Have you invented any cool races of your own Veeky Forums?

Most original idea I had was a race of golems. Wizards in past ages managed to awaken mountains, but the mountains broke free of their countrol and retained their sentience. They carved some cities, and used the fragments of their carving to create 'children' to defend them, golems about a foot taller than a human at the minimum.

Most interesting pat was their theology - they worshiped their mountains, who they considered fathers, and the stars and moon, seeing them as rocks and crystals in the sky. They devoted themselves strongly to the defense of their fathers, and wouldn't take a foreign campaign unless the stars were favorable.

The core races in my setting are Humans, Elves, Dwarfs, Sprites, Orcs, Goblins, Tailem, Wendigo. I have many non-core races too; Criz’a, Laventi, Merfolk, High Elves, Drathna, Jhirahk, Karratek, Pixies, Vucari, Tsirunians, Kokish'a,Khameison, Gemsouls, Rhumisa, Tennir Centaurs, Minotaurs, Ogres, Sumonte, Bonemen, Lamias, Adr̥śya Hāta, Trolls

Divine Races;
Carisa
Dryads
Sphynxs
Artifex
Celesian
Nymph
Gouwva

Non Core Half Races
Elf-Orcs
Newidyn
Nuenys
Ogre Half-Trolls

Non-Playable Races
Shartakka
Survish

Races yet to be added (in prog.)
Lava people
Shades
harpy

If any names look interesting feel free to ask about them.

Thats interesting actually, whys the time frame?

I've Tinkered with the idea of 40k Mindflayers that are hybrids of contemporary UFO lore and a Cthulhu cult.

I'm interested in the ones that have weird names and that I can't seem to refer from Tolkien.

Do you find having a setting with so many races becomes a problem, either for you or your players? I only ask because I'm putting together a setting with a similar amount, and I was hoping to nip any potential problems in the bud.

No real problems yet, just make sure they're spread out. There's a lot of races in the setting, yes, but only a handful are playable in each region (though there are rare exceptions if somebody really wants to play a certain race that's not included, IF they can explain it). Luckily, I have a big world so there''s room for things to be spread out.

Any weirdly named ones in particular you're interested in? Some of them are fairly standard, just with a different name, for example, criz'a are catfolk, Laventi are elephant people, jhirahk are fire-breathing reptiles, vucari are wolf people who turn into men, kokish'a are fox people (but honourable and militant, not tricksters), sprites and goblins are half-elves and half-orcs, respectively.

Then you get the Gouwva, who are weird gulper-eel people who live in deep underground seas and have shadow-fire magic.

I don't have any "original" races, per say. I mostly take other races and try to do something unique with them.

The one I'm most proud of is my Orcs. I got tired of seeing so many of the typical tropes, so I decided to go in a different direction. I based them loosely on modern-day Canada, with a bit of Norway tossed in for good measure. Basically, think proud warrior race that has since abandoned their warlike nature and adopted a more open, friendly attitude toward outsiders

Several hundred years, minimum.

They're born about the size of a human baby, grow to be halfling (3') sized by the teens, only get to be human sized (6') by 200, and it slows down a little past that. The actual giant sized ones (12'/15') are pretty rare, and are usually pushing into the 800s-900s. The average age is only about 400-500, because they're not immune to disease or accidents.

But I'm still playing around with the idea, becuase I kinda want to explore what having a society where everyone is pretty hugely varied in size actually means. Even food and furniture for people becomes difficult, especially if you want to have some form of standardization. One thing I have thought is that most of them wear loose fitting toga-like clothes, that they constantly expand as they age.

what do you sphinx people look like?

Because I'm a funny asshole.

Wherewolves. A particularly agressive species of wolf that becomes completely undetectable (Invisible, scentless, soundless) to everything else over the course of the full moon.

>Patchwork togas that they expand as they age
>Togas are a symbol of status and wisdom
>Each patch represents a feat or accomplishment they've done in their life
>Literally wearing their life history
>Yearly ceremony where the town gathers and distributes new patches to the people based on merit

I like it.

