Request for Comment: Half-Orcs

[Paladin]

I've had the nugget of a Fantasy Campaign I long considered creating in Neverwinter Nights. As a result my original draft supported the classic D&D races. I didn't want to give up my version of the half-orcs or force them to all take the same first level feat, so I created a Talent for them. So what do you think? Too powerful, too weak or about right? And to try and hold people's interest here is a rough draft of their background:

Taern (Half-Orc) Talent:
Base Speed 30 ft.
+1 to the lower of Strength or Wisdom
+1 Panache
Low-light vision
Bonus Feat: Orc Blood
Iconic Specialties: Adventurer, Barbarian, Bard, Druid, Fist, Guardian, Mystic, Ranger, Tribesman, Warden
Your starting interests are: Language: Low Elven (common), Language: Dwarven, Study: Taern Oral Tradition,
These are your Native Language and Study, rather than the two normally received by a starting character.

Half-Orcs (The Gilded Ones)
The former favorite slave race of the dwarves, the Half-Orcs or the Taern as they now call themselves, are the wealthiest civilized race of the world. The Taern are the alchemical union of the human and orc races. There are rumors that goblin blood was also a component in their creation, but the Taern do not approve or agree with these theories. At the end of the second age the Taern united with their human "brothers" in Valdius's quest to defeat their elven masters and by extension the Taern's lords the dwarves. The dwarves surrendered immediately after the Elven Crystal Heart was destroyed. The sued for peace and negotiated a settlement with their former slaves.

As a people, the Taern possess great reservoirs of gold, gems and mithral won from their former masters and regularly delivered as a form of tribute. Despite their great wealth, the Taern do not live in the opulence that their wealth could easily buy. They are a largely nomadic people whose economy is based entirely on barter. The tend to wear gaudy jewelry with their pelts and skins, seeing their treasure  more as a trophy of their victory against their former oppressors than something of intrinsic value. Not every Taern is personally wealthy, the share of dwarven tribute given to a Taern is proportional to his standing in the community.
 
The other races of the world  greatly enjoy trading with The Taern It is well known that the Taern always pay more for the trade stuffs they desire than what they are commonly worth on the market, having little perspective on the value of gold, being so wealthy. It is a well known "get rich quick scheme" to try find a cheap trade good which will strike the current Taern fancy. After a few seasons of profitable trading with the Taern, a merchant can retire comfortably. Sadly, the Naer have little interest in most of the common trade goods of the outside world and something they once traded richly for a season ago might never hold any interest to them again. Many merchants have gone bankrupt over investing in a commodity hoping to trade it to the Taern but finding no interest in it. The common term "Trading with a Taern" refers to any sort of risky venture with the promise of impossible rewards.

Taern make their homes in the abandoned stone surface cities of the dwarves. Having built them, the cities are already comfortably scaled to the Taern. New construction or even repairing the cities, is now beneath them so tents are erected semi-permanently within the city walls to accommodate growth.

The Taern have an almost reverence for their conquered former masters and so dwarves frequently move around their communities unmolested. The dwarves often appear in Taern cities to provide services to the Taern such as repair to essential city functions, such as walls aquaducts or the sewers systems. When dwarves go abroad it is not uncommon for them to be accompanied by a Taern. Whether this is for the dwarf's protection or to monitor their activities is unclear, perhaps even to the Taern.

Taern have good relations with humans, even occasionally intermarrying. They share a common mythology, each arising in power in roughly the space of the same generation. The Taern maintain friendly relations with all three major human kingdoms. Although the rise of the Ascendant Path and its associated racism in Valdara, is causing strain between the two kingdoms.

The Taern have excessively poor relations with the orcs. The orcs see the Taern as impure and soft where the Taern see orcs as too savage. Taern hunting parties frequently clash with orc raiding parties. Neither seems to like what they of themselves in each other.

