Loads and Loads of Races: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

'''Happens in three ways:'''

# You've got a setting, and you decide to add some races besides the basic human. Given that you're going for a Mythic Fable-style setting, you decide to add as many as possible, since that allows each to wear a different [[Planet of Hats|Hat]].

 

 

 

{{examples}}

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* ''[[Bleach]]'' features, in addition to normal humans, the human-variant [[The Grim Reaper|Shinigami]], [[Our Ghosts Are Different|normal spirits]], [[The Heartless|Hollows]], and Quincies, in addition to the synthetic Modsouls and artificial human Nemu. Arrancar are Hollow-Shinigami hybrids, Visoreds are Shinigami-Hollow hybrids. Fulbringers are spiritually-aware humans that were 'infected' with Hollow spirit energy, but have their own abilities added to the mix. Sajin Komamura falls under [[Petting Zoo People]], although it's not clear if this counts as a race or a curse. The anime adds in the [[Our Vampires Are Different|Bounts]] and later on introduces the Tojo, prisoners of [[Hell]], for a movie tie-in.

* ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' has 4 basic races: Humans, [[Youkai]], Hellas race([[Ambiguously Brown|dark skinned]]) and [[Funny Animal|Animal]] [[Petting Zoo People|People]] from the [[Magical Land|Magic World]]. The human races are then subdivided in many different kinds ''and'' varying in all points of the [[Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism]].

* ''[[Dragon Ball]]'': Frieza's army is made up of members of countless different intergalactic races, the Other World is populated by the deceased members of even more races, and then there's all the different races introduced in ''[[Canon Discontinuity|GT]]''. Finally there's the races the series focuses on the most: humans, Saiyans, Namekians, Frieza's unnamed race, Majins, Kais, Ogres, and the humanoid animals that live on Earth alongside humans.

 

== [[Film]] ==

* ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' is a good example of type 1. Every time a new ally or opponent needed to be added, JRR would come up with a new race (and possibly a thousand years of history, mythology, and linguistic development) to drive the story. Sure, the protagonists were the big five (dwarves, elves, men, wizards (Istari), and hobbits), but that didn't count the various subdivisions of elves, men, and hobbits, nor the orcs, goblins, elite orcs, undead, daemons, spiders, spider gods, scary things that used to be men, bad-ass wolves, eagles, sentient trees, giant tree-men (but no more tree-women), dragons, and whatever Tom Bombadil, Old Man Willow, and Beorn are.

* ''[[The Chronicles of Narnia]]'' sort of falls under type 3. Besides the managerie of beings in Narnia: Dwarfs, Fauns, Dryads(tree nymphs/gods/spirits), Centaurs, Stayrs, Naiads(water nymphs/gods/spirits), Giants, Unicorns, Winged Horses, and Talking Beasts, Other various beings are mentioned in certain books: The monsters and demons in the White Witch's Army(Evil Dwarfs, Evil Giants, Werewolves, Evil trees and plants, Ghouls, Boggles, Ogres, Minotaurs, Cruels, Hags, Spectres, People of the Toadstools, Incubuses, Wraiths, Horrors, Efreets, Sprites, Orknies, Wooses, and Ettins), The humans from Calormen, Archenland, Telmar, and the Islands, Stars, Merpeople(traditional half human-half fish hybrid), Sea People(basically aquatic humans with purple hair and go around naked), Duffers/Monopods/Dufflepuds(one-legged dwarfs), Dragons, Sea Serpents, Giant Squids, Krackens, Birds from the Sun, Marshwiggles, Gnomes(who look a little more like devils with pitchforks than whimsical, diminuitive cousins to dwarfs), and Salamanders.

* The [[Cthulhu Mythos]] has [[wikipedia:Elements of the Cthulhu Mythos#Beings|a head-spinning number]] of types of aliens and other unpleasant things that [[Eldritch Abomination|want to drive you insane, then eat you]].

* ''[[The Malazan Book of the Fallen]]'' has dozens of races, each with multiple named characters.

* Larry Niven's ''[[Known Space]]'' series has Humans, Kzinti, Puppeteers, Outsiders, Pierin, Kdatlyno, Trinocs, Bandersnatchi, Grogs and more. Those are only the contemporary races, the Thrint, Tnuctipun, Pak, Martians and others have gone (mostly) extinct. And then there are all the myriad humanoid subspecies on Ringworld...

* In ''[[Lacuna]]'', Saara implies this about the universe.

