@WebShaman If the Drow were "evil. Period", the good ones wouldn't have a deity with portfolio just for them. After all, I doubt that Elistraee got her powers from Drizzt's prayers (who is follower of Mielikki, by the way) or Zaknafein. Their general eveliness is a product of certain type of society, not inherit traits of the race (as opposed to, say, demons).
Drizzt proves that drow are not born, but made evil by their upbringing. Zaknafein was not evil either.
Go all "twilight" if you want, but anything with sentience and intelligence has the capability of being something other than evil.
FYI: Drizzt came before Twilight. And Pwent being turned...had nothing to do with Twilight. A battlerager dwarf covered in spikey killing armor and the blood and gore of drow elves....not exactly Twilight material.
A very astute observation, @Lathlaer. While I cannot predict with certainty the outcome of any societal upheaval, the day may come when even Lolth lies buried and forgotten, her webs spun into threadbare slivers and her influence spent at last. If nothing else, the examples of a few - myself among them - can perhaps call into question the perception of an identical many, no matter how seductive or comforting such ideas are. Those of us outcast and simply seeking to make our way across the surface would have an easier journey if such perception was commonplace, despite any difference of heritage.
Well, to actually understand the Drow, we need to go back to the beginning, where it all began in D&D - with, of course, The Maestro Gary E. Gygax and the Giant series (leading into the D series and ending in Q1).
He "invented" the Drow (really, he just brought them over from Norse mythology, but still...for our purposes, the Drow started with Mr. Gygax). Of course, they were monsters, and they were evil.
Now, an enterprising author decided to base a series of books around a certain Drow, and this Drow would not be evil. The "ultimate underdog", with the whole world against him. Of course, we all love this - surmounting impossible odds, blah blah blah.
We all know the rest.
This started the whole "Drow can be good! Not all Drow are evil!" hysteria, and everyone of course wanted to be this Drow, and play this Drow, and basically ad infinitum make us all naseous.
The cries of the fans grew so loud, that of course ears heard it, ears that sensed that here money could be made. And what do you know, now we get a benevolent Drow goddess on the Surface world, for those good Drow who manage to escape their evil underdark brethren.
Now, there are non-evil Drow. Very rare, and seldom seen. I don't think I need to go into detail on why they are so feared, hated, and reviled.
It would be like having a good goblin, orc, hobgoblin, gnoll, etc. A very rare occurance, that surely can happen, but would have to be limited to individuals, and not a culture.
This is perhaps the best line yet
anything with sentience and intelligence has the capability of being something other than evil.
"The drow are first presented as a player character race in Unearthed Arcana (1985), also written by Gygax. Several elven sub-races are described in the book, including gray elves, wood elves, wild elves, and valley elves; the dark elves are described as the most divergent sub-race, and dark elf player characters are considered outcasts from their homeland, either by choice, differing from the standard chaotic evil alignment of the race, or having lost in some family-wide power struggle."
That is a quote from english wikipedia under the term Drow. So it was the year 1985 when Gygax first introduced Drow as a player race and specifically noted that those drow divert from their chaotic evil alignment. Whether it's to other evil-only alignments or also good/neutrals, I don't know.
And that were the drow in general vacuum D&D rules. Setting specific good drow appeared, also according to wiki, in 1991 in Drow of Underdark by the creator of FR - Ed Greenwood, one year after culmination of Salvatore's Icewind Dale Trilogy.
One could argue that good drow have a well established tradition - 23 years isn't, after all, a short period of time. And that was before the Dark Elf Trilogy and subsequent Drizzt books, so he wasn't THAT popular back then (even moreso, considering that Icewind Dale Trilogy is considered the weakest of Salvatore's works by some people - but that is just an opinion).
All matters aside, we deal in facts here. And the facts are that there are good drow in Forgotten Realms and while there isn't nearly as many of them as the evil ones, they still are significant enough to warrant another deity.
Drows from Greyhawk (Gygax's area of expertise) are beside the point here As are those from Eberron.
