Orks

Empty. Rapacious. Inspired madness. The orkeneas, colloquially known as orks, are the hollow dregs of a Vat-Ceron's feeding. Imbued with completely alien intelligence, they view all creation - particularly organic life - as parts in a vast machine they envision. These brutal inventors intend to build that machine at any cost, gathering "parts" when and where they need them. Their final goal on Aestrona is the corpse of the Vat-Ceron which spawned them, dead now for 200 years, which they believe can be made into a space-worthy vehicle to bring their twisted ambitions into the vastness of the universe.
The orks spawned when a rogue Vat-Ceron attacked Aestrona hundreds of years ago. An insane fey Selem-Vat used the beast's undead flesh to create monstrosities to plague the living Elanni, and the orks were among her vicious inventions.
Born without life, the orks are natural necromancers, a talent they put to use in the construction of their vast machines. Weaving flesh and metal together, these necromachinists spend every waking moment either fabricating their latest inspiration or gathering parts to do so.
Unable to naturally reproduce, the orks quickly developed a cloning device they refer to as the Grinding House. Using organic material from other sapient races allows the orks to quickly congeal new bodies into which they necromantically copy their soulless consciousnesses. The process is imperfect; lacking souls, the orks are unable retain their memories and experiences during such transfers. The resulting animate body is an ork with similar characteristics to the one from which they are cloned, but has no memories of its own. It must put its massive intelligence to work from scratch, relearning that which it knew before.
The only time an ork ever feels conflicted is when it must choose whether to throw a promising part into the Grinding House, or use it in its latest invention.

Civilization and Culture

Naming Traditions

Orks identify themselves by their Grinding House and a number corresponding to the order in which they emerged. If they have notable deeds or accomplishments, these will be added as a title. For example, Dynezig the Collector came from the Dyne Grinding House. Zig is the orkish word for the number thirty and the title of Collector was bestowed for his prolific ability at collecting unusual "parts".

Genetic Descendants

• Half-Ork