A nifty idea about old races as new villains.

[blelliot]

Ive had an idea about using dwarves and elves as villains for a while. The idea that the elves are lawful evil xenophobic hoarders of arcane knowledge, while the dwarves are chaotic evil greedy murderers. I dont want to use drow and duergar for these villains either. The idea comes from the Dragon Magic book where the elves and dwarves descend from green and res dragons respectively. The question im putting out ther is, would there be any on out there who has run either of these races as villainous races before in their own games? Id like any tips and info you jave on it if i could. Thanks everyone!

[Fates]

In the campaign I'm currently running, most elves are LN, TN, or LE, and typically self-serving, often backstabbing racists. Half-elves are treated as second-class citizens in elven society, and anyone not of elven blood need hospitality papers to even enter elven lands, and are prohibited from living there.

I once ran a campaign wherein gnomes ruled the world via an oppressive magocracy, but it never really got off the ground.

[Afgncaap5]

I've never quite run dwarves that way, but I've dabbled with elves in a similar fashion. I made a race of "true elves" (putting them in the fey creature type) who were disgusted at their kin for "humanizing" themselves in ancient times. My players haven't met many of the true elves (and one of the few they met was friendly, apart from the rapier-duel to the death) but they're one of the reasons why commoners still value cold iron and horse shoes for luck.

[Ravens_cry]

Well, based on a dream I had, I am slowly formulating a 'verse where gnomes are basically a servitor race to dwarves. Not exactly evil, but certainly not your stout hearted, mead guzzling good guys either. Another idea I had, one of the first I had once I found out about D&D, was a reverse universe where the good races were evil and the evil races were good. Elves were jungle snipers and ambushers while the dwarves were Stone Age barbarians who periodically descend from the mountains to the civilized lands of trolls, goblinoids, and orcs to pillage and plunder.
I never got to halflings and gnomes, so let's say they went extinct.