agghhh!! darn those elfs and their racisim!

[Froogleyboy]

I am so angry about the fact that nobody gets suspicious or angry when you play an evil elf. But if you play a good dark elf they make all sorts of assumptions and call you a Drizz't clone. agh!

[monty]

Remember, these are the same people who think all goblins are evil and that orcs are incapable of learning the proper use of pronouns.

[chiasaur11]

All Elves are evil.

Anyone who finds an evil elf odd doesn't get what elves are.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I think part of that stems from their roots in Tolkien's mythos. At first glance, it appears that elves don't have an evil bone in their body. Virtually all the elves work against Sauron in the Third Age. But if you look beyond the Lord of the Rings, you'll find that elves did more than their share of dastardly things. Feanor ordered the genocide of an elven subrace because they refused to help him recover the Silmarils, Maeglin betrayed Gondolin, the greatest elvish city, to the forces of Morgoth. What D&D did was they separated the evil elves from the rest of the elves, making them the drow to be easily identifiable.

Am I making sense?

[Froogleyboy]

orcs are incapable of learning the proper use of pronouns.

why would anyone think that?!? My orc bard has a 16 in Int. and 18 in Cha.

[monty]

What D&D did was they separated the evil elves from the rest of the elves, making them the drow to be easily identifiable.

Am I making sense?

Elves: color-coded for your convenience!

[Glyde]

Elves: color-coded for your convenience!

Oh jeez, this is where things get interesting.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Oh jeez, this is where things get interesting.

No, it's not. Because, before this gets out of hand, we're stopping discussion of this particular aspect of the discussion. I think we can all agree that it was nothing more than a joke (and not even a particularly offensive one, because, let's face it, in the D&D world they ARE) and leave it at that. Right?

[monty]

Oh jeez, this is where things get interesting.

I was just paraphrasing a line from OotS. Nothing more.

Nice sig, by the way.

[Kyouhen]

I think part of that stems from their roots in Tolkien's mythos. At first glance, it appears that elves don't have an evil bone in their body. Virtually all the elves work against Sauron in the Third Age. But if you look beyond the Lord of the Rings, you'll find that elves did more than their share of dastardly things. Feanor ordered the genocide of an elven subrace because they refused to help him recover the Silmarils, Maeglin betrayed Gondolin, the greatest elvish city, to the forces of Morgoth. What D&D did was they separated the evil elves from the rest of the elves, making them the drow to be easily identifiable.

Am I making sense?

Actually the evil elves all turned into orcs. Those elven examples are just elves being idiots.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

If you just take a look at elves in D&D though, it appears that that is the case. The drow are everything evil that an elf could be separated out of the race and kept in a pen.

Tolkien had Dark Elves too, but they weren't evil by default. It was simply a term for elves who did not make the journey to Valinor in the first age. Sure many of them were captured and were tortured and mutated into the progenitors of the orcs, but they didn't have black skin, they weren't chronic backstabbers, and they certainly weren't dominatrices with a spider fetish.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Actually the evil elves all turned into orcs. Those elven examples are just elves being idiots.

And I've been ninja'd. Yes, those are examples of elves being idiots, but according the customary D&D moral compass, those were evil acts. They were acts that were considered bad by the values Tolkien wove into the story, and they were undertaken for inherently selfish reasons. The elves who sired the orcs weren't neccesarily evil. An elf who commits an evil act doesn't become an orc instantly. There's some sort of torture process that forces the elf to become an orc. Yes, orcs are a race of evil that was spawned from the elves, but that doesn't mean that regular elves aren't capable of some really heinous stuff, which seems to be the D&D paradigm.

[Kyouhen]

And I've been ninja'd. Yes, those are examples of elves being idiots, but according the customary D&D moral compass, those were evil acts. They were acts that were considered bad by the values Tolkien wove into the story, and they were undertaken for inherently selfish reasons. The elves who sired the orcs weren't neccesarily evil. An elf who commits an evil act doesn't become an orc instantly. There's some sort of torture process that forces the elf to become an orc. Yes, orcs are a race of evil that was spawned from the elves, but that doesn't mean that regular elves aren't capable of some really heinous stuff, which seems to be the D&D paradigm.

