Welcome wizened wanderers! This week brings with it a new season and a new article about orcish invaders from the outlands! Below you'll find a gigantic D100 table filled with all kinds of reasons for your next band of monstrous humanoids to come along and attack the PC's home turf. Use it to help generate ideas for your next adventure when you're looking for more than a just another monster attack. Once you've got those orcs sorted, try out last week's article on magical weather phenomena that you can throw at your players. If you like this article, try reading this D66 table of forest encounters to spice up the rest of your campaign.
Why Is The Orc Tribe Attacking Our Village?
A vast horde of orcs sweeping over meager village walls, burning houses, killing townsfolk, looting all that can be taken - this is what often comes to mind when we think about orcs in our fantasy RPGs. Orcs are a classic fantasy monster race, invented by Tolkien and solidified into pop culture by Gygax and Arneson’s inclusion of the monster in their original game. A raid by a savage host of orcs can be a true challenge for a low- to mid-level party. Beyond the challenge though, what drives the story of your orcish monsters? It’s all well and good to want to include orcs in a campaign, but beyond a few random encounter rolls, what else can you really do with them? Below is a table you can use to generate an overarching reason for your orcs to be attacking the PC’s place of residence. The table is framed as an attack on the PC’s village but can easily be adapted to suit other locations and monstrous humanoids as well.
D100 |
Why are the Orcs
Attacking our Village? |
1 |
They seek a scroll that bears the
oldest version of the orcish creation myth on it, a sacred relic. It was stolen
from them by the village burgomaster’s men for his personal collection. |
2-3 |
They seek an ancient brazier of fire
elemental summoning that their shaman had a prophetic dream about. It is in
the possession of the town’s fussy sorcerer, though they haven’t figured out
yet how to use it. The orcs seek to use the brazier to enact revenge on the
local human duchy. |
4 |
They seek the ancestral sword of a legendary
orcish warlord (Sword +1, +3 against magic users. Once a day may cast
Darkness centered on the sword) that was stolen from them by the secretly
evil, dashing town blacksmith. The smith is planning on replicating the
powerful weapon for his henchmen. |
5-6 |
They seek an ornately carved stone
idol roughly the size of a human head that they worship as their god. The
orcs were tricked into believing the village’s guard captain stole it, when
in truth it was a chaotic magic user who took it in order to drive the orcs away
from their land so that magic user could search for a fabled lost dungeon in
the area. |
7 |
They seek the gold and silver
headdress of a legendary orcish king. The headdress was pilfered from them by
a foreign scholar who passed back through the village not two days ago. |
8-10 |
They seek the ancient battle standard
of a legendary orcish queen that was stolen away from them by a local minor
nobleman’s son. The idiotic aristocrat thought it would grant him some amount
of cache back at court. |
11-12 |
The village’s rich burgomaster sold
the orcs’ spoiled supplies and now they want revenge. |
13-14 |
The village’s guard captain arrested
and publicly whipped a number of orcs who came to the village to trade after
they got into a drunken brawl with some locals. The townsfolk involved were
let go without consequences and now the orcs want retribution. |
15-17 |
The runoff from the village’s tannery
has polluted and fouled the downstream water supply that the orcs rely on and
now they seek justice. |
18-20 |
A local group of adventurers leaving
from the village attacked and killed a group of local orcs that they had come
upon, including women and children. The orcs want revenge for this heinous
act and hold the village responsible. |
21-22 |
The orcs were fooled into thinking the
villagers had attacked them and carried off their children. In truth a necromancer
and his small host of undead servants carried out this dastardly deed so that
he may reap the bodies of the dead that will surely follow for his
“research”. |
23-24 |
The orcs were shown illusions of their
gods commanding them to attack the village. In truth, it was a small cadre of
evil magic users who were looking to syphon geomantic energies from the
region and wanted the two groups to be
