Forums » Art & Creativity » Things You'd Like to See with Fantasy Races

𝔊𝔲𝔱𝔢𝔫 𝔗𝔞𝔤!

I don't make it much of a secret, but some may not know. I'm a writer. As in, aye; I've been paid for my writing and hired to several professional positions due to what I do and know. Getting published has remained something elusive for me, unfortunately.

As you may be able to tell from the title, I prefer fantasy. Be it modernized, classic historical high fantasy, or even futuristic high fantasy--I just can't write without a fine splash of magic.

But, as I am underway in a dedicated project--titled "Antipaladin"--I've found myself curious.

We all know what's done to death with standard fantasy races. Elves live in trees and hate technology. Dwarves dig and drink. Orcs stab things. Lizards live in swamps. But what do you wish people did more often with these races? Personally, I think the elven harmony with nature and abstract refusal of technology is often crippling--and I gave them cool toys to achieve the same things technology might, albeit through a marriage of magic and nature. And dwarves, who are phenomenal engineers, never seem to care about seeing how far their engineering expertise can take them towards world conquest.

Don't even get me started on how every fantasy race seems to be totally homogeneous. All elves are pretty. All dwarves are basically Nordic. I like to think I'm addressing that in my project, but I love getting a look at others' perspectives and ideas. There are some things a mind just cannot do alone.

Natural variation. Just like humans vary widely, so too should other races, unless they are highly localized to one spot for some reason. (And there should be a reason.)

Realistic intermingling with other cultures (unless xenophobia is in play). Maybe in The Big City there is a suburb called ElfTown. How is it different? How does the rest of the city view it? (And by xenophobia I mean to the extreme, where the cultures don't intermingle at all. There can still be varying degrees of racism.)

Elves and dwarves of color. (And other races too.) Fantasy is way too lily white. Dark elves don't count, especially since they're coded as evil.

Just realism in general. If dwarves live underground, why are they renowned for brewing beer, a drink made of hops? Is there a caste of dwarves who live on the surface to grow the hops? Or are the hops purely imported? If so, there's a lot of politics you could get into. Or are only some races of dwarf known for brewing, like hill dwarves? Maybe if you walk up to a cave-dwelling dwarf and ask a million questions about beer, it's considered offensive/distasteful?

Emphasis on females in monstrous races. There are plenty of female humans, elves, halflings, gnomes, etc. But you rarely see female minotaurs, lizardfolk, orcs, ogres, etc. (And to a lesser extent, dwarves.) Basically, non sexualized women.

A friend and I always disliked the dainty depiction of elves. We were much more inclined toward the likes of...



Meanwhile, my personal preferences for dark elves tended more toward...



I never much cared for the insistence of drow-like races having blackened skin, which I felt better befit a race of desert-dwelling elves. However, I am extremely fond of the concepts introduced by The Elder Scrolls series.



Dunmer come off as extremely exotic and exciting, the aesthetic fits what I'd like in a "dark elf" if they weren't going to be your standard under-dweller. Antipaladin will depict a fair few ethnic groups of each race, although I'm taking a departure from the standard by turning goblinoids (orcs, ogres, and goblins) into an amphibious grouping...elves into an avian race (typical dark elves will be replaced with the "grounded")...and I'm making dwarves and humans genetically related.

A modicum of familiarity is important in the genre, as it helps someone ease into a comfortable disposition. "Dwarf" will always conjure the same image for a fantasy fan, elsewise you have the issue of the reader scoffing once you begin describing something that is clearly not a dwarf in their personal dictionary. Although what you may do, is begin describing something before calling it a dwarf--allowing the reader to think of it in reverse. I.E.: "the zvergga are the 'dwarves' of Antipaladin" as opposed to "the dwarves of Antipaladin are called zvergga." They'll think "dwarf" whenever I write "zvergga," instead of "angry black midget supposed to be called a zvergga" when I say "dwarf."
Now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever seen racial prejudice in high fantasy. Plenty of interracial prejudice exists, all the time. Elves and dwarves, then both races hate orcs. Seen it, done it, moved on and found a penny on the sidewalk.

