Nameback
Troubadour
I liked reading the other two threads on this subject, so I thought I'd add my own to the mix. These are all the races that I have so far, but consider the list below as far from complete.
Hominid races: These are all the races that are descended from pre-human hominids, and are thus closely related. Their divergent evolution is due significantly to the use of magic--their speciation is, therefore, not a product of natural selection--but rather magical selection.
Humans: Self-explanatory. Most of the human governments in the time and place where my story is set are city-states or smaller (e.g. independent towns, pastoral tribes, nomadic hunter/gatherers).
Errald: The Errald are a race of giants. Standing between 9 and 12 feet tall, they have pale, almost translucent skin. Their bodies are extremely long-limbed, proportioned more like orangutans than modern humans. They are of generally slight build, with thin bodies, angular joints, and a somewhat emaciated appearance (by human standards). Their faces are flat, long, and narrow with a prominent jaw. They have very large teeth and a pair of small tusks that protrude from the mandible. Despite their thin, somewhat ghostly appearance, they are horrifically strong and quite resistant to injury. They have very little sexual dimorphism, and most non-Errald have trouble discerning males from females, assuming both are free of facial hair.
Culturally, the Errald are the only race to have survived the Sundering (the cataclysmic conclusion to millennia of warfare among the gods) with a civilization intact enough to remember the past. However, for reasons unknown, the Errald henceforth banned all history, making it a sacrilege and punishable by death. Even oral history is verboten, with the exception of lineage and ancestor worship. Thus, three-thousand years after the Sundering, the Errald are just as ignorant of the world before the cataclysm as every other race, having voluntarily scoured the memories from their culture. Once renowned for their erudition, technology, and scientific acumen before the Sundering, the Errald have become insular and stagnant. They are still, however, as brutally violent and savage as ever. A race of warrior-scholars stripped of their intellectual inheritance, they live isolated from other human races, in dwindling tribes.
Firrens: Firrens are reptilian humanoids, roughly the same size and build as modern humans. Like many lizards, however, the females are larger and stronger than the males, which in turn are more colorfully decorated. Also, being reptilian, they lack certain mammalian features, such as live births. They lay eggs, although the mothers do give milk for their offspring. Their skin is covered in small, hexagonal scales which are dry and smooth, and come in a variety of matte colors.
Females are typically brown or green, and no more than dichromatic. Males come in an astonishing variety of colors, and any individual may have up to twenty distinct scale-tones. Both sexes have clawed hands and feet, thick tails roughly four feet in length, and a robust physiology resistant to disease--important given their almost exclusively carnivorous diet, which sometimes includes meat that humans would consider rancid. They are entirely hairless, and their heads are somewhat more oblong than a human's, with elongated snouts and somewhat elliptical braincases.
Culturally, firrens tend to be pastoral. They are well-known for their incomparable horsemanship, and their tribes tend to be migratory, leading their horses and herds of cattle, goats, and sheep from summer to winter grazing lands over the course of a year. When a firren reaches maturity (the age varies from tribe to tribe, but usually between 13 and 15), they undertake a coming-of-age ritual.
Though the magic is no longer understood, the firren tribes possess ancient, pre-Sundering artifacts of their people, which they use to open the way to other realms. One realm, in particular, is where young firrens must go to earn their adulthood. There, they will find demons. Each firren must capture one of a certain species of demon, tame it, and bind it to their soul. The species in question is one of six-legged herd-animals, about a third again larger than a bull and of similar build, but with dextrous, clawed feet and humped backs. They are armored in a silvery, reflective metallic exoskeleton that is stronger than steel--when the beasts die, their metallic hides are used for the manufacture of tools and weapons by firrens.
The demons are violent, loyal, smarter than a horse, and make for battle-mounts without equal. After successfully taming and binding one such demon, that firren is now capable of summoning his soul-bound companion to earth at any time. However, firrens generally let the beasts remain in the own realm most of the time, as they cannot survive for long on a diet of terrestrial animals, which seem to lack certain essential nutrients. When faced with war, however, firrens will summon their demonic steeds and ride them into battle as the most fearsome cavalry force ever seen.
