Multiethnic Races?

My elves range from the archetypical blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryans to dark chocolate depending on what region they're from. Because of their closeness with nature, each elven ethnicity is perfectly adapted to their biome.

My dwarves, on the other hand, are all pale as snow and sunburn like hell. This is because they were born underground and were never really "meant" to be exposed to sunlight. Most dwarves you see on the surface carry around parasols and stick to the shade.

My fantasy races have considerable racial diversity. Elves in particular have a tendency to change themselves to fit their environment over time, whether they know they're doing so or not.
Most other races, all except humans, actually, were either created for or by the elves, or at least changed by them at some point, and often mirror the branch of elfdom which created them. Dwarfs, for example, tend to take after rocks. There are marble-coloured dwarfs, obsidian dwarves, sandstone dwarves, and so on.

Humans are refugees from another planet and, since each nation on that world tried to escape to a different planet, diversity is significantly less prevalent among humans.

>Dwarfs, for example, tend to take after rocks. There are marble-coloured dwarfs, obsidian dwarves, sandstone dwarves, and so on.

Ooh, I like that.

You're right. I've also considered ridiculously pale, blind dwarves. But that's a bit too edgy, right? Besides, we're counting on dwarfs that live in complex underground settings.

It's not like you can find mountain ranges in savannas and the like, what would dwarfs do in such a setting?

I'm basically 100% with you there. It's my approach to the topic and the way I handle multiple ethnicities among fantasy races. But I was curious about the way other people did it!

Fuck, I love the rocks idea, man. I'm stealing it.

In my setting dwarves only really come in one ethnicity, due to being a relatively small and tightly knit group. They have holds along the lenght of a mountain range than runs north to south through most of the continent, but they're all the same group of dwarves, who've just spread and colonized the area. There's some regional variation in appearance and style of dress because of the local climate, but not enough to call them a different ethnicity or even different culture.

Elves, on the other hand, vary a lot more. They're mostly "wood elf" style tribal people, and different tribes in different places can differ heavily in appearance. Desert-dwelling elves have dark skin and large ears with lots of bloodvessels to help them cool themselves, while arctic elves are larger and have more bodyfat to keep themselves warm in cold climate. And then there's dark elves who are a distinct offshoot culturally and physically, although in their case the physical differences are due to near-constant exposure to what amounts to magical radiation.
Elves in general are supposed to be very adaptable in the setting, though. You stick a bunch of elves into a new climate and in a few generations they've adapted to it. Given enough time and specialized environment, you'd get completely a difference species: merfolk for example are descended from coastal-dwelling elves that over time adapted into first a semi-aquatic and eventually a fully aquatic lifestyle (and have since then specialized further, from tropical to arctic to creepy deep sea variants).

I do think that it makes a lot of sense if the races, like humans, don't all live in the same general sort of area. I'd expect an insular race that has its entire population concentrated in a specific part of the world to be ethnically homogeneous, but if there's elves that live in the arctic, elves that live in the jungle, and elves that live in the desert, ethnic diversity among those elves would make sense to me.

>I rarely if ever see anyone approaching that topic

New to the board, man? Here, we approach the topic every fucking day.

Also, I don't think I've ever played in a game that just used the cliche races and cultures.

I've never seen this topic approached on a more "serious" way instead of "BROWN ELF BEST ELF" and weird racism.

But I've liked the explanations and ideas so far, I might be stealing some for my own games. I really loved 's idea of desert elves. It sure goes beyond simply saying "Yeah, desert elves are black, arctic elves are fat, fin"

I've some questions. What would you say about asian elves? Setting-wise or on a cultural level?

Also, we've been focusing too much on dwarfs and elves, do you have any other races that could be expanded in this way?

>Here, we approach the topic every fucking day.
>not /pol/ or tumblr bait
not really, we usually do the exact opposite

Down south in the jungles, my elves are brown and speak Spanish; my players and I are in Texas, so all the people playing elves speak Spanish. The northern elves of Alfheimr speak Portuguese and are pale 'High Elves'. Dwarven variation is small. Theyve got the Tinker Dwarves, who are descended from the only gnome in the world and the standard dwarves.

Humans come in every flavor.

>Spanish is a ethnic Amerindian language

I'm sure he meant South-American elves? Sounds cool for me, are they like not-mayan elves or ?

