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View Full Version : What Are Your "Orcs" (ie, Evil Minions of Choice) ?



Leliel
2011-12-08, 05:12 PM
Inspired by a thread on Steve Jackson Games...

What is the generic "race" (so said because it can include things like robots, mutants, easily-summoned outsiders...) that is your "evil, seemingly-endless mook army" of choice? Are they actually completely evil and/or completely subordinate to the BBEG, and if so, why? If they aren't evil, why are you supportive of the PCs killing them left and right? If you homebrewed it, what's the basic overview?

Me, I like demons (of all sorts, not just the chaotic evil jerks that live in the D&D Abyss). Besides the fact that they're, well, demons, and thus dodge any moral questions (other than exactly why they deserve the term), they're literally endless-so long as the Big Baddie has access to the resources required, he can keep calling more reinforcements and troops.

For my personal homebrew, I like a version of GURPS Cabal Qlippoth-leftovers from the "first draft" of the universe, now imprisoned in their own Abyss (actually a deliberately-made tear in reality-the Abyss itself isn't a bad thing, and in fact most rituals to reseal Qlippoth use it's power to draw them back inside). They're varied, they're horrifying, and yet, they're oddly understandable-the world they lived in is gone forever now, and their main motivation is to bring it back by rewiring reality to suit them. It also gives a semi-rational reason to work with them-they don't mind if someone asks them to make the world to their liking, they just want concessions to their paradigm first.

RandomNPC
2011-12-08, 05:42 PM
Oddly enough, Humans. They get a bonus feat in D&D and they're common enough in most games nobody ever says "Where do all these humans come from?"

That being said, most of my games history mention a great group of heroes, that happened to have a human with them, whose alignment would best be described as heroic awesome, so it does go both ways.

nyarlathotep
2011-12-08, 05:48 PM
For me the evil dudes are usually some sort of condition rather than a race. They are normal races that had something happen to them like derros are gnomes and dwarves with their soul removed. Outercity dwellers are a demiplane's attempt to mimic normal races; each dweller has a normal human counterpart that it believes is the key to becoming "real". Wights are what happens to people exposed to the hideous green light of the dead planet Atropus, they desire to make all other like themselves.

Volos
2011-12-08, 06:45 PM
For endless hordes I like the Kython, and for minions I usually go with demons or at the very least tieflings. I guess I like evil things that come from another plane to mess up the PC's world.

Morty
2011-12-08, 06:46 PM
I don't use such enemies, so I don't need to devote a species or category of beings for this purpose.

Rorrik
2011-12-08, 06:53 PM
While they were hardly fodder, I invented a race for one campaign I called the Taelvaren. They were a twilight race from another plane that had tried to invade our world before finding they lost much of their power outside their twilit plane. The abandoned first wave was vengeful and desperate and used a homebrew special magic of their own as well as superb twilight weapons to wreak havoc on the world.

I seem to often develop some homebrew beastie to be my Evil minion group.

PhallicWarrior
2011-12-08, 06:55 PM
I have a very Burlew-esque tendency to make the traditional "monster" races much more sympathetic and fleshed out than usual, and make it clear that -for instance- Orcs you fight in a warband that rapes and pillages across innocent lands are exactly the same slice of the population as a bunch of humans who do that.

As a result of this tendency, players familiar with my campaign setting and general style feel guilty if they -for instance- obliterate an entire Orc encampment. So I tend to favor constructs, undead, aberrations, and other guilt-free baddies.

Hiro Protagonest
2011-12-08, 07:08 PM
I have a very Burlew-esque tendency to make the traditional "monster" races much more sympathetic and fleshed out than usual, and make it clear that -for instance- Orcs you fight in a warband that rapes and pillages across innocent lands are exactly the same slice of the population as a bunch of humans who do that.

Yeah, I hate that in a world with different races where if [someone]'s family gets murdered by someone of their race, they swear revenge on that person, but if they're of a different race, they swear revenge on the entire damn race.

Yora
2011-12-08, 07:16 PM
I've decided to not have one. When you want to build an evil army, humans, elves, shifters, goliaths, and lizardfolk are your first call, as well as some ogres and giants.
But except for the last two, those are the very same people you'd ask for help to oppose the evil army.

Con_Brio1993
2011-12-08, 07:47 PM
Yeah, I hate that in a world with different races where if [someone]'s family gets murdered by someone of their race, they swear revenge on that person, but if they're of a different race, they swear revenge on the entire damn race.

This happens to a certain extent in real life. I'm not shocked by DND racism.

Pokonic
2011-12-08, 08:25 PM
Trolls. They come in a varity, have a flexible regeneration ability, and have a nifty template that I could, say, slap on a Stone giant and make a poweful leader for a band of rocky trolls that are weak to sonic and acid.

Also, because there is some canon to suggest they live for a long time, I could have a Troll attack the party that was part of some elder warband two hundered years ago, and now he he has a entire family to back him up. Halftroll ogres? Shock troops. Halftroll Elves? Creatures that lurk in the forested parts of the world and are weak to fire and necrotic. Halftroll Gnolls? Think Fallout Deathclaws, if they could forge weapons.

