5 Ways to Create Fantastical Beasts and Peoples!: Role Playing Games

Gary Gygax (Photo credit: fd)

In Role Playing Games (RPGs), the player controls a character who lives in a fantasy world. The character acts out a role and usually follows a plot of some kind. Some of these games can be used according to the “Popular Culture” guidelines. What is really useful for writers is the degree to which some of these games let you customize your character. In extreme examples, you can create your character from scratch. I did some research of RPG board game monster guides and found that Pathfinders Role Playing Game provides templates for beasts and intelligent races. I do not have room to post those templates here and that would be plagerism anyway, so you'll just have to check them out at your local bookstore. I'll include their citations at the end of the blog. In this blog, you will see common elements that appeared in at least some of the four RPG monster guides that I checked out. You will see that RPGs incorporate elements from each of the earlier blogs, even though these creatures are designed for combat. One failing of intelligent races in RPGs is that they are almost all humanoid. I've noticed the same failing in books. For the sake of variety, you may want to break with this tradition.

• Nonhuman: what makes this race different from humans? (mentally, physically, mindset)
• Language: do they have their own language? Multiple languages (if so, why?)? A secret language unknown to outsiders or to only a small subgroup?
• Physical: What is their adult size (based on gender)? Their reach? How fast are they? How strong? How nimble?
• Mental: How intelligent are they? How clever? What is their typical mindset? How do they see the world and other people? What special skills do they have?
• Target Stats: (since RPG races and creatures are designed for combat) amount of damage the creature can take; armor class; attack power; attack moves; spell/spell-like abilities
• Concept: What is their role in the world? How do they fight (weapons and tactics)? Where do they live and why?; What physical adaptions to the environment?
• Culture: What is their history (creation myth, pivotal events)? Their relations with other races (competitors, enemies, foes)?

Role Playing Games may center around combat, but they can be thorough in their construction of fantastical beasts and people. As such, they make an excellent source for someone who wants to build a detailed race. Other topics touched on in some books included culture-building but I touched on that in more depth with “Cultural Anthropology”.

Pathfinders Role Playing Game Bestiary. Paizo Publishing: Redmond, WA. 2010.
Pathfinders Role Playing Game Advanced Races. Paizo Publishing: Redmond, WA. 2000.

5 Ways to Create Fantastical Beasts and Peoples!: Cultural Anthropology

TajMahal from Agra Uttar Pradesh, INDIA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Cultural anthropology is just one of four branches of anthropology. Cultural anthropology only studies humans because in the real world, only humans appear to have “culture”. Every intelligent race you create will naturally have their own culture. I assume that the race you create 1) is intelligent and 2) interact sometimes (they have to reproduce somehow, right?). If these two elements are in place, the rest will follow...

• Religion: who is the god(s) of this race? Is the religion(s) organized? How are teachings passed down? Is there an afterlife? Are there religious laws, rules, or customs? Religious observances? Special people?
• History and Mythology: where did the race come from? Do they have their own country or countries? What are the significant racial events?
• Government: what type? How controlling is it? How do people feel about it? How long has it been in place? What type of government preceded it? What factions are there? How does it get the resources to run? Where does it get the power to govern?
• Social structures: What are the social classes and how do they look and act differently? What do the different social classes think about one another? How mobile is social class or caste? What jobs belong to which social class?
• Family: What are family dynamics (father to child, mother to mother-in-law)?, What is the structure (core, extended)? Is it traced from the father or mother's side? Do they form clans? What is required to become member (adoption, marriage, tests)? What is expected of different family roles (children, wife, husband, unmarried aunt)?
• Tradition: What does everyone believe or expect (from Outlanders, children, elderly, gods, etc)? What are customary clothing styles, salutations, activities, roles? How would someone break from tradition?
• Economy: How do people get things they can't make (barter, currency, communal, theft)? Who enforces trade standards? How do they trade with other races or countries? How does this differ from trade among themselves? What products are they known for?

As a brief reminder, just like humans your race may have multiple cultures and even cultures-within-cultures. I've listed some of the basics from cultural anthropology but you can find more if the idea excites you. The subjects that anthropology studies are human (or in our case, nonhuman) origins, development, and biology.

5 Ways to Create Fantastical Beasts and Peoples!: Biology

Crab spider Xysticus spec. in Dresden, Saxony, Germany (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Another way to create magical races is to take inspiration from nature. And not just animals! Where did Tolken get the Tree Ents, after all? Probably from different types of trees. A hidden benefit here is that most intelligent races are humanoid. If you are willing to stretch yourself, you can avoid this convention. Or you can bend to convention and have a humanoid tarantula or canary. Or merge the two animals for something incredible! Biology mainly studies non-sapient animals so the focus is on how the species and individual shape (and are shaped by) their surroundings. Some factors to consider for realistic magical creatures are...

