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I haven´t seen it in the fluff and was wondering if it has ever been covered. Orks just seem to grow bigger or die fighting, and grots don´t seem to be able to survive their worldly surroundings longer then 9 years nomatter what...

They just get bigger as they get older. Eventually you'll get these massive uber Orks that can take on Primarchs. Such threats are usually put down in the end, though.

Orks are effectively children forever since they keep growing and don't age, but they usually are killed in combat at ages similar to humans.

I think they just grow and grow. They might die of age but they all die before then so it makes little difference.

But surely they must die of old age at some point, or at least stop growing, as otherwise you'd get orks as big as buildings on feral ork planets where they're not being so actively exterminated. I think it's probably just fluff that's not touched upon due to lack of interest from most people I suppose.

They only grow larger than regular boyz through protracted periods of conflict and violence. Therefore orks on feral worlds are unlikely to get enough conflict to grow to these sizes.

Some of the largest and oldest organisms on this planet are actually fungi. I could see orks effectively being ageless in a vacuum; only thing is, there is always some external enemy or a rival ork that' going to chance ending the bigger one's life early. There may be some unreached limit to size based on whatever their metabolism is (and eventually gravity conditions limit the size of life).

1d4chan has story about a Ork who was around in the War in Heaven and has currently grown to the size of a planet. The smaller Orks use him as some kind of massive organic death star.

So supposably there is a limit to their size, but no limit to their age? Say if a band of orks stranded on a planet capable of sustaining them but had no means for the spores to grow, would 1 or more of these orks essentially be immortal?


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 sing your life wrote:
1d4chan has story about a Ork who was around in the War in Heaven and has currently grown to the size of a planet. The smaller Orks use him as some kind of massive organic death star.

That is really silly stuff

 thetallestgiraffe wrote:
But surely they must die of old age at some point, or at least stop growing, as otherwise you'd get orks as big as buildings on feral ork planets where they're not being so actively exterminated. I think it's probably just fluff that's not touched upon due to lack of interest from most people I suppose.

If Orks are not actively fighting others, they will very actively fight themselves. An Ork will always be killed in battle at some point.

Well, Old Zogwort is Old, so at least the term old age has meaning to orks.

We know Ghazghkull Thraka was active for about a decade before the second war for Armageddon (the first Ork invasion of the planet) in M41.941, and he's still alive and kicking in M41.999, which makes him about 70 years or older, with no sign of slowing down. If orks do grow old it would seem they have comparable or longer natural lifespans than a modern human.

Orks can grow old, as most runtherdas are old boys, who tell tales of long ago. As orks live solely for a good scrap, and they get bigger with a fight, orks will generally get old or die trying. as they age they'll get more kunnin' (but no less brutal). presumably old orks who didn't goo much good a-fightin' become runtherders, squigtrainers and other non-combative skarboys, whilst the ones who won all their fights and got big become nobs, skarboys and warbosses.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 thetallestgiraffe wrote:
But surely they must die of old age at some point, or at least stop growing, as otherwise you'd get orks as big as buildings on feral ork planets where they're not being so actively exterminated. I think it's probably just fluff that's not touched upon due to lack of interest from most people I suppose.

If Orks are not actively fighting others, they will very actively fight themselves. An Ork will always be killed in battle at some point.

Not necessarily, Ghazghkull basically cannot be killed by any other ork in the universe and he'll kill any challengers that come against him. Say an ork like this came along on a ferral ork planet he would literally have no change of dying, because since other Orks can't kill him and there are no outside influences to do so he would just keep growing and growing. There probably have been such genius, big orks that haven't been able to achieve space travel, but we don't hear about them so they probably don't exist, as I think that we would hear some GW books on the fact that orks can become 50m monsters :p

The gorkamorka supplement Digga and the white dwarfs at that time had a little something on orks getting old..
One Ork theory was they got so full of Waaah that they start getting all weirdboy in the head.. (That's how orks thought of the apparently only psycher in the game..)

