User:Icebreed/Orkoids

Though scientists have tried to create their own plant-based, intelligent life forms, Orkoids are the only naturally occurring, sentient plant creatures on Earth. Tragically, this marvel of the scientific community has been anything but promising for the world as a whole. This green-skinned, tribal race rampages without reason or provocation across the lands of D'hennex like a plague, assaulting nearby civilized communities to their ultimate self-genocide. While normally this would make them an unnoticeable player in the scheme of things, Orkoids who survive many battles become phenomenally strong, and have been occasionally known to harbor unusually independent ideals, which can lead them into situations that nobody expects.

Description and Physiology

Though their exact skin tone and stature can vary quite a bit from Orkoid to Orkoid, most of them are green-skinned, extremely muscular humanoids with somewhat porcine faces (including a pair of long tusks that protrude from the mouth) and coarse, stiff hair that variably appears on the head and particular parts of the body. Their hands and feet possess four digits each, and their nails are small claws.

Similar to Nameks, Orkoids lack gender or Human-like genitalia, though their broad and sturdy structural features, as well as the depth of their voices, heavily lends them to the "male" association; most people will call an individual Orkoid a "he". Orkoids do not feed their young from their own bodies, so they lack discernable breasts, aside from the underlying musculature. Orkoids do not mate or in any other way interact with other Orkoids when they spawn young, and so lack the tender emotions and attraction commonly found in races that do.

Instead, the Orkoid back is very rough and riddled with growing pustules, which burst at random intervals, spewing spores and liquid sustenance which grow into Orkoids in a few months if they land on fertile soil.

When Orkoids are hurt, they briefly leak a gooey, bluish substance. It does not flow freely like blood typically does, even when extreme injuries are sustained. Severed arms, for example, typically have a quick, initial discharge, drip slowly for a few moments, and then largely stop flowing. Orkoids do not "bleed out" like other creatures, unless their entire body becomes perforated. Except when their trunk or head are severely damaged, Orkoids generally regenerate lost limbs and other injuries over the course of a few weeks. They do not possess the Namekian ability to simply regenerate a limb on will, however.

Society

As uncivilized as they act, Orkoids prefer their own company, and often form tribal communities based around a single, powerful, highly respected leader. Personal strength is highly revered amongst Orkoids; the strongest Orkoids draw their weaker kin to them like moths to a light. It is believed that this phenomenon is somehow psionically connected, even in Orkoids who do not have even a sliver of psionic potential in their brains. Orkoids from hundreds of miles away have been known to be drawn to the powerful, yet subtle mental signals that grow in strength as a particular Orkoid gets stronger. An Orkoid who has lived for many years and become extremely powerful can draw a swarm of hundreds of thousands of Orkoids to them, from all over the planet. Other than this simple but effective leadership position, however, Orkoids obey little other organization other than a simple respect and obedience to those who appear bigger or stronger than them.

Sometimes, especially when Orkoids have drawn into very dense concentrations, Orkoid spawn falter in development, creating short, feeble, deformed Orkoids who lack the bigger, stronger Orkoids' lust for battle. These "grups", as they're called, exist as a second-class being within the Orkoid society, and are condemned into a life of slavery and whimsical expendability. These grups tend to be notedly smarter than Orkoids, though still less bright than most Humans. As their bodies are too frail to ever host any kind of power-wielder abilities, they instead frequently busy themselves with all manner of scraps and scavenged equipment that Orkoids bring back from successful raids, adapting them and improving them for Orkoid use with a stupefying inventive instinct. Their talents are typically all that saves some of them from certain death from being living projectiles in battle, or sources of violent entertainment for the tribe. Grups are secretly very spiteful of their masters, but are inherently so very cowardly that they never act on it, and even when ordered to thrust themselves into a suicidal situation, generally apologize profusely for existing and obey without question. Grups are thought to be created when multiple Orkoids try to spawn on the same location at the same time, though this has never been confirmed; no non-ork has ever infiltrated their society well enough to find out, and Orkoids themselves don't care enough to find out.

