June 27, 2022 • 43 mins
Get three extinct animals raised to life as monsters in D&D: https://www.scintilla.studio/extinction
Episode transcript: https://scintilla.studio/monster-extinction-aurochs-nazis-orcs/
Guides:
Steve Sullivan, director of the Hefner Museum of Natural History at Miami University in Ohio
Jessica Marcrum, Uncaged Author and producer of the Threeflings actual play podcast, www.jessicamarcrumwrites.com
James Mendez Hodes, game designer and orc historian: https://jamesmendezhodes.com/
Did you like this stat block? Let me know on Twitter: www.twitter.com/SparkOtter
"Extinction Theme" by Alexandre Miller, The Boy King of Idaho
Closing music by Jason Shaw at Audionautix.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Lucas (00:01):
We have to talk about the aurochs.
It's maybe the biggest, hairiest
cattle anyone has ever seen.
In short, it's a bunch of bull.
Aurochs were the first beast
added to Dungeons & Dragons 5th
edition after the core rulebooks.
As far as monsters go it seems pretty open
and shut, I mean, D&D needs big, hairy
animals for its big, hairy magical world.
(00:23):
But it's never that simple.
Aurochs are the extinct wild cattle
of ancient Europe, a beast ingrained
to the continent’s mythology and
culture, and the Forgotten Realms
setting has painted them as the sacred
animal of Gruumsh, god of the orcs.
So if we're going to talk about
the aurochs, I'm going to have
to tell you one heck of a story.
(00:44):
From the Ice Age to Nazi supercows
to bioessentialism in TTRPGs, the
aurochs is maybe the most challenging
extinction story in Dungeons & Dragons.
I'm Lucas Zellers, and I'm
resurrecting extinct animals for the
world's greatest roleplaying game.
This is Making a Monster (01:03):
Extinction.
Steve Sullivan (01:06):
Your aurochs is no more
real than my Lamborghini that I made
out of foam and spray painted real good.
But when you look under the hood,
you suddenly see maybe there's
some important differences.
James Mendez Hodes (01:15):
I read through
the part about all the orc deities
and they're all, they're all terrible.
And then there's one of them.
And then he rides an aurochs around,
and this is like the only good thing
orcs ever do, they're nice to cows.
Lucas (01:31):
Standing over 6 feet tall and
weighing more than a ton, the aurochs
was a keystone species for forests and
grasslands across Eurasia, from, in
modern-day terms, Portugal to Korea.
With its wide horns and broad,
striped back covered during the winter
season in a thick mantle of hair,
the aurochs was a striking animal
that left a huge impression on the
(01:51):
folklore of an entire continent.
In the cave paintings at
Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc, aurochs are
depicted opposite saber-toothed
tigers and cave lions.
At the city of Babylon, aurochs
were depicted on the Ishtar Gate,
the eighth gate to the inner city.
In the Greek myth portrayed in The Rape
of Europa, Zeus was able to kidnap Europa
by transforming into an aurochs bull.
(02:13):
Europa was so enamored of the new white
bull in her father’s herds that she came
near to stroke it and eventually climbed
on its back, at which point Zeus did his
Zeus thing and swam the Mediterranean
to strand Europa on the island of Crete.
By the 14th century, hunting the aurochs
was a privilege of nobles, who would
often drink from the slain aurochs’ horns.
(02:34):
One such drinking horn was a prized
possession of King Sigismund III
of Poland was an ornate drinking
horn, longer than a grown man’s arm
and as thick as an elephant tusk.
Steve Sullivan (02:44):
There are depictions of
Romans throwing nets over these things.
You can imagine what it would take to
capture one of these and breed them.
Lucas (02:51):
This is Steve Sullivan, Director
of the Hefner Museum of Natural History
at Miami University, and one of the first
people I interviewed about the connection
between extinct animals and D&D.
Steve Sullivan (03:01):
One of the charismatic
species that used to be there
that is no longer is the aurochs.
The aurochs is this amazing cattle
species, probably six feet tall at the
shoulder, massive horns, oftentimes
this deep fawn, chestnut color
with a dark stripe down the back.
Lucas (03:18):
The aurochs was the progenitor
of modern cattle, and for centuries
they existed alongside their scions.
By the 17th century, everything that kills
species had conspired to kill the aurochs,
including unrestricted hunting, loss
of habitat due to farmland development,
and diseases from domestic cattle.
The last recorded aurochs, a
(03:39):
female, died of natural causes in
Jaktorów Forest, Poland, in 1627.
Steve Sullivan (03:45):
Domestication is in many
ways, the dumbing down, the increasing the
childlike characteristics in a species.
So all these cattle that we have, dairy
cattle and beef cattle and whatever,
they're basically baby aurochs who
are able to sexually reproduce.
And so that's what we've done
through domestication, whether it's
cows or sheep or dogs or whatever.
(04:06):
So fundamentally the species
aurochs still exists, but in this
neotenic or "juvenilized" form.
In the case of the original domestication
of the aurochs, we want a small cow
that we can handle, that's docile.
With black Angus, for example, if you
go to the grocery store and try to buy
black Angus meat, whether it's hotdogs
(04:28):
or steaks, it used to be super expensive.
It's much less expensive now that's
because when we bred black Angus
for its meat characteristics, we
kinda narrowed its hips a little bit
and we made its teeth real small.
We did that by accident.
We were focused on the meat.
And so frankly, a lot of the babies died
and they didn't thrive if they didn't die.
When they were birthed.
Now we've bred them with
(04:48):
bigger teats and bigger hips.
Shazamm!
We can have more black Angus!
So this then implies that the genes of
aurochs are still floating out there.
Maybe some are amplified in one place
and others are amplified in other places.
Similarly with the tarpan, the wild horse.
So people have engaged in these
processes to find the individual animal,
(05:11):
cow or horse, that is most like its
progenitor and then breed those back
in until we recreate something that is
six feet high at the shoulder, and has
these massive horns from the outside
many cases, they've done a good job.
There's a breed called the Heck cattle.
They look great.
It's a German breed.
(05:31):
They look an awful lot like what
we imagine aurochs must look like.
Lucas (05:35):
And here is where
the story gets complicated.
The Heck cattle was named for its creators
the Heck brothers, Lutz and Heinz, who
went into the family business running
the Berlin Zoo in the early 1900s.
Zoology in Europe at the
time seemed eerily in line
with 1896's The Island of Dr.
(05:55):
Moreau - debating the role of humans in
preventing extinction and even creating
new species, blissfully unaware of
the role of genetics in the process.
Lutz
Steve Sullivan (06:04):
Watson and Crick, that
was what, 1952, when we discovered,
what DNA looked like thanks to their,
piracy, a little bit of Rosalind
Franklin's work, uh, but, uh, however that
history happened, we finally understood
really not just that as Alfred Russell
Wallace and Charles Darwin showed
that species can change, but we then
also began to understand the genetic
(06:25):
makeup of how things could change.
Lucas (06:27):
Lutz Heck's particular fascination
was in resurrecting what he called
"primeval German game" like the aurochs.
This was the 1930s.
In Berlin.
So you can guess who might have
shared Lutz's interest in a mythic
German past free of racial impurities.
Lutz became a member of the Nazi
party and a close friend to Hermann
(06:47):
Göring, right-hand man to Adolf Hitler.
Göring gathered political titles
like Magic (06:52):
The Gathering cards;
he was simultaneously the prime
minister of Prussia, commander in
chief of the Luftwaffe, and Reich
Hunt Master and Forest Master.
Göring even gave a title to his friend
Lutz in 1938 (07:04):
Nature Protection Authority.
In these roles, Göring seized land
from Poland, especially from the
Białowieża Forest, for nature preserves.
He hoped Lutz would fill with this
personal playground with mythic
beasts resembling those in ancient
epic poetry like Nibelungenlied,
which Göring could then hunt
(07:25):
with spears and in period dress.
Lutz's breeding program selected for
phenotype, or visual characteristics,
from a huge cross-section of European
breeds including Spanish fighting bulls.
The result was not the aurochs, but
a new breed called Heck cattle whose
individuals vary widely in their
physical characteristics and are
often aggressive enough to attack
(07:46):
without first giving a threat display.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, these are not
the pleasantly sympatric herbivores
hoped to rewild Europe alongside humans.
Lutz’ stock of Heck cattle were
exterminated after the war, but
today there are still about 2,000
Heck cattle in existence - all of
which trace back to Heinz’ stock.
(08:07):
The ideas that drove Heck and Göring
reverberated in European academia and
left an echo in a perhaps surprising
place (08:14):
a British officer named J.R.R.
Tolkien.
And we can't continue to understand
the aurochs in D&D without
understanding Tolkien's orcs.
James Mendez Hodes (08:25):
This is from letter
number 210 by Tolkien when he was
talking about a movie treatment of the
Lord of the Rings that he didn't like.
So he was like, let me tell you
what I think orcs looked like.
And he said, and I quote, "the
orcs are definitely stated to be
corruptions of the quote human
unquote form seen in elves and men.
They are, or were, squat, broad, flat
(08:46):
nosed, sallow skinned, with wide mouths
and slant eyes, in fact, degraded
and repulsive versions of the, to
Europeans, least lovely Mongol types."
And I was like, damn, I'm
squat, broad, flat nosed, sallow
skinned, wide mouth a slant eye.
Does that mean I'm degraded and repulsive?
Um, so yeah.
Lucas (09:10):
James Mendez Hodes is an
Ennie-award-winning writer game
designer and cultural consultant.
His design work includes Thousand Arrows
and Scion; his consulting work, Magic:
The Gathering and the Jackbox party
packs; and he last appeared on this
show for his work on the design team
of Avatar (09:26):
Legends, the tabletop RPG
version of Avatar (09:29):
The Last Airbender.
