Thera is a world where by being born a fire giant, dark elf,
duergar, or studying the practice of intrinsically evil
magics (necromancer/AP stuff) you are evil. There will be a
handful of these types that seek redemption, and they will
generally be left alone. This leaves us to the vast majority
of remaining evils. The vast majority of evils archetypes are
those that will hurt others, leaving out the slothful, lazy
evils :). Marans want to save the innocents of the world that
are harmed by these evil beings, and their way of doing it
is eradicating them. Should they change? Maybe. We can try to
separate evils in to various types, like so:

Redemption-Seeking Evil: These are the evils described above.
These evils are actively seeking to be turned neutral or even
good. Marans should have absolutely no problems with them
other than possibly discomfort from being around them.

#### Evils: These are the 'I picked an evil race/class but
I never do anything evil why do you attack me!!' evils. This
-may- be what your fire giant was. These characters are like
RL people who claim to be satan worshippers, but when you
ask them what do they sacrifice in their rituals they say
things like 'Oh no, we just have monthly bake sales, nature
hikes, and discuss different ways to dress in black.' PC's
who follow this pattern should be turned neutral if they go
too far w/ their goodness, and Marans if they come across one
who truly exhibits '#### Evil' aspects should then (1) push
them to seek full redemption; (2) watch over them to see if
they are doing anything to harm the Fort, directly or
indirectly, or to assist evil causes; and (3) punish them if
they find they are truly acting evil. Marans should keep a
list for probationary "####" evils, and check it twice, like
Santa!

Predisposed Evils: Predisposed evils are those that do have
evil tendencies, but due to various circumstances, either the
evil tendencies have very little or no chance of inflicting
damage on others, or they may actually assist "the forces of
good" and the people more than they hurt them. This may have
also been your fire giant. Since the idea behind well RP'd
evils is that they should always be inclined to self-serve,
and the idea behind evil entities is to grant self serving
and often destructive power in return for cruel deeds, you
never know when this sort of evil will end up taking a hell
trip, be enticed by a demon to perform favors for favors, and
eventually become a burden to the Maran, and thus should have
been destroyed in the first place. The only time a Maran
should really consider allowing these types to exist is if
they feel that these types are too harmless, stupid, or well-
controlled by a non-evil force, to be a threat. Evil villagers
fall under the third part (well-controlled) very often simply
because their ideals are too rigid to allow much outside-
harming evil acts, and they constantly fight Scion and Empire.

Back to my other point...
I agree in general that it feels weird that Empire and
Fortress essentially operate in the same way, PK-wise and
structure-wise, but I do not think its like some sort of bad
RP in the same way as in World War II you had the Axis and
Allied powers, both with militiaries whose objective is to
eliminate the enemy. This doesn't mean the American military
was evil, it was defending itself and its allies which weren't
the aggressors (At least that's what my teacher told me!).

It would be neat if Maran were more independent loners, but
in return they'd have to have greater powers else you're just
basically asking for a handicap. In the reverse, I could also
see potential in making an evil, super-powerful loner PC -
the vampire that stalks the cities hunting citizens, which
the Maran need to hunt, subdue, go to their lair/Plane of
Existence or otherwise do something to inhibit them.

Anyways, my two dollars,
- Runaktla