Using Warcraft as an example, they turned the Orcs from a villain race into Dindus corrupted by demons and kept down by waycis Humans/Whiteys. They did it again with the Forsaken and Blood Elves being Dindus.
Now I ask, how do you recommend to round out or make less "Black and White" a villain race without turning them into Dindus?
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First step: Drop the retarded /pol/ / internet-terminology
Second: Realize that you simply need a different angle to this whole thing. Unless you're using a D&D-esque alignment-based divinity, you will not have villainous races. Demons, Devils and whatever evil thingy you use are an entire race of bad things because their very essence is made of evil energy - which means they can get away without having a functional society because they're also inherently supernatural.
If don't want to use that, then you simply need culture that promotes "villainous" behaviour like slavery, coupled with military expansion and/or a religion that likes sacrifices. However, whatever ethnicity this culture mainly is composed of will not be a evil race. There will and should be people who object to it, to further contrast the villainy of the culture. Lastly it can't be stupid evil, or simply evil for evils sake. Whatever they conquer must be kept in a working state so that they can feed themselves, so the society will also have regular people that might not be evil, but will not think twice about ratting out heroes or dissidents for their own benefit.
The roman empire, china during the warring states period and Nazi germany and its allies can all serve as realistic foundations here
Give them their own cultures and ideals. The leaders of their civilizations should have goals, perhaps seeking the betterment of their people. Perhaps just seeking to benefit themselves. Point is, it makes sense to pursue these goals from their perspective.
Now make the pursuit of their interests something that conflicts with the interests of whatever cultures your party comes from.
A good example would be the horde from early Warcraft games 2 and 3 especially, the orcs are not evil but their culture is just too different from what the alliance deems normal and their natural hostility makes them out to be seen as evil by the alliance.
>orcs sold themselves to demons and murderraped an entire Kingdom
>not evil
I get in Wc3 they weren't but in 2 they just finished destroying Stormwind and were ready to do the same to the rest of the human kingdoms, and they instigated the entire conflict by invading in Wc1.
You don't because the term dindu was pretty much created by people that wanted to reduce complex situations into literally "black and white".
Stop subscribing to and using retarded /pol/ shit and the issue pretty much goes away.
Don't round them out, play it straight. They're spawned by black and twisted sorcery, grown in great vats of vile black goo. They don't have a culture because they weren't made for that. They were created to be as awful as possible, to fight and destroy everything. If they're not killed by either the good guys or their peers, they die off in a couple years anyway.
>You don't because the term dindu was pretty much created by people that wanted to reduce complex situations into literally "black and white".
fucking this
Yeah I forgot how 2 was but my point still stands for 3.
Might makes right. They see no difference between a wolf pack running an elk down and a warband razing a village.
You gotta get your shit from somewhere. These guys are big and tough. It's simply more effective for them to take what they need than invest in the developments that make you self sufficient.
>military expansion
>evul
So medieval societies are subjected to the XXIst century standards now?
It's funny how you hold the Orcs selling out to the Burning Legion against them when that's WC3 era Lore which is when they tried to have the Orcs stop being the villain.
>getting triggered at Dindu
Found the SJWs. Go support Free Palestine and Nigger Lives Matter.
dindu nuffin is AKSHULLLY an ebonics term, not /pol/, unless you think /pol/ is what compels blacks to shout this on every episode of cops
Right, because the orcs willfully massacring humans without being influenced by demons is better. I'm actually being nicer to the orcs by saying they were controlled by the Legion- otherwise that means every orc murdered a human of their own free will and without any demonic influence.
Warcraft 1 Orcs are still the best imo
Nothing beats that Orc ending
> Right, because the orcs willfully massacring humans without being influenced by demons is better
From a Lore stand it is. In the long-run the Blood Curse was one of the worst things to happen in WC's Lore. Frankly, the movie handled it better.
Found the /pol/ fag crying for a safespace.
What a fuckin faggot lel.
>t.tumblr poster
I don't get why so many people hated that movie, yes it should have been longer and explained things better but it was amazing looking and was more original than blue Pocahontas.