Like centaurs but with a lions body. Admittedly I've not done much work on them yet, as they only exist in an area I've not done much with (as in the current campaign that area has been turned into a red sandy desert, devoid of life). They're pretty big, and they're born from the desert sand itself. In an area of the desert where something significant has happened, the god of sands commemorates it by having that sand form into a sphynx. They live forever unless killed, and when they are, their bodies become sand once again.

I've toyed around with making a race made entirely of clones that use magitech to a much greater degree than other races because they themselves can't actually use magic.

Based originally on pic related, but they kinda became their own thing after a while with an entire social structure based on an extreme caste system: individuals are cloned to do a specific job. Instead of having a king or emperor, they have a Council of Seven who leads them (somewhat like the High Command mentioned in Metroid Prime, but a little bit more detailed). Also the members of the Council of Seven are the only ones who had upgraded their bodies to be purely mechanical rather than biological. Everyone else is a biological clone from one of three potential batches: Avian (the leaders and generals), Insectoid (the scientists and engineers), or Reptilian (the common footsoldier).

So not entirely original, but I wanted an excuse to put Space Pirates into a fantasy-ish setting. Take the love of unchecked mad science and turn it up to 11, then drape it in a fantasy, magitech garb and you got them pretty much summed up.

Pretty much yeah, except it's more like bands of fabric as they expand it outwards. You can tell how old an elf is by counting their bands, kinda like a tree.

They're the race I have the most time spent on. They live in big tower of Babel/Minas Tirith style cities that also hang into the hollow inner earth like stalagmites, so they can use their stunted dark elf slaves to mine water.

In my setting there is only five natural races, each blessed with one kind of magic, plus one cursed race, besides that there are many variations, hybrids and "aberrations"...The natural races are:

Humans
Beasts
Fair Folk ("Fairies")
Guardians
Spirits
Drakes (Dragon race cursed to become a weak magic-less creature, also known as kobolds)

Well, the only one that is really original (and not even that much) are the Guardians (tribal creatures bound to concepts, power and places, taking forms to better fit it) and the Fair Folk to some extend, a I expand a little on their society and purpose/magic (There are other 7 Courts besides Winter and Summer, and they are a little bit like the guardian except that they represent something on a personal level (Avatar-like), the most common of them are "Elves" (They represent the secular/worldly powers and concepts)

I mostly play science fantasy with subhumans as the core playable race.
Aeir: Very human looking race, except they have large white feathery wings. Very nomadic.
Brutes: 7 foot tall 'brutes' with extremely long arms. They have blue skin from drinking silver water.
Cone Heads: Wimpy and infertile, Cone Heads are degenerate inbreds with a penalty to every stat possible, powerful psychics none the less. Literally retarded.
Goliaths: 9 foot tall humanoids with a frame befitting an elf. Incredibly slender and wiry, Goliaths look more like desolate trees with their tough bark-like skin and long slender fingers. More than one traveler has "done in by trees" written on their grave stone.
Kalec: Cunning and ambitious, the Kalec are albino creatures who see themselves as the inheritors of the surface. The Trogs are completely subservient to the Kalec, acting much like one would imagine a dog. They live alongside the Trogs in their somewhat hidden pre-light bunkers. A handful of Kalec and Trogs are armed with technology far beyond their comprehension found their their dark metal warrens.
Moids/Moidlings: If Cone Heads are retarded, Moids are there stupider cousins and Moidlings are their slightly less retarded cousins. Moids are literal giants and are thus unplayable, but Moidlings are half-giant, bigger and dumber than Ogres.
Ogres: Twice the size of a human, and twice as dumb. Ogres are large fellows with big appetites. No idea of personal space, hygiene, or ownership.
Cont.

Pamaerans: Hairless, very pale generic looking humanoids with dull expressionless faces. Each and every one looks the same because they literally are vat-grown clones of humans created for war. The cloning-vats never turned off due to the now defunct (and quite insane) AI known as Pamaera who fashions itself a god of life and fertility.
Plagueborn: Horribly deformed, ugly, and covered in pustular warts and boils. Unpleasant disease carriers, yet themselves immune to all diseases and toxins. They'll eat a metal car if they had too, nothing ingested will ever hurt them and their stomach acids will just digest it. The unholy hybrid of some strange alien life form and humans that was left behind.
Rubber Men: The most human race there is, almost indistinguishable, if not for the fact they don't have a bone in their body. They are quite literally inhumanly flexible and stretchable.
Trogs: Disgusting, smelly, despised, and cowardly, Trogs are the grey skinned servants of the Kalec. Seemingly subservient to them to a fault. No one likes getting close to them, but Cone Heads, Brutes, Kalec (maybe?), and Plagueborn don't mind them. Highly obsessive and petty.

