# Fantasy Races: Staples or New Creations?



## RequiemTales (Jul 3, 2017)

Is it better to just use the staples of fantasy (Elves, Dwarves, etc...) or to create new races all your own? I understand there is usually a mix, but for the sake of this I just want to know your opinion on what you'd prefer to see in a story if you only could have one or the other.

I am a bit torn myself, and wanted to see the community's answers.


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## elemtilas (Jul 3, 2017)

RequiemTales said:


> Is it better to just use the staples of fantasy (Elves, Dwarves, etc...) or to create new races all your own? I understand there is usually a mix, but for the sake of this I just want to know your opinion on what you'd prefer to see in a story if you only could have one or the other.
> 
> I am a bit torn myself, and wanted to see the community's answers.



Me as a reader doesn't mind the staples. . .so long as you've done something creative with them. Particularly if they're the star of the show!

If your Elves and Dwarves are just background scenery, then, you can probably get by without the extra effort. If your main character is an Elf, then I'd say you'd better start considering what it means to _be_ Elf in your world and how that is different from what it is to be human. Also, how your kind of Elf is different / similar to Elves in tradition and Elves in other similar works of fantasy.  (E.g., Tolkien (whose Elves are actually somewhere in between tradition and fantasy))

I also don't mind new, but again, there's a lot of work here. What makes this race different, etc.


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## Queshire (Jul 3, 2017)

Classics, easy!

Mostly because I'm naturally contradictory and I hear more people complain about classic fantasy races or crow about their custom creations. I take it as a challenge. >= 3

Mind, I have seen new races done really, really well.


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## ThinkerX (Jul 3, 2017)

I have a mix with a twist.

First, the entire world was terraformed by several races of 'ancient aliens' many tens of thousands of years ago.  Several thousand years ago, they began importing other sapient life forms, notably humans and goblins, as brute labor and experimental subjects.  Some humans were deemed especially useful servitors, and subjected to unpleasant experimentation and genetic treatments that imbued them with greatly enhanced psi ability - necessary, because many of the ancient aliens high tech wonders required psi ability to operate.  These people became the first wizards when the ancient alien civilizations imploded.

Another metaphysical project by the ancient aliens involved snaring spirits from distant astral realms and placing them in human bodies.  The strain altered these bodies, creating a new race, the elves.  To this day, the elves regard themselves as 'trapped' in the mortal world; with death leading to but another incarnation.  They still retain a shadowy link to the distant astral realms, which gives them an otherworldly aura.  Normal humans who spend too much time in proximity to elves risk insanity because of that aura.  (Essentially, I took elves a step back towards their mythological roots.)  A wide buffer zone, dominated by feuding petty states, separates elven lands from human ones.

Goblins are another alien race imported by the ancient aliens.  They appear humanoid, and can pass for human in bad light or with a disguise, but differ biologically - and that different biology results in a different mindset.  The typical male goblin stands maybe 4 feet tall with skin ranging from gray to green to light orange, has four-fingered hands, and a vaguely pig-like head. Boiled down, goblin males outnumber females by 100 to 1 or more - resulting in fierce competition for breeding rights among the males.  More, goblins are hatched, not born, from clutches of two to two dozen leathery eggs.  These siblings organize themselves into 'packs' with linear pecking orders.  Internal and external rivalry is the norm here - no few bands attempt to prove themselves with raids on goblin and nongoblin neighbors.  While many goblin clans are nothing more than savages, others have crafted sophisticated civilizations, often ruled by 'Lords' - extremely rare goblins possessed of great psi talent. (I was looking for a way to justify a hostile, murderous race without resorting to the generic 'they're evil' approach.)

The ancient aliens, as part of some long ago military project, took certain clans of goblins and 'enhanced' them, creating the muscular, brutal hobgoblins.

That same long ago military project, or another like it, resulted in the spliced together 'Rachasa' - a race of man-tall cat warriors, predators supreme.  They are covered with fur ranging from light tan to orange to black, have three-fingered hands with long retractable claws, and cat-like heads. Apparently intended for 'special forces,' these extremely dangerous creatures are usually organized in bands of five to fifty, plus assorted slaves of other races to see to cooking, sewing, and grooming.  The typical rachasa can jump horizontally 30+ feet (9 meters) without a running start, and straight up for 10 - 15 feet.  As a race, they have little interest in manufacturing or commerce (that's what inferiors are for) but do sometimes conquer substantial areas. (A very dangerous warrior race.)


Dwarves exist, but are essentially 'short humans that bred true.'  They are often employed as servants.  Others dwell in enclaves.


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## WooHooMan (Jul 3, 2017)

I'm along with everyone else: the staples are staples because they work.


