If only one or two of them appear, it's not an example of this trope. Note that a work may not necessarily call its iteration of a fantasy race the same thing it usually is, but these are still often examples by virtue of sharing a majority of the other traits associated with that race's worldbuilding.įor a work to qualify for this trope, it should feature at least three of the five "common races" (humans, elves, dwarves, orcs and goblins) but the more of them appear, the better.
When The Horde comes calling, it's common for almost every monstrous species in a setting to band together under its banner. This group is often the most numerous and varied, both in and out of universe, and can include a very large number of monstrous creatures. Most often, they can be found living in the wilderness or in desolate areas, until they group together under a charismatic leader or a Dark Lord and head off to wage war on the civilized peoples. The barbarians and monsters will instead form a loose collection of tribes, hordes and disorganized groups, and tend to have an antagonistic relationship with civilization. Despite that, there might be a conflict between the more industrialized races (such as humans and dwarves) and those closer to nature (such as elves and fairies). Though such races usually start out separated into Single-Species Nations, the civilized races will often form The Alliance to fight the forces of evil. These older groups will be the ones to have first created advanced civilizations, but may have reduced to a more minor presence in recent times, while humanity will be a more recent arrival. The civilized races typically include humans and a handful of elder races, usually dwarves and elves. These, besides using consistent names and appearances, also tend to take very specific roles and places in worldbuilding.įantasy races typically tend to fall into a handful of in-universe categories, chiefly a collection of civilized races and a collection of barbaric monstrous ones, with the first group on the side of good (or at least on the side of the protagonists) and the second on the side of evil (or at least on the antagonists').
Modern fantasy fiction, especially that set within a Standard Fantasy Setting, tends to make recurring use of specific sets of fantasy races (or species, or peoples, or whatever else a given work may call them). Treebeard's song on the lore of creatures, The Lord of the Rings
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