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I've been delving into the lore of the 40k universe for long before I was into the table-top and I've found it to be one of the most enjoyable parts of the hobby. The connections and references (major and minor) between the bits of media and lore combine together to create a web of events and people that make the universe feel epic in scale (as it should be.). As I've collected my Waaagh over the course previous couple years, one of the most exciting prospects for the table-top has been the promise of developing characters, units, a handful of worlds, and even my army as a whole. Over the years, I've contemplated on who the movers and shakers of the army would be, but lately I've been really itching to delve into the creation of lore of the tribe(s), though I'm not sure where to start.

Initially, I was planning to have the warboss of my army be a cowardly Warboss who bought his power, pulling from the other clanz the best teef could buy. I've kinda scrapped the idea as I've moved more toward a Dread mob and Evil Sunz army. (Imperial Armour 8 was possibly the best 40k investment I have made, or likely will ever make.) I've been leaning towards creating a Forge World that the orks have over-run, turning it into a sprawling scrapyard and row of factories. As I don't want to limit my army, I've toyed with idea of making a multitude of various mini-klans, most notably an ork air force, the dread mob that handles most construction on the planet, and a more vanilla Evil Sunz clan.

I'm not entirely sure how to go about "building" the world on which they live. I'd love to have a discussion on the thread to help start getting things fleshed out.

Forge Worlds are fairly easy, as world-building goes, because their classification a a Forge World sort of provides an apt description.

A Forge World is a world of large-scale heavy industrial production. These are the worlds that produce Baneblades, Titans, lasguns, bolters, bolt shells, Rhinos, Chimeras, Leman Russ Tanks, Power Armor, Plasma weapons, and any other thing you can think of.

Given that this was a Mechanicus-held planet, it will have its cities built around truly massive factory complexes, shipping yards (usually for surface-to-space transport), and storage facilities, clustered around which (and descending into the planet's crust, or rising into its atmosphere) are the various housing and light commercial/support industries for the millions upon millions of workers that will populate these factories.

Outside of these metal-walled canyons and urban jungles of steel and rock-crete, you will have large, spreading areas of ecological disaster, as the AdMech dumps waste materials and spent isotopic fuel rods, medical waste, failed prototypes and failed experiments outside of the Hives. Out here, this is where all your debased tribal humans/scavengers would have worked, scratching out a meager existence. Now, this region is likely to be populated by feral Orks.

If the forges are still in operation, the smog layer would be so thick that the sun would never seem to rise. Acid rain (like, super-acid rain) would be the norm, and people would have been required to wear protective gear if out in inclement weather. Basically, a Forge World is an ecological nightmare hellscape.

That's some fairly nice imagery, but I was actually more concerned (at least currently) about the "structure" of the ork kulture. Amusingly though, given your brief description of the Forge World, it seems as though the orks would, quite literally, improve the state of the world. At least they couldn't make it much worse....right?

The thought I was toying with was having a sort of loose sorta serfdom thing going, at least in the hive cities. A significant mek-boss would control a large part of a hive-city (or perhaps even the whole thing). He'd give his lesser big-meks different districts to work in in order to give him semi-regular tithes of weapons, ammo, etc. The big-meks would 'assign' nob "Uvaseeuhs" and "Man'jurs" to bash da boyz when they get out of line or try stealing parts.
Not entirely sure if this structure would be "orky" though. From my experience, there's precious little fluff for the 'civilian' life of orkz.

Orkz don't use term of office beyond combinations of boss, big, boyz, and nob.

With this being an entire planet being ork-controlled, there is going to be a good deal of skirmishing and fighting between lesser klans. Most likely, the Big Mek in charge of all this won't give 2 gaks so long as his Big Stompa / Ork-Space-Hulk is coming along nicely.

Orkz tend to amass piles of random crap. This can be trophy items (like skulls, arms, and snazzy hats), along with weapons, bits of metal, teeth and probably a shack with a few pet squigs to keep it all in. I figure the Big Boss Mek would be taking materials from these piles.

I imagine the pollution-lakes turing into ork-gak-pools and the immediate less-populated areas giving rise to packs of feral squigs or small tribes of gretchin.

As far as production is concerned, this would all be handled by meks of various ranking or individual orks tinkering with their own weapons (think flash-gitz and their snazz-guns).. Chances are the Human factories would be either scrapped and rebuilt or "tinkered" with by more enterprising meks. I assume massive explosions will result; much to the joy of onlookers. The rest of the boyz would be out headbutting each other, having face-eating contests with squigs, and munching on nearby gretchin.

With this many orkz in one area; the WAAAGH! would be very strong. Teleportas and other "high-end" ork tech would be prevalent.

