Evil Does Not Have Babies

Identifying when evil is Nature instead of Nurture

I have been an outspoken critic of the “The Church is actually evil” trope, to the point where I personally refuse to ever represent the Church of any given setting I make as evil, secretly or otherwise. I also disdain larger trope of traditionally good archetypes being presented as actually evil (to subvert expectations). The corollary trope of “the bad guys are actually good, just misunderstood” also gets a generally low review in my book. Any work that presents Demons as somehow good I immediately dismiss as slop, for example. This naturally coincides with the idea of Intrinsically Evil races in table-top. I don't think there's anything wrong with having them, and I think that any good setting will include at least one intrinsically evil race. Most commonly it's Orcs or the broader category of Beastmen. Other races have also served this roll such as Cambions and Drow.

Having said this, I still think people get Evil Races wrong. They often get them confused with the far more nuanced Monstrous Race. There is also a common trend of Evil Races becoming Monstrous Races and then simply a Race as time progresses. When this happens, arguments begin to fly. One of the common forms this takes is the lamentation that Orcs, Drow, Tieflings, Vampires, and Lycans are no longer Evil and are instead just Monstrous or even normal. This is the most apparent with Orcs (and all manner of Beastmen), whom in ye olden days were the de facto Evil Race (Drow and Tieflings were late additions to ad&d) but are now pretty common as a playable race.

What this article is not about

This is NOT about Alignment. For the purposes of this article, Cosmic Evil in this article refers to some sort of powerful, sapient evil force which is dedicated to opposing Cosmic Good. A creature’s alignment is a description of which of these forces their lives ultimately help. I am not going to justify that definition, but it is the most appropriate for this topic.

The term Evil in the article does not refer to the Evil pole of the 9 point alignment system or to the Chaotic end of the 3 point system. It instead refers to acts and behaviors that are contrary to the Cosmic Good. The only intersection with Alignment that you need to worry about is that members of Evil Races may not choose or change their Alignment, while members of Monstrous Races may do so (though it is extremely difficult).

What this article is about

This article IS about the differences between races that are evil by nature and those that are evil by choice. Much digital ink has been spilled over the confusion of the two; and I would like to offer some metrics to help identify which is which.

Some definitions are in order

First, let's be very specific about what I mean. Astute readers will have noticed that the terms Evil and Monstrous race are bold. That's because I am working with very specific definitions here. An Evil Race is any race that is by its nature evil. This can present in two main forms, the Tide of Evil, and the Singular Evil. The Tide of Evil will be marked by needless warfare, backstabbing, and inability to build anything of note without being functionally enslaved. If a Tide of Evil race has any culture at all, it will be brutal from top to bottom, but generally there will be no culture, and simply a tide of evil doers that if allowed to win in any sense, will use up the entirety of the resources around them and then die off. It will be incapable of self-sustaining in the long term without an enemy to pillage from. Think Beastmen from Warhammer Fantasy or Goblins in Goblin Slayer. Singular Evil races are generally few in number and highly effective. These are your classic Vampires or Ring Wraiths. If a Singular Evil race reproduces at all, it does so via unnatural means. In fact, Evil Races as a whole are not natural, and do not work in any natural ecology. Evil Races are created in some way by Cosmic Evil (either through complete corruption of a pre-existing race or Ex Nihilo) and cannot be reasoned with.

Evil Races serve a narrative and functional role. Their narrative role it to reinforce Cosmic Alignments. Some races are created by the Powers (in the Biblical sense) of Evil as foot soldiers. The do evil as a matter of nature, as automatically as migratory birds navigate. In fact, their evil is baser than instinct, they are evil the way fire is hot. Functionally, they give a DM vast armies of foes to threaten the player with and who can be killed without consequence, morally speaking. This is a good thing, and necessary for the game to function, despite the what some modern game designers would have you think.

On the other hand, a Monstrous Race is one that is not by nature evil but is still commits evil acts on a wide scale. They will have a noticeable culture that does more than just perpetuate evil, even if perpetuating evil is a major part of the culture. Monstrous Races may be influenced by a Cosmic Evil, but that are not borne of it like Evil Races are. Monstrous Races can be reasoned with, and perhaps persuaded to change and actually honor commitments they make. These can present in numerous ways, but the two of the most common are the War Worshiper and the Cursed Blood. The War Worshiper is easy to spot. Any warlike race who is far to eager to get onto to the battlefield with someone, anyone; especially if said race has a complicated honor system attached to the act of brutal war. These races won’t fight completely to their on extinction, but will generally see surrender or peaceable living as cowardly. What distinguishes them from The Evil Tide is that they CAN be forced to see reason, even if they don’t like it. These are your Warcraft Orcs, who on numerous occasions ally with humans to defeat a greater threat (many times an Evil Race). The Cursed Blood is any race who has proclivities towards evil, but can actively chose to resist, even though many do not. Tieflings generally fall into this category. Both of these types may be marked by a schism between factions loosely defined as “let’s limit the amount of evil we do” and “everyone already thinks we are evil, let’s go all in.” Notably Evil Races will never be schismatic about how much evil to commit, but might argue about how best to do evil.

As an example, let's compare some fantasy series that have heavily influenced me personally: Lord of the Rings and The Inheritance Cycle (Eragon). We are going to compare the Orcs to the Urgals (understanding that Urgals are just orcs with a funny hat). In the Lord of the Rings, it's fairly common knowledge that Tolkien never really settled the question of 'Where do Orcs come from?' many believe they are simply spawned from a pit (owing to the Peter Jackson trilogy), but it's an open debate. One thing that is for certain though, Orcs in Lord of the Rings do not rear families. There is never a touching scene of an orc longing for his hearth and home and his bouncing baby boy. If orcs do breed, the progeny are not cared for in any meaningful capacity. They are likely born with the ability to fend off other orcs who would sooner eat the spawn than let it grow up. Orcs in Tolkien are unquestionably Evil (as if this needed pointing out). But their evil is petty and short sighted, and it takes a driving force enslaving them to accomplish anything of note. Tolkien's Orcs are an Evil Race.

