I think we are largely in agreement
Excepting a minor yet critically important matter. I think it better to have intrinsic, ontological evil to cultural evil. Cultural evil is too close to real world colonial thinking. Ideology of colonialism was that the good Europeans need to spread their superior culture to rest of the world. The church signed off on the idea that the Aztecs had to eliminated because they practiced human sacrifice, protestant U.S. created of residential schools designed to eliminate the evils of indigenous cultures including raiding . . .
I prefer the 3.5 formulation - the good gods created servants, the monster gods created slaves. I prefer to deal with enslaved souls because it's truly an fantasy notion while cultural evil has real world analogues - people who mistake soul bondage for 'racism', oth, are victims of psychological projection.
And yes some exceptional individuals escape the soul bondage.
I never ran across the module you mention but it seems like a good example of DnD's proud history of conflicting sources
The question about whether it's good or not to kill children has been around for some time yes. The caves in Keep on the Borderlands had orc nurseries in them. I think Gygax put those there to inspire a debate among party members.
Btw, glad you are back. I hope you will post a lengthy review.