Orcs are not, and have never been medieval.
Yes. Obviously.
Who cares about the term? The intention is pretty clear.
He wants to round out a villainous race, perhaps even make them understandable, while still allowing them to be held accountable for their actions and for efforts to oppose them to be treated as justified.
Best way to do that is to maybe give them legitimate grievances and needs, or an understandable mission, but they're still killing your guys at the end of the day. Even if they have a good reason for what they do, you have a good reason for not wanting to just lay down and die. As long as they remain a threat, you have reason to neutralize them for your own security.
And there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. The villainous race clearly does not hold the lives of other races in the same regard as their own. As long as their methods do harm to your kind, it is right to be wary of them. It is understandable to hate them.
t. Thunt. Nobody likes your comic.
We wouldn't HAVE problems with /pol/ if you guys didn't keep taking the bait. They're just saying stuff to rustle your jimmies so they can feel persecuted when you call them retarded.
It's not a hard thing to do. Simply don't do what warcraft ended up doing. See: Elves in Elder Scrolls, Dwarves and chaos in warhammer fantasy, or one of any number of factions already given fluff in D&D books.
Personally, I'm a fan of villain races so alien they creep out the supposed big bads of the setting, like illithids or some other creepy-crawly race that thinks weirdly.
>NIGGER NIGGER NIGGER NIGGER NIGGER NIGGER NIGGER NIGGER
>"Aha, look, that guy got irritated that I'm screeching nigger in his face, what an SJW!"
Please end your life.
>like illithids or some other creepy-crawly race that thinks weirdly
I remember reading something about Illithids which I thought could be pretty cool.
You know the way our brains can come to see tools as an extension of our bodies?
Essentially, the idea is that Illithids, as a naturally telekinetic race, see everything around them as an extension of themselves.
This, coupled with the fact they have mind-control, means they don't entirely see non-Illithids as actual beings.
They also freak the fuck out if someone resists their mind-control, like we would if our arm just went rogue and started punching us
>Go support Free Palestine
Oh, you not /pol/fag you're a fucking Israelite. Go do the world a favor and kill yourself, kike.
"Evil" humans fighting the good humans is much more interesting than using a different "race" as the villains entirely
Have their good and impressive achievements be built on top of or otherwise inextricably linked with their bad deeds. Have them build wonderful marvels of architecture with slave labor, have their unrivaled health and standard of living be due to a brutal eugenics program, have their complex and beautiful religion demand living sacrifices, have their urban scholars and philosophers only able to do their thing because of the wealth and security provided by brutal military campaigns out on the frontier. Remove the bad part and the good comes crashing down.
For contrast, you can have a people who are unquestionably good, but they don't do anything impressive because they're too virtuous to be anything other than hand-to-mouth dirt farmers.
Kill yourself.
>t. muhammad
Not my fault if hordes of muhammads can't kill a bunch of Jews.
Seconded
No, not muhammad. I believe that the jews are more a threat then a bunch of arabs at the moment.
make them mentally incapable of understanding morality, ethics, and the line of thought "how would blank feel?" This will leave you with a species of sociopathic amoral monsters, no mater what their intelligence level is with the only saving grace of occasionally having their interest align with the success of someone decent in the most rare of situations.
done, now pay me in you.
Neat.
Jealousy.
Hear me out.
Imagine if you're in your nice little neighborhood, and the somewhat-nearby orphanage suddenly becomes a forge and armory. The orphans then arm themselves and out of jealousy for all those who have the luxury of having parents, bring chaos and slaughter to your town, seeking only to inflict the pain they feel upon you.
Everything they do is designed to make you feel the splinter in their paw that drives them to attack everything in sight, and if you become what they have become, they will have had true victory. If they can't be happy, then no one can. There's no pretending they haven't gone way too far in their temper tantrum, but there's no pretending they're doing this for no reason.
They are a race that was around before humans and that's simply all they know. Think of it like vikings, they are dope as fuck and are considered evil but its like trying to teach a lion to be vegan. It's just not what they are meant to do.
I really shouldn't bump a /pol/bait thread...
