I have noticed in d20 / PF gaming, that when monster books come out, the vast majority of the entries - especially the intelligent ones - are evil. Pages and pages of horrors, villains, and adversaries to pit against the heroes. That's nice and all, but that kind of skews the idea that the entire ecology of the world is designed to wipe out the demihuman races, and for all practical intents and purposes, they'd win.
What I'd really like to see are more entries slanted towards Lawful and Good creatures. And I don't mean 4-5 in a book, I'm talking a good quarter-to-half of the book, showing creatures you might encounter that you could team up with, interact and trade with, and generally don't need to sweat encountering.
Or, perhaps, creatures whose alignments swing through the entire spectrum, much like humans, elves, dwarves, etc, have. Basically, 'just people' - a society that you can encounter where the entire race wouldn't be bent on killing you. The Bestiary books are cool, but my world-building looks at all of this and asks me, 'how on earth would anyone survive?'
I agree to some extent, and dislike the notion that members of a non-Outsider race would be evil at heart, rather than evil by upbringing.
However, one thing to keep in mind is that the evil races don't necessarily only go after those who are good/neutral. When the evil races conduct attrition wars against eachother, a nearby civilized society may survive just fine on the outside of the war.
I agree to some extent, and dislike the notion that members of a non-Outsider race would be evil at heart, rather than evil by upbringing.
However, one thing to keep in mind is that the evil races don't necessarily only go after those who are good/neutral. When the evil races conduct attrition wars against each other, a nearby civilized society may survive just fine on the outside of the war.
That is something I considered as well - if they're against one another, they're not necessarily against a civilized nation, but just the sheer number of things out and about doesn't help things much for the demihuman races.
And yeah, I'm less inclined to accept 'X non-outsider race is all evil'. I can accept a society as being 'evil' in that the people in charge might be, but that shouldn't mean the majority of the race is as well.
Yes, most gaming groups are non-evil. That's actually not the point though. Sure, put some new adversaries into the bestiary - I'm fine with that - but don't make that the majority of the book. It's a pain in the rump looking for creatures for PCs to encounter that are 1) intelligent, 2) non-evil, 3) non-hostile, 4) not the normal races. If I want to throw a monster at the PC, sure that's easy but if I want to throw something else? That's a lot harder, since the list available is much, much smaller.
The NPC Codex doesn't cover it - I'm not looking for specific characters, I'm looking for monsters, races, and so forth. Guardians of ancient lore, caretakers of foreign lands, wandering heroic figures from lost civilizations, and the like - none of which are necessarily evil, and none of a race the PCs have ever seen.
Sure, some of these could be PC races (Android was an excellent example), but the fact is, the books are weighted towards 'things to kill', rather than 'things to encounter', and this makes, canonically, the world a horrific place filled with evil that outnumbers the humanoid races by a rather large margin. If I played it straight, the human cultures wouldn't stand a chance.
I'd rather see a bestiary that's spread across the spectrum, more or less in equal parts.
I'd rather see a bestiary that's spread across the spectrum, more or less in equal parts.I disagree that most monsters in a Bestiary should be the "helpful" kind though.
Not 'most'. Just an even spread, covering the entire alignment spectrum. A few creatures that are horrific and evil, a few that are good and helpful, a handful that are neutral, some that can be all the above.
1. I don't think that the intent is for any game world to have a significant population of EVERY monster ever printed. It's more of a menu of options. "LIke those, like those, don't like those ..."
2. The baseline assumption is that the PCs will be good guys, so good guy monsters don't need stats because the PCs won't be fighting them. They just do what they need to do based on the needs of the plot.
3. Any monster can be any alignment, so long as it has free will. Even so called 'always X' alignment creatures can change if properly motivated.
1. I don't think that the intent is for any game world to have a significant population of EVERY monster ever printed. It's more of a menu of options. "LIke those, like those, don't like those ..."
2. The baseline assumption is that the PCs will be good guys, so good guy monsters don't need stats because the PCs won't be fighting them. They just do what they need to do based on the needs of the plot.
