Read a thread about how most RPG elves and dwarves and other races are funny-looking humans instead of actually different creatures. That is to say, they think and act like regular humans, maybe with a few dials turned up and down. There is nothing wrong with it, but the poster wanted something else. He wanted to see races that were more inhuman.
Elves
It made me think about how elves are often long-lived or immortal, thanks to Tolkien. Someone mentioned that a human lover and several kids/grandkids is a lifetime for a human but a fling for an elf. That a request for help might receive a decade of consideration before answer. Such elves could be more alien, seemingly uncaring and unattached, the bonds of a human lifetime ultimately meaningless to them. But that seems boring for gameplay outside of the time frames spanned during realm and dynasty management.
The other thread that is often followed is the fey connection. Elves are semi-mortal fairies connected to an otherworldly way of thinking. They are highly superstitious, which, combined with long lives, leads to choices that seem baffling to the human time scale. Yes, my forces could cross the Rowan River and save that town but the moon was new last night and it would doom my second child's second daughter to die to a spinning needle to cross the Rowan on a new moon without first finding a red hat and filling it with milk.
I started to think about other ways an elf might be long-lived without literally living a long time. Maybe they live a bit long but then undergo transformation to an ancestor spirit who guides and advises his descendants. I also once read an idea that elves stop physically aging in adolescence/early adulthood but live no longer than humans, so people see a 50-year old "young" elf and assume they must live hundreds of years.
I wanted to go another direction, something somewhat science fantasy.
Elves are sexless (no genitals), which is why they look androgynous, and as such do not reproduce sexually ... or at all. There are a set group of elves who truly only exist as consciousnesses. When they age or die, they transfer their minds to a new body. These bodies are grown, maybe by special plants, maybe using biochemistry in cylindrical vats. Over the eons, they worked to perfect their bodies, making modifications to create ideal physical specimens. But over time, their consciousnesses, or maybe their very souls, started to lose their spark. Their gardens mutated, machines wore down, ingredients and raw materials degraded. They either forgot how to build their bodies or had the knowledge but lacked appropriate tools. Slowly, century by century, they have devolved from their lofty heights. The bodies they now possess are still superior to man's in some ways but now lacking in others.
Elves adventure to seek lost knowledge, powerful magic, and new materials to return to their former glory. Each carries some mental derangement which waxes and wanes but grows most evident as the elf nears its next death. If only materials were as bountiful as in the old days ...
These elves are somewhat like the Simic Combine. They are experts at modifying living flesh. Some are revered as great healers, but many are feared for their maniacal experiments. If only they had better specimens to work with instead of this weak human flesh.
Dwarves
I remember reading about dwarves who were all male-appearing but similarly sexless. They reproduced by literally carving a new dwarf from special stone and bringing it to life through a magic ritual. Every dwarf knew he was specifically created as is. This explains the Dwarven penchant for defense. I am the masterwork of my father. I honor him through my own self-preservation. Every scar mars his art and wounds me to my soul. Or go the other way. Each of us is just stone given motion. As we mine the mountain, so we use our flesh.
I could see two Dwarven societies that adopt these opposing views. The first is smaller in number but each citizen is a masterpiece, perfectly formed, highly trained and educated, outfitted with the best. The second is more numerous, each citizen a drone who gives everything for the advancement of the whole. They are plain, mass produced, barely or not individualized beyond a serial number. They attack heedless of their own defense, crushing foes by sheer weight of numbers. Ants.
These second dwarves are a hivemind, held under the sway of a false King (perhaps a demon, otherworldly insect queen, or psionic mind from the Far Realm). They were one like the first dwarves but enslaved and repurposed, a painful memory to be wiped out by the first society.
So, we have the malfunctioning evolution vats of the semi-immortal Elven biomancers and the slowly dying First Dwarves waging a hopeless war to destroy the globe-spanning dwarven hivemind.
Halflings/Gnomes
I want to do something fae and it will combine gnomes, halflings, and custom races my brother invented long ago.
Halflings were once human. Centuries ago, an entire city/kingdom was stolen into the Fey Wild because of a particularly bad bargain with a Faerie Prince. Fae lands are harsh on mortals and many quickly met their end. But children were resilient, their minds and souls open to the magic. Some were lucky and lived among the Seelie, enduring good-natured horrors. Others were left to fend amongst the Unseelie, where the torture was less inadvertent and fear bordering on terror was a constant companion.