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## skip.knox (Jul 3, 2017)

Staples only work if you have a stapler. You may quote me.

Traditional fantasy creatures are fine. Many are not all that traditional--it depends on your time frame of reference. And it's always fun to see what twist a new writer puts on them.

'Sfunny, but I'm more fine with unique creatures in SF than I am in fantasy. Dunno why.


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## RequiemTales (Jul 4, 2017)

In the end, given time I tend to end up with both, but I find that Staples or traditional with a twist tends to be the best. Of course, as one of us pointed out, the vision of traditional races is relatively recent, and heavily influenced by a couple of very prolific authors. I do create my races often, but when I read, I tend to find the more staple races intruging, especially if they have unique twists to them.

In Sci-Fi, creating new races is the staple with a small subgroup of aliens being familiar, but by no means traditional style. I don't know, but I do have to say there have been some interesting things said here about the subject which is awesome.


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## Viorp (Jul 5, 2017)

I am split on this... on one hand I am very turned off when I see just another Tolkien-ripp off fantasy story which even though it's been like 100 years is still the main type of fantasy story... and the other majority is uncreatively bastardising poppular mythologies, which I hate the most.

Creating your own races is in my opinion much more fun, but much harder. 
I hit that problem when creating a fantasy world which was so abstract... that I could not write about it.

In the first 10 pages of my story I had to intrduce around 20-30 new words.

Using old fantasy races is a good short-hand to have an easily done job without having to set up much and I believe something like that can only be done seriously when the work is supposed to play/subvert existing tropes.


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## Michael K. Eidson (Jul 5, 2017)

I use the traditional fantasy races as starting points, and give them my own spin.


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## Nomadica (Jul 5, 2017)

It depends on the creation. I like elves with a unique spin on them or new creations depending on the creation. I'm not so into animal heads on human bodies but I do like some animalistic features blended in (think gelflings in The Dark Crystal)


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jul 5, 2017)

Don't like the traditional fantasy races, have never used them to the best of my knowledge. I don't feel comfortable pulling them out of all mythological context to use them, and I don't want to adhere to mythology anyway. If you're going to put a spin on elves or dwarves or whatever, why not make up you own thing? I like drawing inspiration from mythology, but only so I can make up my own things. If I ever use a mythological being in a story, it's going to be an obscure one from an underused mythology.

I have a wide variety. But I like winged humanoids, immortals or near immortals (something with a 10,000 year lifespan is as good as immortal relative to humans) and anthros (anthropomorphic animals), or just humanoids with animal like characteristics. most of my races are one of those three. I have a race of magic-using immortals that are humanoid but appearing to be made of glass or crystal. I'm working on a race of humanoids with horns and patterned pink or purple skin. 

I do trip over including humans in my stories. I don't know why they need to be in a fantasy world, but it's very hard to do without them. Also, I falter on why races must be humanoid, but might it make things unnecessarily difficult for the reader, writing about a gelatinous blob feeding off muck on an abyssal plain somewhere? I mean, if you want to write a fantasy epic. Being human is our point of reference and there's nothing we can do about it.


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## Steerpike (Jul 5, 2017)

@DragonOfTheAerie: you may like this: Books of the Raksura Compendium - The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells


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## elemtilas (Jul 5, 2017)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> I have a wide variety. But I like winged humanoids,



I'm certainly down with winged folk! (I think it was you & I that talked about this one time before...)

(Again as a reader,) I like novel races, but they really have to be done well. I have to believe they're more than just humans in heavy makeup.



> I do trip over including humans in my stories. I don't know why they need to be in a fantasy world, but it's very hard to do without them.



I think because a) the author and b) the author's readers are all humans...

It's hard enough to do a truly alien mindset, but to write a story that way with zero human qualities I think would be even harder. Readers would have nothing to latch on to, nothing to emotionally invest in.



> Also, I falter on why races must be humanoid, but might it make things unnecessarily difficult for the reader, writing about a gelatinous blob feeding off muck on an abyssal plain somewhere? I mean, if you want to write a fantasy epic. Being human is our point of reference and there's nothing we can do about it.



Right. Also, it's what we find attractive and are thus drawn to. Even if that attractive humanoid form is really an insectlike fairy or some kind of demon or succubus or a winged person that lives 10000 years!

I wrote a story about the beings that live down in the molten core of the world. I never specified their shape or size in the story, though in my mind's eye they definitely aren't humanoid. But, of course, I couldn't get entirely away from some human qualities. (It was about different schools of scholarship and their dogmas regarding the Nature of the Universe and breaking away from those dogmas to reveal greater truth.)


