#half orcs

[skullywullypully]

Nobody wants to be a gith tav 😞

[artsycj93]

Today's my birthday and I figure I'd finally post a pic of these two before I go out.

Yeah, these guys are my original characters and I've been brainstorming them in my head for a while now (in the case of the one on the left, i've been thinking up this kid my whole life...) I drew this in January to celebrate the new year and now I'm posting them on Tumblr to celebrate my 32 years of existence.

Hope you like 'em and have a good morning :)

Here's a little more info on them under the read more

Both are still (kinda) works-in-progress, but Mark Jones (the kid on the left) is a long-time original character of mine, the star of a wacky coming-of-age comedy/drama called "All American Boy" and Karl Stormbarrel (the half-orc kid on the right) is a newer OC of mine, star of a fantasy action/comedy whose title I'm still thinking of.

Hopefully, you'll see more of them, their supporting casts and their worlds on this blog (you *can* see them on my art account on Bluesky. Here's the link)

[scriptorum-elarias]

Long time no see (again lol)! Here's some stuff about hybridization across the Orthosapiens order (which contains ~99% of sapient organisms in my designed world) :)

I focus on orcs and half-orcs here because, especially in WotC 'literature', orcs are one of the few species that seem to have always been able to hybridize on their own (without magical intervention).

Some comparative taxonomic discussion below:

While I have a scientific education, I am not a taxonomical expert and many stretches must be made to make hybridization across different taxonomical suborders and families work, even in concept.

For reference, we (humans) are members of order Primates, along with lemurs, tarsiers, monkeys (old and new world), and apes. These examples represent some of the broad suborders of primates within the order, each one having its own collection of families and genetic traits, stemming from the last common ancestor of all primates.

In our world, and using Primates for reference, chimps and baboons (chimps joining us in the hominidae family, while baboons are old world monkeys, therefore members of the cercopithecoidea superfamily) cannot procreate for a variety of reasons that ultimately boil down to: they are too genetically different for their cells to actually reproduce together and their physical anatomy is too incompatible to allow any gametes to survive and fertilize. It's, of course, a LOT more complicated than that, but those issues are what I ultimately sought to address in this! :)

[antlersish]

Realized while drawing another Big Boy™️ that I’ve never drawn my Big Boy Barb, Yote, and had to correct that lmao

[nukbody]

ORCS ᕦ⁠(⁠ò⁠_⁠ó⁠ˇ⁠)⁠ᕤ

I will just spam post everything here at this point

[dashreads]

[underleveledjosh]

Based Lore.

[butter-and-too-much-bread]

While many people think that orcs are inherently more violent and savage than the other peoples, that’s only believed by those who met their warriors and foot soldiers.

In a broader sense, this phenomenon is more like a manic passion that drives them to excellence in their pursuits. So yes the soldiers and bandits are more violent and ruthless, but the tacticians and strategists are also more cunning, the artists more creative, the healers more compassionate and resourceful, the actors and actresses become their characters.

It is a single minded drive to become a paragon of their professions.