Fantasy Race Generator

A people is more than a list of traits

The easiest fantasy race to invent is a human with a gimmick: pointed ears, a different skin colour, a shorter temper. The difficult and more rewarding one is a people whose way of life follows from where they live and what they went through. Each result here starts with a home and attaches a look, a skill, a custom and a taboo. Read them as a chain of cause and effect, not as separate facts.

Ask why. Why does a people who live on lashed boats give a second name chosen by their worst enemy? Perhaps because an enemy is the only person who tells the truth about you, and a floating town cannot afford liars. Once you have a reason, the custom stops being decoration and starts being a source of scenes.

The custom and the taboo

Customs are what a people do on purpose, and taboos are what they cannot do without shame. They work as a pair. A custom is easy to show, because it is a ritual a character performs on the page. A taboo is easier to dramatise, because it creates a choice. A character who must break one to save a friend is a plot all by itself.

Pick one result and write the scene in which a visitor breaks the taboo without knowing it. Watch what the people do. If they react with forgiveness, you have learned they are patient. If they react with silence, you have learned something about their fear of shame. Both are useful, and both make the race feel lived in.

Avoiding the monoculture

No real people is one thing. When you use a result, give the people at least one internal disagreement: a faction that thinks the custom is outdated, a village that follows it more strictly than the rest, a young person who wants to leave. Also decide how they treat strangers, since your protagonist will probably be one.

Finally, keep the look short in the text. One striking physical detail and one habit of movement will serve you better than a paragraph of description, and the rest can come out through the way other characters react.

Ten example peoples

• Mountains A people who guard the only pass between two kingdoms. They are lean and quick, with eyes that catch the light like a cat's, and famed for weaving rope that holds when steel would snap. They keep their laws as songs. They consider it unforgivable to sell the land that holds their ancestors.
• Mountains Imagine a people who farm the narrow ledges of a cold range. They greet a stranger by offering a drink and asking for a story. They are covered in a fine down of fur that thickens in the winter. Among them it is unforgivable to eat while walking, and they are famed for their cheese, which is aged in caves for twenty years.
• Forest A people who live in houses woven between the branches of ancient trees. They are pale as candle wax, with hair that looks silver in the dark, and famed for reading the weather three days ahead. They keep a lamp lit in the highest window all night, in case anyone is lost. They consider it unforgivable to whistle after sunset.
• Forest Among a people who live beside a dark wood that nobody else will enter, it is unforgivable to lie to a child. They tell their history backwards, from the present day to the first ancestor. They are small and sharp-eyed, with ears that turn toward every sound, and famed for keeping bees in the most unlikely places.
• Sea and coast A people who live on boats lashed together into a floating town. They are lightly built, with webbed fingers and eyes that are slow to blink, and famed for finding their way by smell as well as by the stars. They give every adult a second name, chosen by their worst enemy. They consider it unforgivable to count the dead aloud.
• Sea and coast Imagine a people who keep the lighthouses of a dangerous shore. They sign their promises with a handprint pressed in clay. They are tattooed from childhood, with a new line added for every journey. Among them it is unforgivable to turn their back on a guest, and they are famed for their songs, which are said to calm storms.
• Desert A people who cross the sands by night and sleep through the day. They are long-necked and graceful, with a second set of eyelids against the dust, and famed for the strange, bitter drink they brew from roots. They trade only in kind and consider coins a sort of lie. They consider it unforgivable to refuse water to anyone who asks.
• Desert Among a people who live in cities of red clay that rise out of the dunes, it is unforgivable to bargain over the price of medicine. They keep a chair empty at every table for someone who may yet come home. They are dark-skinned, with hair that grows in heavy braids from the scalp to the heel, and famed for their jewellery of knotted wire and polished stone.
• Underground A people who keep a silent city beneath a lake. They are grey-skinned, with white hair and a deep, humming voice, and famed for their patient work with glass. They bring the youngest to every funeral and let them ask any question they like. They consider it unforgivable to leave a story unfinished.
• Underground Imagine a people who follow veins of ore through tunnels they have dug for a thousand years. They never leave a home empty, and a neighbour sleeps there when the family is away. They are short and broad, with thick hands and quiet voices. Among them it is unforgivable to waste bread, and they are famed for counting everything, and counting it twice.