#evil fantasy race

[pandoramusicbox]

Round two! And this time around with groups form the continent of aukiljir

So: some disclaimers, this was all for silliness and boredom. Each of these creatures is not evil or considered evil by me, but I chose them by either 1. A large population of other cultures or creatures considered them evil in the setting. 2. The three times I have played a dnd homebrew in this setting the players assumed they where evil. (I will note whitch one).

Finally for some of these points I needed to squint to put them on the bingo.So, now I’ll be offering insight about each one of these creatures and why I included them.

Aukiljir

Inilskan snake cult: not a race but an organization, though initiated members have a very specific look too them. Red glowing eyes. They can be of any other race or ethnic group from the central hemisphere. (Later the world. They are a WIP so some things may change down the line.(reason 1)

—evil by nature: I got to hand it to this group, it’s one of the few groups that can fall into this category, that is because a lot of the members of this group seek to become evil. A lot of of thier final goal involves becoming a demon. They are a quite manipulative group and target those at their lowest (idk maybe like cults do) and convince them to follow this oh so charismatic guy. They are quite a force to be deal with in the region. Also not every member of the cult is evil, the cult is made up of a lot of different people.

— poisoners: this cult dose actually specializes in certain crafts and wares (like cults do) and are known for developing a lot of potent potions and drugs. Also use poison as a ritual element.

— worship an evil god: so a bit complicated, one of the most common deities worship in the world is the deity of evjufor, the eternal harbor, who just so happens to be a snake deity. This has resulted in a lot of other snake deities being worshiped, either in reverence of evjufor, as thier offspring or chosen successors or trying to convince people they are evjufor reborn. Deities like nova the white fire snake, calipso the magic snake, or quetalon the snake deity of the wind. Ikelsun the golden traitor is one such deity, he is an evil snake deity who gives powers to those who worship him and snakes, he is the god of poisons and treachery and is the one the snake cult pays reverence too, he is not the founder of the cult, as it was founded by ambi, a girl with light blue hair and Red eyes and her increased capacity for homocide. She just asked him for his services after founding the group. There is also an off shoot of the cult that don’t worship the god Ikelsun and instead adhere to the philosophy set forth by the founder. ( the snake cult is essentially the yuanti from dnd, but not that either as they are a group of individuals who chose the cult or where tricked into it, instead of a race of snake people)

— POC coded: ah yes this one, no excuses for this one, so that being noted most of them are from alunjas, iniskan, and the iles of heaven as that is simply where the cult started and have most of thier influence. These places take a good deal of thier influence from Asia, India and the Caribbean/ Mediterranean. But at the same time the cult is not limited to being there it’s less common in southern scalipia as they delt with the demon choir years ago,so they have less tolerance for demon making cults, but in the sea states and cape of death there are some sects and also in the north.

—matriarchy is evil: despite having a masculine god that they worship, they are a matriarchal cult, most common target is wemon and especially witches but that’s not nessesarly a requirement. Wemon presenting people often take a large role in the cult and are the preachers of sorts. Also notibly there are rarely people born into the cult (like cults do) but are not expected to take part in certain rituals and milestones until an older age, though the cult tends to separate the parents from thier children. Many children tend to leave the cult as they get older, but other sects work differently.

— saidists: a lot of them are demons, especially in the upper ranks. And a lot of demons often have violent tendencies, There’s also a common ideology within the cult that demons are the path to salvation.

— hated for good reason: they are known for thier immense capacity for violence. The cult is not very big, with few members but a wide reach.

— evil animal as symbol: snake cult, somewhat self explanatory

—naturally emotionally unstable: deals with the fact they often try to become or are demons, they target people at their worst and then through gaslighting and manipulation seek to keep them there.

Tengu: tengu are a kind of angelic known for thier dark colored wings (browns and blacks are common) they live mainly on alunjas (reason 1)

— structured in tribes: yes, the tengu are infact structured in different clans that they swear alegance too and consider part of thier family. A lot of tengu are migratory during most of the year but in the fall when the weather gets colder they will return to the fortress of thier clan. Children usually have the same clan as thier parents but not always and not all tengu have a clan, some just migrate all year around and some do not migrate at all.

