So for cheap, effective monstering kit
Soft kit
- Use what you have. Look at your current soft kit and seeing what you can re-use. Neutral browns/blacks/whites can work for any tribe as base layers
- Charity Shops. If you don’t have anything suitable, hit the charity shops. You’re looking for basic, loose trousers/shirts in cotton or linen, but anything nondescript and not too modern looking is fine. Grab some black fabric dye if you need to.
- Fabric Stores Raid fabric stores for offcuts/seconds in green, red, and purple. I once got a massive amount of sheer purple fabric for £2 because it had some tears in it. Make scarves, sashes, and/or wrist-wraps out of what you find. This is an easy way to provide a splash of colour identifying you as a specific orc nation.
- Tunic. If you get a good deal on dark fabric, you could make a simple tunic out of it - there’s an easy to follow guide here: http://chatelaine.calontir.org/chatelaine-handbook-2008.php#t-tunic Remember, PD will provide some coloured tunics for the various tribes, if you’re at monster at a reasonable time, you can always grab one of those.
- Wear a belt. Put a belt over the top of everything. You can get cheap generic belts from charity shops, which you could use later as the basis of a warskirt - War Skirt for Monstering
- Cover your neck and hands Basic rule of orc kit - the less human skin showing the better. Use one of those coloured offcuts you got as a scarf. Wear gloves. Leather gloves, simple neutral cotton gloves, gloves gloves gloves. Even cheap woolen fingerless gloves look a lot better than hands badly painted with runny snazz.
Hard kit
- PD will provide. Player monsters are loaned polyurethane breastplates to use in battles. These are more solid than costume plastic, look great, and don’t fit anyone particularly well. They also count as a torso location worth of medium armour, but remember you need another full location to get any extra hits.
- Again: Use what you got. Reusing kit is big and clever. Just cover or remove any nation-specific detailing and you’re good to go. Or don’t, and claim your orc looted their armour from a fallen Imperial. Maybe only wear parts of your existing armour just to break things up a bit.
- Weapons. PD do not provide weapons to monster with. Bring your own. No-one will have time to think “hey, is that (character)'s sword?”