too distracted with each other to notice or interfere. |
25-26 |
The orcs have been fooled into
thinking that the elemental creatures that have been attacking their people
of late were under the control of the village’s fussy sorcerer. In actuality
they are being manipulated by an outpost of dark elves who seek to disrupt
the surface world in preparation for their pending conquest. |
27 |
They were commanded by their god
Leegrak the Farseeing to attack the village and to ritually blind the
residents in tribute. |
28 |
They were commanded by their god
Fer’Goraz the Oathbinder to attack the village and cut off the right hand of
every able-bodied adult so that they may fulfill an ancient prophecy. |
29-30 |
They were commanded by their gods the
Blood Sisters to attack the village and fill a massive copper cauldron with
the villagers’ blood so that the Sisters may use the ritual to regain
physical form. |
31 |
They were commanded by their god Rhugo
Blacksky to throw the village’s babies into a massive pyre in order to honor
him and avoid his ire. |
32 |
Their leader is being ensorcelled and
commanded to attack the village by his dark elf consort who secretly works
for the local dark elf underkingdom. The consort aims to use the orcs to
fight the surface world on his behalf. |
33-34 |
Their leader is being ensorcelled and
commanded to attack the village by a demon who wish to see as much blood shed
as possible for his own dark amusement. |
35-37 |
Their leader is being ensorcelled and
commanded to attack by an ancient but recently reawakened vampire who wants
to use the orcs to enact revenge for a centuries-old grudge he has against
the region’s human population. |
38-39 |
Their leader is being ensorcelled and
commanded to attack by a bored and mischievous arch-fey who has fallen into
this world and grown bored with it after centuries of being unable to leave. |
40-42 |
Their leader is being ensorcelled and
commanded to attack by the leader’s brother and rival. The rival brother has
sold his soul to dark powers to gain the magic to entrap his sibling’s mind.
He now commands the orcs to attack so that he may spread his own glory far
and wide. |
43-44 |
They are being driven from their
ancestral lands by an evil kingdom nearby which wishes to expand their
territory into the marches the orcs call home. |
45-46 |
They are being driven from their
ancestral lands by an expansionist tribe of gnolls who seek new lands to
plunder and terrorize. |
47-49 |
They are being driven from their
ancestral lands by a growing fungal infection that brings with it tribes of
sentient mushroom folk and other fungal terrors. |
50-51 |
They are being driven from their
ancestral lands by a plague of undead who have risen up throughout the marches
that the orcs call home and now seek
mortal life to extinguish. |
52 |
They are being driven from their
ancestral lands by an ever-expanding underground kingdom of dark elves who
send waves of spider-like horrors to attack them. |
53-55 |
They are being driven from their
ancestral lands by a dragon who has recently migrated to the region from far
away. |
56 |
They seek to enslave the villagers so
that they can be used to build a fortress for the orcs to live in. |
57 |
They seek to enslave the villagers and
sell them to slave markets in the nearby evil kingdom that borders this
region. |
58-59 |
They seek to enslave the villagers in
order to use them to build a vast tomb complex for their orcish
sorcerer-king. |
60 |
They are being paid to raid by a rival
human town that wants to become the dominant economic center in the
area. |
61 |
They are being paid to raid the
village by a rival kingdom in order to destabilize the region and weaken
their enemies for eventual invasion. |
62 |
They are being paid to raid the
village by a local bandit king who wants the locals to be so afraid of the
orcs that they flock to him for protection. |
63-64 |
They are being paid to raid the
village by a decrepit necromancer who wishes to harvest the souls of the dead
to use to revitalize his physical body. |
65-67 |
They are being paid to raid the
village by a secret society of scholars who wish to drive people away from
their secret library that lies within a few day’s march from the village. The
scholars horde knowledge jealously and have told the orcs little of their
actual plan. |
68-70 |
They are being paid to raid the
village by the town’s priest (in actuality, a con man masquerading as a
priest) who has been prophesying
