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I've often had issue with the idea that the goblinoid races in D&D were, somehow, unable to make gear (especially weapons and armor) as well as the humanoid ones.
Jim Holloway, apparently, agreed with me, as you can see in this last stand.
Their armor is in a distinct style and it fits!
There's a lot going on in this pic.
It was the cover of Dragon 127. The about the cover says, "The last three survivors of an orcish army, their standard still aloft, challenge their elven opponents to one last fight."
Note: These appear to be bugbears, not orcs, by the description in the Monster Manual.
I think your ire should be directed at Gary Gygax more than Peter Jackson. There's at least one scene in The Two Towers where Saruman's Uruk-Hai are making weapons. Also in the books there is a scene where Frodo and Sam are scavenging gear after an Orc on Orc fight at Minas Morgul and they observe that the Minas Morgul gear was better quality than standard Mordor issue. Tolkien himself clearly saw Orcs as having a material culture and regional variations so Northern Orcs from The Hobbit would have different styles than Mordor Orcs.
ReplyDeleteMHI universe Orcs definitely have a culture and technology aside from Heavy Metal music and helicopters.
AD&D is silent on the quality.
DeleteTolkien did mention the quality gap between Mordor and Isengard.
Jackson made all the Orc gear crude.
I figured out the explanation for crude orc equipment and the ancient grudge between dwarves and orcs.
ReplyDeleteIt started with what I thought was a joke character: the half-orc rogue with no points in stealth, but plenty in intimidation. When he needs to sneak somewhere, he just stomps there as normal, and if anybody seems to be paying attention, “You no see Krod!”
Turns out, there’s more to the joke. Krod’s party was going somewhere by boat, so the GM asks where everybody is in case an encounter should happen. Well, Krod is in the crow’s nest. No, this boat is smaller than you’re thinking; there is no crow’s nest. No problem, Krod will build a crow’s nest. Wait, how? Krod is fully qualified carpenter. Wait, no, with what tools? Krod gather spare planks, throw them in pile, and glare at them until they know better than not be crow’s nest!
Yeah, the dwarves ain’t laughing. Sure, dwarves will cut stone into blocks, build things with the blocks, smelt rocks into metal and hammer the metal into tools and weapons. But that doesn’t bother the rocks; that’s just normal things that happen. The orcs, though, have come up with such unspeakable horrors that stone and wood will reshape themselves rather than have that happen again.
Of course, when your standard practice is “do what I say or else”, you can’t seriously expect anybody to put forth their best efforts on your behalf. And if a pack of angry dwarves should happen to show up, looking to jam their battleaxes up your ass sideways, maybe the rocks decide “fuck this being a bridge shit” or “hey, looks like it’s time to get smooth and level and put up some guardrails”, depending on who’s on what side of the crevasse.