But you never see dwarves sneering at those of their kind who chose to live on the surface. Or woodland elves mocking those who live in a city. I don't count the crap about elves vs dark elves, because it's such a cheap trope. "Evil" is never allowed to be a matter of perspective, it's always somehow a magically justified thing.

I would sympathize with the orcs from Lord of the Rings if their lore didn't outright declare them as elves who were twisted and corrupted by an evil god--there's great nobility to be seen from their perspective. Sauron's followers live in a freezing cold volcanic wasteland and are slaughtered on sight by the "civilized" tyrants of greener lands, and the only way to actually look toward having families or food is to invade the lands of men. They're doomed, otherwise, to constant starvation and suffering in harsh lands they never chose to live in to begin with.
This I agree with immensely. So blasted much.

There is never any kind of look at the politics in fantasy fiction, except between humans. I just think of how amazing it would be if Song of Ice and Fire level intrigue were actually allowed to exist in things like Lord of the Rings. Half the high fantasy stories people publish could just about write themselves, if anyone gave their races a chance to live instead of being accessories to the setting.

Epic stories are fun, but they don't have to be there.

I confess, this is something we're usually guilty of in role play more than anything. In film and writing, it's not a lack of sexualized characters that serves as the problem, so much as...the lack of attention given to those who aren't sexualized. Inevitably, we want something sexy to feature as the focal point of a story. (Look at what they did to the dwarves of The Hobbit. Any of them that got significant story-time had been prettified.) We want as much appeal as possible for our main characters, so we make them gorgeous.

Some concepts I'd like to see explored are the stupidity of enemy races. It's like many times in books and movies, the enemy is stupid and evil. As if being evil is equated with being stupid. Why are orcs and goblins stupid? Do they really have inferior brains, or is it because they live in a society and culture that doesn't encourage much mental exercise?

I would also like to see less battles between one side that is good, and one side that is evil. It's more layered and complicated when both sides have their good and bad aspects.

Females characters that aren't there simply to add sexual interest, characters of color, characters that have a gender bend/blend or are not heterosexual, characters that have some sort of disability, could actually make fantasy literature and settings much more inclusive and draw in more people. It could also add more depth to fantasy writing in general.

More variety among all of the races would also be awesome. I'd like to see some elves that are not prim and proper, and dwarves that are prim and proper. Halflings that are brave, or perhaps gnomes that want to dabble in something that doesn't involve alchemy or gadgets. It seems like we have stereotyped races like these because they are not human, but having different cultures and society of these creatures provides more opportunities for complex stories.

I personally like going a tad out of the typical stereotypes. For example, rather than blood thirsty murder machines that only value pure physical brutality, I think it would interesting to see Orcs that don't immediately slaughter everything in sight. To a degree the same goes with elves, dwarves, etc.

I'd also love to see some more original takes on these races as well. As an example, rather than valuing battle over everything, maybe a culture of orcs who value brewing or engineering or whatever more than fighting. On the physical side of things, regarding original depictions of classical fantasy races, less human versions. For example, I'm working on my own fantasy world, with some help from a friend. In that world, I tried to depict Elves as more like monkeys, and Orcs more like gorillas. I plan for Dwarves once I get around to designing them to be more mole like.

Another thing I'd like to see is completely original races. For example, rather than Elves being a World's nature loving magic users, maybe a race of horse men, or bird men or something like that.

Sorry if this post seems kinda rambly or disconnected. I've had a lot of thoughts like this and had never really pulled them all together and worded them out at once :'D

I like fantasy with new species and races that don't fall into Tolkien-esque tropes. One of the things that makes all of those races so exciting in the first place was that Tolkien nerded out about them a lot. He crafted them up from faerie tales and lore and then made whole languages and cultures from them. He made something new, at the time.

