[jarulf]

Like many others I'm rather bored with the standard fare of Dwarves and Elves. I've always liked LOTR but the fact that so much fantasy is more or less based on Tolkien's take on fantasy races gets a little boring.

Anyone who wants to break from the mold has several options, a few come to mind.

Go completely human. Forget about fantasy races and develop distinct human cultures, after all fantasy does not have to have elves to be fantasy.

Go back to the roots. Elves, dwarves and other beings from folklore tend to be strange and unpredictable, and in a general sense unknowable by humans. Used this way they are probably better used as NPCs.

Go weird. Try to come up with races that feel less like caricatured humans, Glorantha does this pretty well and I'm sure there are other settings out there that do as well. But don't make them too weird if you want to make them playable. And call them something else than elves.

Go evolutionary. A middle way between no non-humans and and having them. Let the other races be other types of Homo. There are many ancestors and cousins to build on. The ever-popular Neanderthals, the tiny Floresiensis (yes, I know the jury is still divided on what they really were). Imagine if they survived.

Anyone have any nice example of what you've done in RQ/BRP?