Meanwhile, in the Inheritance Cycle, Urgals are viewed as an Evil Race in the first book, however it's revealed that they have been under the direct mind control of a Shade (a demonic spell-caster) for several human generations. Once the Shade is destroyed and Urgals freed, we begin to see that they have an actual society. A warlike one for sure, but no worse than peak Human, Elven or Dwarven brutality from the series' history (arguably the humans are the most evil race, they are the ones with the evil empire after all, and the Shade was under said empire's direct employ). They do have warriors who long to see their sons, Urgal women have a role at hearth and home, and Urgal men do things other than war and pillaging. They are, at base, more warlike than the other races, especially for the time period that they live in. Their culture venerates war for war's sake, and slaughtering civilians and consuming them is a normal part of war for them. However, they are capable of making and keeping treaties and can at least understand the arguments for why war for war's sake is destructive, even if agreeing with that is (for the moment) a bridge to far. Urgals are a Monstrous Race.

Why this matters

There are two reasons I draw this distinction. The first is to have a metric for which races should be playable (either at creation or via a reincarnation table / polymorph effect). The second is for world building and encounter design.

Firstly, players generally should not play Evil Races. They are one dimensional and will likely conflict with the game that the rest of the table is trying to play, and having them be player accessible immediately raises questions about the sincerity of the evil in game. There are exceptions, in a competitive game, especially one being run along war gaming lines, this flies out of the window. It doesn't matter that Orcs are all brutal, untrustworthy and evil, because you aren't forced to include them in your party. Also, evil campaigns naturally are exempt from this guideline. Finally, a temporary polymorph effect might be played out, but I would be hesitant to leave it long term without some justification about the character retaining their own mind and nature.

Secondly, knowing which races are Evil vs Monstrous aides me in setting up encounters and world-building. There aren't going to be many large Orc camps near capital cities, for example. Since they will be killed. But there might be a large Civilized Lizardmen Village (there are a Monstrous Race in the Flooded Realms) who are in a rough treaty and keeping other dangers away. It also let's me know ahead of time how various parley attempts might go, and allows me me signal that to players.

Monstrous Drift

I said in the beginning I think people get Evil Races wrong, and often confused them with Monstrous Races. I say this because even as early as ad&d 1e, we were dealing with the "Orc noncombatant problem." Where a party has defeated all the orc warriors, but now has to deal with the women and children of the tribe. There is always an argument that killing noncombatants is wrong somehow¹. This argument exists because people are treating the orcs as Monstrous, not Evil.

This leads into the larger trend of races in general drifting away from Evil to Monstrous to simply another mortal race. There are a few reasons this happens. The first is simply that true pure evil is hard for many of us to grasp. There is no physical parallel in the real world. Even the most depraved humans choose to become that way, they are not simply spawned from the ground ready to commit heinous evil.

Second, the story of overcoming one's evil nature through struggle is a very resonating theme (thanks Paarthurnax). There is a fair number of players who want to play a Teifling not to "be gay, do crimes" but instead to role-play a struggle with an innate corruption. I remind the reader here that as far back as 2e, Tieflings could be of any alignment, as opposed to Cambions who must be Evil. Seeking redemption for past sins falls into this category too, and generally people tend to exaggerate the themes they are role-playing. Playing an War Worshiping Orc who slaughtered an entire human village to gain honor among his people, only to later realize the evil he committed and turning away from his culture to atone is a powerful archetype. This may sound like theater kid nonsense to many of my readers, and to an extent it is. However, we must remember that theater kids have been the target audience for mainline d&d for almost two decades. Their proclivities lead to this sort of drift.

Lastly, there is a tendency to make evil seem cool or fun in table-top. Most people do not think of Tolkien's miserable, petty Orcs, they think of WoW style Orcs with the Noble Savage aesthetic, or of Warhammer Ork boys, hootin' and hollerin' and having a good time. This is compared to the seemingly staid and boring aesthetics of Good² and found wanting. However, they naturally see that an Evil Race is a poor fit for players and choose to instead make these into Monstrous ones. This justifies playing them because it opens up the idea of an Orc who will be brutish and terrible to everyone except his party, regardless of how incongruous that would be with a truly Evil orc.

Conclusions

This is really a very unfocused rant. There are many ideas bouncing around here, some that have nothing to do with table top at all. In generally, I believe that if you choose to present your potentially Evil races as having clear distinctions between combatant and non-combatant members, you are running the risk of sending some mixed messages. This gets worse if you allow players to play characters from said race that do not share its major evil characteristics (see Dritz). I also believe that the drift from Evil to Monstrous wad inevitable, even if it was not preferable. So, in conclusion, when running games and making setting building choices, be cognizant of how your antagonistic races operate and try to send the correct messages to players.

The Ships and Routes article will (hopefully) be done next week, and I actually had some interesting conversations over on twitter that might turn in one or two articles. But for now!

-Sail On!

If you enjoyed this article, please consider buying me a coffee!

1. In most of my games, there is no such thing as an "orc noncombatant." There are simply Orcs who are weaker and pressed into slavery by the warriors, or killed if they get too uppity. They resent their station, but only because they are on the bottom of the hierarchy. Anyone offering to free them will simply be killed for not bei

2. This is not a statement I agree with, but it is a sentiment I hear commonly.