In an alternate version of our world, humans are not the only intelligent race. Most races are descended from humans, though, as a spirits, aliens, deities, or random mutation led to specific groups of humans being different from the norm and becoming different races.
While technology is equivalent to that in our world, magic is a part of this world as well. Most races have powers, and some have superhuman enhancements which aren’t technically magic but do make them superior to normal humans. There are also other classes of magic, including witchcraft, Sorcery, and Ki. Witchcraft takes various sources of effects and combines them to create magical effects. Sorcery pulls energy from a powerful source, usually and Deity, spirit, or natural phenomenon. Ki draws on the power within oneself and reinforces you body or produces attacks and defenses of raw magical energy.
The Governments of the world tend to be city-states, with different states generally banding together only when they face a specific threat, such as bandits or invaders. These states have different laws and treat different races in different ways. Where one might give equal rights to all races, another might limit the rights of one or more race.
Recently there have been attacks against non-humans in many cities by Pure Human radicals from the city of Claus at the North Pole. This city is a Feudal society which is Ruled by the immortal King Nicholas Claus and the Sorcerer Queen Morgan LaFeye Claus. In Claus, the nobility are pure humans, standard humans are peasants, and non-humans are slaves. Anyone who revolts against the King are banished to the wastes, where they almost always freeze to death.
In the city of New York, a trade city on the East coast of the Americas, where all races are equal under the law, the Mayor calls together a group of people to try and stop these attacks.
Name: Self explanatory Racial Group: The ancient bloodline the race split off of. Powers: Powers that all the members of this race have. Hybrids tend to have some of these or similar powers, depending to the other races they are descended from. Racial Trait: Traits that are usually only found among purebloods of this race. Genetic Trait: Special genetic traits that they have which aren't mystical and may be inherited by their offspring. History: How this race came to be and how they interact with other races.
Name: Pure Humans (Only have DNA from Homo Sapien and Neanderthals) Racial group: Humans Powers: Varied Racial Ability: Adaptation: Repeated exposure to a type of magical energy/element will make them resistant to it. Some of them even learn to duplicate elements or powers that have been used on them, or even those that are just nearby. Genetic Traits: none History: Evolved naturally on Earth without any outside manipulation of their genetic code.
Name: Humans (all people which appear to be humans but have DNA from other races) Racial Group: Humans Powers: Varied Racial Ability: Lesser Adaptation: They can learn new tricks from similar powers they have been exposed to, allowing them to use their powers in new ways. Genetic Traits: none History: What results when a human has some genes manipulated by outside forces, but not to a large enough degree that they can't pass as a Pure human without specific tests being administered.
Name: Elves (various subraces exist) Racial Group: Fae Powers: Elemental (depends on type), generally one attack, one defensive power, and one tactical Racial Ability: Indefinite lifespans (aging slows to a virtual stop once they grow up). Genetic Traits: Improved Strength, Improved Agility, Improved Endurance History: The result of the Fae manipulating the DNA of humans to make a race more like themselves.
Name: Cambians/Incubi/Succubi Racial Group: Emotion manipulators Powers: Emotional Feeding (can absorb Love and Lust to stop aging and increase healing), Illusion (change their appearance to trigger emotions), Emotion sensing (Love and Lust) Racial Ability: Indefinite lifespan (as long as they absorb love or lust) Genetic Traits: Prehensile Tail (can sting people to “charm” them with a natural drug, making them like the one that stung them), Bat-like Wings (Lets them fly), Purple streaks (on face, back, and legs. purely cosmetic), Dominant Genes (Their genes are always dominant when breeding with humans, and usually dominant when breeding with other races.) History: A subset of those that were manipulated to favor emotional sensing powers. They were often used as breeding stock by other races that were desperate to increase their numbers rapidly, and were kept as slaves by many races in the past. Eventually, they led a slave revolt which freed most of the slaves.
