Orcs as demon-corpses

So the etymology of orc is a bit complicated. Originally it appears in Beowulf as orcneas, meaning "demon-corpse." Tolkien used it as inspiration for his orcs, and C.S. Lewis anglicized it to orkny/orknies. As I've mentioned in prior posts, they're named after Orcus, the Greco-Roman demon of oaths. Although the "oath" part has long since been forgotten, both in the depictions of orcs themselves and the depiction of Orcus in fantasy fiction.

Some authors and bloggers have used this etymology as a springboard for reimagining orcs as demon corpses created by Orcus. Both because of its perceived novelty, and because it avoids bizarre moral questions like "what do we do with the baby orcs?" Perhaps these orknies are created by necromancers from spawning pools, perhaps summoned by devil's forgemasters in corpse shells, perhaps they are transformed from demikind through foul applications of alchemy... the possibilities are endless.

Links

• https://flintlocksandwitchery.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-orc-renaissance.html
• http://swordsandstitchery.blogspot.com/2020/04/blood-for-bacon-another-ecology-of-orc.html
• https://daegames.blogspot.com/2018/05/dungeons-delvers-where-do-baby-gnolls.html
• https://daegames.blogspot.com/2021/05/inherently-evil-races-arent-bad-game.html
• http://archonsmarchon.blogspot.com/2020/04/orcneas.html
• https://dailyadventureprompts.tumblr.com/post/637422331142307840/monsters-reimagined-orcus-the-dead-god-patron
• https://ingmaralbizu.com/about-orcs-and-our-fascination-with-barbarism/

"Reinventing Fantasy Races" by Luke Maciak

 Some years ago I stumbled upon a blog series titled "Reinventing Fantasy Races" by Luke Maciak that I found a useful source of inspiration for my own writings. Since his website is suffering database issues as of the last two years or so, I was forced to use Wayback Machine to read his articles. The archive may be found here: https://web.archive.org/web/20210205155615/http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/tag/reinventing-fantasy-races/

There may be some missing images, outdated comments, or other errors. Thankfully the archive has multiple copies from different times so it should be easy to find everything with a little cross-checking. Other websites aren't so lucky... 

Non-rapey orcs?

So something that bugs certain people about half-orcs is the overuse of rape as their backstory and the subsequent characterization of orcs (and/or goblins) as all being violent misogynistic rapists. So I have a suggestion for making orcs less rapey without sacrificing their horror potential. What follows is a mix of influences, including Warhammer 40,000, Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, 13th Age, Alien, and Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda. 

Orcs are goblinoids (as per older editions of D&D) and the various goblinoid monsters are all instars or castes of a single species. They reproduce asexually by means of spawning pits and underground fungus wombs. They may reproduce in a quasi-sexual fashion by parasitic means too. One option is throwing victims into the spawning pits, where they are dissolved alive. Another is to lay eggs in a host with their teeth. The resulting offspring will inherit traits from the host, and this is how we get half-orcs. Goblinoids otherwise have no concept of gender or sexuality: humans and other demikind are seen as slaves and food, nothing more. Which is still plenty horrifying.

This raises a number of questions: What does it mean for goblinoids to be parasites, especially if half-orcs can become adventurers? What does this reinforce about the themes of the setting? Do the goblinoids inherit species traits or those of specific individuals?  Do they hunt down specific targets for the purpose of eugenics? How strict are civilizations about security, given that a bite can impregnate a person with larvae? Etc...

In a future post I'll discuss a treatment of orcs as demons that possess corpses.

A glance at "Bestiaries: Creatures of the West and East"

Back in the late 2000s Stephen C. Klauk wrote two bestiaries, Bestiary Malfearous and Bestiary Nefarious, for his decades-old homebrew campaign setting Amberos. In addition to a lot of original monsters created for his setting, it includes a number of substitutes for WotC IP monsters. These include the serpentine aspii in Bestiary Nefarious and the octopoid menten in Bestiary Malfearous, who are described as mortal enemies in their similar quests to remake the world in their own image. Nice.

The two books are also each several hundred pages long. Damn. If only I were so creative and dedicated...

Anyway, the aspii are immortal serpentfolk that use alchemy to transform others into hybrid slaves, and the menten are octopoid aliens from the Realm of Madness that feed on minds (not physical brains, but the energy of the mind itself).