Hominid races: These are all the races that are descended from pre-human hominids, and are thus closely related. Their divergent evolution is due significantly to the use of magic--their speciation is, therefore, not a product of natural selection--but rather magical selection.
Humans: Self-explanatory. Most of the human governments in the time and place where my story is set are city-states or smaller (e.g. independent towns, pastoral tribes, nomadic hunter/gatherers).
Errald: The Errald are a race of giants. Standing between 9 and 12 feet tall, they have pale, almost translucent skin. Their bodies are extremely long-limbed, proportioned more like orangutans than modern humans. They are of generally slight build, with thin bodies, angular joints, and a somewhat emaciated appearance (by human standards). Their faces are flat, long, and narrow with a prominent jaw. They have very large teeth and a pair of small tusks that protrude from the mandible. Despite their thin, somewhat ghostly appearance, they are horrifically strong and quite resistant to injury. They have very little sexual dimorphism, and most non-Errald have trouble discerning males from females, assuming both are free of facial hair.
Culturally, the Errald are the only race to have survived the Sundering (the cataclysmic conclusion to millennia of warfare among the gods) with a civilization intact enough to remember the past. However, for reasons unknown, the Errald henceforth banned all history, making it a sacrilege and punishable by death. Even oral history is verboten, with the exception of lineage and ancestor worship. Thus, three-thousand years after the Sundering, the Errald are just as ignorant of the world before the cataclysm as every other race, having voluntarily scoured the memories from their culture. Once renowned for their erudition, technology, and scientific acumen before the Sundering, the Errald have become insular and stagnant. They are still, however, as brutally violent and savage as ever. A race of warrior-scholars stripped of their intellectual inheritance, they live isolated from other human races, in dwindling tribes.
Firrens: Firrens are reptilian humanoids, roughly the same size and build as modern humans. Like many lizards, however, the females are larger and stronger than the males, which in turn are more colorfully decorated. Also, being reptilian, they lack certain mammalian features, such as live births. They lay eggs, although the mothers do give milk for their offspring. Their skin is covered in small, hexagonal scales which are dry and smooth, and come in a variety of matte colors.
Females are typically brown or green, and no more than dichromatic. Males come in an astonishing variety of colors, and any individual may have up to twenty distinct scale-tones. Both sexes have clawed hands and feet, thick tails roughly four feet in length, and a robust physiology resistant to disease--important given their almost exclusively carnivorous diet, which sometimes includes meat that humans would consider rancid. They are entirely hairless, and their heads are somewhat more oblong than a human's, with elongated snouts and somewhat elliptical braincases.
Culturally, firrens tend to be pastoral. They are well-known for their incomparable horsemanship, and their tribes tend to be migratory, leading their horses and herds of cattle, goats, and sheep from summer to winter grazing lands over the course of a year. When a firren reaches maturity (the age varies from tribe to tribe, but usually between 13 and 15), they undertake a coming-of-age ritual.
Though the magic is no longer understood, the firren tribes possess ancient, pre-Sundering artifacts of their people, which they use to open the way to other realms. One realm, in particular, is where young firrens must go to earn their adulthood. There, they will find demons. Each firren must capture one of a certain species of demon, tame it, and bind it to their soul. The species in question is one of six-legged herd-animals, about a third again larger than a bull and of similar build, but with dextrous, clawed feet and humped backs. They are armored in a silvery, reflective metallic exoskeleton that is stronger than steel--when the beasts die, their metallic hides are used for the manufacture of tools and weapons by firrens.
The demons are violent, loyal, smarter than a horse, and make for battle-mounts without equal. After successfully taming and binding one such demon, that firren is now capable of summoning his soul-bound companion to earth at any time. However, firrens generally let the beasts remain in the own realm most of the time, as they cannot survive for long on a diet of terrestrial animals, which seem to lack certain essential nutrients. When faced with war, however, firrens will summon their demonic steeds and ride them into battle as the most fearsome cavalry force ever seen.
Istar
Dreamer