3. Any monster can be any alignment, so long as it has free will. Even so called 'always X' alignment creatures can change if properly motivated.
1) If they're in the Bestiary, for example, then they're in the canonical setting unless said otherwise. Mind, it's a big world, so not every creature will be found everywhere, but the case stands that the evil far outweigh the good.
2) That's a bad baseline assumption. I've not played a 'good' character in two campaigns now - one was true Neutral, this one's Lawful Neutral. Even if the opponent is 'good', we may be at cross purposes - and even if you're good, and you encounter someone else who's good, you may be on the opposite side of a confrontation - the sheet is still necessary.
2a) Plot?
3) Yes, there can be exceptions. That's not really relevant - we're talking about societies here. Sure, you can in theory run into a Lawful Good drow. The odds of you running into a Lawful Good drow society? Ehh, not so much. And I'd rather have something down in a rulebook, rather than having to use handwavium.
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All you need is Flumph.
Flumph is all you need.
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1) If they're in the Bestiary, for example, then they're in the canonical setting unless said otherwise. Mind, it's a big world, so not every creature will be found everywhere, but the case stands that the evil far outweigh the good.
2) That's a bad baseline assumption. I've not played a 'good' character in two campaigns now - one was true Neutral, this one's Lawful Neutral. Even if the opponent is 'good', we may be at cross purposes - and even if you're good, and you encounter someone else who's good, you may be on the opposite side of a confrontation - the sheet is still necessary.
1. I don't remember where I read it (probably here on the boards,) but evil outweighing good in the Golarion setting is by design. As I recall, the idea was to grossly tip the balance of power toward evil so there would not only be a real need for heroes (i.e. non-evil PCs) but a stronger feeling of accomplishment for players who defeat the overwhelming forces of evil.
Golarion is a pulp-adventure world, and a common trait of pulp stories is the prevalence of evil. Look at guys like Solomon Kane, Flash Gordon and Henry Armitage. These guys were often the only people standing against the obscenely powerful or numerous necromancers, tyrants and monsters who filled their worlds.
2. I think what Zhayne was getting at is more that the baseline assumption is that PCs will not be evil. As I mentioned above and Kimera757 pointed out earlier, Paizo and many gaming groups either expect or houserule that players will be good or neutral.
Neither of those things precludes a GM from using the books for their own homebrew campaign setting or even an old, published setting in their home game, but the designers have an Evil>Good model for Golarion and, like you said, the Bestiaries are a catalog for what exists in Golarion.
The way I see it, you have three options:
1. Stick to what's written and use what the bestiaries have given you while you patiently wait for Paizo to make up some new good guy monsters who will always be outnumbered by the bad guy monsters (but at least you'll have a few more options.)
2. Look to 3PP, 3.5 or even older edition D&D monster books for Good monsters to bring into your game. AD&D is filled with monsters Paizo hasn't used or can never touch, but that doesn't mean you can't. The Irda of the Dragonlance setting, for instance, are shapeshifting, highly intelligent, good ogres who often become clerics and wizards.
3. Take what's already in the bestiary and change some alignments around. There are hundreds of monsters in the bestiaries. Do you think you'll really ever use every single one of them? Basically, take one of the dozens of evil, obscure, needless demons they've created, glue some angel feathers to his bat wings and change his alignment to Lawful Good.
Example: the Brimorak. I'd never even heard of this guy until I just looked at the list of demons Paizo has in the SRD. Most players probably couldn't tell you he's a low-CR demon with fire powers so screw it, now he's a low-CR angel who has fire powers because he's in charge of keeping celestial forges burning.
The ultimate horror!
I LOVE it that there are so little good monsters in the bestiaries, what use do they have? They kinda spoil your games by making it too easy for you.
Evil and Neutral monsters all the way! I hope paizo keeps on (kinda) ignore the good monsters and keeps producing armies of neutral (not lawful neutral tho) and evil monsters!
