I cant actually find anything on Yuan-ti as yellow peril. Not saying it's not the case, just i would have expected a cursory search to throw up something. I dont actually know enoguh about them (Snake people, they're bad,. hey have multiple different body plans around the snake people concept) to try and draw any conclusions.
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@Darmak - if it's eberron, why not Mad Scientist's Lab Assisstants? Gives a good reason to be Trapped In the LAAAAAAAB, plenty of reason for traps, weird shit to investigate, and other fun!
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Shifting tracks, the disability stuff got me thinking about what sort of accessibility and industries there could be in Terror Incognita catering to such. Presumably, with a lot of shipwrecks happening, disabling injuries are pretty common. More common than even high level magic is going to be able to keep up with easily.
Monferrina also clearly will have some tradition of looking after disabilities- a huge % of their population were freed slaves, and the Aeternum were the sort to maim slaves to make a point (Hell, there goto marker for slaves of their own people, which were the majority of their slaves, was cropped ears). Or just because they could (I really, really do not wanting people going Oh the Aeternum were cool like the romans weer. No, the romans fucking sucked, and so did the Aeternum)
Missing tongues, missing ears, missing eye(s) seems like the sort of thing Aeternum slaves would have had inflicted most often. So monferrina probably has a tradition of Braille, as well as sign language. Sign language would doubly make sense as a culture built on ex-slaves - ways to pass messages when your masters were around without them knowing.
Serenity - has to have a big tradition of prosthetic, right? Shipwrecks are not necessarily going to be fun things, and people loosing limbs in those seem likely. Not that every wreck would be traumatic, but it seems likely. What other stuff could i be missing here that would be cool? Wheelchairs seem like a gimme, and have a strong historical tradition. It'd also fit win with the steading and recovery aspect parts of Serenity are supposed to have.
I like the idea that the Last Citadel has incorporated lifts, slings, pulley,s various ways to help out people who arent agile like most saturs move around, or satyrs with injuries
One idea my partner and I bounced around last night was to flip the script and create a D&D setting primarily populated by a race that is far above "standard" races in their abilities -- make them impervious to bludgeoning damage (immune to falls), give them flight or spiderclimb, lots of free racial cantrips, etc. Then imagine the architecture of a city designed by that race. There's no stairs, no safety railings, some buildings are entered via the ceiling with no apparent way to get there (so you just...can't go to those places without significant effort), and so on. Building off the social model of disability, such a setting would recreate (in part) the circumstances leading to disability in our world, where player characters from standard PHB races are required to go to great effort and creativity just to engage in tasks as mundane as buying groceries.
Posting this here and in the SE++ thread, but I'm once again asking y'all to do my homework for me and give me some ideas for a one-shot game to run this Friday! I was wanting to do something besides the usual "DM tries their damnedest to murder the fuck out of the party" thing we normally do for one-shots, and I was also thinking of switching from FR to Eberron for this game. Maybe like a murder mystery sort of thing set on a speeding lightning rail train car that is going a loooooooong distance? If they're too fast, I could instead set it on an airship. But either way, I want the players to be trapped and forced to investigate (maybe not forced, but otherwise they'll just have a nice journey ignoring the murder and then disembark once they arrive lol)
Local authorities at the other end will just murder everyone and let $DEITY sort it out if things aren't solved, perhaps?
Leadership is a council, membership is from various parties
Coast Guard - Rescue, scavenging, internal military (policing, etceera - very much trained in deescalation, investigation, et). heredity leadership, by a a daughter of the orc (or her descednants) who founded it.
Explorer's Guild - External military, mappers, adventuring and darring do. Leadership is a big, fat jolly devil (Currently a statue, lives in the council chambers as a result). Members are basically fine with this, because it means they dont get stuck with desk jobs (the devil handles it all with aplomb)
Comforter's Guild - Sex workers, adult entertainers, etc . Elected leadership from membership. Comfort's district is a bit more of a party district, and intentionally has noise baffling spells installed between it and the rest of the city. (Still thinking about this one, but i think pretending there's no sex workers is foolish. Making them a major power and player in the city's politics is good & interesting, and a good way to confront some gross attitudes in society towards this sort of thing, i think? Need to do my research)
Steaders - Run the homesteads and similar that dot the island Serenity's built on, and some of the closer isles. Somewhere between psychologists, mental health etc, and farmer's guild etc, so they're a bit werid and ecletic. Elected leadership as well?
Historians - Researchers, similar. Not sure how they'd sort out leadership.
What would be other good powers to have represnted on serenity's ruling council?
Posting this here and in the SE++ thread, but I'm once again asking y'all to do my homework for me and give me some ideas for a one-shot game to run this Friday! I was wanting to do something besides the usual "DM tries their damnedest to murder the fuck out of the party" thing we normally do for one-shots, and I was also thinking of switching from FR to Eberron for this game. Maybe like a murder mystery sort of thing set on a speeding lightning rail train car that is going a loooooooong distance? If they're too fast, I could instead set it on an airship. But either way, I want the players to be trapped and forced to investigate (maybe not forced, but otherwise they'll just have a nice journey ignoring the murder and then disembark once they arrive lol)
Local authorities at the other end will just murder everyone and let $DEITY sort it out if things aren't solved, perhaps?
Rival adventures seems really someone few do as to have them equal to a party's level or skill but with a bone to pick with them or a person in the group
Posting this here and in the SE++ thread, but I'm once again asking y'all to do my homework for me and give me some ideas for a one-shot game to run this Friday! I was wanting to do something besides the usual "DM tries their damnedest to murder the fuck out of the party" thing we normally do for one-shots, and I was also thinking of switching from FR to Eberron for this game. Maybe like a murder mystery sort of thing set on a speeding lightning rail train car that is going a loooooooong distance? If they're too fast, I could instead set it on an airship. But either way, I want the players to be trapped and forced to investigate (maybe not forced, but otherwise they'll just have a nice journey ignoring the murder and then disembark once they arrive lol)
Local authorities at the other end will just murder everyone and let $DEITY sort it out if things aren't solved, perhaps?
Murder mysteries lose their appeal the moment detect thoughts or zone of truth come into play.
I cant actually find anything on Yuan-ti as yellow peril. Not saying it's not the case, just i would have expected a cursory search to throw up something. I dont actually know enoguh about them (Snake people, they're bad,. hey have multiple different body plans around the snake people concept) to try and draw any conclusions.
I did a bit of research just now and think I see where he's coming from.
The module that introduced the yuan-ti (and the aboleth, too), Dwellers of the Forbidden City, featured an "oriental-style city" (as Wikipedia puts it). My understanding of "Yellow Peril" is that it's a racist paranoia that the East will conquer the world through subterfuge and strange powers. The yuan-ti want to conquer the world, particularly through subterfuge, have a Chinese-sounding name, and used to possess psionic powers before they were taken away in 4E and stayed absent in 5E.
That said, the identity of the yuan-ti seems to have drifted a lot since their original appearance in Dwellers of the Forbidden City, seemingly due to how they were portrayed in Forgotten Realms materials (which, according to FR Wiki at least, establishes that the race's true name is vrael olo, so if WotC wanted to they could just switch to that name). Their culture in general seems primarily inspired by the Aztecs now, with lots of ziggurats and human sacrifice and such, but yuan-ti can be made from ritually-altered humans of any ethnicity.
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valhalla13013 Dark Shield Perceives the GodsRegistered Userregular
But if they're based on Aztecs, then isn't that the same problem, just different race?
Basically, all this boils down to we can't have any race that's all considered one alignment. Or based on any real world culture.
That isn't a bad thing. I'm just not creative enough to not base things off things in the real world.
I can understand the appeal of an enemy that's 'all the intelligence and capabilities of humanoids, but unwaveringly hostile and destructive' for a game or story.
But I also get that it's an idea fraught with problems to present any intelligent society that way.
I suppose the best way to try to thread that needle is to push the enemy as far away from mundanity as possible?
Magical made or born negative energy whatevers that are destructive hateful p-zombies, can fill that 'what if' while being way far away from "Your weird looking tribal neighbors are inherently evil" I think?
I'm using more or less that idea as part of the setting of the books I'm working on, where often gods or demons or the like are p-zombies born from the collective unconscious interacting with the omnipresent background magic.
But if they're based on Aztecs, then isn't that the same problem, just different race?
Basically, all this boils down to we can't have any race that's all considered one alignment. Or based on any real world culture.
That isn't a bad thing. I'm just not creative enough to not base things off things in the real world.
I mean, there's nothing wrong with basing things off the real world, not by itself. Where it gets issueful... how to put.
Appropriation is a word that's popularly thrown around. But i think the better thing is be respectful. Which means don't put shitty jokes like the Consulate Dreadnaught (7/11 is a shitty joke) in your Indian continent inspired set. Or to steal a concept from humor - punch up with your jokes, don't punch down. Dont reduce things to a monoculture, or exotic for the sake of exotic. Celebrate stuff, raise it up - show why these cultures were awesome, fascinating, and complicated!
Like,a good example of being respectful - Disney's Moana. It synthesizes a bunch of related but distinct cultures together. Some particularly good examples of where they listened to people from these cultures were stuff like giving Maui a full head of hair rather than being bald (Hair is associated with Mana and power in these cultures), and not having Moana throw away food in a rage( as such thing would be hugely offensive/wasteful). I'm not going to claim it's perfect, because i'm Pakeha, not Maori or Polynesian - so my cultural perspective on it is only so good. But if there's one thing you can say about Moana - it shows how awesome the Polynesian cultures were.
Like, i don't feel that reducing the romans to a villianous faction is that bad, because of the punch down principle, and because there is plenty wrong and evil about how the romans were, and my intent is to highlight those parts and the issues with those parts.
Moana is problematic as all get out, it's a corporate product made by white people to make Disney a bunch of money using real living people's culture
There aren't any Aztecs, and the Yuan-Ti aren't getting colonized any time soon, and while part of their society draws inspiration from various human civilization, they are literally snakes, and the ones that aren't snakes want to be snakes. I feel like if the Yuan-Ti are a step too far, then D&D is so badly problematic at its core that the entire thing needs to be discarded.
