Make One

polymorphikos

polymorphikos

Scrofulous Fig-Merchant
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I am intensely sick of fantasy stories that just recycle the stock cast of Orcs, Elves, Dwarves, Dragons, Trolls, etc, etc. As a result, I challenge you all to put on your thinking caps and create (off the top of your heads, preferably) an origional race each. Not necessarilly entirely origional (for example, they can be humans, just wierd, or fairies or such), but new enough to distinguish themselves from the endless conveyor belt of rehashed ideas.

Go To! (And yes, I'll put my money where my mouth is and do one later).
 
The Patchwork People are not, strictly speaking, a race at all. Rather, they are sad, living artifacts of darkest necromancy. But they are people, and they do cling together for comfort and companionship in a hostile world. And their ranks are contantly swelled by the subjects of yet more ghoulish experiments. So in a strange way, these ragged, misshapen creatures form one of the strangest races you will encounter in this fantastic world.

Each of them has the form of a supremely beautiful young man or woman - they are shaped for beauty, but imperfectly. The imperfection becomes clearer as you move closer to them. Suddenly, fine lines on their flesh resolve into a network of stitches and scars, holding together hides ripped from all manner of beasts - mammals, reptiles, and others.

There faces are perhaps the most horrific thing about them. Each face is crafted to a sublime beauty. But the tracery of patchwork scars works across their faces too. It is a deeply unsettling effect, as if their faces have been cobbled together from the finest features of a dozen beautuous humans.

They are extremely sharp of hearing and have quick reflexes. They usually band together in herd of about a dozen or so individuals, lead by a commonly chosen leader. Thye keep to the grasslands of the central continent, content with its rich hunting and ample shelter for their disturbing forms.

Occasionally, a Patchwork Person hires himself or herself out to human travellers as a wilderness guide. Sometimes, slave traders kidnap a few - there are brothels to the south that cater to some very specialised tastes - but not often, for they soon grow restless and violent if confined within human dwelling places for long.

And yet, they often like to spy upon the activities of a human settlement unseen. The strangest expression plays across their motley faces at such times - it is hard to tell whether they love, hate, pity or envy humans - or perhaps a bit of each?
 
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Well...we have the Cthulhu Mythos to plunder, for starts. I'm sure there's room for a few Moon Beasts, Deep Ones, Elder Ones, and Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath!

As for a race:

The Elaramon appear as like people, flittering into existence enough just to whisper a certain few words of encouragement into the hearts of people they encounter.

You have probably met one: perhaps a tramp sat up by a building you passed, or the old woman who got off the bus next to you, or the man in the shop you don't normally frequent. For some reason, you looked at each of these and seemed to recognise them, though they were unfamiliar to you. Yet each gave you a smile, perhaps a few words as well, that gave you a sense of uplifting.

You never need fear the Elaramon. That cannot harm you even if you harm them.
 
To follow through on my promise:


The Tyundyo are not technically human, but nor aren't they. They are a subspecies cabable of interbreeding with us, and roughly resembling very fine-featured arabs or Indians in the face, with green hair exclusively on their heads that fades from emerald in childhood to a deep mineral green. As a result of this colourisation the Tyundyo can camoflage almost perfectly with the undergrowth of the principal habitat of the forests.

Physiologically, the Tyudyo differ only in possessing extremely accute hearing, and in hips that can be dislocated to allow perfectly painless child births that take only a few minutes. This feature means that babies are born much more developed, and mature rapidly also. The Tyundyo are also able to select whether they will concieve, what sex the child will be, and keep the egg unfertalised unril an oppurtune time.

Culturally, the Tyundyo are unique in that they live in small tribes of exclusively female members. The "Ginya", or males, differ a great deal physically and culturally from them, living in grass huts on the open plains that surround the forest. They hunt Tyundyo with traps and ambushes, in much the same way as the Tyundyo hunt them, and a member of either sex who is captured will be used for procreation then released once it is certain that all the women have concieved or allthe children are male (in the case of a Ginya capturing a Tyundyo)

Tyundyo are solely hunter-gatherers. They also hold few ties to their children, and the children their parents likewise, so tribes will often "advertise" that they are trading children for warriors or vice versa through ideographs carved into the face of prominent tree trunks.
 
