Chapter 7: The Truth About Clans and Tribes

“Cutting across warband and tribal boundaries are the Ork clans. The Clans embody a philosophy (for want of a better term) among Orks, each clan emphasising particular elements of Ork culture above others. For example, the Goff clan embraces aggression, hardiness and hand-to-hand combat as true Orky virtues while the Evil Sunz clan is dedicated to speed, lightning attack and having the snazziest vehicles.

Typically, a tribe and its component warbands will exhibit the characteristics of a single clan. Some Orks become obsessed with clan ideals and it becomes something akin to a religion for them. Where this is the case the ork will seek out like-minded individuals and join with them to create a warband which completely exemplifies the purest traits of ‘their’ clan. However most tribes are less dominated by the clan ideal, and clan values merely serve to instill a sense of unity and make a common enemy of tribes which are part of other clans. ” (Tribes and Clans, 3rd Edition Ork Codex, pg. 45)

Let’s get this out of the way. Do you think there are only 6 Clans?

If you do, you’re wrong.

I don’t really like using such extreme language with regards to fiction [blatant lie], but this is one of those that I think trips up a lot of Ork players. I’m sure a few of you may even be wanting to debate this with me, and I heartily welcome you to, at least on the understanding that I have every Ork army book in existence and not one of them has ever said there was only 6. Quite the reverse.

It is true that there are the Big Six, and they really are the Big Six. They span the whole 40k Universe with a sense of universal [bad pun] consistency. There is likely very few Orks, if any, who are not well versed in the nature of those 6 clans. Clans are simply a part of Ork Society, an intrinsic reality of considerable influence. Their origins are a mystery, and even their function within Ork society is not wholly certain.

For those of you who have been living in a shed in Colchester with only an Penguin Book of Astrology for companionship, I should name them. The six dominant Ork clans are the Goffs, Evil Sunz, Bad Moons, Snakebites, Blood Axes and Deathskulls. If you needed me to tell you that, I am very worried about you.

Various stabs at their origins and function can be made based on reading the source texts, and it is likely that most of those stabs are probably part of the overall explanation of what the Clans are and where they came from. I would however like to offer my own suggestion to the possible origins of the Clans, and this suggestion is based on what the Clanz do in Ork Society.

I mentioned in the Resonance articles that Orks are unimaginative and require external stimuli to enact change. This is mostly true, however it’s actually a little more complicated than that. Your average Ork is completely unimaginative, and wont come up with any new ideas, unless those ideas are required at that particular moment. Most of this is indeed external, but there is a distinction to be drawn: any stimuli that could affect an Ork will be external to their usual experience, but they might not be external to Orks as a whole.

Because this is what the Clan system provides. Orks are infamous for their almost-constant infighting. Some may view this as counterintuitive, or rather silly, but it actually serves the Orks with a societal function. It is essentially an elaborate system of societal analysis; in other words, it gives the Orks a chance to test how well their society works, through conflict and competition.

It’s a classical Darwinian (technically Spensorian) system: testing the strongest so that the weaker aspects are ironed out. I’d argue that Clans are there mostly in order to give the Orks not only an obvious target to fight, but different perspectives and societal attitudes. It encourages the Orks to look for alternative solutions to problems, and testing them to reward success. There is more to Clans than that, but at least in the mainstream, common view of Orks, Clans provide particular divergent traits that can help to provide the Orks with new (or at least better) perspectives.

Ultimately though, it allows the Orks all the practice they will ever need. They can test their abilities on each other, or see how each other works in a combined Waaagh. Ultimately if the Ork wants warfare, or interesting competition, it will be never far away from them.

How an Ork becomes part of a Clan is very much up for debate. In my time I’ve seen it argued as pre-determined, interchangeable, or simply due to circumstance. I believe it extremely likely that Clan creation is subject to all of these. Sounds pretty mad, I know, but bear with me. I certainly think that Clans are most likely (especially the Big Six) embedded in the Ork subconscious, and I think it likely that Clans are somewhat fixed, yet interchangeable at the same time. Again, resonance makes Orks flexible enough for this reason. Certainly I think an Ork’s predetermined traits are likely to steer them in one particular direction, but do remember that Clans can span a whole society, and are thus simply more inclined towards certain traits, but like all Ork societies and Clans, all traits are likely to be present to some degree, even if less common between Clans.

