Are your main conpeople human or of a different species?

[eldin raigmore]

The most fun I ever had with a conculture was my race of sticks. Yes, that's right: sticks. I shit you not.

I want to know more about this.

So do I! What valiums said!
Can you tell us more, Cordoma?

[qwed117]

The most fun I ever had with a conculture was my race of sticks. Yes, that's right: sticks. I shit you not.

I want to know more about this.

So do I! What valiums said!
Can you tell us more, Cordoma?

No offense, but Cordoma last came to the cbb, 5 years ago, in 2012. I don't think we'll ever now the story (also this is like a mega-hyper-super necro)

[Pabappa]

My planet, Teppala, has several sapient species, and humans are confined to specific habitats just like each of the others. The other sapient species vary between hostile to humans and unreliable allies, depending on the situation. All of the other sapient species are traditional claws-and-teeth predators, putting unarmed humans in a very delicate position in mixed combat. However, due to differences in diet and tolerance of difficult climates, humans achieve safety by sticking to their own habitats: lakes and rivers in temperate or tropical climates, and limited areas of the coasts.

----------------------

A lot of fantasy and science fiction seems to fall into the trope that all other species are complete monoliths ... for example, humans will be invaded by "the Crab Empire", and 100% of the crabs are on the same side. I rose above this pretty early on, but I also think that so long as I'm aware that it's a trope, I can use it in some situations where 100% of a given species really is on the same side, so long as they have a good reason to be such.

See http://www.frathwiki.com/Teppalan_wildlife for basic info.

But I can summarize quickly the general stance on war for each of the species:

• Humans: constantly at war with each other, but with wars generally smaller scale than on Earth, and less willing to risk the lives of both soldiers and civilians. Many wars begin and end with a single battle in which one city is occupied and quickly surrenders.
• Dolphins: The only all-aquatic species, dolphins often fight wars against other dolphins but do not have cities or natural borders. Dolphins readily involve humans in their wars, since humans can hurry over land to reach dolphin settlements otherwise difficult to reach, and have the ability to hold weapons that dolphins cannot. In return, the dolphins offer the humans safe passage to islands, which affords them safety, since enemy humans, whenever recognized, would be quickly attacked by the dolphins.
• Firebirds: Generally do not fight wars against other firebirds, nor join in the wars of other species. However they also have weak loyalty to other flocks of firebirds, and will often refuse to intervene when another nest of firebirds is attacked. Firebirds are the most efficient predators of all but are restricted to temperate climates, unable to tolerate extremes of cold or heat.
• Penguins: Readily fight wars against other penguins, but only of other "tribes" who are physically different in appearance. Intra-tribal loyalty is nearly absolute. Penguins consider themselves allies of those humans who live in cold climates, and at the present time all humans living in areas inhabited by penguins are strongly pacifistic, and therefore work together with the penguins to repel any potential invaders.
• Crabs: lives entirely in the water but hunts on land for food, and thus encounters humans and sometimes firebirds. Crabs readily fight wars against each other, but never participate in the wars of other species either as allies or enemies; to them, all other animals, including the predators, are prey.
• Hedgehogs: a species of low intelligence which I dont always consider to be sapient, and is not a predator, but nevertheless participates in human politics whenever their habitats overlap. Hedgehogs on Teppala are larger than humans, and quick on their feet, and can rush into a crowd of humans and poke their spines through the humans' armor and clothing, but have little to gain from this and therefore are not often called upon unless an invader threatens both humans and hedgehogs alike.
  
  -----
  Humans on Teppala have some slight anatomical differences from those on Earth. Men and women are about the same height, and this is variable from one tribe to another, with some tribes having women be taller and others having men be taller. No tribe has a mix of these two traits, but many societies have a mix of different tribes, such that one will see both types of couples side by side.

[fruityloops]

in my world of Verra, it's inhabitants are anthropomorphic bug people. the reason for that is there's not much love for bugs all that much with some exceptions like hollow knight. even then, i thought it was pretty cool to explore this idea with some races I've made like wandering scholars who are jumping spiders, desert tribe of warriors who are scorpions, spiritual people who are butterflies, or proud tribe who values honor in combat who are rhino beetles. eventually i'll flesh out their cultures more so they won't come off as one dimensional.

