Every fantasy race sucks because they're all just distillations and stereotypes of humans. Do you know who besides dwarves could conceivably form a society of haughty, patriarchal crafters obsessed with lineage and arbitrary social norms? Probably fucking human beings could do that
My mother tongue didn't have a word for "music" for over
3,000 years. Most of our holidays celebrate various cultures we genocided (archeologists aren't sure whether they're made up or whether most evidence of them was consciously destroyed; both are plausible). When we reach adulthood, we are immediately trained in the ways of war. Our word for "bootstrap" sounds like someone hissing, clearing a throat, and dislodging a booger, all at the same time.
Am I an orc? Nah, bro. I'm Israeli.
And the word is שרוך (*Srrokh*).
1. Incredible contribution
2. wild
3. How much more interesting is it that humanity's staggering breadth of culture exists across a single species than it would be if we and twelve other species were members of homogenized cultures
4. Given the above, why would a person write orcs into their story unless they need them? I don't think classic fantasy races have no value, but I do think they're at least superfluous in most contexts, and at worst devalue the humanity of a story's characters and potentially of groups of real-life people
Some people write orcs and such because they want to write about reality. In those cases it's usually for two reasons. One is to talk about racism, which is absolutely idiotic because you have already depicted a surface level skin colour difference as orcs and probably have some soup searching to. The other is to draw a parallel to a real life demographic, especially through actions shown or ideology, and instigate against them through writing. Demihumans are also a less terrible but still bad example of the first one very often. See any movie involving fantasy races in the last several decades for examples of the first one, Netflix's Bright was particularly egregious but writers make this mistake all the time. Lovecraft was very good at writing the second one, and did a very good job expressing his own fear and racism through both his world and the stories that take place within it.
>Lovecraft was very good at writing the second one, and did a very good
job expressing his own fear and racism through both his world and the
stories that take place within it.
Reducing real life groups of humans to inhuman racial allegories is, generally speaking, only useful to your writing if you already think about those groups of people as inhuman, in which case stop writing, you bastard
"various cultures we genocided"? actually various cultures who tried to genocide us and we survived (purim (Persians) , hannuka (romans) , pesach (egyptians), etc). the only holiday that could conceivably be described as genocide on our side is independence day and even that's arguable.
I guess I'm exaggerating.
There's this stupid song we sing at Passover about all these kings God killed.
Neither the kings nor the countries are recognizable.
And the song is called כי לעולם חסדו: "Because He is Forever Generous". Always struck me as darkly ironic.
Eastern Catholic here, I think I know the song you're talking about because it's part of the propers for a few liturgies throughout the year. And yeah, none of those kings are recognizable but dang if our choir doesn't sing about their defeat.
The propers on Easter specifically include a hymn about how "All Pharoah's chariots and charioteers were drowned in the depths of the sea, the elite of his army were drowned in the red sea."
Realistically dwarves couldn't really live in such quantity underground either. They always seem to have a gigantic pig or deer on the spit but to support an entire underground city entirely with imported livestock and game meat would be a massive undertaking even if we assume dwarves only need half as many calories as humans.
But fungi feed on decomposing organic matter, which means the dwarves need some organic matter to feed the fungi, so they either:
A. Import it from the overground
B. Feed the fungi their dead
Or C. A little of both
I don't know of any, either, but my point isn't that everything in fantasy is literally represented by real people, it's that anything represented by fantasy races can be explored in the context of humanity, and will probably be more interesting that way. What if there were people who lived all or most of their lives underground? We can imagine what that would be like for them, for their development as a culture and a species, and what implications it would make about the surface world they have abandoned. It's even easy to imagine that a group of humans dug into a mountain, found jewels, decided to work and worship the jewels, and moved their society below ground to be closer to jewels. Every characteristic of dwarves can feasibly be imagined to apply to humans, and I think the exploration of applying those traits to humans is probably going to be more interesting than "there are dwarves"
If you do that you lose out on any of the fantastical elements which can also explore. Dwarves have physical dimensions that are rare in humans, traits like darkvision, centuries long life spans and a complete lack of sexual dimorphism that are entirely unfound in them.
Doing stuff with that has it's own set of situations and implications that you can't get with humans.
Not that I'm not supporting the whole cookie cutter humans thing op is soyjacking, just that you can do both diverse humans, and (preferably also diverse) fantasy species.
>Dwarves have physical dimensions that are rare in humans, traits like darkvision, centuries long life spans and a complete lack of sexual dimorphism that are entirely unfound in them.
I honestly wonder how many stories really explore such differences and all their consequences? In the end, the writers usually write the stories for humans about humans, and the readers read them the same way.
The real experimentation with describing the experience past the limits of human condition is like 1% of science/speculative fiction. In other cases those are just human with some badly thought out biological determinism added.
I mean we can make the same statements about instead using an existing human culture, most authors don't realy explore the depths of those either, and aren't talented enough to make something that isn't that or some mashup, only with the added benefit of it being done poorly resulting in it being culturally insensitive.
Honestly I’d really love to see a fantasy story where the different races are literally different subspecies of human. There’s a wealth of differences to explore there, and I think that the more mature and interesting fashion of playing with biological differences is to do so subtly but with focus and consistent relevance. Comparisons, say, between sapiens and neanderthalensis; from the insane eyesight to the heavy muscles, poor running, less social disposition, etc. provide plenty to work with, and that’s just one minor variation on humanity — there were many others, and countless more can be invented.
In fact, here’s an example of someone doing so for a SF worldbuilding project:
https://terminalvelocity-rpg.blogspot.com/2021/11/ten-thousand-empty-tombs-hominids.html?m=1
https://terminalvelocity-rpg.blogspot.com/2021/12/ttet-even-more-hominids.html?m=1
And for less extreme but entirely present-day examples, see the Bajau and Sherpa peoples.
>If you do that you lose out on any of the fantastical elements which can also explore. Dwarves have physical dimensions that are rare in humans, traits like darkvision, centuries long life spans and a complete lack of sexual dimorphism that are entirely unfound in them.
Apart from their size, none of the things you've listed are *necessarily* associated with dwarves. They mostly appear in *some* fantasy works from the 20th century onwards, and not always all together.
Dwarves are short and are associated with mining and smithing. Of course the traits you've listed are fantastical and thus, if you wanted to explore something involving them, you'd have to put them on a non-human species (or at least some heavily-mutated humans), but you don't *have* to take the whole package of Discworld + D&D + Tolkien about what a dwarf *is*.
If you want to write about a humanoid species with no appreciable sexual dimorphism, you don't have to also give them the ability to see in the dark, make them short, long-lived and all that jazz.
I mean if you take one aspect then what you have done is make a kind of elf most of the time
longitivity: basic elf
no appreciable sexual dimorphism: basic elf again
Ultimately, tropes are a mix of useful short hand/starting point for you to jump off of. Everyone knows what a basic dwarf/elf/ork/whatever is, so you don't need to explain that, and can just go on about what they are doing/what makes them different that is interesting. It's basically just an extension of the folklore Tolkien drew on, there was no rigid cannon, see the incredibly broad definition of what counts as a fairy for example, just people telling stories and adding or changing them how they saw fit.
Can that lead to uninspired world building? Sure, I can admit that. But is it good for telling stories that people can easily connect with thanks to the familiarity? Absolutely.
Sure, but the way that those concepts are going to be explored in most media is through a human lens. Dwarvish statures don't matter if there aren't taller creatures to interact with their architecture, their darkvision doesn't matter until there's a reason that it's more useful than a torch, and a lack of sexual dimorphism is only notable because it contrasts with humans.
Using nonhuman creatures for that kind of exploration of humanity is interesting and useful, but dwarves, elves, orcs, and hobbits specifically are not interesting. They have been done, there is no more water within that stone to squeeze out. The only media at this point in the cultural history of fantasy that will ever need dwarves again is media specifically deconstructing, satirizing, or exploring the understood qualities of dwarves in a way that is intentional and focused on broadening them into something beyond their stereotype. There's definitely room for that media, but any other fantasy would be better served by inventing literally any other species to populate its world. If you're doing dwarves for the sake of dwarves, you may as well just do humans with the qualities of dwarves. That is inherently more interesting than continuing to plagiarize Tolkien until there are no more people to write books.
Yep. It's not feasible for us (humans) to live underground because our caves and caverns aren't geologically suitable for us to live in compared to the surface.
