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Something's been rattling around in my head and I want it to be in your heads too! In reaction to the Movement for Black Lives, there's been a lot of talk about whether orcs in D&D are an inherently racist concept (they are) and I've got something to say about that! THREAD:
People have been focusing on whether Tolkien's orcs were racist (they were) but even though orcs come from Tolkien, I actually don't think that's where D&D's brand of racism came from. I think D&D's racism can mostly be traced to Robert E. Howard's Conan stories
I'd read the Conan comics and seen the movies but I just started reading the original 1930s stories. I knew they'd be dated but HOLY COW are they a problem! In Howard's world there are a few snakemen and demons but 90% of the "races" are meant to be humans.
Howard is CONSTANTLY describing the racial features of every single character in every story - it's the most important part of nearly every character introduction. Here's two excepts from "The Devil in Iron" published in 1934:
And it gets worse! In the essay, "The Hyborian Age," Howard lays out the fictional history of his world and how the ancient civilizations fell and became brutish savages...
And then, he helpfully explains which real world people are the descendants of all this uncomfortable alternate history
So he's not just describing fantasy races of humans as being "apish," or "racially" drawn to treasure, which would already be racist. He's ALSO got a mental note of which real people descended from them.
And in case you were worried that maybe he's just an accidental white supremacist (seriously?), in his world the Pharaohs of Egypt were red haired norsemen because obviously white people built those cool pyramids.
So, how's this relate to D&D? Well, Robert E. Howard's Conan stories are in the fabled Appendix N, where Gygax listed his literary influences, and lots of cool things in the game are obviously inspired by Conan
But lots of bad things too! And they stuck around! I started playing with AD&D 2nd edition and look how the Monstrous Manual describes orcs. It's straight out of "The Devil in Iron." It's practically a quote!
And it gets worse! Check out the mongrel men! A real thing in a game book published in 1993
So in closing, D&D took racist language that Howard used to describe groups of humans and applied it, verbatim, to its monsters. That's why it doesn't matter if D&D orcs are meant to represent a real race or not, the entire history of this kind of writing is 100% racist
More qualified people are already discussing what fans and game designers should be doing about this but we have to do something. If we want to keep playing ANY kind of fantasy RPG we have sever it from this history. END OF THREAD