Name:D'jinn Racial Group: Emotion Manipulators Powers: Emotional absorption (Desire), Thoughtform creation (uses the energy of Desire to create a thoughtform which fulfills that desire, and only remains as long as their is enough desire for it to maintain it.) Racial ability: Indefinite lifespan (as long as they absorb desire) Genetic Traits: Glowing eyes (when accessing powers) History: A subset of those that were manipulated to favor emotional sensing powers. They generally hid out among humans in the middle East until other races started openly accepting them.
Name: Ifrit Racial Group: Neo-elemental Powers: Pyrokinesis (ignite things with their minds), Hydrocarbon Kinesis (can move hydrocarbons similar to how aerokinetics move air or Hydrokinetics move water) Racial ability: Heat resistance Genetic traits: Methane pores: can release methane on cue History: A subset of those that were manipulated for greater ties to various elemental forces, they tended to avoid the other races, living in caves and deserts where the other races rarely went.
Name: Watchers Racial Group: Chigani (aliens) Powers: Telepathy, Mental Illusion (tricks organic senses, but not machines), telekinesis, power/life sensing Racial ability: Telepathic Resistance Genetic traits: Grey skin, large eyes, short stature History: The Watchers were originally Chigani which fled their homeworld because anyone who could resist the group consciousness was being executed. They gained their name from their desire to study the various races of Earth. They tend to live in hidden underwater cities, leaving only when they wish to study the other races.
Name: Seraphim Racial Group: Angel Powers: Teleportation (They move though a dimension they call "not-space" where the mind alters reality.) Racial Trait: Purification (cancels Sinful (the opposite of holy) and death based energies). May harm beings that rely on those energies., extended life span (Their natural lifespan is 2000 years, and they don't marry until they are 1000) Genetic Traits: Wings (Large white bird wings that let them fly), Improved strength, Improved endurance History: Created by the god El in a parallel world, they were sent here after one of their number named Lucifer lead a rebellion. Here they prove their loyalty and train to serve as a soldier for their god. Upon graduating they receive a Purity crystal embedded in their chest, which allows them to draw limitless energy from their home dimension.
Name: Cherubim Racial Group: Angel Powers: Calming Voice (their words calm people and relieve stress. Stronger if sung) Racial Trait: Healing (Infuses Life into a person, accelerating healing), extended life span (Their natural lifespan is 2000 years, and they don't marry until they are 1000) Genetic Traits: Improved Endurance, Improved Agility History: Created by the god El in a parallel world, they were sent here after a Seraphim named Lucifer lead a rebellion. Here they prove their loyalty and train to serve a support role for the soldiers of their god. Upon graduating they receive a Purity crystal embedded in their chest, which allows them to draw limitless energy from their home dimension.
Name: Were-(animal they shift into) Racial group: Shifter Powers: Shapeshifting (Take on traits of a specific animal or become that animal. Mass conservation applies.) Racial Trait: Animal Senses (the animal's senses can remain with them in human form) Genetic Traits: none (Though through shifting they can use the traits of their animal form) History: A retrovirus was created which would copy animal traits onto humans. While this was effective in creating many animal races of people, in some cases it infected Changelings as well. This allowed the person to change between a set human form and a variety of animal forms, all based on the animal whose DNA that version of the virus contained.
Name: Changling Racial Group: Shifter Powers: Shapeshifting (can alter their body to appear as another person, even a specific person with enough practice. Mass conservation applies.) Racial Trait: Biokinesis (Can change which genetic traits are passed on to their offspring if they can give themselves the trait) Genetic Trait: Dominant Genes (Their genes are always dominant when breeding with humans, and usually dominant when breeding with other races.) History: Created by spirits as a base stock for creating new races, they were given traits which let them alter their own bodies, even at the genetic level, to become a different race. Most of the time the shifters would only pass on their current form to their offspring, creating the precursors of other races, but those that maintained their shifting ability eventually learned to choose which traits their offspring's base form would have while also passing on their shifting abilities.
Name: Hashajz Racial Group: Vs'ks'thi (reptilian aliens) Powers: none Racial Trait: Self stasis (can slow their metabolism to a crawl to last long periods of time without food or oxygen) Genetic Trait: Warm blooded, Improved strength, Improved Endurance, claws History: Created by the Vs'ks'thi as intermediaries with the humanoid races of this world, they are the result of combining human DNA with Vs'ks'thi DNA. Eventually they were mostly enslaved and taken to the asteroid belt or moon, where they mine resources that the Vs'ks'thi demand.
