The question here is about non-humanoid races such as orcs, goblins, kobolds, etc. I don't have Orcs of Thar (due to it not being available as an ESD for some reason; anyone know why?), so I'm not familiar with Mystaran Orc culture. Can anyone fill me in on whether there's any official answer on whether these 'chaotic' races are innately chaotic/evil/destructive, or if they're so simply due to cultural influence?
In other words, is it possible to have (say) an individual orc, or a community of orcs, who reject their warlike, destructive ways, and decide to be Lawful/Good? Or are there inherently biological/spiritual/etc forces that make them innately bad?
In most D&D settings, it would be impossible to imagine orcs deciding to be good. Just as in LotR, the orcs are created by evil gods/individuals, and they are innately destructive, often incapable of deriving pleasure from anything but the suffering of others. I'm just not sure how it goes in Mystara, however.
Failing official sources, does anyone have their own theories on how this goes in Mystara?
We view orcs and other humanoids as chaotic neutral- they are not necessarily motivated by evil (although many can be), but they are disposed to chaotic behavior. Any individual orc could be of any alignment (although the disposition to chaos might make lawful types rare). With the right setup, a community of Lawful Good orcs could be an interesting encounter, but the setup would have to be really good.
This is purely my interpretation, based on my campaign.
We view orcs and other humanoids as chaotic neutral- they are not necessarily motivated by evil (although many can be), but they are disposed to chaotic behavior. Any individual orc could be of any alignment (although the disposition to chaos might make lawful types rare). With the right setup, a community of Lawful Good orcs could be an interesting encounter, but the setup would have to be really good.
Sounds cool.
Yeah, I don't see it as too easy to break away from millenia of learned/instinctive behaviour. Takes more and one waking up and going 'hey, I wanna be a paladin' to change. I'm certainly leaning towards making them 'usually' chaotic, and 'often' evil... naturally, anyway. Culture's another issue.
Then again... there are always rebellious teens.
Now, evil is a difficult thing to discuss at times in Mystara, due to the lack of the good/evil axis of alignment. Still, that just means things have to be distilled from context.
The question here is about non-humanoid races such as orcs, goblins, kobolds, etc. I don't have Orcs of Thar (due to it not being available as an ESD for some reason; anyone know why?), so I'm not familiar with Mystaran Orc culture. Can anyone fill me in on whether there's any official answer on whether these 'chaotic' races are innately chaotic/evil/destructive, or if they're so simply due to cultural influence?
In other words, is it possible to have (say) an individual orc, or a community of orcs, who reject their warlike, destructive ways, and decide to be Lawful/Good? Or are there inherently biological/spiritual/etc forces that make them innately bad?
In most D&D settings, it would be impossible to imagine orcs deciding to be good. Just as in LotR, the orcs are created by evil gods/individuals, and they are innately destructive, often incapable of deriving pleasure from anything but the suffering of others. I'm just not sure how it goes in Mystara, however.
Failing official sources, does anyone have their own theories on how this goes in Mystara?
It's not my genes, it's my culture; society's to blame (m'lud).
If all your role-models act one way, it takes a strong personality to go the opposite way.
Iirc, there were quite a few examples in GAZ10: Orcs of Thar of good orcs, definitely. Who can forget the orc's story, a story of an orc raid on a caravan guarded by adventurers, told from the pov of the orcs. Very funny indeed.
Sounds cool.
Did the poor things get diced up, or did they do the dicing?(I really wanna get hold of that gaz)
Getting off orcs but staying on Chaotic humanoids. The Gnolls of Graakhalia live in an alliance with elves. They work together and have a council with both races. I never pictured them as evil but more neutral. I had a player start a character form this place in my current campaign, but he left and the character got killed as an NPC. Anyway, his character was influenced by spending time with elven families as a cub/child. I always allowed good/evil humanoids, depending on their influences growing up and how things continue. One of my older campaigns, my players invaded a kobold lair and killed most of the males. They confronted the rest and convinced them to work for them for food and survival. Kobolds are smart and they agreed and so my players had their own colony of kobolds that lived with them and did all the chores intheir inn that they owned. And worked for food only. The players became their new chief. If they had been evil this would have went real bad.
Heh, cool.
I'm a sucker for war stories.So, it's sounding like there's little in the way of inherent evil in Mystara, discounting such mind-altering magical elements such as werewolves or undead.
Sounds like something I can work with!
Thanks for the group-think, guys.
With the right setup, a community of Lawful Good orcs could be an interesting encounter, but the setup would have to be really good.
GAZ5 (Elves of Alfheim) has a "civilized" community of orcs living in Alfheim Town. They're not Mystaran orcs - some wizard opened gates to an orcish homeworld to let in an army, and when he was banished and the gates closed, some of the orcs were trapped on this side and surrendered. Rather than massacre them, the elves allowed them to settle.
I wouldn't call them "Lawful" exactly, but they're certainly not evil, and they're only Chaotic in the sense that they have lots more tavern brawls than the elves do.
has the concept of Evil in a central position. In the DM's booklet
page 3 there is material on the origins of orkish and goblinoid races.
They are made to be "reicarnated souls of evil beings", and Broken
Lands is made to be a sort of a karmic school for them.
In my mind this is the single most stupid page in the whole of Mystaran
canon, since it goes against the metaphysics of the setting. The concept
of metaphysical good/evil was avoided in D&D and expecially Mystara,
and that makes it interesting.
But then again, even though the idea of evil has been given a central
position in the history of the humanoid races, it has very little in the way
of practical effect. So one can bypass it easily. I guess Bruce Heard just
put this idea on paper without thinking it to be very important.
In general one can say that there is no AD&Dish conception of morality
as a unversal axis of good & evil. One should distinquish ideas of morality
here.
The idea of universal evil/good is built on an pre-existing set or moral distinctions reagardless of the person making those distinctions. So in Forgotten Realms for example an orc can actually say "I'm proud to be Evil".
(Beacuse there is an universal battle of metaphysical "moral" forces
going on.)
Mystara is much closer to a Real-world-like notions of morality, where
moral distinctions are 1) disconnected from race 2) dependent from the
person making the valuations etc etc...
So an orc in Mystara would not consider him/herself "evil", "the others" are
evil.
As practices are considered: The orc would consider the tradition of raiding and looting the only viable way to live, just like the old Ostlanders did before the advent of trading... The meta-game level decision whether to talk in
a moralistic perspective, that is whether to build an goo/evil axis on the basis
of our existing values and to label it on the game world is very important.
I tend to avoid it since it usually makes the most alien game world just
a mirror of real world.
There was some interesting discussion on this topic in MML a few years ago.
Sounds cool.
(I really wanna get hold of that gaz)
They got pasted by the adventurers, but one of them survived to talk about it afterwards. I'd tell you more, but unfortunately I lost that part of the Gazetteer a long time ago.
GAZ10: Orcs of Thar came with this section that you could pullout, cut up and staple and turn into a booklet. Iirc, it was some kind of recruiting manual for the Legion of Thar. I made the big mistake of actually making the booklet, instead of just leaving it in the Gazetteer. Lost the booklet. The story was in the booklet.
Those are two Gaz's I'm still missing myself. If Mystara is ever republished, I hope they republish all the Gaz's so I can at least get a better idea of these locations.
Hi tjedge1,
I've got a spare copy of GAZ5 - Elves of Alfheim. The map's missing but you can have it if you want.
Regards,
Gary