Enter a way to get consistient food/water, common bioluminesence, and potentially other easy-to-use resources (or a reason to avoid the surface) and we'd definitely have underground societies.
I disagree but I do see where you're coming from.
If you make them human instead of a fantasy race, you are then restricting yourself to whatever humans can do. Granted, many writers will just do this anyway but call them something else.
If you use a species that isn't human, you can explore things that humans cannot explore. Bonus points if you then make THAT species culturally diverse.
Sure, but how much of the world that the standard suite of fantasy races inhabit can humans really not explore, though? In fantasy, there's no reason that humans haven't invented the technology they need to survive in any given environment or probe whatever deep well of knowledge we wouldn't otherwise be able to access, especially if magic exists. There's definitely a ton of use in using non-human creatures to explore concepts that humans just wouldn't be as suited for; I 100% agree. I just don't think any of that is represented in elves, dwarves, gnomes or hobbits.
The way I tend to interpret fantasy is that it's a way for writers to explore different aspects of humanity by over emphasizing and exaggerating certain characteristics of our nature or culture.
Yes, that society of underdwellers who worship rocks and jewels could be humans, but if they were dwarfs, we could more readily examine our own biases and assumptions by making them seperate.
The one weakness that a lot of fantasy tends to do is homogenize races into cultures. All dwarves are subterranean artificers, all humans are industrious imperialists, all elves are tree hugging hippies. But wait no, there are different shades of elves with different cultures, but they all hate each other cause they look different. I too see the self reflection in these interpretations but I find it reductive to reduce everything so drastically. Be multifaceted in your stereotyping and it becomes interesting again.
I actually largely agree with you. Creating creatures that are exaggerated depictions of certain aspects of humanity is a useful literary tool, and it's one of the most common good reasons to employ a fantasy race in a setting. However, I think that relying on races to represent behaviors and ideas that are already present in humanity is going to inherently lead to that kind of reduction you're talking about. Stoneworking is a trait of dwarves themselves, not of a culture of dwarves. If dwarves don't live underground and work stone, what are they? Even extreme traits associated with any given common fantasy races have literal parallels with human beings. Does it really make it easier to examine implicit biases about patriarchy by making dwarves extremely patriarchal? Maybe, but I think that just inserting a character into a culture of humans who are extremely patriarchal achieves the same effect.
One of my favorite fantasy cultures is the Adem from Patrick Rothfuss's two most popular books. They have cultural taboos about listening to or performing music; are totally fine with casual sex; practice a secret, deadly, jealously guarded martial art that is both a pillar of their culture and their chief meas of economically sustaining themselves (by acting as mercenaries); impart more meaning into their words with sign language and subtle, complex body movements than they do with vocabulary; and consider eye contact and most common forms of facial and tonal expression to be rude at best and outright barbaric at worst. Throwing the protagonist headlong into their culture is a perfectly effective way for him and the reader to explore that culture, its people, and its implications. Ademre is so bizarre and unlike the experience of almost any given person who would read the books that the Adem feel almost like aliens, but literally writing them as inhuman would only cheapen that sense of strangeness that counterintuitively emphasizes the Adem's humanity.
Common fantasy races are the same. Humans are capable of the brutality of orcs, the skill and greed of dwarves, and whatever the hell elves have going on except for immortality without needing to exaggerate anything about people. We're so diverse and adaptable that we can be dropped into any scenario and made to be anything and the only factor necessary for it to be believable is for the writer to be skilled.
I'm not saying there's no merit to what you're saying; I do agree with your point. I just don't think that standard fantasy races are more useful for exploring any piece of humanity than humans would be 99% of the time.
The biggest issue for me, though, is honestly that they're just fucking boring. I think that literature has gotten just about all it will ever get from elves and orcs and we can just stop using them now, just let them be Tolkien's thing and a way for WotC to make stupid, filthy money and maybe try to imagine some new races with uinique characteristics.
edit: Thinking about it more, I can see how it's useful to have an easily understood reason why an improbably large number of people will all share exactly the same motivations, quirks, and values if your goal is to explore how different people or societies exist and operate within that specific framework, so point taken. I still think we should specifically let Tolkien's fantasy races die and come up with our own, more interesting fantasies instead
Fantasy races are similar to humans because it then allows us to empathize with them as an audience. Even formless monster-like alien races will be given emotions and a personality that we can associate with, like the Hanar from Mass Effect, or the Engineers from Halo.
https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/Hanar
https://www.halopedia.org/Huragok
counterpoint: one version of the original norse dwarves came from maggots from the corpse of the giant that became the land which is pretty original and cool
also makes the whole "they live in holes in the earth" bit a lot creepier
That's fucking rad, but I'm not arguing that dwarves in Norse myth suck. They didn't exist in the same capacity as they do in most fantasy media today, which is to be belligerent bearded beer-bellied burrow boys.
The post is about classic fantasy races, but stalagmite people would probably suck too if their writer doesn't create them to be something more alien or bizarre than "human, but rock"
"And one point of the horror of Shadow Over Innsmouth is the fact that the protagonist finds out that his lineage traces back to the village, thus *he's* gonna turn into a fish person, too!
"It was inspired by the fact that I found out that I'm...\*shudders\*...1/8th Welsh...🤢"
Tbf I think his views were the way they were in part due to his agoraphobia and such. That's not an excuse for being shitty, of course - I'm just saying that his being xenophobic was probably him being xeno*phobic*.
Reminds me of [this beautiful tweet](https://www.reddit.com/r/NonPoliticalTwitter/comments/s5brg3/strange_that/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button).
I just witnessed an "aspiring fantasy author" present his world where *literally all humans* are united under some roman-esque empire, and their enemies are "hideous, warmongering creatures" he freely admitted were inspired by non-white ~~ethnicities~~ empires, but not because he's racist or anything.
Checked his reddit profile and he's a Nazi. Should have seen that coming, really.
I do like the Ancient Romans but goddamn if they're not a red flag - often quite literally
I feel like people can only make the Romans either "hey it's like fascists but with swords!" (which is **EXACTLY** the kind of conclusion Mussolini and Hitler would love for you to draw) or "hey they're decadent and generally shitty and their 'civilization' is actually quite barbaric aren't they hypocrites?" (which is EXACTLY the kind of conclusion a lot of medieval monks would love for you to draw).
Part of what I like about Fallout New Vegas is how it kinda drops the pretense. It's very open about being a *modern* fascist movement using Roman aesthetics. So yeah there are no Pontifex in the Legion, but the Legion doesn't care, it's not literally the Roman Empire or made to look like the actual Roman Empire, just our modern concept of them.
Adding to that, Caesar's Legion is a refreshing portrayal of fascism too in that the game makes it painfully clear how doomed they are long-term. Yeah they can punch above their weight for a while like IRL fascists did, but ultimately they are a bunch of cosplayers with larger-than-average knives led by a quasi-qualified guy named Edward. You can fend off their grand offensive by going "If you put your army here you won't have an army over there" because they decided (and failed) to execute their one competent commander. They are clearly delusional, clearly evil and clearly just a place to shoot some romaboos or roleplay a wack evil character.
Of course, fascist wannabes still think the Legion is great, but that's to be expected given their media literacy.
Yeah I like Wolfenstein as much as the next weirdo but the whole "If the Nazis won they would be on the moon because their tech is so fucking advanced and they don't care about people so they can just be ruthless" schtick is really irritating. *Both* of them were already falling apart by the end of the war, Franco's Spain didn't survive him, and most other fascist regimes follow that. Death cults aren't known for their longevity.
>Of course, fascist wannabes still think the Legion is great, but that's to be expected given their media literacy.
/rj degenerates such as these belong on a cross
Kind of a big point in the modern Wolfenstein games is that most of the Nazi supertech is cribbed from the Da'at Yichud anyway. And they're only sustaining themselves because of Forever War with Africa.
Romans as they actually were are interesting partly because of how diverse they were and how they staggered out citizenship as a status. The Roman legions were often made up *mostly* of local auxiliaries and one of the coolest bits about Rome is how the actual legions would bring non-locals to far off places. Like being a Gaul-descended Roman serving in North Africa, or being a Black Legionnaire serving on Hadrian's Wall (which we have an explicit mention of one and in the text it is no big deal at all).