Also i'm happy dwarves, humans and other such stuff isn't in the bestiary, I hated that in D&D 4th edition.
I don't understand this obsession with good monsters, monsters should be evil and neutral, there should be few good creatures, otherwise no adventure would be special, good creatures would just help and beat the evil monsters and that's it...
And most monsters are Neutral, they don't want to rule the world or kill off everything, they just feed on people (and other monsters) they find on their path.
If you hate the impossible to beat storyline, just cut the endless supply demons and devils and make such creatures just as rare as Owlbears and Dragons, then the Evil will obliviate good thing is finished.
Try being a good ruler of some fey lands populated by fey randomly determined from the creature list. They tend to be evil. Because they're monsters.
It's hard!
I have noticed in d20 / PF gaming, that when monster books come out, the vast majority of the entries - especially the intelligent ones - are evil. Pages and pages of horrors, villains, and adversaries to pit against the heroes. That's nice and all, but that kind of skews the idea that the entire ecology of the world is designed to wipe out the demihuman races, and for all practical intents and purposes, they'd win.
...The Bestiary books are cool, but my world-building looks at all of this and asks me, 'how on earth would anyone survive?'
There are two things you're forgetting that are causing your view on this to slant.
One is that you are not obligated to include every single monster in all of the books in your campaign world. Nothing says you must fill your world with horrors. Which leads to the second point.
And that is that real, terrible monsters are supposed to be rare in most cases. Otherwise, they would lose their imposing nature and just be every day occurrences.
Yes, there are campaigns that take you to planes where most all the denizens want to eat your soul. And there are campaigns where those denizens have invaded the world of mere mortals. But those are extreme campaigns, and they prove the rule that such an invasion is terrible and terrifying exactly because it is NOT the norm. It is terrible because usually the world is NOT populated with demons and devils and other horrid things.
I think the default fantasy world, as well as the default campaign, resembles the mythmaking of old. You are raised by kindly elves, trained to fight by a wise centaur, and on your quest to defeat some rare, usually ancient, one-of-a-kind evil, you find various allies, sometimes including forest spirits, elementals, and unicorns. And if you encounter a ghost haunting a ruin along the way, it is not scary because the world is entirely populated with ghosts. It is scary because coming into a ghost-haunted ruin is a rare and unique experience.
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I LOVE it that there are so little good monsters in the bestiaries, what use do they have?
Lots.
Just one example: For a lot of us, they help bring a fantasy world to life as something other than a "kill things and take their stuff" metasetting.
Regarding some of the earlier discussion upthread:, I'd love to see the stereotypically evil races get some more alignment range and break up the monoculture, but that goes for the so-called "good" races too.
But that's likely more for books outside the Bestiearies. The player companions have gotten better at this, after some rough spots. The ARG managed to do a bit of it with some races and completely missed the opportunity to do it with others. :(
Also, would love to see some "dark and good"*, "scary-looking and good", "ugly and good", and "alien and good"** creatures(particularly celestials) Hope the Spyglass Archons can make it into Bestiary 5 to fulfill some of the "dark" end of things.
Also, a typically good black-skinned race plz.
*Azata that look like the Shae would be awesome
**Angels that look like the Elohim would be crazy awesome
Just one example: For a lot of us, they help bring a fantasy world to life as something other than a "kill things and take their stuff" metasetting.
I think neutral monsters are a better suit for that, as they can be allies and enemies, even in the same story.
Also you can just take evil monsters and turn them good, much like how there are also evil unicorn and dryad creatures out in mythology, so can you turn Succubi and Dark Folk into good creatures, and i'm sure there are gentle Drow out there too. At least I played with several good-alignment drows along the way.
I think the prevalence of evil monsters is simply because a large portion of the use of the Bestiaries is to provide encounters for the PCs to fight. And an evil monster fighting against good or neutral PCs does not need a lot of explanation. Even evil PCs have plenty of reason to fight evil monsters (by the nature of evil, you are not on the same team just because you'Re both evil, you will still try to take advantage of each other)
As for the good vs evil balance. I think it makes sense that evil creatures are more prevalent than good ones, for exactly the reason mentioned above, because they don't only go after the good guys, they are also constantly at each others throats. Sort of a self controlling mechanism.
