Guide on Novels and Games - FANTASY - RACES - BEASTMEN

> **BEASTMAN**

In various works beastmen and werebeasts are the same race

APPEARANCE:

They appear like humans that have animal traits too.

The common traits we can see in a beastman are:

* Tail or tails, the number change if the animal is normal or mythological, for example a dog have a single tail while a nekomata have two, or one that not fully split into two, and a kyuubi (nine tailed fox) have nine tails..
* Ears, there are two versions of the ears, in the first the ears are located in the superior part of the head while in the second the ears are in the same position as humans but are more animal like with fur and have different shapes.
* Horns if they are present.
* Fangs and claws if they are present.
* Wings, if they are present.

* Fins, mainly found in acquatic beastman, for example some authors use them as ears for mermaid and tritons like races plus I saw some dragon beastman have them too but in their cases they were less similar to fins then fishmen and similar.
* Skin signs, they are peculiar traits that certain animals have on their fur like the strips on a tiger or the spots on a jaguar
* Fur or Scales, certain beastman can have on them some part of their body overed by that, obviously depend if the animal trait is one that have fur or scales, but are not fully covered some example are the limbs, the hips and the back

BIOLOGY:

The beastman's biology is mainly human with "lower" animal part.

In theory they are a little influenced by their animal traits but this change depending on the author's choice, for example an author can emphasize a feline trait making meowing a cat beastman BUT this don't mean that all of them are influenced the same way so, using the previous example, not all the cat beastmen will put "meow" inside their sentences.

Another example can be an animal's heat period, that come naturally or can be stimulated using external factors and that normally can happen less times like one or two at year.

A little special note about them for what concern two particular topics:

1. Two pair of ears, in theory a beastman can have two pair of ears (human and animal) BUT keep in mind that this will involve an anatomy change of the being, for be more specific the shape of the brain change, just think this... in a human the auditory apparatus don't extend inside the brain but is physically under the brain and after receive the sounds it send them as signals to the part that interpret them. Have two pairs of ears mean have another set of muscles that make possible move them and another auditory system inside the head and this imply that there will be changes in the shape of the brain itself. Moral of the story is... keep a single pair of ears,
2. Morphing from human to beastman and viceversa, in terms of science this is impossible but if we take into consideration magic than is possible, in this case we can have basically two alternative where the first is an illusion and this mean that there is not a real physical change but a iluusionary construct that fake the appearance and the feelings at touch, the second alternative is a shapeshifting skill/spell where the physical configuration change without create damages, obviously for make something like this more "real" is better say that at the beginning do something like that can make problems and that the user must get used to it before be able to don't have problems.

LIFESPAN:

Since beastmen are more human than animal than is right say that they can live for almost a human life if not a little more.

REPRODUCTION:

Most authors don't really describe it but limit showing pregnant female beastman with a huge belly like humans so we can say that they reproduce the same way... obviously this not a fixed rule so is even possible make beastman that lie eggs reproduce that way.

VARIATIONS:

The beastman's variations are the same of the normal werebeasts and this mean they are divided into "lower part" and "type"

Like for the werebeasts, for the lower part we have:

* Centaur, contrary to the werebeasts, here is possible clearly see the difference in fact their lower part is animal like the mythological greek being from where come the name, in this case we have the upper part is clearly human with animal traits.
* Humanoid Legs, they have legs like any normal human.

When we use the "type" method what we have are:

* Earth type, all the races that walk on the ground and that dig underground and this include races like moles, cats, dogs, foxes, ostriches, kangaroo, rabbits, etc.
* Water type, all the races that live underwater and this mean all type of fishes, whales, dolphins, sharks, etc. For this group the "centaur" version is normally the lower part as fish, like sirens, but contrary to rebeasts here the chance of them with finned legs are more high.
* Amphibious type, all the races that can move to a certain degree inside both water and ground like certain type of snakes, seals, alligators, etc.
* Air type, all the races that are able to fly like bats and all the type of birds.
* Mythic type, all the animals that come from myths like dragons and unicorns.

POWERS & ABILITIES:

Beastmen are physically strong but this don't mean that they are not able to use magic.

Most of the beastmen are used more like fighters than magicians due to their body be more strong or fast but this depend on the authors.

One thing I personally do is divide the races into four category:

* Body or physical oriented
* Magic or magical oriented
* Balanced
* Mythical, the race come from a mythological animal

let me use a simple example... the canine races.

* Body, in this case fall all the canine races that have strong bodies and are specialized into pure strenght or speed and this mean wolves and certain strong dog races
* Magic, in this case I allocate all the canince races that are not that superiors in terms of physical power or that have mythological counterparts, for example I allocate foxes in that field.
* Balanced, not a real need to explain, personally I allocate all the common dogs in this category.
* Mythical, in this case I allocate the classical Fenrir, this wolf from the nordic mythology (Odin, Loki, Thor, Asgard and so on) appear various times in various works, mainly as some kind of demon like race than a common beastman, as a powerfull and quick being that is specialized in the use of ice magic.

SOCIETY:

Like werebeasts, they are usually described as a race that live divided in clans but this don't mean that they can't join and create a kingdom on their own