Yora
Maester
I guess in the end it always comes down to what the author feels to be thematically appropriate for the setting. And that really is much more of an intuitive feeling than a reasoned evaluation.
However, in the realm of fantasy, we always have the option to include human-like characters and populations that are very different from humans, and I think outside of urban and gothic fantasy (is there actually a difference?) this is something every creator considers at some point.
The impression I got is that most writers go with yes and have some kinds of nonhuman peoples inabiting the world alongside humans. But I very regularly have conflicted feelings about the results. Because in the end, you most often end up with 90% of characters and apparently also the population being human, and all the other peoples combined making up the rest.
How do you handle this and what were your considerations that went into your ultimate decisions? Right now my setting is populated by six types of almost-humans, but I am also reconsidering adding some kind of beastmen and goblins to it. If I just tag them on, I feel that they would literally feel tagged on. If I were to add them in greater numbers, it would need a considerable addition of places where they live to the world and rewrite the relationships between states. Both situations seem unappealing to me.
However, in the realm of fantasy, we always have the option to include human-like characters and populations that are very different from humans, and I think outside of urban and gothic fantasy (is there actually a difference?) this is something every creator considers at some point.
The impression I got is that most writers go with yes and have some kinds of nonhuman peoples inabiting the world alongside humans. But I very regularly have conflicted feelings about the results. Because in the end, you most often end up with 90% of characters and apparently also the population being human, and all the other peoples combined making up the rest.
How do you handle this and what were your considerations that went into your ultimate decisions? Right now my setting is populated by six types of almost-humans, but I am also reconsidering adding some kind of beastmen and goblins to it. If I just tag them on, I feel that they would literally feel tagged on. If I were to add them in greater numbers, it would need a considerable addition of places where they live to the world and rewrite the relationships between states. Both situations seem unappealing to me.