— “evil” counterpart to another: so tengu are considered corrupted by the stone tree Angelics and other angelics with the same worldview as them, but that being said the tengu also considers the stone tree angelics corrupted right in return. The stone tree angelics value purity and see black spots on feathers as a blight to thier cloud like purity, along with other discolorations, the tengu think of white as the color of death and bones so believe in turn that a lot of the white wings are worshiping death and decay, also there’s a history of the tengu being driven out of thier homelands by them back during the eytrothan empire. Conclusion they are both ass-hats, that keep perpetuating thier own cycle of misunderstandings and anger and the ink wing angelics are just stuck in the middle of both of them.

— prefer night and dark: so fun fact about angelics, they can’t see during the night, they have extremely poor night vision (but excellent bright vision) same thing applies to most harpies, griffons and grips. So tengu can not fly at night, but they have a preference for darker asthetics.

—POC coding: they are based on the tengu yokai, so that says what it says, in fact some of the tengu clans wear and carry masks and there are two kinds, the bird face and the man’s face that has a long nose. One clan say they wear them as a show of respect for a man who once lived with them and taught them many skills, another clan says the mask’s hideous appearance wards off evil spirits, another uses them to denote rank of the members of thier clan.

— “evil” animal as symbol: they use crows and ravens as symbols because crows and ravens are cool, also they are based on crows while their cousins are based more on doves.

Núyo (yokai): I didn’t want to simply call them yokai as they are not only inspired by yokai. Though yokai are definitely a big influence. They are limited shapeshifters able to take on a few different forms. (Reason 2)

—structured in tribes: again like with the tengu, the Núyo are structured into clans, these clans are very loose in structure and essentially tell what kind of shapeshifting form you have, specific forms tend to run in certain families but that’s not always a guarantee. The clans may have head households that act as a place to go too for help or as no representatives in politics ,especially among the larger 28, but there is no formal government for them in most places they just live alongside the human kin, and vampires of the regions.

—prefer night/dark: like vampires and ghouls they are most active at dawn and dusk.

—POC coding: I’m not getting away from this one, this time around, fantasy Asia has fantasy Asians, they are based on yokai but are not only found on aukiljir, they are found in southwestern julner and far eastern scalipia, ( where they are sometimes not POC) as well as in the circle of heaven. They don’t have the widest range as creatures but they are still around to wreak havoc.

—government categorized by backstabbing and treachery: so I did just say they don’t have a government, and that is still true. They do not have a formal one, but they do still have the head households, and as far as they are concerned there is a lot of drama. As well as a lot of backstabbing and plots to see who’s the next family head or what household is the formal one and so on and so forth. Unless a person is very involved with the households they will not really know or be affected by the internal politics of the houses. Most of the time. Also every house is structured differently.

Tigiras (Tiger Centaurs): so there are two major kinds of kentaurians, the centaurs; have hooves, and the lamia; have paws. They are the most common kind of lamia in aukiljir, they are known for their striped patterns, they can come in many colors, reds, tawny browns, golden yellows, and oranges of all shades are most common but grays, whites, and even blues are not unheard of. They like most lamia are relatively solitary only forming small groups of 2-4 individuals (compare this to centaurs who form groups of 5–12 individuals on a normal biases) but are notebly less solitary than wildcats, that many of them resemble. (the other lamia tend to resemble hounds or badgers/bears) (reason 1 and 2)

—raiders: a village or town is usually aware if a lamia is living near by. (They rarely live in a village itself, and even among lamia that live In big cities they seem to prefer the outskirts, there of course a lot of exemptions to this, but the former is most common) then it depends on how the lamia in a group where raised and how the town treats them on if they will go into town to trade or if they will simply raid what they need and leave. There is one city state of tigira on the phodo-continent of iniskan that is known for their aggressive raiding tactics but they are just as famous for being excelente merchants that control a large port.

