Other "races"
Many fantasy stories and worlds refer to their main sapient humanoid species as "races" rather than species. In most such worlds these races are related, and capable of producing viable offspring together, typically having diverged from one root species – most often either elves or humans – by magical or divine influence. The usage of the term in this context was popularized by J. R. R. Tolkien and was further adapted and spread by the use of races in Dungeons & Dragons role-playing games. Many fantasy settings use the terms "race" and "species" interchangeably.
In role-playing games, "race" typically refers to any species that can be used as a player character. In older editions of Dungeons & Dragons, the primary non-human player races (dwarf, elf, gnome, halfling, and half-elf) were called "demi-humans". Later games such as Shadowrun use the term "metahuman", and define these humanoid races as subdivisions of Homo sapiens.
Other races include Orcs, which were popularized in Lord of The Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. They are now used in many fantasy worlds and are often depicted as large, green brutish creatures with more muscle than brains (although Tolkien's Orcs, while savage, are cunning and probably as intelligent as a man).
Other races include various humanoid creatures that appear like animals like wolves, bears, boars and other animal species.
Read more about this topic: Fantasy Tropes And Conventions
Famous quotes containing the word races:
“Late in the afternoon we passed a man on the shore fishing with a long birch pole.... The characteristics and pursuits of various ages and races of men are always existing in epitome in every neighborhood. The pleasures of my earliest youth have become the inheritance of other men. This man is still a fisher, and belongs to an era in which I myself have lived.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“While the white man keeps the impetus of his own proud, onward march, the dark races will yield and serve, perforce. But let the white man once have a misgiving about his own leadership, and the dark races will at once attack him, to pull him down into the old gulfs.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)