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GenericGuy Since: May, 2010
#1: Apr 3rd 2011 at 8:26:40 PM

Most fantasy worlds, despite having many sentient races, usually will have the humans being the “dominate” species. More often than not this is justified with a line saying “humans breed faster/have a higher population than all the other races.” So, I ask have any of you played a setting where humans were more of a middle unimportant race to the world and its destiny; or have you come up with your own reason, besides breeding like bunnies, for humanity to be the top dog in world politics?

Clarification: I’m looking for worlds where humanity is still present, just not as important as other races, and I’m not looking for worlds where humanity is singled out as being at the bottom of the barrel. More of in the middle between the extremes of “humanity F#$% Yeah” and “humanity F#$% YOU!” Or a more unique reason for why humanity is calling the shots.

"If you make people think they’re thinking, they’ll love you; but if you really make them think, they’ll hate you." —Don Marquis
WackyMeetsPractical My teacher's a panda from Texas Since: Oct, 2009
My teacher's a panda
#2: Apr 3rd 2011 at 9:40:17 PM

I have attempted to create a world of Funny Animals in which humans were about just as commonplace as all other species, without them playing a major role, dominating the cast, or being treated superior or inferior to anyone else. However, every time I tried it, the human character just felt horribly out of place. Even though the human character wasn't treated differently than the other characters, it just always felt expected that they do something special. It also felt weird to have this type of world without any justification or explanation about how this happened, like the humans being present was evidence that the world has somehow developed from reality, even when it wasn't the case. Eventually I dropped the concept and made it a full on Funny Animal World without any humans. It worked a lot better.

LoniJay from Australia Since: Dec, 2009 Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
#3: Apr 3rd 2011 at 11:47:08 PM

I'm not sure where my world lies on that scale. The majority of the main character's society is human, but the other societies have none of them at all.

I am, though, trying to get rid of that 'humans are about medium sized for sentient species' thing. Humans are actually pretty big, most of my races are quite small.

Be not afraid...
MattII Since: Sep, 2009
#4: Apr 4th 2011 at 12:14:51 AM

In mine, the humans are hemmed in by Orcs (tough, breed like rabbits), Elves (strong, good archers), Necromancers (armies of undead) and Caniforms (anthropomorphic Painted Wolves, breed like rabbits, supported by Harpies and mega-hyenas). The only reason humans aren't dead is because the Elves and Orcs hate each other as much as they do us, and likewise the Necromancers and Caniforms.

edited 4th Apr '11 3:54:45 AM by MattII

nrjxll Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Not war
#5: Apr 4th 2011 at 12:22:04 AM

Does this have to be fantasy worlds exclusively?

If not, both my science fiction settings with aliens would count (the third is Absent Aliens).

edited 4th Apr '11 12:22:12 AM by nrjxll

doorhandle Since: Oct, 2010
#6: Apr 4th 2011 at 3:44:46 AM

In mine, humanLIKE aliens are dominant, and many species are annoyed by the fat they all look vaguely similar. This came about because starfish aliens are too incomprehensible for the humanoid aliens, and are too unique to be well understood by other starfish aliens. As such, they have problems making alliances and are generally restricted to their native plane, and all the major powers built their empire upon trade and alliances which is greatly helped by sharing a sound-based language.

The majority of humans are in a backwater (not technologically, though: it's complicated), but are getting better due to the fact they count the many tran-human beings among their number as humans, and have formed the humankind alliance to include the most humanlike, sympathetic aliens amongst themselves. Likewise, all the protagonists but one are transhumans (even the sapient ship), and the last one is a human-based anthromorphic personification.

I guess it’s a zigg-zagging version of humans are special: humankind is only a minor mutliversal; power, but they are doing much better than the countless species having power only in their home realms. Also, puny humans is played straight: So natral, unalterd humans are becoming scarse, with cyborgs and genomod making up the largest demographic, with a large subculture consisting of brain-in-a-jar style cyborg tanks and spaceships.

edited 4th Apr '11 3:49:01 AM by doorhandle

annebeeche watching down on us from by the long tidal river Since: Nov, 2010
watching down on us
#7: Apr 4th 2011 at 8:05:01 AM

When I was a kid, I wrote a fantasy world that was dominated politically by magical species angels, elves and demons*

, with the intrinstically non-magical people like humans and merfolk kind of left at the wayside and at their mercy.

So you had the magical races dominating the aristocracy and the ruling classes, while peasantry was mostly made up of people like humans.

edited 4th Apr '11 8:09:22 AM by annebeeche

Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.
GenericGuy Since: May, 2010
#8: Apr 4th 2011 at 8:51:58 AM

[up][up][up]Sci-Fi is allowed

"If you make people think they’re thinking, they’ll love you; but if you really make them think, they’ll hate you." —Don Marquis
GuyInWhite Morgan Freeman is God. from Dry Cleaning Since: Jan, 2011
Morgan Freeman is God.
#9: Apr 4th 2011 at 12:24:07 PM

In Felarya, humans are the dominant species as far as the few bastions of civilization are concerned, but they are far from the dominant species overall.

