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Diverse to a Human Fault.

MrNybble

Sage
Wondering how many people have created fictional sentient races or read about them that have the same complexities as humans. What I mean is that all dwarves are not miners, love drinking and battle. Same goes for elves as they are not all magic hippies that live forever. Dragons are not all flying fire death creatures. Not all kobolds speak kobold. These are examples and not a concrete fact.

Want to know if anybody else has ever wrote or read to show diversity among fictional races as most real developed things have?
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
I try to. It's one of the pleasure I take in messing about in Altearth. I try to give each people characteristics but also to create diversity within that people. One interesting effect has been to force me to consider what characteristics define humans. That is, leaving aside physical appearance, what would make an orc or a dwarf say "oh, that's so human." I'm not sure I have a clear answer to that, but it's fun to noodle around once in a while.

I approach creating these peoples (I sort of shy away from saying race; I like the Latin natio but nation doesn't echo properly in the modern ear) ... er, where was I? Yes, approaches. Like I do creating individual characters. I sort of sketch, add shading, erase a bit, draw in details, view it in different lights, and in general give it all plenty of time to brew. Yes, I like my metaphors mixed, not shaken.
 

Yora

Maester
I start characters with their occuptation first, then decide their general personality, and then think about how their native culture would impact them.
People are individuals first, and societies seconds.
I guess it helps that I don't create very inhuman species.
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
Yes, it’s a goal, but the challenging thing is to make them diverse without quite making them human. Human, but they don’t age... human but they are only comfortable underground... how do these strange magical differences reshape their society? Their worldviews? Their daily lives?

Maybe it’s interesting to see a dwarf farmer for a change, but that shouldn’t make the character less of a dwarf or what’s the point?

I feel that we generally have to justify the fantasy we use in some way. It creates distance, and we need to get something in exchange for that distance. We have to use it to make the story better. There’s plenty of ways to do that. Just immersion is enough. But there should be some purpose to making the character a dwarf, or else why not just use humans instead?
 
I always wonder how dwarves manage to feed themselves. They never seem to do anything on the surface...

As for races that do stuff outside of the cliche's there's a lot of them in Terry Pratchett books. He's got all the default fantasy races appear at one point or another and even some less common ones and undefined ones. And they generally go beyond the default tropes. Yes, dwarves live underground. But they can be female (gasp!), work a printing business, be in the city guard and so on.
 
I tend to go all out on this sort of thing. Or just run with the cliches. As towards dwarves I've been really trying to work out the swamp dwarves of Eld's. Or the bayou delvers when their cousins get persnickity at them. I just find it's a fun thing to do with the fantasy races. Not expecting them all to be the same and cut from the same cloth. If the orcs can surf and the ogres can lay out vast spreads of food without putting people in it then the dwarves can enjoy spicy food and noodling for catfish.
 

Yora

Maester
Turns out there is actually only one dwarf. But he has the magic ability to be in multiple places at the same time. Every dwarf, in every universe: Always the same guy.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
>I always wonder how dwarves manage to feed themselves. They never seem to do anything on the surface..
I have gnomes. These appear in Altearth along with dwarves (exact dates are uncertain). Everywhere they first appear we find a symbiotic relationship. Gnomes do the farming while dwarves provide protection. Dwarves excel at stone and metal work, while gnomes excel at wood work. Lots of other interdependencies.

I'm sort of fascinated by Altearth gnomes because they are a naturally obsequious people, which creates interesting opportunities for conflict. Gnomes enter into serf-like relationships with humans as well, but not with elves. Orcs exploit them but not to an extreme because when gnomes feel themselves to be exploited, they simply leave. Trolls regard them as vermin and kill them.

Once I feel I have a good handle on a people, I look for places where I can make exceptions. So, for example, I have a gnome in A Child of Great Promise who is a Companion. Gnomes normally never leave the vill. They have primary loyalty to their own vill and to their friends--the people with whom the vill has the symbiotic relationship. Once in a while, an individual gnome will connect to another individual, so there will be a kind of recaptiulation of symbiosis at the personal level. In that story, Detta is a Companion gnome to the MC, Talysse, so she goes with Talysse on the latter's adventures. The role of Companion is respected within the gnome community, though it is regarded by some as being as much curse as blessing.
 
I always wonder how dwarves manage to feed themselves. They never seem to do anything on the surface...

I made a system for this, using the three main types of dwarves. It operates on trade, with the delver trading their orchard and herder cousins for fruits, vegetables, meats and fur in return for their smithing, precious metals and shiny stuff. The more independent delvers also terrace entire mountain sides into farmland and even make new lakes for fish farms all while also having the flora and fauna of beneath the earth in separate caves. The outside the farms are tended to by their human servants or brownies, though some are brought in for the fungus that's among them. They also have the Trade Roads which have a fairly reliable system of Fortress Monastery's watching over their lands which also hold more of their human servants. Given how far the Trade Roads go and how often they intersect and run with the drow Trades Roads it's not unusual to also find the dwarves with island fortresses all over. Be it tropical islands or chilly northern ones in the Steel Ice Sea's. Which also means they have several decent size fleets of mostly warships and merchant ships along with their fishing fleets.

Which means that all in all, with preservation and application of ice magic, the average dwarf get's by on a fairly healthy diet, though with the usual staples closest to them. The really well off dwarves can taste the world, all without ever leaving the deeps.
 
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