 

* Where does one begin with ''[[Doctor Who]]'', world's [[Long Runners|longest running sci-fi television series]]? [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien|Time Lords]], [[Omnicidal Maniac|Daleks]], [[You Will Be Assimilated|Cybermen]], [[Proud Warrior Race|Sontarans]] and their enemies the Rutan Host, Ice Warriors, Zygons, Tereleptils, Silurians and Sea Devils, the Nestene Consciousness, Zarbi, Menoptera, Eternals, [[Physical God|Osirans]], Usurians, Monoids, Alpha Centaurians, Axons, Argolin, Foamasi, intelligent cacti from Zolfa Thura, Tractators, the Cheetah People, Haemovores and their giant cousins the Great Vampires, Tharils, [[Giant Enemy Crab|Macra]], [[Plant Aliens|Krynoids]], [[My Friends and Zoidberg|and even humans]]. ''Then'' the new series introduced Raxicoricofallapatorians (often mistakenly called the Slitheen), Ood, Judoon, Sycorax, Adipose, Pyrovillians, Saturnynians, Crafayis, Malmooth, Weeping Angels, the Silence, and many other background races and individuals. Don't even get ''started'' on the [[Doctor Who Expanded Universe]] of which one race, Chelonians, have been mentioned in the new series...

* ''[[Babylon 5]]'' has five major powers: Humans, Centauri, Narn, Minbari, and Vorlons. Then there's the League of Non-aligned Worlds, a collection of at least a dozen minor powers, including the Drazi, the Markabs, the Vree, and the Pak'ma'ra. And then the Shadows turn up and there are an assortment of species that only turn up once or twice like the Dilgar, the Streib, and the Soul Hunters.

* [[Greek Mythology]] has more non-human races than any other mythology. There's the cyclopes, centaurs, lamias, fauns/satyrs, gorgons, harpies, nymphs, titans, and gods. Plus a lot of one of a kind monsters such as the minotaur, Cerberus, Pegasus, etc.

** Includes the old mortals, who came before humans were created, and are never adequately explained.

* [[Norse Mythology]] is another one. The list includes the aesir and vanir, the norns, jotnar (fire and ice versions), ljosalfar, svaltalfar, and dokkalfar, dvergar, vaettir, troll, nisse, valkyries, einherjar, mortal men and the dead.

* [[Japanese Mythology]] has dozens of races, most of them spirits, animal people, and sentient objects.

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

* ''Twilight Imperium'' started out with six "great races" (including humans) scrambling to rebuild the long extinct Lazax Imperium they were once part of; expansions for the game's 1st edition added four more races that had risen to a similar level of power in the interim. The current 3rd edition included all ten races from the get-go, then a new expansion was published which introduced ''four'' brand-new races, for a total of fourteen; probably the largest number of playable races in a tabletop strategy game, with the possible exception of Star Fleet Battles.

* The board game ''Small World'' started with an already-respectable 14 races in the core set, and the first three official expansions have added another 10 in total. Some of the 'races' would normally count as humans, however; for example, Amazons, Barbarians, Gypsies and Sorcerers are all separate races. In addition, there are special abilities which are independent of races, so during a game you'll actually be looking at things like Merchant Halflings or Cursed Goblins. Or Peace-Loving Orcs, for that matter. There are 20 abilities in the core game, with 12 more from expansions, meaning you're looking at 24 * 32 = '''768''' race/ability combinations just from official sources. Fans have added more, obviously.

* The board game ''Cosmic Encounter'' is all about this, with each alien race breaking the rules in a different way. The original game had 15 races, and nine(!) expansion sets bringing the total eventually up to a whopping 75(!). One of the later publishers was planning an expansion with yet another 35(!) but went out of business before the release.

** The current edition from ''Fantasy Flight'' has released two expansions so far, bring the grand total to a staggering 90 alien races.

** ''40K'' only has about seven main races (Humans, [[Our Elves Are Better|Space Elves]], [[Our Orcs Are Different|Space Orks]], [[Omnicidal Maniac|Killer]] [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|Undead Cyborgs]], [[Hive Mind]] [[Horde of Alien Locusts|Bug Aliens]], [[The Greys]], and [[Demonic Invaders|crazy]] [[Phantasy Spelling|daemons]]) but each has a ton of sub-organizations, groups, and factions. For example, "humans" alone covers the [[Redshirt Army|Imperial Guard]], the [[Super Soldier|Space Marines]], [[State Sec|the Inquisition]] (itself divided into Ordos Malleus, Hereticus and Xenos to deal with daemons, witches and aliens respectively), the [[Amazon Brigade|Sisters of Battle]] and the [[Face Heel Turn|Chaos Space Marines]]. The fluff also mentions a lot of other races, many of whom have been wiped out by [[Designated Hero|the good guys.]]