My feelings on the yuan-ti are that they're basically more of a cult than a race. They weren't created by an evil god like orcs were. The first humans who became yuan-ti chose to do so through rituals in devotion to the serpent gods that involved human sacrifice and cannibalism. Humans still become yuan-ti through rituals involving human sacrifice. In multiple campaign settings the yuan-ti once ruled vast empires built on slavery and large scale human sacrifice. These empires fell for whatever reason, and now new cults of human serpent god worshipers want to become yuan-ti and inherit the empires of old.
There is the wrinkle that someone could be born a yuan-ti if they are descended from someone who underwent the evil ritual to become a yuan-ti (similar to how tieflings inherit an Infernal heritage from devil ancestors or parents who made pacts with devils). I personally would like to interpret things so that a human who becomes a yuan-ti through a human sacrifice ritual has their mind twisted by the process, but someone born yuan-ti that hasn't underwent a ritual to try and become a higher caste yuan-ti than what they were born as could be good (although they'd probably need to escape as soon as possible).
IMO its largely OK to mine cultural aspects and aesthetics, especially as shorthand, in DnD and other fantasy settings. These can generate immediate clues as to the organization of a society as well as easy visual reference for style. The problem isn't that these exist but that there is also an unstated base cultural assignment placed on the adventurers; this unstated base cultural assignment is "white European". As soon as you state "All the humans are effectively coded as white europeans" it should bring the associations back into focus and why they are an issue.
There are a few ways to fix this; modifying the coding for the adventurers society, making the coding explicit and paying attention to the implications, using multiple codings for each race so that no particular race has an identifiable coding, adding specific identifyable villains within any particular society rather than the society as a whole.
There is no "state of war" between the Yuan-Ti and the rest of the world. No Yuan-Ti diplomats. They're a culture represented as a monster. Rather than a monster existing within a culture. Unless its made clear that you're the colonizer and this is not OK there is an issue.
As an example of where this is done pretty well might be Warhammer Fantasy. You've got French Humans(Bretonia), Nordic Humans(Norsca/Chaos), Holy Roman Humans(Empire), United States (Dark Elves), Eastern Europeans (Vampire Counts), Egyptian (Tomb Kings), Aztec's (Lizardmen)... plus capitalists(Skaven), soccer hooligans(orcs*), dwarves(dwarves), hippies, beastmen, Mythical humans (Elfs), and pirates. (there are also spanish humans, italian humans, chinese, japanese, arab humans, and british humans?).
But we would notice that the Aztec's are good. The United States is unambiguously evil. The Eastern Europeans are subjugated by a ruling elite that literally drink their blood. The French exploit the peasants just as much as the vampires. The Empire is a religious dictatorship that punishes dissent heartily... No one really gets off light and every society has twists to ensure that the culture is not being represented as a monster.... with the US being the exception and well.... no arguments there. There is also no default western european frame and certainly no unstated one. So even though it mines cultures for style and short hand you rarely feel like its denigrating those.
*could also be Huns? That would be a bit of an issue. The setting isn't perfect in its construction.
edit: DnD's move away from evil races is in the right direction is more or less my argument
I'm genuinely befuddled that of all the things in Tomb of Annihilation the Yuan-Ti are the thing people have a problem with. The batiri goblins? The adventurers being sent by the great city-state of not-venice to be foreign saviors to the poor beset Africa-stand-in?
But the nihilistic snakes are the thing we're getting hung up on?
The Yuan-Ti are also not a monoculture, not of one religion, and there are yuan-ti diplomats, just not the Yuan-Ti of central Chult. These guys want to literally put out the sun and end all life. They are religious extremists - but Tomb of Annihilation would be a got-danged 1000 pages long if we had all of the lore ever written about the Yuan-Ti - who are presented as neither Aztec or Asian in Tomb, their leader is a white guy with a fire sword, and are presented with a diverse array of skin colors
- That said, almost all of the Yuan-Ti would probably be considered "Bad" to us, because their rulers are snakes that consider themselves vastly superior to humans, who they tend to see as a dangerous, slow witted race with incomprehensible motivations. There ARE kingdoms that are at peace with humans though
For races that are mundane, like orcs and Yuan-Ti and the like, I think the problem's monoculture.
There can be a nation or cultural group of Yuan-Ti that are imperialist xenophobes who sacrifice other humanoids all the time or a tribe of orcs that's just bugfuck crazy raiders, but it's weird if they're all part of that culture and all on board with it, and that a Yuan-Ti or orc that isn't evil ends up being a novelty rather than the norm.
Basically if you're making an intelligent race where you think a lawful good character could justify murdering its children, maybe don't do that. Doubly so if it in any way resembles any group from reality.
...as for the Moana thing, I have no clue about what it looked like behind the scenes, but if it had people from those cultures involved and critiquing and suggesting in the production, I feel like that's the appropriate way to work on such a thing?
If the idea's just that there's no way to write people or cultures that aren't like your own without it being problematic, I'm not sure how that even works.
If Moana specifically fucked up in sketchy ways, that's its own thing obviously.
Yeah, i'm not trying to say moana is a perfect example - But i do think the bits where they had consultants and they LISTENED to those consultants is important to bring up.
What i was trying to say is: If you're going to tap into cultures - do your research! Try and get in touch with people from those cultures, or similar, and ask them for help, ask them if you've missed something that doesnt fit or would be offensive.
For races that are mundane, like orcs and Yuan-Ti and the like, I think the problem's monoculture.
There can be a nation or cultural group of Yuan-Ti that are imperialist xenophobes who sacrifice other humanoids all the time or a tribe of orcs that's just bugfuck crazy raiders, but it's weird that they're all part of that culture and all on board with it, and that a Yuan-Ti or orc that isn't evil is a novelty rather than the norm.
Basically if you're making an intelligent race where you think a lawful good character could justify murdering its children, maybe don't do that. Doubly so if it in any way resembles any group from reality.
...as for the Moana thing, I have no clue about what it looked like behind the scenes, but if it had people from those cultures involved and critiquing and suggesting in the production, I feel like that's the appropriate way to work on such a thing?
If the idea's just that there's no way to write people or cultures that aren't like your own without it being problematic, I'm not sure how that even works.
If Moana specifically fucked up in sketchy ways, that's its own thing obviously.
For races that are mundane, like orcs and Yuan-Ti and the like, I think the problem's monoculture.
There can be a nation or cultural group of Yuan-Ti that are imperialist xenophobes who sacrifice other humanoids all the time or a tribe of orcs that's just bugfuck crazy raiders, but it's weird that they're all part of that culture and all on board with it, and that a Yuan-Ti or orc that isn't evil is a novelty rather than the norm.
Basically if you're making an intelligent race where you think a lawful good character could justify murdering its children, maybe don't do that. Doubly so if it in any way resembles any group from reality.
...as for the Moana thing, I have no clue about what it looked like behind the scenes, but if it had people from those cultures involved and critiquing and suggesting in the production, I feel like that's the appropriate way to work on such a thing?
If the idea's just that there's no way to write people or cultures that aren't like your own without it being problematic, I'm not sure how that even works.
If Moana specifically fucked up in sketchy ways, that's its own thing obviously.
Honestly it just sounds like the problem is alignment being a fucky tool for looking at the world. Again. If you take racial alignments out of play except for really weird things like angels and demons, then the problems seem to go away if years of lore growth has more or less erased monucultures from DND.*
I honestly feel at this point that alignments say more about the person assigning them than the character receiving them, which basically makes them useless except as part of some sort of psych eval.
Is Batman Lawful Good, because he does good and follows a code even when it's inconvenient?
Neutral Good, because he values doing good, follows what rules he can, and ignores any that are in his way?
Chaotic Good, because he eschews the law in favor of doing what he thinks is right?
Lawful neutral, because he has his rules he follows but mostly acts in equal parts to help people and to satisfy his need to beat up 'bad guys'.
True neutral, because of his muddled conflicting desires and actions?
Lawful evil, because he follows strict rules but still engages in violence and torture for his own self-satisfaction?
Is the Punisher good, neutral or evil? Lawful Evil makes sense to me, because he has his rules of conduct but is otherwise a self-indulgent serial killer, but plenty of people have world views that would more likely think of him as someone who gets the job done no matter what, Chaotic Good or some sort of neutral.
edit: *barring any existing evil cultures born from racist stereotypes, since those are problematic even if they're being presented as just a small group
You're not even expected to kill the Yuan-Ti in Tomb, you can make peace with them in a few ways
If a DM is presenting the Yuan-Ti as a group you should hate so much that your lawful good paladins are murdering their children (this group doesn't have any, they are humans that turn themselves into snakes), that's on them, not anything WOTC is writing
Big spoilers about the Yuan-Ti in Tomb, this is definitely not an "orcs are all evil" situation, unless orcs are also presented as nazis with full understanding of what they are doing, and chose to be orcs:
The leader of the Yuan-Ti tried to commit genocide, and was a white human paladin, and his god was not happy.
He felt so upset that his obvious act of goodness went unrecognized as being that, (and, he was exiled for trying it), that he turned himself into a snake to take over a death cult
You can still diplomatically make peace with him
Your players can also turn into, or get turned into, Yuan-Ti
So I don't know that much at all about Forgotten Realms lore, tbh. My impression of yuan-ti is primarily based on 4E's Dawn War setting, Volo's Guide to Monsters, Tomb of Annihilation, and Wildemount. I am aware that yuan-ti were once said to have been created in the Forgotten Realms by a progenitor race called the sarrukh, but it was my impression 5E had retconned this with Volo's Guide to Monsters.
My intentions for the Wildemount campaign I'm planning were to syncreticize the Volo's Guide lore for the origins of the yuan-ti with details about their god in Wildemount, Zehir. I assumed that establishing the modern day yuan-ti as being primarily Zehir cultists who were born human but transformed themselves with evil rituals involving human sacrificing rituals would allow me to have my cake and eat it too. This would make yuan-ti mostly chaotic evil not because they were born inherently evil but because only chaotic evil humans undergo the rituals to become yuan-ti. Zehir cultists don't settle for spooky robes; they turn themselves into snake people through evil rituals.
Encountering a population of yuan-ti born as yuan-ti because their ancestors were Zehir cultists when they themselves are not would be a rare discovery. These yuan-ti could be any alignment because they were never human.