The Imbroge live together with the Laminga. Both races are most humanlike with several sharp differences. The Imbroge are a race of people who are about a foot wide and ranging from six to eight feet tall. Their hands are shovel-like as they have no opposable thumbs and their fingers are joined together at the first two joints and separate at the second two. These hands are very useful for the cultivation of the land, and they are primarily herbivores though they do use certain insects for spice. The Laminga resemble doll-like versions of the Imbroge, ranging from one to two feet tall, and five to six inches wide. What is most unusual about the Laminga is that they survive on the wastes of the Imbroge. Their own wastes contains a substance that effectively keeps away all but the largest predators. This symbiotic relationship is unique on their home world of Maklia.
 
Yes, well. I have a group of immortals that I've dreamed up, who are essentially human, but who are literally and irreversibly immortal. They cannot be killed. Period. There aren't very many of them (maybe a few hundred out of all the billiolns of humans who have been born through the ages), and they don't even know why they are as they are - all were born of human parents, so far as they know, and the oldest of them are from the first centuries of modern humans, tens of thousands of years old.

Other than that one attribute, they do not have any sort of supernatural abilites or talents. They can't sense others of their kind; they can't read minds or tell the future; they don't have superhuman strength. They don't get ill, however. Not even a headache. And they heal much more quickly than normal humans when injured. A doctor examining one of these immortals would not be able to tell that there was anything unusual about him or her.

They tend to be emotionally damaged as they get older, however, due to the lengths of their lives, the things they have seen and gone through, the constant stresses of having to conceal their true age by moving around fairly frequently, and the problems inherent in the emotional relationships they necessarily forge with mortal humans. Some of them try to avoid those relationships, but rarely are successful in completely separating from mortal entanglements.

So. How's that?
 
The Cloaks and Wearers are two symbiotic races that leach off of one another physically. the wearers are intellegent creatures capable of complexed manipulation, and the cloaks are vampiric, cloak-like things that are little more than muscle and neural tissue. Neither race is fully sentient, but the combination of minds augments their intellects. The cloaks are also incapable of supporting their own weight or metabolising the poisons in some plants, whereas the cloaks act as very strong support struts and filter the poison from the wearer blood before reinjecting it, stripped of surplus nutrients (cloaks are without true mouths). The wearer is a cat-like, chitonous, tetrapodal biped with a v-shaped head and large red eyes. The cloak is a roughly rectangular shape, with thick tendrils spiralling off of it. When together, they resemble a croched, five-foot tall monk in a cassock,except in combat when the cloak is thrown open and acts as a number of extra limbs, and in sleep when the cloak totally covers the wearer.
During reproduction, the wearers mate in a conventional manner. Cloaks are asexual and pass their seed by way of the bloodstream to the sperm, where the cloak-seed attaches itself and follows the sperm across. The cloak then attaches itself to the fertalised ovum and grows in symbiosis from then on. oddly, inspite of this close origin, cloaks and wearers are never indivisibly attached, and can be traded or sloughed at any point. Also note that the mind of a cloak-wearer is unified, and the primitive, individual subconciousnesses do not emerge except in the way that a cloak-wearer is an incredibly nimble and lateral thinker, and can seemingly solve two problems at once, and when the two are divided and little more than bestial.
Some wild packs of cloaks do exist and live a vampiric, carnivorous life in the forests of Ng'yaata, and it is thought that they first instigated the strange cloak-wearer relationship by attacking the omnivorous, predatory, wearer-like Sh'vandalya and realising on a primitive level that staying attached to one animal was a safer bet than wandering around and sucking the odd, rare animal dry.
 
Thank you for that, Brian:) . I didn't know about the traditions in Taoism and Judaism. I'll have to look into this further.

I do know that the Mormons have a tradition of a very few righteous individuals - the three Nephites, I think it is - having been given immortality for religious reasons. They also believe that Cain was condemned to walk the world forever.
 