>The northern elves of Alfheimr speak Portuguese and are pale 'High Elves'
This is pretty disgusting.

Theyre not-aztec, but noone in my group spoke Nahuatl. That, and I wanted to tie the elven languages to Esperanto… which the Fae speak.

The Tinker Dwarves, unlike the pasty beardy normal dwarves, have a sallow skin tone and whispy beards that they often shave off, or into Fu Manchu style moustache and goattee.

Thats the point! Theyre AWFUL. Hoity toity bitch elves that dont worship the Savage Gods of the elven pantheon anymore.

I think you're a self interested sodomite.

YOU CUUUNT!

>But that's a bit too edgy, right?

If it makes more sense to have dwarves as something other than short and bearding men, I don't see why it would be a bad thing to change their physical features.

How would they evolve into Asians? I can figure out black and white but made Asians into Asians?

Rice?

Considering most games are in fantasy Europe, most characters being white is a non-issue. If a player wants to play someone with a different ethnicity thats fine so long as they can get some decent fluff behind it.

Son of a trader who wanted to go on adventure, a traveler from a distant land with their own little quest arc, a disgraced part of an ambassador's retinue who wants to regain their honour... i dunno something good.

You're starting under the assumption that white is the default? Maybe they just evolved into having the facial features we recognize as asian the same ways human did ? A mix of environment, adaptation and genetics.

And people with those specific traits reproducing more than the rest because of cultural standards of beauty.

I like to include a lot of diversity in terms of ethnicities but I never include black looking characters since IMO they're facial features are ugly.

>most games are in fantasy Europe, most characters being white is a non-issue

Is such a lazy excuse. European countries / races were far from as secluded as most people seem to believe they were. The same goes for the entire African continent. It's really ridiculous to believe that two decently-sized continents didn't have contact with each other at all except for hand-picked examples!

Hell we even have art of black knights. And I remember I once saw one of an asian knight too? Which was a bit rarer, all things considered!

Maybe elves and dwarves are exactly the kind of races that wouldn't show great environmental adaptation, because they usually are so traditionalistic and conservative.

>carry around parasols
>walk down the road
>see a parasol being twirled around
>short, probably a young lady
>go to escort the young lady
>"Would you like an escort my la-"
>see the parasol doubles as a hammer
>see she is ripped as fuck
>see she has a beard
>that's a man.jpg
>"Oi ye shi' u fokkin wot"
>back away slowly
Fucking dwarves

Why do they have to be multi-ethnic?
Why are you using established races?
If yo have already all ethnicities represented in humans why do they also need to be represented in mythical creatures?
What next, black leprechauns? Mexican Rusalkas?
Its really hard not see this as /pol/ or /tumblr/-bait when the reasoning for this thread is so poor in the first place.

Depending on the setting there are a myriad of elven races with some already having different skin colour/looks.

If you want to make a chinese-looking race aztecs dwarfs then just do it, but why would you go out of your way to still call them dwarves?

What you are doing so far is literally only adding diversity for diversities` sake. It serves no purpose what so ever. It does not enrich the setting. You wont get any Social Justice Brownie-Points from anyone in here.

If theyre a part of the world, they are shaped by the world. That implies adaptation to said world, which is shown by physical and cultural changes befitting the area theyre in.

But why still call them Elves?

You have just made them so human already they might differently coloured pointy-eared humans at this point.
How are they different from humans anyway?

Pushing ethnicities onto elves and dwarfs and other fantasy-species is literally missing the point of those fantasy-species being there in the first place.

That said, magical or fey beings are not required to adapt to the world as theyre 'otherworldly'

>If they're a part of the world, they are shaped by the world. That implies adaptation to said world, which is shown by physical and cultural changes befitting the area theyre in.

Sure. If you treat them like humans. But they are not supposed to be just another flavour of humans, are they?

There can be many reasons to still call them elves.

They might call themselves 'elf', they might be called that after myths humans have, they might have a connection with the feywilds... we can go on if need be.

No, not another flavor of human, a physical being like any other animal. If theyre spirits or some shit, your point stands.

>They might call themselves 'elf',
No see, calling them elves means invoking a certain image of a species. If you go with fantasy it will most probably be the image of Tolkien-esque elves.

