Thread: Sarumans Orcs
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Old 12-17-2002, 01:13 AM   #24
Man-of-the-Wold
Wight
 
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: With Tux, dread poodle of Pinnath Galin
Posts: 239
Man-of-the-Wold has just left Hobbiton.
Sting

Harken to Tar Elenion for he is steeped in lore of the Enemy's multitude of foul servants.

Again, I think it is helpful to remember that we really cannot have a very precise knowledge of Orcs. They didn't socialize with decent folk much, Morgoth & Sauron's memoirs have been held up in litigation for years, and Orcology was not a recognized science in Middle-Earth until well into the Fourth Age.

Suffice it to say that by mixing mutilated Elven bodies and demonic energy Morgoth bred a race that appeared as the Glamhoth. A mysterious set of creatures of great variety and possible admixtures with other peoples or creatures.

They remained for the most part strong limbed, enduring and quick, but small and stunted compared to Men and Elves, and unable to endure strong sunlight and other pleasant things. But the Dark Powers could breed them in enormous numbers, even if great warriors could mow them like grass, and so, alone they could not win battles for Morgoth and Sauron, without the aid of Dragons, Balrogs and evil armies of Men.

But there was diversity, celebrate it, and some Orcs could live in different places better than others, and had different features and statures. Goblin and Orc are interchangeable terms but perhaps more properly applied to certain subsets. Some Orcs were big, and may have been known as Hobgoblins. Probably for some time in the Second Age Sauron had tried to create uniform groups of large, sunlight-resistent Orcs, and the Uruks, Shagrat and Gorbag may be so old, but it was not until the latter part of the Third Age that large numbers of these special Orcs were created, organized and recognized by the Free Peoples, as such, first, issuing from Minas Morgul and Dol Guldor. Later, they were the favored recruits of Saruman, who perhaps could not control them as directly as Sauron, but had to use mercenary methods, although he perhaps bred and cultivate his own Uruk-Hai, too, ala Lurtz of the Movie.

Saruman also apparently polluted the kindred of Men with Orkishness, hence, the references to Half-Orcs, Goblin-men, and Orc-men, but there may have been such experimentation going on before, and human admixture may have contributed something to the breeding of Uruk-Hai, but I do not consider any such contribution to be primary.
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