How does one avoid creating ethno-/mono-racial states in their setting (ie: the Human Kingdom, Elf Kingdom...

I don't... I mean...
You avoid mono-ethnic states by not making mono-ethnic states. You just... don't do that. And then you will have avoided it.

Make a state. Now include more than one race and/or culture in it.

What exactly are you having trouble with?

Oh whoops my mistake, I thought you had trouble creating multiple kingdoms of the same race.

have it right. Just look into how and why people immigrate in real life.

Why is that a problem? The different races each have different stat modifiers, abilities, and lifespans. They are going to tend to congregate with their own kind, even in a mixed kingdom you will end up with a dwarf city here and a human city there, even if you cram them into one city there will just end up with different racial districts.

Nations are built on a common tribal history. The vast majority of any strong kingdom will inevitably maintain at least the illusion of such an unbroken linage among their people for the sake of cultural stability, and as such any mixed nations would be an anomaly that does not require or want any historical unity, such as a city state ruled by merchant princes, or an empire attempting to enforce its rule over its lands by attempting to envelop its subjects into its own culture. Both are somewhat unstable, usually resulting in a super-wealthy social elite caste gaining power at the expense of the common people. Rome collapsed largely due to this, while the merchant city is usually more stable because it can remain small enough to avoid collapsing in on itself, especially if it is capable of openly operating within a more stable nation's sphere of influence. The City of London is a good example of such a place today, where international corporations are legally considered people and given votes in proportion to their wealth.

>have it right.
What did he mean by this?

I meant to say the two posters I quoted had the right idea. Not really sure what the format for that sort of thing is so I just winged it.

Yeah the way its written sounds more like you're saying "fix your shit, idiot". You have it right there or There you have it would be less confusing. Or for just one word, There.

There's maybe three reasons to make bi-racial or multiple race kingdoms without it feeling artificial or clunky, but really they're all sort of the same reason(?)

-One is to just have the kingdoms close enough so they border one another: you'll just naturally produce geographical areas where the two peoples spill over and achieve minimal not-mono-racial'ness.
-Two is maybe foreign work or labor? While one race might be good at a lot of things, there may be something they don't like doing or are just plain bad at compared to another race? A classic example includes Humans hiring Dwarven miners, masons, loggers.
-Three is just good ol' fashioned refugees: something happened to their original home and this other country happens to be the closest or the ones taking in non-dwarves, non-humans, non-orcs, etc.. So now they've got some other races poking around in their kingdom.
-I lied, there's a fourth reason and it's empire builders: while it isn't typically depicted in media because empires are always viewed as 'bad' and 'mean' and evil' and it's inconvenient to the narrative; empires often allow for different peoples to safely move through various borders and regions for whatever reason.

That's all I got.

keep in mind which city states would have more varied populations. trade hubs will naturally be more diverse but more isolated places will be more xenophobic and stagnant culturally.

>implying there's anything wrong with ethno-states

>while it isn't typically depicted in media because empires are always viewed as 'bad' and 'mean' and evil'
Yeah, I hate that too. Sometimes multi-national empires are straight up funny.

dont fucking start with me, your not derailing this thread.

Then it's a non-realistic setting with disney-tier morals

Oh, though, for the record:
Just because a kingdom 'has' another race or multiple races living in it, that doesn't necessarily mean the various races/species are going to actually live together, you know? Is that what you were asking for? Because that's kind of a different question.

The reasons I listed, while would certainly house people in the same nation, would still only lead to gated communities, racial districts, etc.. The Dwarves would have their own district within the Human's cities and vice versa... There's also the deal that a kingdom could be very large, very uncontrolled, and you could have multiple races living within it and they don't like one another, but the place is so big that they don't have to co-exist.
You could have a large, open, empty country and it have multiple races and racial-social dynamics going on, despite everyone only agreeing on the nations borders.

one interesting way to vary your states population is with refugees from nearby natural disasters and wars.

newly discovered mines and goldrushes are also a good way to add some diversity.

Sex Slaves!!!!!!

Divide countries by political systems (these guys live under a military dictatorship, those guys live under a triumverate of three all-powerful rules, those guys live in a republic, etc.), economic systems (these guys have mineral wealth, those guys control trade routes, etc.), or by religion (these guys worship the sun gods, those guys worship the earth gods, etc.) instead. Problem solved.

Why is it even a problem.
Let their be mono-racial states.
Go even further beyond, mono-racial city-states. There's enough bad shit in generic fantasy settings around it's not too unreasonable humanoids trend towards easily defended city-states rather than spread out nations that lend to differences in cultures.

>human kingdom is littered with elves, dwarves, orcs and whatever else
>elven kingdom for the elves
>dwarven kingdom for the dwarves
>orc tribes for the orcs

Easy, in my setting what race you belong to is determined by your geographic location. If you travel to another city state, the magic there will warp your descendants into a different race over the generations even if they never interbreed with the locals.

While you do have a point, how does that factor in assimilation of other ethnic and racial groups? After generations, foreigners who come in to a country will eventually adopt the dominant culture. Self-segregated communities often don't last or don't grow, which can be just as bad.
For example, an orcish family will, over time, adopt the culture and customs of their human benefactors, wouldn't they?

Why wouldn't everyone move to/conquer the lands of the longest-lived/most powerful races?

>After generations, foreigners who come in to a country will eventually adopt the dominant culture
Why would they? They can live there for centuries just toiling the land with their own language, customs and beliefs. There are plenty of examples of close-knit ethnic and religious groups of wealthy merchants among outsiders in the cities all over the world, Europe, Asia or Africa

But fantasy and myth are pretty much non-realistic and designed to teach morals

To be entirely honest, if fantasy races are anything like humans psychologically these ethnostates would be common.

