Questions tagged [fantasy-races]
For questions relating to peoples or sentient beings that are often found in the fantasy subgenre of fiction, such as elves, dwarves, etc. This can be about their physical characteristics, their societies, or something completely different.
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How can my puny naked apes possibly become the dominant species? [closed]
I have been building my fantasy world for the last fifteen years. The world has satirical elements. In particular the world is ruled by puny naked upright apes. I am having difficulty justifying this ...
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How would my fantasy race keep blood in ceremonial pots without it getting gross?
There’s a group I’m designing that believe blood to be sacred, and at 7 they begin keeping it for rituals and such.
The amount of blood is about a drop per day and is kept in a (glazed) clay pot that ...
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What level of phenotypic change is plausible over 10-15,000 years?
I'm developing a story with 4 distinct group of humans who inhabit 4 geographically separated and ecologically distinct islands (Iceland to Greenland sized). These groups descend from a single diverse ...
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What would be a good reason for a clan of 'Pure bloods' to want all other supernatural creatures dead? [closed]
In my novel, I'm working on having some form of clan/club/group of 'pure-bloods' that are descended from Van Helsing that are now an entire organization (in the 21st century) still working to carry ...
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Would merpeople be able to survive in relatively still water?
So merfolk are obviously fantasy creatures, and their biology depends entirely on the designs of the writer. For my merfolk, I am leaning less into the accuracy territory, and simply looking for ...
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Could a sub-race of humans survive at 2 feet tall and live underground (occasionally going to the surface)
The faeren are an extremely short sub-race of humans that live underground in secret mounds called "barrows." Their males are chubby, but muscular, and are all capable of growing vast beards,...
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Goblins are Vulnerable to Fire and Light -- What Weapons Should we Use?
I’m doing a project about secret agents in the same vein as MIB but it’s set in the year 2050 and instead of aliens they deal with monsters similar to goblins.
The goblins evolve, growing from ...
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Why are my Orcs so Big and Strong? [closed]
Here are the usual "Since warcraft 3" Orcs.
Men are between 2.0 and 2.7 meters tall.
In women from 1.7 meters to 2.5 meters.
Almost no fat.
Much stronger than humans "One orc is as ...
user100265
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Can a canine/human hybrid balance without a tail?
I am writing a book about a humanoid wolf (named Wolf. See what I did there?). Wolf lost most of his tail in an accident when he was younger. He hides the stump under his jacket to avoid being ...
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Formula for calculating aging rate of a decaying half-elf dynasty
A powerful human king had a child with an elf princess. His life expectancy is about 70 years (human average), hers is 2000 years. The half-elf prince is expected to live for about 1000 years, more or ...
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Footwear for my invisible fantasy race
My setting (urban fantasy set in 1998 America) has a variation on the classic movie monster of the "invisible man". Here this species (tentatively called the neverthere) has a physical body ...
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How would a group of people inspired by European ethnic groups maintain their lighter skin in a desert climate?
Messing around with different aesthetics and groups for this story, and I'm wondering how to go about this. I wanted to do a setting where a region is full of basically ancient Egyptian inspired ...
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What conditions could fish people evolve to be in their current humanoid form?
My fish people live in underwater nations. They look like a mix between the Creature from the Black Lagoon (left)
and the sea creatures from Luca:
with the exception of some minorities that resemble ...
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How could my solar-powered fairies exist in outer space?
There have been instances of flashes in space that were attributed to sprites and fairies. Now, I know these phenomena can be explained by natural means such as blue/purple lightning. But the concept ...
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How plausible is the idea of aquatic humans/humanoids having respiration like a frog instead of things like gills?
I was reading about frogs, which led me to think: what if, instead of gills, aquatic humanoids had a respiration system like frogs (absorbing the oxygen from the water through their skin)?
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Would stalked hair help a tunneling humanoid?
