ORCS!

There's actually more features than you see here but I need to update the description. See changelogs for the most up-to-date information. There's also lots of other good info in the comments section.



It was my intent since the very start that the title of this be "ORCS!" one word, bold, all caps and with and exclamation point. You know, kind of like AIRPLANE! if you've ever seen that movie. Well nexus policy prevents me from using punctuation in my title. So that's why it has a long boring descriptive title instead. Bleh.


The Start

At some point in your travels (about level ten or so) if you are an orc, and somewhere in the southwestern region of skyrim, you'll get a quest indicating that you've sent a challenge for chiefdom to a small stronghold called Vosh Krazak, known to the Nords as bilgulch mine. A female orc playthrough has a slightly different hook, but the outcome is similar. Wait for his reply by courier. If you follow this quest (no spoilers) you'll become chief with three wives, one blood brother, two peons, and a home. The wives and blood brother are high-quality standalone followers with high res skins, good-looking face geometry, etc. Half of them even have high-poly heads, but to be honest I can barely tell the difference. Tell me if you can spot which one is which without peeking at the game files.


The Quest
Anyway. The quest is all about becoming either an orc chief or high-ranking orc-wife and as such is restricted to ORC PLAYERS ONLY for lore reasons. There is also an optional questline for female orc players to upgrade to chief if they want that role instead.

It's possible to bypass this requirement in the console if you really want, but I do not recommend this. The entire quest and plot and everything work on the assumption that you are an Orc challenging another Orc in accordance with Orc customs. None of it makes any sense if you're a poncy little elf. That said here's how you do it:

If you are not an orc and want to play the Orc-Chief story open the console and type setstage OrcWarChiefQuest 1
If you are not an orc and want to play the Orc-Wife story open the console and type setstage OrcMarryChiefQuest 1

I'm providing instructions on how to do this for those that really REALLY want to experience the content this way, but I can provide no support beyond those console commands. I will still listen to any feedback, but I cannot spend time testing and adjusting a hack. You may need to switch your race to orc using racemenu to get the quest started, but you can switch back once it triggers. There is only one check.


One other note about the quest. There is one really fun pitched battle but it is adjusted to be hard. Around level 10 is the earliest that I've allowed players to try to attempt it but the truth is that it might be too much at that level. There's minimum levels on most of the leveled enemies and on all of the bosses, so be forewarned that rushing through on a new save to see the content as soon as possible will probably make things harder. My recommendation is to install and let it play out naturally. You know -- roleplay it.



Uglaush

Tribe Position: Wise-woman.
Class: Battle-Mage
Skills: Heavy Armor, Destruction, Conjuration, and Restoration
Vendor items: Potions, Cures, Ingredients, Staffs, and Select Spells

Sloza

Tribe Position: Forge-Wife
Class: Two-Handed Orc Guard
Skills: Two-handed,  Heavy Armor, Archery, Sneak (like Borgakh, but two handed)
Vendor items: Standard Blacksmith list

Rulrza
Tribe Position: HuntsWife
Class: Ranger
Skills: Archery, One-handed, block, light armor, sneak
vendor items: Fletching, and Wild game meat

Gnob
Tribe Position: Blood-Brother or Chief depending on playthrough
Class: Barbarian
Skills: Two-handed, Light Armor, Archery, block
vendor items: Standard Blacksmith list.
 


The Stronghold

Vosh Krazak is a small stronghold, but still defensible and self-sufficient. There's a Chieftain's hut, a Wise-Woman's hut, a hunter's camp, a forge, stable, guard tower, stockade, and mine. After maxing out your recruits, you will get two additional cabins. All the NPCs that come with the mod have unique and fairly detailed AI packages and work schedules. They'll share patrol and guard duties in shifts, sleep at different times, sandbox in different areas. Some like to get up early, some like to sleep in. Some work more than others. I've tried to make them feel as lifelike as possible. I've also included a built-in feature where you can recruit all five of the vanilla orc followers and have them join your tribe. Control their sleeping arrangements and work duties. Custom packages and schedules for all of them, just like the included followers.


Resource Economy

The chief or first-wife gets a daily share of what get's dug out of the mine deposited into a barrel in the chief's hut, as well as a share of the meat and skins from hunting. Your output will increase by assigning more hunters/miners.


Growing the Tribe

There is a recruitment and re-homing mechanic for the five vanilla orc followers to have them join your stronghold. I did not include the dawnguard orc followers.

• Borgakh the Steel-Heart from Mor Khazgur
• Ugor from Largashbur
• Ghorbash the Iron-Hand from Dushnik Yal
• Lob from Largashbur
• Ogol from Largashbur
  

Conditions are slightly different depending on if you're doing a Male Chief, or Female wife playthrough. If you're female, Borgakh can be recruited immediately. If you're a male chief, she'll need more convincing before she marries into your tribe. In both playthroughs the orcs at Largashbur need you to complete their quest first. Ghorbash the Iron-Hand is always willing to join up, so long as you can convince him to follow you (persuade, bribe, or brawl)
Once recruited or married, these orcs become members of your faction and re-home at Vosh Krazak. You can give them sleeping arrangements or work assignments. Your options are

• Spend your Work-Shift on Patrol
• Spend your Work-Shift Mining
• Spend your Work-Shift Hunting
  

and

• Sleep in the Mines
• Sleep in the Hunter's Cabin
• Sleep in in the Chief's Hut
  

My home scheduling works a little bit differently from what you might be used to in NFF or MHIYH. The timing of the schedules is preset. They choose when they sleep and work (it varies somewhat between followers to keep things from being too 'synchronized') But you get to choose where they sleep and what the work is. Work shifts are between 4 and 8 hours long, and the orcs still have extensive 'relax' packages when they're not working or sleeping. I was going to include an option to clear work assignments but forgot for this version. Stay tuned for a patch. All dialogue for recruitment and assignments is fully voiced using vanilla assets. One line was spliced, the rest exist same as vanilla.

The Lore

I've tried my best to keep it lore friendly and where there were no sources or lore, I wrote things that seemed to fit. I also tried to make this a somewhat grounded and fair depiction of a tribalistic polygamist culture. It's not meant to be a waifu mod,  (though you can totally make it a waifu mod if you really want). It's supposed to be appropriate for all sorts of playstyles and all sorts of people. I've also tried to depict the women in this as having agency and strength and not just be mindless slaves. But at the end of the day, I am depicting a tribalistic polygamist society, so their social situation is still far away from what most people today consider normal. I've also tried to keep things relatively light hearted and comedic for a story about a guy that kills another guy and takes his house.


Compatibility

This makes extensive and intensive edits to the four cells that comprise the bilegulch mine location. I chose bilegulch mine because it's a poor excuse for a dungeon (in vanilla there are literally only four bandits and a boss) with only radiant quests. Pretty much nothing uses it well enough for the very nice location. But if your other mod uses bilegulch mine, chances are it's incompatible. When my quest finishes, it starts a dummy quest to reserve bilegulch mine location so that radiant quests cant use it anymore, and it also disables the leveled bandits that spawn there. There are edits to surrounding cells touching the four bilegulch cells but they're just from finalizing navmeshes and that should be harmless. I actually play with the very excellent mod Thruk'Tahar right next door and have no issues with navmeshes. If you've got interesting NPCs installed, you probably notice the bilegulch tower location next door. It's harmless and doesn't conflict.

I've just received a report of landscape issues with Creation Club house Hendraheim which is just on the other side of the mountain. I can see the problems myself in-game but not in CK, so I'll have to investigate further. I'm going to flag Hendraheim as incompatible for now. If it's possible to patch these issues, I will, but tere are other priorities right now.