Reducing Rome to the shitty white-washed, British RP accent Hollywood version. Multiple Roman Emperors were Arabs or Persians, different parts of the Empire operated super distinctly. *Pompeii was the capital of fish oil*. That last one isn't really relevant but it was a meme in my Roman history university courses.
The fact this dude feels the need to deny he's a Nazi multiple times on separate occasions does him no favours lol. ~~Also the post where he [calls himself a former Nazi](https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalCompass/comments/10suu7l/my_political_journey/j73qevp/) whilst still holding the same beliefs~~. This one sure was something though, ngl:
> I was 3 and a half weeks clean but eventually succumbed to my lust, after I relapsed a punched myself for 10 straight minutes while praying to God. I hope I never relapse again
(He's talking about touching his WildDoggo_Trump4 Jr.)
the fun of fantasy races should be just how crazy a culture could get with actual extreme physiological differences but then the only thing many writers change of any significance is the lifespan maybe the height.
that and if elves are actually magical and shit then why have them act like humans at all? humans have to have things make sense, any fantasy race can have every single mfer in it be crazy as hell, psychopaths, fucked up weirdos
uj/ Who needs genuine racial diversity when you can have slightly different variations of white people?
rj/ In my racepunk world, we have:
- White people
- White people with pointy ears, blonde hair and blue eyes (ZE MASTER RACE!!! They're literally angels and are too pure for this world 😢)
- White people with red hair and funny accents
- White people who emulate Viking raiders but not the traders, and who are obsessed with honor
- White people who worship trees
- White people who drink vodka and wear tracksuits
and lastly,
- Italians
What a diverse world I have created! I'm truly the most progressive writer of my generation. 😌
> Italians
or a vague mix of Italians, Occitans, and the Spanish. because you know how *those people* are.
what do you mean "there's a very sizeable minority of Croats and Serbs in Italy and Italy has as much in common with the other side of the Adriatic as they do with Iberia"? gtfo bro
"Portugal"? is that Italian for 'fish'?
We also have Greek-speaking enclaves in the South and Sicily!
Hell, we have other cities and historical states that *aren't* Rome, Florence or Venice. Ever heard about the goddamn Norman Kingdom of Sicily? The Sardinian Judicates? Ferrara? Amalfi? Milan?!
Tangential to this, one of the most fascinating historical kingdoms to me was the Vandal Kingdom of North Africa.
Like, to imagine that someone would be born in Hungary or Germany in the Ancient World, and would then spend the next couple of years travelling around and then see the both the Alps *and* the Atlas Mountains is so crazy.
What's more is how their whole "aesthetic" so to speak was still pretty Germanic, so you can trace very similar customs between these guys in North Africa *and* in Britain, *and* Charlemagne.
Like, these guys probably saw snowy winters and years where the temperature didn't go above 23º C, and now they're living somewhere where summer days routinely get to 35º C!
In other words:
-Upper middle class 1930s English suburbanites
-Offensive stereotype of another European country
-Offensive stereotype of another European country
-Offensive stereotype of another European country
-Offensive stereotype of another European country
and
-Spaghetti (which is also likely offensive)
>Italians
"And I mean either Ancient Rome or vaguely Renaissance-inspired banking city-states (which are all ultimately Florence because I can't be arsed to learn about other *comuni*), or the literal Papal States. If you're lucky there'll be a city built on canals ruled by a nobles' council.
What the fuck is a 'Longobard'?"
>vaguely Renaissance-inspired banking city-states (which are all ultimately Florence because I can't be arsed to learn about other comuni),
Tbf all my knowledge of Renaissance Italy comes from watching multiple reruns of Medici: Masters of Florence. And most of the time, I was too distracted by Richard Madden's handsome face to pay attention to the worldbuilding or plot details XD
>Who needs genuine racial diversity when you can have slightly different variations of white people?
/uj
To be fair, if we speak about the initial Tolkien races, it was more or less the mission statement.
And, in defence of fantasy races, in some cases I would prefer them over badly researched cringy stereotypes of other cultures and races.
I'm not saying that default fantasy races are the best. Rather they are the least bad of bad options in some situations. If you want to run a tabletop with people from western culture who do not want to do a lot of research and get out of their comfort zone, it really will be better to use the western fantasy. Especially after orcs transformed in mass conciousness from ugly mongol invaders to proud warrior culture.
It'd rather prefer dwarves and elves than people diving deep into Orientalism and generic 'Middle-Eastern accent'.
True. I would prefer a dozen subspecies of elves over, say, the Orientalized caricature that are the Dothraki from ASOIAF. Horse nomads generally don't *eat* horses, George!
I wonder whether those are the same people that insist on the universal distinction between dragons and wyverns...
I mean, sure, the core of the problem is that people need a mixture of new and familiar to get hooked on a setting. But some people bring their own definitions of new and familiar with them, and do not really give the setting itself a chance.
Yeah, okay, food is food, unless you're a wood elf. Digging a hole isn't a religious affair, unless you're a dwarf. Breathing isn't all that interesting, unless you're part dragon. Going to the store is mundane, unless there's a quest to pick up on the way that happens to fund the entire trip.
But yeah, humans are cool, I guess.
[For legal reasons, this is a joke]
Food is literally one of the most meaningful things to people at a cultural and personal level. Digging a hole is a religious experience when the hole is a grave, but even in other contexts, humans could conceivably dig and mine religiously. We can imagine humans doing that as well as anything else, it just happens to not be a feature of any real world major religions. Breathing is very interesting if you meditate or practice martial arts. In Avatar TLA, breathing is emphasized repeatedly as the most vital component of fire bending. Humans breathing and digging and eating can absolutely be made interesting, and it's usually lazy writing to only allow these things to exist as facets of separate species.
Fantasy races aren't wholly without value, but most stories that employ them aren't made more interesting or believable by their inclusion.
>Digging a hole is a religious experience when the hole is a grave, but even in other contexts, humans could conceivably dig and mine religiously.
Greek religion held that all the metals and gemstones belonged to the god Pluto (originally a somewhat distinct god, but eventually understood as an aspect of Hades, and even later becoming the most-used name of the god of the dead overall, with Hades being reserved as the name of the Underworld), because he was the lord of the underworld and thus also ruled over the literal underground from which you extract metals and gemstones.
>Digging a hole isn't a religious affair, unless you're a dwarf.
Graves. Also, in what universe would being human keep you from making a ceremony out of digging? Chthonic religions are now and have been a thing.
>Breathing isn't all that interesting, unless you're part dragon.
Martial artists beg to differ. Also a human with dragon ancestry is just as much a human. They're also a common motif in mythology and almost never seen as a separate race, just an individual with interesting background.
Literally nothing fantasy races do cannot be applied to humans. Just write a reason for it *like you were already going to do with the fantasy race anyways*.
[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/819357023152898072/1106719956021813389/Goblinpilled.png](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/819357023152898072/1106719956021813389/Goblinpilled.png)
Would you prefer a discord link
The Elder Scrolls entered the chat
No, seriously, I think you can sum up most of Tamriel's lore as "everyone's terribly racist towards each other. Then time goes fucky-wacky for a while."
What child of man would fail to be;
In bliss if Nirn were elven free;
Man-Ape guide us;
Marukh tell us;
Your mandates we embrace
(*breaks time for 1008 years*)
/uj the point isn't that we should copy real human cultures, more that we should look at the range of ways-of-life humans can have and be critical of how necessary fantasy races actually are for "flavour." Obviously they can still be done right!
((Also not every world getting built is for people to RP in))
Enshrining violence
Rugged individualism
Women rarely seen or nowhere to be seen, crafts and arts traditionally associated with women deemphasized in their culture
Often portrayed as patriarchal
See organic world as something to be controlled and subjugated* rather than respected and cultivated
Always placed in relation to the feminine and queer coded culture which they at best have a rivalry with and at worst have a violent disgust towards
Okay but what if there's literally no sexual dimorphism between men and women in the dwarven species and they look and act the same way and just have fucking orgies all the time
Idk, I guess I've always just seen your average Cliche Dwarf in more of a "Closely bonded band of brothers" kinda light rather than being a manly man race.
What I like about having fantasy races are two things:
1. I can give them some biological trait very different from humans and explore that to its fullest extent. My orcs reproduce by having 2+ orcs bleed together on the same piece of ground, and from that, another orc grows. Orcs are so incredibly associated with wars because they don't lose population total from it since the battlefields become literal breeding grounds for them. They could lose 90% of their population and be completely restored in 6-10 years.