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jul 5, 2017)

Steerpike said:


> @DragonOfTheAerie: you may like this: Books of the Raksura Compendium - The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells



Hey, that's actually on my to-read list on Goodreads...


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## TheCrystallineEntity (Jul 5, 2017)

None of my books have any humans in them, and I love making up new races. Even the elves and fairies in my second book are rather different than the usual. I also love winged humanoids, so there are some of them in every book. --And cats, of course.


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## Aurora (Jul 5, 2017)

The only traditional fantasy race I use are elves. They are in a world separate from humans. Meaning, I don't write the two of them together. But I do think it's neat some writers make up their own version of the races. It does work differently though when writing commercial fiction because readers have expectations. If working on a story that is not meant for commercial consumption then that's a different story (no pun intended).


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## Simpson17866 (Jul 6, 2017)

In my current WIP, my main non-human character is a vampire, and in my intended sequel, I plan on using orcs (inspired by Tolkien even in the story's world itself  ) and psoglavs (one-eyed wolfmen from Slavic folklore). I've put a lot of work into putting my own personal touches on all of these.

So far, I haven't been satisfied yet by any of my attempts at building completely original species from scratch, but I'm going to keep trying 



DragonOfTheAerie said:


> Being human is our point of reference and there's nothing we can do about it.


 I think there is: learn as much as you can about human nature so that you can figure out what we would look like to someone else 

I personally consider the tribalistic "Group versus Group" mentality to be a uniquely human instinct that would not make sense to anybody else.


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## elemtilas (Jul 6, 2017)

Simpson17866 said:


> I personally consider the tribalistic "Group versus Group" mentality to be a uniquely human instinct that would not make sense to anybody else.



Given that it (territorialism) is fairly common across animal species, I can't imagine it would be terribly different for other sentient species in-world. The concept may be writ large (for the Daine of The World, pretty much "all other Daine" is one group and everyone else is pretty much the other group) or tiny (our family against the world).

How have you gotten it to make sense that it, well, doesn't make sense?


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## Annoyingkid (Jul 6, 2017)

Some people say why use a fantasy race, why not just a different culture of humans? 

I always reply - because humans aren't strong enough. Humans have known limitations. Break these limits and they just become another fantasy race. Human in name only.


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## Simpson17866 (Jul 6, 2017)

elemtilas said:


> Given that it (territorialism) is fairly common across animal species, I can't imagine it would be terribly different for other sentient species in-world. The concept may be writ large (for the Daine of The World, pretty much "all other Daine" is one group and everyone else is pretty much the other group) or tiny (our family against the world).
> 
> How have you gotten it to make sense that it, well, doesn't make sense?


 More wishful thinking than anything else. Today's narrative seems to be dominated by people who don't understand math

"The Xs are evil, and we Ys must defend ourselves against them!"

"Actually, there are a lot of Xs who are good and a lot of Ys who are evil. Wouldn't it make more sense for the Xs and Ys who are good to work together to stop the Xs and Ys who are evil?"

"How *dare* you say that all Xs are good? Do you *want* them to get away with murdering innocent Ys?"​
and I want to write about a world where this worldview is acknowledged as being ridiculous, rather than being taken as an objective axiom of all reality.

So much of the pain and suffering in human history has boiled down to one group deciding "As long as Theyâ„¢ are on equal footing with us, Theirâ„¢ existence will be a threat to us, therefor we must either keep Themâ„¢ down or kill Themâ„¢ all just in case Theyâ„¢ decide to kill us first at some unknown future point," and today, we have two "opposite" groups saying exactly the same thing about each other, and the violence is has continued escalating and escalating because neither group realizes that they are both on the same side.

There are conflicts between people of non-human species in my world, but those are conflicts *about* something, not human-style conflict for it's own sake.


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## TheKillerBs (Jul 7, 2017)

Simpson17866 said:


> There are conflicts between people of non-human species in my world, but those are conflicts *about* something, not human-style conflict for it's own sake.



But every human conflict in the history of humanity has been *about* something, not for its own sake. Most of the time, the subject's been land.


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## DeathtoTrite (Jul 7, 2017)

Honestly, I prefer humans only or human dominated. 

My rant on elves, dwarves, etc. -- the classics are so classic that if I mention an elf character, dwarf character, etc. a reader will immediately think Legolas/Gimli. Even if I have well developed unique dwarves and elves, their traits get overwhelmed by the reader's mental shortcuts to LOTR. And if made them so unique, like dwarves as supreme mages or elves as industrialists, it seems like 1) why call them elves or dwarves? 2) info-dumping to stress how they aren't Tolkein's elves and 3) unnecessarily hipster.

