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Genuine question. In 40k IIRC they're green because they're a fungus... and therefore have clorophyl? Probably not. Still, it'd be good to know what it is in their background that I'd be violating were I to start an albino-white, heavily tattooed force.

There are stories where orks are a different color than green (I think there was an imperial guard book where the orks were reddish brown because of the planet they were on). It's your army paint it how you want.

EmpBobo wrote:There are stories where orks are a different color than green (I think there was an imperial guard book where the orks were reddish brown because of the planet they were on). It's your army paint it how you want.

Oh, I absolutely will. I'm just wondering what the background reason for O&G being green is.

Well, the O&G book says that the color of their skin varies "with age and even climate." That, combined with the fact that the black orks have "dark green and even black skin" and a mysterious origin suggests that there are variants and subspecies, so you should feel totally justified in making albinos.

If, however, you felt the compulsion to stay grounded within the fluff (I dunno, maybe you have TFG at your store who'll flip out if you pull out white orks), you could always basecoat with rotting flesh and then build up white from there. It's greenISH.

They are green because for quite a long time, that's the color that the Studio painted them (though evidently, they painted them brown originally). I don't think there has ever been a "pseudo-scientific" reason why fantasy orcs must be green. On the other hand, there's no scientific reason why zebras must be white and black, rather than pale yellow and dark brown, but the fact remains that they are.

While it certainly is your army, and you can paint them any color you want, that original decision has entered into the background of the Warhammer world fairly strongly. Orcs and goblins are known as the "greenskins" and even their shamans talk about "the great green" beyond the world. It's pretty well established, in the Warhammer world, that orcs and goblins are (almost entirely) green (there are examples of known goblin variants).

Similarly, you could paint the lions pulling Lion Chariots any color, but they are called "White Lions" because they are white in that world. You could paint the Reiksguard in blue and black, but it's established that their colors are red and white. There is no physical reason in the Warhammer world for Orcs to necessarily be green, but within that world, I think everybody would expect to see green orcs. You could model yours with tails, as there is no mechanical reason why they could not have tails, too, but they certainly would not represent the orcs and goblins one would expect to see in Warhammer.

What I am trying to get at is there isn't, so far as I am aware, a background reason for orcs to be green (in particular). In the background, they are some color, and that color was decided to be green (and pretty universally green).

there is a reason Orks are Green.


this is the 40k reason, but we can assume its the same species.



Orks are green as they are a form of sentient plant with symbiotic(2 organisims living together for mutual support) fungus.

the actual shade of the ork can vary from light green to practically black.

although orks are Plants, they do not require photosynthisis. instead, they share a characteristic with Animal life. they eat other organisims as their primary source of nutrition.

Orks get their green color from the Choloraplasts in their skin. now, because orks do not require these to live and gain sustainance, it isn't unreasonable to expect orks that are from a world with low levels of light to become extreamly pale(plants without proper light become pale too) or almost white.

orks are also known to wear warpaint. so if any problems arise you can just say they wear warpaint.

I swear i read some where they where green cuz they had algy in there blood but if there a fungus that means you can paint them any couler there are millions of kinds of coulered fungus and on the pluss side theres a toadstool thats white called a death cap so that would back up white orks a bit and give them a cool name.(I am a farmer thats how i know).

Technically speaking it is unknown how fantasy orcs reproduce, it is very possible that they have genders that are inistinguishable at first glance (for other races anyway), or that only the males go to war, or that they "spawn" by other means simillar to space orks.

Grey Templar wrote:there is a reason Orks are Green.


this is the 40k reason, but we can assume its the same species.



Orks are green as they are a form of sentient plant with symbiotic(2 organisims living together for mutual support) fungus.

the actual shade of the ork can vary from light green to practically black.

although orks are Plants, they do not require photosynthisis. instead, they share a characteristic with Animal life. they eat other organisims as their primary source of nutrition.

Orks get their green color from the Choloraplasts in their skin. now, because orks do not require these to live and gain sustainance, it isn't unreasonable to expect orks that are from a world with low levels of light to become extreamly pale(plants without proper light become pale too) or almost white.

orks are also known to wear warpaint. so if any problems arise you can just say they wear warpaint.

Actually in the 40K Fluff they have both animal and fungal traits. The codex(page 11) also states that they have an algae in their blood which causes the green colouration. It in no way states anything about plant life. And before you attempt to say that fungi and algae are plants, think again. Algae are bacteria, and fungi are a separate type of life. But then this is GW, so all real world, science dosn't exist, as the chaos Gods have "warped" all science and knowledge.