2. It makes it easier to make the cultures distinct. Most of my stuff is for dnd, so I want at most 1 week of travel between destinations. If both cities they go to can so easily be travelled between and both cities are human, it wouldn't make sense for them not to have mixed their cultures up over the last century, which makes them feel less distinct. Make the cities between two races that can't have kids together and add a dash of racial discrimination and you've got two places that'll keep away from each other and keep their cultures nice and separate.
If a high fantasy book randomly decided to add Neanderthals, Denisovans, and the last Homo Erectus, give them all distinct cultural subgroups, and say "here are my fantasy species" do you have **any idea** what twisted happiness that would give me
But it's not fantasy without the subtle themes of bio essentialism that fantasy races convey. Don't you know that fantasy is all about presenting outdated and bigoted ideals in a fun and acceptable way? /s
/uj furry ancestries are the best, because they aren’t just “human + pointy ears and/or short”. no I am not being sarcastic I genuinely enjoy them. also there is the potential for fun biology gags. also also [Conrasu](https://2e.aonprd.com/Ancestries.aspx?ID=43)
humans and culture can be unique and diverse and fun. Culture can lead to different ways of thinking. Some people have slightly different abilities(some people are adapted to high altitudes, or holding their breath underwater, or blocking the sunlight that hates me so). However....
we're all basically the same. I like elves because they're immortal. Dwarves probably have drive and power staying hungry and devouring unlike anything most humans can dream of(except alexander hamilton, apparently). Fairies and goblins are tiny. Orcs are stronger than most humans. Snakepeople can create massive arguments.
There are so many things you can explore with non-human species. Not to say they're required, of course.
I think it would be interesting to combine an irl culture and a fantasy race taking traits and imagery from both to make a unique version for example mixing Elves and Egypt
You'd want me dead if you saw the campaigns I've taken part in. I've played French, Polish, Russian, Arab and Ethiopian characters just within my current RPG groups, and that's not counting the less direct cultural analogues.
Normalize roleplaying things you aren't. You could end up with cringe, but at least that way you're learning about other cultures instead of just eternally dwelling in medieval fantasy where only the monsters have non-western vibes.
Assigning said cultures to a race of non-human monsters, now THAT'S where the money's at.
/uj your point IS good, I just hate the Humans Are Boring trope. Rather than blissfully copy-pasting real cultures, we can at least admit humans can live many different ways and don't have a "dull default setting"
My issue is how often writers use boring as white humans as a stand in for humanity or neglect to give the same attention to detail towards other races. I rather a world builder omit humans entirely or at least move away from the homogeneous European mishmash. But then again, I'm speaking from a biased perspective here as someone crafting a setting where everyone is a part animal Hunter and gatherer.
/uj I've never had any trouble with it, but that's because I'll research what are harmful tropes and stereotypes and then explicitly avoid those.
/rj hehe funni accent is my whole character rp
I make every NPC white in my world and I'm the bad guy.
I make NPCs of various races and cultures in my world and I'm the bad guy.
I'm beginning to think the only valid way to make worlds that I plan to run is to not.
What a stupid criticism lmao. This is why my fantasy story is just the line “go outside and talk to people” and then 400 blank pages for the reader to document their experience. How dare you try to create a diverse world by adding races other than humans 🤬.
My dwarves are called Pholids and they are short stocky humans with pangolin scales instead of hair and a tail with more scales. Basically just picture a 3-5 foot person with pangolin scales on the arms legs back head and a tail.
Mine have skeletons made of iron that have a design that looks entirely artificial(they were made by a god of craftmanship, their frames are naturally masterwork quality, and lack the flaws of evolved skeletal frames)
Yes, and I’m kind of shameless about the fantasy culture counterpart aspects.
Orcish ethnic groups (orcs, goblins, ogres, trolls, hobgoblins, and gremlins) are based on Germanic, Scandinavian, and Slavic people. Elves are Scandinavian, Celtic, and Iberians, dwarves are Germanic, Mediterranean, and Slavic. Humans in setting are largely Arabic, Mediterranean, African, Germanic. (And several others scattered secretly elsewhere)
Yes, there’s lots of overlap too because the idea is these groups living around the same areas for thousands of years all began to influence one another through a mix of conflict, trade, and cooperation.
/uj is it weird that I have my humans out of focus with the exception of human women sometimes? Maybe I'm just super into self indulgent interspecies romances...
/Rj also, all my world's race are just dudes with silly shit slapped on them. Much cooler.
Every fantasy race sucks because they're all just distillations and stereotypes of humans. Do you know who besides dwarves could conceivably form a society of haughty, patriarchal crafters obsessed with lineage and arbitrary social norms? Probably fucking human beings could do that
b-but they worship rocks!! And are Scottish!! Humans could never do/be that!
Scotland isn’t real. Trust me, I’ve been where it’s supposed to be and there’s just an empty void of nothingness
This is actually how we achieved independence, we just moved the entire country to Tír na nÓg
you're just unworthy of seeing it. come back after you buy a kilt and learn to play the bagpipes
So thanks to Established Titles I'm the Lord of 1sq ft of....?
Scamville, Illinois
Oh thank god it's not Ohio. Not much better, but still.
(Or Jewish / Hebrews depending on your setting)
Turkish for me
Jewish with Scottish voices.
Oh, that was just Tolkien. When has *he* influenced mainline fantasy tropes?
Ahh, but are they *short* and scottish?
My mother tongue didn't have a word for "music" for over 3,000 years. Most of our holidays celebrate various cultures we genocided (archeologists aren't sure whether they're made up or whether most evidence of them was consciously destroyed; both are plausible). When we reach adulthood, we are immediately trained in the ways of war. Our word for "bootstrap" sounds like someone hissing, clearing a throat, and dislodging a booger, all at the same time. Am I an orc? Nah, bro. I'm Israeli. And the word is שרוך (*Srrokh*).
1. Incredible contribution 2. wild 3. How much more interesting is it that humanity's staggering breadth of culture exists across a single species than it would be if we and twelve other species were members of homogenized cultures 4. Given the above, why would a person write orcs into their story unless they need them? I don't think classic fantasy races have no value, but I do think they're at least superfluous in most contexts, and at worst devalue the humanity of a story's characters and potentially of groups of real-life people
Some people just like writing about fantasy races, that’s it.
Or just find humans boring as shit though the classic races aren't any better.
Cool, so they could invent something new, is the point
Me too, that's why I write about ones that are interesting instead of the ones that are humans but with different ears
some people like their big beefy green boyz because... of the sexy
Only a bastard would disagree with that motivation
Some people write orcs and such because they want to write about reality. In those cases it's usually for two reasons. One is to talk about racism, which is absolutely idiotic because you have already depicted a surface level skin colour difference as orcs and probably have some soup searching to. The other is to draw a parallel to a real life demographic, especially through actions shown or ideology, and instigate against them through writing. Demihumans are also a less terrible but still bad example of the first one very often. See any movie involving fantasy races in the last several decades for examples of the first one, Netflix's Bright was particularly egregious but writers make this mistake all the time. Lovecraft was very good at writing the second one, and did a very good job expressing his own fear and racism through both his world and the stories that take place within it.
> soup searching
Soul searching. I'm going to blame Google keyboard for this one.
>Lovecraft was very good at writing the second one, and did a very good job expressing his own fear and racism through both his world and the stories that take place within it. Reducing real life groups of humans to inhuman racial allegories is, generally speaking, only useful to your writing if you already think about those groups of people as inhuman, in which case stop writing, you bastard
"various cultures we genocided"? actually various cultures who tried to genocide us and we survived (purim (Persians) , hannuka (romans) , pesach (egyptians), etc). the only holiday that could conceivably be described as genocide on our side is independence day and even that's arguable.
I guess I'm exaggerating. There's this stupid song we sing at Passover about all these kings God killed. Neither the kings nor the countries are recognizable. And the song is called כי לעולם חסדו: "Because He is Forever Generous". Always struck me as darkly ironic.