> they might be called that after myths humans have
No, now you are just making a reason up for the use of "elf". Why not call them "Herpaderpadurr"? Why are you so obsessed on using the word "elf" for a race that barely has anything to do with elves? Why not Aesir if you just want differently-coloured Übermenschen?

You still have not explained why they have to be elves other than because I WANT TO.

>No, not another flavor of human,

But you have made them just another flavour of human by adding more human characteristics like ethnicities..

I'm not starting out with any default, I had no particular base in mind when I asked the question; If you like we can start with black. What, specifically, turned them from black to Asian over the thousand+ years?

My fantasy races tend to be somewhat monoethnic, but that's because when I'm doing something set in, say, not!Asia, then I want to load it up with no!Asian fantasy races, and not just not!European fantasy races transplanted into not!Asia.

So using not!Asia as the example, I'll have things like half-ogres, spirit folk, babi ngepeti, vanara, koro-pok-guru, and hengeyokai/beastmen in the place of half-orcs, half-elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, and elves, respectively.

Were I making a not!Africa, or not!Americas setting, I'd do the same thing.

I tried to have elves and dwarves have different features from humans that also emphasized their (admittedly stereotypical) aspects.

Elves can have hair that's blond or brown or red, but they also have green (dark or light) and white. Skins range from various browns and reds like tree bark, a shocking white like birch, or even occasional flowery hues like yellow or pink. Eyes vary the most - greens, purples, pale blues, amber, silver. No browns, and some reds (though those get killed off in vampire scares). Culturally I based them heavily off of traditional high and wood elves, and threw in some Native American and Mongol horsemen achetypes.

Dwarves are a bit less human in some ways - their skin can be soft and white like marble, or dark and craggy like onyx. They also have a more 'normal' sandstone color. Their hair is usually metallic - silver, copper, gold, brass. Their eyes don't have as much variety - usually they're flinty, but sometimes they have green like malachite or even multi-hued like an opal.

Black and artic bears. They're the same species, adapted to thier environment. That's putting aside the different varietes of, say, salmon. Environments affect the creatures that live within them. Assuming all elves are snow white, 10 ft tall, etc every fucking where without taking in any influence from their environment is just lazy.

Oh, I forgot to mention the Dwarves are very Roman. If Rome liked really heavy armor and enjoyed beards.

Look like /pol/ woke up.

What a mess.

I already explained you how it worked! I'm a historian and I've looked into the reasons behind the traits specific to asian people and apparently scientists can't quite pinpoint the reason behind them. Closest we got was that their eyes (and small boobs in women) were more commonplace because women with those characteristics were sexually desired the most, so they bred more.

Basically; asians look the way they do because of fetishes according to scientists.

>calling them elves means invoking a certain image of a species

What's next, all elves share a completely homogenous culture?

My elves are celts, my humans are black, my goblins are greek, and my dwarves are japanese.

fite me

All everywhere?

>Hell we even have art of black knights.

That's because one of the Arthurian knights was black dipshit.

Japanese dwarfs you say.

Or are those chinese?

>Black and artic bears. They're the same species, adapted to thier environment.

I dont remind black, arctic or even brown bears having different ethnicities though. So your argument still absolutely falls flat.

Elves seem to honestly fit the Chinese especially as a culture.

Nice quads, but every animal has variation in it from aesthetic top level shit to subspecies level stuff.
Extratextually i call em elves so theyre recognizable to my players. Personally Id rather develop a language for them and have them be called by an exonym developed by mankind. In world, theyre called elves from 'alfr', which is a Durstgartian word for 'other'. Their name literally means 'the others'

EXACTLY THIS.

Elves have a bit of diversity in the form of their high, dark and wood subraces in most games. Usually the rest of the races don't, but Warcraft surprisingly has diversity in almost every race.

Personally I don't have a problem with it or even really care. Every species of animal on the planet has some kind of diversity among its vast populations, including humans, so most likely other races in fantasy should probably also work that way, but I don't care if they don't. Creating an entirely new race and culture of creatures is hard and I can't blame most fantasy and game writers for going the easy route of "this race is basically just a ripoff of an already existing human ethnicity/culture".

>Look like /pol/ woke up.
Where?
>What a mess.
What?
You might want to leave Veeky Forums if you are already offended.

