Pathfinder 1E May there be non-evil societies of always evil races? What would they be like?

[VelvetViolet]

For many, if not most, there is as much satisfaction in defeating someone who harms others due to a biological or psychological inability to experience empathy or control violent impulses as there would be in stopping someone who actively chose evil.

Those aren't people. Killing them is morally no different than pest control.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

What is your point? The mere fact that those who were defeated were incapable of acting other than they did does not diminish the actions of those who freely choose to act to oppose them.

As the presumptive hero, you have freely chosen to "control" the "pests", and made the lives of others better by doing so. If you DIDN'T act to defend those afflicted by the evil beings, you would be judged not so heroic- ESPECIALLY if it was your sworn duty to do so.

 

[Celebrim]

I am dissatisfied with Pathfinder's reliance on the tired cliche of entire races being evil. It's an unfortunate artifact of the game's unintentionally racist roots and needs to be cut out like the cancer it is. Even frigging Tolkien believed evil races were a stupid idea (he was Catholic).

I reject the notion that a fantasy race is intended to be a stand in for any human racial or ethnic group or even humanity at all. Further, I reject the notion that a concept like 'angel' or 'demon' even refers to a 'race' or 'species' as we commonly understand the term and to treat it as such is to suggest a lack of imagination. Further, I reject your statement regarding Tolkien as being overly simplified and lacking the nuance with which he approached the topic and based on a few isolated readings that don't take into account his whole body of work, or mischaracterize his particular (for Tolkien, largely theological) problems with his creations.

I've really no interest in debating such things.

However, I find the title of this thread far more interesting than your rant, so I'll respond to this question:

"May there be non-evil societies of always evil races? What would they be like?"

So I'd like to use this thread to brainstorm non-evil societies of evil races. I'll start with the most controversial: drow.

Let's not. Or if we must, let's not start with where you start.

Let's start with the question, "What makes a speculative race inhuman (and therefore interesting)"?

So, for example, regarding my world's fantasy races:

a) Fey: Immortal, usually never born but rather product of spontaneous generation and as such lack notions of 'family', small 'gods' with direct connection to some aspect of the world's 'physics' both manifest that nature and in a small way control it, limited free will as individuals, generally have a set nature that they find very difficult to change regardless of experience

b) Goblin: Almost completely obligate carnivores, digest vegetable matter poorly or not at all, short lives, genetically altered or selectively bred to fill a role in a highly stratified caste based society, worship almost exclusively a single family of deities, highly social, high disease resistance, poison resistance, and rapid healing makes cleanliness and sanitation virtually unnecessary, nocturnal and able to see in the dark, but sunburn easily and are dazzled by bright lights.

c) Elves: Have an innate connection to other living organisms and are capable of communing with fauna and to a lesser extent flora. Most find meat eating unpleasant and distasteful, because its hard to enjoy killing something that trusts and befriends you. Extremely long lived, very slow maturing, typically would outlive any material possession or non-elf comrade. Relatively fragile and generally prone to disease and injury and depression. Prefer to live alone in loose, scattered, self-sufficient communities. Must consume beautiful things - particularly colors and music - in order to live. Imprisoned in an ugly place, will die regardless of presence of food, water, and shelter. Generally don't find certain 'human' emotions like lust (for sex) or greed (for possessions or power) to be nearly as 'bright' as humans do, but can more intensely feel 'gluttony' particularly for delicacies, rare experiences or beautiful art.

d) Pretty much like real world humans. Baseline for understanding hypothetical races. Humans however have a perspective on themselves that is skewed by comparing themselves to the other races. For example, it wouldn't be unusual for a human to advance the ideology that they are more successful than elves because they make good slaves, or that they are more ambitious and ruthless than dwarves, or that they are more rebellious than goblins, and so forth. Arguably, the 'villain' race of my world (though humans generally don't see it that way).