I dunno, Feanor's example included swearing a blood oath against the god of evil. That could be considered a good act. He just went chaotic good is all.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I dunno, Feanor's example included swearing a blood oath against the god of evil. That could be considered a good act. He just went chaotic good is all.

When was the last time genocide was considered a Chaotic Good act? Feanor was not a nice guy, and the Kinslaying wasn't the only not-so-nice thing. Part of that blood oath included a curse that ANYONE who came into possession of the Silmarils that wasn't one of them would suffer a terrible fate. This extended to people who were trying to recover the Silmarils for them, like Beren. That curse killed a lot of people, and it's one of the things that Feanor is remembered most for. Not to mention Feanor refused to donate the Silmarils to the Valar so the Trees of the Valar, the greatest and most important sources of light in the world, could be restored. He wanted to keep the Silmarils for himself. Say what you will about swearing a blood-oath against Melkor, that doesn't excuse the stuff Feanor did.

[Froogleyboy]

um... WHO ARE THESE PPL YOU SPEAK OF!?!

[LibraryOgre]

I am so angry about the fact that nobody gets suspicious or angry when you play an evil elf. But if you play a good dark elf they make all sorts of assumptions and call you a Drizz't clone. agh!

Actually, we had this situation come up in our Pathfinder game. My dwarf did not believe that the drow was good. As far as he was concerned, it was a lie by a member of an evil and manipulative race.

His evidence?

1) The drow had traveled in disguise for months, without revealing his true nature. He asks us for trust, but refused to trust us.
2) While claiming to be good, he still drew upon the dark gifts of Lolth. In our first combat, he threw a darkness spell-like ability; originally, my dwarf wrote it off as "he's a sorcerer", but when the truth came out about the drow's race, he realized what it was. If he had left behind Lolth, why was he still using her gifts?
3) Related: He's still dark. According to this world, drow are dark because of their allegiance to their dark mistress. Still dark = still evil to my dwarf's mind... if he were loyal to good gods, they would've removed that stain.
4) His favored method of dealing with a problem was to charm the enemy... to dominate their minds into doing his bidding. He attempted to befriend several evil creatures during our campaign... not just "maybe a little bit not-nice", but out and out "We hunt werebears and kidnap people to sell into the Underdark" orcs, "we're destroying human farmland in the name of goblin lebensraum" goblins and "we attack random people on the road" bandits. It is also noticeable that the paladin in the party stood up for him, and when my objections to "He doesn't show up on detect evil" were made, she refused to do the one test that would have proven it to my satisfaction (namely, using Smite Evil on him... and I would have accepted a punch, with a cleric standing by to save him from death as adequate evidence, and stated so). Obviously, the paladin was charmed.
5) Finally, he cast a spell on me, against my express wishes. He said it was healing, but it looked exactly like the magic missiles he was throwing around.

On the other hand, we have an elf who is largely not evil because he doesn't have access to high enough level spells. We're more or less ignoring this, and realizing that we're probably going to have to have him brought up on charges as a necromancer.

Why do people accept evil elves more readily than good drow? Because elves are presented as a race that, while it tends CG, have the same range of alignments as any other race, while drow are presented as being Evil... with a rare few who somehow turn out not-evil. It's not a matter of percentages in the MM; it's how they are presented, and the rationales used.

The reasons for an evil elf are usually pretty well explained... what turned him evil is known and understood. Dalamar, perhaps the prototypical evil non-drow, became evil because Silvanesti society wouldn't let a member of his House study magic, leaving him to study what he could, with people who were not morally upright (because they were willing to break the Silvanesti restrictions).

