Getting Started With WoW Roleplay - Orcs

Fleshing Out Your RP Character In World of Warcraft

Sep 15, 2009

At first glance the Orcs may seem like a primitive, violent race, but look deeper into their traditions and history and they prove a challenging and interesting people.

Orc history is a troubled and violent one, with periods of upheaval when they were taken from their homeland of Draenor and brought to Azeroth, times of corruption, and dozens of bloody battles – many times against Azeroth's humans.

Throughout all of this, the Orcs have maintained an honourable culture which is similar in many ways to Star Trek's Klingons. Bearing this in mind, the race is an interesting and intriguing one which can form the basis for a creative and rich role play experience.

Orcs speak Orcish, which is also the common language of the Horde races. The language is quite hard-sounding and, in lore, has many dialects which can be incomprehensible even to other orcs. To include this in a role play setting, a guild could choose to incorporate certain made up words or phrases into their in-character chat that only they would know the meaning of.

Some common Orcish words and phrases that a role player may also like to use include:

It should be borne in mind that not all role players will understand these words, so some explanation in a whisper may be necessary.

Players can choose to make their orc a hunter, rogue, shaman, warlock, warrior or death knight. Each of these will have in-built charactaristics which can be used to flesh out a characters.

Orcs have a natural bond with animals and are born fighters, making hunters and warriors perhaps the most well accepted classes for an orc to play. Shamans too are well respected in orc society, and the Warchief Thrall, the leader of the Orcs of Orgrimmar, is as renowned for his shamanistic abilities as for his skills in battle.

The final three options are less respectable choices. Rogues are rare as their style of fighting is seen as dishonourable – most orcs preferring face-to-face combat rather than subterfuge. Similarly, warlocks are looked on with deep suspicion and were once illegal, but this could provide an intriguing basis for a role play character. Finally death knights may be greeted with suspicion as they were once fighting with the undead Scourge against the Horde, but there is plenty of scope to create a back story for such a character.

No matter how well prepared a role player is, the very nature of the game means a player is likely to come across a situation that throws them and creates an unusual challenge for their character.

However, by sticking to the simple role playing rules, such a situation can become an interesting and fun experience, and role players should always be willing to try to work their way out of such situations while staying in character so that all the players involved have the best possible experience.

The copyright of the article Getting Started With WoW Roleplay - Orcs in Role-Playing Video Games is owned by Pam Griffin. Permission to republish Getting Started With WoW Roleplay - Orcs in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.