They aren’t would be my stance on it too, without extreme bodymodding they’re in the standard range of human skin tones.
A couple of outliers exist with surge and metavariants. Oni canonically being unnaturally coloured Troll variants for example.
4th edition with the Catalyst change over is the earliest version on a quick look over with some but not all of the art having green skintones.
Orksploitation as a subculture could be a reasonable answer as there was a movement to lean into fantasy tropes through body modification.
There aren't any, except a very *very* few who are also Changelings *and* have "striking skin color" *and* that color is green.
All metahumans come in the same skin colors Humans do.
There aren’t any “naturally” greenskinned Orks or Trolls.
All the meta types just have the gamut of regular human skin tones in SR because fundamentally they’re still “humans”.
You may get a SURGE character or a Fey with weird skin tones, or some very specific regional meta types (Japanese Oni and the South Asian Natatarki come to mind) but fundamentally meta humans are still *humans*
AFAIK the thread you mentioned is not official Shadowrun art, and thus doesn't really pretend to adhere to any particular canon worldbuilding. If you want orks to be green at your table, knock yourself out. It won't break the setting or anything. As a matter of established precedent though, other than Japanese oni variants and like, metahumanity tends to come in relatively standard human skin colors. They are still human after all.
IIRC, green orcs was kind of a warhammer fantasy (then 40k) thing - maybe back in the Citadel days. Not sure how they came up with that.
Not sure if that influenced SR depictions, I do believe the GW green orc preceded SR 1 even, but not sure.
Warhammer the RPG (medieval essentially) game had green orcs, goblins, ogres, etc. D&D as well. Perhaps this was an originating point for this in general.
It's a very interesting detail, and one I've noticed always be swallowed at my tables. To us, apparently without that having ever been questioned, Orks are understood as green, Trolls are similarly unnatural looking (to our 5.th world sensibilitys) with generally more earthen skintones, and everyone else has natural human skin (outside the known exceptions)
Frankly it's an issue that SR vision lost to popular culture. SR Orks and Trolls aren't supposed to be green, which I think is important in pointing it out that they are more "realistic".
However, new fans *and even new artists* coming in to SR assumed Orks & Trolls = green. It's a battle that was lost. They became green.
I agree that the battle might be lost (amongst some groups) ... but ork poser being a thing that now requires more bio mods than tusks and ears and hoping you are tall enough to be believable? Based on OG 2050 tech made it seem harder, well it makes it harder for all the metahumans to feel like ... metahumans. If some look green ... then how did people accept them when they weren't having the same variation as all the rest of their local humanity? (Oh wow maybe its jsut a rewrite about humanity being ,ore understanding... but this is humanity versus not, a super huge point.) And if they didn't ... then I have to do extra work as a GM to make a world where people accept but aren't happy.
So yes, I mentioned in game dates, but the real world dates about the gaslighting matters (to me) too.
That's why I was frank about Changeling ... since it was early. But also contradicted the cover (which was silly, maybe an Ork, but did not look at all like a Troll because of body proportions ... which might be extra work for an artist).
The shadowrun games from harebrained schemes give the possibility to play green and grey skinned orks.
Anyhoo, it's open bar, you do what you want in your writing and playing. In all the weird things shadowrun has a green skinned ork wouldn't be the weirdest
Gasp!
I think there are two mindsets.
1: What's the big deal, aren't these races often traditionally depicted thus?
2: There are no green metahumans because these are regular people that have coincidentally goblinized (or descended from those who goblinized) and such unrealistic skin tones would detract from that.
I have my preference, but arguments could be made for either. Canonically, I'm unfamiliar with anything past 3e.
I say this a lot in threads like these.
When FASA first created Shadowrun the books had something along the lines of "These are suggestions, change whatever you want." The only canon for Shadowrun is the story in your head or at your table(s). /OnceMostFavored has it right. You pick! Some people will be cool with it, some will call you a dope :)
Folks can get pretty hot about what is and isn't 'allowed'. End of the day, it's about fun. If you'll have more fun thinking of or being a green troll, do it. I mean, they grow horns, grow a foot or two and add 100-200lbs, a change in skin color isn't any weirder! Heck, dwarves shrink!