I don't know much about them from previous editions other than a few youtube videos, and I don't know how much is still true, but the only yuan-ti enemies in 5e are... a lot more complex than how say, 5e presents orcs
volo's guide to monsters mayhaps might need a revision on them
As someone who definitely and clearly sees the issues with things like drow and orcs, I just don't see it with yuan-ti. I'm ready to be wrong, but honestly that twitter post about them just kinda seems like a twitter hot-take without a lot behind it. I'm failing to see the Asian stereotypes or much if any racially-charged language in their descriptions. Could be a blind spot for me but all I can see is maybe the name is dumb?
Oof, we're in the planning characters and figuring out what the DM will and won't allow phase of a campaign with some raid members, and I'm feeling some 'play like it's a modded Skyrim meme video' vibes from certain players that are making me nervous.
But then, I get wary at, like, requests to roll for stats instead of using SA or point buy, so maybe I'm the asshole.
Shooting down roll for stats seems pretty fair, honestly, given how 5e's math works out.
Also, to follow up on your alignment thoguhts Kamar: When i do get to do alignment in my setting, if i do anything with it, all i'm going to mention is Law and Chaos, and those as distant, fundamental things that some beings align themselves to (and both sides are equally alien and weird - think like Michael Moorcock/FF14 Shadowbringers lore). Actually having Good/Evil as alignments is just... too reductive for my tastes. people are COMPLICATED as hell.
Oof, we're in the planning characters and figuring out what the DM will and won't allow phase of a campaign with some raid members, and I'm feeling some 'play like it's a modded Skyrim meme video' vibes from certain players that are making me nervous.
But then, I get wary at, like, requests to roll for stats instead of using SA or point buy, so maybe I'm the asshole.
Requests to roll stats is always iffy. Its not a good way to create characters.
That being said, maybe just ask what kind of campaigns people like/want/expect and then ask/discuss changes that facilitate that.
I think at the end of the day you're allowed to go where ever you want with your stories/factions/races provided that if you're doing something controversial ensure that where you're going with it is interesting or substantive.
Like, I can see how that Consulate Dreadnaught could be problematic but it could work if the card were a cornerstone of many decks (I don't play MTG anymore, I have no idea) or just strong on its own.
You won't be able to sanitise media to such a point where someone who doesn't want to address their own biases will think about their stance on things. And cramming it down their throats won't help either (lord knows I've tried).
Posting this here and in the SE++ thread, but I'm once again asking y'all to do my homework for me and give me some ideas for a one-shot game to run this Friday! I was wanting to do something besides the usual "DM tries their damnedest to murder the fuck out of the party" thing we normally do for one-shots, and I was also thinking of switching from FR to Eberron for this game. Maybe like a murder mystery sort of thing set on a speeding lightning rail train car that is going a loooooooong distance? If they're too fast, I could instead set it on an airship. But either way, I want the players to be trapped and forced to investigate (maybe not forced, but otherwise they'll just have a nice journey ignoring the murder and then disembark once they arrive lol)
I don't have any more detail than this, but the first "solution" to the murder mystery that pops into my mind is, "The victim isn't the victim, he's the victim's identical twin who nobody knows about. The person you THINK is the victim is faking his own death because reasons."
I'd start with the rule of three - there are three factions that all have links to the victim, either directly or via a possible suspect. So a secret society or cult that they were part of, a criminal gang they've ripped off in order to get passage on to this airship/train and a chance encounter that meant they found out something about someone else that would ruin them.
Two factions have one suspect each, one has a pair of suspects linked to them, and there are three clues for each faction to let you know if they did it or not. One circumstantial that indicates they were involved, one incriminating but not completely airtight and one that is damning or puts them in the clear, with each clue leading to the next clue in the sequence for or for another faction. These is why you have one faction being a pair, they can imcriminate or exhonourate other of the other factions and you don't also need everyone's clues to lead to another faction, some suggest a really obvious place to go next. Also following up on the pair's statements about where they each were is their incriminating clue because the stories don't match.
When you write this trail of clues, it's going to seem really, really simple and not a mystery. But D&D always takes longer than you think and every mystery is obvious when you're the one writing it.
You know how your PCs tend to play (do they split up or stay together) so the train/airship wants to be going fast enough that you'll expect them to get 7-8 of these 9 clues. Ideally the damning evidence and one exhonourating one, but at the time when they make the final accusation there should still be a little bit of lingering doubt. If things are going too slowly, have the other suspects start doing their own investigations (and offer to share their findings reluctantly, as the PCs could also be the murderers) and perhaps even have one suspect get murdered themselves as they have stumbled onto the plot before the PCs - leaving just one easy clue to work out who dunnit before going to the final scene.
The last bit of pacing will be the red herrings, you want another three witnesses who can be ruled out after one clue. One can be related to the victim (suggesting some involvement) but the others should probably be strangers who've only met on the train, though they should either have had some contact with the victim on the journey prior to his dead (preferrably a bad encounter, they were caught doing something suspecious and confronted resulting in a scuffle - but are just a theif). Their job is to spread suspecion to everything in the first round, point the PCs in the right direction and provide alibis for different parts of the night. They don't need to give false clues, just being on the train is enough to let the PCs start making connections that aren't real, but if things are going too fast they can always throw in a herring.
You also need two endings, one where they guess right and one where they guess wrong with their final accusation and both should have a bit of combat in it (either the "you'll never take me alive!" moment, or chasing down the real villain as they try to sabotage the train/ship to cover their tracks.)
I'm not that familiar with Eberron, but maybe something like this:
Victim - either an undercover investigator or an ex-member looking to flee the Cult of the Dragon Below. Things had been getting too dangerous back and home and he needs to get out of town fast. He has borrowed a great deal of money from underground loan sharks and plans to start a new life in the destination town. He knows that everyone is after him and has spent the early part of the evening being incredibly twitchy and paranoid, seeing enemies everywhere. A strange symbol has been carved into the dead body's forehead.
The PCs may actually have been sent to meet up with this contact, and have gotten onto the train and the next stop if you want the NPCs to have a reason to let the PCs investigate the case. The guy was dead when they got on the train, so the killer must be someone else.
Suspect 1 - Debt collector sent by the thief's guild
Circumstantial evidence: Petty thief noticed them watching the victim all night, and saw them pause by the cabin doorway as if looking at something. If examined there is an old symbol carved into the doorframe (It's not cult, it's thieves cant to say the window does not lock. The thief will reveal this if asked after it is revealed that he has the victim's gold).
Incriminating evidence: Room has a ledger with the victim's name in it next to a price in GP, crossed out. (When questioned, They reveal the victim had paid his debt with a stolen cult artefact- some jeweled icon. It is now missing)
Exhonourating evidence: Seen by Suspect 3 leaving the victim's room, whilst they were on look out. Suspect 3 is then spotted by the victim who then locks the door and hides in his room - Suspect 3 then runs to warn Suspect 2 in the engine room. (Suspect 3 will only reveal this if the revolutionaries are confronted, otherwise they claim to have both been together).
Suspect 2 & 3 - Revolutionaries from the Warforged Liberation Front. They are lovers, but whilst Suspect 2 is a true believer in the Cause, Suspect 3 is just following their heart and is starting to have doubts about what they have been asked to do.
Circumstantial evidence: They claim not to know each other at first, but provide alibis for one another in their cabin.
Incriminating evidence: A search of the cabin reveals revolutionary pamphlets and a schematic of the train/airship engine, and a search of the engine room reveals sabotage that prevent the vessel from stopping and unloading it's cargo at the next destination.
Exhonourating evidence: In the engine room at the time of the murder
Suspect 4 & the murderer! - Assasin sent by the cult, posing as low ranking member of staff - perhaps the cook
Circumstantial evidence: Newly added to the crew and clearly not trained for their job. Clothes don't fit well despite him being very well spoken. Says that they saw the victim entering several of the rooms over the course of the evening - specifically the other suspects. Also is sure he saw both Suspect 2 & 3 together but thinks they were coming from somewhere other than their room when the murder was discovered.
Incriminating evidence: Has notes and papers describing the victim, along with samples of their hand writing and a written key to the Theives Cant symbols. If challenged on this, claims that the victim was a thief and that they have been hired to track down and recover the goods.
Damning evidence: Spotted by the thief leaving the Debt collectors room holding something (stealing the Cult symbol or kills the debt collector for it if you want two murders). This happens mid-investigation.
Witness 1: Train conductor. With the noble at the time of the murder.
Clue 1: Saw the thief talking to the victim in the baggage compartment, the victim then left in a hurry before returning shortly after back to the baggage compartment looking very worried.
Clue 2: Knows the driver/pilot, but the other crewman is clearly very new at their job and got on at the last stop.
Witness 2: A petty thief disguised as a travelling merchant - met just coming around after feinting at the sight of the blood, being fanned by the cook.
Clue 1: He swapped cases with the victim, if his room/cabin is searched he will try to hide the case. If caught reveals that it was full of treasure
Clue 2: Saw Suspect 2 & 3 in a passionate embrace in an alley outside the station
Clue 3: Damning evidence
Witness 3: A noble who was in the same cabin/berth as the victim. With the conductor at the time of the murder.
Clue 1: Had a loud argument with the victim over them insisting on locking the doors and windows, and leaves the cabin.
Clue 2: Passes Suspect 2 leaving their cabin alone and going in the opposite direction once the journey is underway.
Clue 3: Is annoyed that the Victim seems to have added to the manifest at the last moment, and was placed in his room.
Timeline:
So everyone boards
Thief and victim encounter each other and the thief switches bags
Victim heads back to their room, thief sees Debt collector follow the victim out and notice the theives mark. Thief goes to his cabin.
Victim goes back to his cabin and is heard arguing with the noble.
The noble leaves and passes Suspect 2 heading towards the back of the vessel
Victim returns to the luggage compartment, followed secretly by Suspect 3 who is worried Suspect 2 is being followed.
Victim can't find their bag of cash, starts searching Suspect 2 & 3's cabin
Debt collector confronts Victim on the way out and forces him into the Victor's room.
Debt collector returns to his cabin
Victim goes to check the coast is clear, sees Suspect 3 watching them and hides and locks the door.
Suspect 3 runs to warn Suspect 2 that they have been spotted
Killer opens the window in the Lover's cabin, climbs around to the Victim's cabin, and the murder takes place.