Clans are most likely created and fostered by conflict. Waaargh! The Orks even has a term for Clans created in this manner, called “Splinter Clans”. A good example of a Splinter Clan would actually be the Ork society from Gorkamorka. You have a tribe that is placed in an extreme situation, and is isolated from other Ork Cultures, presumably for quite a long time. From the offset one sees that the society is vastly different to other less isolated ones; the society being ran by Meks, lacking more complicated technology, engaged in a religious schism (very rare), no sign of other clans, and other rather glaring differences to usual Orky Kultur (particularly the Ork treatment and opinion of gretchin). The isolation and extreme situation has caused a completely different attitude than is usual, thus an unorthodox Ork society, with different ideologies. These are the hallmarks of a splinter clan. That would at least explain why the Big Six clans not there, and that GoMo fluff is pretty damn rubbish.

This leads me on to Tribes, because the concepts are pretty interchangeable. Ork Tribes are the subject of multiple misconceptions, and this is often because people are looking for a structure and standardised pattern that simply isn’t there. In fact, it’s a rather wide misconception. I’ve heard many arguments about how Clans are used to enforce orthodoxy and discourage individuality. That is not the purpose of Clans at all.

If you want an example of this, just look at the fluff, artwork or pictures of miniatures that show Clan heraldry. In Space Marine forces, these are typically subject to orthodoxy: the same symbols, the same location, with a little individuality, but only to exemplify differing rank, caste or regiment. Orks, on the other hand will have personalised iconography, variations to exemplify particular “families” or “households” within a clan, placed in differing locations between individuals and so on. So long as a Clan member wears their respective colours and/or iconography, personalisation is completely permitted. Bearing in mind that Orks live in a “kustom” culture, Orks are probably the most individualistic faction in all of 40k!

So then, what’s the difference between a Clan and a Tribe? Well, a Clan is essentially an ideology. Orks united in war might not share the same basic ideology. However any gathering of Orks that fights together can be viewed as a Tribe. A Tribe is usually led by a Warboss, although a Tribe, or a collection of Tribes can be led by a Warlord, such as Ghazghkull or Nazdreg etc (although by that point you’re using the term WAAAGH! as a collective noun of Tribes, essentially). A Tribe can contain any amount of Clans. Some have argued recently that it doesn’t make sense for a Mono-Clan tribe, but such an argument is based on applying a general precedent to Orks that is ultimately not very accurate, because a general precedent will rarely work with Orks.

Orks may seek out other likeminded Orks who share the same clan ideal, or they may ultimately be more interested in finding a worthy skumgrod, or at least a target that yields enough booty and conquest. Some Tribes are Splinter-tribes from divisions brought on from infighting, changes in ideology, or simply death. At the end of a Waaagh, many Tribes will simply split up and go their separate ways. Parts of a Clan or Tribe might leave for whatever reason and go Freebooting instead (more on this in the next chapter).

There is an absolutely infinite amount of possibilities for Ork Tribe layouts, so to apply a singular concept to it actually undermines much of what makes Ork fluff so great.

A lot of what unites a Tribe has to do with the individuals and dominant castes or factions within an Ork society. The direction they take will invariably steer the likely progression of the whole tribe, potentially down to the biological level. Any particular Warlord or Warboss is likely to have prejudices and preferences towards particular aspects of Ork society, and the likelihood is that this will filter down to the whole tribe, potentially killing or exiling aspects that they don’t approve of.

Chance can also play a part, with disagreements happening down the line of a Tribe’s progression, new leaders taking over, the deaths or divisions of various aspects, etc. There could be new alliances; some Clans may fail, causing various disagreements etc. Two Clans might ally on a temporary basis, or a particularly wise Warboss may ultimately embrace the perks of all Clans to give his Tribe military flexibility. A recently exiled/dethroned Warboss may even take an exiled number of his Clan-based followers with him, and seek to make a new mono-clan tribe so that his authority is never questioned again, and so on.

