Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Speculation on what Races and Classes might be announced at Panel From Hell

While this video is focused on the Pathfinder setting the first 13 minutes covers Orcs from Pre-Tolkein, Tolkein's orcs and how they came into DnD. I really enjoyed it.



I really, really dislike the Warcraft-ization of Orcs. I liked it better when orcs were more like BG3 Gnolls - evil, brutal, savage monsters that blocked the path of the heroes. Warcraft orcs are really just a collections of stereotype of "savage" peoples. Ironically 6e DnD is trying to get away from racist tropes but it taking an approach that will simply bring orcs more in line with colonial sterotypes of indigenous peoples - which is what happened in the Pathfinder setting.

Just say no to warfcraft Orcs - I don't care if orcs have pig faces or angry gorilla faces but make them evil and as unlike any human population as possible.

I admit ... i fail to see difference.
I mean, Orcs in Warcraft were also quite evil, brutal and savage ... just not in main story in W3 (and on) since, their leader was not an Orc but Big Green Human (Thrall).

I think the video covers this. They were freed from the inherent, demonic bloodlust and became greenskinned humans - so now you are telling stories about greenskinned humans with savage ways.

Oh you mean this ...
Well, i dont remember but i believe there still is some clan that is just as bloodthirsty as they were during first war ... Blackrock maybe? Not sure.
And ofc, there is Garosh. <3

But yeah, i know what you say ...
Personaly i blame common Blizzard urge to make everyone likeable by general audience ...
Its kinda sad really, today every vilain have to be "missuderstanded" or "manipulated by someone" ... you rarely see someone who is just asshole theese days.

Agreed 🙂

Sometimes it's nice to leave the real world and confront "real" evil.

" You will fall by my hand! "

There is still demons, devils, mindflayers, Beholders, most kinds of Undead, Yugoloths, Succubi/Incubi, etc...

Uh yes, absolutely. For one, orcs were in the settign from the beginning, so their introduction wasn't tied to a catostrophic event that completely rewrote the setting. They also had a lot more writing and worldbuilding put into them compared to the reptiles.

I honestly have no idea what you are trying to imply here.

But to put it nice and short, I don't like them because:

1) They stick out like a sore thumb just about anywhere in the realms.
2) They are overused instead of being used sparingly.
3) Their worldbuilding/lore is poor. Again, discount draconians.
4) Their introduction was poor. The Spellplague etc.
5) They would be a better fit for another setting.
6) The 3e Dragonborn were more interesting.

This might be derailing the thread at this point though the way this exchange is expanding, so perhaps we might take it to PMs if you want to continue to discuss this?[/quote]

The only three MtG races covered in the hard cover that don't exist in D&D/FR multiverse are Leonin, Veldkyn, and Simic Hyrid. Leonin have one exception in Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms, a Leonin from Theros does show up. Loxodons from Guildmasters Guide to Ravnica actually have a Forgotten Realms equivilant Loxo, so I count them as D&D race as well.

Also a easy to miss thing in the MtG D&D books is that the assumption is that these settings in those books are actually set in the D&D multiverse, not the Blind Eternities. Its weakest in Guildmasters Guide to Ravnica, although there, but Theros is straight up mentioned as a Material Plane world, with the Nyx and Underworld being seperate planes (in MtG they aren't seperate Planes), etc..., its even more blatant in Strixhaven: Cirrculum of Chaos which has Tieflings, Dragonborn, Genasi, Slaads, Halflings, Fleshy Gnomes (MtG gnomes are almost allows artifact creatures), etc...,

And Theros style Naiads appear in Candlekeep Mysteries in FR.

Also WotC put out a free adventure in FR where the main villian is descended from Ravnicans.

Your quotes makes me quite confused ... especialy since you quoted exactly this on previous page aswell.
To whom you are responding?

I finally found some time to watch this vid. Very interesting and thank you for sharing!

I do have sympathy with your take on Warcraft orcs, though personally I'd be really disappointed if Larian and WotC remained stuck in the old days of orcs as straightforwardly evil and brutal as I would find it a bit uninteresting, easy and frankly creatively lazy. I think it would be doing a disservice to the potential richness of the FR setting not to be constantly interrogating, evolving, challenging and recontextualising it. I'm almost always going to vote for change and artistic risk, even at the expense of cock-ups and course corrections, over stagnation. That said, I agree that if the way you develop orcs is by leaning into clunky stereotypes of "noble savages" and cultural appropriation from real world peoples then that is likely to be patronising and problematic, and more likely to slip into racism than boring old evil orcs. Especially if you're "taking inspiration" from more recent or even current times, though I reckon you might be able to get away with it if your influences are more obviously from early or pre-history.