Killer unlocks the door and heads back to the kitch to cover any last tracks
Noble returns, screams when he sees the body - everyone leaves their cabins to see what is happening
Lovers return to their crowd next to their cabin
Investigation starts
It'll probably need tightening up depending on how your PCs behave and how long you have, and you can definitely pad things out with a few more conversations and irrelevant clues, the noble insisting on being moved to a new empty cabin/starting his own investigation (with the guard perhaps) etc.
I'm genuinely befuddled that of all the things in Tomb of Annihilation the Yuan-Ti are the thing people have a problem with. The batiri goblins? The adventurers being sent by the great city-state of not-venice to be foreign saviors to the poor beset Africa-stand-in?
But the nihilistic snakes are the thing we're getting hung up on?
No, it's the one that people haven't already examined and discussed in great detail, and to a large enough degree that WotC is revising some of ToA.
I brought up the yuan-ti because, like the drow, their entry in the Monster Manual paints them as a one-dimensional evil monsters and it kind of broke my suspension of disbelief.
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Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
I think how I might approach the Yuan-Ti is to make their central characteristic be consumption.
So the worst of them could be portrayed as cannibalistic villains, but a good Yuan-Ti could also be a sage who feels an innate compulsion to consume all knowledge they can. You could have a Yuan-Ti noble who feels an urge, in their blood, to construct & maintain the most social connections possible.
I'd ditch the "alignment" section on yuan-ti in Volo's, yuan-ti tend towards cruelty only because cruelty is the quickest way to get things, they lack empathy and take the quickest, most logical route to their goals, which is why so many yuan-ti cities have healthy trading relationships, it's not because they're friendly and cooperative, it's because trading allows them exercise comparative advantage in economics.
But purebloods, the kind people can play as, are the only ones that aren't entirely alien, and even have children in live birth instead of laying eggs because they're close enough to their human origins. Purebloods don't have to be devoid of emotions and empathy - I'd emphasize that and drop the parts about "you have to be evil to be yuan-ti"
Sure keep their ancient and decedent civilizations "Evil" insofar as any civilization with a caste system that practices eugenics is probably bad news bears, but civilization is not individual - it would be useful to separate culture and race, which has the added benefit of not needing to rewrite each race for different settings
In fact the TOA Yuan-Ti aren't part of any of those civilizations, they're trying to kill everyone, the Yuan-Ti would be included in everyone, so they're just comic book villains (hence why they don't have any children, what would be the point? they want to kill everyone anyway)
I personally didn't get into D&D until the year 4E was announced, so my exposure to yuan-ti lore looked like this:
Dawn War Setting - The god Zehir was unable to create his own people, so the goddess Avandra taught him. After learning this knowledge, Zehir (god of serpents, poison, darkness, and assassination) killed the now-forgotten creator god of the humans and took control of a portion of humanity to transform into yuan-ti, who led an evil Zehir-worshiping theocratic empire called Zannad. This incarnation of the yuan-ti is a true race, and the best human Zehir cultists can hope for is to become a "tainted one" (similar to purebloods, but with more obvious serpentine features). Zehir also coveted control of dragonkind and attempted to get the dragon god Io killed by a powerful primordial, but Io was instead divided by the primordial's attack into Bahamut and Tiamat. At some point a daughter of Zehir's, Nusemnee, became a goddess of redemption for evil creatures; he responded by having assassins kill her with a poison made from his own blood. After Zannad's fall Zehir briefly allied with an evil goddess of winter to freeze the world in an ice age before said goddess was killed by the Raven Queen. Ever since Zehir has been hidden in his realm of Tytherion, the Endless Night, where the souls of his chosen keep time by inflicting victims with an agonizing poison that kills in a specific amount of time (in 5E terms, this might be the Midnight Tears poison). Zehir keeps the serpentine demon lord Merrshaulk prisoner in Tytherion, as well. The modern cults of Zehir are small; initiates are usually humans who have had thoughts of murdering someone and received dreams from Zehir in which they joyfully commit the act, encouraging the person to follow through with the murder. Afterwards these individuals are brought into secret cults that ritualistically murder a victim every month. Those cultists who show the most promise are allowed to become tainted ones and learn the secret plans of the yuan-ti. Other than Zehir, a small cult of yuan-ti instead worship Mual-Tar the Thunder Serpent, an imprisoned primordial.
Volo's Guide to Monsters - The yuan-ti were a human civilization that revered various serpent gods, chiefly Sseth, Dendar, and Merrshaulk. The serpent gods told the yuan-ti that they could become more like them if they enacted a ritual involving cannibalism, special intoxicants, and bathed in a pool full of the blood of human sacrifices and snakes. The yuan-ti did this on a mass scale, building an empire built on slavery and human sacrifice. Continued human sacrifice rituals were needed both to create new yuan-ti and to reward certain yuan-ti by raising them to a higher caste. Though the original yuan-ti were all humans who underwent ritual transformation, it is possible for yuan-ti to reproduce and bear new yuan-ti children (however, yuan-ti seek partners who will likely give them high caste children). However, the serpent gods eventually weakened in some way, allowing the enemies of the original yuan-ti empire to rise up against their oppressors. Now the yuan-ti operate largely in secret, their numbers too few to risk provoking those they wish to someday conquer. Purebloods are sent to infiltrate human civilization (a few even find they prefer it and don't wish to return to yuan-ti society). There is some religious conflict between the yuan-ti as different priests follow different serpent gods. Beyond the aforementioned three, other more minor serpent gods are sometimes identified and gain followers. The most ambitious yuan-ti desire to become serpent gods themselves.
Tomb of Annihilation - The adventure features a yuan-ti named Ras Nsi who worships Dendar the Night Serpent and longs to end the world. Human player characters are given the option to be transformed into yuan-ti purebloods here. As described in Volo's Guide to Monsters, this requires bathing in the blood of humans sacrificed by the yuan-ti; the same pool is also used for the ritual consumption of humans by yuan-ti that happens on a regular basis.
Tal'Dorei Setting Guide - The Betrayer God Zehir is the patron of darkness, poison, and assassination. His enemies include Melora, Erathis, Lolth, and Torog. His yuan-ti once controlled southern Tal'Dorei in a mighty empire during the Age of Arcanum, but once the Calamity began the most deserving yuan-ti were put into stasis in hidden underground vaults. There is no known yuan-ti activity in modern Tal'Dorei, though one of the vaults of sleeping pre-Calamity yuan-ti has been found. It is protected by yuan-ti ghosts.
Explorer's Guide to Wildemount - Scattered yuan-ti civilizations exist in Wildemount. The city of Sariss, situated on an island just off a peninsula called the Tooth of Zehir, is populated by winged yuan-ti. The Temple of the False Serpent on the island of Urukayxl is controlled by Zehir-worshiping yuan-ti who conquered the temple from the worshipers of Uk'otoa, a rebellious creation of Zehir who once ruled the Menagerie Coast but is now imprisoned beneath the sea floor. A small, secretive sect of Melora worshiping yuan-ti hides in the toxic Lushgut Forest. The area was the site of a battle between Melora and Zehir during the Calamity and hides a sunken temple of Zehir. The Melorite yuan-ti believe it is their duty to watch and wait for a Zehir-aligned threat to emerge from the temple, but at the same time they suffer a life-shortening curse inflicted upon them by whatever evil force is within the temple.
TL;DR, I've chiefly seen the yuan-ti depicted as the followers of either Zehir or the very similar Dendar. Zehir is a cruel god who encourages murder for its own sake, killed his daughter when she became a goddess of redemption, and curses those yuan-ti who don't follow him. The yuan-ti are presented over and over as having been the former rulers of once great empires. Volo's Guide to Monsters adjusts the yuan-ti so that they are less like how orcs and drow have been depicted (as driven to evil by the supernatural will of their creator gods) and more along the lines of willing cultists (who are analagous to Infernal cambions in a way) and their children (who are analagous to tieflings). This allows the possibility that the reason PCs mostly encounter evil yuan-ti is because these yuan-ti were all born human, became Zehir cultists, voluntarily underwent evil rituals to assume the form Zehir intends for them, and went off to go find and claim the old yuan-ti empires for the glory of Zehir. It could even be the case that there are naturally born yuan-ti purebloods living in these ruins who don't worship Zehir as their ancestors did who end up getting into conflict with the ritually-created yuan-ti invaders Zehir has sent to wipe them out as punishment. In Tal'Dorei's case you could also use the survivors of the old yuan-ti empire as enemies, seeing as they are literally the ones Zehir chose among all the yuan-ti to be spared, possibly through a combination of devotion and empowerment to abomination status through repeated human sacrificial rituals.
Yep that's a face value, in TOA the big thing is that Ras-Nsi's motivations are much more complicated than that
In my tal'dorei Yuan-Ti, I have the top caste, the abominations, as being literally immortal - these are the same abominations that worked directly for Zehir. They were born human, and gave away their humanity for power. Yuan-ti are born in, and indoctrinated to, this way of life. They have mandatory state education for all hatchlings. Live-birth yuan-ti need to prove themselves as capable by a young age or they will be used as components for the ritual chamber by law. Their civilization has really bad laws and a bad outlook, as one can expect when ruled by immortal tyrants who willingly cast aside empathy to be better at killing and ruling. That out of the way - people can and do flee this way of life.
The party has run into yuan-ti, who act more like vulcans, in Emon - Yuan-Ti purebloods who, being Yuan-Ti, and being young, had no problem abandoning "How they were supposed to act".
A people completely unbothered about anything they do, this can lead to great evil, but it doesn't have to, it can also lead to a level of introspection towards toxic ideology that few humans are capable. Despite that, the older yuan-ti are living proof that "cold logic" is not all there is. They happily twist their logic into circles like an alt-right youtuber to throw "facts dont care about your feelings" at people, and respond with violence to "but what about these contradictory facts..."... indicating that maybe the younger "less superior" yuan-ti purebloods might actually be closer to the ideal that they originally strived for than they are
I treat all "conversions" this way. Someone who willingly changes into another type of creature can be made evil by the conversion (the yuan-ti rulers for example), but when a soul is born into a body, yuan-ti, werewolf, doesn't matter, it is born with equal capacity for good and evil
Edit: Same for born devils, I've got a somewhat more complicated structure around the hells, but any devil capable of reproduction (as opposed to an evil soul converted to devil, which is most of them by far), their child will have inherent proclivity for wickedness true, as they will feel a pull to every sinful thought every sentient creature around them has, but they don't start out evil - which is the reason why the hells so zealously protect the offspring of a succubus or incubus, it's important for such powerful minions to be raised with proper hellish values
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Tynnanseldom correct, never unsureRegistered Userregular
edited June 2020
In tonight's game of Tomb of Annihilation Fun Adventures in Chult, my players will finish up the prison break they started last session and meet some fellow prisoners they'll set free. They'll learn that many of these prisoners are Chultans abducted from Port Nyanzaru (by the city guards, natch), and that prior to their abductions they had been trying to organize for better working conditions.
