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New races / races that are not used very often. and how you use them

I don't like Dwarfs, Giants, or Elves as fantasy races. Why, because they look exactly like humans. The only difference is cultural at best.

Fantasy races should be more different. Think about what the race does. Could you cast humans in the same role? The way to use a brand new race is to ask why you are using them, and then do that.

Like, human shaped see-anemone, a race shaped like a bouquet of flowers that feeds on love, or a living mass of furnace coals, anything could be a fantasy race.
 

Aravelle

Sage
I don't have fancy names for my races yet but here I go.

I have giants. Not your typical "fee fi fo fum" sort of folk at all. They range from 7 to 12 feet tall, have red hair, mediterranean skin tone, and their eye colour varies. They are very strong and generally peaceful, but not total hippies. I could go on about their culture and whatnot but I don't feel like it. :p

I also have what I call demons, for lack of a better term. What they really are, I don't know. Maybe a cousin of humans? They work with illusions and fire, and have pale skin and pointed ears [not like elves, but like a bat]. They also don't have "red eye" when light is reflected from their eyes; they have blue eye. They enslaved humans who came and explored their territory...and humans got revenge later. Now they're treated as second class citizens in a human dominated country.
 

Aravelle

Sage
I agree that dwarves and elves are overused. I don't have a problem with humanoid or human like races though.
 

mbartelsm

Troubadour
The Immortals are the last remnants of a race much older than mankind or elvenkind, the Sari. The Sari are, in fact, the proto-race from which elves, humans, dwarves, giants, gnomes and vallar evolved. Their magnificent ruins can be seen spread across the landscape, they are the origin of most of the current magic knowledge, which was rediscovered after it was lost along with the Sari. The Sari disappeared a long time ago, when a great plague spread, this plague affected only them and showed no symptoms, but it rendered them unable to produce offspring because of this, their numbers slowly dwindled until there was only one town left, the people of the town prayed the gods to save their people, but the gods knew that their fate was to disappear, so instead of curing the plague, they offered to turn seven of their people immortal to become their messengers, and so the people of the town accepted.


The Vallar are a race of humanoids, very slender, with long limbs, pale grey skin (and black blood) and an incredibly poor vision. The vallar live in places filled with darkness such as caves of abandoned mines, despite their creepy appearance the vallar are considered the most friendly and welcoming race of all, even more than elves, though elves don't like to admit it. The vallar have a strict rule set for their kind, if anyone break the rules they are banished. Banished vallar often go to human or dwarven settlements where they are widely accepted because they are very hardworking and take the night shifts no one else will take.


Goblins (placeholder name), goblins are small creatures (around 50 cm high) with relatively large heads, they make their homes in a very specific type of tree (name pending) where up to five families can live. They are very shy, but very dangerous if they feel endangered. They are known to excel at potion and poison making (which is also the reason they are so dangerous).


Giants (placeholder name) are a Sari descendant race, they live on the northernmost regions of the world, they are really strong but are rarely seen in a fight, they enjoy a peaceful existence. Sometimes, when they feel their lifestyle is in danger, giants may stand their ground and put up a real fight, but again, things such as this happen very rarely.


Homunculi (you guessed it, placeholder name) are basically artificial bodies given life, they were once used as slaves, but golems have taken their place. Many races of homunculi were engineered in the days of old, out of which few survive today (such as trolls).

I have many more, though these are a few basic ones, as you can see, the names are very stereotypical, but I plan on changing them once I finish building my language
 
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mbartelsm

Troubadour
I don't like Dwarfs, Giants, or Elves as fantasy races. Why, because they look exactly like humans. The only difference is cultural at best.

Fantasy races should be more different. Think about what the race does. Could you cast humans in the same role? The way to use a brand new race is to ask why you are using them, and then do that.