Clans are usually quite deep-rooted and complicated things. They’ll have a view on the entirety of Ork “Kultur”, and not just part of it. We usually take only a mere segment, a stereotype of a particular Clan and make that representative of its entirety. There’s nothing to suggest that a mono-clan society is any different to a multi-clan society in its basic function. Just because there are no Evil Sunz doesn’t mean a Tribe wont have warbikes, trukkboyz or other vehicles, and they may even still be painted red. A Tribe without Bad Moonz may still have Flash Gitz or Meganobz, and so on.

It is certainly true that a Clan or Tribe may have more or less of particular Castes of Ork society. The term “Caste” isn’t quite as widespread as it used to be for Orks, but it essentially represents the various aspects and roles within Orkdom. The Oddboyz each embody a caste, so too do Nobz, Gretchin, Boyz, etc. These days you’d probably have a number of sub-castes that relate to various units that represent those castes (MANz and Flash Gitz for Nobz, for example). [There will be more about Castes in Chapter 9]

Clans in particular tend to favour or shun various castes, depending on their societal inclinations:

Goffs tend to have an awful lot of Nobz, Boyz and Stormboyz, but shun the likes of Runtherds (with their Gretchin and Snotlings) and Weirdboyz. They are not massive fans of vehicles, but they’ll have a few where necessary.

The Bad Moons again have a lot of Nobs (although more likely MANz and Flash Gitz) and Weirdboyz. They’ll also have a lot of Gretchin servants and attendants. Bad Moons aren’t quite as prejudiced as other Clans, but they err more towards “showy” and ostentatious representations of themselves, thus some things will be less common with Bad Moons simply because they are common.

Deffskullz have changed a fair bit, probably more than other Clans, but their most common castes are Boyz (Lootas here as well) and loads of Gretchin (who are the best looters in Ork society). With Oddboyz, they classically had an awful lot of Doks and Madboyz.

The Evil Sunz naturally favour speed, and thus all units associated with it, particularly biker and trukk boyz. They have more Meks than any other Clan.

The Snakebites are traditionalists, so favour Boarboyz, shun technology, and have many Runtherds, Snotlings and Gretchin mobs. They also have lots of Weirdboyz and Madboyz, but very little in the way of Stormboyz.

The Blood Axes have probably changed the most, but ultimately they favour militarised units, taking Stormboyz (and now Kommandos as well), and you could also justify human mercenaries and Ogryns. They also have lots of Nobz, but very few in the way of Weirdboyz and Runtherds. Between them, the Goffs and Blood Axes unofficially compete for Clan who least likes Gretchin.

This is mostly based on the old Waaargh! The Orks model, but it hasn’t really changed that much, really. The one that tends to be controversial is the large amount of Doks in Deffskullz. It is typically argued that it makes more sense to be Meks. But this is a pretty feeble argument really, because it assumes, again, a totality rather than a proportion.

Clans embody preferences and prejudices, but this does not mean there aren’t the hallmarks of a regular Ork society underneath it. Deffskulls will still have a normal amount of Meks for an Ork society. This is the key, ultimately. Ork society usually functions by having all castes available in some way; there is nothing to say that Clans wont have their own similar representations, it’s more that they’ll err towards particular solutions, but they are still an Ork society first.

Let’s take Deffskulls and Meks, for instance. To assume Deffskulls have a lot of Doks suggests they have more than a typical Ork society would have. But Ork societies typically have a representative need of most societal castes. Any Ork Tribe is going to have a lot of Meks, and the bigger it is, the more Meks they’ll have. It just means that Evil Sunz have an abnormal amount.

All castes will be somewhat representative in scale. Ork Society in any form wouldn’t get far without certain services and subtypes, and it is likely that all Clans have evolved to provide their own solutions in the absence of other Clans that usually fill those roles. It’s an easier case to make with the Big Six, as splinter clans usually form up out of isolation, and that generally makes for very unpredictable results.