[WeepingElf]

All my current con-people are human - including the Elves. This has two reasons: First, the Elvenpath is a historical fantasy setting in which the Elves exist in a version of the real world, and we know pretty much for sure that there never were any kind of immortal, magical, pointy-eared humanoids anywhere on this planet. Second, and more importantly, the "purpose" of this subcreation is to narrate my thoughts and feelings about the world and the human condition, and this obviously requires the fictional people to be human - no more, no less.

[Anarel]

There are two main conpeople in my conworld: the Aezin and the Elan, both of which are "human" and share the same ancestors. In my conworld, all intelligent species were not created by gods/spirits/magic, they are products of evolution and biological diversity with only one exception: the Arunae (explained below).

Anyway, the Aezin and the Elan are descendants of the Ae'n, an ancient people who is said to have lived somewhere around the center of the Elandaer, the Continent of the Elan. At some time in the distant past, the Ae'n split in three main groups that led to what are known today as the Aezin, the Elan and the Arunae, the latter having much small numbers than the others.

-The Aezin are divided in three main groups: Ark-Empire, Mu and Free people. They each have different forms of government, culture, religions and languages, but share common ancestries and customs. Aezin comes in all kinds of ethnics and races: white, black, "brown" and even mongoloid. They are the most varied people in the world, but they all share a common pride and sense of being a unique big community of people. This has not stopped them to hate and make war to each other, though.
-The Elan are also divided in three groups: Naielan, Darelan and Mirelan. They are very different from one another and are almost completely distinct ethnic groups. However, they have a strong sense of unity and community, they consider their differences to be minimal, the "Elan" identity is stronger than the individual distinctions. They have never fought each other in war, although some conflicts have arised through the centuries. Of course, nothing the Naielan could not settle with their crafty teatrises, contracts, agreements, etc.
-The Arunae are a minority and the third group that split from the Ae'n. They are very different from the Aezin and the Elan in that they were influenced and warped by the Dark Mother itself, the Great Darkness Spirit that commands over Fear, Hate, Rage and all other negative feelings. The Arunae can make use of the Dark Energy, a dangerous type of magic that can kill even its user if not used properly. They feed on the energy of others and people have called them "vampires". However, they are not inmortal nor the sun kills them. Fire, beheading and a stake to the heart kills them... but as it would kill any normal man or woman. The Arunae are special for their feeding needs and magic abilities, but this have cursed them with a very low birthrate and very few numbers.

There are other sapient species in the world:
-The Onyàryd, the dragon people. They are basically enormous dragonoids. They are strictly divided in three tribes: Hunters, Warriors and Shamans. They live in what is known as the "Forbidden Continent", a distant land of great mountain ranges, gigantic trees, big animals and of course, the Onyàryd.
-The Nyryd, the Lizard people. This is your typical, classical humanod lizards. They live in tribes and communes on the extensive sabana and the deep jungles.
-The Za'en, a fabled subaquatic sapient species. The Mirelan insist on the existance of the Za'en, but no one has being able to prove it.
-Hundreds of thousands of years ago, before any other sapient species existed, there were Dragons. They are roughly the equivalent of dinosaurs in my conworld.

[gestaltist]

I have a few conworlds and only one of them features non-human sapients at all.

[Reyzadren]

The conworld that is associated with griuskant has many different species alongside humans. Amongst the animals, plants and ghosts/spirits, there are also other sentient beings such as machines, items/things and even amorphous creatures.

In fact, humans are a subset of the humanoid species, which also includes angels and demons etc, but they are probably not in the same sense as we know it.

[marvelous]

Similar to Tolkien's Arda, my conworld goes through a stage of non-human dominance and a stage of human dominance. During the stage of human dominance, international words still largely come from the ancient lingua franca of the non-human first species. I haven't set any stories in the world and am not sure if I ever will or if this is just for fun, so I can't answer as to which is the "main conpeople." There are also other species with their own languages who could very well end up being the focus of stories.

[Foolster41]

My main con-world consists mostly of lizard folk (Salthans)(, or rather, the lizard folk are the ones I focus on mainly. There are humans too, and jungle-cat people, though I havn't really fleshed out their cultures a lot.

They have a vaguely human-like shape, I guess with green scaley skin, and a tail that reaches to the grouund. Males have a row of spikes running front to back of their head.

In terms of intelligence, they have the same range of intelligence as humans.

[Birdlang]

Mine are not human, they are birds, reptilians, amphibians, gill people, cats, dogs, other mammals, humanoid aliens, and insectoids.

They are slightly more intelligent than humans.

