History DarkIsNotEvil / TableTopGames

** There's Orlanda Elliot, daughter of Xipe Totec, the Aztec death-rebirth god who is noted to be one of the most beloved to the people who worshiped him because he made spring come every year, and [[HumanSacrifice all things considered,]] probably a nicer guy than [[GodOfEvil Tezcatlipoca,]] the father of the corresponding good Aztlani Scion.
* In TableTopGame/{{Pathfinder}}, the otyugh is portrayed as being a huge, ugly scavenger that many immediately assume is evil because it eats "waste" and isn't a nonsentient animal. However, it's not inherently evil so much as bestial and non-human; all it wants is an ample supply of garbage to eat and decorate its lair with, and it's quite docile if this desire is sated and nobody tries to hurt it. It's often purposefully hired as a living garburator by non-humans.

** From fan work, we have a semi-example in Po, Polynesian Titan of Night. Sounds like she would compete with [[OmnicidalManiac Sobe-No-Kumi]] for the "Bastard of the Eon" award, right? Nope. Instead, she represents ''potential'', meaning that her GeniusLoci form is a beautiful forest under a clear night sky where life thrives. She's actually rather fond of life as it is now, and it's outright stated that her conquering reality wouldn't be the worst thing in the cosmos. Unfortunately, she doesn't discriminate between monsters and humans, meaning that her Earth would be a safety hazard. So, in this case, Dark Is An AntiVillain.

*** ''TabletopGame/VampireTheRequiem'' had the Septemi, a Daeva bloodline whose bloodline weakness is that its members find it hard (losing a Willpower point) to not to "indulge" in their ''virtues'' whenever the chance happens. What makes it funnier is that the Daeva clan weakness is that they lose their Willpower point everytime they do not indulge in their ''vices'' when the chance happens.

** We also have Green Sun Princes, the True Infernal Exalts. Yeah, sure, they're basically demonic demigods, they have to fulfill their [[ChronicVillainy Urges]] or risk building up [[HatePlague Torment]] and the way to reduce it is to act like a B-Movie supervillain...Except those Urges can easily be ignored or worked around (because Urges only inflict Torment if the character actively works against them, but they have no timetable, and it's hard to 'work against' your Urge if your Motivation has you literally on the other side of the world. WordOfGod says the Yozi [[NiceJobFixingItVillain screwed themselves over]] on that one.

** We also have Green Sun Princes, the True Infernal Exalts. Yeah, sure, they're basically demonic demigods, they have to fulfill their [[ChronicVillainy Urges]] or risk building up [[HatePlague Torment]] and the way to reduce it is to act like a B-Movie supervillain...Except those Urges can easily be traditionally Solar goals (yes, LightIsNotGood and all, but Solar ''goals'' tend to be morally neutral) and the guy you are doing the villainy gig on [[KickTheSonOfABitch is your choice]]. WordOfGod says the Yozi [[NiceJobFixingItVillain screwed themselves over]] on that one.

* In {{Pathfinder}}, one creature is a huge, ugly scavenger that many immediately assume is evil because it eats "waste" and isn't a nonsentient animal. It's often hired as a living garburator by non-humans.

** Then there's the Space Wolves, who all look like [[TheBigGuy large]], [[BigBadassWolf wolf-fanged]], [[HornyVikings viking]] Space Marines, who are all pretty damn pissed that the administratum decided to wipe out the remaining survivors on a planet they had just saved. Needless to say, they are probably the least tolerating towards the administratum's actions of all the chapters still in the Imperium.

* The Eldritch Society in CthulhuTech, despite happily worshiping {{Eldritch Abomination}}s, is pretty much the only thing keeping the Chrysalis Corporation from corrupting the NEG from within. You can also play a sorcerer, who indulges in what one would probably consider BlackMagic in any other setting, albeit at a significant cost to their sanity. Then again, [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity everyone else is paying that cost too]].

* ''[[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Ally_of_Justice The Ally of Justice]]'' set of cards from the ''TabletopGame/YuGiOh'' card game are DARK attribute. Also worth noting, ''[[LightIsNotGood they hate light with every fiber of their being]]''. (Ironically, in the anime, these cards are used by the Diablo army unleashed by Placido, whose intentions [[CrushKillDestroy are not good at all.]])

* ''[[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Ally_of_Justice The Ally of Justice]]'' set of cards from the ''TabletopGame/YuGiOh'' card game are DARK attribute. Also worth noting, ''[[LightIsNotGood they hate light with every fiber of their being]]''.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Scion}}'' has any number of gods of death or darkness among the roster. Their Scions are perfectly capable of being decent folk - one of the sample characters on the hero side is the daughter of Baron Samedi, Loa of death. Likewise, just because your patron god is generally considered evil doesn't force you to be a villain - the rules allow Scions of, say, Loki or Set to be heroic. (White Wolf kind of drops this ball, however, as the only sample villain ''not'' the Scion of an "evil" god is the daughter of Erzulie...)
** Not true. Kane is a Scion of Amaterasu, he chose to sign up with the Titans, and Victor is a Scion of Ares, who's a bit of a jerk, but not really evil. At least not by Olympian standards.
*** And then there's Orlanda Elliot, daughter of Xipe Totec, the Aztec death-rebirth god who is noted to be one of the most beloved to the people who worshiped him because he made spring come every year, and [[HumanSacrifice all things considered,]] probably a nicer guy than [[GodOfEvil Tezcatlipoca,]] the father of the corresponding good Aztlani Scion. So basically, only Seth Farrow and Sylvester Guiler have "evil" gods as parents. And since this leaves the aforementioned Scions of Baron Samedi and Tezcatlipoca as very fitting examples of dark not being evil, it balances out. Even more if you consider that Yukiko Kuromizu's father (Susano-o) is kind of a jerk and her surname literally translates to "black water."
**** And calling Set "Evil" is a stretch-- And very much a modern view in fact. Greedy and power hungry sure, but he is the protector and patron of nearly half the Egyptian lands.