The only other fluff I can think of is in Gorkamorka, where really old and crafty orks retired into gorkamorka to fix it till it was ready to take them to a Waaah..
This include Mechs and Warriors
Also gretchin of great age also retired from battle
Suggesting they MAY NOT die of old age.. But they do stop growing.. And loose the will to look for a fight... This would obviously be a death sentence in a later Ork community


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Although I am bridging some gaps here so take it with a grain of salt..

This is something that has never really been answered. Most orks have died off at one point or another from combat. We never really get to see if they die of old age or not.

As for the stuff about the world size orks, I believe that that is rumors about a area of space called the ghoul stars. The area is just a mysterious area were rumors abound of weird stuff. From incredibly advanced xenos races, to world sized orks.

who remembers the ork-a-saurus an ork who lived so long it basically grew to the size of a squiggoth

Other than the initial development from Yoof to Boy, there isn't any correlation between age and size in orks. After reaching a mature size (which happens really, really quickly in orks), orks ONLY grow during periods of dominance/attempted dominance/conflict. In fact, several sources suggest that orks can diminish in physical stature and might during prolonged periods of inactivity/lack of conflict.

There are definitely 'older' orks, but it is unclear if the characteristics we associate with age occur to orks during aging, or simply during 'wear and tear'. For example, skin like "boot leather' could be a result of aging, or a result of physical abuse and scarring. Limps, 'bad knees', and other maladies could be age-related, or simply the results of conflicts.

Given the extremely violent and chaotic lifestyle of orks, and their lack of 'proper' recordkeeping, I think it would be very difficult to definitely say anything one way or the other about old age in the orks.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
They just get bigger as they get older. Eventually you'll get these massive uber Orks that can take on Primarchs. Such threats are usually put down in the end, though.

Yeah, this. Orks are basically lobsters.

 thetallestgiraffe wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 thetallestgiraffe wrote:
But surely they must die of old age at some point, or at least stop growing, as otherwise you'd get orks as big as buildings on feral ork planets where they're not being so actively exterminated. I think it's probably just fluff that's not touched upon due to lack of interest from most people I suppose.

If Orks are not actively fighting others, they will very actively fight themselves. An Ork will always be killed in battle at some point.

Not necessarily, Ghazghkull basically cannot be killed by any other ork in the universe and he'll kill any challengers that come against him. Say an ork like this came along on a ferral ork planet he would literally have no change of dying, because since other Orks can't kill him and there are no outside influences to do so he would just keep growing and growing. There probably have been such genius, big orks that haven't been able to achieve space travel, but we don't hear about them so they probably don't exist, as I think that we would hear some GW books on the fact that orks can become 50m monsters :p

On non space-faring planets, Orks still have plenty of ways to kill big things. Keep in mind that Squiggoths (and gigantic squiggoths) still come into being on ork feral worlds of various degrees, and they still die.

Simply being big doesn't pre-dispose an Ork to being immortal in a low tech environment.

Last Ork alive on his side, hundreds of smaller swarm him. They suffer atrocious casualties, but eventually manage to hack his legs off and subsequently cut him to pieces.

Kannon (either explosive or cannon ball), Ballista, Lobba, or some other heavy weapon gets lucky and scores a direct hit just below the neck line. Rips off his head, neck and all, and pulls most of the spine out with it. If multiple odd-boy medics don't get to him very quickly he's gone forever, and on a low tech world they wouldn't have the bionics to repair him.

Lucky swing by a suitably big Nob or Warboss simply cleaves his head right off. For whatever reason an odd-boy cannot stitch it back on in time, he's dead.

He gets stuffed full of hundreds of arrows and spears.

He gets shot full of holes from weaker weapons.

He somehow impales himself on a palisade (sp). You know, the tree-sized wooden spears set into walls to deter charges?

He falls off of a suitably high cliff.