e) Orine: Avian stock with feathers in place of hair, and two-eyelids but otherwise quite similar to standard 'humanoid' (Orines and humans find each other mutually attractive, but cannot have offspring). Oviparous, but females incubate egg internally until shortly before child is fully developed - live birth along with shell fragments isn't unknown and is considered to be a mark of a special destiny ('the child could not wait to breathe'). Racial 'short temper' causes them to take insults or slights as mortal, and have a tendency to go into towering rages. Consequently prefer to live in small tight family bands with a extremely regimented formal etiquette regarding how to interact with each other. Prefer a nomadic existence to a sheltered one, possibly because they tire of the same scenery easily. Like elves take a sensual pleasure in song and art (and even things like particularly beautiful sunsets), but unlike elves are a highly carnal race. Consequently live in tension between their carnal impulses and the need to avoid giving insult, between the freedom to behave as their drives demand and the need to control their urges to avoid bloodshed. Warlike, particularly with regard to how they interact with non-Orine, but peace makers are highly honored.

f) Dwarf - Extremely social race adapted to a largely underground life that from a human perspective would appear to suffer from agoraphobia and monophobia to varying degrees. Similar in many ways to goblins and thus are competitors in the same ecosystems, but are well adapted to consuming vegetable matter and are not physically stratified by caste. Male dwarves outnumber female dwarves 2:1, resulting in a society where women occupy an odd niche compared to other races - being both more important and less free than other races (simultaneously striking observers as both matriarchal and highly sexist). Hirsute. Both men and women are bearded, and infants are often born with full beards. Enjoy making things with sensual like pleasure, and what dwarves consider healthy and normal strike humans as having something like inappropriate hyper-focus, obsessive compulsive disorder, and high function autism. Tend to prize security over freedom even more strongly than humans.

g) Idreth: Experience collective racial memory and can remember (particularly with training) the lives of their ancestors. Tend not to distinguish self in the same manner as other races, and appear to be reincarnated regularly as their own descendants. Called the 'born old' by other races, because they are born with a mature outlook and knowledge of life, and their natural wrinkled skin and grey or white hair reminds other humanoid races of their own senior members. Tall but hunchbacked with long faces, prominent noses, and large eyes. Like elves, tend to take a long term view of life. Voracious consumers of information and knowledge. Believe that accumulating greater and greater amounts of knowledge is almost the whole point of life. Cosmopolitan and fond of travel, but tend to retire to secure cloistered communities for the purposes of socializing with their own.

Drow are extinct - when they did exist they were white skinned elves with black hair ('dark elf' in this game world refers to hair color). Gnomes are mythical beings that most people have never even heard of, and wouldn't credit if they did.

First, I think it is clear that the PC races aren't intended to be tropes of any human ethnic group.

Secondly, I think is generally clear that regardless of ideological tendencies, pretty much every race is capable of good and evil. Goblins are usually evil, but they don't have to be. Even the many of the 'bad ones' can be quite loyal friends, scrupulous about paying debts, are very tolerant of individual differences, always look beyond appearances, and are stoic and capable of being cheerful no matter how bad things get. For various reasons, you don't generally see a whole nation of predominately good goblins, but there are places where humans and goblins have gotten along peacefully for a long time. However, being an carnivore they have a hard time not seeing other races as food or at least resources, particularly when they fall on hard times (which is often, because getting enough animal protein to survive can be hard), the 'old ways' tend to come to the fore.

The real question might be, "What would any non-evil society look like?", given the general lack of great examples from the real world. So I don't do a lot of conscious attempts to create utopian societies in a world meant to be at least as broken and perverse as this one. The elves are generally regarded as good in my game, but they tend to have a 'shoot first and ask questions' later approach to trespassers simply because one epidemic can wipe them out their society for centuries given their low tolerance to disease and slow replacement rate. Violent deaths of any sort hurt their ability to sustain their society immensely more than other races, so if they are sniping at you from a distance rather than bothering to get close enough to parley don't be too surprised or thinking that yelling 'We're good guys' is going to help much. On the other hand, if they did find you bleeding and helpless in the woods, most (80%+) would probably risk their lives to nurse you back to health. A goblin in the same situation would probably (96%+) take your stuff and eat you, or at best in a good mood nurse you back to health to be a slave (and expect you to be grateful he did so).

