Into the Orc War Camp

Nomadic, opportunistic and savage orcs quickly take over a suitable camp, village or cave before turning it into a shoddy yet defensible home.

Outside the Lair

Use this list, to determine what the characters find as they approach the lair.

The stink of rotting meat and smoke mixes with that of excrement, and grows stronger the closer intruders get to the orcs’ camp.
Vegetation in the area is trampled and dead, apart from dense stands of thorns and foul-smelling fungus.
A stream passing through the camp is polluted with blood and excrement. It flows down a narrow defile and out into the wilds. This is the only nearby water supply.
Ramshackle platforms serving as watchtowers hang from trees or alongside the path.

Use this list, to determine what is happening at the lair, when the characters arrive.

Two young orc guards jump up and down excitedly, while pointing in a random direction.
A prisoner is dragged from an iron cage and beaten in front of the clan, to the great delight of the watchers.
Guards coming off duty settle down and fall asleep near their posts in rough hide-covered lean-tos.
An orc patrol leaves the camp to hunt and forage.

Use this list, to determine the lair’s major feature(s). These features are obvious to the characters.

A stake-adorned stone tower has shoddy tree trunk gates and a spiked palisade.
A large section of crumbling and waterlogged stone wall has rotted. The orcs have prepared the area ready to collapse the wall onto invaders.
Every ten feet or so, a metal spike or spear impales the rotting body of a human warrior to the fence.
Sharp stakes and rotting bodies fill an incomplete ditch surrounding the wooden walls. Several lazy orcs work on the ditch, but aren’t making much progress.

Use this list, to determine the lair’s minor feature(s). These features may, or may not, be obvious, to the characters.

An old rusty plough now serves as a crude but lethal swinging blade trap.
Stacks of heavy barbed spears stand around the camp ready for instant use.
Skulls of a certain animal—foxes, bears or wolves—are displayed as trophies throughout the camp. Maybe the animal is sacred to the tribe?
Hidden away between two huts is the skeleton of a child—an escaped and forgotten prisoner who starved to death while hiding from her captors.

Use this list, to generate an orc’s general appearance and other characteristics.

White mottled skin mars the face of this ancient orc; his weapons and armour remain deadly and functional despite clear evidence of years of use.
This orc has hundreds of drilled teeth and finger bones enmeshed in the tangled plaits of her dyed red hair. They clash together as she moves.
Red piggy eyes stare out from the black wolfskin hood of this hunched, leather-clad orc.
Claw marks from many fights scar the face and body of this burly female orc warrior.

Use this list, to add items of value to the orcs’ hoard; determine the value of each item to suit your campaign.

This over-sized meat cleaver hangs from a thick leather thong. The orcs believe the cleaver is possessed by the spirit of a berserk warrior, and revere the weapon as a tribal relic.
Blackened and rusted, this suit of heavy plate armour has been worn by orc chiefs for many years.
Strings of finger bones are plaited around the haft of this bloodstained morningstar.
A thick strip of black wolf hair decorates this black metal helm which has images of leaping wolves chased into its cheek guards.

Use this list, to add items of interest, but little value, to the orcs’ hoard.

Skulls and clay pots contain thick smelly paints. The orcs use the paint to tattoo themselves, despite the infections inevitably ensuing.
This string of severed ears is eight-foot long. One contains a copper earring that belonged to someone the party knew.
A sallet helm rest upside down on a shelf. Several cracked eggs and a dead bird lie within.
A collection of badges and signs of office are stashed in a leather pouch hanging from a wide, leather belt.

This is an extract from Monstrous Lair #47: Orc War Camp, a System Neutral resource by Steve Hood.