Half-Orc

Basic Information

Anatomy

Half-Orcs represent a hybridization between humans and orcs, much the same way as half-elves represent a cross between humans and elves. Half-orcs tend to have slightly thicker, heavier bones than true-blooded humans, and are generally slightly heavier and larger than humans with more muscle mass (though generally are not as bulky as true-orcs). They have a broader frame, with wider-set shoulders and broader, more boxlike chests. Half-Orc skulls do not slope quite as much as true-blood orcs, but generally feature wider and broader foreheads than human skulls, and still grow tusks like orcs, though their tusks tend to be somewhat smaller and less pronounced, while their head, hands,and feet all tend to also be somewhat proportionately larger relative to their body size than those of humans. Half-orcs also benefit both from human endurance and orcish strength, giving them an uncanny ability to shrug off pain and wounds that might otherwise fell an ordinary human.

Genetics and Reproduction

While rumors abound about the apparent sterility of half-elves, with half-orcs quite the opposite is true, and this reputation has its roots in truth. Half-orcs apparently benefit from the fecundity of their orcish heritage, as they tend to be noticeably more prolific than average humans. While half-orcs do not gestate their children for any longer than humans, twins and even triplets are born significantly more frequently to half-orc parents, and couples involving half-orcs tend to have more children overall than humans of similar circumstances.
Children born to a pair of half-orcish parents are also born as half-orcs, though when half-orcs mate with true humans or orcs, the resulting children generally share the ancestry of their human or orcish parent. Uniquely however, pairs of half-orcs and half-elves are uniformly sterile, as are those of half-orcs and true elves, despite the apparent ability of elves and orcs to both successfully mate with humans.

Growth Rate & Stages

Half-orcs mature a little faster than humans, typically hitting puberty and developing their tusks around their first decade or shortly thereafter, and reaching adulthood in their mid-late teen. Half-orcs grow significantly faster than humans and age noticeably faster, rarely living longer than seventy-five years with a generally shorter life expectancy than humans.

Additional Information

Facial characteristics

Half-orcs tend to have

Geographic Origin and Distribution

Worldwide

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

Half-orcs benefit from their orcish heritage through an enhanced ability to see in the dark.

Civilization and Culture

Naming Traditions

Half-orcs usually have names appropriate to the culture in which they were raised. A half-orc who wants to fit in among humans might trade an orc name for a human name. Some half-orcs with human names decide to adopt a guttural orc names because they think it makes them more intimidating. Finally, some half-orcs choose to abandon the cultural norms of humans and orcs, and might choose a name for themselves. 
Male Orc Names: Dench, Feng, Gell, Henk, Holg, Imsh, Keth, Krusk, Mhurren, Ront, Shump, Thokk 
Female Orc Names: Baggi, Emen, Engong, Kansif, Myev, Neega, Ovak, Ownka, Shautha, Sutha, Vola, Volen, Yevelda

Major Organizations

The most prominent half-orc geopolitical organization is the mercenary company known as the "Half-Tusk Legion." While half-orcs generally are spread too thinly to form any exlclusive political organizations, the Legion represents a meaningful way through which half-orcs engage in the major geopolitical affairs of the continents, and represents a primary guarantor of their interests. Half-orcs around the world dream of joining the Legion, which recruits all over but only takes the most impressive candidates. Even after brutal physical trials just to gain admittance, recruits may spend years in training, some even dying in the process, before they are recognized as official 'Legionaires,' only becoming true members when a previous legionnaire dies or retires and their spot in the ranks opens up.Still, many are eager for the opportunity, as the Legion offers a path to attaining the respect and sense of community many half-orcs struggle to find, and offers a path for upward mobility in a world which has little room for them otherwise. 
The legion commands a fearsome reputation, as the half-orcs intimidating presence is often enough to strike terror and break undisciplined foes. Failing this, the half-orcs of the legion are each elite warriors in their own right, and a cohesive and well-disciplined unit when fighting together, making them a formidable force on the battlefield for anyone with coin enough to pay them. The Legion has been pivotal in deciding a number of political conflicts throughout its existence, and has even inspired the creation of various imitation "half-orc guard" units around the world, though however skilled these soldiers may be, they pale in comparison to the Legionaires. Beyond mere tactical prowess and the individual martial skill of its members, the legion is valued for its impeccable and historically flawless commitment to discretion and loyalty. The Legion, to its great pride and credit, has never abandoned a contract or broken an oath, and has a reputation for being straightforward and forthright even towards its opposition. However, the Legion also never fails to collect the payment it is due, a lesson some have learned painfully. Despite this, the Legion is also well-respected for the high standards of professionalism and discipline it expects and maintains among its ranks, and uses a rigorous system of coporal punishment and expulsions to maintain these standards. This has led some to give the legion the nickname of 'cold orcs,' occasionally applied to half-orcs generally as a result, as unlike their orc kin, instances of indiscriminate looting and destruction of property, brawling, and brutalization of innocents are virtually unheard of in their ranks and harshly punished.