EDIT: what's interesting, if the fallen solar Malkizid is any indication, even beings of pure, inherit good are capable of becoming evil. So if there are circumstances that allow the celestials to go different route (possibly the same thing goes for the devils/demons), then it's even easier to justify good members of races that are evil due to envirnoment causes.
I'm not sure what to make of your take on the development of Drizzt. On the one hand you seem to acknowledge that there can be good monsters, on the other hand you seem to believe there wouldn't be any if it weren't for profiteering authors and WoTC higher ups.
The point is, why is Hexxat evil was the question. People replied "because she's a vampire and all vampires are evil." To which others replied "there are good vampires" and I myself replied "all things that can think have the power of free choice, and therefore can be whatever they want to be."
The conclusion is, Hexxat is not evil simply because she is a vampire. There are exceptions, and she could be one if she so chose.
Right. Hexxat is evil because it suits her to be evil: because she likes feeding from innocents, because being good is harder, because she's always been evil... any of those reasons, or maybe another one. But she is evil.
She could be good. She'd probably have to resist some natural urges, and it would probably be a bit harder for her then it would be for the average human, but she *could* be good. A fiend can be good, and so can a vampire.
But Hexxat is not that person.
(Until someone writes the inevitable 'redeem Hexxat mod', anyway. I'm sure one will pop up eventually.)
"The drow are first presented as a player character race in Unearthed Arcana (1985), also written by Gygax. Several elven sub-races are described in the book, including gray elves, wood elves, wild elves, and valley elves; the dark elves are described as the most divergent sub-race, and dark elf player characters are considered outcasts from their homeland, either by choice, differing from the standard chaotic evil alignment of the race, or having lost in some family-wide power struggle."
That is a quote from english wikipedia under the term Drow. So it was the year 1985 when Gygax first introduced Drow as a player race and specifically noted that those drow divert from their chaotic evil alignment. Whether it's to other evil-only alignments or also good/neutrals, I don't know.
Sure. But the first appearance of the Drow was in
The original Hall of the Fire Giant King adventure and was written by Gary Gygax and published in 1978 by TSR, Inc.
And that was the first appearance of the Drow, with an appendium at the back of the Mod with info on the Drow. Of course, they are not presented as a player race. They were every DM's favorite villain back then, as I recall, and most players dreaded Drow encounters (rightly so) when done properly (those dratted handcrossbow bolts!).
And that were the drow in general vacuum D&D rules. Setting specific good drow appeared, also according to wiki, in 1991 in Drow of Underdark by the creator of FR - Ed Greenwood, one year after culmination of Salvatore's Icewind Dale Trilogy.
One could argue that good drow have a well established tradition - 23 years isn't, after all, a short period of time. And that was before the Dark Elf Trilogy and subsequent Drizzt books, so he wasn't THAT popular back then (even moreso, considering that Icewind Dale Trilogy is considered the weakest of Salvatore's works by some people - but that is just an opinion).
Except that we are talking about the FR, and Gary E. Gygax was not involved in it. His world was the World of Greyhawk, a much different world than the FR.
So no, in the FR, good Drow do not have a well-established tradition of 23 years. I suppose one could stretch things to say that as the FR came out, UE also applied to it, but really, the authors of the content are two seperate people.
All matters aside, we deal in facts here. And the facts are that there are good drow in Forgotten Realms and while there isn't nearly as many of them as the evil ones, they still are significant enough to warrant another deity.
This is, of course, true. But I still say that it is only due to all the inspired Drow Players out there mostly due to Salvatore's works. My opinion, of course.
Drows from Greyhawk (Gygax's area of expertise) are beside the point here As are those from Eberron.
EDIT: what's interesting, if the fallen solar Malkizid is any indication, even beings of pure, inherit good are capable of becoming evil. So if there are circumstances that allow the celestials to go different route (possibly the same thing goes for the devils/demons), then it's even easier to justify good members of races that are evil due to envirnoment causes.