Mendez, welcome back to the show.
James Mendez Hodes (09:33):
What's good.
It's good to be here.
Thank you for having me back.
Lucas (09:36):
I asked Mendez on the show
because he had already done some pretty
heavy lifting to untangle how these
ideas would have influenced Tolkien,
and through him how they would have
contributed to Dungeons & Dragons.
James Mendez Hodes (09:46):
So reading that
blew my mind because, growing up in
America, I think the racial stereotypes
and the most virulent kinds of
racism that I grew up around I think
were often directed towards, black
people and towards American Indians.
In the particular context
of my upbringing, that's
often what I saw the most.
(10:07):
And so, I was used to seeing a lot
of that kind of racist language
directed towards orcs as well.
So my assumption was that once I started
researching the racial underpinnings
of orcs, that I would find things
like I might've seen an American
racism towards native people and
towards anybody of African descent.
(10:28):
But then when I went and I looked
at Tolkien's original conception of
orcs, I realized that, the way that
he envisioned orcs was kind of as
this Asian hoard with fangs and tusks.
That was Tolkien's version of, of orcs.
Uh, so they started out as this
purpose-built Asian stereotype.
(10:48):
I started looking at like, what kind
of influences might have moved Tolkien
to create a fantasy race that he
described essentially as Asian people.
And I realized that in British academia,
he would have encountered these theories
of scientific racism about like Caucasoid
(11:09):
and Mongoloids and Negroids, all of
these really uncomfortable terms that
we have for the different subspecies of
humanity, which of course modern science
has thrown out the window and further.
Tolkien certainly would have
encountered those things during
the course of his education.
Then Tolkien and joined the army and in
the British army, there was a conception
(11:30):
of Indian people called the administrative
races and the martial races.
So the British Raj and the British
army classified all the different
ethnicities in India into, "Okay.
We think these guys over here, they
live in cities and they're good at math.
And then these guys over, over there,
they're these big, tough, strong guys
(11:52):
who are not very smart and they make
excellent soldiers, but they'll probably
just run amok and do evil stuff unless we
put some white people in charge of them."
So practically speaking, of course, the
reason that different populations in
different places, struck the British
as being tough but obedient soldiers
(12:14):
on one hand or, good at bureaucracy
at the other, on the other hand, had
a lot to do a lot more to do with how.
Those with the way that the British
related to those people than it did with
any particular inherent quality, of them.
However, this idea of warrior races
ended up spreading throughout the
(12:34):
British consciousness and, this
term, this idea of the martial race
or the warrior race, ended up being
applied to people in Scotland,
east Africa, and Polynesia as well.
Basically anytime anybody beat the
British in a fight using technology
that they thought wasn't as good, the
British would be like, "Oh, they beat
(12:55):
us because they're a martial race.
They are somehow naturally
inclined towards fighting."
So the intersection of these two ideas,
scientific racism and the concept of
the martial race, these were things
that Tolkien could not possibly have
avoided during the course of his life.
And he happens to have created something
in the orcs which lines up with pretty
(13:16):
much all of both of those stereotypes.
And I got a couple of articles
which go into it in depth.
Lucas (13:21):
Yeah, there were a great read.
I highly recommend them.
James Mendez Hodes (13:24):
Thank you.
So, yeah, so then there's a, the first
article focuses on Tolkien and then the
second focuses on orcs in the context
of Dungeons and Dragons, and how in the
historical context of the United States,
the way that white people viewed Asian
people and black people and native people
was starting to change in certain ways.
So when orcs appeared in Dungeons and
(13:47):
Dragons, which was created by conservative
white men in the Midwest, the stereotypes
that were applied to orcs and the
way that orcs were described there
started to shift and they started to
move away from American stereotypes of
Asians, which were focused on a concept
primarily called the model minority,
which America had a purpose-built
(14:09):
through immigration policies and in a
complicated way, and started to shift
more towards the way that white racists
and racists of all, all ethnicities,
really, viewed black and native people.
And then even in more positive portrayals
of orcs, such as, those I grew up with in
Warcraft, the orcs still adhere to sort
(14:31):
of positive, but still harmful stereotypes
like the concept of the noble savage,
where there's this primitive race, which
is in some ways better at certain aspects
of humanity or stronger, or closer to
living in closer harmony with nature and
their own spirits or something like that.
You can read Jean-Jacques Rousseau
to get a deep dive into that.
(14:51):
But even in the portrayals of orcs
that I like there are still some
of those positive stereotypes.
There's definitely portrayals
of orcs out there, which have
moved in different directions.
I'm reading a great book right now
called The Unspoken Name which has
an orcish main character who's great.
My friend Carly wrote a piece
called "The Thousand Cousins,"
(15:12):
which is a version of orcs you can
drop into many different games.
I don't know if these orcs are good
necessarily, but I think the orcs
in Warhammer 40,000, which are based
on British football hooligans are a
really interesting thing to study.
I don't know if it's like a
good version of orcs, but I
think it's fascinating to study.
Lucas (15:35):
How many times do you
think you've told this story?
James Mendez Hodes (15:37):
The article that
I first published, the first part
of the article was in January 2019.
For that year, I told the story, like, I'd
say like once every couple of weeks then
things slowed down a little bit through
2020 and 2021, I'd say, meh, once a month.
But yeah, it, it, it
comes up all the time.
The most important point that I could
(15:58):
make about orcs is that if we sit down
to play a role playing game and the way
that the game, or the other players or
the DM, that someone involved portrays
orcs reminds me a little bit too much of
the way it feels when I and my friends
experience racism in the real world, then
(16:20):
I have a hard time enjoying the game.
Because honestly, even if Tolkien hadn't
done this on purpose - I do think he, he
did it on purpose, or perhaps he did it
based on like a great deal of unconscious
bias - but even if he hadn't, the thing
that he made still causes problems for
us in the present day when we try to
have a fantasy game with these different
(16:42):
species and we try to do that without
bringing in too much real world racism.
Even if this thing was
created unintentionally, it
still causes us problems.
And I think it's not nearly as cool as
some of the orcs that we could have.
So it, you know, it comes up a lot.
(17:03):
And even if this, even if you don't
buy that, this is actually racism,
even if none of that moves you,
then at the end of the day, okay.
So this is a creative
preference that I have.
Like some people don't like disco
music, some people don't like orcs the
way that they're originally portrayed
in old editions of Dungeons & Dragons
(17:23):
or the early part of fifth edition.
I just don't like it.
In addition to thinking that it's racist.
So if your friend really doesn't
like something in a game, then
you probably wouldn't want to
force them to play that game.
Right.
And if they wanted something different
in the game, if they wanted the game
to have different options, like you
(17:44):
could have an orc who fits a bunch of
racist stereotypes or you could have
a different kind of orc, I'd want to
be able at least to have the choice.
It's not very important to me that
you have the racist orcs in the game.
It's easy enough to just like
take the kind of orcs that I would
like to see and make them fit all
the racial stereotypes you want.
(18:05):
But I like having the
option not to do that.
Lucas (18:08):
Do you ever get
tired of telling this story?
James Mendez Hodes (18:12):
Not
really like, it's my job.
It's my job.
So I'm, I'm used to telling it,
it feels like a, you know, a
teacher telling kids to be quiet.
You got to tell two kids to
be quiet a few times a day.
It just, it goes with the job.
And for me talking about orcs
just kind of goes with the job.
But, the other element of this
is that I like talking about
(18:32):
orcs cause I think they're cool.
Cause I had that first positive
experience of, watching my friends make
a bunch of cool orcs in, in Warcraft
which ended up kind of setting the tone
for me and if the first orcs I'd ever
seen were in, in Dungeons and Dragons,
I probably wouldn't have felt that way.
Lucas (18:48):
To understand the aurochs' place
in this conversation, we have to talk
about that early portrayal of orcs.
I think D and D has kind of covered
its tracks with orcs by suggesting
that, some of these objectionable
stereotypes or these objectionable
traits of the culture or the race as
a whole belong to a deity of the orcs
(19:12):
that they've given the name Gruumsh.
James Mendez Hodes (19:15):
Yes.
Lucas (19:16):
Let me give you
a couple of examples.
There was a Dragon Magazine
number 62 from June, 1982.
If listeners want to look that up,
there was an article called, the gods
of the orcs and it ran with a tagline,
the word from above, make war not love.
And then we had Deities and
Demigods 20 years later in 2002.
And I'll quote from that directly just
so it's a part of the record (19:37):
" Gruumsh,
deity of orcs, is chaotic evil.
He appears as a hulking orc
in black full plate armor.
He has one unblinking central eye."
From his dogma, "Gruumsh demands that
his followers be strong; that they
cull the week from their numbers;
that they take all the territory
Gruumsh thinks is rightfully
(19:57):
theirs, which is almost everything.
He tolerates no sign of
friendliness from his people.
Unceasing warfare is his creed.
Though," and this is interesting,
"Gruumsh does not object to simple
colonization, if that can be arranged."
James Mendez Hodes (20:10):
Yeah, so my
academic background is in religion.
And one of the things that I always
complain about in fantasy religions
is that people give religions a bunch
of interesting qualities that they
think are going to make for really
good storytelling but very often not
that much attention is paid to what
(20:32):
makes a religion worth practicing?
What is the appeal of a religion?
So for example, with a lot of
fantasy versions of Christianity or
Catholicism, um, there's so obviously
terrible that, uh, that it starts
to be a little bit unbelievable.
Why, uh, you know, say the majority, um,
(20:54):
like, let's say, let's say that your hot
take is Christianity is bad actually.
