Short answers, pulled from the story.
The orc was one of the first monsters introduced in the earliest edition of the Dungeons and Dragons white box set in 1974, appearing alongside the game's creators Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.
The orc was largely based upon the orcs appearing in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, yet the D&D version quickly developed its own identity as a fiercely competitive bully often living underground. In the first edition Monster Manual published in 1977, the orc was depicted with a fully porcine snout, a pig-like face that persisted for several years and became the iconic image of the race.
Their chief deity Gruumsh claims that the orc is the top of the food chain and that all riches are the property of orcs stolen by others. Aside from Gruumsh, the other orc deities include Bahgtru, the deity of Strength and Combat, and Ilneval, the deity of Warfare and Leadership.
The gray orc was presented as a player character race for the Forgotten Realms setting in both Races of Faerûn and Unapproachable East in 2003, while the mountain orc and orog also appeared as player character races in the same book.
The 2024 revision of the 5th edition rules made orcs available in the Player's Handbook as a playable race, replacing the half-orc available in previous editions and replacing references to race with the word species. This evolution reflects a shift from viewing orcs as mere monsters to recognizing them as a species with their own cultures and histories.
In their official June 2020 statement, the D&D Team wrote that throughout the 50-year history of D&D, some of the peoples in the game, orcs and drow being two of the prime examples, have been characterized as monstrous and evil, using descriptions that are painfully reminiscent of how real-world ethnic groups have been and continue to be denigrated.