Orcs

Orcs are a race native to Alandor, living in the high mountain ranges, secluding themselves and rarely involving themselves with more than a few others and rarely leaving home.

Origin
Orcs are one of the oldest races in Alandor and are believed to hail from the same ancestry as Humans. Somewhere far back, they might have been influenced by other blood, which changed their physicality and minds. Believing in little else than battle, their cultures are formed around strength and proving oneself.

Names
Orc names are much like their language: short and guttural, hard and straightforward. Their names are usually simply Orc words.

Male names: Feng, Gell, Holg, Imsh, Keth, Ront, Thokk

Female names: Baggi, Emen, Kansif, Neega, Ownka, Vola, Yevelda

Appearance
Orc appearance depend a lot on the subrace. The different subraces made their homes in different places a long, long time ago, and has since adapted to their new lives with ease. Over the generations their bodies have changed and some have grown while others have mutated.

But what all Orcs have in common is that they are much larger than most other races. They are wider, have thicker bones, thicker necks, their bodies bursting with muscle. They have pointed ears and flat, large noses. They also share the characteristic of long teeth protruding from their lower jaws, the tusks at the edges of their jaw longer than the others.

Age
Orcs tower large over next to all races, but their size is a disadvantage when it comes to their survivability. Orcs begin to age faster after their 50-60th birthday and pass away when their bodies give up around their 75-80s.

Personality
Orcs are not evil by nature, but evil does lurk within them, slightly closer to the surface than in humans, whether they embrace it or rebel against it. By their own standards they are never evil, but their ways can seem cruel for an outsider looking in.

Beyond the rage that lives in them, Orcs feel emotion very powerfully. Anger doesn't just quicken their pulse, it makes their bodies burn. An insult stings like acid. Sadness saps heir strength. But they laugh loudly and heartily, and simple bodily pleasures - like feasting, drinking and wrestling - fill their hearts with joy. They tend to be short-tempered and sometimes sullen, more inclined to action than contemplation and fighting than arguing.

Subraces
Orc subraces come from where they have put down their roots: Raveners run the roads of most north climates, Dureg reign in the mountains, Sun Orcs roam further south in middle climates, and Half-Orcs claim the fields and open hills.

Raveners
Raveners are Orcs who have gone down the mountains and taken to the northern climates' roads. They make their small but numerous villages against mountain sides and gear themselves up in metal and covering armour. Some live like bandits, messing with travellers, while some fight other bandits without honour.

Raveners are quite large and swell with muscle. They favour putting their long hairs in braids or tie it up in tails that line down their backs. Their skins range from brown to a darker faded green and their tusks are long and sharp.

Dureg
Dureg are mountain Orcs to their very bones. Both taller and wider than their other Orc brethren, Dureg are the image of frightening Orcs. They are silent and solemn and share few words with each other. People unfortunate enough to stumble into their camps might feel haunted by the silence that veils across all Dureg, but one more observant might notice the look the Dureg share with each other.

Dureg have no colour on their skins, ranging from a pale grey to almost a blueish black. They wear their identically coloured hairs short and ragged. They don themselves in thick furs and hard leathers, with large boots to keep them from sinking deep into the snow of the mountain ranges that they live in.

Sun Orcs
Sun Orcs look a lot more friendly than their other Full Orc brethren. The statures of this nomad race are smaller and slimmer than the other Orcs, as they have shed their thick skins and warming fats. Instead, slim but still bulging muscle ripple their arms and legs.

Sun Orcs moved further south than the Raveners far back, reaching hotter climates in search of greater prey to hunt. Interacting a lot with the other races, they have taken on reflecting personalities and hobbies, though they still hunt only with each other and always searching for larger and more challenging prey.

Sun Orcs' skin colour is anything between a sandy pale to a earthy dark brown, almost the same range as humans. They wear their hair long and their tusks are shorter but wider. They make armour out of anything they can hunt.

Half-Orcs (Goliath)
Half-Orcs are often referred to as Goliaths, as they were believed to be an entirely different race other than orc. It was only much later that they were found to be related to Orcs.

It's not strange that they would be mistaken for another people entirely: while Half-Orcs are still larger and heavier built than humans, their ears have nearly rounded off and their tusks have fallen away and their skins are always a pale grey. Still flat-nosed and strong, the Half-Orcs instead burn black coal into their skin to paint amazing patterns across their barren skins. They have coarse hair that is always dark, and the males still cannot grow beards.

Nomads, like the Sun Orcs, Half-Orcs never put down roots and can be found all over Alandor.

Trivia

 * Goliath is actually a race in the D&D Official books, but is brought in here as Half-Orc
 * Orcs and Humans share the same ancestors and are more closely related than one might think