Culture

Almost everything that an Orkoid has or does was, at some point, stolen from another race. Their skill in warfare, their bastardized form of D'hennexian Common, and anything else they choose to take up are all originally some other race's creation. Their elementary weapons were often stolen and copied. When Orkoids spawn, their offspring retain some fraction of what their parent knew, almost always entirely consisting of the basic essentials -- speech, fighting skill, and a very basic but universal understanding of how things work amongst them. More advanced functions are typically either excluded from the genesis or only mildly hinted, influencing an Orkoid to become more receptive to a particular fashion of life. Since leader Orkoids spawn more offspring than weaker Orkoids, tribes will often heavily consist of the kind of warrior that their leader is. For instance, if an Orkish chieftain is a powerful sorceror, an unusually large portion of that tribe will likely also use magic, if frequently to lesser extents.

Most people of the world consider Orkoids to be intensely evil creatures, simply by their very nature. They lack any morals whatsoever, and the chemical makeup of their anatomy causes them to receive the equivalent of a massive endorphin rush whenever they are fighting or hurting anyone or anything. In addition, where most people respond to pain with fear, shying away from harm, Orkoids actually get more excited and angry when they are hurt. Torturing an Orkoid often leads to the creature gaining unprecedented strength to free itself and kill and destroy everything around it, or otherwise drives them so rabidly insane that they actually kill themselves with their frantic flailing and hypertension. Thus, a battered army of Orkoids is only more likely to fight harder and more relentlessly than to flee. Orkoids who survive battles and become stronger are usually the rare few who can muster just enough willpower to overcome their own instincts to retreat and regroup. Orkoids do not have a "pain threshold" where they pass out after a certain level of pain is received, as many other humanoids do.

That said, Orkoids do not specifically thrive on causing pain to others -- their appearance of doing so is simply a result of their instinctual aggressiveness, and resistance to war with themselves. It is entirely possible, though extremely unlikely, for an Orkoid to serve benevolent purposes, so long as that Orkoid gets to see its share of war and battle. They make excellent mercenaries, often happily fighting for a stronger master for no pay at all.

Though their strange, psionic connection usually directs Orkoids to keep their internal squabbling to brief brawls, Orkoids ultimately have very little keeping themselves from killing one another. This sometimes causes great civil wars between rival Orkoid tribes, when their leaders vie for control over all of the Orkoids, but are of similar powers. Their contrary but equal psionic impulses polarizes Orkoids and overrides their aversion from warring with eachother. The result is a terrible, gory feud that ends in one of the leaders being vanquished, and the remainder of the Orkoids (commonly now numbering fewer than half of what either leader's Orkoids originally began at) falling in with the remaining leader. When a stronger leader vies for dominance, lesser leaders almost always bend willingly to the greater leader's power, and take up positions beneath him as lieutenants. Though the stronger leader can usually silence infighting amongst his tribe, sub-leaders of equal power sometimes squabble with other sub-leaders of their general strength, especially when the stronger leader falter in combat. This can sometimes bring an apocalyptic army of millions of Orkoids to their knees, as their once united force is suddenly preoccupied in a massive civil war. These fights can become so intense and confusing that Orkoids will forget who they are aligned to and just kill everyone and anyone around them, Orkoid or not.

Geography

Orkoid tribes are most commonly found in the jungles and forests of the various D'hennexian countries, especially central An-Yneaith and outlying parts of the Jungles of Ka. Contrary to other "Orc" concepts, Orkoids avoid mountainous areas, since the soil there is often less fertile, and there are fewer civilized communities to war against. A few tribes of Orkoids have been found in the southernmost reaches of Azshar, and most recently, there have been rumors of Cardinalian adventurers inadvertently spreading them to that northern continent. However, due to how consolidated Cardinal's population is away from the wilderness of the continent, and the specific, rare circumstances required for spores to cross continents and grow, the Orkoid presence there has been all but non-existent.