This barbaric humanoid bears ragged equipment and armor in sullen colors. It has coarse body hair and a stooped posture like some primitive man but with a grayish-green skin tone and bestial facial features beneath a black hood. Burning red eyes peer below a low, sloping brow, just above a flattened nose, and prominent tusk-like teeth.
Along with their brute strength and comparatively low intellect, the primary difference between orcs and the civilized humanoids is their attitude. As a culture, orcs are violent and aggressive, with the strongest ruling the rest through fear and brutality. They take what they want by force, and think nothing of slaughtering or enslaving entire villages when they can get away with it. They have little time for niceties or details, and their camps and villages tend to be filthy, ramshackle affairs filled with drunken brawls, pit fights, and other sadistic entertainment. Lacking the patience for farming and only able to shepherd the most robust and self-sufficient animals, orcs almost always find it easier to take what someone else has built than to create things themselves. They are arrogant and quick to anger when challenged, but only worry about honor so far as it directly benefits them to do so. An adult male orc is roughly 6 feet tall and 210 pounds. Orcs and humans interbreed frequently, though this is almost always the result of raids and slave-taking rather than consensual unions. Many orc tribes purposefully breed for half-orcs and raise them as their own, as the smarter progeny make excellent strategists and leaders for their tribes.
Before Combat Orcs make few preparations before combat, preferring to charge headlong at any foe that presents itself. During Combat Orcs prefer to use two-handed weapons to maximize the effectiveness of their great strength. They attack in ambushes from concealment to take an enemy off-guard and cause as much fear and confusion as possible. Morale Orcs are bullies and cowards. They flee when the odds have turned against them and any nearby leaders are dead— or have already fled. They are prone to surrender and truces if such actions save their skins, although they honor such terms only as long as it is to their benefit to do so. Exceptions to this are dwarves and elves, from whom they neither ask nor give quarter.