For some reason; I can't get the image of massive squiggoth fighting pits out of my head.

If you are thinking about individual story for a specific ork; I'm lost on that. I remember joysticks of aircraft being called "steery-stikks" and when an ork comes of age he wonders off into the wilderness "lookin for somfink." only to reappear later substantially bigger and greener.

You need to read Waaargh The Orks, Ere We Go, Freebooterz and Da Uvver Book. What you are describing is pretty much the society that exists in GorkaMorka. You can still download Da Uvver Book from Games Workshop.

I'd say it's quite possible that a particular Mek/Warboss might take control over a particular sector or forge-city, and engage in warfare with the clans from other areas, fighting over scrap or just for the hell of it, and there may well be one "top dog" Mek/Boss who's more concerned with building something grander than just gunz and trukks, like the aforementioned big Stompa or Spacecraft.

You might have your Evil Sunz biker boys represent more independent bands of scrap pirates, nomadic orks who ride around in vehicle convoys and constantly steal vehicles and supplies from other clans.

That all sounds pretty Orky, I think.

There'd definitely be in-fighting amongst the groups. What I was thinking would probably be most accurately compared to organized crime bosses. For the most part leaving each other alone, probably getting into minor scuffs and what-not. When supplies become scarce or something valuable pops up, duck and cover, it'll be all-out-war to fight for that. And then probably all-out-war after the dust settles to settle a couple drudges.

While I was sitting at work today, I had some time to mull over ideas for the planet. I came up with a few ideas that I rather like. I felt I'd be a better idea to build up the planet's lore as a Forge World before it's looted and torn down by the Orks.
I thought the Nahamid system would be a decent enough name for the system in which the planet resides. The name Nahamid IV would likely appear on star-charts and official Imperial documents concerning the planet, but inner-system locals would just call it Kevatus. Marginally larger than Terra and a bit denser, the gravity on the planet would be about 5% greater than standard Terran gravity. Previous to Mechanicus colonization, it was a caustic environment with high concentrations of sulfur in the air and soil. The large concentrations of sulfur, as well as other choice elements such as iron, carbon, oxygen, etc, made it a prime location for a Forge World specializing in more mundane war-goods such as munitions, fuels, and sulfur-based batteries for the Imperial war machine. Extensive terraforming extracted enough Oxygen into the thick atmosphere to be breathable, though the nearly ubiquitous and rampant industrialization has led breathing raw air to be extremely unpleasant in the best of situations. Several small moons orbit the planet, one of which, after the orks overrun Kevatus, is turned into an Imperial observation post and fortress with a large Planetary Defense Force detachment stationed on the moon to monitor and, if need be, engage orks.

Any thoughts thus on this so far? I feel the easiest, and best, way for me to get creative is to get asked questions. It helps me critically think about the ideas I jot down. If something doesn't seem right, or if you're just curious about something, feel free to ask; it'll help me expand my world.

I would buy a bunch of manufactorum kits, some of those pegasus hobby industrial looking kits and some Ork bits. Then just pretty much use your imagination. With Orks you really can't go wrong.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
I would buy a bunch of manufactorum kits, some of those pegasus hobby industrial looking kits and some Ork bits. Then just pretty much use your imagination. With Orks you really can't go wrong.

I was more talking about building back-story than terrain.

I imagine the army would be heavy on konvershuns of Imperial vehicles, so Orkish Leman Russes maybe, could give some Orks bolters, flak jackets, helmets, lasguns, killa kans made from Sentinel parts etc.

In terms of fluff I imagine the Meks would be smart enough to keep the majority of the population alive as slaves to work in the factories. Using alliance rules could you field IG conscripts/penal legionnaires to represent slaves being used as oommin sheelds?

I think its a fun idea.

 ShadowMageAlpha wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
I would buy a bunch of manufactorum kits, some of those pegasus hobby industrial looking kits and some Ork bits. Then just pretty much use your imagination. With Orks you really can't go wrong.

I was more talking about building back-story than terrain.

Oh. Well, as suggested by the above (Or the one before that if someone else posts) your army would have a ton of looted stuff. You have to ask yourself "What were they making before the Orks came in?". Did they make Rhinos there? Land Raiders? Did they produce a lot of Space Marine, Imperial Guard, Sisters of Battle or Inquisition stuff? Or, here is an idea, maybe it was a Chaos controlled Forge World. Looted Heldrakes, anyone?

 ShadowMageAlpha wrote:
That's some fairly nice imagery, but I was actually more concerned (at least currently) about the "structure" of the ork kulture. Amusingly though, given your brief description of the Forge World, it seems as though the orks would, quite literally, improve the state of the world. At least they couldn't make it much worse....right?

