Race Against Myself

Races. They are varied and plentiful. We can either start with stock humans or move on to the often used and clichéd celestial angels and demons, winged creatures and wingless creatures, or even go so far as to use other creatures we've seen before. Reptiles, mammals, avian or insect, the races we come up with for our character are many. There are the often seen or the custom created.

I, myself, prefer custom races. I have several: Aouyen, Baajin, Fri'di'nar, Fehrahzii, Galandrian, Grak, Hagasian, Jan'ri, Jyet Nyural, Je'Kenkari, Jorgani, Kaus, Krykor, Lai'git, Lan-Weih and Vadasian. That's sixteen various races I've come up with. Kinda overkill, if you ask me (of course, I was trying to come up with a universe all its own, so all those races are explainable to an extent).

Most people when creating a custom race generally take a stock human and modify it. Add wings, add claws, add extra reflexes, maintain a human form, or humanoid form, and just slap on a name. The simplest approach and probably one of the best, too, since it gives you a wide variety of things you can add and subtract from a given custom race while maintaining a specific bodily form you want. The flipside of the coin, though, is that people add to much and make the custom race just another god-modded creation. Add something, but don't add too much.

Another look at it is the wings department--I've seen WAY too many winged people going around, so I'd say stay away from those unless you feel you absolutely need to have some kind of winged creature. Seriously, though, another pretty-boy with wings makes me thing you're another Final-Fantasy-Fanboy on a Sephiroth binge in need of a slap upside the head. Think about it before you commit that kind of atrocious crime, will you?

A lot of people lean either toward lupine (dog/wolf-like), reptile-like (as in dragons and their ilk) or feline (cat-like). The avian in and of itself is generally covered within the realm of a celestial or winged creature of some sort. It's rare that you see insectoid races done by role players, as then they're a bug, and what can a bug do? Quite a bit, like lifting more than its own weight by dozens of factors. Don't discount the bug just because they're grotesque looking. Maybe that's what you want all along.

I myself lean more toward lupine or reptile-like, although my reptile-like races take on more characteristics of a lizard than the more well-known dragon counter part.

When it comes to creating even a custom race, anything is possible, and you can do anything you want with it. I'll give an example, using one of the species I've come up with, the Aouyen:

Aouyen:

Aouyen are naturally green-scaled, like a reptilian species, with small short barbs or horns along their entire body. They are bald, and sport a set of red eyes set in a flat, nose-less and narrow face with pointed jaw. They have simian-like hands and feet (three digits with an opposable thumb) with retractable claws--their palms and feet also have soft pads to soften the noise they might make in movement. Thin, tall and lithe, these creatures are built for short bursts of speed.

The things that make them dangerous though are these: The Aouyen are capable of changing their skin color to hide within their environs. Their chameleon skills are in fact astounding, allowing the Aouyen to run at a good pace and not appear to the eye. The second dangerous aspect about the Aouyen have is that they have a set of glands in the back of their throat. The Aouyen can control the molecular makeup of whatever is produced within these glands. They can secrete anything from sedatives to poisons to balms. They can also spit an effective range of twenty meters.

Rather simplistic, isn't it? Yet it gets the job done of saying what the creature is, what it looks like, and what its skills are. While the creatures are described as reptile-like, there are also characteristics of a cat-like abilities.

In reality, picking a race is completely set upon both your style as a role-player and your preference. Some people like celestials, some like stock humans, some like custom races and creatures, or even mutants. You can do nearly anything with a race to make it unique in its own right. It's all up to you and what you want out of it.

 

- W. Visarett