Orc (Dungeons & Dragons)

Dungeons & Dragons
In Dungeons & Dragons, orcs are almost always villainous, cast as a brutal, bestial, and tribal parody of humans and human society. They usually have gray or brown skin, and are sometimes shown with green skin, in contradiction to Tolkien's Orcs, which had many different skin colours ranging from palish yellow to deep black. Because common fantasy orcs are inherently violent and evil, game players who wish to play the role of an orc are instead usually encouraged to play a half-orc, the offspring of an orc and a human. They worship the god Gruumsh.

However, earlier versions of the game depicted orcs slightly differently. They were lawful in alignment, and were described as having porcine snouts. Orcs were also seen as widespread, prolific, short-lived, and closely related to both humans and ogres, capable of interbreeding with either. An insightful passage from the Monstrous Manual reads, "Orcs have a reputation for cruelty that is deserved, but humans are just as capable of evil as orcs".

The half-orc in the original AD&D game was a standard PC race, typically assuming the assassin class, where he was a brooding and tragic figure, and not a brutish caricature. Unfortunately, half-orcs were removed in the later edition of the game but were revived, albeit altered, in D&D 3rd edition.

Older illustrations of orcs (such as in the 1977 Monster Manual) depicts them with pig-like faces.

Greyhawk
In the World of Greyhawk, orcs can be found in almost all locales of the Flanaess, but are most heavily concentrated in the Pomarj and the Empire of Iuz. There is also known to exist a great orcish city known as Garel Enkdal in the Griff Mountains. The orcs of the Baklunish nation of Zeif are much different than their brethren, having very nearly been assimilated into human society, though they are still regarded as lower-class.

Forgotten Realms
In the Forgotten Realms campaign setting of Dungeons & Dragons, orcs are divided into the orcs of the north (Mountain Orcs) and the orcs of the east (Gray Orcs). The gray orcs came to Faerûn through a portal opened in Mulhorand by an Imaskari wizard. The orcs' invasion caused the Orcgate Wars in which the pious gray orcs called avatars of their deities down to help them, and the Mulhorandi and Untheric people did the same. Led by Re these pantheons and their soldiers eventually broke the gray orcs' armies.

In the north, orcs are known for overbreeding and then spilling out in hordes upon the nations thereabouts, including the Silver Marches, Icewind Dale and, in times past, the old elven empires around Cormanthyr. Foremost amongst the orcs of this area is the Broken Arrow tribe headed by King Obould Many-Arrows, enemy of Drizzt Do'Urden.

Eberron
In the Eberron campaign setting, orcs are portrayed in a more positive light. Given to spirituality and nature-worship, they established successful societies, learning druidic secrets from the green dragon Vvaraak while the goblinoid races built a mighty empire, some 16,000 years ago. The orc societies took a massive blow during the daelkyr invasion 9,000 ago, though it was the orcs now known as the Gatekeepers who were able to stop the invasion by sealing the daelkyr beneath Eberron and severing the link between Eberron and the daelkyr home plane of Xoriat. The Gatekeeper druidic sect remains a presence in Eberron, albeit one largely concerned with defending the world from outsiders, aberrations and other unnatural foes rather than politics.

d20 System
Following the precedents set in the earliest Dungeons & Dragons materials, a great many d20 System publishers have retained Orcs in their own works. While many of these publishers have examined orcs in greater depth than was the norm in earlier works, most of those have not reinvented this race as such, and it still tends to be identified with coarseness and brutality. Such products include Bad Axe's Heroes of High Favor: Half Orcs and Skirmisher Publishing's Orcs of the Triple Death line of miniatures.