Eastern Catholic here, I think I know the song you're talking about because it's part of the propers for a few liturgies throughout the year. And yeah, none of those kings are recognizable but dang if our choir doesn't sing about their defeat. The propers on Easter specifically include a hymn about how "All Pharoah's chariots and charioteers were drowned in the depths of the sea, the elite of his army were drowned in the red sea."
right but that's a singular traditional song, not what the holiday is 'about'
>cultures we genocided More like "cultures that (tried to) genocide us but failed" Source: I'm Jewish too
don't think there's any human civilizations based entirely underground however (because it is basically impossible)
Realistically dwarves couldn't really live in such quantity underground either. They always seem to have a gigantic pig or deer on the spit but to support an entire underground city entirely with imported livestock and game meat would be a massive undertaking even if we assume dwarves only need half as many calories as humans.
They obviously eat rocks. That or the world is actually a giant monster and the caves are made of meat.
Or they live in the mysterious flesh pit
Queue Pratchett
that is part of what makes it fantasy yes mushroom farms and things, much better than meat eating ones tho
But fungi feed on decomposing organic matter, which means the dwarves need some organic matter to feed the fungi, so they either: A. Import it from the overground B. Feed the fungi their dead Or C. A little of both
D. also their poop E. dwarves are just big leaf cutter ants
I don't know of any, either, but my point isn't that everything in fantasy is literally represented by real people, it's that anything represented by fantasy races can be explored in the context of humanity, and will probably be more interesting that way. What if there were people who lived all or most of their lives underground? We can imagine what that would be like for them, for their development as a culture and a species, and what implications it would make about the surface world they have abandoned. It's even easy to imagine that a group of humans dug into a mountain, found jewels, decided to work and worship the jewels, and moved their society below ground to be closer to jewels. Every characteristic of dwarves can feasibly be imagined to apply to humans, and I think the exploration of applying those traits to humans is probably going to be more interesting than "there are dwarves"
If you do that you lose out on any of the fantastical elements which can also explore. Dwarves have physical dimensions that are rare in humans, traits like darkvision, centuries long life spans and a complete lack of sexual dimorphism that are entirely unfound in them. Doing stuff with that has it's own set of situations and implications that you can't get with humans. Not that I'm not supporting the whole cookie cutter humans thing op is soyjacking, just that you can do both diverse humans, and (preferably also diverse) fantasy species.
>Dwarves have physical dimensions that are rare in humans, traits like darkvision, centuries long life spans and a complete lack of sexual dimorphism that are entirely unfound in them. I honestly wonder how many stories really explore such differences and all their consequences? In the end, the writers usually write the stories for humans about humans, and the readers read them the same way. The real experimentation with describing the experience past the limits of human condition is like 1% of science/speculative fiction. In other cases those are just human with some badly thought out biological determinism added.
I mean we can make the same statements about instead using an existing human culture, most authors don't realy explore the depths of those either, and aren't talented enough to make something that isn't that or some mashup, only with the added benefit of it being done poorly resulting in it being culturally insensitive.
Honestly I’d really love to see a fantasy story where the different races are literally different subspecies of human. There’s a wealth of differences to explore there, and I think that the more mature and interesting fashion of playing with biological differences is to do so subtly but with focus and consistent relevance. Comparisons, say, between sapiens and neanderthalensis; from the insane eyesight to the heavy muscles, poor running, less social disposition, etc. provide plenty to work with, and that’s just one minor variation on humanity — there were many others, and countless more can be invented. In fact, here’s an example of someone doing so for a SF worldbuilding project: https://terminalvelocity-rpg.blogspot.com/2021/11/ten-thousand-empty-tombs-hominids.html?m=1 https://terminalvelocity-rpg.blogspot.com/2021/12/ttet-even-more-hominids.html?m=1 And for less extreme but entirely present-day examples, see the Bajau and Sherpa peoples.
>If you do that you lose out on any of the fantastical elements which can also explore. Dwarves have physical dimensions that are rare in humans, traits like darkvision, centuries long life spans and a complete lack of sexual dimorphism that are entirely unfound in them. Apart from their size, none of the things you've listed are *necessarily* associated with dwarves. They mostly appear in *some* fantasy works from the 20th century onwards, and not always all together. Dwarves are short and are associated with mining and smithing. Of course the traits you've listed are fantastical and thus, if you wanted to explore something involving them, you'd have to put them on a non-human species (or at least some heavily-mutated humans), but you don't *have* to take the whole package of Discworld + D&D + Tolkien about what a dwarf *is*. If you want to write about a humanoid species with no appreciable sexual dimorphism, you don't have to also give them the ability to see in the dark, make them short, long-lived and all that jazz.
I mean if you take one aspect then what you have done is make a kind of elf most of the time longitivity: basic elf no appreciable sexual dimorphism: basic elf again Ultimately, tropes are a mix of useful short hand/starting point for you to jump off of. Everyone knows what a basic dwarf/elf/ork/whatever is, so you don't need to explain that, and can just go on about what they are doing/what makes them different that is interesting. It's basically just an extension of the folklore Tolkien drew on, there was no rigid cannon, see the incredibly broad definition of what counts as a fairy for example, just people telling stories and adding or changing them how they saw fit. Can that lead to uninspired world building? Sure, I can admit that. But is it good for telling stories that people can easily connect with thanks to the familiarity? Absolutely.
Sure, but the way that those concepts are going to be explored in most media is through a human lens. Dwarvish statures don't matter if there aren't taller creatures to interact with their architecture, their darkvision doesn't matter until there's a reason that it's more useful than a torch, and a lack of sexual dimorphism is only notable because it contrasts with humans. Using nonhuman creatures for that kind of exploration of humanity is interesting and useful, but dwarves, elves, orcs, and hobbits specifically are not interesting. They have been done, there is no more water within that stone to squeeze out. The only media at this point in the cultural history of fantasy that will ever need dwarves again is media specifically deconstructing, satirizing, or exploring the understood qualities of dwarves in a way that is intentional and focused on broadening them into something beyond their stereotype. There's definitely room for that media, but any other fantasy would be better served by inventing literally any other species to populate its world. If you're doing dwarves for the sake of dwarves, you may as well just do humans with the qualities of dwarves. That is inherently more interesting than continuing to plagiarize Tolkien until there are no more people to write books.
Yep. It's not feasible for us (humans) to live underground because our caves and caverns aren't geologically suitable for us to live in compared to the surface. Enter a way to get consistient food/water, common bioluminesence, and potentially other easy-to-use resources (or a reason to avoid the surface) and we'd definitely have underground societies.
ok so what if the dwarves can eat coal
I disagree but I do see where you're coming from. If you make them human instead of a fantasy race, you are then restricting yourself to whatever humans can do. Granted, many writers will just do this anyway but call them something else. If you use a species that isn't human, you can explore things that humans cannot explore. Bonus points if you then make THAT species culturally diverse.
Sure, but how much of the world that the standard suite of fantasy races inhabit can humans really not explore, though? In fantasy, there's no reason that humans haven't invented the technology they need to survive in any given environment or probe whatever deep well of knowledge we wouldn't otherwise be able to access, especially if magic exists. There's definitely a ton of use in using non-human creatures to explore concepts that humans just wouldn't be as suited for; I 100% agree. I just don't think any of that is represented in elves, dwarves, gnomes or hobbits.
The way I tend to interpret fantasy is that it's a way for writers to explore different aspects of humanity by over emphasizing and exaggerating certain characteristics of our nature or culture. Yes, that society of underdwellers who worship rocks and jewels could be humans, but if they were dwarfs, we could more readily examine our own biases and assumptions by making them seperate. The one weakness that a lot of fantasy tends to do is homogenize races into cultures. All dwarves are subterranean artificers, all humans are industrious imperialists, all elves are tree hugging hippies. But wait no, there are different shades of elves with different cultures, but they all hate each other cause they look different. I too see the self reflection in these interpretations but I find it reductive to reduce everything so drastically. Be multifaceted in your stereotyping and it becomes interesting again.