Hiro Protagonest
2011-12-08, 08:48 PM
This happens to a certain extent in real life. I'm not shocked by DND racism.

Yeah, I thought it might. I still don't get the logic at all. It's like if you're a human, and your family gets murdered by a human wearing a red shirt, so now you try to kill everybody you see wearing a red shirt.

Belkar put it nicely in the second panel. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0013.html)

theMycon
2011-12-08, 09:19 PM
Yeah, I thought it might. I still don't get the logic at all. It's like if you're a human, and your family gets murdered by a human wearing a red shirt, so now you try to kill everybody you see wearing a red shirt.


Not precisely the same, but if you saw someone with a red shirt with a blonde a crew cut murder your family in front of you, you'd definitely be jumpy the next hundred or so times you saw someone with a red shirt with a blond crewcut.

Add in how most heroes in DnD are rich murderous hobos anyway; and it's just "a bit of an over-reaction"

hydroplatypus
2011-12-08, 09:21 PM
In my (relatively short lived[stupid scheduling issues]) campaigns I usually use whatever seems appropriate. Given the campaign world I use (homebrew) this generally falls into 3 main types. Type 1: humans. Basically as the area that I run my campaigns in is ruled by human city-states, who are constantly killing each other, humans (theoretically [curse you scheduling]) end up opposing the PCs alot. If the bad guy isn't working with a city state, then he generally hires a few mercenary bands to help (decent level too, constant warfare breeds good soldiers [at least the ones not dead]).

Type 2: Monsterous humanoids. I generaly play that they are not evil per say, however given that the monsterous humanoids constantly get the short end of the stick from the humans they are pretty pissed. If I am using this there is a good chance they are just pissed off enough to rebel, or help the BBEG out of spite.

Type 3: city-appropriate mooks:
one city officially uses necromancy to reinforce it's armies, so undead are common around that area
one city is ruled by mages, so golems might be purchased by an influential BBEG (higher level campaigns of course)
wild animals: one city is allied with druids, and as such wild animals will attack the players if they piss them off.
half-dragon etc. stuff: one city is ruled by a dragon, and as such lots of half dragons, young dragons, sorcerors and such will appear if that dragon is pissed off.

Morithias
2011-12-08, 09:24 PM
Changlings. I use changlings a ton. They're sly, they're slick and they can be anything.

This changling has already breached your defenses. You've seen what she's done to your men! And the worst part, she could be any one of you!

I also like adding on the dark template for hide in plain sight at nighttime. Or when you're in a dungeon and there's no light.

Conners
2011-12-08, 09:28 PM
Eh. Not sure I'd devote a whole species to just being mooks. Certainly, a lot of species CAN act as mooks. Humans, goblins, demons, orcs, undead... Just a matter of circumstances.

Diskhotep
2011-12-08, 09:30 PM
Trolls. They come in a varity, have a flexible regeneration ability, and have a nifty template that I could, say, slap on a Stone giant and make a poweful leader for a band of rocky trolls that are weak to sonic and acid.

Plus when you kill one you can cut a strip off, scorch all but one end, and dine forever on your neverending stick of troll jerky...

Shyftir
2011-12-08, 09:32 PM
Robot Ninjas. Fullstop.

Pokonic
2011-12-08, 09:38 PM
Plus when you kill one you can cut a strip off, scorch all but one end, and dine forever on your neverending stick of troll jerky...

Fun fact: there was one time where are (now defunct) DM overrided a Trolls regenerative abilitys: We were fighting in a mine, and a player pushed the troll overseeing the operation into a rock crusher. Head first. The resulting pulp than landed squarely into the varying oozes in the area below (placed there to dissolve the rock but leave behined the pretty gems).

The DM decided that, because the whole body was killed in that "attack", nothing could regenerate.:smallcool:

Dr.Epic
2011-12-08, 09:41 PM
Giant Spiders

Because why not.

GenericGuy
2011-12-08, 10:00 PM
I’m not a fan of always chaotic evil sapient races; so I homebrewed a mook “race,” the Sah’El, for my personal setting.

They are insect like creatures that come in all humanoid sizes, but they’re not a race with a culture, history, emotion, etc. They’re the decayed remains of the “dead” Elven god that humans “killed,” in order to suck the magic out of it and give humans the ability to use magic. They’re totally mindless killing machines, which are a curse on the world as punishment for the great sin of “killing” a god.

Kane0
2011-12-08, 11:20 PM
Just by reading this I am tempted to make a homebrew race literally called Mooks ...

Make em reasonably flexible and make them follow any capable leader and there you go, everybody uses the same resource equally, no racism!
Actually there could be a plot hook or two in that...

He who controls the mooks, controls the universe.

Dr.Epic
2011-12-08, 11:39 PM
Do gnomes count if I make them all insane and make them think lesser of all other races?