Beauty Ideals

Half-Orc beauty ideals are largely governed by the culture in which they were raised. 
For those half-orcs growing up in orcish communities, beauty and strength are nearly synonymous. In assessing personal beauty, orcs tend to seek out individuals with

Average Technological Level

Half-orcs usually share the general technological level of the society in which they live. Those half-orcs who have lived amongst humans or the other goodfolk, or with specialist experience learned from them, are often particularly highly valued among Orcish communities, and represent one of the main ways technological advancements diffuse into the orcish world. Half-orcs might serve an orc tribe as particularly highly valued siege-engineers or architects, armourers or weaponsmiths, or in other roles in which the community is lacking and wishes to emulate or adopt some new technology.

Major Language Groups and Dialects

Half-orcs can generally speak Orcish, a harsh, grating language with hard constants and short staccato rhythms. It has no script of its own, as orcs rarely use written records, but is written using Dwarvish runes.

Culture and Cultural Heritage

The one-eyed god Gruumsh created the orcs as a tool of his eternal anger, and even those orcs who turn away from his worship can't fully escape his influence. The same is true of half-orcs, though their human ties moderate the control Gruumsh exerts over them. Some half-orcs hear the whispers of Gruumsh in their dreams, calling to them to unleash the rage that simmers within them. Others feel Gruumsh's burning fury when they join in combat and the adrenaline courses through their veins- and either exult along with him or shiver in fear and loathing. Despite common human misconceptions, half-orcs are not evil by nature, but all know the evil destructive urges lurking within them, whether they embrace and channel them, or rebel against them.
Beyond just the burning rage of gruumsh, half-orcs seem to feel all emotions more keenly than do their human counterparts. It is often said by those who have grown close to half-orcs and actually know them that "half-orc hearts are bigger." Indeed, half-orcs actually experience emotion more powerfully than humans, and are powerfully attuned to their emotional states. A half-orc is capable of summoning up immense feats of strength, heroism, and physical resilience by drawing upon this inner emotional strength to push their bodies well-beyond not only the normal physical limits of human, but even orcs.
Half-orcs also have inherited a stubborn streak from Gruumsh, and while not particularly inclined toward either law or chaos, half-orcs tend to be staunch in their judgments and possess a firm sense of justice and injustice. How a half-orc reacts to such injustice is often a matter of more nuance, but

