I have always been a fan of bi-pedal and bi-manual anthrophomric animal humanoids. I loved a little game called Justifiers because of the Beta-Humanoid concept. This concept has been done in many other games system as well, whether it was a fantasy or sci-fi system.
I basically created animal humanoid races for my fantasy campaign, Thonkar, using magic as the explanation. There were only humans before the Ani-men races were created. The Pomperiian Empire had grown decadent and bloated (like Rome in the last days) and the mages created a slave-race of animal-human hybrids. One of the side effects of the magic was that some of the ani-men were fertile and could breed.
In the campaign, there was a slave revolt led by a gladiator (a la Spartacus) that freed them from slavery. The ani-men fled into the wilds and corners of the Pomperiian Empire to rule themselves and create their own society. They formed a religion based upon the concept of Gaia.
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