For some months I’ve been working on my own Fantasy rulebook and setting designed ideally for mass battles.
Over the coming weeks I’ll be using this series to explore the development of the setting, factions, mechanics, and themes behind the game. Some articles will dive into rules and battlefield systems. Others will focus entirely on lore, cultures, or narrative concepts.
Previous Articles
When building a fantasy setting, Orcs always feel like dangerous territory, mainly because everyone already has an image in their mind.
Savage hordes raiding and pillaging at will. Great savage beasts that have crude weapons and crude armour.
And to be fair in Orders & Omens, that image still exists.
If you ask a lord of Hawkmor on the frontier of the human kingdoms what Orcs are, he will likely tell you they are little better than beasts wearing iron and carrying axes.
“The Orcs descend upon human lands in savage raids, leaving only ruin behind and feasting upon those unfortunate enough to fall before them.”
– Belen the Chronicler: The Races of the World
These frontier nobles speak proudly of their Tusker Hunts, where young warriors ride south into Orc lands, hoping to return with an Orc tusk hanging from their neck as proof of their bravery.
The Faith of Memory teaches that Orcs are little more than destroyers. Mindless beasts that are daemons incarnate.
The chronicles of Humanity speak often of raids, missing caravans and dead settlers.
To Humanity, Orcs are monsters. But one of the things I wanted to explore with Orders & Omens was the idea that perhaps Humanity is wrong? Or at least only seeing part of the truth.
Because from the Orc perspective, the story looks very different.
The Teachings of Sarod
All Orc clans follow the teachings of Sarod of the Black Sun.
To Human chroniclers, Sarod is remembered as a conqueror. A warlord whose armies nearly pushed Humanity into the eastern sea.
But amongst the Orcs Sarod is remembered not as a destroyer, but as a saviour.
Before Sarod, the clans warred endlessly amongst themselves. Human crusades pushed further and further south, hunting Orcs wherever they found them.
Sarod united the clans, gave them laws, structure and an identity.
Though his empire eventually collapsed after his mysterious disappearance, the teachings he left behind remain sacred across Orc society.
This was the first idea I settled upon when designing them. I didn’t want Orcs to simply be angry green things who like fighting.
I wanted them to feel like a civilisation, with layers to them and deeply misunderstood.
Memory Through Fire
One of the central themes of Orders & Omens is memory and how the different cultures preserve it.
The Human kingdoms write their history into books. The Stone-Kin (Dwarfs) carve theirs into stone.
But the Orcs remember through stories around camp fires, and most of all through the etchings on tusks.
At the centre of every Orc camp burns a Sacred Fire. Here their stories are shared, and their disputes are settled. The dead are remembered around the fire.
“I have witnessed kings order slaughter beneath banners of peace. Yet never have I seen an Orc violate the sanctity of firelight.”
– Vaelorian the Listener
No blood may be spilled within its light. Even enemies who enter the circle are protected.
An old Orc proverb says:
“Blades sleep where the fire burns.”
I liked the idea that a people Humans view as savage, might actually possess strict traditions around violence.
The Orcs fight, and often brutally, but their violence has rules.
Tusks and Memory
Rather than preserving history in books, Orcs record their lives through carved tusks.
When an Orc comes of age, the symbol of their clan is etched into their tusks during a public ceremony around the Sacred Fire.
Throughout life, further markings may be added. These may be acts of courage or even moments of shame.
For an Orc, losing its tusks is considered worse than death. A tuskless Orc is often exiled, unable to rejoin warbands and forced to survive alone.
After death, an Orc’s tusks are removed before cremation and entrusted to wandering chroniclers known as Fire-Speakers
Fire-Speakers
The Fire-Speakers carry the stories of the dead onwards.
This is the sort of detail that I hope tells you a lot about the wider setting.
I’ve become increasingly interested in the idea that history is never objective. Each civilisation remembers differently.
The Hidden Tongue
Another thing I wanted to avoid was the usual Orcs speak badly because Orcs are stupid.
Instead, Humans misunderstand Orc speech because they only hear the language Orcs want them to hear. The true Orc tongue is sacred, it is reserved for rites, remembrance, history, and the teachings of Sarod.
When outsiders are present, Orcs deliberately speak a simpler version of their language. Stripped of nuance, crude, as well as practical.
To Human observers this becomes proof that Orcs are simple creatures. Which, from the Orc perspective, is exactly the misunderstanding they prefer. They like to be underestimated.
The Divide
The Orcs unification that Sarod fought so hard to achieve, splintered on his disappearance.
All Orcs honour Sarod, but not all agree on what his teachings truly mean. Some clans believe secrecy preserves the Orc civilisation and that restraint allowed them to survive whilst Human kingdoms rose and collapsed around them.
Others increasingly question whether the Orcs have hidden their true selves from the world for too long.
It’s a tension I quite like because it means Orc society is already beginning to change before the story even starts. And with strange omens beginning to spread across the world some Orcs have begun to quietly wonder whether the old laws of Sarod will be enough for the age to come.
One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about building Orders & Omens so far is trying to make familiar fantasy races feel recognisable but not predictable.
The Orcs should still feel like Orcs. Brutal, dangerous and physically imposing. But hopefully there’s also a sense that Humanity may not fully understand the people they fear.
Next Week
I’ll likely explore one of the other great cultures of the setting the Stone-Kin, or the quietly unsettling role of the Elves in maintaining the world’s fragile balance.