Oracle_Hunter
2011-12-09, 12:00 AM
Oddly enough, gnolls.

I say oddly because I didn't intend for them to work that way, but I'll be damned if my last two homebrew worlds didn't include hordes of gnolls rampaging all over the place. Orcs are overdone (and Half-Orcs as PC races mandate that Orcs be more than mooks) and Gnolls have a lot going for them:

- Demon-friendly
- Fight in packs
- Terrifying visage
- Pure savages

Plus, unlike greenskins they don't have a host of sub-species (just Flinds) that make building their relationship to the world complicated.

So yeah, gnolls.

osyluth
2011-12-09, 12:17 AM
The lower orders of evil outsiders work well.

Dimers
2011-12-09, 12:25 AM
Do gnomes count if I make them all insane and make them think lesser of all other races?

You mean that's not the standard gnome fluff? Funny, I seem to run into it a lot.


What is the generic "race" that is your evil, seemingly-endless mook army of choice? Are they actually completely evil and/or completely subordinate to the BBEG, and if so, why? If they aren't evil, why are you supportive of the PCs killing them left and right? If you homebrewed it, what's the basic overview?

I've got giant bugs and bugmen, lots of varieties of each. They're unthinking, fearless in attack, aggressive in defense of what they've claimed, easy to direct for demons used to hiveminds but hard for PCs to dominate. Different bugs' special abilities can lead to a hundred weird situations and real-world insects provide plenty of inspiration for those. They reproduce like mad, so running out is never a concern. They're simple to characterize while still being totally different from sentients. And they're not very morally relative, lacking any of the ethereal qualities that players consider important.

They don't make a great "army" in the sense of being organized under the control of one or a few leaders, though. Individual colonies are, but not an entire species. Evil and adversary-ness in my gameworld is distributed, not held by one overarching BBEG.

Edited to add: Oh, and "skeletal" (exoskeletal) bugs are good too.

Starscream
2011-12-09, 12:26 AM
I don't have a go-to race for this, but in one campaign I used Formians.

Had one of the gears that makes up Mechanus get damaged in a cosmic battle. This caused all the Law in the universe to go a little bit out of whack. The party, who were a gang of thieves and definitely not lawful, had to fix this. Most people were not noticeably affected, but those who particularly exemplified the concept of Law (devils, paladins, inevitables, law officers, etc) started to go nuts in varied and interesting ways.

This included the formians, who turned lawful evil and started basically colonizing everywhere in an attempt to bring order to the cosmos. They worked well as mooks because they came in several varieties, could have classes to make them more varied, and their Hive Mind meant that they had an actual, in character justification for needlessly sacrificing themselves; very little individuality to begin with.

Goblins may not be the smartest creatures in the world, but after seeing 50 of their friends slaughtered, you kind of have to wonder why goblin 51 isn't accelerating over the horizon. No such issue with formians.

Also, who the heck sympathizes with giant killer ants?

Dienekes
2011-12-09, 12:37 AM
I try to play games that are a bit more morally ambiguous than that. But oddly enough the closest to a race like that I've made have been elves, in one of my earlier campaigns. Mostly because I find the ancient, arrogant race of hippy/vegetarians, who loathe violence, but could ultimately kick your arse, and are always right incredibly dull. So in my mind, the Elves are the old kingdom whose territory and power is constantly being usurped by the humans. Like Tolkien's and every other cliched world says their time is passed and the age of men is about to begin. And they are frankly pissed off about that. Now in the campaign in question they weren't all evil, but they did start a war with the humans, who the heroes sided with. So they ended up being the army of mooks.

Yukitsu
2011-12-09, 01:21 AM
In my setting, everything is clearly segregated into political sides, which were taken as a hold over from the old cosmology (which still exists). They fey in general oppose the divine (in this one, arcane and divine magic) which is represented on earth by the wars between the dwarves, the orcs and the elves. Humans being solidly based on the world as it was fight off everything around them, as they are caught in the center. The dwarves who were created as celestial wardens fight the orcs, who are created by the devils as a servitor species, and the winter and summer fey fight, which in turn causes wars between the grey and wild elves. There are sub factions between each faction that will draw up alliances in a less binary fashion, but for the most part, who your designated bad guy is, depends highly on who you are playing as.

The big mixer is the humans, who being caught in the middle can create temporary alliances between races, bring them all together to fight the big bad races or evil overlords of what have you.

Not all fights lead to wars. For example, the grey elves and the true dwarves (those who guard the mountain gates to celestia) quarrel politically more often than physically, while the mountain dwarves and the grey elves are more inclined to compete economically (the mithral, silver, iron, lead, tin mines being elven, the adamantium, gem, gold, copper, salt, sulfur mines being dwarven)

Grac
2011-12-09, 03:13 AM
I have a fondness for creating worlds with few races. Usually the only intelligent races are Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Hobgoblins (when I fist saw the hobgoblin pic in the Monster Manual they became my favourite monster race) usually corresponding to a cultural equivalent of renaissance Northern Italy, for humans, China/east Asia for elves, Bismarkian Germany for dwarves, and a hyper militant Roman Republic for Hobgoblins. Usually this results in the Humans being squashed between the Dwarves and Hobgoblins while the elves sit on the other side of the world.

