Unfucking Dungeons & Dragons
The concept of some humanoid or near-humanoid species being naturally inclined to evil is a racist one, and, unfortunately, a prevalent one in Dungeons & Dragons, exacerbated by the fact that these āevil speciesā are frequently the āuglyā ones. Drow are a particularly glaring example - āmade black because of their āevilāā?! Fuck you - but the duergar - āthe slaves ā¦ learned only to enslave, really makes you think donāt itā - and the orcs - āthey feel the CALL to evil in their Gruumshy HEARTSā - are also super not good. (Thereās also a fair degree of ableism, with āinsaneā monsters - in such cases, I honestly think āunalignedā would be a better description for ātoo far gone to understand moralityā. Evil implies a choice.)
Honestly, I wouldnāt mind so much if these werenāt supposed to be naturally-occurring species - always evil demons or fey are fine, because theyāre made of magic and stories, although care should of course be taken not to make them look like naturally-occurring species - but elves are really just fragile pointy-eared monkeys, and they have excuses.
However, these evil humanoids are also genre staples and often quite aesthetically good. To that end, I offer the Unfucking D&D Guide, which provides what I think are solutions to this problem. (It should be noted that I am whiter than plain yogurt, so my ideas should be taken with a grain of salt and definitely not take precedence over the ideas of non-white folks. If Iāve said something fucked-up in this, please let me know and Iāll fix it.)
Duergar. Keep the āenslaved by illithids, made grim & psionicā bit, toss the ālearnt evil from themā part. The duergar are joyless, or can appear so - you can play them either as gloomy and fatalistic or as eccentric and unreasonably concerned with ācorruptionā - but despite whatever mood they possess, make sure that they are thoroughly dedicated to making sure the horrors of the Underdark stay in the Underdark, and are as righteous and honorable as their hill and mountain cousins.
Derro. The derro are an āinsaneā species; I bring them up only because I saw them confused with duergar in one post about racism in D&D. Their lore has not been constant - the current lore is ādwarves enslaved by illithids, tortured into madness, and now theyāre eeeeeeeevilā, which is ableist, not racist - but their metatextual origin is among the detrimental robots, or Deros, of pulp author Richard Sharpe Shaverās stories (or possibly delusions). āBorn from the dreams of a mad authorā would actually be good lore if you can make that author a tragic sufferer of schizophrenia in a time before it was understood rather than an ~*~eViL mAdMaN~*~, but in any event, change their type to construct, fey, or fiend, and, most importantly, donāt take them seriously. The derro are pulp villains, and their evil is grandiose and nonsensical. They ought not to be seen as realistic; they ought to be seen as Snidely Whiplash, Commander Claw, or Heinz Doofenshmirtz. āReasonsā are for other genres.
Drow. Return drow to their mythical roots as trow, nocturnal hunters, tricksters, and magical artisans dwelling in the hollow hills. Thereās high and wood elves; dark elves can find a niche. Lolthite culture is good villain fodder, but make sure that you can handle an āevil religionā, and make sure that all types of elves participate.
Goblinoids and trolls. Make them fey, and abandon Tolkien for Rossetti and folktale. Goblins make cruel bargains; hobgoblins attend faerie courts; bugbears hide in closets and create electricity from feed on childrenās screams; trolls lurk under bridges and love riddles. As fey, theyāre not evil, simply alien and lacking in empathy towards mortals.
Gnolls. If you use the Voloās lore, change their type to fiend and be done with it. If you want to have them be natural humanoids, go read Ursula Vernonās Digger for the best-written hyaena-furries in literature and base gnolls off that once youāre done crying.
Kobolds. Kobolds are already draconic cleaner wrasses in lore; thereās no reason that metallic dragons canāt enjoy them as well and influence some populations to good.
Illithids. The mind flayers certainly have great potential as villains. However, there is nothing about their psychology that impels them thither. Their biological requirements could easily be met by feeding on those close to death, whom I might imagine would willingly donate their brains as food or tadpole incubators in exchange for a painless death and the surety that their memories would live on in the illithid. Also, create food and water spells exist.
Ogres. Ogres are wilderness-dwellers who prefer to maintain their personal territories through fear instead of actual force of arms; the idea of the monstrous, anthropophagous ogre is a deliberate sham. They are actually capable of great heroism, even if they arenāt exactly the sharpest tools in the shed and okay to be honest I started out trying to build up to a Shrek joke but I think Iād take this over canon lore.
Orcs. Orcs are an easy fix; all you need to do is remove Gruumsh from the equation and they donāt have a bullshit ācall to evilā; in Eberron, without objective gods, the people of the Shadow Marches believe that half-orcs are the proof that orcs and humans are one people, so thereās even in-game precedent for orcs as members of society.
Yuan-ti. There are two ways to do this. One is to dump all the lore and just have sexy snake cults, although donāt dress them like Asian or Aztec stereotypes like a lot of the art does. (The 3.5 Monster Manual yuan-ti pureblood looks like sheās constantly accompanied by an inappropriate bamboo flute riff, I swear to Istus.) A sexy snake cult (and I am including malisons, abominations, and anathemas in the term āsexyā, not just purebloods) should be fun for everyone.
The other way is to keep their personalities and dump everything else, because if you keep that, you get truly excellent villains. I mean, these fuckers. How dare they drag something as pure as snakes into their Ayn Rand bullshit. Villain yuan-ti should be something transformed from willing or deluded humanoids (histachii raise the sacred snakes and the children of the yuan-ti, who possess their parentsā original race at birth). Couple that with the fact that since snakes very definitely have emotions, yuan-ti logically should as well, which means that they only think theyāre above emotions. Now you have Objectivists roped into a magical pyramid scheme, which should offend no-one who doesnāt deserve it. You can mourn for the beings they once were, or just laugh in their dumb faces. Also, the sexy ones all look like Ayn Rand.