I've got a weird clusterfuck of races in my setting

Five different types of human
>God blooded germanoslavic northerners
>Islamo-buddhist elemental southerners
>Time displaced vampire Mayans
>Demon-blessed voodoo viking pirates
>magical berserk Dragon cultists

Six sorts of elves
>hideously treacherous theatrical fair folk
>giant primitive wendigo Celts
>antisocial shadowy Bedouin ninjas
>edgy emotion vampire orcs
>Tolkien tier better than you faery slavers

Dwarves, in both gregarious industrious flesh midget and weird ancient golem-ant flavors

Aggressively libertarian demon worshiping Apache P'orcs

Tricky, greedy magical goblins and their giant, WH ork-like lackeys

And some less important races

Aggressively anti-surface deep one merfolk

Sorcerer-Viking bear people

Kung fu angels possessing statues

Ghosts

Time displaced Hispanic lizard men (at war with the Mayans above)

Half-hag tiefling-y witches

Half-boogeyman bethesda supermutants

Demon-possessed ogres

Cannibal lepers

Slightly scaled up Mouseguard mice

There are others. Those are just the ones who've come up enough in campaign for me to need to give a lot of thought ot them

Oh yeah, Brutes are also racial supremacists who think blue skin is a blessing and that everyone should have blue skin like them, so the majority of Brutes kidnap people and bring them back to their settlements to be force fed silver water until their skin turns blue.

...

but does it have a dick

>Time displaced vampire Mayans
[posing intensifies]

I'd imagine most furniture would be hanging things like hammocks or amorphous like bean-bag chairs, things that can support a wide variety of sizes and weights.

Do your elves live in trees? If so, would that make them live in a semi-hierarchy where the shortest (e.g. lightest) live the highest up and the older/larger/heavier ones live lower and lower until you hit ground level where the giants live? I can just see a ton of ideas with this race.

Also, stairs might work something like the giant/human steps in Anor Londo from dark souls or the tier travel system in zootopia, just ideas popping up for me.

After watching Jurassic World I wanted to design a race based around Indominus except with slightly longer arms with more articulated claw/fingers.

Their Lore is they believe they are the Forsaken creations of Dragons meant to rule the world in their Stead while they go and conquer the Heavens and the abode of Gods.

however the Dragons were soon disgusted by their own creations and tried to kill them and failed.

While they do live together they hold a belief in indivudal excellence only tolerate being around each other because no one but each other could be considered their peers.

While they can't write very well they have nearly perfect memory and pass their knowledge in stories making them excellent teachers sought after by even not Indomini

I once had an idea for a race that consisted entirely of clones. There was only one gender that reproduced asexually with only minor variation if any at all between individuals. They would be regular human in every other observable respect, just all the exact same. This had interesting applications for things like aesthetics and taste, things that are usually characterized by individuality in a regular human culture.

They live in weird stacked looking cities. I was imagining different tiers of the city would have largely one age group each, but there would obviously be some mixing. So the Anor Londo thing is a good example. They also have human sized and giant sized elevators iirc.

The bean bag chairs are a good point too, though I was thinking they might just sit on pillows Japanese style. So when you visit someone you bring your seating pillow with you, in case they don't have ones that fit you there.

But bringing a pillow with you everywhere is both inconvenient and might be considered rude. Heck, it might be a point of propriety to have plenty of sizes of seating pieces available for guests. It would be improper for a host to not be fully accommodating.

Good point. The Japanese ones aren't so thick, so you could probably roll them up and carry them.

That's a good point. They are hoighty-toighty high elf types, so adding more layers of complexity to their system of manners is probably a good idea.

I have few, actually. They both take place in a post-apocalyptic sci-fi/fantasy world where an elder god (that's implied to have created life for his own consumption) was summoned through a deranged ritual, and destroyed most of the earth. Those that weren't completely killed during the initial stages of the god's 'invasion' were either transformed into hideous creatures or managed to resist the insanity and survived. The last remaining survivors eventually banded together to defend the planet from complete obliteration, with a handful of heroes being responsible for driving the elder god away and sacrificing themselves.

