Generate an engaging and "realistic" tribe of orcs (also one of ogres)

Question

My players recently turned a slaughter of low-level orcs & ogres (separate situations) into a massive recruitment drive. Given the choice between death and lucrative mercenary work, most chose to sign up. I'm planning on giving the PCs challenges related to managing this new mercenary company, especially given the chaotic leanings of the two groups, but what I really need help with is this: how do I make these 300+ creatures engaging? That is, at least giving them names would probably help (hopefully I can figure out a good way to generate a crap-ton of names), but I'd like to efficiently introduce some variety among the orcs and ogres.

Are there any copy-paste or auto-generating resources I could use? Or am I left with building a massive list? Also, are there any Pathfinder or D&D books/resources that recommend the breakdown of special abilities/classes/level of an orc (or ogre) tribe?

Edit:

I've changed my question title.

• I want to figure out the outliers in the horde. When the players ask about any members that stand out, I want to answer without preventing myself from providing a decent response to future questions.
• There are 52 ogres and 245 orcs. The orcs and ogres want to kill each other, because of their history.
• I want to have a general breakdown of demographics, since there will presumably be elders, adults, adolescents, and children. How many are mothers? If they say, "mothers with children will stay behind while the rest of the tribe must follow us," just how many orcs stay behind? I'd love some guidelines that would anticipate these things so that my percentages/numbers don't imply things I wasn't expecting (like that orcs are apparently one-child families because I said that there were 20 orcs with children, but only 20 children).
• I'd like to know how the horde reacts to various threats/situations by having an idea about the various skills/classes/professions present among them. For example, if the players ask if there are any healers among the tribe, I don't want to be stuck because I previously mentioned an injured orc being left for dead. While I might be able to dance and make things fit, I would prefer to have a reference that mentions the various things that the tribe can handle before I start answering questions about the tribe.
• I asked about "interesting" or "engaging" because I could just say, "They're 100% unskilled orcs without class levels and they can't do anything other than what the sample orc in the monster manual can do," but not only isn't that "realistic" (for certain values of realism), but it's also boring. If they have a chief, you'd expect the chief to be stronger/wiser/more-cunning/fatter/something.
• The advice on factions, conflicts, etc. is great advice, but not what I'm looking for. I already have plenty of plans on all of that (they're probably going to try to kill the PCs in their sleep or turn on them in battle at the first opportunity, unless the PCs do a little more to discipline them and boost their morale).

Clarification:

I'm not asking anyone on RPG.SE to do my prep work for me. I'm looking for resources, either online or in books. My Google searches have been fruitless. The name/trait generators are nice for the flavor, but I'm looking for looking for something a bit more crunchy (age/sex/class/skills). At this point, I'm getting the feeling that it really is just up to me to detail this tribe as best I can and hope I don't miss something huge. The answers so far really are good and useful, but just not the life-saver I was looking for.

What I've Done:

You can see my Google Docs spreadsheet if you want to see what I've done for the orc tribe. As you can see, I play D&D like it's Accounting: The Game.

Answer 1

1. Figure out how relations are between the orcs and the ogres in the camp.
2. Give these two groups tribal names, flags, distinctive armor, etc. Are there members of more than one clan within either tribe? If so, give each clan a name and a flag, and figure out the relations between the clans. Is there tension there? History? Pride?
3. Think about how labor is divided in the camp. Are some leaders, some guards, some cooks, some porters, etc? Are jobs divided on a racial basis? Is there any resentment or ill-will there? Insubordination? Sabotage?
4. Come up with one "representative" from each clan, tribe, or laborer group. This will be the one your PCs interact with, who will represent the opinions of his group. Give him a name. What does he want? What does he hate? Is he loyal to his group, or is he looking out for his own gain?

Orc name generator: http://www.rpginspiration.com/tables/OrcName.ipt

Clan name generator: http://www.rpginspiration.com/tables/OrcClanName.ipt

Ideas on Orc culture, etc: https://okam.obsidianportal.com/wikis/orcish-culture

Answer 2

What level PCs can manage a horde of 300+ orcs & ogres!?

Challenge

1. I think their biggest problem will be the infighting/challenges for leadership from their followers!
2. Other civilized cities & adventurers attacking your horde (even if you've been friendly, I'd take you out before you become a threat)
   

   ---

Engaging

1. I think you'd only need a few Generals of each Tribe to flesh out. This is who the PCs give their orders to. The less NPCs you have to flesh out, the more detailed you can get with each one!

   1a. The DMG has quirks/motivations/physical attributes etc

   1b. Make sure you have several additional General's prepared so when one is lost (attacked, challenged, challenges/killed by your players) you can have his replacement ready.

2. Then give the tribe overall generic but similar attributes/behaviors.

---

Note on Hordes: Even though you may have only taken out 1 "encampment" of orcs & ogres each, when you get to large numbers like that, they most likely have multiple tribes or factions within the settlements. Use the term faction if it fits in better with your setup.

Answer 3

I'm adding a 2nd answer instead of editing for 2 reasons:

1. I believe the previous answer is good enough to stand on it's own (for the original question anyway)
2. I think the points there remain valid and need not be removed, however, adding this section to the previous answer would only convolute the entire thing.