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I have no problem with the initial assumption that the npc's are good aligned, myself, even though I tend to prefer pitting good aligned npc's against good-aligned enemies in situations where both sides are good people, but have opposed goals and diplomacy has simply failed. Presents more interesting moral dilemmas.
What I have a problem with is the fluff describing so many of these creatures as so ridiculously, irredeemably, unabashedly, unashamedly, over-the-toply evil, and to make it explicitly clear that this is not simply this particular group that you are encountering, but the whole of the species.
Orcs, goblinoids, ogres, drow, kobolds,etc- on Golarion, these creatures are almost to the man, with exceptions being one in a million, evil with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. This is not providing the npc's with enemies to fight. This is saying that good and evil is drawn along racial lines. This is turning the epic struggle between good and evil into a race war. The fact that the few good members of these races are explicitly such exceptions reeks of a bigot telling a minority that they're "one of the good ones", and that it's only when a member of another race abandons their cultural identity and embraces what their oppressors consider acceptable behavior that they can be "good people".
Of course, Golarion's hardly unique in this aspect, and I'm certainly not accusing anyone at paizo of being a bigot or a racist. I just find this to be an intrinsically racist aspect of the rpg/fantasy genre that we can't quite seem to move past.
Orcs, goblinoids, ogres, drow, kobolds,etc- on Golarion, these creatures are almost to the man, with exceptions being one in a million, evil with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. This is not providing the npc's with enemies to fight. This is saying that good and evil is drawn along racial lines. This is turning the epic struggle between good and evil into a race war. The fact that the few good members of these races are explicitly such exceptions reeks of a bigot telling a minority that they're "one of the good ones", and that it's only when a member of another race abandons their cultural identity and embraces what their oppressors consider acceptable behavior that they can be "good people".
I've always had a problem with that too, but i think it's an issue entirely on its own.
I dont agree that the current besitaries lack for non-hostile creatures.
The recent Bestiary 4 featured lots of critters that will serve equally as good or neutral allies/questgivers, given that most of those are fey of some sort (The Sea-Nymph for example, or the Mythic-Muse).
Remember that its up to the DM to decide who´s evil and who´s not, In my games a vast majority of orks are chaotic neutral, ork shamans tend to be good, while chieftains tend to be some sort of lawful, yet all Ork tribes led by Chieftains that are not Lawful good HATE humans, elves and Dwarfes.
Sampling my own games (Where dragon alignments swing as wildly as human´s) is useless though as this thread focuses on vanilla Paizo products, in which case we´re once again beating a dead horse.
You said you wanted more good monsters to ally with and interact with, Wizards of the coast ran into just this problem in regards to dragons, so they picked up the "Metallic dragon" concept and made all metallics varying degrees of Good. In 3.5 Metallic dragons saw hardly any use at all outside short showy one sided non-combat chat session, making most of their stat blocks useless. People wanted "dragons that they could fight", so in 4th they made Metallics varying degrees of neutral instead, to give more people better reason to hunt and fight them.
Remember theres a different between "Monstrous evil" and just "Evil".
Evil people dont eat babies, generally, usually evil people are content to stew in their evil selves at home and at work, their evil character not ever emerging perceptibly outside their spite filled cranium. I think a normal person swings wildly from good to bad and back again innumerable times in their lifetimes, without ever performing a major good or evil act, earning and loosing friends and enemies of either sort along the way.
Finally, theres no such thing as a rule that say´s good parties cant fight good enemies. My game featured very memorably a vanilla Paladin boss who had some very different opinions from the players. Said Paladin made a real threat of himself and tended to get in the player´s way, so the players went all on their own and picked a fight with him. The good vs better fight ensued. Remember that good vs good fights should have "grey" plot rewards, in this case my players obtained a King´s favor for halting a good natured coup detat, but completely lost face in front of the enraged populace who dearly wished for a more caring king.