The faeries noticed that, in the Fey Wild, children thrived but adults died. So, they summoned the Boneshapers to keep their captives small. It makes perfect sense to a Faerie mind, as they have no concept of aging with the passage of time. They are eternal.
After centuries of imprisonment, a great halfling hero found a path back to the mortal realm. One by one, family by family, they escaped to the mortal realm, forever touched by their time in the Fey Wild. In addition to their diminutive size, they have a childlike demeanor, delighting in pranks and jokes. Fae riddles taught them to think laterally, so they are inventive and unpredictable. Literal bogeyman have steeled their nerves against fear. Speaking of steel, they were unfamiliar with many metals and still find them uncomfortable to touch. They recognize the value of a coin but prefer to collect other forms of wealth.
Halflings are so named not just for their height but also because they live halfway between two worlds, fully at home in neither. Each halfling carries a bit of the Fey Wild in them, manifesting as a mental issue (fits of laughter, hallucinations), bizarre taste, or obsession. No halfling acknowledges another's fey touch, so it can be unsettling in their communities to see absolutely no reaction amongst locals to obviously bizarre, even dangerous, behavior.
Halflings adventure to satisfy wanderlust, curiosity, amass wealth ... or find a way back.
Orcs
Humans are communal, born with a need for companionship, a desire to see their in-group prosper, and an innate sense of justice. Orcs are also communal, born with a need to physically dominate others, a desire to see out-groups cower before them, and an innate sense of strength.
To an orc, altruism, compassion, and empathy are as foreign and distasteful as incest. Sure, any orc is technically capable of these but who would engage in such disgusting behavior? Orc adventurers. They are societal outcasts, possessing warped minds and engaging in deviancy. Make no mistake, an orc adventurer respects strength alone in accordance with his primal drive; he is capable of empathy and helpful behavior, but these are not his identity. But neither is strength alone sufficient for loyalty. He resists and seeks to dominate, not supplicate.
Orcs are born from eggs laid by the hundreds by humongous brood queens. They emerge almost fully grown but weak and emaciated. They are partly reptilian. Big green orcs sporting tusks, slit pupils, nictitating membranes, scales, maybe a sail mohawk or horns. Not sure about tails. The firstborn prey upon their broodmates, ensuring only the fast and strong survive (and creating evolutionary pressure to mature quickly). Every orc you meet has, by necessity, feasted upon the flesh of his brethren. Fortunately for the other races, the high concentration of growth hormones only persists for a short period and does not seem to affect mature orcs (they find broodling flesh incredibly foul tasting).
I originally wanted to make them fungal but realized that would make them Orks, and, unfortunately, we ain't got 'nuf dakka for dem boyz an' da WAAAAAAAAAAGH!
So far, the world described here has a very limited number of elves and first dwarves, a self-limiting abundance of orcs, however many halflings you would like, a worrying abundance of hivemind dwarves, and fill in the rest with a bunch of 'oomins ... er, humans.
Tieflings
Not sure which race to do next but I want it to be parasitic. They are born by infecting another race. They become Adventurers to atone for their own births. Thinking tieflings.
Tiefling are not descended from a bloodline polluted by demons. Rather, they are made when a demon or another tiefling sets a mortal's soul ablaze with infernal fire. The flames burn out the soul, leaving a husk to be reanimated by the ashes of life.
The tiefling is not the victim reborn but a new creature stained with the soot of the former soul. The agony of the dying spirit twists the flesh into its new demonic shape: the tell-tale red skin, horns, claws, tails, digitigrade lower limbs. Ironically, the more innocent and pure the victim, the worse the agony and, thus, the more demonic the resulting appearance. However, the influence of the lingering soul's innocence also tempers the newborn tiefling's infernal instincts. Tragically, the most overtly demonic form is home to the least demonic heart and mind. These tieflings are the most likely to become adventurers, seeking to atone for their own births by doing some good in the world.
But they have no hope of redemption; their very soul is born of hellfire. The trace of innocence only tempers the infernal drive to commit evil. Their every moment is a struggle against temptation to subvert, to kill, to exploit, to indulge. One can only hold so long. Eventually, the burden becomes too heavy to bear. Voices whisper that the curse of existence can be set upon another shoulders. The constant fight can be left to another's will. You can escape your fate in the pits of Hell, if only you could grasp a soul of your own ...
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