** Three words: SpecialSnowflakeSyndrome.

** Another 'not evil' race from D&D, possibly from {{Mystara}}, were the Diaboli, who basically look like an entire race of wingless [[BigRedDevil Big Purple Devils]] -- cloven-hooved goat-like legs, small nubby goat-like horns, forked tongues, bald or hairy or in-between, long tails with [[BewareMyStingerTail curved toxic stingers on the end]]. The twist? They're peaceful people from the Plane of Dreams who are exiles after evil beings (Nightmare Spirits) took over their dimension, and the reason they seem to be so secretive and isolationist is that they find US disturbing and demonic to behold. Even their stingers only inject sleeping venom, and their racial alignment is Usually ''ChaoticGood'' (the vast majority of those who aren't are ChaoticNeutral or NeutralGood, with ChaoticEvils being a very rare occurrence).

* ''[[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Ally_of_Justice The Ally of Justice]]'' set of cards from the YuGiOhCardGame are DARK attribute. Also worth noting, ''[[LightIsNotGood they hate light with every fiber of their being]]''.

** Another 'not evil' race from D&D, possibly from {{Mystara}}, were the Diaboli, who basically look like an entire race of wingless [[BigRedDevil Big Purple Devils]] -- cloven-hooved goat-like legs, small nubby goat-like horns, forked tongues, bald or hairy or in-between, long tails with [[BewareMyStingerTail curved toxic stingers on the end]. The twist? They're peaceful people from the Plane of Dreams who are exiles after evil beings (Nightmare Spirits) took over their dimension, and the reason they seem to be so secretive and isolationist is that they find US disturbing and demonic to behold. Even their stingers only inject sleeping venom, and their racial alignment is Usually ''ChaoticGood'' (the vast majority of those who aren't are ChaoticNeutral or NeutralGood, with ChaoticEvils being a very rare occurrence).

** In the novel ''{{Eisenhorn}}'', the eponymous Inquisitor is surprised that a Librarian of the Deathwatch Chapter is a very erudite, even ''nice'', guy, despite being a veteran xeno-fighter with Terminator honours.
**** In ''BrothersOfTheSnake'', the distinction can be drawn between two of the senior marines. On one hand: Librarian Petrok, a walking CMOA and superhuman killing machine whose attitude towards those around him, particularly Priad, could nevertheless be described as 'chummy'. He is given to occasional whimsy, and likes to "remind himself that he has a soul". On the flipside of this, there's Hero-Captain Phobor, a more conventional Astartes in that he's a humourless, unrelenting psychopath who is 100% devoted to warfare and nothing else, and is contemptuous of weakness to the point of sentencing the officer corps of an Imperial Guard regiment to penal legions for failing to win a battle of attrition.

** Another 'not evil' race from D&D, it's name eludes me as it is 3AM here, was a species that looked like devils, had the horns, red skin, goaties, tails, hooves, ect. The twist? They're peaceful people who are exiles after evil beings took over their dimension, and the reason they seem to be so secretive and isolationist is that they find US disturbing and demonic to behold.

*** Or it's "[Evil]" if it "channels Negative Energy [[AC:(TM)]]" or disrupts lifeforce, as opposed to kicking it out: ''Slay Living'' isn't "[Evil]" just like its reverse ''Raise Dead'' is not "[Good]": neither [[ForgottenRealms Bane]] has a reason to frown when his priest raised [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity mad Sammaster]], nor anyone else was happy to see him again.
*** The best breakdown of all that I've ever seen was a bunch of houserules called the [[http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Tome_of_Necromancy_(3.5e_Sourcebook) "Tome of Necromancy"]], which says there's two ways to handle it, based on Negative Energy: 1) Treat Negative Energy as automatically evil 2) "Playing With Fire," which says it's risky, but not automatically evil.

*** Could it have been the Diaboli? Skin was more purple then red, if I recall, but sounds much the same. Look like stereotypical devils (tiny horns, long tail with a fork, goat-like legs), kindly, peaceful, find mortal races strange and scary-looking, forced to flee their home (the Plane of Dreams) when it was invaded (by the Plane of Nightmares)...

*** In particular, [[ForgottenRealms Drizzt Do'Urden]]. OTOH, the color tropes are [[ColorCodedForYourConvenience played pretty straight]] with most of the rest of the characters...