I know, I know. I'm not saying otherwise, I didn't even get into specifics! I merely refer to the fact that some people use the setting being medieval not-Europe as an excuse to exclude other ethnicities; tumblr and other stuff aside, it's completely ridiculous to act like each major ethnic group was separated and secluded from the others.

We've got legends of black knights, Sir Morien. I can't believe if it was legends or legit proof that vikings traded with the chinese? Etc.

>Nice quads, but every animal has variation in it from aesthetic top level shit to subspecies level stuff.

Show me some animals with different ethnicities.

>I dont remind black, arctic or even brown bears having different ethnicities though. So your argument still absolutely falls flat.

So you're saying that Black, Arctic and Brown bears are all completely the same and haven't adapted to their environments at all?

That's all that's being described by the multi-ethnic fantasy races. They adapt to their environments.

Just as a general rule. Most beings in my setting are mixed heritage anyway, so it's more like:

>True Elves are extinct
>"Elves" are Neo-Celtic Revivalists
>Humans are rarely white, except in the tribes/nations where Giant and/or elven blood is common, whereupon they will generally have a comfy dark-tan-to-brown hue except when in their homeland of Not!Africa/Carribbean
>Goblins are whatever culture their rulers are (human or elf), but they used to have an archaic-greek culture prior to the elves dicking them over (it's ok though since humans dicked THEM over afterwards). They are always a greyish hue, however.
>Dwarves are dark-haired, pale motherfuckers from a long way away who work as mercenaries in other people's countries. They have a warrior culture, but replace katanas folded ONE MIRRION TIMES with Fucking Cannons
>Half-elves are borderline humans with trace elven, dwarven, goblin, giant, etc, ancestry, and generally make up 85% of world population, but no ones identifies as half-elf so it doesn't matter

Those look Chinese.

You mean black using green to finally end his grudge with white.

And one of the Arthurian knights was black because the people who wrote it knew what a fucking black person was. Black people had been living there since the days of the Roman empire.

Humans do not excel in any particular environment, for their excellence is their ability to adapt to wherever they find themselves. Because of this powerful adaptability, humans who settle down in particularly extreme areas or abide by social codes eventually branch off from humanity and become their own race. Because of the very specific conditions under which an offshoot humanoid is created, it's very rare to see diversity among them. Yes, dwarves who come to the surface become more tanned than the dwarves who stay below, and a group of a race who join with a group of another may form some mixed race, but beyond that, it is their secular nature that molded them into who they are. As for humanity, it is their outgoing, vigorous nature that prevents evolution from shaping them differently.

>So you're saying that Black, Arctic and Brown bears are all completely the same

No, where did I say that?
I questioned how much sense it makes forcing ethnicities, something that is only seen in humans, on non-humans for the sake of diversity. So once again: Why would you force a human concept on a species that you clearly wanted to NOT MAKE the same as humans?

>and haven't adapted to their environments at all?
Thats not at all what ethnicity means.

>That's all that's being described by the multi-ethnic fantasy races. They adapt to their environments.
You might want to look up what ethnicity actually means in a dictionary.

Norse traders got everywhere, so I would believe it. I would believe it if they found a ship on the moon.

There will always be cases, all of them rare, of exotic foreign soldiers of high social standing in history.

>Black people had been living there since the days of the Roman empire.

In what is now France? No, not really. If you mean the Earth then yes, people knew black people existed.

I can't remember*, not believe. But yes, we did see a lot of different intercultural / interracial deals and contact; so it's why I don't really allow that as an excuse as a DM or player.

Of course, I do agree that they're rare and far. But they exist.

There have been written documents talking about major black settlements in France during the medieval times, actually! I'll post if I can find them. But they're far from being definite or large groups, basically just camps and a couple traders.

One of my players asked if they could play a black Dwarf. I said "Sure." I'm not sure why this is apparently a strange concept.

'Ethnicity' is just the word that's being used to describe the collection of differences among races caused by different environments in this context. It's not being done for diversity, it's being done because some people like more complex worlds than: "All elves are 10ft tall, birch white, proud etc and for a culture all elves worship Y in X way etc."

England. And yes, really. Roman soldiers and/or slaves from Africa lived there, as well as a small population (non-soldier/slave) dating back to at least the 12th century.

Is this some advanced trolling or is this just american education speaking?

