Writing a Half Orc

Kinda weird how sparse the lore is on them.

I found this,

Half-orcs, because of their mixed-breed nature, have an outsider’s perspective on events; it seems unlikely that they will see things from the inside any time soon. Their unfortunate status as human-orc crossbreeds leaves them truly belonging to neither race, and forces them to find their own places in (usually) the Horde or (more rarely) the Alliance.

But that’s from the RPG sourcebook which is of dubious canon but it is written by Metzen.

I’m wondering how much I should worry about it while writing the character. The Horde on the whole seems pretty open minded and I imagine only Orcs would care. So far I just typically have Mordacca, the half Orc in question, masked as it’d be presumably harder to tell that way.

Now the reason I went with half Orc is because she’s this character’s daughter. Long story on that note but A. I wanted to give Benedikt a tangible connection to the living and B. Writing a character with a (sorta) living parent who’s also a character isn’t something you see much and I wanted to explore that relationship dynamic. Just some background there as I think you should always have a solid story telling reasoning for divulging from factory standard.

Her upbringing is essentially Orcish. I placed her with the Frostwolves as A. I figured that’s who a lot of Durnholde escapees would’ve wound up with and B. They seem like they’d be less prejudiced.

So I’m kinda wondering how much I should address it. I think it’d obviously be a social disadvantage but the Orcs seem pretty pragmatic. Long as she’s capable of killing, which she is, I don’t see why anyone but a rival would try to hold it against her.

Alright, so a quick bit of bad news first- don’t worry, it’s not that you can’t play it, it’s just that the circumstances are usually… ugly. See, there’s not a single record of a consensual conception of a half-orc. Maybe between a half-orc and someone else, but not from an orc and another race. Now, I do believe it’s perfectly possible that there was a consensual joining between a human and an orc… but it almost certainly happened in secret- otherwise a member of either parent’s cultures would have executed the both of them. It wasn’t exactly a very loving time period.

No, more than likely, either Benedikt or his orcish partner were involved in… well, a “struggle snuggle.” (blame the censors for that turn of phrase.) Mind you, it doesn’t have to actually be that way, but it’s how Benedikt would have had to present it to his fellow men. Like I said- not a very loving or tolerant era. Warcraft’s universe can take a turn for the dark, every now and then.

Now, here’s where it gets tricky, actually presenting this character is a dillemma.

Based on your implications, this character would have been born into a world that loathes her very existence. A world where Thrall’s Horde has only just started to form, if that. This world would have taught her one of two things, even with the Frostwolf’s relatively accepting climate.

Route 1: “You are less than dirt.” If she learns this lesson, well… odds are she’s going to be submissive in the extreme, flinching away from so much as a scowl, because she expects to be beaten and berated just for being a stain on the “honor” (read: purity) of the orcs. Thrall’s Horde would have been a… difficult transition. Not an unwelcome one, but a strange one. She was, after all, taught that if she was worthy of notice at all, she’d done something to “deserve” being beaten. This route, as you can imagine, isn’t the happiest. Or the most comfortable to read, as writer or observer.

Route 2: “Your entire life will be a never-ending Mak’gora. So fight as if you have nothing left to lose.” In this route, your character doesn’t let the racism of the orcs of her era grind her down. Instead, she embraces it- it’s a challenge to cut her teeth on. She struggles, and triumphs, time and again, to uphold the honor of the clan. And while she always faces prejudice, she always strives to exceed expectations. Beyond an honorable death, she refuses to accept anything but the best death possible according to Orcish society.

Well, I said there were two lessons… but there’s a variation on the second route…

Route 2.5: “You are honorless by nature of your birth. So you don’t need to pretend you’re bound by it.” Down this route, she remains confident as in the second route… but embraces the prejudice instead by becoming what they accuse her of being. In this case: an honorless cur born of filthy human blood. So she lies, manipulates, assassinates, and otherwise enacts duplicity to secure herself. Naturally, the Frostwolf do not approve, but she doesn’t care. If the Horde wanted her to be a loyal grunt, then they shouldn’t have forced a self-fulfilling prophecy on her. They wanted her to be a dirty, conniving human-child. And who is she to deny her people what they desire?

Now, as you probably realize, this isn’t the full spectrum of your choices. But I feel like this post is getting obscenely long. So I’ll just leave it at a final note.

Yes, the Frostwolf are less prejudiced… but they had to spend a lot of time sharing space with the Warsong, and some other clans, before Thrall sailed to Kalimdor. And even in the Frostwolves, she would be looked down upon. Not abused, but certainly seen as a burden- and worse, one forced upon them by their very oppressors, the humans of the Alliance… she would be judged, and she would experience hardship, just for having a human parent.

