To Clem

Grab yourself a seat, start a fire and poke one of our resident vigilantes, average Joes or supervillains as much as you'd like.

An in-character advice board/in-character discussion space, this forum doesn't require or allow the use of sock puppet accounts. Simply edit the topic title for each in-character reply as "As [insert character name here]".
Post Reply
User avatar
IamLEAM1983
Site Admin
 

Posts: 3707
Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2013 4:54 am
Location: Quebec, Canada

To Clem

Post by IamLEAM1983 »

I asked Dennis about goblins, so I might as well ask you about orcs...

How are things for Belial's former corporeal toadies, in the Hopeverse?
User avatar
IamLEAM1983
Site Admin
 

Posts: 3707
Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2013 4:54 am
Location: Quebec, Canada

As Clem

Post by IamLEAM1983 »

"Things are about just like you'd expect. With widespread availability for bound weaponry or armor, protections granted by the Vienna Council and our own folklore, we're mostly doing as well as anyone else.

Since the Tolkien days, though, we've been using the term going Uruk as a reference to choosing to go without an enchanted and bound piece of metal on you. Only the worst of us try that out, or the desperate ones looking for a quick boost to strength or resilience - or cunning. See, the stereotype is that we're all hosts to simian louts who either rampage, fuck, kill or chew through what's in their way; but the reality's a lot more nuanced. Some clans are stuck knowing they've served as piggybacks for the same demons for generations, so they've gone from trying to contain a bag of impulses to dealing with a fully-fledged malevolent intelligence. If it's a smart one, they're sitting on a bonafide Uruk; maybe an old warchief from Ramses' clash with the Hittites or the mess the Punic Wars turned into. Maybe they're sitting on one of Belial's first, a mind with all the tactical know-how of an old Hyperborean wizard and thousands of years of bloodshed to its credit.

So yeah. Your usual sitcom's infantile green bruiser who's the type to bawl out its frustration like a bloody overgrown toddler is just that - a damned rarity.  My people scoured the margins of history between Rome and Constantinople's fall and Hitler even went and found himself sympathetic Teutonic Uruk. Dangerously intelligent types packed with hatred, pride and malice. Some smaller clans figure their demonic half is their native consciousness, so the kids are never bound to a Keeper, their soul never develops. It atrophies and dies. They never get to be themselves - they're demons from Day One. Law-abiding demons, but still demons. Racial pride as deep as ticks in their ass, racism kept cool and casual unless they're strictly amongst themselves...

I'm Clan War-Boar, British orcs through and through. We fought with and against the island's Celtic clans, and we came in contact with the British Fae early in our history. Our Keepers think we have to know our demons, to work to have a symbiotic relationship with them. I got lucky, and I've got myself a first-generation Pitspawn sharing space with my soul. We grew up together. Give it a few years, and it feels a bit like sharing a single body with a brother or a sister - a more consensual take on the Jekyll and Hyde schtick. Winston knows he can't get me killed, or it's curtains for the both of us. He values our relationships, but he's a lot more forward than I am. 

I'm the pragmatic musician, he's the fun-loving Berserker. I'm a Rightie, he's a Leftie. He's the foodie and fashionista, I'm the one who got us tattoos and who lives off of whatever's in the tour bus' fridge. Solheim likes to call him our other manager. I don't mind kids asking me what I think about the Alliance or the Numenoreans, he gets pissy whenever someone lobs Pop Culture references his way. He resents the idea that Belial's Emerald Warriors of old could've ended up as Redshirt material for the rest of the world's Medieval Fantasy cruft.

It also turns your average phone's Notes app into some sorta offline chat messenger. I'm Arial, he's Times New Roman."
Post Reply