Yes, I am directly responding to an action taken in the roleplaying game world.
Any similarities to the real world are strictly unintentional, I’m sure.
In a certain place, in a certain time, Humans took it upon themselves to rewrite the stories of the Orcs and the Goblins and the Trolls.
They did not consult the Orcs or the Goblins or the Trolls who already existed; they assumed that most of them were either suffering from how poorly they’d been portrayed, or were brainwashed into thinking they were evil. They were told they were being misrepresented as ‘monocultures’, as if most Trolls and Orcs and Goblins were very similar.
No-one, apparently, considered that this might be true because those beings are often similar; that the sort of individual differences which humans claim to prize (but which, to be fair, evidence suggests they rather hate) – were, in fact, simply a part of how those beings lived; those beings were just far less hypocritical about it than humans.
Well, humans thought they’d been writing fiction about all those beasts, but upon the release of this inspiring news, a number of monsters sent very polite letters to the Coastal Wizards, thanking them for their consideration, and inviting them—
inviting them—
….okay, yes, inviting them to dinner.
I bet you’re expecting me to tell you that the Trolls and such welcomed the dinner guests, bashed them over the head with clubs, and ate them, aren’t you? Because that’s the kind of heavy-handed story you’d expect from some kind of jerkwad self-styled iconoclast like myself.
You’re wrong.
The monsters actually slit their throats. It allows the cranium to remain intact, permitting either trophies, or the consumption of more brain matter, as one prefers. And then they ate them.
Because the monsters were perfectly happy being monsters, thank you. They did not possess the human need to claim that they’re not horrible beasts; and, much more importantly, they may be a bunch of damn monocultures, but they sure as hell don’t spend most of their time arbitrarily dividing each other into groups and deciding that one side is all evil and the other side has the only key to goodness.
Because that’s just a load of stupid, and the monsters aren’t having it, thank you very much.
At any rate:
You’re welcome to come by the homes of the monsters for dinner anytime. Yes, you’ll be the dinner. Yes, some people are apparently too stupid to learn from experience. Some people want to believe things are a certain way.
As far as I’m concerned, natural-selection-via-monster-digestive-tract can’t possibly happen quick enough to suit me.
My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities and create things. Every year, I put on Evil Expo, the Greatest Place in the World to be a Villain. I also write a lot of fantasy and science fiction.. You can get most of my books right here. Go ahead, pre-order “I HATE Your Prophecy“. It may make you into a bad person, but I can live with that.
