World of Warcraft®

Been looking at all sorts of lore sites to find an answer to this. Is this a natural untainted color like the brown skin tone? It seems eluded as such, but no direct lore that I can find says so. As far as any solid lore shows, brown is the original color and the various shades of such. Then green and red for the various demonic/fel taint. But I cant seem to find anything in regards to the charcoal coloration.

Ideas? Or links to solid info?

This was taken from WoWWiki.

I assume no credit for this below.

All original orcs were brown-skinned; from bark-like brown to reddish-brown. However, their bodies react when exposed to warlock magic; though the nature of this change is somewhat different in other fel-touched races. The nature of orcish fel magic means that all nearby orcs, including those who avoid warlock magic, take on a green pigmentation and gain body mass (though why the Mag'har are much bigger than Durotar orcs in World of Warcraft is unknown). This color change appears to be genetic as Thrall, who had little direct exposure to warlock magic until recently, has had green skin from birth.

As this corruption progresses, the orc's eyes may become flaming orbs of red or green and their skin will soon change from green to scarlet, transforming them into fel orcs. Through certain rituals, this state is reversible. However, should the orc continue to drink large amounts of demonic blood, they enter the final irreversible stage of transformation and mutate horrifically; growing additional fangs and erupting with horns from their backs, arms and hands.

That being said the charcoal seems that maybe the magic of the netherwing has touched them. Or they are in between the green and red stage.

Were they charcoal on Draenor? In the past that is. The Dragonmaw make refrence to being pure as they are against the fel orc who leads them.

Here is the official explanation of why Orcs have different colored skin.

Me: Hey Blizzard, why do Orcs have different skin color? I heard it had to do with demonic taint, and fel energies, but also seems to be genetic..what gives?

Blizzard: Oh right, well the reason is...hey, what's that over there?
*smoke bomb*
/vanish

They got burnt by dragons rawr

You can have dragonmaw skin, only DK Orcs get the option though.... sucks but its fun to RP like that

Actually, I think it's a sort of body paint. Makes sense to me, anyway.

I always thought it was just genetics. Like why Irish people are considerably paler than say Eastern Europeans. Also, aren't the Dark Horde in Blackrock kinda greyish? Maybe they got that way from taint from the Black Flight. I know the Dragonmaw were supporters of the Dark Horde for a while.

I don't think it's been officially answered, but two of the clans that have been isolated away from the current Horde (Blackrock and Dragonmaw) both have different skin tones than the current Horde. These two clans split from the Old Horde when Orgrim took over. I presume they continued using warlock magics, which could be the reason for the further alteration.

07/29/2011 01:31 PMPosted by Darmani

I don't think it's been officially answered, but two of the clans that have been isolated away from the current Horde (Blackrock and Dragonmaw) both have different skin tones than the current Horde. These two clans split from the Old Horde when Orgrim took over. I presume they continued using warlock magics, which could be the reason for the further alteration.

As one stated above, perhaps DW and the black flight somehow mutated the tone of some, but I dont think it was fel magic like your saying. The orcs went from brown to green, then with greater exposure red and mutating even more physicaly other than tone. Just going off established lore, I dont think thats the case even though that also makes more sence than I'd like to admit!

07/31/2011 11:14 PMPosted by Didios

I don't think it's been officially answered, but two of the clans that have been isolated away from the current Horde (Blackrock and Dragonmaw) both have different skin tones than the current Horde. These two clans split from the Old Horde when Orgrim took over. I presume they continued using warlock magics, which could be the reason for the further alteration.

As one stated above, perhaps DW and the black flight somehow mutated the tone of some, but I dont think it was fel magic like your saying. The orcs went from brown to green, then with greater exposure red and mutating even more physicaly other than tone. Just going off established lore, I dont think thats the case even though that also makes more sence than I'd like to admit!

Well the red mutation came from further exposure to felblood, not necessarily fel energy, so it's still possible that it's from fel energy.

Well the Dragonmaw used the demon soul to control Alexstrasza for a awhile so that probably has something to do with it.

I guess in order to find out what caused it, we would need to see just how far back their coloration exsisted? Were they always that color, or were they brown originaly at some point as well?