Centuries later, humans struggle to repopulate a ravaged planet that's been altered in several reality-bending ways, with creatures from different eras and possibly different dimensions co-existing after the elder god's presence sort of damaged our part of the multiverse. The tale of the heroes that drove the god away has become a kind of religion, and humanity survives in a state similar to the dark ages, but with the added benefit of some eldritch and 'modern' technology that was left behind.

The races I've made so far are:

'Ghouls' (placeholder name)

Ghouls are victims of the eldritch attack which destroyed most of civilized society. They've devolved both mentally and physically, acting like animals despite their humanoid appearance (with some primitive reptile/fish-like traits). They're basically meant to substitute 'goblins' in my story and game world, but still have the capacity to recover some of their intelligence. Most of them are still feral, but many can use some primitive tools and clothing like clubs and fur. Even so, the more 'evolved' of the mutated species suffer extreme prejudice from human settlements, and live as scavengers and/or bandits. They still carry some 'influence' of the elder god, which means they have some seemingly supernatural traits, and can sense some forms of eldritch energy.

To be continued...

'Fay'

The Fay were once slaves of the Elder God, acting as a sort of 'digestive system', preparing intelligent life on earth for consumption in a complex harvest system. They possess incredible power that humans regard as supernatural, and are shapeshifters. Though they were servants, some managed to escape his grasp and fled to earth, resulting in rebels that were a crucial part of the war against the god. Once the god was 'defeated' (he was actually just driven away once his meal managed to bite back, slightly), many of the Fay fell to earth, assuming human or human-like forms in order to blend in and enjoy their new-found freedom.

The Fay's 'original' form can't be observed by human beings without permanent mental damage, but it can be described as something similar to a shoggoth made of light. They aren't 'good' or 'evil', as most just prefer to be left alone, indifferent to this alien planet. However, there are those that set out to help primitive humans in their hardship, and others that would like nothing more than to see humanity reduced to ashes.

I envision them as a mix of Tolkien's wizards and some form of djinn. They can actually reproduce with humans while shapeshifting, but their offspring would be elf-like creatures that I haven't quite finished writing about.

Here's something from my self-made RPG system.

>Items taken good care of, e.g. polished, repaired and maintained properly, begin to generate a semblance of a soul. At 50 years of age, the item begins to whisper, and usually the whisper is just random, unintelligible murmur. At roughly 63 years, the soul can already speak normally. 75 years results in the soul manifesting as a ghost bound to the item with chains, wispy tails or other appendage.
>Over the next few years, the item begins to shiver quietly, until letting off a loud heartbeat at exactly 100 years. As soon as this happens, the item finishes it's transformation into a ful-fledged Item Beast, and takes on a form combining the base form of the item, and it's soul's shape. For instance, a chest Item Beast could be anything from a magician-styled showgirl with a chest with tank treads for feet, to an abnormally-sized skeletal bird with a chest embedded in it's...chest.

>It's rare to see two duplicate Item Beast designs, but there is a way to ensure this. Factory-made, cookie cutter items usually take similar forms, although dispositions vary.
Magically linked weapons, or those bound together by gods, or their makers, also often result in similar designs.

>While Item beasts mostly remain loyal servants of their "owner", should the owner die, they often leave to offer their services elsewhere.
>Some societies treat Item Beasts as bad omens, while others find them a highly valued symbol of honesty, diligence or other virtues.

>That's about it. Anything can be an Item Beast, as long as it's not naturally occurring.

I have done a bunch of races for an evo game that ran on Veeky Forums a while back.
Picture related.

I feel your pain. I once made a few races I thought were pretty good, I realized they were essentially high elves, wood elves, and dark elves and almost jumped out of a fucking window

Not especially original, but i have shapeshifting catfolk (human-like). Made because i thought it as an interesting idea to make species that evolved from ambush predators, because i wanted to make a catfolk race that wasn't "muh noble savages" and because i like catgirls, sue me.

Most of my races are similarly not very original, but i like adding new interesting twists on old concepts more than making something entirely original (which will end up being not so original).