And so you make a fantasy
version of Christianity.
They're the biggest
fish in the real world.
They can take a few knocks, right?
It's not like marginalizing
the Jewish right?
Christianity that they
can take a few hits.
I think they'll be okay.
So great.
So you make your, you make your fantasy
(21:14):
version of Christianity you pick all
the worst Popes and all of the worst,
prosperity gospel preachers on TV
and you, you populate the religion
entirely with them and they're the bad
guy religion, um, which, okay, sure.
Why does anyone do this religion?
Um, they would have to have so many
(21:34):
evil inquisitors running around
forcing people to do the religion at
sword point, that just, it would just
not be, not be a manageable task.
Um, so anytime a religion, there's
like a fantasy version of a religion
and it's just like, all of the worst
cult stuff without even any of the
stuff that cults do to make people
want to be in a cult, um, I find that
(21:58):
creatively unsatisfying, shall we say?
And, uh, more importantly, if I'm trying
to create stuff in the world, it makes
storytelling difficult because, uh,
you know, what am I going to be like?
So everyone in this town practices
this religion, um, and then all my
players are going to be like, why?
And I'll be like, ah, I don't know.
(22:19):
So, so this makes, this makes
my job as the dungeon master
or as the player difficult.
So the first problem that I see with
this Gruumsh guy, is that I'm like, how
are you going to live a whole sentient,
sapient life without friendship?
I believe that orcs, the,
the stereotypical org travels
(22:40):
in a hoard, is that correct?
And you would think that, uh, you know,
uh, your, your average orc might, I dunno,
put some value on unit coherency, if
he's going to try to do a colonialism.
Um, so this guy's like no
friendliness, no friendship.
(23:03):
You can conquer people and
show off your strength.
This doesn't really make sense to me.
It's also like, having a race that's
completely evil, first of all, as I often
say, if everybody in a certain race or
a species rather, cause I hate saying
race, if everyone in a certain species
is born evil and they don't have the
(23:25):
choice about whether or not to do evil and
there's no chance that they can do good,
well, that's not really evil, that's
more like a, there's a force of nature.
They don't really have a choice about it.
That's not evil as, as I understand it.
That's just like having a
destructive nature that they
don't really have a choice about.
(23:46):
So, okay.
So if, if Gruumsh is chaotic evil, and
he demands this from all the orcs, it
does not sound like a religion that
I would bother practicing, even if
I did like violence and colonialism,
it doesn't sound like a good time.
When I bring up the idea that it, it might
be a little sketch that all orcs are evil.
Very often the first response I
(24:09):
get is, well, it makes sense that
they're that way in the setting.
And my response is like, really?
Cause I think Gruumsh isn't real.
Someone made him up.
So someone made up the reasons for
them all to be evil in the setting.
And even if they do have a reason to
be evil in the setting, that still
makes the process of interacting with
(24:29):
them for me, kind of uncomfortable.
Like my personal experience of orcs
being uncomfortable is still going
to be the same, whether or not
there's like a good reason for it.
Moreover, the idea of God making a
certain subgroup of sentient beings a
certain way in response to like their
past crimes or something like that,
(24:50):
that's also a really common talking point
in racist depictions of certain people.
And, uh, again, when I bring up this
point, a lot of the time people say to
me, "Well, you're making that connection.
I would never have thought that
before you made this connection
between orcs and whoever it is."
(25:11):
To which my response is, "Yeah,
I'm making that connection because
racists said to, said it to me first.
And unfortunately now I can't forget
that because racism still exists."
So having there be a God whose
fault it is, doesn't really
make the situation worse.
And when you characterize a whole people
(25:33):
and their whole ass religion as built
entirely on these harmful and hateful
ideas, that's how we do religious
intolerance in the real world also.
And I don't enjoy that usually.
Lucas (25:49):
you mentioned at the top of the
interview, that Volos is the worst.
What is it about Volos
guide that bugs you?
James Mendez Hodes (25:55):
oh my God.
Um,
Lucas (25:57):
Is that too much of a question?
James Mendez Hodes (26:00):
um, so,
so for comparison, let's
look at the orcs in Eberron.
I don't love a lot of things
about their portrayal.
This was before the Tasha apocalypse and
the end of race-based ability scores.
Lucas (26:12):
Yeah, that was going
to be my next question.
James Mendez Hodes (26:15):
yeah, so
this is before that, right?
So the orcs still a little, uh,
so they get a plus two to strength
and a plus one to constitution.
So that means that all of the most
optimal orcs are going to be fighters,
clerics, paladins, barbarians.
You're not going to see a lot of orc
monks, rogues, wizards or warlocks.
(26:39):
The most optimally built orcs
are all going to be in like
certain martial categories.
Age orcs, reach adulthood at
age 12 and live up to 50 years.
Alignments, the orcs have ever
honor a passionate people given to
powerful emotion and deep faith.
They are generally chaotic,
but can be any alignment.
(27:00):
I like that they can be any alignment.
I get that, but characterizing a
whole species as whole culture as
chaotic, that's a little weird, right?
Aren't there different,
different cultures of orcs?
There's different cultures
of humans, probably different
cultures of elves, dwarves, right?
Why don't we got different
cultures of orcs?
(27:20):
Um, maybe some can be chaotic
and some can be ordered.
Size they're medium, speed, 30
feet, they have dark vision.
Sure.
Okay.
"Aggressive (27:29):
as a bonus action, you
can move up to your speed towards an
enemy of your choice you can see or
hear, you must end this move closer
to the enemy, then you started."
so if we're going to give all orcs an
aggression power, then I think it would
be useful for there to be a reason why.
Because otherwise we're saying like
(27:50):
all, every single orc is aggressive
and that is also an uncomfortable
thing that people say about certain
groups in, in the real world.
" Powerful build (28:00):
you count as one
size larger when determining your
carrying capacity and the weight
you can push drag or lifts."
I don't have like the biggest
problem with that in the world.
Cause like, I guess it's reasonable
to say, I don't know people from
Senegal or Scandinavia are often very
tall, so they are, but that, like,
(28:22):
we don't even do that with humans.
So saying like all of this, everybody
here has a very powerful build.
It's just not that exciting a power,
but I guess it could be worse.
" Primal Intuition," this one's weird.
"You have proficiency in two of the
following skills of your choice (28:39):
animal
handling insight, intimidation, medicine,
nature, perception and survival."
So I think this goes back to those noble
savage ideas that I mentioned, right?
This is kind of the, this feels
like the Warcraft version of embark.
So that's an orc in, uh, in Eberron.
I got some problems with it.
There's some things where I'm like,
oh, I'm not sure I got to think about
(29:00):
this one, but, uh, let's look at Volos.
Lucas (29:04):
No.
James Mendez Hodes (29:05):
The
version of orcs that we got in
here, monstrous adventurers.
All right.
So ability score increase strength
and constitution as the same
strength and constitution that
we just saw in the other book.
And your intelligence
score is reduced by two.
So they're all dumber.
(29:26):
Great.
So this is, this is exactly, this is
a, a, an ability score-enforced martial
race bonuses to strengthen constitution,
but they have worse intelligence,
Alignment (29:38):
orcs are vicious raiders who
believe that the world should be theirs.
They also represent, uh, respect, strength
above all else and believe the strong
must bully the weak to ensure that
weakness does not spread like a disease.
They're usually chaotic evil.
" Size (29:51):
orcs are usually over six feet tall
and weigh between 230 and 280 pounds.
Your size is medium."
Fine.
Speed (29:57):
30 feet.
Dark vision.
They have dark vision.
Then aggressive is in here.
Menacing, they're trained in
the intimidation skills, so they
all run around scaring people.
Powerful Build, same as before.
And that's, that's an orc mechanically.
So they are one of the few species
in this game that actually has a
negative modifier to an ability score.
(30:19):
So that to make sure that we
all know, that orcs are dumb.
So, I hate it.
Lucas (30:27):
Even at the time of this interview,
the so-called "Tasha-pocalypse" had begun
to address these issues by re-writing
the source material in question.
The November 2021 sourcebook Tasha's
Cauldron of Everything made ability
score increases a matter of player
choice rather than being determined
by race, accompanied by a large number
of mechanical changes to the game.
A massive set of errata released
(30:49):
that December removed racial ability
score penalties as well as adjusting
some of the lore in the Player's
Handbook regarding orcs and drow,
another problematic racial symbol.
The May 2022 release of Monsters of the
Multiverse made previous printings of
orcs and other creatures "legacy content"
and replaced them with updated versions.
(31:09):
For orcs, the "Aggressive" trait was
replaced with a movement buff called
"Adrenaline Rush" that doesn't target
enemies, and the "Menacing" trait was
replaced with "Relentless Endurance" which
allows the orc character to return to 1
hit point instead of falling unconscious.
Gruumsh still appears as an influential
figure in orcish culture, though
(31:29):
he is now cited as "an unstoppable
warrior and powerful leader" known
for his tougness and tenacity.
Despite a generally warm
reception, these changes were
not received without controversy.
Nor can they erase the printed
words in Volo's Guide, Deities
& Demigods, or Dragon Magazine.
Mendez's criticisms are no less
(31:50):
relevant now than they were when
we recorded them in January.
I did want to bring it back around to
Book of Extinction and the aurochs itself.
Cause this is another one of those things
that just kind of snuck its way rather
unremarkably into the back of Volos Guide.
It's another beast.
It's a very large cow, CR 2?
But the section of lore that we got
(32:11):
tied it to Gruumsh and his son Bahgtru.
It cast it in the role of, of mount
like a mount chosen of a deity,
which happens a lot, in myth and
culture over the course of history.
