Orcs

The life of an Orc is always linked to a strange balance of primal fury, and overwhelming loyalty.  They are driven to fight, to conquer. And there are few who mortal kin who can do so better. But they are not mindless killers.  They are deeply spiritual, and highly protective of their own. Whether these traits are inbred to balance one another out, or developed over time due to their abrasive and vitriolic nature, only their God knows.
~Excerpt from The Codexia Integrum 

Basic Information

Dietary Needs and Habits

Orcs are omnivores, though they greatly prefer a diet high in meat. They are hunters by nature, but also scavengers, being one of the few sentient species able to consume and subsist on rotting flesh. 
What can't be eaten is usually cured for long term storage, or travel.

Additional Information

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

Orcs have enhanced perception in low light as compared to humans.

Civilization and Culture

History

Beginings in Blood

Orcs were born from the spilled blood of Gruumsh after his fight with Corellon. Though he nearly killed him, Gruumsh ultimately lost, but Corellon, reeling from the attack and the pain, left him alive. Gruumsh took this as a personal affront; A warriors death denied. Gathering the blood spilled by his wounds and the dust of the ground below him, he pours his rage into the muck and created the orcs with a singular purpose: Revenge.
On the iron world of Nishrek, Gruumsh trained and molded the early orcs into a fighting force unlike any seen elsewhere baptizing them in the Eternal Conquest. For millennia, the orcs trained in war, fighting and dying each day, to rise again reborn in the night. They learned not to fear death, and to embrace their savage nature and deep drive for supremacy. Those who displayed greatness enough to catch his eye, he empowered with even greater strength, weakening himself slightly to force Apotheosis and birth them as new lesser Gods. To bolster his power, Gruumsh reached out to the God of the goblinoids, and offered it a place in Nishrek if they were to gift its people to his amassing armies, an offer which it gladly accepted. Gruumsh gifted one of the several metal cubes that made up his Plane to the pantheon, and added the golbins to his ranks, naming the newly forged army The Wartide. All the while, Gruumsh waited for the moment to unleash his vengeance. When The Seldarine opened the first of the Feygates into the Material Plane, Gruumsh set his plan into motion. Shifting thousands of orcs and goblinoids into the Material Plane, Gruumsh promised them a paradise for the taking, if they could prove themselves strong enough to claim it.

Arrival of the Wartide

As the Gates were opened, and the frothing mass of orcs and goblins charged into the Plane seeking the enemy they had been sent to find, and instead found a sphere in chaos. The War between the Dragons and Giants had been raging for nearly two thousand years, and even though the Wartide arrived near the end, violence was still the currency of the age. The Wartide launched immediately into this conflict, fighting both sides in turn, and managing to drive back both forces for a time in both the north of Koria, and the lower half of Eltar. Eventually, the war moved away from their newly conquered lands, and they set about settling in the wide steppe of Koria and vast tundra of Eltar. They dug deep in the mountains, pillaged ancient giant fortresses, and amassed hordes of gems and jewels. They used those they captured in their rituals to convert the metals they found into their Black Iron, or sacrificed to the glory of their creator. It was then, that things went wrong.
The Elves that they had been sent to eliminate on the sphere had remained mostly out of the great conflict, hiding away from the fighting, and as such the Wartide had barely even seen their targeted enemy. This angered Gruumsh, and he turned his rage on

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