Orcs: A Warning From Fantasy

Your nation and your homeland is peaceful. You and your fellow citizens have known peace for a thousand years. You have prospered and gained great knowledge, but not in the arts of war. That lacking in the arts of war is both your undoing and that of your homeland. For it is under attack. The conquering armies of Styrovites have invaded Lannia and are now sweeping across its green and pleasant land, putting all to the sword and the flame. What hope have you, if not soldiers to field in battle and to protect the innocent, than to turn to that great knowledge—of science and of magic—and seek a remedy in that? As a member of the Council of Sages you have decided that if you cannot train and field an army in time to save Lannia, then you will create an army. Through ancient sorcery and desperate science, you will create soldiers that will serve Lannia and save Lannia, capable of standing up against the barbaric hordes of the Styrovites. In so doing, you have turned to ancient myths and legends for inspiration and named your creations after a spirit who killed the wicked. That spirit was called Orcus. Thus, your super soldiers will be called Orcs, and although you do not know it, they may well be your nation’s undoing and not the Styrovites!

This is the set-up for Dawn of the Orcs, a collective storytelling game played without a Game Master. Published by Lyme and Plasmophage, it can be played solo or it can be played by as many as eight players. It is designed to be played in about two hours or less and requires a six-sided and a ten-sided die to play. The rise of the orcs, the defeat of the Styrovites, and ultimately, the fall of Lannia is told over the course of eight chapters. In the first chapter, the players, as members of the Council of Sages create the Orcs, then in subsequent chapters, they send the Orcs to war and have a chance to modify the Orcs, either to improve their prowess or curb it if a trait is proving too difficult to handle. Whilst all of the members of the Council of Sages agree on the aims of creating the Orcs and using them to defend Lannia, there is scope for betrayal—at least in terms of what the Orcs are. Lastly, although the roleplaying game does not require a Game Master, the players do take it in turn to narrate the outcome of each chapter and break any ties if disagreements about what the council should do are deadlocked.

Each player in Dawn of the Orcs roleplays a member of the Council of Sages. He does not have any stats, but does have a descriptor, an area of expertise, and a title, as well as a motivation. These can be rolled for or created by the player and provide the basis for his roleplaying. The process is simple and fast.

Title: Assistant General of the West
Motivation: Wreak terrible vengeance for all that I have suffered

The Orcs are different. They have four stats—Numbers, Loyalty, Brute, and Clever. Their creation involves deciding how they are made and how they are bound in loyalty to the Lannia. So, if they are forged from sorcery and raw materials, they gain +1 Numbers, but +1 Loyalty if any Lannian can be turned into an Orc. Similarly, if they are bound in loyalty to one person, they gain +2 Loyalty, or bound in loyalty to nothing, they gain +1 to any other stat. In each, the players decide on the answer to a prompt, such as in the case of the being forged from sorcery and raw materials, what they are made from, and if they are bound in loyalty to one person, who that is.

Orcs
Numbers -1 Loyalty 2 Brute 1 Clever 0
Only children under five can be turned into Orcs
They are loyal to the Holy Mother

In subsequent chapters, the Orcs are sent into battle. For example, the first is ‘The Slaughter of Shrike Forest’ when the Orcs strike at an encampment of Styrovites in the middle of the night. To determine if the Orcs win, the Council of Sages decides on a stratagem. This is a value equal to the combination of any two of the Orcs’ stats, to which the roll of a six-sided die is added. If it beats the target set for the battle, the Orcs are victorious. At the end of the battle, the Orcs Warp and almost bodily learn from the conflict, as if in constant flux through the stress of combat. For example, the Orcs might learn to fly into a battle rage and gain +1 Brute or gain the ability to see at night and +1 Clever. The Orcs gain more of these Warps from victory than from defeat. In the aftermath of the battle, the Council of Sages can Shift the Orcs, each Shift granting a benefit as well as a penalty. For example, the Council of Sages could decide to educate the Orcs which means that they gain +1 Clever and suffer -1 Loyalty. The Council of Sages can choose as many or as few Shifts as it once, but they do balance each other out and they may also be cancelled if a Sage decides to betray the council to change a decision. Each Sage only gets to betray the council once.

The play of the game revolves around selecting the right stratagem—the combination of two stats—to add to the roll to defeat the enemy and win or lose each battle, and decide on what stats to improve afterwards. The catch is that once a combination has been used, whether that is Clever plus Numbers or Loyalty plus Brute, it cannot be used again. So, the players also need to improve as many stats as they can to defeat the invaders rather than focus on the one stat, since it can only be used a limited number of times. At the end of each chapter, the narrator will tell the story of what happened, whether the Orcs were defeated or triumphed.

After five chapters, which will see the Orcs fight the Styrovites again and again, eventually invading the Styrovite heartlands, the Orcs are no longer wanted in Lannia and no longer want to serve Lannia. They mutiny. The members of the Council of Sages can side with Lannia or with the Orcs and the outcome of the mutiny decided on the highest roll of the two factions. There are multiple outcomes for the result, depending upon whether the mutiny was successful and what the highest Orc stat is. For example, if the Orc mutiny is a success and Clever is their highest stat, they overthrow the government of Lannia, but if a failure and their highest stat is Clever, they form nomadic bands which serve as mercenaries. Each of the possible outcomes is accompanied by a narrative prompt.

Although there are eight different outcomes at the end of Dawn of the Orcs, there is limited variation in terms of the battles fought. To that end, Dawn of the Orcs includes four bonus chapters that can randomly replace the middle chapters of the campaign against the Styrovites. This adds further variety and replayability beyond the first few playthroughs of Dawn of the Orcs. The roleplaying game does include forms that the players can use in chapter, but they are not absolutely required to play.

Physically, Dawn of the Orcs is a short, clean and tidy book. It is easy to read and the artwork is decent. The forms for the game are slightly tight in their layout.

Dawn of the Orcs is a dark fantasy roleplaying game that tells the story of the desperate defence of a country and its possible victory and potential fall. The clarity of writing means that it is easy to pick up and play, and in fact, anyone with roleplaying experience will be able to play this from the page. The familiarity of the theme—a country in peril turning to desperate measures and the creation of Orcs as effectively, super soldiers—contributes to that ease of play, that theme almost being a twisted version of Saruman creating his army of Uruk-hai in The Lord of the Rings. To the point that the non-gamers will find it as easy to play as veteran gamers. Lastly, its size and brevity means that Dawn of the Orcs is easy to carry and play almost anywhere. Dawn of the Orcs is a very accessible and very easy to play storytelling game that needs no preparation and has a story that everyone can grasp.