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Fantasy Races: Staples or New Creations?

Is it better to just use the staples of fantasy (Elves, Dwarves, etc...) or to create new races all your own? I understand there is usually a mix, but for the sake of this I just want to know your opinion on what you'd prefer to see in a story if you only could have one or the other.

I am a bit torn myself, and wanted to see the community's answers.
 

elemtilas

Inkling
Is it better to just use the staples of fantasy (Elves, Dwarves, etc...) or to create new races all your own? I understand there is usually a mix, but for the sake of this I just want to know your opinion on what you'd prefer to see in a story if you only could have one or the other.

I am a bit torn myself, and wanted to see the community's answers.

Me as a reader doesn't mind the staples. . .so long as you've done something creative with them. Particularly if they're the star of the show!

If your Elves and Dwarves are just background scenery, then, you can probably get by without the extra effort. If your main character is an Elf, then I'd say you'd better start considering what it means to be Elf in your world and how that is different from what it is to be human. Also, how your kind of Elf is different / similar to Elves in tradition and Elves in other similar works of fantasy. (E.g., Tolkien (whose Elves are actually somewhere in between tradition and fantasy))

I also don't mind new, but again, there's a lot of work here. What makes this race different, etc.
 

Queshire

Auror
Classics, easy!

Mostly because I'm naturally contradictory and I hear more people complain about classic fantasy races or crow about their custom creations. I take it as a challenge. >= 3

Mind, I have seen new races done really, really well.
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
I have a mix with a twist.

First, the entire world was terraformed by several races of 'ancient aliens' many tens of thousands of years ago. Several thousand years ago, they began importing other sapient life forms, notably humans and goblins, as brute labor and experimental subjects. Some humans were deemed especially useful servitors, and subjected to unpleasant experimentation and genetic treatments that imbued them with greatly enhanced psi ability - necessary, because many of the ancient aliens high tech wonders required psi ability to operate. These people became the first wizards when the ancient alien civilizations imploded.

Another metaphysical project by the ancient aliens involved snaring spirits from distant astral realms and placing them in human bodies. The strain altered these bodies, creating a new race, the elves. To this day, the elves regard themselves as 'trapped' in the mortal world; with death leading to but another incarnation. They still retain a shadowy link to the distant astral realms, which gives them an otherworldly aura. Normal humans who spend too much time in proximity to elves risk insanity because of that aura. (Essentially, I took elves a step back towards their mythological roots.) A wide buffer zone, dominated by feuding petty states, separates elven lands from human ones.

Goblins are another alien race imported by the ancient aliens. They appear humanoid, and can pass for human in bad light or with a disguise, but differ biologically - and that different biology results in a different mindset. The typical male goblin stands maybe 4 feet tall with skin ranging from gray to green to light orange, has four-fingered hands, and a vaguely pig-like head. Boiled down, goblin males outnumber females by 100 to 1 or more - resulting in fierce competition for breeding rights among the males. More, goblins are hatched, not born, from clutches of two to two dozen leathery eggs. These siblings organize themselves into 'packs' with linear pecking orders. Internal and external rivalry is the norm here - no few bands attempt to prove themselves with raids on goblin and nongoblin neighbors. While many goblin clans are nothing more than savages, others have crafted sophisticated civilizations, often ruled by 'Lords' - extremely rare goblins possessed of great psi talent. (I was looking for a way to justify a hostile, murderous race without resorting to the generic 'they're evil' approach.)

The ancient aliens, as part of some long ago military project, took certain clans of goblins and 'enhanced' them, creating the muscular, brutal hobgoblins.

That same long ago military project, or another like it, resulted in the spliced together 'Rachasa' - a race of man-tall cat warriors, predators supreme. They are covered with fur ranging from light tan to orange to black, have three-fingered hands with long retractable claws, and cat-like heads. Apparently intended for 'special forces,' these extremely dangerous creatures are usually organized in bands of five to fifty, plus assorted slaves of other races to see to cooking, sewing, and grooming. The typical rachasa can jump horizontally 30+ feet (9 meters) without a running start, and straight up for 10 - 15 feet. As a race, they have little interest in manufacturing or commerce (that's what inferiors are for) but do sometimes conquer substantial areas. (A very dangerous warrior race.)


