Forums » RP Discussion » Creating Original Races

Hello all, for those of you that have RPed with me thus far, have seen that I tend to play original character races. An example is my character, Arlo, who is a Hobie. I am working on making some more races and I was wondering if anyone has a template that they like using for this or what they would do for inspiration.

Another point for this forum is I'd like to see some of the fantasy/sci-fi races that you all have came up with. Feel free to post, I'd love to see what you all have to say.

For inspiration I normally look towards races I like and use them for some inspiration. For example, my version of elves took a ton of inspiration from the Navi from Avatar. They have big eyes, cat-like noses, four digits on each hand and foot, and long tails. There are some things I'm planning on changing though.

A lot of times I create races that appeal to me, and I usually lean towards more ugly creatures than pretty. Generally a lot of creatures I make our based on animals, but not all of them My original race, the Scrauser, did start with a pig as the general idea, but then I found ways to alter the design to make it look more fresh by giving them longer noses, big ears and strange hands and feet with two fingers/toes in front and one in back. Sometimes, simply anthropomorphic animals are a bit dull, so sometimes taking an animal and altering them to look more original can help with making original species.

I tend to make characters by combining two I've already known for some time, and add some original things, an example of this is one of my races, which is a mixture of the Jumi from LoM and the Trolls from Homestuck.

The only problem with that is that you have to make sure that you are not just making a dual-breed creature, rather than a new original race. It's a debate on how much it takes to separate a race from a species.

What do you mean to separate a race and a species?

A species is a sub-category of a race, if you just change a couple aspects it may appear to be the same race under a different species.

Oh okay I always use Race and Species interchangeably personally.

Many do, but I believe there is an aspect of value of holding them as different.

I created my Sul race. They're based largely on rabbits. Basically anthros. It started with me going "I want something that can kickbox". So I looked to animals known for jumping. Rabbits were more familiar to me then say, kangaroos.

Then it becomes a series of questions about form and function. What needs to change to make a rabbit walk up right? Why do they know how to kickbox?

Eventually "why" gets me a six foot race of bipedal rabbits, their technologies, religion, and history.

Vissa here is of an original race I created. They are essentially the product of thousands of years of evolution, from a carnivorous plant.
I've been slowly touching up on it recently, as I find there are always more things to improve upon and add more detail to.

My other character, Leon, is of this race too.

Original concepts are always fun, but, in my long experience with this one, it sometimes takes a bit to get others to warm up to it lol. Always a work in progress.

I could go on and on for days about the races I've made
I don't know where I could start in terms of explaining them lol