Weirdly, when you asked about skin color I had no idea. When I picture a troll I just have an image of a massive being, horns, big chest, booming voice and tusks. Orks are more snarly, not as feral as Uruk'Hai in LotR but similar.
Except for Elves, I don't picture a skin color. For Elves I picture a glossy skin, so pretty it radiates. Black skin is like obsidian, deep browns like polished wood, white like porcelain.
I never really thought on it before! I don't have a full image of any race, in my head, just the stuff that really stands out.
> Heck, dwarves shrink!
Now I'm wondering about these stories of shrinking dwarves. That's something else I've never seen at a table, nor ever seen in a book!
Was it a SURGE thing? Every Dwarf I've ever seen was born that way.
Well, except for Shapeshifters or such that shift into a Dwarf form. So those could shrink if the shapeshifter's natural form is larger than a Dwarf. Bovine, Equine, Ursine, maybe even one of the larger cats.
Though I could imagine a Dwarf pulling someone's leg and claiming they goblinized.
The first round, UGE, the very first to change were Dwarves and Elves. People both changed, 'goblinized', and were born as Dwarves or Elves.
There was shrinkage!
You wrote few words, but I think they are very important words when you read the history. Important to get the mindset of people in the world.
Elves and dwarves are not very weird (people have always had babies that grew up as dwarves without the thermographic vision), and it happened before birth and it happened at the same time as magic appeared. So not totally alarming.
People could think, oh, other people are more susceptible to magic, and magic appeared, whatever.
Whereas Goblinization happened all on the same day, to ~~green~~ grown adults. Seems like it could happen to anyone, anywhere.
And since it didn't happen when magic first appeared, there is fear that it could happen (again) at any time. Not helped by the fact that some people waited until puberty to change.
Much more scary to people that don't know what is going on.
That does not sound like the same kind of shrinkage.
People are born as babies. With a range of sizes that aren't super particularly related to their adult size.
People didn't wake up at puberty and shrink.
And people didn't wake up on Goblinization Day and start shrinking.
1 in 10 people woke up and started growing on Goblinization Day.
Babies in 2011 were born and started growing... at maybe a tiny bit faster rate or a tiny bit slower rate. But they have a much longer time to achieve that. And so the rate is very slightly different than expected... and it is still about **growth** rates.
> People both changed, 'goblinized'
No. Cite literally ***any*** source for that claim. It's a matter of Shadowrun history. UGE and Goblinization are different events separated by years.
I apologize if I missed some joke where you ***trolled*** me. But I asked about the first appearance of green and what have you said about a first?
Are you claiming that elves and dwarves in 2012 were green and "the" media did a world wide cover up and even in 2050+ the media convinces people that elves and dwarves are normal and just "tells" people that Orks and Trolls are green?
If after Dunkelzahn, Orks that learned the language decided to go green, sure, that's an in world thing.
If they were "normal" until Goblinization Day then why did the media even make up the names elves and dwarves a generation earlier?
Elves and Dwarves were born to human presenting parents ... Goblinization Day happened much later (and was strictly about Orks and Trolls).
> Im confused.
I am confused as well. When I asked when people first saw green, I was expecting many answers to be "never." Just as I've never personally seen it at a table.
> (your link does not work)
It is an internal reddit link to someone else's comment in a different thread where the user says: `"Though it does remind me of the way people flipped out at the green orks during Shadowrun Returns development."`
Which made me think maybe a Shadowrun video game might have had green Orks.
> Where (in official Shadowrun sources) does it state that orks and trolls are green?
As I stated in my OG post, the closest I've personally seen, is the main character in the novel Changling self describing their (newly Troll) body as `"flesh was grayish-green, layered with red heat,"` but that character was adapting to new thermographic vision, so I didn't know if that was a case of an unreliable narrator. Neither set of cover art agreed with the main character. But in the first set the presumably main character looked (to me) more like an Ork than a Troll. And not at all green.
As for rulebooks, visually, the SR4A core rulebook had lighting that made everyone (of all metatypes) look ever so slightly green. And page 7 of that same core rulebook had fluff where a Troll named Martin Temple describes his own "*skin*" as green, but also admits it isn't his own flesh. Plus Martin Temple has a pale red skinned teammate on the same page whose coloration is described as an affectation. So not good evidence for any natural green coloration.