Dwarves exist, but are essentially 'short humans that bred true.' They are often employed as servants. Others dwell in enclaves.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
Staples only work if you have a stapler. You may quote me.

Traditional fantasy creatures are fine. Many are not all that traditional--it depends on your time frame of reference. And it's always fun to see what twist a new writer puts on them.

'Sfunny, but I'm more fine with unique creatures in SF than I am in fantasy. Dunno why.
 
In the end, given time I tend to end up with both, but I find that Staples or traditional with a twist tends to be the best. Of course, as one of us pointed out, the vision of traditional races is relatively recent, and heavily influenced by a couple of very prolific authors. I do create my races often, but when I read, I tend to find the more staple races intruging, especially if they have unique twists to them.

In Sci-Fi, creating new races is the staple with a small subgroup of aliens being familiar, but by no means traditional style. I don't know, but I do have to say there have been some interesting things said here about the subject which is awesome.
 

Viorp

Minstrel
I am split on this... on one hand I am very turned off when I see just another Tolkien-ripp off fantasy story which even though it's been like 100 years is still the main type of fantasy story... and the other majority is uncreatively bastardising poppular mythologies, which I hate the most.

Creating your own races is in my opinion much more fun, but much harder.
I hit that problem when creating a fantasy world which was so abstract... that I could not write about it.

In the first 10 pages of my story I had to intrduce around 20-30 new words.

Using old fantasy races is a good short-hand to have an easily done job without having to set up much and I believe something like that can only be done seriously when the work is supposed to play/subvert existing tropes.
 

Nomadica

Troubadour
It depends on the creation. I like elves with a unique spin on them or new creations depending on the creation. I'm not so into animal heads on human bodies but I do like some animalistic features blended in (think gelflings in The Dark Crystal)
 
Don't like the traditional fantasy races, have never used them to the best of my knowledge. I don't feel comfortable pulling them out of all mythological context to use them, and I don't want to adhere to mythology anyway. If you're going to put a spin on elves or dwarves or whatever, why not make up you own thing? I like drawing inspiration from mythology, but only so I can make up my own things. If I ever use a mythological being in a story, it's going to be an obscure one from an underused mythology.

I have a wide variety. But I like winged humanoids, immortals or near immortals (something with a 10,000 year lifespan is as good as immortal relative to humans) and anthros (anthropomorphic animals), or just humanoids with animal like characteristics. most of my races are one of those three. I have a race of magic-using immortals that are humanoid but appearing to be made of glass or crystal. I'm working on a race of humanoids with horns and patterned pink or purple skin.

I do trip over including humans in my stories. I don't know why they need to be in a fantasy world, but it's very hard to do without them. Also, I falter on why races must be humanoid, but might it make things unnecessarily difficult for the reader, writing about a gelatinous blob feeding off muck on an abyssal plain somewhere? I mean, if you want to write a fantasy epic. Being human is our point of reference and there's nothing we can do about it.
 

elemtilas

Inkling
I have a wide variety. But I like winged humanoids,

I'm certainly down with winged folk! (I think it was you & I that talked about this one time before...)

(Again as a reader,) I like novel races, but they really have to be done well. I have to believe they're more than just humans in heavy makeup.

I do trip over including humans in my stories. I don't know why they need to be in a fantasy world, but it's very hard to do without them.

I think because a) the author and b) the author's readers are all humans...

It's hard enough to do a truly alien mindset, but to write a story that way with zero human qualities I think would be even harder. Readers would have nothing to latch on to, nothing to emotionally invest in.

Also, I falter on why races must be humanoid, but might it make things unnecessarily difficult for the reader, writing about a gelatinous blob feeding off muck on an abyssal plain somewhere? I mean, if you want to write a fantasy epic. Being human is our point of reference and there's nothing we can do about it.