The aspii are similar to other serpentfolk I've covered previously, and share traits with all of them. The true aspii are giant semihumanoid cobras (similar to the illujan lords and anguineum ophiduans) with snakes for arms (similar to the inphidians from the Tome of Horrors series). They create hybrid slaves through both alchemical transmutation and more conventional crossbreeding.

The menten are semihumanoid octopoids that use modified tentacles are arms and legs. They were created by someone else to conquer the material plane by devouring or converting the inhabitants. There are several degrees of slavery, including being mind-wiped, used as raw material to make a horrifying "flesh engine", or taken to the Realm of Madness and transformed into "thrallkin" who form the lowest rank of the true menten species.

Unfortunately, aspii and menten don't seem to be Open Game Content. Not that I mind considering the other substitutes available, but the bit about them having similar goals and therefore being mortal enemies was actually pretty clever and I'm surprised nobody else thought it up. I'm definitely borrowing that bit.

The D&D "gorgon" is probably not based on the Greek bronze bull

I've seen a few articles, blogs, and vlogs claiming that the the D&D "gorgon" is based on the mythological "khalkotaur." This is complete bunk, in several ways. I've said this before, but I think it bears repeating.

Firstly, the D&D "gorgon" is clearly based on the catoblepas by way of Edward Topsell, who infamously confused the catoblepas with the gorgon Medusa in his 1607 bestiary The Historie of Foure-Footed Beastes and propagated further in works like Curious Creatures in Zoology.

Secondly, there's no such mythological monster as a "khalkotaur." That name is fakelore propagated by Wikipedia. There are the Tauroi Khalkeoi, or Bronze Bulls in English. (Not to be confused with the similarly named torture device, which itself may be mythical too.)

Thirdly, we have no evidence whatsoever that the D&D gorgon was inspired by the bronze bulls. They look and attack completely different: the former has iron scales and breathes petrifying fumes, the latter is made of bronze and breathes fire. Any similarities (i.e. both are metal bulls with breath weapons) appear to be pure coincidence.

Fun fact: Hacklopedia of Beasts includes an entry for the D&D gorgon, which not only gives it bat-like wings in contrast to typical depictions, but mentions that the monster is also known as "burakog" and "khalkotaur." And all this time I've just been calling it an iron bull.

The origins of D&D monsters?

The monsters (and planes) of D&D are often drawn from myth, folklore, or literature. I keep finding myself trying to refer back to such sources, so I've decided to keep a list of them. If anyone is reading this, then you might also find this useful.

• https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=60560
• http://www.hahnlibrary.net/rpgs/sources.html
• https://web.archive.org/web/20180810053344/http://rpg.crg4.com/origins.html
• https://www.scrollforinitiative.com/2021/02/01/where-do-dd-monsters-come-from/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/969gcc/the_mythological_folkloric_or_literary_source_of/
• http://www.superdan.net/gaming/dnd3/dndmisc/outer_planes.html

Horcruxes and voldemorts

In past posts I lamented how archaic words like lich and phylactery have had their previously versatile meanings changed and shrunk by the vagaries of Gygax and his imitators. This means that I can no longer use them in their original meanings without confusing people who grew up on a diet of iterative fantasy. Not that it will actually stop me from using those words in their original capacities, as other authors have done before me, but it is annoying that my readers won't understand my meaning.

I recently discovered that voldemort is now a word. It derives from French vol de mort, meaning (roughly) "flight/theft of/from death." According to French speakers, this is grammatically sound but more appropriate for the technical speech of a police report (e.g. "theft of corpse"). A less stilted phrase would be Le Vol de la Mort, meaning either "the theft of death" or "the flight of death." Flight as in the flight of a bird or plane, not fleeing.

I would like to thank J.K. Rowling for coining this word. Prior to this, the fantasy genre didn't actually have a word for an evil wizard who cheats death. The word lich was used for this purpose due to Gygax's popularization, but as I have said before I consider that usage to be clunky and parochial. The benefit of voldemort is that its literal meaning relates to cheating death, and it's a well known fantasy word in the popular imagination.

The same goes for horcrux, also coined by Rowling. I've seen it used in NOS4A2 to refer to objects created to contain souls other than those of evil wizards, so its meaning is thankfully versatile. Prior to this, we only had phrases like "soul jar" and "zombie bottle" that weren't well known in the popular imagination.

These new words, voldemort and horcrux, are versatile. They can refer to Koschei and his hidden heart, Sauron and his cursed ring, Voldemort and his horcruxes, Arthas and his vampiric runeblade, etc. I should like to use them in my own writings from now on.