The Creation of Evil Races

[Doc Democracy]

Greyhawk exists in a humanistic universe.  The Old Ones, Deep One's and mildly twisted one's exist within that reference and are evil, because they are bringing human existence to an end.

 

That doesn't mean every universe is so deterministic but it does mean you cannot use "common sense" words like good and evil and expect everyone to be on the same page.

[Steve]

One idea for how orcs multiply I once read is due to dark sinkholes gathering evil and starting to produce them, kind of like how their production was shown in the LOTR movies. Orcs are thus a type of corruption of the land.

[Lord Liaden]

2 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

Greyhawk exists in a humanistic universe.  The Old Ones, Deep One's and mildly twisted one's exist within that reference and are evil, because they are bringing human existence to an end.

 

That doesn't mean every universe is so deterministic but it does mean you cannot use "common sense" words like good and evil and expect everyone to be on the same page.

 

Yeah, by that definition you'd kind of have to characterize hurricanes, plagues, or an asteroid impact as "evil" too.

 

In the published Hero Universe there are things like demons who were created out of the collective imagination of the human race. It's fair to call those things evil by human standards, because they embody the human conception of evil.

 

Within the Abrahamic faiths the fallen angels are also evil. There is considered to be a universal standard of Good laid out by the supreme God, and those angels by rejecting God rejected good.

 

Modern ethical Hinduism approaches the issue differently. There are devas who fulfill the roles of "gods" (actually aspects/avatars of the supreme Trinity), and asuras who oppose them. But the asuras are not inherently evil, it is simply their function in the cosmic order to be opponents. Many asuras rival the devas in their ethical devotion.

[Doc Democracy]

32 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

Yeah, by that definition you'd kind of have to characterize hurricanes, plagues, or an asteroid impact as "evil" too.

 

I don't think so, they are not sentient beings.  Of course, in a theistic world with active gods, it is probably rare for many of those things not to be the result of an evil act.  It would not be a stochastic universe.

Edited September 13, 2023 by Doc Democracy

[Chris Goodwin]

I disagree almost with the premise of the thread, from a philosophical standpoint. I don't think it's possible to create a race to be evil, because evil requires a conscious choice made with free will. Acts are evil; we generally only consider a person evil if they know the things they do are evil but they refuse to stop doing them.  

 

What's an evil act?  Those are defined almost universally, by every culture on Earth.  Murder, kidnapping, rape, lying in court in order to harm someone else.  Killing in self defense is not evil, nor is killing the enemy in war, but acts of war against civilians are evil.  

 

Speaking of war, here's a point: almost every culture, probably throughout human history, has, when war is imminent, attempted through propaganda to define the enemy as evil.  They're evil because they're against us, even though their people are very nearly the same as ours.  Farmers, peasants, laborers, craftspeople, the religious... their people want a steady job, a roof over their heads, three meals a day for themselves and their families.  That's what our people want, too. 

 

A man-eating lion can't be evil. It can be "broken", as lions almost never eat humans. Even if the lion chooses to eat man over other meat, it can't be evil by definition, because it's not sapient. Note: that doesn't mean it's not dangerous, or that it shouldn't be destroyed; it's just that lions are not creatures of conscious morality.  

 

You can't create a race to be evil.  You can create a race to be violent, destructive, pestilent, dangerous, but if you do that it's you who are evil, not the beings you created.  Just the same as if you'd created a killbot swarm or a deadly virus.  

 

Without free will, they're robots, they're an extension of their creator's will, but they're not evil.  They can't be.

[DShomshak]

A further point of Moral Foundations Theory is that people place different weights on each foundation. This gets into politics, which I will avoid, but it's worth noting.

 

But it's also worth noting that just about everyone acknowledges the need for *compromise* between virtues. One way to create peoples whose motives are comprehensible but reprehensible is to pick one virtue and make it absolute, leaving no room for compromise. For one easy example, every member of a species might be totally loyal to each other, but regard all other sapient beings as enemies who must be eradicated to make more living space for themselves. Conversely, members of another species might be such libertarians that they refuse to give an inch to anyone else's will, even to respecting contracts or other free associations. (OK, we just re-invented Lawful and Chaotic Evil.) Or folk who are Purity/Defilement absolutists might fanatically seek to conquer everyone else to impose their dietary, religious, or other code. Even Care/Harm becomes supremely creepy in the classic SF short story "With Folded Hands," in which unstoppable robots invade Earth to keep humans safe and comfortable... whether we want it or not.

