Anons tell me about your races in your fantasy setting

>Gnomes (Pronounced guh-nome)

There's that RPG where the three playable races are kids (have the superpower of not being blind but are also small and stupid), teenagers (bigger and smarter but partially blind), and adults (biggest and smartest but completely blind).

Well i didnt give them proper names because they dont divide by racial lines so much as ethnic lines. The races are monoculture after all but i did build them on a theme do ill call them by there themes.

The men of fire, short lived emotional upstarts that have a tendency to quickly build up their civilisations only to have them collapse under their own weight before starting over again.

The men of earth, fairly stubborn lot able to weather most bad situations, they are long lived and generally keep to themselves. They dont exactly build civilisation beyond there own little communities as they see no need to spread when they have more or less everything they need around them.

The men of Metal, extremely stubborn lot, headstrong and basically immortal, they create empires but they are concerned formost with the longevity of their civilizations, they dont impliment any new technology without knowing for sure that it wont cause civilizational collapse several thousand years down the road. Theyve seen it too many times from the shorter lived races. And they turn their backs on magic entirely. Having seen the rot it causes civilisation who master it.

The men of wood. Long lived but weaked willed, crack easily under pressure. They turn to the darker parts of nature and the super natural to strengthen themselves, many have been driven insane on quests for immortality, especially those who find it. Their only success story ended up turning its back on the outside world after having mastered magic, having everything the city needed why would they give a fuck about anyone else?, and thus their first great empire fell.

The men of water, i havent actually thought much about this race beyond them being a vaste sprawling empire stretched across the ocean floor. Work in progress.

>Humans
They're humans, yo. By far the most dominant force in the setting (at least locally).

>Melonheads
Disgustingly ugly and frail humanoids with bloated heads. They struggle with human languages but have their own language that humans can learn fairly well. They have nothing even vaguely resembling their own nation and tend to hang out in scavenger gangs. They're often the first to fresh scavenging sites before they're scared off (or occasionally massacred) by more heavily armed humans, and so they have a surprising amount of power in the black market since they recover all sorts of magical artifacts.

>Ecks
They're basically emaciated 10ft tall giants with faces like those japanese demon masks. I designed them as enemy monsters first, but they're sapient. Honestly I haven't put much thought into their culture.

>Lizards (also known as Hkar'behr in their own tongue, but only dirty fishfuckers call them that)
Three-eyed lanky amphibian dudes who had their homeland destroyed by demons and spent decades moving south until they reached human lands. One human empire mistook them for a new kind of demons and started a war which neither side has really forgiven, so they mostly hang out in the tunnels beneath human civilization and work with human crime mobs. A little more solitary than humans and tend to have an all-or-nothing approach when it comes to violence. They have a few surviving cultures among themselves, most of whom fucking despise each other after half a century competing for limited resources in a magic-infested desert.

>Perrona
Also known as dog men and werewolves (despite not actually being werewolves). They're dogs that walk upright, but with thumbs and bigger feet and readjusted limbs so they don't fall over. Extremely loyal to their friends as all good dogs are, but tend to have a casual attitude towards death and killing. Invented by a wizard long ago and are thus inherently magical, but they can't actually do much with that.

Man that sounds like a shit setting. Don't quit your day job

>Dragonborn
Exist as a secretive society. People who are dedicated enough to dragons sometimes go through trials and are rewarded with becoming more and more dragonborn like. The Way of the Dragon from Dark Souls is the closest thing to compare it to. This keeps players from choosing to be a dragonborn from the start and instead have to work towards it, usually in secret from the rest of the party.

>Tieflings
Similar to the Dragonborn, you're not born a Tiefling but you become one through demonic corruption. People who fornicate with demons, who make deals with demons, or who spend lengthy periods of time with demons end up corrupting their body and soul. The more corrupt you become, they more chaotic evil you become and the more you start to look like a Tiefling. The process of becoming a tiefling can be reversed but is a very lengthy process and usually painful depending on how far the corruption has gone.

>Bug Bears
They are the missing link between humans and most humanoid monsters. They still exist because eventually they couldn't reproduce with the other races so they weren't bred out. I just thought that would be a more interesting thing to do with them.