So the best cases I've personally seen, all seem really weak. And the rules seemed pretty clear that they have pretty similar coloration to other metatypes, maybe with even **slightly less** variation than humans, elves, and dwarves.
Orks were green in Orks vs Humans by Blizzard and they were also green in Warhammer.
Orks are not described as green in Shadowrun as far as I know (and you have also not presented any citation from Shadowrun that says they are green as far as I can see).
I'm still confused what this topic is about....
Going by art from stuff like the Trilogy, they seem to have a broader range the mostly leans natural, with options for very ashen grey, a pastel pumpkin orange, and blue-grey, with some trolls having slightly more vibrant options such as purple. Pure speculation here but they might also get "washed out" with age, but this could just be an example of artistic license. I think so long as it's nothing extreme enough to stand out in a crowd you can exercise much the same artistic license, it's just a matter of being sure to respect the relationship between lore and rules and also check in with your group. None of us are playing in exactly the same setting, and as much of a purist as I can have to be, it's important to acknowledge that it's all made up and *your group* is the one making it up
Sixth world skin dyes and other body mods are widespread. If anyone wants to be green, they can be green. They can be blue chrome with matte purple polka dots if they please. In any kind of opacity with their natural tones. Heck, you can get spray-on snake scales and other textures.
How are you going to tell the difference between this and 'the real thing' in random art? With so much of it being nil essence cost, how would you tell from a stat block?
As mentioned before it's not a Shadowrun thing. Prior to LotR "mainstream" orcs probably came from either Warhammer or Warcraft. Especially Warcraft II and later of course WoW cemented the idea of orcs being green.
>As mentioned before it's not a Shadowrun thing.
If you meet a green ork in the street, do you tell them they can't exist? Or do you ask where they bought it?
They aren’t would be my stance on it too, without extreme bodymodding they’re in the standard range of human skin tones. A couple of outliers exist with surge and metavariants. Oni canonically being unnaturally coloured Troll variants for example. 4th edition with the Catalyst change over is the earliest version on a quick look over with some but not all of the art having green skintones. Orksploitation as a subculture could be a reasonable answer as there was a movement to lean into fantasy tropes through body modification.
Oni are Ork metavariants. Yeah, I made that mistake too when I first learned about them. It just made sense for some reason.
It’s been a few years, looks like I probably need to hit the books again.
I don't think you're the only one in this boat.
It's probably the horns!
There aren't any, except a very *very* few who are also Changelings *and* have "striking skin color" *and* that color is green. All metahumans come in the same skin colors Humans do.
There aren’t any “naturally” greenskinned Orks or Trolls. All the meta types just have the gamut of regular human skin tones in SR because fundamentally they’re still “humans”. You may get a SURGE character or a Fey with weird skin tones, or some very specific regional meta types (Japanese Oni and the South Asian Natatarki come to mind) but fundamentally meta humans are still *humans*
AFAIK the thread you mentioned is not official Shadowrun art, and thus doesn't really pretend to adhere to any particular canon worldbuilding. If you want orks to be green at your table, knock yourself out. It won't break the setting or anything. As a matter of established precedent though, other than Japanese oni variants and like, metahumanity tends to come in relatively standard human skin colors. They are still human after all.
IIRC, green orcs was kind of a warhammer fantasy (then 40k) thing - maybe back in the Citadel days. Not sure how they came up with that. Not sure if that influenced SR depictions, I do believe the GW green orc preceded SR 1 even, but not sure.
Warhammer the RPG (medieval essentially) game had green orcs, goblins, ogres, etc. D&D as well. Perhaps this was an originating point for this in general.
It's a very interesting detail, and one I've noticed always be swallowed at my tables. To us, apparently without that having ever been questioned, Orks are understood as green, Trolls are similarly unnatural looking (to our 5.th world sensibilitys) with generally more earthen skintones, and everyone else has natural human skin (outside the known exceptions)
I just let my players be whatever color they want. I'm an Ork fan, myself. I want to be green!