The reasons for a non-evil drow are, IME, usually not as well described. The prototypical good drow, Drizz't, doesn't really have a reason to be not-evil... there's no defining childhood experience or anything. He's just, randomly, not evil... while Zaknafien reinforces his dislike of drow society, he doesn't instill it. Drizz't was not-evil before Zaknafien. He didn't have a mystical vision of a deity. He was just an aberrant, nigh-mentally ill (in the sense that his moral values differed radically from those of the society that raised him, you could consider him psychopathic), drow. IME, non-evil drow are frequently like this. There's no reason for them to be non-evil other than their player wanted to play a drow, and so the drow in question is not evil.

[Tsotha-lanti]

I dunno, Feanor's example included swearing a blood oath against the god of evil. That could be considered a good act. He just went chaotic good is all.

Are you serious? The story of the Silmarils is explicitly a story about greed bringing about evil. Fëanor and his sons are evil in a multitude of ways, all precipitated by their greed and the terrible oath they swear. They murder, steal, rob, betray, threaten, and kidnap other - good - elves. The Kinslaying is one of the worst crimes in the Silmarillion - when the Teleri of Alqualondë refuse to give up their ships for Fëanor to pursue Morgoth, he leads his sons and followers into the city, slaying everyone who opposes them, and takes the ships by force.

They're hardly the only ones. Eöl, the Dark Elf (referring both to his evil nature, and the fact he's of the Avari, the elves who did not join the journey to Valinor), kidnapped Aredhel, forcing her to be his wife (i.e. raped her); their son, Maeglin, was twisted and selfish, and betrayed Gondolin to Morgoth for vengeance and jealousy.

Orcs also have nothing to do with evil elves; in the "orcs were elves" genesis, Morgoth captured elves and tortured and twisted their forms and spirits into orcs. Evil elves didn't just suddenly change into orcs.

In The Hobbit, the Silvan elves of Mirkwood and their elven-king are hardly very good, either; they're suspicious, greedy, and xenophobic. Certainly some of this can be explained by their circumstances, but they're still just as fallible and "Neutral" as humans.

(Randomly, dwarves weren't that Good either. Not only did some dwarves fight on the side of Sauron in the Second Age, they were often driven to evil by greed. Cf. the murder of Thingol over the Nauglamir.)

[Kyouhen]

Wow, you guys really know your histories of Middle Earth. I'm impressed.

Stopping the alignment jokes for Feanor and co., and getting back to the argument at hand, I can think of one good reason not to get all uppity about evil elves. Same reason you don't want to upset an evil dragon, they likely live longer than you. Do you really want to confront an elf wizard who thinks mind controlling the king is a good way to get what the party needs about his ethics, knowing full well he'll likely outlive your grand children? Probably not.

But hey, welcome to the wonderful world of D&D racism. Who says there aren't advantages to people judging you based on your race?

[kamikasei]

I am so angry about the fact that nobody gets suspicious or angry when you play an evil elf.

Playing an evil elf isn't a "thing", any more than playing an evil member of any PHB race is. "Playing an evil character" is an act with stereotypes associated with it. Playing a good member of a normally evil race is, too, and drow are the most stereotyped example of it (which, yes, is unfair). But playing an evil character from any specific race just doesn't have a stigma associated with it. What has racism got to do with it?

[Satyr]

There is no reason for an average intelligent player or game master to copy the ridiculously stupid fantasy racism; Drow are People, as are all opther people. People aren't either good or evil (those overtly simplified, childish terms should be avoided eitherway by all people with an intellectual capacity beyond a 10-year old), they have their problems and virtues, and so on. Morals are conventions and depending on the society the people live in; the very idea that the individuals from one society are intrinsically morally superior to an other is condencending at best and an unreleflected acception of a philosphy that is disgusting - it doesn't matter if the racist crap relates to fictional instead of real cultures- the basic idea doesn't get any better through that.

And that are only societies - if you follow the hopelessly outdated model that culture and ethnics - or even worse, personality - are internally linked, the whole situation only gets worse.

[Swordguy]

Elves ARE evil...(YouTube link)


"Elves cause cancer... Elves...are also terrible liars. They go on and on about how they're not ruled by an immortal council of evil elven witches who drink the blood of dwarven children and spit it on each other in villainous orgies of elven hatemongering. Elves have leprosy as well. And tiny penises.

