Editing Orcus (section)

==Persistence and later usage==
[[File:Master of the Aeneid Legend - The Descent of Aeneas into Hell - Walters 44205.jpg|right|thumb|''The Descent of Aeneas in the Underworld'' ({{circa|1530–1540}}), [[Walters Art Museum]].]]
From Orcus's association with death and the underworld, his name came to be used for demons and other underworld monsters, particularly in Italian where ''orco'' refers to a kind of monster found in fairy-tales that feeds on human flesh.

The French word ''ogre'' (appearing first in [[Charles Perrault]]'s fairy-tales) may have come from variant forms of this word, ''orgo'' or ''ogro''; in any case, the French ''[[ogre]]'' and the Italian ''orco'' are exactly the same sort of creature.

===Ariosto===
An early example of an ''orco'' appears in [[Ludovico Ariosto]]'s ''[[Orlando Furioso]]'' (1516), as a bestial, blind, tusk-faced monster inspired by the [[Cyclopes|Cyclops]] of the ''[[Odyssey]]''.{{efn|The blind ''orco'' monster should not be confused with the other monster ''[[orca (sea monster)|orca]]'', a sea-monster which also appears in Ariosto and was later used as a genus-name for “[[killer whales]]” (''[[orca]]'').}}

===Tolkien===
The ''orco'' from ''[[Orlando Furioso|Orlando]]'', along with the [[Old English]] word ''orc'' (in the sense of an [[ogre]], like [[Grendel]]), was part of the inspiration for [[J. R. R. Tolkien|Tolkien]]'s ''[[orc]]s'' in his ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]''.<ref>{{cite book |first=J.R.R. |last=Tolkien |author-link=John Ronald Reuel Tolkien |year=1954–1955 |title=The Lord of the Rings |title-link=The Lord of the Rings}}</ref> In other manuscripts Tolkien wrote a side-note on the word:
:The word used in translation of [[Quenya|Q{{grey|[uenya]}}]] ''urko'', [[Sindarin|S{{grey|[indarin]}}]] ''orch'', is orc. But that is because of the similarity of the ancient English word orc, 'evil spirit or bogey', to the Elvish words. There is possibly no connexion between them. The English word is now generally supposed to be derived from Latin Orcus.<ref>{{cite book |first=J.R.R. |last=Tolkien |author-link=John Ronald Reuel Tolkien |editor=Tolkien, C. |editor-link=Christopher Tolkien |title=The War of the Jewels |title-link=The War of the Jewels |year=1994}}</ref>{{page needed|date=October 2021}}

In an unpublished letter sent to [[Gene Wolfe]], Tolkien also made this comment:
:Orc I derived from Anglo-Saxon, a word meaning demon, usually supposed to be derived from the Latin Orcus – Hell. But I doubt this, though the matter is too involved to set out here.<ref>{{cite magazine |first=Gene |last=Wolfe |date=December 2001 |title=The best introduction to the mountains |magazine=Interzone |via=Claranet Soho (clara.net) |url=http://home.clara.net/andywrobertson/wolfemountains.html |access-date=2014-02-18 |url-status=dead |archive-url=http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20040113063643/http%3A//home.clara.net/andywrobertson/wolfemountains.html |archive-date=2004-01-13}}</ref>

From this use, countless other [[fantasy]] games and works of fiction have borrowed the concept of the orc.

===Other modern-era use===
* The name "Orcus" appears in the ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' role-playing game as [[Orcus (Dungeons & Dragons)|Orcus]], Prince of the Undead.

* Orcus appears as a character in [[Christopher Moore (author)|Christopher Moore]]'s novel ''[[A Dirty Job]]'' (2006).

* The [[Kuiper belt]] [[dwarf planet]] [[90482 Orcus|Orcus]] is named after Orcus. This is because Orcus was sometimes considered to be another name for [[Pluto (mythology)|Pluto]], and also because [[Pluto]] and Orcus are both [[plutino]]s. Orcus has one known moon, [[Vanth (moon)|Vanth]].

* In the TV series ''[[Happy! (TV series)|Happy!]]'' (2017–2019), Orcus possesses members of the Scaramucci crime family.

* Image of Orcus is used on the book cover The complete short stories of Ambrose Bierce. Compiled and Edited by Ernest Jerome Hopkins. 1970 Doubleday.

* The Orcus sculpture was recreated for the entrance to the museum's "Superstition" exhibit in the 1997 horror film [[The Relic]].

* Orcus is the name of a fire protection and risk consultancy in the North and South America specializing in unique hazards such as refineries and chemical storage.

* Orcus appears as a character in [[Qui Nguyen]]'s play ''[[She Kills Monsters]]'' (2011).

* In 2016, "Orcus Administration" emerged as the name of a publicly available remote control software, its creator John "Armada" Revesz soon afterward arrested and convicted for developing a remote access [[Trojan horse (computing)|Trojan]] (RAT).