However, these are all PC races - the so called 'Free Peoples'. The rest of the races of my game don't have this sort of diversity because they don't have the same degree of free choice. A lesser servitor like merfolk, lizardfolk, kobolds, or gnolls is 'always' the same alignment, and has very little variation in temperament and personality. A greater servitor like a demon or angel never sways from their alignment. It simply isn't possible. They are literally made of their alignment and their is nothing in their being that isn't made of alignment stuff. They could no more choose to be a different alignment than the real you could choose to be a fish and breath water. Actually changing their nature would require a discontinuity - for example, they'd have to die and be reincarnated in a new body, in which case they would not see themselves as being the same being that formerly existed, their old self is dead, they have a new self that just happens to remember their former self (with extreme shame, revulsion, and distaste).

Describing what a good or evil society would be would first require that you and I reach a consensus regarding good and evil, otherwise it would be pretty pointless. Was argues elsewhere in the thread, "The whole concept of 'good' and 'evil' is, of course, culturally subjective." Leaving aside the fact that I disagree with his "of course" and statement, for the purposes of the D&D game world (where, regardless of what you think about this one, by rules 'good' and 'evil' are not culturally subjective), I prefer to state the problem differently. "The concepts of 'good' and 'evil' are not culturally subjective, but whether it is better to be good than evil is not something everyone agrees on." Culturally, many societies in the game world certainly know that they are evil (or lawful, or chaotic, or whatever), and will argue passionately, with conviction, and with as much persuasive power as I the DM can give them, that they are logically in the right to be evil and ultimately better because of it. That is, a lawful evil society might believe it is good and just be wrong about it, but its equally possible to believe that the system of beliefs described as 'lawful evil' itself is the morally correct position and virtues like 'mercy' or 'compassion' or 'equality' or 'freedom' or whatever lead to inherent contradictions and bad ends.

In my current campaign, this came up recently when the PC's confronted the BBEG. One of them laid the charge, "You are arguing that the ends justify the means." The BBEG responded, "Yes, of course. What could possibly justify the means if not the ends? Only a confused mind befuddled by falsehoods believes that the means aren't justified by the ends. I would be insane if I adopted means without considering the ends." Ultimately, the BBEG knows he's evil. He just believes he's morally justified in being evil, because those with the label 'good' aren't getting the job done and are probably no more righteous, and maybe less, than he is. As far as he's concerned, the 'good' are stupid for claiming that they are honest or brave, and those virtues are more properly attributable to evil. Darth Vader knows he's on the 'dark side', but believes he is in the right for being there.

 

[Celebrim]

Those aren't people. Killing them is morally no different than pest control.

I dare suggest that Jonas Salk experienced far more complete joy in irradiating the mindless and perhaps not even alive polio virus, than he would have in defeating something that chose to be evil. Killing someone that chooses to be evil brings little satisfaction at all to a moral person. They always see it as at the very least tempered with tragedy, even if they had no choice and loved the thing that they were defending, to have to have destroyed a free willed being to do so, is not a thing to take pleasure in.

Failing to understand this is critical to your failing to understand Tolkien.

 

[VelvetViolet]

I dare suggest that Jonas Salk experienced far more complete joy in irradiating the mindless and perhaps not even alive polio virus, than he would have in defeating something that choice to be evil. Killing someone that choose to be evil brings little satisfaction at all a moral person. They always see it as at the very least tempered with tragedy, even if they had no choice and loved the thing that they were defending, to have to have destroyed a free willed being to do so, is not a thing to take pleasure in.

Failing to understand this is critical to your failing to understand Tolkien.

Is the polio virus "evil" simply because it is innately harmful to our own existences? By that logic, outer space is evil because it has no air, fire is evil because it burns us, hurricanes are evil because they destroy our cities, and dihydrogen monoxide is evil because it is potentially toxic.