Normally one would expect the Outer Planar creatures to represent the alignment of the Plane of Origin, and it is normally fixed - meaning that free will just doesn't normally factor in here (only the Prime Material Plane's inhabitants are supposed to have free will, etc). I rather suspect that a Solar falling is situational, dependent on something that has happened (re: action) and the result was not forseen leading to the fall itself. Often hubris (Pride) can lead to such a fall for goodly Planar Beings.
Going from evil to good for a Demon/Devil due to actions I find is a much more difficult thing to explain. What, are they giving to charity? Perhaps in an attempt to dispose of or discredit a foe, one might do something good?
@WebShaman Not really, pick Grace, for instance, she was sold as a slave to the baatezu because her mother thought it would be funny, and won her freedom in a contest of improvisation. A tana'ri raised among the baatezu is already likely to have some alignment conflict (chaotic to lawful), and considering Grace is lawful neutral (but acts lawful good), some of the baatezu standards have imprinted on her. Ravel Puzzlewell (a night hag who is in love with the protagonist, just like most of the female cast (Annah and Deionarra, and likely Grace were she not bound by a vow of chastity)) also states that out of the entire party (Morte, a Chaotic Good floating skull (which is itself an example of alignment defiance) who put you in the mess you are in the first place; Annah of the Shadows, a Chaotic Neutral tiefling who has just realized her entire life was an abusive mess (and is also in love with the protagonist ("I love him more than life")); Dak'kon, a githzerai zerth who has unkowingly voluntarily bound himself to slavery (to you, no less); Nordom, a rogue mordon who has to deal with being cut off from the consensus; Ignus, a mage one of your past lifes had made a conduit to the elemental plane of fire which drove him insane; Valor, an asshole who doesn't realize how much of an asshole he is whose sole purpose is to die after giving you bonuses to strength by making him realize how much of an asshole he is (this is also the path that gives the most XP)) Grace is by far the most tormented: haunted by her inherent evilness and chaoticity as well as her past - she also states that it is definitely not easy for Grace to fight her inherent perversity and maintain her composture (which is likely why she is not considered good) without giving into it.
Not D&D related, but definitely related to the post, is something Paarthurnax from Skyrim says: "No day goes by where I am not tempted to return to my inborn nature. Zin krif haalvut se sulyek. What is better? To be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?"
Hell, being one of the few non-evil bhaalspawn (if you so choose), CHARNAME themselves count as this, being infused with the essence of an evil god and all.
I still agree that Hexxat doesn't act very evil, and all we have pointing toward her being evil are two things:
1: Hexxat kills Clara. This is surely an evil action. Or is it? We have no real idea as to why this happens. Clara herself seems aware that it was going to happen, but we get no real answers as to the why of it. Hexxat only attacks Clara's character if you ask her about it.
2: A single banter with Aerie in which Hexxat admits to sneaking off to feed from innocents. This is evil. To what extent however? Does Hexxat kill these innocents? Or does she simply feed on them? Why feed on these people instead if the various people CHARNAME is forced to kill in his travels? Is she lying to Aerie just to get a rise out of her?
So Eeeeeevil? Possibly, but not very. I would wager that she is the least evil of the evil NPCs.
Viconia is less evil than Hexxat. So much so that she can be converted. should just give hexxat that helm of opposite alignment from Durlag's Tower and be done with it.
2: A single banter with Aerie in which Hexxat admits to sneaking off to feed from innocents. This is evil. To what extent however? Does Hexxat kill these innocents? Or does she simply feed on them? Why feed on these people instead if the various people CHARNAME is forced to kill in his travels? Is she lying to Aerie just to get a rise out of her?
I doubt Aerie would attack her if she wasn't completely sure Hexxat was feeding on/killing innocents, so the vampire seems to be telling the truth. But it's all very odd... Hex goes to a lot of trouble to at least appear friendly to everyone else, including, apparently, learning about Boo so she can manipulate Minsc. But then she goes and blows it like that with his witch? And really if she says things like that then a lot more characters would take notice of it (Imoen, Nalia, Jaheira etc). She really ought to have lied there.
