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The Inhumanly Beautiful Race is a fictional non-human species that is always, nearly without fail, incredibly good looking. Not only are they good looking, but they tend to be described as better looking than the vast majority of humans could ever hope to be. When describing their beauty, authors tend to use terms like "inhuman", "otherworldly" and "ethereal". Depending on the author, such a species may inspire either simple chaste appreciation, or immediate and profound arousal. In extreme cases, their looks are so incredible as to act as almost a form of glamour, instantly become the center of attention (and desire) everywhere they go.
While this concept can be found in all forms of media, it usually this works best in a non-visual medium. With a novel, the reader can imagine their own ideal of beauty. In a live action work, it may become a case of a subjective judgement of Informed Attractiveness.
Angels and Elves almost invariably fall under this trope, and The Fair Folk are often included. In recent years, Vampires have also increasingly been portrayed as having inhuman hotness, in contrast to older versions where they looked more like walking corpses. And it goes without saying for succubi.
In order to make this not-subjective, examples should only be of cases where the race is described as being this in-universe, either in the narration or by other characters.
No Real Life Examples, Please!.
Examples
Comics
- In the world of ElfQuest, most humans tend to feel this way about the elves. It sometimes provokes humans to extreme behavior, for good or evil.
Film
- In Star Wars, the Diathim from the moons of Iego are known as "angels" and Anakin describes them as "the most beautiful creatures in the universe" (relaying stories he'd heard from spacers).
Literature
Religion and Mythology
- Almost all the gods of Classical Mythology were inhumanly good looking, with the notable exception of Hephaestus.
- The Fae in Middle English mythology were known for their beauty, and unsurprisingly they were the inspiration behind Tolkein's elves.
Tabletop Games
- Nymphs in Dungeons And Dragons are described as being so beautiful that they can make characters go blind just from seeing them.
- The elves from Magic: The Gathering's Lorwyn set. Their caste system runs on how beautiful they are and they will often hunt other species that they deem uglier than they.
- In New World Of Darkness:
- The whole Daeva clan from Vampire The Requiem. In their Clan Book it is stated that they're "stronger, faster and sexier than you". Even before the embrace they are already attractive humans; after it they become inhumanly beautiful, partly because of their discipline, Majesty, that allows them to bedazzle people with their presence. The clan book does make a point of the fact that anyone who knows enough about the Daeva (including the Daeva themselves) tends to find something off about them because their beauty is artificial and they are incapable of love. One of the illustrators noted that the Daeva are essentially sex objects rather than people.
- Galateids in Promethean The Created are, to the last, made from the bodies of the young and beautiful who were unmarred by the process of death. This makes all social interactions a breeze, at least, until the Disquiet kicks in. The main reason they undertake the Pilgrimage is that it's no use being inhumanly beautiful and alluring if everyone's going to turn on you in the end.
- Then there are the Fairest from Changeling The Lost. Remade as lovers and playthings to the Gentry, they are beautiful to the last (though not all of them in the most conventional sense), extremely skilled at social interaction, and have a buy-in with the Contracts of Vainglory, which ramp up their beauty and influence to superhuman levels.
- The Old World Of Darkness gameline Changeling The Dreaming has the sidhe. At character creation, the sidhe automatically apply two dots to their Appearance score. As Appearance automatically starts at 1, this means every sidhe ranges from Appearance 3 ("Hey, he's kinda cute.") to Appearance 5 ("I worship at your feet, my lady!").
- Eldar in Warhammer 40000 are said to look like beautiful humans, but also that they're so graceful it's creepy.
- Uncorrupt Horus Heresy and Great Crusade era Space Marines who have not suffered great disfigurement are generally described as being beautiful to an obviously inhuman standard. This being 40k however, the idea's twisted just a little; the sheer visual difference of a Space Marine also further marks him as posthuman, and can easily veer into the Uncanny Valley. Start combining this with Chaos and things can get even weirder.
- The Eberron Campaign Setting gives us Kalashtar, a near-human psionic race—and, of course, elves.
Video Games
- The Asari in Mass Effect are a genderless race of aliens with natural phychic and telepathic powers, that mates by close telepathic contact and can do that with every known humanoid species in the galaxy, as the genetic material is entirely taken from the mother. Despite almost universally considering each other ugly, all the other species consider Asari very attractive and looking similar to them. It even works on Salarians, who reproduce as hives in which the vast majority of individuals are males that never have sex in their entire live, and also somehow seems to affect people who only see pictures or recordings of Asari without being near one.
- Faeling in Lusternia tend towards this. Even - especially - the Drow-esque shadow faeling, despite their ashy complexion and crimson eyes.
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