I feel like some of the D&D writers have done a fantastic job of this, even where they have still tacked on the moniker of ‘evil’ as it fits with their system of alignment and planar cosmology. The drow are an especially well developed example of this, essentially taking all the assumptions of a traditional fantasy society and turning them on their heads.

The drow are certainly evil, but they’re not simply evil. They have their own set of values that they typically adhere to pretty fanatically, and a rather alien culture to go with it. The drow have no word for love (ssinssrigg translates to something closer to a possessive fondness), they view successful betrayal as virtuous, and ultimately the advancement of personal power for the glory of Lolth is their greatest ideal. Despite typically leaning toward chaotic evil, they’re tied into this strict (if fragile) hierarchy that’s ultimately the most important factor in most of their lives.

The thing that jumps right out, of course, is the inversion of the typical gendered power dynamic in fantasy settings in the form of a violent and repressive matriarchy. This is something we literally do not see anywhere on Earth, and which reverses the relationship with institutionalized power on the basis of gender that we typically encounter in our own lives. While I don’t think it serves as any sort of decent example of a matriarchal power structure, I do think that that inversion has some value for bringing the backwardness of our own customs to light.

That, to me, is part of the fun of playing evil creatures: being able to take our own presumptions and shed a light on them from a different direction to make them a little less certain. This is something I tend to lean into with kobolds, goblins, and other similar creatures. To a kobold, their way of life is normal. The world is a dangerous place full of hateful beings that will kill them on sight, why wouldn’t they kill them first, take their stuff, and eat them? A human might protest that kobolds are only exterminated because of their violence toward humanoids, but it becomes something of a circular argument. Besides, a kobold may reason, humans hunt and kill and eat just like we do. What makes them so special? Clearing forests for roads? Indiscriminate slaughter of anything that isn’t compatible with trade and cities?

It may largely boil down to whataboutism in the respect of actually morally defending a kobold, but it does serve as an angle for examining the usually unexamined behavior of adventurers and civilization at large.