—“evil” counterpart to another race: not evil, just predatory counterpart of the centaurs. Infact a lot of centaurs of all kinds have friends that are lamia, but they are viewed with suspicion among a lot of humanoids due to an old belief that they eat humans, that is why most lamia are extinct on the continent of scalipia even if the lamia are found everywhere else on the central hemisphere.

— prefer dark/night: that’s because at night is when this specific kind of lamia do most of their hunting, they have large bodies and many of them live in tropical to subtropical climates, so they tend to save their strenuous activities to when it’s cooler outside, and they have excellent night vision too boot. This is not the case for other kinds of lamia

—POC coding: I did say that I could not get away from this one on this set of bingo cards, tigers are terrifying and magestic creatures, and the kentaurian version of them carry that same majesty. Also do note that just as how the tigira can have a number of fur colors so can they have skin color and body shapes. This actually goes for all the other groups of people I have listed as well

— matriarchy is evil: so among smaller groups of tigira you will fined that it’s roughly a 50/50 shot of what sex is dominant, (or gender there’s nonbinary and transgender tigers as well) in a group or relationship. Most tigira do not know who their father is (unless the father is in the parents pride) so when asking a tiger lamia who their family is they will usually only track their mothers (also when a pair is looking to hook up for kids they will take special note of each other’s smell behind the ear and stripe patterns, two closely related ones well smell awful to each other, this scent thing is actually a trait found in all kentauruans, though only the elven among humans are able to notice that smell. The stripes are just guess work.) Though in the one city state that the tc are known to have the parliament is made of a mixed group of sexes but the court and rulers tend to be heavily scewed towards women.

— saidists by nature: not denying this one, they’re d to be cruel and mercyless, especially in battle. Most of them like to see fear in thier opponents and will be needlessly cruel when chasing some of thier prey. This tendency is evident even from the time they are kids and is encouraged. But even as they are capable of intense cruelty so are they of great kindness. there are many accounts of the tc finding lost or abandoned children in the woods and becoming caretakers of the children either until the parents find them or the child grows up. They are offten attentive to the other people in thier pride. And those individuals who have dated and married tigira report them to be affectionate if a bit standoffish. And the city state of lim prides itself on its affective and justice based court system.

— hated for a good reason: fear of them as predators and thier odd and seemingly contradictory behavior, they don’t think the same way humans do.

Ghouls: these creatures are closely related to vampires, even having an organ similar to the vampires wings of dread, called an aincorpous. Or red tail (Reason 2)

—prefer dark or night: they are similar to vampires in many ways, so they are nocturnal and also have blue blood.

— POC coded: the highest population of ghouls is found in western aukiljir and in garaqi, gargoraqi is where the equator is. The ones in aukiljir do actually have a lot of more European based inspiration as scalipia can loosely be a Europe analogy (but not really at the same time, it’s complicated) also fun fact; ghouls, much like vampires, have a grayish tint to their skin no matter how dark or light it is otherwise, (ashy looking skin) this is because of the prevelence of the pigment that causes the shades of blue and grey in musicbox, it’s also the reason why when a vampire turns another being (especially among human kin) to a vampire their skin often turns grey, the chemical reaction that changes that will switch on the gene for grey pigment to an extreme if it is already not on. Some vampires don’t have this pigment active and instead have a yellowish tint to their skin due to their blood being blue. (Creatures with the same pigment but with red blood would have a coppery orange or red color to their skin)

[benevolenterrancy]

this description made me realise what one of my favourite MXTX character tropes is: Over-Worked, Under-Appreciated Employee Who Is Not Above Becoming Somewhat Evil About It

[ganymedesclock]

To explain The Goblin Problem and not go on a tag rant on someone else's reblog, I will explain it in the nutshell.

The Goblin Problem is when a story establishes a group of creatures to serve as recurrent antagonists (not necessarily all one species; in a lot of rpg games this can broadly apply to "monsters") THAT:

Are never negotiable, or the negotiable parties among them are Token Heroic Orcs- that is to say, they are seen as objectors or 'good' versions who have absolutely no connections to, and hold no objections toward you attacking, the rest of their brethren, who they have forsaken as the price to be paid for being good.