** ''Warhammer Fantasy'' has no less than 14 (German Humans, French/British Humans, [[Our Elves Are Better|High Elves]], [[Our Dwarves Are All the Same|Dwarves]], Chaos Humans, Dark Elves, chaos dwarves, wood elves, lizardmen, ratmen, ogres, mummies, vampires, goblins, [[Our Orcs Are Different|orcs]]).

** ''[[Blood Bowl]]'' has 21 different types of team, inlcuding 3 kinds of human (standard, Norse, and Amazon), 4 kinds of elf (dark, wood, wealthy high and poor high), 3 kinds of chaos (standard, dwarf, and Nurgle), and 4 kinds of undead (standard, necromancer, vampire, and mummy).

* ''[[Xevoz]]'' starts out with six races (humans, [[Big Creepy-Crawlies|bugs]], robots, [[Monster Mash|the undead,]] [[Beast Man|Beast Men]] and [[Energy Beings]]) and adds two more (Living Gods and Dragons) with the release of Wave 4, its last wave.

** For sheer diversity, ''[[Forgotten Realms]]'' stands out, with dozens of races and subraces scattered across the setting. Then there's ''[[Planescape]]'' and ''[[Spelljammer]]'', which by their very nature as bridges between settings allow for practically any race or subrace to be played and then some (''Planescape'' had such options as intelligent squirrels native to Yggdrasil), more to emphasize the dazzling effect, that is Type 3.

** ''[[Eberron]]'', too, has a lot of races. Plus the setting literally says that everything that has a place in ''Dungeons and Dragons'' has a place in ''Eberron'', which at least theoretically means every splatbook is valid.

* ''[[Rifts]]'' can't even bother to count them all. A good half-dozen or so are released per [[Sourcebook]] (on average), which range from Standard Fantasy Races (Elves, Dwarves, Dragons etc...), to a good score of [[Beast Man]]-types, living robots, aliens, and more. The game even allows you to play as a ''Humpback Whale'', if you desire. And that's the ones the game deigns to point out. Nearly every book will also note that many other races exist in such tiny numbers (usually less than a percent of any given state) that they don't necessarily count as a demographic, and lumped under the general term "D-Bees" (from "Dimensional Beings").

** Just as an example, they recently came out with a book called ''D-Bees of North America'', a book specifically designed to be nothing but playable alien races. Out of the 86 races in this book, 50 of them are expanded versions of popular races from other books. Yeah, 50 races from various books are considered a random sampling for this game.

* ''[[Talislanta]]'' has several dozen bizarre species to choose from, and even its "human"-analogs aren't necessarily what you'd call normal. Plus, [[Slogans|no elves]].

* ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' is very much this. Aside from humans there are: Orcs, Goblins, Minotaurs, Elves, Dwarves, Faeries, Merfolk, Treefolk, Mistfolk, Centaurs, Golems, Thrulls, Leonin, Giants, Aven, Nantuko, Cephalids, Vedalken, Loxodon, Viashino, Kithkin, Kitsune, Nezumi, Orochi, Soratami, Saprolings, Thallids, Myr, Phyrexians, Changelings, Slivers, Demons, Angels, Spirits, Dragons, Noggles, Elementals, Hags, Sphinxes, Devils, Werewolves, Vampires... since the game pulls creatures from about 50 DIFFERENT UNIVERSES, it's kind of justified.

** The card [http://magiccards.info/tsts/en/26.html Mistform Ultimus] is every creature type. [http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/jm54 An article on magicthegathering.com] pointed out just how many creature types this was (over 250 at the time). If this were to be printed out in 10-pt font, it would take an entire page of 8.5x11 paper to list. Since then, errata have been released to significantly cull the herd of single-use creature types (Ali-From-Cairo, anyone?)

* ''[[Duel Masters]]'' too. [http://duelmasters.wikia.com/wiki/Race This] is an unquestionably long list, and still growing. A few (like Starnoid and Pegasus) are exclusive to only one creature.

* Many MMORPGs:

** ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', as mentioned above. Increased the playable race count from eight on its initial release to twelve as of ''Cataclysm''.