Unique races, meanwhile, can be harder to relate to and seem to lead to mass-info dumping every time said race eats, sleeps or starts a fire. That said, I like bizarre curiosity races like the Raz'ac in Eragon (when they were mysterious)


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## Annoyingkid (Jul 7, 2017)

DeathtoTrite said:


> Honestly, I prefer humans only or human dominated.
> 
> My rant on elves, dwarves, etc. -- the classics are so classic that if I mention an elf character, dwarf character, etc. a reader will immediately think Legolas/Gimli. Even if I have well developed unique dwarves and elves, their traits get overwhelmed by the reader's mental shortcuts to LOTR. And if made them so unique, like dwarves as supreme mages or elves as industrialists, it seems like 1) why call them elves or dwarves? 2) info-dumping to stress how they aren't Tolkein's elves and 3) unnecessarily hipster.
> 
> Unique races, meanwhile, can be harder to relate to and seem to lead to mass-info dumping every time said race eats, sleeps or starts a fire. That said, I like bizarre curiosity races like the Raz'ac in Eragon (when they were mysterious)



People don't immediately think of Legolas and Gimli with Dungeons and Dragons elves/dwarves or Warhammer elves/ dwarves.


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## elemtilas (Jul 7, 2017)

Simpson17866 said:


> More wishful thinking than anything else.







> Today's narrative seems to be dominated by people who don't understand math
> 
> "The Xs are evil, and we Ys must defend ourselves against them!"
> 
> ...




Sure. The maths are so much easier when x =/= y, never, nohow, not in a squillion years! Even as a kid reading Tolkien, I wondered "aren't there Ã¡ny good Orcs at all? There are bad Evles and Men after all..."

Hence, the orc-analogues of The World: many are indeed evil, as they were intended to be, and they delight in the anarchy and wanton destruction they're so good at; but others see beyond that and seek to rise above their base nature. It may not be entirely appropriate to call them "Good", but nor is it appropriate to call them "Evil", even though they have the propensity.



> and I want to write about a world where this worldview is acknowledged as being ridiculous, rather than being taken as an objective axiom of all reality.
> 
> So much of the pain and suffering in human history has boiled down to one group deciding "As long as Theyâ„¢ are on equal footing with us, Theirâ„¢ existence will be a threat to us, therefor we must either keep Themâ„¢ down or kill Themâ„¢ all just in case Theyâ„¢ decide to kill us first at some unknown future point," and today, we have two "opposite" groups saying exactly the same thing about each other, and the violence is has continued escalating and escalating because neither group realizes that they are both on the same side.



Or at least that they're all proposing the same fundamental raison de combattre.



> There are conflicts between people of non-human species in my world, but those are conflicts *about* something, not human-style conflict for it's own sake.



Well, there Ã¡re reasons, even if they don't seem like reasons. Conflict for the sake of conflict probably is a matter of honour or else some long ago feud has simply been perpetuated so long that no one can remember the actual reason for all the fighting.


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## Simpson17866 (Jul 7, 2017)

TheKillerBs said:


> But every human conflict in the history of humanity has been *about* something, not for its own sake. Most of the time, the subject's been land.


 And if we weren't so tribalistic, most of those conflicts would've cooled down more quickly instead of escalating.



elemtilas said:


> Hence, the orc-analogues of The World: many are indeed evil, as they were intended to be, and they delight in the anarchy and wanton destruction they're so good at; but others see beyond that and seek to rise above their base nature. It may not be entirely appropriate to call them "Good", but nor is it appropriate to call them "Evil", even though they have the propensity.


 And that sounds to me like a very human way of looking at the world.

When you look at every Planet of Hats that has ever been created for SciFi/Fantasy – Vulcans/Elves are aloof, Klingons/Orcs are militaristic, Ferengi/Goblins are greedy – you'll notice that they all have one thing in common:

They were created by human writers.

The real world is not a universe of Planets of Hats, but when we start exploring the stars and meeting new civilizations, we will *think* that we are meeting Planets of Hats because that's how we look at each other:

"Gays are pedophiles!" (In the real world, sexual predators are disproportionately likely to be straight)
"Blacks are thugs!" (In the real world, white people from bad neighborhoods are more likely to be violent than black people from good neighborhoods)
"Muslims are terrorists!" (In the real world, over 90% of the victims of Islamic terrorism are Muslims who do not believe in the atrocities that the oppressors believe in)
"Humans stereotype everybody!" (... I just made myself sad)

*Our Hat* is that we assign Hats more value than they deserve.



> Or at least that they're all proposing the same fundamental raison de combattre.
> 
> Well, there Ã¡re reasons, even if they don't seem like reasons. Conflict for the sake of conflict probably is a matter of honour or else some long ago feud has simply been perpetuated so long that no one can remember the actual reason for all the fighting.


