In Daggerfall, PGE 1 and even the pre-morrowind interview with the Dunmer, the Orcs were described as more like a beast-race like Goblins or Centaurs though maybe more organised. They were also said to live in not only High Rock, but also Valenwood and even a brand of black orcs in Morrowind. So why were they made suddenly so official in Morrowind and Oblivion. Just a decade or less and suddenly they occupy houses and even mansions? Their lore also seems to be imposed, and the whole idea of them being changed Mer is very similar to the chimer being changed.

It's because mostly Bretons had to deal with them, and bretons at the time were racist.

A lot of it is explained http://www.imperial-library.info/content/oblivion-how-orsinium-passed-orcs. This was possible because one of the possible endings of Daggerfall had the hero helping Gortwog, and all the endings happened because of the Warp in the West.

And the idea of Orcs being corrupted elves is as old as Lord of the Rings, actually.

Indeed. The Breton would not even allow to put Orsinium on the map simply because it involve removing High Rock's territory, or the fact that they are now neighbors.

This all start during and in the end of the game Daggerfall when Gortwog, who in years trying to recognize his people to be equal with all other race (and potentially screwing it up along the way), got his hand on a big Stompy Robot and practically stomp on all invading force and made Orsinium a Province. This act recognize Orsimer as "equal".

Gortwog was certainly a sophisticated and intelligent individual by most racial standards for sentient beings. Many of his people share his intellect and shrewdness.

Isn't it amazing what you can do when you have the keys to big-stompy?

Well, that's the first place the public saw it. Theidea had been written tentatively into the Silmarillion for years already.

Hey guys, get it through your heads! Orsimer = Pariah Folk! It's the dunmer that's more in-line with corrupted elves, as their name means "dark-skinned," "gloomy," and "ill-favored by fate" folk.

I have it through my head. I was dumbing it down a bit. I should have said the theme of Orcs being changed elves goes back to Tolkien. In his writings they were twisted and corrupted. You're correct in saying that applies more to races like Chimer and Ayleids in TES lore than it does to Orcs who are simply ostracized and outcast.

To further confuse things: couldn't the Khajiit count as well? After all, they were elves, but have since changed so much that most people don't count them as elves anymore.

That's just one explanation for the Khajiit back story. It hasn't been repeated in nearly as many sources as that of the Orcs. We can say with relative certainty that Orcs are Elves. They even retain the "mer" species name.

Yes, but those were the ones of High Rock. There were supposed to be many other orc species in other provinces. And all the orcs we met in Morrowind and Oblivion couldn't have just came from Orsinium.

Bethesda got better over the years at avoiding cliches. The Dunmer are not the stereotypical "drow", and the orcs are not the Tolkien savages; for one example, they craft excellent armor in "Morrowind".

Maybe until Redguard/Morrowind. But after that they regressed :/.

I would bet that Orsinium would have the highest concentration of Orsimer population in Tamriel to become a small Province. I would not be surprise that there were good amount of Orsimers living all over the Tamriel while the good people of Orsinium got their hands on Megatron and beat everyone in their surrounding to get recognition as an equal. Also keep in mind that its roughly 10 years between Daggerfall and Morrowind, so anything could happen.

And orc fertility is probably as high as humans, maybe a little more, due to their shortened life. The other mer, while they can be pretty long lived, they have low birth rates, but that is probably to offset that the shortest span of time a mer will live naturally will still be twice as long as the life span of a rich, powerful, and pampered orsimer.

This is what distresses me about the Orc race.

First of all, Tolkien created orcs for his world. There were no such thing before his works. He said they were originally elves who became corrupted.

Fast-forward to TES lore: We have a race called... Orcs. That's original... and they were originally elves, but they became corrupted. Oh...

At first I thought the same about the Elven races, but after looking into the lore I can see some really cool thought has gone into them. They're original, as far as Elves go. The myriad of Dunmer cultures found on Vvardenfell was astounding. But Orcs... they're just largely portrayed as dumb brutes. There was the Orc in Morrowind near Caldera, hiding behind a rock, who rewarded your quest with a diamond because he thought it was just a useless stone, and he had dialogue so dumb you wouldn't expect it to hear that sort of stupidity from a 5 year old. There was also the Orc in Oblivion who had awful dialogue - the lord of some estate who asked you to rescue his daughter (I think?) and he kept mispronouncing words. How about the Orc in the Dark Brotherhood who couldn't grasp the concept of stealth and just liked bashing things?

They're being used as a joke race as far as I can see, much like the Bosmer. I can't help but feel the lack of culture is a problem. We've only seen them living in Morrowind and Cyrodiil, heavily immersed in another race's culture, and so never really had an idea as to what their background is. All I can see them as is a big green rip-off from Tolkien's imagination, stuck in the game simply because it's a fantasy game and "Hey! We can't have fantasy without Orcs! Let's shoehorn them in there!"

Is there any lore for the Orcs that explains their culture, and really makes them unique? I'd love to be able to get rid of this view...

For starter, play Daggerfall. The main quest have a way to get involve with Gortwog (representatives of the Orsimers), one way or another. Politic get involves and the story tells it quite well of their standing from their point of time.

From there, we get a little story of how these Orsimers became what they are with this story: http://www.imperial-library.info/content/morrowind-true-nature-orcs

Then there a history of Orsinium from the http://www.imperial-library.info/content/pocket-guide-empire-third-edition-orsinium.

Lastly, there the fact that Orsimers are renown smith, with http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Garothmuk_gro-Muzgub being one of the best representative of this as he have large amount of information of many weapons ingame. It is worth mentioning that they have an armor that is base as a whole on the race, namely the Orcish Armor. These armor are rare (rarest armor in Daggerfall, in fact), very ornate, and durable, not to mention prized. The armor style similar to a Samurai Armor, which goes along with the fact that the Orsimers are also very loyal (soldiers) to their higher up if given the opportunity.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:The_Wraith%27s_Wedding_Dowry pretty much give us a story of a badass Orc Bride, with a little hint of Orsimer Wedding tradition to it.

Other than talking about http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Malacath, there are some part that I may miss, so ya.

As for being portray as "joke" race, keep in mind that there usually a small representative compared to the whole race. Same with the Bosmer. Kind of like portraying the Dunmers as crazy because of Therana or the fact that Nords like to go commando because of those witch quests.

Yeah, I'd wager there were more words, but we know the conclusion.


Nope. Unless you're a http://www.monkeytruth.net/texts/orccreation.shtml.

Tolkein stole the name from an Anglo Saxon word for demon, which in turn was supposedly an altered form of the Latin word Orcus... Its also appeared in a form in Beowulf... So he's hardly the first, although he is the guy who coined its modern usage...

See a bit http://www.imperial-library.info/content/morrowind-dance-fire

Which is when Orcs were first invented. So Orcs were originally corrupted elves.

http://www.netpoets.com/classic/poems/003023.htm

The word Orc predates the English language.

Interesting! I knew Tolkien took much from ancients texts, like the elves, dwarves, etc, but I did not know that was also true for orcs. I've read the other posts in this topic, also the one from Singapore Joe which if I checked it well is from the beginning of the 1800s, long before Tolkien. Of course, they mean demons, not Tolkienesque orcs. Tolkien used a lot of things from all sorts of (old) stories and altered them, enriched them to fit in his stories. That's what I think TES should do too. Take some aspects from mythology and fantasy, fine, but make it unique and make it fit well into the world of TES too!