Just for fun, I've been converting Planescape to my own personal image of perfection, and next on my to-do list is the alignment exemplars! I am a fanboy of PS of course, but not of all the details. I'd like to narrow the exemplars down to nine races that are more thought-through than the canon races, which are mostly the result of D&D's haphazard "We made some shit up we thought was cool" creative process.
For example, I want three distinctly thematic Evil races instead of 5 (6?) Evil races that can largely be summed up as "Menageries of ugly* anthropomorphic creatures that are sometimes fiery." (I like 4e's elemental-demons, so I'm reserving "Oh, and it deals energy damage" for them.) So I'm making up my own shit that I think's cool, and I could use your help!
Here's my strategy: The exemplars of each alignment pole (NE, NG, CN, LN) have a shtick. Evil exemplars have disease/curses, Lawful exemplars have metallic flesh-enhancement (modron-ish), Chaotic exemplars have shapeshifting, and Good exemplars have...I dunno, I haven't worked that one out yet. Any ideas?
Then, the exemplars of each alignment blend (CG, CE, LG, LE) combine the shticks of their 'parent' races. For example, shapeshifting (C) + curse (E) = were-beast (CE)!
* Seriously, why are the evil ones always ugly, unless there's an ugly pimp on some lower plane ordering them about? Evil is selfish, it wants to be beautiful!
So are you thinking of one for each alignment axis (LG, LN, LE, etc.)? If so, are you imagining overlapping "shticks" (e.g. the LE exemplar would be both metallic and disease-laden)?