History

No one is quite certain of when the first half-orcs came into existence, but most speculate that it could not have occurred long after the Orcs themselves sprang into existence as part of the eternal war between Gruumsh, their creator and leader of the orcish pantheon, and Correllon Larenthian, god of the elves. While Gruumsh's feud was all-encompassing and everlasting against the elves, apparently the relationship between early human ancestors and orcs was not inherently hostile. While the two groups naturally came into conflict, they just as frequently  lived peaceably, cooperated, and sometimes even lived side by side in the same communities. It is known that even as late as the age of heroes, invariably in the quest to survive and gain strength, human and orcish communities coexisted, formed alliances, and  and intermingled, inevitably resulting in half-orcs.
The Concordance and subsequent wars were catastrophic for these relationships, shattering the detente between mankind and orcs, and as a result only a few communities in which humans and orcs coexist remain. Elsewhere, the orcish refusal to abandon Gruumsh's feud against the elves and commit to peace resulted in a series of coalition wars against them in which the humans came to view orcs as savage warmongers, and in which the orcs came to view humans as betrayers who had forsaken their bonds and sided with the elves. In the aftermath, the number of half-orcs dramatically declined, while the share of those of unhappy origins increased. 
Orcs largely still reject the Concordance, ever-enthralled to Gruumsh in his endless wars against civilization and new feud against the humans and their Concordance, while to humans Orcs are thus not protected by the Concordance's provisions and generally regarded by its adherents as hateful monsters to be destroyed on sight. Even to this day, however, relationships between humans and orcs are rarely this straightforward or simple. Whether united under the leadership of a mighty warlock, having fought to standstill after years of conflict, or simply born out of necessity, orc and human tribes sometimes form alliances, joining forces into a larger horde to the terror of the lands nearby. When these alliances are sealed by marriages, half-orcs are born. In other places, beyond the reach of the Concordance, a fragile detente still holds between humans and orcs, and rarer still are the few societies, generally on the very fringes of civilization, in which humans and orcs live side-by side as they once did and half-orcs are commonplace and viewed without prejudice. 
Generally though, while both human and orcish societies generally consider half-orcs human or orcish enough to be at least tolerated, they also find half-orcs simply not quite human or orc enough to be fully trusted. Most struggle to find acceptance. As orcs are beyond the concordance, the very existence of a half-orc in most human societies represents evidence of a taboo or scandalous liaison with the forces of destruction and evil. As a result, half-orcs in human societies bound by the Concordance may not face open hostility, but may suffer an array of micro-aggressions based on the ingrained prejudices they hold. Many may have tragic origins, forced to the fringes of a society which barely tolerates them. 
Half-orcs tend to fare better in orcish society in the present day, and so half-orcs most often live among orcs. As orcish societies tend to value strength above all else, half-orcs often find it easier to gain acceptance from their orcish peers than their human counterparts, winning their place and earning respect through their strength and grit. Even here however, half-orcs tend to be at a disadvantage, at least at first glance, because they tend to be smaller than full-orcs, and especially while young and before they learn to leverage their other strengths, half-orcs may find themselves forced to the bottom of the social hierarchy.
Despite this, some may rise to become proud chiefs of orc tribes, their human wits and determination giving them an edge over their full-blooded orc rivals. Some venture into the world to prove their worth among humans and the other goodfolk, and many of these become adventurers, achieving greatness for their mighty deeds and notoriety for their barbaric customs and savage fury. 
In such places, in their own way, each half-orc finds a way to gain acceptance from a society which has no room for them and which finds their very existence poses difficult moral questions they would rather not confront. Some are reserved , trying not to draw attention to themselves. A few demonstrate piety and good-heartedness as publicly as they can (whether or not such demonstrations are genuine), and some simply try to be so tough that others just avoid them or must develop a sort of grudging respect toward them. Whether proving themselves amongst rough tribes in the wilderness, or scrabbling to survive in the slums of larger cities, half-orcs get by on their physical might, their endurance, and the sheer determination they inherit from their human ancestry.

Interspecies Relations and Assumptions

Half-orcs have a complex relationship with the other species of Kethenicaea. Half-orcs certainly share a sense of kinship with both humans and orcs resulting from their shared parentage. Some half-orcs may seek to assimilate into these communities, choosing to identify with one side or the other, while others attempt to exist in some sort of middle ground between the two. This inevitably poses challenges to half-orcs, as no matter how genuine a half-orcs efforts to integrate themselves and find a true sense of belonging and community with such people, half-orcs invariably are seen as the "black sheep."

Half-Orc

ability score increase: Your Strength score increases by 2, and your Constitution score increases by 1.

age: Half-orcs mature a little faster than humans, reaching adulthood around age 14. They age noticeably faster and rarely live longer than 75 years.

alignment: Half-orcs inherit a tendency toward chaos from their orc parents and are not strongly inclined toward good. Half-orcs raised among orcs and willing to live out their lives among them are usually evil.

Size: Medium

speed: 30 feet.

Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Orcish. Orcish is a harsh, grating language with hard consonants. It has no script of its own, but uses Dwarvish characters.

race features:
Darkvision. Thanks to your orc blood, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shade of gray.
Menacing. You gain proficiency in the intimidation skill.
Relentless Endurance. When you are reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, you can drop to 1 hit point instead. You can't use this feature again until you finish a long rest.
Savage Attacks. When you score a critical hit with a melee weapon attack, you can roll one of the weapon's damage dice one additional time and add it to the extra damage of the critical hit.

Genetic Ancestor(s)

• Human
• Orc

Lifespan

60 years

Average Height

5'-7'

Average Weight

180-250 lb.

Average Physique

Half-Orcs are somewhat larger and bulkier than humans.

Body Tint, Colouring and Marking

Half-orcs tend to share the same pigmentation of their orcish parents, ranging from pallid yellows and greens to ashy greys.