Many mammals that dig and live in underground tunnels have short/no hair, so as to avoid the hair being bent backwards if they need to reverse out of their tunnel. However, I'd like my tunneling ...
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How to prevent super-strong slaves from escaping and rebelling
I have a fantasy setting that is about as advanced as the late 15th to early 16th century. There are humans and many other sapient non-human species; humans are one of the only species to create large ...
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What would an "excessively sober" dwarf look like if they need alcohol to function?
Some dwarf lore, particularly the video game Dwarf Fortress, depicts dwarves not just as aggressively alcoholic, but as a species that functions better when drunk than when sober. That they need ...
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What anatomical features would enable tree climbing in someone with feet for hands and no opposable thumbs?
Short version: A given person’s arms are now legs. But somehow they are able to climb trees despite having no opposable thumbs or big toes. How is the anatomy of their arm-legs designed to make this ...
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Is it easier to kill a dragon with a machinegun or a bazooka? [closed]
Faced in a mortal combat with a dragon* would a squad of humans be better equipped mostly by medium machineguns or by portable rocket launchers? Would a 7.62×51mm to the eye or armpit maim an ...
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How do human police (non-lethally) apprehend far larger, more dangerous races?
One of the factions of my setting has several different races cooperating to form a cohesive society. Being relatively modern, it has a variety of amenities we would consider a part of civilisation, ...
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What gene could have a mutation that makes humans have blubber?
In my world, there are three species from the Homo genus that make together a clade named the aquatic humans: Homo maritimus, Homo corpulentus, and Homo gigas (the names respectively mean "marine ...
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What struggles would a ten-foot tall humanoid face in daily life?
In the story I am creating the fantasy race I am creating is roughly 10-20 feet tall from the tip of their ears to the end of their tail in water, and out of water 8-10 foot tall from tip of their ...
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How could dryads realistically grow plants out of their body? [closed]
My fantasy world includes non-traditional dryads who are pretty much just humans that have a stronger connection to nature, as well as the ability to grow plants out of their skin. Is there any way to ...
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What type of diet would be needed to sustain the Seadominians and keep them thriving
I created this fantasy race called Seadominians, they are basically merfolk. They are mostly bipedal, have scales covering all over, and live all throughout the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, also the ...
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Biology Question Ovoviviparity in Mammals Mammal/Brid Hybrids [closed]
I am not sure where to ask this question at so I hope this is a good place.
I also am not sure where I ever got this idea, but I wanted ask what possibility it had.
Considering the reproduction of a ...
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How would technology differ in a society with different intelligent species than just humans?
In my story, Longhorn, there’s five races descended from five gods of the same names, which consist of humans, keratas (anthropomorphic big cats w horns) lykos (anthropomorphic Wolf/hyena creatures) ...
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What is the earliest point in human history that gold could be hoarded?
I am currently brainstorming the history and logistics of the dragon species in my urban fantasy story about immortal mythical creatures. The way I currently envision them, dragons have their ...
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How could a mostly medieval civilization withstand an invasion by a modern air power? [closed]
In my story a medieval civilization of elves is facing an invasion from a modern day earth power. They have prophetic powers, which have predicted the invasion will happen in ten years, and have that ...
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Could superhuman pre-Industrial Orcs wage effective guerilla warfare against a modern military?
In my story, a portal links the modern world to a medieval fantasy world. This is sort of similar to Gate: Thus the JSDF Fought There. The North Korean military decides to go through their portal and ...
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Would merfolk have pale skin?
Quite simply question. In my story I am depicting merfolk as having lighter skin than even Caucasian people, contrasting to my human society which bears resemblance skin tone wise to Hispanics.
I've ...
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Most practical method for a secret demographic to get its news?
My story is set in 1998 and is about a secret 1-in-1000 minority demographic of the human race that are all actually magical beings like vampires and werewolves and merfolk. They secretly live amongst ...
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How complex can racism get? [closed]
In my world, there are humans and a variety of fantasy races. Of course, due to instinct, there is going to be racism and forms of discrimination. For realism, and just tired of the usual fantasy ...
