D&D General Inherently Evil?

[Iry]

How would you design a biological race that is Inherently Evil? I think the main way would have to be through some supernatural imperative.

Maybe a race of goblins that are so biologically territorial that they fly into murderous rages whenever someone trespasses on what they believe to be their territory? They might not be necessarily evil when left alone, but default to behavior considered to be evil at the slightest attempt at interaction (barring magical sending spells, etc).

Perhaps a race of elves that look like withered and wretched hags, but gain extraordinary beauty and vitality when they sacrifice someone? This doesn't seem quite inherently evil, but strongly incentivizes evil behavior through biological means (as opposed to cultural means).

A race of dwarves engineered in a wizard's laboratory to breed true, and who experience incredible pleasure when they betray and trample on others, or violent nausea when they act in an altruistic manner? This is similar to the incentive above, and comes from a biological source, but would it still be cultural? Since it's a series of positive and negative reinforcements that guides their behavior towards evil acts?

How would you do it?

 

[payn]

Yikes.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I wouldn't.

Because biological evil isn't a thing you are... evil is society's determination of what you have done. Even if you tried to make a race "inherently evil"... if one of those creatures doesn't actually DO anything that society would deem "evil"... then the creature isn't evil. One of those dwarves you mention above that just went about its day down in the mines, then went back to its home afterwards to eat and sleep and just did that day after day? It's not an evil dwarf, because it hasn't done anything to be considered that. Even if it supposedly garnered pleasure from hurting someone... if they never hurt anyone then it doesn't matter.

 

[DarkCrisis]

"Magic" and/or "an Evil God did it." Goblins are evil because an evil god created them to be.

 

[DEFCON 1]

At the end of the day, anything with free will is not inherently anything.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It would be a lie from someone with a vested interest in killing/persecuting them.

 

[Maxperson]

How would you design a biological race that is Inherently Evil? I think the main way would have to be through some supernatural imperative.

Supernatural is the easy one. Completely alien is another. The Xenomorphs from the alien movie. Mind Flayers. Things like that.

 

[Steampunkette]

Anything that has Free Will is not inherently anything.
Anything that doesn't have Free Will can't be morally judged.

If all goblins have no choice but to kill and eat any human baby they see, because of a deific design in goblin brains, the goblin has no control over that action and the God is the one that is evil. Though killing goblins when they see a human baby would also not be evil, since regardless of the goblin's intent you're saving a baby.

"Supernaturally forced to be Evil" is just Unaligned.

 

[jgsugden]

Check out the Exandria materials from Matt Mercer and look at the Curse of Strife and the Curse of Ruin (for contrast) to see how a curse that steals free will from an entire heritage is handled.

I had something similar in my setting to explain why the Goblins, Orcs, Drow, Duergar, Tieflings, etc... were inherently evil (leaning) in my setting since the 1980s. In my setting, the Gods gather most of their power from the worship of free willed creatures. However, free will means that creatures can choose not to worship them. So, a large number of evil Gods have created races/heritages where there is massive population growth and only a small percentage that have free will - most of whom are intimidated into worshipping the Evil God. The large populations forces thm to fight other creatures for resources, while the small percentage of thesec reatures that are free will means the Gods tend to not be that powerful in deific might, despite the massive armies on the mortal plane.

I'm moving away from these ideas and evolving into all humanoid creatures having free will inherently. However, I am doing it within the scope of the story, and it will take a while to get there. Certain creatures, such as gnolls, are being reclassified into demons to allow them to remain more inherently evil, but I'm struggling on how to differentiate them and make it clear they are not humanoids and should not be seen as a potential stand in for any culture, etc...

 

[Scribe]

I wouldnt.

(In before lock.)