Name: Vs'ks'thi Racial Group: Vs'ks'thi (reptilian aliens) Powers: none Racial trait: Metabolic boost (can boost their metabolism to increase their strength and endurance) Genetic trait: Cold blooded, Tails, lizard shaped heads, fangs, spiked heads, claws, Improved strength, Improved Endurance, extra height (adults are more than two meters) History: An alien race that has traveled through space for over six thousand years, they have a warrior society which survives by the males seizing resources from other races in order to impress females. The females choose the male which will fertilize her egg before it is laid, and will not continue to choose the same one unless he is impressive enough. They once sought to enslave the races of Earth, but gave it up when they realized that the magic which we use is something which is extremely rare among them, and that it made attempts to conquer us futile.
Name: Dwarves Racial Group: Human/Fae (There is some debate as to which.) Powers: Ferrokinesis (can manipulate iron and nickle), mineral sense (can detect crystals and metals. Higher conductivity makes them easier to detect) Racial Trait: Nightvision Genetic Trait: Dwarfism, Improved Strength History: The most widely accepted version of their history is that they were an early elven ancestor race that mutated to have Dwarfism and continued to live in caves in stead of moving into buildings like the other races.
Name: Orc Racial Group: Trolls Powers: none Racial Trait: Superior Immune System (it is difficult to poison an Orc, and they rarely get sick) Genetic Trait: Improved Strength, Height, Green or Grey Skin, Fangs (extended canine teeth on top and bottom), Improved Endurance, Higher Testosterone levels (both Males and Females) History: In the past they were primarily nomadic bandits, raiding the villages, camps, and towns of other races for that which they couldn't get from nature. They kept many races as slaves, seizing them in battle. This made them the enemies of most races and, after a widespread slave revolt, many of them decided to abandon their ways of banditry and seek jobs with other races which could get them the money to buy that which they wanted. Mostly this meant becoming guards and soldiers, though some sought jobs in other manual labor fields.
Name: Imp Racial Group: Mentalist Powers: Telekinesis Racial Trait: Omnidirectional senses: They can "feel" the objects that are nearby reguardless of if it is in front of, behind, above, below, left or right of them. Genetic Trait: Small size (adults are about the size of human children, children are even smaller) History: Genetically very close to the precursor race of mentalists, those whose minds were enhanced and who had mental abilities, they were usually kept as slaves by other races, either to perform mental labor or as breeding stock, as they can reproduce with almost as many races as humans, being only slightly more genetically distant from Homo Sapiens.
Name: Null Racial Group: Human Powers: None Racial Trait: Magical Immunity (renders them incapable of using magic, but lets them nullify all but the strongest magic that is used on them. Genetic Trait: Mage-bane hormone (a biochemical that absorbs concentrated magical energy to become a complex carbohydrate which they can metabolize) History: Traditionally, a single man name Jerim was part of a human tribe that was under attack by Elven invaders. When the elves used their magic directly on him, however, they found that it barely effected him. He became a hero in battle, as he had a major advantage over their Magic-heavy tactics, and eventually became Chief of the tribe. His children inherited this gift as well, and in time the entire village became a race that was almost completely immune to magic.
If anyone wants to add a race, feel free to post it here. I’ll be adding more as I think of them.
Looks awesome, would love to join! Question about the Ifrit, with their hydrocarbon Kinesis what would be the limit of what they can manipulate? Would they be able to manipulate complex hydrocarbons like the proteins and amino acids in your body and other people or would they be limited to just (relatively) simple molecules like TNT, kerosene and perfumes.
@KipsatekingOnly the most skilled ones would be able to manipulate Carbohydrates and proteins, and then only in fairly pure forms. The body contains too much water/salts/etc.
Most will only be able to move simple molecules like methane, kerosene, cetane, octane, propane, ethanol, etc.