The Mormegil
2011-12-09, 04:47 AM
Anything the BBEG can "engineer" into existance. Generally black small humanoid things that have no other purpose than die.

Doorhandle
2011-12-09, 05:16 AM
Haven't really D.Med much, but if/when I do I will probably make the giants/ogres/trolls the minions.

They're huge, they're hungry, they care little for small folk, they come in many varieties in order to keep player interest, and pathfinder has set a precedent for ogres as deranged super-evil hillbillies times 10, so in their case, no one will give two ****s, most ogres included, if we slaughter them. Also, the existence of them and the frequency of other elephant-sized critters in the game makes me wounder how the hell the planet Hasn't eaten itself out of house and home.

Outsiders are also an option, due to the fact that they could easily swarm the planes with an unending horde of creatures with much higher C.R than 90% of all material critters of the same frequency if they weren't killing each other. More specifically, I like daemons, and can actually understand their motivation, so they will be the dominant creature type.

Swooper
2011-12-09, 05:29 AM
Just by reading this I am tempted to make a homebrew race literally called Mooks ...

Make em reasonably flexible and make them follow any capable leader and there you go, everybody uses the same resource equally, no racism!
Actually there could be a plot hook or two in that...

He who controls the mooks, controls the universe.
The mooks must flow.

Coidzor
2011-12-09, 05:51 AM
In the setting I've been working on, the closest thing I've got to "evil minions" are kobolds who haven't really encountered things that weren't kobolds or dragons before they had first contact with the main continent, and so some of the tribes are outright hostile and venerate Tiamat greatly so they're not exactly reserved about killing interlopers, taking their shinies, and making sacrifices.

The next closest thing are basically Jaegermonsters who are not entirely loyal to the (mostly) totalitarian, power-hungry group of wizards who created them, because they know that if they do successfully conquer the region that they are in, they'll not really get to fight anymore, and warfare is more centered around destroying or disabling the opponent's magical artillery/support and forcing them to retreat/surrender than slaughtering them to the man.

Hobgoblins are fairly warlike and aggressively territorial and are mostly kept busy by the fact that the above beings so they mostly keep to their endemic conflicts there unless they see something their other neighbours have that might give them an edge, but they and the other goblinoids are more likely to resort to trickery to obtain what they want than outright force, with the preference being the sort of trickery where the victim thinks they got a good deal and so are open to it again or are able to be exploited more fully (that is to say, a trade that is advantageous and leaves open the possibility for further or increased advantage and a next time.) So sort of a more violent, duplicitous Ferengi, with duplicitousness, mercanitlism, and violence varying between the three main subraces.

At one point, some orc tribes became basically demon-cultist-thralls, but it's not really a racial thing, more the result of bad leadership and their tendency to form cults of personality around a strongman.

Sahuagin and Kuo-toans are pretty much played straight, but they're not exactly common due to cataclysmic events that messed over the ocean. Not exactly evil minions of choice either.

zanetheinsane
2011-12-09, 07:49 AM
Before I started amassing a huge collection of minis we didn't have a lot of minis, so for any "beast" type creature we used the "skeleton wolf" minis that we had since we had multiple ones.

Now every campaign we joke that everyone is just going to be fighting "skeledogs".

Viktyr Gehrig
2011-12-09, 09:55 AM
I don't really do "Always Chaotic Evil", simply because I like when the players have to consider the moral consequences of killing everyone they fight. There's never a shortage of Evil people-- of all races-- who just plain need killing, but no one is all Evil; they're always people and they always have their reasons.

I like Orcs. One of my favorite tricks for messing with players who don't know my style is to have a village massacred by Orcs, but with no small children among the corpses. They track the Orcs to their encampment and wreak vengeance and only then find the children-- battered and scared, but otherwise okay-- in the chieftain's tent, with one of the missing infants being nursed by a pregnant Orc woman, who will fight to the death to keep the PCs from hurting or taking her babies. Any of them.

The PCs are free to do whatever they want about it, and I won't punish them for it. But whatever they do, they have to live with.

Rorrik
2011-12-09, 12:38 PM
Before I started amassing a huge collection of minis we didn't have a lot of minis, so for any "beast" type creature we used the "skeleton wolf" minis that we had since we had multiple ones.

Now every campaign we joke that everyone is just going to be fighting "skeledogs".

Amusingly, I recently DMed a dungeon crawl with transient players for which I invented shadowy skeledogs for the mook enemy they ran into every now and then to keep them moving.

Mastikator
2011-12-09, 01:37 PM
There are no minions, there is no BBEG. I've never made a story that works that way.

Pokonic
2011-12-09, 02:58 PM
The mooks must flow.

So going to use that line in any game where I am summoning sand elementals.

Its almost required, realy.

