Mor (Almish Orc)

Monstrous soldiers, made for a war that never came

Mor Heritage Traits

Except as specified below, game mechanics for the mor are identical to the half-orc race detailed in the D&D 4e official rulebooks. For all other mechanical purposes (including feats, paragon paths, etc.), mor is simply an alternative name for half-orc.

Ability Scores: +2 Strength, +2 Dexterity or Wisdom

Languages: Common and Pars.

Mor—also called orcs in Sylvan—are close kin to humans, and a parallel creation of the Overseers. Built for brutality and taught to be simple and bloodthirsty, it appears that they were created for a war that the Overseers considered imminent—perhaps a dispute in their own factions, perhaps a planned invasion of Alm.

The war never came, however, and so the soldiers had no purpose. Most were put to work on other labour-intensive tasks, but a significant number were deemed uncontrollable, too damaged by the violence instilled in them. These were disposed of, considered no more than a sunk cost by their masters.

Those who remained learned to wait, to still the beast, and not let the opportunity for revolution pass them by. When it came, they rose as one with their human cousins, summoning all the rage they had tempered in a task of no return. The awakened made the insurrection possible, but it was by mor blood that it was won.

Play a mor if you want…

  • To share a history of injustice and revolution.
  • To struggle with identity and purpose.
  • To hold grudges deeply and powerfully.

Physical Qualities

Mor share their general shape and most features with humans—it’s assumed that the Overseers created both from the same materials, or perhaps one as a fork of the other. On average they are taller and broader, by design tending toward thick sturdy builds and powerful musculature. Their skin is most often a warm green, though it varies with individual from blue through yellow, and both light and dark shades. As they grow, they typically develop blooms of lighter pigmentation, especially around the face.

Mor typically have eyes of red or yellow, and their ears are pointed but short. Most also have large, sharp canines, and keratinous horns that are either a pair at the temples, or singular on the centre forehead. While both fangs and horns are typically quite short, some continue to develop over their owner’s life, giving them thick tusks or fearsome spiked crowns.

Mor hair is usually fair, often white and sometimes red; most can grow a wild floor-length mane if they so desire, though they generally prefer a less inconvenient style. Many also practice tattooing or decorative scarification, traditions their forebears developed extensively while they were kept from more conventional arts.

Playing a Mor

Even moreso than humans, the mor are a people struggling for identity and purpose. Their history weighs heavily on them, and even after liberation, many felt shackled to the role of a monster created for warfare. The first free mor sought meaning wherever they might find it—art, meditation, philosophy, community, battle—which has led to a great diversity of culture in only a few generations. With this tradition of determining one’s own purpose, it’s not unusual for mor to find adventure appealing.

Of course, mor do have traditions from their slave days as well; these are all the more precious given the Overseers’ efforts to keep them from developing or sharing their own cultures. Each group of mor developed their own methods to preserve and communicate ideas that were important to them; sign languages, fables, symbols, tunes, dances. The secrets from those days—including the names they made for themselves, in the absence of anything bestowed by their creators—are held now with a deep and fierce love.

Although they were once segregated by the Overseers, insurrection brought mor and humans into a state of mutual kinship. The exception, of course, is the human supremacist theocracy of Aurion, who consider mor a lesser imitation of themselves. Most mor have a particular hatred for the church as well, remembering their willingness to treat mor as expendable troops during the revolution.

Mor are perceived as... Hardy, downtrodden, cautious, bitter, sensitive, resilient, temperamental, passionate, tragic, intuitive, aimless.

Given Names: Baku, Bedi, Dal, Dun, Faya, Godi, Gren, Han, Lot, Koh, Kol, Mona, Not, Oda, Oreh, Rath, Rill, Shev, Stal, Thero, Val, Yan

The Overseers went to considerable lengths to keep humans and mor from uniting against them, including using different languages with each. Thus, mor names are still different to human names more often than not, even though they have been shared much in the time since the exodus.

Mor names vary widely and have no consistent spelling, as they were traditionally spoken and not written. They are typically simple and short, yelled easily by whomever might avenge one’s death.

Mor Backgrounds

Nothing found.

Mor Feats

Nothing found.