Hello and thank you for taking the time to read this post. I decided to be safe and post it here as I was not entirely certain if it should go in setting development or elsewhere. Thank you again for taking a look at this thread. So I need some help coming up with additional races for my current project. I also need some advice about whether to include or remove one. I'm looking to have at least six or seven total. So far I have the following: Humans Felsing Lionmen aka Hvet Aniconarada aka snakemen Felineans aka cat people Now my conflict race/not sure what to do with it race are my Felineans. They're your generic Japanese animation cat people. The only thing I really did was make them a tad more feline by removing human ears then increased their nail's length and durability. Except I just don't know what to do with them. I feel like I'm infringing/repeating a race the more I look at them. It was one of those "Sure why not?" moments that led me to toss them in as a race in the first place. The idea was to have them and Lionmen as the former dominant races of the world. Significant racial disputes (Lionmen are kind of pricks in my story) led to a vast destructive war which led to near genocide on both sides. This also led to their downfall as the "dominant" races of the world. Lionmen went back to a nomadic tribal society (in present day they are no longer nomadic) while the Felineans became reclusive jungle dwellers. A thousand years later with the rise of Humanity Felineans have mostly incorporated into society. Lionmen still bear the whole "Thou art better" mentality though a few wander out of their tribal home to see the world outside. As for their numbers Felineans barely exceed two million where as Lionmen barely exceed ninety thousand. Presently Lionmen reside in a sovereign city-state divided among over eighty tribes. Note: Neither population dipped below fifty thousand. Loss of knowledge and post war conflicts/hardships kept populations from booming as well as societal shifts. Anyway guys, that's what I have where these two are concerned. I hope that's enough for some critical analysis. I mean I LIKE the idea except I still feel like I'm majorly infringing like I mentioned earlier. I look very forward to your thoughts on these matters.
Something I'm doing is rooting my races in an historical group. For example, I have a man-size goblin/orc type race called the Vour. I've then broken them up into different ethnic groups based upon historical groups known for aggression. Example, one group of Vour is called the Rir, and they are based upon Vikings. Taking inspiration from Norse history I was able to create some really interesting relationships and events in their part of Triskele. Also, they have a culture, customs and other traits that make them different from other groups of Vour. These guys are vicious bad guys, but, other aspects of the Northmen, they were explorers and traders, fleshed out the Rir as more than just 'plot device' bad guys.
Species: The leading non-human character in my WIP is a vampire, and one of the characters in my sequel is going to be a half-orc. As long as you distinguish your cat-people as being uniquely your own in some way, you'll be all right Have you studied the differences between cats and humans? Humans tend to be social creatures, with loners like me being the exception rather than the rule, but with cats, it would be the other way around. Even the most social cats in the world (lions) form far smaller social networks than do the vast majority of humans, and a feline "society" would be a loose collection of individuals rather than the group being seen as An Identity in of itself (though lions would be far less extreme about this than other cats would). Humans also hunted by scaring our prey into running itself to exhaustion while we caught up with our superior long-distance running stamina, and this shock-and-awe paradigm also takes center stage in our military campaigns, with discretion and quick-and-quiet get-in-get-out likewise being the exception rather than the rule. Likewise with cats (amazing speed, horrible endurance), it would also be the other way around: subtlety first, spectacle second. Conflict: I loved Dawn of the Planet of the Apes because they made it clear that it wasn't "Humans, good; Apes, bad" or "Humans, bad; Apes, good," it was "Humans and Apes who wanted to protect people, good; Humans and Apes who wanted to hurt people, bad." Disney's Pocahontas was based on romanticizing a vicious lie, but they still managed to fit this same truth in between the lies, and I hope to emphasize the same idea just as effectively in my own writing. Would you be interested in doing the same thing?
Thank you for the responses guys! Nice information here. I really liked reading what you wrote in regards to the conflict. Gave me a few new ideas swimming around in my head. I also had not done much research into how cats work in the terms you've mentioned. It was a passing thought at one point maybe but, not something I gave more than a glance. I'll have to keep this in mind as i continue to develop both groups. Thanks! I hadn't really thought about culturally or even racially separating them until I read this last night. Its a very interesting concept and would probably serve me nicely in this instance. I always imagined the Lionmen having tribal conflicts. The Felineans are a semi-new idea for me and I haven't fleshed them out nearly as much as the Lionmen. Heck I'm not even sure I'm going to keep the current name I have for them. It was more or less a rough idea I threw together to see how it fit. Looks like my work is well beyond simply far from complete.
I am going to root my series with races from Mankind and other races I have created. I will create my outline for my series.