All those evil races? Drow, orcs, goblins, gnolls, etc? Those aren't people. They're giant cockroaches that exist to be stepped on for our amusement. Canon fodder. Target practice. Slaves. Toys. Food. There is nothing morally wrong with treating them like that, because they're soulless meat puppets with no moral agency.

And that is my problem with the concept of evil races. They exist solely so that we have something to kill and loot without feeling bad about. You might as well just make them into animated pinatas or walking happy meals.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

And again, you miss the point: choosing to save innocents from the willingly evil is no more and no less laudable or moral than saving them from the innately evil or even uncaring forces of the universe. The hero's choice to aid the downtrodden is lauded because he helped; it is not measured against & diminished or increased by the motivations of what threatened them.

 

[nomotog]

One idea i had was for demon Quakers. Demons that left the hells to lead simple quite lives of contemplation. They would be ship builders and wear very plain clothing (that would visually clash with the fact a lot of them have extra limbs and tentacles.)

 

[VelvetViolet]

And again, you miss the point: choosing to save innocents from the willingly evil is no more and no less laudable or moral than saving them from the innately evil or even uncaring forces of the universe. The hero's choice to aid the downtrodden is lauded because he helped; it is not measured against & diminished or increased by the motivations of what threatened them.

Should the Paladin kill the baby orcs because they'll grow up to be evil? No? Should he raise them so they'll grow into good orcs? Yes? Why are there not whole civilizations descended from good orcs born thousands of years ago?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Should the Paladin kill the baby orcs because they'll grow up to be evil? No? Should he raise them so they'll grow into good orcs? Yes?

First, that is a campaign world-specific question, which depends on:

1) whether or not orcs are innately and irrevocably evil (essentially, the starting point of this thead)

And

2) whether the Paladin in question is an "Old-Testament"/talion law or "New Testament" style holy warrior. While both are the sword-arms of their divine patrons, the latter is expected to be merciful and values conversion of his foes. The former is asked to kill much more frequently and with fewer exceptions, and has his god's favor for actions in his/her/its service up to and including genocide.

Why are there not whole civilizations descended from good orcs born thousands of years ago?

Assuming orcs are not innately and irrevocably evil, etc., the simple answer is it depends on a wide variety of factors.

How many good orcs survive to reproduce vs those who get killed by their own people, possibly in the style of Spartan society? Did the evil orcs attempt and succeed with a genocide of the good ones? Was the first settlement of good orcs wiped out by a natural disaster or disease or any of the other hazards of life in a fantasy world?

Were all of the good orcs in the same area, and if so, why? If not, how did they reach a critical mass of population to create such a civilization?

IOW, it is essentially the same question as "Why have we not found extant Neanderthal civilizations in the modern era?" (Or even just as recently as the Middle Ages?)

 

[Celebrim]

Should the Paladin kill the baby orcs because they'll grow up to be evil? No? Should he raise them so they'll grow into good orcs? Yes? Why are there not whole civilizations descended from good orcs born thousands of years ago?

Do you realize this is probably the most tired conversation in all of D&D?

I notice you are not really that interested in using "this thread to brainstorm non-evil societies of evil races."

Your first fails utterly. There is nothing about the society that is drawn from the races unique nature and it is generally well within the range of human social orders. If you are going to do that sort of thing, you'd be better off simply having a lot of different human societies. Otherwise your supposedly alien and inhuman races really are likely to just end up being a bunch of pastiches of individual human ethnic cultures. If the Serq really are immigrants from the plane of shadow, this would imply to me that their biology is almost incomprehensible to humans. Are they all hermaphrodites? Do they burn up in bright sunlight, or do they actually eat light and warmth? Are ash and ice a tasty treat to them, and is wine unpalatable? Or do the not need to eat at all, but they do have to bathe in liquid darkness or they'll waste away into horrid undead shadows? And how does such a strange creature avoid the temptations of darkness? And so forth.