At what point do they reproduce?

In my seeing, the only mainstay are humans, which fall in from other worlds. Other major races are:

Wyndotem: paperlike Giants capable of forming psychic links with anyone within a step of their alignment. Someone is building them, but even they don't know who.

Ascetics: a race of pale blue corpselike humanoids who made a mass pilgrimage to the mountain peak to find enlightenment. As a prank, the wind God enlightened the too-serious folk with a new appreciation for laughter, revelry, and drink.

Voidlings: Short lived folk with the ability to briefly remove themselves from existence. Crave excitement to fill their voids.

Carolili: Plant fey children with pitcher plant like heads. Mischievous. Sees anything small enough to digest as prey, anything larger as a new friend.

Anything that thinks it's human: A portal sucks humans in from other dimensions, but seems to go by the creature's own definition, as it had pulled in non humans, all of whom were thoroughly convinced they were human.

I've never had an original idea, instead these are all Frankenstein combinations of things I've seen

>Not-elves
Alqulians are grey-blue beings, lithe with long arms, necks and torsos but proportionally squat legs, and are incredibly flexible. When they're born, their legs are still underdeveloped and they tend to climb and hang from things a lot, including their parents. They reproduce slowly, meaning famine and war affect them more severely. Thus, they look for stability, and cast a wary eye at novel ideas. They prefer materials that don't degrade, living in intricate mountain cities and on large swaths of solid rock. They are great at noticing the large patterns of trends and politics, but only after the fact. Actually following trends is difficult as they change many times over human life cycle, much more over an Alqulian's. Great at astronomy and mathematics. Less tech-oriented, as material things degrade. Instead they look toward perfecting their bodies and do things by hand or with very simple, easily found and replaceable tools. They don't have the endurance of humans, and must rest after bursts of activity. They have slightly larger eyes, which they can "zoom in" but they can't track movements with them until they relax these telescoping muscles, or they'll get dizzy and perhaps nauseated.

Alqulian faces are incredibly beautiful, but at a price; perfectly proportioned and symetric, they all look incredibly similar. So they tattoo their faces and/or wear masks

forgot the inspiration pic

>not-orcs
The Kren are nomadic, travelling in great caravans. lizardlike, they have no hair, instead growing horns. Starting at puberty, this growing in can be itchy and painful, like teething. They style and keep them trimmed, barbers using large rasps and at home touch ups done with sanding stones. Their horns can be straight or curly. They're digigrade and can't lock their knees like humans. They prefer to sit when able and run by bounding more than a regular gait. They have two pairs of arms, the larger and stronger ones set more to to back, as if evolved from wings. The second pair is smaller and is used for more dextrous work. They use magic subconsciously, instictively, making the world around them a tad more favorable. Fires burn longer, they don't get sick as often, crops grow larger. Pig-like in that they're smart, like to chill in mud or water to cool off and eat nearly anything.

>and of course...
Humans live everywhere, often where other people won't. They can't use magic; Rather than copper, they have iron in their blood. But this also means that they can use blood seals to block some magics and that some magic simply doesn't work on them. They heal quickly using scar tissue, leaving marks of their injuries that never fade completely and their blood clots faster than other races. Humans' forté is endurance; they're able to stand, walk and run longer and push longer without sleep.

Also, they're much more culturally diverse. Some say it's because they weren't made on purpose, and therefore don't have an 'ideal' to strive for, as the other races do. Regardless, they're difficult for other races to interact with, as they lack the expected solidarity and their sense of kinship is weaker. However, this kinship can be spread to other races, meaning a human you befriend would treat you like a brother. Humans consider the other races' consistency eerie, in a Stepford Wives kind of way. But it makes them predictable to an extent; an extent that humans exploit more than others, as they see the lines clearer from the outside.

Still gotta have my builders giant dwarves, but mostly my differences are going to be based on where people live

How about a fairly large, think blanket. For smaller sitters, you fold it many times. For one, it's softer (for the kids yanno), for the other, they get a slightly higher seat, to get more on a level. The method of folding for different ages could involve any level of complexity - blanket origami.

Means that 20-foot granddad is basically sitting on a napkin on the floor, but maybe there's a cultural expectation of the old giants being tough and above small matters (pun intended) like comfort.

