Any of you done anything regarding orc/goblin spores? Since they are officially produced from spores, are there "tending" orcs or do the little whelps just grow up in the ground like LOTR orcs and are "harvested" by other orcs? How is it played out in your games? I'm getting ideas for a new scenario.

jh

You don't know what you've just started...

I always thought they just popped up and began clubbin' hedz! That or Snotlings do all the work. As stated in the 40k Space Ork codex (not exactly Orcs, but still...), Snotlings do most of the fungus-tending.

Because of funny questions like that I so much want a greenskins supplement to be released in the forseeable future! Orcs, Goblins and all that, they are everywhere, but what do we know about them?

And imagine the great possibilities: Fungus-Ward as an advanced Snotling career! Wouldn't stuff like that be nice?

Having worked for GW and knowing a little bit of how they like to operate with this kind of stuff, id find it unlikely that they will answer these 'age old questions' any time, ever. The speculation and mystery of orcs and goblins and how they manage to gain such large numbers without obvious means of procreation is one of the great lore items of the Warhammer World. Expect it to remain speculative.

Perhaps they spawn out of the ground and are harvested like in LOTR.

Or perhaps the various greenskins are just older, bigger and badder versions of one species. Snotlings to Goblins, to Orcs, to Black Orcs, etc.

We all know that greenskins value two things when it comes to their physical appearance, size (bigger is better), and color (darker skin means stronger, tougher (hence the black orcs)).

The fact that they are spawned from fungus in some form or another also goes hand in hand with how Squigs come about. There was another post on this earlier.

Either way, greenskins are a hoot, and dont forget to have your orcs wear red. Why red, "Cuz da red onez gofasta!" (I hope at least someone out there remembers what i'm talking about)

Gitzman

Greenskins are mostly stupid brutes with animosity amongst themselves. Thinking about that - It is amazing that any newborn would ever survive (and probably many will be eaten anyways).

Greenskins also have strange mental ability that connects them and also forms the wild energy that causes Waaagh!, powers their magic, probably even makes them smarter (they have created all kinds of things time to time)...etc. Maybe newborn and spores cause similar effects. So, when wild and hungry Orc enters cave full of spores and newborn the energy will calm it down. And maybe even changes it's personality to protective mode or something... Wild beast becomes nursing mother ;-)

I know this is kind of a funny idea, but if we use spores and there isn't any "nursing drone types" in the Greenskins race, there must be something that keeps the young-ones safe amongst their own kind.

Well, as I understand it (but I stand to be corrected), spores were first a Greenskin aspect in 40k, that was then drafted into Greenskins in Fantasy? (I'm uncomfortably unfamiliar with Fantasy lore, compared to my knowledge of 40k lore, and it's been hard for me to find juicy resources outside of the novels).

I suppose, then, that the life cycle of Greenskins in 40k could be relevant, if one chooses.

The spores creates "whombs" under the earth. These wombs produce several and increasingly larger orcoid species over time, effectively building up the entire greenskin eco-system.

First, the wombs produce Squigs, then snotlings to who cultivate the squigs and grow fungus. This establishes the Orc ecology. Then the wombs pop out gretchin who build up Ork settlements and crude orc machinery, and then finally the womb regurgitates the orcs, who then mozy and in bully their way into making use of what's been set in place.

It's suggested that the wombs are left to themselves to gestate under the earth, but it's never specifically stated that greenskins don't tend to them either.

Kharrak said:

I remember reading this somewhere also (or some forum). The idea makes sense, but still it just seems funny that new Greenskins jump out of those wombs almost adult and ready to go. In a way it could be so, because race is not that intelligent and social skills could be learned through that mental energy/connection they all share. Still I taught it might be more logical that some elder Greenskins would take care and teach the new little new ones. Again this could be the Gretchin...

I Dont remember that the "workers" - Grecthin - has been mentioned anyway in the Warhammer Fantasy?! But they could be the "missing link" in the Greenskin life. These things are something I hoped would have been worked in the new WFRP3 Creature Guide. But no. Main issue in the Fantasy-world is probably the old ideas about the Greenskins that are against these spores. That there would be also female Greenskins (even very rare) and there could be even half-orcs.

In 40K the Greenskins are a genetically engineered species. Their language, society and even technology is instinctual. They have no need for an infancy.

Having said that, Ork specialists like Meks, Painboyz and Weirdboyz get better with practice. Meks have producted new weapon designs to counter threats i.e. Supachargg Shoota to penetrate Space Marine armour. However, fundamentally all their No-Wots is encoded in their genes.