Like, human shaped see-anemone, a race shaped like a bouquet of flowers that feeds on love, or a living mass of furnace coals, anything could be a fantasy race.
Well, the point of them being races is that they are different races, not species, they are supposed to look similar (look at dogs).
 

rcdude

New Member
I make made-up races all the time, for various stories. For one world, I have about 4 or 5 races, and they're all pretty similar to common fantasy races, save for a few modifications, like name and slight appearence change.One story I wrote, had the traditional races, though most were darivatives, like, rock-dwarf, or frost-elf. For a story I've been writing, it has a few races I guess are considered atypicle.
 

Jabrosky

Banned
While brainstorming for this year's NaNoWriMo, I came up with the following idea:

My story's world has two human-like races, the Daoine and Abantu. The Daoine forage atop a chilly plateau while the Abantu build their villages in tropical lowlands. Whereas the Daoine have white skin and big, stocky bodies, the Abantu have black skin and taller, leaner figures. The Daoine's greater physical robustness give them superior physical strength to the Abantu, but the Abantu compensate for their physical weaknesses with greater innate ingenuity. The Abantu also tend to be more sociable than the Daoine; this difference is especially stark between the males of the two races (Daoine men by and large live solitary lives).

Anyway, the plot I am still cooking up features a young Daoine man whose clan abandons him after he comes of age. Somehow he accidentally gets off the plateau and ends up in the lowlands. An Abantu tribe adopts him, but while he proves useful as a warrior and hunter, he still has difficulty fitting into his new society. He grows the hots for one of the Abantu women, but he will have to try especially hard to impress her.
 

bjza

Dreamer
An Abantu tribe adopts him, but while he proves useful as a warrior and hunter, he still has difficulty fitting into his new society.
My mind immediately wandered to accounts from people on the mild end of the Autusm spectrum and how some say they've practiced watching for social/emotional cues and learned to meet expectations yet never found it natural.
 

brokethepoint

Troubadour
I believe that there are not enough halfling characters, so one of my main characters is a halfling. Would like to have some gnomes, but waiting to see if they come into play.
 

WyrdMystic

Inkling
In my current work I have two species. Human and Aelfen.

However, the human's are split into 5 separate races after being twisted by the magic of intefering aelfen. As the magic twisted they evolved separately and the emotional traits of their aelfen leader manifested in changes to their physical appearance. Each race named after their 'mother' or 'father' and described as 'children' or 'newborn'.

The Aelfen are exactly that - a veritable soup of different 'magical' creatures.
 

Wanara009

Troubadour
Well, the world I'm currently working do have several sapient species (including Human) and the human have several 'Branches' created to excessive exposure to 'Aether' (placeholder name for the substance that make magic possible in my world) before birth and continue to need them afterward (so the Branch-Human can't enter Mage-Bane Regions).

There are countless variant of Branch-human but most of them are just infertile one-off. Fertile variant of Branch-human can breed with normal human, producing either another Branch-human of the same variant as its parent or a normal human.

The Non-Human Includes:
The Wanara: Descendant of tailed hominid usually found in dense forests. They have a strong affinity to their natural habitat and Human often deified them as the guardians of forest. They are typically hyperactive and very inquisitive. If you take one away from a forest, they suffers from an extreme form of homesickness that manifest as lethargy and irritability. They are willing to co-operate with human so long the latter respect their forest.

The Gagasnesrawa/Garuda: A species of human-sized sapient birds-of-prey and masters of magic. They don't have any manipulator appendages so they use kinesis magic in its place. The Gagasnesrawa is a prideful but shy race, unwilling to have contact with human and live away in remotes area to avoid them. Their culture and law are based around freedom of choice and non-interference.

And lastly The Clockworkers: A race of sapient clockwork-based machines created by machinists of old. They are programmed with self-replication capability (think Von Neumann machine). When their masters' empire are destroyed and scattered, the Clockworkers remained and roamed the land as scavengers or as second-class citizens in cities.

The fertile variants Branch-Humans includes:
Buto/Giants: Branch-Human native to an archipelago called Jewel Isles. A typical Buto stood at over four-meters tall with reddish or bluish skin. The most obvious trait of the Buto aside from their strength is their durability, which comes from their dense muscle and skeletons and chainmail-like structure of tiny bones under their skin. However, Butos are nocturnal because they are near-blind in bright light and their skin inflames under the sun.

