Without getting too deep into things, my party is just about to get some downtime in a village of Orcish exiles that have set aside their differences with Elvish exiles and have created a society together. I feel that some portrayals of orcs have been a bit problematic in the past when it comes to D&D, so I'm trying to figure out some actual culture that feels good and enjoyable to partake in rather than just jumping to the old stereotypes. I was wondering if people had any feedback or additional suggestions on how to spice things up for the party!

Sidenote: lots of symbols of this culture are things like the boar, storms, coniferous trees, herbal sage, etc.

SPORTS & SPARRING

• • Torrok "Treeball"
    • A relatively simple game that mixes soccer, football, and keep-away played around two trees spaced a fair distance apart. Two teams of four kick around a leather ball with a simple goal: get the ball around the back of each tree consecutively without the other team touching it. Doing so scores your team a point, and the first team to get four points on the other wins.
  • Felror, "Four Axes"
    • A game of two players each taking turns throwing up to four axes at branches to see who can get the most axes in a branch. Simple thrown attack rolls against a branch's predetermined AC and HP check to see if an axe lands, but the twist is that the branches can be felled past a certain point. Keep track of where axes land, because players may lop off the branch and all of the axes they've put into it past a certain point if they're not careful.
  • Borrokhol, "Boar Hole Ball"
    • A mix of games like soccer, disc golf, and bocce ball played with one leather ball for every player participating. A starting player sets a hole in the ground somewhere, usually on the side of a shallow hill's slope to make things interesting, and picks a number between 1-100 to represent it. The same player then picks another number to represent where the players all start their balls, then they each take turns choosing to roll a dice of their choosing (1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12, 1d20, 1d100) to either add or subtract from their position by kicking it. The first player that kicks their ball to the chosen value gets it in the hole and wins, and they in turn get to choose the next hole and starting point.
  • Borrag, "Boar Fighting" 
    • Standard mud pit fighting, but with a more mechanical twist of wrestling. It's not about who drops to 0hp first, but the fighter that imposes the grappled and prone condition on the opponent first wins the bout. Lots of grapple and shove checks to make, but likely a lot more fun to narrate than just two dudes smacking each other in a mud pit.
  • Skalrag, "Skull Fighting"
    • A variation of mud pit fighting, but the twist is that the fighters' hands are tied behind their backs. Instead of fighting with weapons or fists, they are given large masked boar helmets armed with tusks dealing 1d6 damage, with which they have to fight each other by butting heads and employing other unique tricks.  

GAMES & GAMBLING

• • Llozga, "Three Bolts"
    • Two players play a modified version of "Connect Three" on a 5x5 grid, each taking turns to draw in a space. The difference is that each player uses the same symbol rather than differing ones- a lightning bolt- and whoever is the last player to connect three bolts in a row- no more and no less- is the winner. I actually tried this game out myself, and it's a lot more interesting than I thought it would be. It's not just about making your own lines of three, but figuring out how to stop the other player from making theirs!
  • Oranar, "Elven Blocks"
    • Reverse Jenga; rather than pulling blocks out, it's all a game of stacking Jenga blocks instead until somebody knocks over the tower and loses. That's pretty much it!
  • Galrok, "Gladiator Dice"
    • This dice game of 2-6 players has six rounds, and each player requires 6d6 with which to play. The game is simple: everybody rolls their dice, and if none of their dice roll the value equal to the round (i.e. no 1s on round 1, no 2s on round 2, etc.), they're out. After each round, players remove one die from their hand for the next round (i.e. 6 dice on round 1, 5 dice on round 2, 4 on round 3, until 1 on round 6). The last player standing wins.
  • Borgoh, "Boar Racing"
    • Simple boar racing through a winding dirt path- place bets and see which one gets to the end first!
  • Arrn Seanchai, "Stormtelling"
    • Literally just the act of trying to forecast the weather and guessing how it will change in coming minutes. If rain will come or get worse, if lightning will flash or how long it will take to hear the thunder, if the sun will shine soon or stay hidden by cloud cover, etc.  

SONG & DANCE

• • Mogzog, "Dizzy Song"
    • Dancers join hands in a circle and spin together in a mud pit, stopping suddenly when the music stops. If somebody falls over, they're out of the circle and the circle closes until there is only one dancer remaining. Best played when intoxicated for maximum hilarity!
  • Uranurah, "One or All"
    • If there's an especially quiet lull, a tribe member might start this trend like somebody would start a chant at a concert or begins to clap when somebody drops a tray in the cafeteria. Tribesmen usually carry horns on them, so they will attempt to see if they can get one person to sound off on a horn at a time across a large space in the village. It's purely guessing to see if people can take turns sounding off, but if somebody messes up and goes when somebody else does, everybody blows their horns as loudly as possible all at once and lets out a cheer. It's nothing more than silliness and fun to hear the tribe all sound off at once! 

FOOD & DRINK

• • "Umjogg" fruit wine made from various fruits and mulled berries
    
    • Large clay amphoras are jammed with various fruits, berries, and spices to ferment, poured into large bowls to be brought to a gentle heat over a fire before serving by the ladle.
  • "Yahkwat" roasted squash with sage and goat cheese
    • Sage is a common herb found in these woods that works well with the harvests and domestic products of the tribe.
  • "Talsmok" smoked pepper bacon with garlic dip
    • Wild boars may be sacred to this group, but domesticated pigs are considered to be "boars that have lost what once made them sacred," so the tribe still tries to make use of these animals out of respect.
  • "Niblig" wildberry nutbread
    
    • Baked from ground pine nuts and various seasonal berries, often a treat for good children!
  • "Darstog" stalk shank stew
    • A hearty boiled stew of lamb's leg, chopped dire stalks, fennel, tomatoes, and beets.

For games, I thought you might want to try some Scots Games like the caber toss.  Look up a Scottish Festival and see what I am talking about.

As for dances, how about the manly Russian Dances where they show their physical strength through dance with their squat kicks and leaps and flips like ballet dancers.

As for the first game running around the trees, of course Indian (Native Americans) played a very rough version of LaCross.  But using your idea about taking the ball around the tree, what if there were three trees arranged in an equilateral triangle.  To get a point, once you team possessed the ball, you had to run the ball around the "neutral" tree and then run it around the opposing team's tree without losing control of the ball?  Then it could be played something like rugby otherwise.

Quote from MusicScout >>

For games, I thought you might want to try some Scots Games like the caber toss.  Look up a Scottish Festival and see what I am talking about.

As for dances, how about the manly Russian Dances where they show their physical strength through dance with their squat kicks and leaps and flips like ballet dancers.

As for the first game running around the trees, of course Indian (Native Americans) played a very rough version of LaCross.  But using your idea about taking the ball around the tree, what if there were three trees arranged in an equilateral triangle.  To get a point, once you team possessed the ball, you had to run the ball around the "neutral" tree and then run it around the opposing team's tree without losing control of the ball?  Then it could be played something like rugby otherwise.

Oh those are already a bunch of great ideas! It's definitely tricky because I'm trying hard to stray away from stereotypes of cultures and yet I feel like I've backed myself into a corner by providing so many of the same building blocks (i.e. trying to avoid the "noble savages" tropes and actually put in due respect towards building these things- indigenous cultures being a big thing to be mindful of). The mention of Scottish and Russian activities is a great source I didn't think about though!