Non-Tolkien Fantasy Races

I admit up front that I don’t read a lot of fantasy literature; I’m more of a Sci-Fi person, myself. But it seems that whenever I do read a fantasy novel which includes any non-human races, those races always seem to have made a prior appearance in “The Lord of the Rings”.

I understand of course that Tolkien didn’t invent most of the races which appeared in his books, but nevertheless the fantasy novels I see almost never include any non-human races except elves, dwarves, hobbits, orcs/goblins, or trolls. The only exceptions I’ve seen are novels set in one of the Dungeons and Dragons universes, which seems kind of disappointing. “Dark elves” can’t be the high point of non-standard fantasy races.

So what authors have invented new fantasy races besides the ones above?

Most of them.

Lesse, there are the Others in the George RR Martin books, the Trollocs, Myrdraal, and Ogier in the Robert Jordan books, several in the Goodkind books, and plenty others I can’t remember offhand.

Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman have Kenders in their Dragonlance series. I don’t recall reading about them anywhere else.
They are small, but I don’t think as small as Hobbits. They’re immune to fear and always getting into trouble, partly because they are always stealing things.

David Weber invented the Hradni in *Oath of Swords, * a species of big pointy-eared berserkers, basically elves on steroids with a serious case of 'roid rage.

Note: I do NOT recommend Oath of Swords, it is easily Weber’s worst book!

P.C. Hodgell’s Kencyrath novels (Godstalk, Dark of the Moon, and Seeker’s Mask) have the Highborn (the original Kencyrs) and the Kendar who look almost human but aren’t quite–they live longer, are virtually immune to poisons, and have extraordinary stamina and healing capacities among other things. The Kencyrath also boasts the Arrin-Ken, a race of enormous panther-like creatures possessed of considerable power, intellect, and near-immortality. There were also the Changers, Kencyrs who had merged with the shadows to become shapeshifters.

Mercedes Lackey also features many nonhuman sentients in her Velgarth (Valdemar) novels. There are the hertasi (lizard-people), gryphons, dyheli (intelligent deer-like herd creatures), tervardi (bird-people), kyree (telepathic wolf-like critters), and undoubtedly some others that don’t spring to mind–none of which resemble any Tolkien creatures in form or mental character.

These are the two that spring immediately to mind, but there are plenty of others.

Donaldson’s Covenent book contains quite a few highly original creatures, such as the Ur-Viles, the Sandgorgons and the Elohim.

AD&D actually has an absurd number of “races,” mostly cribbed from actual myths or swiped from uncredited authors.

Githyenki: Nasty psychic guys with yellow skin, no body fat, and big swords. Don’t know where these guys are from. Look cool, though.

Lizard Men: One of many “half man, half X” monster types, where X is an animal of some type, and not, say, a dune buggy or a gas grill. If non-mammal, these are envariably cold and logical, interested in the survival of the species and little else. If mamilian, they’re invariably sensual and go into heat every few hours, to statisfy that deep need in our jungian shared unconcious to have sex with anthropomorphic animals.

AD&D has, belive it or not, at least three distint half-man, half frog races. That, to me, seems excessive. There are also a surprising number of half-man, half fungus type monsters. Slayers had Fish Men, (fish with arms and legs) which may have been intened as a slap at this kind of thing. Or else they just wanted to make the inevitable sashimi jokes.

Yaun Ti: Half-Man, half snake. They rate their own category because they’re pretty cool, and because they’re related to the Naga, which is actaully a mythical monster.

Suhigan: Half man, half shark. Included because they had two of the best weapons in Baldur’s Gate 2.

Wemics: Lion Centuars. There are about a dozen types of centuars, too. Lions, spiders, scorpians, octopi, and so on.

Ghab-Dur: Half man, half rock. I’m not making this up. They look just like the pickle monster in It conquered the world, except less green.

Grimlocks: The main distiction between these guys and any of the more Tolkinesqe “goblin” races is that they don’t have eyes. This does not really increse my terror of them.

Tri-Kreen: Praying mantis people who look suspicously like the Thranx (Who wrote those books? Alan Dean Foster?)

Illithids/Mind Flayers: Lovecraftian subterrainian monsters

Aboleth: More lovecraftian subterrainian monsters

Kura-Tur: Yet more lovecraftian subterrainian monsters. These use crossbows.

Troglidites: Non-lovcraftian subterainian monsters. It’s hard to take a race seriously when it’s main power is “stinking cloud.”

Beholders: A big ball with way to many eyes to take seriously. Apparently, they’re supposed to have a society of some kind. Presumably, much as primitive man formed societies to get beer, these guys form societies to get Visene.

Ogre Mages: Adapted from my favorate mythological monster, the ultra-freudian japanese oni.

And that’s just off the top of my head. I wonder what I could have acheved in life if I spent less time learning this kind of stuff.

Actually, in all seriousness, proably the reason that so many races in fantasy an SF seem to fit into Tolkin-esque slots is that Tolkin’s races are very architypical.