 

They are all, by their own standards, righteous. But their absolutism also makes them implacably hostile to everyone else. They must be fought.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Steve]

As I recall, Tolkien’s wrote something to the effect that orcs were beings trapped and in pain from Melkor’s corruption. They loathed and feared Melkor, but their “choice” to do evil was driven and enforced by the pain of their very existence as corrupted Elves or maybe Men. They were perpetually lashing out because of this pain. Maybe causing suffering and death made them feel a bit better about their own situation. Go on long enough, maybe they just got to like it.

[Chris Goodwin]

Did 100% of them make that choice?  I can't imagine 100% of anyone in that much pain would choose to be evil. 

 

And that's not even the slightest bit interesting to me.  Now, if half of them made the choice to be evil, and the other half make the choice to be good, and fight against the half that have chosen evil... that is interesting to me. 

 

Saying that the corruption and pain of their existence has driven 100% of them to choose evil... is almost the same as saying they were created to be evil.  How is it a choice?  If Watson is telling us they weren't created to be evil but they all chose it, Doyle is telling us they were created to be evil.

[Sundog]

9 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Holding onto ideation formed centuries ago has caused the modern world a great deal of grief. 😠

 

Historically there has often been another option, though: the hill and valley peoples start peacefully trading with each other, exchanging goods one group has that the other lacks and wants. Sure, violence frequently breaks out anyway, for one reason or another; but long periods of peaceful interaction are hardly unprecedented.

Thankfully, very true. That appears to have been the case with the Nepalese Gurkha people - there's plenty of evidence of them being a fearsome raider culture in the past, but by the time the British came on the scene they were mostly trading and agricultural.

 

[Scott Ruggels]

Boy, you folks like to overthink.   It could be as simple as a race of monsters that eat human flesh.  We really don’t like having anyone above us on the food chain.  You can keep the relationships simpler.  

[DShomshak]

"The races tend to act evil because evil gods made them to be that way" has been good enough for D&D for decades. It's good enough for an action/adventure game about characters becoming more powerful by killing monsters and taking their stuff. But:

 

1) Just because D&D does something, doesn't mean everyone else, or indeed anyone else, should do Fantasy that way. Or even Fantasy gaming.

 

2) I am no longer one of the young adult males who were D&D's original target audience. I am a late-middle-aged, effete pseudo-intellectual. I overthink. So even when I play D&D, I toss the metaphysics and do it my own way. But that would be very long to explain and likely of limited interest to anyone else.

 

Suffice to say that if Tolkien can build a Fantasy world on the theological and moral frameworks of Catholicism, I can do it on Enlightenment humanism. I have no trouble finding a sufficient supply of villains the PCs feel happy to battle and kill. I am quite happy with the result, and my players seem to be, too.

 

Dean Shomshak

Edited September 14, 2023 by DShomshak

[Doc Democracy]

6 hours ago, DShomshak said:

They are all, by their own standards, righteous. But their absolutism also makes them implacably hostile to everyone else. They must be fought.

 

Have you just created an axiom that proves every other RPG is evil, as HERO does not embrace the absolutist ideas of other systems. 😁

[assault]

6 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

Without free will, they're robots, they're an extension of their creator's will, but they're not evil.  They can't be.

 

Which is why creating such a "race" is so Evil.

[Doc Democracy]

7 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

Without free will, they're robots, they're an extension of their creator's will, but they're not evil.  They can't be.

 

Our problem is that we are making all this stuff up and trying to relate it to our own experiences.  As such, our understanding of what it would be like or our understanding of it would be like, by default, is always going to be faulty in some way.

 

Looking around for comparisons, in the past, people often cast those with mental health issues as evil or possessed.  We now have a dilemma of whether someone who would do really evil, cruel acts can actually be defined as sane.  It is a good debate to have.  Do you need to be "insane" to be evil, or can you be sane and choose to do such things?  The criminal justice system can wrangle with those issues.

 

In gaming, if a race created by an evil god has a link to that god, which rages inside their brain, urging them to do the cruel and evil acts, that you need to presume generate mana for those particular dieities (why else to do it), then are they insane, evil, robots, free-willed, in pain??  Can that link be severed? Can it be blocked? Are there some who are born without it? Does the link (as I suggested up-thread) provide some advantages if you lean into it (like the Dark Side)? 

 

All of that stuff is gameable.  And none of it needs humanoid races to be irredeemable but might "explain" why so few of them manage to live "good" lives.  If the majority tend  certain direction then the inertia of the society probably pushes most of everyone else down that way.  Just think growing up in such a society where to show kindness is likely to be seen as weakness and you become prey?