So while I'm happy to say no to Warcraft orcs for the Forgotten Realms (insofar as I understand what that means given the last Warcraft game I played was Warcraft II!), I still hope for new and interesting takes on the race in the Forgotten Realms and I think there's absolutely the potential for that. My expectations for Larian and BG3 are perhaps unreasonably high just because I think their goblins are such a triumph. They are hilarious, and awful, and compelling, and lay painfully bare the limitations of some of my most deeply held moral and political beliefs just by being what they are. Perfect!

Eh, the thing about orcs in Forgotten Realms, is that WoTC went through an almost regressive phase sometime around 3-4th edition. There *were* good 'civilized' orcs in the setting prior. Hell, there were agrarian pacifist orcs. Off in Thesk IIRC is one such place you can find less 'problematic' orcs. Like a lot of things that over the years have been retconned, abandoned and sidelined, that nuance has been lost.

Would love to see Larian reference some of that old lore and put in one of those orcs. Or at least distinguish mountain and grey orcs if/when we see them.

Indeed? As well as continuing to evolve lore, I'm also a fan of mining its history and referencing/resurrecting elements that might have been lost or sidelined but have potential to help tell interesting stories now, and that does sound like a fun opportunity. Even if it would go over the head of someone like me who is only an occasional visitor to the setting, drawing on its past to help shape its future like that would be a nice reward for those who know it better.

But apologies, everyone, I realise that this orc talk is a digression from the topic of the thread, so even though I think it's interesting I'll stop now!

I'm hyped for duergar and half-orc reveal.
I am also hyped for monk, because so few games do monks well, and I think Larian can get it done.
What would make me REALLY happy though is if aasimar was confirmed as well. I think tieflings are hilariously overrepresented in D&D lately and it's just tiresome, I will take even "boring" shiny humans, just give me something that doesn't have horns and tails.
When it comes to the beast races I gotta say, I am thoroughly disappointed how much attention dragonborn receive and how little attention lirazdfolk get in comparison. Lizardfolk have been with us pretty much since the beginning, while dragonborn were just literally made up not even a decade ago. Lizardfolk have this rather detailed and rich background and it's WAAAAAY more interesting then anything that dragonborn could ever aspire to. They also have this very weird, savage and yet cold mindset making them a real contrast to your standard humanoid. Dragonborn are basically just scaly humans with weird heads. They are also rather cringe-inducingly forced into the setting.

I am personally offended by the fact that Lizardfolk are not playable but the cringe dragonborn are.
Sorry I just really had to put this out here.

According to data from DND Beyond, Dragonborn were the third most played race among users of the site in 2020.

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it! And I appreciate the fantastic reply even if we (partially) disagree. For me if you eliminate the 3.5 supernatural reason for goblins or orcs to be awful, stupid and inferior it's really difficult not to tell stories about real world people.

For them to work as "monsters" they have to awful in some way. That can be because their culture is not as advanced as ours or it can be because biologically their brains can't process morality or because an evil god has enslaved their soul and forces them to be awful. Of those, only the last seems sufficiently distanced from ideas that circulate in the real world.

While I partially agree with your point that the realms needs to be "constantly interrogating, evolving, challenging and recontextualising" it doesn't take into the account that the realms is "recovering, repairing and healing". I want to move away from the evolution metaphor and instead liken to realms to a train crash. 4e was a a train crash, the second sundering was attempt to right the rails but the repair job is incomplete and WotC is trying to move the train down tracks that aren't fit for purpose.


True, yes. Although I think we are about 5 years away from a romanceable zombie companion
(which DOS2 sorta, kinda did already) Might also mention that WOTR has a good, romanceable succubus . . .

I think of this as the Star Trek cycle. TNG starts out deciding to humanize the Klingons. "The Klingons aren't bad, they are misunderstood" And this is interesting and fun and the TNG Klingons are infinitely more interesting than ones in the original Star Trek series. And then the writers realize that they still need a BBEG -- so they invent the Borg. And the Borg are amazing because they break the de facto rules of TNG, i.e., any conflict can resolved through negotiation. And then they decide to humanize the Borg, give the Borg a queen, introduce a Borg character and suddenly the Borg become less interesting. And so the "devs" decide they need to have multiple spinoffs with BBEGs - one series goes back in time to when the Klingons were still the bad guys, another deals with space nazis (looking at you Cardasians) and still another takes place inside a collapsed federation.

The point of that wall of text is that any attempt to humanize fantasy monsters start a kitchen timer. Once it dings the story possibilities of a misunderstood people are exhausted a new big bad will be introduced.

