THE SEEDY MOTEL VS. THE LUXURIOUS PALACE

      For a number of years, it has seemed to me that D&D products are designed with an inherent bias toward good heroes and good locations.

It seems to me that good heroes are the default focus of D&D products and gamers; most groups start out somewhere in the good spectrum, with some dipping into the neutral, but only occasional dalliances with evil.  Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, and your group may vary, but this is what I've noticed over time.  Evil campaigns remain novel and continue to spark certain conversations because they make up a smaller percentage of the games being played.  And it's not that the books don't provide information about evil characters and places.  Much of the basic material of D&D is just as useable by evil people as it is by others; hell, evil characters might be more forthcoming with certain spells and tactics because they can be unfair and/or mean. 

      But in subtle ways, the game is designed to support good heroes battling bad guys more than any alternative.  If we look at the Monster Manual I (3.0), which contains common creatures for groups to encounter (read as: kill and loot), we find that 52 of the entries are neutral (N, LN, CN), 51 are evil (LE, CE, NE), and only 20 are good (LG, CG, NG).  Are there just not as many good creatures in the universe?  Not necessarily.  But you're not supposed to loot and kill the good guys.  It's perfectly okay to attack evil, and many neutral creatures are just animals with shiny, expensive pelts.  But if you're good, then it's generally considered a bad thing to go around killing other good beings.  Less good aligned monsters means less hesitation in battle.

      What does this have to do with creating an evil campaign, you might be asking?  These are small details.  Surely they won't get in the way.  Except that they do and will get in the way if you are looking to create a rich campaign that is at least internally consistent.  There are points at which you might have to do extra work simply because there isn't enough support in certain areas.  Consider, if you will, the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (3.0), an amazing resource by any measure and one of my personal favorite gaming books of all time.  Each region on the map, and there are many, are given some overall details, like the most common alignments.  I don't have the number breakdowns just yet but there seem to be many, many more good aligned places than anything else. 

      What's more, the good places receive a lot more attention, detail, and space - they just get more screen time.  For example: The Dalelands are made up of about eleven smaller districts, most of which are good-aligned, with an overall population of 602,640.  If we are generous, we can say the Dalelands take up about half the land of Thay.  The book spends about 22 pages on the various dales, giving each of them pratical details (their own population, imports, exports), geographical details, sites, history, and so on.  By comparison, Thay is the major evil country on the face of Faerun.  It takes up twice as much space as the Dalelands and has a population of 4,924,800.  It also has eleven districts - but gets about three pages of description, with a little blurb given per district.  This is but one example of this favoritism.

      And when we examine the descriptions of major good locations in comparison to similar evil places, we find some interesting differences.  Waterdeep has all alignments, but the language used to describe its inhabitants often highlights the good and positive.  The city is vibrant and enjoyable, to paraphrase, a wine the inhabitants can't get enough of.  While it does have some squallor, particularly in the Dock Ward, the other wards are pleasant.  The Thayan port of Bezantur, on the other hand, has black walls and "squats" on the shore.  The people are "crammed" inside, and outside is "an immense and squalid shantytown."  There are no trees near the city.

The general products of D&D are focused on and provide the most support for good aligned heroes.  generally concentrates on good aligned heroes and evil aligned people as villains.  Sometimes the good fall, on rare occasion the evil rise, and somewhere in there neutral folks go about their business, but the major sides are pretty well defined.  It can be interesting and challenging to go against the normal flow and develop evil characters as multi-faceted people who are part of the world, not just one dungeon or gang.  It can also be very rewarding to develop evil societies as living, breathing entities.  see what develops.

The four most recent generations of House Valgon are contained herein, with all information that is available for the price you have paid.  A key to the colors and marks is below.  All descendants are presented in birth order.  The birth surnames of those who have bred with and/or married into the family are shown for convenience