Well I haven't taken anyone's advice or done any prepwork for tomorrow's one-shot at all. I'll just have em be on a very large airship and once they figure out who the murderer is, a fight will occur and the thing will catch fire and they'll have to all grab emergency hang gliders or use spells or something to survive bailing off the ship. Or maybe the villain will summon a large flying creature that rips the airship in half, something cool like that.
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valhalla13013 Dark Shield Perceives the GodsRegistered Userregular
Magical made or born negative energy whatevers that are destructive hateful p-zombies, can fill that 'what if' while being way far away from "Your weird looking tribal neighbors are inherently evil" I think?
Okay... but weren't orcs originally a magically created race made by a god to be evil monsters?
This is the part about this argument I can't seem to understand.
Magical made or born negative energy whatevers that are destructive hateful p-zombies, can fill that 'what if' while being way far away from "Your weird looking tribal neighbors are inherently evil" I think?
Okay... but weren't orcs originally a magically created race made by a god to be evil monsters?
This is the part about this argument I can't seem to understand.
In LotR they were basically this, specifically created/turned evil. In D&D? I think they eventually got a creation myth as servents of Gruumsh, but by that point very many races had some sort of creation myth and/or progenitor god, so it kind of falls flat for me. Orcs can be militaristic, and even prefer a form of civilization that's less modern/euro-centric, but why do they need to be inherently evil?
valhalla13013 Dark Shield Perceives the GodsRegistered Userregular
i just had a thought.
In Star Wars, the Tusken Raiders (Sand People) are generally thought of as raiders and scavengers by the races that live in cities.
In A New Hope, some raiders attack Luke and they are considered bad.
In Attack of the Clones, Anakin slaughters an entire village of Tusken, and it is generally acknowledged he was the bad guy in that scenario.
So orcs can be bad, or Yuan-ti can, but they don't need to be portrayed as universally bad.
Thing is, I've always felt that way. When I first DM'ed, I had the players encounter a group of orcs fleeing their homes being torched by troglodytes. When the orcs crossed the road the players were on, they immediately leapt to the attack without looking to see what the orcs were like. I guess I always had the idea that different races could be multifaceted, but never really thought it out till now.
In Star Wars, the Tusken Raiders (Sand People) are generally thought of as raiders and scavengers by the races that live in cities.
In A New Hope, some raiders attack Luke and they are considered bad.
In Attack of the Clones, Anakin slaughters an entire village of Tusken, and it is generally acknowledged he was the bad guy in that scenario.
So orcs can be bad, or Yuan-ti can, but they don't need to be portrayed as universally bad.
Thing is, I've always felt that way. When I first DM'ed, I had the players encounter a group of orcs fleeing their homes being torched by troglodytes. When the orcs crossed the road the players were on, they immediately leapt to the attack without looking to see what the orcs were like. I guess I always had the idea that different races could be multifaceted, but never really thought it out till now.
I suspect the reason that part falls flat for a lot of people is because you could easily believe that Tusken Raiders are an old-school zero-nuance 'always chaotic evil' race.
We literally never see them or hear them discussed in any context violent murdering kidnappers, no one ever says why they're dicks or anything.
They're just weird (possible a nasty racist caricature) humanoids who will murder any other living being given any chance to whatsoever, and kidnap and torture you to death over the course of months if they can manage it, apparently.
Honestly even with the movie framing it could be interpreted as 'it's bad that Anakin killed in anger' rather than 'it's bad that Anakin went all genocidal'.
God, everything to do with Anakin in all three of those movies is awful.
Magical made or born negative energy whatevers that are destructive hateful p-zombies, can fill that 'what if' while being way far away from "Your weird looking tribal neighbors are inherently evil" I think?
Okay... but weren't orcs originally a magically created race made by a god to be evil monsters?
This is the part about this argument I can't seem to understand.
In LotR they were basically this, specifically created/turned evil. In D&D? I think they eventually got a creation myth as servents of Gruumsh, but by that point very many races had some sort of creation myth and/or progenitor god, so it kind of falls flat for me. Orcs can be militaristic, and even prefer a form of civilization that's less modern/euro-centric, but why do they need to be inherently evil?
Basically orcs are klingons.
Orcs in D&D were created to kill and die so that they can provide an afterlife army for Gruumsh in his war against Maglubyiet
in the lore, with many arrows, orcs don't have to do this, it takes some serious ... American Style CIA action... by the drow to get them to go to war
It's interesting this discussion and changes are taking off as I just listened to an audiobook chapter where Drizzt was basically like "Mielikki tells me that all orcs and goblins are evil, that should I happen upon a goblin infant that I should dash it against the rocks. This has not filled me with righteousness towards that end, but has filled me with doubt towards my god. I can but follow my morality, and my morality tells me that that goblins, orcs, and even ogres are not inherently evil. If I find a nest of goblin children I will do my best to help them, not slay them. If I see a goblin being tortured in a human city I will stop it, with violence if necessary, and argue the morality of my actions with whatever magistrate I face. I know this is good, regardless of whatever biases my goddess might have towards the children of Gruumsh" (paraphrased)
The lore supports a more nuanced view of orc than the Monster Manual provides, and it's even hinting that the goodly gods own biases are just as responsible for the state of things re: orcs as anything the orcs are doing, as such, I'm glad they're making changes
I mean it's still problematic in the"there are some good ones" kind of way, but the fact that Many Arrows lived in peace for a hundred years and this cultural shift had even the clerics of Gruumsh not wanting any kind of war (trade led to a far better quality of life than orcs of the sword coast had ever known). I want a Silver Marches campaign that extends the lore further, that covers the new Kingdom of Many Arrows and the slowly repairing relations between them and the dwarfholds and human kingdoms
Crawford is inspiring a lot of confidence in me that they will be making a lot of great changes while still respecting the lore
In Star Wars, the Tusken Raiders (Sand People) are generally thought of as raiders and scavengers by the races that live in cities.
In A New Hope, some raiders attack Luke and they are considered bad.
In Attack of the Clones, Anakin slaughters an entire village of Tusken, and it is generally acknowledged he was the bad guy in that scenario.
So orcs can be bad, or Yuan-ti can, but they don't need to be portrayed as universally bad.
Thing is, I've always felt that way. When I first DM'ed, I had the players encounter a group of orcs fleeing their homes being torched by troglodytes. When the orcs crossed the road the players were on, they immediately leapt to the attack without looking to see what the orcs were like. I guess I always had the idea that different races could be multifaceted, but never really thought it out till now.
I suspect the reason that part falls flat for a lot of people is because you could easily believe that Tusken Raiders are an old-school zero-nuance 'always chaotic evil' race.
We literally never see them or hear them discussed in any context violent murdering kidnappers, no one ever says why they're dicks or anything.
They're just weird (possible a nasty racist caricature) humanoids who will murder any other living being given any chance to whatsoever, and kidnap and torture you to death over the course of months if they can manage it, apparently.
Honestly even with the movie framing it could be interpreted as 'it's bad that Anakin killed in anger' rather than 'it's bad that Anakin went all genocidal'.
God, everything to do with Anakin in all three of those movies is awful.
Tusken Raiders do just violently kill you, unless you aren't a colonist moving into territory that has been theirs for thousands of years, and treat them like an equal. The titular character respects them and is treated fairly by them in turn.
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One idea my partner and I bounced around last night was to flip the script and create a D&D setting primarily populated by a race that is far above "standard" races in their abilities -- make them impervious to bludgeoning damage (immune to falls), give them flight or spiderclimb, lots of free racial cantrips, etc. Then imagine the architecture of a city designed by that race. There's no stairs, no safety railings, some buildings are entered via the ceiling with no apparent way to get there (so you just...can't go to those places without significant effort), and so on. Building off the social model of disability, such a setting would recreate (in part) the circumstances leading to disability in our world, where player characters from standard PHB races are required to go to great effort and creativity just to engage in tasks as mundane as buying groceries.
Local authorities at the other end will just murder everyone and let $DEITY sort it out if things aren't solved, perhaps?
Leadership is a council, membership is from various parties
Coast Guard - Rescue, scavenging, internal military (policing, etceera - very much trained in deescalation, investigation, et). heredity leadership, by a a daughter of the orc (or her descednants) who founded it.
Explorer's Guild - External military, mappers, adventuring and darring do. Leadership is a big, fat jolly devil (Currently a statue, lives in the council chambers as a result). Members are basically fine with this, because it means they dont get stuck with desk jobs (the devil handles it all with aplomb)
Comforter's Guild - Sex workers, adult entertainers, etc . Elected leadership from membership. Comfort's district is a bit more of a party district, and intentionally has noise baffling spells installed between it and the rest of the city. (Still thinking about this one, but i think pretending there's no sex workers is foolish. Making them a major power and player in the city's politics is good & interesting, and a good way to confront some gross attitudes in society towards this sort of thing, i think? Need to do my research)
Steaders - Run the homesteads and similar that dot the island Serenity's built on, and some of the closer isles. Somewhere between psychologists, mental health etc, and farmer's guild etc, so they're a bit werid and ecletic. Elected leadership as well?
Historians - Researchers, similar. Not sure how they'd sort out leadership.
What would be other good powers to have represnted on serenity's ruling council?
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Rival adventures seems really someone few do as to have them equal to a party's level or skill but with a bone to pick with them or a person in the group
Murder mysteries lose their appeal the moment detect thoughts or zone of truth come into play.
I did a bit of research just now and think I see where he's coming from.
The module that introduced the yuan-ti (and the aboleth, too), Dwellers of the Forbidden City, featured an "oriental-style city" (as Wikipedia puts it). My understanding of "Yellow Peril" is that it's a racist paranoia that the East will conquer the world through subterfuge and strange powers. The yuan-ti want to conquer the world, particularly through subterfuge, have a Chinese-sounding name, and used to possess psionic powers before they were taken away in 4E and stayed absent in 5E.
