Creatures and 'The enemy'

[TheokinsJ]

Sorry if this may sound very vague, but I am having trouble creating 'The enemy' in my fantasy world.
My world is medieval fantasy- at this point in the story the main character has uncovered a plot that involves 'the enemy'. Basically 'the bad guys' are planning a massive attack and are going to do the very cliché 'take over the world' type thing. It sounds very cliché but believe me I am not going into nearly deep enough detail as to the main plot- just as I don't feel comfortable putting my idea out there until it's finished or nearing completion (for obvious reasons).
Anyway, the plot is a lot more involved that that, but to get to the point, a large horde of enemies is going to invade from a distant land, and I am struggling to decide who 'the enemy' should be. My original thought was another kingdom, then another thought occurred that perhaps monsters or creatures 'of darkness' try to invade. In The Lord of The Rings there are orcs, goblins trolls and other creatures- which I would like to steer well away from and avoid anything remotely similar. Basically I am going for some sort of- not necessarily evil, but dark creature. Some sort of spirit or human-like monster, much like the white-walkers in 'A song of Ice and Fire'.

Anyway I guess what I am asking is does anyone know where to start when trying to create your own creatures and where to find inspiration?

 

[Jessquoi]

I'm dealing with exactly the same thing. I've got a few characters outlined in detail and have done a lot of world building but I realise now that I cannot go on without a villain/antagonist. They are very important characters and in a lot of stories make up the whole conflict when put into setting with your main characters. Try doing some research into famous villains. I've been getting a lot of inspiration from reading about them. Try entering 'top fantasy villains' or something.

There's also this which I just read : Seven Tips on Creating a Fantastic Fantasy Villain | Fantasy Faction

 

[The Unseemly]

Well, tip No.8 (continuing from the website Jessquoi indicated) is to never, ever, delve into cliches. If anything, it won't sell. People don't like seeing old and regurgitated ideas being splattered across pages again and again.

Of course, I'm not saying you can't use older ideas: if the "take over the world" thing is done in an original, intelligent manner, with differentiating reasons then it can be quite interesting. My personal preference tends towards mad megalomaniacs, or simply mad, perhaps why I liked Galbatorix and, (hehe...) the Joker, however this is a personal preference.

As for the "enemy"; pretty much my points above. You don't want to delve into cliches though applying originality to older concepts is quite alright.

And, of course, Good luck!

 

[Butterfly]

This is a great blog post on villainy.

Pretentious Title: Your Other MC: Thoughts on Villainy

 

[Queshire]

The most important thing is the role you want these enemies to play, all the rest of it is just window dressing. If you want to avoid the whole cliche dark evil horde thing, then you have to address WHY they are invading. What's their motivation for trying to conquer the world?

As for inspiration, well that's not really something that can be answered as you can be inspired by anything. Just go out there, experience new stuff and ask yourself "How can I use this in my story?" Now, a good deal of the works that have inspired me the most are those that takes common tropes and cliches and twists them into something new and unexpected. Due to that, when I need a new monster for my story, I first start by looking for an established fantasy creature that would fit the role and then twisting it into something unique and mine.

 

[wordwalker]

I have a couple of posts about finding villains myself, Everything I Know About Evil I Learned From Thunderbolt Ross and the larger How Many Sides to the Dark Side?

But, the other side of your question is how to make them Creatures as well as people. That could come from pure biology, just looking at different aspects of nature and considering what to add to a humanoid (or non-humanoid!) race to make them a dangerous fighter or nasty society. Maybe they're...

• eight feet tall (yuck, the reach on those swords!)
• scaled
• have tempers that keep them on the edge of a berserker rage
• extremely peaceful and want to stay in their own lands, but declare a thousand-year vendetta against intruders
• ghosts
• snakes-- not snake-men but a crawling army of sapient vipers

Anything's possible.

The real fun is that you can start looking between these and your plot ideas and start seeing where they meet in the middle. Then it's just fleshing it out to show you know what those idea would lead to and how much they add to the story.

 

[Filk]

Humans can be dark and have such high ambitions. If you want them to be fantastic you could consider having lesser minions, war beasts, or summoned demons etc for the humans to supplement their army. Sounds like it is a vast army - you could even have different races in different sections of the army.

There are some cool links posted above too; I think I'll be checking them out. Good luck in your search for adversaries!

 

[Barstar]

Once you answer why they are invading (what causes that group to invade that place in those numbers) you will be much closer to your answer. The "Foreign Horde" is not really a cliche, it is much closer to an instinctive fear that humans have developed in response not only to other humans but other social animals invading their hunting/gathering territory.

The best way to make a good villain is too look at what humans are afraid of and why they are afraid of it, then apply those fears to your enemy (his motives, culture, appearance, behavior etc. My enemies are usually "dark races" that exist for a very particular reason, perhaps they were the experiments of an irresponsible/unhappy god and set on the warpath by his sleeping mind, perhaps they are the by-products of a mixture of druidism and secular culture, perhaps they are what is left of a group of humans exiled into a magically supercharged wasteland, or they might just be a united empire of beast clans, once you have the motivation you will have your enemy.

 

[Queshire]

personally my favorite villains are the ones that make you wonder if they're villains to begin with. The ones that make the heroes and therefore the readers, wonder if they're doing the right thing by opposing them.