Now, having said all that I think BG3 is doing a better job with goblins than Solasta did with orcs - the later of which did, unfortunately, fall out of the Warcraft mold. Larian should just tell WotC "we're implementing alignment, deal with it"

Don't forget Dragon Commander

But there are two types of orcs in Forgotten Realms, - the “ancient” pigfaced vermin-like orcs that were brought to Toril by Gruumsh to eradicate elves, they’re irredeemably evil and destructive.

And then there are “grey orcs” that have something to do with Mulhorand iirc.. they were brought to Toril around 3000 years ago and are reasonable, shamanistic people, akin to Warcraft orcs. Not evil, but neutral, altho nomadic and warlike.

But in my opinion, I’d like it more if all orcs were reminiscent to Warcraft orcs - smart, having honour, culture, their own history and reasons for war beyond just stupid chaos and destruction. Right now orcs are like flees or cockroaches, represented as soulless vermin to be killed without mercy or doubt. We have enough of monsters like that in FR. Wouldn’t hurt to have more unique “opposing” faction.

@sozz Curse you for that image! 😉🙂 Seem to be a Larian theme.

@ladydub. Yes, you're right I vaguely remember reading that and not thinking much of it at the time - I never got into the hordeland supplements. The grey orcs seems a mistake. (although I don't see anything saying that their alignment is neutral - even if the description does indicate that they are)

There are some changes to the races in 3.5 that were regressions from 2e. The 3.5 story of the drow being the worst - in 2e the drow had obsidian skin and white hair because of their long exposure to faerzress, in 3.5 the coloration of the drow was the result of curse cast upon them by the good gods 😬🤢 The 2e story was and is the best.

Likewise it seems that grey orcs were an initial attempt to make Faerun's orcs into Warcraft orcs. To my mind if you want to have enemies who are " smart, having honour, culture, their own history and reasons for war " it sounds like you don't need orcs, humans will do - church of Bane? The Zhenatrim? The Shadovar? 3.5 thay?

I don't see chaos and destruction as stupid - I see them as the expression of divine will. It makes stories grand, it gives them a sense of metaphysical mystery. The Illiad would be a less interesting story without the gods in it - without the god you have some people going to war over an affair. Achilles was the embodiment of war. War itself; divine war. And the Trojans had frackin' Apollo on their side, how do you defeat that.

It's not that I wouldn't play a game based in Westeros with the Dothraki serving as enemies that were "smart, having honour, culture, their own history and reasons for war " but I prefer Faerun to Westeros and want it to remain a magical place where the forces of good and evil confront one another.

Wouldn't mind Tieflings as much if it wasn't a matter of overexposure (much like Dragonborn) and the 4e/5e retcon making all Tieflings have the same 'look' (horns, pointy teeth, tail etc) Tieflings reflecting a wide variety of ancestry from the lower planes was always much more creative and had a lot more story potential for both players and DMs.

And I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks Lizardfolk of the realms are much more interesting than Dragonborn. Tied into the deep history of the Forgotten Realms. I remember being a little disappointed back in the day in NWN2 that we couldn't take the Lizardman companion with us further in our travels. And of course, there was Deekin from NWN1 (technically not a lizardfolk, but closer to a dragonborn). Dragonborn still don't feel like they 'belong' in the realms because they were never written to-just sorta as you say 'forced into the setting'. without much thought as to *what* they were aside from the class they were intended to exemplify and 'those popular draconians from the other IP we own'.

Monks are a class I'm definitely looking forward to seeing Larian's plans for. FR monks are interesting, because they pretty much only come in two flavors (or a combination of them) Your traditional martial artist archetype (in armed or unarmed flavors), and *assassins* (Vhaidra from the cover of Dark Alliance 2 kinda exemplifies the latter. I would assume Way of Shadow and Open Hand would be the most on-flavor options for the class. Hope those are the ones that end up in game.

Are the two ideas really mutually exclusive?

The aforementioned orcs of Thesk were IIRC Mountain Orcs with ancestry tracing back to the Ondonti, which were a culture of *pacifist* orcs that abhorred violence, that were abducted and forced to fight in the armies of the Zhentarum, and these orcs deserted the Zhents before and settling in Thesk. Orcish culture can be awful, but that doesn't mean it has to be monolithic or define what an orc is on a fundamental level.

(at least orcs are in a better place now than Gnolls are)

Anyways, Half Orcs and Monks excite me. Very curious to see how Larian implements them.

Considering that WotC recently decided that Half-Orcs are not politically correct I am not sure if they will be added.

Those are being removed for One DnD. BG3 is based on DND5e and we already have the confirmation that all PHB races are in.