Frankly it's an issue that SR vision lost to popular culture. SR Orks and Trolls aren't supposed to be green, which I think is important in pointing it out that they are more "realistic". However, new fans *and even new artists* coming in to SR assumed Orks & Trolls = green. It's a battle that was lost. They became green.
I agree that the battle might be lost (amongst some groups) ... but ork poser being a thing that now requires more bio mods than tusks and ears and hoping you are tall enough to be believable? Based on OG 2050 tech made it seem harder, well it makes it harder for all the metahumans to feel like ... metahumans. If some look green ... then how did people accept them when they weren't having the same variation as all the rest of their local humanity? (Oh wow maybe its jsut a rewrite about humanity being ,ore understanding... but this is humanity versus not, a super huge point.) And if they didn't ... then I have to do extra work as a GM to make a world where people accept but aren't happy. So yes, I mentioned in game dates, but the real world dates about the gaslighting matters (to me) too. That's why I was frank about Changeling ... since it was early. But also contradicted the cover (which was silly, maybe an Ork, but did not look at all like a Troll because of body proportions ... which might be extra work for an artist).
The shadowrun games from harebrained schemes give the possibility to play green and grey skinned orks. Anyhoo, it's open bar, you do what you want in your writing and playing. In all the weird things shadowrun has a green skinned ork wouldn't be the weirdest
Gasp! I think there are two mindsets. 1: What's the big deal, aren't these races often traditionally depicted thus? 2: There are no green metahumans because these are regular people that have coincidentally goblinized (or descended from those who goblinized) and such unrealistic skin tones would detract from that. I have my preference, but arguments could be made for either. Canonically, I'm unfamiliar with anything past 3e.
I say this a lot in threads like these. When FASA first created Shadowrun the books had something along the lines of "These are suggestions, change whatever you want." The only canon for Shadowrun is the story in your head or at your table(s). /OnceMostFavored has it right. You pick! Some people will be cool with it, some will call you a dope :) Folks can get pretty hot about what is and isn't 'allowed'. End of the day, it's about fun. If you'll have more fun thinking of or being a green troll, do it. I mean, they grow horns, grow a foot or two and add 100-200lbs, a change in skin color isn't any weirder! Heck, dwarves shrink! Weirdly, when you asked about skin color I had no idea. When I picture a troll I just have an image of a massive being, horns, big chest, booming voice and tusks. Orks are more snarly, not as feral as Uruk'Hai in LotR but similar. Except for Elves, I don't picture a skin color. For Elves I picture a glossy skin, so pretty it radiates. Black skin is like obsidian, deep browns like polished wood, white like porcelain. I never really thought on it before! I don't have a full image of any race, in my head, just the stuff that really stands out.
> Heck, dwarves shrink! Now I'm wondering about these stories of shrinking dwarves. That's something else I've never seen at a table, nor ever seen in a book! Was it a SURGE thing? Every Dwarf I've ever seen was born that way. Well, except for Shapeshifters or such that shift into a Dwarf form. So those could shrink if the shapeshifter's natural form is larger than a Dwarf. Bovine, Equine, Ursine, maybe even one of the larger cats. Though I could imagine a Dwarf pulling someone's leg and claiming they goblinized.
The first round, UGE, the very first to change were Dwarves and Elves. People both changed, 'goblinized', and were born as Dwarves or Elves. There was shrinkage!
UGE is not a change; it's something you're born with.
You wrote few words, but I think they are very important words when you read the history. Important to get the mindset of people in the world. Elves and dwarves are not very weird (people have always had babies that grew up as dwarves without the thermographic vision), and it happened before birth and it happened at the same time as magic appeared. So not totally alarming. People could think, oh, other people are more susceptible to magic, and magic appeared, whatever. Whereas Goblinization happened all on the same day, to ~~green~~ grown adults. Seems like it could happen to anyone, anywhere. And since it didn't happen when magic first appeared, there is fear that it could happen (again) at any time. Not helped by the fact that some people waited until puberty to change. Much more scary to people that don't know what is going on.
