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{{
Essentially, the game version of [[Loads and Loads of Races]]. Sometimes, a [[Tabletop Game]] or [[Video Game]] setting just has a metric boatload of playable races -- even more than the standard [[Five Races]].
# You're designing an RPG (either a Video Game or Tabletop). You want more customization options. Your classes are pretty much [[An Adventurer Is You|the standard bunch]], so you allow a bunch of races to be selected too. Now player options for creating a character aren't just limited to Human, Elf, Dwarf, Hobbit, and Orc. You can also play a Werewolf, a [[Petting Zoo People|Cat Person]], a Giant Monkey, a Robot, [[Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs|a Giant Robot Monkey]], a [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|Dwarf Giant Robot Were-Monkey]], etc. These races may be further subdivided into [[Underground Monkey|every possible variation]].
# You're designing a Strategy Game, and you want to give your player tons of faction and customization options. Throw in a bunch of sub-factions, and you have a real menagerie.
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This is a medium-specific subtrope of [[Loads and Loads of Races]].
{{examples}}
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
=== Board Games ===▼
▲== Board Games ==
* ''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 ''Fantasy Flight'' edition released two expansions, bringing the grand total to a staggering 90 alien races.
* ''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.
=== Card Games ===
* ''[[Duel Masters]]'' follows suit after its "parent" game, ''Magic''. [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.
* ''[[Magic: The Gathering|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 planes, it's kind of justified.
** And that's not even counting subraces. Just counting the types of goblins there are [[Too Dumb to Live|Basic Dominarian Goblins]], [[Cannon Fodder|Rathi Moggs,]] [[
** [http://magiccards.info/tsts/en/26.html Mistform Ultimus] and all members of the Changeling race are each every creature type, simultaneously. [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?)
** ''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.▼
=== Tabletop Roleplaying Games ===
* ''[[Dungeons
** The Basic/Expert/etc ''D&D'' system practically lived off of this trope, offering supplements and gazetteers for PC savage humanoids, fairy creatures, undersea races, aerial beings, lycanthrope strains... And that's before you crack open the Immortals boxed set.
** AD&D2 mostly relied on settings, but ''The Complete Book of Humanoids'' alone listed almost 30 now-playable races and subraces.
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* ''[[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, the book ''D-Bees of North America'' is 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.
* Every role-playing game set in the ''[[Star Wars]]'' universe has ended up allowing players access to dozens if not hundreds (literally) of races.
* In ''[[Old World of Darkness]]'', we have playable vampires, werewolves (plus 11 other shapeshifter races), mages, changelings (faeries trapped in human bodies), wraiths, demons, mummies, kuei-jin (vampire-zombie-ghosts), sorcerers (weaker than mages), mediums, ghouls, kinfolk, hsien (small gods trapped in human bodies), fomori (and drones, gorgons, and kami) (people possessed by spirits), zombies, Imbued hunters, shih hunters... oh, and regular humans, if you're feeling squishy.
** Within just ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade]]'', there are 13 playable "races" of vampires (they're called clans, but they play the same role): Brujah, Gangrel, Malkavian, Noesferatu, Toreador, Tremere, Ventrue, Tzimisce, Lasombra, Setite, Ravnos, Giovanni, and Assamite. Even if you're restricted to playing just the "lawful" Camarilla races/clans, there are still 7 playable races.
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** All the other "splats" have their own subdivisions into playable types: [[Mage: The Ascension|mage]] and sorcerer traditions, conventions, and crafts; [[Demon: The Fallen|demon]] houses and factions; [[Kindred of the East|kuei-jin]] dharmas; fomori breeds; hsien kwannon-jin; [[Wraith: The Oblivion|wraith]] legions and guilds; [[Orpheus|medium]] laments; [[Changeling: The Dreaming|changeling]] and merfolk kiths and houses; [[Hunter: The Reckoning|hunter]] creeds; and so on.
* The ''[[New World of Darkness]]'' has, thus far, humans, vampires, werewolves, mages, Prometheans (Frankenstein's monsters), changelings, Sin-Eaters and their associated Giests, Immortals, Psychics, Thaumaturges (essentially weak mages), various Changing-Breeds, and (if you take fan-line games) [[Mad Scientist|Geniuses]], [[Magical Girl|Princesses]] and [[Eldritch Abomination|Leviathans.]]