That said, the identity of the yuan-ti seems to have drifted a lot since their original appearance in Dwellers of the Forbidden City, seemingly due to how they were portrayed in Forgotten Realms materials (which, according to FR Wiki at least, establishes that the race's true name is vrael olo, so if WotC wanted to they could just switch to that name). Their culture in general seems primarily inspired by the Aztecs now, with lots of ziggurats and human sacrifice and such, but yuan-ti can be made from ritually-altered humans of any ethnicity.
Basically, all this boils down to we can't have any race that's all considered one alignment. Or based on any real world culture.
That isn't a bad thing. I'm just not creative enough to not base things off things in the real world.
But I also get that it's an idea fraught with problems to present any intelligent society that way.
I suppose the best way to try to thread that needle is to push the enemy as far away from mundanity as possible?
Magical made or born negative energy whatevers that are destructive hateful p-zombies, can fill that 'what if' while being way far away from "Your weird looking tribal neighbors are inherently evil" I think?
I'm using more or less that idea as part of the setting of the books I'm working on, where often gods or demons or the like are p-zombies born from the collective unconscious interacting with the omnipresent background magic.
I mean, there's nothing wrong with basing things off the real world, not by itself. Where it gets issueful... how to put.
Appropriation is a word that's popularly thrown around. But i think the better thing is be respectful. Which means don't put shitty jokes like the Consulate Dreadnaught (7/11 is a shitty joke) in your Indian continent inspired set. Or to steal a concept from humor - punch up with your jokes, don't punch down. Dont reduce things to a monoculture, or exotic for the sake of exotic. Celebrate stuff, raise it up - show why these cultures were awesome, fascinating, and complicated!
Like,a good example of being respectful - Disney's Moana. It synthesizes a bunch of related but distinct cultures together. Some particularly good examples of where they listened to people from these cultures were stuff like giving Maui a full head of hair rather than being bald (Hair is associated with Mana and power in these cultures), and not having Moana throw away food in a rage( as such thing would be hugely offensive/wasteful). I'm not going to claim it's perfect, because i'm Pakeha, not Maori or Polynesian - so my cultural perspective on it is only so good. But if there's one thing you can say about Moana - it shows how awesome the Polynesian cultures were.
Like, i don't feel that reducing the romans to a villianous faction is that bad, because of the punch down principle, and because there is plenty wrong and evil about how the romans were, and my intent is to highlight those parts and the issues with those parts.
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There aren't any Aztecs, and the Yuan-Ti aren't getting colonized any time soon, and while part of their society draws inspiration from various human civilization, they are literally snakes, and the ones that aren't snakes want to be snakes. I feel like if the Yuan-Ti are a step too far, then D&D is so badly problematic at its core that the entire thing needs to be discarded.
There is the wrinkle that someone could be born a yuan-ti if they are descended from someone who underwent the evil ritual to become a yuan-ti (similar to how tieflings inherit an Infernal heritage from devil ancestors or parents who made pacts with devils). I personally would like to interpret things so that a human who becomes a yuan-ti through a human sacrifice ritual has their mind twisted by the process, but someone born yuan-ti that hasn't underwent a ritual to try and become a higher caste yuan-ti than what they were born as could be good (although they'd probably need to escape as soon as possible).
There are a few ways to fix this; modifying the coding for the adventurers society, making the coding explicit and paying attention to the implications, using multiple codings for each race so that no particular race has an identifiable coding, adding specific identifyable villains within any particular society rather than the society as a whole.
There is no "state of war" between the Yuan-Ti and the rest of the world. No Yuan-Ti diplomats. They're a culture represented as a monster. Rather than a monster existing within a culture. Unless its made clear that you're the colonizer and this is not OK there is an issue.
As an example of where this is done pretty well might be Warhammer Fantasy. You've got French Humans(Bretonia), Nordic Humans(Norsca/Chaos), Holy Roman Humans(Empire), United States (Dark Elves), Eastern Europeans (Vampire Counts), Egyptian (Tomb Kings), Aztec's (Lizardmen)... plus capitalists(Skaven), soccer hooligans(orcs*), dwarves(dwarves), hippies, beastmen, Mythical humans (Elfs), and pirates. (there are also spanish humans, italian humans, chinese, japanese, arab humans, and british humans?).
But we would notice that the Aztec's are good. The United States is unambiguously evil. The Eastern Europeans are subjugated by a ruling elite that literally drink their blood. The French exploit the peasants just as much as the vampires. The Empire is a religious dictatorship that punishes dissent heartily... No one really gets off light and every society has twists to ensure that the culture is not being represented as a monster.... with the US being the exception and well.... no arguments there. There is also no default western european frame and certainly no unstated one. So even though it mines cultures for style and short hand you rarely feel like its denigrating those.
*could also be Huns? That would be a bit of an issue. The setting isn't perfect in its construction.
edit: DnD's move away from evil races is in the right direction is more or less my argument
But the nihilistic snakes are the thing we're getting hung up on?
The Yuan-Ti are also not a monoculture, not of one religion, and there are yuan-ti diplomats, just not the Yuan-Ti of central Chult. These guys want to literally put out the sun and end all life. They are religious extremists - but Tomb of Annihilation would be a got-danged 1000 pages long if we had all of the lore ever written about the Yuan-Ti - who are presented as neither Aztec or Asian in Tomb, their leader is a white guy with a fire sword, and are presented with a diverse array of skin colors
- That said, almost all of the Yuan-Ti would probably be considered "Bad" to us, because their rulers are snakes that consider themselves vastly superior to humans, who they tend to see as a dangerous, slow witted race with incomprehensible motivations. There ARE kingdoms that are at peace with humans though
There can be a nation or cultural group of Yuan-Ti that are imperialist xenophobes who sacrifice other humanoids all the time or a tribe of orcs that's just bugfuck crazy raiders, but it's weird if they're all part of that culture and all on board with it, and that a Yuan-Ti or orc that isn't evil ends up being a novelty rather than the norm.
Basically if you're making an intelligent race where you think a lawful good character could justify murdering its children, maybe don't do that. Doubly so if it in any way resembles any group from reality.
...as for the Moana thing, I have no clue about what it looked like behind the scenes, but if it had people from those cultures involved and critiquing and suggesting in the production, I feel like that's the appropriate way to work on such a thing?
If the idea's just that there's no way to write people or cultures that aren't like your own without it being problematic, I'm not sure how that even works.
If Moana specifically fucked up in sketchy ways, that's its own thing obviously.
What i was trying to say is: If you're going to tap into cultures - do your research! Try and get in touch with people from those cultures, or similar, and ask them for help, ask them if you've missed something that doesnt fit or would be offensive.
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Yuan-Ti aren't a monoculture
I feel like this kind of lore dump is completely unrealistic for a specific campaign about a specific group of human-turn-snake nihilists though
My bad, I'm not up on Yuan-Ti lore.
Honestly it just sounds like the problem is alignment being a fucky tool for looking at the world. Again. If you take racial alignments out of play except for really weird things like angels and demons, then the problems seem to go away if years of lore growth has more or less erased monucultures from DND.*
I honestly feel at this point that alignments say more about the person assigning them than the character receiving them, which basically makes them useless except as part of some sort of psych eval.
Is Batman Lawful Good, because he does good and follows a code even when it's inconvenient?
Neutral Good, because he values doing good, follows what rules he can, and ignores any that are in his way?
Chaotic Good, because he eschews the law in favor of doing what he thinks is right?
Lawful neutral, because he has his rules he follows but mostly acts in equal parts to help people and to satisfy his need to beat up 'bad guys'.
True neutral, because of his muddled conflicting desires and actions?
Lawful evil, because he follows strict rules but still engages in violence and torture for his own self-satisfaction?
Is the Punisher good, neutral or evil? Lawful Evil makes sense to me, because he has his rules of conduct but is otherwise a self-indulgent serial killer, but plenty of people have world views that would more likely think of him as someone who gets the job done no matter what, Chaotic Good or some sort of neutral.
edit: *barring any existing evil cultures born from racist stereotypes, since those are problematic even if they're being presented as just a small group
You're not even expected to kill the Yuan-Ti in Tomb, you can make peace with them in a few ways
If a DM is presenting the Yuan-Ti as a group you should hate so much that your lawful good paladins are murdering their children (this group doesn't have any, they are humans that turn themselves into snakes), that's on them, not anything WOTC is writing
Big spoilers about the Yuan-Ti in Tomb, this is definitely not an "orcs are all evil" situation, unless orcs are also presented as nazis with full understanding of what they are doing, and chose to be orcs:
He felt so upset that his obvious act of goodness went unrecognized as being that, (and, he was exiled for trying it), that he turned himself into a snake to take over a death cult
You can still diplomatically make peace with him
Your players can also turn into, or get turned into, Yuan-Ti
My intentions for the Wildemount campaign I'm planning were to syncreticize the Volo's Guide lore for the origins of the yuan-ti with details about their god in Wildemount, Zehir. I assumed that establishing the modern day yuan-ti as being primarily Zehir cultists who were born human but transformed themselves with evil rituals involving human sacrificing rituals would allow me to have my cake and eat it too. This would make yuan-ti mostly chaotic evil not because they were born inherently evil but because only chaotic evil humans undergo the rituals to become yuan-ti. Zehir cultists don't settle for spooky robes; they turn themselves into snake people through evil rituals.
Encountering a population of yuan-ti born as yuan-ti because their ancestors were Zehir cultists when they themselves are not would be a rare discovery. These yuan-ti could be any alignment because they were never human.
Doesn't this involve bathing in a pool of sacrificial human blood, though?
volo's guide to monsters mayhaps might need a revision on them
But then, I get wary at, like, requests to roll for stats instead of using SA or point buy, so maybe I'm the asshole.
Also, to follow up on your alignment thoguhts Kamar: When i do get to do alignment in my setting, if i do anything with it, all i'm going to mention is Law and Chaos, and those as distant, fundamental things that some beings align themselves to (and both sides are equally alien and weird - think like Michael Moorcock/FF14 Shadowbringers lore). Actually having Good/Evil as alignments is just... too reductive for my tastes. people are COMPLICATED as hell.
