Orc (Warhammer) - Society

Society

Orc "culture" is dominated by the concept of strength. The strongest and meanest orc is the leader until a stronger orc comes along. There is no law, and therefore no crime. If an orc feels wronged, he can challenge the source of his grievance to a pit fight. Once the fight is over, the matter is considered settled. Orcs have no concept of pity; to an orc, the weak are simply weak, and are beneath them in society.

An orc attains a higher social rank by fighting and defeating members of that rank. Because of their bizarre physiology, orcs receive a steady supply of adrenaline when preparing to challenge a superior, causing him to physically increase in size and muscle-mass. An alert superior will spot this occurring and promptly beat the challenger down before he becomes a threat. If the superior fails to notice this development, then a battle inevitably results. Once such a leadership battle is won, the winning orc undergoes an extreme boost in power, gaining up to a dozen pounds of muscle in the wake of the fight. Orc veterans are known as "big'uns", because they are literally bigger and stronger than ordinary orcs. Grimgor Ironhide, a Black Orc Warlord, is over 7 feet in height. As orcs grow older and beat more powerful foes, they can become "bosses," "big bosses," and eventually "warbosses". A warboss leading several tribes in a Waaagh! is known as a "warlord". Killing a warlord will cause the orcs to break up into factions as the different bosses fight for power.

Orcs communicate through their own language which has been described as a variety of guttural sounds, but they are often shown as capable of speaking humans languages, mostly broken and fragmented Reikspiel. There is one tribe of savage orcs that is said to have a vocabulary consisting entirely of the word "Waaagh!," with variants in volume, pitch, and accents making up for individual words. Their written language works in a similar way to Egyptian hieroglyphics, only louder and cruder.

Orcs worship a pair of gods known as Gork and Mork. one is depicted as a giant orc and the other is a cunning goblin. Orcs can never quite agree which god is which, and many battles have been fought as a result. Although Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000 are separate games, it may be useful to note that in 40K, Mork is generally considered the god of brutal cunning (hits you when you're not looking at him) and Gork the god of cunning brutality (hits you hard when you are looking at him). Not all Orks are convinced of this, however, and fights do break out over such theological distinctions.

Orcs tend to ally with Goblins and Snotlings, but their alliance is more of a matter of the orcs bullying their smaller Goblinoid cousins into being everything from servants, to human (goblin) shields, to an emergency food source. Their warbands also often include wyverns, giants, trolls, ogres and other monsters in the same vein.