James Mendez Hodes (32:25):
Before this
interview, I read through the part
about all the ORC deities and they're
all, they're all, they're all terrible.
And then there's one of them.
And then he rides an aurochs
around, and this is like the
only good thing orcs ever do.
They're nice to cows.
This is, this is like the only
(32:45):
positive things said about orcs.
And like this whole chapter is that
they're nice to this one kind of cow.
And then sometimes they've
ride them into battle.
And there's a lot going on here.
Why weren't horses good enough?
Why does it have to be a bull?
Did they need something that was just
bigger and hornier than like the human,
(33:08):
the thing that humans were riding around?
Um, what happened to riding on wolves?
That's also kind of weird, but
I thought they used to, is that
just for goblins now, but, okay.
So now they have these sacred
cows, um, which I don't think has
anything to do with like, like
in, in real world, like yeah.
there are, there are cows that
are sacred in, in south Asia.
I don't think that, oh,
(33:32):
wait, martial races.
Ah, they are connected aren't they.
Damn it.
All right.
All right.
I hope that was an accident.
So I it's awkward because it
reminds you of Nazi stuff.
Right?
And I think a lot of, there are a lot
of, fascist movements which have eco
fascist tendencies where they have
like a, a Vokish ideology or some
(33:54):
similar thing like that, which is
connected to a certain understanding
of how, people are connected to land.
Lucas (34:02):
In the case of Heck and Göring,
this idea was lebensraum, or living
space, and a return to the heroic past.
James Mendez Hodes (34:09):
Classical nationalism
is built on a lot of different shared
qualities, but language culture, history,
usually religion and territory are often
elements of classical nationalism as
opposed to like the messed up versions
of nationalism we have today, but we're
talking about like the stuff that led
to the formation of early nation states.
So, a lot of the time that's
(34:30):
connected to certain qualities
of nature or animals or plants.
In this case, the Nazis were attempting
to create a living animal symbol of
their idea of the German relationship
with the German country and the German
climate and the German animals, I guess.
(34:53):
In addition to the, the racialized
aspects of orcs, um, portrayals
of orcs are also heavily gendered.
The masculinity and the toxic masculinity
of orcs is often heavily exaggerated.
So the, the bull here seems
to be a symbol of masculinity.
(35:16):
And then the aurochs, as an exaggerated,
like, you know, super swole, uh, version
of the bull seems to be connected to
a kind of exaggerated masculinity.
Um,
yeah, this is uncomfortable.
Lucas (35:37):
Forgotten Realms lore from
earlier editions also showed this
gendered portrayal in the form of
Gruumsh's wife, Luthic, another
part of the orcish pantheon.
Jessica Marcrum (35:45):
Luthic gets really poorly
treated in a lot of the lore because
she does all of this really cool stuff.
She gives the orcs like visions of
the blood moon, which incites them to
battle and makes them into warriors.
She's there when every orc is born,
she's there when every orc dies.
(36:05):
And yet she's really ignored by most orcs
and just seen as like Gruumsh's wife and
kind of disregarded by the rest of the
pantheon, most of which are her children.
Lucas (36:19):
This is Jessica Marcrum,
who created an adventure around
Luthic for Uncaged (36:22):
Goddesses, the
DM's Guild adventure anthology we
covered at the top of the season.
Jessica Marcrum (36:28):
So her husband and her
children all treat her like trash and
the orcs, except for like her clerics
who are called the Orc Claws of Luthic,
all also kind of are like, whatever about
her, but it's canon that she's like the
smartest person in the pantheon and the
only one who's good at battle strategy.
(36:52):
She's also the only one who
knows how to heal apparently.
So, you know, she, she does all
this and doesn't get any credit.
Lucas (36:59):
Jessica's criticisms hit very
differently in light of the conversation
around martial and administrative races.
The gendered portrayal continues
as Luthic is also associated with
an Ice Age giant, the cave bear.
Jessica Marcrum (37:12):
They're one of
her sacred animals and she is
known to transform into cave bears.
Lucas (37:17):
Cave bears we know are the
fulcrum where archaeology turned
from fable to fact, as they were
so often conflated with dragons.
It's easy to hear the same echo of a
mythic, dragon-slaying past written
in Luthic that we hear in Gruumsh,
uncomfortable associations and all.
James Mendez Hodes (37:33):
So as far as
like corrections, I would like to see
made to orcs, uh, you know, D and D
has already moved past a lot of the
things in Volo's Guide to Monsters.
The connection to aurochs, uh,
it's not my biggest problem here.
Like if you fix a lot of the other
stuff, if their gods aren't all just
monsters, and if they themselves,
(37:54):
aren't just monsters than I think the
fact that they have very large bulls
is not, not my biggest problem here.
That that seems okay.
It's just weird, you know?
Lucas (38:06):
Yeah, I do.
It's part of why I wanted
to talk to you about it.
This is a lot of information that I
was genuinely unsure what to do with.
But I can't not talk about it.
It would be the same as
pretending it didn't happen.
James Mendez Hodes (38:22):
It's a great story.
Even if you're going to, even if you're
going to leave the, the aurochs from
Volos guys to monsters in there, like
it's, this is a fascinating story.
Lucas (38:35):
Yeah, I will say that
to kind of bring it back around
and put a button on this.
The aurochs has gotten what I
consider to be a redemptive moment.
Uh, it's one of a handful of species
that scientists are actively trying
to bring back from extinction.
We're at a point technologically
where we are able to talk about
whether we can de extinct something.
Steve Sullivan (38:56):
And now today, with, with
CRISPR technology, we can kind of cut
up genes and chuck new bits in there.
And, in fact with the mammoth, that's been
in the news recently, we can take Asian
elephants and we can take some of these,
frozen mammoths that have been in the
permafrost for so long, which thanks to
climate change, the permafrost is thawing.
So we're able to find these, but so
(39:18):
well-preserved, we can even eat the meat.
We can find the genes
within those organisms.
We can splice them into Asian
elephants, and it is entirely
conceivable that we can make a mammoth.
Lucas (39:31):
A more recent program to de extinct
the aurochs, rather than being based on,
uh, Göring's idea of what an aurochs might
have been, it's based on a sequence of
the aurochs genome using material from
a bone discovered in Derbyshire England,
They also used genetic material
from museum artifacts, including
(39:53):
King Sigismund III's drinking horn.
So this is like, this is straight out
of a summer blockbuster and it's the
Taurus program is doing it, a cooperation
between European conservation groups.
And they hope to create a modern
version of the aurochs that more
closely matches that genome and there
they're being very careful about it.
It matches the genome.
(40:14):
It matches depictions we have of the
aurochs from ancient history and it's
being re-introduced to areas like
the Rhodope Mountains, the Southern
Carpathians and the Oder Delta,
and it hopes to create functional
ecological landscapes sustained
by natural processes like forest
regeneration and free flowing rivers.
So we've, we've back-bred the
aurochs, this time as a part of a
(40:37):
really sophisticated land management
strategy to address the problems
of conservation and extinction.
James Mendez Hodes (40:44):
Well, that's great.
That's pretty cool.
What if orcs did that?
Lucas (40:53):
And I do have to say for accuracy's
sake that this story doesn't end neatly
in the way that most true stories
don't but Heinz Heck, it must be said,
didn't share his brother's ideology.
He was imprisoned at the Dachau
concentration camp for his connections
to the communist party and his
brief marriage to a Jewish woman.
James Mendez Hodes (41:10):
Wow.
I just, I just opened up his Wikipedia
page and it says, Heck also played
an important part in saving the
European bison from extinction.
so this guy is, this guy is the hero
of this whole episode, Heinz Heck.
Yeah.
This guy is, this guy is cool.
Lucas (41:24):
He's a pretty rad dude.
James Mendez Hodes (41:26):
Yeah, let's
enjoy this five minutes before
the internet milkshake ducks him.
I'm sure if someone in the responses to
this episode is going to be like, actually
Lucas (41:34):
Oh, I'm, I'm fully prepared
for people to point out the limits of
my research and I, and I will, I, it
is worth mentioning also, please do
point out the limits of my research.
I'm a journalist, not a historian,
so if you've got information
I don't, I'd love to hear it.
Let's start a better
conversation around this.
James Mendez Hodes (41:51):
Yeah.
I am just like, I feel like I'm
just starting to scratch the
surface of this topic myself.
Lucas (41:57):
The aurochs will appear in
The Book of Extinction, a bestiary of
extinct animals for 5th edition coming
to Kickstarter in November of 2022.
My version takes after the Tauros
Programme rather than the Nazi supercow.
I've mythologized it as the briar bull,
a creature of druidic power that brings
new life to the forests where it walks.
You can find out more about the
(42:17):
project, including the illustration
of the aurochs on the cover, at
scintilla dot studio slash extinction.
You can download the first three
monsters in the book, themselves
stories of giants and primeval forests.
Pay what you want for it, and every
penny we earn will go to supporting
(42:38):
the Center for Biological Diversity, a
legal and media advocacy organization
based in Portland working to protect
endangered species and wild places
in the United States and worldwide.
Thanks for listening to
Making a Monster (42:52):
Extinction.
There is so much more to say about this
immense topic on the back of the aurochs.
In the show notes is a link to the
most important resources you'll need to
navigate this topic, including a fantastic
Smithsonian article on the Nazi supercow,
Mendez' excellent "orc-ticles" on the
martial race myth, and more about the
TaurOs Programme and Rewilding Europe.
(43:15):
My thanks to this episode's guides,
Steve Sullivan, director of the
Hefner Museum of Natural History
at Miami University in Ohio;
Jessica Marcrum, Uncaged Author
and producer of the Threeflings
actual play podcast, online at
jessicamarcrumwrites dot com;
and featuring James Mendez Hodes,
game designer and orc historian.