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Requests to roll stats is always iffy. Its not a good way to create characters.
That being said, maybe just ask what kind of campaigns people like/want/expect and then ask/discuss changes that facilitate that.
Like, I can see how that Consulate Dreadnaught could be problematic but it could work if the card were a cornerstone of many decks (I don't play MTG anymore, I have no idea) or just strong on its own.
You won't be able to sanitise media to such a point where someone who doesn't want to address their own biases will think about their stance on things. And cramming it down their throats won't help either (lord knows I've tried).
I'd start with the rule of three - there are three factions that all have links to the victim, either directly or via a possible suspect. So a secret society or cult that they were part of, a criminal gang they've ripped off in order to get passage on to this airship/train and a chance encounter that meant they found out something about someone else that would ruin them.
Two factions have one suspect each, one has a pair of suspects linked to them, and there are three clues for each faction to let you know if they did it or not. One circumstantial that indicates they were involved, one incriminating but not completely airtight and one that is damning or puts them in the clear, with each clue leading to the next clue in the sequence for or for another faction. These is why you have one faction being a pair, they can imcriminate or exhonourate other of the other factions and you don't also need everyone's clues to lead to another faction, some suggest a really obvious place to go next. Also following up on the pair's statements about where they each were is their incriminating clue because the stories don't match.
When you write this trail of clues, it's going to seem really, really simple and not a mystery. But D&D always takes longer than you think and every mystery is obvious when you're the one writing it.
You know how your PCs tend to play (do they split up or stay together) so the train/airship wants to be going fast enough that you'll expect them to get 7-8 of these 9 clues. Ideally the damning evidence and one exhonourating one, but at the time when they make the final accusation there should still be a little bit of lingering doubt. If things are going too slowly, have the other suspects start doing their own investigations (and offer to share their findings reluctantly, as the PCs could also be the murderers) and perhaps even have one suspect get murdered themselves as they have stumbled onto the plot before the PCs - leaving just one easy clue to work out who dunnit before going to the final scene.
The last bit of pacing will be the red herrings, you want another three witnesses who can be ruled out after one clue. One can be related to the victim (suggesting some involvement) but the others should probably be strangers who've only met on the train, though they should either have had some contact with the victim on the journey prior to his dead (preferrably a bad encounter, they were caught doing something suspecious and confronted resulting in a scuffle - but are just a theif). Their job is to spread suspecion to everything in the first round, point the PCs in the right direction and provide alibis for different parts of the night. They don't need to give false clues, just being on the train is enough to let the PCs start making connections that aren't real, but if things are going too fast they can always throw in a herring.
You also need two endings, one where they guess right and one where they guess wrong with their final accusation and both should have a bit of combat in it (either the "you'll never take me alive!" moment, or chasing down the real villain as they try to sabotage the train/ship to cover their tracks.)
I'm not that familiar with Eberron, but maybe something like this:
The PCs may actually have been sent to meet up with this contact, and have gotten onto the train and the next stop if you want the NPCs to have a reason to let the PCs investigate the case. The guy was dead when they got on the train, so the killer must be someone else.
Suspect 1 - Debt collector sent by the thief's guild
Circumstantial evidence: Petty thief noticed them watching the victim all night, and saw them pause by the cabin doorway as if looking at something. If examined there is an old symbol carved into the doorframe (It's not cult, it's thieves cant to say the window does not lock. The thief will reveal this if asked after it is revealed that he has the victim's gold).
Incriminating evidence: Room has a ledger with the victim's name in it next to a price in GP, crossed out. (When questioned, They reveal the victim had paid his debt with a stolen cult artefact- some jeweled icon. It is now missing)
Exhonourating evidence: Seen by Suspect 3 leaving the victim's room, whilst they were on look out. Suspect 3 is then spotted by the victim who then locks the door and hides in his room - Suspect 3 then runs to warn Suspect 2 in the engine room. (Suspect 3 will only reveal this if the revolutionaries are confronted, otherwise they claim to have both been together).
Suspect 2 & 3 - Revolutionaries from the Warforged Liberation Front. They are lovers, but whilst Suspect 2 is a true believer in the Cause, Suspect 3 is just following their heart and is starting to have doubts about what they have been asked to do.
Circumstantial evidence: They claim not to know each other at first, but provide alibis for one another in their cabin.
Incriminating evidence: A search of the cabin reveals revolutionary pamphlets and a schematic of the train/airship engine, and a search of the engine room reveals sabotage that prevent the vessel from stopping and unloading it's cargo at the next destination.
Exhonourating evidence: In the engine room at the time of the murder
Suspect 4 & the murderer! - Assasin sent by the cult, posing as low ranking member of staff - perhaps the cook
Circumstantial evidence: Newly added to the crew and clearly not trained for their job. Clothes don't fit well despite him being very well spoken. Says that they saw the victim entering several of the rooms over the course of the evening - specifically the other suspects. Also is sure he saw both Suspect 2 & 3 together but thinks they were coming from somewhere other than their room when the murder was discovered.
Incriminating evidence: Has notes and papers describing the victim, along with samples of their hand writing and a written key to the Theives Cant symbols. If challenged on this, claims that the victim was a thief and that they have been hired to track down and recover the goods.
Damning evidence: Spotted by the thief leaving the Debt collectors room holding something (stealing the Cult symbol or kills the debt collector for it if you want two murders). This happens mid-investigation.
Witness 1: Train conductor. With the noble at the time of the murder.
Clue 1: Saw the thief talking to the victim in the baggage compartment, the victim then left in a hurry before returning shortly after back to the baggage compartment looking very worried.
Clue 2: Knows the driver/pilot, but the other crewman is clearly very new at their job and got on at the last stop.
Witness 2: A petty thief disguised as a travelling merchant - met just coming around after feinting at the sight of the blood, being fanned by the cook.
Clue 1: He swapped cases with the victim, if his room/cabin is searched he will try to hide the case. If caught reveals that it was full of treasure
Clue 2: Saw Suspect 2 & 3 in a passionate embrace in an alley outside the station
Clue 3: Damning evidence
Witness 3: A noble who was in the same cabin/berth as the victim. With the conductor at the time of the murder.
Clue 1: Had a loud argument with the victim over them insisting on locking the doors and windows, and leaves the cabin.
Clue 2: Passes Suspect 2 leaving their cabin alone and going in the opposite direction once the journey is underway.
Clue 3: Is annoyed that the Victim seems to have added to the manifest at the last moment, and was placed in his room.
Airship observation deck/PC's train carriage - Debt collector's cabin - The Victim's cabin - The Lover's cabin - Kitchen - Engine room
Timeline:
So everyone boards
Thief and victim encounter each other and the thief switches bags
Victim heads back to their room, thief sees Debt collector follow the victim out and notice the theives mark. Thief goes to his cabin.
Victim goes back to his cabin and is heard arguing with the noble.
The noble leaves and passes Suspect 2 heading towards the back of the vessel
Victim returns to the luggage compartment, followed secretly by Suspect 3 who is worried Suspect 2 is being followed.
Victim can't find their bag of cash, starts searching Suspect 2 & 3's cabin
Debt collector confronts Victim on the way out and forces him into the Victor's room.
Debt collector returns to his cabin
Victim goes to check the coast is clear, sees Suspect 3 watching them and hides and locks the door.
Suspect 3 runs to warn Suspect 2 that they have been spotted
Killer opens the window in the Lover's cabin, climbs around to the Victim's cabin, and the murder takes place.
Killer unlocks the door and heads back to the kitch to cover any last tracks
Noble returns, screams when he sees the body - everyone leaves their cabins to see what is happening
Lovers return to their crowd next to their cabin
Investigation starts
It'll probably need tightening up depending on how your PCs behave and how long you have, and you can definitely pad things out with a few more conversations and irrelevant clues, the noble insisting on being moved to a new empty cabin/starting his own investigation (with the guard perhaps) etc.
No, it's the one that people haven't already examined and discussed in great detail, and to a large enough degree that WotC is revising some of ToA.
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So the worst of them could be portrayed as cannibalistic villains, but a good Yuan-Ti could also be a sage who feels an innate compulsion to consume all knowledge they can. You could have a Yuan-Ti noble who feels an urge, in their blood, to construct & maintain the most social connections possible.
That might be my idea.
But purebloods, the kind people can play as, are the only ones that aren't entirely alien, and even have children in live birth instead of laying eggs because they're close enough to their human origins. Purebloods don't have to be devoid of emotions and empathy - I'd emphasize that and drop the parts about "you have to be evil to be yuan-ti"
Sure keep their ancient and decedent civilizations "Evil" insofar as any civilization with a caste system that practices eugenics is probably bad news bears, but civilization is not individual - it would be useful to separate culture and race, which has the added benefit of not needing to rewrite each race for different settings
In fact the TOA Yuan-Ti aren't part of any of those civilizations, they're trying to kill everyone, the Yuan-Ti would be included in everyone, so they're just comic book villains (hence why they don't have any children, what would be the point? they want to kill everyone anyway)
Dawn War Setting - The god Zehir was unable to create his own people, so the goddess Avandra taught him. After learning this knowledge, Zehir (god of serpents, poison, darkness, and assassination) killed the now-forgotten creator god of the humans and took control of a portion of humanity to transform into yuan-ti, who led an evil Zehir-worshiping theocratic empire called Zannad. This incarnation of the yuan-ti is a true race, and the best human Zehir cultists can hope for is to become a "tainted one" (similar to purebloods, but with more obvious serpentine features). Zehir also coveted control of dragonkind and attempted to get the dragon god Io killed by a powerful primordial, but Io was instead divided by the primordial's attack into Bahamut and Tiamat. At some point a daughter of Zehir's, Nusemnee, became a goddess of redemption for evil creatures; he responded by having assassins kill her with a poison made from his own blood. After Zannad's fall Zehir briefly allied with an evil goddess of winter to freeze the world in an ice age before said goddess was killed by the Raven Queen. Ever since Zehir has been hidden in his realm of Tytherion, the Endless Night, where the souls of his chosen keep time by inflicting victims with an agonizing poison that kills in a specific amount of time (in 5E terms, this might be the Midnight Tears poison). Zehir keeps the serpentine demon lord Merrshaulk prisoner in Tytherion, as well. The modern cults of Zehir are small; initiates are usually humans who have had thoughts of murdering someone and received dreams from Zehir in which they joyfully commit the act, encouraging the person to follow through with the murder. Afterwards these individuals are brought into secret cults that ritualistically murder a victim every month. Those cultists who show the most promise are allowed to become tainted ones and learn the secret plans of the yuan-ti. Other than Zehir, a small cult of yuan-ti instead worship Mual-Tar the Thunder Serpent, an imprisoned primordial.