• Structure: what it looks like; how it adapts to its surroundings; how males, females, and children differ and are similar; how it communicates
• Function: what role it plays in the environment (hunter, producer, herbivore, scavenger); species with similar roles, its predators
• Growth: time spent as a fetus, baby, child, adult, how likely it is to reach old age; the mental, emotional, and physical traits at each stage
• Evolution and Taxonomy: is your griffon a cat or a bird? What did your pheonix evolve from? What races are closely related to your dragon?
• Distribution: consider making your race into several sub-races or sub-species that vary by region. After all, as terrain changes, so do the plants, animals, and peoples.
• Energy consumption: meat, veggies, sunlight, magic, emotions, blood, life force, an element, something else? Consider a blend so the race has more basic needs/motivations that can bring them into conflict with other races.
• Requires from the environment: other than food, there are two tiers in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs that address biological factors and may or may not apply to your race: Physiological (breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis) and Safety (security of body, resources, family, health, territory).

5 Ways to Create Fantastical Beasts and Peoples!: Popular Culture

See what others have to say and look for ways to make creatures unique. One way is to do an Image search on you favorite search engine. You will likely come up with pictures, clothes, costumes, figurines, toys, and even jewelry. You many also find references to movies, television shows, and literature.

• Books: Very popular now (and so difficult to publish new books) are werewolves and vampires, and to a lesser extent – dragons and zombies. On the other end of the spectrum, fantasy author Mercedes Lackey takes horses and cats and gives them magical abilities and histories while leaving their appearance mostly unchanged (she writes about griffons too). There are also poems (“Lamia” by Keats) and short stories, although this media has long been in decline.
• Comics and Manga: Don't be shy to browse your local bookstore. Strange creatures for the main characters to fight and befriend. And there are lots of pictures and dialogue.
• Movies and Television: Both kiddie cartoons and more adult fantasy shows (especially anime) are rife with strange creatures to be rescued or run away from or become allies.
• Games: fantasty games and RPGs are full of monsters to fight. And every game has to present the monsters a little differently. Sometimes a non-human is part of the fighting group. These characters are especially useful when they act differently from regular humans. They give ideas about the different roles your nonhuman characters could play – sometimes unexpected ones.
• Toys and Figurines: a strange but effective source for ideas are dog chew toys (see photo) and baby toys. That aside, any common fantasy creature will have toys and figurines modeled after them. Maybe you'll find one that fits your image or gives you inspiration. I found a figurine of dragons in flight that worked perfectly for a book I was writing. I keep it on my desk.

5 Ways to Create Fantastical Beasts and Peoples!: Mythology

English: Stone carvings at St Mary's church (16) Two more fantastical creatures, perhaps a dragon and a cat(?) standing on its back legs. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Myths are found in every culture from Ancient Greece to Pre-Columbian Cuba. Myths are stories of important events and people from the past. Most times these stories have fantastical elements that can be mined by the savvy writer. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) folklore tends either to be vague about non-humans. Most our knowledge of fantastical creatures comes from the pool of stories about those animals and races. This can be good since it allows more modern people to play. When you look to mythology for inspiration, look for

• The Uncommon: creatures and characters that are not typically seen in today's fantasy, paranormal, and poetic worlds; Examples: the Leshii and Meingu
• The Common: patterns that show up over and over again; Examples: magic, elemental creatures, predators of humans, tricksters
• The Very Common: universal themes and preoccupations that storytellers could not stop talking about; Examples: love, war, gods, revenge, quests

All can offer ideas for the behavior, appearance, and motives of your creations. Tomorrow we'll jump forward in time and look at finding inspiration from popular culture.

5 Ways to Create Fantastical Beasts and Peoples!: Introduction

Flickr Chinese Dragon Year Statue (Photo credit: epSos.de)

In the next six days, I share several ways to create “complete” non-human races. If you hope to create fantastical beasts and characters that have depth and complexity, then you need them to come from a race that has those same traits. If you write fantasy, science fiction, or paranormal, you will need believable creatures to inhabit your world(s). “Formula” seems to be a common complaint about planned writing so I am deliberately taking an opposite approach. We will look at...

• mythology: look for unusual ideas, common themes, and perpetual preoccupations
• popular culture: see what others have to say and look for ways to make creatures unique
• biology: considers how the group (and individual) shapes and is shaped by surroundings
• anthropology: the study cultures (and subcultures) rather than species
• Role Playing Games: emphasis on combat