James Mendez Hodes (43:34):
You can find
me on Twitter at Lula Vampiro.
I just posted actually a, another video.
It's an interview with me talking
about the magic, the gathering cyber
future set, coming out on Neon Dynasty.
And, uh, yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for having me.
We have to talk about the aurochs.
It's maybe the biggest, hairiest
cattle anyone has ever seen.
In short, it's a bunch of bull.
Aurochs were the first beast
added to Dungeons & Dragons 5th
edition after the core rulebooks.
As far as monsters go it seems pretty open
and shut, I mean, D&D needs big, hairy
animals for its big, hairy magical world.
(00:23):
But it's never that simple.
Aurochs are the extinct wild cattle
of ancient Europe, a beast ingrained
to the continent’s mythology and
culture, and the Forgotten Realms
setting has painted them as the sacred
animal of Gruumsh, god of the orcs.
So if we're going to talk about
the aurochs, I'm going to have
to tell you one heck of a story.
(00:44):
From the Ice Age to Nazi supercows
to bioessentialism in TTRPGs, the
aurochs is maybe the most challenging
extinction story in Dungeons & Dragons.
I'm Lucas Zellers, and I'm
resurrecting extinct animals for the
world's greatest roleplaying game.
This is Making a Monster (01:03):
Extinction.
Steve Sullivan (01:06):
Your aurochs is no more
real than my Lamborghini that I made
out of foam and spray painted real good.
But when you look under the hood,
you suddenly see maybe there's
some important differences.
James Mendez Hodes (01:15):
I read through
the part about all the orc deities
and they're all, they're all terrible.
And then there's one of them.
And then he rides an aurochs around,
and this is like the only good thing
orcs ever do, they're nice to cows.
Lucas (01:31):
Standing over 6 feet tall and
weighing more than a ton, the aurochs
was a keystone species for forests and
grasslands across Eurasia, from, in
modern-day terms, Portugal to Korea.
With its wide horns and broad,
striped back covered during the winter
season in a thick mantle of hair,
the aurochs was a striking animal
that left a huge impression on the
(01:51):
folklore of an entire continent.
In the cave paintings at
Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc, aurochs are
depicted opposite saber-toothed
tigers and cave lions.
At the city of Babylon, aurochs
were depicted on the Ishtar Gate,
the eighth gate to the inner city.
In the Greek myth portrayed in The Rape
of Europa, Zeus was able to kidnap Europa
by transforming into an aurochs bull.
(02:13):
Europa was so enamored of the new white
bull in her father’s herds that she came
near to stroke it and eventually climbed
on its back, at which point Zeus did his
Zeus thing and swam the Mediterranean
to strand Europa on the island of Crete.
By the 14th century, hunting the aurochs
was a privilege of nobles, who would
often drink from the slain aurochs’ horns.
(02:34):
One such drinking horn was a prized
possession of King Sigismund III
of Poland was an ornate drinking
horn, longer than a grown man’s arm
and as thick as an elephant tusk.
Steve Sullivan (02:44):
There are depictions of
Romans throwing nets over these things.
You can imagine what it would take to
capture one of these and breed them.
Lucas (02:51):
This is Steve Sullivan, Director
of the Hefner Museum of Natural History
at Miami University, and one of the first
people I interviewed about the connection
between extinct animals and D&D.
Steve Sullivan (03:01):
One of the charismatic
species that used to be there
that is no longer is the aurochs.
The aurochs is this amazing cattle
species, probably six feet tall at the
shoulder, massive horns, oftentimes
this deep fawn, chestnut color
with a dark stripe down the back.
Lucas (03:18):
The aurochs was the progenitor
of modern cattle, and for centuries
they existed alongside their scions.
By the 17th century, everything that kills
species had conspired to kill the aurochs,
including unrestricted hunting, loss
of habitat due to farmland development,
and diseases from domestic cattle.
The last recorded aurochs, a
(03:39):
female, died of natural causes in
Jaktorów Forest, Poland, in 1627.
Steve Sullivan (03:45):
Domestication is in many
ways, the dumbing down, the increasing the
childlike characteristics in a species.
So all these cattle that we have, dairy
cattle and beef cattle and whatever,
they're basically baby aurochs who
are able to sexually reproduce.
And so that's what we've done
through domestication, whether it's
cows or sheep or dogs or whatever.
(04:06):
So fundamentally the species
aurochs still exists, but in this
neotenic or "juvenilized" form.
In the case of the original domestication
of the aurochs, we want a small cow
that we can handle, that's docile.
With black Angus, for example, if you
go to the grocery store and try to buy
black Angus meat, whether it's hotdogs
(04:28):
or steaks, it used to be super expensive.
It's much less expensive now that's
because when we bred black Angus
for its meat characteristics, we
kinda narrowed its hips a little bit
and we made its teeth real small.
We did that by accident.
We were focused on the meat.
And so frankly, a lot of the babies died
and they didn't thrive if they didn't die.
When they were birthed.
Now we've bred them with
(04:48):
bigger teats and bigger hips.
Shazamm!
We can have more black Angus!
So this then implies that the genes of
aurochs are still floating out there.
Maybe some are amplified in one place
and others are amplified in other places.
Similarly with the tarpan, the wild horse.
So people have engaged in these
processes to find the individual animal,
(05:11):
cow or horse, that is most like its
progenitor and then breed those back
in until we recreate something that is
six feet high at the shoulder, and has
these massive horns from the outside
many cases, they've done a good job.
There's a breed called the Heck cattle.
They look great.
It's a German breed.
(05:31):
They look an awful lot like what
we imagine aurochs must look like.
Lucas (05:35):
And here is where
the story gets complicated.
The Heck cattle was named for its creators
the Heck brothers, Lutz and Heinz, who
went into the family business running
the Berlin Zoo in the early 1900s.
Zoology in Europe at the
time seemed eerily in line
with 1896's The Island of Dr.
(05:55):
Moreau - debating the role of humans in
preventing extinction and even creating
new species, blissfully unaware of
the role of genetics in the process.
Lutz
Steve Sullivan (06:04):
Watson and Crick, that
was what, 1952, when we discovered,
what DNA looked like thanks to their,
piracy, a little bit of Rosalind
Franklin's work, uh, but, uh, however that
history happened, we finally understood
really not just that as Alfred Russell
Wallace and Charles Darwin showed
that species can change, but we then
also began to understand the genetic
(06:25):
makeup of how things could change.
Lucas (06:27):
Lutz Heck's particular fascination
was in resurrecting what he called
"primeval German game" like the aurochs.
This was the 1930s.
In Berlin.
So you can guess who might have
shared Lutz's interest in a mythic
German past free of racial impurities.
Lutz became a member of the Nazi
party and a close friend to Hermann
(06:47):
Göring, right-hand man to Adolf Hitler.
Göring gathered political titles
like Magic (06:52):
The Gathering cards;
he was simultaneously the prime
minister of Prussia, commander in
chief of the Luftwaffe, and Reich
Hunt Master and Forest Master.
Göring even gave a title to his friend
Lutz in 1938 (07:04):
Nature Protection Authority.
In these roles, Göring seized land
from Poland, especially from the
Białowieża Forest, for nature preserves.
He hoped Lutz would fill with this
personal playground with mythic
beasts resembling those in ancient
epic poetry like Nibelungenlied,
which Göring could then hunt
(07:25):
with spears and in period dress.
Lutz's breeding program selected for
phenotype, or visual characteristics,
from a huge cross-section of European
breeds including Spanish fighting bulls.
The result was not the aurochs, but
a new breed called Heck cattle whose
individuals vary widely in their
physical characteristics and are
often aggressive enough to attack
(07:46):
without first giving a threat display.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, these are not
the pleasantly sympatric herbivores
hoped to rewild Europe alongside humans.
Lutz’ stock of Heck cattle were
exterminated after the war, but
today there are still about 2,000
Heck cattle in existence - all of
which trace back to Heinz’ stock.
(08:07):
The ideas that drove Heck and Göring
reverberated in European academia and
left an echo in a perhaps surprising
place (08:14):
a British officer named J.R.R.
Tolkien.
And we can't continue to understand
the aurochs in D&D without
understanding Tolkien's orcs.
James Mendez Hodes (08:25):
This is from letter
number 210 by Tolkien when he was
talking about a movie treatment of the
Lord of the Rings that he didn't like.
So he was like, let me tell you
what I think orcs looked like.
And he said, and I quote, "the
orcs are definitely stated to be
corruptions of the quote human
unquote form seen in elves and men.
They are, or were, squat, broad, flat
(08:46):
nosed, sallow skinned, with wide mouths
and slant eyes, in fact, degraded
and repulsive versions of the, to
Europeans, least lovely Mongol types."
And I was like, damn, I'm
squat, broad, flat nosed, sallow
skinned, wide mouth a slant eye.
Does that mean I'm degraded and repulsive?
Um, so yeah.
Lucas (09:10):
James Mendez Hodes is an
Ennie-award-winning writer game
designer and cultural consultant.
His design work includes Thousand Arrows
and Scion; his consulting work, Magic:
The Gathering and the Jackbox party
packs; and he last appeared on this
show for his work on the design team
of Avatar (09:26):
Legends, the tabletop RPG
version of Avatar (09:29):
The Last Airbender.
Mendez, welcome back to the show.
James Mendez Hodes (09:33):
What's good.
It's good to be here.
Thank you for having me back.
Lucas (09:36):
I asked Mendez on the show
because he had already done some pretty
heavy lifting to untangle how these
ideas would have influenced Tolkien,
and through him how they would have
contributed to Dungeons & Dragons.
