Okay, Races...

[the_gneech]

All right, let's see, who do we have running around in this fantasy world? (Note to folks reading this ... a lot of this stuff only makes sense if you've read my previous fantasy novel, so bear with me. I'm putting this here for my own reference more than anything. I'll explain who Soloman, Maynard, and the Aelari are ... some other time.)

I don't want to just throw in any kind of creatures willy-nilly ... this is a coherent world I'm trying to create, not Disneyland. On the other hand, the world is a big place, and there is more in Heaven and on Earth than is dreamt of in Horatio's philosophy, etc. Also, there can be lots and lots of "lesser" races that inhabit small enclaves, but don't affect the world in a big way.

Remember, that basic intelligence isn't that rare, but "sapience" is. If you're going to have speaking, social creatures, there has to be a reason for them to fit in that niche or have developed that way. Fortunately, this being fantasy, there's the catchall answer of "because the gods decreed it," but once you reach a certain stage, that should only be used as a last resort.

Maybe we should break things down into categories...

Manlike Beings
These are the bread-and-butter races of the world, the mortals.

• Humans, of course. In many sizes, shapes, and colors. The fantasy genre is chock full of strapping Saxons, noble Normans, and virtuous Vikings already ... how about a little multiculturalism? :) What if the great empire is ruled by black people? How about some quasi-Polynesian types? I've got a landmass slightly smaller than Eurasia, how about some Slavic, Baltic, and Mongolian touches? With my own background, education, and mindset firmly planted in English/Scots-Irish/American soil, should I even go there? I can at least include them in my thinking about the world.
  
• Dwarf/Gnome/Faerie/etc. The dwarves of Nordic lore and the "little people" of Celtic lore have always struck me as suspiciously similar ... they're short, they live underground, they do magic. Could both be surviving references to the earlier Picts? NeverNever notwithstanding, I have problems with these creatures in a "serious" work. I'm not sure why. I do like the idea of some kind of smithing, alchemist subculture a la the cyclopses ... but it should be a human subculture, not a separate race. So we'll leave these little guys out for the time being.
  
• Elves - Or do elves count more as angelic than manlike? Certainly they're very spiritually-oriented. Soloman's ability to see into the spirit world suggests that they are not entirely of the Earth. Maybe they're not mortals after all ... and if not, what is their function?
  
• Djinn - Are these just elves with a different culture? There are "magic folk" in just about every culture ... seems to me that with enough tweaking, elves are pretty universal.
  
• Orcs/Dark Elves - In Tolkien, the orcs are Morgoth's corrupted "anti-elves." In D&D, there are the drow ... both of which are cool in their own way. I think in my world, tho, the vampires might serve this role better ... although you'll certainly never see an army of vampires marching across the globe. Hmm. I'm going to have to ponder the nature of evil in this world, I guess. Tolkien was writing something designed to be compatible with his Catholic beliefs ... so his Morgoth is a satanic figure. My dark lords, should there be any, definitely need some kind of cannon fodder!
  
• Weres - Are these a discrete race? Are they a subset of humans, like a recessive gene or something? And what types should there be? Gods of ancient Egypt as weres? Maybe there's a culture whose religion is based on shapeshifting and animism? Or talsimanic shapeshifting ... donning a wolf pelt makes you a werewolf, while donning a swan-feather cloak makes you a wereswan? I like the idea of weres being a kind of global subculture. Spirit-walking allows communication and/or communion across vast distances?
  
  
  
  • Foxes - Maynard! He's too cool not to use. I like his whole background, with the werefoxes as rather sinister sorcerers, living in their mist-shrouded city away from humans. Perhaps they started as a secret society, and gradually "became" a race of their own.
    
  • Wolves / Coyotes - Is the quasi-Native American shaman motif applicable? Overdone? How does it relate to the European werewolf/lycanthropy thing?
    
  • Bears, Tigers, and So On - I don't want to limit my options, but I don't want to clutter up the landscape, either.
    
  
  
• Beast Men (i.e., Anthros, not shapeshifters)
  
  
  
  • Felines - Leonids prowling around the grasslands of the southwest, living as nomadic hunter-gatherers; intelligent, but not "civilized" in the common sense of the term
    
  • Jackals - desert raiders ... might they be weres instead? Are they even worth including? (If you have to ask, the answer is probably "no.")
    
  • Saurian - Reptile men ... large, dumb, and beast-like swamp dwellers? Wiry, insular, and harsh desert dwellers? Some of both? Are they offshoots of the same race?
    
  • Man-Apes - Been done to death in Conan and Congo, but it's such a cool, scary image. Either pre-evolved forms of humanity, humans that have degenerated, or a separate branch of the primate tree that has gone nasty...
    
  • Beasts - Just generically shaggy, animalistic thugs, a la gnolls?
    
  • Dragonfolk?
    
  • Minotaurs?
    
  • Mermaids & Mermen?
    
  • Myrmidons - Intelligent, aggressive hive-mind insectoid race
    
  
  
• Vampires - Shadow-war between the vampires and the elves? Soloman's original conception as vampire-hunter works in well here. What about other types of intelligent undead?
  
• Giants? - Never cared for the "men the size of buildings" model of giant ... too many logistical problems ... but something ogre-ish, say 9' tall and built like a brick house, might work. Maybe these can be my smiths. Trolls?
  

Angelic/Demonic
These are avatars and servants of divine powers, which suggests that they would tend to reside in Heaven or Hell, rather than actually have a place in the ecology/history of the world, except when dieties take a direct hand. Or maybe they got sent here and have no way to get back? Did the dieties once walk the Earth? Do they still? This is going to take some thinking.

