In my heavily homebrewed version of Greyhawk I reworked most of the non-human species. I wanted them to behave and feel similar to their traditional versions but come up with some actual biological and cultural reasons for their behaviour rather than using the overly simplistic D&D alignments (which I don’t use at all).

Elves’ emotions change very slowly and need long, sustained experiences to really trigger them. But when triggered they also last much longer, sending them into weeks or months or years long emotional states (love, sorrow, rage, etc). This means that fleeting events have almost no emotional impact on them, which makes them seem cold, aloof and in some cases cruel by human standards (e.g. single moments of violence inflicted to them or by them register no emotional response). Their culture has extremely intricate customs of etiquette and behaviour to manage a society of what are essentially sociopaths in their day-to-day lives. Elven armies have corps of elves that are in the midst of long-term rage (often triggered by the impacts of the war) that are essentially in a months long berzerker state.

Orcs are no less intelligent than humans but have very poor long term memories, so they aren’t good at tasks that require extended study and building up of knowledge. But this means they live very much in the moment giving them powerful insight and wisdom, their perception and thoughts on what is currently happening aren’t influenced by biases and expectations. They have very high pain tolerance and casual violence is an inherent part of any discussion or debate among them, they express their thoughts and feelings in inherently physical ways. They breed very quickly which leads to regular expansion and conflict amongst themselves and as they expand into new areas.

And there’s a whole thing with goblins that after I’d put it together someone pointed out to me that it is almost literally the xenomorph aliens from the Alien franchise (goblin queens giving birth to huge litters, goblin births picking up genetic material from what the queen has eaten so if she eats humans they get hobgoblins, etc). They have a hyper pack mentality, where the bigger the group they are in the more energetic and stupid they are. So a single goblin creeping around will be terrified of everything, but a big swarm of goblins will be suicidaly reckless. They also have photographic memories for navigating their huge cave and tunnel systems, which makes them good at learning and copying stuff (though they aren’t good at inventing new stuff). The pack mentality lessens over time as they age, so leaders are usually older goblins that can think more clearly, but also a lot of older goblins leave the hive to make their own way in the world.

According to my lore, a couple of species were picked up with the migratory fleet that ended up in the remote world that is my current setting. Since landing, starting a mega-terraforming project, and the collapse of both the galactic civililization as a whole, and of the local variety, what’s left of each species is more or less in survival mode.

Of the 4, there are humans, spread out among the many lands and islands of the world.

The Vabvva, a moth-like race that no-one has h#ard from since tge collapse, as they were the only ones capable of breathing the miasma that covers the lower altitudes.

The other 2 races have since formed a symbiotic relatiinship and are called the Rru & Tarryu. While within their secluded homeland, the small Lizards half of the species run things, but the wolf-like Tarryu people run things while within their nomadic ships, as the Rru are needed to run their Storm Engines.

Other Sapient apecies have begun to emerge, many since the Great Collapse. Human once, they’ve under several transformations to become what they are today, namely Chimerics.

Chimerics generally fall into 2 catagories, those that seem to have maintained some semblance of what made them people, and the Dire, who are little more than beasts. Of those still welcome in polite society, there are the Nephlan, the Tephjan, and the Vaizan.

The Nephlan are varied in appearance, but tend to be shorter in stature and have rough, scaled hides that resemble a pengolin. They are quite resistant to the wayward energies of the world.

The Tephjan are often referred to as ‘Harpies’, but are quite varied in their bird-like appearances. Many tend to fued with themselves based on whichever type of bird groups they belong to, but are usually quite welcome in ports and on ships that sail between the islands.

The Vaizon never leave their Forest-home, making them quite like elves in that regard, but with an extreme amount of various animal features that they seem to be able to change at a whim. They have an almost unnerving determination to serve their deity, Fuengthyrith’ta. Literally: She Whose Eyes Beheld the Stars, the being who enabled the creation of all chimerics through a ritual that the Vaizon oversee and enforce,

That’s the main ones, anyway. The setting lets me create new chimerics as needed, each leaning between Dire and civilized based on how disruptive they are to their immediate environment.

In my world, wood elves, of buried within a year in a grove, become a part of it (sorta like in Speaker for the Dead) and high elves choose to enact this ritual living separately.

These majestic trees grow to great heights, akin to redwoods. When such a tree dies of old age, the heartwood animates but has only the vaguest memory of its prior lives. That’s the origin of warforged for my world. Incredibly rare, filled with history but oddly disconnected from it.

Haven’t invented new races yet, only twists on existing ones.

Lizardfolk? Eat their dead with reverence, carve their stories onto their bones and then reanimate then for labor or battle. Their dead never truly die and remain a respected part of their culture.

Dwarves care about achieving immortality through craftsmanship, humans through magic. It’s only halflings, and gnomes to a lesser extent, that have simply accepted death and lived their lives.

In my sci-fantasy world where things are similar to our irl modern tech level and civilisational structure, i have this sentient dinosaur species that are two legged, slightly shorter than humans, with whiskers, fuzzy feathers and more usable 4 fingered trex arms. Ive been trying to get their appearance right and might post abt them here later.

But basically they are pure carnivores and domesticated humans thousands of years ago when they had their own biopunk interstellar civilisation and when their civilisation fell, partially due to humans, the ones stuck on the main Earth analogue planet, Enia, just did their own thing until they merged with the rising human civilisation. Nowadays they just live among the humans in parallel societies.

For unique quirks, they are fully carnivorous like i said and like humans have a lot of quirks from being once arboreal endurance predators built for the savannah, these guys are once snow leopard type alpine hunters turned steppe endurance predators. They very rarely get motion or altitude sickness or vertigo and their sense of balance and navigation is insane, plus they can see in the UV spectrum. They also have this intense need to be in open spaces and cold areas, not necessarily claustrophobia or extreme heat sensitivity but a type of depression when these requirements arent met for years on end. They also sometimes feel the need during certain stages in their life related to what used to be signals for ancient breeding seasons, to abandon their friends and family, travel and settle down in a new place as soon as possible and find entirely new friends.

They also have intense bouts of mania and obsession around completing tasks associated with lack of nutrients from living in omnivorous human societies. They need more iron, calcium, and stuff like that and cant eat too much of spicy or acidic foods like fruits. When these dietary needs arent met, they get these manias that can quickly lead to delusions and violent outbursts. Basically modern life sucks for them but ig it does for everyone else too…