 Even when there are reasons at first, the escalation eventually becomes completely disproportionate.


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## elemtilas (Jul 7, 2017)

Simpson17866 said:


> And if we weren't so tribalistic, most of those conflicts would've cooled down more quickly instead of escalating.
> 
> And that sounds to me like a very human way of looking at the world.



Guilty as charged!

But in defense, they aren't "aliens" living on an alien world, so I don't really need to engage in all the mental gymnastics involved in devising a truly and fundamentally different mindset.

The closest I get to that is with the Daine. While they're subject to the same environment and the same tests of character and spirit, their mindset and reaction base is different. Matters of free will and the primordial Test went differently. They didn't fail, and therefore didn't fall and so are not subject to the same consequences. This makes for a whole load of people that are essentially "good" but are capable of spectacular failure. They often run afoul of Men, whose idea of "good" is really "good for me".

There are others who perhaps are also quite different. I haven't focussed on them, though.



> When you look at every Planet of Hats that has ever been created for SciFi/Fantasy – Vulcans/Elves are aloof, Klingons/Orcs are militaristic, Ferengi/Goblins are greedy – you'll notice that they all have one thing in common:
> 
> They were created by human writers.



Thus far, we've not encountered any Dolphin or Elephant literature...



> The real world is not a universe of Planets of Hats, but when we start exploring the stars and meeting new civilizations, we will *think* that we are meeting Planets of Hats because that's how we look at each other:



Right. But in our own defense, at least here on Earth, who we're meeting are all humans. And so extrapolation is possible, and the extrapoland turns out to be right. The fatal flaw with applying this logic is expecting it to be true for non-humans.


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## valiant12 (Jul 7, 2017)

> The real world is not a universe of Planets of Hats, but when we start exploring the stars and meeting new civilizations, we will think that we are meeting Planets of Hats because that's how we look at each other:




Assuming that humanity ever make a contact with other sentient species. Space is big.




> "Humans stereotype everybody!" (... I just made myself sad)


 
 I think stereotyping is the norm , not the exeption in nature. The human brain can maintain complex relaishanships with around 100 - 200 people. Realisticly a humanoid creatute like a dwarf or an Orc will have similar brain.


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## DeathtoTrite (Jul 7, 2017)

Annoyingkid said:


> People don't immediately think of Legolas and Gimli with Dungeons and Dragons elves/dwarves or Warhammer elves/ dwarves.



Really? I have to admit, I definitely do. The elves are arrogant, magic archers who are really old while the dwarfs are short, fierce warriors with awesome steampunk and beards.


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## Steerpike (Jul 7, 2017)

elemtilas said:


> Right. But in our own defense, at least here on Earth, who we're meeting are all humans. And so extrapolation is possible, and the extrapoland turns out to be right. The fatal flaw with applying this logic is expecting it to be true for non-humans.



Likewise, when it comes to non-humans / fantasy races, there is no reason one cannot suppose that such races all share a single, defining trait. It can make just as much sense as the opposite.


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## skip.knox (Jul 7, 2017)

There can and should be common traits that are species-specific. We see it even among humans. There are common (which is not a synonym for universal) traits that lead people not only to distinguish Western from non-Western, but Italian from Norwegian, and indeed north Italian from south Italian.

So it is perfectly all right to say, for example, that humans (in my world) are polytheistic while orcs are monotheistic. That sprites are fascinated, even obsessed, with numbers and numeracy. That elves do not build cities. That among dwarves it's all about clan and canton. Creating a common cultural base is what helps the reader feel that traveling from, say, a gnome village to a human city is actually meaningful.

In fact, learning about cultural quirks is part of the fun of reading fantasy. As for expectations, those vary wildly. As has been observed before, a book is not responsible for the sort of person who reads it. When I read Chinese fantasy, many of the creatures don't resonate with me at all, and even the ones that do (e.g., dragons) behave in ways that are so different, I just have to let the story tell itself and leave my preconceptions behind.

So, I don't worry too much about the stereotypes. I admit that I consciously do not give orcs tusks, nor are my goblins any sort of cousin to orcs. IOW, I do indeed give some thought to the Tolkien-esque stereotypes, if only avoid an unthinking reproduction of them.


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## Steerpike (Jul 7, 2017)

skip.knox said:


> There can and should be common traits that are species-specific. We see it even among humans. There are common (which is not a synonym for universal) traits that lead people not only to distinguish Western from non-Western, but Italian from Norwegian, and indeed north Italian from south Italian.
> 
> So it is perfectly all right to say, for example, that humans (in my world) are polytheistic while orcs are monotheistic. That sprites are fascinated, even obsessed, with numbers and numeracy. That elves do not build cities. That among dwarves it's all about clan and canton. Creating a common cultural base is what helps the reader feel that traveling from, say, a gnome village to a human city is actually meaningful.
> 
> ...