* ''[[Shadowrun]]'' has 5 metatypes: Human, Orks, Trolls, Elves and Dwarves. But each race has around 6 [[Expansion Pack World|meta-variants]], who can look nothing like the base race. Then there's the Synthetic Intelligences, the Drakes, the Changelings, the Ghouls, Vampires and other infected critters... There's the Non-human sentients too like Nagas, Centaurs, wendigos....▼
* ''[[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]].▼
== Tabletop Strategy Games ==▼
▲=== Tabletop Strategy Games ===
* ''[[Star Fleet Battles]]'' features a bunch of distinct fleets, including, in the basic edition, ships for [[The Federation]], the Klingons, the Romulans <ref>Who have the distinction of having '''three''' completely distinct Tournament ships, whereas almost all the other races have just one, to reflect the fact that there they had/have three completely different fleets</ref>, the Kzinti, the Tolians, and Orion Pirates; expansions include Andorians, Lyrans, Hydrans, WYNs, and the ISC. And all that is for the "Alpha Sector" setting. There are also "Omega Sector" (20 new factions), "Magellanic Cloud" (5 new factions) and "the Early Years" (5 new factions) settings.
* ''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]]''.
== [[Video Games]] ==▼
* ''[[Wizardry]]'''s later SirTech-developed installments. Not as bad as some examples on this page, though: Ten playable races (of which you only meet two as NPCs), and about eight NPC races in the second and third games. Justified in that the player characters are from a different planet from the locations of the second and third games (which themselves are on different planets, and the only NPC races they share are the ones with interstellar travel).▼
* ''[[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).▼
** And that's just the playable races. Factor in NPC races and those mentioned in the backstory, and you also have Dwemer (Mesopotamians), Imga (Intelligent Apes), Daedra (Demigods), Almderi ([[Precursors]]), Sloads (Slugmen), Nedes (Barbarians), Alpine Elves, Akaviri (Chinese and Japanese), Hist (Ancient Sentient Trees)...▼
** Some of the NPC races have been turned into playable races by intrepid modders.▼
* ''[[Final Fantasy IX]]'' features loads and loads of one-off NPCs with [[Funny Animal|animal]] or other demihuman features, along with a few named (or not-quite-named) major races. It almost gives [[Animal Crossing]] a run for its money. Only two major PCs are unequivocally normal humans.
* ''[[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.▼
* ''[[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).▼
** Cathars actually first appeared in the ''[[Tales of the Jedi]]'' comics.▼
* ''[[Star Ocean]]'' is a solid example here, owing to its influence from ''[[Star Trek]]'' -- most admittedly human-looking enough, but: Humans, Fellpool, Featherfolk, Expelian, Tetrageniot, Nedian, Klausian, Velbaysian, Elicoorian, and Menodix (though some are simply [[Human Aliens]], others have differences that are noted either in the story, in gameplay, or in the plot). And that's just sampling from the PC rosters of the first three--there's far more of them represented among the NPCs and discussed in the Encyclopedia in later games. (to name a few, Felinefolk, Ur-Felinefolk, Vanguardian, Rezerbian, Vendeeni, and so on...)▼
===
▲* ''[[Warhammer]]'' and ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'':
▲** ''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.
▲* ''[[Shadowrun]]'' has 5 metatypes: Human, Orks, Trolls, Elves and Dwarves. But each race has around 6 [[Expansion Pack World|meta-variants]], who can look nothing like the base race. Then there's the Synthetic Intelligences, the Drakes, the Changelings, the Ghouls, Vampires and other infected critters... There's the Non-human sentients too like Nagas, Centaurs, wendigos....
▲* ''[[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]].
▲== [[Video Games]] ==
=== Multi-type Game Franchises ===
* ''[[Warcraft]] II'' had humans, orcs, elves (later high elves), dwarves, gnomes, goblins, trolls, ogres and dragons. ''Warcraft III'' added tauren, undead, dryads, night elves, keepers of the grove and treeants. ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' has 12 playable races as of the ''Cataclysm'' expansion, which including races already mentioned, adds draenei, blood elves (successors to high elves) and worgen.
=== MMORPGs ===
* Honorable mention goes to ''[[Earth Eternal]]'', which started beta with '''22''' races, and half 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. Sadly, the actual game only has 12 races.