Right. Also, it's what we find attractive and are thus drawn to. Even if that attractive humanoid form is really an insectlike fairy or some kind of demon or succubus or a winged person that lives 10000 years!

I wrote a story about the beings that live down in the molten core of the world. I never specified their shape or size in the story, though in my mind's eye they definitely aren't humanoid. But, of course, I couldn't get entirely away from some human qualities. (It was about different schools of scholarship and their dogmas regarding the Nature of the Universe and breaking away from those dogmas to reveal greater truth.)
 
None of my books have any humans in them, and I love making up new races. Even the elves and fairies in my second book are rather different than the usual. I also love winged humanoids, so there are some of them in every book. --And cats, of course.
 

Aurora

Sage
The only traditional fantasy race I use are elves. They are in a world separate from humans. Meaning, I don't write the two of them together. But I do think it's neat some writers make up their own version of the races. It does work differently though when writing commercial fiction because readers have expectations. If working on a story that is not meant for commercial consumption then that's a different story (no pun intended).
 

Simpson17866

Minstrel
In my current WIP, my main non-human character is a vampire, and in my intended sequel, I plan on using orcs (inspired by Tolkien even in the story's world itself ;) ) and psoglavs (one-eyed wolfmen from Slavic folklore). I've put a lot of work into putting my own personal touches on all of these.

So far, I haven't been satisfied yet by any of my attempts at building completely original species from scratch, but I'm going to keep trying :)

Being human is our point of reference and there's nothing we can do about it.
I think there is: learn as much as you can about human nature so that you can figure out what we would look like to someone else :cool:

I personally consider the tribalistic "Group versus Group" mentality to be a uniquely human instinct that would not make sense to anybody else.
 

elemtilas

Inkling
I personally consider the tribalistic "Group versus Group" mentality to be a uniquely human instinct that would not make sense to anybody else.

Given that it (territorialism) is fairly common across animal species, I can't imagine it would be terribly different for other sentient species in-world. The concept may be writ large (for the Daine of The World, pretty much "all other Daine" is one group and everyone else is pretty much the other group) or tiny (our family against the world).

How have you gotten it to make sense that it, well, doesn't make sense?
 

Annoyingkid

Banned
Some people say why use a fantasy race, why not just a different culture of humans?

I always reply - because humans aren't strong enough. Humans have known limitations. Break these limits and they just become another fantasy race. Human in name only.
 

Simpson17866

Minstrel
Given that it (territorialism) is fairly common across animal species, I can't imagine it would be terribly different for other sentient species in-world. The concept may be writ large (for the Daine of The World, pretty much "all other Daine" is one group and everyone else is pretty much the other group) or tiny (our family against the world).

How have you gotten it to make sense that it, well, doesn't make sense?
More wishful thinking than anything else. Today's narrative seems to be dominated by people who don't understand math

"The Xs are evil, and we Ys must defend ourselves against them!"

"Actually, there are a lot of Xs who are good and a lot of Ys who are evil. Wouldn't it make more sense for the Xs and Ys who are good to work together to stop the Xs and Ys who are evil?"

"How dare you say that all Xs are good? Do you want them to get away with murdering innocent Ys?"​

and I want to write about a world where this worldview is acknowledged as being ridiculous, rather than being taken as an objective axiom of all reality.

So much of the pain and suffering in human history has boiled down to one group deciding "As long as Theyâ„¢ are on equal footing with us, Theirâ„¢ existence will be a threat to us, therefor we must either keep Themâ„¢ down or kill Themâ„¢ all just in case Theyâ„¢ decide to kill us first at some unknown future point," and today, we have two "opposite" groups saying exactly the same thing about each other, and the violence is has continued escalating and escalating because neither group realizes that they are both on the same side.

There are conflicts between people of non-human species in my world, but those are conflicts about something, not human-style conflict for it's own sake.
 
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