Getting rid of orc babies

[koewn]

In brief-ish:

- Goblins - bioengineered servitors brought to Earth by elves. Reproduce via skullstones, kinda like a seed, that also implants the next goblin with much of the memories/knowledge of the one the skullstone erupted from. Goblins themselves are pretty rare, and highly valued by human sorcerors who have the chutzpah to try and deal with one. 

- Orcs/Hobgoblins (the same thing for me) - crossbreeds of elves and goblins made by the Atlanteans/Hyperboreans/Thulians/Mu/blah (haven't got a good overall name yet). Skullstones as well, but no memories/knowledge, probably (haven't really thought about it yet)

- Gnolls - I'm thinking they have to do something to mutate lesser canine/felines. I'm imagining my gnolls as back-engineered from an earlier carnivore form; miacids or something. They're not endemic to the area we're in, so, won't have to worry about it probably.

- Kobolds - more like malevolent gremliny earth elementals, animated by random chaotic ids (pretend that quantum fluctuations or other Star-Treky technobabble can spontaneously form a half-conscious ego, and animate some stuff. Same place I think giants and treants (tree-giants) come from - Gaia-Earth-Spirit sort of thing without the implied niceties)

- Bugbears - orcs and bears. I'm thinking about having them have bonuses to morale for purposes of Domains At War if you double-provision them in fall and let them hibernate (and as such you can only use them Spring through Summer) or a penalty if you don't...

- Ogres - devolved/degenerate Atlanteans/etc/etc. Ogre Magi, as a term, is applied to still-cognitive Atlanteans/etc. I'm kinda half-assed cribbing from Steven Erikson's Jaghut for my outlook on this sort of thing as an "elder race" from outside Earth.

- Others - extraplanar summons now living here as 'native'. I think most everything left (lizardmen, trogs, etc) are egg layers? Dunno if I've skipped anything.

It evolves. I'm running in large parts a quasi-historical game set in 1400s Poland, around Krakow, so I'm recasting/adjusting as I read more about the time period, fitting in things where it would make sense from a standpoint of much of the mythological history of the world being allegorical, or the true history being hidden and/or forgotten.

For example, I recently read 'Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness', which in large part is about an Arab traveller WTFing at the weather and Norsemen in Central Europe. At any rate, something I'd forgotten - the old tale of the Gates of Alexander, and Gog and Magog, and all that, oft referenced in these sorts of medieval travelogues - easily decrufted and recast as an ancient general pushing back orcish hordes and their Hyperborean overlords back to Siberia, let's say.

 

[omer]

Additions to my above notes:

Lizardmen are less active in the winter in cold climates. They retreat to their underground warrens - often with underwater entrances - and hide there. They still fiercely defend the warrens against attacks, but do not raid settlements and do not waylay travelers until the spring. They sleep for many hours a day and eat preserved (usually smoked or dried) food in the winter months. In warmer climates, they are active year-round. However, would-be conquerors who might see "hibernating" lizardmen as easy prey should beware: the shamans still have theiur spiritual "eyes" open, even when they hide underground and even when they sleep.

Lizardmen can reproduce both sexually and asexually, just like some real-life lizards (for example, certain Whiptail lizards; Komodo Dragons) can. A single female lizardman (lizardwoman?) can start an entire new tribe of her virgin-born daughters and their lineage of daughters. If they come across males, they can mate with them and have sexually-produced offsprings as well (and male offsprings in general).

For inspiration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis_in_squamata

Regarding orcs - rumor has it that the laboratory used to produce the first orcs is out there somewhere, in whatever accursed ruin which once belonged to a dread sorcerer. The mage who finds it could mass-produce orcs, as the vats are far more efficient than the primitive tribal ritual used by the orcs themselves.

[archon]

Koewn, Omer, just awesome stuff, too... My setting weeps with jealousy at the outpouring of creativity here!

I wonder, if I did a poll, if the majority of ACKS campaigns have beastmen producing non-sexually or magically in some manner?

 

 

[koewn]

I'd be curious what folks are using for the cost of reproduction - supply costs of a set of 'virtual parents' over gestation time? Some metric based on XP value of resultant creature? Fixed percentage of the initial cost to crossbreed or arcanogenerate the original creature? What value must be invested in a vat or pool or whatever? 

As clearly evidenced, reproduction 'just happens' when there's a boy, a girl, and some Barry White, so I wouldn't think that ongoing costs would be all that high, or much beyond regular supply costs.

