Why Is The Orc Tribe Attacking Our Village?

 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. 

*Fire in a Farmhouse, Egbert van der Poel (1621–1664)

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.