James Mendez Hodes (09:46):
So reading that
blew my mind because, growing up in
America, I think the racial stereotypes
and the most virulent kinds of
racism that I grew up around I think
were often directed towards, black
people and towards American Indians.
In the particular context
of my upbringing, that's
often what I saw the most.
(10:07):
And so, I was used to seeing a lot
of that kind of racist language
directed towards orcs as well.
So my assumption was that once I started
researching the racial underpinnings
of orcs, that I would find things
like I might've seen an American
racism towards native people and
towards anybody of African descent.
(10:28):
But then when I went and I looked
at Tolkien's original conception of
orcs, I realized that, the way that
he envisioned orcs was kind of as
this Asian hoard with fangs and tusks.
That was Tolkien's version of, of orcs.
Uh, so they started out as this
purpose-built Asian stereotype.
(10:48):
I started looking at like, what kind
of influences might have moved Tolkien
to create a fantasy race that he
described essentially as Asian people.
And I realized that in British academia,
he would have encountered these theories
of scientific racism about like Caucasoid
(11:09):
and Mongoloids and Negroids, all of
these really uncomfortable terms that
we have for the different subspecies of
humanity, which of course modern science
has thrown out the window and further.
Tolkien certainly would have
encountered those things during
the course of his education.
Then Tolkien and joined the army and in
the British army, there was a conception
(11:30):
of Indian people called the administrative
races and the martial races.
So the British Raj and the British
army classified all the different
ethnicities in India into, "Okay.
We think these guys over here, they
live in cities and they're good at math.
And then these guys over, over there,
they're these big, tough, strong guys
(11:52):
who are not very smart and they make
excellent soldiers, but they'll probably
just run amok and do evil stuff unless we
put some white people in charge of them."
So practically speaking, of course, the
reason that different populations in
different places, struck the British
as being tough but obedient soldiers
(12:14):
on one hand or, good at bureaucracy
at the other, on the other hand, had
a lot to do a lot more to do with how.
Those with the way that the British
related to those people than it did with
any particular inherent quality, of them.
However, this idea of warrior races
ended up spreading throughout the
(12:34):
British consciousness and, this
term, this idea of the martial race
or the warrior race, ended up being
applied to people in Scotland,
east Africa, and Polynesia as well.
Basically anytime anybody beat the
British in a fight using technology
that they thought wasn't as good, the
British would be like, "Oh, they beat
(12:55):
us because they're a martial race.
They are somehow naturally
inclined towards fighting."
So the intersection of these two ideas,
scientific racism and the concept of
the martial race, these were things
that Tolkien could not possibly have
avoided during the course of his life.
And he happens to have created something
in the orcs which lines up with pretty
(13:16):
much all of both of those stereotypes.
And I got a couple of articles
which go into it in depth.
Lucas (13:21):
Yeah, there were a great read.
I highly recommend them.
James Mendez Hodes (13:24):
Thank you.
So, yeah, so then there's a, the first
article focuses on Tolkien and then the
second focuses on orcs in the context
of Dungeons and Dragons, and how in the
historical context of the United States,
the way that white people viewed Asian
people and black people and native people
was starting to change in certain ways.
So when orcs appeared in Dungeons and
(13:47):
Dragons, which was created by conservative
white men in the Midwest, the stereotypes
that were applied to orcs and the
way that orcs were described there
started to shift and they started to
move away from American stereotypes of
Asians, which were focused on a concept
primarily called the model minority,
which America had a purpose-built
(14:09):
through immigration policies and in a
complicated way, and started to shift
more towards the way that white racists
and racists of all, all ethnicities,
really, viewed black and native people.
And then even in more positive portrayals
of orcs, such as, those I grew up with in
Warcraft, the orcs still adhere to sort
(14:31):
of positive, but still harmful stereotypes
like the concept of the noble savage,
where there's this primitive race, which
is in some ways better at certain aspects
of humanity or stronger, or closer to
living in closer harmony with nature and
their own spirits or something like that.
You can read Jean-Jacques Rousseau
to get a deep dive into that.
(14:51):
But even in the portrayals of orcs
that I like there are still some
of those positive stereotypes.
There's definitely portrayals
of orcs out there, which have
moved in different directions.
I'm reading a great book right now
called The Unspoken Name which has
an orcish main character who's great.
My friend Carly wrote a piece
called "The Thousand Cousins,"
(15:12):
which is a version of orcs you can
drop into many different games.
I don't know if these orcs are good
necessarily, but I think the orcs
in Warhammer 40,000, which are based
on British football hooligans are a
really interesting thing to study.
I don't know if it's like a
good version of orcs, but I
think it's fascinating to study.
Lucas (15:35):
How many times do you
think you've told this story?
James Mendez Hodes (15:37):
The article that
I first published, the first part
of the article was in January 2019.
For that year, I told the story, like, I'd
say like once every couple of weeks then
things slowed down a little bit through
2020 and 2021, I'd say, meh, once a month.
But yeah, it, it, it
comes up all the time.
The most important point that I could
(15:58):
make about orcs is that if we sit down
to play a role playing game and the way
that the game, or the other players or
the DM, that someone involved portrays
orcs reminds me a little bit too much of
the way it feels when I and my friends
experience racism in the real world, then
(16:20):
I have a hard time enjoying the game.
Because honestly, even if Tolkien hadn't
done this on purpose - I do think he, he
did it on purpose, or perhaps he did it
based on like a great deal of unconscious
bias - but even if he hadn't, the thing
that he made still causes problems for
us in the present day when we try to
have a fantasy game with these different
(16:42):
species and we try to do that without
bringing in too much real world racism.
Even if this thing was
created unintentionally, it
still causes us problems.
And I think it's not nearly as cool as
some of the orcs that we could have.
So it, you know, it comes up a lot.
(17:03):
And even if this, even if you don't
buy that, this is actually racism,
even if none of that moves you,
then at the end of the day, okay.
So this is a creative
preference that I have.
Like some people don't like disco
music, some people don't like orcs the
way that they're originally portrayed
in old editions of Dungeons & Dragons
(17:23):
or the early part of fifth edition.
I just don't like it.
In addition to thinking that it's racist.
So if your friend really doesn't
like something in a game, then
you probably wouldn't want to
force them to play that game.
Right.
And if they wanted something different
in the game, if they wanted the game
to have different options, like you
(17:44):
could have an orc who fits a bunch of
racist stereotypes or you could have
a different kind of orc, I'd want to
be able at least to have the choice.
It's not very important to me that
you have the racist orcs in the game.
It's easy enough to just like
take the kind of orcs that I would
like to see and make them fit all
the racial stereotypes you want.
(18:05):
But I like having the
option not to do that.
Lucas (18:08):
Do you ever get
tired of telling this story?
James Mendez Hodes (18:12):
Not
really like, it's my job.
It's my job.
So I'm, I'm used to telling it,
it feels like a, you know, a
teacher telling kids to be quiet.
You got to tell two kids to
be quiet a few times a day.
It just, it goes with the job.
And for me talking about orcs
just kind of goes with the job.
But, the other element of this
is that I like talking about
(18:32):
orcs cause I think they're cool.
Cause I had that first positive
experience of, watching my friends make
a bunch of cool orcs in, in Warcraft
which ended up kind of setting the tone
for me and if the first orcs I'd ever
seen were in, in Dungeons and Dragons,
I probably wouldn't have felt that way.
Lucas (18:48):
To understand the aurochs' place
in this conversation, we have to talk
about that early portrayal of orcs.
I think D and D has kind of covered
its tracks with orcs by suggesting
that, some of these objectionable
stereotypes or these objectionable
traits of the culture or the race as
a whole belong to a deity of the orcs
(19:12):
that they've given the name Gruumsh.
James Mendez Hodes (19:15):
Yes.
Lucas (19:16):
Let me give you
a couple of examples.
There was a Dragon Magazine
number 62 from June, 1982.
If listeners want to look that up,
there was an article called, the gods
of the orcs and it ran with a tagline,
the word from above, make war not love.
And then we had Deities and
Demigods 20 years later in 2002.
And I'll quote from that directly just
so it's a part of the record (19:37):
" Gruumsh,
deity of orcs, is chaotic evil.
He appears as a hulking orc
in black full plate armor.
He has one unblinking central eye."
From his dogma, "Gruumsh demands that
his followers be strong; that they
cull the week from their numbers;
that they take all the territory
Gruumsh thinks is rightfully
(19:57):
theirs, which is almost everything.
He tolerates no sign of
friendliness from his people.
Unceasing warfare is his creed.
Though," and this is interesting,
"Gruumsh does not object to simple
colonization, if that can be arranged."
James Mendez Hodes (20:10):
Yeah, so my
academic background is in religion.
And one of the things that I always
complain about in fantasy religions
is that people give religions a bunch
of interesting qualities that they
think are going to make for really
good storytelling but very often not
that much attention is paid to what
(20:32):
makes a religion worth practicing?
What is the appeal of a religion?
So for example, with a lot of
fantasy versions of Christianity or
Catholicism, um, there's so obviously
terrible that, uh, that it starts
to be a little bit unbelievable.
Why, uh, you know, say the majority, um,
(20:54):
like, let's say, let's say that your hot
take is Christianity is bad actually.
And so you make a fantasy
version of Christianity.
They're the biggest
fish in the real world.
They can take a few knocks, right?
It's not like marginalizing
the Jewish right?
Christianity that they
can take a few hits.
I think they'll be okay.
So great.
So you make your, you make your fantasy
(21:14):
version of Christianity you pick all
the worst Popes and all of the worst,
prosperity gospel preachers on TV
and you, you populate the religion
entirely with them and they're the bad
guy religion, um, which, okay, sure.