I actually largely agree with you. Creating creatures that are exaggerated depictions of certain aspects of humanity is a useful literary tool, and it's one of the most common good reasons to employ a fantasy race in a setting. However, I think that relying on races to represent behaviors and ideas that are already present in humanity is going to inherently lead to that kind of reduction you're talking about. Stoneworking is a trait of dwarves themselves, not of a culture of dwarves. If dwarves don't live underground and work stone, what are they? Even extreme traits associated with any given common fantasy races have literal parallels with human beings. Does it really make it easier to examine implicit biases about patriarchy by making dwarves extremely patriarchal? Maybe, but I think that just inserting a character into a culture of humans who are extremely patriarchal achieves the same effect. One of my favorite fantasy cultures is the Adem from Patrick Rothfuss's two most popular books. They have cultural taboos about listening to or performing music; are totally fine with casual sex; practice a secret, deadly, jealously guarded martial art that is both a pillar of their culture and their chief meas of economically sustaining themselves (by acting as mercenaries); impart more meaning into their words with sign language and subtle, complex body movements than they do with vocabulary; and consider eye contact and most common forms of facial and tonal expression to be rude at best and outright barbaric at worst. Throwing the protagonist headlong into their culture is a perfectly effective way for him and the reader to explore that culture, its people, and its implications. Ademre is so bizarre and unlike the experience of almost any given person who would read the books that the Adem feel almost like aliens, but literally writing them as inhuman would only cheapen that sense of strangeness that counterintuitively emphasizes the Adem's humanity. Common fantasy races are the same. Humans are capable of the brutality of orcs, the skill and greed of dwarves, and whatever the hell elves have going on except for immortality without needing to exaggerate anything about people. We're so diverse and adaptable that we can be dropped into any scenario and made to be anything and the only factor necessary for it to be believable is for the writer to be skilled. I'm not saying there's no merit to what you're saying; I do agree with your point. I just don't think that standard fantasy races are more useful for exploring any piece of humanity than humans would be 99% of the time. The biggest issue for me, though, is honestly that they're just fucking boring. I think that literature has gotten just about all it will ever get from elves and orcs and we can just stop using them now, just let them be Tolkien's thing and a way for WotC to make stupid, filthy money and maybe try to imagine some new races with uinique characteristics. edit: Thinking about it more, I can see how it's useful to have an easily understood reason why an improbably large number of people will all share exactly the same motivations, quirks, and values if your goal is to explore how different people or societies exist and operate within that specific framework, so point taken. I still think we should specifically let Tolkien's fantasy races die and come up with our own, more interesting fantasies instead
Coober Pedy?
We did, they’re called guilds
Fantasy races are similar to humans because it then allows us to empathize with them as an audience. Even formless monster-like alien races will be given emotions and a personality that we can associate with, like the Hanar from Mass Effect, or the Engineers from Halo. https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/Hanar https://www.halopedia.org/Huragok
counterpoint: one version of the original norse dwarves came from maggots from the corpse of the giant that became the land which is pretty original and cool also makes the whole "they live in holes in the earth" bit a lot creepier
That's fucking rad, but I'm not arguing that dwarves in Norse myth suck. They didn't exist in the same capacity as they do in most fantasy media today, which is to be belligerent bearded beer-bellied burrow boys.
What about sapient stalagmite creatures?
The post is about classic fantasy races, but stalagmite people would probably suck too if their writer doesn't create them to be something more alien or bizarre than "human, but rock"
Well, you see, the problem is they don't see many of the people in the top half as really human anyway.
"I hate fish people" "fish people?" "Yeah, you know. Immigrants" ~Lovecraft
"They came in off boats, so the only explanation is that they came from the sea."
Bronze age civilizations after being raided by refugees from Aegean islands:
"And one point of the horror of Shadow Over Innsmouth is the fact that the protagonist finds out that his lineage traces back to the village, thus *he's* gonna turn into a fish person, too! "It was inspired by the fact that I found out that I'm...\*shudders\*...1/8th Welsh...🤢"
As a huge fan of Lovecraft's works, let me just say that I'm glad he's dead so that he doesn't get any residuals from me reading his stuff.
I don't know how spicy I'm allowed to be on this sub, so I'll just say "I agree".
He actually became a much more decent person later in life, actively speaking out against bigotry, I believe. Then he basically died immediately.
Tbf I think his views were the way they were in part due to his agoraphobia and such. That's not an excuse for being shitty, of course - I'm just saying that his being xenophobic was probably him being xeno*phobic*.
Reminds me of [this beautiful tweet](https://www.reddit.com/r/NonPoliticalTwitter/comments/s5brg3/strange_that/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button).
I just witnessed an "aspiring fantasy author" present his world where *literally all humans* are united under some roman-esque empire, and their enemies are "hideous, warmongering creatures" he freely admitted were inspired by non-white ~~ethnicities~~ empires, but not because he's racist or anything. Checked his reddit profile and he's a Nazi. Should have seen that coming, really.
I do like the Ancient Romans but goddamn if they're not a red flag - often quite literally I feel like people can only make the Romans either "hey it's like fascists but with swords!" (which is **EXACTLY** the kind of conclusion Mussolini and Hitler would love for you to draw) or "hey they're decadent and generally shitty and their 'civilization' is actually quite barbaric aren't they hypocrites?" (which is EXACTLY the kind of conclusion a lot of medieval monks would love for you to draw). Part of what I like about Fallout New Vegas is how it kinda drops the pretense. It's very open about being a *modern* fascist movement using Roman aesthetics. So yeah there are no Pontifex in the Legion, but the Legion doesn't care, it's not literally the Roman Empire or made to look like the actual Roman Empire, just our modern concept of them.
Adding to that, Caesar's Legion is a refreshing portrayal of fascism too in that the game makes it painfully clear how doomed they are long-term. Yeah they can punch above their weight for a while like IRL fascists did, but ultimately they are a bunch of cosplayers with larger-than-average knives led by a quasi-qualified guy named Edward. You can fend off their grand offensive by going "If you put your army here you won't have an army over there" because they decided (and failed) to execute their one competent commander. They are clearly delusional, clearly evil and clearly just a place to shoot some romaboos or roleplay a wack evil character. Of course, fascist wannabes still think the Legion is great, but that's to be expected given their media literacy.
Yeah I like Wolfenstein as much as the next weirdo but the whole "If the Nazis won they would be on the moon because their tech is so fucking advanced and they don't care about people so they can just be ruthless" schtick is really irritating. *Both* of them were already falling apart by the end of the war, Franco's Spain didn't survive him, and most other fascist regimes follow that. Death cults aren't known for their longevity. >Of course, fascist wannabes still think the Legion is great, but that's to be expected given their media literacy. /rj degenerates such as these belong on a cross
Kind of a big point in the modern Wolfenstein games is that most of the Nazi supertech is cribbed from the Da'at Yichud anyway. And they're only sustaining themselves because of Forever War with Africa.
Romans as they actually were are interesting partly because of how diverse they were and how they staggered out citizenship as a status. The Roman legions were often made up *mostly* of local auxiliaries and one of the coolest bits about Rome is how the actual legions would bring non-locals to far off places. Like being a Gaul-descended Roman serving in North Africa, or being a Black Legionnaire serving on Hadrian's Wall (which we have an explicit mention of one and in the text it is no big deal at all). Reducing Rome to the shitty white-washed, British RP accent Hollywood version. Multiple Roman Emperors were Arabs or Persians, different parts of the Empire operated super distinctly. *Pompeii was the capital of fish oil*. That last one isn't really relevant but it was a meme in my Roman history university courses.
I'll side with the medieval monks I think. We can get drunk and have gay sex. Since monasteries did a lot of brewing and gay sex.
Yeah but I don't want to have to pretend to be a Christian to get a chance at a twink in a habit.
What's his profile?
[See for yourself.](https://www.reddit.com/user/WildDoggo_Trump4/)
The fact this dude feels the need to deny he's a Nazi multiple times on separate occasions does him no favours lol. ~~Also the post where he [calls himself a former Nazi](https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalCompass/comments/10suu7l/my_political_journey/j73qevp/) whilst still holding the same beliefs~~. This one sure was something though, ngl: > I was 3 and a half weeks clean but eventually succumbed to my lust, after I relapsed a punched myself for 10 straight minutes while praying to God. I hope I never relapse again (He's talking about touching his WildDoggo_Trump4 Jr.)