Ultimately, the best thing to take away from Ork Society, Clans, Castes and Tribes is that Orks can be massively individualistic. No Ork society will ever be the same, and that means that orthodoxy is ultimately a pointless endeavour for those who truly understand Ork fluff. Hell, even the general gist of what Clans are is fairly subject to change. If you want your Deffskulls to have more Meks, you’ve just got a Deffskull clan out there that has needed more Meks for some reason, and their own society has served them up.

Orks are very flexible, and so should your view of them be.

Chapter 6: Are Orks Really That Funny?

“Beneath us stretches a massive furnace room that eventually disappears into the smoky gloom. The heat is intense from the high open furnace doors; everything is bathed in a red glow. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, toil at great coal heaps, with pails and shovels, to feed the furnaces. From young children to old women, their pained frames are smeared with sweat and toil. Their labour keeps the fires burning. Braziers gutter everywhere, lending their smoke to the fumes of the furnaces.

As the elevator touches down with a loud crunching clang, Supurnis opens the door and we step out. He swings the door shut and slaps loudly on the framework of the cage, which lifts off a moment later, clanking back up into the gloom.

It's then that the noise hits me properly. There's the crackle of flames, the creaking of great steam wheels and the hiss of boiling water. But there are also groans, moans and the crack of whips. Through the gloom I see large, stooped shapes shuffling amongst the lines of workers, barbed whips in their hands, cudgels and clubs occasionally raised to beat a flagging worker about the back and shoulders.
They're unmistakably orks.” (Annihilation Squad by Gav Thorpe, page 303).

How often do you think, is it that some 40k player, somewhere, is telling someone, probably an Ork player, or writing on a forum, blog, or website that Orks are too silly (extra irony points if they call themselves “The General”) for 40k? It occurs with rather tiresome regularity. It usually revolves around the perceptions of many non-Ork players, who have most likely been enduring countless losses from a faction that doesn’t even appear to take the whole thing seriously. Of course they’ll dress that up as some comment about how it jeopardises the “grimdark” setting (the recent Grey Knights notwithstanding that actually definitely managed to) of 40k.

The sad thing is, that the Orks are not a big threat to grimdark 40k, and with Matt Ward around you’d be forgiven for thinking those days are long over. They are, rather ironically “lolgrey” instead. But let us for a moment assume that grimdark is still the dominant theme of 40k. Are Orks actually a detriment to this incredibly serious theme of death, destruction and dismay?

Of course not, they’re a primary cause of it.

Besides, who says that the 40k universe is serious? The point is that it is a glass half empty, dark, depressing, and ritually unpleasant. Some people will probably assume that such a thing is always serious, that hilarity is simply not an option. As someone who has worked as a Support Worker, and is thus one of those people for whom life can be rather unpleasant; I’m here to tell you that humour is more likely, not less. One of the ways we deal with stress is to laugh about it. I defy anyone to go into the medical profession and not come out of it with an extremely black sense of humour. It’s rather difficult not to.

Orks wont be the only ones who make things “funny”. There are many instances of hilarity from the Imperial ranks, it’s just well, there’s those damned Space Marines, who take everything absolutely seriously to a fault, and for some incredibly silly reason, they are the benchmark that applies to the whole hobby. Sometimes I wonder if some people would be happy if every faction was more like the Space Marines, but not as powerful, obviously.

Still, you’ll hear about how silly the Orks are, and how they don’t fit in. That’s just it, they do. You have a universe of only war. That is a pretty simple concept, but you add in a large collection of factions with varying perspectives about that. The Orks are one of the main factions who are extremely happy about this. They love their work, and they enjoy it immensely. Their “silly” shenanigans are simply a rather “in character” portrayal of what Orks would be like.