Have obvious unique technology; they may attack you with weapons found nowhere else in the game, demonstrate the ability to speak, have their own obvious language, tame a creature that nobody else tames so that it's thus impossible that they are stealing already-tamed specimens from someone else

Are characterized primarily or exclusively as raiders who attack others, with the justification this means they are inferior creatures parasitically dependent on Good, Civilized Settings, e.g. they cannot possibly be sustainably hunting, gathering, or practicing either nomadic or settled agriculture.

Are often defined as having no choice to be evil or are created by a greater evil to serve as thralls, and yet, will not under any circumstances be regarded as indoctrinated victims, or if that is mentioned, there will nonetheless be an overarching lack of narrative concern as to where or how the survivors should live after the greater evil is taken care of, or if effort should be made to challenge the indoctrination and give them the ability to choose their lives.

What this ultimately creates is that they are unambiguously people, who obviously check all the marks of sapience, who are quite possibly wearing clothes, but the goblin or orc exists as a stopgap. You want your fantasy hero to get into a swordfight but you don't want him to kill another human being. So you invent something that wields a sword but is in some way "not a person", which is senseless. Unless you want the nature of this swordfight to be that a chimpanzee picked up a knife, at which point they are not going to use reliable sword techniques.

[your-fave-is-christian]

Hellboy

Hellboy from Hellboy is Christian!

[cellarful-of-noise]

thinking about that post talking about how tolkien likely equated no trees with evil because of his experience in the great war and thinking about how poppies bloomed in no man's land and thinking about The poppies blow / Between the crosses row on row and thinking about how contrary to popular belief orcs are not an inherently evil race because orcs are not their own race they are elves who inwardly turned so evil that it manifested itself outwardly and thinking about how in war people don't look evil they just look like people and thinking about tolkien going to war as a young man and coming home having lost friends and years of his life and his youth and seeing unimaginable horrors and fields with trenches and poppies and no trees and evil people using evil weapons who just look like anyone else

[morimhe]

i cant draw anything normally it has to have too much details anyways chen’s ref, the most up to date

[aflamethatneverdies]

i do rly love dungeon meshi so far and i do see that the mangaka is trying to rehabilitate the dnd tropes and make them more thoughtful and less racist and this is not so much a judgement, more an observation, but the dnd tropes originally are so racist that i kinda wish that the mangaka was completely inventing her own worldbuilding instead of building off of them. like maybe at some point we should as a society move away from and throw away dnd tropes in the trashcan where they belong, just a thought you know.

[gravyhoney]

“Something something [fantasy race] is inherently evil”

What if I fucking killed you

[pandoramusicbox]