He gets trapped in a suitably tight crevice and cannot get out, starving to death.

There are plenty of ways a gigantic Ork could die on a non-space faring Ork world. And, while most of them are kind of unlikely, the longer he lives the more likely to have one of those things happen to him in some suitably Orky fashion. If he's actually space faring? Forget about it. Something will be able to kill him, eventually. Maybe multiple somethings. When you get down to it, Orks are basically designed to die. They get bigger and tougher the more they survive and fight, but that makes them more likely to be at the front of the charge / singled out to be killed.

I doubt ork culture allows for death by old age. There are inconsistent reports of older orks (I don't know that there is any reference to old grits) but there doesn't seem to any rhyme or reason as to how or why the ork is aged. There are similar reports of orks who are quite old (Ghaz is likely to be over 100 since he has a significant history as a war boss even before Armageddon) and have only become stronger, not shriveled.

This is sort of important thought to Tau fluff. Farsight's blade grants him the natural lifespan of whatever he kills with it hence why he lives so long.... Undoubtably he's killed atleast one ork with it... Farsight may be immortal...

NauticalKendall wrote:
This is sort of important thought to Tau fluff. Farsight's blade grants him the natural lifespan of whatever he kills with it hence why he lives so long.... Undoubtably he's killed atleast one ork with it... Farsight may be immortal...

I haven't read tau fluff, so that is... confusing.

It gives him the lifespan of everything he kills, added onto one another? If that's the case, he'd be immortal so long as he kept killing.

It gives him the longest lifespan of the many creatures he's killed? So he has to keep upping the ante to go on living?

Or does it give him the life-span of his most recent kill. Ergo, if he swings it wrong and hits one of the beetles fired by a termagaunt flesh-borer, he's boned?

Does it give the enemies potential lifespan or what they would actually have lived? For example if an Ork was going to die in 2 years would the blade give 2 years or an infinite amount of years?

I always assumed it was kinda random, I mean ork culture is truly survival of the strongest; meaning those who grew large survived allowing them to grow larger. I always assumed as long as an ork was in power and fought in constant conflict while surviving there was no limit to how large he could grow unless he was wounded and patched with cybernetics.

I remember hearing about some planet where Tryanids and orks are locked in constant war with each side growing larger and larger warriors every time they fight, potentially seeing no end to future growth. Though I think this is a rare exception.

Ork size might be dictated by it´s fellows and, if in power, the ork probably stops growing once it is the biggest in the group.

The fluff doesn't really say anything about age being a factor in an orks size beyond adulthood. It does point out how orks who fight for long periods of time eventually reach size comparable to ogryn (detailed as nearly twice the height of a man).

Concerning the demon blade Farsight wields, it is a demon weapon. If it is actually holding to that, it is laughable to assume he will live too much longer than he already has! It can promise the galaxy bt delivers a yard!

Well in the last Ork Codex, it mentioned a particularly old Gretchin, the oldest ever recorded by the Orks, who lived to the ripe old age of 9 before being sat on by his master.

No true ork would go long enough without fighting to die of old age.

 Deadshot wrote:
Well in the last Ork Codex, it mentioned a particularly old Gretchin, the oldest ever recorded by the Orks, who lived to the ripe old age of 9 before being sat on by his master.

Yeah that really puts into perspective the life expectancy of the average Grot.

I believe that there would be a natural size limit to an ork. Things such as environment, gravity, atmosphere, sustenance (prey) all dictate the size of all natural inhabitants. There is a reason why whales live in the ocean.

Age however, not so much. If an ork is truly gifted with the power of brutality and more importantly kunning, its easy to see them living a long life and still kicking. The kunning ork knows to not be at the head of the charge against the dug in IG forces. He knows when and where to join the frey to still get in a good scrap and more importantly keep his head.

But that is for truly gifted orks. Your average ork probably doesn't live much longer than a dozen or so really good battles.