Half-orc (D&D)

Half-orc
Characteristics
Alignment	Any
Type	Humanoid
Image	Wizards.com image

The half-orc is a fictional creature born to mixed orc and human parentage in the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. The half-orc is a playable race for D&D player characters. Half-orcs are typically born in wild frontiers where human and orc tribes come into contact. Half-orcs are between six and seven feet tall (180–210 cm) and usually weigh between 180 and 250 pounds (80–110 kg). This makes them less bulky and more agile than pure-bred orcs, but still taller and stronger than most humans. Half-orcs have pale green skin, jutting jaws, prominent teeth and coarse body-hair.

Half-orcs also appear in The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, as the result of crossbreeding Dunlendings with Isengard Orcs. In Tolkien's Middle-earth, the half-orcs were the creation of the wizard Saruman and bore several similarities to Sauron's Uruk-hai (greater Orcs) but were taller (man high) and appeared more man-like. There was also another type called Goblin-men which were also said to be man-high but less muscular with sallow skin (instead of black skin like the Uruk-hai) and squinty eyes; one was encountered by the hobbits at the Prancing Pony in Bree, and many others were present among Saruman's forces at the battle of Isengard. These squint eyed Southerners, as they were called by the Hobbits, were later involved in the industrialisation of the Shire overseen by Saruman and Lotho Sackville-Baggins.

Half-orcs have been a part of Dungeons & Dragons since the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. However, in second edition the half-orc was no longer a standard player character race, and half-orcs were largely removed from the basic rules, as part of a wide attempt by TSR to remove controversial topics from D&D (as part of the same move, demons and devils were renamed tanar'ri and baatezu, respectively, among other changes). With Wizards of the Coast's takeover of D&D and the release of 3rd Edition, half-orcs were reintroduced into the series. Although they did not appear in the first core rulebooks for the 4th edition of the game, they were introduced in the Players Handbook 2 released on March 17, 2009.

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