I could also be overthinking it...

[chalicier]

[quote="Alex"] I wonder, if I did a poll, if the majority of ACKS campaigns have beastmen producing non-sexually or magically in some manner? [/quote]

It serves a distinct narrative purpose to have at least some of the Existential Threats To The Very Heart Of Civilisation be spawned in a non-sexual, and importantly rapid, manner. "The barbarians are breeding like rabbits in the hills while our strength wanes, if a leader arises amongst them we may not be able to hold" is another narrative that has a powerful hook, but sometimes you just need a horde to appear from nowhere in a matter of weeks because the Dark Controller demands you build him an army worthy of Sodor.

[chalicier]

[quote="koewn"]

I'd be curious what folks are using for the cost of reproduction - supply costs of a set of 'virtual parents' over gestation time? Some metric based on XP value of resultant creature? Fixed percentage of the initial cost to crossbreed or arcanogenerate the original creature? What value must be invested in a vat or pool or whatever? 

As clearly evidenced, reproduction 'just happens' when there's a boy, a girl, and some Barry White, so I wouldn't think that ongoing costs would be all that high, or much beyond regular supply costs.

I could also be overthinking it...

[/quote]

I did give this some thought. I allow 9HD level Grey Orcs and 11th level (as usual) spellcasters to build Galls, and they must be constructed as a minimum +2 laboratory for crossbreeding 1HD creatures, so they cost 22,000gp each to build (most of which I figure is made up of monster parts, for the azoth). Since 9th level spellcasters get an 8+ on research rolls, that means Grey Orcs succeed in Galling 3 in 4 of their attempts, with other spellcasters succeeding 4 in 5 times. We just average that over their attempts.

The fun part in all this is the per-unit costs. Obviously evil wizards can just go ahead and pay the 2000gp per goblin transformed, but how do barbarian orcs pay that? I figure there are three options:

1) Blood sacrifice. (In this case taking the form of living Azoth rather than divine energy.)
2) Collect various herbs and monster parts from the forest until they get 2000gp worth, chuck them and a captive goblin into the Gall, out comes an orc.
3) Just waive it.

3 is unsatisfying and also leads one to wonder why orcs don't multiply exponentially until they cover the entire planet, and 1 involves giving Grey Orcs a new ability they didn't previously have. 2 on the other hand... whole tribes of orcs wandering around nicking mushrooms out of people's henhouses and actually keeping the local monster population down as they slaughter every ogre, ettin and bugbear they find for their monster bits, carrying them home in special "magic satchels" built by their masters (primitive metamphora)...

Now that is a solution that fits with a world of weird Gnostic alchemy :)
 

[omer]

[quote="Alex"]

Koewn, Omer, just awesome stuff, too... My setting weeps with jealousy at the outpouring of creativity here!

[/quote]

Thanks!

[quote="Alex"]

I wonder, if I did a poll, if the majority of ACKS campaigns have beastmen producing non-sexually or magically in some manner?

[/quote]

In my case, only orcs and possibly other vat-grown monsters such as owlbears and chuul. There is no single "Beastmen" category. The common theme, however, is that humanoid monster species are not humans and do not reproduce like humans:

• Lizardmen reproduce just like real-world lizards, both sexually or a-sexually, with hatchlings who can fend for themselves.
• Goblins reproduce sexually and have offsprings (gremlings) who can fend for themselves and are as nasty in character as the adults.
• Other goblinoids reproduce like goblins. Bugbear young are very dangerous creatures from day one, for example.
• Orcs are made, not bred.
• Toadmen reproduce like toads - with killer tadpoles and transformation.

I also want to have a species which reproduces like a parasitic wasp... Which was, IIRC, the real-life inspiration for Alien and its chestburster! Or worse.

https://www.livescience.com/51764-wasp-spider-zombies.html

[drkrash]

It's cool seeing that I am far from the only one who has done away with orc babies! When I announced that, while the answer of where they come from was still a work in progress, there definitely weren't any babies, another one of my players - who had previously said little about the issue - said, "Good.  I didn't really want to kill orc babies despite joking about it."

At the moment, I'm leaning toward multiple origins (as several others have described here), though I am ditching my idea of orcs and ogres as rape-breeders.  Neither I nor my players would have an issue with the idea; I just thought it darkened my world more than I wanted to.