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I've been doing some research trying to find the answer to this question and haven't come up with any specific answer, so if this is often asked, apologies. If anyone has a good source on clans most of this could be ignored.

From what I understand, Ork Clans are more just philosophies or movements that orks can adhere to. Goffs are big and krump things, Bad Moons are rich and shoot things, Deathskulls take stuff, etc. How do the clans originate though? For example, if an ork is spored in a Goff heavy zone, does he automatically dawn the black regalia and develop a love for punching things? Or, if he were to decide he really liked riding bikes, could he go off and join an Evil Sunz force, assuming there wasn't one nearby (I'm not sure how exclusive clan dominance is either). Is clan-ness hardwired into the ork, akin to engineering in Meks and what could more or less be called surgery in Doks? Territorial dominance is another question, I assume its done more by Tribe/Warband (whatever you want to call the orks in a given area under the control of a Warboss) and not by clan, but I'm not sure how clans fit into the Warband. It is unlikely, at least to my knowledge, that any Warband would be clan specific (WAAAGHs definitely not being exclusionary), but is it just the case that the Warboss' clan is in charge in regards to general tactics or does everyone just kinda do their own thing as long as they're fighting something?

The reason I ask is that I almost always see people making mono-clan armies. I'm not against it or anything, it gives them a nice flavor and good visual coherency, but I was just wondering about the feasibility of a multi-clan army. I'm working on a Kult of Speed at the moment which seems to be an overarching movement above clan affiliation, so that an ork could be 'in' both without any problems, and the Kult seems to span clan lines. It'll probably be heavily Evil Sunz, what with them being the most likely candidates, but I thought to break it up a little bit that it would be interesting to put a few other Clan mobs in there, Goffs as a large BW mob, Bad Moons as shootas and the like. Would that be fluff-friendly as a small ork force of multiple clans all making up a kult, or are orks solely clan divided on a small scale (both in a Kult of Speed, and in general, as they might be different). Also, any ideas on how to give it more cohesiveness as an army would be appreciated, assuming its kosher. I'm hoping that general painting style and similar detail colors will tie them together, as orks are pretty ramshackle as is, along with a generous addition of red for obvious reasons.

TLDR/Orky version: Orks and Clans, 'ow dey wurk?

I'm pretty sure that it's proximity that determines what clan a young (freshly hatched/emerged/spawned) ork becomes. A certain percentage will manifest oddboy powers (weirdboy/painboy/mekboy) no matter what, but I think the clans are all just self reinforcing. The Bad Moons excrete pheromones (or something) that make their teeth grow, the Goffs get big from beating on stuff constantly (which makes orks of all clans grow, it's just that Goffs crump more so they grow more) and Deathskulls are the fagins of the ork world.

Where this gets weird is the old tradition (Rogue Trader and Epic Space Marine era, IIRC) that Bad Moons had the most weirdboyz. But as far as I can tell that's been retconned out of more recent editions.

As far as the clan stuff goes I think Orkz just inherit it on a genetic level similiar to Meks, Doks and Weirdboyz. Orkz will grow up with a certain philosophy that adheres to a particular clan, and will find other likeminded boyz within the warband, because while I get the impression mono-clan Warbands exist, I think the most common occurrence is that Warbands comprise of many different clans (particularly during and after a Waaagh!), with an emphasis on which clan the warband's Warboss belongs to (ie. A Deathskulls Warboss would be particularly fangin' git, Bad Moonz Warbosses are particularly more obstentatious and so forth), thus it carries on down to the Warband itself.

I think the mono-clan armies reason is the whole visual coherency thing you mentioned, or some people just might like the fluff of one particular clan.

Personally Im making a combined Goffs/Blood Axes force. A horde of Goffs boyz making a ruckus while all the elite Blood Axes will be sneakin around doin their choppin'. My reason for this is while I love to paint camo, I dont want to have to do it on 40+ slugga/shoota boyz, so leaving them black with the occasional checks and dash 'o red is more convenient for me. So to represent this my Warboss has both Blood Axe camo and Goffs checking

What makes a mek a mek? Or a weirdboy a weirdboy? It's hardwired. You get single clan armies because like minded orks want to hang out together. You get multi-clan warbands because the biggest boss will kick the crap out of every ork, regardless of clan, and make them his boyz....

Back in day (Ere we go and 2nd edition) , all the armies in WD were mixed clan armies. It made them very (almost too) colourful. I think since 3rd ed when everything became more grimdark there were more single clan armies, they do look a little more coherent on the tabletop. I tend to play mixed clan armies, with each type of unit being from the most appropiate clan (you know ES buggies/bikes BA kommandos, DS lootaz/tankbustas/burna boyz etc.)
I'm trying to make a themed force (under 1000pts) for each klan.

My one word of warning about your combined Goff/Bloodaxe army - If you're outflanking with your kommandoz don't expect them to turn up when you want them to. In many a battle I've seen my goff and snakebite bigmobz have to do all the work while those treacherous blood axe sneaks wait until the game is all but won or lost before making an appearance. They would claim it was all part of their kunnin plan, but I know their just sneaky gitz, and were waiting to see how the battle would pan out before they decided to get involved.

This is a "nature vs. nurture" question. Are the orks learning their philosophies from the orks around them, or are they innately born with a certain predisposition?

If you say it's in their nature, then Feral orks pose a problem. Why don't they automatically grab a bunch of red gak and start building bikes if they came from Evil Sunz spores?
If you say its nurture, then why are their only a few "set" clanz instead of millions of orky variations unique to each warboss?

Personally, i can't see orks sticking to one colour. Even the models aren't uniform, they're so mix and match that the thought that they all dress in the same colours is a stretch.
My army is Deathskullz based, but since they're supposed to be LOOTAS and thieving gits i've been painting each one individually, spending time to make then unique in one way or another. The only thing i'm doing to tie the army together is giving them something blue, like warpaint or blue leathers, but no 2 are alike.

Safe to say i've been painting for at least 2 months now (i think) and i've only got 20 out of 74 done