Lord Il Palazzo
2011-12-09, 03:28 PM
In the campaign I'm running, the big bad has an alliance with a group of lycanthropes (mostly but not entirely were-rats) who live in the sewers below the city and occasionally uses them as foot-soldiers. The thing is that most of the lycanthropes refuse to do business with the guy, just wanting to be left alone so only a splinter group are willing to fight for him.

I don't like the idea of having a race as disposable throw-away bad guys. If I ever did put one in a campaign, I'd probably subvert it pretty hard just when the players started getting comfortable with an "all orcs must die" mindset.

Rankar
2011-12-09, 04:11 PM
Orcs and goblins but mostly orcs. Warhammer 40K Orks are grown from fungus and delight in battle. They're not evil so much as just crazy. No real remorse for killing them and they don't hate you for killing them. They die in battle and they're happy. No need to make this game more philosophically deep than necessary when we're out to laugh and take a break from reality.

Though in my current campaign I'm doing Steampunk 1800's Europe and the mooks will be constructs and humans. Of course since it'll be later 1800's and they want to fight Napoleon, he'll be a zombie leading an army of zombie Frenchmen... I can't have a serious session to save my life.

DigoDragon
2011-12-09, 05:12 PM
Robot Ninjas. Fullstop.

I broke the "usually human" mook choice in my last campaign by giving the BBEG the ability to build Warforged. So now I have a desire to have the BBEG make a bunch of them take levels in Ninja. :smallbiggrin:

Reejis
2011-12-09, 05:19 PM
I love abberations, so mind flayers and beholders are often my schemers, using various mook races to their ends. I usually run Eberron campaigns so the Daelkyr make awesome arch-villains.

Shoot Da Moon
2011-12-10, 10:09 AM
My go-to common bad guys are bandits and corrupt road wardens (mercenaries hired to watch the trade routes with little oversight).

They're usually humans, but other races do fill some of their numbers.

Squeejee
2011-12-10, 03:23 PM
The hordes my players face is largely dictated by what part of the world they're in. If they're in the mountains, for example, they'll be fighting a LOT of Dwarves, because that's the most common race out there.

Oddly enough, a friend made me realize that my Orcs happen to be located in my campaign's version of England, so when I push the clock forward the result is something like this (http://ndt2000.deviantart.com/art/Gentleman-orc-whatever-177656597). Orc-run British Empire, anyone?

starwoof
2011-12-10, 08:58 PM
I usually use hobgoblins or humans, but for the game I'm starting to run next week I'll be using a LOT of werewolves.
:smallbiggrin:

Rorrik
2011-12-10, 09:03 PM
One of the settings I'm running I'm particularly proud of. The main antagonists are the southern orc tribes, but evil northern dwarves and gnome longboat raiders off the northeast coast make things interesting.

Kane0
2011-12-11, 02:43 AM
Ok now, true to my word i made my Mook race!

Mook,
Human Subrace

+2 to any one Attribute

Pliable: -2 To Will saves and +2 to Disguise checks except to disguise mark (see below)

Devoted follower: Mooks gain 1.5 times the beneficial effects of mass-buffs from allies. For example Mass Bull’s Strength from a friendly caster gives an extra 50% more Strength bonus. A Mook cannot gain this benefit from his own buff in this way.

Inept Leadership: Mooks cannot take the leadership feat and cannot be in control of more than one henchman/cohort/follower, nor can they lead more creatures than their combined Wisdom and Intelligence bonuses.

Marked: Every Mook is invariably under the control or guidance of some other creature. This bond takes a physical form of a mark similar to a tattoo or birthmark on some place on the Mook’s body. This mark is of magical nature (emanating a magic aura) and cannot be removed or altered unless the Mook goes under a change in leadership, in which case the Mark takes a different form. This has no effect on the Mook other than identification of their leader.

Fluff:
Long ago at the dawn of humankind the (Insert old & powerful race here, Elves and Dragons work well) took an interest in the fledgling race and took some aside to help serve their purposes. Through design (or accident) of both magical and mundane nature these humans lost their ability to lead, without losing their intelligence. Their lifespans extended to an average of 200 years but they lost their ability to crossbreed like other humans and developed marks that displayed their allegiance.
As time went by Mooks became like a resource, becoming valuable (and often expendable) labour, being lent, traded or sold to other races. Any Mooks left without leaders wandered aimlessly and (unless luckily saved) did not survive.
Mooks that stay in the service of one race over the generations developed features similar to their leaders. For example, Mooks in the company of elves often have pointed ears, those among orcs small fangs, those under dragons tiny slightly coloured scales, etc.
Mooks are versatile and easily lead, flowing into any role that their leaders require. They devote themselves to those that can lead, on instinct as much as tradition. Mooks thoroughly believe they are better off in the service of others, but they are not stupid nor suicidal. If a group of Mooks sees a clear superiority of, and a chance of survival with, another creature they can and will change leaders, although their abuse is common and they are wary of any leader, current or prospective. How loyal they are is directly related to how content they are and how competent the leader is.