Good manners and a calm exterior is no proof of not being evil however; it's what they do that counts. Characters who are openly evil to everyone and are constantly threatening to grind everyone's bones into flour wouldn't really last long; they'd tick off a lot of people and end up ground themselves. And I agree Viconia is less evil; she's a total bitch, but she never actually does anything (that we know, anyway; she's smart enough not to get caught). Vic's obviously very troubled but she can change.
I'd say Viconia is a pretty good example of a reasonably intelligent evil character, as far as her behavior towards other party members is concerned: When faced with prejudice and/or hostility, she firmly stands her ground and displays her contempt and cruelty. But she also knows when and how to diffuse the situation when a threat of violence between party members arises.
Don't know about that; Viconia understands why the drow have such a bad reputation because of the history of constantly killing and trying to conquer everyone else. She herself would say that it's all well deserved and the stories about them them are all completely true. Really, she should make an effort to be nicer as well and she would more easily win over a lot of the others if she was and make her own life much, much easier. Instead she seems to show this slightly self-destructive tendency and deliberately winds the others up.
@WebShaman Not really, pick Grace, for instance, she was sold as a slave to the baatezu because her mother thought it would be funny, and won her freedom in a contest of improvisation. A tana'ri raised among the baatezu is already likely to have some alignment conflict (chaotic to lawful), and considering Grace is lawful neutral (but acts lawful good), some of the baatezu standards have imprinted on her. Ravel Puzzlewell (a night hag who is in love with the protagonist, just like most of the female cast (Annah and Deionarra, and likely Grace were she not bound by a vow of chastity)) also states that out of the entire party (Morte, a Chaotic Good floating skull (which is itself an example of alignment defiance) who put you in the mess you are in the first place; Annah of the Shadows, a Chaotic Neutral tiefling who has just realized her entire life was an abusive mess (and is also in love with the protagonist ("I love him more than life")); Dak'kon, a githzerai zerth who has unkowingly voluntarily bound himself to slavery (to you, no less); Nordom, a rogue mordon who has to deal with being cut off from the consensus; Ignus, a mage one of your past lifes had made a conduit to the elemental plane of fire which drove him insane; Valor, an asshole who doesn't realize how much of an asshole he is whose sole purpose is to die after giving you bonuses to strength by making him realize how much of an asshole he is (this is also the path that gives the most XP)) Grace is by far the most tormented: haunted by her inherent evilness and chaoticity as well as her past - she also states that it is definitely not easy for Grace to fight her inherent perversity and maintain her composture (which is likely why she is not considered good) without giving into it.
Not D&D related, but definitely related to the post, is something Paarthurnax from Skyrim says: "No day goes by where I am not tempted to return to my inborn nature. Zin krif haalvut se sulyek. What is better? To be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?"
Hell, being one of the few non-evil bhaalspawn (if you so choose), CHARNAME themselves count as this, being infused with the essence of an evil god and all.
If I am understanding much of your post, you are talking about Planescape : Torment, right?
You do know that Planescape is a different reality, right? Like Dragonlance, Dark Sun, Greyhawk, etc. It is not FR.
In Planescape, things work much, much differently than in the FR reality. You can't really use example of it to compare with the FR.
What you could say is that one of those happened to find a way into the FR realm, however. This is, of course, the "loop-hole" type of plot effect - anything goes with it. I can build a realm where all demons and devils are good, for example. Then have them find their way into the FR realm.
Except that we are talking about the FR, and Gary E. Gygax was not involved in it. His world was the World of Greyhawk, a much different world than the FR.
So no, in the FR, good Drow do not have a well-established tradition of 23 years. I suppose one could stretch things to say that as the FR came out, UE also applied to it, but really, the authors of the content are two seperate people.
Drow of Underdark by Ed Greenwood appeared in 1991. Seems like 23 years to me.