Why does anyone do this religion?
Um, they would have to have so many
(21:34):
evil inquisitors running around
forcing people to do the religion at
sword point, that just, it would just
not be, not be a manageable task.
Um, so anytime a religion, there's
like a fantasy version of a religion
and it's just like, all of the worst
cult stuff without even any of the
stuff that cults do to make people
want to be in a cult, um, I find that
(21:58):
creatively unsatisfying, shall we say?
And, uh, more importantly, if I'm trying
to create stuff in the world, it makes
storytelling difficult because, uh,
you know, what am I going to be like?
So everyone in this town practices
this religion, um, and then all my
players are going to be like, why?
And I'll be like, ah, I don't know.
(22:19):
So, so this makes, this makes
my job as the dungeon master
or as the player difficult.
So the first problem that I see with
this Gruumsh guy, is that I'm like, how
are you going to live a whole sentient,
sapient life without friendship?
I believe that orcs, the,
the stereotypical org travels
(22:40):
in a hoard, is that correct?
And you would think that, uh, you know,
uh, your, your average orc might, I dunno,
put some value on unit coherency, if
he's going to try to do a colonialism.
Um, so this guy's like no
friendliness, no friendship.
(23:03):
You can conquer people and
show off your strength.
This doesn't really make sense to me.
It's also like, having a race that's
completely evil, first of all, as I often
say, if everybody in a certain race or
a species rather, cause I hate saying
race, if everyone in a certain species
is born evil and they don't have the
(23:25):
choice about whether or not to do evil and
there's no chance that they can do good,
well, that's not really evil, that's
more like a, there's a force of nature.
They don't really have a choice about it.
That's not evil as, as I understand it.
That's just like having a
destructive nature that they
don't really have a choice about.
(23:46):
So, okay.
So if, if Gruumsh is chaotic evil, and
he demands this from all the orcs, it
does not sound like a religion that
I would bother practicing, even if
I did like violence and colonialism,
it doesn't sound like a good time.
When I bring up the idea that it, it might
be a little sketch that all orcs are evil.
Very often the first response I
(24:09):
get is, well, it makes sense that
they're that way in the setting.
And my response is like, really?
Cause I think Gruumsh isn't real.
Someone made him up.
So someone made up the reasons for
them all to be evil in the setting.
And even if they do have a reason to
be evil in the setting, that still
makes the process of interacting with
(24:29):
them for me, kind of uncomfortable.
Like my personal experience of orcs
being uncomfortable is still going
to be the same, whether or not
there's like a good reason for it.
Moreover, the idea of God making a
certain subgroup of sentient beings a
certain way in response to like their
past crimes or something like that,
(24:50):
that's also a really common talking point
in racist depictions of certain people.
And, uh, again, when I bring up this
point, a lot of the time people say to
me, "Well, you're making that connection.
I would never have thought that
before you made this connection
between orcs and whoever it is."
(25:11):
To which my response is, "Yeah,
I'm making that connection because
racists said to, said it to me first.
And unfortunately now I can't forget
that because racism still exists."
So having there be a God whose
fault it is, doesn't really
make the situation worse.
And when you characterize a whole people
(25:33):
and their whole ass religion as built
entirely on these harmful and hateful
ideas, that's how we do religious
intolerance in the real world also.
And I don't enjoy that usually.
Lucas (25:49):
you mentioned at the top of the
interview, that Volos is the worst.
What is it about Volos
guide that bugs you?
James Mendez Hodes (25:55):
oh my God.
Um,
Lucas (25:57):
Is that too much of a question?
James Mendez Hodes (26:00):
um, so,
so for comparison, let's
look at the orcs in Eberron.
I don't love a lot of things
about their portrayal.
This was before the Tasha apocalypse and
the end of race-based ability scores.
Lucas (26:12):
Yeah, that was going
to be my next question.
James Mendez Hodes (26:15):
yeah, so
this is before that, right?
So the orcs still a little, uh,
so they get a plus two to strength
and a plus one to constitution.
So that means that all of the most
optimal orcs are going to be fighters,
clerics, paladins, barbarians.
You're not going to see a lot of orc
monks, rogues, wizards or warlocks.
(26:39):
The most optimally built orcs
are all going to be in like
certain martial categories.
Age orcs, reach adulthood at
age 12 and live up to 50 years.
Alignments, the orcs have ever
honor a passionate people given to
powerful emotion and deep faith.
They are generally chaotic,
but can be any alignment.
(27:00):
I like that they can be any alignment.
I get that, but characterizing a
whole species as whole culture as
chaotic, that's a little weird, right?
Aren't there different,
different cultures of orcs?
There's different cultures
of humans, probably different
cultures of elves, dwarves, right?
Why don't we got different
cultures of orcs?
(27:20):
Um, maybe some can be chaotic
and some can be ordered.
Size they're medium, speed, 30
feet, they have dark vision.
Sure.
Okay.
"Aggressive (27:29):
as a bonus action, you
can move up to your speed towards an
enemy of your choice you can see or
hear, you must end this move closer
to the enemy, then you started."
so if we're going to give all orcs an
aggression power, then I think it would
be useful for there to be a reason why.
Because otherwise we're saying like
(27:50):
all, every single orc is aggressive
and that is also an uncomfortable
thing that people say about certain
groups in, in the real world.
" Powerful build (28:00):
you count as one
size larger when determining your
carrying capacity and the weight
you can push drag or lifts."
I don't have like the biggest
problem with that in the world.
Cause like, I guess it's reasonable
to say, I don't know people from
Senegal or Scandinavia are often very
tall, so they are, but that, like,
(28:22):
we don't even do that with humans.
So saying like all of this, everybody
here has a very powerful build.
It's just not that exciting a power,
but I guess it could be worse.
" Primal Intuition," this one's weird.
"You have proficiency in two of the
following skills of your choice (28:39):
animal
handling insight, intimidation, medicine,
nature, perception and survival."
So I think this goes back to those noble
savage ideas that I mentioned, right?
This is kind of the, this feels
like the Warcraft version of embark.
So that's an orc in, uh, in Eberron.
I got some problems with it.
There's some things where I'm like,
oh, I'm not sure I got to think about
(29:00):
this one, but, uh, let's look at Volos.
Lucas (29:04):
No.
James Mendez Hodes (29:05):
The
version of orcs that we got in
here, monstrous adventurers.
All right.
So ability score increase strength
and constitution as the same
strength and constitution that
we just saw in the other book.
And your intelligence
score is reduced by two.
So they're all dumber.
(29:26):
Great.
So this is, this is exactly, this is
a, a, an ability score-enforced martial
race bonuses to strengthen constitution,
but they have worse intelligence,
Alignment (29:38):
orcs are vicious raiders who
believe that the world should be theirs.
They also represent, uh, respect, strength
above all else and believe the strong
must bully the weak to ensure that
weakness does not spread like a disease.
They're usually chaotic evil.
" Size (29:51):
orcs are usually over six feet tall
and weigh between 230 and 280 pounds.
Your size is medium."
Fine.
Speed (29:57):
30 feet.
Dark vision.
They have dark vision.
Then aggressive is in here.
Menacing, they're trained in
the intimidation skills, so they
all run around scaring people.
Powerful Build, same as before.
And that's, that's an orc mechanically.
So they are one of the few species
in this game that actually has a
negative modifier to an ability score.
(30:19):
So that to make sure that we
all know, that orcs are dumb.
So, I hate it.
Lucas (30:27):
Even at the time of this interview,
the so-called "Tasha-pocalypse" had begun
to address these issues by re-writing
the source material in question.
The November 2021 sourcebook Tasha's
Cauldron of Everything made ability
score increases a matter of player
choice rather than being determined
by race, accompanied by a large number
of mechanical changes to the game.
A massive set of errata released
(30:49):
that December removed racial ability
score penalties as well as adjusting
some of the lore in the Player's
Handbook regarding orcs and drow,
another problematic racial symbol.
The May 2022 release of Monsters of the
Multiverse made previous printings of
orcs and other creatures "legacy content"
and replaced them with updated versions.
(31:09):
For orcs, the "Aggressive" trait was
replaced with a movement buff called
"Adrenaline Rush" that doesn't target
enemies, and the "Menacing" trait was
replaced with "Relentless Endurance" which
allows the orc character to return to 1
hit point instead of falling unconscious.
Gruumsh still appears as an influential
figure in orcish culture, though
(31:29):
he is now cited as "an unstoppable
warrior and powerful leader" known
for his tougness and tenacity.
Despite a generally warm
reception, these changes were
not received without controversy.
Nor can they erase the printed
words in Volo's Guide, Deities
& Demigods, or Dragon Magazine.
Mendez's criticisms are no less
(31:50):
relevant now than they were when
we recorded them in January.
I did want to bring it back around to
Book of Extinction and the aurochs itself.
Cause this is another one of those things
that just kind of snuck its way rather
unremarkably into the back of Volos Guide.
It's another beast.
It's a very large cow, CR 2?
But the section of lore that we got
(32:11):
tied it to Gruumsh and his son Bahgtru.
It cast it in the role of, of mount
like a mount chosen of a deity,
which happens a lot, in myth and
culture over the course of history.
James Mendez Hodes (32:25):
Before this
interview, I read through the part
about all the ORC deities and they're
all, they're all, they're all terrible.
And then there's one of them.
And then he rides an aurochs
around, and this is like the
only good thing orcs ever do.
They're nice to cows.
This is, this is like the only
(32:45):
positive things said about orcs.
And like this whole chapter is that
they're nice to this one kind of cow.
