You can be forgiven for thinking that OD&D is a medieval European fantasy game. After all, Gary Gygax himself says so. He describes the original D&D books as “Rules for Fantastic Medi…
Orcs in Tolkien’s work were rather a stand in for German soldiers since he fought them in WW1. Gygax simply sourced monsters from everywhere. Only later they became elevated to sentient beings and a playable race… uh… species now (D&D 2024).
@sirblastalot @Ziggurat And it’s pretty clear that orcs and goblins and such started out as the stand-ins for those Natives.
Orcs in Tolkien’s work were rather a stand in for German soldiers since he fought them in WW1. Gygax simply sourced monsters from everywhere. Only later they became elevated to sentient beings and a playable race… uh… species now (D&D 2024).