Mook related plots hooks:
- Mooks as a resource are running out, and everyone is fighting over the last of them. The PCs are hired/asked/begged to help end the problem. (Solutions include: Killing them all, the PCs securing them, repopulating them across all factions, capturing them for allied cause, etc)
- Finding a ‘cure’ for the Mooks to become human again is tasked to the PCs
- The Mooks are rebelling (which may be a plot in itself) and if they succeed it will destabilize the entire area both politically and economically
- One leader/group/faction has too many Mooks and is a threat to the whole area.

Knaight
2011-12-11, 07:14 AM
I usually avoid these, and even on the rare occasions I don't it is rarely a species. That said, looking at games or settings I play in or GM with some frequency:
Waypoints - Demons. Most of which aren't actually intelligent.
The Iron Fist of New Atlantis - Human occupation soldiers. That said, nobody in TIFNA is really all that sympathetic.
Atlantis 2.0 - Various aliens. Again, nobody is all that sympathetic.
Blood Sweat and Steel - Cultists. It's a Sword and Sorcery game, cultists are easy to come by.
Modbots - Various non-sentient robots.
Shallow Graves - Mindless undead. Some of the undead which actually have intelligence are good people.

Note that most of my settings/ the settings I play in have absolutely nothing, and that these six are small exceptions.

Brauron
2011-12-11, 07:48 AM
Current setting it's orcs and goblinoids, because the BBEG has manipulated them into going to war against the "civilized nations," who are not all that sympathetic -- the orcs' main grievance is that because of the color of their skin, they've been driven from all but the worst lands in the world, forced to eke out a meager survival and generally been marginalized and prosecuted for over a thousand years.

The Boz
2011-12-11, 08:45 AM
You can never go wrong with cultists. All races, classes, abilities etc, and they're pretty much everywhere. And they don't stand out in a crowd.

Knaight
2011-12-11, 09:47 AM
You can never go wrong with cultists. All races, classes, abilities etc, and they're pretty much everywhere. And they don't stand out in a crowd.

They really don't fit with some genres. That said, if they fit, they tend to be very usable for the purpose.

gkathellar
2011-12-11, 11:08 AM
While I typically err away from having a "villain race," in my personal setting I mostly fill that role with aberrations. They're kind of an easy way out — an ancient species that changed their forms and challenged the gods, got beaten up and driven underground for their trouble, and hates humanity for taking their places as the dominant race of the Mantle.

Otherwise, the villain role is mostly applied in-setting. Southwestern humans tend to think of lizardfolk as a villain race, even if it's not necessarily true. In the East, minotaurs get a really bad rap which they only partially deserve. In the South everybody hates ogres, but in the North ogres mix in fine, and as a rule everybody thinks people that live farther North than they do are violent, out-of-touch savages.

RufusCorvus
2011-12-11, 04:16 PM
I've never done gone through with the "villainous mook race" thing, but I have always liked the idea of gnolls and, once, tanarukk.

VanBuren
2011-12-11, 04:20 PM
Do gnomes count if I make them all insane and make them think lesser of all other races?

I have no idea what so intrigues me about the concept of Gnomish Nazis, but I think this needs to happen.

Lord Ruby34
2011-12-11, 10:42 PM
In my current world I'm using Orcs for this purpose, if my players bothered to check they would find that about half of them aren't actually evil. The current war started about three hundred years ago, after the Orcs, under a charismatic and brilliant leader, rebelled after dealing with the abuse of the "civilized" races for far too long.

Orcs were actually perfect for this role for several reasons. First off, they don't exactly look nice. That easily leads to prejudice. Secondly, they don't have too many tremendous racial advantages, and tend to be on the dumb side. That means that humans, elves, raptorans, and the like can look down on them, persecute them, and mostly get away with it.

On another note Undead work great as mooks, specifically the mindless variety.

Vknight
2011-12-12, 01:33 AM
Depends on the region, the current villain and the parties level.
Goblins are a common occurrence no matter what level to the point 1member of the party always takes Goblin.

Grendus
2011-12-12, 01:45 AM
Mindless undead or demons are useful for mooks you want the players to slaughter mindlessly. Giant/dire animals or creatures with sub human intelligence work well too. If I want them to actually consider things, the more traditional orcs/goblins works, just have the enemy attempt to parlay when things start going against them.

olthar
2011-12-12, 02:32 AM
I generally don't run games that involve bbeg's who are trying to destroy the world or whatnot, so I don't usually have mook races.

That said, my a good 60% of my encounters are put in 4 groups: kobolds, goblins, orcs, and humans. The "monsters" level with the party (except kobolds, which just breed) so at lv 1 you may fight an orc as written, but at lv 5 it's an orc with a few levels in fighter. I do it partially because I run tolkien like games and partially because by sticking mostly to those it makes the demons and stuff more special when they do come out.

Golden Ladybug
2011-12-12, 06:35 AM
Kobolds. My players groan whenever they have to enter any location that Kobolds have set themselves up in, because they know they'll probably be dipped in Acid, set on Fire, stabbed, shot, cackled at and prodded with sharp implements.

