Orcs in my world

Orcs!

In line with many DnD-based fantasy worlds, my world includes Orcs as generic humanoid enemies.  

Not the Rankin-Bass version of Orcs, as musically inclined as they are (an army of Orc bards?).  The members of this horde seem more resigned than fierce and hungry for battle.

This is a ten-hour loop.  Don't watch til the end, as catchy as the song is.

Steve Jackson's interpretations are closer to how I believe Orcs act, though they still don't look right.

Uruk-Hai from The Fellowship of the Ring, 2001

This cover from Dragon Magazine is wonderfully evocative, but still not my Orcs.  Note that the article on Runes in this issue is worth reading.

Clyde Caldwell did the cover

The Gamoreans of Star Wars fame are much closer, perhaps if they dropped a few dozen pounds.

The orcs I grew up on are these guys.  These pig-faced orcs that dwelled in the Caves of Chaos, the ruins of Highport, and all points in between.  

From Monster Manual, 1977. David C. Sutherland III

Orcs that are beast-men of some sort, perhaps inspired by this book.

As an aside, I bought a collection of Hodgson's works, to include this tale.  The opening was grand adventure, featuring a brother and sister buying an old house, and the brother having to fend off attacks by the eerily silent pig-faced orcs.  After awhile, the story shifts to a cosmic thing which bored me to skimming the remainder.  But the beginning was fun.  To be honest, though, the Carnacki stories were also in the collection I bought, and far more readable.

Orcs being orcs and pig-faced suggest that they ride on massive war-boars, perhaps riding chariots pulled by dire boars.  Perhaps wereboars are considered allies, or of a higher caste of Orc, with Orc chieftains seeking lycanthropy to grow ever stronger, and ever closer to the porcine ideal.  

Orcs being so closely related to boars and pigs suggests that the Orcwives look something like this.

Orcwife from Otherworld Miniatures

What are assuredly NOT found in my world are modern 5e Orcs, which are often depicted as green-skinned, small-tusked humans, portrayed as noble savages, too often sexy noble savages with physiques more in line with Olympic athletes than hulking brutes.  I far prefer the drunken, loutish brutes that are just as likely to kill an adventurer as they are to extort a bribe of gold or wine.

So that is what players in my games encounter when they run into orcs.