"Especially the women."

[imp_fireball]

Remember, these are the same people who think all goblins are evil and that orcs are incapable of learning the proper use of pronouns.

I lol that.

[Tsotha-lanti]

There is no reason for an average intelligent player or game master to copy the ridiculously stupid fantasy racism; Drow are People, as are all opther people. People aren't either good or evil (those overtly simplified, childish terms should be avoided eitherway by all people with an intellectual capacity beyond a 10-year old), they have their problems and virtues, and so on.

I never got how, say, the orcs of Faerûn are all that inherently evil. Certainly the orcs of the North, for instance, appear no more evil or vile than the human Uthgardt barbarians. Heck, the only reason the orc hordes surge out of the mountains is because they breed so fast that every generation or two, their numbers grow enough that they are unable to support themselves on the mountains (no agriculture or herding to speak of), and have to seek new areas to live in. Unfortunately, not having the knowledge required to actually settle areas, and meeting resistance from those already living in them, they end up fighting, conquering, and pillaging. Even at their worst, they'd be no more evil than the goths and other "barbarians" who sacked Rome. Among themselves, the orcs don't appear crueler or fouler than humans can and often are.

Meanwhile, the isolationist, suprecamist sun elves of Faerûn always strike me as excellent villains or antagonists, despite supposedly being Chaotic Good (they seem to lean way more toward Lawful, though). And I don't even mean the multitude of "evil" cabals that strive for the extermination of non-elves; those groups are just extreme manifestations of the same attitudes.

[Morty]

I never got how, say, the orcs of Faerûn are all that inherently evil. Certainly the orcs of the North, for instance, appear no more evil or vile than the human Uthgardt barbarians. Heck, the only reason the orc hordes surge out of the mountains is because they breed so fast that every generation or two, their numbers grow enough that they are unable to support themselves on the mountains (no agriculture or herding to speak of), and have to seek new areas to live in. Unfortunately, not having the knowledge required to actually settle areas, and meeting resistance from those already living in them, they end up fighting, conquering, and pillaging. Even at their worst, they'd be no more evil than the goths and other "barbarians" who sacked Rome. Among themselves, the orcs don't appear crueler or fouler than humans can and often are.

Well, in fairness, orcs do worship a Chaotic Evil god. But yeah, you're right. As much as I like Faerun, its strict adherence to D&D moralty is a pain in the neck.
On a related note: OP uses drow as an example, but orcs are, in fact, a much better one, as they're only "Often" Chaotic Evil, so it's much easier to find a good orc than it is to find an evil elf. Yet noone will bat an eyelash at the latter while the former will be called a Drizzt clone.

[John Campbell]

Remember, these are the same people who think all goblins are evil and that orcs are incapable of learning the proper use of pronouns.

<ic char="Toghrul">
Orcs not dumb. Human tongue just not usually orc's first language. Orcish not use or need pronouns so much. Difficult to remember to put them in. How good humans conjugate Orcish verbs, hmm?

Oh, here joke!

Person who speak two languages called "bilingual". What you call person who speak only one language?

An human!

Laugh now.
</ic>

[snoopy13a]

Are you serious? The story of the Silmarils is explicitly a story about greed bringing about evil. Fëanor and his sons are evil in a multitude of ways, all precipitated by their greed and the terrible oath they swear. They murder, steal, rob, betray, threaten, and kidnap other - good - elves. The Kinslaying is one of the worst crimes in the Silmarillion - when the Teleri of Alqualondë refuse to give up their ships for Fëanor to pursue Morgoth, he leads his sons and followers into the city, slaying everyone who opposes them, and takes the ships by force.

They're hardly the only ones. Eöl, the Dark Elf (referring both to his evil nature, and the fact he's of the Avari, the elves who did not join the journey to Valinor), kidnapped Aredhel, forcing her to be his wife (i.e. raped her); their son, Maeglin, was twisted and selfish, and betrayed Gondolin to Morgoth for vengeance and jealousy.