Yes.

Or also that a fantasy race may be inherently evil. Of course not every reader or writer is going to like that approach, and it may or may not be useful depending on the type of story one is writing, but there is nothing inherently improper about it when applied to a fantasy setting.


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## Annoyingkid (Jul 7, 2017)

DeathtoTrite said:


> Really? I have to admit, I definitely do. The elves are arrogant, magic archers who are really old while the dwarfs are short, fierce warriors with awesome steampunk and beards.



Tolkien's dwarves don't have steampunk technology. Toklien set the general standard for the look of these races, but tell me, what distinguishes one Tolkien elf from another? Anywhere in the setting? Individual elves and dwarves only take 3 distinguishing actions throughout the entire series.

1) Gimli and Legolas form respect for one another. 
2) Gimli and Galadriel ...ditto.
3) Arwen falls in love with Aragorn.

That's it. Cirdan, Glorifindel, Elrond, Celeborn etc, they're all the same character.Because LOTR isn't about elves and dwarves, Tolkien gets away with it. The difference in character between Gloin and Balin? No idea. 

So I never understood why Tolkien's elves and dwarves are the standard to which all others are compared. They were incredibly passive, conservative, and really only stood as representations of the passing age of magic and wonder.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jul 7, 2017)

skip.knox said:


> There can and should be common traits that are species-specific. We see it even among humans. There are common (which is not a synonym for universal) traits that lead people not only to distinguish Western from non-Western, but Italian from Norwegian, and indeed north Italian from south Italian.
> 
> So it is perfectly all right to say, for example, that humans (in my world) are polytheistic while orcs are monotheistic. That sprites are fascinated, even obsessed, with numbers and numeracy. That elves do not build cities. That among dwarves it's all about clan and canton. Creating a common cultural base is what helps the reader feel that traveling from, say, a gnome village to a human city is actually meaningful.
> 
> ...



You're comparing different human cultures with different fantasy being species, and I find that confusing.  Culture =/= species. Unless races in your world happen to be some kind of analog for different human cultures...

I mean, it is okay, I suppose, to say that a fantasy race is mono-cultural, or at least that there isn't much variation. No one can tell you that you can't. But it would seem like fantasy races would have diversity and variation within them just as humans do. That would depend on how much they've spread over the world, diversified, and adapted, of course. If they are mainly confined to one lifestyle, or one area of the world, or for any reason haven't migrated and developed different languages and ways of living, then maybe they might be more mono-cultural. 

It would be impossible to create a fantasy race as diverse as humans. There are thousands of languages and people groups worldwide. But that's exactly why I feel like a World of Hats type thing is oversimplification to an extreme degree. It seems like there would be different cultures within races in most cases. Maybe the presence of different races sharing dominion of the world would buffer the spreading and diversification of each individual race. 

It's hard to determine these things because the human race is literally our only example of a sentient race we know of, and we are human. So all our races are going to be based somewhat on humans, and all their traits probably will exist somewhere in the human race. The human race encompasses such a broad variety there is no way to create something like, with similar diversity, without them BEING humans, due to us not knowing anything other than humans. So our fantasy races traits are mostly going to just be human traits zoomed in on and augmented or applied to a race. 

(I mean, imagination and drawing on, say, animal's traits can get you outside of humans as your only reference. But only so far.)


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## DeathtoTrite (Jul 7, 2017)

Annoyingkid said:


> Tolkien's dwarves don't have steampunk technology. Toklien set the general standard for the look of these races, but tell me, what distinguishes one Tolkien elf from another? Anywhere in the setting? Individual elves and dwarves only take 3 distinguishing actions throughout the entire series.
> 
> 1) Gimli and Legolas form respect for one another.
> 2) Gimli and Galadriel ...ditto.
> ...



True, Tolkein's dwarfs don't have steampunk. And I agree with how you describe them. And of course, you can do them well. But for me at least, they're difficult to do well.


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## skip.knox (Jul 7, 2017)

>it would seem like fantasy races would have diversity and variation within them just as humans do. 
That was the point I was clumsily making, DoTA--that if there were such variations within a single species, there surely ought to be at least that much variation between species and then within each individual species. And then, of course, there's the room for individual variations within that culture and sub-culture.

That's why I did not spec out my nations (elf nation, dwarf nation, et ceteration)--I wanted to leave room for variation and not merely have a heading called Elf. I'm only now, in my current novel, exploring a couple of elf sub-cultures. So, for example, the wagoneers are quite different from fisher elves, but both must clearly be elf and not any flavor of dwarf or human. It's tricky work.


