Orc

Some time ago Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab started a new GC series named RPG. There are races, classes and alignment scents. With the ones that I got as freebies until now I could make myself smell like a Lawful Elf Paladin or the same for an Orc. I have not tried either combination yet. A Lawful Orc Paladin would seem rather contradictional to me, but I have have no experience in the game so perhaps it is quite possible.


The scent that the Orc got from BPAL is described as:

Field grey courgette musk, roughly cured leather, and vetiver.

That sounds Orc-like enough, but surprisingly this is a very very nice scent. It is an almost creamy, grey-green earthy soft leather scent. Not at all what I would expect an Orc to smell like. But then, looking back at the BPAL Orc, this must be a very gentle and civilised breed of orc. Those in Lord of the Rings looked a lot worse:

It made me wonder if Orcs existed before Tolkien wrote about them. Tolkien referred to the Old  English origins of the word 'orc' where it meant demon (Beowulf, 'orc-neas'). In 1656 the word okre entered the dictionary, probably through continental  fairy-tales especially those written by Charles Perrault who developed his ogres from 16th century Italian writers (Giambattista Basile and Giovanni Francesco Straparola). The Italian word 'orco' means giant. But there are many other paths and words that may or may not be part of the history of the word Orc or Ork. Tolkien later preferred the spelling Ork, it is assumed that this was to avoid the  word orcish, in which the c would have to be pronounced as an s instead of a k. 

After Tolkien, orcs swarmed the world of fantasy. There are orcs in Dungeons and Dragons and in Warhammer you can build your own Orc army (in miniature, fortunately for the rest of us).

For me orcs have little attraction. Which is sad, in a way, because I really love this scent.