Players Guide

OUT OF NOTHING PLAYER'S GUIDE

Allowable Races:  Orcs, half-orcs, humans; others with compelling backstory

Allowable Classes: All except monks

Allowable Alignments: Neutral or Evil; orcs tend towards the chaotic, but that is by no means universal

Buying stats: 20-pt. buy; may buy a “6” STR score for -7 points, or a “5” STR score for -10 points.

Orc Racial Traits
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4 Strength, –2 Intelligence, –2 Wisdom, –2 Charisma: Orcs are brutal and savage.
Medium: Orcs are Medium creatures and have no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
Normal Speed: Orcs have a base speed of 30 feet.
Darkvision: Orcs can see in the dark up to 60 feet.
Ferocity: An orc remains conscious and can continue fighting even if his hit point total is below 0. The orc is still staggered
and loses 1 hit point each round. He still dies when his hit point total reaches a negative amount equal to his Constitution score.
Light Sensitivity: Orcs are dazzled in areas of bright sunlight or within the radius of a daylight spell.
Weapon Familiarity: Orcs are proficient with greataxes and falchions and treat any weapon with the word “orc” in its name as a martial weapon.
Languages: Orcs begin play speaking Common and Orc. Orcs with high Intelligence scores can choose from among the following bonus languages: Dwarven, Giant, Gnoll, Goblin, and Undercommon.
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Advanced Race Guide, p. 139

Backstory notes
You are a member of the Empty Hand clan, the most powerful clan in all of Belkzen, and the controllers of the city of Urgir.  You and the party are a combat squad under the nominal command of Gralka Hardspear, a fighter, and a sargeant in the orc army--although there are no ranks, and the orcs don’t have a word for “army” in the same way fish don’t have a word for “ocean”--everybody’s in it, and we’re all using such brains as we have for surviving, so why talk about it?

Non-orc/half-orc characters: Orcs respect strength, and strength means body count, but they’re also deeply superstitious.  So though you probably can’t match the physical might of a full-blooded orc, perhaps you bring something else to the table they can respect.  Honestly, though, you are probably a slave. 
Characters with a final Strength score of 10 or less: How did you survive the harsh lifestyle and incredible scorn a weakling like you would have endured as a young orc?
Wizards and Alchemists:  Necromancy and big bada-boom are the specialties of orc magic.  However, the amount of reading and materials you need earn you the intense scorn of your orc counterparts, at least until you’re powerful enough to set them on fire or raise their victims’ bones to fight against them.  How did you receive your training?

Useful languages: Draconic, Giant, Undercommon, Dwarven, Kellid, Varisian

Adventure structures: Similar to PFS, with more continuity.

Historical parallel: Think pre-Genghis Mongol hordes--each clan powerful in its own way, but constantly jockeying for internal control and easily defeated by outside forces.

The campaign as envisioned:

Tone: Mostly gritty and violent. 

Characterization: Orcs are rage-fueled hate machines with a massive inferiority complex, but that’s not all they have to be. We have a party full of people who like to play against type.

Combat: Think Pathfinder Society scenarios.  Combat will be frequent and horrible, but there will be other things, too.

Morality: You’re orcs.  Killing shit is never the wrong answer.  Sometimes it’s not the best answer.  Slavery and abuse are orc ways of life and in fact viewed as virtues.  Torture and rape will not be component parts of the plot, but are also a fact of orc life.

Social interaction: There will be enough of this to make a social-build character a lot of fun.

Scale: We’re going to start in and around Urgir, the biggest city of Belkzen, and raid some outlying human villages.  There will be some inter-orc tribe murder hob--er, politics and a few dungeon raids.  Relationships with the surrounding nations will be established or sundered.  We will not be sailing around the Shackles or fighting ninjas.  Beyond that, we’ll see what you’re interested in.

ABOUT BELKZEN

The Hold of Belkzen is no kind of nation.  It is the smallest spit of land that the more civilized races of Avstan have been able to contain the orcs to.  There are no national anthems, no agreed-upon flag, no international policy, and no currency other than cold hard steel.

 Quite apart from its orc inhabitants, the Hold of Belkzen is a deadly place to be.  The arid weather, the bleak landscape, the harsh mountain ranges, and the sheer number of megafauna trying their damnedest to be THE top-tier predator in the region, all conspire to make this a place where only the foolhardy, the desperate, or the suicidal wind up.

And then there are the orc tribes.  There are about 20 major power player tribes, all vying with each other constantly--not for power, because that’s not how orcs think power works, but mostly for the sheer bloody-mindedness of it.  The orcs fight with each other from early fall to early spring, in a period called the Proving Time.  They call it this because they’re all trying to prove how much better they are than everyone else.

From mid-spring through the summer, a universal ban on intertribal warfare spreads through the tribes in a period called the Flood Truce.  During this time, the melting snow from the mountains in the north and the spring rains turn the Flood Road from a dry, empty arroyo into a sizeable river.  The orc tribes gather in the river valley and hunt the aurochs which migrate south during this time.  These creatures are so important to orc survival that the orcs simply do not fight during this time.  In fact, it is common for orcs to take mates from other tribes during the Flood Truce.

When the orcs aren’t fighting each other, they’re fighting everyone else--the Shoanti in Varisia, Lastwall in the south, and Ustalav in the east. Belkzen also borders the Realm of the Mammoth Lords to the north, but there’s nothing there that the orcs think is worth the hassle, and the Worldwound to the northeast, but they figure any demon lord powerful enough to take on 10,000 angry orcs probably deserves to have them in his army. 

Urgir and the surrounding plains
Urgir is the largest settlement in Belkzen.  It used to be a Sky Citadel, built by the dwarves in the first years after the Quest for Sky, but the orcs took it from them and immediately corrupted it.  Urgir is also the only orc-controlled city in Belkzen which actively encourages trade with the outside world.  This practice has earned the ruling Empty Hand tribe both a great deal of ridicule from other tribes, and enough money to steamroll anybody who too strenuously objects.

Near Urgir runs the Flood Road.  During the dry season, the arroyo bed provides the main  caravan route through Belkzen, and during the rainy season, it is the lifeblood of the entire orc nation in northern Avistan.  Urgir’s control of this key thoroughfare means that whichever clan controls the city is the de facto leading clan of the orcs.

The tribes nearby

The Empty Hand tribe is currently ruled by Grask Uldeth, a vicious sombitch who has nevertheless begun to implement some changes in his society which do not rely solely on strength. 

The fields around Urgir are full of natural dangers and are the home of the Death’s Head tribe, an ally of the Open Hand clan.  They cherish their role as the gatekeepers of the orc capital, and are not above requiring stiff payment to allow people passage.  The clan, as a whole, takes great pains not to put their relationship with the Empty Hands at risk.