World Building: Races

In many a fantasy you have a mix of sapient races who fill a fantastical niche in your fantasy world. But just how do you create a race? And how do you flesh out you races?

When you're looking to create a race that people aren't already familiar with (such as Tolkien-esque elves or dwarves), one way to go about it is to take inspiration from our world. Before I wrote The Legend of Draconite, I found inspiration for the Molouk race from a book I had about dinosaurs. I tweaked the Molouks a bit (they're more humanoid and have smooth skin, have hair as well as feathers, etc.) and made them my own race. If you're going with a more familiar race like humans, there's still elements you can add to make it your own.

Another way is to look up legends from our world and base a race off of that. You will want to add unique elements to that race to make it your own, unless you want to stay true to traditional legends and write something based in our world.

We'll go through an exercise in creating a race.

The first thing I think of when it comes to a creature is what it looks like. It can be practical or aesthetic. In this exercise, I'm thinking of a short, barrel-shaped creature who is covered in a ceramic-like exoskeleton that is white and green. Its limbs can lay flush with its body to create a nearly impenetrable shell. It has a low, dome-shaped head with eyes, nose, and a mouth, and its limbs are pretty short. It has wide feet to support its great weight, even though it only stands about three feet tall.

Of course, we need a name for this critter. We'll call it an Atooma.
With the general appearance in place, the next thing we can do is think more about what the functions of its body are. The exoskeleton can be for protection, display, and functionality. The Atooma can roll fairly well, slide on slopes with its wide feet, and can use its plated limbs to attack and defend. It can have a high-pitched voice that can be used to derange enemies or in courtship. The Atoomas have males and females, and the females tend to be larger to accommodate child-bearing. Atoomas smell like peaches.

What about where they live? Atoomas live in deep, tropical jungles of white trees, usually on sloped areas like cloud forests. They're not good climbers, but they're able to move up and down the slopes with surprising ease thanks to their large feet and the protection their exoskeletons provide against bumping against trees. They don't have any natural predators, as they are next to impossible for wild animals to kill and eat.

Let's think of their culture. Atooma are tribal creatures, and the tribes general worship an all-powerful rock god. As such, they like to glue precious rocks to their plates, or paint images of their god and patron spirits on their smooth exoskeletons. In their tribal culture, the women rule as chieftesses, and child-bearing is seen as the highest honor. Atooma men are defenders of the tribes. The tribes have annual gatherings to participate in trade and in honor games to please their rock god and spirits.
 
This is a pretty general summary of a new race, and I could probably go on and on. Development of a race occurs while you're writing about it, and you can add upon detailed notes you may already have. This is how you flesh out the race: writing stories about their heroes, their cultures, and their history.
 
When you incorporate your race into a story, it's likely your protagonist has had a lot of exposure to their own race and lives among them, at least for a time. (This is unless the protagonist is an orphan raised by a different race in a different location.) When fleshing out the race, you see the details through the eyes of your heroes, especially if they're familiar with that race.

With our Atooma, for example, let's say our main character is an Atooma healer who is training an apprentice to take his place when his ceramic husk is taken to the sacred death rocks. His tribe becomes afflicted with a terrible disease that none of his current knowledge can fix, so he and his apprentice must venture into the wilds to find an answer to what's happening. The healer knows a lot about the Atooma culturally and biologically, and knows a lot about the nature around them. The apprentice is curious and learns from his teacher, as well as deals with life as an adolescent when he is bullied by his hunter peers for becoming a healer.

Each character has their individual personalities and quirks. The healer is adamant about keeping his exoskeleton as immaculate as possible. The apprentice stutters when he's tired, and one of his feet is larger than the other, which can make moving fast a challenge. The healer demands perfection and can be upset when he doesn't see it being met, and the apprentice works on being less sloppy with his homeopathy in order to please his teacher.

The world around the characters shapes them, and they in turn shape and explore the world. We'll talk more about fantasy setting in another article and the impact it has on other elements in a fantasy world.

I hope this article has given you some ideas on how to get a race started. Feel free to use the Atooma in your own writing. They were inspired by a ceramic mug sitting by my computer screen!