And then they might see some Kobolds, I don't know.

Otherwise, I use Elans. That basically started when one of my players built an Elan Scout, and in that campaign, they encountered a huge number of Evil Elans that were really playing up the Aberration Subtype. Since then, whenever Elans appear, they're pure evil.

Look into your heart, you know it to be true.

eulmanis12
2011-12-12, 09:02 AM
My evil baddies are elves.
Their backstory: Under the leadership of the charismatic Shogun, Motoyama, the previously declining elven nation has resurged and driven the Dwarven and Human nations before it like leaves before a storm. The Elves sacked every major human citystate, from mercantile Florenice on the south coast, to the milataristic Prussbürg in the North. While the dwarves cower in Hedby, the last of their mountain holds, the human resistance, under the leadership of the former bandit, Erik Soldattannen, gathers in the forests, ambushing convoys and continuing to fight the elves wherever they can.

In mine the elves are a mix of the "standard" elf magical adepts and a feudal japan style culture. Their armies contain masses of Samurai supported by large groups of wizards. They are fiercely loyal to the BBEG (the Shogun) and thus have a near suicidal courage in battle. They do not employ other races however, viewing all non elves as beneath them. They are also openly exterminating halflings and humans then using the bodies as "recruits" for their undead auxilary armies. Their goal is simple and cliched (take over world, kill every non-elf).

I know its not the most orrigional but Its a good fit for the party.
(One human ranger, a dwarf fighter/barbarian, a halfling bard, and a human rogue)

lothofkalroth
2011-12-13, 01:10 PM
My Orcs are Overly religious, slave-owning Dwarves with a penchant for political expansion. (http://www.pdf-archive.com/2011/11/15/torata-1/torata.pdf)

Gamgee
2011-12-13, 02:08 PM
Everything and anything.

DragonBaneDM
2011-12-13, 02:52 PM
I'm running a campaign with Vecna as the BBEG at the moment, and they're still low level, so I get the satisfaction of using a couple good old zombie hordes led by a terrifying wraith or something along those lines.

Undead are just so gratifying. I can scare the pants off my players, and there's so many different kinds that they stay relevent straight on to level 30!

Doorhandle
2011-12-14, 12:03 AM
Not that it's very hard to find/make new and interesting forms of undead, but that in of itself also makes them useful.

In hindsight, I think I like hobgoblins as orcs actually. I tend to view them with a bit of a wuxia feel for some reason.

Anderlith
2011-12-14, 12:11 AM
Undead, no one has qualms about killing something already dead.


I do use undead as semi-good guys. One nation uses undead heavily in their armies & as slave labor. The nation has a high reverence for the dead though, & the ones that they create are neutral & have a modicum of intelligence.

Tvtyrant
2011-12-14, 12:47 AM
I like aberrations and undead at the moment. I ran Kobolds for a long time before I discovered how much cheese they have gotten, which caused me to abandon them for cooler climes.

My aberrations tend to cause wars between different groups of normals by dominating/infesting/disguising themselves as leaders. A Tsochari that infests a religious leader and invokes a holy war in order to allow for easier infiltration of both sides casters (their distracted after all), two Beholders using their abilities to secretly start a gang war so they can sell magic items to each side, etc.

The undead are a mix of zombie apoc and evil vampire clubs. The intelligent undead make lesser undead (who don't attack them because they are undead) and keep them enclosed as a sort of security. If someone tries to kill them they let the lessers out as a distraction while they retreat. (Or they are building them up until there are enough to overwhelm the regions defenses).

Bonaynay
2011-12-14, 05:30 AM
My DM homebrewed his own mook race. He named them Scro.



:smallamused:

Conners
2011-12-14, 06:13 AM
Do they look like backward Orcs?

hewhosaysfish
2011-12-14, 07:10 AM
My DM homebrewed his own mook race. He named them Scro.

:smallamused:

IIRC there was a type of official "monster" in 1st ed called "Scro". But they weren't mooks: they were lawful good. And looked exactly like orcs.

Viktyr Gehrig
2011-12-14, 01:05 PM
Scro in the Spelljammer setting were Lawful Evil uber-orcs.

Vitruviansquid
2011-12-15, 02:38 AM
Been writing up a setting where the players are all dwarves. The main enemies are goblins, who the dwarves think stand for everything that is bad and wrong and must be wiped off the face of the earth, where the goblins think the same about dwarves. Other races tend not to think of either as more good or evil.

Zaq
2011-12-15, 02:49 AM
Undead. I always gravitate toward undead. They're an easy choice for something you can charge in and crush without any real moral ambiguity. Likewise, fiends are good for the same purpose . . . no, they really are Pure Evil with a capital P-E, so it's totally cool to kill them on sight. Goblins? Goblins are people. Undead and fiends aren't.

Not to say I don't use other enemies, but when I need some cannon fodder to pad out an encounter, they're my go-to choices.