@WebShaman Not really, pick Grace, for instance, she was sold as a slave to the baatezu because her mother thought it would be funny, and won her freedom in a contest of improvisation. A tana'ri raised among the baatezu is already likely to have some alignment conflict (chaotic to lawful), and considering Grace is lawful neutral (but acts lawful good), some of the baatezu standards have imprinted on her. Ravel Puzzlewell (a night hag who is in love with the protagonist, just like most of the female cast (Annah and Deionarra, and likely Grace were she not bound by a vow of chastity)) also states that out of the entire party (Morte, a Chaotic Good floating skull (which is itself an example of alignment defiance) who put you in the mess you are in the first place; Annah of the Shadows, a Chaotic Neutral tiefling who has just realized her entire life was an abusive mess (and is also in love with the protagonist ("I love him more than life")); Dak'kon, a githzerai zerth who has unkowingly voluntarily bound himself to slavery (to you, no less); Nordom, a rogue mordon who has to deal with being cut off from the consensus; Ignus, a mage one of your past lifes had made a conduit to the elemental plane of fire which drove him insane; Valor, an asshole who doesn't realize how much of an asshole he is whose sole purpose is to die after giving you bonuses to strength by making him realize how much of an asshole he is (this is also the path that gives the most XP)) Grace is by far the most tormented: haunted by her inherent evilness and chaoticity as well as her past - she also states that it is definitely not easy for Grace to fight her inherent perversity and maintain her composture (which is likely why she is not considered good) without giving into it.
Not D&D related, but definitely related to the post, is something Paarthurnax from Skyrim says: "No day goes by where I am not tempted to return to my inborn nature. Zin krif haalvut se sulyek. What is better? To be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?"
Hell, being one of the few non-evil bhaalspawn (if you so choose), CHARNAME themselves count as this, being infused with the essence of an evil god and all.
If I am understanding much of your post, you are talking about Planescape : Torment, right?
You do know that Planescape is a different reality, right? Like Dragonlance, Dark Sun, Greyhawk, etc. It is not FR.
In Planescape, things work much, much differently than in the FR reality. You can't really use example of it to compare with the FR.
What you could say is that one of those happened to find a way into the FR realm, however. This is, of course, the "loop-hole" type of plot effect - anything goes with it. I can build a realm where all demons and devils are good, for example. Then have them find their way into the FR realm.
Bam! Instant good demons and devils.
Well, if you want to get all technical about it, BG2 really does seem to take place in Spelljammer or Planescape rather than FR
Drow of Underdark by Ed Greenwood appeared in 1991. Seems like 23 years to me.
Perhaps we are going by one another here - I meant from when Gary first introduced the Drow, and the books by Salvatore. In that time, Drow were evil and there were no good ones (though there were player characters that could become drow of course with the introduction of UE. From the time of the introduction of the drow by Gary and the UE, there were no good drow).
Allowing one to play a "good" drow in UE was very frowned on (at least it was in my playing circles, and in the GenCons that I attended at the time), and pretty much out-of-the-question due to the drow reputation. Salvatore changed all this, of course, with "super drow against the world without a hope but still wins despite impossible odds" creation, creating a crazy drow fanbase.
I mean, basically the Drow are evil due to their society and circumstance (especially due to the influence of Lloth, as we all know). Of course, they were ultimately responsible for this condition, but with the passage of time, I think that has little to do with how the Drow are today.
And Drow removed from these influences I believe then has the capability of exercising free will, and depending on the upbringing and environmental conditions, can develop any alignment (pretty much as with any intelligent being IMHO).
We do know that the followers of Eilistraee are good. There are not many of them, however. The documentation mentions numbers less than 100 (at least that I am aware of).
Eilistraee, of course, is now a dead goddess.
To put this in perspective : even if we assume that the number of Eilistraee's followers (of the drow race) are of the thousands, this is still such a small percentage of the drow as not to really be representative of any sort of change, or even real chance that someone will meet a good drow in their lifetime.
