My Fantasy Race

[Morgoth]

Hi all, just wondering what people think of the fantasy race I've created, which I'm having a bit of trouble with.

Basically I feel they come off as a bit...ugly, evil for the sake of being evil monsters, which I don't think is interesting. They have sickly green spiked skin, with a skull-like demonic face. They've made numerous attempts to conquer the human kingdoms and nearly all delight in torturing beings either of or not of their species. My plan for now is that their past will be revealed bit by bit as the story progresses. They are the offspring of an otherworld race who found that when in the human realm any children they had would be born deformed. This otherworldly race had an innate desire for superiority and controlling others, and while many left the human world, a number stayed and enslaved their offspring. So for near a thousand years they were oppressed, until their own innate desire for control led them to rise up and slaughter their owners.

So the reason they're “evil” is because of hundreds of years of being enslaved and suppression of a natural desire to dominate, along with the cruel treatment from the other races of the world because of their appearance. They've been slaves for 1000 years, looked upon with scorn by every other race, and were only freed by their own efforts — so the vast majority of them feel it is their right to assault the human kingdoms if they so choose.

Now as I said this wouldn't be revealed straight away, so I'm worried that at first they'll look like monsters just there to be bad guys. I've considered making them slightly more human in appearance or changing them into humans mutated by centuries of supernatural oppression. But I'm not all too sure. Any opinions are welcome.

 

[ThinkerX]

I'd suggest dropping or modifying the 'desire to torture others not of their own species'. Maybe limit that mentality to a specific cult or order within the race. This doesn't change the races overall militancy. Have another cult or order desperately searching for a way to avoid having deformed children born. They need not be 'nice' about this.

This way you have groups inside this race with understandable motivations of their own, motivations which have the potential to come into conflict.

Also worth noting: the racial attitude of superiority could take a major hit if this race suffered a clear, major defeat in one or another of their conquests. That too, would give rise to yet another faction: 'the what went wrong' / 'how do we fix this' bunch.

 

[Trick]

This made me think of a great TV show, turned movie. Firefly/Serenity has the Reavers and they attack and kill/eat people without warning or reason and they didn't make any sense at all but they were still believable and characters trade stories/rumors about where they came from several times. Then in the movie, we find out exactly why they are so evil. And you almost start to feel bad for them, not that you want them over for lunch. Your backstory for this race makes me feel bad for them even though I'd still fight them if needed. I hope that makes sense.

My only suggestion is that if you don't want people to feel bad for them at all, you may want to consider altering things to make them seem less pitiable. Perhaps make their slavery the result of being defeated in their conquest against humankind so that the current motivation is both revenge and domination combined. That is definitely a less forgiveable reason.

Just my two cents...