Orcs and Half-Orcs

Though the Shel-Vulug reproduce just like humans do (and are even able to breed with humans), the Mor-Vulug are created rather than born. Long-term fortresses of theirs usually perform a ritual to the Old Gods within pits, beginning with placing a human infant in the ground like a seed. Once planted, the child continues to live, though it functions like a sapling for what is known as a Tree of Life. The tree will grow to full size in about three months, at which point it will begin to bear fruit in the form of orange, glowing pods. These pods contain fully-grown, newborn orcs, which will be harvested every few weeks to replenish their ranks. The infant will not age while inside the tree, and if it is ever removed from the core, the tree will immediately wither and die.

While the Shel-Vulug are simple hunter-gatherers, the Mor-Vulug often set up farming systems for underground fungi while raising sheep and other livestock outdoors. When there is nothing to be violent towards, they have a tendency to mistreat their animals, but killing livestock is typically punishable by death. They can eat just about anything, if they wish, though they do have a preference for elven or human meat.

The Vulug (and subsequently the Mor-Vulug) have hog-like faces. They possess large tusks, flat-snouted faces, and perked-up, pointed ears. In the Shel-Vulug, these features are more suppressed. Their faces resemble slightly flatter human faces, though they retain small tusks on their lower jaw and still have pig-like ears.

A cave-dwelling, parasitic fungus known as a Moldmother is able to enter into the brain of a Mor-Vulug through their throat and into their bloodstream, hijacking their thoughts, causing them to be more protective of their kin while in battle or in general. This often leads to suicidal actions. When they are killed, the invisible spores of the fungus will begin to spread from the wound of the corpse to any nearby orcs, continuing the cycle. The Moldmother itself often appears as a large patch of fuzzy, yellow mold. Upon finding it, orcs will often have to relocate entirely for a moment before burning it, as the fumes may still spread the illness. Throwing the bodies of the infected to their war dogs usually infects the dogs too, as eating the spores is guaranteed to do so. Humans and other mammals are much less susceptible to it, but large quantities of spores can still lead to infection.

The Mor-Vulug and Shel-Vulug used to be one unified species and culture living in what is now Ashtree. More accurately, they were all known as Vulug, meaning "kin" in their language, and they are thought to be the distant relatives of their faerie counterparts, goblins. Not much is known about this time, as their collective language didn't have a writing system and no written records exist from any species at the time (that we know of). The general consensus is that they used to be spread across several dozen or so tribes, though a single tribe led by a prophet known as Agul-Pherom began a holy war against the other tribes in the name of the Old Gods. The tribe, whose name has been lost to time, abandoned their nomadic lifestyle and began setting up fortresses and military outposts on their quest to establish prominent temples to the Old Gods. They converted the people of the settlements they conquered to believers of the Old Gods, and their empire spread quickly.   Agul-Pherom eventually received a vision from a deity known as the Wandering King instructing him to gather his followers on the east coast of Ashtree for one final ritual that would grant their race an eternal connection to the Nine Realms as a whole, ascending to the status of direct servants or angels of the Old Gods. Many orcs, however, saw the prophet's corruption and desperation and figured nothing good could come from this pact between their species and the Old Gods. Many turned to finding refuge in their own god, Ugolt, though it seemed he had mostly abandoned them after the war with the dwarves. As a final warning, Ugolt informed his clerics that all members of the orc race, followers of the Old Gods of otherwise, would end up affected by the transformation ritual.   Many orc elders came up with a plan to save their species, however: create a new generation of orcs that would be distanced from their Vulug parents by blood. This resulted in many orcs attempting courtship with humans from settlements that were friendly with their tribes, with the end goal being to create half-orc offspring that hopefully would not be changed by the ritual. Many humans who were not informed about the exact situation between the tribes of the humans and orcs misinterpreted the rumours they heard, and they consequently thought people were being kidnapped and used as slaves or even raped. This harmed their reputation further, but that would not matter in the end, as the ritual of the Wandering King commenced, beginning with Agul-Pherom using himself as a sacrifice and ending with the transformation of all full-blood orcs into violent, uncontrollable beasts.   Unfortunately for the orcs, this was not a status of angelhood. Their kind was cursed to act as unwielding, berserk warriors, now known as the Mor-Vulug, meaning "soul-kin." They are only related to the original species in a spiritual sense, rather than what they have now become. Mor-Vulug have no sense of self-control and experience a constant need to be violent. If they have no means by which they can cause harm to other creatures, they will instead attack each other (or even harm themselves, if no orcs are present). They are afraid of sunlight and will hesitate to fight much stronger creatures unless they have an obvious advantage, but orcs will otherwise act aggressively towards most other creatures that might pose a threat. Only very basic negotiation is possible, and they communicate through a language that just barely resembles that of the original Vulug, more often than not resorting to basic gestures and grunts.   The Shel-Vulug tend to be similar to Ashlian humans in their demeanor and general culture. Some traders from the North know of hidden routes where it is possible to meet the Shel-Vulug and obtain rare goods from them, such as jewellery and exotic foods that those from the South would never know any better to identify as being from the half-orcs. Their nomadic tribes are generally peaceful and avoid any direct confrontations with large groups of humans or demihumans, knowing they would immediately be outnumbered. They never developed the ability to see in the dark using infravision, unlike their cave-dwelling counterparts, and their language is a creole of archaic Ashlian and Vulug.