The Taern are fond of the picts and happily host their merchant caravans. Picts often employ Taern, preferring their company to some of the rougher species usually found doing mercenary work.

City goblins typically are tolerated but not particularly embraced. They are literally and figuratively looked down upon and frequently the first accused of causing trouble making. A goblin found to be a problem is executed. Still, many goblins prefer execution to the prisons or indentured servitude the humans often present.

The Taern have little relations with the elves having little history with them and little in common with them in the present. Neither is particularly impressed with the other's reputation. It is rumored that some Wood Elves are trying to recruit Taern muscle to reinforce them in the Dragon Hunt.

The Taern tend to give Drakes a wide berth as a rule, but it is not unheard of hunting parties being roused to destroy one that wanders too close to their cities. The Taern being the youngest major race, has no traditions of their own relating to the Great Dragons of myth.

The Taern have a single kingdom of Taer, consisting of a loosely feudalistic meritocracy. Leadership is earned by the cultivation of face, or the appearance of strength and valor in the community. Each major Taern community is based over one of the known exits of the underground dwarven kingdoms of Kolron. Taer does not have an army as such but they maintain a fighting force organized in a feudal structure where a community leader is supposed to be able to muster so many warriors within a set period of time. Failure to do so would be an almost catastrophic loss of face. Taern hunting parties also do the duty of policing their frontier from raiders and keeping trouble makers in line..

The Taern are a spirited, gregarious people of high strung passion. Taern adventurers usually go forth in search of trophies to prove their valor and strength.

The primary Taern alignment remains Ancestor Worship. Some Taern have come to worship the One God as the sect is growing in popularity amongst them. The Taern culture openly despises the Blood Pact, especially since it is favored by more and more Orcs in the current age. No Taern to date has embraced the Ascendant Path.

The major religions of the other races have failed to take hold amongest them.

Ancestor Worship
Ritual Weapon: War Club
Avatar: (Taern) Grandfather Spirit (not stated up yet)
Paths: Nature, Spirits, Strength

[jolt]

I would just make Half-Orcs a race in your world and stat them to your liking.  What you've written sounds more like a race and, to me anyway, steps outside of what Talents represent or do (such as the granting of Iconic Specialties).

In any case, if you take Orc Blood, aren't you sort of already a half-orc?  This is one of the reasons why I've never cared much for the whole "half-whatever" race concept.  If its possible for races to interbreed, there should be a lot more of them than just the ubiquitous Human/Elf and Human/Orc combinations (and we wouldn't even have those if it weren't for the characters of Elrond and, mostly, Bill Ferny).  The only rpg I've come across where I've liked how "half" races were handled was HARP.

The most important thing, of course, is that it fits into your game world the way you want but it sounds like a race to me; not a Talent.

jolt

[ludomastro]

I'll have to second jolt on this one.

Use them as a race and call it done.

[Krensky]

Um...

Species are Talents.

[TheAuldGrump]

I would just make Half-Orcs a race in your world and stat them to your liking.  What you've written sounds more like a race and, to me anyway, steps outside of what Talents represent or do (such as the granting of Iconic Specialties).

In any case, if you take Orc Blood, aren't you sort of already a half-orc?  This is one of the reasons why I've never cared much for the whole "half-whatever" race concept.  If its possible for races to interbreed, there should be a lot more of them than just the ubiquitous Human/Elf and Human/Orc combinations (and we wouldn't even have those if it weren't for the characters of Elrond and, mostly, Bill Ferny).  The only rpg I've come across where I've liked how "half" races were handled was HARP.

The most important thing, of course, is that it fits into your game world the way you want but it sounds like a race to me; not a Talent.

jolt

Heh, I statted out the possible half breeds for my homebrew, once upon a time. Including one that was possible, but had never happened, and was not likely to, either. Dwarf/Ogre, infertile hybrid. Strange as it may seem dwarfs are giants, just very short giants. Ogres and dwarfs get along just fine in the setting, but have never tried to breed with each other - each has olfactory cues that the other does not match. (Making this the most useless piece of trivia for my game world.)

