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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Faolyn" data-source="post: 8299926" data-attributes="member: 6915329">As Mind of Tempest, this is a slippery slope. Also, just a bad comparison. Drow are conceived and born like we humans are (K-strategists: few offspring, lots of parental care needed to ensure maturation). They have the same sort of diet that we do. They learn in the same way we do. They have the same sort of basic needs that we do. There's very little about the drow that makes them something other than basic humanoids with a terrible religion.Mind flayers are more like r-strategies: they're spawned as larvae in the thousands and most are devoured by other larvae or by the elder brain. The few that survive then take over a humanoid body, like a parasite. They don't learn things like we do, by being taught. Instead, they receive information, directly from the elder brain through psychic means. They don't have the same sort of diet we do; they don't choose to eat brains; they have to. Beholders, in this edition, are spawned from the dreams of other beholders; they literally are not "real" beings. In earlier editions, they were regurgitated by their "parent" or produced by "unknown means." However they are produced left them with severe innate paranoia and xenophobia. And they have numerous special abilities that are extremely deadly.Demons and devils are also generally not born the way humans are. Instead, they are constructed out of literal, distilled evil (D&D doesn't have a "race" of fallen angel fiends; each fallen angel has so far been a unique individual). It may be possible for a fiend to stop being evil, but that's a bit like a human stopping being made of flesh (In a magical or high-tech world, it's possible, but also very, very rare). And since fiends are literally made of tangible evil, then changing them on such a dramatic level would also change who and what they literally are.Vampires, by their nature, are both predatory and parasitical. They don't reproduce the way they do; they reproduce by spreading vampirism like a disease. They may have to consume the blood of sentient beings to survive, with the blood of animals not being enough (it might also be a choice; that's up to the DM). So even if a vampire who had to drink the blood of sentients limited themselves to willing donors, they are still putting other people at risk of death or disease just to continue living. That may not be evil, per se, but it's morally quite gray. The fact that they are undead automatically separates them from other humanoids, and the fact that they are unaging and very, very powerful means that it's very easy for them to start looking down on weaker beings.None of these creatures--fiends, mind flayers, beholders--are at all like drow.Unless, in your world, drow are actually not humanoids like humans and elves, but something extremely different, with obvious inherent differences that make them auto-villains.</blockquote>

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