Oh god its like I am reading historicPOCs tumblr again where they also claimed that it was Shakespeare`s black maid that wrote all his plays

WE

>That's because one of the Arthurian knights was black

Ah yes, I think I found a historical depiction of him.

> ancienttexts.org/library/celtic/ctexts/morien.html

You get your (you), your direct translation from his legend and his actual historical depiction. Now please stop samefagging.

There was also a Middle Eastern Knight. Palamedes.

>a statistical anomaly means medieval Europe was multicultural

I cant believe this Pic is relevant again. What the fuck, Veeky Forums ?

>Ancient French fanfic about Artus is proof that black people were all over the place in England millennia ago

Are you American per chance?

Personal setting?

Elves - Young elves magically adapt to their environment until they hit adulthood and "lock" into their elven archetype. Look mostly human based on where they hail from i.e. savannah-adapted elves are very dark skinned, tundra-adapted elves are pale, etc. Unusual/unnatural environments results in unusual/unnatural coloration; elves underground become "drow", extra-planar elves have otherwise impossible hair colors, etc.

Dwarves - Universally ruddy and stone-colored, some more grey/black and others red/tan/brown and such, but nothing too out of line with human norms. Note - most dwarves don't live too far from the surface.

Orcs - Basically look like rainbows run through a gray-scale filter; brick red, muddy green, steel-blue, clay orange, sandy yellow, etc. as well as grey, black, white. Skin tones are mostly cultural/familial rather than environmental. Crossbred orcs have marbled skin.

Halfings - All brown and roughly evenly toned, adapted for generally all environments and nomadic lifestyles.

Gnomes - Same as halflings, except sverneblins who are dark grey-brown.

>arguing against points that nobody made

>But that's a bit too edgy, right?
Edgy seems like the wrong term for introducing some variation to what's normally the most homogeneous fantasy race across works.

Hell, I've even played with the idea of having dwarves actually be fungi. They reproduce by cutting off part of their "beard" of mycelium and planting it in the ground, where it grows into a new dwarf.
I even found a way to incorporate the famous dwarven alcoholism; dwarves create their variety of yeast-based brews purely for flavor, and other races who reacted to the alcohol developed the stereotype that the dwarves must be drunkards.

I have a few other ideas I can throw out if this interests anyone.

but if they don't turn your argument into a strawman how are they supposed to win user? how?!

Whoa, a painting of a black guy in European armor! I guess you're right, Europe was always an enlightened, multicultural society with a white minority!

They even had rabbits riding dogs, how did we write that out of history?

...Did you just agree with yourself? Because this is the saddest thing in this thread so far.

Fuck, this is such a great idea. Please post all you got!

I love the elves idea; I've seen that thrown around a bit, that Elves are really easily adaptable to their biomes. It could be nice to see them adapt in like a generation or two to whatever new environment they emigrate to.
Also, as a general advice for this whole thread, simply don't reply to obvious bait!

His point is that non-Europeans were prevalent in Europe because Europeans were aware that they existed which is retarded.

>Thanks for reporting me. I am actually founder of the studio, so not sure it will help.

That's obviously not the point at all. The only people who are saying anything about them being prevalent are dipshits like They existed, a few lived there, so play a dark-skinned elf or whatever if you want, without worrying about being ahistorical.

> I love the elves idea; I've seen that thrown around a bit, that Elves are really easily adaptable to their biomes. It could be nice to see them adapt in like a generation or two to whatever new environment they emigrate to.

That'd be the more sensible option, but they way I typically describe my elves is; if you take a newborn elf and throw it in a pond, it will start breathing water and swimming before it even has a chance to drown. Until they hit adulthood, they are just that adaptable.

Races like this picture crumple my jimmies. Real world culture but elves/dwarves/etc. is lazy and boring. You should be casting such a wide net of inspiration and original ideas that it's impossible to label them not-cultures.

That is brilliant!

+10 horse points.

>ethnicities, something that is only seen in humans
Jesus Christ

To be fair, I feel that way about fantasy settings in general. I don't think it's necessarily bad? I think the cultures we already have are pretty adaptable and interesting, as long as you don't rely too much on not-Xculture and instead focus on taking aesthetic bits and pieces you like , I think it's okay.

here, I actually agree with you and my own homebrew has a somewhat similar approach, but the faulty rhetoric like claiming one painting proves any sort of point about a huge continent really shits me up the wall.