Half-Ogre

The child of a human and an ogre stands 7 to 8 feet and weighs 315 to 425 pounds. Skin and hair lean brown, gray or black, sometimes with a slight gray-green cast, and skin may also be dull yellow. Nails and teeth are invariably orange. Eyes are usually human, though one in five has an ogre's white pupils, and the smell is noticeable but milder. Most wear heavy hides that match an ogre's Armor Class; a rare few forge chain shirts for AC 3. They speak common far more clearly than ogres, plus ogre, orc, troll and typically one human tongue. Infravision reaches 60 feet, smell is keener than an ogre's but weaker than a human's, and they live about 110 years.

When an ogre band includes one or two shorter, brighter members who fight with real skill and bark orders that anticipate the enemy, those are half-ogres, and one is likely in command. Under it, ogres focus on obvious spellcasters, double-team skilled warriors and lay better-baited ambushes. To win that command, especially over ogre leaders, a half-ogre must be first and fiercest in battle.

It favors a huge sword (two-handed bastard sword statistics, but used one-handed beside a large shield) or a 2d4 war spear, and adds +2 damage for sheer mass. Dwarves and gnomes are so practiced against big foes that half-ogres attack them at -2 and -4 respectively.

Half-ogre tribes travel in bands of 2d10 and put as much care into picking and preparing an ambush as into the fight. Each five include a 5+3 Hit Dice veteran and each ten a 6 Hit Dice leader. Bands over 15 add a shaman (fighter/priest, 5+3 Hit Dice, 4th-level priest spells) and two acolytes (4+6 Hit Dice, 2nd-level spells).

Intimidation is second nature: a fanged grin and a fist slammed down makes many a nonplayer character recall an urgent errand or simply faint. Kobolds cower when seven and a half feet of muscle smashes in their door, larger monsters hesitate, and frightened villagers often leave a half-ogre and its friends in peace.

They have no culture of their own. Among ogres they are the clever ones, always proving themselves; among humans they grow up amid fear and often become soldiers or loners. Some join small, isolated mixed communities (5-200) of half-orcs, orogs, ogrillons and similar folk in almost any terrain, ranking above half-orcs and orogs in strength and above trolls and ogrillons in wits. Such places are chaotic evil with a neutral streak born of necessary cooperation. They favor their own kind, tolerate orcs, ogres, trolls and giants, stay neutral toward humans (sharing their blood), welcome chaotic evil human leaders eagerly, and hate everyone else. They raid for captives and loot, so camps often hold both, though cunning orogs and half-orcs cheat the half-ogres of most of their share.

Sages once wondered why ogres breed with humans yet never with halflings or elves. The answer was not shared ancestry but a trait ogres share with orcs: a quickly adapting biology that suits them to any terrain and lets them breed with any humanoid. Half-ogres often inherit it, and generations of further mixing produce mongrelmen, whose orc and ogre blood may explain their chaotic evil temper. Like ogres, half-ogres plague humans and demihumans, crave treasure, and make no crafts or honest labor. Their budding poetry is notably ugly and disturbing.

Sired by a male ogre on a female orc, and luckily sterile (the reverse pairing yields an orog), the ogrillon is even more savage, rarely learning more than ogre and a few words of common. Orc-sized and orc-like, it can be told from an orc in battle only 10% of the time, except the one in ten born with ogre features: white-pupiled purple eyes, black teeth, yellowish skin, murky green hair. All have small horny plates in the skin, improving Armor Class and arming their fists.

Disdaining armor and most belongings, an ogrillon keeps only a few gold coins, perhaps for luck. It lives for mayhem, fighting barehanded for 1d6+1 per punch, chuckling happily in a brawl and fretful in peace. Orcs often recruit them, and they join gladly, for destruction's sake or more lucky gold.