Ogre

Ogres are tall muscular humanoids sparsely covered in hair. They were created by the gods during the Age of the Gods to fight the demons. For years the ogres remained much as they were created until the Age of Legends. The cataclysm that forged the world anew caused a huge changed in the ogres as well, causing two additional race to branch. The original race are called the Boeman, while the most populous are simply referred to as an Ogre. The most distinct race is a random mutation that arises from the Ogre population called the Kuri.

Unless otherwise stated the sections below refer to the largest branch of ogres, not the boeman or kuri.

Ogres are humanoid mammals that stand just over ten (10) feet high with strong muscles, dense bones, and duplicated internal organs (including the heart). While they are not fast sprinters, they can walk for days uninterrupted and still have the strength of fight and hunt.

Ogres are less intelligent that average among

The head of an ogre bristles with hair with forward facing eyes, a prominent nasal line, and extended jawline. Their sharp teeth are made for cutting and tearing meat, and are replaced frequently by new teeth. While their vision is weaker than a human, capable of seeing far fewer colors - they have superior night vision, nearly the equal of an elf.

Their body proportion is similar to many other humanoid race in the world, except for their more muscular build. These larger muscles require ogres to eat more meat that other humanoids. Although they can supplement their diet with vegetation, they cannot survive without meat for very long. When meat is scarce ogres will enter a torpor during the daylight hours and only truly awake after the sun as set.

A significant (~10%) of all ogres are born as Ogrekin. Typically more than a thirty centimeters smaller (-1' height) and far less bulky and muscular they can nearly pass as large humans. In fact most scholars are convinced that ogrekin are a result of some ancestral mating between a human and ogre, but that has yet to be proven.

Ogrekin are physically capable of have sex with other ogres, but are born without the ability to bear children. In effect they are mules.

Ogre children are born live and typically as single birth, with twins being a very rare occurrence. A ogre will gestate for 7 months in its mother's womb and after birth is most commonly breastfeed for a full year. It is the arrival of an ogre's first teeth that determine when they are weaned, as ogres have sharp teeth. Once an ogre transitions from its mother's milk to meat it will being to more rapidly gain size and weight.

Ogres reach physical maturity around their twelfth (12th) year with sexual maturity following a year or so after. A ogre female will generally be fertile between the ages of fourteen and forty (14-40), while a male's fertility ends nearly a decade previously (14-30). Most ogres rarely live more than a decade (60) beyond their fertile years as their teeth are no longer replaced as quickly or in as great of numbers. This requires an ogre to eat less meat and sleep in a torpor for longer periods of time to conserve their strength.

Although ogres often build their communities around rivers and lakes where access to meat is plentiful, an ogre is barely capable of swimming. The denseness of their bones, heavier muscles, and thicker skin does not provide them with a natural buoyancy. They are fully capable of traveling by boat and with enough exertion they can even float for a few minutes, but that is the limit of their capabilities.

Ogres are an intelligent and communal race. While most of their communities do not have great libraries or enormous temples, they are capable of agriculture, herding, forging, mining, masonry, and lumbering. They do not live in walled encampment as the smaller races do for their are few predators willing to hunt them. Instead, they construct strong houses that are built int a circle (lager) around a central meeting place. Their requirement for meat limits them to living in areas where large animals can be hunted or herded.

While some ogre communities have functional governments that would be recognizable to humans, most ogres live in smaller villages ruled by the strongest and most powerful. This is again a limitation of the amount of meat that an ogre must eat. Any ogre community larger than a small town would need to set aside a enormous amount of land simply to raise animals for butchering.

Currently there are three races of ogre found on Miranda. Each of the ogre race are fully capable of mating with each other; although it is rare for either of the other ogre race to mated with the boeman.

The Boeman are the least numerous of the ogre, these remain much as they were created by the gods. They are larger, often standing twelve (12) feet or more, with broader muscles. They are intelligent and capable of speech; although most of their language is little more than phrases and sounds borrowed from their cousins. They live in families dominated by the most powerful male, who keeps a harem of females with whom only he can mate. Female children are kept and bartered to the alpha males of other families. The male children are driven out of the family once weaned from their mother lest they challenge the dominate male. The unattached males will gather in small groups in order to conquer a nearby male or steal a female.

These ogres are capable of using tools and often model their look upon the other humanoid race around them. However, they are not intelligent enough to fashion any tool beyond basic stone and wood. They can, and will, pick up metal weapons and tools of others and mock using them, but almost never forge one for themselves.

It is doubtful this race will survive into the Age of Magi as only five percent (5%) of the total ogre population remain this ancient throwback.

The most common of the Ogre race is that known simply as Ogres. They are as presented above and number eighty-five percent (85%) of the ogre population.

By what process these ogres evolved is unknown, but most scholars assume that magic or infernal power was involved. The kuri appear as normal ogres, and in fact are typically born into a ogre family, until they begin puberty. At this point the latent power in their blood will manifest themselves and they will become a half-ogre half-animal hybrid. The more powerful the Kuri, the more dominate the animal. A kuri that is mostly ogre may manifest a bear's hand, hawk's talons, or a serpent's face. A strong kuri may have the lower-half of a horse as well as their eyes and mane.

When a kuri gains control over their own power they have the capability to assume the full form of their animal nature; although it remains ogre-sized. They may gain mass, but they seem incapable of losing mass to become a smaller animal. So, a mouse kuri could change their body into a house-sized mouse. A kuri can never rid themselves of their animal body and become a normal ogre.

Just under ten percent (10%) of the ogre population are kuri. It is possible there are more of them that have simply lost their ogre heritage into their beast and can never return.