Twisting Orcs

When I host a TTRPG game in Lefort I allow six playable ancestries or races:

1. Humans are scattered across the island and the most common ancestry.

2. Halflings are the scarcest ancestry, being rock-salt homunculi created by ancient wizards.

3. Goblins are small, shark-like albinos that reside in secluded communities.

4. Dwarves are stocky, large-skulled, hairy artisans that isolate in the Shadowdark below the surface.

5. Elves are pastel-skinned aliens with Gigeresque garments. More on them in the future.

6. Half-Orcs are tusked pig-men that make up the nobility of Boar Valley.

Granted, these are the six core playable ancestries in the Shadowdark rulebook, and also commonly the core playable ancestries in other fantasy roleplaying games. I was really curious why half-orc was the default, instead of orc. There's no core option to play a half-dwarf, or even the iconic half-elf. What's the in-game reason "full" orcs aren't players? I'm guessing it's because in early versions of D&D player characters were assumed to be heroic, and 'orcs are never good or heroic,' so why would anybody play an orc? That's a lame reason. 

Presuming that half-orcs are tusked, which is the common depiction, I also decided half-orcs would lean into that swine aesthetic and be outright pig-men. Gamorrean guards or the classic artwork (of orcs, I know, I know, but this is my imagining of a half-orc) from the original monster manual are good examples. 

So if this is a half-orc, what is their orc parent? Obviously something powerful and strange enough to be more monster than player character...

The Orcs of Lefort

The orcs of Lefort are legendary beasts. They're wagon-sized boars, like the boar clan, that roam Boar Valley and Shiver in anarchic hunting herds. 

AC 13, HP 34, ATK 2 tusk +6 (2d6), MV near, S +4, D +1, C +3, I +0, W +1, Ch -2, AL C, LV 7

Gore. Deals an extra die of damage if it hits the same target with both tusks.

Thick Hide. Cold immune.

Orcs speak, but they abhor language, similar to the druids of Lefort. They prefer to use primitive grunts and squeals, basic survivalist messages like any common animal communicates. Orcs say the Orcish language has been "cannibalized" by the civilized half-orcs, and kill anyone attempting to communicate with them using Orcish. When an orc is forced to speak it's dripping with disdain and sour cruelty, tortured by its servitude to society in order to communicate effectively. 

Orcs gathering across Boar Valley

They see society as a plague and prefer to live in temporary herds led by the strongest orc. The smallest disagreements cause conflict, orcs battling orcs to prove who's the most powerful, often leading to complete dispersement of the herd. Half-orcs are traitors to them, thieves of orcish blood who choose to use that power to rule in cowardice and bureaucracy.

Orcs can't give birth to half-orcs. Human mothers can give birth to half-orcs with an orc father, but the process of birth kills the mother. Half-orcs give birth to half-orcs safely, and commonly. 

Orcs hoard treasure like dragons, but their chaotic way of life demands they carry the treasure with them, usually attached in huge woven nets or stuck in the outer layer of their hide.