The question is how this fits into the “grimdark” setting. Notwithstanding the fact that 40k is pretty much a parody of itself, Orks have a rather vicious side. What seems silly concerning the Orks is actually rather serious, if you look at it from the right angle. The Orks find war funny, they chortle with delight, and mess about with silly devices that are masochistic more than they are methodical. But that’s how the Orks see it. Place yourself on the receiving end of it, and the joke isn’t quite as funny.

We view Orks as the comedy relief of 40k. That is a rather accurate observation, but we often overlook that the fluff also shows that Orks are callous, vicious murderers, thieves, and despoilers. They conquer whole worlds for sport; they enslave entire races to make weapons for them, and to sell to other races (or Ork tribes) as beasts of burden. They torture living beings for fun; they make them fight each other to death in vicious pit-fighting blood sports for a gambling pastime. They steal from corpses, and often adorn parts of them upon their armour as symbols of conquest.

Now imagine those creatures exist on your planet, and no matter how many of them you kill, more will return. If you kill them well, burn their corpses, and napalm whole areas, you might slow their replication down. You can’t track their sporing grounds, aside of digging up every shaded area in a massive radius from wherever an Orkoid might have spent any amount of time. What’s worse, is that the more you fight them, the bigger struggle you put up, the stronger they get, and the more they enjoy it.

This realisation reaches many of 40k’s near-infinite planets. Imagine being an Imperial Scholar, or perhaps even a Soldier, who learns that their planet has found Orks upon it. So, you will think, this is it, this planet’s non-greenskin lifeforms are doomed to slavery or extinction.

Sounds hilarious.

There is, of course, a silly side to Orks. But those who fight Orks, the likes of Yarrick, Dante, or Cain don’t quite see the funny side. What they see is a horrendous abomination that needs to be exterminated, because if it isn’t, their factions are ultimately doomed.

The secret to this, and many misconceptions about Orks, is, of course, having the correct context and the correct perspective. In their own context, Orks are absolutely hilarious, and every Ork player will be in on that joke. But that’s one of the wonders of perspective. We play the role of the Ork. We know how funny and hilarious all of 40k is. But there are different contexts and perspectives. It’s just sad that many 40k players lack the wit to notice. But then for something like RAW to still endure to this day, it’s clear a lot of GW’s fanboys are incapable of reading things very well, or understanding something so wonderfully simple as context.

Or perhaps the secret is even simpler. Other 40k players are jealous, and scared. They’re scared that we might have the coolest faction in the whole of 40k. Ork players have one very simple thing to say regarding that:

Hur hur hur.

Chapter 5: Resonance (Part 3): It’s Not Just About The Orks: TWC Speculates On Resonance in Other Orkoids

“The Waaagh tendency as seen in Orkoid individuals is an organism-scale reflection of a biological activity occurring at a cellular level. Separate orkoid organisms, be they adult, be they embryonic or cellular, generate a constant and stable field of resonance (probably psionic) that, when they intersect, cause biological processes to accelerate, engorge and expand.” (Xenology, pg.44)

So this is where we somewhat move into the grounds of conjecture. It isn’t quite as unsupported as others have claimed previously, but as Orks are the Orkoids with the most emphasis put into them, one is required to look at sources that don’t outright state things literally. In spite of the somewhat indirect nature of the fluff with regards the “lesser” Orkoids, there is much of that fluff that speaks very loudly indeed.

The misconception is very obvious – there are many 40k fans and Ork players alike who conclude that resonance occurs only in Orks, and not in the others, or if it does, it adds nothing the Orks are already capable of, and there is no overlap. In light of, as I said earlier, the amount of fluff that doesn’t directly contradict this doesn’t exactly help. But that’s just it, without resonance fluff there to explain the oddities of our Orkoid entourage, what explanation is there?

So what evidence is there? Well, there are, actually, only three primary sources for both the sporing process, and the resonance fluff (or at least how both of them have been clearly explained, even if resonance has been in the Ork fluff since Rogue Trader), and that is the two Anzion Articles and Xenology, which if you’ve been following this series, should already be very familiar to you; at least by name, if you haven’t yet read them.

