Templ

### Notable Figures

In fantasy world building and writing, the term "race" is loosely used to describe a sentient or sapient life form with a similar degree of intelligence and awareness as that of a human. Generally a new race will have shared traits and will be aware of its self and its environment. The way your race interacts with its environment will influence the local ecosystems and they will use the world's resources to better their standard of living and interact together in a social capacity.

Creating an entirely new fantasy race can be a daunting task for a fantasy world builder or writer. Having a good design template to begin drafting the various characteristics of your race is important for shaping a well rounded creation. Even if your race is not completely unique to your world, you can use this template to record the characteristics for all your races on your fantasy world. Many of the restrictions and characteristics you impose on your race will come from your world and its environment.

A good race design template will help sustain continuity in the telling of your story and provide you with a good reference point when writing about your characters and their traits. I generally find role-play games such as Dungeons and Dragons useful for providing me with ideas on the types of characteristics that I should include in my templates to develop my own well rounded races.

**Race Name(s)**
At the top of your race design template you should include the name of your race. You may have a few different names for your race such as a scientific name and common name. The scientific name may be developed from a constructed language (Conlang) or may have been given to the race from a scientific observer or explorer from another world such as Earth. An Earth explorer might provide an alien race with a name in Latin similar to the way we name new fauna and flora species.

1. **General Overview**
This is usually a short summary of some of the key characteristics that are later explored in more detail.
2. **Physical Description**
This characteristic is often best visualized through graphic art but not all writers can draw. The written physical description you provide for your race should include the shared characteristics between all clans or tribes no matter the location. If your race is subject to a varied physical form depending on genetics or environmental factors, you may want to create a list of the different physical attributes and the reasons. Consider including a traditional dress or ceremonial dress as part of the physical description.
3. **Personality Traits** Shared personality traits of a race are usually generalizations. Personality traits could develop as result of environmental factors or through genetics. If your race is separated into distinct groups geographically, this may result in clans or tribes having different personality traits depending on experience, interaction with local ecosystems and other environmental influences. How adventurous are your race? Do they like to travel to find battles to fight or do thy prefer to learn new experiences? Are there religious pilgrimages that your race embarks upon or quests for the youth to take in order to enter the world as an adult
4. **History** The history of your race may begin prior to the your fantasy world if the race has migrated from another world or it may have begun many billions of years after your world came into existence. When you first begin fleshing out this section of your template, jotting ideas down in bullet points is good start. You can later develop these ideas as part of your world building or story.
5. **Clans / Tribes**
Clans and tribes are usually differentiated by location. Each location will have different environmental factors that could trigger inter-racial differences: physical, emotional and intelligent. Consider how your clans and tribes communicate, have there been any racial customs that may have been adopted by other clans of the same race through marriage, trade relations or invasion? What are the cultural or physical differences between each clan or tribe?
6. Society: how did the powers at be become the ruling power? Were they chosen by vote or was the race concurred by another? Do the rulers and the religion go hand in hand or are church and state separate? Are there noble families or are they more democratic? Are the lower classes larger or smaller than the upper classes in terms of population? Can they rise above the system and become wealthier or is there a strict cast system? Who are the minorities and how is this demonstrated.Lifestyle: food, pets, type of home, type of jobs that the race is better at, clean or grungy shelters, stationary or nomadic, type of transport, etc.Overall ideals/morals: what is important to them culturally? Are they open to other cultures or are they exclusionary and isolated? Are they prone to racism or prejudice, and if so to who?
7. **Relations**
What relationships does your race have with other sentient or sapient lifeforms that may exist on your fantasy world? How has this effected your race's society? How does your race interact with each other? Are there any social customs that are worthy of noting?
8. **Alignment**
The alignment characteristic has its origins in role-play games. It helps to define the general demeanor of a race as good, bad or indifferent. Looking at the history of your race and its accomplishments can help to determine its general alignment.
9. **Race Lands**
If you race has migrated across your fantasy world, consider showing the origins of your race on your world map You may want to include the path(s) of migration as well as the current civilizations.Include the population statistics on your map for your fantasy race. The size of the population and ability to socially network with other races can influence the diversity of the culture and sub-cultures of your race.What civilizations is your Race responsible for nurturing or helping to build up? What part did the race play in the civilizations creation, growth and demise? Are there any significant cultural advances that your race has helped to create?A race could advance to become a super race only if the physical, spiritual and mental capabilities of your race allow it. A race without magical powers may find it difficult to advance in experience or better themselves if the world around them required the use of magical abilities. The degree of racial intelligence are also factors limiting advancement.
10. **Weak and strong points**: are they warriors? If so do they fight often, sometimes, or rarely? Is their culture based on conflict, like the Spartans or are they a mix of different ideals.Not all races require to have magical abilities or powers in a fantasy world. The ability to wield magic may have a positive or negative effect on a race. It can build a race up to become powerful both politically and physically or it can cause a race to become outcast. Keep a detailed list of the magic and power abilities of your race if you decide to include magic and power in your world. Does everyone in the race inherit the same special abilities or are only a selection of powers inherited through genes? Do the number or strength of special abilities increase or decrease with experience and age? You might choose to restrict magic or powers to people who are in a certain profession or who worship a particular deity.
11. **Religion**
What are the core beliefs and values of your race? Are there divisions in your race based on religion or is the racial culture unified in its belief on origin and spirituality? Does your race worship a single Deity? Religion can have a large effect on social relations, technological advancement and social values and norms, as well as shared personality traits.
12. **Languages**
If your race is the only sentient or sapient race upon your fantasy world and it is divided into clans or tribes in different geographic regions it may have quite a diverse linguistic culture. In fantasy settings and especially in role-play games a common language shared by multiple races who co-exist together is a common characteristic. Each race may still has its own language and characters are often able to speak more than one language depending on their experience.
13. **Famous Characters**
Are there any notable famous people in your fantasy race? Famous characters could be heroes or heroines of ages past or they could be influential people from the present time period, such as a politicians, magicians, teachers or bards. Famous characters don't have to be the characters that you are pivotal to your story, but their actions may have had a lasting influence on your race and its development.

The above template may also be useful for capturing key information for other fantasy races who are not unique to your fantasy world but a variation to the norm. You can be as detailed as you like with the description of each aspect or come back to build upon the characteristics as you develop your story. Once you have fleshed out the characteristics for your race, refer to the race template when designing and writing about your characters.

As you build your characters and worlds, don't be completed restricted by the choices you have made in your race template . The template is a guide and while it provides the common shared characteristics of your race, each character that you create may have its own individual traits that can compliment or give your characters that special uniqueness to set them apart from others of their species.