It is sort of interesting as a footnote that Eilistraee is the daughter of Correllion and Lloth (in her incarnation before she became Lloth in the FR).
I mean, think about it. Goblins, Orcs, Hobgoblins, Gnolls, Kobolds, Xvarts, and other humanoids can also be non-evil, dependingly. Yet they are slaughtered onsight, and a Paladin doesn't "fall" if he puts them to the sword.
I am absolutely sure, however, that if some author writes some canon sanctioned books about character of x race and it catches on, that will all change, of course. Suddenly we have noble and good goblins.
Pretty soon, we can only lift a blade against the dumb beasts of the field. And eventually, even Red Dragons will be goody-goody beings, only interested in the well-being of all fellow sentients.
After all, Red Dragons are intelligent beings as well, right?
Skunks. Definitely skunks. Anything that stinks that bad has got to be evil. Hells, even demons and devils fear skunks!
It is too bad one cannot have a skunk as an animal companion. It would be even better than Minsc and Boo IMHO. Imagine wielding your animal companion in battle, body in one arm, tail held in the other with the back end to the enemy and worked like a machine gun!
"Say hello to my stinky little friend!" ala Ace Ventura! This, of course, will need to be said with an french accent (though the Scarface voice works as well). I don't know exactly why...but it COULD have something to do with Pepé Le Pew.
Well, if we're going to start classifying animals as evil, then I nominate Cuckoos. Evil, evil things. Putting them inside clocks makes them even more evil, especially when they pop out during important scenes of my favorite shows or movies.
Comments
If the Drow were "evil. Period", the good ones wouldn't have a deity with portfolio just for them. After all, I doubt that Elistraee got her powers from Drizzt's prayers (who is follower of Mielikki, by the way) or Zaknafein. Their general eveliness is a product of certain type of society, not inherit traits of the race (as opposed to, say, demons).
Go all "twilight" if you want, but anything with sentience and intelligence has the capability of being something other than evil.
FYI: Drizzt came before Twilight. And Pwent being turned...had nothing to do with Twilight. A battlerager dwarf covered in spikey killing armor and the blood and gore of drow elves....not exactly Twilight material.
He "invented" the Drow (really, he just brought them over from Norse mythology, but still...for our purposes, the Drow started with Mr. Gygax). Of course, they were monsters, and they were evil.
Now, an enterprising author decided to base a series of books around a certain Drow, and this Drow would not be evil. The "ultimate underdog", with the whole world against him. Of course, we all love this - surmounting impossible odds, blah blah blah.
We all know the rest.
This started the whole "Drow can be good! Not all Drow are evil!" hysteria, and everyone of course wanted to be this Drow, and play this Drow, and basically ad infinitum make us all naseous.
The cries of the fans grew so loud, that of course ears heard it, ears that sensed that here money could be made. And what do you know, now we get a benevolent Drow goddess on the Surface world, for those good Drow who manage to escape their evil underdark brethren.
Now, there are non-evil Drow. Very rare, and seldom seen. I don't think I need to go into detail on why they are so feared, hated, and reviled.
It would be like having a good goblin, orc, hobgoblin, gnoll, etc. A very rare occurance, that surely can happen, but would have to be limited to individuals, and not a culture.
This is perhaps the best line yet
That is a quote from english wikipedia under the term Drow. So it was the year 1985 when Gygax first introduced Drow as a player race and specifically noted that those drow divert from their chaotic evil alignment. Whether it's to other evil-only alignments or also good/neutrals, I don't know.
And that were the drow in general vacuum D&D rules. Setting specific good drow appeared, also according to wiki, in 1991 in Drow of Underdark by the creator of FR - Ed Greenwood, one year after culmination of Salvatore's Icewind Dale Trilogy.
One could argue that good drow have a well established tradition - 23 years isn't, after all, a short period of time. And that was before the Dark Elf Trilogy and subsequent Drizzt books, so he wasn't THAT popular back then (even moreso, considering that Icewind Dale Trilogy is considered the weakest of Salvatore's works by some people - but that is just an opinion).