Hover is right, and in 40k Orks are more of a mushroom, a fungi to be specific so they do not use photosynthesis to feed and reproduce through spores. 40k Orks origin is unknown but there is talk in the book that an intelligent green skin race that resemble grots that created/bioengineered Orks to preserve the green skin race. So in Fantasy it is very likely that earlier in their evolution cycle Orcs and Goblins mated eventually through technology the need to be big and strong subsided (sound familiar?) so they may have evolved into smarter, smaller beings, and these beings facing destruction due to the new harsh galaxy of 40k and it's new threats-Necrons, Humanity, Tyranids.... and so on, created a stronger and more durable form that reproduced in a more efficient matter.

40K is a completely different game. There has been no hint as far as I know that WHFB, if the timeline were extended far enough, would become 40K. They just made vaugely similar races--cuz they're lazy bastards. Necrons aren't Tomb Kings, obviously, though they have game mechanic likenesses, their origins are vastly different. Empire/Bretonnia aren't SM.

I'm always against limiting players in stuff like this. It seems incredibly counter-productive in a hobby that's designed around creative painting and modelling. Lizardmen are all supposed to all be a similar color type too (blue). Most people assume skeletons will be white. Etc.

But the glory is, you can always come up with whatever fluff for your army you want, as long as it doesn't break game rules. And there are no game RULES regarding color scheme. You can say a shaman experimented on their tribe and Poof, their color is pink. Or they were cursed by [enemy XYZ] and now they lost their natural camoflage. Or they live by the polluted Rust River, scene of a magical battle long ago, and its contents have colored them after generations of drinking it. Say whatever you want. Or don't say anything.

of course Fantesy and 40k are seperated.

but you can't deny that the basic fluff for the ork race is the same, if not entirely compatable.

you can't have both in place at the same time, but they are the same on a basic level.


both Orks have Waaaaaaghs.

both Orks get bigger with fightin.

both Orks have the same basic social structure(as far as we can tell)

and they have the ame body structure.

but are they so seperate? I mean both games share the same name, Warhammer, so technically speaking wouldn't that encompass a single universe or system?

I would assume from this standpoint that there is a correlation between the two other than just game mechanics as GW has released games with different titles.

the original fluff was that 40k was the Warhammer world 40,000 years in the future. Note: the bolded word.


GW has since severed that line to put forth the current 40k fluff(more popular of the 2 games) to be what it is today, an extension of the real world. and they didn't want it to be "Faaaaanteeeeeesy in Spesss"


the Fluff holes haven't been completely patched so we can say that the Orks are the same species. of course they might not be, but there is just as much evidence of both that the Humans in both worlds aren't the same species.

Squigs in 40K are also part fungus, and they are not automatically green (nor even often green). More often than not, they are red.

If it is established (and I can't remember any place that firmly establishes this) that Orks have functional chlorophyll (which would need to be near the surface of their skin, to benefit from sunlight), then it would provide a physical reason for orks to be green (though there are other potential colors, as other chemicals can react with sunlight in this way).

However, even if it is established that Orks have chlorophyll in their skin, it doesn't follow that Orcs do. Fantasy Orcs don't seem to develop painboys, or Mekboys, or any of the specialist orkoid types (other than Weirdboys). If Orcs are related to Orks, they are clearly a variant race in some ways, and chlorophyll could be one of those ways.



Why does Ork skin color HAVE to have this evolutionary purpose? A lot of birds evolved to have brightly colored feathers, but most of those species didn't evolve to have SPECIFIC brightly colored feathers. Some color patterns, obviously, are specific, either for evolutionary adaption (penguins) or chemical reasons (flamingos). However, I don't know of any reason that most bird species HAD to be a particular color. Taking parrots and their kin as an example, it's obvious that a wide degree of color variation is possible between species.

That doesn't change the fact that Bluebirds are blue, and Snowy Egrets are white. Its entirely possible that Orcs ARE green, without it being logically or scientifically mandated that orcs must have been green.

Where does the presumption arise that Greenskins have to be green for some specific purpose, rather than as a result of the normal contingency of evolution (and, given the background of the Orks, their intentional intelligent design)? Why does it just seem to be Orcs/Orks? No one seems to ask why Tau are "blue", or why Eldar are pale human flesh tones.