 

In the D&D-verse.  Does detect evil mean that you detect that the person has committed evil acts in the past, has thought about committing evil acts, approves of evil acts or has a link to the elemental plane of evil??  I know which one makes more "sense" to me.

 

Doc

[Duke Bushido]

4 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

Boy, you folks like to overthink.   It could be as simple as a race of monsters that eat human flesh.  We really don’t like having anyone above us on the food chain.  You can keep the relationships simpler.  

 

Those are called polar bears, and they are being dealt with.

[Doc Democracy]

5 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

Boy, you folks like to overthink.   It could be as simple as a race of monsters that eat human flesh.  We really don’t like having anyone above us on the food chain.  You can keep the relationships simpler.  

 

I have indeed thught about it a lot because of my Greyhawk HERO project.  I wanted to replicate the universe in HERO terms which, like many things in HERO, meant I had to delve deep to understand what question I was actually asking.  All I wanted was to build detect evil and protection from evil.  Suddenly I was wondering what it was I was detecting and protecting from.... 😄

[LoneWolf]

Before you decide if a race can be inherently evil you have to decide what evil is.   The most important thing to figure out is are you going with the concept of free will, or predestination?  Both concepts have been debated in western theology and literature.  Examples of absolute predestination include more than just the Calvinist religions, the book Story All You Zombies by Robert A. Heinlein is good example of non-religious predestination.

 

If you favor the theory of absolute predestination over free will inherently evil races, make perfect sense. If you favor the idea of free will inherently evil races are harder to justify.  Like anything else this can be a scale instead of a binary choice.  How much free will exists and how much has already been determined can be different.  This can also have a lot of impact on other parts of the game besides just the question of morality.  If you favor the idea of free will then predicting the future is a lot harder, but if you are going with absolute predestination the future is set would be easier to predict.

 

For those using the idea of angles and demons as being that are inherently good or evil, I want to point out that according to the original stories demons are the angels that followed the devil in rebellion to God.  If Demons are not inherently evil, why would any race be?  

 

What it really comes down to is what type of game does the GM want to run?
 

[Chris Goodwin]

9 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

Boy, you folks like to overthink.   It could be as simple as a race of monsters that eat human flesh.  We really don’t like having anyone above us on the food chain.  You can keep the relationships simpler.  

 

A race of monsters that eat human flesh, as in obligate homovores?  Not evil.  Dangerous, perhaps, unless they can be convinced to eat ethically sourced human meat from fresh corpses from natural causes. 

 

If not... then we would need to eradicate them for our own good.  We would have the advantage in that they couldn't afford to eat us.

 

And all of the above makes for a better story than unexamined "acceptable slaughter targets".

[Lord Liaden]

6 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

Looking around for comparisons, in the past, people often cast those with mental health issues as evil or possessed.  We now have a dilemma of whether someone who would do really evil, cruel acts can actually be defined as sane.  It is a good debate to have.  Do you need to be "insane" to be evil, or can you be sane and choose to do such things?  The criminal justice system can wrangle with those issues.

 

 

 

If you haven't read the comic series, "Invincible," or watched the animated series based on it, I would highly recommend them, particularly the latter (which is superior to the source material IMO). It involves deconstructing the superhero genre in a manner reminiscent of The Boys, although much more ethically and morally balanced. One character in particular is relevant to your point, but I'll put the necessary background in Spoilers if you haven't seen it:

Spoiler

That Earth's analogue to Superman is called "Omni-Man," an alien who uses the secret identity, "Nolan Grayson." Nolan came to Earth ostensibly to protect it, married a human woman, and raised a teenage son, Mark, who inherited his father's powers. But Nolan had actually been sent to Earth to infiltrate and weaken in, preparatory to conquest. His people, the Viltrumites, are a society of jingoistic Darwinian supremacist psychopaths. They claim that their rule brings benefits, but in reality they conquer because they can and they want to. They consider all other races to be beneath them, and will kill anyone who defies them without a second thought, with as much concern for them as we have for ants. Many of them even enjoy it.

 

Nolan was raised in this environment, and when he finally revealed his true purpose to Mark he tried to persuade him to join Viltrum. When Mark refused and opposed him, Nolan caused horrendous death and destruction to try to convince him that humans are insignificant, and in the battle between them beat his son nearly to death. But the one Nolan was really trying to convince was himself, that he still believed in Viltrum's philosophy. His time on Earth living like a human with a family, pretending to be a hero, had changed him. In the end he refused to kill Mark, abandoned his mission and left Earth, beginning a long and difficult redemption arc.

