Zornhau Forums

First, I mentioned that "non-Tolkien" is barely a class of itself as Tolkien hasn't invented any of the "standard creatures" of his books but just breathed life into them. The creatures you mentioned would definitely also be used by Tolkien if they had fitted his setting.

Then I directly answered your question in saying that I'm perfectly fine with using this kind of creatures if they fitted the specific setting at hand.

So to sum that up: We agree on this one

Ah, now i see what you meant. I have to apologize.

You would say "non-generic" equals "non-Tolkien mythology inspired races"?

Only in the sense that people, as you said, falsely use the term "Generic" to refer to the Tolkienesque Subgenre.
I wasn't expressing myself clearly.

I would say the latter is your category "B" and the former your category "C", right?

Yes. Bad choice of terms / continuation of bad terms on my part, but yes.

Just because I feel "mythology inspired races" are all "generic" in some way. That was partly expressed in my first post.

I guess i didn't quite pick up on that.

EinBein wrote:

nemedeus wrote:(even though as you say it's only considered generic because everyone copies it, which is kind of hilarious).

Yeah. You're right in a way.

What i meant was, Tolkien's work was considerably original, even when counting all mythological influence, but due to everyone copying Tolkien... etc. Shoulda been more explicit.

I guess this is just a question of where to draw the line.

Take Elves for example. I think there are few settings that go with 100% Tolkien (I know none, but am curious to hear your interpretation).

True. But then, why is it always Elves, and why do they so rarely, if ever, deviate much from the "tall mystic agile better-than-human"?

If we are talking, for example, nature-loving "Wood Elves", i feel like there are missed opportunities: replacing the magic pointy-eared human with a Satyr, Faunus, or some other creature a kin to that, can go a long way in defining/refining the flavor of the "nature-loving race" of a setting. At least that was my experience.

Or maybe i'm just easyly intrigued, hahaha

nemedeus wrote:

I guess this is just a question of where to draw the line.

Take Elves for example. I think there are few settings that go with 100% Tolkien (I know none, but am curious to hear your interpretation).

True. But then, why is it always Elves, and why do they so rarely, if ever, deviate much from the "tall mystic agile better-than-human"?

If we are talking, for example, nature-loving "Wood Elves", i feel like there are missed opportunities: replacing the magic pointy-eared human with a Satyr, Faunus, or some other creature a kin to that, can go a long way in defining/refining the flavor of the "nature-loving race" of a setting. At least that was my experience.

Or maybe i'm just easyly intrigued, hahaha

Best example of this other view on them are the Children of the Forest in Game of Thrones. They cater the Huldr-side of Elves very much and I love this interpretation as it fits the Westeros setting much better than a noble race of pointy-ears (even though they would be long extinct).

That indeed does sound awesome.

I guess some of these days i need to get around to reading Song of Ice and Fire after all, hm?

Just be warned: They don't play an active role in the stories so far (at least as far as I read them). They're just legends from the past.

Speaking of Greek playable races remind me of Mazes and Minotaurs. It's a great dnd retroclone that uses Greek myth instead of Tolkien stuff. Some of the classes are Amazons, Centaurs, Nobles, Spearmen, Lyrists and Nymphs. It also has a hilarious sense of humor. It's marketed as a "revised" 15yr anniversary edition of a 1987 product that never actually existed and is complete with designer notes reminiscing about this alternate reality where it existed instead of DND.