this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2026
11 points (100.0% liked)

Worldbuilding

2680 readers
4 users here now

Rules of !Worldbuilding:

See here for a longer, more explanatory version.

Related Communities

For conlang (constructed languages) discussion check out !conlangs@mander.xyz Feel free to discuss the your conlangs in our community, as well!

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Cats, Wolves, Foxes, as well as generic reptiles and birds seem to be pretty well represented. You've also got hyenas in the form of gnolls, as well as frogs. I don't see a lot of insects borrowed wholesale, but plenty of pixie-esque creatures borrow some anatomy here and there like wings and antennae.

One thing I see very little of are domestic dogs. The above mentioned wolves and foxes seem to fill that niche. Shame IMO, as the staggering variety in appearance and behavior of dogs (I believe they're the most phenotypically diverse species known) is excellent fodder for different cultures. Ironically, I myself ended up homogenizing my own diverse canine kobolds into the more vulpine (and less anthropomorphic) yinrih.

Admittedly I didn't have much developed on them, but there were two subraces of kobolds based on corgis that filled the dwarf role (short, hardy, stubborn, and practical) but they were pastoralists as you'd expect of a herding breed.

Primates, even other hominins, would make a great foundation for fantasy races. My previous conworld, whence came the above kobolds, did this, with human subraces based on neanderthals.

top 10 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] e0qdk@reddthat.com 6 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I haven't run into the following, as far as I can recall:

  • tardigrades
  • coconut crab
  • sea cucumber

I have a feeling that trying to write a fantasy story based on any of these would come out decently weird, if you're up for a challenge.

[–] Lumidaub@feddit.org 3 points 1 day ago

sea cucumbers

Did you mean: Elder Things?

An artist's rendition of an Elder Thing from the stories by HP Lovecraft.

[–] IndigoGollum@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

A Pathfinder podcast i listen to (BCBParty) does have a sea cucumber character, but he's a familiar so i'm not sure that counts.

[–] badlotus@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Axolotl, groundhog, sea urchin.

[–] early_riser@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

While you are correct in pointing out that they're underrepresented, by shear coincidence two of the games I've been playing recently feature an urchin and axolotl. There's a sea urchin background character in Mina the Hollower, and one of the playable characters in Windblown is an axolotl.

[–] cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The red panda. Aside from Turning Red and, oh yeah, Mozilla Firefox, they don’t get much love in popular culture. They don’t even have them in Animal Crossing!

[–] early_riser@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

There’s the Ponya from Torchlight 2

edit: also re: firefox, AFAIK they've been using a red fox as a mascot at least since 2006 when I first discovered it, at least they already had the classic fox and globe logo.

[–] dumples@piefed.social 1 points 1 day ago

Pathfinder does have a monkey based race vanara and dark suns has an insect race with the Thri Kree

That being said there are so many different types of insects you could be a world continent or part of the underdark when multiple insects races.

[–] Zachariah@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] early_riser@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

Cthulhu: "What am I, chopped liver?"