 

Omni-Man committed unforgivable acts of brutality, but they were based on a view of the universe that all his people shared, that he'd been taught all his life. When he really experienced a different, more compassionate perspective, he started to choose to be different. Was he evil? Was he insane? Was he being controlled? You decide.

 

Edited September 14, 2023 by Lord Liaden

[Lord Liaden]

Hero Games' deliberately D&D-esque fantasy setting, "The Turakian Age," has most of the usual suspects in terms of races as D&D, including Orcs (although they also feature a few more original races). Orcs are for the most part what you'd expect them to be, but they aren't inevitably so. In fact, one charismatic and visionary Orc with experience of the wider world, led a large number of his people to give up their rapacious ways and found a nation functioning according to the same conventions as those of the Men around them. After centuries of learning to change, today the Orcs of the realm of Thordar are in their ways little different from any other kingdom. Known as "the civilized Orcs," they became great mariners, and their traders can be found far and wide, challenging the biases of the other beings they encounter.

 

Throughout that setting the various races are shown to have both good and evil representatives, with one or the other dominant in the society of a particular group of them. In a few cases evil dominates a group from a race which is conventionally considered good, such as Elves and Dwarves. Races may have a general predisposition toward good or evil, whether due to inherent traits or societal norms; but that's still a choice.

Edited September 14, 2023 by Lord Liaden

[DShomshak]

5 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

I have indeed thught about it a lot because of my Greyhawk HERO project.  I wanted to replicate the universe in HERO terms which, like many things in HERO, meant I had to delve deep to understand what question I was actually asking.  All I wanted was to build detect evil and protection from evil.  Suddenly I was wondering what it was I was detecting and protecting from.... 😄

Side note: In 5th edition D&D, the spell is now "Detect Evil and Good," which in fact detects neither. The name is a holdover, but it actually detects supernatural creatures: aberrations, celestials, elementals, fey [sic], fiends, and undead. Standard game defines celestials as good, fiends and undead as evil, but elementals tend to be neutral. Aberrations usually "evil," but the flumph is good.

 

Same thing for "Protection from Evil and Good." It grants protection from all classes of supernatural creatures.

 

Even D&D now moves beyond D&D. 😀

 

Dean Shomshak

Edited September 14, 2023 by DShomshak

[Doc Democracy]

12 minutes ago, DShomshak said:

Side note: In 5th edition D&D, the spell is now "Detect Evil and Good," which in fact detects neither. The name is a holdover, but it actually detects supernatural creatures: aberrations, celestials, elementals, fey [sic], fiends, and undead. Standard game defines celestials as good, fiends and undead as evil, but elementals tend to be neutral. Aberrations usually "evil," but the flumph is good.

 

Same thing for "Protection from Evil and Good." It grants protection from all classes of supernatural creatures.

 

Even D&D now moves beyond D&D. 😀

 

Dean Shomshak

 

Interesting, I dabbled with 4th edition and never went back (4th was the first edition I never bought a book for).  All my D&D is 3.5 and before.

 

It is interesting that they seem to have moved in a similar direction to me (narcissist, not me! 🙂 ).  Probably things from and with connections to the various non-prime material plane entities.

 

Have they grappled in 5th edition with what the plane of elemental evil actually means?  Is it simply a huge source of energy to tap?  I kind of bet they dont philosophise about what evil is and is not...

43 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

If you haven't read the comic series, "Invincible," or watched the animated series based on it, I would highly recommend them, particularly the latter (which is superior to the source material IMO). It involves deconstructing the superhero genre in a manner reminiscent of The Boys, although much more ethically and morally balanced. One character in particular is relevant to your point, but I'll put the necessary background in Spoilers if you haven't seen it:

  Reveal hidden contents

That Earth's analogue to Superman is called "Omni-Man," an alien who uses the secret identity, "Nolan Grayson." Nolan came to Earth ostensibly to protect it, married a human woman, and raised a teenage son, Mark, who inherited his father's powers. But Nolan had actually been sent to Earth to infiltrate and weaken in, preparatory to conquest. His people, the Viltrumites, are a society of jingoistic Darwinian supremacist psychopaths. They claim that their rule brings benefits, but in reality they conquer because they can and they want to. They consider all other races to be beneath them, and will kill anyone who defies them without a second thought, with as much concern for them as we have for ants. Many of them even enjoy it.

 

Nolan was raised in this environment, and when he finally revealed his true purpose to Mark he tried to persuade him to join Viltrum. When Mark refused and opposed him, Nolan caused horrendous death and destruction to try to convince him that humans are insignificant, and in the battle between them beat his son nearly to death. But the one Nolan was really trying to convince was himself, that he still believed in Viltrum's philosophy. His time on Earth living like a human with a family, pretending to be a hero, had changed him. In the end he refused to kill Mark, abandoned his mission and left Earth, beginning a long and difficult redemption arc.

