Orcish musings

Dear Devs and fellow Gorgonzolians,

We were just musing about Orcs the other day and speculating how they might get implemented and what we would like to see. I figured I’d put some of it to paper, in case it might give some inspiration. Anyone, feel free to chime in and maybe give the devs some food for thought.


The unlock:
The renegade Orcs in Prestonbule Cave tell you about the death row prison, deep in Gazluk Keep. Orc prisoners are held there for execution during the yearly challenge of blades, and yes, Orcs that were previously unwilling to kill their own during the challenge are now awaiting their fate as well. The prison is run by the Warden and his guards. There’s also rumored to be some great treasure there, as forced prison labor can be quite profitable. Of course, you might want to avoid the area altogether, dying can be painful…

(Freeing the prisoners will unlock your Orc character. You will start at the renegades in Prestonbule Cave after having made your escape from GK. There might be a few useable items there as well in some old chests)

Note: Many of the escaped prisoners were on death row for other reasons than being unwilling to kill their friends, and as a result there might be some Orc outlaws hanging around northern Gazluk now. They’re not friendly…


Racial characteristics:
A life in cold environments and harsh conditions have made you more tolerable to cold and cold damage. But your metabolism runs a tad faster, especially on vegetarian meals.
Your time in prison has taught you to hide items better on your person. +3 inventory space. Just don’t think too much about where you’re hiding some of your gear, we all know the sun don’t shine there.
You’re considered an outlaw by other Orcs. They hate your guts and want you dead. You automatically generate extra taunts toward Orc foes, and forget about minimizer potions, your frame sticks out like a sore thumb…


Racial “jewelry”:
Orcs don’t wear jewelry, they have a magical clan tattoo, or in your case a crude prison version. Maybe one of the renegades in Prestonbule can teach you how to clean it up and improve the looks (and characteristics) of it, you’ll have to work on it though.


Respawn penalty:
Orc bounty hunters are always on the prowl. There’s a phat price on your head after all. Any time you respawn there’s a x% chance you might get snatched and dragged back to prison.
You’ve made it out before and you might be able to pick your cell lock and grab your gear, but it’ll take effort and time.
(x% chance to pick cell lock and gear chest lock, lockpicking xp gained per attempt and lockpicking & safecracking skills improve chances at a successful pick.)
The lock picking could be a pain in the ass initially, but if you can level the skill by repeatedly trying to pick the lock and balance the RNG enough you could make it so it wouldn’t take you more than a few minutes to open the lock.

With the chance of being snatched by bounty hunters, chance to pick the prison lock and chance to get access to your locked gear taken together, you might be able to get away with a respawn or you might be stuck for a while…

Note: if it’s too much of a coding pain to lock someone’s gear maybe they could just be shackled while being held for an arena fight to the death?



Racial combat skills:

Orc fortitude (psychology skill variants):
“Prison only made you tougher, and not only physically”:
- “You lookin’ at me” (triggers vulnerability and roots target) (or call it “Intimidate”)
- “Stand your ground” (mitigation to trauma and psych damage, x% mitigation from physical damage while armor below 33%)
- “Mob mentality” (small universal damage boost to party, successful hits increase damage boost, stacks x times)
- “Pick up my soap” (combo psych/trauma damage nuke, cooldown shared with “tell me about your mother”, maybe make one AOE with reduced damage and crit chance?)

Note: Maybe another look at Melkhi’s comments on psychology can give some more ideas for matching “Orc Fortitude” with “Psychology”? A deep look into Psychology https://forum.projectgorgon.com/show...-to-Psychology

Knife variants:
“Prison taught you a thing or two”:
- “Shiv” (basic attack, piercing damage)
- “Covert strike” (dual knife attack, combining a distraction with a strike, +13% melee evasion for 5 sec and piercing damage, treausure effects can increase piercing damage, add poison damage or stun, cooldown shared with “blur cut”)
- “Bring it on!” (dual knife defensive technique, hits all enemies within 5 meters, x% damage mitigation for x seconds, slashing and piercing damage)
- “Blitz attack” (dual knife attack nuke, slashing and piercing damage, treasure effects can add fire or cold, cooldown shared with “backstab”)

Spear (staff variants):
“The choice of weapon you grew up with”:
- “Piercing jab” (basic attack, piercing damage)
- “Focused thrust” (piercing damage, bypasses armor if target is vulnerable, treasure effects can add fire damage, maybe share cooldown with “Spinning slash” (see below))
- “Spinning slash” (slashing AOE damage, treasure effect can add ice damage, maybe share cooldown with “Focused thrust”)
- “Draw cut” (combo piercing/slashing damage, treasure effects can add trauma damage, also, would it be possible to create some kind of “bleeding over time” damage?)

Orc magic (fire magic variants):
“You weren’t the most diligent apprentice, but you managed enough to see the potential here”:
- “Frost Staff” (basic attack, crushing/cold damage)
- “Frost blast” (short range AOE cold damage, nice attack, shares cooldown with “Fire breath”)
- “Spawn Gaz-Urak” (crushing damage, treasure effects can add nature DOT, you can only have one spawn at a time, spawns are: Fire wall, Gaz-Urak and Worghest)
- “Spawn Worghest” (crushing damage, treasure effects can add poison DOT, you can only have one spawn at a time, spawns are: Fire wall, Gaz-Urak and Worghest)



Racial crafting skills:
- Toolcrafting: specialist lock picking set (“this one comes in a smooth case”)
- Brewing: prison hooch (“fermented brew of undeterminable origin, best brewed using a porcelain bowl, try not to savor the aroma, just chug it, and for the gods sake DON’T CHEW”)
- Cooking: prison coffee (“not sure where the water comes from or why it has tilapia bits in it, but it’s tasty and perks you right up!”)
- Cooking: Orcish Haggis (“meat marinated in Urak acids, stuffed in a stomach and deep-fried in tallow. This will keep you going for a long time, especially if you’re a non-orc”)
- Cooking: Orcish Stew-Roids (“heavy orcish stew, this one literally puts hairs on your chest and the “meatballs” are delicious. You also really start taking a shine to bears, weird”)
- Tattoo artist (new skill?),
- Weapon smithing: (new skill?) “craft shiv”



Item drop (can be used by any species):
With a “staff of leadership” in mind, maybe it’s possible to have a chance for a scroll drop in GK (second level) that will let you craft the “Orc’s Covenant” staff (at lvl 60-70-80 carpentry respectively).
Crafting the staff would give you a chance for different very small party boosts, that would be cumulative with other “Orc’s Covenants”
So, say, you roll a staff with +1.5% damage for all party members, another party member has one as well, and everyone ends up with a 3% damage boost.
Rolling random types of boosts when crafting a staff would make it a relatively rare item.
Boosts could be things like:
+1.5% to all damage
+2% to fire damage
+2% to physical damage
+3 universal damage mitigation
+5 specific damage mitigation
+5 to accuracy
+3% to projectile evasion
Etc, etc

And maybe backers/VIP players could get the scroll as a redeem item?




I hope an idea or two may give the devs some inspiration for orcs, or maybe even dwarves, or a separate combat skill (“ex-con”). If not, it was still fun speculating.

And also a big thanks to my fellow guildies for taking a look at this!


Have fun out there everyone!