There are humans on an alternate history earth. English is totally different.

[k1234567890y]

it depends. Some are humans while others are not.

[Pabappa]

I forgot to mention that some species of penguins on planet Teppala can fly, but are less efficient swimmers than the flightless penguins. Yet they recognize each other's shared traits and live together as allies against their cruel natural environment, just like penguins on Earth whose habitats overlap.

You know, one thing that's always bothered me: Why build fantasy worlds with "elves" and "dwarves" that have zero properties in common with the prototypical elves and dwarves? Why not just give them an original name?

In my opinion it's because "elves" and "dwarves" are already established archetypical humanoids, even outside the fantasy context, so it's easier for an audience to get it rather than the "Xoijafoaijsfoisjfians" or something.

I agree, I've done this as well. My planet's dwarves are mythological .... i.e. fictional within the fiction of my writing ... And therefore have traits that violate the laws of nature, such as being mostly males yet finding no difficulty in reproduction. I don't have a race I call elves, but I do have fairies and mermaids, whose sex ratio is ~80-90% female and are often believed to be immortal. Here again I am using popular culture terms for familiarity's sake .... the fairies don't have wings, and the mermaids don't have tails. However the fairies, being mythological, have magical powers, and can fly from place to place despite their large body size, and without needing wings. Mermaids are usually depicted as very large female humans with no special powers but some cultures believe they are a subset of the fairies and can control the tide and ocean weather.

I also use the term "angels" for a category of being that includes the fairies , but also includes many other beings that are very different from the fairies. This may not correspond to any single word in my conlangs however, as their shared characteristics are few. Even the non-fairies tend to be primarily female, however.

[WeepingElf]

Perhaps dwarves and fairies are the same species, with an extreme sexual dimorphism - the dwarves are the males and the fairies the females. (I think this idea is not new. I can't give a reference, but I am pretty sure that I have seen it in some book about European folklore.)

[k1234567890y]

I have at least two...one human one non-human...recently I do the human one more...

[eldin raigmore]

In one, the main ones are human, but there are also “space centipedes” and AIs.

—————

In another, the main one (from the story’s point of view) are dwarves. But there are also elves; and both dwarves and elves are minorities. The majority is humans.
Dwarves dominate mountainous, cavernous, and rocky or stony environs.
Elves dominate fully or densely forested or wooded areas.
Humans dominate river deltas; and, to a lesser extent, river valleys, coasts (both saltwater and freshwater), plains, and grasslands.
(Humans’ favourite places will be forest-edges, until civilisation starts. )
Arid places are technically up for grabs, but effectively human-dominated; they may be only passing through, but the dwarves and elves don’t want even that much to do with the deserts —— until petroleum becomes valuable and reserves of it are discovered under deserts. Then it’ll turn out dwarves are best at drilling for it.

[WeepingElf]

Non-human conpeople will come into play when I'll get to develop the Trellis, a space opera universe that will be set several centuries after the Global Spring, which I am already collecting ideas for. The Trellis will feature various non-humanoid alien intelligent life forms.

[Pabappa]

Perhaps dwarves and fairies are the same species, with an extreme sexual dimorphism - the dwarves are the males and the fairies the females. (I think this idea is not new. I can't give a reference, but I am pretty sure that I have seen it in some book about European folklore.)

Thanks for the idea. There's different layers of reality here ... those who believe in the two groups might certainly think they could interbreed as well, with the children retaining the sex-specific phenotypes of their parents ... but there will be many who believe in only the dwarves, since they are based on a fantastic exaggeration of a real people, the Andanese ... and the Andanese who recognize these stories admit that the myths are about them rather than believing in dwarves of their own. Whereas by contrast the fairies are part of folklore and equidistant to all humans.

fairies are far, far, larger t han all the dwarves ... unlike the fairies of earth mythology. a dwarf/fairy couple would be quite a sight as the male would be less than the hip height of the female.

[fruityloops]

i know i posted one before, but my newest conworld has humans in it (this is the darkest time like indeed). more specifically, humans who can ride on dragons. the twist here is that they don't have those special bonds you see in other dragon rider media. really, the dragon is more like a smart horse then some bond creature.

[Firebird766]

Essu Beti is a mix of roughly 30% human and 70% elven. Naturally, I’ve followed my usual trend of making unusual variants of said classic fantasy species by making Betian elves marsupial hypercarnivores with prehensile tails. But they can still be called elves because they’re humanoids with pointy ears.