But yeah, that's pretty obvious - give them a legitimate reason to be evil, maybe even something that can be resolved in the long term. Make them redeemable. Problem solved.
Typical examples:
>Driven into near extinction by the greed of mankind, allied with some magical force to exact revenge and reclaim their kingdom.
>Cruelly ruled over by a bunch of powerful evil fucks at the top who drive their thralls to war, largely against their will.
>Can't communicate with humans for one reason or another, require some artifact the humans hold in the center of the capital to survive or return to their own dimension. Constantly war against mankind for reasons humanity can never understand.
>Naturally warlike, primitive, and tribal, but some enlightened leaders are trying to move them into a civilized society. However, their previous murderous conflicts with humanity makes them wary of these efforts, and they try to break up the organization whenever possible, further fueling the rage of the upper echelons in conflict with these progressive leaders. (More or less the plot of pic related.)
etc. etc.
>The Mote In God's Eye
Individual orcs are just as capable of being civilized as humans. Unfortunately, they breed so fast that they'll eventually have to swarm everything for more territory or die.
They do not kill those who cannot fight back. So those without weapons and small children. But if that kid picks up a dagger and starts swinging he's fair game.
>complains about people reducing complex situtations to black and white
>does so even more aggressively
lol leftists
I second the approval of this one, or something along those lines.
It'd be better if there was some way to convey this problem to the humans so that maybe some could be in some way aware of it. Maybe even convince some of the creatures that, "Hey, you aren't the only brain around, get used to it."
Granted, another similar approach is that the creatures NEED to kill mankind to survive, be it for food, or a breeding process, or for souls, but that doesn't really make them redeemable, generally speaking, unless you can provide another source for this need that involves less conflict.
They're still dicks.
>implying orcs did anything wrong
>implying Belfs did anything wrong
>implying the Forsaken did anything wrong
You obviously know nothing of Warcraft or you are baiting. Probably both since Warcraft belongs on /v/. Now fuck off with your bait thread. Sage'd and reported.
You've got the techniques of shitposting down, but you're using too many of them.
The typo in the picture, the SAGE GOES IN ALL FIELDS, the reference to another, shittier board, the obviously wrong statements on a game you probably don't play and the accusing the OP of baiting are all good form, but it's too obvious and no one will bite.
6/10, you've got potential.
Man those haradrim were really different from the men of the west, with their weird cloths and culture and such. It's like they were some totally different race or something...
Were they? Were they so different?
Except no.
It was created to mock the fact that every time a black guy got arrested and was clearly fucking guilty, the first comment form his female family would invaribly be that he "Dindu nothing".
It was not mocking a black and white issue, only in the sense that it was literally a black issue,
>Now I ask, how do you recommend to round out or make less "Black and White" a villain race without turning them into Dindus?
Make the ends justify the means, or, barring that: have the people come to accept it in their own way.
Grass is always greener sort of deal.
It's what I've been doing.
>Sure, the Orcish Empire has sacked, raided, destroyed many of the neighboring kingdoms, and mass-slaughtered all the noble and ruling class to replace with orcish rulers.. but under Orcish rule: Food quality and distribution is up, the poor and homeless have been given jobs and housing- even the previously infirmed as Orcish medicine excels at prosthesis, political infighting and corruption is non-existent, and freedom of religion is once again legal.
>Really, though, life has never been better under the rule of the Dragon King: his long life span has guaranteed peace & stability throughout the kingdom, the dragon worshipping church has never been so generous with their miracles and public outreach, holidays are often, frequent, and joyous- The Dragon King holding a celebration in his glory almost twice a month, and the country never safer due to our order of knights blessed with the ability to shapeshift into Dragon Men.
>Life is much more simpler now that the Omni-Druid has destroyed the kingdom: hunting and gathering only take up 6 hours of work every 2nd day, life expectancy is up thanks to the clean air, abundant natural food sources, and not having to mine for coal or shovel human shit, prayers to the Omni-druid are answered with blessings of strength, good hunts, and increased sexual endowment, and the Omni-druid is always accepting new druids to spread the word and the wild.
