Slitherine

Hi gents,

From the single Orc Concept art picture I noticed that Orcs are green skinned.

They are green in the Warhammer universe only AFAIK.

In Tolkien's books they are dark, browninsh, black, tan... but not green. I highly liked the Orc's look in Grendel's Leviathan miniature wargaming rules (leather skin).

Green is for vegetables, not for the feared Orcs.

Green is for the spring leaves, not for the cruel Orcs.

Green is for dollars, but not for the valiant Orcs.

Orcs are a bunch of overrated losers, but, yeah, they're not green.

Peter Jackson did a wonderful job with them too in his LOTR trilogy (well, that's what i think...but my favourite book - and film- from the series is "The Two Towers", so I might be an outsider ...)

I wonder what Slitherine's thinking about them: civilized/heart of gold orcs a la Warcraft III or plainly stupid a la Warhammer 40k.
I wonder if our beloved developer team is even thinking about it now when they're busy making the best strategy game ever: Legion II .

The term "orc" was "borrowed" by Tolkien from the Huns, who were called "uruks". The "Uruk Hai" was an elite mounted bodyguard unit. Being a horde of greatly feared and "exotic" foreigners, the huns were regarded as "inhuman" monsters, and all sorts of rumors and outlandish myths were spread about them.

After the demise of Attilla, many of the remants of his army remained at the encampment in Buda, in the hills overlooking the Danube river and the city of Pesht. Much later, by the time the two "halves" of the city merged to form modern Budapest, the last vestiges of the huns had long since merged into the general population, along with the Magyars, Slavs, Germans, and other components which make up the background of the Hungarians.

Depicting the swift-riding uruks, or "orcs", as an ugly bunch of plodding green-skinned monsters is an affront to those of us with possible vestiges of "hun" background. All I can say about that is "shut your mouf or I'm gonna hafta smash yoo humies, Grrrr". - green

Interesting thread!

I did not know the huns were the original uruks.

In Tolkien, of course, the Black Uruks or Uruk Hai were the elite of the orcs - man-sized, (where normal orcs were smaller), smarter, braver, more aggressive, more disciplined, and not afraid of sunlight.

The Uruk Hai were also used as overseers of the other orcs, maintaining discipline, and preventing fighting between the different tribes.

And they were definitely not green. The Trolls were green.

Fellowship of the Ring was a great book! Saying that makes this a critical review, which allows me to quote a brief passage

This is from the battle in the chamber of Mazarbul, in the mines of Moria, bottom of page 422 in my version. The chapter name is "The Bridge of Khazad-Dum".

"But even as they retreated, and before Merry and Pippin had reached the stair outside, a huge orc-chieftain, almost man-high, clad in black mail from head to foot, leaped into the chamber; behind him his followers clustered in the doorway. His broad flat face was swart, his eyes were like coals, and his tongue was red; he wielded a great spear."

Whew, the man sure was fond of commas and semi-colons, wasn't he?

Anyhow, the key word here is swart. According to my huge old unabridged dictionary, swart is from Middle English swart (same spelling) and that from the Anglo-Saxon sweart, both meaning literally black.

Orcs gotta have a big, tough color... possibly a burnt orange? Or maybe a rusty color.

I like that idea!

Or green is OK, too.

Urk!!! Me never know orks is hunz, either!

The lineage and description of orcs is somewhat complicated in Tolkien, since he appears to have modified his ideas about them several times over the course of his career. (Like everything else in his universe) Not that the orcs depicted in Slitherine's game need necessarily be Tolkien-derived, of course.

Anyway, orcs in the Silmarillion are elves who have been "twisted" or "degraded" by Melkor (the guy who makes Sauron look like a pansy), and their multitude of descendents. (I wonder why orcs breed so prolifically, and elves were damned near infertile?) Apparently, the Uruks of Sauron's horde (the swart, black guys with the black blood) are from this genetic pool. But JRR never really made it clear how goblins differed from orcs, if at all. As for the Uruk-hai, it appears that this race was a crossbreed of human and orc (I wonders which was the female, yesss, I wonders....) invented by Saruman the Incompetent Imitator. They were closer to man stature (orcs and goblins appear to have been more the size of dwarves, or probably around 4 1/2 feet tall on average), and sunlight didn't damage them as it did the purebloods. They were probably a lighter "swart," possibly even "ruddy" like dwarves.

In any event, definitely not green.

-- Mal

Erm, not quite.

What I recall Tolkien saying was that orcs were made in imitation of elves, as trolls were made in imitation of ents. IIRC, Treebeard/Fangorn talks to Merry and Pippin about this shortly after they meet him in Fangorn Wood, somewhere about the middle of The Two Towers.

Other than the kin-slaying, there is no reference to any corruption of any elves anywhere that I have ever seen in Tolkien. In fact, he says that they may be killed but not corrupted.

The point is, though, should they be GREEN? I don't think it's all that fitting, unless it's just used to add an unhealthy greenish cast to their basic color, which could be black, brown, reddish, or a deep tan. For that matter, we could have different varieties of orc distinguished by coloration. Tolkien made at least one remark about "sallow skin", which would give the orcs a more asiatic coloration. Other references to "swart" have been pointed out, so there were blackish orcs and yellowish orcs, at the very least.

Tolkien wasn't consistent in his writings about the origins of orcs, so you really can't go strictly by the one comment. Besides, Tolkien took many of his ideas from classical Greek mythology and histories, particularly those dealing with the Persian Wars, and borrowed a number of names, places, and other details from historical literature (with which he was obviously familiar as a professor of English Literature). The river Silverlode in Lorien (the Athenians found silver in their province of Lorien, which they used to finance their war against the Persians), the "shadow in the East" (obvious reference to the Persian Empire), Shadowfax as one of the "Mearas" (the Mearas were Persian sacred white horses which pulled an empty chariot reserved for the use of their god), and many, many other instances show that he was well versed in Greek writings, and borrowed heavily from them. The "orcs", in contrast, appear to have been based on "hun" examples, using weapons and equipment (scimitars and composite bows) more suitable for an invasion by nomadic horse tribes than for a mob of semi-monsters on foot. The "wargs" were another "loose approximation" of the shaggy steppe ponies which were favored by the eastern horse tribes.

It's kind of odd that JRR dismounted his "uruks" and made them heavy infantry, given their inspitation. But then, he mounted his quasi-celtic/viking Rohirrim, instead of making them infantry (or having them use war chariots). I reckon he didn't want to follow his prototypes too closely.

-- Mal

I think the should be purple with yellow stripes (makes them look crazy)