Every time there is a sentence that uses the word “Orkoids” instead of Orks, it is applying the concept to the whole species, genus or whatever word you want to use to describe the entirety of Orkdom. The biology of Orkoids, their symbiosis, resilience and sporing process naturally invoke the word Orkoids, but so too do many other of the fundamentals of Ork fluff: when the fluff discusses the idea of genetically inherited skills, it says Orkoids, not Orks; when it discusses the idea that warfare makes Orks stronger, it again, uses the word Orkoids (even if it makes it clear this effect is more pronounced in Orks, it still occurs to the others); and Xenology, well if there is any doubt about whether the fluff mentions Orkoids having resonance, the article quote solves that one.

The issue isn’t so much “can other Orkoids use resonance”, but more what can be said about what they do with it. There isn’t a whole lot to go on, which isn’t actually that surprising; when, rather perplexingly for such a subtle and outright important aspect of the Orkoids, there is barely more than a page or two worth of fluff describing the whole thing; let alone what it does for the other Orkoids.

Interestingly, it’s actually easier to support the claim of what it does for the simplest Orkoid organisms (Snotlings and Squigs) than what it does for the more complicated species of the Gretchin, for whom there’s barely anything to suggest they use it. We will come back to the Orkoids in more detail in the next series (Orks and Ork Society), so for now I’ll only mention aspects that are relevant to resonance. Quite frankly I could mention all of it, but a few strong examples from each should be sufficient.

So let’s start with Squigs. As I mentioned in Chapter 2, Squigs come in a lot of shapes and sizes. These variations vary quite vastly between different types of Squig, but what is remarkable about them is how the Orks make use of them. There is not a single Squig in the Ork fluff that Orks don’t use for something, even if it is as simple as being eaten. Some of the more exotic variations get used for all sorts of things. Buzzer Squigs are commonly used as primitive ammunition (Squig Catapults); Oil Squigs provide almost all of the oil and lubrication for Mek’s machinations; Vampire Squigs are one of many used by Doks, and is used for drinking up bad blood and septic pus from wounds; Hairy Squigs are the source by which Orks have hair; Paint Squigs are the source by which Orks get paint.

If I was a Xenologist in that fictional universe, I’d find it hard to conclude that all these incredibly useful perks turned up simply by chance. Of course, they probably did. But it’s their resurgence and capacity to be commonplace that tells you something about the Orks. Although not outright stated, the likely culprit of all of this must be resonance. Just consider for a moment, that these various perks are likely filling gaps in the Ork’s environment that they require at the time. So it is likely that the resonance alters certain Squigs so that they produce an affect that the Orks’ society needs at that time.

It can in some cases be quite a radical manifestation, if you look at Feral Tribes. Take for instance, the Boar or the Squiggoth. The Squiggoth is definitely a type of Squig, but the Boar, well, that depends. Certainly originally, they were indigenous to the Ork’s original home world, and the Orks kept breeding them. But I think that should they return, it’s fairly possible to say that they’re Squigs, simply because they provide Orks with a beast of burden before they have mastered Bikes, in the same way that Squiggoths replace tanks and transports for primitive Orks.

Snotlings are an interesting case. Pretty much everything they do has subliminal implications, most of which have not actually been revealed. They are ineffably mysterious, after all, what can be said for a small green adolescent biped that occasionally turns into a mushroom with a face?

Snotlings’ main societal role is that of cultivator. Without Snotlings, it is questionable that Orks could remotely manage to cultivate fungus. It also seems like they have a fundamental role to play in the sporing process. The Anzion article, during the bits on sporing mentions their role in the sporing order:

“…followed quickly by the Snotlings who can start to prepare the area.”
(The Anzion Article, 3rd Edition Ork Codex, pg.47)

This is so understated, and barely explained, but it seems intrinsically linked to their roles as fungus cultivators. It seems rather likely that without Snotlings, you’d not actually get any Gretchin or Orks. You’d just get a fair amount of Snotlings and lots of Squigs.

