Riffing on this one of the big charms of Eberron, imo, is that it kept alignment (whereas most people just throw it out as their way of dealing with the issues it raises) but made it explicitly separate from allegiance / role. So you had a Lawful Evil vampire ruler of a land as one of the main people holding Eberron off from disaster, a Black Dragon could be a dangerous spy and assassin - fighting devils. Meanwhile a Gold Dragon could be your most fearsome opponent even whilst it behaved with honour, simply because its goals were opposed to your own. I like alignment (so long as you do the 4e "usually" preface to nearly all alignments), but I don't like this queer notion that it's some sort of a side in some cosmic battleground where an elf and a gold dragon automatically team up because they mystically share a team. I don't share an alignment with everyone I work with or am friends with in real life. I certainly don't feel obliged to date only within my alignment. So why should creatures in the setting do so? Separate alignment out from this weird interpretation of it as determining your role in the game and it becomes a lot more palatable to me. Sure those orcs are Chaotic Evil. But they're also the ones who patrol that pit-portal to the Abyss and destroy the demons that try to enter their world. Shake it up a little, imo.
D&D 5E Role of Evil Humanoids in Your Game
- Thread starter Jester David
- Start date
Riffing on this one of the big charms of Eberron, imo, is that it kept alignment (whereas most people just throw it out as their way of dealing with the issues it raises) but made it explicitly separate from allegiance / role. So you had a Lawful Evil vampire ruler of a land as one of the main people holding Eberron off from disaster, a Black Dragon could be a dangerous spy and assassin - fighting devils. Meanwhile a Gold Dragon could be your most fearsome opponent even whilst it behaved with honour, simply because its goals were opposed to your own. I like alignment (so long as you do the 4e "usually" preface to nearly all alignments), but I don't like this queer notion that it's some sort of a side in some cosmic battleground where an elf and a gold dragon automatically team up because they mystically share a team. I don't share an alignment with everyone I work with or am friends with in real life. I certainly don't feel obliged to date only within my alignment. So why should creatures in the setting do so? Separate alignment out from this weird interpretation of it as determining your role in the game and it becomes a lot more palatable to me. Sure those orcs are Chaotic Evil. But they're also the ones who patrol that pit-portal to the Abyss and destroy the demons that try to enter their world. Shake it up a little, imo.
Acr0ssTh3P0nd
First Post
Ehhh, it depends. I go for a more "realistic and gritty" approach to my world, while also pulling in some semi-whimsical stuff that is reminiscent of fairy-tales. As to that end, I've looked at both The Witcher and the Edge Chronicles series for a lot of the flavor.
Goblins are cruel, mean-spirited creatures that live in the darkest parts of the woods and mountains. They're a combination of classic Tolkien-esque goblins and the slightly-less-threatening D&D goblins. I'm personally not a fan of humorous goblins, as kobolds tend to fulfill that role in my world.
Hobgoblins and orcs are the same creature in my world, with the former being the name that most people have for them (often shortened to "hobs") and the latter being what they call themselves. At least, the traditionalist raider-pillager hobs do - others now live in the rougher areas of cities (as migrants or the descendants of migrants) instead of the mountains and wilderness, and do manual labor and odd jobs to survive. These are what the more wild, traditionalist hobs derisively call "half-hobs", since they view them as weak and foolish for "giving up" on the hob cultural/religious aim of "taking back what was stolen from us in the beginning". In turn, the "half-hobs" call those of their kind who remain raiders and throat-cutting pillagers "old hobs", who are doomed to die out as a result of refusing to adapt.
Hobs look like a combo of Peter Jackson's Azog the defiler, the hobgoblin art in current D&D, and traditional D&D orcs. They're strong, tough, and ugly, but more lean and less bulky than D&D orcs, and lack the massive tusks. Their skin is ruddy-ish, but nowhere near the deep red of D&D hobgoblins.
Bugbears are freak, mutant hobgoblins that can be a decent force multiplier for band of old hobs. There's not much else to them, really, as I prefer goblinoids to feel more unified as a species and a people than core D&D currently has them. Hobgoblins and goblins aren't even separate species, really - they're more like subspecies that are shaped by their environment and cultures as much as genetics.