 

Omni-Man committed unforgivable acts of brutality, but they were based on a view of the universe that all his people shared, that he'd been taught all his life. When he really experienced a different, more compassionate perspective, he started to choose to be different. Was he evil? Was he insane? Was he being controlled? You decide.

 

 

I have read both Invincible and the Boys.  Not seen the animated series though.  What is better about it??

[Christopher R Taylor]

Some perception of evil is subjective (they eat my race, therefore they are wicked), but some should be objective (we all know this is bad, and they revel in it).  Whether that state is innate to the person or is a reflection of their worst characteristics, or just a temporary state is up to you as the GM, but I think its useful to have at least some objective, absolute, unchanging evil bad guys that the heroes can always feel good about beating on.  "The Deadites are invading again!" "well, at least we know for sure they are up to no good."

[Lord Liaden]

On 9/14/2023 at 12:50 PM, Doc Democracy said:

 

I have read both Invincible and the Boys.  Not seen the animated series though.  What is better about it??

 

Story-wise, while overall it's the same in both, there are some departures. Several plot elements have been expanded and elaborated. The dialogue flows more naturally. The characters are more rounded and shaded, and several characters have been given more prominent roles that support the story well. The animation is of high quality (art was one deficiency in the comic IMO), and the action sequences are pretty spectacular (and sometimes spectacularly gory). Sound and music are also used very effectively. The voice cast are impressive and brilliant: J.K. Simmons, Sandra Oh, Stephen Yeun, Walton Goggins, Clancy Brown, Mark Hamill, Seth Rogen, Zachary Quinto, Zazie Beets, Michael Cudlitz, Michael Dorn, Lauren Cohan, among the more "name" actors.

 

Robert Kirkman is a writer and producer for this series, and I get the impression of a creator getting to revisit and revise his past work with the benefit of more experience and hindsight.

Edited October 3, 2023 by Lord Liaden

[Lord Liaden]

BTW regarding the supervillain Nebula alluded to previously, Digital Hero #5 prints several outtakes from Conquerors, Killers, And Crooks where Nebula first appeared, omitted to save space. One of them is a brief description of her prison dimension, Duress. It's short and has 5E game stats for only one NPC, so I don't think Hero Games would object much to my transcribing it here; but it might give one of us ideas.

 

Duress, the prison-realm described in the main text, is a hellish, artificially-constructed dimension built by the Republic. Suffused with energies which keep its “inhabitants” alive without the need to eat or drink, it’s a rocky, uncomfortable land. In places it’s as hot as a desert; elsewhere, it’s as cold as a glacier. Mildly acidic rains and fierce storms lash it from time to time.

 

Duress is “home” to hundreds of Andromedan superhuman criminals captured by the Republic and sentenced to reside there for specified periods of time (many permanently). They have formed societies not dissimilar to Human prison gangs, fighting among themselves for what few comforts and resources the place provides. The most prominent leaders among the inmates are Starbreaker (a powerful energy projector), Phasar (a shapeshifter), Blackrock (an earth-manipulating brick), and Slowpoke (a speedster). Each of them hates the others bitterly, and would leap at any chance to eliminate his rivals.

 

Periodically, each inmate is captured by the Keepers, fearsome, almost indestructible robot guards, for torture commensurate with his sentence.

 

KEEPER

 

75 STR 30 DEX 10 CON

 

25 BODY 20 INT 0 EGO

 

30 PRE 4 COM

 

22 PD 22 ED 6 SPD

 

17 REC 0 END – STUN

 

Abilities: All Automaton powers, Hardened PD and ED, Damage Resistance (22 PD/22 ED, Hardened), MegaBlaster (EB 16d6, +½ Variable Advantages, Variable Special Effects), Capture Ray (Entangle 10d6, 10 DEF), Force Wall (14 PD/14 ED; 10” long and 3” tall), Interrogation 15-, Stealth 15-, 30 additional points’ worth of Skills.

 

200+ Disadvantages: Physical Limitation: Affected By Cyberkinesis (has EGO 30 for purposes of cyberkinetic powers), Psychological Limitation: Programmed For Utter Obedience To The Code Of Supreme Justice

 

Notes: Keepers are dark grey humanoid robots about eight feet tall and proportionately broad. Small spikes stud their shoulders, lower arms, the front of their “boots,” and their “belts.” They have two fingers and a thumb on each hand.

Edited September 14, 2023 by Lord Liaden