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How could people identify someone as from another world? [closed]
One day, a world similar to our own (henceforth calling it "science world") is connected to another, magical world. The magical world is just like those Japanese anime iseikais, with magics, ...
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Discriminatory policies that are outwardly non-discriminatory
The setting of the story is similar to a 1970 to 1980 Earth.
There is a special faction of people, and we call this faction A. A looks human, but has animal ears and tails (in the sense of if you ...
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Ideal melee weapon for someone with "psychic arms" [closed]
There's a trope in certain comedic series, such as Veggietales and Homestar Runner, to have characters that do not have limbs, and yet visibly carry things around anyway.
The general rules seem to be ...
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Castle defenses against dragons
In my world, there are dragons that the people have to fight against. In many forms of fantasy, despite having the giant creatures, their castles still look like the traditional medieval castle. In ...
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Clothing preference and Skin type of race which can absorb heat energy via skin?
My alien race is able to absorb energy via the skin, like plants using sunlight for photosynthesis.
The race eats a lot of food, like humans, But they need this absorbed energy for their proper inner ...
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A planet in which Natural elements , emits heat energy - Is Inhabitable?
On my alien planet, many natural elements (Soil, some plants, a certain type of stones...) emit a kind of heat energy.
Will this affect flora and fauna of my planet? Since the natural elements emit ...
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What's a viable reason for why underground societies are more accepting of slavery?
In fantasy, a relatively common trope in fantasy settings, particularly D&D, is underground societies that are more willing to endorse slavery than surface-dwelling societies.
We see it in the ...
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Cold-blooded intelligent race: Is it possible?
I need my race to be highly affected by climate and nature changes. And they are more like a reptile - Humanoid. So making them Cold blood seems good for me.
But they are an intelligent race too. They ...
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Equivalents word for Human centric words in a world with multiple sapient species [closed]
In world with humans, elves, warewolves, cat people, dwarves, sirens, merfolk and other humanoid sapient species (Non-monstrous and peaceful)
What terms would be used to convey meaning of Human-...
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Anatomically Correct Winged Kappa
The Winged Kappa, or Hane No Haeta Kappa, is a type of Kappa with Wings
They have a mixture of avian and chelonian features. They have a pointed beak like a bird, with the eyes and nostrils high up ...
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How does interspecies romance work between fantasy races? [closed]
In my world, most of the fantasy races are very different from the typical. While there are some like ghouls, trolls, etc., there are animal people races instead of elves and dwarves. At some point, ...
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How could a civilization with infinite resources be? [closed]
For my worldbuilding project, my main alien race has been given powers by an unknown force, one thing they use their powers for is creating infinite resources, making things like money dissappear.
How ...
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How to balance a conflict between animal people when one of them has the advantage of flight?
Setup:
Avians are a humanoid species with bird characteristics, they all posses the ability to fly. Just as other species they can learn to use bows, swords and magic. Their main fighting tactic is ...
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Under what circumstances would a species with 2 sexes evolve into a species with 1 sex?
I'm building a world for a novel and would like to have a single-sex, sapient species. The world is based on the general physics and scientific nature of our world but where more than one sapient ...
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2
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Would humans crossbreeding with animal people cause more birth defects? [closed]
I am working on a world inspired by witcher where humans and animal like race live together.
would for example, human crossbreeding with water dwelling humanoid cause something like mermaid syndrome?
...
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a chemical component in vampire saliva to assist with feeding
I've been thinking about vampires lately, and I came up with the idea of a vampire's saliva containing some sort of chemical or hormone that assists with feeding. I think it would probably have to do ...
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Why would vampires sire vampires of lesser blood than they have to?
Long story short: my story has magical humanoids (known as "immortals" due to their immunity to old age and disease) existing in secret on mostly-modern-day Earth as a 1-in-1000-humans ...
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