• Spirits - A la Ruin Explorer? Spirits are the forces at work in nature doing things like making fire burn or rain fall ... most are just aware enough to do their appointed task and no more, barely more than animal intelligence.
  
• Elves Redux - The Aelari (winged elves) are so close to the common image of angels that you almost might as well call them that -- except that strictly speaking, the word angel refers to their role as "messenger," rather than their form. Some of the Old Testament angels were quite freaky-looking. I like the idea of the Aelari being cut off from their diety, clinging to their old ways in the forlorn hope that at some point they will regain contact.
  
• The Balrog - Almost a force of nature more than a creature, it destroys anything and everything in its path; that is its only purpose. It is a manifestation of the dark will of an evil diety. What can I do with this to make it something more than just swiping from Master Tolkien? Well, change the name, for starters. ;) Why am I reminded of Godzilla?
  
• The Spirit World / Dreamtime - What is its connection to the world? How does one travel to and from there? What are the effects? What sort of things live there? The elves seem to have one foot in and one foot out of it ... shamanistic weres would certainly spend a lot of their time there. What is its relation to sorcery? (Okay, this is cosmology, not a race. Stop being pedantic!)
  
• Diety and Agenda - Whatever powers exist, what is their relation to and interest in humanity? Lovecraft assumes that the gods are doing their own thing and couldn't care less about humans ... Christianity assumes that humanity is what it's all about, and that all cosmology and thoughts of good vs. evil revolve around that. Is it possible to strike a balance between the two? (See above re: cosmology.)
  

Dragons
Dragons. Gotta have dragons. They're just too cool not to have. But are they intelligent, or just big, dangerous, fire-breathing lizards?

• If they are intelligent, what kind of society do they have? How do they learn to talk, engage in riddle contests, and so forth? There are a couple of options. If they can take on human form, then obviously they have their own subculture within human society. BUT, if that's true, then why do they hole up in caves and hoard treasure? If they don't take human form, then they must have their own draconic ways ... perhaps mother dragons teach their young these things before kicking them out of their lair? Do dragons harbor mortal ambitions? Would a dragon want to be an emperor?
  
• If they're NOT intelligent, what is their role? Much has been made in literature about the connection between dragons and wizards ... maybe dragons are the forces of magic without restraint, while wizards are the forces of magic given discipline? Maybe dragons have different stages in their life-cycle ... maybe they start out as intelligent, but get progressively more bestial as they age, or vice-versa. This is going to take some serious thinking.
  
• How do dragons relate to the saurians? How do they relate to dieties? What are the dragonfolk?
  

Intelligent Beasts
Are there enough of them to have societies of note? Are there any at all?

• Unicorns - White, black, red ... are the colors significant?
  
• Centaurs & Satyrs - I dunno, these guys mess with my head. Think I'll leave 'em out.
  

Creatures From Beyond
Time for some Yog-Sothothery! Conan and Cthulhu are both full of creatures who caem from elsewhere or elsewhen and lurk around the dark pits of the world. What would be some cool eldritch influences to have tooling around?

• The Lost Race - In Robert E. Howard, there are the giant sorcerer-men of Acheron, the serpent men who pester Kull so relentlessly, and Yag-Kosha's race of Ganesha-esque creatures. In Lovecraft, there are the Elder Things, who created the Shoggoths and perhaps accidentally created humans, and then were wiped out by their creations. I gotta have one or two of these floating around. Not sure what yet. Perhaps the manlike saurians are all that's left of a prehistorical race of intelligent dinosaurs? But they're basically mortal ... I need something with more mystery to it.
  
• The Sphinxes - Driven mad by the dark sorceries they unleashed, dwindling, and retreated to the edge of the world. To still be around, they must have either very long lifespans, or be preserved by some form of sorcery.
  
• The Jellyfish From Beyond Space and Time - How about some sort of thing that dwells under the sea or underground, manipulating events on the surface toward some sinister end? Flood the surface? Start a permanent time of darkness? (The vampires would be all over this latter option!)
  

Hmm ... I sense that my cosmology needs work before many of these issues will be resolved.

-The Gneech

Comments

[spikedpunch.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with chipuni, seems like there are too many smart critters running about on the land mass you drew out. Quite a few seem almost too simular too, and would expect some intermingling on the edges creating gray areas all over the place.

Also, seems like your trying to borrow from too many other sources. Like they say, to borrow from one is plagarism, the borrow from many is research.

::shrugs:: but then again, it's your world to play in.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Well, this is a grand overview of the whole world, or at least this whole continent, too ... not all of these critters are going to be running around together.

Check out "mythic Europe" for its vast array of creatures...

England: elves, faeries, ogres, dragons
Celtic: pookas, leprechauns, gnomes
Nordic: dwarves, giants, trolls, more dragons, dopplegangers
Greece: centaurs, satyrs, nymphs, gorgons, cyclopses, titans
Northern Africa: sphinxes, djinni, ghouls, godforms
Eastern Europe: werewolves, vampires

...and I'm just scratching the surface. :)

I do think that most of the critters in my world tend to have regions they congregate in, rather than being world-wide phenomena. Elves and humans are just about everywhere ... and weres are going to be anywhere that humans are. The beast men are the ones that pose the most difficulty ... but the more I think about them, the more I like the idea of them being results of sphingish experimentation. I'll have to ponder that one a while. -TG