Hi there, orcs are awesome and if you disagree you’re wrong. Orcs also have a lot of potential in regards to customization. Although I main HMT now and have mained Darkspear in the past, I’ve spent the majority of my time playing this game as an orc main. Because of this, I have a ton of ideas as to what could be made into orc customization.
It should also be noted that I don’t expect even 10% of these things to become a reality, nor do I expect Blizzard to look at this thread and actually go “yeah we should do this”, but I still want to toss all my ideas out.
Contents
- Sub-races/Intro
- All orc sub-races
- Orgrimmar orcs
- Mag’har orcs
- Fel orcs
- Mok’nathal
- Pale orcs
First of all, many people have suggested a sub-race idea in various forms. I love this idea and think the best iteration of it that I’ve seen is the one by Sigfrieda on the EU forums.
For who haven’t and aren’t going to read the thread, just check this image for about what it’d look like.
You pick the main race, then pick the sub-race. Each sub-race will have unique characteristics like shaman totems, customization, druid forms, etc. The only thing I’d add to this is unique class combinations.
With that in mind, I would add five sub-races to orcs: Mag’har, Mok’nathal, Ogrimmar, fel, and pale. Orgrimmar (aka our favorite greenbois with the greatest racial leader ever) and Mag’har orcs are already playable. Mok’nathal can have some decent cosplays made (just look at me), while fel and pale orcs are completely missing.
I will point out here playable that fel orcs do indeed align with the lore, as there are Horde aligned fel orcs by the Dark Portal. As for pale orcs, nothing says that they are a part of the modern Horde, however, they were a part of the Old Horde and did make it to Azeroth, meaning there is some potential for expanding the lore to allow for them to be made playable should they join the modern Horde in some way (something about their sanity would need to be done as well, for example, they could have recovered after the Cataclysm).
For all orc sub-races
Faces
This is a long-running and major request by orc players, improving our facial options, especially for males.
Male faces are all some combination of cracked, wrinkled, and angry looking. This issue is also present for some other Horde races like Darkspear. They also lack eyebrows, making them look incomplete. Fixing these issues would satisfy pretty much all orc players, myself included. A good idea of what improved faces would look like is Thrall and Kargath (especially if Kargath had eyebrows). I will also point out that eyebrows do make sense for male orcs and that Thrall is not the only orc with them as some people have incorrectly claimed. Here is a link to a post with several images of male orcs with eyebrows, some of them Thrall, most of them not.
Some other improvements for faces:
Tusks:
- Longer tusks.
- Ability to break any combination of tusks for both males and females, as currently only males can have broken tusks and you can only have the outer right one broken.
- A second row of inner tusks, as can be seen on Thrall and movie Grom.
- Bigger tusks.
- Something like this (Blizzard concept art for the movie by Wei Wang).
Eyes:
- A purple eye color like humans and trolls got.
- A deeper blue color like current Thrall has
- A real red eye color, like the two that trolls got (1 and 2), and like the color that many WoD Shattered Hand NPCs use.
- An orange eye color, like in this TCG art for Ner’zhul.
- The ability to have all of these colors with one eye blind, with the blind eye being selectable to be the left or right one (currently can only have a blind eye with 3 colors, two of them on one side and the remaining one on the other side).
Facial hair:
- The stubble currently available to Ogrimmar orcs.
- Thrall’s new beard.
- More facial hair than just beards, like this moustache (by u/skeletonriser on Reddit).
- Whatever Ner’zhul has in the aforementioned TCG art.
Facial markings/tattoos
Tattoos
- Clan tattoos for all of the clans that appear on this map from Chronicle 2 as well as the Shattered Hand. I would exclude the Mok’nathal from this and give these tattoos only to the other three with the Mok’nathal getting their own unique clan tattoos. Before the Warlords model update, the Dragonmaw had some unique tattoos (some examples: 1, 2, 3) that could be brought back and used as inspiration for other clans.
- A tattoo of the Horde symbol.
Ears
- Some options for shape and size. There were two options for males in the Shadowlands alpha they but it never made it to live.
Piercings
- Tusk rings like movie Grom has (what orcs currently have is tusk bands).
- Everything from this.
- Nipple piercings, Grom had them.
Hairstyles
- The style used by Grom.
