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Orcs are a race of humanoids that have been a threat to the "civilized" cultures for as long as any can remember.
Though varying in appearance, all orcs share certain physical qualities. Among them are grayish to gray-green skin, coarse dark hair, stooped postures, low foreheads, large muscular bodies, and porcine faces featuring lower canines that resemble boar tusks. Many also have Elf-like ears that are pointed on the ends, but more often stunted and gnarled, as if in parody to true Elves.
Adult male orcs generally stand between 5'-7' (1.5-2.1 meters), with adult females averaging two inches shorter. Males weigh anywhere between 136 and 190 pounds, while females weigh between 96 and 150 pounds
Orcs breed fast and live short lives compared with most other races. They are considered adults anywhere between 11 and 14 years of age; they are considered middle-aged at 17, old at 23, and venerable at 35 years of age. The average orc seldom lives longer than 40 years, even if it manages to avoid violent death. It is unheard of for an orc to live longer than 45 years without magical aid.
Orcs in Orben
Over Two thousand years ago, an Elven emperor named Derelan, with his Queen-Mother Urgath, conducted gruesome experiments on Human slaves using dark and twisted magics of the ancient Feywilds. They hoped to create a race of perfect warriors: unthinking, unfeeling, machines of brutal violence rippling with muscle, peaking early and dying early, so that they required no nurturing and never outlived their usefulness. To an extent they succeeded; the Orcish race they invented is everything they designed it to be, except that it is far from easy to control, which history has proven.
When Derelan and his mother was deposed, the Orcs were released to the wild, and some aware of this event lament it as the worst of all Elven acts. Orcs are banned from every city yet go marauding everywhere, coming and going like storm-blown gales. As many precious lives others sacrifice to fight off Orcish invasions, Orcs regenerate in less than two decades, so that any tribe can always rebound somewhere, even after disastrous defeat. Drow have at various times attempted to manipulate and control them, but what makes an Orc mindless makes it also impossible to manage, and only the most foolhardy any longer attempt it. If Orcs have a single, contiguous history it has never been recorded, as most Orcs can neither read nor write.
Only the race of Hobgoblins has ever been known to guide and shape the bloodlust of Orcs, but their art is more akin to shepherding dogs, than kings.
Orc Society and Culture
More refined Orcs have described in lucid moments a rage filling their head at all times, clouding thought and emotion with a blood red lust for mayhem and destruction, and through which they see every obstacle before them as a nail, while they themselves are a mallet. As one may expect, these predispositions give rise to little of what others in Orben might call "culture." Some exceptions to this profile do exist, however a proclivity to cleverness is usually written off as weakness unless its results can compare to those of instant, brute force, and those few Orc prodigies who might bring enlightenment to their own people are often killed in blood-feuds by stronger, older Orcs before adulthood.
Male Orcs dominate most Orcish societies and females are usually, at best, prized possessions and little better than livestock at worst. Male Orcs pride themselves on their number of wives and sons, as well as their scars from battle and rituals. Orcs also prize the possession of other races as slaves, though relatively few own them, as Orcs tend to do poorly in maintaining the lives of peoples less hardy than themselves.
Traditional Orcish culture is primitive, tribal, and extremely warlike, and when not at war Orcs are usually preparing for it. Most Orcs approach life with the belief that to survive, one must subjugate potential enemies and control as much resources as possible, which puts them naturally at odds with other races as well as each other. This belief is spurred in part by their god Gruumsh, who teaches that all races are inferior to the Orcs. Eyes of Gruumsh are Orcs specially tied to the one-eyed god and offer sacrifices, read omens, and advise tribes through Gruumsh's will.
Most Orcs don't build cities of their own, instead relying on structures left behind by others and improving upon them for fortifications. Otherwise they operate out of small camps and dens, often in natural caves. Orcs can manage ironwork on their own, as well as stonework, though having little access to a network of trade, their tools are often inferior to Humans, let alone Dwarves.
Most Orcs are part of a confederation of tribes, loosely held together by a despotic male chieftain, usually whoever has most recently murdered the last chieftain. Bands within these alliances might wander far from their homelands, but continue to greet those Orcs who belong to the same tribal network as kin.
Orcs in Mhirdrun
Mhirdrun's policy toward Orcs is the same as a farmer's policy toward weeds, or a town guard's policy toward a serial murderer. As far as Humans and Dwarves in Mhirdrun are concerned, Orcs are the worst of both combined into one race.