All matters aside, we deal in facts here. And the facts are that there are good drow in Forgotten Realms and while there isn't nearly as many of them as the evil ones, they still are significant enough to warrant another deity.
Drows from Greyhawk (Gygax's area of expertise) are beside the point here
EDIT: what's interesting, if the fallen solar Malkizid is any indication, even beings of pure, inherit good are capable of becoming evil. So if there are circumstances that allow the celestials to go different route (possibly the same thing goes for the devils/demons), then it's even easier to justify good members of races that are evil due to envirnoment causes.
The point is, why is Hexxat evil was the question. People replied "because she's a vampire and all vampires are evil." To which others replied "there are good vampires" and I myself replied "all things that can think have the power of free choice, and therefore can be whatever they want to be."
The conclusion is, Hexxat is not evil simply because she is a vampire. There are exceptions, and she could be one if she so chose.
She could be good. She'd probably have to resist some natural urges, and it would probably be a bit harder for her then it would be for the average human, but she *could* be good. A fiend can be good, and so can a vampire.
But Hexxat is not that person.
(Until someone writes the inevitable 'redeem Hexxat mod', anyway. I'm sure one will pop up eventually.)
So no, in the FR, good Drow do not have a well-established tradition of 23 years. I suppose one could stretch things to say that as the FR came out, UE also applied to it, but really, the authors of the content are two seperate people. This is, of course, true. But I still say that it is only due to all the inspired Drow Players out there mostly due to Salvatore's works. My opinion, of course. Normally one would expect the Outer Planar creatures to represent the alignment of the Plane of Origin, and it is normally fixed - meaning that free will just doesn't normally factor in here (only the Prime Material Plane's inhabitants are supposed to have free will, etc). I rather suspect that a Solar falling is situational, dependent on something that has happened (re: action) and the result was not forseen leading to the fall itself. Often hubris (Pride) can lead to such a fall for goodly Planar Beings.
Going from evil to good for a Demon/Devil due to actions I find is a much more difficult thing to explain. What, are they giving to charity? Perhaps in an attempt to dispose of or discredit a foe, one might do something good?
Not really, pick Grace, for instance, she was sold as a slave to the baatezu because her mother thought it would be funny, and won her freedom in a contest of improvisation.
A tana'ri raised among the baatezu is already likely to have some alignment conflict (chaotic to lawful), and considering Grace is lawful neutral (but acts lawful good), some of the baatezu standards have imprinted on her.
Ravel Puzzlewell (a night hag who is in love with the protagonist, just like most of the female cast (Annah and Deionarra, and likely Grace were she not bound by a vow of chastity)) also states that out of the entire party (Morte, a Chaotic Good floating skull (which is itself an example of alignment defiance) who put you in the mess you are in the first place; Annah of the Shadows, a Chaotic Neutral tiefling who has just realized her entire life was an abusive mess (and is also in love with the protagonist ("I love him more than life")); Dak'kon, a githzerai zerth who has unkowingly voluntarily bound himself to slavery (to you, no less); Nordom, a rogue mordon who has to deal with being cut off from the consensus; Ignus, a mage one of your past lifes had made a conduit to the elemental plane of fire which drove him insane; Valor, an asshole who doesn't realize how much of an asshole he is whose sole purpose is to die after giving you bonuses to strength by making him realize how much of an asshole he is (this is also the path that gives the most XP)) Grace is by far the most tormented: haunted by her inherent evilness and chaoticity as well as her past - she also states that it is definitely not easy for Grace to fight her inherent perversity and maintain her composture (which is likely why she is not considered good) without giving into it.
Not D&D related, but definitely related to the post, is something Paarthurnax from Skyrim says: "No day goes by where I am not tempted to return to my inborn nature. Zin krif haalvut se sulyek. What is better? To be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?"