What a great topic! I know exactly what you mean polymorphikos! :mad: I tried to break free from that in writing my story War Tiger. I've used humans, elves, dragons, fairies and various mythological creatures, but invented lots of races too: Zarins, Ngambakka, Wolvas, Hupia, Myrinians, Fenra, Eldrataurs, Narob-Kai, Slukks, Neas, Einhyrim and Remmoncol. All the above are copyrighted (c) to ME and me alone, and if you dare steal them I'll get upset! :eek:

Off the top of my head? OK, here goes...

The Cassenthrians are a humaniod race, usually inhabiting the mountians of Sarhil in the south of Arrondale, though they are sometimes known to wander further north on occasion. Their lifespan is usually twice that of mortal men, and they tend to live solitary lives, small clans and communities nestling in the mountain heights.
Over the centuries, they have adapted to life in the mountain heights, and are adept hunters and weavers. They also possess a wide breadth of arcane knowledge, and often travellers tell tales of Cassenthrians practising the dark arts of necromancy, symbolism, spirit-summoning and blood-letting, though these stories, in our times, are considered to be bedtime tales and nothing more.
Humanlike in appeaance are the Cassenthrians, of similar height and girth. They commonly dress in plain garb and unadorned robes, hoods drawn to cover their angular, "inhuman" faces and bright-coloured hair, and keep out the mountain cold. Whgilst out of sight from human eyes they shed their outer garments and dress in bright, ceremonious robes, with great headdresses and many jewels.
Cassenthrians rarely pay heed to the activity of the outside world, and are tolerant of strangers passing into their territory. There is little "evil" to be found in them.

Hang on, they sound cool :) I'm using them!
 
Hey, great topic.... hmm, I'm going to be thinking about this one... my fantasy stories don't tend to have any creatures other than humans in them, which is probably unimaginative of me...

How about Tollunds? Strange leathery people who live in bogs... ok that's crap, I'm going to post up something better tomorrow.
 
I have many many many. A freind of mine was/is working on a huge fantasy world that was a dumping ground for an evil god's games. Out of respect for him, i wont go too nuts, but i came up with over 65 unique races for that world.

here are a couple:
Cerulean: A race of blue-skinned humanoids, descended from Homo-sapiens, in an alternate reality where polution, smoking, drinking, drug use, etc became so prolific, that they are unable to survive without a steady ingestion of carcinogens and other polutants. Due to their diets, their life expectancy isnt that far beyond 50, but they mutate easily and roughly 70% of them develope some special abilities. (ie, psychic powers)

Brock'n: Large, Muscular, Black skinned race of people. Males are always bald (genetic), females have long black hair. Aggressive, carnivorous race, actually made of living obsidian, but have to convert into flesh to eat and breed. Imagine collossus from the x-men.

I may share more :)
 
The smiths are a race of pseudo-cyborgs that dwell within the vast junkyards beyond the eastern wall of Andropolis. They are the out-cast individuals from the many races which have migrated too or been created within (via evolution or experimentation) Andropolis over the millenia, which have been driven to seek refuge amongst the endless plains of refuse that stretch for several hundred miles.

The smiths have modified themselves using basic technology to survive in the harsh, frugle enviroment of the Depot, replacing limbs with mechanisations and organs with steam-powered energy converters that burn the limitless combustibles. The random ways in which smiths will modify or be modified, coupled with the hundreds of variations in body-form and physiology already present amongs the unmodified races, amkes the Depot resemble a managerie more than the thriving metropolis which it has become. The smiths live in tribal systems, migrating to take advantage of the various seasonal dumpings of unsold or obsolete stock, and often engage in bloody skirmishes. These skirmishes are so brutal and common, fought over matters of honour or territorial disputes, that many smiths will modify themselves to the point of becoming little more than sentient war-machines. The most famous of the smith kings, Aroqil Shtaip, was modified into a tripedal, tentacled behemoth upon being inspired by a cast-away novel, and spent the rest of his reign leading campaigns to capture sufficient fuel and equipment to maintain his battallion of war-machines. The modern smiths regard this era as the height of folly, and use it as an example of both idiocy and the ideals of a smith leader.

The common perception by the smiths of Andropolis is that it is the refuge of the mad, from which the sane will occasionally escape. They reffer to it as the Asylum, and are wary of the automated assault turrets that perch atop its walls.

The smiths are often haunted by gear-beasts, over-modified individuals who have both achieved immortality through their augmentation and lost all sense of humanity.
 