The originators ("Brainboyz" in ork legend) are no longer about. The original write-up included a legend that snotlings were infant Brainboyz. There used to be a special fungus (like royal jelly for bees) that they ate to trigger brain development, but this fungus become extinct - destroyed by Orks in a rebellion.

jackdays said:

Oh, true, Goblins in Fantasy, Gretchins in 40k. From what I've read, Goblins can be quite seperate and independant from larger Greenskin hordes, so it could arguably be awkward if they were forced into the same lifecyle of Orcs. I suppose one could separate Goblins and Orcs into their own unique reproduction process - so a process that ultimately produces Goblins on one end, and one that ultimately produces Orcs on the other, but both produce squigs and snotlings. Since both Goblins and Orcs live off the same meals, it would make sense for them to band together.

Female Orcs, yeah, as I understand it, they used to be cannon a while ago, but GW has apparently retconned them completely in favour of the spores. As for Half-Orcs? I've actually never heard of them in Warhammer Fantasy at all!

Kharrak said:

Oh! The innocence!

There's an article about half-orcs as PCs in Warpstone #20 and they're referred once in a while in the first edition.

I wonder if the whole spore thing was motivated as a way to PG-13 the Warhammer world.

If you have a normal sexual reproductive species, the obvious step after you have destroyed the Ork warband is to track down the settlement and slaughter everyone, including females and children. By rights no sane human, elf, dwarf would have any ethical problem with this. However, some parent skimming his son's new book might. The whole spore thing avoids this 'ethical problem'.

In fact, WFRP3 avoids infant slaughter even when there is no rational. i.e. Beastmen, who must have breeding females and infants somewhere. But I don't think we'll see a published encounter which gives PCs the opportunity to take part in such a slaughter. As with Ork, beastmen appear to spring from the ground as evil combatants. Neat, if a little sanitised.

Just in case this was not clear, Gretchin are the same as Snotlings, just a 40k / Fantasy equivelant. The Goblins, while part of the Greenskin's society, are a seperate race to some degree and capable of living on their own. Though most get bullied into hordes by the bigger and stronger orcs. Snotlings are just the lowest guys on the totem pole.

Gitz

Gitzman said:

Are you sure? As far as I'm aware, and as far as the 40k Lexicanum is written, Gretchin and Snotlings are quite definitely two different creatures.

Gretchin are cunning, cruel, and intelligent, but cowerdly. They often serve as secondaries to Ork commanders, and often build gadgetry and meddle in schemes. Snotlings are dim-witted, slow, and quite passive, often used more as pets, to tend to fungus and squigs, or otherwise used as ammunition for weaponry such as the Shokk Attack Gun, since they have no other battlefield role due to their non-combative nature. The Fantasy Lexicanum, as relatively starved as it is, also seems to specify Snotlings as a unique creature.

It would seem to me that the Fantasy / 40k equivalent is rather Goblins vs Gretchin. Both settings seem to have snotlings as the dim low end of the Greenskin ladder.

Hmmm... perhaps you are right. Goblins might be a closer comparable creature. Hard to say exactly.

Snotlings are quite vicious though, they do go into battle quite often with greenskin armies as a swarm or ravenous little ankle biters. (they even have units in the tabletop game) I am not aware of the slow dim witedness of the snotlings. I had always pictured them as quite nimble, spunky, miniature versions of goblins who search scrap piles, gather food, get kicked around, etc.

Its quite hard to manage two versions of Warhammer Lore in my head lol. They are both very rich and both have a LOT of parallels, but at the same time, differ here and there.

Gitz

Fresnel said:

Including those tropes in a home campaign is an excellent way to hammer home the grim and perilous setting that is the Old World as well as providing more "grey" areas of morality.

Fresnel said:

Doesn't seem to likely - why would orcs/orks receive special treatment in this regard? The Imperium of man slaughters entire worlds and species of sentient being all the time. A parent who objects to this kind of violence and imagery is harldy going to be swayed by the fact that orks don't have children to kill.

As for the gretchin issue, gretchin = goblins and gnoblars, not snotlings. Snotlings exist in both the 40k and fantasy settings.

macd21 said:

An exterminatus is done from orbit, not by hammers on skulls held by characters controlled by delicate young minds. But in any case my speculation (an effort to avoid infant murder) is shot down by the fact that it only applies to the RPG and novels - not the wargame. Helping the RPG side of the GW brand is way, way down the list of priorities. Probably not even on the list at all...