Volo's Guide to Monsters - The yuan-ti were a human civilization that revered various serpent gods, chiefly Sseth, Dendar, and Merrshaulk. The serpent gods told the yuan-ti that they could become more like them if they enacted a ritual involving cannibalism, special intoxicants, and bathed in a pool full of the blood of human sacrifices and snakes. The yuan-ti did this on a mass scale, building an empire built on slavery and human sacrifice. Continued human sacrifice rituals were needed both to create new yuan-ti and to reward certain yuan-ti by raising them to a higher caste. Though the original yuan-ti were all humans who underwent ritual transformation, it is possible for yuan-ti to reproduce and bear new yuan-ti children (however, yuan-ti seek partners who will likely give them high caste children). However, the serpent gods eventually weakened in some way, allowing the enemies of the original yuan-ti empire to rise up against their oppressors. Now the yuan-ti operate largely in secret, their numbers too few to risk provoking those they wish to someday conquer. Purebloods are sent to infiltrate human civilization (a few even find they prefer it and don't wish to return to yuan-ti society). There is some religious conflict between the yuan-ti as different priests follow different serpent gods. Beyond the aforementioned three, other more minor serpent gods are sometimes identified and gain followers. The most ambitious yuan-ti desire to become serpent gods themselves.
Tomb of Annihilation - The adventure features a yuan-ti named Ras Nsi who worships Dendar the Night Serpent and longs to end the world. Human player characters are given the option to be transformed into yuan-ti purebloods here. As described in Volo's Guide to Monsters, this requires bathing in the blood of humans sacrificed by the yuan-ti; the same pool is also used for the ritual consumption of humans by yuan-ti that happens on a regular basis.
Tal'Dorei Setting Guide - The Betrayer God Zehir is the patron of darkness, poison, and assassination. His enemies include Melora, Erathis, Lolth, and Torog. His yuan-ti once controlled southern Tal'Dorei in a mighty empire during the Age of Arcanum, but once the Calamity began the most deserving yuan-ti were put into stasis in hidden underground vaults. There is no known yuan-ti activity in modern Tal'Dorei, though one of the vaults of sleeping pre-Calamity yuan-ti has been found. It is protected by yuan-ti ghosts.
Explorer's Guide to Wildemount - Scattered yuan-ti civilizations exist in Wildemount. The city of Sariss, situated on an island just off a peninsula called the Tooth of Zehir, is populated by winged yuan-ti. The Temple of the False Serpent on the island of Urukayxl is controlled by Zehir-worshiping yuan-ti who conquered the temple from the worshipers of Uk'otoa, a rebellious creation of Zehir who once ruled the Menagerie Coast but is now imprisoned beneath the sea floor. A small, secretive sect of Melora worshiping yuan-ti hides in the toxic Lushgut Forest. The area was the site of a battle between Melora and Zehir during the Calamity and hides a sunken temple of Zehir. The Melorite yuan-ti believe it is their duty to watch and wait for a Zehir-aligned threat to emerge from the temple, but at the same time they suffer a life-shortening curse inflicted upon them by whatever evil force is within the temple.
TL;DR, I've chiefly seen the yuan-ti depicted as the followers of either Zehir or the very similar Dendar. Zehir is a cruel god who encourages murder for its own sake, killed his daughter when she became a goddess of redemption, and curses those yuan-ti who don't follow him. The yuan-ti are presented over and over as having been the former rulers of once great empires. Volo's Guide to Monsters adjusts the yuan-ti so that they are less like how orcs and drow have been depicted (as driven to evil by the supernatural will of their creator gods) and more along the lines of willing cultists (who are analagous to Infernal cambions in a way) and their children (who are analagous to tieflings). This allows the possibility that the reason PCs mostly encounter evil yuan-ti is because these yuan-ti were all born human, became Zehir cultists, voluntarily underwent evil rituals to assume the form Zehir intends for them, and went off to go find and claim the old yuan-ti empires for the glory of Zehir. It could even be the case that there are naturally born yuan-ti purebloods living in these ruins who don't worship Zehir as their ancestors did who end up getting into conflict with the ritually-created yuan-ti invaders Zehir has sent to wipe them out as punishment. In Tal'Dorei's case you could also use the survivors of the old yuan-ti empire as enemies, seeing as they are literally the ones Zehir chose among all the yuan-ti to be spared, possibly through a combination of devotion and empowerment to abomination status through repeated human sacrificial rituals.
In my tal'dorei Yuan-Ti, I have the top caste, the abominations, as being literally immortal - these are the same abominations that worked directly for Zehir. They were born human, and gave away their humanity for power. Yuan-ti are born in, and indoctrinated to, this way of life. They have mandatory state education for all hatchlings. Live-birth yuan-ti need to prove themselves as capable by a young age or they will be used as components for the ritual chamber by law. Their civilization has really bad laws and a bad outlook, as one can expect when ruled by immortal tyrants who willingly cast aside empathy to be better at killing and ruling. That out of the way - people can and do flee this way of life.
The party has run into yuan-ti, who act more like vulcans, in Emon - Yuan-Ti purebloods who, being Yuan-Ti, and being young, had no problem abandoning "How they were supposed to act".
A people completely unbothered about anything they do, this can lead to great evil, but it doesn't have to, it can also lead to a level of introspection towards toxic ideology that few humans are capable. Despite that, the older yuan-ti are living proof that "cold logic" is not all there is. They happily twist their logic into circles like an alt-right youtuber to throw "facts dont care about your feelings" at people, and respond with violence to "but what about these contradictory facts..."... indicating that maybe the younger "less superior" yuan-ti purebloods might actually be closer to the ideal that they originally strived for than they are
I treat all "conversions" this way. Someone who willingly changes into another type of creature can be made evil by the conversion (the yuan-ti rulers for example), but when a soul is born into a body, yuan-ti, werewolf, doesn't matter, it is born with equal capacity for good and evil
Edit: Same for born devils, I've got a somewhat more complicated structure around the hells, but any devil capable of reproduction (as opposed to an evil soul converted to devil, which is most of them by far), their child will have inherent proclivity for wickedness true, as they will feel a pull to every sinful thought every sentient creature around them has, but they don't start out evil - which is the reason why the hells so zealously protect the offspring of a succubus or incubus, it's important for such powerful minions to be raised with proper hellish values
Okay... but weren't orcs originally a magically created race made by a god to be evil monsters?
This is the part about this argument I can't seem to understand.
In LotR they were basically this, specifically created/turned evil. In D&D? I think they eventually got a creation myth as servents of Gruumsh, but by that point very many races had some sort of creation myth and/or progenitor god, so it kind of falls flat for me. Orcs can be militaristic, and even prefer a form of civilization that's less modern/euro-centric, but why do they need to be inherently evil?
Basically orcs are klingons.
In Star Wars, the Tusken Raiders (Sand People) are generally thought of as raiders and scavengers by the races that live in cities.
In A New Hope, some raiders attack Luke and they are considered bad.
In Attack of the Clones, Anakin slaughters an entire village of Tusken, and it is generally acknowledged he was the bad guy in that scenario.
So orcs can be bad, or Yuan-ti can, but they don't need to be portrayed as universally bad.
Thing is, I've always felt that way. When I first DM'ed, I had the players encounter a group of orcs fleeing their homes being torched by troglodytes. When the orcs crossed the road the players were on, they immediately leapt to the attack without looking to see what the orcs were like. I guess I always had the idea that different races could be multifaceted, but never really thought it out till now.
I suspect the reason that part falls flat for a lot of people is because you could easily believe that Tusken Raiders are an old-school zero-nuance 'always chaotic evil' race.
We literally never see them or hear them discussed in any context violent murdering kidnappers, no one ever says why they're dicks or anything.
They're just weird (possible a nasty racist caricature) humanoids who will murder any other living being given any chance to whatsoever, and kidnap and torture you to death over the course of months if they can manage it, apparently.
Honestly even with the movie framing it could be interpreted as 'it's bad that Anakin killed in anger' rather than 'it's bad that Anakin went all genocidal'.
God, everything to do with Anakin in all three of those movies is awful.
Orcs in D&D were created to kill and die so that they can provide an afterlife army for Gruumsh in his war against Maglubyiet
in the lore, with many arrows, orcs don't have to do this, it takes some serious ... American Style CIA action... by the drow to get them to go to war
It's interesting this discussion and changes are taking off as I just listened to an audiobook chapter where Drizzt was basically like "Mielikki tells me that all orcs and goblins are evil, that should I happen upon a goblin infant that I should dash it against the rocks. This has not filled me with righteousness towards that end, but has filled me with doubt towards my god. I can but follow my morality, and my morality tells me that that goblins, orcs, and even ogres are not inherently evil. If I find a nest of goblin children I will do my best to help them, not slay them. If I see a goblin being tortured in a human city I will stop it, with violence if necessary, and argue the morality of my actions with whatever magistrate I face. I know this is good, regardless of whatever biases my goddess might have towards the children of Gruumsh" (paraphrased)
The lore supports a more nuanced view of orc than the Monster Manual provides, and it's even hinting that the goodly gods own biases are just as responsible for the state of things re: orcs as anything the orcs are doing, as such, I'm glad they're making changes
I mean it's still problematic in the"there are some good ones" kind of way, but the fact that Many Arrows lived in peace for a hundred years and this cultural shift had even the clerics of Gruumsh not wanting any kind of war (trade led to a far better quality of life than orcs of the sword coast had ever known). I want a Silver Marches campaign that extends the lore further, that covers the new Kingdom of Many Arrows and the slowly repairing relations between them and the dwarfholds and human kingdoms
Crawford is inspiring a lot of confidence in me that they will be making a lot of great changes while still respecting the lore
Tusken Raiders do just violently kill you, unless you aren't a colonist moving into territory that has been theirs for thousands of years, and treat them like an equal. The titular character respects them and is treated fairly by them in turn.