wolves are more like regular wolves until they come into their power.

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Somatic Manipulation of the Weave

 I ran a game last week and the players approached a small unknown village on a tiny island..as they drew near to the entrance and with the villagers steadily eyeing them... two village girls, each on either side of the growing crowd of onlooking islanders began a native, tribal dance in palindrome.  One started at the beginning of the (20 second or so) routine, and the other started at the end doing the same movements but in reverse from the end of the dance toward the beginning. until they both reached the midpoint of the little routine then their movements synced up until they both came to a simultaneous close.  The conclusion of the little dance triggered a spell casting.  (in this case a type of a tribal version of a protective, Ward spell)  The spell cast is irrelevant to some degree, I'm interested in the "who and the how".

On a practical level, I generally find dance in D&D  (and IRL) lame so this was an attempt to add some potential depth to it, any time it comes up in game!!

Im sure, I am not the first to think of it, but I haven't seen it anywhere else.  But in summary, I imagine the weave as a kind of a thin firmament or something akin to a thin sheet of plastic wrap (only in 3 dimensions) overlaying the world.   In theory, one could grab this layer of plastic, pull it, twist it, fold it, tie it in a knot, squeeze it into a bubble etc..  and, if they do these actions in a certain way and at a certain interval, magic is released/in the form of a spell. Hence the dance, is as a learned sequence of movements that can affect the weave, without any magical training or background and completely ignorant of Class.  In other words if someone/anyone does the movements correctly, the weave responds accordingly.  The concept can be applied to other learned sequence of movements, kata in martial arts come to mind.  A monk that has learned the 23 Constellations kata should be able to manipulate the weave to unleash a designated spell regardless of ki.    

Mechanics.   On a bare bone level, a spell is being cast with just a somatic component the difference is its being cast by anyone that knows the sequence of this component.  There are a number of spells in various editions that can be cast with only a somatic component, but I haven't seen any that operate in this manner. Important to note, I'm not creating any new spells, simply a different way of triggering existing spells by learned-folks regardless of Class.   In that regard, I'm doing the following:

-Limiting the somatic-invoked magic to protective or defensive spells intended before battle, or as a non-combat related cantrip. ( it would look ridiculous if someone just started dancing or doing air karate in the middle of combat......almost as ridiculous as a bard that starts bellowing!)

-Learning the sequence of movements or kata to unleash it should take time (x hours or days to learn) its not a lesson + short rest kinda thing.

- they are rare, take more than a lifetime to develop from scratch, and must be taught,  ie someone cant study or roll to learn a martial art-kata to cast fireball from scratch on their own, if one does not exist, it could only be taught by the group that perfected it for generations. These movements need to have been tried, honed and practiced for hundreds, if not thousands of years to figure out the weave  manipulation. However, after a people have developed one the correct movements, they can teach it easily (although it will probably be a closely guarded secret among that specific group and not easily or freely given)

-Effects are immediately killed by casting of Dispel Magic, which rights the weave by straightening and smoothing that plastic sheet

Lastly, lm also toying with this type of somatic-only spell with a disassociated verbal/audio component. Using my dancing island girls as an example, what if their somatic movements were joined by the stereotypical tribal, drumming found in island stories. (Assuming certain drum patterns and cadences provide an verbal/audio only casting that  could similarly affect the weave in some minor way) The girls did not initiate the audio component of drums, so its not their spell cast) but what if the drums when paired with the somatic movements of the girls have an intensified or new effect (intended or unintended) In this sense, manipulating the weave becomes a multi-person/party affair perhaps coordinated...perhaps not.  How would it go down, if the girl's dance was intermingled with an unknown drumming-weave manipulation of another tribe?) 

The beauty of all of this is..... the players have no idea what is happening. They are stepping into a strange village, monastery, etc thinking they are being welcomed with dance, drum and performance only to discover later their doom was being laid  right in front of them before they fully passed thru the front gate. ....or if they play it right, they could all walk away a newly learned kata of protection.

If anyone knows of anything like this please point me in the right direction!!  also looking for folks to critique, poke holes in logic or operation ! or just generally give me your thoughts.

first post!

 Borne of the 5e witch-light, but recently re-forged in the crucible of the OSR! After nearly 30 years of interest, I got into D&D in 2020 just before the pandemic started and been deep diving ever since.  Oh yeah,… mostly-retired, american attorney; addicted to coffee, books, throwin dice and ramen; Currently kickin it in Japan!  Drawn to the philosophical, the gore, the sexy, anything written in old latin and to the darkness…..