Cakil/Orcs: Branch-human characterized by bright red skin and protruding lower jaw that support a large tusk. Their are taller than average human but most of that height comes from their extended legs (their arm is also longer). Cakils are born blind, relying on their heightened sense of touch, smell, and hearing to navigate.

last of the naturally occurring fertile Branch-Human are The Daemon, which is appears almost like human except for their horns (the numbers and shape vary amongst the tribles). They also have thicker skull, denser muscle, and built-in bone 'gauntlets'.

One of the Technology-based nations in my world artificially creates their own version of Branch-Humans. The first is the Conduits, which is able to absorb, store, and discharge electricity and generate electromagnetism. They serve as an anti-mage soldiers (magic stops working around magnetism in this universe). The second one is The Generators, which has a 'reactor organ' that allow them to produce electricity to supply the Conduits and heated exhaust gas that they could use as weapon or propulsion.

Any comment?
 
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Aravelle

Sage
Any comment?

Very interesting, honestly. However, I do have some questions regarding realism: why do the Daemons have gauntlets? Why do they have the horns, how practical are either of them?

Also, be wary of making your races too strong. It never hurts to add in a few more weaknesses.
Are there "regular humans" too?
 

Wanara009

Troubadour
Very interesting, honestly. However, I do have some questions regarding realism: why do the Daemons have gauntlets? Why do they have the horns, how practical are either of them?

Also, be wary of making your races too strong. It never hurts to add in a few more weaknesses.
Are there "regular humans" too?

Of course there's regular human. Branch human appears randomly whenever a pregnant mother is exposed to too much Aether. If both their parents are normal human, the variant of Branch-human is also random. So the Daemon horn is doesn't have any practical value aside from denoting how healthy the individual is. The gauntlets is just there too. Though I agree with the weakness thing. I'll try to think up a way to make Daemons weaker.
 
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For me, it isn't so much a worry of making up races. I like doing that. But at the same time in my high fantasy and urban fantasy, I constantly worry about racism. Not as far as my characters, but concerning me. I'm a white girl today. If I choose a slave owning society, I feel like I'm stepping on toes. Worse, in urban fantasy, especially more recently, I try to add other races because I feel uncomfortable going with the lily white fantasy cliché, but at the same time--I'm not Black or Chinese or Korean, so am I stepping on toes there?

Depends on what kind of slavery it is. If you write a Birth of a Nation fantasy about happy cotton-pickers on the plantation then yeah, that's a bit iffy, but its important to remember that throughout most of the history pillaged by fantasy for its backdrops, slavery was the rule. I wrote about a slaveowning society because it's based on Rome and so the slaves are debtors and prisoners of war, not racial minorities.

Frankly, the fact that you're actually worried so much about this (I assume it's because you care rather than because you're afraid of getting flamed on the internet) means your already off to a good start.
 

Mindfire

Istar
For me, it isn't so much a worry of making up races. I like doing that. But at the same time in my high fantasy and urban fantasy, I constantly worry about racism. Not as far as my characters, but concerning me. I'm a white girl today. If I choose a slave owning society, I feel like I'm stepping on toes. Worse, in urban fantasy, especially more recently, I try to add other races because I feel uncomfortable going with the lily white fantasy cliché, but at the same time--I'm not Black or Chinese or Korean, so am I stepping on toes there?

Remember that slavery is not always based on race. In fact, in the grand scheme of history, race-based slavery was less common than war/conquest based slavery, class-based slavery, and indentured servitude. As long as your slaves don't come only or primarily from a minority race or an analogue for one you should be ok.
 

VanClash

Scribe
I prefer making my own races because I feel I can put depth in them, without them conflicting with other sorties' races. But that's the other problem, I them have to go extra trouble to really make them seem interesting/relatable. The first novel I wrote used stock standard races like gnomes, elves, dwarves, humans but then for the sequel (there had been an apocalypse so the world reformed), I used my creations of floating black clouds, four armed people, spider-centaurs and I am enjoying it a lot more.
 
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