(Third time’s the charm) Earlier this year I was watching some video about dnd (if that had not been figured out yet I play) about it’s history and the earlier editions. And one of these videos shows this bingo as one of stereotypes of “evil races” used in early dnd that they are trying to shift away from. I couldn’t find clear information on who made the original bingo. So what I had the incline to do with the bingo card was to go through some of my different species and groups in music box and see if I got bingo. So: some disclaimers, this was all for silliness and boredom. Each of these creatures is not evil or considered evil by me, but I chose them by either 1. A large population of other cultures or creatures considered them evil in the setting. 2. The three times I have played a dnd homebrew in this setting the players assumed they where evil. (I will note whitch one). Finally for some of these points I needed to squint to put them on the bingo.So, now I’ll be offering insight about each one of these creatures and why I included them. O’ller & O’sten Tretvi & Aletts: a species of sentient creatures with strange markings and long antennae with eyes on them. Only have 3 toes and fingers. And long wip thin tails. They are only found on O’ller and O’sten and an island off the coast of gargoraqi. They are subspecies of eachother and the parent species of the much hated camioon who are disliked for essentially the same reasons. (Reason 1) — uses “dark” magic: most parts of O’ller and O’sten have a rather rigged idea of what magic is and how it can and should be used. So any use of it outside of those bounds is considered “dark” magic, the Aletts and tretvi have inate magic. — evil counterpart to another race: so I had to squint to fit this one, the camioon I mentioned earlier, are by the large empires of O’ller not considered evil in the same way the other species are, the camioon are considered untrustworthy and likely to become dangerous, but not “evil, everyone run and hide, call the city watch” evil like the tretvi. — Barbarians: this is the easiest one to see, the empires consideres them barbaric in all they do and stand for and refuse to acknowledge their city states and mountain monasteries as kingdoms and nations of their own. — hated for a “good” reason: if Nationalism is a good reason I guess you could call it a good reason. The main reason they are feared is because of their magic not being able to fit neatly into the empires world view of magic, and that makes them unpredictable and dangerous. They also have a lot of innate magic. — emotionally unstable: they are possibly relatives of the fairies called Rabbits. And like the other true fairy creatures Rabbits are prone to extreme or dulled emotions, the tretvi are known to have two extremes of emotions at the same time and a lot of them deal with extreme mood swings. This is actually a point of pride for a lot of their cultures as they feel like they can appreciate the world on a wider spectrum than most of the creatures around them. Laquim: my second attempt at making a snake humanoid in this setting, that is not related to my first one. Though snake like they have a bit more in common with other reptiles. (they are loosely based on reptoids are secretly controlling out government along with some other things)  there are three major variations in the species, females; have a human like upper body and a serpentine lower body, males; have a humanoid body but possess a tail, asexed; a humanoid body like the males but have no tail, the majority of thier population is this veriaty of laquim. They are also cold blooded so they are only found in the southern part of O’ller but all of O’sten (Reason 1) — Slavers: this is simple, they keep slaves. The asexed laquim themselves are slaves to some extent. That being said the empires in O’ller also keep slaves so they are not the place to judge. — structured into tribes: very big tribes, these tribes are also different races within the species, they have different scale patterns and some different in who has venom and who dose not. On a political level they function a bit like Greek city states.  Specifically Sparta. — cast system: the three sexes are the main way they divide themselves into casts, males and females in one cast, asexed in another, then after that they devide themselves by unique features, such as specific kinds of venom or more commonly by the precence of frills, hoods or magic gems, and finally by the precence of extra limbs, forked tails, and rarely wings. Those with wings are seen as the destined leaders of the tribes. Among the males and females they are on rather equal footing as there is a predictable way to make female eggs (temperature) but males randomly appear among the asexed eggs (~ 1 in every 10 eggs). — “evil” animal as their symbol: they are snakes, and reptiles, that’s it. Dark Fauths: Aka dark elves, not actually a single species at all. The dark fauth is a term used by the people of O’sten to refer to the many, many different groups that live in the vast cave systems and caverns of the continent. This includes not only grey skinned humans and elv, but also vickor and raquesasha who have found themselves on this continent from mergo.  They live in these dark and mysterious underworld cities so the people around them simply assume the worst. But no city is the same. (Reason 1) — uses “dark” magic: same reason for why the tretvi are disliked, they practice magic outside of the accepted norm and unfamiliar forms of it. Magic by music! What a scandalous concept… that is the main way that mergo teaches magic.— raiders: they live in a bunch of caverns, and though they have most of what they need down there. Either form gathering or farming it themselves or from trade with other groups, they sometimes don’t have what they need, so they will simply go out and take it from the surface societies that put them down there in the first place. This is a rather rare occurrence, but happens frequently enough to where they have gotten a reputation for it. ( I’m not saying it a good thing but it’s also not an a-historical thing. Lots of city states in Greece and Mesopotamia. Vikings, and even feudal Japan to Korea and China) — structured in tribes: this is one where it’s a some of them do some of them don’t, each city state is different, some are structured by a dominant family or clan, others are democratic republics, some groups travel between different cities on a regular bases others do not. Small towns are sometimes referred to as tribes by the cities. —prefer dark/night: they live in caves, and though they may not have liked it at first they are used to it by now, be they recently banished to the underworld or having lived there for generations.  The grey skin I mentioned is actually a magical adaptation, possibly from interbreeding with raqsasha (who have white, black or grey skin) or as a result of eating magical beings and mushrooms found underground. But this gives them a slight natural magic where they will have either luminous patterns and spots, or if they have white hair, allows that to glow. They also have sharper sense of hearing and sight. —coded as POC: yup, this one speaks for itself. I’m not precisely able to pinpoint what POC group they are based on specifically, but the idea of the dark fauth are based on dark elves from dnd, and those guys are coded as POC. So   I assume that I may have accidentally carried that coding over without being aware of it. —barbarians: the surface world cultures think of them as “ inbreed, mad, culturally lacking, innately criminal, backstabbing, cannibalistic, lowlife, underworld barbarians” but just because one culture calls another barbaric dose not mean they are. The surface dwelling people also tend to lump all of thier different cultures and cities into a single thing. They would likely not know the difference between eslik spider cloth and teri kelper cloth if they had the two of them next to each other, but the difference would be obvious to most underworld dwellers. — matriarchal is a sign of being evil: nope, for one thing a lot of the cities are matriarchal but not all of them, some are more egalitarian others are patriarchal. Even though a lot of them are matriarchal it’s not a sign of them being evil, this is one of those, I had to squint to see it fitting. — “evil” animal as symbol: a lot of the cities have heraldic animals that decorate their banners, and a lot of those animals tend to underground animals and creepy crawlies. There’s at least five different cities with a spider of some sort as their symbol, three with centipedes two with millipedes, two with scorpions, four with underground fish, and one that’s a city close to the surface that has bats as their heraldic animal. It’s a simple case of surroundings influencing art. I have a few of these for different continents and creatures as well, and as long as this one is not flaqued I'll post the others. it was an interesting exersice to go into the mindset of cultures in the world to try and figure out their issues with each other. I also suggest to other world-builders to take a look at this bingo card, and if you can see a characteristic you have assigned to a race or a species (or race! especially then) that is “evil”, especially if you yourself consider them evil. and take some time to think about exactly why you have given them these characteristics. 