I think this thread does sort of drive the point home - reskinning, rebranding, and shifting the rules points to the problem as a whole - that this is almost necessary to fill this niche.
And yes, the main campaign setting is supposed to be 'mostly evil, for the heroes to rise up', which is fine - but if it is played straight - as in, the GM doesn't slant things in the PC's favour, and allows the world to regulate in a mostly-realistic fashion, civilization would be crushed. Sure, evil beings would fight evil beings, but they'd also mulch good beings through sheer population disparity.
Actually, the comment about the fae was a good one as well - try making a faerie court, and see how far you get before you have to start house-ruling.
And the 'race' thing has always been a problem - it's one reason why in my setting intelligent races aren't inherently good or evil unless there is a literal supernatural force driving them. Free will, and all that.
1. I don't think that the intent is for any game world to have a significant population of EVERY monster ever printed. It's more of a menu of options. "LIke those, like those, don't like those ..."
2. The baseline assumption is that the PCs will be good guys, so good guy monsters don't need stats because the PCs won't be fighting them. They just do what they need to do based on the needs of the plot.
3. Any monster can be any alignment, so long as it has free will. Even so called 'always X' alignment creatures can change if properly motivated.
1) If they're in the Bestiary, for example, then they're in the canonical setting unless said otherwise. Mind, it's a big world, so not every creature will be found everywhere, but the case stands that the evil far outweigh the good.
2) That's a bad baseline assumption. I've not played a 'good' character in two campaigns now - one was true Neutral, this one's Lawful Neutral. Even if the opponent is 'good', we may be at cross purposes - and even if you're good, and you encounter someone else who's good, you may be on the opposite side of a confrontation - the sheet is still necessary.
2a) Plot?
3) Yes, there can be exceptions. That's not really relevant - we're talking about societies here. Sure, you can in theory run into a Lawful Good drow. The odds of you running into a Lawful Good drow society? Ehh, not so much. And I'd rather have something down in a rulebook, rather than having to use handwavium.
Depends entirely on your game world. Nothing says you have to use Golarion, and even if you do, you don't have to use anything in it. It's your game; the PF Canon Police aren't going to break down your door if you decide that the typical drow in your game is LG. Canon is just a crutch; it's your game, do what you want with it. Don't feel restricted by other people's ideas.
Depends entirely on your game world. Nothing says you have to use Golarion, and even if you do, you don't have to use anything in it. It's your game; the PF Canon Police aren't going to break down your door if you decide that the typical drow in your game is LG. Canon is just a crutch; it's your game, do what you want with it. Don't feel restricted by other people's ideas.
I'll presume you're being earnest and aren't talking down to me. ;) You're not telling me anything I don't already know - I've been designing and running RPGs for almost 30 years.
The point is, as I had said before: I do not want to have to resort to house rules. I would rather not have to use 'handwavium' to ignore the fact that, if you play out-of-the-box, the PC races would have died a horrible, tragic death ages ago.
If you look at the setting from an ecological point of view, there literally is *nothing* stopping evil creatures from destroying civilization. They outnumber the other races, and they use tactics the other races would never consider doing.
Fine, I get it, that's the canon setting. But, beyond the 'faerie court' thing, here's an example.
My sister decided to play a sorcerer that uses druidic spells instead of arcane spells. She specifically limited herself to the plant list. Then she looked to see about summoning spells to summon plant monsters to serve at her side.
Digging through Bestiary 1, 2, and 3... almost every single 'aware' plant creature (animal intelligence or more) was evil. I think we lucked out and found one, maybe two neutral ones, and no good ones (I might be wrong, I can check again). Sure, the GM could have hand-waved it away, and allowed her to go with 'good' variants, but why should that be a requirement to playing the game?
