Untha, Night Slashers Orc Ranger of the Broken Lands (3.5e D&D)

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Preamble:

The first time I had no idea where to go when soloing a game was an unbalanced random encounter that went south quickly for the belligerents instead of my PC.

The human ranger Bran had set out from Corunglain in Darokin to join the cohort of the elven lord at Dorneryl in Alfheim. A single ranger in the hinterlands who ran into a pack of orc raiders at night. He attempted to avoid them, but the orcs could see better than he could, and they came at him. 

The random number of orcs was seven. One was a leader or captain.

I shrugged and decided the brand-new character was already dead. What hope did he have? He would go down, but not without a fight.

Always fight when it looks hopeless. Always. 

(Unless you can negotiate. Or run away.) 

He drew his bow and reached for an arrow. The orcs charged.

He fired.

Natural 20.

Bran's random target turned out to be the captain.

It was a one hit kill. The rest of the orcs failed their morale check. 

Then they surrendered.

What?  They surrendered.  No. Way.  Now what the hell am I going to do?

And that bit stalled that arc of the campaign for ... hmm, twenty or more years.

When I went back to it, though, I had more experience.

I examined the situation and thought, asking why would six orcs, vastly outnumbering a single human ranger, surrender in that situation? And I decided there were a few reasons.

They might believe they had just encountered a legendary orc slayer. A human monster capable of killing them all. He had just killed their leader.

Or maybe they hated their leader and were glad to see him dead. That's not unusual in any hierarchical and violent social order, after all. 

Did they think they had wandered into a trap and they were surrounded by human monsters and maybe even elven demons?

Or could it be something else entirely?

Well, let's roll some dice. Rolling dice is fun and this is a game.

Let's say on a d6 we allow 1 and 2 to be two of these are true, 3 to 5, one is true, and on a 6 it's something else, and I'll have to use some random method to determine why they did that.

I got one of these are true. Rolling d6, it was the part about hating their captain. So I ask myself, why do they hate him. It was more of the same back and forth, but ultimately I determined their leader is part of a cadre of particularly brutal and nasty orcs running roughshod on the horde, not pulling their weight, not going on raids unless they're easy ones, not fighting monsters, taking treasure from those who do put in work.

In Gazetteer 10: The Orcs of Thar (1988, TSR) for the BECMI D&D rules, each of the major humanoid races have their own experience advancement table but do not get to have a character class per se. In the 2eAD&D Complete Book of Humanoids, a staggering number of races are introduced as playable with the option to take conventional classes and kits.  

For 3eD&D the resource I have available is the 2002 book Monster, from Alderac Entertainment Group - AEG. There might be other rules elsewhere, maybe even by WotC, but I'm not going to spend time looking. One important thing about solo play is it's easy to become distracted, go down a rabbit hole, and lose your momentum. The 3e DMG does state, "Creatures such as orcs, kobolds, or goblins make great PCs, since they're humanoid, can communicate, have 1 HD ... should be treated normally, with Hit Dice appropriate to their class."

Now we have to start getting creative. These are for all intents and purposes NPCs. Do I give them player character classes or give them NPC classes? 

And should I go all entropic and break the universe?

Meaning, should I have half-orcs be part of my world of Mystara? 

Hell, yeah! So, how much? Oracle time. 60%  Well, on my oracle that's a "yes, but", so it's not going to be as common as say old school Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk.  One in one hundred? 04% = No, Critical. One in one thousand? 93% = Yes, And I'll stop there. 

So are any of these orcs half-orcs? Might make sense given the already determined animosity. 964, 790, 144, 431, 258, and 421. No half orcs in the raiding party.

Character names were generated by plugging example names from GAZ10 into the donjon Markov Name Generator.

Alignments were rolled on 2d6 for each axis of the standard alignment system. It was assumed male dominated warfare and raiding, particularly in light of the pre-established and resented hierarchy, so character sex was determined as 1-5 male and 6 female on ad6.

The preferred character class according to Monster is Barbarian. So oracle time. If I get any sort of "Yes", then they are Barbarian class. No, But = Fighter, No = Ranger, No, And = Warrior, No, Critical then Adept.

For day 14 of #CharacterCreationChallenge 2025 we'll meet Untha, the orc ranger.

Characters

  1. Untha, Female Orc, Chaotic Good, Ranger
  2. Ongaar, Male Orc, Neutral Evil, Barbarian
  3. Roark, Male Orc, Lawful Good, Fighter
  4. Sora, Female Orc, Lawful Evil, Figher
  5. Tararg, Male Orc, Chaotic Good, Barbarian 
  6. Morguu, Male Orc, Lawful Good, Barbarian

Untha

Class: Ranger

Alignment: Chaotic Good

Religion: Brunic shamanism chaos mystery cult

Characteristics

  • Strength: 15
  • Dexterity:  17
  • Constitution:  18
  • Intelligence:  10
  • Wisdom: 10
  • Charisma: 10

Combat:

  • Initiative: +3
  • Base Attack Bonus: +1
  • Melee Bonus: 1 + 2 = +3
  • Ranged Bonus: 1 + 3 = +4
  • Armour Class: 10 w/ Hide (+3) = 13
  • Hit Points: 12

Saving Throws:

  • Fortitude: 2 + 4 = +6
  • Reflex: 2 + 3 = +5
  • Will: 0 + 0  = ±0

Coin:

  • None. Everything was taken by the horde leaders

Skills:

  • climb 2 + 2 = 4
  • craft 2 + 0 = 2
  • handle animal 1 + -1 = 0
  • heal 1 + 0 = 1
  • hide 1 + 3 = 4
  • jump 1 + 2 = 3
  • knowledge dungeoneering 2 + 0 = 2
  • knowledge geography 2 + 0 = 2
  • knowledge nature 2 + 0 = 2
  • listen 2 + 0 = 2
  • move silently 2 + 3 = 5
  • spot 2 + 0 = 2
  • survival 2 + 0 = 2
  • swim 2 + 2 = 4

Equipment:

  • Hide Armour
  • Backpack
  • Light Mace
  • 3x Large Sacks (for raiding loot)
  • Shortbow 

Feats & Special Abilities:

  • Armour Proficiency Light
  • Martial Weapon Proficiency
  • Shield Proficiency
  • Simple Weapon Proficiency
  • Favoured enemy
  • Track 
  • Wild Empathy
  • Darkvision 60'
  • Light Sensitive (-1 in bright sunlight)

Languages: 

  • Common Orc (Eastern Brun common gobliny)
  • Common Human (Eastern Brun common Thyatian)

Story:

Untha is one of six orcs who were until recently under the brutal command of Eloog, the most minor of their hated horde leader K'blar's lieutenants. 

She doesn't like the idea of allying with a human, but since none of the goblins or kobolds will stand up to K'blar, enough orcs are content believing it's just their lot in life, and the gnolls, ogres, and hobgoblins are either not afflicted or profit from the regime.

What's far worse is this ranger is allied with ... elves. 

Besides, no one thought this through. It was all spur of the moment. 

What's the plan? There is no plan. 

Untha thinks it might have been better to let Ongar and Sora kill him. They could have gone back to the horde and explain Eloog had been slain but avenged. 

Commentary:

I might put the other orcs up later. If I'm not too bored making more orcs. 



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