** Honorable mention goes to ''[[Earth Eternal]]'', which started beta with '''22''' races, and ahalf dozen or so mentioned in the lore but not given form yet. Though it should be noted that [[Cosmetically Different Sides|the differences are cosmetic only]]; all 22 races play identically with nary a stat or ability difference.

* ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]''. Justified, since Tamriel is an ethnically diverse empire, which means you have High Elves, the Dunmer (Dark Elves), Wood Elves, Argonians (Lizardmen), Khajiit (Catmen), Nords (Vikings), Bretons (French and British), Redguards (Arabs and Africans), Orcs, and Imperial Men (Greeks, Romans and sometimes Asians).

** ''[[Dungeon Crawl]]'' has 24 races at the moment, with great variation. In addition to the common humans, elves and dwarves, Crawl has a few quite exotic ones, such as [[Fair Folk|spriggans]], centaurs, mummies, merfolk, demonspawn and demigods.

** Many Angband variants, including [[Z Angband]].

* ''[[Final Fantasy XI]]'' has the [[Five Races]] as playable characters, but NPCs? Hoo, boy. There are at least a dozen NPC and enemy races, most of them added in the original game, ''Rise of The Zilart'', and ''Treasures of Aht Urghan''.

* The newer Ivalice games (''[[Final Fantasy XII]]'', ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics Advance]]'' and ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics A2]]'' seem to be going in having a race for each of the 12 zodiac signs. ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]'' alone has Humes, Viera, Bangaa, Moogles, Seeqs, Nu Mou, Baknamy, Garif, Helgas, Rebe, Urutan-Yensa {{spoiler|and the god-like Occuria}}. Revenant Wings adds the Aegyl and Feol Viera offshoot, while Tactics A2 includes the winged Gria.

* ''[[OtherSpace]]'' features two dozen playable races, ranging from different [[Human Subspecies]] all the way to [[Starfish Aliens]].

* ''[[Legend of Mana]]'' boasts sprites, humans, the jewel-hearted Jumi, dragoons, faeries, flowerlings, dudbears, sirens, mermaids, sproutlings, elves, succubi, chobin hoods, tomato men, sahagin, goblins, narcissos, mad mallards, the enchanted golems, several sapient animals including rabbits, cats, penguins, monkeys, as well as a sprawling assortment of bizarre anthropomorphic objects and mythic beings such as a vampire, basilisk, and a centaur.

* ''[[Space Empires]]'' offers around a dozen (or more) races as standard options, each with their [[Planet of Hats|hat]]. It's fairly simple to create and fine-tune your own, particularly to anything prior to the fifth game.

* ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]]'' carries on the ''[[Star Wars]]'' tradition by featuring pretty much every notable race that appeared in the films including humans, Wookiees, Twileks, Hutts, Jawas, Rodarians, Tusken Raiders, etc. as well as introducing several new ones such as the Cathar (feline bipeds) and the Selkath (an aquatic race of bipeds with long, fish-like faces).

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* Although ''[[Dominic Deegan]]'' started off with mainly human characters, in the recent "vacation arc" they started adding a crapload more.

* In ''[[Rice Boy]]'''s world, there tend to be well-defined civilisation-races like the frog-men of Spatch, the fish-men of Tenshells, the machine-men of the Iron Teeth, the Horned of the Stone Palm... and then there are people like Arctaur, with four closely-packed legs and a head like a cross between a broken donut and a power adapter. Many oneshot body types seem to once have been part of their own race, but estranged in space or the [[Last of His Kind]].

* ''[[Harkovast]]'' features the Darsai, the Tsung-Dao, the Nymus, the Ano-Chee, the Junlocks, the Golta and a whole host of others who have been named but have yet to appear.

* ''[[The Mansion of E]]'' has numerous species living in the vast underground complex beneath the titular structure; their ancestors were gathered there as exhibits in a zoo by another now-vanished species.

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

* In ''[[Ugly Americans]]'', New York alone seems to be home to hundreds, if not thousands, of races. Many are introduced for a quick gag, only to be fleshed out with their own histories and customs later on.

* The original ''[[My Little Pony]]'' cartoon. Earth Ponies, Pegasus Ponies, Unicorn Ponies, Sea Ponies, Flutter Ponies, Bushwoolies, Grundles, Furbobs, Stonebacks, Flories, Crab Nasties, and more.

* ''Thundercats'' , in both incarnations, has more races than you'd think would ''fit'' on one planet. Various animal-people are only the beginning.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]

[[Category:Fantastic Sapient Species Tropes]]

[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]