Thanks for this. I think what you ended up with was the absolute right move. Trying to solidify everything from the top-down, beforehand, seems an impossible task to do well, or with enough foresight to make work across your eventual varied needs. In real world terms it seems sort of Prescriptive, in a vaguely Victorian scientist way; cataloging races instead of meeting people.

I’d imagine working bottom-up, Descriptively, means you can put all of your nuance into a single group or region, per the story you want to tell. You find out who and why, because you meet them on the ground in their actual situation - instead of thinking you can manufacture everything ahead of time in a vacuum. And then the next time your story crosses paths with another such group, you again get to reflect on the individual circumstances that make them even slightly different, and add a new micro culture to your growing canon.

It’s grand, exciting stuff. Thank you!

You are saying what I’m saying. This is not the traditional view.

Sure, it adds nuance - and if that’s all you care about then you’re all set. But it doesn’t address The Problem, which is painting “races” as monoliths with essential characteristics. Just because you can explain why All X Are Evil, doesn’t solve for it being boring/lame/tending-toward-offensive that they all are. Seems like we dealt with this in other contexts, why not include it in lore?

The thing is, this is still tying culture to race. If there is no racial essentialism to the traits you describe, then there’s no reason to say that some goblin cultures / sub-cultures do understand the concept of property - and disagree with what they understand to be stealing. Etc.