Mordor orc

o mordor orc
Difficulty	5
Attacks	Weapon 1d6 physical

o mordor orc
Difficulty	5
Attacks	Weapon 1d6 physical
Base level	3
Base experience	33
Speed	5
Base AC	10
Base MR	0
Alignment	-5 (chaotic)
Frequency (by normal means)	1 (Very rare)
Genocidable	Yes
Weight	1200
Nutritional value	200
Size	Medium
Resistances	Poison resistance
Resistances conveyed	None
A Mordor orc: has a head, a couple of arms, and a torso. is omnivorous. is an orc. is strong. likes gold. likes gems. can pick up weapons and food. has infravision. can be seen through infravision. normally appears in large groups.
Reference	NetHack 5.0.0 - include/monsters.h, line 761

A Mordor orc, o, is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. The Mordor orc is a strong type of orc that is largely similar to the hill orc while also being somewhat stronger and slower: like hill orcs, Mordor orcs have infravision, can be seen via infravision, and are gold lovers. Hostile Mordor orcs will collect items such as weapons, armor, food, and gems that they come across.

A Mordor orc has a single weapon attack, and possesses poison resistance.

A hero that is polymorphed into a Mordor orc will have their strength set to 18/50, which matches the maximum strength of an orcish hero, rather than 18/** like other strong monsters.

Generation

Randomly-generated Mordor orcs may be created as peaceful towards chaotic orcish heroes that do not have the Amulet of Yendor, and they will always be created as hostile towards human, dwarven and elven heroes. Mordor orcs are often generated in large groups of 2-11, with smaller groups occurring if the hero is weaker or peaceful Mordor orcs are created. A Mordor orc can grow up into an orc-captain.

Mordor orcs may appear among the hostile o that generate in throne rooms, as well as appearing among the various throne room monsters that can be randomly generated by looting a throne while confused and carrying gold (provided there is no chest on the level).

In a game that has Orcish Town, multiple named Mordor orcs may appear among the orcs within the town walls, with an effective ¹⁄₁₀ chance (10%) of each created orc being a Mordor orc—Mordor orcs can also appear among the named orcs generated elsewhere in the Gnomish Mines and the main branch, carrying various looted items with them.

Mordor orcs have a roughly ¹⁄₂ chance of being generated with an orcish helm, and they also have a ¹⁄₃ chance per item of being given a scimitar, an orcish shield, a knife, and orcish chain mail.

Strategy

While Mordor orcs are not much stronger individually than hill orcs, and in fact have a lower movement speed of 5, Mordor orc hordes generally make for a more difficult fight than a group of hill orcs due to their wider variety of starting equipment. The same basic strategies for hill orcs and their hordes still apply to Mordor orcs and will likely prove just as effective, though a hero will want to be better-armored and slightly more cautious around them.

For Healers focusing on amassing knives as their projectile of choice, Mordor orcs are a fairly plentiful source of the weapons—roles that have not yet found a decent melee weapon and can advance the saber skill may also find their scimitars useful. As with other orcs, Mordor orc corpses can be a decent source of nutrition, and orcish heroes may want to consider using them for sacrifices in Orcish Town after converting the altar using a non-orcish corpse.

History

The Mordor orc is introduced in NetHack 3.0.0, where the various orcish monsters are first differentiated from each other. From this version to NetHack 3.6.7, including some variants based on those versions, Mordor orcs do not have poison resistance, and a hero that polymorphs into a Mordor orc has their strength set to 18/** as with other strong monsters.

NetHack 5.0.0 lowers the strength of the Mordor orc polyform via commit b6a3d4b9, which is done to maintain congruence between non-player monsters and their player counterparts, and the commit also gives poison resistance to the Mordor orc and most other orcs.

Origin

Like the other orcs of NetHack, Mordor orcs are derived from the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. The Orcs of Mordor (or Mordor-orcs) are the orc footsoldiers of Sauron within the Black Land of Mordor, and make up the bulk of his armies during the various wars he waged in the Second and Third Ages. Many of these orcs were gathered from the remnants of Morgoth's armies that survived those past campaigns, while others were freshly bred by Sauron himself—the Uruks of Mordor (also known as Uruk-hai) were the largest and fiercest among them. Upon Sauron's final defeat, many of the orcs are believed to have escaped into the vast wastes and steppes of Mordor's eastern lands.

Variants

NetHack variants created prior to NetHack 5.0.0 may not give Mordor orcs and other orcs poison resistance, and may retain the higher strength for their polyform. Variants based on versions prior to NetHack 3.6.0 may not include the possibility of encountering Orcish Town in a game.