danger to the town for the last six months and has paid the orcs to be that
danger so that the priest may convince the villagers to rely on him for
guidance and protection. |
71 |
The entire orc tribe is under the
magical influence of a vain and selfish lamia who wants the villagers for
food. |
72 |
The entire tribe is under the magical
influence of a powerful elven enchanter who wants the valley that the village
sits in for themselves. |
73 |
The entire tribe is under the magical
influence of mischievous satyr who is using the orcs to attack the villagers
because he is bored. |
74 |
The entire tribe is under the magical
influence of an ancient dryad who wishes to see the villagers driven away so
that they no longer threaten the dryad and their trees. |
75-76 |
The entire tribe is under the magical
influence of a chaotic trickster god who wishes to see more mayhem and chaos
in the world. |
77-79 |
They have been forced into attacking
the village by an ancient dragon that covets the village’s gold. If the orcs
don’t carry away all the village’s wealth, their children will be devoured by
the fearsome monster. |
80 |
They have been forced into attacking
the village on behalf of a powerful cult of necromancers who seek more bodies
for their craft. If the orcs fail, they will kill the tribe’s leaders and use
them instead. |
81 |
They have been forced into attacking
the village by a group of hill giants who have threatened to take all the
orcs’ food if they don’t raid the village for them instead. |
82-83 |
They have been forced into attacking
the village by a powerful demon that has recently been set free. The demon
seeks souls to feast upon and will devour the tribe if they do not bring him
villagers to appease his hunger. |
84-85 |
They have been forced into attacking
the village by a local lord who wants rights to the land and is trying to
drive the villagers away so that he can press his claim to the king. The lord
has kidnapped the orcs’ children and holds them hostage until the orcs carry
out his dirty plan. |
86 |
They seek a wand of fireballs (four
charges left) that has been hidden within the walls of the village’s tavern
by the innkeeper’s magic user brother. The orcs’ leader was told of this by
the brother’s duplicitous associate. |
87 |
They seek a silver medallion shaped
like a monstrous eye with an iris of obsidian. It is in truth a medallion of
ESP 30 feet and the personal property of a vanquished orcish king. An orcish
trader saw it upon the softspoken tavern keeper’s chest the last time he was
in town and now the orcs want this relic back. It has been in the tavern
keeper’s family for the last four generations. |
88 |
They seek the enchanted hammer of the dwarven
hero Glint Feldsparr (war hammer +2, glows a deep purple within 30 feet of an
invisible or ethereal creature.) who left it in the village a generation ago
and never returned. The orcs seek the hammer to protect themselves against
the ghosts that haunt the entrance to a nearby dungeon they wish to plunder. |
89 |
The orcs wish to expand their current
territory so that they may rule over the village and take regular tribute
from it. |
90 |
The orcs wish to expand their current
territory to take advantage of the rich and fertile farmland the village has
access to. |
91-92 |
The orcs wish to expand their current
territory to reclaim the old borders of a legendary orcish kingdom that used
to occupy the area centuries ago. |
93 |
They wish to expand their ruling
territories in order to seek political recognition from a bordering human
nation. |
94 |
The orcs seek to expand their
territory in order to fulfill their shaman’s vision of a homeland for all
orc-kind. |
95 |
The orcs seek to expand their
territory and conquer the entire region for themselves in order to vanquish
the worship of the humans’ gods. |
96-97 |
The orcs have been driven mad by the
corrupting energies of a forgotten shrine to chaos that remains hidden in the
wilderness near the village. |
98-99 |
The orcs have been driven mad by the
corrupting energies of a broken fey artifact that is now starting to leak
nightmares directly into the campaign world. |
100 |
The orcs have had their minds replaced
by the tattered minds of ancient mages who were once trapped within a device
in a nearby dungeon as punishment. After activating the magical machine the
orcs had their minds swapped with the ancient magi who seek to destroy the
world for what was done to them. |
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