Conceptualization: Races in fantasy settings

Are you opposed to alternate history?

I've always thought an alternate history of Inca or Mayan civilizations would be a great setting. What if they defeated the Spaniards with the alien technology the crazies on the show Ancient Aliens always talk about? I guess it would be somewhere along the lines of Egypt and Stargate.

On the flip side, you could do almost anything in a world in which the Carthaginians actually won their war with Rome. Not much of their history exists, so you could make up anything. Because of his name, I'm sure scipioafricanus would be staunchly against this.

dschult3
I see! I've already decided to work on a medieval fantasy setting, so you'll have to be the one writing about the world in which carthaginians won. It does sound like there is potential to using that theme.

Exactly.

Gustavus Adolphus doesn't fall at the Battle of Lutzen in the Thirty Years War and continues as the Lion of the North.

How about a world in which Genghis Khan's lineage continued their conquest in the 12 and 1300s to take over the world? You could make up all sorts of lore there. They could have invaded Europe and Africa. Then, they could have taken on the Vikings for global dominance of the seas. Rewrite the story of the Americas.

To an extend, I feel at some point in real history people from Asia did make it to America, and I mean all three parts, North, Central, and South, the resemblance is too notorious.

The theory that they crossed through Alaska and spread South from there doesn't seem too crazy either.

On a similar topic, I hope the new Tomb Raider game is as good as the last ones, I heard Crystal Dynamics was not going to be involved and that worries me. I hope Square Enix has made the right decisions because it is the end of the trilogy and I'm not very confident with Eidos.

On the other hand Crystal Dynamics knows what they are doing, the Guardian Of Light, and the Temple Of Osiris are a good exampe of how well they manage ancient lore in a fantasy setting.

Hey everyone!
I guess it's time to tell you guys what I have been considering making, because I actually already took a look at your replies a few days ago but couldn't answer, and the thing is that my idea of a setting isn't as undefined as I may have led you to believe. There's this thing too that without deep historical and geographical masteries it's hard to develop alternate setting for the real world, that's how Conan novels began even.

So, first thing is that the setting I'm developing may look a little bit like a mockery of the real world, and the reason for this is that I want races and/or groups to make sense. For example, have you ever been in a fantasy setting that features vikings but there's hardly any sea to justify their existence? I don't want something like this in my setting, and mine will include vikings.

Now to my setting.
I expect the players to spend the majority of their time in my Europe-like setting, and for that I plan on separating each big divide in culture as a full race, so instead of having "human - elf - goblin" I'd have "frank - elf - goblin" for example; and I'd like to take a more realistic approach to the inhabitants of this world, so the word "human" wouldn't mean that much as it could be applied to elves too, instead each racial difference would be evident for its inhabitants, so a frank (tentative name) wouldn't identify himself neither with an elf nor a gaul (another tentative name). One reason for this is that I plan on dividing those character bonuses/penalties by race once I understand the GURPS system better (already dropped D&D), the other reason is that several settings are to blame for including "human" as a race and proceed to have humans be dwarfed by the volume of other types spread throughout the world, and I think that dividing the "human" in several parts would help in making the setting less dumb overall.

As for the planned races, I'm going to start by saying that I'm basing it more on folklore and interpretations of it, so I don't plan on including orcs or other races that don't happen outside of (modern) fantasy. So far I planned on 3 "human" divisions including one more generic medieval stereotype, nords (tentative name that might not go away), and amazons (but these will be absent from almost every aspect of the game). As for the "not-human" divisions I have planned 3 organized groups: light elves, dark elves, and fey, the latter will be the most present out of the 3 considering they will have establishments on 2 parts of this Europe-like continent. As for the non organized "full" races I'll have ogres (although I won't portray them as green monsters, rather just large men who rely on raping women from human tribes to remain existing), goblins (who will act mostly like human bandits and avoid establishing societies), sirens (sub-divisions included) and dragons.

Some snags:
- I really like dwarves, but I already have dark elves. Can you guys cook up any excuse for dwarves and dark elves existing at the same time as different races without making the whole thing looking dumb(er)?
- Dragons are religious symbols before fantasy ones, and if I include them, they will have to be related to all the other races in a meaningful way. For humans and dark elves/dwarves it's easy, but how can I link them to light elves, fey, and goblins? I can throw the goblin race under the bus just in case, but I can't do the same for the others.
- I think jotuns are pretty cool, but I'd like to include the human race associated with them in the setting already. Should I forget about jotun just like I'm ok not having aesir or is there a way to excuse both existing at the same time?

centipede
Why don't you tell about your experiences? I have some failed ones I can share.