Racial Continuity

Why do some races change drastically between settings, but others stay more or less the same?

Name one outside of humans.

The reason every race but humans see shifts in design is because a writer wants to use them for a specific task.

Good question.
A thing to note though is that Lotr Orcs are more similar to modern Goblins then modern Orcs, to which Tolkien's Uruks are more similar.

And as for Orcs seeming mutability, i'd say that it's really more cosmetic than anything else. They where and are more warlike and savage then humans and because of that live closer to the land and are often nomadic, tribal or raiders.

Dwarves.
Pretty much all dwarves in any setting are grudge-bearing beer-drinking, axe-wielding, mountain-dwelling bearded blacksmiths with scottish accents, with the variations between settings amount to little more than a different coat of paint.
There are a few exceptions, most notably TES dwarves who are actually elves (their proper name is dwemer, or deep elves, and the name "dwarf" is probably a mistranslation), and also extinct after they build a giant robot that literally noped them from existence, but they're few and far between.

Aside from the example you posted, I can't think of many examples at all where races change drastically between settings. Only other kinds I've seen are occasionally when an author gets it into their head they want a story that makes orcs not the bad guys but they make them look a bit less human to emphasize the difference.

Different eras of fantasy being put next to one another.

Tolkien "orc" was interchangeable with goblin, and there were different breeds with different levels of strength and resistance to sunlight. The Uruk-Hai were half-orcs

Early D&D orcs were pig men, and then were changed to neanderthal looking guys as time went on.

Warhammer combined the pig and neanderthal looks, and brought in the green skin and red eyes.

Warcraft gave the explanation of the green skin as corruption from demons, and later codified a wider trend of Orcs as a separate faction from the normal 5 Races that could still be considered good guys.

There, a shortened essay on Orc history.

Because Tolkien, the father of modern fantasy, expanded on more races more than others. So while we have a detailed, captivating, and rich history for dwarves and elves in LotR, we don't really have one for orcs or hobbits. So when someone is making a setting they can use Tolkien's archetype (Tolkien is a master of worldbuilding, it'd be hard to pull a rich cultural history out of thin air to rival his) for some races but have to invent their own. This is why we have different backstories, cultures, and related races for halfings/gnomes and orcs/goblins; there was none to pull from Tolkien's work and none have really met up to the gold standard that is Tolkien's world building.

I wonder, if Tolkien had lived longer, if he'd have made a long compendium about all the things that happened in the Shire. That would've been nice.

...

not on Kaladesh

Well, that makes some sense given that in Tolkien's work there is no difference between Goblin and Ork. Ork (originally) was not a word in the English language, so he used the term ork and Goblin interchangeably and depending on the language of the speaker (hobitts called them Goblins, elves called them Orks).

I don't know about the Hobbits and the Shire, but if you look though some of his notes add unfinished works, he does go into the history or Orks a little and how he disliked the idea of an 'evil' race. If he had more time, he might have fleshed them out a little more.

Depends on the purpose the races serve within the setting. Humans are fairly consistent, as are Dwarfs and Elves. Both are long-lived races that probably have known better days before some tragedy, they're smarter than humans and better at smithing/metalwork/masonry and magic/archery respectively. Orcs tend to have some variation, but they're usually an antagonistic force. Warcraft in particular has to make sure we as the audience know that Orcs are good guys who dindinuffinwrong, and all of the bad Orcs are bad because of Demon corruption which means everyone can beat them up guilt free. Warcraft also has unique Trolls. Trolls are typically dumb, probably live in a cave and don't have any society to speak of. Warcraft trolls are voodoo worshippers with an emphasis on elemental worship and the deeper spiritual world.

>Korean Orcs are just black elves.
Wow.

Elves change based more on the region than fantasy settings. Modern fantasy sees elves as flawless forest-dwelling supermodels with pointy ears. In Sweden, for instance, elves are tiny adorable slaves with a penchant for tinkering.

yeah but
>beard
>holding a hammer
>good with tech

They're as close to the standard dwarf as you can get for ones in the not!India plane.