Literally make them white people. Euros carved up the world and conquered it's people, while simultaneously bringing humanity into the greatest era of prosperity and technological innovation ever. England is literally a super villain historically. So was Rome, even if their conquest fell flat and didn't lead to anything interesting or lasting.
Are you trying to develop their character, or turn them around into good guys?
Because the former is a matter of execution and virtually anything will work as long as the person handling it tells it well.
In regards to the latter, just let time heal wounds once the culture's changed for any reason. I mean most people are aware of the holocaust but even direct perpetrators have managed to settle down, grow past it, and earn forgiveness.
>that last bit
You fool, you've summoned them!
It is risky to say it here, but I think the Thalmor from elder scrolls work as a good example. Their aspiration to undo the world makes then inherently evil and hostile to others while also being a logical religious aspiration.
Well, you could make them be like the mongols: Incredible brutal when waging war and conquering, yet surprisingly fair when comes down to ruling you.
Play them unapologetically straight.
Orc culture is brutal, and they take slaves, and mix their blood with slaves and prisoners they take.
However, everyone is born equal, and they're all brutal meritocracies. Only your strength and cunning will support you, and superiors are expected to keep ahead of their pupils, otherwise you aren't fit to be their superior.
I think a lot of you are missing the point, he's looking to flesh out a society that is adversarial and cruel without justifying their cruelty or their aggressiveness.
Start with firmly held beliefs (The Gods need blood to survive, strength is worthyness, if you aren't , you're just an animal, etc), the create an economic impetus (surplus of second sons and full settlement of homeland means ever dwinding inheritances until new lands are incorporated, insufficient resources due to climate change, or conversely population boom due to decades of plenty, etc) and finish by making them own it and feel no remorse.
Fleshing them out should be accomplished by making ambitious factions willing to use outsiders to change the power dynamics, by giving them artforms, like epic poetry, handycraft tapestries, etc, that seem more authentic coming from a less civilized culture, and by making them individuals with their own motives and own level of zeal towards the cultural reason behind the cruelty or adversarialism that you chose. That doesnt mean make them into heretics who deny the cultural choice that makes them inimical to the other societies, just make them have bigger plans and a willingness to compromise.
Intelligent life is a niche that doesn't tolerate competition, it is not the all outlandish for "other homonids" to be strange, evil, and unrepentant from the prospective of the players.
Mixing these two would be pretty cool imo.
Undead are not evil by themselves, but a tool of evil and a perversion of the natural order. Unless it's a soulless, filthy vampire which kills or damns others. You can empathize creatures who live in constant agony, but can't die unless certain requirements are met pretty easily.
Orcs you can have them be more or less bandits or just a civilization that falls apart due to culture, phenotype, and language being so fractured and different that it's impossible to work because of an inability to communicate or empathize with other tribes.
It has nothing to do with race and everything to do with poor trash criminals, including white trash morons who get pissed about pressing 1 for English but speak the language about as well as a lolcat.
>beat your wife
dindu nuffin
>drunk in public
dindu nuffin
>accidentally shot your brother because you're inbred retards
dindu nuffin
>caught with pounds of meth
dindu nuffin
>It was not mocking a black and white issue, only in the sense that it was literally a black issue,
We're discussing "dindu" in the context of Veeky Forums, not its actual origins. People use "dindu" on Veeky Forums to describe orcs because they don't like them and rather than discuss the circumstances, they simplify matters and turn it into black and white.
Anons? Honest question: if a "monstrous" race turns to actually be just one particular faction/subgroup of their race and held up as a bunch of fuckups who need a good beating by the rest of their species, does that make them into "dindus"?
Like, say you get sick of the orc raiders coming out of the wasteland, go on an expedition to find their source, and find a thriving orc culture beyond who are nothing like the drug-addled demon-worshipping bersekers you normally face. When you ask about it, the orcs explain those orcs you've been fighting are outcasts who got thrown out into the wasteland to die, and they're horrified to hear that they've been attacking you - they though the wasteland went on forever, they had no idea that there were other people on the opposite side of it.
>all the greater Orc society did wrong was not bother to actually map the area
It's funny how apathy can cause more problems than malice, but still always feels more "right."