Actually that does factor into the story a bit. Mordacca assumed her mother was lying about her father for obvious reasons. And of course beyond that assumed the worst given the usual reasoning.

The characters are introduced when she discovers who he is and tries to murder him. That fails mainly due to her inexperience trying to kill the living dead and the truth is revealed. Neither of them really know how to deal with this situation.

As for Benedikt he doesnt volunteer this information for a litany of reasons but shame doesn’t come to mind. Also it wasn’t a courtship. He helped some Orcs escape and it’s kinda vague if that was his good nature or Agrona’s (the Orc in the equations) shadow magic manipulating him. But either way theyve to hide in the yeti cave to avoid capture for awhile and two terrified people staring down several ways to die horribly may be wont of a life affirming activity.

I was leaning more toward 2.5 as Mordracca is a Rogue. Disguise and deception kind of became useful. As did using dexterity and clever tactics to defeat rival Orcs who’d probably take a stand up fight. Still fleshing out the character. She is however young probably about Anduin’s age. She would’ve come of age while fighting alongside the Forsaken and Belves became a thing even a hardline Orc was just going to have to accept.

Remember Half-Orcs and Trolls are made by magic ritual too. They don’t exactly have Zug Zug.

According to the Horde player’s guide, which is the only thing that really covers this topic, orcs and humans can interbreed. Same goes for orcs + ogres and humans + elves.

I think other stuff, like half Draenei Garona (the movie’s solution to this is a better retcon in my opinion but w/e), which fuses together two vastly different species requires some sort of horrifying magic ritual.

The RPG sourcbook isn’t of dubious canon, it’s not cannonical AT ALL, also according to Metzen.

Metzen did not write the RPG sourcebooks, he merely authorised Art Haus, the D20 section of White Wolf to do so.

I mean it’s virtually all we’ve on the subject. It works well enough as a source compared to the alternative. Which, far as I can tell, is the same as Windrunner’s favorite word from BFA; nothing.

Granted I understand why it’s all extremely uncomfortable. WoW can never decide it’s tone. Are we the place where the people make funny jokes when you click on them or the place where Garona Halforcan was created through forced fel pregnancy?

So like undead physiology I’m just going to figure my idea works until it’s defiled. I think it’s fertile ground to write some sweet stories about an assassin and cleric so, gonna use it until I see something that explicitly states no.

If you play it as Horde, expect to be treated as dirt.

Plain and simple. You might get some sympathy from Baine, but not anyone else in the entire Horde. The Forsaken will look down on you because of their Human prejudices against half-breeds, and the fact that they are ambivalent with the living in general.

The Blood Elves will look down upon you for the twin sins of being non-elven and a half-bree. (They’d really come down on you if half WAS elf.)

About the only race that would give you any sympathy would be the Vulpera.

I mean, I don’t think there’s a Forsaken NPC in game feasibly capable of looking down on any Forsaken PC. The most prominent one, Voss, currently does my character’s bidding on the mission table. Everyone else /gquit.

Like who’s going to care? The Forsaken refugees who’ve considerably more to worry about? The wounded abominations?

And yeah Mordacca may have worries but this is why she’s masked constantly. I have issues with TRP but I love the at a glance feature. I’ve some that hint at her half orcan status but only with a mask off. Nothing explicit up to the reader to connect the dots and for her I’m kinda figuring her attitude will eventually be akin to that boardroom scene from Kill Bill.

I’d have to say that many of the others are right in that you should expect some IC blowback. But as someone who’s first real RP character was a half-elf rogue almost ten years ago, I say embrace that. I know for me personally, that sort of hardship and prejudice at times really helped to cause her to grow in ways I wasn’t expecting.

If I would give any advice, I would say it might be good to have a group of people your rogue could interact with who, at the very least, tolerate her for what she is. There were times for me when the constant prejudice and stuff could start to get to me, even though it was all IC and was part of what I was looking for with my rogue. Thankfully my first guild on WRA helped to counteract that and gave my girl a nivlce home. Just, something else to consider is all.

Overall I really like the sound of this character you’re coming up with.

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Currently I’ve her listed on TRP as an Orc. But I add hints with the At A Glance feature which hints at her Half Orc heritage - a pale lime skin tone, very small tusks cuspids, uncommon Orcish eye color - but that’s only available when her features aren’t obscured by armor.