Orc (monster)

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The orc, o, is a monster that formerly appeared in NetHack. It serves as the "base" monster for the corpse left by killing an orc zombie or orc mummy.

Generation

Orcs are not randomly generated, with the exception of a game that has Orcish Town present - various named orcs can appear among the orcish monsters carrying looted items.[1] They will also generate with scimitars or orcish daggers along with orcish helms.[2][3]

Orcs can also be created by zapping a wand of undead turning at a orc corpse that is not left by a mummy or zombie, or selecting orcs when reading a cursed scroll of genocide. Orcs can grow up to become orc-captains.

Strategy

"Plain" orcs are not too substantially different from hobgoblins and hill orcs, and can be defeated with much of the same tactics. Pursuing any orcs you encounter during a game with Orcish Town is generally a good idea in order to nab the candles and gloves they may be carrying.

History

The orc is one of the many monsters present in the earliest variants of Jay Fenlason's Hack as well as Andries Brouwer's Hack 1.0, and continued to appear as late as NetHack 2.3e. In its appearances, orcs often generated in hordes similar to hill orcs in modern NetHack.

In NetHack 3.0.0, the various types of orcs were introduced, alongside or zombies and mummies - the base orc remains in the game's data primarily for the purpose of generating the corpses used by their undead.[4] Named orcs appearing as looters in a game with Orcish Town became possible in NetHack 3.6.2 with changes made to the generation method used for creating the looting monsters.[5]

Origin

The orcs in NetHack are derived from Dungeons & Dragons, which in turn are based on their portrayal in the works of J. R. R. Tolkien.

Variants

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, seventeen plain orcs are placed randomly around the outside of Grund's Stronghold.

Encyclopedia entry

Orcs, bipeds with a humanoid appearance, are related to the
goblins, but much bigger and more dangerous. The average orc
is only moderately intelligent, has broad, muscled shoulders,
a short neck, a sloping forehead and a thick, dark fur.
Their lower eye-teeth are pointing forward, like a boar's.
Female orcs are more lightly built and bare-chested. Not
needing any clothing, they do like to dress in variegated
apparels. Suspicious by nature, orcs live in tribes or
hordes. They tend to live underground as well as above
ground (but they dislike sunlight). Orcs can use all weapons,
tools and armors that are used by men. Since they don't have
the talent to fashion these themselves, they are constantly
hunting for them. There is nothing a horde of orcs cannot
use.

[ het Boek van de Regels; Het Oog des Meesters ]

References