Lack of originality, playing things safe.

Different Orcs for different purposes.

>ork
>k
fuck off

Before everyone starts having a meltdown between orc and ork.

Sorry for the shit photo.

I like to have boar/pigmen orcs with a germanic barbarian flavor.

I kind of want to see an all beastmen game with different species for different cultures. No sexy animals like cats either, we have minotaurs and boars and hippos and shit.

Orcs in Japanese Fantasy are generally still Pigmen I think because of D&D. As Tolein's description never caught on. If I'm remembering right.

Tolkien orcs are likely elves Morgoth captured, broke into his service, then bred with evil spirits. Then humans were added to the mix.

rotate your images before posting user, no-one's going to read that.

It's because everyone wants to carry on Tolkien's legacy, but they all have different ideas on how to do this.

Honestly, with the lord movies and the bloat of fantasy fiction, they've missed their chance to put out for their hobbit daddy.

That's because authors rip off other authors canons and occasionally add some twist
> Let's take Toliken's orcs but make them green instead of black/ proud warrior race instead of dirty savages/ X nomadic culture
> Let's take Tolkien's elves, but make them a bit shorter/ taller/ X exotic culture
> Let's take Tolkien's halflings, but make them more/less cute/ more/less magic/ X culture
The case with dwarves is they are more heavily ingrained in Germano-Scandinavian folklore canon than other races as short underground-dwelling crafty race with pretty much no females shown in Eddas or in Tolkien's writing.

Isn't that by the person who draws Dungeon Meshi? The "USA Orc" looks a bit like a blend of LotR movie orc with Warcrafthammer one.

My Dorfs are communist ultraorthodox Jews who have a loophole for absolutely everything up to and including polytheism, ursury, capitalism and necromancy,

Jokes on you user, Tolkien based the dwarves on Jews!

?

>Korean Orcs are basically black elves.

Okay, storytime me on korean orc mythology. Why are they so much more "dignified" than the other two?

>black elves
>dignified

Contain your autism, it's in quotes. Do I have to explain what those mean here?

>Elves but due to their long lives they live like theyre on an episode of Jackass

>Dwarves but instead of standard shit they are chill connesours who make up for their stature with siege weapons and firearms.

>halflings and gnomes but they are the same species and are cosmopolitan rather than agrarian.

>Orks but they're coastal fishermen with a strong musical and theater tradition.

Missing anything?

>>halflings and gnomes but they are the same species and are cosmopolitan rather than agrarian.
But cosmopolitan has been their prefer depiction for over a decade now already

Dwarves are stubborn and resistant to change. Apparently this trait extends to a meta sense as well.

Uruks were still smaller than humans, tho

Dwarves are the only nonhuman race this applies to you dips.

Elf, orc, orgres, gnomes, kinda cat folk, kobolds, ect. VS. dwarf, goblin, centaur, drow, human (of course), ect.

Those look extremely like generic dwarves, just ported to a setting that isn't that generic.

>Literally a standard dwarf but modern.

It always bugged me that dwarves are the one race that seems to not change, as it should be the one that offers more options. Like make the race short and you can alreadu call it dwarves, you don't even need beards or booze. Snow white dwarves were nothing like Dorf Mcaxeson and they managed that while being fucking bearded miners.

>drow
That's specifically a D&D thing though. Anyone using the term drow is going to be basing them off of D&D. If you want to expand it to dark elves in general, WHFB dark elves are very different from drow.

>Snow white dwarves were nothing like Dorf Mcaxeson
They kind of were, they just weren't the warriors. They'd fit in perfectly fine as commoners, except maybe that beardless retarded one or the bashful one.

Both versions exist here, and I imagine they also do in Sweden thanks to the wonders of globalization. They just exist in different stories.

Ok. So how can we make them a little more distinct, make em jungle dwellers or people of the plains?

>Small
>Lightweight
>Dexterous
Their builds are ideal for arboreal lifestyles.

So bushpeople. Ok

Did the bush people literally live in the trees? Genuine question.