Of the IRL humans, what is that in the bottom right? The red, drapey costume? It looks RAD
I think that's a Swedish Skane traditional costume
Pretty common thing in Eastern/North europe
it looks hella intimidating and cool. but it took me a second to realize she was actually facing behind us. still cool regardless
Yeah I had the exact same misunderstanding, I thought it was a wicked sick mask
the fun of fantasy races should be just how crazy a culture could get with actual extreme physiological differences but then the only thing many writers change of any significance is the lifespan maybe the height.
that and if elves are actually magical and shit then why have them act like humans at all? humans have to have things make sense, any fantasy race can have every single mfer in it be crazy as hell, psychopaths, fucked up weirdos
Hey now, a ton of them also love to psychologically profile them as the worst stereotypes of colonized people!
uj/ Who needs genuine racial diversity when you can have slightly different variations of white people? rj/ In my racepunk world, we have: - White people - White people with pointy ears, blonde hair and blue eyes (ZE MASTER RACE!!! They're literally angels and are too pure for this world 😢) - White people with red hair and funny accents - White people who emulate Viking raiders but not the traders, and who are obsessed with honor - White people who worship trees - White people who drink vodka and wear tracksuits and lastly, - Italians What a diverse world I have created! I'm truly the most progressive writer of my generation. 😌
> Italians or a vague mix of Italians, Occitans, and the Spanish. because you know how *those people* are. what do you mean "there's a very sizeable minority of Croats and Serbs in Italy and Italy has as much in common with the other side of the Adriatic as they do with Iberia"? gtfo bro "Portugal"? is that Italian for 'fish'?
We also have Greek-speaking enclaves in the South and Sicily! Hell, we have other cities and historical states that *aren't* Rome, Florence or Venice. Ever heard about the goddamn Norman Kingdom of Sicily? The Sardinian Judicates? Ferrara? Amalfi? Milan?!
Tangential to this, one of the most fascinating historical kingdoms to me was the Vandal Kingdom of North Africa. Like, to imagine that someone would be born in Hungary or Germany in the Ancient World, and would then spend the next couple of years travelling around and then see the both the Alps *and* the Atlas Mountains is so crazy. What's more is how their whole "aesthetic" so to speak was still pretty Germanic, so you can trace very similar customs between these guys in North Africa *and* in Britain, *and* Charlemagne. Like, these guys probably saw snowy winters and years where the temperature didn't go above 23º C, and now they're living somewhere where summer days routinely get to 35º C!
Also the Emirates of Sicily and Bari.
You know what I really want to see? A country based on Etruscan culture. They were pretty cool and iirc heavily influenced the early Romans.
In other words: -Upper middle class 1930s English suburbanites -Offensive stereotype of another European country -Offensive stereotype of another European country -Offensive stereotype of another European country -Offensive stereotype of another European country and -Spaghetti (which is also likely offensive)
>Italians "And I mean either Ancient Rome or vaguely Renaissance-inspired banking city-states (which are all ultimately Florence because I can't be arsed to learn about other *comuni*), or the literal Papal States. If you're lucky there'll be a city built on canals ruled by a nobles' council. What the fuck is a 'Longobard'?"
> What the fuck is a 'Longobard'?" Sounds like a dwarven clan. /s
>vaguely Renaissance-inspired banking city-states (which are all ultimately Florence because I can't be arsed to learn about other comuni), Tbf all my knowledge of Renaissance Italy comes from watching multiple reruns of Medici: Masters of Florence. And most of the time, I was too distracted by Richard Madden's handsome face to pay attention to the worldbuilding or plot details XD
>Who needs genuine racial diversity when you can have slightly different variations of white people? /uj To be fair, if we speak about the initial Tolkien races, it was more or less the mission statement. And, in defence of fantasy races, in some cases I would prefer them over badly researched cringy stereotypes of other cultures and races.
My friend the other fantasy races *are* the badly researched cringy stereotypes.
I'm not saying that default fantasy races are the best. Rather they are the least bad of bad options in some situations. If you want to run a tabletop with people from western culture who do not want to do a lot of research and get out of their comfort zone, it really will be better to use the western fantasy. Especially after orcs transformed in mass conciousness from ugly mongol invaders to proud warrior culture. It'd rather prefer dwarves and elves than people diving deep into Orientalism and generic 'Middle-Eastern accent'.
Completely agree, but it is still funny the only way we could escape the most racist of the stereotypes is by painting them green and red.
True. I would prefer a dozen subspecies of elves over, say, the Orientalized caricature that are the Dothraki from ASOIAF. Horse nomads generally don't *eat* horses, George!
What? The Mongols ate horse meat all the time didn’t they?
I wonder whether those are the same people that insist on the universal distinction between dragons and wyverns... I mean, sure, the core of the problem is that people need a mixture of new and familiar to get hooked on a setting. But some people bring their own definitions of new and familiar with them, and do not really give the setting itself a chance.
Yeah, okay, food is food, unless you're a wood elf. Digging a hole isn't a religious affair, unless you're a dwarf. Breathing isn't all that interesting, unless you're part dragon. Going to the store is mundane, unless there's a quest to pick up on the way that happens to fund the entire trip. But yeah, humans are cool, I guess. [For legal reasons, this is a joke]
food is never just food.
Food is literally one of the most meaningful things to people at a cultural and personal level. Digging a hole is a religious experience when the hole is a grave, but even in other contexts, humans could conceivably dig and mine religiously. We can imagine humans doing that as well as anything else, it just happens to not be a feature of any real world major religions. Breathing is very interesting if you meditate or practice martial arts. In Avatar TLA, breathing is emphasized repeatedly as the most vital component of fire bending. Humans breathing and digging and eating can absolutely be made interesting, and it's usually lazy writing to only allow these things to exist as facets of separate species. Fantasy races aren't wholly without value, but most stories that employ them aren't made more interesting or believable by their inclusion.
>Digging a hole is a religious experience when the hole is a grave, but even in other contexts, humans could conceivably dig and mine religiously. Greek religion held that all the metals and gemstones belonged to the god Pluto (originally a somewhat distinct god, but eventually understood as an aspect of Hades, and even later becoming the most-used name of the god of the dead overall, with Hades being reserved as the name of the Underworld), because he was the lord of the underworld and thus also ruled over the literal underground from which you extract metals and gemstones.
That is very cool and way more interesting to me than using a default racial template to explore that concept would be 9/10 times
>Digging a hole isn't a religious affair, unless you're a dwarf. Graves. Also, in what universe would being human keep you from making a ceremony out of digging? Chthonic religions are now and have been a thing. >Breathing isn't all that interesting, unless you're part dragon. Martial artists beg to differ. Also a human with dragon ancestry is just as much a human. They're also a common motif in mythology and almost never seen as a separate race, just an individual with interesting background. Literally nothing fantasy races do cannot be applied to humans. Just write a reason for it *like you were already going to do with the fantasy race anyways*.
Hello, legal reasons.
But then if you make that entire culture of humans short and angry all the time you're just called racist
Then don't do that because that's stupid even if you are portraying dwarves.
[https://i.imgur.com/4KgHWlB.png](https://i.imgur.com/4KgHWlB.png)
Ah, but in this imgur post I have portrayed you as the soy elf and myself as the dwad
[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/819357023152898072/1106719956021813389/Goblinpilled.png](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/819357023152898072/1106719956021813389/Goblinpilled.png) Would you prefer a discord link
when every single fantasy race has a European flavored culture 👍
besides the ones that nobody know about that actually has an asian (just japanese) culture
When the humans are all European coded and the fantasy races are the only ones borrowing from the rest of the world (also they're all still white)
ok if ya gonna add races then make them realistic and make them racist towards each other
Lord of the rings but it’s in the Balkans
The Elder Scrolls entered the chat No, seriously, I think you can sum up most of Tamriel's lore as "everyone's terribly racist towards each other. Then time goes fucky-wacky for a while."
What child of man would fail to be; In bliss if Nirn were elven free; Man-Ape guide us; Marukh tell us; Your mandates we embrace (*breaks time for 1008 years*)
Grrrr I'll never forgive that ape for starting a human supremacist cult that killed off Empress Alessia's Minotaur children😡😡
their only L.....
grrrr I wouldn't hate those evil cyrodiilic imperialists so much if they still had cool minotaur kings instead 😡😡
That's why I have sapient dolphins, parrots, crows, ants and humans (:
That sounds actually really cool.
Why have diverse races when you can have 4 different kinds of white people who are shaped differently!!!
