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Monday, February 15, 2010

Black Orcs

Again, thinking Brian Freed is some sort of German-loving and PC-hating machine, we ran into a different breed of Orc in his games - the Black Orc. Now, Brian's orcs were a thing to behold. They used tactics, they hunted down PCs that let one get away and eventually, we discovered that sometimes they went for the kill in more covert but just as deadly ways. We had a usual encounter with some orcs in the early sessions of one of Brian's campaigns in Moi Greke (his game world) and in the interest of avoiding any further 'Orc-perial entanglements', when they fled we let them go so we could limp away alive. BIG mistake! When the orcs never regrouped and came back for us, we thought we were free and clear. What we didn't know was the orcs put a bounty on us and one of their assassin's decided to try to collect. This big black-skinned orc started to pop up every once in a while and another player, Brad (whose character I can't recall anymore), foiled it once and added a few choice insults to the injury...this made Brad's character the orc's first target after that. This badass orc would trail us, sometimes figure out where we were headed and lay traps for us and in general was one of the most annoying, scary and thorough off the cuff nemesis I've had part in dealing with over the years. Some of the actual villian bad guys were easier to deal with than this orc. And every time he popped up he got Brad but couldn't finish him off, which made both even more driven to kill the other. Eventually Brad got that orc, but it was one of the most memorable not-planned party enemies I've dealt with in a long time. Hats off to you Brian, as a player I hated these things, but they are fun to throw!

Orc, Black (M)
Armor Class:5[14]
Hit Dice:3
Attacks:1 weapon (1d8+1)
Saving Throw:13
Morale:7
Magic Resistance:Nil
Special:Sunlight blindness, sneaking, backstab
Move:120ft(40ft)
Challenge Level/XP:5 / 240

Orcs are normally stupid, brutish humanoids with pig or boar-like features that gather in tribes. Most are subterranean dwellers, and fight with a penalty of -1 in sunlight. There is a type of orc known only by their skin color and not by their tribe - the black orcs. These orcs are born with the favor of the demonlord Fuleni, Lord of Treachery. Black orcs are assassins of the highest caliber, able to sneak with proficiency (+1 to suprise rolls) and every attack they make is considered a backstab attack.

For a conversion into Swords & Wizardry, divide first number of the base movement rate by 10, so Black Orcs would have a S&W movement of 12.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tee Totally Cool!

James Bobb said...

They are, but Brian was almost sadistical in his use of them as cool, calm killers compared to regular orcs. Even though they aren't too terribly tough, ince they didn't act like common orcs, that scared the hell out of us even more.