(If D&D’s (via Tolkien’s) orcs are rooted in Renaissance European exaggerations of Mongols’ barbarity, Weatherford’s depiction would be a good inspiration for rehabbing D&D humanoids culturally: foreign, different, tough, maybe baffling, but with lessons to offer their world.) (Not that we *should* model orcs on any one real ethnic group (!) but Weatherford’s text shows one way to unpack a maligned group as a long “misunderstood” and “misrepresented” group in-world, in order to move away from the frankly racist roots of the “evil orcs” fantasy trope.)