Why didn't she just summon the evil ones? They're under her command, so they won't do anything she doesn't want them to do, and the alignment descriptor of the spells is meaningless to an arcane caster.
Why didn't she just summon the evil ones? They're under her command, so they won't do anything she doesn't want them to do, and the alignment descriptor of the spells is meaningless to an arcane caster.
She was treated as a divine caster, since she was using the druidic spell list? I'm not certain. I do know (if I were GMing), if she summoned evil creatures, even if she wasn't evil herself, they'd follow her commands, but they'd act according to their alignments. Meaning, if she summoned a CE monster, and she commanded it to attack her opponents, it would do it in the most horrific and brutal fashion, and possibly take out innocents along the way if necessary.
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Reminds me of UO - you start out as a blue player, one of the "good guys". You work up your character by going into dungeons and forests and killing monsters (or animals, as the situation requires it). You fight red players: the bad guys, players who kill other players.
At some point, blues usually give up on good and go evil, joining the reds to kill the usually-weaker blues.
Reds don't need to bother killing monsters, because they've done that before. They're better off going after the more organised, presumably more intelligent armies of good guys, showing off their power and turning them to the dark side.
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Reminds me of UO - you start out as a blue player, one of the "good guys". You work up your character by going into dungeons and forests and killing monsters (or animals, as the situation requires it). You fight red players: the bad guys, players who kill other players.
At some point, blues usually give up on good and go evil, joining the reds to kill the usually-weaker blues.
Reds don't need to bother killing monsters, because they've done that before. They're better off going after the more organised, presumably more intelligent armies of good guys, showing off their power and turning them to the dark side.
Having never played UO, I never knew this. Huh, that's actually kind of interesting, and depressing. Thanks for sharing though, appreciated.
From the summon nature's ally I spell (CRB page 354): "All creatures summoned with this spell without alignment subtypes have an alignment that matches yours, regardless of their usual alignment. Summoning these creatures makes the summoning spell’s type match your alignment."
Hope that helps!
Huh! Actually, it does. Thanks! (Still doesn't deal with the general issue, but it does help in this instance)
In my Golarion there's lots of good non-human races, I just dont need stats for something the PCs arent going to fight.
FWIW, the preponderance of baddies doesnt lead me to think the universe is over-run by evil. I dont think the Bestiaries are intended to 'flesh out the world' (I think the campaign setting and player's companions serve that purpose and most of them are more heavily focussed on good guys than the bestiaries are). I think the bestiaries are intended primarily as game aids and secondarily as background material and thus are skewed towards providing what Paizo think most people need for their game.
@Christopher LaHaise
Have you seen the Summon Good Creature feat and the adjusted summoning list in Champions of Purity yet? :)
Unfortunately, no I haven't. I'll go peek at it sometime soon. :)
In my Golarion there's lots of good non-human races, I just don't need stats for something the PCs aren't going to fight.
That works if you're altering the setting and adding elements. Of course, if the PCs do wind up wanting to fight someone who's Good (since it can happen, there's nothing stopping Good people from being opposed to the actions of other Good people) - what then?
FWIW, the preponderance of baddies doesnt lead me to think the universe is over-run by evil. I dont think the Bestiaries are intended to 'flesh out the world' (I think the campaign setting and player's companions serve that purpose and most of them are more heavily focussed on good guys than the bestiaries are). I think the bestiaries are intended primarily as game aids and secondarily as background material and thus are skewed towards providing what Paizo think most people need for their game.
Skewed, most certainly. However, they add creatures from the campaign books into these bestiaries, so I'm willing to believe that the bestiaries help to lay out what PCs can encounter in the setting, which means that they are a part of the ecology. Hell, I ran a campaign until the PCs were about level 14-15, and it got to the point where I was looking at impending encounters, and went, 'there is NO way the local civilizations would survive under these conditions - if the PCs don't stop this thing, the entire barony would be laid to waste', and then had to figure out how the region would survive under *normal* conditions without the heroes present.