Orcs also have nothing to do with evil elves; in the "orcs were elves" genesis, Morgoth captured elves and tortured and twisted their forms and spirits into orcs. Evil elves didn't just suddenly change into orcs.

In The Hobbit, the Silvan elves of Mirkwood and their elven-king are hardly very good, either; they're suspicious, greedy, and xenophobic. Certainly some of this can be explained by their circumstances, but they're still just as fallible and "Neutral" as humans.

(Randomly, dwarves weren't that Good either. Not only did some dwarves fight on the side of Sauron in the Second Age, they were often driven to evil by greed. Cf. the murder of Thingol over the Nauglamir.)

The dwarves aren't that great. The The Hobbit they are often portrayed as cowardly and greedy. The Mirkwood elves are somewhat greedy and they dislike dwarves but they are also charitable as they help out the men of Laketown after Smaug's attack.

Thorin is extremely greedy. He is willing to go to war with the men and elves and will not give them a share of the treasure despite the fact that the men killed Smaug and had their town destroyed. Bard was willing to accept only 1/12 of the dragon horde and would compensate the elves from that. Luckily for Thorin, he repents of his greed on his deathbed.

[Tsotha-lanti]

Thorin is extremely greedy. He is willing to go to war with the men and elves and will not give them a share of the treasure despite the fact that the men killed Smaug and had their town destroyed. Bard was willing to accept only 1/12 of the dragon horde and would compensate the elves from that. Luckily for Thorin, he repents of his greed on his deathbed.

The Arkenstone, specifically, appeared to affect dwarves the way that the Nauglamir with the Silmaril did - driving them to violent greed. (Although the results were even worse in the case of the Nauglamir; but then the Silmarils are the greatest treasures in the history of Middle-Earth.) But it may just be their general greed for treasure.

Really, despite the simplistic black-and-white morality (literally, unfortunately) of LOTR itself, the races of Middle-Earth as portrayed by Tolkien are all variable, capable of both good and evil, and overall "neutral."

[LibraryOgre]

And that are only societies - if you follow the hopelessly outdated model that culture and ethnics - or even worse, personality - are internally linked, the whole situation only gets worse.

So it is your position that biochemistry plays no part in forming a person's personality?

Elves, dwarves, goblins, etc. are different subspecies at the very least, and frequently different species (in that they cannot breed with humans and produce viable offspring). They are going to have a very different biochemistry and evolutionary track than humans.

In humans, slightly variant brain chemistry results in things like bipolar disorder, autism (and less severe versions, like Asperger's), schizophrenia and even sociopathy. The brain chemistry of elves may well incline them towards a chaotic alignment. Goblins may, as a matter of brain chemistry, naturally prefer the vicious option, seeing it as most advantageous evolutionarily. Humans developed the way we did because we require communities, to a large extent... a human long separated from community tends to become a little messed up, and communities have been generally helpful in ensuring the survival of the species (while you may be able to live indefinitely in the wild, that doesn't propagate the species, and a pair-bonded couple can run into problems feeding and defending offspring that a community does not have).

The other option is that the various races are the special creation by a deity of definite alignment. Corellon Larethian made elves in his CG image. Grumuush formed his orcs as he saw them, which happened to be colored by the fact that he's CE*. Drow were specifically marked by their dark goddess as a reward for their loyalty in whatever event lead to the banishment of the drow. If Lolth can make an entire society find spiders to be sexy, why is it so far out there that she makes her people naturally inclined to stab each other in the back?

Finally, you have the fact that most creatures worship racial deities... and these are frequently the dominant alignment of the race. Orcs worship the CE Grumuush, and tend to be CE. Elves worship Corellon, who is CG, and so tend to be CG. If you follow a deity who has a set alignment, and speaks regularly to followers to make their will known, then you're going to wind up doing as that deity does, and tend towards that alignment.

