Origin of the races

Fantasy worlds have long-since been defined by JRR Tolkien's lord of the rings books and his take on the fantasy creatures out of classic faerie tales. Elves, classically, and dwarves are very similar. They're tiny creatures that live in the earth and go about playing tricks on people. So are gnomes, so are faries, and goblins. They're all very similar creatures - in earth mythos.

But Tolkien took these creatures and made a series of distinct races from them. Drawves live in mountains, elves live in forests, and the two don't get along. Hobbits are flighty, Orcs are brutish, and so on. Dungeons and Dragons took these types and ran with them, and thus he generic fatasy world is born.

I started Ronar as a generic fantasy world, with elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings and so on - but I gradully felt that it wasn't my world doing that. Everyone who thought of elves in that world made them the same as elves in other worlds. It wasn't what I wanted, when building a new, distinct world. The idea to make my own races came when was playing final fantasy. They stopped using elves and dwarves long ago, they created Vierra, and Moogles, and Bangaa, and a dozen other races in their recent games to populate the world in their place. Some of the races, Vierra and Bangaa, make clear lines to more generic races, elves and dwarves respectively but they were still new and exciting. A race made entirely of sexy bunny-girls who wear lingere? A little unrealistic, but certainly fun.

And so, I cast about to create my new races. Torin were the easiest, cat-people. You can probably see where the insiration came from already, but such is life. You need to be inspired from somewhere. Unofotine were next, a race of bear-like mole people. Cyclops were next, although their histry has been changed and re-written more times than I care to remember. Hopefully they're in a more steady place now. Last came Shadowkin, and I will admit they were someone else's creation that was looking for a home - only to find one in my world.