Talk:Orcus (Dungeons & Dragons)

Starting off as a larva
"After his death, his soul, like the souls of all Chaotic Evil mortals, went to the Abyss and Orcus began his afterlife as a lowly larva.

Orcus proceeded to climb through the demonic ranks in the next several thousand years, going from larva to mane, from mane to dretch, from dretch to rutterkin, from rutterkin to vrock, from vrock to glabrezu, from glabrezu to nalfeshnee and eventually a balor."

The 2E Outer Planes Monstrous Compendium says that Chaotic Evil dead mortals become manes and neutral evil ones become larva. And, did he remember any of his mortal life after he died, or do petitioners arrive on the lower planes with no memory of their former lives? The snare (talk) 05:02, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Image licensing issues
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/fc1_gallery/98462.jpg
 * Great, but is that a free image? Is it covered by copyright? bd2412  T 01:23, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, it's just a link that's posted, not the image itself.--Robbstrd 01:46, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Another licensing concern: the primary image on the page is the cover of a module. It is being used to illustrate the subject of the cover art, not the publication itself. This is not in compliance with Wikipedia's fair use policy (fitting quite clearly into the rose example). -Harmil 22:09, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Easiest solution is just to crop the image. bd2412  T 14:54, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Notability
I'd like those arguing that this isn't notable to explain why here. Sourced clearly, including secondary sources. Hobit (talk) 14:11, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I am working on this article now. I have a new section to add and several new cites. Web Warlock (talk) 17:14, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I added quite a bit of information here and sourced a lot of the article. Removing unneeded tags now. Web Warlock (talk) 18:54, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Alignment
You are correct; alignments aren't capitalized. My bad. For some reason I'm sure I've seen them capitalized in official books, but I guess not. My apologies. -Drilnoth (talk) 21:03, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Proposed split
Thanks to the commendable work done by User:BOZ, this article is now over 67,000 KB. Some parts could be split out into sub-articles, particularly the Realms of Orcus and the Wand of Orcus, since each encompasses information reflecting the compilation of multiple sources. Cheers! bd2412 T 19:47, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I was actually thinking the very same thing. :) Let me get through all the material I have, clean everything up, and I'll be happy to arrange a split. For now I'd like to keep it all in one place to make it easier to find. BOZ (talk) 20:02, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Excellent. Let me know if you need any help with the split. Cheers! bd2412  T 20:07, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
 * In the meantime, perhaps the Realms section could use some subsection headers. bd2412  T 20:32, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I was thinking of that, but I'm not sure of the best way to do that before a split. Some of the same cities and such appear in multiple products, so that may be easy, but unless we are splitting by edition, stuff like the locales from H4 might be a trick. BOZ (talk) 20:36, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Split by locale entirely, I think. If there are locales about which there is not much to say, those can be lumped together. bd2412  T 22:03, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Probably right, in an overview section before the specific places, I'd say. BOZ (talk) 22:28, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

(redent) What's the notability situation? Is Orcus in the clear? Would the subarticles pass easily, or sketchily? I am not here to delete or remove anything. Just curious. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 02:21, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Orcus suffers from the same sort of notability problem that just about every other D&D character or element suffers from; there are few or no secondary sources to satisfy the GNG. That said, tell me what you realistically think the outcome would be at AFD? :)  Subarticles, therefore, would probably not pass at all. But I have never been one to care much about satisfying the GNG; it's nice when we can, but when we can't it doesn't bother me. If we split these out, and someone has a problem with it later, then can always be merged back in if need be.  It's kind of like how on comic book articles, long ones often have the "in other media" and "other versions" sections split off - they don't usually satisfy the GNG either, and sometimes are forcibly merged back in at AFD and sometimes not. Really, I'm not concerned about it. BOZ (talk) 23:44, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I see. Same ol same ol.  It just seemed like you might have actually passed the GNG with a demon lord, which would be extraordinary. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 02:04, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I disagree. I think Orcus is one of the most significant characters in the D&D universe, which covers a large number of works; the fact that multiple works by different authors in the genre detail his characteristics and those of his realm and artifacts speaks to their notability. He is mentioned along with his wand, as it happens, in at least one secondary source, Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition For Dummies. bd2412  T 21:04, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I have created a subpage, Orcus (Dungeons & Dragons)/Artifacts and relics, to facilitate discussion of splitting off the materials relating to relics and artifacts. bd2412 T 20:36, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Will there be much more to add about the wand and other artifacts? I'd like to break out that subpage into an article. It is already well-referenced, as these things go. bd2412  T 00:01, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't expect that there will be much more for that section, but since I haven't read most of the 4E material before, I really can't say. Be patient and hang in there - it won't be much longer, I suspect.  :)  BOZ (talk) 14:17, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't done with the article yet, just been taking a break from it due to this being a very busy time at work. But, I suppose if there are any more changes I need to make to Wand of Orcus I can do them at that article. BOZ (talk) 16:42, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I noticed other editors making changes to the article, and figured I'd better make the split before someone who didn't know this was in store started tying things together. Cheers! bd2412  T 17:08, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

"Cult of Orcus" and "Cult"
I am curious as to why there are two separate subheadings for this in the article. Are they intended to be at different levels? Also, it seems to me that we do not need separate subheadings for very short sections on Cult and Clergy, or for Rituals and Holy Days. Cheers! bd2412 T 18:58, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I've been removing redundancies as I rewrite, so these sections are currently just leftovers. In time, they will all be either sourced or removed. I hope to get through the remaining sources from 4th edition over the next 2-3 weeks, and then I will take care of any remaining leftovers. BOZ (talk) 00:07, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Great - looking forward to it. Cheers! bd2412  T 00:14, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Split of realms?
Since it seems that major editing of this article is done, I would like to revive my earlier proposal to split off the Realms of Orcus section into a separate article. Cheers! bd2412 T 16:29, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
 * We could do that. I'm going to come back to this article sooner or later to finish it off, but I won't lie and tell you that later is more likely than sooner. BOZ (talk) 18:00, 4 May 2012 (UTC)