>Gnolls
Females gnolls are stronger and meaner than the males. Kinda like how hyenas are.

>Half races
Almost always sterile. This is mostly just so I don't have to do a lot of work surrounding the implications of mating crossbreeds.

Rude but not untrue. I'm going over my third batch of notes and just jamming stuff in at the moment (and apparently posting small vague chunks on the internet) so I'm not proud. Lizards I think I'll develop some more, and definitely rename in every way, but I think they could bring some decent stuff. Dog dudes are likely to get the axe though. Looking over them they contribute basically nothing.

Details on the shittiness could help though. I could use the perspective of someone not embroiled in my own bullshit.

>Humans
Came from the clay formed from the spilled blood of gods mixed with the earth. Hence their myriad forms.

>Elves
High, Deep, Land, and Sea. A pretentious lot created by the neutral Fey Gods who did not fight in the War of Creation. They embody beauty and domination. They have a shadow war between them called the Antediluvian Game, with many puppet kingdoms set up as pieces to be played.

>Dwarves
There are six known kinds, Hill, Frost, Fire, Stone, Cloud, and Storm. Akin to parasites or vermin to giants, there is one kind for each kind of giant. They are largely defined by their relationship to their giant progenitor. They embody greed and the frustration of greed.

>Halflings
Born from humans, and their fates are intrinsitcally tied. You never know if the child of a human or halfling will be either, depends if they grow up or not. Halflings in human lands are largely marginalized. Halflings have their own kingdom called Meeklund. They have a national napoleon complex.

>Goblins
They embody bad ideas. They have a nebulous connection to the Fey Gods, and have a severe hate of elves. They as bad ideas compound onto one another and spread quickly, so they are found all throughout the world and have great strength in numbers. They have an empire to their name, known for it's unconventional and shitty tactics. Think a mix between the Goblins from Labyrinth and Warhammer Fantasy goblins.

>Tieflings
Born from congress of mortals and demons. Either a direct descent, a curse on a bloodline, or through corrupted proxies. As babies they are pure evil things who charm people to try and hold them, and then increase their weight to drag them down to hell to meet their true parents. As they grow they're humanized and largely lose their evil nature, instead prone to mischief and devilry. A tiefling is rarely made without some kind of plan behind it, and their true parent could range from a lowly demon to one of the royalty of Hell.

>Lizardmen
Remnants of the great Reptillian Empire in the Time Before. Their sorcerers bound the Old Ones that swam up from the Sea of Night, and they await the return of their Glistening Mother, Tiamat. They live in isolated pockets throughout the world, and in hidden slumber chambers where they are waking into this new age.

>Gnomes
A strange lot connected to the Fey Gods. Forest and Cave live secretive lives in nature, but both despise their corrupted cousins, the Rock Gnomes. Corrupted from a fallen star, they were driven to create and innovate, tearing up the world for resources. Now they have built a great growing city known as the Mechanocyst, and constantly seek to expand.

>Dragonborn
A curse or affliction of the soul as bestowed by Tiamat. The more one embodies the nature of dragons, the more draconic in nature their soul and body becomes. Few find belonging in the world being marked so, and thus join the Fivefold Temples of Tiamat and revel in their draconic nature.

Major races are

>Men of Water and Air
Hyperspiritual pacifists and artists. The god's first attempt at creating humans

>Men of Fire and Iron
Warlike crusaders who can switch moralities on a dime, but degenerate into tyranny quickly. The second draft of mankind

>Men of Wood and Clay
The third and most common race of men, characterized by hedonism and industriousness.

>Aes Sidhe
Most populous of the elves, descended from the mindless "NPC" followers of the ancient Fey invasion. Live to fill a role and may change roles over time, but are absolutely bound by their roles

>Cu Sidhe
Descended from the fey animals and monsters, Have a deep primal connection with nature and monstrosity, but those same connections make it hard for them to exist as a society or to blend into society of others

>Scath Sidhe
The stagehands of Faerie, they went "behind the scenes" to animate things like natural disasters, celestial phenomena, and other 'special effects'. Still maintain a pretty good skill at manipulating those things, but despise being seen.