[circusheart]

Average dungeon meshi fan hasn't read any fantasy since Tolkien apparently

[transmascnepetaleijon]

heres the thing: i love world building

[magikant]

the idea that thinking alignment is a bad game mechanic = “not being able to handle conversations about morality” is a fucking wild take

[enderlordisadumbusername]

the fact that kobolds seem to be this more "animalistic" race, with kuro talking in broken language and like improper grammar. this, coupled with the fact that he seems unaware of the fact that he's being exploited by mick, makes kobolds appear to be less intelligent than other races.

but we actually find out that the simple speech patterns are in fact due to common being kuro's second language. and in a scene where kabru talks to kuro in his native language, it's actually kabru with the simple speech patterns.

we even learn that kuro seems to actually have a much better understanding of his situation with mick than we first imagine. merely wanting to stay with them so they can have someone who they can feel relaxed around.

this, coupled with a bunch of other things, really makes dungeon meshi stand out from other fantasy media. there are no "dumb" or "evil" races, they're all just people.

[localtransvamp]

My weird philosophical hot take is that cannibalism has no inherent moral value, and that it is context that gives the act of eating human flesh any moral weight

You killed someone so you could eat them? Killing someone is bad.

You desecrated a grave or otherwise ate someone's corpse without consent? Disrespecting someone's burial/funeral wishes is bad.

Someone you were close to died, and wanted their loved ones to have the opportunity to eat their flesh as part of their funeral/burial wishes? Honoring your departed loved one and/or processing grief through funerary ritual is either good or morally neutral.

You were starving to death and had to eat human flesh to survive? Surviving is good.

The act of eating human meat has no moral value. It's always the context.

[featherymainffins]

Sci-fi worldbuilding is like a thing that really hates you and wants you dead

[perpetual-blue]

people who draw non-white adaine i love you i love you i love you