- The style used by Kargath.
- Thrall’s current style.
- Dreadlocks (Kilrogg had them).
- In the case of males, make all current styles have two versions; one with a receding hairline for those freaks who want to use it and one that looks normal without a receding line.
- All hairstyles should be shared between each sub-race.
Bodies
Model toggles
- I would like all five variants of orcs to be able to switch between 3 models; the current orc model, a larger model very frequently proposed for Mok’nathal, and the dire orc model (made friendly for players, of course), with all models having skin tones and other features like fel orc body spikes supported for whatever sub-race is using them.
Scars
- Fully body scars, as Mag’har currently have, so stuff like this.
Nails
- Very small and niche thing, but Kargath has some long and sharp nails that would be cool to have.
Necklaces
- Something like Saurfang’s necklace (Wowhead made one for April Fools 2020).
- Something with skulls.
- Thrall’s new necklace.
- Something like this.
- Seriously, Blademaster beads (found this on Wowpedia).
- Something like necklace used by Ner’zhul in the aforementioned TCG art.
Heritage armor
- Every sub-race should get unique heritage.
- I would add banners to each heritage but Mok’nathal, with a Horde banner and a Burning Blade banner for blademasters.
Voice lines
- An ability to switch between some of the voices already available and possibly new voice lines added in the future. For example, playing a Orgrimmar orc you can use Mag’har voice lines, with certain obvious specific lines removed if they don’t make sense to be used by an Orgrimmar orc. These would be replaced with something.
Face Paint
- Something like what Ner’zhul has had since all the way back to WC2:BTDP.
For Orgrimmar Orcs
War paint
- Split body style from facial style,
- Higher resolution for all currently available styles.
- More and better colors, a vibrant red and jet black would be appreciated by me.
Skin colors
Eye colors
- MU Dragonmaw eye colors (image was created pre-Shadowlands so they look a little different now, but still very similar).
Tattoos
- Split facial and body styles
- Higher resolution, some parts of the current tattoos can be low in that regard.
Heritage
- As Mag’har orcs represent the heavier side of orcish armor, it’d be nice to see Orgrimmar orcs take a more simple and traditional take to armor. A good example of what I’d like to see is something like the armor shamans wear in WC3.
Classes
- Current line up is adequate. Add demon hunter if it is expanded to all races as death knight was.
For Mag’har
Piercings
- Make them 3D like many of Shattered Hand NPCs had.
- Separate them from skin color.
Scars
- Make them higher resolution, some parts of the scars are so low res I can actually count the pixels.
- Separate them from skin tone and make them available on all skins.
- Some more diversity would be nice, currently only two styles.
Skin tones
- Again, low resolution.
- The pale, sickly white skin tone that 99.99% of Shattered Hand NPCs use. There is a common misconception that this is available, but it is not. What we have is light grey colors, which were only used by female Shattered Hand NPCs in Bladefist Hold in Spires of Arak. All other Shattered Hand NPCs, Kargath included, had a much paler skin color.
- Separate tattoos and war paint from skins (creation screen quality of life thing).
Clan specific features
- Blackrock rock growths and smithing scars (Warlords announcement cinematic showed off some smithing scars and rock growths are already used a bit on the player skin, but some diversity in how they look would be nice).
- Burning Blade tattoos/markings that are on fire.
- Gouged/cut out eyes and glowing orange-white tattoos for the Bleeding Hollow (those tattoos were also in the Warlords announcement cinematic).
- Gruesome jewelry for the Bonechewer, stuff like bones, tendons, flesh, etc.
- Laughing Skull skull/bone jewelry (more than just masks).
- Shattered Hand piercings (some of their Warlords NPCs used vials as piercings, for example).
- Shadowmoon astral eyes and astral/dark Naaru jewelry.
- Blue body paint (also in the Warlords announcement cinematic) and wolf jewelry for the Frostwolf.
- Crackling lightning scars for the Lightning’s Blade.
- Rylak jewelry of some sort for Dragonmaw.
(All of this clan stuff could be expanded to Ogrimmar/fel orcs as well, but it’s most impactful for Mag’har.)
Classes
- Current line up is adequate. Add demon hunter if it is expanded to all races.