The setting is set up so that it can be accessed from multiple universes via magic or advanced technology, or occasionally through randomly-occurring portals that appear in earth-like worlds in The Multiverse. There are many different races from many different universes present in the setting, but every one of them is human, save the occasional instances of animal-people.

As for the reason humans are not the dominant species, you can look right at the certain fetishes that the setting appeals to: it's pretty much the definition of a Death World, and any major attempts to tame it result in godlike entities called Guardians appearing and knocking back civilization to the point where it might as well not exist.

edited 4th Apr '11 12:27:49 PM by GuyInWhite

Why I am afraid of fences.
MarkerMage World Ends Oct 21, 2011 from My own little world Since: Aug, 2009
World Ends Oct 21, 2011
#10: Apr 4th 2011 at 3:31:31 PM

The humans in my fantasy world are dominate because the other sentient species with the cool magic powers can't survive in the anti-magic areas of the world.

The plant girl race is able to photosynthesize magic and can cast more powerful spells than humans. However, they need the extra energy from photosynthesizing magic. Put them in an anti-magic area, and they will slowly weaken until they die.

The shape shifting race can... well, shape shift. However, they have to continue using magic to keep from reverting back to their original form. Did I mention that their original form isn't alive or sentient? Put them in an anti-magic area, and they will change to this original form immediately (and pretty much die).

The regenerating trolls whose minds are stored within the fantasy world's physical laws are incredibly powerful. However, the anti-magic areas lack magic due to them operating under a non-fantasy world's physical laws, which prevents the regenerating trolls who enter from accessing their minds, resulting in their bodies losing consciousness in those anti-magic areas.

As you might be able to guess, the major human cities are located within the anti-magic areas. The anti-magic areas are also the only places in my fantasy world where gunpowder works. So when the various sentient species have a war, the humans have the advantage of their biggest cities being in places that are incredibly easy for them to defend.

Thinking of ideas to use with a literary work that is meant to be WikiWalked through.
CrystalGlacia from at least we're not detroit (Living Relic)
#11: Apr 5th 2011 at 7:31:30 AM

The eastern hemisphere of my known fantasy world is dominated by various tribes of shapeshifters collectively called the Aurorissians. They can take human forms for convenience purposes, but tend to vary wildly in temperament and psychology.

As for the western hemisphere? There's elves. And Promethians. LOTS of elves and fire-users who may or may not be any better than humans.

"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."
blueharp Since: Dec, 1969
#12: Apr 5th 2011 at 9:58:35 AM

I tend to go with human-only worlds, or worlds where there are no humans, but I did work up a world once where Humans lived in glass towers of magic, while all the other races served (or didn't serve them!) in some ways. All of the other races basically being humans who were "modified" for service.

Mahydraal Mahydraal from trapped in my mind! Since: Apr, 2011
Mahydraal
#13: Apr 13th 2011 at 6:38:06 PM

hello (im new to the tropes first post woopeee!) im working on a new fantasy world of my own and to whom it may concern, i have humans but many varietys of humans.....no no far from, the africans the hispanics the anglos (no racism intended) i have many inter bred species such as gon' Gruluu, a race of very werewolf like creatures who can shapeshift but are also capable of using sound waves and manipulating them to be weapons of mass hysteria or, for the more skilled gonies they can change the words in your very conversation and the other person will never even notice! (unless trained to do so) i also have multiple races under development ( however im a fairly new writer and tend to be rather one tracked and easily frustrated so it may be sometime before theyre traits are worked out) but one other race i have near completion is the Ourokk a feral and ferocious part bear part bull race who specialize in wielding just about anything they can lift, which tends to be much more than a human or many other races for that matter. but the ourokk are usually hostile and prone to sudden infuriated outbursts, as their cross breeeding alots them little self control.waii

thats all i have so far though......(PS i personally have no problem with human dominated worlds, but they get very old and monotonous after sooooooooo manyyyyyyy books with a human dominate society in play.......)

madness is a gift, the ability to know what others cannot beleive...
theLibrarian Since: Jul, 2009
#14: Apr 13th 2011 at 9:09:09 PM

I'm writing something right now that's kind of similar to Ursula Vernon's Black Dogs universe. Humans are part of the population, but aren't the dominant species.

DasSoviet Since: Feb, 2010
#15: Apr 14th 2011 at 5:46:41 PM

Well, in my Sc Fi setting of Evenstar, humans dominant race of the Milky Way, that would be the Elders, who have kept the galaxy in pre-industrial stasis for the past several thousand years. Humans, however, are special because they were one of the races to escape the Elder's notice, created a different form of hyperspace travel - slipstream drives - that allowed them to escape the Elder's mastery of hyperspace, and form their own military police state for great justice - the Terran Dominion. Also beat the Elders at a war and cause them to withdraw from Local Space, allowing a bunch of other races to rise up and form their own interstellar empires as well. Of course, the Elders are currently letting this happen because they are waging a war against alien beings from beyond the Milky Way, which is why they've been enforcing the low-techness of the Milky Way: no internal wars to weaken them against those from beyond.

So good job breaking it humans! And friends...