Fuck if i know i just figured the name was apropos

Dark elves are elves, drow are drow.

Actual bushmen, as in the san people, live in savannahs.

But there's also pygmy peoples scattered around the world; many live in jungles and have been known for building tree houses. There was one group I can't remember the name of that had a technique for climbing trees barehanded that was apparently impossible to learn past the age of like 16.

Goblin, centaur, halflings, (human of course), Giants, dragons (if you count them as a race and not a monster), ect.
Lizard folk and cat folk tend to also always be the same if not very similar.

Halflings dance between homely farmers and adventurous gypsies, and that's not including outliers like dark sun's druidic cannibals

I really like divinity original sin 2's use of elves
>Tall, lithe creatures with skin appearing almost bark like
>Can taste a living person to get weird glimpses of their future
>Can eat the corpses of people to view their strongest memory


>Well Sebille I'm very disappointed that you didn't help is on the nameless isle, but you have one last chance. Attain divinity and kill your companions, with an elf divine and my tribe turned into dryads we can finally win the race war and slaughter the humans who have been destroying our forests for so long

At first I didn't like them because I just wanted hot humans with pointy ears but I actually really like it

The farmer and adventurors halflings are all the same.

And no we don't count outliers, that why we call them outliers, using outliers logic you could literally swap this aurgement between dwarves and elves.

Why bother to call that thin an elf? Why not call it an orc/troll/orgre/goblin/dwarf/or some other thing that wouldn't at all bring such a description to your mind then using it's name to describe said thing.

If you want something unique why not also give it a unique name?

One thing I would point out is that the orcs are never depicted as having never done anything wrong -- when they were corrupted by demons it was their own fault because they chose it and it only happened when they were almost done committing genocide. Hell, in Burning Crusade one of the first things you saw was a road paved with the bones of the draenei the horde had slaughtered.
And with Garrosh there wasn't even corruption; it was made explicitly clear that Garrosh and his supporters were not under anyone's influence. They have a really fucked-up history and the lore has never really sugar-coated that.

There is no mythology.

If there's any origin, it came from Lineage MMO where the Orcs were a playable race and every Korean RPG have attractive characters. So Orcs basically ended up looking pretty warrior people.

Yea but Garrosh didn't do anything wrong.
>Muh human rights
Fuck humans, the alliance broke treaties and raided and invaded an attack civilians. Killing their military wasn't wrong in anyway and was a necessary for the survival of the horde.

What the fuck is Big Boss doing over there holding a pike?

Only if you flanderize them. Also they lived in a normal house, the only thing they did underground was working because they were fucking miners. They also weren't more resilient or strong than a normal human miner, or at least it's never hinted that they were.

Because they still have some similarities to typical elves (tall, pointy ears, dying race, etc) and it's a lot easier to remember that name than some name you made up that has no prior meaning unless you called them something that sounds like elves anyway.

Seems simple enough.

Sylvari ain't hard to remember

They were a vaguely interesting race, but they weren't elves.

I once played a game with a race if 8' creatures with red skin, they had no hair and 4 tongues and all of them had big tits and horns.

I called them dwarf because I found this as a unique take on dwarf.

Fuck elf fags.

Soul Sacrifice is a fantastic setting that reeinvents ALL the races you could think of. Pic related is an orc

This is a goblin. I love these

Dwarf + lore

That's pointless and stupid. It's like they are trying to be original by being abstract and random because they arnt actually creative.

What's the point? Why bother even writing it in English if your gana go out of your way to "redefine" common words without any purpose or gain? Just write scribbles so your names relate to your art.

No, it's a cat.

oh cool i'll just go grab my fuckin magnifying glass

japan loves pigmnen orcs because its easier to add them into hentai shit, only recent shit like pixiv taimanin asagi went to the "classic look"
>hence why theres shit like JK orc and Buta-Hime Sama

Every JRPG since then still follows the old AD&D art, thy dont know warhammer, warcraft or even tolkien art of sorts

fuck back to mmo shitshow retard

What makes them not elves?