High races: Sort of an idealized human, better than us in pretty much every way, peerless craftsmen, peaceful by nature but can kick ass with the best of them when forced too. Usually live a very long time. Elves, Ogier, Vulcans, Mimbari, Slayers Dragons, etc.

Not so high races: Usually basically humans, but with one or two “strong points” where they outdo us, but several where they don’t. Humans usually treat with these races more or less as equals. Dwarves, Centuari/Narns, most ST races, Those ant centuars from Servant of the Empire etc.

Fallen Races: Usually a variant of high races, either corrupted by the Forces of Darkness, or rejecting thier peaceful natures. (no real tolkin race), Dark Elves, Romulans

Barbiarian Races: Pretty self explanitory. Usually lower tech, but make up for it with ferocity. May or may not have any peaceful dealings with humans. Goblins/orcs, Klingons, Drazi, sometimes Narns, Trollocs

Scrounging Races: Live off the waste of the other races. Usually consider themselves the top of the food chain. Kobolds, Skaven, Gully Dwarves, Pak’mara. (I loved the Pak’mara)

Servants of Darkness: Again, pretty self explanitory, and usually ment to be “cool.” May or may not be an actual “race,” though. Ringwraithes, Myrdral, Drack

Evil races: Another non-Tolkin architype. These arn’t ment to just move the story along, they’re ment to scare us. Usually, very alien. Illithids (pretty much any of the AD&D “smart but evil” races, actually), Others, Borg, Shadows, Vorlons, Slayers Masaku.

Unfortunatly, most good SF and fantasy has few if any alternate races, presumably to distinguish themselves from AD&D and Star Trek . . .


“The stench of the collected rivven! I dispise them all!”

[Hijack]

Eh? Vorlons, evil? Since when? They’re a tad creepy, and rather amoral, but evil and ‘meant to scare us’? Either I missed a rather key episode of B5, or your interpretation of some of their more pragmatic actions differs significantly from mine.

[/Hijack]

Well, no, Vorlons arn’t evil, but then . . .

**Don’t read if you’re watching the SF channel B5 reruns as your first time through!! I mean it! You’ll hate me forever if you let me spoil this for you. **

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. . . neither are the Shadows. Both the Vorlons and the Shadows think they’re working in our best interests, but they’re both so powerful, alien, and inflexable that they I think they qualify.

Your right, though. “Evil” was a bad choice of words, but “alien” races dosn’t have quite the punch. Mystery races, maybe?


“We are all Kosh.”

Let’s not forget two classic sci-fi races that, IIRC, predate Tolkien: The Eloi and the Morlocks from H.G. Wells The Time Machine.

Leaving the spoiler-space in…

Not familiar with the other 2 you listed, but the Borg think assymilation is for the victims’ own good, too… Joining the Borg in their perfection, and all that. Arrogant Misguided Idealists actually seems the best classification, in this light…

I just have to say I find it interesting that suddenly, SF races have crept into this discussion. It illustrates well the point that fantasy and SF aren’t that far removed from one another.

Though I have to say I dislike the comparison of orcs to Klingons :slight_smile:

LL

Tolkien does have an evil high-born race: The Black Numenoreans. While technically a human-elf cross, they were servants of the Sauron. (The Mouth of Sauron is the only one of these that makes an appearance in the LOTR.)

While we are at it, the Nazgul also come very close to the “high-born” evil type. While initially human or Numenorean, they were enslaved by their rings and turned into something else.

One other arch-type that Tolkien includes is gods. They Ainur and Maiar are gods in the classic dualistic sense of good vs. evil. In my opinion, the Vorlons and Shadows are more gods in the greek sense: they have their own purposes, but don’t really conform to a strict good vs. evil duality.

Glen Cook’s Black Company: the forvalaka

Not a book, but:

Myth: The Fallen Lords (computer game)
Trow
bre’Unor
fir’Bolg
Myrkridia
ghols
mauls

Plus, Zork had Lurking Grues.

Thank you for your replies, everyone; if nothing else I have a nice Christmas “must-read” list now.

Well, certainly the original “Star Trek” series wasn’t far removed from fantasy. An alien society which looks exactly like imperial Rome? Sure, why not!

I gotta agree with Ura-Maru on this one. The comparisons between Vulcans/Romulans/Klingons and Elves/Dark Elves/Orcs are just a little too obvious in the original series.

Well, I was going to mention the hradani, but I actually liked Oath of Swords.

A couple more examples are the Fauns/Satyrs, and the Marsh-Wiggles (pessimistic froggy things) from C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia. Of course, in Narnia, you could also mention any and all of the animals, too. Are we restricting ourselves to humanoid races?

Ura-Maru:

I believe they’re from the early science-fiction works of George R.R. Martin - Dying of the Light, or Tuff Voyaging, or others. They’re all set in the same universe, so it could be any of them.