Of course the stories in Evenstar focus on humans and other local races as they fight against each other over the space being abandoned by the collapsing Elder Alliance... so not quite non-human dominated in terms of story there.

I have one other world, Cirundi, which is not human dominated... but that's because there's no humans at all. And the human analogue - the drak'il - are the most populous and politically powerful race as well. So no bucking the trend there...

edited 14th Apr '11 5:48:07 PM by DasSoviet

JHM Apparition in the Woods from Niemandswasser Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: Hounds of love are hunting
Masterweaver Since: Aug, 2009
#17: Apr 18th 2011 at 11:58:07 AM

Well, in one old Sci-fi setting I had...

Earth happened to be in the same system as a planet of ancient aliens, who were the ones to invent interstellar drive. Another race colonized Earth (with the permission of said ancient aliens) and then there was a war where the ancient alien's homeworld got blown up. So the race that had colonized left earth, the robots of the race that made interstellar travel became sapient and colonized the asteroid belt, a few survivors of the attacking fleet were mutated into dragons and zombies and landed on Earth, and completely randomly Pluto appeared, actually being the old planet of ANOTHER race of ancient aliens!

However, "modern" alien society didn't notice Earth at all... until a bunch of guys looking for some place out of the legal system to dump toxic waste found the backwater planet. Since this race also happened to be the same one that made universal translators, they decided to double their profit by kidnapping humans, selling them as pets, and deliberately engineering the translators to be unable to understand human languages. Also they dumped their trash on Earth and claimed humans were genetically engineered.

So the ancient aliens that blew up the planet that would become the asteroid belt figured things out and set up their own spy campaign, capturing humans and training them to be Assassins, telling them that the galaxy at large was enslaving them and then making them into a Mercenary group posing as a completely new race.

And then there were things that happened, where a few slip-ups by the trash dumpers caused some incidents and eventually led to an alien mutant taking over the world (with some refugees headed to Pluto). They didn't mind, though, as the mutant let them keep doing whatthey were doing. The guys on Pluto met up with the original aliens and gained some psychic magic stuff but it was all too small to be considered important. Also there eventually came to be some giant ants who were descended from a couple of "cursed" humans. Yep.

And THEN, finally, the humans overthrew their tyrant, hijacked a ship to the galactic capital, convinced the galaxy that they were sapient, and became actually part of the huge thing going on. Just in time for the ancient planet destroyers to suddenly come out of hiding and try a conquest. Hmm.

RickGriffin (Time Abyss)
#18: Apr 21st 2011 at 8:45:19 AM

I think I tend to prefer no-human settings, to an extent. This is probably because human (and some humanesque, depending on how they're handled) characters feel 'blank' to me. Although this probably may mean whenever I see non-human characters, the writer is using them as a personality crutch.

My 'primary' nonhuman (scifi) setting that I have been working on for a few years now is an After the End world that went all the way back around and started its own new history after all the humans were (probably) wiped out. Yes, it's been done before several times, but that's just the setting description and far from the premise; for most of the stories, that it is after the end is a minor detail backdrop and possibly of importance in some future stories, but the various strange races that populate Earth at present have their own concerns about world events, wars and whatnot. The primary conflict thus far has been about whether or not the use of magic corrupts the soul—the cities that use magic the most tend toward the most corrupt of the lot, but there's no solid proof that it's magic that does it. (Yes magic . . . it's one of THOSE scifi settings, though tech level for non-magic societies is approaching postindustrial)

I have another setting (fantasy) where humans are the dominant species . . . by a simple majority. And they do NOT have it easy—though they DO have another race to help them out (the andorez, big lizard things with a predisposition toward liking humans).

edited 21st Apr '11 8:48:30 AM by RickGriffin

FrodoGoofballCoTV from Colorado, USA Since: Jan, 2001
#19: Apr 21st 2011 at 4:54:15 PM

edited 21st Apr '11 5:29:30 PM by FrodoGoofballCoTV

Bur from Flyover Country (Living Relic) Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu
#20: Apr 21st 2011 at 5:43:56 PM

In my Sci Fi humans are... not that influential. [lol] They're supposed to be an equal member of the transplanetary alliance they belong to, but problem is they were a conquered race. It's been a while, but there's still a stigma there. They are also a fairly new member of the alliance, so no one really wants to listen much to them. [lol] It's... complicated. But they're definitely not the bottom of the barrel. The extinct bug people are the bottom of the barrel. It's become very hip for the rich to decorate their abodes with their exoskeletons.

Worlder What? Since: Jan, 2001
What?
#21: Apr 21st 2011 at 8:26:00 PM

In my fantasy story there are no humans.

But there are "Anthrons" (pronounced AN-thr-O Ns) which is basically humans with blue skin.

TheBorderPrince Just passing by... from my secret base Since: Mar, 2010
Just passing by...
#22: Apr 23rd 2011 at 2:16:55 PM

My UrbanFantasy have humans as the major race on Earth, while hidden in the various Eldricht are there a Elf, Fae, Sionnach Sidhe and Wulver population of about the same size.

I reject your reality and substitute my own!!!
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