>How do you round out a villain race
You DON'T. "Rounded-out race" and "villain race" are mutually exclusive. It's not fun to slay the raider if you know he's got four kids to feed.
Give them their own moral system that's not "what we're doing is bad but we're not all like that, I swear".
Perhaps, like the aztecs, their actions are necessary for theological reasons. It's up to you if those reason are real or not.
Or if not religious, make it political. I have gnolls that are traditionally desert nomads, and they like to raid for purely economic reasons. But then there's some who are fascists, modeled a bit on southern African post-colonial nations, who have kicked out the Elven colonists and are forging their own nation, largely by conquering smaller groups of gnolls. The more civilized world fucking hates those guys, since they killed the elves and fucked things up, but there's no moral problem from their own point of view.
Check yer privilege.
>medieval societies
>military expansion
Nigga what the fuck are you talking about?
Sounds shit desu.
See, there's a reason he used that terminology that you ignored. Because what he didn't want is exactly what you just described.
Well, they drove home the point that the entire generation other than Frostwolves and all but one Mag'har were basically evil, and even when given a choice decide to be evil.
Shit, they basically had Thrall going Boondocks MLK on the kids that want to be like their parents as a plot point.
>muh noble savage
eh
In ideals, in gods, in garb, in war, and in every way that defines a people. Paint them green and how much really separated them from orcs? Besides not hating themselves quite as much.
Noble savage? Not in the slightest.
It's a brutal meritocracy, meaning usually failures are beat, broken, or killed.
There is nothing noble about it.
It tried to do WAAAAAAY too many fucking stories at once, to the point that if you aren't a loremaster anyway a lot of it is "Who the fuck is that? What the fuck are those things? What the fuck was that? Why is this happening? What about that guy, isn't he important? I forgot that guy's name, is he even someone we've met? What the FUCK just happened and why?".
Not to mention Garona looked terrible. They should have committed to her being half-Draenei and gone full CG with her.
They really needed to split the movie, shown the horde side THEN the alliance side without mixing them in order to clear up the narrative direction. Not to mention the parts the fans wanted the most, wandering around Karazahn during Khadgar's apprenticeship and being introduced to the Clan leaders never happened.
Why are you all being retarded? There's a simple answer to this.
Just make them people.
To be fair, the Blood Elves weren't dindus in Warcraft 3, though the racist humans were pretty retarded. The Illidari were actually a pretty solid faction of clearly not evil but clearly not good people, they would've been a solid addition to WoW if they'd been treated well.
But that's WoW in general, in the end none of Warcraft's lore was really treated well by the game unless it was forgotten.
Yeah, but then you just end up with Game Of Thrones.
I want a mix of different sapient species.
So go TES. Anyone can be a prick, anyone can be good. You have racial politics by homeland, but you can find any race doing just about anything as civilians and soldiers anywhere. Other than the Thalmor areas, because fuck the Thalmor.
Yep, noble savage.
And the Forsaken too could've been a morally interesting faction, except they were working on super AIDS from day 1.
Instead of "undead trying to find their place in their old homeland, opposed by their former friends and family and the undead scourge that created them" we got "little Lich Queen no one holds responsible, unless it's to create more pain in the ass faction conflict."
I think what World of Warcraft did best was the Dark Iron Dwarves.
They were an interesting race hinted at existing in earlier lore but expanded on mostly in WoW.
Good enemies and interesting when you met a friendly one. Their dungeons were PACKED with lore and shit to do, and even in Cataclysm where everything was fucked up they still managed to keep the Dark Iron storyline flowing and interesting.
We have entirely different ideas of what a noble savage is.
They had Forsaken totally not interested in super AIDS, but that plot was kind of dropped outside of neutral factions.
If your Forsaken is horde, they mostly end up pieces of shit.
In fact, the ONLY Horde one I can remember who wasn't awful is the inkeeper of Brill and she actually took a comic series to redeem.
Honesty and consistent adherence to a strict moral code are typically viewed as noble. It's just their moral code is brutal and savage. Hence, noble savage.