But that's more an issue with a level-based system, than one involving the presence of an overwhelming number of hostile forces.
In my Golarion there's lots of good non-human races, I just don't need stats for something the PCs aren't going to fight.That works if you're altering the setting and adding elements. Of course, if the PCs do wind up wanting to fight someone who's Good (since it can happen, there's nothing stopping Good people from being opposed to the actions of other Good people) - what then?
Oh sure - I appreciate that some playstyles are missing out. My not-terribly-well-expressed-point was that I think they are in the minority (and that Paizo also think they are). I cant remember the last time my players fought 'good guys'. It might happen, I guess, but it's really far down the list of possibilities.
FWIW, the preponderance of baddies doesnt lead me to think the universe is over-run by evil. I dont think the Bestiaries are intended to 'flesh out the world' (I think the campaign setting and player's companions serve that purpose and most of them are more heavily focussed on good guys than the bestiaries are). I think the bestiaries are intended primarily as game aids and secondarily as background material and thus are skewed towards providing what Paizo think most people need for their game.Skewed, most certainly. However, they add creatures from the campaign books into these bestiaries, so I'm willing to believe that the bestiaries help to lay out what PCs can encounter in the setting, which means that they are a part of the ecology. Hell, I ran a campaign until the PCs were about level 14-15, and it got to the point where I was looking at impending encounters, and went, 'there is NO way the local civilizations would survive under these conditions - if the PCs don't stop this thing, the entire barony would be laid to waste', and then had to figure out how the region would survive under *normal* conditions without the heroes present.
But that's more an issue with a level-based system, than one involving the presence of an overwhelming number of hostile forces.
My view is that, just because the bestiary doesnt give you many good 'monsters' it doesnt imply that there arent many in existence (any more than the fact a campaign setting book doesnt list stats for all the commoners and experts in town doesnt mean most inhabitants have class levels).
.I certainly agree there's a shortage of good monsters and I can see that lots of games would miss them, even though mine doesnt. I just dont think that implies anything about the setting but rather about what statblocks are deemed most useful in actual play.
I don't see the whole "civilization would collapse" concern. I mean, yes, there are way more evil creatures in the book, but that doesn't mean that they exist in a larger proportion. As someone else mentioned, the haunted ruins aren't every 30 feet, they're rare and that's what makes them an adventure location, as opposed to the ruins with nothing in them.
Take a look at Demons/Devils vs. Angels/Archons as an example. From the fluff, we know that there are a nigh infinite number of evil outsiders just waiting to destroy Golarion. You can make the assumption that there are less Angels, or the same number, and ultimately it doesn't matter because most of the time they either can't get to the Prime Plane, or they're busy with something else.
Same goes for Dragons, there aren't 100's of Great Wyrm Red flying around raining death on villages.
Kind of reminds me of 1st Ed, where there were like SEVEN Balors, and they had names. You don't need to hand wave anything to assume that the world hasn't crumpled, just remember the overall numbers and avoid looking at the bestiaries as a census report.
The thing is, these are viable races, meaning there's enough to make a sustainable population. On top of that, the biggest and baddest of the terrestrial creatures are evil, and can drop entire kingdoms. Sure, there might not be 100s of great wyrm dragons flying around - but you don't need hundreds. You need 1 to 4.
It's one of the things going on in my games... when the PCs encounter enemies, the enemies think like PCs do (within given allowance for Intelligence and Wisdom attributes). They make allies. They have minions. When the PCs encountered a dragon enemy, the dragon had summoned and bound creatures working for it, it had entire tribes under its command, and when it came time to fight the PCs, it took to the air, went invisible, and used tactics which caused over half the group to die before they even got the chance to fight back.
And if you run the entire world like that - where the intelligent monsters use intelligence, tactics, build up forces (whether they're chaotic bands of orcs with goblin minions in the front, or fire giants with hellhounds and other nasties), then things tend to look grim.
I'm running an invasion campaign currently, and I'm looking at this and looking at the PCs, and going 'not a hope in hell'.