If I was going to make Druchii Eldar or fluoro pink Tau, I'd probably ask why they were cream coloured, or blue.

I just don't know about this green because of chlorophyll thing. Orcs eat squigs, squigs eat their poo, it's the great cycle. Since legend has they were engineered by the brainboyz and these brainboyz, engineered them to have this self sufficient eco system, this is what sustains them while drifting through space on the Space Hulks. In order for them too feed through photosynthesis they need sunlight and on these long trips on the space hulks between star systems, there cannot be any sunlight. It is possible that they can get nutrition from both sources. Either way the link between Orc and Ork is not known, and how you paint them is your business, just keep in mind they are called green skins for a reason.

Because if they were purple it would just be silly.

Orcs in Warhammer were originally brown/burnt-skinned (Tolkien inspired) until the design decision was made to make them all green (rumour has it that Mark Bedford was responsible).

There is always the legend that Blizzard's original Warcraft game was based on the Warhammer fantasy setting - this is reinforced by the fact that GW invented green orcs.

So there you go - they're green because it was decided that they would be green!

It's pretty well known the original Warcraft: Orcs and Humans was a Games Workshop license product. Then in what could have been the stupidest move ever considering the money World of Warcraft brings in every month (approx. 8.5+ million multiply by $12), GW decided to back out and not pay up for all the work done. So Blizzard having completed most of the work just changed the name and lore. But look on the bright side GW, you would have screwed it up anyway or increased the monthly subscription charges every year since the release of WoW to where no one would play because it costs $60 a month.

Hargus56 wrote:It's pretty often claimed but rarely referenced that the original Warcraft: Orcs and Humans was a Games Workshop license product. Then in what could have been the stupidest move ever considering the money World of Warcraft brings in every month (approx. 8.5+ million multiply by $12), GW decided to back out and not pay up for all the work done. So Blizzard having completed most of the work just changed the name and lore. But look on the bright side GW, you would have screwed it up anyway or increased the monthly subscription charges every year since the release of WoW to where no one would play because it costs $60 a month.

Fix'd.

That said, green orcs are pretty good evidence. It's more likely that Blizzard began to develop a game based on GW IP but GW refused to license them. It's not a stupid move - that's like saying you're stupid because you didn't buy a winning lottery ticket. Besides, Dawn of War has been incredibly successful. The Warcraft games were also very successful long before it became a subscription based RPG - World of Warcraft was originally in development as a single-player adventure game anyway!

Arctik_Firangi wrote:Orcs in Warhammer were originally brown/burnt-skinned (Tolkien inspired) until the design decision was made to make them all green (rumour has it that Mark Bedford was responsible).(...)
So there you go - they're green because it was decided that they would be green!

I also assumed this to be the story behind this, though I have no proof.

IIRC the 40k fungus-background was done AFTER Orks were green for a while (and created an uproar among the Ork fans).
BTW Fungi are neither plants nor animals but a third biological "kingdom". And they don't have chlorophyll (only if they have a symbiosis with algae and create lichen which is strictly not an organism but a community of two kinds of organisms) and are rarely green.

LOTR Orcs in the film and tabletop are reddish brown BTW.

Squash wrote:Because if they were purple it would just be silly.

I was going to make pink Necrons. Why? Because the color pink has a certain association with it. A sissy, girlie, unscary color. To us. Humans. Living now. On Earth.

But that has nothing whatsoever to do with an alien race 38,000 years from now. I mean, nothing. Teal could be the most frightening color in the 40K universe. It's silly to think they share the mindset of Earth humans. Likewise, looking at how plants work on Earth, is relatively meaningless in a fantasy space environment.

All this pseudo science is laughable in the Warhammer world. They got guys with swords when they also have ships that can bombard planets. I'm sorry, but your sword, even if it has a chain on it, is relatively unimportant. Their choppas can cut through metal...because they think they can. Their vehicles painted red go faster...because they think they can.

Orks and Orcs are colored [whatever you want]...because you want them to. Use those latent psychic powers, human.

Incidentally I know two Ork players who have pink-skinned Orks. Not flesh pink, but full-on tentacle-or-nearest-alternative barbie-doll pink.

You now have the requisite rationale to make your orks albinos.

Strelka wrote:

You now have the requisite rationale to make your orks albinos.

and hallucinogenic!

(Disclaimer)
Amanita species in general are all poisonous this includes the shown amanita muscaria except when properly prepared which honestly i'm not going to divulge on here.
mycology is a hobby.