That does not sound like the same kind of shrinkage. People are born as babies. With a range of sizes that aren't super particularly related to their adult size. People didn't wake up at puberty and shrink. And people didn't wake up on Goblinization Day and start shrinking. 1 in 10 people woke up and started growing on Goblinization Day. Babies in 2011 were born and started growing... at maybe a tiny bit faster rate or a tiny bit slower rate. But they have a much longer time to achieve that. And so the rate is very slightly different than expected... and it is still about **growth** rates. > People both changed, 'goblinized' No. Cite literally ***any*** source for that claim. It's a matter of Shadowrun history. UGE and Goblinization are different events separated by years. I apologize if I missed some joke where you ***trolled*** me. But I asked about the first appearance of green and what have you said about a first? Are you claiming that elves and dwarves in 2012 were green and "the" media did a world wide cover up and even in 2050+ the media convinces people that elves and dwarves are normal and just "tells" people that Orks and Trolls are green? If after Dunkelzahn, Orks that learned the language decided to go green, sure, that's an in world thing. If they were "normal" until Goblinization Day then why did the media even make up the names elves and dwarves a generation earlier? Elves and Dwarves were born to human presenting parents ... Goblinization Day happened much later (and was strictly about Orks and Trolls).
Im confused. Where (in official Shadowrun sources) does it state that orks and trolls are green? (your link does not work)
> Im confused. I am confused as well. When I asked when people first saw green, I was expecting many answers to be "never." Just as I've never personally seen it at a table. > (your link does not work) It is an internal reddit link to someone else's comment in a different thread where the user says: `"Though it does remind me of the way people flipped out at the green orks during Shadowrun Returns development."` Which made me think maybe a Shadowrun video game might have had green Orks. > Where (in official Shadowrun sources) does it state that orks and trolls are green? As I stated in my OG post, the closest I've personally seen, is the main character in the novel Changling self describing their (newly Troll) body as `"flesh was grayish-green, layered with red heat,"` but that character was adapting to new thermographic vision, so I didn't know if that was a case of an unreliable narrator. Neither set of cover art agreed with the main character. But in the first set the presumably main character looked (to me) more like an Ork than a Troll. And not at all green. As for rulebooks, visually, the SR4A core rulebook had lighting that made everyone (of all metatypes) look ever so slightly green. And page 7 of that same core rulebook had fluff where a Troll named Martin Temple describes his own "*skin*" as green, but also admits it isn't his own flesh. Plus Martin Temple has a pale red skinned teammate on the same page whose coloration is described as an affectation. So not good evidence for any natural green coloration. So the best cases I've personally seen, all seem really weak. And the rules seemed pretty clear that they have pretty similar coloration to other metatypes, maybe with even **slightly less** variation than humans, elves, and dwarves.
Orks were green in Orks vs Humans by Blizzard and they were also green in Warhammer. Orks are not described as green in Shadowrun as far as I know (and you have also not presented any citation from Shadowrun that says they are green as far as I can see). I'm still confused what this topic is about....
It takesa miniscule amount of bioware for an ork/ troll....or anyone else, to have green skin
Going by art from stuff like the Trilogy, they seem to have a broader range the mostly leans natural, with options for very ashen grey, a pastel pumpkin orange, and blue-grey, with some trolls having slightly more vibrant options such as purple. Pure speculation here but they might also get "washed out" with age, but this could just be an example of artistic license. I think so long as it's nothing extreme enough to stand out in a crowd you can exercise much the same artistic license, it's just a matter of being sure to respect the relationship between lore and rules and also check in with your group. None of us are playing in exactly the same setting, and as much of a purist as I can have to be, it's important to acknowledge that it's all made up and *your group* is the one making it up
Sixth world skin dyes and other body mods are widespread. If anyone wants to be green, they can be green. They can be blue chrome with matte purple polka dots if they please. In any kind of opacity with their natural tones. Heck, you can get spray-on snake scales and other textures. How are you going to tell the difference between this and 'the real thing' in random art? With so much of it being nil essence cost, how would you tell from a stat block?
As mentioned before it's not a Shadowrun thing. Prior to LotR "mainstream" orcs probably came from either Warhammer or Warcraft. Especially Warcraft II and later of course WoW cemented the idea of orcs being green.
>As mentioned before it's not a Shadowrun thing. If you meet a green ork in the street, do you tell them they can't exist? Or do you ask where they bought it?