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## Malik (Jul 8, 2017)

You have to ask yourself what purpose the races serve in your story. Why do you have different races, and what is their reason for being in the story at all?

More on this here.


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## Deleted member 4265 (Jul 8, 2017)

I don't really care that much but if I had to choose probably original creations. They tend to have more depth because the author can't just rely on our assumptions, they've got to fully flesh out this new race and its culture whereas with the traditional races you can just go "they're elves, they live in trees and think themselves superior, what more do you need to know about them?"

That being said, I'd rather read about elves with a rich cultural heritage than insectoid chipmunk people from an alternate dimension if the only thing you're going to tell me about them is that they're really small and love apple pie.

I don't necessarily mind nonhumans built around a single trait either, for example orcs being a warlike people so long as what that means is explored. You could still create a fairly complex race around that idea. What constitutes a good or honorable warrior could differ across orc nations. What would the religion and gender roles for an inherently violent race be like?


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jul 8, 2017)

skip.knox said:


> >it would seem like fantasy races would have diversity and variation within them just as humans do.
> That was the point I was clumsily making, DoTA--that if there were such variations within a single species, there surely ought to be at least that much variation between species and then within each individual species. And then, of course, there's the room for individual variations within that culture and sub-culture.
> 
> That's why I did not spec out my nations (elf nation, dwarf nation, et ceteration)--I wanted to leave room for variation and not merely have a heading called Elf. I'm only now, in my current novel, exploring a couple of elf sub-cultures. So, for example, the wagoneers are quite different from fisher elves, but both must clearly be elf and not any flavor of dwarf or human. It's tricky work.



Oopses. Didn't quite get that. My bad.


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## Aurora (Jul 8, 2017)

Malik said:


> You have to ask yourself what purpose the races serve in your story. Why do you have different races, and what is their reason for being in the story at all?
> 
> More on this here.



Because you want them in there?


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jul 8, 2017)

Malik said:


> You have to ask yourself what purpose the races serve in your story. Why do you have different races, and what is their reason for being in the story at all?
> 
> More on this here.



Cool blog post. I love long lived or immortal races for exactly the reasons you mentioned. 

Is "I think humans with wings are cool, and developing their differing biology, culture, gender roles and society is my idea of fun" a good enough reason? lol.


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## elemtilas (Jul 8, 2017)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> Cool blog post. I love long lived or immortal races for exactly the reasons you mentioned.



I think the time perspective is one of the keys here. For example, in The World, there is an Elf-analogue (they call themselves Teor), but I can't think of any stories I've written where they appear yet.

They are certainly the most different of the races I know about. For one, they do live long lifespans. Very long. Daine are, when compared with Men, "functionally immortal", quite capable of living a thousand or more years, and some perhaps ten times that. I mean, if you had a chum you hang out with in the pool hall who can regale you with stories of not only that little fracas at Hastings but also the time that Rascally Roman came snooping around, cos he was there both times, that's pretty much immortal for all intents and purposes.

Daine are like that; Teor even more so, as there are some still in the East who can regale one with tales of a world so ancient you might think she was just making it all up...

Time, ya; that's a key. They are, in a lesser way, kind of like God. God sees all of material history, from the big bang all the way 
up to the big crunch and every event in it as one event, all the grand stretches, all the lives of Men and Dolphins, all the empires, all the moments of enlightenment and fall from grace are all one. Humans don't generally see this way. The Past is increasingly murky and mythical; the Future is an unknown; the Present is where we are and let's just be content with that. Teor, far from being anything like all knowing, experience and understand their own existence that way. A Teor who has travelled far and lived through many ages of Time, that one sees all those events as one event, whereas a Man of his acquaintance can only hope to understand 95% of that visceral, emotional, _experience_ as disconnected history.

I think a good rough analog to Elvish thinking is the (US) car commercial where the dad picks up a crayon from the back seat of the car and sees his daughter when she's about six, come running across the yard; and then a hospital ID bracelet, and he sees her at thirteen or so after a sports injury; and at the end, he gives her the key and she's probably eighteen or so and off to uni. A parent, I think, sees his own kid as both little umpkins and grown up girl all at once. This is something like how an Elf understands all the long years of his own experience.

Another key, at least for me and long-lived races, is sorrow. The long life of a Daine or a Teor are sure to be full of many happy moments. Falling in love (even if it Ã¬s for the twentieth time), the birth of a child, the conclusion of long and unhappy war. But tempering that is the long sorrow of places lost, things perished and people gone; of a world that has changed in its externals and can never return to its vision as first experienced.