 

[Anders Ämting]

Anyway I guess what I am asking is does anyone know where to start when trying to create your own creatures and where to find inspiration?

One way to go about it is to consider what you yourself find disturbing or troubling, and build on that.

HP Lovecraft seems to have had some sort of troubled relationship to fish and cephalopods, for example. (And also foreigners, but hey, he was kind of a nutcase.) Hence his more famous stories involve people morphing into fish creatures and a giant guy with an octopus for a head.

In my case, the equivalent would be insects and death. So, my monsters would be some kind of death-insects, I guess?

Also, I don't know what inspired Tolkien's design of the orcs, but I do know that Mordor was inspired by the industrial "black country" northwest of Birmingham, where coal mines, iron foundries and steel mills turned the area dark with smog and dust. Tolkien basically found the place so depressing he modeled his evil kingdom after it. In fact, industrialization is a bit of a theme for his villains, "the old world will burn in the fires of industry" and so on, which sharply contrasts the idyllic Shire of the Hobbits.

What I'm getting at here is that while there is nothing wrong with imitating the iconic imagery of other writers, those writers started with imagery that was somehow personally meaningful to them. So, looking within yourself or at your own surroundings is the way to go if you want to create something with a more personal flavor.

 

[Roger Dalton]

If I were you I would take inspiration from real world examples of cultures, people or organisations that are considered typical "bad guys" (e.g. Taliban, Nazis, Conquistadors or smaller scale like the Manson family, Scientology etc...). All these people thought they were doing the right thing according to their own moral, religious or cultural principles. I think that would help you design the background for your "Enemy".

As for creating evil creatures or races, I agree that you should steer clear of LoTR monsters and other cliche antagonists like orcs, dark elvesm etc... How about using a humans who think of themselves as a super-race (e.g. like the Aryan race or Romans who invented the term "barbarians" for non-latin speakers?).

 

[Ireth]

If I were you I would take inspiration from real world examples of cultures, people or organisations that are considered typical "bad guys" (e.g. Taliban, Nazis, Conquistadors or smaller scale like the Manson family, Scientology etc...). All these people thought they were doing the right thing according to their own moral, religious or cultural principles. I think that would help you design the background for your "Enemy".

As for creating evil creatures or races, I agree that you should steer clear of LoTR monsters and other cliche antagonists like orcs, dark elvesm etc... How about using a humans who think of themselves as a super-race (e.g. like the Aryan race or Romans who invented the term "barbarians" for non-latin speakers?).

Agreed. I'm planning a story that involves Norse mythology, and though I'd originally envisioned the dark elves as my nameless evil horde, I'm starting to have second thoughts. At the very least I might have one defect and join the good guys, since I don't want to paint them as Always Chaotic Evil (even though the myths might say that they are; I haven't researched that far yet). In any case, I'm trying to avoid the obvious cliche of the pretty white-skinned people being inherently good while the ugly dark-skinned people are inherently evil. (Then again, the story also involves Celtic Fae, and while they may be beautiful and fair-skinned, a great many of them are distinctly not nice. Except when a truce forces them to be civil.)

Edit: I believe the word 'barbarians' was invented by the Greeks, not the Romans, for non-Greek speakers.

 

[ThinkerX]

Ok...first off...ideas are cheap. Executing the idea is where the real work and the real payoff is at.

You could put your idea out here on the board (or elsewhere) in detail, and ASK people to write a story based on it. If five different people took you up on that (and finished their stories), you wouldn't have five slightly different versions of the same story, you'd have five ENTIRELY different stories.

Plus...original ideas are very very few and far between. The odds are better than 99% that what you really believe to be an original idea is something that is quite well known.

That said...I did face a similiar problem with my own writing. I wanted a group the 'good guys' would despise with reason, but I didn't want the bad guys motivation to be 'evil for the sake of evil'.

So...I took the old standard issue AD&D goblin/hobgoblin, did some reading, some thinking and some tinkering. Usually, they're just described as 'evil' or 'militaristic' without further explanation. That wasn't enough for me.

I asked 'why are they evil/militarstic? I didn't buy the 'its part of their basic nature' bit, either - that tends towards both racism and laziness.

Then I came across the way orcs were treated in Harn - in that setting, orcs were not born, but rather hatched. Lots and lots of male orcs, very few female orcs. Hence, lots and lots of competition - including raiding and military campaigns against other races - among male orcs to win the hand of one of the few available female orcs. The orcs had a understandable motive for acting the way they did.

I took that concept and applied it to my goblins/hobgoblins, giving them reason to act like thugs and the 'good guys' justifiable reasons to despise them.

Then I started to wonder again - would it be possible for beings like this to form a high order civilization? Something beyond mere tribalism? I gave it more thought. If the hobgoblins were hatched in groups, then each group might cooperate towards a single goal - or take up a single trade. The best member of such a group - say a group of blacksmiths - would get to be the 'groom' or 'father'. But what about assassination and intrigue? Simple enough - institutionalize it. Make it so that yes, a goblin can get away with murder - but only under carefully defined circumstances. And so on.

I went and did this with a couple of races - starting with something basic and known (elves are another example) and asking questions and letting myself think until I came up with 'nonstandard alternatives'.

 

[wordwalker]

I believe the word 'barbarians' was invented by the Greeks, not the Romans, for non-Greek speakers.

It was. The Romans stole everything that wasn't nailed down, and then they invented claw-hammers.