It’s curious how a creative spark can come from “I want to do something different from that!” When I started working on the setting for Tapestry, one of my stronger impulses was not wanting to do the Tolkienian thing of having Good races (like the elves and ents) and Evil races (like the orcs, trolls, and wargs). I wanted every humanoid race to be capable of “good” and “evil” in its own ways. I got there partly by differentiating them by favored habitat, but also partly by taking r-selection and K-selection as morally neutral, whereas in Tolkien r-selection tends to be Evil and K-selection tends to be Good.