Snotlings also have an interesting relationship with Squigs, whom they frolic with. They also, for reasons I’ll explain in the next series, can trap Daemons. Snotlings have the capacity to be the most interesting and fundamentally important Orkoid in the whole 40k Universe. If the sagely fluff is right, they most likely already are, we just don’t know it yet.

Finally, we have the Gretchin. “Ah, but” you say, “they’re just slaves that generally meet a sticky end. How on earth can a lowly slave manifest resonance?” because they’re not merely slaves. That ultimately explains how the Orks treat them, and how Ork society works. It’s a classical feudal system, and Orks, along with the other “lesser” Orkoids sit on the lowest peg. But that doesn’t make the influence those Orkoids have insignificant. In many ways it is far more important and impressive than the influence of the Orks.

Gretchin have the most interesting, and underestimated aspects of resonance. They can shift resonance in such an absolutely radical way, that it can actually do more for Gretchin than for any other Orkoid. It has a rather radical, if understated manifestation, which for the purposes of Gretchin has a fairly submissive, but absolutely massive impact upon all of Ork society. Just what is this manifestation?

Luck.

The greatest argument for Gretchin resonance is Makari, the luckiest Gretchin who ever lived. In 2nd Ed, that Grot had a 2+ unmodified (essentially invulnerable) save against any and all damage he received, for any reason. The only save that could never, ever, in any circumstances, be ignored. Woof.

It actually makes sense, really. Gretchin can prove themselves invaluable to their Ork masters, something that the Ork will never get again. The resonance takes that idea of their irreplaceable nature, and makes it a reality. Gretchin themselves become literally lucky mascots.

It doesn’t stop there, either. Gretchin have a fair amount of influence on resonance. Contrary to quite wide-ranging and incredibly wrong Ork player belief, Gretchin build most things in Ork Society, starting with Ork Society itself. Whilst the Orks are developing under the ground as spores, Gretchin will have sought out a moderately distant, but suitable site for an Ork Settlement, and built one by the time the Orks arrive.

It may get replaced by a bigger one once the Orks arrive, but what is likely is that this original settlement will become the Gretchin part of Ork society, where some of the most important aspects of Ork society will occur: trade and organisation. It is pretty likely that in this arena, Gretchin will once again be able to tap into resonance, in order to help them convince the Orks that the Gretchin wares are absolutely necessary to their lives and they simply must buy them with teef, and not beat up the Grot and take it anyway.

Grots are smart and resourceful enough to make trade work anyway, but it is unlikely that the whims of resonance are far away from any process in Ork society. So, you know what this means: it means Grots also have mechamorphic resonance, and like the other Orkoids, have inherited skills and knowledge, and part of that will include construction and engineering knowledge. Not quite so useless, or harmless, eh.

So we come full circle now. We come back to the point we arrived at in the beginning of this part of the series. Orkoids are virtually inseparable, their whole is as great as the sum of their parts, successfully steered by the wonders of their fictional superpower: psychic resonance. It could be easy to conclude that it is far too powerful, and it does too much, to the point of devaluing the influence of the whole Orkoid race.

But we’ve already seen this argument, the one I mentioned in Part 2, which suggests that Orks are imbeciles who can’t build anything. We now know how wrong this outlook is. It is quite simple, really. Resonance is not infallible, and it wouldn’t exist either if the Orks didn’t have the potential to awaken it. Gretchin have always been capable workers, Orks capable warriors, Squigs edible food, useful and tenacious beasts, and Snotlings, well, they’re the only ones that have truly changed, imbibing much of their original potential into the Orks, to the point that this whole species can actually tap into what the Brainboyz were, and what ultimately they all could be.

To undervalue Orkoids because of this influence is pretty pointless, because it doesn’t actually matter. Resonance is as fallible as the species it supports, and it is as ingrained and fundamental as every aspect of what makes them the coolest fictional faction ever created in 40k, and perhaps the whole universe of fiction itself.

There is of course, one final lesson to learn about resonance. Orkoid Resonance is a whimsical thing, and it is no shield from reality. It is merely natural selection on acid.