Well, it seems you think "noble" means something very specific morally, though I'm not entirely sure what. In the context of the phrase, though, it doesn't really anyway. It means simply that there's some exagerated ideal, some way when you can say "look, these people despite being inferior to us and general barbaric (savage) are actually totally more pure and better than us (noble)". In your case, the snowflakey meritocracy is noble, the brutality is savage. It fits the normal usage of the term to a fucking tee.
I don't have anything to add, I just wanted to post this artwork.
How is a meritocracy snowflakey?
To be fair, "only the strongest survive" and also having a large population is a bit odd.
Its one thing to have a difficult life and trials leading into adulthood, its another to actually have a large amount of unfortunate death, duels, war, and not be a small clan at the most.
Meritocracy as a concept isn't, that specific implementation is.
Since you ignored the rest of the post, does that mean you rescind your previously implied disagreement?
I'm not the user you're arguing with, I simply objected to a meritocracy based on physical strength being called snowflakey. It's like the most basic form of social organization, practiced even by, or possibly moreso by animals
You shouldn't assume every user that isn't you is the same person
I've personally had success creating "villainous" races/factions by ripping off the steppe hordes of Central Asia. On the one hand, they have no respect for settled peoples and think that they are weak. But on the other hand, the nomads need to raid and pillage to acquire social status and wealth.
They are anathema to the values of most civilized people, and that makes them "evil." But they have a fully functioning society behind it all, though it is a little parasitic thanks to the raiding aspect.
>Rome
>not leading to anything interesting or lasting
Nigga are you retarded?
Do they civilize when they manage to take over territory off their steppes?
Backstory for a D&D setting:
Orcs were mostly Gruumsh followers and had their more or less standard tribal structure. Which were starting to bite them in the ass because around them different kingdoms and empires were starting to sprout. Sometimes as a direct answer to orc pillage, rape, burn policy. Over time they were pushed further and further away and many got into slavery. Countries around their lands used them as source of cheap labour raiding the tribes incapable to really cooperate for a long enough amount of time.
It was going for a pretty long time until a slave rebellion started. Half-orc leader of said rebellion made an army out of slaves and fucked off into orc lands hoping for a better future. He was really disappointed by the state of things there. So he beat orcs too and in the process killed around 3/4 of Gruumsh priesthood and establishing a new standard of worship and ideals. Orcs now were worshipping a pantheon of Gruumsh, Kord and Heironeous.
After new king solidified his rule he made sure to crush all the countries around his new kingdom which didn't make him the most loveable guy in the foreign nations. But orcs were able to create a new pretty powerful country that still stands even a century after first king died.
Just look at the villains throughout history, They are as many and varied as they come. Take the Ottomans, an expansionist empire using slaves as an elite military unit; the Spanish, foreign invaders intent on stripping the land of all the wealth they can get; take a look at the 15th century Holy Roman Empire with the villain as the emperor trying to reassert his dominance over the princes; the possibilities are limitless.
Ah, sorry for being an ass then. It's not the core concept but his notions of it.
First of all
>everyone is born equal
Everyone? Sparta is the most famous historical egalitarian military society in history, and a bit snowflakey itself. They still had gender differences and a slave race, and the spartan men had different prestige according to which school/camp their fathers got them into, and their wealth wasn't so much abolished as it was put on hold until they got old. What culture was truly born equal? The closest you get is countries that meme it like the US, but it's not really true ever.
>usually failures are beat, broken, or killed.
This just isn't practical. All this killing and maiming decreases the population. And what's a failure anyway? If someone can't do his job, isn't it the fault of whatever superior let him get the job?
>It's like the most basic form of social organization, practiced even by, or possibly moreso by animals
You need to brush up on your ethology.
Your choice. Historically they didn't annex territory from settled peoples, the hordes just forced them to become vassals/tributaries. Take a look at the relationship between Muscovy and the Golden Horde in the 14th and 15th centuries for more details.
>No mention of Mongols, Moors, Vikings, Persians, Arabs, etc.
>villain races
Seriously, don't. If Conan didn't need them, neither do you.