Some variants that give AC bonuses for wearing racial equipment may indirectly buff Mordor orcs as a result.

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, Mordor orcs are not normally generated in Gehennom, and they behave largely as they do in NetHack 3.4.3 and previous contemporary versions, including their lack of poison resistance—a hero that polymorphs into a Mordor orc will have their strength set to 18/**. A Mordor orc corpse that is subjected to the raise zombies technique will arise as an orc zombie.

Mordor orcs have a slightly different initial inventory compared to NetHack: they have a roughly ¹⁄₂ chance of being given an orcish helm, a separate ¹⁄₄ chance of generating with a small stack of orcish spears, and a separate ¹⁄₃ chance each of generating with a scimitar, two separate knives, an orcish shield, and orcish chain mail—a Mordor orc that is not given a scimitar will instead receive an orcish dagger in its place.

UnNetHack

In UnNetHack, Mordor orcs behave largely as they do in NetHack 3.4.3, and gain a 1-point bonus to AC for each piece of worn orcish armor.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, Mordor orcs have their speed increased to 9, they have second-level low-light vision like almost all other orcs in their monster class, and they boast skilled prowess in martial combat. A tame Mordor orc may turn traitor.

Mordor orcs may appear in the court of a throne room ruled by an orc-captain or an ogre king.

Mordor orcs can occur in several locations both within the dungeon and in branches outside of it:

• Mordor orcs are found in some roles' quest branches.
  • Mordor orcs can appear among the random o that are part of the second quest monster class for dwarf Nobles and make up ⁶⁄₁₇₅ of the monsters generated on the Dwarf Noble quest.
  • Mordor orcs can also appear among the random o that are part of the second quest monster class for Dwarf Knights and make up ⁶⁄₁₇₅ of the monsters generated on the Dwarf Knight quest.
  • The Mordor orc is the first quest monster for dwarf Nobles, Rangers and Wizards, and makes up ⁹⁶⁄₁₇₅ of the monsters generated on the Elvish Racial quest. The quest branch also generates several hostile Mordor orcs on many of its floors during level creation: six are placed randomly on the home level; one is placed randomly on the upper filler level; four are stationed on specific squares of the locate level; three are placed randomly on each of the lower filler levels; and five are placed on the goal level, with two positioned randomly and three placed on specific squares.
• The Mordor Ruins variant of the Chaos Quest generates many Mordor orcs on specific floors of the branch during level creation: 15 Mordor orcs are stationed at the Mordor Wall; several appear at the Mordor Cracks; and 13 are placed in the Mordor Fortress, including 5 in the court of the ogre emperor's throne room.
• The Chaos Temple Quest generates 12 Mordor orcs within the forest area of the Ancient Temple during level creation, and ³⁄₁₀ of the monsters randomly generated on that level will be Mordor orcs.

Similar to NetHack, Mordor orcs have a roughly ¹⁄₂ chance of being generated with an orcish helm, and they also have a ¹⁄₃ chance per item of being given a scimitar, an orcish shield, a knife, and orcish chain mail: Mordor orcs slated for "good" equipment will always be given the scimitar, knife and mail. Mordor orcs also have a ¹⁄₅₀ chance of an item set that includes a drum along with a ¹⁄₃ chance (effectively ¹⁄₁₅₀) of an orcish bow and a stack of 3-14 orcish arrows.

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xNetHack

In xNetHack, Mordor orcs are identical to their appearance in NetHack 5.0.0. They have a ¹⁄₃ chance of generating with a weapon that will either be a scimitar (²⁄₃ chance) or a stack of orcish spears (¹⁄₃ chance), and otherwise their possible starting inventory is the same.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, Mordor orcs and other orcish monsters are given poison resistance, and a hero that polymorphs into a Mordor orc will have their strength set to 18/**. Mordor orcs are also vulnerable to mithril, and will take extra damage from weapons and other objects made of the material. Hill orcs that see a hero wielding Sting, Orcrist or Glamdring will become hostile. Mordor orcs are capable of entering berserker rages when at ¹⁄₃ of their maximum HP or lower, which increases their damage but makes them more likely to hit other monsters around them besides their intended target.

Groups of Mordor orcs will often be created with an accompanying orc shaman acting as support. Mordor orcs grow up into Uruk-hai, rather than growing up into orc-captains as in NetHack and most other variants.

Mordor orcs have a ¹⁄₃ chance of generating with an orcish scimitar as their weapon rather than a standard one, and otherwise their possible starting inventory is the same as in vanilla NetHack.