* ''[[
=== MUs ===
▲== MU* s ==
* In ''[[Lusternia]]'' there are twenty playable races, ranging from tiny, airborne [[The Fair Folk|fair folk]] to hulking, nine foot tall [[Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti|yeti-men]]. There are many more mortal races that are unplayable due to logistical issues, such as the centaur ([[Dummied Out]] due to the challenge of handling a six-limbed race) and gnomes (scrapped for being too similar to [[Our Dwarves Are All the Same|dwarves]]).
* ''[[Ascendancy]]'' boasts an impressive 21 races, each with its own special ability, and with cosmetic differences in ship styles.
* ''[[Master of Orion]]'' series started with ten races with their own associated [[AI Player Personalities]] - Psilons, Klackons, Humans, Silicoids, Meklar, Sakkra, Alkari, Darlok, Bulrathi, Mrrshan, and in the second game added Elerians, Gnolams and Trilarians, plus non-playable Antarans. In the third game, a boatload more were added (Evon, Imsaeis, Eoladi, Cynoid, Nommo, Ithkul, Tachidi, Raas, Grendarl) and several existing races were downgraded to non-playable.
* ''[[Master of Magic]]'' has 14 races available (though some of them are relatives), split between [[Layered World|two worlds]] - Barbarians, Gnolls, Halflings, High Elves, High Men, Klackons, Lizardmen, Nomads and Orcs live on Arcanus, while Beastmen, Dark Elves, Draconians, Dwarves and Trolls live on Myrran. There also [[Urban Legend of Zelda|was a rumour]] that if you life-drain the settler, making it undead, it allows to build undead cities, but it doesn't.
* ''[[Age of Wonders]]''. 15 as of the last expansion, not counting a race that was present in the first game and didn't return for the sequel.▼
* The ''[[Galactic Civilizations]]'' series. In the original version of ''Galactic Civilizations 2'', the races were pretty similar, only differentiated by hardcoded reactions (the Drengin and the Torians hate each other, for example) and racial bonuses. However, in the newer expansions, races got Super Abilities and, in the Twilight of the Arnor expansion, unique tech trees. Yes, a game with ~14 separate races which includes unique tech trees.▼
* ''[[Battle for Wesnoth]]'' has humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, trolls, drakes (dragon people), [[Lizard Folk|saurians]], merfolk, and [[Snake People|naga]], in addition to things which aren't really a "race" as such, like undead. User-made content adds dozens more factions, and various subdivisions in "eras" (rulesets).▼
* ''[[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.▼
== unsorted ==
▲* ''[[Age of Wonders]]''. 15 as of the last expansion, not counting a race that was present in the first game and didn't return for the sequel.
* ''[[Star Control]]'', given that each race was allowed only one ship, had to fall into this to have more than a small number of ships.
* ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics Advance]]'' had [[Five Races]], but ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics A2]]'' added two more. One of the new ones replaced one of the old ones, and ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]'' and ''[[Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings]]'' added in more, with some [[Underground Monkey]] on the side.
▲* The ''[[Galactic Civilizations]]'' series. In the original version of Galactic Civilizations 2, the races were pretty similar, only differentiated by hardcoded reactions (the Drengin and the Torians hate each other, for example) and racial bonuses. However, in the newer expansions, races got Super Abilities and, in the Twilight of the Arnor expansion, unique tech trees. Yes, a game with ~14 separate races which includes unique tech trees.
* The ''[[Warlords]]'' series, and its spinoff ''Warlords Battlecry''. ''WBC1'' had nine races (Human, Dwarf, Undead, Barbarian, Minotaur, Orc, High Elf, Wood Elf, Dark Elf), arranged on a chart whose columns were "civilized", "barbaric", and "magical" and whose rows were "good", "neutral", and "evil". ''WBC2'' added three new races, which can be unofficially sorted into a new "chaotic" column: Fey, Dark Dwarves, and Daemons. ''WBC3'' almost completely abandoned the theme, splitting Humans into Empire and Knights and adding Ssrathi ([[Mayincatec]] [[Snake People]]), Swarm, and Plaguelords. By the end of the series, that's a grand total of 16 almost completely unique factions drawn from 11 races (of which there are three kinds of human, three kinds of elf, and two kinds of dwarf), with hardly a shared unit or building to be found.
