Good villain races?

[TrollinOtter]

Hello all, I'm planning a new campaign for 3.5 and I need a antagonist race. I'm looking from something like the orcs from LOTR. Also something that has a varied number of sub- races or diffrent types of creatures (for our heros to not get bored). In the first campaign our group did we fought demons. So I like to stay clear of those. In closing I'm looking for a race that makes for a good villain and that could follow a centralized evil leader. Thanks for your help!

[Troacctid]

How about marruspawn, from Sandstorm?

[John Longarrow]

Hobgoblins... They work really well for "Organized Evil" plus a lot of the variation can come from giving them class levels.

Work out different types of units that function very differently. Work out teams that replicate adventuring parties. Let them have pets of different types. Really fun race for Villains!

[DrMotives]

Yuan-Ti work well for what you want. They're all about being an evil empire, they even have a possible boss in Elder Evils if you want to go that route. They love class levels, mostly cleric & rogue type classes, and they have lots of sub-races & varients spread through different books. Plus they have ophideans as a servitor race, and a number of snake-themed animals & magical beast type things exist to vary the enemy roster with.

[Esprit15]

Illithids, especially if you have MM5 and can incorporate Thoon into things.