For fel orcs
Skins
- Both red and grey skins. Initially, fel orcs were only portrayed as red, but grey was added in AU Draenor. Some examples: Red (1, 2, 3, the first one is Quartermaster Dekrok, a Horde aligned fel orc) and Grey (1, 2, 3). For some more diversity, here are some dire fel orcs (1 and 2).
Bodies
- Full body spikes that are worked to not disrupt armor (like forsaken bones).
- Demonic tattoos, heavily corrupted limbs or facial features, glowing fel eyes (as can all be seen here)
Voice lines
- Unique, fel orc only voice line option(s) that sound more fel corrupted, like the fel orcs in Outland.
Classes
- Warrior
- Hunter
- Mage
- Rogue
- Priest (MU Shadowmoon if any of their shadowcasters are still in existence)
- Warlock
- Death knight
- Demon hunter, but only if lore is expanded to include Illidan’s broken and fel orcs as trainees, or if demon hunter is expanded to all races.
For Mok’nathal
Skin tones
- Various skins tones instead of just 2-3 beige ones, some more grey, brown, and green skin tones to represent the half orc part of them, and more blue, red, and yellow skin tones for the half ogre part.
Jewelry
- Some animal related stuff, like pelt and bone jewelry.
Faces
- Faces that look more ogre or orc specific in nature and faces that look like more of a mix of ogre and orc.
Bodies
- An option to have a single horn and some non-fel body spikes like some ogres do.
Ears
- Some extra more ogre looking options for ear styles.
War paint
- Maybe some more ogre style geometric war paint.
Classes
- Warrior
- Hunter
- Mage
- Rogue
- Shaman
- Monk
- Death knight
- Demon hunter, but only if it is expanded to all other races.
For pale orcs
Skins
- A variety of grey shades.
Scars
- Pale orcs have been portrayed with glowing shadow scars all over their body (here’s a dire pale orc, for example). Getting various options for this would be ideal.
- Various colors, rather than just one shade of blue/purple (here’s a pale orc with orange-ish scars).
Bodies
- An incredibly gaunt and skinny body type only useable by pale orcs, the one that the majority in game currently use would be adequate if built upon to be player friendly.
Classes
- Warrior
- Hunter
- Rogue
- Mage
- Warlock
- Priest
- Death knight
- Demon hunter, but only if it is expanded to all races.
Satisfied Requests
- Orgrimmar orcs will have access to priests come 10.0.
Edits
Edit 1:
- Reorganized Mok’nathal section to have various subsections as was done for the other sub-races.
- Added class subsection for each sub-race.
- Changed some wording across the whole post.
- Added voice line subsection for all orcs section.
- Expanded two subsections in the all orcs section (tattoos and hairstyles).
- Added contents mini-section.
Edit 2:
- Fixed a typo in first section and reworded a sentence in the third section.
Edit 3:
- Fixed two typos in the fourth section.
- Added some more examples for fel orc skin colors.
Edit 4:
- Fixed 3 typos.
Edit 5:
- Fixed 2 typos.
- Reworded the banners part of the all orcs heritage subsection.
- Added heritage subsection specific for Orgrimmar orcs.
- Reworded class subsection for Orgrimmar orcs.
Edit 6:
- Typo.
Edit 7:
- Fixed a typo.
- Reworded two sentences.
Edit 8:
- Typo.
Edit 9:
- Removed priest from classes for Orgrimmar orcs as it has been stated to be coming in Dragonflight.
Edit 10:
- Added some words for banners in heritage under the all orcs section to make it a bit more specific.
Edit 11:
- Added some lines to make things easier to read.
- Fixed a bunch of Wowpedia links.
Edit 12:
- Added satisfied requests section.
Edit 13:
- Expanded the clan specific features subsection for Mag’har.
- Changed some wording across the whole post.
- Fixed 2 typos.
Edit 14:
- Removed an unnecessary word.
Edit 15:
- Added face paint subsection under the all orcs section.
- Added orange to the eye color subsection.
- Added a request for something like Ner’zhul’s necklace to the necklace subsection.
- Added everything for pale orcs.
- Fixed some capitalization errors.
Edit 16:
- Fixed a sentence.
Edit 17:
- Expanded pale orc sentence in the intro.
Edit 18:
- Added warlock to pale orc classes.
