Orcs

Orcs are a race of bulky, tusked humanoids commonly seen as barbarous and violent by other races.

Description
Orcs are bulky, often muscular humanoids with sloping brows, wide jaws, and thick tusks among their lower teeth. They typically have flat noses and pointed ears.

Orc skin varies in tone from muddy green to grey.

Psychology
By nature, orcs tend to be very aggressive and competitive. Within their own tribes, orcs are boastful and often engage in contests of strength, many of which prove lethal. Outside of their tribes, orcs are distrustful of others to the point of violence, and many will attack on sight. At best, orcs are ill-tempered, impatient, and easily offended.

Orcs are not intelligent creatures, and so are not given to complex works of craft of magic. Orc settlements tend to be simple affairs, usually fortresses built mainly out of wood.

Relations with Other Races
Most other races regard orcs with suspicion at best, or outward hatred at worst. The latter is commonly true of Equis dwarves, who share a long and tumultuous history with the orcs of that plane.

Similarly, most orcs are highly xenophobic, especially after the Tide of Blood. They are hostile not only to other races, but also to other clans. There are exceptions to this, and indeed the city of zul'Kardath still stands as a monument to "civilized" orcs. But in general, orcs are notoriously hostile.

Orcs with a more traditional viewpoint frequently raid each other and the civilized races, and outsiders encroaching on their territory are often made the subject of attacks.

Skills or Abilities
Orcs are unusually powerful and tough for a humanoid race. Their particular type of aggression is also unique to them, and most orcs can enter a sort of instinctual rampage state where there physical abilities appear to be enhanced. In this state, they tend to ignore pain more easily than outside of it. The low magics of blood magic and necromancy originated among the orcs.

Society
Orcs are highly tribal by nature, and since their earliest existence they've banded together into small xenophobic clans. Many of these tribes were eliminated during the Tide of Blood era, however, either by being absorbed into the Bloodstorm or destroyed by them.

A list of known tribes is as follows: In the tribes, the smartest among them tend to be promoted to the rank of shaman, which normally comes with some Primal magic, as well as traditional teachings of blood magic, or in the case of the Vath tribe, necromancy.
 * The Kardath:  one of the two oldest tribes (the other being the Vath), the Kardath was a large tribe of orcs that would attempt "civilization" and, in so doing, establish the city of zul'Kardath in Equis.
 * The Vath:  one of the two oldest tribes (the other being the Kardath), the Vath were a highly traditionalist clan that migrated into the Khaz'gor Mountains, rather than away from them as most tribes did. A Vath chieftain, Karm' Gazor, discovered necromancy, and the Vath became obsessed with it.
 * The Bloodstorm:  originated as a splinter tribe of the Kardath, the Bloodstorm was initially led by Thrashk Big-teeth, one of the most powerful blood mages known to history. The Bloodstorm was responsible for the Tide of Blood, their attempted genocidal war on the continent. During this era, they became the largest and most powerful tribe by absorbing or destroying other tribes.
 * The Bloodtusks:  a splinter tribe of the Bloodstorm. Found in small numbers throughout Equis, including in the Leviathan Bay region.
 * The Chainbreakers:  descended from Obador Chainbreaker, an orc chieftain who conquered a sizable amount of land roughly 300 years ago. The Chainbreakers's territory is in the Chain Steppe and along the Broken Chain river to the west of Karth, in the Leviathan Bay region of Equis.
 * The Orkanen:  when the Kardath attempted to settle down, one splinter group refused, preferring a traditional lifestyle. These traditionalists would become the Orkanen. They were absorbed by the Bloodstorm at the start of the Tide of Blood.
 * The Silverhome:  joined the Kardath in their attempt to settle zul'Kardath. The Bloodstorm declared them "goblin sympathizers" during the Tide of Blood, and they were summarily ravaged and destroyed by blood magic.
 * The Squarefists:  a sect of Skool-worshiping orcs. They were sacrificed entirely in a mass-scale blood magic ritual.

History
Orcs originated in the foothills of the Khaz'gor mountains on Equis, and then splintered into various clans that spread out from there.

In the Second Era, some of the orcs of the largest tribe, the Kardath, made contact with migrating dwarves and formed a kind of joint settlement on either side of a river. The orc side was zul'Kardath, and the dwarvish side was called bul'Kardath. Many orcs disagreed with the Kardath tribe's attempt to settle down, feeling it distinctly outside their nature. Two tribes, the Bloodstorm and the Orkanen, broke off from the Kardath due to ideological differences.

In bul'Kardath, meanwhile, the first goblins were created by a small faction of gnomes there, secretly experimenting on orcs. After their initial appearance they were confused and enraged, and rioted in the city, leading the dwarves to strike at them. Believing them to be orcs of some kind, the dwarves of bul'Kardath attacked zul'Kardath.

The Tide of Blood
Around this time, the Bloodstorm began the Tide of Blood: an attempted conquest of an entire continent, with the intent of committing genocide of all non-orcs. Thrashk Big-teeth, the Bloodstorm's shaman, declared goblins to be an "abomination," and the gnomes evil for twisting their race in such a way. The Silverhome tribe was also called "goblin sympathizers," and so the Bloodstorm struck at them first before taking over the Squarefists. The Squarefists were sacrificed  en masse  to spread rampant death and disease in bul'Kardath, nearly wiping out the population there.

The Bloodstorm did not succeed at their task, as they became spread to thin to accomplish their goals, but to those knowledgeable in such things, the violence they committed in the meantime endures in history as one of the greatest atrocities of all time.

Notable Orcs

 * Tonakh
 * Botuk Grey-eye
 * Vothug Sunfist
 * Thrashk Big-teeth
 * Karm' Gazor
 * Karlak War-king