The other oddball was halflings - a human/halfling cross was a human. Two half-halflings had a 25% chance of producing a halfling child.) Halflings are humans who have a recessive gene. As long as they breed with other halflings then the recessive always propagates. (Barring a sport.)

Elves could cross with humans (infertile hybrid), halflings (identical in all ways to a human/elf cross), and orcs.

Orcs and humans produced fertile hybrids (in other words orcs and humans are separate breeds of the same species).

Dwarfs and Gnomes are different cultures of the same species - size and build differences being largely from difference in diet and physical activity.

Humans, elves, and orcs are as prone to rape as humans in this world.

Neither ogres nor dwarfs have that instinct/drive/predilection. It does not appear in Halflings either, for reasons unknown.

Some fey can breed with anything, and others cannot. Ditto for outsiders. Dragons breed with dragons, and nothing else.

The Auld Grump

[Paladin]

In my mind Species are just another kind of talent. If it helps go ahead and add "Medium Byped Folk" to the talent.

Okay so a lot of discussion about the idea of hybrid races. This variant race is the result from essentially genetic hybridization. In the campaign setting I'm working on, the Dwarves are steampunk mad scientists working (illegally) on unholy things under ground. I'm planning on converting the Test Subject Specialty to FC for their more recent creations. Also the unborn will typically be dwarven creations.

At any rate if it helps, think of the Taern as a genetically modified human subspecies. I liked them particularly when I was sketching out this world for NWN (D&D 3.5).

I have a place for half-elves in my campaign as well, but not as their own species or culture (in fact they're one of the manifestations of the dying out of the elf race) so I'll just port elf blood straight into FC. I see nothing in it that will cause complication.

My apologies of the roughness of the above racial description, I just cut and pasted from my stream of consciousness notes.

I'm torn about the "three set interests" instead of the "two interests you pick for your race". I'm thinking maybe just have them buy Language: Dwarven with one of their two free interests. The idea is that practically all Taern are fluent in dwarven (even if they use a horrible dialect) as well as common.

[jolt]

Um...

Species are Talents.

Can you give me a page reference?  I don't see anywhere in my copy of FC where Species are referred to as Talents.  You pick a Species (or a splinter race by taking the appropriate feat), if you're a Human you get to pick a Human Talent (I see no other type) and you pick a specialty.  I don't see that anything other than Human Talents that are referred to as Talents

jolt

[VisualStatic]

Step 2, beginning on Page 9.

You either pick a Species, or if you pick Human, then a Human Talents as human as a species as no bonuses.

[Paladin]

Um...

Species are Talents.

Can you give me a page reference?  I don't see anywhere in my copy of FC where Species are referred to as Talents.  You pick a Species (or a splinter race by taking the appropriate feat), if you're a Human you get to pick a Human Talent (I see no other type) and you pick a specialty.  I don't see that anything other than Human Talents that are referred to as Talents

jolt

It's a Spycraft-ism to be honest. In the Origin of the Species (I strongly recommend both Light of Olympus and Classic Fantasy for new people who want to add even more options to FC) species are actually referred to "Species Talent".

Essentially they are the same thing except in FC except Talents have an implied type (Medium Biped Folk) where the Species get an explicit type.

[Crafty_Pat]

To be precise, in Fantasy Craft, you only get a Talent if you pick Human as your species. Here's the relevant text (directly above Origin Skills on page 9)...

Choose 1 Species and 1 Specialty; together they offer a package of benefits supporting a simple name (e.g. “Pech Fencer” or “Orc Tribesman”). If your Species choice is Human, choose a Talent as well. A summary of Origin benefits is found on Table 1.3: Origins (see page 10).

[spinningdice]

So it's a holdover from Spycraft, no need to go on about - I think we all know what he meant.

[Paladin]

So, any comments on the Talent/Species itself?