Twin Dragons
2011-12-15, 04:23 PM
Yuan-Ti...

Aidan305
2011-12-15, 06:11 PM
I tend towards kobolds at earlier levels, generally representing them as the downtrodden masses working for someone much more powerful than they are so that they can have someone to protect them from the world outside their home.

As the levels rise I tend towards humans as the villains, sometimes working for someone else, other times not, and usually part of a large organisation planning something nasty.

Jerthanis
2011-12-17, 04:49 AM
For the Mass Effect game I'd totally run if ANY of my friends were familiar with that universe, I would use the Geth. They're varied and adaptable, and have the unique trait of getting smarter the more of them are around, they get around the problem of many other robot minion type creatures in that they are sentient, but because of the way Geth society/minds work, it's not a heinous murder to blow away seventy five of them, because they're Geth and the actual sentient intelligence isn't harmed by elimination of a small portion of them.

I'm apparently going to be running a Lord of the Rings game coming up though, so surprisingly I'll be using Orcs as my "Orcs" pretty soon.

I've always liked Troglodytes a lot as enemies, and tend to slip them in here and there, but not generally as the main force they fight all the time.

Dust
2011-12-17, 10:09 AM
A minority 'humanoid' race known for intelligence; Shadar-kai, orcs, Yuan-Ti, Drow, Giants, etc.

Haedrian
2011-12-17, 10:14 AM
For fantasy games its always undead.

There's no akward questions like "If the chamber is sealed what did they eat?" or "How did they defend the place for so long?".

For non-fantasy games its humans. There's more of an ethics issue if you're slaughtering your own race.

UrsielHauke
2011-12-17, 08:15 PM
For endless hordes I like the Kython, and for minions I usually go with demons or at the very least tieflings. I guess I like evil things that come from another plane to mess up the PC's world.

Yeah. Kythons are pretty much the Tyranids of the D&D world.
:D

kieza
2011-12-19, 03:06 PM
I usually use human or demi-human soldiers. My campaign world exists side-by-side with a wargame I'm working on, so I just look through the appropriate army list for some interesting soldiers and write them up for D&D.

If I ever run a game at high enough levels for the players to get into the Astral Sea (which is sealed off and difficult to access), I'll be using my interpretation of angels and demons: They're constructs (not in game terms, but in the sense of being artificially created) made by some vast machinery that the gods built when they created the world (and then left behind). They don't have free will, and most of them aren't even self-aware: they have no sense of identity or self-preservation, and they can't even communicate with mortals. Even their officers have no free will outside what is needed for them to fulfill their orders. They are, essentially, interchangeable cogs in a machine, and the only reason that demons are the way they are is that their "factory" has the divine-machinery equivalent of a computer virus.

horseboy
2011-12-20, 03:06 AM
My Earthdawn campaign doesn't really have one since it's more "Oh Dear God! The Eldrich Abomination is trying to melt my brain, FROM THE INSIDE!" style. Heck, after they found the all girl zombie finishing academy, they even stopped attacking undead for a while.

The Setting I'm working on for my BESM campaign uses orcs with some clarification:

1) They're non-cursorial ambush predators. Anything that's longer than about 18 months is "forever" in their minds and simply can't comprehend doing it that long. As such things like advanced engineering is beyond them.
2) Females are more fertile. Fraternal twins are the norm, triplets are "only" uncommon and quadruplets about as common as twins in humans. This means they as a society grow exponentially faster than humans and as such need far more resources just to survive.
3) They basically live on a volcanic island about a month away with good winds. The big, sacred, volcano provides them with bountiful foods and strong metals...provided they keep it happy. Rather than sacrifice their own children, they raid human coastal villages.

The humans simply can't coexist with them, so have to fight them.

Noedig
2011-12-21, 03:01 PM
My villains run the gamut of races, but I like humans as villains. The evil of men is sometimes more terrifying and memorable than monsters.

Captain Six
2011-12-21, 08:42 PM
The very world of my campaign setting tries its hardest to slaughter its inhabitants. Toxic terrain, vicious wildlife, carnivorous plants, magical beasts, dinosaurs and, on a very rare occasion, humanoids.

Although lately I've grown fond of Owlbears. They're big, strong and strange all while being very basic mechanically. And obscure enough that most people don't realize that they are intelligent.

Crafty Cultist
2011-12-25, 06:40 PM
I generally just use humans, with unusual equipment or builds to set them apart from everyone else.

shadow_archmagi
2011-12-25, 06:44 PM
PCs. It keeps the game interesting.

Roxxy
2011-12-25, 06:58 PM
Goblins. Why goblins? I'm a Pathfinder player.

ORione
2011-12-26, 02:28 PM
Ok now, true to my word i made my Mook race!


You should add this:
Alignment: Lawful (Any)

Delusion
2011-12-26, 03:53 PM
Demons and mad cultists. They seem to work amazingly for nearly every setting.

Kyberwulf
2011-12-29, 02:37 AM
I use Drow as my Minions.