We already hated each other over the color of our skin and relatively minor differences for most of our history, so it stands that unless you're going for a modern fantasy setting most nations should be overly one single species.

Of course, that doesn't preclude having multiple nations per race.

>edgelord has edges

Do what Europe is doing.

Factor in other possible differences (lifespans, living requirements etc) and ethnostates would be extremely desirable. Of course there would be some major trading cities that attract foreign traders but they would be the exception, not the rule.

Because they're the longest lived/most powerful, and therefore hard to conquer?

Well, in this case I would follow the example of real world politics. You say that entirely different species will adopt new cultures and assimilate, but different human races that are far more similar than a human and an orc don't manage to pull that off.

So no, they won't, at least not unless the host nation demands they do, oppresses them to purge their original language and culture, and culls off any who refuse to do so over the period of generations, and even then you will still end up with some manner of historical revisionism where a twisted and deified version of the original culture is eventually formed as a method of resistance.

The absolute best you could hope for is that the immigrants adopt the technological advancements and use them to improve their own culture. Usually this just shifts the center of power though, like how the barbarians of the northern lands adopted and internalized the technological advancements of the Roman empire to make Europe the seat of power in the world, but maintained their own cultures, just shifting it to install the more stable aspects of Rome, such as incorporating native faiths into the mythos of Christianity and adopting political advancements to advance from a tribal society. Even still, they remained their own kind, with their own cultures, they never were at any point Roman.

You could make that a plot hook. Native people groups struggling against an invasion of outsiders facilitated by an elite class of nobility that despise their own kind.

I don't see why races/nations in a fantasy game shouldn't be mono-cultural. The fantasy race lives in a certain region, and only one region, and has certain religions and opinions. They can certainly have internal strife but complaining that Englishmen shouldn't all act and be Englishmen seems stupid to me.

>not having your human towns segregate non-humans into ghettos and slums

>not having your non-human cities segregate humans into ghettos and slums

Why avoid it? It's a perfectly good way to make settings. If you're a competent GM your party will be travelling the entire world, and it's a pain to make every nation have different sub-nations in them. Sure, you can have weird villages worshipping demons and shit, but if almost every village or city is inhabited by different species, cultures, and languages, then why the fuck are they part of the same state? Answer: They wouldn't be, they would be a different state. And if each nation has different sub-nations, sub-races, and sub-cultures within them, then that means your entire fantasy world, and thus your setting, isn't actually interesting or designed well, it's just a bunch of dice rolls thrown into a blender.

I find a mix of mono-race areas and mixed race is pretty good particularly if you add some history to it. Lots of areas that have switched hands repeatedly (like spain) or more metropolitan areas like a big trade city, are predominantly mixed. Rural areas or culturally hegemonic areas would be mostly a single race.

>not having your cities segregate ghettos and slums into humans and non-humans

Those pesky humanoids, right? They think they are so special and different.

Make states that have more than one fantasy race in them?

In my world, all species are more or less just mutations of base humans. So everyone is the same. Some regions tend to lean towards particular species who are particularly adept to surviving in it, and genetic adaptations have settled in, but more or less, elves, dwarves, etc are all just 'people' and the kingdoms are territory based or ideology based as opposed to particular species.

It allows for more fun families as well. "Hello, yes I am a lizardfolk, and this is my brother the tiefling." etc

Your question is sort of dumb, but I get it. Simply start with the history of your Nations and factions.

If "Haramaj" is the "Northern Kingdom of men and dwarves", have a brief explanation of why they have joined forces or what has brought them together. Also, come up with a culture that suits both of them. Do dwarves and men interbreed? How do their cultures blend or mesh? Do humans in that region tend to appear more dwarflike? Do dwarves tend to seem a little less "dwarfy"?

Just mix things up a bit, but keep in mind that they still have to make sense.

Depends on setting

I haven't read the whole thread but an user gave me this advice once and it has helped me tremendously:

In a setting with a lot of differents elements, take each element amd consider it in a void, as in if it were a setting by itself. Make it interesting and diverse and all that shit. Then do it with each element of the setting.

So, if you want each race to be different, think about them as if you were creating a setting for them, by themselves, not as a one trick pony in a setting made of one trick ponies.

The worldbuilding general happens to be up right now, so you can ask more questions there if you want. It's where I got the advice.

you don't because the different races are suitable for different ecosystems, especially in a pre industrial setting

By having the people act reasonable and wholesome. You don't get creepy ethno-states when you stop culture from tribalism.
It's almost as if it's really easy to not be an asshole.

Having mono-raced nation states is easy, simple, and best of all, Tolkien did it and why be original when we can just copy and paste Tolkien into our works?

Having nations with multiple races living in its borders requires you to actually create a history and research how actual nation states worked in the past and fuck that sounds like work.

So let's have Feyweldry the elven nation that lives in the forest. And Kazakakaraka the dwarven nation in the mountains. And have NotEngland, the human nation that totally isn't 12 century England, uh, anywhere it doesn't matter.

You make a post-industrial setting where travel is easy and large migrations happen often, possibly with a melting pot "new world" where the population are all descended from migrants.

Make it a small territory. They all have to fit

Make it human administered but elf natives (like irl Kashmir)

gotta agree with this
I don't see the problem
elves/dwarves/gnomes wouldn't want outsiders in their realms, and for good reason