I somehow neglected to post this link earlier: I had a short, hopefully amusing piece in the April issue of Wired. We had put together a special issue, edited by Will Wright, about the world of Games; my very modest contribution was a look at the protypical videogame villian, the orc. This is what happens when you have a silly idea in a meeting one day and mention it to your boss.
Dungeons & Dragons, 1974
Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson included orcs in their tabletop role-playing system. From D&D, orcs go on to overrun nearly every fantasy RPG despite their -2 penalty on charisma.
More links coming soon to online versions of two stories I wrote for the May issue of Wired.