It's nice to see twists on established fantasy tropes, but I much prefer seeing when people put passion and research and creativity into something wonderfully new...

I know that doesn't help much here, given that you have established your setting already, but if you're going to use races that have been taken as 'high fantasy staples' I agree with @Heimdall -- the characters and the cultures you're touching on need to be varied, not a universal same-face force across the whole story. I'm more interested in fantasy-race characters when they have fleshed out lives, and in exploring their living spaces and the places where their cultures mesh in weird, neat, somewhat realistic ways. I'm not interested in blatant racism, sexism or stereotyping stand-ins... but I admit that I'm also the sort of person who likes optimism in fantasy, not the grim sort of death-plod that George RR Martin doles out!

I'm an enormous fan of elves. Not because of Tolkien (which I find to be a very narrow representation of elves) but because of The Elder Scrolls.

In the TES franchise, you have:

• High Elves | Altmer
• Dark Elves | Dunmer
• Wood Elves | Bosmer
• Snow Elves | Falmer
• Deep Elves | Dwemer (also the alleged 'Dwarves' of the franchise)
• Sea Elves | Maormer
• Wild Elves | Ayleid
• Pariah Elves | Orsimer (also the alleged 'Orcs' of the franchise)
• Beast Elves | Betmer

There are probably more...but there is so much diversity in elves, in their biology, their culture, their architecture, in their religion, history, etc. that is not present in classic fantasy.

Where Tolkien falls short with me is: it's the norm for fantasy. It's what's expected, and it's just that! I don't mind having classic species present in fantasy, but at least make them interesting! People have all this potential to write something really different in fantasy contexts, but they tend to lean on old tropes out of...laziness?

I don't know...I might be biased, because I absolutely love worldbuilding (even though it takes forever).

But variety is good!

Civilized centaurs. Wild centaurs and warrior types are boring to me. Why not professional soldier centaurs? Wealthy centaur clans, centaurs with their own countries and government?

(workin on my own story that features centaurs in my world's Age of Sail and late Golden Age of Piracy.)

Civilized non humaniods? How their culture is different from humaniod cultures?

Human and fantasy races pack bonding. Especially if their live in close proximity to each other and operate together as military units or corporations/merchant companies/trade centers. Platonic relationships and cultural exchange.

Heck maybe a story which features different types of sign language for the deaf and mute? POC in positions of authority? Cultural melting pots?

Species relations in dept, why does species A hate species B? Why does species B prefer species C? And so on.

Main characters that are not human or male. Asexual MCs.

I don't know what MC is, but I like this idea and it gave me another idea. Races or animals that reproduce aesexually, or are like mushrooms and have more than two genders.

Also technology. Maybe some limited mechanization, especially with the races that build machines.

Would definitely like to see this as well!

MCs are "main characters."

I've always been extremely disappointed in the lack of those willing to challenge themselves in the combination of science and magic. Think of the potential, there! I've played around with the steampunk upgrades of high fantasy several times, and the thrill of it matched nothing else.

@dray I agree with most of what you say, though I am of the sort to cherish darkness in my stories. Much of my earlier years were spent finding comfort in the hell experienced by characters in fiction--as it helped me realize my own demons and skeletons weren't so nasty. That being said, I abhor GRRM.

I really adore your point of TES, because I love the franchise too. The variety and depth of their cultures is fascinating, and it makes me beg for more.

I think though, as you pointed out as well, that sticking to Tolkien could be sheer laziness, or people tend to fall in love with one particular lore and cling to it like glue. The issue that gets lost with Tolkien every time for me personally though is that, mainly with Lord of the Rings, this trilogy was a way for him to speak out about the Industrial Revolution that was going on at the time, he simply wrote it in the fantasy setting.

The fact that Tolkien became a pillar and a mainstay basis for fantasy lore races such as the ever-popular Elves, Orcs and Dwarves is a fault that cannot be blamed on him, the man was a David Attenborough-esque high fantasy writer before his time.