OTHER IMAGES:    orc (A) / (B-higher res)    half-orc guard at Citadel of Zork #1 (A) / (B) / (C)    half-orc guard at Citadel of Zork #2 (A)    half-orc leader at Citadel of Zork (A) / (B)

ORC

Once a fearsome race of warriors, the Orcs were civilized by their fondness for magically-created computerized adventure games. Although a small segment (the Hi-Res Orcs) enjoy graphic adventures, the vast majority (the Orcs of Zork) prefer interactive fiction. In the reflected light of a CRT screen, Orcs appears to be red and gray and purple and gray and red.

In the years prior to the fall of the Empire in 883 GUE, much of the Aragain Province had been abandoned in fear of the Curse of Megaboz. Thus massive hordes of orcs and other creatures which had once been held back, freely poured over the Gray Mountains and the Flathead Mountains unchecked into the civilizated provinces. After the collapse of the Empire, the armies beneath Syovar were successful in driving most of them out of the lands, but the threat of the Nemesis in the mid-tenth century saw the return of orcish raiders who burned entire villages and their inhabitants.

Like most races of the Supernatural and Fantastic Wayfarers Association, orcs were virtually purged from all civilizated regions during the days of the Second Inquisition (in the first half of the eleventh century).

The Third Age of Magic (1247-1647) saw a rise of a new breed of orcs, which were a result of crossing breeding with humans. Many of these half-orcs were recruited into the army of Morphius, becoming the guardians of his Citadel.

In the 1600s, the Poodle Guild spread the word that pure Hellhounds could now become invisible and the only warning one had of an imminent attack was the sound of their bark. Only orcs were so gullible to believe that kind of nonsense, and many orcs, including the half-orcs guarding the Citadel of Zork, were fooled by a combination of an invisibility potion and the recording of a hellhound's bark.