Edit: The below information is gathered from the following sources:

1. http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/orc.htm
2. http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/ogre.htm

   ---

Demographics

To get this information, we look at the "Organization" section in the monster entry.

Orcs

1. Gang (2-4),
   
2. Squad (11-20 plus 2 3rd-level sergeants and 1 leader of 3rd-6th level), or
   
3. Band (30-100 plus 150% noncombatants plus 1 3rd-level sergeant per 10 adults, 5 5th-level lieutenants, and 3 7th-level captains)

For your purposes (Horde of 300) we are going to go with a band. This gets us:

100 Orcs (Combat statistics in MM)
100-150% Non-combatants: We'll choose 127 to go with your comment (Non-Combatants note at end of section)
1 3rd-Level Sergeant per 10 adults = Total of 10 3rd-Level Sergeants
5 5th-Level Lieutenants
3 7th-Level Captains
(It doesn't mention Chief, but if you want one to fill the roll take a 7th-level Captain and give him a class level or 2 to make him even higher...personally, I might suggest Shaman to be unexpected twist on the players. However, it is most likely any chief would be killed, either by PCs during takeover or by orcs for allowing the tribe to be overrun)

Total Orc Count: 245 Orcs, you could also substitute one orc for the chief if you wanted.

Non-Combatants: This is probably where you'll have to most opportunities for "interesting & engaging NPCs. The book doesn't elaborate on who this entails; it's probably mostly women & children with possibly a few lightly injured male orcs, however, based on Orc's way of life a seriously injured Orc is probably only moments-days away from death one way or another. Also, for the same reason, there probably aren't very many "old/infirm" orcs. And before I get accused of being sexist, that's just traditional verbiage as mothers would normally be the ones protecting the children. There could also be craftsmen/craftswomen making/repairing weapons/armor etc, hopefully you have a few hunters/cooks in this group or they'll starve pretty fast! Non-Combatants, if you assume they have these "tradesmen" have lots of opportunities for "interesting" & "engaging" NPCs.

Common Description for nearly all of your horde:
Black Hair, wolf-like ears & reddish eyes.
Males are just over 6' tall & weigh just over 200lbs with females being slightly smaller
Their equipment is dirty and unkempt &
They usually wear vivid colors such as blood red, mustard yellow, yellow-green, and deep purple.

---

Ogres

1. Solitary,
2. Pair,
3. Gang (3-4), or
4. Band (5-8)

This doesn't quite get us the "Band" we were looking for. However, you can add the 4th-level Barbarian listed in the entry to be their (previous) leader/(new) "General" and bolster their numbers by making 5-6 bands instead of 1 to get the requisite 52 Ogres you're after.

Note that Ogres have no entries for non-combatants; since it's explicitly mentioned in the previous entry and ignored here I would take that to mean they simply don't have non-combatants. Honestly, whoever heard of an ogre chef anyway!?

Common Description for most of your Ogres:
Adults are 9-10 feet tall & weigh between 600 & 650lbs
Skin color ranges from dull yellow to dull brown
Their clothing consists of poorly cured furs and hides, which add to their "naturally repellent odor"

Note# This section is why I would recommend against having a 300 mbr horde of ogres. Feeding 300 creatures who way 600lbs themselves would take an entire country! The smell of just themselves would be enough to require a fortitude save & this is before we get into their unsanitary hygiene conditions! (I've never seen an orgre sized toilet, and I doubt they care too much where they go)

Edit 2: I modified/updated numbers to reflect Dane's comments about total size of the entire horde

Answer 4

Heroes of Battle is a good resource.

Heroes of Battle contains information for DMs and players alike. The book starts by showing what an adventure on the battlefield is like, giving players an idea of what to expect and handing the DM a construction kit to bring massive battles to life. Later chapters provide the nitty-gritty tools that increase the chance of PCs and NPCs surviving and thriving on a fantasy battlefield.

1. The War Campaign
2. Building Adventures
3. Battlefield Encounters
4. Rules of War
5. The Military Character
6. Magic of War
7. Sample Armies
8. Sample Soldiers
9. Battlefield Steeds

Since it isn't OGL - I can't copy and paste too much I don't think - But there is information from how to implement mass combat, what a small group adventurers can do to support mass combat, spells that effect an entire army, and it even goes down into organization, positions of leadership, titles, and siege warfare.

It brings an interesting take of Warhammer into d20.

Answer 5

You can also reduce your effort by reducing the horde size. For that let your players feel the responsibility they have. How to get enough food, clean water, latrines. Less fighting, more organizing ...yawn...

Answer 6

I have a feeling you've most likely moved past this point in your campaign but if you're ever looking for an online resource for generating a larger group of people there is a handy tool here: https://og.myth-weavers.com/generate_town.php?do=town It generates a list of character sheets for a town with full class listings and stats. Since it uses most of the NPC classes as well you can easily accommodate for children and other nonskilled/ noncombatants. It allows you to adjust many of the details of the town/group such as the size, general alignment, and environment so you use it for a small tribe or a huge metropolis. I just tweak the settings a bit and modify the output slightly for any extra themes needed but it's a good outline tool for decently detailed NPCs. The site also has a separate NPC generator that gives a few more details so I tend to use that for more in-depth individuals who I think my players will interact with.