Mad cool idea, where else are you pulling inspiration from?

Human-sized fair goblinoids. Bred by Drow to be messengers and so that you can look at messenger that's giving you the message. They are essentially parkour race, mirror's edge runners. Had some of psionic blue goblins in ancestry so their power augments their structure so that they can negate or take less fall damage when psionically focused or expending it.

Pic that inspired appearance

They eventually attempted a rebellion and quite a bit escaped. They call themselves Yasha.

Another race... They had good technology, very good. Implants, prosthetics, maybe magi tech maybe not. Quite a large group tried to become a god by doing an Evangelion-esque Instrumentality.

The god thing that got created is an abomination and to not be forgotten, to be acknowledged or given any thought to to continue existing, it placed a curse on remainders of the race. Their bodies naturally become metallic... As in, if injured or such, the healed place is metallic or mechanic. To heal naturally they must consume metal, as for healing with fleshy bits being fleshy after it, potions are needed. Due to curse after death their souls go to the Abomination, no ressurection, so they eat some of soul storing metal so their souls can be safe in a core they form out of said metal.

They got inner fire, like a forge. Feats allow em to use it for stuff, or they can burn off their soul, a bit that would recover in time, to heal without eating metal or produce a specific kind of metal, heartmetal.

Don't eat heartmetal to heal, this creates fuckin horror monsters. Other metals are okay. Might have prestige class for this race to get benefits from certain metals or be capable to eat limited amounts of heartmetal for temporary boost with bad side effects.

Name: Forgeheart.

Pic is a dude who had his body fucked up so much and rebuilt that he's more metal than organic.

TL;DR, technoorganic race

Woolly Formians. Took a regular Formian, gave it course brown fur, and put them in my setting's tundra.

>rough draft of the not-dwarves
The Grote are troglophiles, giant humanoids that dwell in mountain caves. They're mostly hairless but have thin whisker-like hairs along their face, back, forearms and shins. Because of this, they prefer not to wear clothes that cover such parts and usually only wear shorts and a shirt, except when going into the open, where they'll drape themselves in cloth. They've squat features, very little pigmentation and large eyes. They're mostly nocturnal as the sun hurts their skin and eyes. They live near the poles and are more active in the winter months, when the days are shorter.

Because of their habit of licking and biting stone and metal to test them, it's rumored they only eat rocks. While this isn't entirely true (they mostly subsist on bugs and fungi with the occasional cave fish and crustacean), they do consume clay. This is more of a spiritual thing than any biological need. Their drinks are very poisonous as their bodies are better at filtering out the minerals and heavy metals. For instance, mercury is a favorite intoxicant of theirs, although only the hardest of "rock hounds" would drink it straight.

They've a general unease of open spaces, akin to vertigo. This precludes them to hiding in barns, forests, and occasionally making their homes in sewers if they don't have a mountain home. Ironically, their homes can be described only as cavernous. The difference in behavior is attributed to the lack of an echo.

how is the Abomination supposed to never be forgotten if it's not supposed to be acknowledged?

>>Pic is a dude who had his body fucked up so much and rebuilt that he's more metal than organic
Motherfucker, that's Orpheus, the starter Persona from Persona 3

I LOVE HIS DESIGN, MAN! He inspired the race.

He only has non metal head cuz in lore, Orpheus was torn to pieces by one of gods and only his head remained, floating down to Hades and singing.

The race ordinarily has black/grey skin, ashen hair and various eyes, most commonly uniform color, commonly red

It's like with Spirit Eater Curse in Forgotten Realm. There it was a lasting reminder of Myrkul's influence, thus despite being considered dead God and having next to no worshippers he survived.

Here the curse also attracts the souls to the abomination. It's kinda crazier non gender Shodan

Not my own and you'll call me a furfaget (and I deserve it) but a friend and I revised sergals to be more coherent and less magical realm.

South is a coastal mercantile civilization in a hot, damp mediterranean climate. A steep mountain range blocks warm air from the south and creates a cold rain-shadow desert. The northerners are evolutionarily divergent bird mongols with constant tribal warfare to grab and maintain scarce natural resources, at least until a leader unites the tribes and leads them down to remove southerner