Orc (The Lord of the Rings)

In the deep past, in an age when the elves were a brand new race, the eyes of Melkor/Morgoth, the evil and most powerful Valar spirit, set his eyes on the races of the Creator Illuvatar. Taking several individuals from the races of earth, he twisted, mutated each one to sire countless races of monsters. For those Elves he capured, he tortured and mutilated into horrid forms; the first orcs. From these were bred a race of countless number that made war on the free peoples of Middle Earth.

A first there was only one race of orcs: the small types, called Snagas (Black speech for "Slaves"), but eventually Sauron, the successor to Melkor, decided to breed a giant race of Orcs: The Uruks or Uruk-Hai. The larger Orcs sacked Osgiliath and were found in and out of Mordor, the land of Sauron. Near the end of the third age Saruman the white, the rogue wizard who betrayed the free peoples of Middle Earth, cross orcs with a hybrid race called Goblin-men to create the ultimate evolution of the orcs: the Fighting Uruk-Hai. These orcs were less evil yet more powerful and formidable than the Uruks, and nearly conquered all of the human Kingdom of Rohan.

Orcs, also called "Goblins", are dark and hideous, possessing long, very powerful limbs like those of the Great Apes. Yet despite their great strength and ferocity they are often bested by human warriors, which are no were near as strong. Indeed, elves, dwarves and ents likewise outclass them on average in combat, but the Orcs make up for this in both far superior numbers and alliances with more powerful races and monsters, such as Trolls, Nazguls, Balrogs, and giant wolves/wargs.