For example, when a Teor speaks of the sea as _raurumwollio_, his word at once leads one to think he is speaking of the continuous rolling of the waves crashing upon the warth. For, indeed, _raurum _means a roaring, crashing sound, as of thunder or waves or even a rockslide in the hill country; and _wowollio _gives the sense of repetition, of doing a thing over again. Yet however lovely and appropriate one might think such a word, for another Teor, its meanings run much deeper. For them this single word contains not only the sound of the roaring waves but also the long memory of the Distant Sea as it was in the time of their youth far away and deep sorrow  and longing for lands long ago washed away and drowned deep under those rolling, roaring waves and indeed the knowledge of the loss of kith and kin who have taken to ships and sailed away upon those waves to Donwareccwalhya, the Land Beyond the Sea which none may now attain; or who have wandered some other road to some other destiny. It is a sense of sundering as well as continuing; a mournful feeling within and set against contentment.

It's kind of like nostalgia, that sense of longing for times past, but is sadder and broader in connotation. Even though a Daine or Teor himself has changed and grown through the course of his life, there is always that part of the heart that rests unchanging and apart from the fits and starts, the lability of existence outside and the change of the world. Men certainly feel this way too, like when they go back to their old neighbourhood and find it's all Portoricans now, and all the Italians have gone away...but the time scales involved are much longer and burden of such memory the more dolorous.

In fact, as a Daine gets older and this burden becomes ever more onerous, he risks dying from the weight of it! His body may be hale, but his heart and his spirit become weighed down and sick. Eventually, he'll just sleep and won't wake up again in this world. 



> Is "I think humans with wings are cool, and developing their differing biology, culture, gender roles and society is my idea of fun" a good enough reason? lol.



Absolutely!


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## Annoyingkid (Jul 8, 2017)

Some elves in my story are pacifist stoners who live in mud huts and mud holes.
Others are legendary war heroes who live in finely crafted cities who never stop training.
Others are bandits who are agents of chaos.
Others live in trees, although there are unexpected consequences for that.
Others live in shipyard towns and work there.
Most are farmers.
Others are inventors, pioneering solar power technology.
The strongest of them can bring a god to their knees.
The weakest coast through life.
Some are very pretty and some are ugly. The males typically aren't effeminate. Most are just normal looking. They don't have any kind of inherent grace to them.
They grow 100x slower than a human would. It takes a century for an elf baby to reach the maturity of a 1 year old.
There are twice as many elf males as there are females. There's a reason for that.
They're psychologically resistant to mental problems due to immortality.
Their durability  and magical affinity can run the gamut. 
They are not inherently connected to nature any more than a human would be. 

I believe in variety. Even when I finally introduce humans, which would be in book 5, I see no reason to foil humans or have them foil elves. Humans were made to be a large, visible, sacrificial target for the dragon so the elves wouldn't have to deal with him again.


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## TheCrystallineEntity (Jul 8, 2017)

From TV Tropes: 


> While Tolkien is largely the inspiration for the modern conception of elves, many uses of them would count as subversions today. That's especially true of the Noldor of Nargothrond, a group of elves living in a large secluded cave city obsessed with craftsmanship and smithing. The "one with nature" stereotype, in particular, is only seen in a small group that is mostly insignificant within his greater mythos.
> 
> Though most people consider the Orcs to be the Trope Codifier – if not the Trope Maker – for the Always Chaotic Evil trope, it should be noted that Tolkien went on record saying that he didn't consider the Orc race to be uniformly evil; because of his strong Catholic upbringing, he expressly rejected the idea of an entire race being beyond salvation, and said that he would have taken the time to include sympathetic Orcs if he'd been able to fit them into the narrative. In The Silmarillion he writes the Orcs began when Melkor imprisoned and corrupted elves, and that far from enjoying evil "the Orcs loathed the Master whom they served in fear". They're also rather different from later portrayals of orcs in that they're neither near-mindless animalistic savages nor Noble Demon Proud Warrior Race Guys; Tolkien orcs have roughly human-level intelligence and are more skilled with torture and machines (particularly weapons) than they are in direct combat.
> 
> Despite the stereotype of an Evil Overlord being evil for the sake of it, in Morgoth's Ring Tolkien goes into a lot of detail on the actual motives of the two Dark Lords, Morgoth and Sauron. Morgoth is shown as essentially nihilistic and his apparent eventual plan was to destroy everything basically out of spite that he hadn't created it. Sauron, meanwhile, became evil out of a desire to bring order to the world, which used to be a very noble feature of his, and after Morgoth's defeat his motives seemed to be restoring Middle-Earth after the war, however he was too proud to humble himself, which led to his corruption. It is even mentioned that in the beginning nothing was evil, showing there is free will..


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