>Moristal
Surface dwarves. Basically halflings and gnomes rolled up with regular dwarves and filtered through medieval jews. Live with but don't entirely integrate to human society

>DVRGR
Deep dwarves. Somewhat mechanical, somewhat insect like, mined out from the raw stone of the earth into a caste system. Maintain the machinery of the planet. Have autism.

>Aruuk
Orcs, the first and most primitive sentient race. Crafted by and still deeply worshipful of the ancient demonic Titans, they vary a whole lot based on who their patron is. The default are crimson gorilla boars with anger issues and a severe problem with authority.

>Demihumans
Basically humans of some stripe who got weird magic in their blood. Include angelic Bodhisattvas, guys who breathed in Miasma and are now incubating a demon, living temples for a small god, people eaten by the fey, and noncasters with a spell infestation.

Pic related.

>Humans
Humans come in 3 subraces: Castian, Zarn, and Tulan. Castians are sailors, sorcerers, and swashbucklers from the western seas. Zarn are warriors, traders, and builders from the central continents. And Tulans are druids, witches, and scholars from the eastern islands.

>Guppi
Cannibal frogfolk. They are renowned for their amazing singing abilities, acrobatics, and status as legendary assassins. They are also well known for founding the Bard's College and for their sense of humor.

>Aeolans
Velociraptor-like birdfolk. Aeolans are quick, quiet, and small, making them excellent thieves. They jumped from the stone age to the modern one so quickly that they don't really have much of a culture of their own, instead insinuating themselves into everyone else's cultures.

>Proteans
Ooze-golems gained sapience. They are highly adaptable, capable, and ruthlessly logical. They are also chemically unstable, leading to many...explosive finales.

>Shards
Where energy flows and gathers, mana crystals form. And where mana crystals reach a high enough mass, the crystals themselves become alive. Living Mana Crystal colonies can break off bits of themselves to create guardians and envoys to the other mortal races. These "Shards" appear human in all respects, though this is only a meat disguise wrapped around a crystal core.

>Mako
Sharkmen. Once the rulers of an underwater empire, they are little more than wandering gypsies and cutthroat barbarians. Despite this, their cuisine is second to none, and many would kill to procure the services of a trained Mako chef.

Oh, forgot a few demihumans who probably deserve their own thing

>Wargr
Humans who's souls are animals. Or who can project their souls into animals. They aren't sure and it's a subject of much debate. They're the settings "wildman" equivalent. Have bound familiars who are/have their souls inside them, which makes them smarter and gives them a bit of magic. The Wargr, in exchange, gets some of the animal nature inside them, giving them some of the talents the animal has. Some of them can project their entire soul into their familiar, which basically turns it into a super powered werebeast. Wargr look like humans with animal features, but more in a wolverine/sabertooth way instead of a catgirl or furry way.

>Draugr
If a Warg dies and comes back, they come back wrong. They don't make bonds with animals anymore, but with the dead, and their souls become portals to the underworld. They can pump angry hungry ghosts into dead bodies and quickly raise a revenant army, but they're also basically walking wastelands.

>Drakir
Wargr who try to bond with a sleeping dragon. Dragons in this setting are apocalyptic lovecraftian things deep in the earth, so bonding your soul with one is a bad idea. If you do, you go fucking apeshit but gain crazy superpowers and develop dragon cancer.

>Hexers and Nightkin
The half human daughters of hags and sons of bagmen (the male equivalent of hags), respectively. The opposite sex children of the Hags/Bagmen are mindless monsters (Ogres for hags, Skinwalkers for bagmen), but the same sex kids are intelligent and magical, if deformed. Hexers get overt magical powers and look like beautiful women with weird features (Goat legs, snakes for hair, etc), while Nightkin get physical powers and tend to look grotesque (Made of slime, one eye and stone skin, etc). Neither is accepted but both can hypothetically fit into human society if they can repress their inhuman urges.

Sounds like a cool setting

Thanks, it's really just composed of ideas and stuff that I think is cool to facilitate games I run.

>The battle video was just complaining about realism

No, he was complaining about lack of variety, you can have more than just direct confrontations and still have people cleave through armor with swords

All human. It's a Gundam inspired setting.

Factions are the Terran Commonwealth, The United Colonial Republics, the Martian Union, and the Imperial Ascendancy.