And then sometimes they've
ride them into battle.
And there's a lot going on here.
Why weren't horses good enough?
Why does it have to be a bull?
Did they need something that was just
bigger and hornier than like the human,
(33:08):
the thing that humans were riding around?
Um, what happened to riding on wolves?
That's also kind of weird, but
I thought they used to, is that
just for goblins now, but, okay.
So now they have these sacred
cows, um, which I don't think has
anything to do with like, like
in, in real world, like yeah.
there are, there are cows that
are sacred in, in south Asia.
I don't think that, oh,
(33:32):
wait, martial races.
Ah, they are connected aren't they.
Damn it.
All right.
All right.
I hope that was an accident.
So I it's awkward because it
reminds you of Nazi stuff.
Right?
And I think a lot of, there are a lot
of, fascist movements which have eco
fascist tendencies where they have
like a, a Vokish ideology or some
(33:54):
similar thing like that, which is
connected to a certain understanding
of how, people are connected to land.
Lucas (34:02):
In the case of Heck and Göring,
this idea was lebensraum, or living
space, and a return to the heroic past.
James Mendez Hodes (34:09):
Classical nationalism
is built on a lot of different shared
qualities, but language culture, history,
usually religion and territory are often
elements of classical nationalism as
opposed to like the messed up versions
of nationalism we have today, but we're
talking about like the stuff that led
to the formation of early nation states.
So, a lot of the time that's
(34:30):
connected to certain qualities
of nature or animals or plants.
In this case, the Nazis were attempting
to create a living animal symbol of
their idea of the German relationship
with the German country and the German
climate and the German animals, I guess.
(34:53):
In addition to the, the racialized
aspects of orcs, um, portrayals
of orcs are also heavily gendered.
The masculinity and the toxic masculinity
of orcs is often heavily exaggerated.
So the, the bull here seems
to be a symbol of masculinity.
(35:16):
And then the aurochs, as an exaggerated,
like, you know, super swole, uh, version
of the bull seems to be connected to
a kind of exaggerated masculinity.
Um,
yeah, this is uncomfortable.
Lucas (35:37):
Forgotten Realms lore from
earlier editions also showed this
gendered portrayal in the form of
Gruumsh's wife, Luthic, another
part of the orcish pantheon.
Jessica Marcrum (35:45):
Luthic gets really poorly
treated in a lot of the lore because
she does all of this really cool stuff.
She gives the orcs like visions of
the blood moon, which incites them to
battle and makes them into warriors.
She's there when every orc is born,
she's there when every orc dies.
(36:05):
And yet she's really ignored by most orcs
and just seen as like Gruumsh's wife and
kind of disregarded by the rest of the
pantheon, most of which are her children.
Lucas (36:19):
This is Jessica Marcrum,
who created an adventure around
Luthic for Uncaged (36:22):
Goddesses, the
DM's Guild adventure anthology we
covered at the top of the season.
Jessica Marcrum (36:28):
So her husband and her
children all treat her like trash and
the orcs, except for like her clerics
who are called the Orc Claws of Luthic,
all also kind of are like, whatever about
her, but it's canon that she's like the
smartest person in the pantheon and the
only one who's good at battle strategy.
(36:52):
She's also the only one who
knows how to heal apparently.
So, you know, she, she does all
this and doesn't get any credit.
Lucas (36:59):
Jessica's criticisms hit very
differently in light of the conversation
around martial and administrative races.
The gendered portrayal continues
as Luthic is also associated with
an Ice Age giant, the cave bear.
Jessica Marcrum (37:12):
They're one of
her sacred animals and she is
known to transform into cave bears.
Lucas (37:17):
Cave bears we know are the
fulcrum where archaeology turned
from fable to fact, as they were
so often conflated with dragons.
It's easy to hear the same echo of a
mythic, dragon-slaying past written
in Luthic that we hear in Gruumsh,
uncomfortable associations and all.
James Mendez Hodes (37:33):
So as far as
like corrections, I would like to see
made to orcs, uh, you know, D and D
has already moved past a lot of the
things in Volo's Guide to Monsters.
The connection to aurochs, uh,
it's not my biggest problem here.
Like if you fix a lot of the other
stuff, if their gods aren't all just
monsters, and if they themselves,
(37:54):
aren't just monsters than I think the
fact that they have very large bulls
is not, not my biggest problem here.
That that seems okay.
It's just weird, you know?
Lucas (38:06):
Yeah, I do.
It's part of why I wanted
to talk to you about it.
This is a lot of information that I
was genuinely unsure what to do with.
But I can't not talk about it.
It would be the same as
pretending it didn't happen.
James Mendez Hodes (38:22):
It's a great story.
Even if you're going to, even if you're
going to leave the, the aurochs from
Volos guys to monsters in there, like
it's, this is a fascinating story.
Lucas (38:35):
Yeah, I will say that
to kind of bring it back around
and put a button on this.
The aurochs has gotten what I
consider to be a redemptive moment.
Uh, it's one of a handful of species
that scientists are actively trying
to bring back from extinction.
We're at a point technologically
where we are able to talk about
whether we can de extinct something.
Steve Sullivan (38:56):
And now today, with, with
CRISPR technology, we can kind of cut
up genes and chuck new bits in there.
And, in fact with the mammoth, that's been
in the news recently, we can take Asian
elephants and we can take some of these,
frozen mammoths that have been in the
permafrost for so long, which thanks to
climate change, the permafrost is thawing.
So we're able to find these, but so
(39:18):
well-preserved, we can even eat the meat.
We can find the genes
within those organisms.
We can splice them into Asian
elephants, and it is entirely
conceivable that we can make a mammoth.
Lucas (39:31):
A more recent program to de extinct
the aurochs, rather than being based on,
uh, Göring's idea of what an aurochs might
have been, it's based on a sequence of
the aurochs genome using material from
a bone discovered in Derbyshire England,
They also used genetic material
from museum artifacts, including
(39:53):
King Sigismund III's drinking horn.
So this is like, this is straight out
of a summer blockbuster and it's the
Taurus program is doing it, a cooperation
between European conservation groups.
And they hope to create a modern
version of the aurochs that more
closely matches that genome and there
they're being very careful about it.
It matches the genome.
(40:14):
It matches depictions we have of the
aurochs from ancient history and it's
being re-introduced to areas like
the Rhodope Mountains, the Southern
Carpathians and the Oder Delta,
and it hopes to create functional
ecological landscapes sustained
by natural processes like forest
regeneration and free flowing rivers.
So we've, we've back-bred the
aurochs, this time as a part of a
(40:37):
really sophisticated land management
strategy to address the problems
of conservation and extinction.
James Mendez Hodes (40:44):
Well, that's great.
That's pretty cool.
What if orcs did that?
Lucas (40:53):
And I do have to say for accuracy's
sake that this story doesn't end neatly
in the way that most true stories
don't but Heinz Heck, it must be said,
didn't share his brother's ideology.
He was imprisoned at the Dachau
concentration camp for his connections
to the communist party and his
brief marriage to a Jewish woman.
James Mendez Hodes (41:10):
Wow.
I just, I just opened up his Wikipedia
page and it says, Heck also played
an important part in saving the
European bison from extinction.
so this guy is, this guy is the hero
of this whole episode, Heinz Heck.
Yeah.
This guy is, this guy is cool.
Lucas (41:24):
He's a pretty rad dude.
James Mendez Hodes (41:26):
Yeah, let's
enjoy this five minutes before
the internet milkshake ducks him.
I'm sure if someone in the responses to
this episode is going to be like, actually
Lucas (41:34):
Oh, I'm, I'm fully prepared
for people to point out the limits of
my research and I, and I will, I, it
is worth mentioning also, please do
point out the limits of my research.
I'm a journalist, not a historian,
so if you've got information
I don't, I'd love to hear it.
Let's start a better
conversation around this.
James Mendez Hodes (41:51):
Yeah.
I am just like, I feel like I'm
just starting to scratch the
surface of this topic myself.
Lucas (41:57):
The aurochs will appear in
The Book of Extinction, a bestiary of
extinct animals for 5th edition coming
to Kickstarter in November of 2022.
My version takes after the Tauros
Programme rather than the Nazi supercow.
I've mythologized it as the briar bull,
a creature of druidic power that brings
new life to the forests where it walks.
You can find out more about the
(42:17):
project, including the illustration
of the aurochs on the cover, at
scintilla dot studio slash extinction.
You can download the first three
monsters in the book, themselves
stories of giants and primeval forests.
Pay what you want for it, and every
penny we earn will go to supporting
(42:38):
the Center for Biological Diversity, a
legal and media advocacy organization
based in Portland working to protect
endangered species and wild places
in the United States and worldwide.
Thanks for listening to
Making a Monster (42:52):
Extinction.
There is so much more to say about this
immense topic on the back of the aurochs.
In the show notes is a link to the
most important resources you'll need to
navigate this topic, including a fantastic
Smithsonian article on the Nazi supercow,
Mendez' excellent "orc-ticles" on the
martial race myth, and more about the
TaurOs Programme and Rewilding Europe.
(43:15):
My thanks to this episode's guides,
Steve Sullivan, director of the
Hefner Museum of Natural History
at Miami University in Ohio;
Jessica Marcrum, Uncaged Author
and producer of the Threeflings
actual play podcast, online at
jessicamarcrumwrites dot com;
and featuring James Mendez Hodes,
game designer and orc historian.
James Mendez Hodes (43:34):
You can find
me on Twitter at Lula Vampiro.
I just posted actually a, another video.
It's an interview with me talking
about the magic, the gathering cyber
future set, coming out on Neon Dynasty.
And, uh, yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for having me.
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