The Five Major Races - descriptions

 Hello everyone and welcome to the indroduction of the five major races of my setting. The picture above is supposed to serve as a quick overview of each of the main races, how they look and what they’re more or less about.

Of course, over time I will continue to gradually develop these races and the world they inhabit. For now I thought adding some creator’s notes on each race would be a nice way to explain my thought process behing each one:

1. Humans – Well, humans are humans, a staple of any speculative fiction genre, and a nice anchor point with which to contrast all the other weirdness. I decided to make my humans the first mortals of the setting (a position usually reserved for elves), and the most dominant. Them being the oldest preemptively answers some worldbuilding questions such as „why are they the most widespread and diverse race? Because of their age.”, „why are other races humanoid? Because you want to copy what works.” etc. Otherwise, there’s not much weirdness to them, maybe other than their propencity to use arcotech (magitek) augumentations.

1. Goblins – I wanted one more familliar fantasy race in my setting and decided on goblins. After some brainstorming, I noticed they could be easily molded into the two traditionally opposed fantasy themes of nature lovers (typically wood elves), and industrialists (typically dwarves). A goblin can fit both the role of a shaman, and an engineer and no one will bat an eye (try doing that with an elf or a dwarf). Most of goblins live among humans and kozars, and so they tend to adopt their societal standards, although in their own, weird goblin ways.

1. Kozars – Since the beginning I wanted a beastfolk race, but was adamant in avoiding the most popular animals as a base. I tried species that in my opinion would be the easiest to anthomorphicize, without loosing too much of their aesthetics and to my surprise goats (or caprines in general) were it. The longer I researched them, the happier I was with my choice, as it proved really easy to take the thing goats are most known for (crazy climbing) and incorporate it into all the tasty worldbuilding stuff such as architecture, society, warfare, etc.

1. Feykin – The high elves of the setting but not entirely. They do not have the advantage of millennia-old individuals dispersing their wisdom, nor are they the undisputed masters of magic. They’re arcane in the way of having a direct connection to the astral realm (the place with all the crazy stuff like spirits and demons and such). They have what is called the ‘Twin Mind’, as each feykin is basically two beings in one (to simplify it), so in many aspects they are even more distant than a traditional high elf, altho this doesn’t steem from arrogance, more from their alien way of thinking.

1. Gargoyans – Originally supposed to be some kind of dragon people, later changed them to demon people (because I changed a lot about the dragons in my setting), they’re the closest to a proud warrior race in my setting but not exactly. But it’s often how other races percieve them. That, and calling them techno-barbarians because of the sophisticated technology they wield, while running around in a loincloth. Aesthetically, they’re inspired by the work of artists such as Boris Vallejo and Frank Frazetta, but with a gargoyle face.

Hope you enjoyed this write up. Feel free to ask anything!