Hell, being one of the few non-evil bhaalspawn (if you so choose), CHARNAME themselves count as this, being infused with the essence of an evil god and all.
1: Hexxat kills Clara. This is surely an evil action. Or is it? We have no real idea as to why this happens. Clara herself seems aware that it was going to happen, but we get no real answers as to the why of it. Hexxat only attacks Clara's character if you ask her about it.
2: A single banter with Aerie in which Hexxat admits to sneaking off to feed from innocents. This is evil. To what extent however? Does Hexxat kill these innocents? Or does she simply feed on them? Why feed on these people instead if the various people CHARNAME is forced to kill in his travels? Is she lying to Aerie just to get a rise out of her?
So Eeeeeevil? Possibly, but not very. I would wager that she is the least evil of the evil NPCs.
Good manners and a calm exterior is no proof of not being evil however; it's what they do that counts. Characters who are openly evil to everyone and are constantly threatening to grind everyone's bones into flour wouldn't really last long; they'd tick off a lot of people and end up ground themselves. And I agree Viconia is less evil; she's a total bitch, but she never actually does anything (that we know, anyway; she's smart enough not to get caught). Vic's obviously very troubled but she can change.
You do know that Planescape is a different reality, right? Like Dragonlance, Dark Sun, Greyhawk, etc. It is not FR.
In Planescape, things work much, much differently than in the FR reality. You can't really use example of it to compare with the FR.
What you could say is that one of those happened to find a way into the FR realm, however. This is, of course, the "loop-hole" type of plot effect - anything goes with it. I can build a realm where all demons and devils are good, for example. Then have them find their way into the FR realm.
Bam! Instant good demons and devils.
Allowing one to play a "good" drow in UE was very frowned on (at least it was in my playing circles, and in the GenCons that I attended at the time), and pretty much out-of-the-question due to the drow reputation. Salvatore changed all this, of course, with "super drow against the world without a hope but still wins despite impossible odds" creation, creating a crazy drow fanbase.
I mean, basically the Drow are evil due to their society and circumstance (especially due to the influence of Lloth, as we all know). Of course, they were ultimately responsible for this condition, but with the passage of time, I think that has little to do with how the Drow are today.
And Drow removed from these influences I believe then has the capability of exercising free will, and depending on the upbringing and environmental conditions, can develop any alignment (pretty much as with any intelligent being IMHO).
We do know that the followers of Eilistraee are good. There are not many of them, however. The documentation mentions numbers less than 100 (at least that I am aware of).
Eilistraee, of course, is now a dead goddess.
To put this in perspective : even if we assume that the number of Eilistraee's followers (of the drow race) are of the thousands, this is still such a small percentage of the drow as not to really be representative of any sort of change, or even real chance that someone will meet a good drow in their lifetime.
It is sort of interesting as a footnote that Eilistraee is the daughter of Correllion and Lloth (in her incarnation before she became Lloth in the FR).
I mean, think about it. Goblins, Orcs, Hobgoblins, Gnolls, Kobolds, Xvarts, and other humanoids can also be non-evil, dependingly. Yet they are slaughtered onsight, and a Paladin doesn't "fall" if he puts them to the sword.
I am absolutely sure, however, that if some author writes some canon sanctioned books about character of x race and it catches on, that will all change, of course. Suddenly we have noble and good goblins.
Pretty soon, we can only lift a blade against the dumb beasts of the field. And eventually, even Red Dragons will be goody-goody beings, only interested in the well-being of all fellow sentients.
After all, Red Dragons are intelligent beings as well, right?
In closing, it is a bit ridiculous, isn't it?
It is too bad one cannot have a skunk as an animal companion. It would be even better than Minsc and Boo IMHO. Imagine wielding your animal companion in battle, body in one arm, tail held in the other with the back end to the enemy and worked like a machine gun!
"Say hello to my stinky little friend!" ala Ace Ventura! This, of course, will need to be said with an french accent (though the Scarface voice works as well). I don't know exactly why...but it COULD have something to do with Pepé Le Pew.