Can a fantasy world only have one type of fantasy monster/element?

[KressKross]

My fantasy world is of the modern day, as in things like cars, guns, computers, and the like are present. It is, however, a world with completely different places and areas and such from the real world. At least, for now that is how it is going to be unless something changes my mind.

So onto my little "problem"; my world has modern day animals as well, but there are no goblins, no trolls, no dragons, no elves, no anything like that. However, there is race of monsters in it that I have named the Unknown. There is a legend in my story about a deity named the Aurora, which is the sole creator of everything of my world. When the world is in great peril and on the brink of chaos, it will appear to the most worthy person in the world at the current time in the form of a light in the sky (like the actual Aurora Borealis) and temporarily grant its abilities to said person to stop the chaos from happening. At an unknown time, millions of people wished to have this power, and as a result, a free-for-all war breaks out. When only one person stood, the negativity and emotions birthed a second deity called the Unknown, and banished the man from the world for attempting to fight for something he clearly didn't deserve. The Unknown then created its own race of Unknown like it in lesser, each created from the remnant, negative emotions from the humans who fought in the war and sent them to kill the rest of the humans for allowing the war to happen. When the Unknown succeeded in this, the Aurora was forced to rebuild the world to how it is now in the story. The Unknown then went into a deep slumber once knowing it had rid of all sin in the world. This story is now merely a tale to explain to children why their is evil in the world in the current day of my story.

Now that my legend is explained, I planned in introducing the Unknown early in my story as the most lesser forms, to show that the Unknown again wish to wipe out all humans. My antagonist actually uses them to his advantage, since both he and the Unknown have very similar goals. While it is a single race, they have more than one form. If I can somehow work it out, would it still be considered a fantasy story if only a few fantasy elements are present? I don't want it to seem like sci-fi or anything like that. This may seem like a dumb question with all of that explaination, but I just want to be sure.

 

[Feo Takahari]

I was under the impression that it was more common for urban fantasy to have only one fantasy element than to have multiple fantasy elements. ("It's our world, only with witches." "It's our world, only with vampires." "It's our world, only everyone has a familiar.")

It sounds like what you're writing is either urban fantasy or dungeon punk. In the latter, having a single fantastical element would be highly unusual, but not completely unprecedented. (For instance, all magic in Final Fantasy VI traces back to the influence of three goddesses, who warped both animals and humans to serve as soldiers in their wars.)

 

[Saigonnus]

You could theoretically have as many fantasy creatures as you want on your story, as long as each one has its place in the "ecosystem" of the novel. Harry Potter for example has witches, dementors, animaguses, werewolves and "muggles" and each has its place within the novel. I think a well-balanced world is important; not too much stuff or too little.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Should Buffy have only fought vampires? It's an interesting question, and the answer is simply this - can you make a world with only one type of fantastical element interesting enough to carry a book? Since there are many good novels written without any fantasy elements in them at all (so I've been told), I don't see why not. But the reality is that adding in more fantasy elements up to a point is a good way of making a world more interesting.

Given the scenario you've described and having no real understanding of what these 'unknown' might be like, I don't see why you can't add interest to them instead by maybe giving them multiple ways of acting to destroy the world, so that while your hero goes to battle with them, he still never knows quite what he's going to find.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[wordwalker]

By all means, "one creature" worlds can exist.

In fact, they have a certain advantage over those with more, that the idea suggests the writer is making more intense use of that one thing. --Of course it works both ways, variety has plenty of value and there are great books about how three or five or more species interact. But think how many books there are with just humans.

It's really just about the impression this makes, before people settle in and see if you've written it well. Multicreature concepts make it just a little easier to promise variety, but the one-creature idea says you just might be working harder.