* Depending on which "era" a game of ''[[Dominions]] 3'' takes place in, it can come with up to 24 nations almost all of which represent different races ranging from stereotypical merfolk to Lovecraftian fish-men to Rakshasa or Naga rulers of intelligent primates. Factions that are alliances of multiple races, such as Pangea's medley of Greek mythology expand the actual count even further. A great number of patches were made after its release that added even more material.▼
▲* Depending on which "era" a game of Dominions 3 takes place in, it can come with up to 24 nations almost all of which represent different races ranging from stereotypical merfolk to Lovecraftian fish-men to Rakshasa or Naga rulers of intelligent primates. Factions that are alliances of multiple races, such as Pangea's medley of Greek mythology expand the actual count even further. A great number of patches were made after its release that added even more material.
▲* ''[[Battle for Wesnoth]]'' has humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, trolls, drakes (dragon people), [[Lizard Folk|saurians]], merfolk, and [[Snake People|naga]], in addition to things which aren't really a "race" as such, like undead. User-made content adds dozens more, and various subdivisions.
▲* ''[[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).
▲** And that's just the playable races. Factor in NPC races and those mentioned in the backstory, and you also have Dwemer (Mesopotamians), Imga (Intelligent Apes), Daedra (Demigods), Almderi ([[Precursors]]), Sloads (Slugmen), Nedes (Barbarians), Alpine Elves, Akaviri (Chinese and Japanese), Hist (Ancient Sentient Trees)...
▲** Some of the NPC races have been turned into playable races by intrepid modders.
▲* ''[[Wizardry]]'''s later SirTech-developed installments. Not as bad as some examples on this page, though: Ten playable races (of which you only meet two as NPCs), and about eight NPC races in the second and third games. Justified in that the player characters are from a different planet from the locations of the second and third games (which themselves are on different planets, and the only NPC races they share are the ones with interstellar travel).
▲** ''[[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 IX]]'' features loads and loads of one-off NPCs with [[Funny Animal|animal]] or other demihuman features, along with a few named (or not-quite-named) major races. It almost gives [[Animal Crossing]] a run for its money. Only two major PCs are unequivocally normal humans.
▲* ''[[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.
* ''[[Suikoden]]'' does this (usually using some kind of animal as a basis) on account of having [[108]] characters in [[Loads and Loads of Characters|EVERY game]]. To ensure [[Cast of Snowflakes|variety]], the series has Kobolds (dog people), [[Incredibly Lame Pun|Nei-Kobolds]] (cat people), Lizard people, duck people, wingers, a race of beavers, mermaids, purpoises. Some argue if the Cyndar/Sindar people are a separate race or a lost civilization. Other characters such as Jeane, Zerase etc have also been argued if they are entirely human. Every game seems to add at least one more race to the count.
* ''[[Mass Effect]]'' has around a dozen, and more depending on what you count as a race. Besides humans, there are asari, turians, salarians, quarians, krogans, hanar, volus, elcor, drell, geth, rachni, vorcha, the Yahg, the {{spoiler|Reapers}}, and the Collectors {{spoiler|(arguably)}} for sentient species. And there's even ''more'' mentioned in the Cerberus Daily News, such as a recently discovered race of alien bees, the lone survivor of his planet, a race of AI's living in what is basically [[The Matrix]], A new race that was subsequently offended by the Krogans, and more.
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* ''[[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.
▲* ''[[Star Ocean]]'' is a solid example here, owing to its influence from ''[[Star Trek]]'' -- most admittedly human-looking enough, but: Humans, Fellpool, Featherfolk, Expelian, Tetrageniot, Nedian, Klausian, Velbaysian, Elicoorian, and Menodix (though some are simply [[Human Aliens]], others have differences that are noted either in the story, in gameplay, or in the plot). And that's just sampling from the PC rosters of the first three--there's far more of them represented among the NPCs and discussed in the Encyclopedia in later games. (to name a few, Felinefolk, Ur-Felinefolk, Vanguardian, Rezerbian, Vendeeni, and so on...)
▲* ''[[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).
▲** Cathars actually first appeared in the [[Tales of the Jedi]] comics.
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