Basically, I use hobs (and elves, for that matter) to blur the lines between "monstrous race" and "civilised race" without reverting to the "noble savage" or "our orcs are completely different" tropes. Is the renown brutality of hobs a genetic thing, a cultural artifact, a lie, or a combo of all three? It's tough to say, but there might easily be cases where a human feels more comfortable around a hob acquaintance than a strange elf.
And drow are unrepentedly, irrevocably evil. They practice murder as an art form to appease their spider-goddess, and the streets of their nightmare cave cities run as red with blood as they do black with spiders. Outcast dark elves exist, but cannot be accepted into surface society - 100 years of surviving in drow society will twist and ruin even the most righteous soul, and the sight of a drow is enough to fill the heart of any elf with murder, for drow are representative of the greatest flaws and failings of the elven people, a dark mirror that each elf can not only understand, but relate to in the deepest, most terrifying manner. Being reminded that those flaws lie just beneath your own skin is an extremely disturbing experience, and when you feel emotions as vividly as an elf does, such a violent reaction is to be expected.
Exiled and renegade dark elves often end up with such a degree of self-doubt and conflict of identity that they often question if they are the broken ones, just defective versions of real drow. Suicide is the usual fate for such lost creatures.
Goblins are cruel, mean-spirited creatures that live in the darkest parts of the woods and mountains. They're a combination of classic Tolkien-esque goblins and the slightly-less-threatening D&D goblins. I'm personally not a fan of humorous goblins, as kobolds tend to fulfill that role in my world.
Hobgoblins and orcs are the same creature in my world, with the former being the name that most people have for them (often shortened to "hobs") and the latter being what they call themselves. At least, the traditionalist raider-pillager hobs do - others now live in the rougher areas of cities (as migrants or the descendants of migrants) instead of the mountains and wilderness, and do manual labor and odd jobs to survive. These are what the more wild, traditionalist hobs derisively call "half-hobs", since they view them as weak and foolish for "giving up" on the hob cultural/religious aim of "taking back what was stolen from us in the beginning". In turn, the "half-hobs" call those of their kind who remain raiders and throat-cutting pillagers "old hobs", who are doomed to die out as a result of refusing to adapt.
Hobs look like a combo of Peter Jackson's Azog the defiler, the hobgoblin art in current D&D, and traditional D&D orcs. They're strong, tough, and ugly, but more lean and less bulky than D&D orcs, and lack the massive tusks. Their skin is ruddy-ish, but nowhere near the deep red of D&D hobgoblins.
Bugbears are freak, mutant hobgoblins that can be a decent force multiplier for band of old hobs. There's not much else to them, really, as I prefer goblinoids to feel more unified as a species and a people than core D&D currently has them. Hobgoblins and goblins aren't even separate species, really - they're more like subspecies that are shaped by their environment and cultures as much as genetics.
Basically, I use hobs (and elves, for that matter) to blur the lines between "monstrous race" and "civilised race" without reverting to the "noble savage" or "our orcs are completely different" tropes. Is the renown brutality of hobs a genetic thing, a cultural artifact, a lie, or a combo of all three? It's tough to say, but there might easily be cases where a human feels more comfortable around a hob acquaintance than a strange elf.
And drow are unrepentedly, irrevocably evil. They practice murder as an art form to appease their spider-goddess, and the streets of their nightmare cave cities run as red with blood as they do black with spiders. Outcast dark elves exist, but cannot be accepted into surface society - 100 years of surviving in drow society will twist and ruin even the most righteous soul, and the sight of a drow is enough to fill the heart of any elf with murder, for drow are representative of the greatest flaws and failings of the elven people, a dark mirror that each elf can not only understand, but relate to in the deepest, most terrifying manner. Being reminded that those flaws lie just beneath your own skin is an extremely disturbing experience, and when you feel emotions as vividly as an elf does, such a violent reaction is to be expected.
Exiled and renegade dark elves often end up with such a degree of self-doubt and conflict of identity that they often question if they are the broken ones, just defective versions of real drow. Suicide is the usual fate for such lost creatures.
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Ath'kethin
Elder Thing
Eberron's approach to alignment and alignment politics was definitely one of its strong points. I still use that basic system in my games now. Like you (like many it seems) I really like alignment as a mechanic and as a roleplaying tool. I don't like people being silly with it.
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