The Tree People are the size of adolescents but with short torsos and long limbs. They have tails that they use for stability when jumping from tree to tree. Again their faces look very human like but their ears are on top of their head as oppose to the sides. They have limited communication ability but can utter the odd human word, usually an expletive. When they fight the whole colony will attack, including the females and young. Their skin appears to be a palid green but this is due them rubbing various leaves against their skin to extract a potent drug that they are all inheritently addicted too. They eat fruit and berries but will kill birds and small mammals to supplement their meals. They live in fear of the humans who they 'smash and kill' if they discover any isolated in their woodlands.

Excellent topic.
 
The Skrit are a race of centipede-like creatures that dwell in the vast sewer-systems beneath Andropolis. Slick-shelled and dark in colour, they possess human-like faces tapering into centipedal bodies, with dark, silvery-charcoal skin and multi-faceted eyes. The skrit are oviparids, laying clutches of eggs within gelatinous membranes that are suspended to vast piles of faecal matter collected by the adults. The nymphs hatch and consume the faeces, originally-resembling amphibious, limbless humans, but with the long centipede-bodies rapidly growing out from their back-ends. A skrit can climb excellently and swim even better. They possess a variable metabolism, capable of surviving in lethargic states with very little food like insects, or burning enormous amounts of rapidly-metabolised food like endotherms.

The skrit are reasonably-intelligent, between the ape and the human, and live in pods of excreted cement glued to the ceilings of the cavernous sewers. They feed upon sewage and the dangerous scara-rats, which they eviscerate with their razor-sharp mouthparts. The skrit possess no writing, but a rich (though simplistic) oral history exists amongst them telling of their mythical origins down below in the cracks beneath Andropolis that lead to the caverns of the earth. The skrit possess no great tool-using ability, but trade with Andropolis fishermen for prisoner meat and skali, a form of tanning agent which has an intoxicating effect upon the skrit physiology.

The greatest fear of the skrit is fire. Apocalyptic legends foretell a time when fire will ignite the methane gases, and the sewers be vaporised. This is a less-real threat than the skrit believe, but the Andropolis authorities nurture it as a method of keeping the skrit cowable and in fear. The skrit have no desire to leave the sewers in any event.



I'm glad I came-up with Andropolis. it's such a convenient place for monsters.
 
Ok, here's the XXX.
Basic human beings but with two difference : low-level telepathy and incontrolable ability to disrupt any electrical or magnetical field. Hence, their world, similar to ours roughly till the discover of electricity (yet without the same tools for navigation - no magnets), evolve on "psionicity" rather than electrical technology. Psionicity would be a kind of magic, but with strict rules and mesurables effects. Low-level telepathy (not empathy) gave them tools to be superb merchants and diplomats.
Could be set in a fantasy novel or a sci-fi one.
 
Aeronauts



The aeronauts are a race of sentient arachnids that live nomadic lives inside of the vast hydrogen balloons which they fashion from silk. They possess internal Hoffman voltameters which allow them to separate hydrogen and oxygen from water, and so fill their vast balloons with the lighter than air gas. The aeronauts generally live in communities of twenty or so, in cacoon-like huts suspended from clusters of balloons, and float directionless upon the wind, hunting using vast, jellyfish-like aerial nets to catch avifauna and seeds.

At some points, the aeronauts have been railroaded into cul-de-sacs by variations in the wind, and as a result vast spider cities sprawl across mountain ranges too high for the balloons to navigate over, in which sentience has increased due to being tied-down and endless forests of bobbing balloons resemble insane dandelion patches. Out to sea, I the doldrums, similar sprawling aeronaut cities have grown where members have been forced together by circumstance. They subsist upon fishing and have been known to harness whales by silken tethers to draw them about the sea. Typhoons are a very real danger for these marine aeronauts, and after one millions of balloons can be found scattered across the ocean, resembling the solitary, mile-high balloons that loom over the plains on the mainland.

The principle enemies of the aeronauts are the bough-ants, hive-minded insects bound to semi-sentient, hollow, carnivorous trees by organic radio, who are capable of swarming up the net systems when an aeronaut is passing through a forest and dragging the vessel down into the rive-tree’s maw.
 
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