Evil Skittermanders?

[Lord Fyre]

Given the inside back cover of Skitter Shot (10 Facts About Skittermanders), can a skittermander be evil?

[Dracomicron]

Lord Fyre wrote:

Given the inside back cover of Skitter Shot (10 Facts About Skittermanders), can a skittermander be evil?

Some skittermanders just want to help you... to die!

Skittermanders are sentient creatures that make their own decisions; they can be good or evil or neutral, and I suspect that the evil ones

1. disregard the needs of people who they are not currently helping.
2. help people who are also evil
3. don't really care about the actual needs of the people they're "helping," just about what they think they need.

Plus, skittermander extremists are probably relatively common. "I'm going to help the police by murdering lawbreakers, no matter how small the crime!" Cut to a skittermander with a skull on his shirt.

[Claxon]

Those kind of things usually just refer to what is common among the race, but does not represent all members.

Yes a skittermander could be evil, it probably would have grown up someplace away from most other skittermanders. It conditions that would give rise to making it more evil.

[Metaphysician]

Or conversely growing up amongst Skittermanders, in a place otherwise controlled and influenced by a profoundly evil external culture. If all the people you'd have on hand to help are sociopathic bastards, well, that's going to rub off on a skittermander.

[Owen K. C. Stephens]

That information is generalities, of course. But you don't even have to change it to have an evil skittermander.

Any "This race is too self-destructive to do anything but create misery for themselves, so since they can't bring themselves to die off despite the pain and damage it would save them and everyone else, I must kill them all, for the good of everyone" style villain plan is perfect for an evil skittermander.

[Lord Fyre]

Owen K. C. Stephens wrote:

That information is generalities, of course. But you don't even have to change it to have an evil skittermander.

Any "This race is too self-destructive to do anything but create misery for themselves, so since they can't bring themselves to die off despite the pain and damage it would save them and everyone else, I must kill them all, for the good of everyone" style villain plan is perfect for an evil skittermander.

In other words, Space Goblins.

[FirstChAoS]

Skittermander devourist.

He wants to help the whole universe... reach its heat death.

[Dracomicron]

Skittermander Demander.

She wants to help you realize that you really want to serve a psychic skittermander overlord.

[Belabras]

Evil Skittermander - helping you to help themselves.

[Brew Bird]

Skittermanders seem like they'd make the perfect henchmen for an aspiring evil overlord. Just keep a close eye on them (so they don't wander off), and they'll happily help you take over the galaxy.

[Kvetchus]

Dracomicron wrote:

1. disregard the needs of people who they are not currently helping.
2. help people who are also evil
3. don't really care about the actual needs of the people they're "helping," just about what they think they need.

I would suggest this is actually normal Skittermander behavior and that the reality is they don't really have an alignment per se, or perhaps more accurately they are alignmorphic (so to speak). That is, their alignment will shift seamlessly based on the needs or whoever they're currently helping meaning they could be evil today, good tomorrow, then evil again by dinner and generally neutral the next day.

[Noven]

I wish I had the book to see the 10 things.

[Alexander Augunas]

“Minor Infinity War Spoilers”:

Thanos basically has a skittermander’s motivation.
“I want to help bring goodness and prosperity to the universe. And the only way I can do that is by killing half of all life so there are sufficient resources for everyone!”

[avr]

It's always possible that a skittermander who makes a big habit of borrowing things will catch on or have the alien understanding of property forced on to them, then use their skills for evil. Prison's good for that sort of thing.

Stereotypes and generalities are made to be broken and sometimes they have to be for the good of the game. In a different game (Shadow of the Demon Lord) I looked up how a dwarf would react to the party members and announced "According to this I hate or despise you all."

[Wolffauer]

Noven wrote:

I wish I had the book to see the 10 things.

It's a free download now. Found in the Starfinder Rules section of the store.

[Kvetchus]

SkitterShot wrote:

4. SKITTERMANDERS HAVE A FLUID OUTLOOK TOWARD LEADERSHIP, DEFERRING TO WHOMEVER HAS THE MOST EXPERTISE TO TACKLE THE TASK AT HAND; THE CONCEPT OF PERMANENT GOVERNANCE SEEMS STRANGE TO THEM.

So - this particular item is informative for this question. Again, though, I maintain that Skittermanders really don't have a straightforward alignment. They adapt to the situation and whoever their current "boss" is. If he needs help destroying the universe, and that includes slaughter in village full of helpless nuns by dropping nukes on them... well, that's just what they need to do!

They don't seem to have a tendancy to leave one task undone in favor of another task, in fact quite the opposite:

SkitterShot wrote:

7. THOUGH SKITTERMANDERS CAN TALK EXCITEDLY AND AT LENGTH ABOUT A TOPIC (ESPECIALLY ONES THEY ARE INTERESTED IN), SEEMINGLY WITHOUT NEEDING TO TAKE A BREATH, THEY ALSO FALL INTO LONG BOUTS OF SILENCE WHEN UNDERTAKING PARTICULARLY CHALLENGING TASKS.

This tells me they will take on a task and fraking see it through to the end. So, if evil bob needs them to torture someone's family until they tell them where the secret orb of power is, they'll do that. They won't necessarily enjoy it, and they will certainly stop (and perhaps even help the prisoners escape if they ask) once they get the information - but I see nothing that would preclude them from actually committing the torture.

Not because they're evil, necessarily - but because they really don't have a firm alignment at all, it shifts around constantly as they adapt to the current situation.