The thought I was toying with was having a sort of loose sorta serfdom thing going, at least in the hive cities. A significant mek-boss would control a large part of a hive-city (or perhaps even the whole thing). He'd give his lesser big-meks different districts to work in in order to give him semi-regular tithes of weapons, ammo, etc. The big-meks would 'assign' nob "Uvaseeuhs" and "Man'jurs" to bash da boyz when they get out of line or try stealing parts.
Not entirely sure if this structure would be "orky" though. From my experience, there's precious little fluff for the 'civilian' life of orkz.

Uvaseeuhs and manjurs, yes, great. Orks have a whole cascade of runtherds and slaverz and other types of ancillary function too.

It's also true that Orks are mainly centered around warfare, so they don't have any political agenda, they don't have any interaction with genocide. The Meks' production schedules sort of mirror the Imperium's, in that stuff like gargants and zzap guns, or land raiders, need to be built by the Meks or the forge worlds, but your basic trukk, chimaera, or small arms can be built by a bunch of gomers. The native population isn't even directly enslaved in factories with ork supervision, they have a complex society devoted to pumping out the material (stuff like ores especially) that orks demand from them. This also gives the orks something to vandalize.

I heartily reccomend picking up this while it's still available. It's a free novella that features the Emperor waging war on a Mekworld.

 Gogsnik wrote:
You need to read Waaargh The Orks, Ere We Go, Freebooterz and Da Uvver Book. What you are describing is pretty much the society that exists in GorkaMorka. You can still download Da Uvver Book from Games Workshop.

That was a pretty good suggestion on Da Uvver Book. I managed to grab that and read through the lore bits. Sadly there wasn't as much as I was hoping. I'll need to check out that other stuff too. Thanks for the suggestions!

 Furyou Miko wrote:
I heartily reccomend picking up this while it's still available. It's a free novella that features the Emperor waging war on a Mekworld.

Thanks to you too Furyou. I managed to grab the eBook and get a reader for it on my PC, but I haven't really had the time to read through it.

Read the Raid on Kastorel-Novem from forgeworld. The IG attack a forgeworld taken over by orks.

I personally like the idea of an Ork fiefdom. One Ork answers to a bigger Ork, and that Ork answers to a bigger one. You mess with Ork X then his friend, Ork Y, is going to kick in your door.

You could also make different factories the castles of different bosses. Each with their own unique flavour.

 Overlord Thraka wrote:
Read the Raid on Kastorel-Novem from forgeworld. The IG attack a forgeworld taken over by orks.

Didn't I mention I bought and read through that in the opening post? I'd actually kinda like to take some inspiration from Imperial Armour 8 without aping it too heavily. Kinda my reason for the thread.

 Mr Nobody wrote:
You could also make different factories the castles of different bosses. Each with their own unique flavour.

I was actually planning to go with this idea. In my mind currently, there are at least 3 major contenders in an area, and they all do their Waagh's in different ways. One focuses heavily on attacking from the air (jets and koptas), one's a scrap boss that is more concerned with getting teef (currently) than fighting, and the last is a mek-boss who's trying to build his own dread mob.

Hmm...

If you go that route, you might want to mix in a bit of the Orky kulture and the veneration of Gork and/or Mork.

Like, you have one Forge Boss over here who believes that Gork is all about the "'Ard 'Ittin' Armored Fist!" and the brutal kunnin', thus is specializing in building/looting Leman Russes, Rhinos, Chimeras, and other sundry bits of things-on-tracks.

Over here, though, you got another Forge Boss who believes that Mork is all about the kunnin' brutality, and so has his Boyz busy with making all kinds of anti-armor weapons and such (also because he wants that snazzy lifter-chair that Forge Boss #1 has...).

Then you have Forge Boss #3 who thinks Forge Boss #1 is a git, because Gork is *obviously* embodied in kunnin' brutality and *Mork* is the Orky god of brutal kunnin', and his Forge is churning out all kinds of flashy suits of armor and guns for da Boyz and da Nobs, and he's rolling in teef because he's selling these to the other klans' Boyz, too,

Then you have Forge Boss #4 who thinks Forge Bosses 1 through 3 are grots, as he's convinced that Mork is the god of kunnin' brutality, and the rest of these zoggin' gits are just flat wrong, and Mork showed him the way to some flyin' fings, so he's got looted fliers and planes and Land Speeders and other anti-grav tech.

I think it would be cool if it just became an ork nest and ork feudal world where if left too long, would become almost impossible to eradicate. Except for the classic clause that GW came up with "KILL THE BOSSES" and then the orks die. Otherwise theyd be impossible to kill.


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Or exterminatus lol