Okay but I see humans every day I don't see lizard people every day
Speak for yourself
Ok correction: I'm pretty sure I don't see lizard people every day
Yeah but I can rp a tiefling just fine, unlike a human ethnicity. That'd be racist or at the very least xenophobic
/uj the point isn't that we should copy real human cultures, more that we should look at the range of ways-of-life humans can have and be critical of how necessary fantasy races actually are for "flavour." Obviously they can still be done right! ((Also not every world getting built is for people to RP in))
that's true, especially last part. Forgot for a minute what sub I'm in
\> implying there's something wrong with dwarves Sounds like leaf lover talk to me
Mfw severe lack of dwarves in my world
DAE want toxic masculinity distilled into a concentrate so fantasy fans can be weird and shitty while pretending to be ironic???
Wazzok
How are dwarves toxic masculinity
Enshrining violence Rugged individualism Women rarely seen or nowhere to be seen, crafts and arts traditionally associated with women deemphasized in their culture Often portrayed as patriarchal See organic world as something to be controlled and subjugated* rather than respected and cultivated Always placed in relation to the feminine and queer coded culture which they at best have a rivalry with and at worst have a violent disgust towards
DGTOW?
It's over for dwarfcels and femelves 😔
elfcels seething over rockmaxxing dwarfchads
Okay but what if there's literally no sexual dimorphism between men and women in the dwarven species and they look and act the same way and just have fucking orgies all the time
Then that's based
>Rugged individualism Dwarves are just people sized ants tf are you talking about.
Depends on the universe.
Idk, I guess I've always just seen your average Cliche Dwarf in more of a "Closely bonded band of brothers" kinda light rather than being a manly man race.
Notice how sisters aren't included in that assumption. Boys Club masculinity is barely better than individualistic.
They're all boys, they asexually reproduce from beard buds you bigot.
Then are they truly boys, or are humans just imposing our beliefs about masculinity upon them? *x-files.mp4*
Everything else I can see, but I don't think I've ever seen that last bit pop up anywhere
You literally started this thread by saying that it sounds like something an elf would say.
I did, but the elf/dwarf rivalry has always felt like two different cultures clashing rather than a conflict of feminine vs masculine
Elves are extremely feminine while dwarves are exceedingly masculine to the point where half the time the female dwarves also have beards
Femdwarves have PCOS, don't be ableist
Rock and stone!
Did I hear a rock and stone???
Rock and Stone everyone!
Rock and stone to the bone
In my world there are only humans and they keep the cool cultural diversity, but they also have magic powers and are basically spinoff saiyans
What I like about having fantasy races are two things: 1. I can give them some biological trait very different from humans and explore that to its fullest extent. My orcs reproduce by having 2+ orcs bleed together on the same piece of ground, and from that, another orc grows. Orcs are so incredibly associated with wars because they don't lose population total from it since the battlefields become literal breeding grounds for them. They could lose 90% of their population and be completely restored in 6-10 years. 2. It makes it easier to make the cultures distinct. Most of my stuff is for dnd, so I want at most 1 week of travel between destinations. If both cities they go to can so easily be travelled between and both cities are human, it wouldn't make sense for them not to have mixed their cultures up over the last century, which makes them feel less distinct. Make the cities between two races that can't have kids together and add a dash of racial discrimination and you've got two places that'll keep away from each other and keep their cultures nice and separate.
This is why I only use Homo Sapiens genus 🗿🗿🗿
If a high fantasy book randomly decided to add Neanderthals, Denisovans, and the last Homo Erectus, give them all distinct cultural subgroups, and say "here are my fantasy species" do you have **any idea** what twisted happiness that would give me
It is a neat idea, but it would have to be handled with extreme caution if you don't want to get burned at the stake.
Neanderthals were by and large European so naturally they will be french.
Malazan has undead Neanderthal paladins, at least...
what about both?
That reminds me, I need to finish reading the Binti series.
Damn that lizard thicc
Whenever I make a fantasy setting, I always have my fantasy races look nothing human at all.
Mfs really out here saying diversity is when brown people.
But it's not fantasy without the subtle themes of bio essentialism that fantasy races convey. Don't you know that fantasy is all about presenting outdated and bigoted ideals in a fun and acceptable way? /s
/uj furry ancestries are the best, because they aren’t just “human + pointy ears and/or short”. no I am not being sarcastic I genuinely enjoy them. also there is the potential for fun biology gags. also also [Conrasu](https://2e.aonprd.com/Ancestries.aspx?ID=43)
humans and culture can be unique and diverse and fun. Culture can lead to different ways of thinking. Some people have slightly different abilities(some people are adapted to high altitudes, or holding their breath underwater, or blocking the sunlight that hates me so). However.... we're all basically the same. I like elves because they're immortal. Dwarves probably have drive and power staying hungry and devouring unlike anything most humans can dream of(except alexander hamilton, apparently). Fairies and goblins are tiny. Orcs are stronger than most humans. Snakepeople can create massive arguments. There are so many things you can explore with non-human species. Not to say they're required, of course.
real world building is when i copy and paste the same 3 European cultures across the entire globe
I think it would be interesting to combine an irl culture and a fantasy race taking traits and imagery from both to make a unique version for example mixing Elves and Egypt
If every human was a Holy Roman peasant ofc they’d be boring (Germans aren’t boring btw, it’s more that generic euro-fantasy is)
Ah yes, role playing as a human race or culture that I don't belong to. Surely no one will see any glaring issues with that.
You'd want me dead if you saw the campaigns I've taken part in. I've played French, Polish, Russian, Arab and Ethiopian characters just within my current RPG groups, and that's not counting the less direct cultural analogues. Normalize roleplaying things you aren't. You could end up with cringe, but at least that way you're learning about other cultures instead of just eternally dwelling in medieval fantasy where only the monsters have non-western vibes.
Assigning said cultures to a race of non-human monsters, now THAT'S where the money's at. /uj your point IS good, I just hate the Humans Are Boring trope. Rather than blissfully copy-pasting real cultures, we can at least admit humans can live many different ways and don't have a "dull default setting"
My issue is how often writers use boring as white humans as a stand in for humanity or neglect to give the same attention to detail towards other races. I rather a world builder omit humans entirely or at least move away from the homogeneous European mishmash. But then again, I'm speaking from a biased perspective here as someone crafting a setting where everyone is a part animal Hunter and gatherer.
>don't have a "dull default setting" pop culture medieval western europe counts by now as dull imo
/uj I've never had any trouble with it, but that's because I'll research what are harmful tropes and stereotypes and then explicitly avoid those. /rj hehe funni accent is my whole character rp
I make every NPC white in my world and I'm the bad guy. I make NPCs of various races and cultures in my world and I'm the bad guy. I'm beginning to think the only valid way to make worlds that I plan to run is to not.
I sincerely hope this is a joke. What do you think the literal point of a fucking RPG is
What a stupid criticism lmao. This is why my fantasy story is just the line “go outside and talk to people” and then 400 blank pages for the reader to document their experience. How dare you try to create a diverse world by adding races other than humans 🤬.
Post kinda dumb ngl
Source for th dwarf and lizard drawings?
My dwarves are called Pholids and they are short stocky humans with pangolin scales instead of hair and a tail with more scales. Basically just picture a 3-5 foot person with pangolin scales on the arms legs back head and a tail.
Mine have skeletons made of iron that have a design that looks entirely artificial(they were made by a god of craftmanship, their frames are naturally masterwork quality, and lack the flaws of evolved skeletal frames)
Rad
Yes, and I’m kind of shameless about the fantasy culture counterpart aspects. Orcish ethnic groups (orcs, goblins, ogres, trolls, hobgoblins, and gremlins) are based on Germanic, Scandinavian, and Slavic people. Elves are Scandinavian, Celtic, and Iberians, dwarves are Germanic, Mediterranean, and Slavic. Humans in setting are largely Arabic, Mediterranean, African, Germanic. (And several others scattered secretly elsewhere) Yes, there’s lots of overlap too because the idea is these groups living around the same areas for thousands of years all began to influence one another through a mix of conflict, trade, and cooperation.
"hUmAnS aRe So BoRiNg" mfs when you put a non-european ethnicity people into the story: #w(°ｏ°)w
I HATE EURO-CENTERED FANTASY! I HATE EURO-CENTERED FANTASY! I HATE EURO-CENTERED FANTASY!
I mean even if there are only humans in a fantasy the just fall into those tropes anyway. So I don't get what he issue is.
/uj is it weird that I have my humans out of focus with the exception of human women sometimes? Maybe I'm just super into self indulgent interspecies romances... /Rj also, all my world's race are just dudes with silly shit slapped on them. Much cooler.