Orcs

All the pictures of Pathfinder orcs or half orcs are green, but all the descriptions say even orcs who are not half can be 'sallow pink' or grey or green, and half orcs can take after their human parent and be any of those plus any human. And the hair is always black in the pictures, but the description says always dark, most often black, but possibly grey or dark red.

So now I'm thinking there's a representation problem on Golarion, like when all the characters are white men, only it's just depicting every orc as green. And usually there'd be grumbles and wondering where the pink and grey orcs are at, only orcs have such a terrible reputation in universe it seems like it'd be more like there's all these terribly racist stories that seem like they're about orcs, to humans, but to orcs seem like they're about those particular green orcs. Which generates more stories, like, orcs being racist to other orcs and being hella surprised when a human lumps them in to the same stereotype. How can they think all orcs are the same? Look! Pink vs green! Opposites!

But humans would care nothing for skin color? Even while all painting them green always...

Don't know how that works.

Also, if you search for Sallow Pink, you find a sort of a moth I think, which seems to me to be orange. Don't know why it's called that. Has interesting patterns. Now I'm thinking of camo pattern orcs, which seems to me pretty plausible, given freckles and coat patterns and so forth.

I'm sure sallow pink is intended to be a color in a human range, but if it's a pink pink and could go with dark red hair then you'd get like seasonally contrasting orcs, with the pink ones next to the green ones looking all vivid.

I wonder if anyone goes sci fi and tries to figure out the chemistry that could make them colors. I mean many things are green but those things are not often also grey. Green and assorted shades of red and yellow, yes. ... oooh, orcs in foliage colors, cooooool... also there is grey foliage but it don't tend to mean grey grey. It's like greeny white and called silver.

Foliage orcs have a much nicer pallette, I'm believing in foliage orcs now.

Otherwise they're just green without it being useful. Or just grey. Like rhinos or elephants I guess. Those aren't boring. Bit textural though.



I'm not really thinking of making half orc Mick Rory be green, but if he's wandering around being all discriminated against and being white, that feels like that thing the stories do where dystopias are like 'what if *x thing that really happens a lot* but to white people'. Like, I have no problems deciding the barbaric aggressive race can be white people, but if there's prejudice based on a stereotype of barbaric aggression and they turn out to be good authors and then they're white people, that seems... awkward.

Making him leaf pinks could be fun.



I was thinking of making my default elf look like Zoe Saldana. Elves in fantasy illustration have the white people problem. Slim white people with blonde hair. Except the descriptions make it clear they adapt to their environments so they can be lots of looks. There's even descriptions of 'wild elves' who lives in tribes and have darker skin, but the only picture apparently paints themselves white? And then there's a few blue ones, for aquatic elves, because that covers it? And then there's Drow, who are Evil and Black, which, you know, ugh. So. By decree. Elves is black people now. They can be the long lived very civilised first race driven out of their lands by cataclysm, their homes long looted. I mean it's sad but I don't see why the ones with the longest history are all white and blonde.



I have not been being very productive of late.

Oh well.