I see it as highly irregular for humans to worship non-human deities, or demi-humans to worship human deities. Can you see a dwarf (that would be considered sane by other dwarfs... we're not talking Pikel Bouldershoulder) dedicating himself to Sehanine Moonbow? Then why does it make any more sense for dwarves to dedicate themselves to human deities, especially when there are dwarven deities that fill the same niche? By the same token, I don't see many goblins or the like worshiping human deities... while no goblin deities fill the niches of Torm or Illmater, neither do these deities offer much incentive to worship them. "Worship me and be hated by your species and barely tolerated by most of your co-religionists! I will make your life a world of suck!" There's just not much there to entice more than a few, decidedly insane, members of their species convert.

There are good reasons, founded in biology, theology, sociology, and psychology for the various races to have culture, ethnicity, and personality be internally linked... not necessarily hard-wired, unable to ever ever change, but definite inclinations towards an alignment or personality type that are reinforced by their birth culture.

*And may be his single eye is the reason they're so frequently two-dimensional?

[Rutskarn]

All elves are racist.

I mean, look at the irritating bastards.

(source: The Complete Elf, outdated D&D sourcebook)

"Oh, fah-tee-da, look at me. I'm a laughing, fey, carefree creature who's so much better than everyone else. I live in a fancy tree village that has no crime or badness or pollution whatsoever. We're the best at every kind of craft, from weaving, to woodworking...not that we ever cut down trees to do so, Because That Would Be Wrong...brewing, even though we don't get drunk, cooking, all that. The only thing we're not the best at is stoneworking, which the dwarves are better aaaaaaat wait a minute, no, I tell a lie, we're better at that too. Can't let any of those less fey races be better at anything at all, now can we? Our singing voices are so beautiful that when singing dirges, we literally kill any lesser races who might be listening. We're so peace-loving and caring, except for that whole holiday every year where we go out and murder every single orc we can find, including women and children. Because nothing says rollicking festivities like genocide! Anyway, elves are actually the best thieves, because they're subtler than halflings, better fighters than dwarves, because we're so graceful and godly, better mages than anyone ever because we're mothaflippin' elves, and better at any class than any race ever because we are. Our art is so beautiful it puts people into seizures. Literally. Even when we die, we get to go to this super special double awesome mega-heaven that's much better than any other afterlife, that only we can get into. Sweet, huh? Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a lot of Being Better Than You to catch up on, and racial supremacy doesn't maintain itself!"

To be fair, this isn't so much racism as being gratingly superior. Turns out, for that edition, the deity and creator of all the elves was Ma'ry Suue.

Don't even get me started on the fairies from Artemis Fowl, though.

[Froogleyboy]

All elves are racist.

I mean, look at the irritating bastards.

(source: The Complete Elf, outdated D&D sourcebook)

"Oh, fah-tee-da, look at me. I'm a laughing, fey, carefree creature who's so much better than everyone else. I live in a fancy tree village that has no crime or badness or pollution whatsoever. We're the best at every kind of craft, from weaving, to woodworking...not that we ever cut down trees to do so, Because That Would Be Wrong...brewing, even though we don't get drunk, cooking, all that. The only thing we're not the best at is stoneworking, which the dwarves are better aaaaaaat wait a minute, no, I tell a lie, we're better at that too. Can't let any of those less fey races be better at anything at all, now can we? Our singing voices are so beautiful that when singing dirges, we literally kill any lesser races who might be listening. We're so peace-loving and caring, except for that whole holiday every year where we go out and murder every single orc we can find, including women and children. Because nothing says rollicking festivities like genocide! Anyway, elves are actually the best thieves, because they're subtler than halflings, better fighters than dwarves, because we're so graceful and godly, better mages than anyone ever because we're mothaflippin' elves, and better at any class than any race ever because we are. Our art is so beautiful it puts people into seizures. Literally. Even when we die, we get to go to this super special double awesome mega-heaven that's much better than any other afterlife, that only we can get into. Sweet, huh? Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a lot of Being Better Than You to catch up on, and racial supremacy doesn't maintain itself!"

To be fair, this isn't so much racism as being gratingly superior. Turns out, for that edition, the deity and creator of all the elves was Ma'ry Suue.

Don't even get me started on the fairies from Artemis Fowl, though.

with your permission I would like to put that in my signature