Terrans are a constitutional monarcy, and are somewhat isolationist and pretty laid back, just wanting to have the fighting go on far away from Earth. Most of the minerals required to propely equip modern warships are getting scarce on earth, but rich in asteroids and mars, and that's why they lost control of most colonies and mars.

The UCR is a military and trade pact with each colony having full political control. They range from being perfect utopias to megacorp run hellholes.

The Martian Union just finished a fifty year civil war where the Terrans were kicked out, local regions fought for independence, a democratic Federation trying to unite the planet, and a communist dictatorship all vying for control. Commies won, and things aren't that bad now other than some Federalists still fighting and IRA style battle. The people have little control over thier jobs, but everyone is fed, housed, and treated decently under the law. The people are either incredibly nihilistic (as the wars killed two thirds of the population) or hopeful that they're on the precipice of utopia. (Mars is also being terraformed and maybe 50 years away from being full livable tobplant and animal life.

The Imperial Ascendancy are the remnants of the guys that lost WW4, and sent arcs into space to one day reclaim contol of the human race. They are an absolute monarchy that heavily practices eugenics. The people are genetically modified in the womb to serve purposes (soldiers, scientists, etc.). That being said, they don't force individuals to breed (anymore) because with a bit of pre and early birth procedures, children can fully take after the desired parent and the quest to perfect the human race can continue. Also that choice allows the population to remain complacent.

The twist is that newtypes only can come from people that had no genetic modifications in thier family history, and from historical trends, only about 5% of humanity lack genetic augmentation in thier line.

Human mutations:
Daomu Zhe (Chinese for Ghoul/Harmful Spirit) are the most common of the human offshoots. From birth they begin developing scar tissue on the top of their skin, which builds up over time. The top of which calcifies into numerous hard plates covering the body. They can't sit still for too long because the plates will begin to grow together, this will happen if a Daomu is bed ridden. They also shed hair, teeth, and nails constantly, and are normally nearly bald except for hair coming out of their oversized ears (one of the few things that don't scar as badly). They have roughly the same physique as humans but are often perceived as shorter due to having a hunched look because of their plating giving them a bulbous back.

Xingxing (Chinese for Ape) are the another one. Take a human, make it stout and pot bellied (essentially giving a human the physique of an orangutan). Give a set of long muscular arms, each with a second set of elbows allowing for better movement (these joints are all double jointed with free movement). Their faces are much more ape like than normal humans, with large lips and flattened nose. Xingxing are often employed as engineers due to the fact their arms can easily reach into holes normal humans could not reach at all.

Mifeng (Chinese for Honey Bee), which are what would occur if you made humans aquatic. large and blubbery like a manatee, grey skinned with many folds. Nearly no nose, and instead prehensile nostrils they can open and close. Large eyes with black irises, making them sun sensitive, and a second set of eyelids to close over them when underwater. No ears, just holes in the side of their head which are also closeable. On their arms are large fleshy flaps that are fairly rigid and used for movement in the water, and their feet are longer and flattened.

Shetou (Chinese for Tongue) are taller and more lithe than humans, base humans describing them as "skeletal". Their originally developed and lived in caves. Their eyes are beady and also light sensitive. They have no lower jaw, instead a single massive tongue that hangs heavily downwards (making them prone to dehydration in hot climates). Their speaking patterns are warped and often incomprehensible due to an inability to use a lower jaw.

Guaiwu (Chinese for Monster) come in a wide variety of physical forms. They are often born to those exposed directly to the Shattered Lights. While the parents will not change their children are often born in freakish forms. Many can not take care of themselves or simply are still born. One in a dozen lives through infancy and one in a hundred live to adulthood. Those that do drew the lucky lot that their mutations have proven in some way useful.

Other:
Xiyiren (Chinese for Lizard Man) are a number of humanoid creatures that appeared inside the continent from beyond the Shattered Lights. They are physically light and slight, having seven limbs including a prehensile tail and webbing between all seven. Superficially they resemble reptiles, except their scales are much more akin to small interlocking shingles, flexible enough one could lift and bend them without removing. They use these to glide and fly on thermals. As a cost for their flight they are physically weak compared to humanity. When contacted by humans they refuse to speak of the home they left and how exactly they came through the Shattered Lights, or if they can return to them safely.