Fantasy Races as human sub-species

So a thought that came to me lately is the idea that races like Dwarves, Elves, etc could have actually been human subspecies.

Alternatively, they're closer to Neanderthals, but they existed so far back that there's no physical evidence of them at all besides maybe a small number of groups who've kept that knowledge preserved.

Any thoughts?

I could see that working.

I suppose that my main question is that of whether they have any actual magic, or whether that's just tales that have spun around them over time.

I'd also question, well, where they are: why are we not explicitly aware of them?

Beyond that, I'd suggest looking at Shannara, which I recall does something similar with Dwarves, Gnomes, and Trolls. (Although its Elves are in fact actual Elves.)

Although in that series, the sub-species split after our time (or the "present" as of the writing of the books; I'm not sure of which).

I have an entire thought-experiment-multiverse using a premise like that with a variety of levels of anthropological accuracy. :D

You might be interested in Arthur Machen's The White People, which does something similar (but simply saying that is already kind of spoilers), combining the Victorian fascinations with fairies and human evolution into gothic horror.

This is actually the case in Delicious in Dungeon, all members of the typical fantasy humanoid grouping are all different species of human and are collectively known as humans, with real humans being called tallmen. It actually goes further than subspecies since the hybrid offspring of some pairings are actually sterile.

Damn. Beat to the punch.

Guess I shouldn't be shocked. Enough time passes and any idea can be used.

I mean, that doesn't mean that you can't do something interesting or novel with the idea, I daresay.

No idea is 100% original; wanting to be original is an exercise in futility. Just do your best to make your concept your own.

Far enough.

I once actually pointed out something like that myself for a School project in Drama.

Originality is near impossible these days, so it comes down to execution.

You could make them being based on the extinct human species instead. Not subspecies, but actual main species.

In total, nine different species of human walked the earth 300,000 years ago. Today only one remains, which is us.

And for how they could have survived into present day, the setting of your story might be a case of when a species gets extinct, it gets "existentially displaced" instead, removed from our reality and given a whole new world of their own to live and thrive inside instead.

And we are just left with the stories about them on our side of the fence, unaware of this.

Huh. That's similar to another idea I had.

The reason there are so many versions of different myths is because sometimes, they crossed over from alternate universes.

As for your idea, I was considering that, similar to Neanderthals, they didn't go extinct necessarily, but breeding with classic humanity, so their Dn A is still within all of us.

There are still other things I have in mind, and I haven't fully clarified my ideas yet however.

I didn't reveal the second half of this idea either, fearing it might be a bit too dark for a story's background.

But in this setting, mankind (or what's left of it) eventually gets to go to this separate realm themselves and finally meet everything they themselves thought as fairy tales for hundreds if not thousands of years up to that point. except mankind have zero chance of returning to Earth again due to being, well, extinct.

And this world and the powers to be that is in charge of it, have had more than enough time to prepare for mankind's eventual arrival to their side of the fence. Just to make 100% sure that they won't ever get the opportunity to commit the exact same mistakes which got them there to this realm in the first place.

It's set up for some interesting plot.

Yes, the dinosaurs are all there in this place as well, having had millions of years to get comfy with their new environment and adapt to it properly.